The plethora of teams that just aren't that good (or the paucity of teams that are good) may be why I'm not enjoying watching as many games this years as in the past several. Also a lot of the good teams play a style that's just not that fun to watch, so it's not all on the crappy teams.
Creighton has 3 of them, will be interesting to see what Flanery can get out of them.
A glimpse at the teams ranked in the 40-60 range of the NET certainly corroborates the extraordinary weakness of the bubble teams.
I thought it was just me but for some reason and certainly a lot of what you stated could have bearing, watching games lately have not been especially captivating as in years past. Is it the sameness style of play that is now almost universal? Other? Interesting. What do others think?
I feel it too.
Could it be related to the concentration of talent at the top due to the ease of transfer through the portal?
I absolutely lay some of the blame on the portal. Not so much concentration of talent at the top as lack of continuity on teams. Yes, I'd rather watch Karlen at Iowa than at Notre Dame, but at the same time I think teams consisting of half portal transfers leads to more one-on-one ball at the expense of crisp passing and coherent defense. I was bemoaning the lack of cohesion on Maryland a few days ago when it was pointed out that they're incorporating something like 7 transfers, so were still finding their way. They may find their way by mid-March, but then they'll spend most of next year incorporating another half-dozen transfers.
Artistic play has largely given way to overtly physical play.
Hasn't it always been this way? UConn, ND, Stanford and the recent Oregon and Iowa teams gave you artistic play, and everyone else played physical...Baylor, Rutgers, Tenn, TX, Miss St and SC included.
In the old Big East, Rutgers, Louisville, Syracuse, and, yes, UConn would play very physical games. It took a little while for other teams to get the size and talent to play that style but it is nothing new.
Coincidentally, my husband and I were talking about player rankings yesterday after the UConn vs. Seton Hall game and did some Googling to see what some of UConn's less-heralded players were ranked coming out of high school.
I'd agree with you on everyone but Notre Dame. It's probably one of the reasons I never overtly disliked Stanford.
I think the real question is whether or not the schools with top coaches are also the ones with the most NIL money. For a very few athletes, college NIL is going to be worth more than they could make in an entire WNBA career. I think most of that money, though, is coming from corporations, and not from the cooperatives. For everybody else, you have to to try to understand why they want to play college basketball. There are some genuine prospects who might one day be good enough, but aren’t good enough now. For them, I think that coaching is going to trump whatever money they could make. Obviously, the prospect of winning the national championship isn’t always the deciding factor either, because otherwise superstars would never choose schools that only have a marginal chance at best. Who knows what really goes on in the mind of a 17 or 18-year-old? Maybe in five years we’ll be able to know what the impact is, but for now I think it’s going to be status quo.