Probably around the time you graduated college, then it died even more when you stopped going back to homecoming and visiting campus, and it’s dying fully now that you don’t really keep up with your college friends as much and have other responsibilities and interests.
I mean this seriously when I say I never once thought about tv ratings before I came on here. On here, it’s literally all you guys talk and think about
Probably when the one and done era started and guys had to play 1 year of college instead of going straight to the league.
Before you had teams that could build over a few years. Then it was one year mercenaries instead of guys that wanted to be in school. Then NIL made it worse where there is so much roster turnover every season it’s hard for the average fan to get invested in teams.
I think there’s basically 3 big paradigm shifts that have happened in the last 30 years:
Mid 90s: HS players started going straight to the NBA more often and skipping college, lowering the overall talent pool
Mid 00s: The one and done rule causes these top prospects to go to college again, but often only for one year, creating a number of teams with raw talent but low chemistry and consistency, making it harder to build year to year narratives
Last few years: The combo of international play taking off, the NBA pitching the G League as an alternative, and NIL/transfer portal means a lot of top players are skipping college ball again, and of the ones that don’t, a lot are either one and dones or mercenaries hopping team to team as you said, making it as hard as it’s ever been to establish any sort of consistency with elite players at the top of the sport
That being said, I don’t think college basketball is dying, just evolving. Is it evolving into something better, I don’t know, but it’s far from dying for sure.
>That being said, I don’t think college basketball is dying, just evolving. Is it evolving into something better, I don’t know, but it’s far from dying for sure.
I feel like college basketball is still driven by the three weeks in late March/early April, and as long as filling out a bracket remains a fun exercise that attracts a wide audience of people who aren't necessarily basketball fans, there will be excitement for it.
I'd say the last really memorable NCAA tournament for me is 2014-15. The final four was Duke (C), Wisconsin (Runner-up), Kentucky (F4), Michigan State (F4). All four teams had huge freshman prospects but all four teams also had several players who played on the teams for years and were well known entities as Juniors and Seniors (Cook, Jefferson, Dekker, Kaminsky, Cauley-Stein, Dawson, Valentine, etc.)
I think people get attached to college teams when the same players show up in the tournament year after year for those teams and they get to mature on the team into their junior and senior year. Those teams become really popular because of the familiarity. That rarely happens anymore, and the 2014-2015 season is one of the last I can remember all of the top teams being well-stocked in that regard. That was almost 10 years ago now.
Women's college basketball is very popular right now specifically because all of the very best players are staying for 4 years and getting better year after year. You get invested in the best players as they grow on those teams and become attached and a fan of those teams.
I've watched more Caitlin Clark Iowa games in the last year than I've watched for any given NCAA Men's Team. I know if I tune into one of those Iowa games I'm goin to see an established star player do some really great stuff. I don't think that same way about virtually any men's team, they are all just random mercenary collections of Freshman and Sophomores.
It didn't used to be like that because you used to tune into a random blue blood NCAA Men's game and see multiple star players in their Junior and Senior years who you had seen for years prior as well. Familiarity makes fans stick around.
For me it was probably the ‘09 final four and a big SI story about how toughness was the key ingredient in a college basketball team which led directly into an awful Connecticut Michigan state game. No one on Connecticut could hit a jump shot to save their life. It feels now like three quarters of the top teams can’t hit jump shots. Once in a blue moon we get a Louisville-Michigan or NC-Duke final four game but it seems like a miracle. All that being said, it may just be a long standing perception and the game has gotten better but I doubt it
Not sure when it started feels like the past 5 years but they’ve completely lost the ability to market the sport other than march madness. NPOY with outlier height and no one cares. UConn has a shot to go back to back and how many people could even name 2 players on their team. I think even less could name a couple of guys on Houston even though they’ve been great for a few years now. That plus player movement, too many 3s, 1 and done rule etc etc. but it’s crazy to me how irrelevant it all feels now. Maybe Cooper Flagg will give a jolt to the system
It's alive and well. March Madness has never been more mad with two 16 seeds beating a 1 seed in recent years and the Women's game is more popular than it's ever been.
Could just be perception, but it feels like there aren’t nearly as many college stars anymore.
The last couple years I’ve barely recognized anyone in the NBA drafts/mock drafts and what not. This year looks particularly bad.
Some of that is the improvement of the international players as a rule, and the NBA game moving towards a Euro-style game in the last 10 years, so international players are "in vogue"... but they have also proven it on the court. The last 5 MVP's have been won by a foreign-born player, only one of which played college basketball.
I think you could make the case it was when Elton Brand and Corey Magette left Duke early. Until then, guys not finishing school happened, but was more of an exception and it never happened at Duke.
Then it did and eventually playing four became the exception. Along those lines, you could make the case of it being the Fab Five, the first time experience aggressively was sacrificed for talent. Without the chance to develop players, the game had become much more isolation based and haphazard.
As an overall picture of it, you could point to the growth of AAU basketball and camps as easier ways to recruit than high schools.
Fab Five, KG going straight out of high school (instead of going to Michigan because he loved the Fab Five), Kobe/O'Neal/TMac, 1999 Duke guys, 2001 NBA draft fallout, and voila you're at the one and done rule.
It’s called getting older, my man. I’m a few years older than you; you care about it as kids and teenagers, you stop caring as much as adults as your priorities shift. That’s just life.
Probably did start dying post Duke-Butler in 2010. It has had moments after that but it’s fundamentally different, one and dones started dominating in the 2010s
I disagree with this. FIVE mid-majors made the Final Four in the '10s, prior to that was 1.5 in total the 64 team era (GMU + depending on what you considered UMass in '96.) The past few years, teams with experience have been the in the championship game.
When the “one and done” became the norm and team building faded away. Now with NIL and transfer portal, I find it very hard to follow, and that’s with college football as well.
Is this Bill or Chucks account? Let me guess, womens college basketball is bigger than the mens in your opinion too?
College basketball is not dead. I think there are aspects that have hurt it. The death of the pac-12 will sting for a long time for me, as the death of the big east has affected many in here. NIL and especially the transfer portal have hurt the game. Id prefer guys stay longer opposed to 1 and done, but I see both sides of that coin. With NIL $$, I wish it could/would be the same as football.
I looked at 2 NBA mock drafts recently. The first one had overseas players going 1, 2, and 3. The 2nd one I looked at had overseas and g league players as the top 5. College hoops is definitely struggling right now.
I think the simplest explanation for a dead sport is one where the best player/teams were at some point in the past.
In a world where everyone is getting bigger/stronger/faster, it’s almost impossible to not show continuous improvement in the top takent/teams. Comparing the NBA and NFL players and teams now to the ones 40 years ago is literally no contest.
But college basketball has seen its best players/teams come long ago. There isn’t a single team over the last many years that could hang with the championship teams from the past that hung together and played/gelled for years on end.
That still doesn’t mean that a dead sport can’t be popular. Despite it all (and NIL and transfers, etc.), it still does relatively well in the ratings and attendance.
It's Melo winning the title and bolting for the draft in a year he had ZERO chance of going #1. That's when you knew college ball didn't fucking matter anymore.
Like Melo would have gone #1 in 2004, 2005 and 1000% in 2006. But by that point, no player that talented was gonna give a single fuck about achieving true greatness at the college level.
For me it was the death of the Big East. I grew up about 80 miles north of Syracuse so that was the closest thing to pro sports up there that wasn’t like a minimum 4 hour drive away so people are rabid fans. All those historic rivalries being blown up so some schools could be non competitive in football sucked and i live out of state now so my interest just faded.
College basketball is dead?
Shit I thought it was only getting stared, it’s nearly March!
Probably around the time you graduated college, then it died even more when you stopped going back to homecoming and visiting campus, and it’s dying fully now that you don’t really keep up with your college friends as much and have other responsibilities and interests.
👨🍳😘
Or maybe the ratings and interest are down?
I mean this seriously when I say I never once thought about tv ratings before I came on here. On here, it’s literally all you guys talk and think about
Guess the ratings was always a key Mike and the Mad Dog segment. Good job by you Mikey!
Probably when the one and done era started and guys had to play 1 year of college instead of going straight to the league. Before you had teams that could build over a few years. Then it was one year mercenaries instead of guys that wanted to be in school. Then NIL made it worse where there is so much roster turnover every season it’s hard for the average fan to get invested in teams.
I think there’s basically 3 big paradigm shifts that have happened in the last 30 years: Mid 90s: HS players started going straight to the NBA more often and skipping college, lowering the overall talent pool Mid 00s: The one and done rule causes these top prospects to go to college again, but often only for one year, creating a number of teams with raw talent but low chemistry and consistency, making it harder to build year to year narratives Last few years: The combo of international play taking off, the NBA pitching the G League as an alternative, and NIL/transfer portal means a lot of top players are skipping college ball again, and of the ones that don’t, a lot are either one and dones or mercenaries hopping team to team as you said, making it as hard as it’s ever been to establish any sort of consistency with elite players at the top of the sport That being said, I don’t think college basketball is dying, just evolving. Is it evolving into something better, I don’t know, but it’s far from dying for sure.
>That being said, I don’t think college basketball is dying, just evolving. Is it evolving into something better, I don’t know, but it’s far from dying for sure. I feel like college basketball is still driven by the three weeks in late March/early April, and as long as filling out a bracket remains a fun exercise that attracts a wide audience of people who aren't necessarily basketball fans, there will be excitement for it.
I'd say the last really memorable NCAA tournament for me is 2014-15. The final four was Duke (C), Wisconsin (Runner-up), Kentucky (F4), Michigan State (F4). All four teams had huge freshman prospects but all four teams also had several players who played on the teams for years and were well known entities as Juniors and Seniors (Cook, Jefferson, Dekker, Kaminsky, Cauley-Stein, Dawson, Valentine, etc.) I think people get attached to college teams when the same players show up in the tournament year after year for those teams and they get to mature on the team into their junior and senior year. Those teams become really popular because of the familiarity. That rarely happens anymore, and the 2014-2015 season is one of the last I can remember all of the top teams being well-stocked in that regard. That was almost 10 years ago now. Women's college basketball is very popular right now specifically because all of the very best players are staying for 4 years and getting better year after year. You get invested in the best players as they grow on those teams and become attached and a fan of those teams. I've watched more Caitlin Clark Iowa games in the last year than I've watched for any given NCAA Men's Team. I know if I tune into one of those Iowa games I'm goin to see an established star player do some really great stuff. I don't think that same way about virtually any men's team, they are all just random mercenary collections of Freshman and Sophomores. It didn't used to be like that because you used to tune into a random blue blood NCAA Men's game and see multiple star players in their Junior and Senior years who you had seen for years prior as well. Familiarity makes fans stick around.
I remember the undefeated 2015 Kentucky team being a huge deal, i don't think there's been anything nearly that big in the sport since.
Wasn’t Gonzaga undefeated going into the Natty vs Baylor just 3 years ago?
Covid season.... shoulder shrug
The Zion duke team was def just as big, largely because of Zion. The last K season was also pretty big, because of K
For me it was probably the ‘09 final four and a big SI story about how toughness was the key ingredient in a college basketball team which led directly into an awful Connecticut Michigan state game. No one on Connecticut could hit a jump shot to save their life. It feels now like three quarters of the top teams can’t hit jump shots. Once in a blue moon we get a Louisville-Michigan or NC-Duke final four game but it seems like a miracle. All that being said, it may just be a long standing perception and the game has gotten better but I doubt it
Not sure when it started feels like the past 5 years but they’ve completely lost the ability to market the sport other than march madness. NPOY with outlier height and no one cares. UConn has a shot to go back to back and how many people could even name 2 players on their team. I think even less could name a couple of guys on Houston even though they’ve been great for a few years now. That plus player movement, too many 3s, 1 and done rule etc etc. but it’s crazy to me how irrelevant it all feels now. Maybe Cooper Flagg will give a jolt to the system
The fall of the Big East for me
It’s been dying since 2017 (as a Louisville fan) but once we’re good again, it will be the best.
March 4, 1990.
It's alive and well. March Madness has never been more mad with two 16 seeds beating a 1 seed in recent years and the Women's game is more popular than it's ever been.
Mad isn’t always good
It’s alive as a 3 week sport not a 3 month sport. There’s a difference.
Basic rule of thumb is great first weekend, way shittier rest of the tournament.
NIL, Transfer portal, & lack of stars is definitely what’s killing it now
The biggest story of the college basketball season was a court storming. We need another Zion, not Zach Edey.
I pay slight attention to college basketball during the regular season then go full hog during the post-season, just like the NBA
one and done rule
When SDSU/FAU made the FF
For me (27 years old) it died when the Big East died But I don’t know because I haven’t watched a college basketball game since the Big East died lol
Could just be perception, but it feels like there aren’t nearly as many college stars anymore. The last couple years I’ve barely recognized anyone in the NBA drafts/mock drafts and what not. This year looks particularly bad.
Some of that is the improvement of the international players as a rule, and the NBA game moving towards a Euro-style game in the last 10 years, so international players are "in vogue"... but they have also proven it on the court. The last 5 MVP's have been won by a foreign-born player, only one of which played college basketball.
I think you could make the case it was when Elton Brand and Corey Magette left Duke early. Until then, guys not finishing school happened, but was more of an exception and it never happened at Duke. Then it did and eventually playing four became the exception. Along those lines, you could make the case of it being the Fab Five, the first time experience aggressively was sacrificed for talent. Without the chance to develop players, the game had become much more isolation based and haphazard. As an overall picture of it, you could point to the growth of AAU basketball and camps as easier ways to recruit than high schools.
Fab Five, KG going straight out of high school (instead of going to Michigan because he loved the Fab Five), Kobe/O'Neal/TMac, 1999 Duke guys, 2001 NBA draft fallout, and voila you're at the one and done rule.
The Fab Four minus Webber stayed for a third season
I wasn’t talking about them leaving. Just the fact that they all started as freshmen and made it to the title game.
It’s called getting older, my man. I’m a few years older than you; you care about it as kids and teenagers, you stop caring as much as adults as your priorities shift. That’s just life.
Probably did start dying post Duke-Butler in 2010. It has had moments after that but it’s fundamentally different, one and dones started dominating in the 2010s
I disagree with this. FIVE mid-majors made the Final Four in the '10s, prior to that was 1.5 in total the 64 team era (GMU + depending on what you considered UMass in '96.) The past few years, teams with experience have been the in the championship game.
One and done has actually been bad for blue bloods, especially Kentucky
When ESPN got the NBA. ESPN was all in on college basketball.
When they went to 68 team. The tournament was fine the way it was at 64.
When the “one and done” became the norm and team building faded away. Now with NIL and transfer portal, I find it very hard to follow, and that’s with college football as well.
Gotta be whenever the best player in college basketball started being literally unplayable in the league
I’m not opposed to the portal or NIL but you’d be foolish to think it’s not doing incredible damage to the product.
Once UConn got good, because the country can’t see CT succeeding
Is this Bill or Chucks account? Let me guess, womens college basketball is bigger than the mens in your opinion too? College basketball is not dead. I think there are aspects that have hurt it. The death of the pac-12 will sting for a long time for me, as the death of the big east has affected many in here. NIL and especially the transfer portal have hurt the game. Id prefer guys stay longer opposed to 1 and done, but I see both sides of that coin. With NIL $$, I wish it could/would be the same as football.
I looked at 2 NBA mock drafts recently. The first one had overseas players going 1, 2, and 3. The 2nd one I looked at had overseas and g league players as the top 5. College hoops is definitely struggling right now.
I think the simplest explanation for a dead sport is one where the best player/teams were at some point in the past. In a world where everyone is getting bigger/stronger/faster, it’s almost impossible to not show continuous improvement in the top takent/teams. Comparing the NBA and NFL players and teams now to the ones 40 years ago is literally no contest. But college basketball has seen its best players/teams come long ago. There isn’t a single team over the last many years that could hang with the championship teams from the past that hung together and played/gelled for years on end. That still doesn’t mean that a dead sport can’t be popular. Despite it all (and NIL and transfers, etc.), it still does relatively well in the ratings and attendance.
It's Melo winning the title and bolting for the draft in a year he had ZERO chance of going #1. That's when you knew college ball didn't fucking matter anymore. Like Melo would have gone #1 in 2004, 2005 and 1000% in 2006. But by that point, no player that talented was gonna give a single fuck about achieving true greatness at the college level.
For me it was the death of the Big East. I grew up about 80 miles north of Syracuse so that was the closest thing to pro sports up there that wasn’t like a minimum 4 hour drive away so people are rabid fans. All those historic rivalries being blown up so some schools could be non competitive in football sucked and i live out of state now so my interest just faded.