last night i flopped down on my couch to watch the ucla-washington game, but the sound had gone out on our tv. still, i sat there and watched, and a couple of things became apparent. there were a lot of empty seats at pauley pavilion. and i didn't recognize a single name on the ucla roster, except for "keefe," and that only because adam keefe was one monty's first big recruits at stanford. (brother? son?) and i got to thinking, how far ucla had fallen from the days of jabbar, walton, even marques johnson. without the sound, the game looked more like a glorified intramual game.
and then it hit me, how much the one-and-dones and none-and-dones have hurt college basketball. probably helped parity, where a sac state can beat an oregon state, or a montana can compete straight up against an oregon or a washington. but also taken away the joy of watching a player develop over four years, or creating stars that you'd pay to see. in football, we still get to see a colt mccoy or a ndamukong suh or a tim tebow for four years, but in college basketball, the kevin loves and kevin durants are gone after one, while the lebron's never do show up. the big dance remains probably my favorite sporting event, but night in and night out, the absence of the stars has really hurt college basketball.