Intrepid

For those who have been reading Scribe for a while, you are well aware that the NCAA is as close to a cuss word as there is on this blog. It’s not so much about the action as it about the politics surrounding the surface of play. There’s no question that as long as basketball and football continue to be the engine that drives the organization, the debate about compensation for its athletes beyond scholarships will rage on.

Yet, though it may not appear to be the case right now, the future of the NCAA hinges on a couple of intrepid kids.

Last year, it was Brandon Jennings who decided to jump across the pond – bypassing the NCAA in the process – to play professional basketball in Italy before offering his services to the NBA. Now, we have Jeremy Tyler, a 6-foot-11 prospect from San Diego, who has decided to take things to another level by forgoing his senior year in high school.

High school.

It appears that Jennings’ gamble, which was to join a league where he would be tested by seasoned pros and endure a more grueling schedule than even the top NCAA teams create, has paid off as he’s projected to be at least a middle first-round draft pick in June. While many believe that his decision was based on not performing well on the SATs in order to enroll at Arizona (a test is not a measure of someone’s aptitude, contrary to popular opinion), Jennings understood that he would be wasting time in playing against peers that he easily dominated or would toss aside in college. Having played numerous invitational games (high school and AAU) seemed to have been all the evidence Jennings to see that there would be little challenge to spend the mandatory one season away from prep school to play in the NCAA.

So, in the face of those whose extol the virtues of a ‘free education’ while pocketing money for the work of these athletic marketing representatives (which is what a student-athlete essentially is), Jennings essentially became an apprentice. He decided to build his craft in a foreign land among men who are playing for more than mere dreams, but for mere employment in an über-competitive industry.

Tyler would have been a lottery pick in the pre-age limit NBA. Where Jennings appears to be the best young American point guard not in the Association, skilled big men are coveted with as much fervor as finding reasons to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. Yet, deciding to skip his senior year in high school seems to be for similar reasons as Jennings; being a man among boys. Why go through another year of quadruple teams against kids nowhere near your size? Why deal with an eventual college coach who is going to work to only keep his job or look ahead for the big program?

Yet people will be up in arms about Tyler’s decision to skip the senior prom, the senior trip, the aptitude exams and missing out on a 400-karat high school ring from a mail-order catalogue. The thing is that Tyler understood that the NCAA isn’t the only organization that feeds off of young talents, but his high school as well.

He understood that in high school (including those AAU teams and basketball factory prep schools), there isn’t a foundation or even interest to cultivate more than a handful of talented kids. Much of the reason for the age limit in the Association is because when a bunch of random names threw their names in the hat, there were too many ‘raw’ prospects, unfinished products and unprepared youngsters who were pushed through the traditional channels too fast.

This isn’t to say that either Tyler or Jennings will become multiple All-Star selections and win NBA titles. It’s quite possible that both completely bomb out when they reach the NBA (next season for Jennings, 2011 for Tyler at least). Yet, it’s hard to get upset at two kids willing to take such drastic steps to get one step closer to making their dreams come true.

For all the histrionics about the one-and-done players who are apparently wasting a college’s resources by not being engaged in the classroom, just be happy that there are a couple of teen phenoms who don’t want to do the same to some high school.

Say What?!?!: Further commentary found here.

Sycophants

Color me curmudgeon, but I’m not infected with Madness anymore.

Not since Carmelo Anthony led Syracuse to the national championship in 2003 have I paid attention to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament from start to finish. While interest at that time was tepid at best, it has dropped to Dubya-like approval rating levels in the last six years.

In fact, this Scribe has watched a whopping total of thirty-five minutes of college basketball in the entire regular season.

It wasn’t always this way as for someone with a vested interest in professional sports, I was anxious to see who really had the talent to make it to the elite level. I wanted to see who would be grossly overhyped, overrated and overwhelmed when they arrived. I also wanted to unearth players that were not considered in the National Player of the Year race who would turn out to become solid, if not great pros. I studied the players with my own eyes as opposed drinking the Kool-Aid served up publicly or privately by the media and friends.

Yet, for every column, comment or conversation I have come across in regards to the collegiate game over the years, someone feels obliged to take a shot at the pros; specifically the NBA.

It’s something that has bothered me for quite some time for reasons too numerous to list. Yet at the core of this frustration are these tried-and-true exclamations:

• There are too many teams in the NBA: The NBA features thirty teams, all made from buckets of what are the 500 best players in the known universe compared to 349 teams that consist of 95% Intramural All-Stars, 3% future collegiate assistant coaches and 2% that might get at least a Summer League invitation.
  And can you realistically believe that the hustle-for-cash expansion of Division I has been financially viable for every team?
  
  
• They play with passion!: Ano unfair judgment that is made without knowing the individual’s psyche, routine and off-court life. Sure, there are pros out there who may not exude the telltale signs of passion; a lot of screaming and scowling, getting in people’s faces when game plans go awry, those head-in-hand moments as a senior realizes his athletic career ended on a buzzer-beater. Yet, if anyone besides media could ever witness a professional locker room in person after a close loss, you may discover that passion – like leadership, savvy and other intangibles we wax poetic about – isn’t always in full view of the public. In looking for the obvious and borderline-obnoxious signs (see Eric Devendorf), you’ll miss the more subtle and profound displays.
  
  
• They’re more fundamentally sound than the pros: When you graduated from high school, were you more fundamentally sound than you were in college? For those who went to college, do you find that you are more fundamentally sound that you are now?
  Your answers should both be ‘no’. The idea that college players are better than the professionals because they “don’t dunk all over the place” is ludicrous. It’s ludicrous because when you are a professional at anything in life, the ivory tower ideals are continuously challenged and either supplemented or rejected with real-life experience.
  
  
• It’s about the TEAM, not one player: If you’re sick of hearing about Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and the NBA’s other stars, think about this: when we suddenly fell in love with the sharpshooting Stephen Curry, did we take the time to learn the names of any other player from Davidson? Can anyone name someone on the snubbed St. Mary’s team besides Patty Mills? Who notched up assists for Gonzaga when Adam Morrison shot the lights out of Western region arenas at tourney time? Take your time in answering.
  
  
• (My favorite) They play harder than the pros!: Really?!?! While there are certainly folks in this world who loaf through their days, one of the most unfair things we do as a society is to question someone’s work ethic from afar.
  When you’re a professional – especially one who had to fight amongst many others to earn a coveted job – your livelihood is at stake with every key stroke, every presentation, every brick laid and every mid-range jump shot taken. You improve because of one or more of the following: A) you enjoy/need that income, B) you see something that can be improved and need to correct it, C) being in the company of like-minded and/or skilled individuals breeds healthy competition and greater production or D) there are other like-minded and/or skilled individuals who will take your spot if you are unable to perform.

You have to understand again that I once loved the college game. As a young child, I watched both men and women’s (that’s right, equal opportunity viewing) amateur games just about as much as the professionals; in reality, it was as much as a non-cable household could watch sports. As I grew older and cable finally arrived at the Clinkscales’ doorstep, I discovered a gluttonous serving of all levels of the games I loved.

In particular, it was basketball that gained much more of my attention as I would be able to see some of the best teams and players from all corners of the country. While having an athletic program was not a consideration for my choice of college – Babson College is a Division III school, but actually quite good – I have a healthy respect for the school-wide camaraderie and pride a successful one creates for the student body and alumni. Some of the larger schools I was accepted to would have provided such experiences; experiences that admittedly would have kept my interest in the ‘old college try’ far stronger than it is today.

Yet, the continued claims of integrity by NCAA sycophants at the expense of the NBA and its fans, no matter how false and absurd, have weathered this soul. They truly believe that because their athletes are not (legally) paid that the virtues of the game show themselves basket after basket. They truly believe that the money professionals earn makes every play less meaningful and less aesthetically pleasing. They believe that the control wielded by the coaches - men who may lead amateurs, but have no qualms with parading down the sidelines in thousand-dollar designer suits – keeps the game of basketball pure and uncompromised.

Why NCAA basketball fans assail on their NBA counterparts is beyond me. The NBA fan – one who certainly is aware of the league’s perception issues and criticisms – is one who has a great respect for the game. That respect, more often than not, is shunned by their collegiate partners because a majority of those in the NCAA camp can’t move beyond the fact that a select group of players are handsomely compensated to display their talents and passions to the world.

So to everyone consumed by this year’s tournament, enjoy yourselves. This is your time to shine in the spotlight and there’s no doubt that one player or one team will provide an everlasting memory for someone in the masses. Yet, the next time you say to yourself that “this is why I hate the NBA”, consider this comment from today’s op-ed from the New York Times’ Timothy Egan, who extolled the ‘virtues’ of the NCAA tourney:

“Spare us the poetic waxing and shilling for a hypocritical sport that is a huge cashcow for everyone except the players, unless they cheat.”

Explain

Because the new national pasttime these days seems to be picking at everything not football or baseball (*cough*, the NBA, *cough, cough*), the recent commentary on the league's economic challeneges is interesting, to say the least.

Bill Simmons of ESPN.com wrote an article that has since made the rounds by way of seemingly paraphrased articles from the Wall Street Journal and of blogs such as Friend of Scribe, Sports Media Watch. Now, you can take Simmons' words with a grain of salt (kosher or not is up to you), along with many others. Yet, in reading the news about the league, NBA fans have come to expect the "this is why I don't watch the NBA" legion to make themselves known. In terms of the current economic malaise, it seems that the league cannot get a favorable shake, even with a rise in merchandise sales, television ratings and popularity in many markets.

While reading the comments on various forums, I can't help but to wonder has anyone pro- or anti-NBA asked this one question: why do professional leagues such as the NBA and NHL (though the latter is understandable in some ways) get slammed for expansion when the NCAA has been guilty of such over the past decade?

In fact, why doesn't the NCAA get slammed for any of the business decisions that, despite the amateur status of the players, are not uncommon from the pros?

There are thousands of people - even some of you who come across Scribe - who are unabashed college sports fans who have varying interests in the professional level. Unfortunately, there is a group out there who love to go out of their way to assert an arrogance that is unbefitting of the college sports fan base as a whole. They go out of their way to slam not just the NBA, but anything that does not exemplify the virtues that their game represents. The critiques are far too long to chonicle here and to be honest, most of them are so ignorant and absurd, your IQ will plummet instantly.

There are nearly 350 basketball and 120 football programs in Division 1 sports. All of the arguments people make about the dilution of talent in the pros is exactly what has gone on in the NCAA realm for years. And before anyone mentions the fact that these are amateurs, advertisers pour dollars in as if they are savvy and headline-grabbing vets in the pros.

Yet, it's the pros that are overreaching and are in dire straights? Please explain.