I just feel that the competetition for top level players has ramped up considerably since the 80s and early 90s with far more teams vying for top prospects then there was back then. As a result, the teams’ that held national relevance was quite a bit smaller, leading to a much smaller crop of universities that could realistically compete and obtain top 10 rankings.
The Big East conference during the 08-14 stretch was also remarkably deep, with tons of great players and coaches constantly vying for the top spot and double digit teams making it to the tournament multiple times. That is very different from the 87-91 seasons where 2-3 teams drove all the competition.
Now this isn’t to say that it wasn’t impressive what they did in the 87-91 stretch (of course it was) I just think it was more impressive what 08-14 held, they had great talent, stellar records and as you said, a fun style of basketball.
As for whether a change in defense would make the team more fun? I don’t think any defense ever makes a team “fun” (it’s almost the antithesis what makes the sport fun to watch in general), instead what makes it fun is transition baskets and high flying athletic players, both of which can be a part a team that plays zone.
I think your first paragraph is inaccurate because elite players stayed in school far longer, spreading the elite talent across a greater number of schools. Players like Coleman, Mourning, Grant Hill, etc stayed 4 years and Shaq, Owens, Larry Johnson, etc stayed 3. The talent was deeper and more experienced.
Your second paragraph is accurate in relation to it's time period. But you have to remember the early Big East had fewer teams with a full double round robin schedule. In 1985 6 of 9 teams made the tournament, three teams made the FF, and 1 won the NC, the second year in a row the leafue had a team win the NC. Syracuse had a 9-7 league record but remained ranked in the top 15 all year. That's a strong league. In 1987 two teams made the FF with Syracuse in the NC game. In 1988 6 of the 9 teams again made the tourney. In 1989 another team went to the FF. In 1990 6 of 9 made the tourney again and three teams finished the year ranked in the top 10. In 1991 7 of 9 teams made the tourney. Rarely did the team that won the league have fewer than 3 league losses. Five different teams made to the FF and 3 different teams made the NC game. Again, this is in a 9 team league. 6 different teams finished 1st or 2nd in the league regular season standings and 5 different teams won the conference tournament, so saying only three teams ran everything is wrong. It was a consistently deep league.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on which era was better. I think the earlier era makes a stronger case. In the earlier era they finished in the AP top 10 six times and top 15 seven times. In the later era they finished top 10 twice and top 15 five times. The earlier era had two consensus first team AAs, one of which was the national player of the year, and three second team consensus AAs. The later era had one on the first team and one on the second team. During the first era a player broke the national assists record and the national modern rebounding record. Nothing of similar note happened during the second era. They were both great and fun eras. The 2010 team was one of my favorites. But I think the numbers paint a clear picture.
As far as the defense thing, you're partly right (I think aggressive suffocating defense can be fun to watch when it's played by elite athletes on my team). The defense doesn't have to affect the excitement of the offense, but that may not be the perception, especially if a kid thinks he won't be able to show off his offense if he fails to learn the defense effectively. That perception likely is not fair, but it may exist. I would think it would be more appealing to an elite guy that plans on playing one year in college to not have to learn a defense he's never played before (the way SU plays it) and that he'll never play again after that one year. If we are going to appeal to that guy, we have to make it abundantly clear with our play on the court that we will be fun, and we haven't done that in a while. That allows other teams to use things like style of defense and JBs age as ammunition, fair or not.
