Guess the year…

Duran Duran just released a new album. Bill Parcells and Joe Gibbs are matching wits on Monday Night Football. Both the Red Sox and the Cardinals have World Series caliber teams. The country set to embark on a college basketball season just a few months removed from a year in which the shooting displayed by a small Catholic school from Philadelphia’s Big 5 made believers out of us all.

The Chicago Bulls just drafted a high scoring, national championship ring wearing shooting guard with the third overall pick in hopes of salvaging their franchise. Madonna, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Michael Jackson are stealing headlines. Hulk Hogan is omnipresent. A mobile quarterback with MVP aspirations is leading the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots appear to be headed for the Super Bowl.  

The year is 2004, but it sure feels like I just spent the weekend listening to Rob Base and watching Phil Donahue.

Are we really back in the mid eighties… or did Gene Keady take us with him when a fan joked that 1984 called and wanted his haircut back?

Coach K, Lute Olson, Bobby Knight, Jim Boeheim, John Calipari, and Rick Pitino are directing some of the top teams in the country. Indiana is led by a sweet-shooting guard with NCAA title hopes, only his name is Bracey Wright, not Steve Alford. Speaking of Alford, he’s not the only iconic eighties point guard sporting a suit and pacing on the sidelines. Tommy Amaker, Billy Donovan, and Quin Snyder are also prominent on the scene.

The college basketball landscape is littered with so many reminders of the neon generation we will probably soon start seeing games on VH1. Syracuse again features the top inside-outside duo in the nation (Gerry MacNamara and Hakim Warrick), reminiscent of the Sherman Douglas and Derrick Coleman connection. Georgia Tech featured “Lethal Weapon 3” at the tail end of the 1980’s with Kenny Anderson, Brian Oliver, and Dennis Scott. The same could apply to their current three-headed backcourt of Will Bynum, Jarrett Jack, and B.J. Elder. Illinois went to the Final Four with Nick Anderson and Kendall Gill and now they may do the same with Deron Williams and Dee Brown.

Geraldo Rivera or Sally Jesse Raphael should do an exposé on why Houston, UNLV, and Georgetown have disappeared, yet some other schools from two decades back have climbed back up the NCAA mountain. The surprising emergence of Memphis, Oklahoma, Louisville, LSU, and North Carolina State might even be enough to encourage Sinead O’Conor, Max Headroom, and the Truffle Shufflin’ kid from Goonies to also make comebacks.

Maybe we just finally figured this whole cloning thing out. In Sean May, UNC may have concocted another J.R. Reid. How often do you find a skilled, yet undersized center equally adept at dominating and frustrating? Someone should seriously check Kansas’s Wayne Simien for Danny Manning’s DNA. The electrifying shoot first point guard play of Notre Dame’s Chris Thomas clearly embodies the style and grace of his vastly underrated predecessor, David Rivers. And if you have ever seen either one of the Stewart twins jump during USC dunk sessions, you know some scientist has replicated and multiplied the 1989 version of Harold Miner.

Obviously there are millions of eighties memories we have attempted in vain to reincarnate - the Osbournes replaced the Huxtables, Nicole Richie took Lionel’s spot, and 2 Live Crew’s disturbing sex scandal is now Bill O’Reilly’s immensely disturbing sex scandal – but even sadder are the touching memories we will never ever come close to seeing again. Unfortunately, we just can not replace the enthusiasm of Hank Gathers or Len Bias’s grace. The Big East mind games between Louie Carnesecca, Rollie Massimino, and John Thompson are long gone. History only has room for one Michael Jordan. Witnessing a true low post center, such as Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, or Shaquille O’Neal manhandle opponents over the course of three plus college seasons? Not in our lifetime. There’s a better chance of Freddie Prinze, Jr. winning an Oscar.

Conversely, there are many things to appreciate about college ball in the year 2004. Raymond Felton (North Carolina), Chris Paul (Wake Forest), Travis Diener (Marquette), John Gilchrist (Maryland), Nate Robinson (Washington), John Lucas (Oklahoma State), Turner Battle (Buffalo),  Mustafa Shakur (Arizona), and the aforementioned Brown, Williams, and Thomas comprise as deep a list of creative lead guards as you will find in any generation. The jump shot from Duke’s J.J. Redick is timeless. Plus, players like the lengthy Charlie Villanueva of UConn and N.C. State’s lithe Julius Hodge possess such unique ability and unmatched versatility, they are to the small forwards of yesteryear what today’s video-cell phones are to old-time rotary phones

Even with the nostalgic thoughts, the future of the college game seems to be advancing just fine. The 1980’s had skin tight shorts and long hair, nowadays its long shorts and skin tight hair. That generation featured point producer Freddie Banks (UNLV), ours has point producer Sean Banks (Memphis). They had Milli Vanilli.  We have, well, Ashlee Simpson. Sometimes, the more things change, the more they truly do stay the same.