March Madness Time

It's that time again. The NCAA Basketball Tournament is about to start. One of the biggest sporting events of the year.

But let's face it...college basketball is not what it once was.

The best players are one & done now. A small improvement over the previous decade where all the best players went straight to the NBA from high school, but not by much.

Back in the hey day of college basketball, the 1980's into the mid 90's, you had guys staying 4 years in school, at least 3. And because of this the college game rivaled if not surpassed the NBA in popularity.

I remember the great Georgetown teams with Patrick Ewing and Reggie Williams, St. Johns with Walter Berry and Chris Mullin, Syracuse with Pearl Washington and Derrick Coleman. And that's just the Big East.

Then you had the great Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan and Indiana programs. And how about that great Houston team with Clyde Drexler & Hakeem Olajuwon.

Teams back then had great stars that you could identify with. But now, you need a primer before each year just to find out who the top players are. Most of them end of being freshman who are just going to college because they have to do the 1 year requirement.

But the tournament gets everyone excited for college basketball again for about 3 weeks. It comes at the perfect time. Football is over, the NBA season (which is too long anyway) is coming to an end and baseball is still in spring training. People fill out their brackets with the hope of winning a little scratch. It's all good.

Except for the fact that I can name a player on only about 8 of the 64 teams.


Here's my Final Four picks:

Kansas, West Virginia, Syracuse, Duke.

Championship Game: Kansas vs. WVU

National Champ: Kansas Jayhawks