A View Of College Basketball Above And Below The Surface

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When we see it looking up we see a Final Four that features all the top-seeded teams.

Bettors call it “chalk”.  The favorites have ruled the roost in this year’s edition of March Madness. To be honest, this year’s tournament has lacked the excitement of unheralded upsets, and thrilling buzzer-beaters, meaning last second shots that decide games.

What we’ve seen are the best teams playing the best.

Every year is different, and this year is no exception. When was the last time we’ve seen this? It was in 2008, when Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina and Memphis, all #1 seeds, reached the final four with Kansas prevailing. That’s 17 years between this particular phenomenon.  That year, the Final Four was played in San Antonio. This year it is also in San Antonio, so there’s the coincidence.

Duke, Houston, Auburn and Florida will compete for the national championship and those reading this may already know the identity of the finalists and even the ultimate champion if you put your eyes to these words on the back burner.

The four finalists are all good teams. They are all worthy of cutting down the nets late Monday night. They say Duke was the obvious choice to take it all when March Madness started.

The only question centered around the health of their best player, Cooper Flagg the 6’9″ freshman who suffered an ankle sprain in the ACC Tournament and sat out the final games. But Flagg has been the kind of dominant force he was for the regular season and his young but talented supporting cast has stamped the Blue Devils as one of the finest teams they’ve ever had. That’s saying a lot.

But the other three can also win the title.

The lack of surprises and the minimum of close battles doesn’t take away from the annual show that always has impact because it’s “one and done”.  Anyone can get knocked out anytime.

So, that’s the scene when you gaze above the surface.

Then there’s the story of what’s below.

I saw a news conference with Tom Izzo, the 70-year old immensely successful coach for 29 years at Michigan State. Izzo is the winningest coach in Big Ten history. He has won a national championship, was runner up once, been to eight Final Fours, and has led the Spartans to the NCAA tournament 27 years in a row. He is much more than a head basketball coach. He is part of the fabric of Michigan State, with a style of communication with his players and fans that is unparalleled.

I attended the 2010 Final Four in Indianapolis, working with the late Bill Walton for a pharmaceutical company that brought its pharmacists in for a series of conferences and a basketball game between the invited guests on the Sunday between the semifinals on Saturday and the championship game Monday night.

Our particular hotel was also the headquarters for the Michigan State team and their fans. The Spartans lost their semifinal contest 52-50 to Butler. Following the game, the MSU fans took up every inch of the lobby soothing their disappointment with beverages of various kinds, and commiserating with each other after the defeat.

In came Tom Izzo with his wife, jacket over his shoulder, about a half hour after the 2-point loss, moving about the mob scene, milling with, and talking with individuals in the crowd.

I went up to him and said, “Tom, you transcend the game of basketball”. And he does.

Here was a man who was and is just a guy who coaches a sport and exudes the human touch, answering any questions, speaking honestly and in simple terms.

Rewinding to the news conference I saw prior to MSU’s elite 8 game against Auburn, which they lost, Izzo talked of the new world of college basketball, which also includes football, where money has become the name of the game. Players ask how much money they will be paid, choose schools based on a paycheck, they can transfer once, even twice, to another school which offers more cash, and in essence, they’re now professionals.

The day after this particular talk to the media, the transfer portal was opening. Players could put their name in at the same time they were preparing to advance to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA championship. How weird was that? Izzo said he had no idea if any of his players were going to leave, and had not thought of players on other schools he wanted to come to East Lansing. But he shook his head at the fact that while his team might be looking ahead to greener pastures, they were in the midst of competing for something that would be incredibly meaningful for them, their kids, even their grandkids for their entire lives.

I’ve pointed out that for us, the viewers of the games, nothing has changed.

We relish in the competition and are entertained by the wonderful performances of great athletes. We don’t think of how the major college sports are suffering because of the greed that now has taken hold of young people. You wonder if there will ever be a strike by lesser players demanding more money. You wonder what can be done to halt an ugly downward turn of what used to be kids choosing schools for the right reasons, including a degree for a possible career?

Can the genie be put back into the bottle?

I don’t know. And I doubt it.

But that’s the way it looks below the surface, as we get set to celebrate another national champion capping March Madness.