no, not this weekend's final four...tonights NIT FINAL FOUR!!!! that's right, the NIT. hey, is your team still playing this late in march?

MARYLAND v. south carolina

go terps!

i am skipping the decemberists/okkervil river show to watch this.

that's really, really sad. i think that you should boycott it based on the fact that, had the been able to handle clemson once out of three times, they'd have been summarially dismissed from the big dance weeks ago as they should have been.

you're just jealous.

my team is still playing and apparently has the refs in the pocket.

Did you think that travelling call in the Villanova game was correct?

fuck no. i think that a ref accidentally blew the whistle and felt pressured to call something. however, if you're not going to play d sometimes you need some favors from hell-up-on-high.

I actually heard an interesting argument from Billy Packer this morning on local sports talk concerning the NIT and a college football playoff.

He basically was saying that the NCAA is full of shit when they say that a college football playoff would keep the players out of class and away from their studies too much.

His argument is that it's okay to have the NIT that produces little to no revenue, generates little interest outside of the teams fans in it, and they can't get it together to have a football playoff. He was basically just like, man, just say it's about the fuckin money.


He also has some scathing comments for David Stern for making the "game" so shitty by the way he has marketed the NBA and made it just about the stars. This was all in the context of talking about the Final Four teams being the epitome of team ball and how college bball is alive and well.

I'm not a fan of Packer's but dude has called 30 Final Four's and this was an interesting interview.

i understand the sentiment and the desire to find a lightning rod scapegoat for what he perceives to be the shortcomings of the league, but Stern and his marketing accumen isn't what made the blazers or raptors suck or the spurs great. if the teams aren't playing team ball it's probably the fault of the owners and the coaches more than the fact that the league markets their stars. furthermore, i think that a lot of times in college you see a team with one player who's obviously head and shoulders above the caliber of the rest of the kids and the team's offense strangely resembles that of the 76ers but that's ok because they're playing for the "love of the game" and that must be why only 4 of the players graduate.

Oh I agree that it's easy to point the finger at both leagues but is it me or is interest in the NBA at an all time low?
Have we not been hearing about the death of fundamentals and the 15 foot jumper in the pro game for years?

I agree that they aren't playing "for the love of the game" per se in college but since the NBA is taking all of the players that would be superstars in college I do believe that it becomes more about the team concept in college. It's also MOSTLY about the coach.


I guess I'm just not really a fan of pro ball vs college. Then again my Hawks haven't given me anything to cheer about in 10 years.

I'm starting to completely buy that there is a cultural/racial divide over the NBA. There are a couple of black guys in my office who lvoe the elague and can talk Sonics all day long, both are very intelligent dudes and insist that whites don't get the league anymore.

Chase is right- grad rates are pathetic at most major D1 schools, but nobody gets into that as much as ripping on the NBA.

I like baseball and football, so I barely have a point, but this seemed like an inersting discussion to get into.

i think that "all time low" is misleading because apparently the late 70s were the true all time low (read: before magic and larry) with drug scandals galore and miniscule attendance, even after the ABA merger. it's never occured to me to not be a fan, so i think that i might just be too interested in basketball to read much into the "cultural divide", but i think that it really doesn't matter if american white people lose interest in the league if the world at large maintains even a cursory interest in it and videogames keep selling. and while i still feel that it's unconstitutional and falls in the realm of "something that the owners ought to just DO if they feel so damned strongly about it", some kind of age requirement might be a good thing, long term, if only because it would keep Darko out of the league. that and they should probably contract the blazers.

I still like the NBA - the heat, suns, mavs, spurs are all fun to watch. I just think they expanded a bit too much - they should get rid of about 4 - 6 teams. The season is also a bit too long.

agreed, but i'd att detroit, seattle, anything with lebron and chicago (for real), and maybe it's me but at the other end of the spectrum watching the lakers suck balls is pretty funny. and the playoffs are WAY too long; there's no need for a best of 7 first round series.

That's the thing. I can see how whitey may not identify with the league as much anymore but shit, I would say the ratio of white to black is obviously lower in bball but football isn't far behind and I love football and college basketball.

I also listen to hip hop which is what the NBA has been marketing towards.

I don't really buy the "NBA is scaring whitey" argument. I just don't think it's as interesting or exciting as football or the one and out drama of the NCAA tourney.

folks around here are loving pro hoops again since melo came round. even tho the nuggets still kinda stink, it has definitely rekindled interest in the nba.

yeah - I didn't list ALL the interesting teams. I haven't seen Chicago play in years, though, so I wouldn't know. All i get to see is the pathetic blazers. I would cut out the first round totally - just have the top 4 teams in each conference duke it out over 3 total rounds.

this word has absolutely no place in this thread.

beat me to it.

not sure if i'll watch tonight's game. the nit is such a letdown.
and the amazing race is on.

But, when asked why he wears his hair in corn-rows, Allan Iverson replied, "To scare white people".

This of course is not a recent quote from Iverson -- maybe '97 or '98. It just sticks in my head as one of the reasons A.I. has such cool. And, despite not seeing it 'til I read Fargo Rock City during Summer '01.

(In another of Klostermann's classic simile, he compared Axl to A.I., using that quote from the Answer as jumping-off point, saying that all the shenanigans GN'R pulled, and all of Axl's tics and tantra were not for the purpose of offending either cops or African-Americans, homosexuals or evangelic Christians, but, rather, white people.)

I guess the reason the guys in my office's comments are starting to resonate with me is that I find your average NBA game nearly unwatchable, but I can plop down for a Vikings- Saints or Brewers- Reds game with no problem.

These guys get into the NBA like Jordan, Magic & Bird are still there, and swear that I can't see it because of cultural differences. They make the same argument in reverse about baseball.

Speaking of Packer, PATRICK SPARKS HATE HE

it wasn't even on the front page, but i looked it up and it turns out that maryland still sucks. for shame.

I remember back in the summer of '94 my buddies and I were drinkin' piss-beer and being your average white American baseball-and-football fans. We were more excited about a soccer World Cup qualifier match (of which we knew zero players) than Game 7 of the NBA finals, which was televised afterwards. Maybe it was a USA vs. "two cities we didn't live near" thing, but it shows where the NBA was on our list compared to other major sports. I haven't really been following the NBA since Jordan left the first time. I've got favorite players (Brian Grant, Kendall Gill, Jim Jackson) for sentimental reasons, but I'm not even sure who's where anymore (Miami, ????, Houston... right?).

Also, a Louisville win this Saturday will make me smile.

i mean, what are we talking about? we talkin' about soccer? we not talkin' about the game, we talkin' about soccer. what are we talkin' about? soccer.

for shame indeed.
let this thread die a quick and painless death.

...after this post, of course.