SWC75
Bored Historian
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Sitting in the Dome watching the three games over the weekend, I recalled a debate that has come up on this board from time to time and also on the local radio shows I listen to. Which is better for the fan: pro or college basketball. Here are my thoughts on the subject.
- The great argument for the NBA is that the skills of its players greatly exceed those of college players. This is self-evident. The same comparison can be made between college and high schools. Major college teams are made up of players who were all the stars of their high school teams. NBA teams are made of players who were all the stars of their college teams. When a college player makes a 25 footer, we say “Wow! That was from NBA range!” If a college player makes an athletic move to the basket for a dunk or a difficult lay-up, we say “That guy will be playing in the NBA some day!”. Those plays are the norm there. Jim Boeheim, when coaching the Olympic team, marveled that his players could have shooting contests form half court and misses were much rarer than hits. Maybe the best comparison would be this: If the Masters golf tournament was on one channel and the local amateur golf tournament on another: what would you be watching? If being a fan is all about admiring the skills of individual players, it’s not even a question of what you should be watching. It’s the NBA hands-down.
- The great equalizer in the past has always been style of play. The NBA is about individual talents and thus it’s about individual ball. “Isolation plays”. Ten guys stand there while two guys go one-on-one. If the offensive guys winds, the defense collapsed on him and he forces up a shot. When Gene Shue was coaching, he loved Isos, saying that in football they are always trying to get a fast player “on an island” with someone. What’s the difference? The difference is that in football the “island” is always the product of 22 players all moving at once. The play will have a second and third options and improvisation beyond that. Most of the spectacular plays in basketball are not individual plays- they are team plays: fast breaks, whipping the ball around to get an open shots, pick and roll plays, etc. In college it’s all about tam offense and team defense. Golf is not a team sport: basketball is. That’s why you watch SU- Georgetown, (or now Duke) rather than the Knicks and the Sixers.
- But that point has eroded in recent years. One obvious reason is that players don’t stay in college for four years any more. Hat not only depletes the talent, it makes it harder to build a team. People talk about how great Kentucky is. Our teams of the late 80’s would have wiped the floor with tm. (I think…). If they were college players now, Pearl Washington, Derrick Coleman, Sherman Douglas and Billy Owens would have been here for a year and that’s only because of the NBA’s minimum age rule. This year’s Syracuse team should have had Tyler Ennis and Jerami Grant on it and maybe Michael Carter-Williams, too. Yet without them we were able to beat two elite 8 teams, one of whom almost, (and should have) knocked off Kentucky. That shows that the teams out there just aren’t what they used to be.
- The other big thing about college ball is that it’s over-coached. Under pressure to win and anxious to build their personal reputations, college coaches don’t just coach players. They try to micromanage games to exert their control over the outcome. With the manta “defense wins games”, (some of them), encourage their players to push the rules to the maximum extent the referees allow, resulting in slowed-down, ugly games. College ball is like a computer that hasn’t had its cookies cleaned out. Meanwhile, who plays better ‘team’ ball than the San Antonio Spurs? In the pros the coaches know it’s about the players and that if they cramped a player’s style, especially a star player, they’d be gone so they mostly stay out of their player’s way. Remember when they used to complain that Jim Boeheim “just rolled the ball out there”? When is the last time you heard that?
- That said, the games at the Dome were good basketball games. The scores were solid: 75=65, 62-58, 76-70 (OT). They were close all the way, (I think Louisville’s 10 point final margin might have bene the only double figure lead in any of the three games). And we had two famous coaches, Rick Pitino and Tom Izzo, who have “systems” they want their players to follow were coaching in those games. Maybe at the highest levels of the sport, the quality of basketball is going to be high, whether it’s Michigan State or the Spurs.
- And it does add something to the event to have famous coaches facing off. The Spurs played the Grizzlies the same day. Both good teams. Did anyone see that as Greg Popovich vs. David Joerger? And the differences in coaching personalities, styles and strategies create a variety of teams you don’t have in the NBA.
- Bud Poliquin once began a discussion of this subject by saying, “take away all the hoopla surrounding a college game and just focus on what you see on the court”. I thought to myself, “OK, Bud, if I get to put it back when you’re done.” Danny Parkins made it his quest to convert Syracuse fans to NBA fans. When the World Series was on, he urged people to watch the opening night NBA game between the Celtics and the Heat instead. I switched back and forth. The World Series game was like a rock concert. Every hit, even every out brought a huge cheer and the noise didn’t abate much between them. I flipped to the NBA game and I’d hear “squeak… squeak…squeak” – the sound sneakers make moving across the polished floor. What kind of a game atmosphere allows you to hear the squeak of the sneakers? I heard no squeaks at the Dome, (and I was on the first floor). The atmosphere was great, with the fans of four teams there. The crowd was bigger than you’d ever get for an NBA game. And even that didn’t compare to the SU-Duke games in the Dome. It’s just a more exciting place to be.
- A big reason for that difference is the markets the teams represent. College teams tend to represent smaller cities and towns and even states that normally don’t make the front page. The fans there want their teams to put them on the map. I call it “existential rooting”: We win therefore we aren’t. If we don’t win, we are either disrespected or irrelevant. It creates an emotional rollercoaster of joy and despair and thus an extra level of intensity in the building. The pros represent big cities that are already on the map. They want their teams to live up to what their city already represents. That’s not the same.
- Both pro and college ball play too many games and the season is too long. But college ball doesn’t run over into another season. the NCAA tournament is “march Madness”. The NBA playoffs are “the baseball season”. It’s a winter sport that decides its championship in the summer. I always ask myself: “Are those guys still playing?”
- Have you ever filled out a bracket of the NBA playoffs? Neither have I. March Madness has become something we all become a part of, even those who aren’t basketball fans. I think a big reason is that the NCAA tournament reaches into every market in the country. Everybody has an opinion but they also have a team. It draws us together more than the NBA.
- Finally, this is a college town. No NBA team will ever mean to me what Syracuse does and no NBA game will ever mean what a Syracuse game does. Other college games that impact Syracuse also mean more than NBA games. I could get into the NBA if there was a championship contender with a Syracuse star that was an integral part of it. It’s worked in football. I’ve rooted for Jim Brown’s Browns, Floyd Little’s Broncos, Larry Csonka’s Dolphins, Donovan McNabb’s Eagles and the Colts with Dwight Freeney and Marvin Harrison. The two SU guys who made it big in the NBA have been Dave Bing and Carmelo Anthony. They both spent their careers playing on lousy teams. We’ve had other guys get off to good starts, like Coleman, Douglas and Owens who faded, usually due to injuries. But they have tended to be on lousy teams, too. They’ve played on a lot of teams that were rarely on TV. Even the best teams have tended to be out west for years. Those teams play late at night, EST. For a lot of us, the NBA is Carmelo running trying to do it all by himself and the Knocks losing by 20. I know it’s more than that but these things have just made it hard for me to get into the NBA, as great as the players there are.
I’d rather be just where I was when I had these thoughts- at the Dome.
- The great argument for the NBA is that the skills of its players greatly exceed those of college players. This is self-evident. The same comparison can be made between college and high schools. Major college teams are made up of players who were all the stars of their high school teams. NBA teams are made of players who were all the stars of their college teams. When a college player makes a 25 footer, we say “Wow! That was from NBA range!” If a college player makes an athletic move to the basket for a dunk or a difficult lay-up, we say “That guy will be playing in the NBA some day!”. Those plays are the norm there. Jim Boeheim, when coaching the Olympic team, marveled that his players could have shooting contests form half court and misses were much rarer than hits. Maybe the best comparison would be this: If the Masters golf tournament was on one channel and the local amateur golf tournament on another: what would you be watching? If being a fan is all about admiring the skills of individual players, it’s not even a question of what you should be watching. It’s the NBA hands-down.
- The great equalizer in the past has always been style of play. The NBA is about individual talents and thus it’s about individual ball. “Isolation plays”. Ten guys stand there while two guys go one-on-one. If the offensive guys winds, the defense collapsed on him and he forces up a shot. When Gene Shue was coaching, he loved Isos, saying that in football they are always trying to get a fast player “on an island” with someone. What’s the difference? The difference is that in football the “island” is always the product of 22 players all moving at once. The play will have a second and third options and improvisation beyond that. Most of the spectacular plays in basketball are not individual plays- they are team plays: fast breaks, whipping the ball around to get an open shots, pick and roll plays, etc. In college it’s all about tam offense and team defense. Golf is not a team sport: basketball is. That’s why you watch SU- Georgetown, (or now Duke) rather than the Knicks and the Sixers.
- But that point has eroded in recent years. One obvious reason is that players don’t stay in college for four years any more. Hat not only depletes the talent, it makes it harder to build a team. People talk about how great Kentucky is. Our teams of the late 80’s would have wiped the floor with tm. (I think…). If they were college players now, Pearl Washington, Derrick Coleman, Sherman Douglas and Billy Owens would have been here for a year and that’s only because of the NBA’s minimum age rule. This year’s Syracuse team should have had Tyler Ennis and Jerami Grant on it and maybe Michael Carter-Williams, too. Yet without them we were able to beat two elite 8 teams, one of whom almost, (and should have) knocked off Kentucky. That shows that the teams out there just aren’t what they used to be.
- The other big thing about college ball is that it’s over-coached. Under pressure to win and anxious to build their personal reputations, college coaches don’t just coach players. They try to micromanage games to exert their control over the outcome. With the manta “defense wins games”, (some of them), encourage their players to push the rules to the maximum extent the referees allow, resulting in slowed-down, ugly games. College ball is like a computer that hasn’t had its cookies cleaned out. Meanwhile, who plays better ‘team’ ball than the San Antonio Spurs? In the pros the coaches know it’s about the players and that if they cramped a player’s style, especially a star player, they’d be gone so they mostly stay out of their player’s way. Remember when they used to complain that Jim Boeheim “just rolled the ball out there”? When is the last time you heard that?
- That said, the games at the Dome were good basketball games. The scores were solid: 75=65, 62-58, 76-70 (OT). They were close all the way, (I think Louisville’s 10 point final margin might have bene the only double figure lead in any of the three games). And we had two famous coaches, Rick Pitino and Tom Izzo, who have “systems” they want their players to follow were coaching in those games. Maybe at the highest levels of the sport, the quality of basketball is going to be high, whether it’s Michigan State or the Spurs.
- And it does add something to the event to have famous coaches facing off. The Spurs played the Grizzlies the same day. Both good teams. Did anyone see that as Greg Popovich vs. David Joerger? And the differences in coaching personalities, styles and strategies create a variety of teams you don’t have in the NBA.
- Bud Poliquin once began a discussion of this subject by saying, “take away all the hoopla surrounding a college game and just focus on what you see on the court”. I thought to myself, “OK, Bud, if I get to put it back when you’re done.” Danny Parkins made it his quest to convert Syracuse fans to NBA fans. When the World Series was on, he urged people to watch the opening night NBA game between the Celtics and the Heat instead. I switched back and forth. The World Series game was like a rock concert. Every hit, even every out brought a huge cheer and the noise didn’t abate much between them. I flipped to the NBA game and I’d hear “squeak… squeak…squeak” – the sound sneakers make moving across the polished floor. What kind of a game atmosphere allows you to hear the squeak of the sneakers? I heard no squeaks at the Dome, (and I was on the first floor). The atmosphere was great, with the fans of four teams there. The crowd was bigger than you’d ever get for an NBA game. And even that didn’t compare to the SU-Duke games in the Dome. It’s just a more exciting place to be.
- A big reason for that difference is the markets the teams represent. College teams tend to represent smaller cities and towns and even states that normally don’t make the front page. The fans there want their teams to put them on the map. I call it “existential rooting”: We win therefore we aren’t. If we don’t win, we are either disrespected or irrelevant. It creates an emotional rollercoaster of joy and despair and thus an extra level of intensity in the building. The pros represent big cities that are already on the map. They want their teams to live up to what their city already represents. That’s not the same.
- Both pro and college ball play too many games and the season is too long. But college ball doesn’t run over into another season. the NCAA tournament is “march Madness”. The NBA playoffs are “the baseball season”. It’s a winter sport that decides its championship in the summer. I always ask myself: “Are those guys still playing?”
- Have you ever filled out a bracket of the NBA playoffs? Neither have I. March Madness has become something we all become a part of, even those who aren’t basketball fans. I think a big reason is that the NCAA tournament reaches into every market in the country. Everybody has an opinion but they also have a team. It draws us together more than the NBA.
- Finally, this is a college town. No NBA team will ever mean to me what Syracuse does and no NBA game will ever mean what a Syracuse game does. Other college games that impact Syracuse also mean more than NBA games. I could get into the NBA if there was a championship contender with a Syracuse star that was an integral part of it. It’s worked in football. I’ve rooted for Jim Brown’s Browns, Floyd Little’s Broncos, Larry Csonka’s Dolphins, Donovan McNabb’s Eagles and the Colts with Dwight Freeney and Marvin Harrison. The two SU guys who made it big in the NBA have been Dave Bing and Carmelo Anthony. They both spent their careers playing on lousy teams. We’ve had other guys get off to good starts, like Coleman, Douglas and Owens who faded, usually due to injuries. But they have tended to be on lousy teams, too. They’ve played on a lot of teams that were rarely on TV. Even the best teams have tended to be out west for years. Those teams play late at night, EST. For a lot of us, the NBA is Carmelo running trying to do it all by himself and the Knocks losing by 20. I know it’s more than that but these things have just made it hard for me to get into the NBA, as great as the players there are.
I’d rather be just where I was when I had these thoughts- at the Dome.
