When most of your daily life centers around the sports world it can be hard when there is not enough of it to wet your appetite. I know, I know this is Super Bowl week. The culmination of the professional football season. There should be plenty for me "eat" and "digest" this week. Call me crazy but I am really not that interested. Do not get me wrong I will still watch the game. Maybe it is because my favorite team is not in the biggest game of the year that causes my lack of interest. Two weeks in between games is a long time, especially when their is a lack of quality sports to watch on the tube.
College basketball, count me as one who cannot get interested in watching guys jack up three's that they miss 70% of the time and just the slower level of play. As the quality of players has risen over the last few years, the gap between the entertainment value and the quality of the play that I witness between the NBA and college basketball is as wide as it has been awhile. The only way that I watch college basketball right now is if there is a player that is going to be drafted in the lottery and even then I do not watch an entire game. I think forcing guys to wait a year after they graduate high school to enter the draft has benefited the college game and also hurt it at the same time. On the positive side we have seen players like Kevin Durant (Texas) and Michael Beasley (Kansas St.) elevate their teams and made the college game more entertaining. It was must see TV. The last game that I really watched for college basketball was the Memphis-Kansas game a few years back at the end of the 2008 season. That game featured future pros such as Derrick Rose, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, just to name a few. That game was really good, two teams full of talent that played together as teams. Maybe those kinds of teams exist today, but my interest has really waned. As I mentioned previously the "one and done" rule as it applies to college basketball has also had negative consequences in my mind. You have coaches such as John Calipari who gets a lot of these one and done guys and basically has a different roster every year. If players stay more than two years they probably are no better than an 8th or 9th man on an NBA team. Their talent is limited even though they may be a smart kid, who works hard, their basketball skill level is usually pretty low. Players such as Tim Duncan are few and far between. Personally I think that college basketball should use a similar rule to how baseball does it. Either the kid can go right out of high school to the professionals or he has to wait three years to enter the draft. Two years out of high school might be the better option. Blake Griffin would be a good example of this. He was not quite ready to go to the NBA out of high school, but two years really helped him out.I am just not a big fan of how the college game has turned, academics are really being shunned at and laughed in the face at with this one and done rule for college basketball. It puts coaches in a conundrum. Do they sign these really talented one and done players and risk high turnover and low APR (academic progress rate) that can affect that their job status? Do they sign the lesser talented players and wait for them to develop over a two to three period, risking wins and losses?
What else is there to occupy the sports fan time over these upcoming days/weeks/months? The X-games? Please give me a break. It is bad enough that this stuff was made into an olympic sport. The NBA is good right now, the regular season has quality games on nearly every night but if ESPN or TNT does not have the right game on TV you are stuck with The World Series of Poker or a college basketball game that features two mediocre teams. Football will be over with a few short days and that will be a good thing for me. My mind and my television is over-saturated with football. I get that it is popular and there is a reason that it is exposed so much to the masses. There is a limit to the amount that I can absorb and I am at that limit. The build-up to the Super Bowl is nearly always bigger than the game itself. This is one of if not the most watched sporting events out there and there are many reasons that this is so. The commercials, the game itself, the drama that unfolds during the game, and the fact this is the most popular game here in the States just adds to at all. Every year around this time, especially the last couple of years, this burnout feeling occurs inside me. I will long for football again during the heat of summer, but right now it is time for a break. The NBA is gradually building steam towards its conclusion in a few months but with their being so many games left to play, there is just too much of the unknown and still too many games that do not matter. I would call myself a casual NASCAR fan but that only holds my interest for so long.
So what is a guy to do with his time? Watch the History channel. There are usually some good things on that channel. AMC had a triple feature of awesomeness this past weekend, El Dorado, True Grit, and Jeremiah Johnson. That was an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon, but it was fleeting and only lasted for a day. I could devote myself to my studies (and I do for the most part). I am in graduate school pursuing a degree in Sport and Fitness Management. Who wants to spend their whole day buried in books or research. There is value in that but not something you want to completely monopolize your time. I long for the days of warm weather and nice cool, evening summer breezes after a long hot day. I long for the days where shorts and sandals are the clothing du jour for the day. I long for the boys of summer. You know that song. You know what I long for and it is my favorite sport. The nation's former National Past time. I know I am rare breed in Generation Y when i say:
Pitchers and Catchers report in 12 days....
MB
No comments:
Post a Comment