And, interestingly enough, neither are the players. Well, it might be the colleges as a whole. Parity in college basketball is at its highest right now. It is also the reality often ignored in the annual caterwauling of spring, a benefit often missed amid the annual pronouncements of basketball death, doom and destruction. The pros wail they are getting raw products, which they go ahead and draft anyway while transforming the NBA into a glorified developmental league.
College coaches bemoan their diminished talent pool.
Idealists decry lost educational opportunities, which many players cared little about anyway. And polluting the air as background noise are prophecies predicting the demise of the college game as we know it. But in the opening round of the 2001 NCAA tournament, Butler of the little-known Midwestern Collegiate Conference toppled Wake Forest of the mighty Atlantic Coast Conference. And Kent State toppled Indiana of the mighty Big Ten. And Utah State toppled Ohio State of the mighty Big Ten.