I have a lot of time on my hands now that I am retired and one of the things I do a lot is read stuff on ESPN’s web site.  Recently I ran across an article in which Mark Cuban, owner of the professional basketball team the Dallas Mavericks, made an interesting comment about college basketball.  It’s his belief that college basketball is in a horrible state and hurting the NBA.  His complaint is it’s too boring, too slow, too much milking the clock and not enough scoring.  Too much defense, not enough offense.  All that is probably true.  Mark Cuban is stinking rich and didn’t have anything handed to him.  He has to be a really smart guy, and obviously knows basketball.  I can’t say I am a smart guy, and I am certainly not stinking rich.  But still, I have to argue his point about college basketball.  I think it’s great.  Admittedly I am kind of a defensively orientated fan.  I like the strategy involved.  It doesn’t matter what sport I find entertaining.  I like the defensive aspect of it.  Except soccer.  I just can’t get tuned in there.  Overall, offense, defense, it’s all the same with that sport. It’s just boring.  But that’s just me. No offense to all you soccer fans out there.

To be honest, I never watch pro basketball.  I actually consider that to be even more boring than soccer.  There’s way too much offense- players running up and down the court trading baskets.  One team scores, then the other team scores.  They might as well start the game by giving each team 100 points, and then play for two minutes.  The end result would be the same as playing out a whole game, and have the benefit of saving everyone a lot of time.  Which is what Mark, and most of the country, seems to want in the first place.  Everyone is always in a hurry.  We can’t seem to get things done fast enough.  I think there are problems on the horizon if we all don’t learn to slow down.  And I’m not alone, let me tell you.  I’ve talked to my neighbors about this.  Just the other day some dick in a fancy BMW went tearing down our street.  Scared the hell out of poor old Mrs. Hanksteder, and Wally- he has five kids all under twelve years old and lives a whole block away- he practically took one for the team by stepping out in the street to confront that dip shit.  It didn’t do a whole lot of good and he’s lucky he didn’t get run over, but thank god for Wally and people like him that take a stand.  I gotta tell you I’m not about to step out into the street and take on anything that weighs a couple thousand pounds more than I do.  Actually I did try that once, but admittedly I had been drinking.  It’s sort of a long story.  And of course Wally has all those kids.  They do kind of wonder off his property a lot.  I’m not so sure his oldest didn’t egg my house last Halloween.  I’ll be laying for the little bastard this year.

Back to Mark Cuban.  His most salient point was that college ball is ruining the NBA.  Ok, I guess that’s possible and personally I couldn’t care less.  But to drive the point home, he suggested that schools were failing the kids themselves with the kind of basketball colleges are producing.  Referring to college basketball programs, his exact words were “If you want to keep kids in school and keep them from being pro, they’re doing it the exact right way.”  That’s apparently a criticism.  WTF?  Keeping kids in school is a bad thing?  It is obvious Mark believes, as many others do, that college athletic programs are little more than farm clubs for professional ranks. No doubt there are truly talented one and doners out there, but I think we need to put the breaks on this type of thinking.  Give athletes some auxiliary financial aid, but more importantly encourage them to stay in school, not leave it.  A college degree might be the only chance many of these college athletes have of getting ahead in life. Even those college players that are lucky enough to make it professionally might find some sort of degree to be a worth while back up plan.  Every boy scout will tell you to be prepared.  You never know when you might get your knee cap blown off in a strip-club altercation.  If more defense and a slower college game is what it takes to keep kids in school, I say go for it.