It almost seems like an annual event. Like most such things, it even follows a predictable pattern from start to finish. The finish is the important thing, although it is only accurate in context.
Let’s sum it up right now: college basketball will be just fine as some players opt to bypass college before the NBA. If the sport is in trouble, it’s on account of other issues that are being exacerbated now during this pandemic.
When guys like Brandon Jennings, Jeremy Tyler, Emmanuel Mudiay, Terrance Ferguson, Darius Bazley and R.J. Hampton opted to bypass college, the reaction was swift. It’s the beginning of a trend. Kids want to get paid and more will bypass college. This will kill college basketball.
Yet life goes on and college basketball remains. The NCAA Tournament remains a magical event, with memorable moments from buzzer-beaters in the championship game to the ultimate first round upset to the victim of said upset becoming national champions a year later. There is nothing better in all of sports, and it was sorely missed this year along with the remaining conference tournaments. For that matter, the day before Selection Sunday is always a fun day with over a dozen conference championship games.
The sport has plenty of issues, to be sure, including that it almost seems to be a one-month sport for many fans. But it has carried on just fine without a talented player here or there. Besides, years ago some top players didn’t get to play right away either due to freshman ineligibility or Prop 48 (and some who didn’t quality academically went to junior college). So a few elite talents not suiting up as true freshmen is nothing new.
Since college basketball survived not having the aforementioned players – none of who, it should be noted, has ever played in an NBA All-Star Game – college basketball will manage without Jalen Green, Isaiah Todd and a few others who will skip college next year.
Of course, that also assumes that there will be a season – something that, while we can be hopeful, is not a given right now. And it’s in light of the current situation that we bring up the real danger facing college basketball: the growing gap between the power conferences and the smaller ones (whether or not they have football), which is growing even more. As such, it looks more than ever to have the potential to split the sport up.
There’s no two ways about it: the big drop in money coming from the NCAA with no NCAA Tournament this year, as well as no televised conference championship games for some, is no small blow to smaller schools and conferences. But they aren’t alone, as five conferences who play in the Football Bowl Subdivision recently asked the NCAA to relax Division I requirements, including the Mountain West, American Athletic Conference and Conference USA. It wasn’t the likes of America East, Southland, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky or Northeast Conference who were asking for this. If those five conferences are facing big questions coming out of this situation, you have to think smaller conferences without football and/or big TV contracts are in an even tougher position.
These schools and conferences don’t have the big money TV deals to fall back on like the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC have. In a few of these conferences, football is that much more expensive given travel costs – in fact, Old Dominion, a well-run program, is likely facing some tough decisions even after eliminating wrestling recently, in part because being in Conference USA actually costs them about $2 million a year. You have to think many other programs are staring at worse financial numbers. UConn, which has been a geographic outpost in the American Athletic Conference, has had a big budget deficit to deal with as they head back to the Big East in a few months and as they try to not have to pay fired basketball coach Kevin Ollie.
All of this comes as next season, if it happens, may have many/all games played with fewer fans to maintain physical distancing, or even no fans at all. This will be another hit to the finances of these programs. This is bound to negatively impact football (for schools and conferences that have it) as well as basketball, even if the biggest impacts are sure to be felt in other sports, mainly non-revenue ones, as those are the first ones that face cuts or being eliminated altogether.
For the final blow to smaller schools and conferences, the NCAA is sure to approve a one-time transfer exception, allowing a player to transfer without sitting out a year in residence. Smaller conferences are already watching many of their best players transfer up year after year, especially if they can graduate. It’s only going to happen more once this happens, and since the ACC and Big Ten are behind it, it’s only a question of when, not if, it becomes official.
Could all of this lead to a thinning of the Division I ranks, possibly even a dramatic one? At this point, you have to think that’s a possibility, although it probably won’t happen all that fast. Schools that make the leap do so knowing it takes a big financial commitment in the first place, but this is a different consideration. What is usually predictable revenue is not coming their way now, but that is just the beginning.
Last month, CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander put together an excellent story going in-depth on the uphill battle for college sports. Among other things, Norlander notes that guarantee games, long a key source of revenue for some schools, may not be as plentiful at least in a 2020-21 season, if not beyond then, which will surely hit some schools. While in many ways it will be better if we see more schools from, say, the ACC going on the road to play schools in the CAA or Southern Conference, or schools from the Pac-12 going on the road to play Big West or Big Sky schools, this might plant a seed for more attrition from the Division I ranks down the road.
Additionally, this could hasten the power conferences breaking away from the NCAA so as to operate with each other and without the smaller schools and conferences. That has long been speculated as an outcome of many of the moves over the past decade, especially conference realignment.
College basketball’s demise has been predicted over and over again with players skipping college, especially since the NBA instituted its age minimum over a decade ago. Every time a player does so, it’s a new trend, it’s the end of college basketball… except when it has been neither. College basketball will manage without a few talented players, as it has before. What college basketball may not survive is the big hit that COVID-19 has dealt to many an athletic department outside of the power conferences.
