Why College Basketball is Better Than the NBA

Max
3/4/2010

Basketball is a team sport. I really like basketball, but college basketball is the best level at which to watch it. The difference between any college sport and professional is that the players are not on a salary in college, but the professionals perform at a higher level. This is consistent throughout all sports, so why am I arguing only about basketball?
I guess the easiest way to answer this is that I love basketball at the collegiate level, but I have a problem with professional basketball. The National Basketball Association (like any other professional sports league) is all about money. An issue that the NBA has about money is that lower quality teams are having problems filling their seats, and actually don’t have enough money to sign better players to improve. While money is an issue in every professional sports league, the NBA has additional problems. Basketball is absolutely a team sport. In order to succeed, a player has to pass to the open man if he is covered, or on defense cover his man or zone. In the NBA, it’s about superstars. When the Lakers play the Cavaliers, people like to think it’s Kobe playing LeBron. Like any other professional sport, players want to be better recognized so are more selfish. And, like any other sport, this selfishness ruins the team dynamic. However, when this is applied to the NBA, players just want to score, and make the top 10 plays of the week with huge slam dunk. The problem with this is that superstars don’t like to play defense, because that doesn’t help their stats. This is exactly what makes the game worse. This doesn’t happen in other sports, because, for example in football, each player has an individual job, and they cannot single handedly ruin the game because of their selfishness. Also, in the NBA, the culmination of the season, or the playoffs are faulty. Of the 30 teams in the NBA, 16 make the playoffs. The playoffs are a tournament, but instead of games, there are 7 game series. The NBA regular season is 82 games. The way the playoffs work, a team could potentially play 28 playoff games. This proves to be predictable, and tedious. This does not allow for surprise or upset.
College basketball is all about the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. Because the players aren’t paid, they are playing to represent what they have in common, and therefore are motivated to work as a team. Team dynamics is the most important thing in basketball at the college level because the longest a player can play for a team is 4 years. Thusly, fans of college basketball cannot be fans of superstars, they are fans of teams. Something else that needs to be mentioned, is that the fans at college basketball games, belong to that college. In a way, the home teams fans are part of the team. The team has a bond with the fans, and the fans have a bond with the team. The fans are actually rooting for something that is part of themselves, as compared to the business men who go to basketball games who feel a distorted bond with a pro team because of the city written on the jersey.
I believe the college basketball playoffs are the best of any sport. A huge, 65 team single elimination one game tournament. Some may know it as March madness. March madness is called madness for a reason. Unpredictability. Cinderella stories. Buzzer beaters. All 40 minutes, 24,000 tenths of a second matter. Every basket counts. You will not see a NCAA tournament without all of these. For example, one of the most famous Cinderella stories in tournament history has to be the George Mason patriots in 2006. In the tournament, there are 4 regions, each with 16 ranked seeds. The winner of each region makes it to what is called the final four, named such for obvious reasons. George Mason was in the tournament as the 11 seed. That is, they were the 11th best team in their region. Yet, they managed to advance to the final four, beating large successful programs such as 6th seeded Michigan State, 3rd seeded North Carolina, and the number 1 seeded UConn huskies. Their run was absolutely improbable. Unpredictable. Magical. Although they did lose in the final four to Florida, the eventual national champions, their story will be remembered by fans who appreciate the game everywhere. Another Cinderella story was the 85 Villanova Wildcats (the team I root for.) They were the 8th seed in their region, and they went on to win the National Champinoship. The odds were stacked against them, and many people did not predict them to win. Unpredictability. They beat Georgetown, a number 1 seed, and the overall best team in the tournament. They didn’t just beat Georgetown, they narrowly beat them in what would become one of the most memorable nation championship games ever, with a final score of 66-64. The two programs know each other well, because they are in the Big East conference, and play each other at least once a year, which helped set the stage. Villanova is still to this year the lowest seeded team to ever win a championship. Another great college basketball story that will remembered for ages is that of the North Carolina State Wolfpack. The 6th seeded Wolfpack were faced up against the 1st seeded Houston Cougars. The wolfpack, nicknamed the “Cardiac pack” for the tendency of their games to be nail biters and heart beaters, won the championship in the same fashion. Every college basketball fan will remember the clip of the ending of the game, the improbable shot from so far out with just a few seconds to spare, and the buzzer beating dunk from a teammate waiting in perfect position to secure a championship, and the coach, Jimmy Volvano in pure disbelief, running around looking for someone to hug. Great College Basketball moments are not just fossils from history, they are constantly occurring. Last years tournament produced one of the most memorable elite eight games ever, between Big East conference rivals Pittsburgh and Villanova, Pittsburgh being the number one ranked team in the region and Villanova being 3. College basketball is not all about the tournament, the regular season holds the same surprises as the tournament does. For example just about 2 months ago, the best team in the nation, number 1 ranked Kentucky got upset in South Carolina. I remember this game because of the power that fans provided for the home team to feed off of, which led South Carolina to beat the best team in the country (at the time). This game is most memorable for the storming of the court by the fans upon the final whistle. The yellow hardwood gets completely engulfed by fans wearing gray black and white. The floor disappears to jumping, ecstatic bodies that are overfilled with accomplishment.
Stories like these show that college basketball offers things that the NBA cannot offer. Overall, the team dynamic of the sport makes the game better. The connection to what the college team represents proves to be more important than that connection of the place that the owner of an NBA team lives, and thus places his team there.