In the first half of my ruminations on competition, I suggested that the Winter Olympics suffer from a two-tier problem. On the micro- level, individual sports that make up the Olympics can be silly at best, purposefully random and dangerous at worst. On the macro- level, the Olympics’ claims to being a world competition are belied by their actual participants, and the small sliver of the world population that has any interest in the underlying sports.

               College basketball, too, faces issues on two separate levels. Each problem serves to make the sport more random, and ultimately, to me, unrewarding as entertainment. And each is a problem that the NCAA seems intent on exacerbating, rather than addressing. As I did with the Olympics, I’ll start with the micro-problem, which to me, is the entire setup of men’s college basketball.

               There is no athletic or competitive reason for men’s college basketball to be set up the way it is. I understand that college athletes are less physically developed and adept than professional basketball players, so the 5:6 ratio used for game time (40:48) and fouls (5:6) makes some sense. After that, it’s a giant idiotfest of rules designed, seemingly, to make games artificially close.

               1.) The shot clock is still 35-seconds, with a 10-second timeline.

               Completely moronic. The NBA shot clock is 24-seconds, with 8 seconds to get into the frontcourt. The reduced amount of game time already restricts the number of possessions in college basketball, as compared to the NBA. However, the extended shot clock is the primary reason that the college game averages about 67 possessions a game to the NBA’s 95. That’s a giant difference. I don’t really want to go through all the numbers to point out why this is idiotic, but a simple example should suffice.

               A truly dominant college basketball team will outscore their opponents by .15-.2 points/possession. Given the college throttling of possessions, that dominant college team beats an average college team by 10-13 points…or a swing of 3-5 possessions. Under the NBA rules reduced to a 40 minutes game (i.e. taking 5/6ths of the 95 possessions to account for game time), a similarly dominant team would win by 12 – 16 points. This may seem like a small difference, but as most gambling junkies will tell you, it’s enormous. Buying 2 points in a college basketball game varies in value, but to jump from a 10 point spread to a 12 point spread costs you something in the area of 10%-30% of your return. That is, a team favored by 12 is considered about 15-25% more likely to win than a team favored by 10. In other words, and what should be obvious, is that the chances that a better team beats a worse team are directly proportional to the number of possessions.[i]

               “Sean,” you may say, if you were addressing me directly and using my name, “what if college basketball teams just need that much more time to set up in their offenses, and changing the shot clock would lead to sloppier basketball?” I would simply reply “That’s stupid,” because I am rude, and because I don’t know your first name, in order to provide you the same dignity you showed to me. But then I would likely rethink my brusqueness, feel bad about it, and point you to every other basketball league in the world. International basketball is played over 40 minutes (albeit in quarters, not halves), just like college basketball. It uses a 24-second shot clock. High schools don’t have a set shot clock (as per the “official” NFHS rules), and many work without a shot clock. But perhaps most damning for men’s college basketball is its sister, women’s college basketball. Despite what I believe we can all non-misogynistically[ii] admit is less athleticism and an even more tiered structure between the elite and average women’s teams, women’s college basketball uses a 30-second shot clock. And they routinely spend more than 10 seconds in the back court, because there is no timeline rule.

               So clearly, college level athletes can set and execute a half-court offense in 20 seconds or less. Yet, men’s college basketball, arguably the second most advanced league in the world,[iii] extends possessions to nearly 150% of the time allotted to professional athletes the world over. It serves only the purpose of shrinking the distribution of game possibilities, and thus, increasing randomness and the chances of an upset.

               2.) Junk Defenses

               This is a small point, and I don’t want to spend too much time on it. For a long time, the NBA outlawed the zone, eschewing junk defenses and making the game a matchup of individuals, encouraging 1-on-1 play and use of the pick-and-roll. Some whiners rich old people fans seemed to find lazy jump shooting more exciting and the NBA has since relaxed these rules. However, even in allowing the zone to become part of the game, the NBA has set restrictions. Unlike in college ball, any zone defender must abide by a defensive 3-second rule. Basically the mirror version of the offensive 3-second rule, it forces defenders to vacate the lane within 3 seconds. This is especially important, given that the NBA lane is 4 feet wider than the college lane. It opens up the basket for drives from the perimeter and makes plays at the rim less congested (and less dangerous). Because of this (as well as superior shooters in the NBA), the zone defense is rarely used at that level.

               The zone defense is also used in college to further slow down the game. It forces players who are less athletic than NBA players to pass the ball around the perimeter for extended period of times, looking for a tiny sliver of space to penetrate, or a decent entry into the post. Because the defensive players don’t need to abandon the narrow lane in the college game, even a penetration inside or a great entry pass generally results in a clustered attack on the basket, with lots of gangly arms, turned ankles and an inordinate number of charges called, despite less than perfect defense. The real problem with college basketball’s acceptance of junk defenses is the exacerbation of problems 3 and 4, below.

               3.) Foul Rules

               While the type of fouls in the professional and college game remain nearly identical, the frequency and outcome of those fouls diverge significantly. As discussed above, there are a large number of fouls committed in the basket area in college. This leads to an overall increase in fouls,[iv] and, because of the rules concerning fouls, far more foul shots.[v]  

               In the NBA, the game time is divided into quarters. In each quarter, the team is penalized for every team foul after its fourth. From the fifth team foul until the end of the quarter, every team foul results in two shots for the opponent. At the end of the quarter, the team fouls reset.

               In men’s college basketball, the game time is divided into two halves. In each half, a team is penalized for every foul after its sixth team foul. For team fouls 7, 8 and 9, the opposing team is put into the “one-and-one,” and for fouls 10+, they receive two shots. At the end of each half, the team fouls reset.

               There are a few complicating factors. Because of the more frequent resetting of team fouls, NBA teams spend far less time in the penalty, meaning that a greater percentage of their fouls have no direct FT penalty attached. This is softened somewhat by the fact that every foul in the penalty for an NBA team results in two shots, regardless of the other team’s FT shooting ability. There is no “one-and-one” in the NBA. However, it’s also important to note that player control fouls (most frequently charges) do not count as team fouls in the NBA, but do in college. Thus, college teams tend to reach the penalty more quickly (relatively) than NBA teams and stay in it longer.

               So what? Well, the increase in fouls and FT has a few side effects. First, college players foul out more quickly and far more often than they do in the pros. Because the talent is more uneven in college, quick fouls can unbalance a basketball game far more than they would in the NBA. Second, a far greater percentage of the points in a college game come from what amounts to a shooting contest. There is nothing particularly athletic or engaging about watching guys shoot FTs, and watching 30-40% of the points in any game come from the line can be incredibly boring. Games should be decided by the players best at basketball, not at FT shooting. If those players are not allowed to play, either because they picked up quick fouls, or because the teams are consistently in the penalty, the overall product suffers greatly.

               4.) Three-Point Line

               To me, this is the biggest problem in college basketball, and it dominates the three listed above. The three-point line in college is nothing more than a sad joke. A few years ago, it stood at 19’9”, which remains the distance in high school and women’s college basketball. Since 2008-2009, however, it has been at 20’9”. This is still insanely and counterproductively short.

               The top seasons of all time for three-point shooting in the NBA can be found here. If you are officially too lazy to click on that link, it basically says that fewer than ten players have ever shot over 50% from 3 for an entire season.[vi] And that three of those seasons came in the period from 1994-1995 to 1996-1997 where the NBA shrunk the line to 22 feet all around. Some combination of NBA defense and the length of the 3-point line (23’9” around the top, 22 feet at its closest) limits the effectiveness of dead-eye shooters from taking over a game for long stretches.

               Now look at this list. Or this list. Or this one.  Those are the 3-point leaders from each of the last three years in the NCAA. Every year, more than one shooter hits 50%. Usually 5-6 players. More importantly, the top 20 college shooters in each of those years would have ranked in the top 40 all-time NBA shooters. Now, there are two things to consider: First, college players play far fewer games per year, so a strong streak of games can be misleading as to how good a 3-point shooter a college player really is. Second, there are approximately 10 times the number of college basketball players per year as there are NBA players. So we would expect a larger number of great shooters/year in the NCAA.

               But the broader numbers don’t lie. NBA teams make between 31 and 41% of their 3 point attempts this year, with an average around 35%. They take 3-pointers at somewhere between a 15 and 35% rate, but the average is close to 22%.[vii] NCAA teams, on the other hand, make somewhere between 25.5 and 43% of their 3’s, with an average right around 35%. The RATE of three-pointers, however, is where the largest difference exists. No team, in ALL of Division I basketball, took fewer than 20% of their shots from behind the 3-point line last year. Thirty (!) teams took more than 40% of their shots from deep. The average was somewhere near 32%. To repeat, the average NCAA team took more 3-pointers (by percentage) than all but one NBA team.

               Once again, you may ask yourself (or me, if you can get over that tongue-lashing I gave you earlier), “So what?” Well, remember that whole thing about the pace of college basketball being insanely slow? And how that shrinks the range of outcomes, even between two unevenly matched teams? Well, now add to those facts that a far greater percentage of those limited possessions are being used on shots that are worth 1.5 times other shots, and are disproportionately easier for good shooters. What you end up with is a game far more often decided by long shots and streaky shooters than by which team is the best. Which is only a problem if, you know, you consider basketball a team sport.

So what do all of these things add up to? We have fewer possessions over which a team can prove its superiority (shrinking the sample size), greater variability in those possessions, a movement towards junk defenses that encourage more fouls and more 3-pointers, and the increased fouls resulting frequently in the best players not being on the floor as long as their professional counterparts. Basically, a recipe for randomness, a concerted effort to reduce the effect of athleticism on the game, and a more boring game generally. Unless, of course, you like random, non-athletic athletic competition. Hey, look! It’s my segue!

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               The macro problem is, if you are going to believe nearly all non-Seans, not actually a problem. Rather, most people consider it the best part of men’s college basketball. I am referring, naturally, to the NCAA tournament.

               There are maybe twenty good college basketball teams every year, with a smaller number of those actually being great teams. This varies from year to year. For instance, most would probably agree that college basketball this season was weaker than it has been historically. There were probably 10-15 teams that were legitimately good teams, and maybe 3-4 great teams. Then there were about 50 equally decent teams.

               The NCAA tournament, as it exists currently, has to include 65 teams. 15-20 of these are automatic qualifiers from small conferences, and simply aren’t very good. They fill the play-in game, and the 13-16 slots in the bracket. They are almost always eliminated in the first round. Then dumbness happens. The other 45-50 teams are decent to great teams, either automatic qualifiers that are actually good or at-large teams chosen by a committee chosen through an idiotic process I don’t have the desire to get into here. They fill out the top 75% of the bracket, and the race for a championship runs mostly through them.

               Each team is seeded based on that same above process (still not getting into it), and attempt to win 6 games in a row against, ideally, increasingly tough competition, and on neutral courts. The only team that does is crowned national champion. Simple enough. Proponents of the tournament love it for a variety of reasons: the simplicity, the sheer number of games, the probability of some upsets and general excitement. And the NCAA loves it for one reason above all others: $. Actually, to be more exact: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

               The NCAA makes a lot of money off the tournament, from ticket sales, from advertisements and from (most of all) television deals.  The last is the main reason that they are thinking of expanding the tournament to 96 teams next year, or in the near future.

               All of these good feelings tend to obfuscate one pretty important fact: the tournament isn’t a particularly well-designed way to determine the best college basketball team. One-off tournaments rarely are, but all the problems I discussed above re: the randomness of college basketball make it particularly rough in college basketball. A great team, to win the title of national champion (which most people generally take as a proxy for “best team”), must win 6 games in a row. The first is generally a walkover, but the second through sixth game are all against teams well above average. Even in a year of college basketball where there was exactly one great team, and everyone else was at the low end of “good,” you’d expect the great team to win the tournament considerably less than 40% of the time. And that situation never happens.

               I don’t want to be Debbie Downer during the tournament[viii] but I don’t understand why people enjoy rooting for upsets. The regular season, theoretically, exists for a reason. It gives us a great deal of information about a team’s strengths, weaknesses, and relative merits compared to other teams. The tournament effectively wipes that information off the board and replaces it with 40 minute bouts that, in my opinion, are ruled by randomness.  

               When college football fans debate the need for a playoff, I can’t help but laugh. College football has a short season, with very few games against equal opponents. Their regular season isn’t nearly as informative as the college basketball season is, so they could very well benefit from a playoff system that serves to judge teams against their equals. After all, the current system demands that some group of voters and computers decide between a large number of similarly skilled teams for what amounts to a two team playoff. The arguments against a playoff frequently center on the devaluation of the regular season (already largely worthless) and the unfairness of making the top teams play extra games to prove they belong.

               Compare these to basketball: we HAVE a significant regular season, with at least half of the games for every team against equal competition.[ix] Conference tournaments give us even more information, as most of those games (save for smaller conferences) occur on largely neutral courts. We have more than enough information to judge who the best 10-20 teams in the country are. Or who the best 4-6 teams are among that group, generally. The college football argument is correct in this case: the tournament devalues the regular season and is generally unfair to the best teams.

               In my opinion, the two big money college sports have it completely turned around when it comes to determining their champion. Football should seek to increase the number of games good or great teams need to win in order to be crowned, basketball to decrease them. Ideally, for me, college basketball would pick 4-8 teams and play series between the teams, but that is never going to happen.[x] Still, a smaller tournament (16 teams max) would ensure that randomness is limited in its effect. Of course, they could also change the rules to make each game more likely to produce the “correct” outcome.

               Instead, next year we’ll have the same rules, and an extra half-round of the tournament. I predict more “excitement” in the form of upsets, an increase in the NCAA coffers, and consideration of a 128-team tournament. And I expect, for the 8^th year running,[xi] I will lose interest in college basketball.