Of Hoops and the Like

One and done, take the money and run

Rick Pitino, head basketball coach at Louisville, recently addressed the issue of college basketball players heading off to the NBA after only one year in college, a trend we call “one and done.” Let them go directly to the NBA was Pitino’s thesis. They’re never really student/athletes. They enroll in enough courses to make it through the playoffs their first year, then declare for the NBA draft. 

"I had six young men commit to me out of high school that didn't go to college, that went to the pros," said Pitino. "I'm very much for that because they didn't want college. They wanted to go to the NBA. And if they go to the [NBA Development League], that's fine with them. But the six-, seven-month education (in college), online classes second semester. I don't know what that does for a young person."

Kentucky has become the classic example of one and done. They’ve won big in the past few years, including the national championship three years ago and may win it again this year. Most of the players on their winning teams have declared for the draft after only one year in college. Of the eight who have played on a regular basis this season for the UK, four are freshman, three are sophomores, one is a junior. All will be gone to the NBA next year.

UK’s head coach John Calipari is proof that winning is not in how well you coach or how you develop players, it’s in how well you recruit. Each year there are just a few dozen high school prospects who could jump to the NBA. The college teams that enroll them—the Kentucky’s, Carolinas, Dukes, and UConns—will win big, even though it will be with a different group almost every year.

Kentucky has essentially become a farm team for the NBA, and many other schools qualify for the NBA’s farm program, including Texas, which sent three marquee players, among them Kevin Durant, to the big leagues in recent years and now has sent their coach to Tennessee.

To read all the hype on Rick Barnes, recently departed head coach of the Texas Longhorn basketball team, it sounds like an introduction to a college coaches Hall of Fame: Four-time Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year. In his 17 years at UT, he led the Longhorns to 16 NCAA Tournament appearances (streak of 14 consecutive from 1999-2012), including five trips to the NCAA Sweet 16, three to the Elite Eight and one to the Final Four (2003) ... and so forth.
But conference titles mean little, 20-win seasons mean little—even winning the conference tournament doesn’t mean much—and one trip to the Final Four wasn’t enough. What matters in the power conferences is going to the Final Four on a regular basis and, ultimately, winning a National Championship.

PT (prime time on TV) is where the money is and PT is the Big Dance and the Final Four. The standard has been set by this year’s Final Four coaches: Mike Krzyzewski, Duke—eight Sweet Sixteens, four Final Fours, four National Championships; Tom Izzo, Michigan State—12 Sweet Sixteens, six Final Fours, one National Championship; John Calipari, Kentucky—11 Sweet Sixteens, five Final Fours, one National Championship; Bo Ryan, Wisconsin—four Sweet Sixteens, two Final Fours.

Small schools can make as much as a million dollars just for making the first round of The Dance but without expectations from their athletic directors and alums that they make the Final Four. Just getting a little paycheck is enough for some. But for the big programs, PT and the big bucks is the goal.

With that comes a trade-off for fans who watch “The Dance” on tube—the commercials, the nagging, annoying, repeated commercials that interrupt and chop up the games. Mute buttons across America are worn out and bathroom breaks and trips to the kitchen for more beer and snacks are up. In between, we watch highlights of the contests, somehow stitched together with all the time-outs and commercials to make a game.

It’s an annual Passion Play, starring the usual suspects with the usual hype: “Buy a new BMW, insure the hell out of it ... close-up of Mike Kryzewski head in hands ... take out another mortgage ... close up of Tom Izzo expressing angst ... here’s another way to bake pizza with special pricing for participating stores ... close-up of John Calipari waving his arms ... and here’s another promo for the next program coming up.” You’d think we’re a nation of wealthy people, who can afford expensive new cars and homes, yet watch bad TV and eat junk food all the time.

Rick Barnes can afford a new BMW with all the insurance options, and a big home. He has made millions coaching college basketball. Now he has a new job. Seventeen years at Texas and done. Fired. Not enough PT. Now he can try again at Tennessee.

And as we close in on the 2015 Final Four, most of the country, driving old cars and trucks and making rent and mortgage payments sit and watch the annual pageant of one and done—a parade featuring another kind of one-percenter.

DDT is dealing with some major PTASD (post traumatic advertising stress disorder): everything on TV chopped to shreds by commercial interruptions, internet websites blocked and interrupted by pop-ups, subscription cards in magazines, banner ads over the masthead on the front pages of shrinking newspapers, and sticky note slap-ons below the fold on the front page. Where’s the content, where’s the programming, where’s the news?

It’s there, hiding in plain sight. The advertising IS the content, programming, and news. The medium is TV, the message is commerce through advertising through college basketball. As an old ad hack sales manager DDT used to work with in TV once said, “It’s not creative unless it sells.”

When this year’s dance is ended, we won’t suffer for Krzyzewski or Calipari if they don’t win another national title. They can take the money and run. They’re creative and successful because they sell. Read: they know how recruit the class of one-and-done. SR
P.S. DDT will root for Wisconsin and Michigan State. Of the Badgers’ six contributors, three are seniors and one is a junior. No freshmen start. Of the Spartans’ five starters, three are seniors, two are juniors. No freshmen.

Comment from a reader:
True, quite a racket.  At least Kentucky got theirs. The men’s college game is lacking at this point.  Other than about 10 schools that pack in the fans, attendance is down.  They need to go to a 24-second shot clock or at least 30.  No offense, no shooters and the game is boring. Fans like the outside shot or the three-pointer.  More players take the ball to the hole than in the past, which causes more fouls and slows the game down also.

Comment from a reader: 
It is all money these days. Baseball is going to die a slow death due to being boring as hell. Horse racing has already faded. I haven't heard anything about ponies in a long time. Three races a year draw a few people. Tennis is sort of fun at times, dink, dink donk. Golf to me is more intersting now that they have managed to cover it better but it still has a lack of lustre. The announcers are boring. I have not watched a college basketball game in three years not a whole one. A few minutes here and there. I do watch the Spurs when I remember to watch them, which isn't often. I kinda like them and I would guess I could be considered  a fan. Football has lost what it had, too. I go to high school games in person but only rarely watch a game on TV. I watch Texas to see them get whipped. I watch TCU out of a perverse idea that they are unloved. If there was a channel that had North Dakota State I would watch. Now they have high school games on TV. 

What has happened? They have little league on TV. They have Pop Warner on TV. When I was a kid you went to the park and chose up sides. Usually the two best players were the leaders and there could be as many as 20 kids per team, depending on how many showed up to play. We played touch football and sometimes tackle. We played agame called work-up, too (baseball). Thirty outfielders at some games. It was designed to be fun and disoragnized and we had our own set of rules. I recall enjoying those games. The huddle. Billy go long and Tom go over the middle. Then in HS I went out for baseball and actually made the team as a pitcher. A fifth string pitcher. We had two ace Mexicn boys and we won district and went to Abilene to play in the state tournament but they wouldn't let the Mexicans stay in the hotel, or eat in the resturante, so we had hotdogs and slept on the bus. An old yellow dog. We won and went to some other racist town and slept in the park and ate sandwiches made by the mothers. Then we lost and went home to El Paso. The next year Bowie (EP) won sate and they had to sleep under Memorial stadium in Austin becasue Bowie was all hispanic.

DDT: Too much TV. Who watches Little League on the tube? Better to be outdoors playing the games, not watching from the couch.