am not a big basketball fan. I like to shoot some hoops, primarily in my dad's driveway, though I haven't been there to shoot anything in many months, since I moved up to the Bay Area to live with Malaya in July 2003. I'm not interested in playing with other guys; that's too much work. I just like to shoot baskets sometimes.

As for watching the sport, I enjoy pro ball sometimes, usually when there are teams with good offenses and refs who don't need to stop play for some kind of imaginary foul every 30 seconds. As for college ball, I have no interest in it at all. Haven't watched a game since about 1990, and even then I was never a fan of the thing? Why not? Read on to find out.

A reader request.

Since this came in early Monday morning, I'm late replying to it.  But only because I'm a lazy bastard. But anyway, better late than never.  And the game was only a day ago.  Besides, nothing I'm going to say below has anything to do with the actual teams who played in the game.  In fact I don't even know who they were, to tell you the truth.  Duke didn't win, that's about all I absorbed about the NCAA tournament this year.

how about a few paragraphs on the NCAA tournament for the blog tomorrow?

rock chalk jayhawk.

- tom

Here you go, Tom.

I make an effort to not talk about sports very often, unless it's related to work with some personal info, or else I have an offbeat comment to make. I don't get the feeling that too many of the site readers here are real big sports fans, and neither am I at this point.  I pretty much only watch College Football, Pro Football, and Pro Basketball.  None of which did Tom ask about.

As for the NCAA Men's Tournament which he did ask about, I have no comment.  I didn't see a game, I only saw a brief bit of the first half of the finals Monday evening, and that was only because I was channel surfing a bit at my dad's house while waiting for my clothing to finish drying so I could grab and fold them and leave.  One team was beating the other team pretty handily at that point, like 47-35, which is a ton of points for not even halftime in a college game.

I don't care about college basketball.  I have never cared about it, other than some brief interest in UNLV back in the Tark the Shark days when they had Larry Johnson and Stacy Augmon on the team at once, and were just ridiculously good, as well as ridiculously criminal and quite possibly engaging in season-long point shaving.  Which was very easy for them, since they were the best team in the nation, in one of the weakest conferences in the nation.  It seemed like every game they were playing Idaho Tech or Utah State or other schools not exactly renowned for their basketball programs.

Anyway, I didn't care for pro basketball either, until just a few years ago, when I for some reason became a Laker fan.  And that was really odd, since I hated them when they were great in the 80's, with Magic and Showtime and such.  Just didn't like them at all.  Didn't like the Bulls in the 90's, when Jordan was there since they just seemed too smug and won too much and Jordan got all the calls. I started to like the Lakers in the mid-90's, and would watch them sometimes, and they weren't even any good then. It was well before Shaq came over and Kobe was stolen in trade, and their best players were guys like Cedric Ceballos and Elden Campbell.  *shudder*

I remember arguing with my dad when the Lakers signed Shaq, since dad was very much opposed to his "dunk or brick" style at the time.  He's improved tremendously since then (Shaq's play and dad's attitude) and while Shaq still isn't that much fun to watch, other than in an "elephant maneuvering through a small room" fashion, the Lakers are obviously quite good, having won the title three years running. Ironically, I'm less partisan towards the LAL now than I was five or six years ago.

As for college basketball, which is what I was originally talking about, I have no interest in it.  I had a few times years ago, when some great players were to be seen, but the way it is now with every good player going to the NBA straight from high school or else after just a year or two of college, there isn't anyone to root for. I sort of root for Duke most of the time, but not enough to actually watch them play. I have no real reason to root for them, other than that they kick the crap out of North Carolina most every time they play, and I've long hated UNC.  Well, long hated them, I don't really care anymore, since they suck now and Dean Smith is dead, though I had long sworn I would carefully nurture and tend the eternal flame of hatred for UNC.  Why?  Four Corners. Any man and school associated with the invention of the "Four Corners" time delay tactic, the most loathsome strategic innovation in the history of organized sports, is forever and perpetually deserving of my hate.  Please, join me.

Aside from that, the style of play in college b-ball just bores me.  They seem uncoached to me.  Uncontrolled.  It's just five guys on each team running around madly and throwing up threes, usually missing, after which a mad scramble for the rebound ensues.  It seems like every team has about 3 guys who are like 6'8" on the court at all times; never anyone taller, no one who knows how to box out or achieve/protect their position or any other "fundamentals" type thing, so the ball usually ends up like a spherical crowd surfer that just bobs along on top of a wave of grasping hands. There never seem to be any offensive sets either, just everyone passing and hoping to get open enough to throw up some ugly off balance thing.

Pro Ball is so much more organized and stratified, where there are tall guys, medium guys, and little fast guys, and they all match up and do isolation plays and box out and run screens and pick and rolls and two man plays and such. It seems like a scientific sport, whereas college ball always looks like an ant farm and is just crazy energy, and bores me for that poor quality of play reason.

I realize that a proponent of college ball could probably read this and agree with my every argument, taking them all as reasons college ball is better, compared to the boring, static, overly-organized, less-effort-made pro basketball.  So it's just my perspective that finds fault with the game, not the game itself. 

Ironically, I like college football better than pro football the last few years, since the pros are so defensively-oriented now and too structured and low scoring. College I seldom know any players, and don't much care when I do, but they are more interchangable anyway.  I much prefer college football for the chaos and faster action and greater chances of spectacular plays.  I suppose that the inherently far greater structure and organization of football, vs. the chaotic and free-flowing nature of basketball makes college f'ball work for me. Since it's chaotic and wild, but in a tightly-structured format, so it seems more designed and organized.  Where as college b-ball is just all out chaos and disorganization.  Played almost entirely by players I've never heard of.

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