At one time in my life,basketball was the sport that I was most fanatical about.
This time of year meant one thing-the ACC tournament.
The bloating of the NCAA tourney has taken away a bit from the conference tournaments and that has taken away much of the interest that I once had.
When I was a child,I was always scheming in order to stay home and watch the first round of the ACC tournament and now I would bet that more often than not,I don't even watch it at all.
Of course,the conference shakeups have diluted those tournaments even more and made them less important to most of the fans and I can see how tournaments have lost interest with rivalries that have faded with a lack of home and home matchups along with teams that are just a huge misfit in the traditional leagues-Yeah,Boston College and coming soon Pittsburgh and Syracuse-I am talking to you!
To me,the ACC title meant almost at much as the National Championship and now I pass on it in favor of other sports.
Why?Well,a lot of it has come from what I mentioned above,but another huge factor is the "hired gun" mentality of the top schools that are willing to recruit players that will be a "one and done" player in order to take their title shot.
I was a full supporter of the NBA's rule that made a player ineligible until they were 19 at first,but the rule has not worked.
Instead of helping the colleges by having more talented players playing college basketball,the rule had backfired by having players that clearly are there for one season to play basketball instead of for the entire college experience.
The lack of continuity from the players and often the coaching staff has made following programs tough for me and I am sure for others because you just do not have the fun of following players as they learn and watch their games mature.
That has been the main reason that I have become more of a follower of Xavier than Maryland or Ohio State as the "mid-majors" keep their players for far longer periods of time and as a result,fans are able to invest in the players as part of the program.
From a person that has had some of their fondest childhood memories from college basketball and bonding with my dad over the game,these are some sad developments.
I am not sure on how to totally fix these things and even if I had ideas on how to fix,I would bet that the money involved would make much of those ideas unlikely to be adopted.
I miss the game that I have left behind and the current game is not as enjoyable to follow,but the game still has enough going to for itself to be worth watching.
I still think I'll take the 8 or 9 teams in the ACC though and the old ways of doing things were just fine for me.....
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