The Degradation of College Basketball

A. Isaac Senior Editor

40530937 3 point area The Degradation of College Basketball
Its not often you see the #1 and #2 teams battle it out during a regular season basketball game. Let alone, two teams from the same state. But that’s what we were treated to on Saturday night. Tickets were going for as much as 10k as people wanted to witness history.

And you know what they got instead.

Bad basketball.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re a fan of guys grabbing a rebound racing up the court and throwing up a wild three pointer that clanks off the rim, this was your game.

Memphis and Tennessee combined for 46 3-point attempts. 14 of them went in for a Ben Wallace-esque 30%.

Is that what people really want to see? Guys who can barely make free throws clang a shot from 19’9″?

Teams like Memphis are trading in fundamentals for athletes. Players who “supposedly” can get to the rim at will but cant hit an open shot to save their lives. Sure, these guys will dominate the less than teams who don’t have the players or the coaching staffs who can out-strategize them, but is it a wonder why the Memphis’ and the Tennessees of the world get bounced from the tournament so early?

To be fair, let’s not just pick on those two teams. Around college basketball, the 3 point shot is the way to go. In the Michigan-Illinois game, Michigan won a thriller by beating Illinois 49-43. The teams combined to go 11/40 from 3 point range.

Butler and Drake, two top 20 teams(what a joke!) managed an 11/41 from behind the arc on Saturday.

Villanova snapped UCONNs 10 game winning streak because UCONN shot 6/20 from 3 point land.

Need I go on?

Its a bad trend and hopefully a trend that will disappear with the line moving back a foot next season.

Until then, games like Memphis/Tennessee will dominate March Madness. And when teams like that arent around come regional weekend, I won’t say I told you so.

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