Photo: Lance King/Getty Images
For 51 weeks of the year, only diehards like me (go Illini!) think or care about college basketball. While the rest of you may spend your summers outside, near, like, sand or something, fellow hoop heads and I are scouring recruiting rankings or watching grainy video of Lithuanian point guards. It’s a kind of sickness. But for one week, this specific week in March: We’re all a little sick.
The NCAA Tournament and all its glories—the brackets, the upsets, the earnest young people on your television painting their face and screaming into a tuba — is upon us. Preliminary rounds take place on Tuesday and Wednesday night and the real enchilada launches around lunchtime on Thursday. (That’s when your brackets are due, so you know.) This is a particularly fascinating tournament happening at an unusually intriguing moment for college basketball, a sport that has largely been usurped by its mean older brother college football, and yet may just end up in a stronger, more sustainable place. If you’re just tuning in—and if you’re reading this, you probably are —here are the biggest storylines heading into this year’s men’s and women’s tournaments.
Hating Duke is as grand a NCAA tournament tradition as a buzzer beater or One Shining Moment: It’s the default mode for every casual sports fan, and with good reason. (In case you need a fresh injection of Duke hate, here is a picture of former Duke guard Grayson Allen, who famously looks exactly like Ted Cruz and is only slightly less hateable.) And while I will never stand in the way of some old-fashioned Duke bile, it should be noted that this year’s version of the Blue Devils isn’t quite as loathsome as some previous vintages. They’ve got three of the top eight projected picks in next year’s NBA Draft, led by certain top overall pick Cooper Flagg, who has been the best player in college basketball this year by a wide margin. While Flagg certainly resembles past hateable Duke players (which is really just another way of saying he’s white), he’s legitimately fun to watch, and his game has earned plaudits from the toughest critics in the world: NBA players. During the Olympics warmups last summer, Flagg practiced against Team USA and played so well that Kevin Durant said, “He looked like a hell of a player. Somebody that’s going to only get better with more experience. 17 years old coming in here playing like he’s a vet almost.” Also: He is from Maine. (He’s already the best player ever from Maine. I have no idea who would possibly be second. (Can Stephen King hoop?) The main reason to let up a little bit on Duke this year, though? Coach K is gone. Remember: He’s not a basketball coach. He’s a leader who happens to coach basketball. You can still cheer against Duke. But I suspect it won’t quite have the vigor for you that it once did.
A common criticism of men’s college basketball in recent years has been its lack of stars: Four of the top six picks in last year never played college basketball at all. But that is not the case this year, largely because of NIL (which stands for “Name, Image and Likeness,” which basically stands for “the players are getting paid now:” Players who might have skipped college, or played in the G-League or overseas, have learned that college is a great place to build a brand, sell some jerseys, earn some cash, and show off their stuff to scouts. Other than the Duke guys, there’s Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe, Texas’s Tre Johnson, Illinois’ Kasparas Jakucionis, Oklahoma’s Jeremiah Fears, Maryland’s Derek Queen, BYU’s Egor Demin, and a whole host of future NBA stars who will be a part of what is considered one of the best drafts in years. Even if you’re one of those pro basketball snobs who likes to mock the college game, if you want to see the future of the league, you’ll see it in the men’s tournament.
The hottest team in men’s college basketball down the stretch was Florida, which won its last six games and 12 of its last 13 en route to a tournament championship in the SEC, the best league in the sport this year. But the team’s success wasn’t the biggest news to come out of Gainesville this year. That would be Gators coach Todd Golden, who, according to a blockbuster report in the student-run Independent Florida Alligator when the season started, was accused by an “undefined” number of women, most of them students, of sexual harassment and stalking. The paper talked to two of the women. A sample from their report:
The first woman, a former UF student, said that Golden stalked her in person, both in his car and on foot, and that this occurred “more than 10 times.” On one occasion, she said she posted her location on her Instagram story, and Golden messaged her shortly after saying that he was in the area “waiting for [her].”
She also said Golden sent unsolicited photos of his genitalia to her. On multiple occasions, the first woman said she received the photos while the team was traveling on the road. The nature of Golden’s alleged stalking became more assertive over time, she said. “At first, it starts off slow, like, ‘Oh, wow. That’s odd. This guy is showing us attention,’” the first woman said. “And then it becomes, ‘Wow, he’s kind of crossing a line. No, he didn’t mean it that way.’ Then it’s, ‘Wait, he’s fully stepping over that line.’ And then it’s, ‘Wow, there’s a picture of his d*ck.’ It was a full grooming process with all of us.”
Golden, who is one of the three highest paid employees by the state of Florida, underwent a Title IX investigation, but the school closed it in January, saying it found “no evidence” he violated the law — though only because none of what he was accused of “occurred within a university program or activity.” Every men’s NCAA tournament seems to include some sort of story in which a key participant is asked about an ugly scandal every time they step in front of a microphone. This year, that story involves the head coach of a team that may well win the national championship.
South Carolina, led by already legendary coach Dawn Staley, won last year’s women’s national championship, their second in three years and their third in the last seven tournaments. But one thing they haven’t done is win two in a row — widely considered the true mark of any women’s basketball dynasty. Winning multiple titles is far more difficult than it used to be, largely because of the dramatic steps forward the game has made over the last decade; there’s much more talent now, and it’s much more diffuse. The age of Connecticut winning four in a row is long over. But the Gamecocks are ranked No. 2 in the country and are in fact the Vegas favorite to win the whole thing. They’ll have no better chance than this.
in Connecticut history—and maybe all of women’s college basketball history. And while she has been great, and is expected to be the first pick in this year’s WNBA Draft, her career has been riddled with injuries and is even considered a letdown for one obvious reason: She has never won a title at Connecticut. The last, best Connecticut recruit before her was the legendary Breanna Stewart who, during her four years at Connecticut, won, uh, four. Bueckers is an incredible player with a long career ahead of her. But if she’s unable to win a title for Connecticut, she’ll inevitably, and surely unfairly, be remembered as a disappointment.
Women’s college basketball continues to explode in popularity; that we have gone this far without mentioning USC’s JuJu Watkins is a sign of just how many compelling characters there are in the sport right now. But it should be noted that men’s college basketball, thought by many (including me) to be facing existential peril just a year or two ago, has had a resurgent season. That’s thanks largely to NIL and the transfer portal, which have made the sport attractive given some of the best players in the world in a way it had never been before. (The irony being that these were supposed to be the things killing the sport.) The tournament is always intoxicating, but the storylines, and the characters, in this year’s brackets are unusually vivid and compelling. We diehards freaks who care about this stuff all the time are glad you’re here. You might just find some stuff that’ll make you want to stick around.
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