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Spring Break last weekend launched in stride with the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball Final Four last weekend.
I had a long weekend out of town, and we watched the action from our hotel room where we really did not spend much time hanging around there. I did not feel like I missed much because I was in tourist mode, and I was glad I did not stay home and watch any of the games in full. I recorded South Carolina and UCLA and U-Conn and Michigan, watching only the latter in full.
Michigan has been the nation’s best team the entire season, and watching the Big Ten – with a college football championship notch already on its belt – made its continued case for the conference’s wherewithal in the new world order of major college sports to snatch two more national titles (three if you count wrestling).
Despite the closer score in the U-Conn vs. Michigan clash, I never thought the Wolverines were going to mimic a Duke-esque implosion.
U-Conn fans complaining about officiating? Well, how many free throw line appearances can you make just working the perimeter?
Both teams actually benefitted from the officials’ increased forgiveness in the little-or-no-hand-check era.
Husky head coach Danny Hurley is the key to making even an overachieving team like this year’s U-Conn model interesting and watchable. Their physicality affected Michigan’s shooting, but there just wasn’t enough inside scoring, nor overall comparative talent to top a team like Michigan (90-point games being the norm) even when they shot poorly last Monday.
The R.E.M. song titled, “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It…” played in my head earlier this week.
There will be a parade in Ann Arbor this morning for the Wolverines, but head coach Dusty May stated in a handful of interviews that the morning after the title game – another by-product of the new world order of college sports – required him to get on plane to seek transfer portal opportunities as well as assuring his core returnees stay signed with the Maize and Blue.
It turns out two athletes from the newly crowned NCAA Division I men’s basketball champs have (as of Thursday evening) are entering the transfer portal.
At least Coach May doesn’t face Iowa State’s lady cagers’ program challenge: 10 athletes entering the transfer portal.
Imagine if among pro sports’ championship victories, they could all be announcing free agency and clean out their lockers right after the buzzer sounds.
While we might think the NCAA administration governing their sports are collectively stupid, they aren’t. The association would rather have this mix of variability and volatility because if they governed the program more closely, and set up employment by the participating university, there are some sharp lawyers who could build a union into the process.
A union is what the association will continue to avoid by all measures, and in terms of program strength, just like in industry, the rich will get richer in the current state.
I am in my 28th year of management, but I’ll make some of you clutch your anti-union pearls this morning.
Unions are remarkably effective in certain industries: educators, professional athletes, actors, and writers to name a few. There are a few additional industries who could use unions, too. How long will it take for the current college sports commercial landscape to benefit from union affiliation?
One benefit of unions is negotiating legacy issues on both sides of the table strengthening the “gotta have” bullet points and agreeing to eliminate counterintuitive “nice to haves” because every negotiation starts with a blank piece of paper.
I’ll save expounding on this for a future Weekender column.
Let’s get back to the end of the world as we know it.
College football and basketball – with the portal and NIL – is retaining a stronger talent base for a few additional years, and a more watchable product is the biggest takeaway. My strong Big Ten bias has already turned the Big Ten into an even… bigger ten (try the veal, I’ll be here through Thursday *drum rim shot*).
Amid the transfer portal’s ownership of numerous Sports sections’ collective content, there was a very refreshing local announcement in the women’s college basketball news.
Joslyn Bricker, one of two Warsaw Lady Tigers who will play in this year’s round of Indiana-Kentucky All-Star games, might be onto an alternative viewpoint possibly spoken more openly in this new world order.
Bricker moved from a commitment to the Division 1, Big East’s Butler Bulldogs to the NAIA, Crossroads League’s (CL) Indiana Wesleyan Wildcats.
Her announcement was a testimony of self-awareness, and actions that back her words regarding the love of the game, and bonding with teammates she likes playing alongside for more than one season.
There were some Butler Bulldogs defecting the program via the transfer portal, and this was a thought-provoking set of events for Bricker (according to the video accompanying her Indianapolis Star interview), whose emotional and intellectual IQs match her superior basketball IQ.
I’ll add savvy to describe her move.
NAIA institutions offer varied portions of scholarships to alleviate their customarily high tuition through athletics AND academics. An academic stalwart who can play ball at an NAIA institution can use both sources to go so far as to fully fund their tuition outlays.
Kyle Mangas did this. He made his bones at the same institution to ascend to pro-level worthiness, but he also had the grades to land a sweet job if he decided to deflate the basketball in Spring 2021.
We shall see a continued blend of what’s happening in Division I and what’s happening with the NAIA. The CL, as I’ve mentioned in previous columns, is special in its blend of D1 transfers and talented first year student athletes.
My closing thoughts are predictable if you’ve read my previous columns.
Chip: “It’s the end of the world as we know it…”
You: “Oh just get on with it you bean-counting hack!”
Chip: “…and I feel fiiiiiiiine.”
