Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - Printable Version
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Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - BostonCard - 04-01-2025
https://club.sportico.com/p/march-madness-daily-separating-the?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The average age of final four teams is nearly 22 years old. Auburn is older as a team than 5(!) NBA teams.
BC
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - JohnR34231 - 04-01-2025
(04-01-2025, 06:10 AM)BostonCard Wrote: https://club.sportico.com/p/march-madness-daily-separating-the?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The average age of final four teams is nearly 22 years old. Auburn is older as a team than 5(!) NBA teams.
BC
Actually. I thought it was.
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - 2006alum - 04-01-2025
(04-01-2025, 06:50 AM)JohnR34231 Wrote:(04-01-2025, 06:10 AM)BostonCard Wrote: https://club.sportico.com/p/march-madness-daily-separating-the?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The average age of final four teams is nearly 22 years old. Auburn is older as a team than 5(!) NBA teams.
BC
Actually. I thought it was.
Me too. And not coincidentally, I've watched less March Madness this season than any in the last 5 years. At this point, I'll take aging Lebron and Curry over 20-year-olds demanding $1m to play ball.
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - lex24 - 04-01-2025
College athletes get paid way more minor leaguers……
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - jacket3ree - 04-01-2025
The teams in the Final Four should provide compelling entertaining, high -evel basketball, perhaps better than some random midseason Orlando Magic v. Charlotte Hornets game. The best paid college players do not make anything close to the best paid NBA players, but are paid better than UDFAs, so why not hop and shop schools as long as you can?
I've stopped watching college hoops other than when it just happens to be on in the background (bar, restaurant) so when we did our brackets, I looked for a way to fill it out without knowing much about the state of college basketball. I mean how does one stand a chance against Kathleen from accounting who knows nothing about basketball and just picks chalk. Yeah, she won last year and will win this year.
I've tried coin flips beyond the 1/16 matchup. Less than 50% success rate. I tried joining forces with the engineers who helped me develop Markov models for stochastic rainfall, repurposing 12-hour storm duration libraries for 12-seed historic performances randomly sampled with power indices. What a waste of time. I had my granddaughter pick last year and she had both of the packs of wolves going all the way before picking blue over red because wolves are in many of her books and Bluey! She did not do horribly, but out of the money.
This year, I went 20 years in the past, filled the bracket in how it happened then based solely on region and seed (like one sample out of all the random distributions I could have spent more than five minutes putting together), and then filled in this year's teams by seed and region. So, a Final Four of Michigan, Maryland, Duke, and Houston with some juicy upsets like McNeese (where per our bracket things are won or lost) along the way. Totally plausible and based on historic performance. It placed a lot of faith in seeding and wasn't intended to get it right, just more right than everyone else.
I am currently in 13th place near the top of the red shading for "eliminated from contention." What worked two decades ago no longer applies. College sport is basically all Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers, all the time. They are quickly figuring out how to kill what once made it great, which lead to all that loose change in the first place.
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - Hurlburt88 - 04-02-2025
obviously brobdingnagian changes for college athletics remain actively in process. What I now wonder about is how macro changes impacting colleges in general will influence athletics further: demographics of lower # of applicants, cultural backlash against elite towers, and fiscal impact of tighter federal support. For years the cost of a student has increased faster than inflation . . . if this is an inflection point, so many things about campus life may end up "adjusted"
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - Hieronymus - 04-02-2025
(04-01-2025, 07:18 AM)2006alum Wrote:(04-01-2025, 06:50 AM)JohnR34231 Wrote:(04-01-2025, 06:10 AM)BostonCard Wrote: https://club.sportico.com/p/march-madness-daily-separating-the?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The average age of final four teams is nearly 22 years old. Auburn is older as a team than 5(!) NBA teams.
BC
Actually. I thought it was.
Me too. And not coincidentally, I've watched less March Madness this season than any in the last 5 years. At this point, I'll take aging Lebron and Curry over 20-year-olds demanding $1m to play ball.
So far I have watched the last 7 minutes of LSU v. UCKA Women because I like watching Mularkey (sic) lose. That’s it for men and women combined. Beyond Stanford, I am basically out at this point.
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - SamuelMcF - 04-03-2025
A friend of mine happens to be a former mascot for one of the FF teams and it's his birthday this weekend, so naturally he's throwing a watch party. This will be the only non-Stanford college basketball game I'll have watched the entire season (along with maybe the natty, if his team makes it).
RE: Remind me again why college sports is not simply minor league pro ball - jonnyss - 04-03-2025
imo this is widespread, not just a sports phenomenon. the liberal arts paradigm is withering as more and more undergrads - even freshman and sophomores - focus on their internships in industry. i read recently that at many uc schools you now have to declare your science major with your application to have a chance of getting into that major. the scholar-companyman. so much for using your first 2 years to explore.
otoh, nil is great for seeing women athletes stay in school for 4 or 5 years. for example, olivia miles will play as a grad transfer and make around 800k rather than the 80k of the wnba. (yes, some of her endorsements will carry over to the pros, but not all of them). not that her staying helps notre dame.