College Basketball / Mark Heisler : The Folly of Playing Three Seasons

So much for the preliminaries: The regular college basketball season is ending, which matters only to the 41st- through the 100th-best teams.

With a 64-team NCAA tournament field, the top 40 have been all but guaranteed berths from the opening game. Teams 41-100 vied for the final 24. Everyone else was rebuilding this season.

The new, huge NCAA field has one drawback: It renders the regular season almost meaningless.

Remember the big Duke-North Carolina game last week? It was their second meeting of the season, and there could be a third. Georgetown and Villanova met three times last season. The Hoyas won the two little ones.

These days your basic season, like Gaul, is divided into three parts:

EXHIBITIONS--We’re not talking about the Rumanian national team here, but the entire month of December.

Some teams--Louisville, where Coach Denny Crum has a 10-year contract; UCLA, which likes the national TV money--will play every top 20 team they can schedule.

Most of the others prefer to book Yoo Hoo U.

Michigan, for instance, after the lid-lifter in Hawaii’s Chaminade tournament, played Georgia Tech in the Hall of Fame tournament. Then the Wolverines retired to Ann Arbor to play Tennessee, Youngstown State, Florida Southern (Roy Tarpley called it a hard practice), Chicago State, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Northern Michigan, Illinois Chicago and Cleveland State.

One assumes that Southern Michigan was upset that it couldn’t get on the Wolverines’ schedule.

Oh, there is no Southern Michigan? No wonder it was left off. Maybe they could get one up in time for next season?

Then there’s Syracuse. The Orangemen started with home games against Utica, Cornell and USC, held their own tournament at the Carrier Dome and remained at home to greet Brooklyn College, C.W. Post and St. Bonaventure.

The result?

In a year where everyone concedes that there are no super teams, the Associated Press’ top eight on Jan. 5 were an aggregate 99-1.

The one loss was Georgia Tech’s, to Michigan in that Hall of Fame game.

CONFERENCE SEASON--This is more exciting--like, what wouldn’t be?--but in some cases, it’s not teeming with meaning, either. The ACC’s sixth-place team, Maryland, 6-8 but 18-12 overall, is expected to make the NCAA tournament. How about poor Clemson, 3-11 in the conference but 17-13 overall? Why don’t they take the entire ACC and cut down somewhere else?

CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS--The biggest farce of all.

Take the ACC’s, the granddaddy of them all and once the most exciting three days in college basketball. Now it’s devoted to shearing those ticket-buying sheep and deciding whether Duke is to be seeded No. 1 in the Mideast Regional, or in the West.

Six of the ACC’s teams are probably already in, unless their bus driver drives them off the face of the earth. God forbid that Clemson should play Wake Forest in the final or the whole conference will get in.

Last week, college basketball was abuzz with the news that Jacksonville had upended Alabama Birmingham in the Sun Belt final. Now Jacksonville is in the NCAA tournament, Too It’s a good thing it wasn’t UNC Charlotte, or it’d be in the NCAA, along with Jacksonville and UAB.

This leads, inevitably, to other conferences fearing a postseason tourney gap. The Pac-10, which has more fundamental problems, is going to play one next season.

This is similar to what the NBA did, expanding its playoffs at the cost of its regular season. The Lakers are searching for their snooze alarm. Larry Bird, alleged to be the consummate lover of the game, tells CBS that he’s going for triple doubles these days to stay interested.

Call it progress.

Of course, the NCAA tourney was expanded for TV, which is tickled pink.

Regular-season ratings took a fat 20% drop a couple of years ago, but they’ve held up for the tournament. CBS is paying the NCAA about $32 million a year for postseason games and considers itself privileged.

Even in these days of decrying the future of big rights fees, NBC is mounting a campaign to try to make the tournament a two-network affair.

“Baseball loves its two-network exposure,” said NBC spokesman Steve Griffith. “Football loves its three-network exposure. NBC has continued to demonstrate its interest, carrying NCAA games, producing the Al McGuire special the day before the finals, in effect promoting another network’s attraction.”

Said Mark Carlson of CBS: “We will try to keep it for ourselves. We think we’ve proven the NCAA can do better, staying on one network.”

Anything that will result in less exposure to Brent Musburger, I say.

Without getting into the merits of USC Coach Stan Morrison’s suspension of Derrick Dowell, it should be noted that there have been too many of these problems at Troy: transfers, players lashing out, players being disciplined.

With the exception of last season, there seems to be a steady undercurrent of rebellion under Morrison. You can’t find a nicer man than Morrison, but maybe he shows his players another face?

Whatever, past a certain number of cases, it’s his problem as much as theirs. It’s his program. They’re his recruits.

Several reporters who have called Marty Blake, the NBA’s director of scouting, on other matters report that Blake has gone out of his way to savage UCLA’s Reggie Miller.

Blake complains that Miller is selfish and a hotdog. He’s certainly the latter. Both he and Cheryl Miller can get fairly obnoxious on the floor. Off it, both are delightful and well-mannered people.

As for the former complaint, the Bruins aren’t what you’d call a real well-balanced team.

My own opinion is that Miller is a sure first-rounder next season and would have a shot at it if he came out this year.

To check it, an NBA general manager was offered anonymity.

“I disagree with Marty,” he said. “I don’t know where that’s coming from. Assuming Reggie makes normal progress next year, I think he’s going to be a terrific pro.

“A first-rounder this year? He’d have a chance. I think he’s a kid who really needs another year.”