Look, we all want what we can't have anymore. If you are a college basketball fan, you are forever longing for the time when we could develop feelings for certain teams over time because we had time, because the best thing about freshman (as Al McGuire always told us) is they became sophomores.
And, ultimately, juniors.
And seniors.
So we could watch Chris Mullin, Patrick Ewing and Easy Ed Pinckney (to cite the most cited threesome) grow, and we could pick sides and know who the teams were and who they would be facing year to year. There probably never will be a time when we don't wax nostalgic about those days, about that time, about the way college hoops was always so "reliable."
And we can wail about the way things are now if we want to, about one-and-dones, about how hard it is to keep track of teams anymore because the whole sport is so transient, about how even Duke has thrown its hands up and given in, realizing they already have recruited their last three-time All American (and maybe even their last two-timer).
And we certainly can sigh about what John Calipari has created at Kentucky, a revolving door of supreme talent that takes breaths away year after year and culminates this season with such an abundance of riches that there are times they play like football teams, using two platoons.
Yes. We can rage about all that if we like. Or we simply can come to understand this is the product of a new day, of a new time, that the best, most watchable basketball happens now in places such as Kentucky and Duke and the superpowers who can attract the most great players for their brief campus cameos.
But there is also this side benefit:
The schools and the teams that do make their way with players who stay four years — whether by choice or by circumstance — are far more likely to matter. Now, by "mattering" that doesn't mean any of them will challenge Kentucky this season. They won't. It's possible nobody will, seeing as how Kentucky keeps toying with the likes of North Carolina and Texas and Kansas.
But what we've seen across the landscape the past few weeks is the manifestation of team over star, whether we are talking about Columbia playing Kentucky close or NJIT beating Michigan or Yale knocking off UConn. We always have lauded college basketball's possibilities, and those possibilities have almost always included upsets, or at least the notion of them.
But really, the odds of Chaminade bearing Virginia are a lot better now than when the Silverswords actually beat the Cavaliers over 30 years ago. Teams that stay together really do have a chemistry and a cohesion the one-and-doners can't ever expect to achieve. The elite of the elite still have to chase the talent because that's ultimately how you win the holy grail, so those programs necessarily have to sacrifice continuity in the name of talent.
But it also means the gap between them and the great unwashed has narrowed and will continue to. Yes, it was splendid when basketball teams stayed together longer than most music bands do. But unless we're kidding ourselves, there's been a nice byproduct of doing business this way, too.
Vack Whacks
"Homeland's" Claire DanesPhoto: Getty Images
METS ACQUIRE JOHN MAYBERRY" — headlines that would have been more exciting in 1976.
Another Veterans Committee vote, another posthumous slap at Gil Hodges, another day Brooklyn sighs and says, "Wait till next year."
Oh, mind you, I've seen what the Islanders have done since my column last week. Yes I have.
I keep going back to this, but only because "Homeland" has had the most extraordinary midlife re-boot since George Foreman.
Whack Back at Vac
Mel Gross: The Knicks' biggest problem is the blindfold defense. These perimeter defenders always are looking in the paint and don't look at the players they're guarding. But this has gone on for several years during the Mike Woodson years too.
Vac: Do you think we can retroactively apologize to the Riley Era Knicks for all the times we griped about how dull their games were?
Steven Scafler: It's gotten so bad for the Knicks that even the Washington Generals are starting to feel sorry for them.
Vac: When teams start doing their layup lines to "Sweet Georgia Brown" we'll know rock bottom is neigh.
@chris_valentino: The Columbia blue had Kentucky thinking it's the Tar Heels.
@MikeVacc: Or maybe it was the other way around …
Vince Moore: Just watched last night's Newsroom, and have to say I didn't see that coming.
Vac: It hasn't done a full "Homeland" redemption, but I'm going to miss the gang in Sorkinville.
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