You know what’s going to be absolutely great, a true pleasure and an uncommon delight? Watching the Final Four of the men’s NCAA Tournament, which has nothing but No. 1 seeds remaining in the championship hunt for only the second time since seeding began in 1979.
Boy, those games are going to be something.
But do you know what’s going to be every bit as satisfying after that, or at least even better for the soul? Ignoring the hell out of the college basketball offseason — a sports writer can try to, anyway — because the out-of-control transfer portal has made the sport less fan-friendly and more unlikable than ever.
“We dare you to continue to care,” the college game seems to be saying.
These feelings are very much at odds, but perhaps you’re having them too.
A tournament short on “One Shining Moments” so far has been redeemed by a Final Four coming Saturday and Monday in San Antonio that will feel, in all ways, like a gathering of the four very best teams in the land. The only other time all four No. 1s made it, in 2008, the tournament concluded with one of the most riveting final games in memory, Kansas tying Memphis — led by Chicago’s own Derrick Rose — on a Mario Chalmers three-pointer just before the buzzer and then winning 75-68 in overtime.
This year’s semifinalists include a soaring superteam in Duke (35-3) that’s constructed of unmatched freshman talent. Cooper Flagg will be the NBA’s No. 1 overall pick. Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach will be lottery picks. A team this one-and-done-oriented hasn’t been this good since Duke and Kentucky stormed to the Final Four 10 years ago.
But what makes this foursome all the more appealing is what each of the other semifinalists represents in a college basketball world gone mad: actual continuity, growth and development. Best of all, it’s being rewarded.
Houston (35-4), which will take on Duke in the semis, has only one player of significance — Milos Uzan — who wasn’t part of last season’s 32-win effort that served as a launching point. LJ Cryer, Emanuel Sharp, J’Wan Roberts, Terrance Arceneaux, Mylik Wilson, Joseph Tugler and Ja’Vier Francis all came back to Kelvin Samson’s program to hang some banners. They don’t all start. They don’t all stand out. Yet here they are, on a 17-game winning streak and still playing in April.
The progression has been even greater from last season to this one for Auburn (34-5) and Florida (34-4).
The Tigers were a 27-win team — but an NCAA first-round loser — with Johni Broome, Chad Baker-Mazara, Denver Jones, Chaney Johnson and Dylan Cardwell. They came back with all those players, plus one notable transfer, Miles Kelly, and a breakout freshman in Tahaad Pettiford and blossomed into the No. 1 overall seed entering the tournament.
The Gators were a 24-win team, and likewise a first-round loser, with Walter Clayton Jr., Will Richard, Alex Condon, Thomas Haugh and Denzel Aberdeen. Transfers Alijah Martin and Rueben Chinyelu were nice additions that complemented rather than reshaped the returning roster.
If the Cougars, Tigers or Gators cut down the nets at the Alamodome, it’ll bring some sense — all too temporarily — to the madness of the college game’s Wild West, which extends from coast to coast. I’d sure like to see it.
But then I’m going to want to tap out on the subject of college basketball for a good, long while.
There were roughly 1,000 players in the portal by the end of the day it opened, which was one day after the conclusion of the tournament’s second round. That was at least 250% more portaling players than there were on Day 1 a year ago. The number is closer to 2,000 now, with reports of the most coveted free agents landing $2 million NIL deals.
Players are going to follow the money, though many of them won’t find what they’re hoping for and some won’t find much of anything at all. Still, it’s unfair to blame them for dining and dashing when it’s perfectly within the rules, as it is for the time being.
The larger point is that it makes watching college ball and rooting for most teams about as charming and romantic as a tire iron to the side of the melon.
Take Illinois, which could be a poster program for the portal era. Coach Brad Underwood had one player on this season’s almost entirely reconstructed roster — former four-star recruit Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn — who’d played any minutes last March en route to the Elite Eight. Now, for the second offseason in a row, Underwood is grasping for potential transfer-ins, any dreams of continuity and development already out the window.
Losing freshmen Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley to the draft has been anticipated for months, but at least four other Illini players have jumped into the portal. One is former St. Rita and Thornton star Morez Johnson Jr., who committed to Illinois as a high school sophomore, frequented Illini games the remainder of his high school years, played an important role for Underwood as a freshman and became an instant fan favorite and yet — boom — he’ll play his sophomore season at Michigan. So much for that.
Another is Tre White, who started 31 games this season, played his tail off and told reporters after the Illini were bounced from the tournament by Kentucky that he was “ready to run it back.”
“I know we got a good group of returning guys,” White said. “It’s just going to be a great summer full of work, and I’m excited to bring this pain into next year.”
At a fourth school in his four years of college ball, it turns out.
Gibbs-Lawhorn is out the door, too, along with Carey Booth, now formerly of Notre Dame and Illinois.
They all have their reasons, one of them being that they can. No guardrails. It’s nuts.
And it’s just not for me, not like it used to be. Maybe you can relate.
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