March On

Once in a while I fear that there is no God. Then March rolls around. Then, just when I’m moaning in despair over endless ESPN coverage of fat, bloated or artificially bulked-up baseball players stretching in the Florida sun, here comes college basketball with all its force and beauty.

There is nothing like watching a naïve, slightly clumsy but vigorous club from somewhere in the midwest take down a Kentucky or a Duke or a Connecticut. They usually do it by shooting 3-pointers like at practice, and by stealing the basketball. Beware: if a nowhere nobody team hits more than 3 3-pointers in the first 5 minutes of a game and has a favorable turnover ratio, there’s going to be an upset. In this case, keep watching. When a nowhere nobody team takes down an established program during the NCAA tournament, it is one of the most powerfully emotional moments in sports.

I’ve always favored college basketballl over the NBA. Even before I knew why, I liked college ball better. Now I know why: because using a flexible zone defense, having to rely on teamwork instead of star power, and the inherent sense of meaning found in the college game are far more exciting and compelling to watch than NBA stars playing defense one man at a time, getting the rock to the the star and, even in the playoffs, only needing to win just over 50% of their games in order to advance.

In college, the players’ careers depend, very often, on that one trip to the tournament. Even on the outside chance that one of the hundreds of Division 1 schools get there more than once in the three or four years of a player’s career, it’s even rarer to get there with everything clicking. In other words, at best, a college player has one shot at the title. Even the established programs only win once about every 5 years. There are no second chances in the NCAA.

And now, with baseball gearing up just as the major stars of the last decade are being ordered to appear before Congress to explain how they got so fucking big and starting hitting so many home runs, the NCAA overshadows not only the NBA, but also America’s very pastime. Not to mention the NHL, which may or not return next year. The NCAA is the only place left in mainstream sports where a skinny guy can dominate. So much so that it’s taken for granted that even though he’s the star now, he’s going to have a long few months in the weight room before he can even be taken seriously in the NBA draft. Hakim Warrick and Mike Dunleavy spring to mind, but there are many more. There is nothing artificial about the stars in college ball. They run on heart and skill, with perhaps some illegally offered booster cash. But you cant blame a guy for wanting to pimp his ride just a little bit, or eat three meals a day. The NCAA is a cash cow that sees its players as minions, slaves to their empire.

But the tournament, because of the structure and the players, transcends the incompetence of the bureaucracy of the NCAA. Unlike the NHL, where the corporation has imploded the thing, or Major League Baseball, whose unflinchingly self-serving players union has the owners by the balls so dearly that the owners have allowed the players to come to work grunting like laboratory horses, the NCAA offers a built-in attrition plan that works to its advantage once a year in a thing of unmatched dramatic beauty.

The only other major sport to offer a do or die playoffs? That’s right, the NFL. Which is why the NFL will always be the most exciting sport on the planet. Except in March, when a bunch of skinny kids, most of whom are playing their last chance game, descend on fortunate cities all over the country for a chance at knocking off an equally desperate team, if only for that single moment of glory. It’s damn beautiful, indeed, and we have to enjoy such pure beauty in sport as long as we can get it.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:20 PM