College Basketball is Terrible This Season, And That’s Why It’s Awesome

The year is 2013.

Barring an enormous upset, Gonzaga will be the #1 team in the country on Monday. If I were to tell you that 15 years ago, you would have slapped me silly and cleverly quoted a Will Smith movie while doing it. I would also tell you to bet everything you own on a black president taking office then we’d have a good laugh about it, I’d take your money, and travel back to the future with Doc Brown.

There’s been a lot of talk that the quality of college basketball has diminished. Folks are blaming it on the talent, the one-and-done rule, the officiating, Digger Phelps, you name it. These people want scores in the 80’s and 90’s, a Steph Curry in every pot, and two Jimmers in every garage. While all those issues contribute to an inferior product to a casual fan’s eyes, I for one, think this college basketball season is one of the best ever.

Sure, unpolished underclassmen bolting to the NBA for a paycheck and a chance to be the sixth man on the Maine Red Claws has created a younger, less disciplined group of college teams. The big programs, like Kentucky, North Carolina, and Syracuse have all felt the results of star players leaving early. Most of these teams just reload, but Kentucky, for instance, hasn’t made the smooth transition to a new crop of talent this season, and they kind of suck. Nerlerns Noel ripping his knee in two didn’t help.

RIP

“Well shucks, Jeezy. College basketball sure sounds like the pits.”

Ah, but there lies the fun of it all, Guy Who Talks Like He’s From The 1950’s.

Isn’t it fun to see Kentucky blow for once?

Isn’t it fun to see Miami beat Duke and UNC like they stole something? (Usually it’s Miami players doing the stealing.)

Isn’t it fun to see Penn State basketball make SportsCenter and it doesn’t involve pedophilia?

Isn’t it fun to see a court storming once, or twice a week?

Speaking of court storming, I love it. People that are arguing against it today are only doing so because Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski doesn’t it appreciate it when fans get near his Plumlees (that has several meanings, btw). Well guess what? When you’re Duke, and you lose on the road, best believe there’s a storm coming. People HATE Duke more than anyone else in college basketball. That’s only because Duke is AWESOME at college basketball. And partly because they are dicks. Wins over Duke are rare, so let the winning players and fans enjoy it when they can.

Harumph!

Court stormings have great stories attached to them. NC State forward, CJ Leslie helped a guy who had fallen out of his wheelchair while storming the court. That’s a hilarious sentence I just wrote. If someone gets hurt or baits a player into violence, shame on them both. Can’t prevent a-holes. Krzyzewski could always do what Roy Williams did at North Carolina prior to a court storming: make all the good players leave for the locker room early and force the walk-ons to get trampled. Darwinism at its finest.

That, my friends, was a tangent.

Teams that typically have no chance to win can beat Duke this year. Hey Virginia, you want in on this hot Blue Devil action? You got it. Maryland, you are terrible and Alex Len cries himself to sleep every night because of it, but YOU get a win over Duke too! See, everyone wins when Duke loses.

Nobody in college basketball is great this year. A top five team has lost to an unranked team 19 (NINETEEN) times this season. That is unheard of. Indiana lost as the #1 team in the nation THREE times this year. Duke accomplished that feat twice. TCU beat Kansas and this is TCU’s first year having a basketball team. Maybe. I’ll check on that one.

Pictured Above: TCU, alleged basketball team

Every single team could win or lose on any given night. Except Binghamton. That wasn’t the case last year with the Unibrow manning Kentucky’s all-star team. Syracuse lost one time in the regular season last year. THEY NEVER DO THAT!

“But the scoring is down, shooting percentages are vomit-inducing, the refs are too inconsistent.”

All of those are good points, sir. You should leave now, you’re ruining everything.

Who cares if scoring is down? Syracuse scored 46 points in a loss to Georgetown. The Hoyas scored 55 points and WON. Northern Illinois scored 4 points in a half. That is some next level ineptitude. It’s not a bad thing, folks. It is a work of art that may never be duplicated again. It is such a poor, lousy performance and yet it makes me so happy we are able to witness it. It’s not like NIU just has bad shooters. Even bad shooters score some of the time. Just ask Louie McCroskey…

…if you can find him

This season isn’t all bad either. Indiana’s win at Michigan State might have been the game of the year. Also the worst called game of the year. Magic Johnson can run an offense but he cannot run a string of sentences together successfully. Dick Vitale thinks Victor Oladipo could be the next Michael Jordan, which only makes sense if we’re talking the Birmingham Baron MJ. Regardless, the game featured some of the game’s best talent was an exciting, high-scoring affair. Heck, Adreian Payne hit 3 threes and he’s 7 feet tall. That was something.

At least for this year, you can’t take college basketball seriously. Just laugh about how crazy and screwed up it all is, and appreciate it when this year’s NCAA Tournament blows you away with upset after upset, buzzer beater after buzzer beater. Then cry when St. Louis plays Akron in the Final Four. Whatever, I promise the tourney will be like “Eggs Tyrone”…