Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. We’re a few days past what should have been the national championship game, and instead of that we’re almost a month into the off-season.
We begin by drawing on a well-done story by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports that conveys the uncertainty that college athletics is steeped in right now. Uncertainty rules at every step and from every angle, from seniors not being given an extra year to the effect on budgets and the NBA Draft process. There’s also the consideration of where college sports are on the priority list for college presidents, and the answer is: not as high up as one might think.
Several similar stories have since come out as well, all telling us the same basic thing: we don’t know what is in store for college sports, but it doesn’t sound good at least in the immediate. It’s also going to shake up the landscape and especially impact mid-majors, with this report on Old Dominion – a very well-run program – serving as just one example.
Two places that also have uncertainty going on, one more so than the other, are the NBA Draft and the transfer market. We’re now well over 600 transfers and about 90 players have declared for the NBA Draft. What kind of process there is for those who are not sure they will stay in is not known, and the effects of that remain to be seen. More news has come in the transfer market, with a few interesting commitments we get into including two former Harvard stars.
Later, we note how Obi Toppin, a controversial national Player of the Year candidate in some quarters, has basically swept those awards, while his coach, Anthony Grant, has won many national Coach of the Year honors. From there, we note that Dayton is one of several schools you feel for with the abbreviated season, as they were having their best season ever, while a few others were great stories in likely getting there, and we also lost out on seeing Merrimack play in a postseason tournament in their historic inaugural Division I season.
Also, we close by talking more about a story that showed up on ESPN.com that gives an idea of the uphill battle the sports world will face in getting “back to normal” in the future, and college sports will not be exempted from that.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to tune in again soon when we talk more about college basketball this off-season.
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