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I've become convinced that the toughest opponent on any major college basketball coach's schedule isn't UNC, OSU, or UCLA. It's ESPN, especially the nightly SportsCenter show. It's the only TV program that has demonstrably altered the way a game is played and coached.
Think about it.
Of all the blue-chip recruits and Division I players in the nation, I'll bet the ratio of those watching SportsCenter to, say, studying in the library is roughly 99 to 1 – and maybe that's too low. Every one of them wants to do something spectacular enough to make the nightly highlights segment.
Since the only sure ways to make SportsCenter are (a) a spectacular dunk or (b) an outrageous night of three-point shooting, that's what players concentrate on doing. Nobody cares much about free-throw shooting, setting picks, or blocking out because SportsCenter puts no value on those blue-collar jobs.
So what's a kid to do when given the choice of doing something SportsCenter-worthy or making the extra pass? Inevitably, his ego will win out.
Consider, for example, UK freshman Eric Bledsoe. Of all the good things he did in the opener against Morehead, what made SportsCenter? Not one of his free throws or crisp passes. It was the play where he just threw up a blind shot – somewhere Adolph Rupp was screaming – and the ball happened to drop in.
Interestingly, the most colorful and exciting era of college hoops was the period from, oh, 1957 through 1975. First came the players – I call them "originals" – who defined positions as we know them today: Oscar Robertson at point guard, Jerry West at shooting guard, Elgin Baylor at small forward, and Wilt Chamberlain (offense) and Bill Russell (defense) at center.
(I'm not sure whom I would identify as the father of all power forwards, which I definite as a tall rebounder and defender who can play away from basket on offense, but it might have been Elvin Hayes of Houston).
This era segued into the high-scoring era of the late '60s and early '70s. Never again will we see scoring machines like Pete Maravich of LSU, Dan Issel of Kentucky, Austin Carr of Notre Dame, Rick Mount of Purdue, James "Fly" Williams of Austin Peay and Calvin Murphy of Niagara – and their entertaining style of high-octane ball was made for TV.
Sadly, the high-scoring era gave way to the Coaching Control-Freak Era, in which we still live. Most of the credit – or blame, depending on your point of view – goes to Dean Smith of North Carolina and Bob Knight of Indiana. By emphasizing defense, they de-emphasized scoring and individual play.
From the mid-1960s through the mid-'80s, a noted exception to the Control-Freak School was Guy V. Lewis of Houston. His philosophy was simple: He recruited great athletes and let them play. His Phi Slamma Jamma team of 1983 deserves to be remembered as one of the most athletically-gifted teams ever instead of the one that got stunned by N.C. State in the biggest upset in Final Four history.
Back then Lewis was denigrated as a coach who did little more than roll out the balls at practice. Today I believe he deserves to be known as the father of the "Dribble Drive" that is currently all the rage at UNC, Memphis, UK and other places capable of recruiting the athletes most likely to make SportsCenter.
As I understand it, the "Dribble Drive" is the sort of offense that Smith, Knight and their ilk always have loathed. It depends less on team basketball and more on individual skill. Essentially, it involves clearing out a side, letting somebody go one-on-one, putting the ball on the glass, and depending on the fact that your athletes are bigger, stronger, and more talented than the other guy's athletes.
So besides forcing us to look at Guy V. Lewis with fresh perspective, it moves us back toward the days of Maravich, Issel, et al. And this is a good thing for the ticket-buying and TV-viewing public, although not for those coaches who still believe that the college game revolves around them, not the players, and who fight the SportsCenter mentality.
When I look at the coaching landscape, I can make the argument that most of the best coaching is being done at places like Butler, Purdue, Gonzaga, and Miami of Ohio. They can't get the John Walls of the basketball world, so they have to make do with players who don't have the athletic skills to seriously dream of making SportsCenter on a regular basis.
But the thing is, the players at those schools (and I will not accept the term “mid-major” until the term “lower-major” also comes into usage) can be taught to master the fundamentals and play basketball the way it was meant to be – a team game where blocking out, setting picks, etc., and essential to success.
This isn't to knock the coaches at the marquee programs. But let's face it: They make the really big bucks because of their recruiting ability as much, if not more than, their coaching ability. Their problem, as coaches, is how to deal with the five-star recruits once they get them.
Calipari has gotten the top point guard from the last three recruiting classes – Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans, and the aforementioned Wall. They are one-and-done guys, precocious talents who came to college only because they were too young to go directly to the NBA. They major in basketball practice. They work hard to get on SportsCenter because that's their equivalent of an A in the classroom.
When you get this kind of player, you have to play the “Dribble Drive,” don't you? Sure, you do, or they'll go elsewhere. Try to teach them John Wooden's high-post offense and they'll laugh in your face. Talk to them about The Wizard's “Pyramid of Success” and they'll dial Worldwide Wes on their cells to give him a good chuckle.
When Knight went to work for ESPN last season, I told him that if he really wanted to do the coaching profession a favor, he would force the people who run SportsCenter to forget about dunks and three-point shooting for just one night – a night on which they would run clips of the top 10 picks or the top 10 blockouts or the top 10 free-throw shooters.
If SportsCenter would celebrate those lunch-pail parts of the game, perhaps the players would begin to work on those skills as much as on their dunking or long-range shooting. Probably not, but you get the point, right?
I love spectacular plays as much as the next fan, but I like to see them done within a team context. The great thing about players like Robertson, West, and Baylor was that they put up big numbers, but also were the most unselfish and fundamentally sound players on their teams.
At least now we know that Guy V. Lewis was ahead of his time. Is SportsCenter had existed during his career, Houston would get more SportsCenter time than Dicky V. and The Digger put together. Heck, thanks to the advent of the “Dribble Drive,” I think it's time we revisited the question of whether he belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Billy Reed