NDIANAPOLIS - It's so easy to reminisce about the Final Four.
Everyone talks about his or her first. If you're talking about awareness, for me it would be 1954, when La Salle won. That had some resonance where I lived. If you're talking about being there, for me it was 1970 (UCLA-Jacksonville-New Mexico State-St. Bonaventure). I have two lasting memories. The first was Sidney Wicks blocking five Artis Gilmore shots in the championship game. The second was the sight of Red Auerbach walking into the lobby of Washington's Shoreham Hotel with his two boxers on leashes.
If you're talking about unforgettable experiences, I'd begin with the Villanova-Georgetown game in 1985. Villanova was lucky to be in the tournament. Georgetown was, by the night of the championship game, a tsunami washing over the college basketball world. But Villanova did the thing everyone dreams about. The Wildcats picked the right night to play as perfect a game as has ever been submitted in NCAA tournament competition. They shot 13 for 18 from the floor in the first half, and then shot 9 for 10 in the second. They needed each of those precious baskets in order to defeat a physically superior Georgetown team by a 66-64 score.
But - and you knew there just had to be a ''but,'' didn't you - it's not all laughs and jokes and smiles and happy tales at the Final Four. This thing is a financial colossus. CBS has paid an incomprehensible $6 billion (yes, that was a ''b'') for the long-term rights, and that should always serve as a reminder that what we have come to celebrate isn't the Oxford-Cambridge crew race, but the Oscar night in a very cutthroat business.
You think these teams just happened? You think Tom Izzo and Billy Donovan posted notices for basketball tryouts Oct. 1 and then walked onto their respective practice gym courts Oct. 15 to see who answered the call? Uh, no. The truth is that it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to assemble these teams in order that we might enjoy watching them on this first Monday in April. These players are valuable properties.
The Mateen Cleaveses and Mike Millers of the world are treasured commodities who were made aware of their special nature around the age of 14. In the days of yore, the issue would have been high school basketball only. The good players would get their publicity and the coaches would descend upon them, and it would get pretty hectic at the end, but it was usually manageable.
It's far more complicated now. The high school season is often an appendage in the kid's mind to the real matter of business, which is summer, i.e., AAU basketball. For many, if not most, of the big kids nowadays, the key person in his basketball life isn't his high school coach. It's his AAU coach. And what is his motive?
It might be pure. Then again, it's more than likely not very pure at all, particularly if the activity in question is being bankrolled by Nike, Adidas, or some other shoe company. If you would like to find out all you've been missing in your understandable, and blissful, naivete, head to your nearest bookstore (preferably an independent one) and pick up a copy of ''Sole Influence,'' a highly important book by Dan Wetzel and Don Yaegers in which the entire sordid tale of the AAU-shoe company hijacking of adolescent basketball is laid out in exquisite detail.
The very idea of 12-month basketball activity should give all of us pause. We have spawned generations of young athletes who have never worked a day in their lives. Not one. Hardly a major basketball figure under the age of 25 has ever mowed a lawn, shoveled a sidewalk, stocked a shelf or spent an eight-hour day doing anything to earn an honest paycheck. What they do from the age of 14 is play basketball. The elite players are avidly recruited by AAU teams who then travel all over the country (and sometimes the world). Their summers are spent being basketball stars. It's no wonder that by the time some college coach gets hold of them there is an unrelenting sense of entitlement.
Education, always a variable, is more of a joke than ever at many top schools. Every kid who can touch the rim thinks the NBA is in his near future, and so his college choice will be geared to what he perceives to be the best opportunity for game development and pro scout exposure, plus whatever goodies he thinks he'll be picking up at his new school.
The good players stay one or two years before entering the draft, which is why the rare senior-oriented teams do so well in the NCAA tournament. The end result is a lessening of overall quality. There may not be one player in the 2000 Final Four who will play in an NBA All-Star Game. Oh, sure, Mateen Cleaves will be in the NBA, and so, perhaps, will Morris Peterson and Mike Miller, but stardom for them will be no guarantee.
Some people are looking at Florida and coach Billy Donovan's relationship with former Kentucky player-turned-financier Bret Bearup, who spreads dollars around in a manner that makes the NCAA very nervous, and whispering that some Gator players are bought and paid for. Which would not distinguish them from the next 40 Final Four wannabes.
It's a corrupt enterprise on many levels, but don't look to me for solutions because no one wants to start with the obvious, which is that our entire system of college sports is, by definition, intellectually indefensible. But those of us who love the game have long ago come to a mutual accommodation on that subject. We love the competition and we love the pageantry, so we agree to wink at the excesses, even as we fill out our brackets.
I can only report to you that there is an uncommon feeling of nervousness at this year's Final Four. Agents and money are the dominant topics of conversation. The NCAA wants to crack down, but it hardly knows where to start. And the NCAA knows that the men's basketball tournament is the organization's cash cow, so there is no great desire to get too righteous.
That's because in the end some kind of show must go on. Neither CBS nor the American public want to hear how the cast was assembled. Just lift the curtain. We demand to be entertained.
Player audio
