What REALLY is the best thing for College Basketball?

What REALLY is the best thing for the sport of College Basketball?

by Davidson Baker

It's the pre-season of the 2014-2015 campaign, the squeak of the shoes are returning to fruition, the razor-sharp screech of the whistles from the mouths of coaches and referees alike are music to everybody's ear that's involved with the sport...... especially to those of John Calipari.

Coming off an effort that brought his Wildcats narrowly short of a national title as an eight seed, everybody's favorite boys in blue in Lexington were looking like a team that on paper could go toe-to-toe with any other team in the history of the sport.

Let's analyze the true greatness we witnessed by the specifics of the squad

• Eleven ESPN top 100 recruits (Ten of which were McDonald's All-Americans)
• All but two are on NBA or D-league rosters, those two are still enrolled at the University
• An average height of 6'6 in the starting lineup alone, which made them the tallest basketball team in the entire world professional or amateur, let alone in just college basketball alone
• The State of Kentucky's Mr. Basketball, Derek Willis, saw 75 minutes of action the entire season.
• A player who was supposed to be an intricate part of the team, Junior Alex Poythress, missed twenty-nine games and ultimately was not a part of the team when it mattered most.

It is definitely safe to say they were a shoe-in to be a preseason number one selection. Hell, one of the game's great pioneers of coaching even went as far to nearly GUARANTEE they would do something no one has done in almost forty years..... Perfection.

Larry Brown took the podium at a casual presser in the Dallas area a few days before their first game. There surely was a feeling in the air that was synonymous of an aroma of pre-season excitement around his program. That being said, his most notable quote had nothing to do with his team at all, rather how he felt about the potential of the top ranked Wildcats. 

"If you take their first and second teams and split them up, they'd probably have the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation, John should go 45-0 with that talent."

45-0?!?!?! Impossible. Absurd. Preposterous. Blasphemous.

Almost.

The Wildcats couldn't have played forty-five games if they wanted to, the maximum they could squeeze in was forty, given that both the SEC and National Championship games would be on that schedule. Therefore, if we're speaking on literal terms the claims made by Larry Brown were an exaggeration on more than one front. I'm sure he was being dead serious about the talent, and I know he knew the team's realistic capabilities even if that amount of games wasn't possible. Case and point, Every coach in the entire nation knew who the team to beat was all season long.

So with all this being said, when did I start to get the feeling that this team was destined to be something special?

November 18th, Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Kentucky 72, Kansas 40.

This Kansas team boasts a coach in Bill Self who was coming off of ten straight regular season conference titles, and he went as far as making statements about how he was unsure if the cats could even be beaten, a mere THREE games into their schedule. After the shellacking in Indianapolis was over, Self shared his thoughts on whether or not they looked beatable.

"There will be teams out there who can challenge them. Whether they can beat them or not, I don't know."

At least they tried, and at least Bill Self left the notion of a possibility that there really can be challengers to the throne. The daunting fact of the matter was that the Kentucky Wildcats were ready and open to any competitor who foolishly dared to enter their sanctum of darkness, and embraced the role of being the perfect team that had no weaknesses.

The number one ranking was not once surrendered the entire season as Kentucky streaked to 38-1 before falling to eventual national runner-up Wisconsin. 

Every week of last season the common thread about college basketball was somehow, someway, intertwined with the bluegrass state. These guys were clear and far away from everybody else. The true number one, and every media outlet milked the last drop of anything that the team was even remotely involved with for almost twenty weeks in a row. 

So that being said, let's move on from the past and talk about the present. Where's this season's dominant force? SHOW YOURSELF! Who is taking the torch? Stand up at once!

.......Nobody? ....Anybody???? ....Hello!!?!?!?

Where are our perennial powerhouses? Syracuse? UConn? Wisconsin? Gonzaga?!! Ohio State?! Where are you guys???

I'll tell you where they are, replaced by the normally irrelevant programs. Texas A&M, USC, Iowa, South Carolina, even Monmouth. It's actually come to the point where the guys who play zero minutes on the end of the bench at MONMOUTH, do interpretive dances and seize uncontrollably on the ground to the salivation of the average basketball consumer, and they have five wins over power five opponents. Where the hell even is Monmouth after all? Yeesh. 

Again, i'll tell you where the powerhouses are, and i'll tell you what they're doing. These select few programs which are usual mainstays at the top in this sport are out there playing some sorry mess of a game that is a poor excuse of what I could best describe as a boring marathon with an orange ball and hardwood floors involved. That's honestly the best way I can describe it because what i've seen out of those teams mentioned previously is definitely not basketball.

And yes! Even the defending "best team in the sport" from the almighty mecca known as Rupp Arena have looked downright dysfunctional on offense this year. Kentucky's offensive flow in their game against LSU looked like a bunch of blind and deaf midgets being used as human pinballs. Straight chaos, no consistency, you never know when someone was going to do something errant, or when something (in particular, the basketball) was going to fly out of the field of play.

Well, this means we have a much different season on our hands. The question is, is that a good or bad thing for college basketball?

I'm currently writing this in the wee hours of the morning on January 15. Since November 13, the day the season started, Only half of the top ten week one remain in that same upper echelon. Out of the twenty-five teams that made the preseason poll, only thirteen remain on that list. We've had four different teams stake their claim as the kings of the hill as voted by the Associated Press, and come next Monday we will have another one thanks to Kansas' loss to West Virginia roughly sixty hours ago.

Let's get to my point, what does this mean for college basketball? Better question, what do we KNOW as fans this year about college basketball? Last year it was seldom a surprise what the most talked about commodity in the sport was every night, now it seems like that's all we get, surprises!

As I sit here and write this article at this current point and time of the fifteenth of January, there have been twelve teams ranked in the AP top twenty-five that have taken losses this week, five of them coming from teams in the TOP TEN. 

Bottom line, there's no overwhelming number one overall seed that's sticking out in my mind. Do I have a few ideas of who it could be? Sure I do. Do I have many doubts about each one come tournament time? I do Indeed.

Kansas seems like the sexy pick for the favorite at this point, however they've lacked a true leader on this team on a squad full of veterans, and that's just plain odd. They're a little iffy on the defensive end of the floor, and they also from what i've seen lack a true ball handler to bring the ball up the court against intense pressure and West Virginia exposed that. 

Oklahoma could be another candidate for that top spot I suppose, however do you wanna talk about a defense that's in the category of "iffy"? That word would honestly be putting it in the nicest and most candy-encrusted, sugar coated of all adjectives in the absolute nicest way possible. These guys just let a very short-standing freshman named Jawun Evans score forty-two on them! When the sooners are full of juniors and seniors with real long and lanky defensive frames! Juan Evans went to the hole whenever he wanted and scored probably in my estimation at least 25 of his 42 off strictly layups. Try slowing down Kris Dunn, or Denzel Valentine with that kind of defense. Ain't gonna happen brother. How do you let him score forty-two? This team needs to fill not just holes, but GAPS on defense before being considered anywhere near a favorite in the tournament.

Michigan State, maybe? 

Nope. 

Sparty got taken behind the woodshed by the fighting Fran McCaffrey's for the second time this season earlier tonight. 

What about North Carolina? 

Maybe if they can play up to their potential as a whole unit. This team would be my gut pick for a number one overall seed right now and I say that with an uneasy stomach. They just need to play a complete game for me to be a little more settled on the issue, and I haven't seen them do that yet. They almost seem to play better when one of their stars sits out due to injury. They went 7-0 without Kennedy Meeks and only suffered one loss to Texas at the buzzer during the absence of Marcus Paige at the beginning of the season. Understandably so no one could guard Isaiah Taylor, which Paige could have done, but we aren't here to discuss the what-ifs.

Let's also not forget here, oh, the irony that the same coach who forced the stake in the soil on the undefeated speculation whirlwind on day ONE last year, is the same man coaching THIS year's lone remaining unbeaten team. Of course! SMU! Great point guard play in Nic Moore, an experienced and talented supporting cast with Ben Moore, Markus Kennedy, Jordan Tolbert, etc. They seem like a nice fit for the prize! The last remaining unbeaten team has GOT to be the overwhelming favorite come March right? 

Nope. Banned from the postseason due to academic fraud.

Way to go, Mr. Brown. I thought I was on to something there.

Now where will the sport head from here come tournament time? Everyone's wired differently, so every fan will have their own preference when it comes to what they like in headlines and hoopla alike in sports. Some people are absolutely in love with the idea of an overwhelming superpower playing with all the pressure on their shoulders come time for the big dance. So maybe that really is the best form of entertainment to keep track of during the big dance. 

The main reason why this is true is because everybody loves to hate the perennial power. You either love or hate the yankees, you love or hate Notre Dame football, you love or hate Kentucky, but what about the other side of the spectrum? What about upsets? The little guy knocking off the bully in the schoolyard? What about David knocking Goliath out with a slingshot courtesy of his very last stone in his pocket? Where's the love for the Down goes Frazier's? The "Do you believe in Miracles"? Does America want to see cinderella anymore? Or is her time in the ballroom coming to a slow but sure screech? 

Quite honestly, America would rather watch a super team put it all on the line with history at stake, and the numbers prove it. 

Last year's Final Four contest that saw the almighty Wildcats get slayed by a bunch of angry badgers from southern Wisconsin drew an audience of 22.6 Million fans. The most fans to watch a national semifinal since 1996. My final question is simple, where did the entertainment in surprise go? I guess we will find out soon enough, but whatever TV rating number that's posted this year will be the pointing arrow to the answer to my question, What REALLY is the best thing for the sport of College Basketball?

Follow Davidson Baker on twitter @Davidsonbaker_and follow our page as a whole @SalaryCapBlog