Duke and Mike Krzyzewski cutting down the nets in Indianapolis signaled the end of another college basketball season. In addition to the Longhorns hiring a new basketball coach, this promises to be an interesting offseason nationally. Here are some overall opinions on the season as a whole:
Isaiah Taylor will declare for the NBA draft
Isaiah Taylor should declare for the NBA draft. Why would I say that? Because he is the best player on the Texas Longhorns.
Taylor wants to be in the NBA like every young basketball player. DraftExpress currently ranks him 82nd out of 100 basketball draft prospects but projects that he would be the 48th pick of the 2015 NBA Draft.
If Taylor goes to the NBA combine, he can learn what he needs to improve, and there is no penalty for declaring early as long as he does not hire an agent.
College basketball needs changes
Every year at the end of a particular sport’s season, everyone comes out of the woodwork to say how bad a sport is…even though they still watched it. However, the criticisms of college hoops are fair. I believe there needs to be some change to the game.
1. Shorten the shot clock to 30 seconds.
In short, more possessions mean more points.
2. Change the One-and-Done rule.
I would like to see a rule similar to the NCAA baseball rule where all high school players are eligible for the NBA draft. If a player gets drafted, he then decides if he wants to play for that team or go to college. If they choose to go to college, they stay for a minimum of 3 years. After 3 years, the team who originally drafted them can decide if they want to sign them (at a rate based on their original draft selection) or if they will release their rights, making the player eligible to be drafted.
This approach is similar to what many European players do – they get drafted, then go back to Europe to play before returning when they are ready to play.
This system benefits both players and teams because it provides teams security in their picks and it gives players who do not intend to go to college an opportunity to change their mind.
Stop rioting over sporting events
I love the NCAA tournament as much as anyone – March Madness is a great time for everyone. Even though we watch in horror as our brackets bust, seeing the storylines develop in the tournament never fails to be worthwhile.
One of the ugliest trends in sports are the riots by fans when they lose or win. I do not understand rioting after your team loses a sporting event. In comparison to rioting over social conditions, causing a disturbance because over an outcome in sports seems absurd.
Marther Luther King said in an interview with Mike Wallace, “I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard.” I understand why some riot over social conditions present in their everyday lives but who is being unheard in the result of a game?
And a basketball game is just that – a game.
The excuses officials in Kentucky offered for the people’s behavior (and not calling it a riot) was even more pathetic. A riot is, “a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a disrupting and tumultuous manner in carrying out their private purposes.†How is flipping cars and setting fires not rioting?
And this isn’t just in college basketball. Vancouver rioted in 1994 and 2012 after the Canucks’s lost in the Stanley Cup final.
It’s a game. If people don’t treat is as such, then law enforcement needs to take action.
