Good. No more Billy Packer until next season.
He becomes more insufferable by the season, not unlike Allen Iverson.
As AI might say, “We’re talking about an announcer, man. We’re talking about practice, man. We’re not even talking about the game.”
OK, let’s talk about the game.
What time did you fall asleep on the national championship game after one of the teams elected not to show up?
The Yellow Jackets were picked to be the seventh-place team in the ACC in the preseason. They played like the eighth-place team from the ACC.
The Yellows Jackets were trailing by a gazillion points early in the second half, and all you could do at that point was grit your teeth and let Packer explain in numbing detail what was unfolding in San Antonio.
Hint: One team left its game face along the Riverwalk. Talk about a lack of focus, Paul Hewitt.
This was the most flat performance in the final game since the brain waves belonging to Houston coach Guy Lewis went flat in the 1983 championship game against N.C. State, whereby he ordered his team to play with one hand tied behind its back in the last four minutes.
This led to Jim Valvano’s celebrated run around the court after the game, a bad movie years later and the Herb Sendek NIT Era in Raleigh, N.C.
Back then, a coach could debate, with a straight face, whether Michael Jordan should leave school after his junior season.
That old debate, framed out of self-interest, has been given another makeover.
See what happens when you stay in school?
Such was the wisdom that accompanied Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon to the trophy presentation.
They could be in the NBA right now, counting their millions, instead of making millions for the NCAA.
The guardians of college basketball sure know the importance of making a sacrifice, especially if it is someone other than them making the sacrifice.
College basketball is hardly what it used to be, and what it used to be was not what it seemed, the quality of the illusion just more satisfying to the audience a generation ago.
Bad basketball is a hard sell, except for Dick Vitale, although Connecticut is a deserving champion in the absence of a genuine competitor.
The collection of darlings at St. Joseph’s never would have resonated with the masses as recently as 10 years ago, not with the NBA’s minor league system just in the initial stages of bleeding.
A thousand paper cuts later, there is a bloody mess of turnovers, low-percentage shots, dribble-happy guards and a Duke team that folded in a way that the worthy Duke teams of yesteryear could not.
Here’s an idea, Duke. How about hoisting another perimeter shot, since the last 30 perimeter shots have drawn nothing but iron?
There is an AAU-type feel to the NCAA tournament nowadays, with no-name programs, no-name stars, one-season wonders and ever-changing personnel.
The coaches represent the permanence of the game more than ever, not necessarily a positive development, considering the intended purpose of campus life is to enrich young minds. The power of a coach rises as the influence of a college president lessens.
Jim Calhoun, the genius of the moment yet again, was denied a place in the Basketball Hall of Fame in the hours leading up to his second national championship. His latest genius, of course, is connected to the decision of Okafor and Gordon to hold their NBA urges in check.
As an NCAA-sponsored advertisement of sorts, distinct from the NBA’s Read to Achieve program, Okafor and Gordon are old men compared to 14-year-old Freddy Adu, the last hope of Major League Soccer.
The praise and attention being lavished on Adu is qualified only by the search to come up with his authentic birth certificate. A few observers have been jolted by the sight of the liver spots on Adu’s arms and face. Seriously, Adu does not look a day over 40.
Unlike Adu, Okafor and Gordon have labored in an environment that is endeavoring to minimize its losses.
The college game has lost its luster, and this tournament, including the last game, made that point with clarity.
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