{"id":1408,"date":"2007-03-25T18:36:42","date_gmt":"2007-03-25T23:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/college-whoops\/"},"modified":"2007-03-25T18:36:42","modified_gmt":"2007-03-25T23:36:42","slug":"college-whoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/college-whoops","title":{"rendered":"College whoops"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve learned a ton from reading Charley Rosen’s basketball columns, particularly his single-game analyses. He’s got a mailbag up this week<\/a>, and it includes a vituperative response to the “NCAA or NBA” question:<\/p>\n

Although I do not always agree with your opinions, I respect them because you seem to know a lot about the actual substance of the game. I know a few people who say that the NBA is not good basketball, and that college ball is much better in regard to defense and team work. They believe that college basketball is played the right way as compared to the showmanship that’s the mainstay of the NBA game. It seems that the college game is more focused on teamwork, while the NBA highlights individual stars. Is the college game really better? \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Luke Ford, Minerva, Ohio<\/em><\/p>\n

No, no, a thousand times no!<\/p>\n

The college game is sloppy and the “amateur” players are prone to making innumerable mistakes. Which is why 20-point leads often vanish in a few minutes.<\/p>\n

The defense seems to be good in the collegiate ranks only because the overall offense is so poor. Which is why the likes of J.J. Reddick and Adam Morrison struggle so much to score when they come to the NBA. And why so many of the NCAA’s scoring-average leaders in recent years can’t even play in the NBA: Ruben Douglas, Jason Conley, Ronnie McCollum, Alvin Young, Charles Jones, Kevin Granger, Greg Guy, Brett Roberts, Kevin Bradshaw, and so on.<\/p>\n

The preponderance of zone defenses in NCAA competition assures that too many players never really learn how to play straight-up defense. Inferior (to the NBA) ball-handling, passing, ball-catching skills, footwork and overall creativity are additional reasons for college defenses appearing to be better than they really are. Which is why the primary difficulty for virtually every NBA rookie is playing defense.<\/p>\n

And don’t mistake passing per se for teamwork. The truth is that most college offenses are so poorly constructed (especially against zones) that multiple passes are necessary to find an open shot or to create space in which a designated scorer can operate. In fact, teamwork is much more critical, and much more subtle — the execution of plays, defensive rotations — in the NBA.<\/p>\n

It’s economics that pressures the NBA to focus on individuals rather than on teams. Whereas the best college players remain “amateurs” for one or two seasons, NBA stars are around for a decade or more. Add in the fact that playoff teams in the NBA annually play three times as many games every season as do NCAA qualifiers, and pro hoopers’ recognizability is understandably greater. That translates into commercial opportunities, also millions of dollars in player-jerseys, autographed balls, bobbleheads and similar trinkets.<\/p>\n

The NBA game has a huge advantage in player talent, offensive and defensive prowess, coaching, officiating and the overall quality of performance in every aspect but one. The only advantage the college game enjoys is the consistent enthusiasm of its players. And this is true only because some veteran NBA players on basement-dwelling teams will take an occasional game off late in the season.<\/p>\n

The worst NBA team would trounce the NCAA champs by upwards of 30 points.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Considering I just watched UNC completely melt down and miss 20 of its final 22 shots in its loss to Georgetown, I’m inclined to give some credence to Rosen’s take on this. That said, I think players take a lot more than the “occasional game off late in the season.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve learned a ton from reading Charley Rosen’s basketball columns, particularly his single-game analyses. He’s got a mailbag up this week, and it includes a vituperative response to the “NCAA or NBA” question: Although I do not always agree with your opinions, I respect them because you seem to know a lot about the actual … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “College whoops”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-mI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":684,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-week","url_meta":{"origin":1408,"position":0},"title":"NBA Week","author":"Gil","date":"October 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey, dear VM readers! The NBA season kicks off next week, so it's time for the annual VM NBA preview! Official VM buddy Tom Spurgeon & I are spending this week profiling all 30 teams. (We might also get some guest-commentary from readers about their home-town teams.)Let's kick it off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1311,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/duke-it-out-bitch","url_meta":{"origin":1408,"position":1},"title":"Duke it out, bitch","author":"Gil","date":"January 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A few months ago, I wrote about how Gilbert Arenas is one of my favorite NBA players. Subsequently, he started keeping a blog on NBA.com, which I dutifully added to my blogroll. I've come to enjoy Arenas more this year, because he's a throwback to an era of absolutely crazy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":683,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2005-nba-preview-western-conference-teams","url_meta":{"origin":1408,"position":2},"title":"2005 NBA Preview: Western Conference Teams","author":"Gil","date":"October 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tom SpurgeonAlthough none of its teams are likely to lose a game to an Israeli club squad anytime soon, the Western Conference of the NBA remains the junior circuit of the two because of history and mythology. A team in Sacramento not only sounds less interesting than one in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":678,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2005-preview-texas-fed-exes-and-city-hexes-division","url_meta":{"origin":1408,"position":3},"title":"NBA 2005 Preview: Texas, Fed Exes and City Hexes Division","author":"Gil","date":"October 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tom SpurgeonSan Antonio SpursThe Spurs are the first team in NBA history where the better they play, the more likely the shooting guard's family is to be kidnapped and ransomed.Other than looking forward to Michael Finley's adjustment period, the only thing about the regular season with the Spurs worth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1188,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-nba","url_meta":{"origin":1408,"position":4},"title":"More NBA!","author":"Gil","date":"November 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Two more NBA divisional previews are up on the Official VM NBA Preview page! The Atlantic & the Pacific! Only one division left! Let's hope I get it done before Sunday's business trip to Orlando! Exclamation point!","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1757,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/one-more-nba-note","url_meta":{"origin":1408,"position":5},"title":"One more NBA note","author":"Gil","date":"October 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, I did a radio interview about the NBA for the Adam Taxin Radio Show down in Philadelphia. If you're interested, you can download an MP3 of it (about 3mb), or go read the transcript.","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}