A goodbye to the College Basketball I once knew

March 3rd, 2010

The moment my affinity for college basketball began was the very first moment I watched a game in person. Growing up in Southeast Wisconsin, I was a diehard Wisconsin Badgers sports fan from the instant I could walk and talk. I was introduced to both college basketball and college football for the Badgers from an extremely young age by my Dad especially, who has bled the cardinal and white since he was a student at UW-Madison. 

My first game I ever attended happened when I was six years old, and the Badgers were playing the Iowa Hawkeyes on Senior Night. The 2009-2010 Wisconsin Badgers basketball team wasn’t anything special when it comes to its memorability, but it holds a place in my heart as the first team I ever watched. Man, there were some fun players on that team. Both seniors on that team, Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon were the leading scorers, and played bigger than their size. They were consummate Wisconsin guards under legendary coach Bo Ryan. 

What gives me such fond memories of this team was the recognition of players only a specific fan would know from watching a player grow and develop for four years with a school. Take for example Ryan Evans. He was a freshman forward on that 2009-2010 team as a rotation player, the seventh man. As a fan I got to watch him develop for four years, and he turned into a two-year starter who blossomed into one of the best glue guys in the Big Ten. 

The beauty of college basketball since the first game I watched, was the uniqueness of the experience of the game, along with the storied traditions that came with each conference and team. Regional rivalries, team traditions, players who seemed like they were in school for eight years. The little niche aspects of college sports endeared me to the players I rooted for, and the passion I had for the Wisconsin Badgers/college basketball. 

The reality is, the college basketball that I watched on that fateful spring day in Madison 14 years ago, is not the same sport I watch now as a junior in college. The world of collegiate athletics has shifted so much just in the past couple years, to the point where I barely recognize the sport I so deeply love. Take for example, the Wisconsin Badgers offseason this past spring. 

Star shooting guard AJ Storr, by way of St. John’s, had an incredible first season for the Badgers this past year, leading the team in scoring while earning 2nd-Team All-Big Ten. However, this offseason, with NIL money at the forefront of college basketball, he bolted for the Kansas Jayhawks for money into the high six figures. 

Now, am I mad at him that he decided to do this? Fuck no! If I was in his position, I would have done the same exact thing every day of the week that ends in Y. These collegiate athletes were profited off of for countless decades while not seeing a cent go their way. 

I’m reminded of when Shabazz Napier was leading UConn to a national championship team as one of the faces of college basketball in the mid-2010s. After UConn’s national championship, he came out and stated he went to bed “starving” due him not being able to afford meals after his dining center closed. A bonafide first round pick, who is an absolute college basketball legend, going to bed hungry? That is ridiculous that the NCAA allowed this to occur for him and countless other athletes across the United States.

But the reality of college basketball right now, is that these athletes are basically mercenaries at this point. Going from team to team to the highest bidder, as the rich get richer, and poor…well you get the jist. The price of maintaining a competitive roster in the Power Five has skyrocketed as many schools such as the Kansas Jayhawks, Arkansas Razorbacks and the Washington Huskies have built powerful collectives that have poured millions of dollars into their transfer portal/recruiting budget. 

You look at Great Osobor heading to the Huskies and his former coach at Utah State, Danny Sprinkle, for reportedly over $2 million to play this year in the rainy northwest. $2 million? For Great Osobor? I love his game, don’t get me wrong. He was a chief reason that Utah State and Danny Sprinkle had a great year in the ultra-competitive Mountain West conference and went dancing in the first place. 

But if Great Osobor is getting paid $2 million, I think that Mark Sears should be getting enough money, that when he stands on top of it, he’s 6 feet 6 inches tall. (Shout Out Lil Uzi vs the World). Like I have said before, I applaud these athletes for getting what they are worth on the open market. This is a long overdue benefit for these student-athletes that have made universities billions of dollars for decades, while not seeing a penny of the blood, sweat, and tears they give to their respective schools. 

But the market is ballooning faster than the eye can see, and the trickle down effect is being seen with ticket prices. Numerous universities have considered/announced ticket prices rising for the sole factor of “raising money for NIL”. So you're telling me, these universities who are seeing the largest enrollments each year, are seeing slight losses in their total profit margins due to not being able to pay their chief money makers a single dime. That they are making the average Joe Schmo pay the additional costs of respective universities having to put more money into NIL, because they won’t pony up the money themselves? 

Give. Me. A. Break

At this very moment, we are living in the Wild West of college sports, and I place a lot of blame not on the athletes, but the schools themselves. Money makes the world go round, money is what is driving ticket prices up, money drives the increase in portal activity, and money killed the PAC-12. Growing up in Wisconsin, I was always a Big Ten guy, watching every Sunday afternoon in the winter, a game in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Bloomington Indiana, or Champaign, Illinois. But I always had a soft spot for PAC-12 after dark, where games were on until midnight-1:00 in the morning, and that love for late night basketball only grew when I got to college. No Mom or Dad standing in the door telling me it’s a school night when Oregon State or Cal was on the verge of an upset over a PAC-12 superpower with the colorful Bill Walton talking about Vietnam or whatever thought crossed his mind over the course of the game. Yet all of that beautiful history, the wacky conference that I loved to watch, was beheaded at the guillotine. 

Greed by the respective universities in the conference that got cold feet when the TV rights deal that Larry Scott proposed was not to their liking. Rivalries, history, tradition, just gone in the snap of my fingers. 

This is not an article to bash on the product I am seeing on the court in the year 2024. I still love college basketball more than any sport out there, and I’ll be religiously watching on my couch from Monday-Sunday, from the MWC to the Big Ten to the Sun Belt, I will be watching. But this is more of a goodbye/thank you, to the core values of what drew me at such a young age to the sport of college basketball, and the sport that drew me to write in the first place. It still truly is the beautiful game, but it just won’t ever be the same again, and that is what truly breaks my heart.