So begins a long seven months until the first tip of the 2022-2023 basketball season.
It’s always the saddest day of the year, helped only by a correct prediction of Kansas cutting the nets down. Had we not had our own Diaper Dandy this year, I’d have cleaned up in the betting pools. I remain puzzled on why Kansas wasn’t a more popular pick. They were the best team in the best conference all year, and they drew a load of Big 10 teams in their region. We should all be so lucky to get a B1G team in our division.
Inevitably, even with a win they weren’t going to be the story. When the most recognizable coach in American sports announces his retirement you will always be on the undercard. To the detriment of Kansas, an improbable run to the Final Four by both Duke and UNC left them waiting on the winner of the biggest rivalry in American sports — in a game that meant everything for that rivalry. More on this later.
In no sport in America – MLB, NFL, NBA, amateur college athletics, professional soccer, etc. – has a coach impacted and grown with its game the way Coach K has at Duke and for USA Basketball. (You can make the argument for Pat Summit, but women’s college basketball suffers from poor NCAA leadership and, frankly, its conference leadership.)
The toughest part to reconcile isn’t related to college basketball. A sliver of things in life – and this applies to celebrity most of all – live up to the hype. Love him or hate him, Coach K is the most successful coach on and off the court in the history of American sports. The closest to come to K is Bill Bellichick, who permanently asterisked himself with Deflategate and the spying controversy. No one’s arguing with his success. (But in the same way Barry Bonds owned the “greatest baseball player of all-time”, and Lance Armstrong was the “best cyclist of all time”, they put a ceiling on their legacy with improper advantages they were either fined, suspended, or blacklisted for. The same applies to how we ultimately rate coaches.)
It’s not the consistent beating of his rivals we remember. It’s how much he loved them in their darkest hours. It’s not the legacy of his wins at Duke. It’s how much respect he has for his competitors. It’s not the mantle of “privilege” unfairly placed on the son of a who built himself into generational greatness (largely because of the school he works for), it was pulling in blue collar scholar-athletes painted with that same brush.
I’ve seen every half-baked criticism of Coach K this year, but my favorite is “He should have announced his retirement after this year’s tournament.” Sure…if you wanted every recruit who committed to the team to decommit (see below: Walker Kessler), that’s a fantastic idea. But a legitimate criticism late in his carer is that his exposure to the pro game in USA basketball pulled his punches in college when he entered the one-and-done era. In the early aughts, if you entered his team a little soft, you were molded into stone. That didn’t survive as much post-USA basketball. The fire from the Jay Williams’, Nolan Smiths, and Carlos Boozers wasn’t in the Jabari Parkers and the Trevor Keels. Alexa made a great point about this moment from Christian Braun last night: “We needed to see this from Paolo Banchero.” This couldn’t be more true.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about K, but this tournament has so many other topics that were criminally unexplored.
The Legacy of Roy Williams
The accolades will (and should be) given to Hubert Davis for a ridiculous run to the championship, but know that the best players at UNC were recruited for Roy. Caleb Love (no comment), R.J. Davis, Puff Johnson, Day’Ron Sharpe, Armando Bacot, and Walker Kessler (Defensive player of the year for Auburn after transferring when Roy left) were all 2019 and 2020 recruits. I haven’t seen a single story written about how he’s all but responsible for this squad, so I’ll mention that here. The Ghost of Roy Williams haunted Duke in K’s last year and for years to come.
College Basketball’s Biggest Fan Finds His Voice
Dick Vitale. The first thing Dick Vitale did when throat specialist Dr. Steven Zeitels cleared him for speaking was breaking down the Duke-UNC matchup. Have a hobby in this world that you love with the fervor of Dick Vitale and college basketball.
The Big Ten Zero
The B1G was as bad as predicted. Do not pick a Big 10 team to win a national championship.
The Aaron Craft Award For 9th Year Student
How is Drew Timme still eligible for another year of college? If you told me he’s older than I am, I’d believe you. Is he taking classes or teaching classes? And if he shaves that mustache, will Gonzaga make it past the Sweet 16 in 2023? Critical questions that need answering.
Kansas is Still Underrated
COVID-19 might have prevented Kansas from being the first team since UCLA to three-peat. Last year Jalen Wilson and David McCormack tested positive for COVID-19 and barely made it to play (after a successful negative test) USC in the Sweet 16. Didn’t hear much discussion about that, but Bill Self deserves so much credit for how he’s grown this team.
The Saint from New Jersey
St Peter’s. Always the story you want to see in March. I’m fully buying in that we as a society need more leaders with the temperament and patience as Shaheen Holloway. Perhaps – just perhaps – the people with the loudest voices aren’t the ones we need to hear in a room. The guy was so dedicated to his players and St. Peter’s that you didn’t blink an eye when he took the job at his alma mater. All of his current players attended and cheered. That’s buy-in you can’t “position” or “frame.”
The NIL regulations need to be fast-tracked
Coach K took time out of his day to drag NCAA President Mark Emmert (who didn’t exactly respond in a way that endeared himself to the sport) on the delay and obfuscation on a system for players getting paid. This needs to get done. Too many athletes are declaring for the NBA draft (who shouldn’t) because they know the next crop of athletes coming in were promised playing time and will take minutes and future earnings from them. The NIL would allow players on the cusp to stay another year and earn income from their likeness. If the goal of the NCAA is to set the “students” up for success, why are they dragging their feet on this?
Spoiler: The NCAA is an important revenue stream for a system with an untenable business model for itself and an increasingly negative ROI for American students. Because NIL rules differ for every state, conference realignments and Tier 1 and Tier 2 earning schools will transform recruiting. This could threaten the existing business model of college basketball which concerns every conference school. Why? Every dollar from outside revenue streams is necessary to perpetuate the existence of an increasingly less valuable product. (That Nike sponsorship money for a team apparel deal is worth a lot less if players wear Adidas on their social media accounts.)
Duke-UNC
Duke-UNC. I’ll end here. The second-most-watched college basketball game in history was the first meeting in the NCAA tournament between Duke and UNC. The bad guys won. Duke will reload next year with 4 of the top 10 ranked high school players, but the storybook ending didn’t happen for K when Caleb Love used what I’ll generously describe as a moving screen (DuKe GeTs aLL ThE CaLLs) from Leaky Black to put the final dagger in Duke’s championship hopes. Hearing that The NY Giants are using their 2nd round pick to draft Leaky at OG.
Despite that eye-opener and the phantom calls on Mark Williams, that’s not what cost Duke the game. Free throws were bricked down the stretch, and going under screens is not the way to stop shooters. So while it’s a major letdown, the game crystallized what was all but a formality prior to the Final Four: Duke-UNC basketball is the premier rivalry in American sports. Duke fans won’t be able to shake this loss off for a while, but the era of Hubert Davis-Jon Scheyer begins with the competition between schools as hot as it’s ever been. It’s bittersweet. More bitter than sweet. And I’m here for it.