As the calendar is about to turn to March, it’s worth surveying the state of college basketball where things are… confusing! Although Houston, Alabama, and Kansas have sort of separated themselves in recent weeks, there has still been an awful lot of parity around the sport this year. The preseason #1 team, North Carolina, is now fighting for a shot to just get into next month’s tournament. As Kyle Tucker of The Athletic tweeted out yesterday, there are just 11 power conference teams with fewer than 8 losses:
Now, it’s probably a mistake to draw too many conclusions from one weird season — some years are just like this. But it’s hard not to feel like there has been some kind of sea change in the sport. After all, there have been major developments in college basketball, specifically NIL reforms and the transfer portal, both of which dramatically increased the power of labor. It doesn’t seem like an accident that so many coaches who seemed like permanent fixtures of the game have retired or left in recent seasons: Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Jay Wright, John Beilein, etc.
When labor’s power goes up, entrenched inequality tends to go down. So perhaps we really are on the cusp of a different era in college basketball, where the Blue Bloods aren’t so blue…
Here’s everything from Undrafted this month:
When I wrote this piece, about James Dolan kicking some poor woman out his venue because her employer was involved in a lawsuit against him, I wasn’t explicitly thinking about AI, but it’s a useful prism for thinking about things like ChatGPT. When you see new technologies like this, you should try to imagine what the stupidest, most petty, self-involved billionaires will do with them, and how that might affect you.
The thrilling conclusion of Undrafted’s look into the Congressional investigation of Daniel Snyder’s reign over the Washington Football Team.
I guess this title is kind of stupid, huh? I mean, it’s pretty obvious LeBron works hard. But this was an attempt to put his scoring record in perspective.
A thought on the Super Bowl and the “rule of law.”
Some thoughts on Billy Packer’s legacy, and whether or not there is such a thing as free speech for sports announcers.