𝙒𝙚 𝙐𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙏𝙤 𝙆𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨

When I played college basketball, there was this delusional belief we carried around, that you could walk into any blue blood type gym, see all the banners and think, If we get this press working early, we can steal it.

We knew how insane that sounded. We knew they had future pros, that one day would be prominently featured on the front of a cereal box. But that was the deal. You had to walk in believing you could win. You also had to be mentally ready for the part where you get punched repeatedly in the mouth and the building starts shaking.

Still…back then, the sport felt like one big pool….everybody was kind of swimming in the same water, but you understood the levels. That part is important, because it shaped how you saw everything.

You knew who the Division I athletes were. You could spot them immediately in warmups, just based on the way they moved. You could set it clearly, when they decided to turn their game on, making everyone else look like their controller disconnected.

You also knew the D II level and you knew the D III level. You also knew the guys who were never going to college because they were going directly to the league. You played against them at some point…maybe they dunked on your head and you went home and told your friends, then ten years later they are winning NBA Championships and being compared to Jordan…but your friends are still making fun of you.

Point is, there was a defined lane for everyone. 

That structure is a big reason so many of us fell in love with college basketball in the first place. The tournament worked because the sport still allowed you to believe in chaos. You could watch a mid-major get hot and suddenly the whole country cared about a school they could not find on a map without cheating. You could watch a powerhouse tighten up because the pressure is wild when you are supposed to win.

Now…college basketball feels like somebody took that system and lit the whole fucking thing on fire.

In the latest WTF Moment, James Nnaji…a guy who was literally drafted in 2023, played pro overseas…is now cleared to go back and play at Baylor. Umm…if you sat in an NBA locker room as a player, you should never end up back in a college locker room, unless you are coaching or giving some sort of motivational pep talk. Coaches are building rosters like they are running a front office, with no idea who is leaving or staying…yet still need to recruit for positions they don’t even know they need. I have talked to many coaches…they are frustrated, and it is because the system is completely fucked.

And I want to be clear before anybody tries to put words in my mouth.

I advocated for athletes getting paid...like a lot. I still believe athletes should get paid. Universities and conferences make boatloads of money based on athletic success, and the old model was gross. When I was in school, I got what my scholarship allowed and that was it. Nobody at my level was cashing in. That was something you heard about at the very top, and even then it was only at Michigan.

Now…not so much.

The House v NCAA settlement was approved in 2025, and schools would be able to directly pay athletes up to a cap that was expected to start around $20.5 million per school for 2025 to 2026, with increases over time. 

So when you hear coaches say they cannot compete without a 20 million dollar roster, they are not being dramatic. They are admitting what the sport is becoming. Layer in the portal nonsense, with ESPN reporting that nearly 2,700 men’s players entered the transfer portal before the April deadline. This is not normal behavior! 

The NCAA has been clarifying where it stands on players with NBA contracts returning to college. That came up again around the James Nnaji situation, and ESPN reported NCAA president Charlie Baker saying players who sign NBA contracts are not eligible to return.

So you have a world where the rules are shifting and the money is exploding, and nobody can explain the boundaries without adding like ten billion disclaimers.

Which is the part that messes with me, because when the money flows at the top, the gaps get wider. When the gaps get wider, the tournament loses its magic. Upsets become rarer because the top programs are basically paying to win. 

People act like that is not a big deal, but it is literally the entire fucking reason the whole country watches. The tournament has always been the moment where college basketball turns into a national holiday. You lose the chaos, you lose the interest.

And I know, somebody is going to comment “Well the best teams should win.” Cool. Go watch the NBA playoffs then. College basketball has always been fun because it was emotional. It was 19 year olds playing like their whole life was on the line.

Now it feels like we are headed toward a version where you will see more blowouts. It is happening everyday and trickling down to all levels. I had a highlight pop up on my feed with someone scoring some absurd individual total, and a final of 112-14.

That’s what I mean when I say this whole thing is starting to feel like the Upside Down. 

Athlete rights are better now and I love that. But I keep looking around and thinking…what did we trade for it? Because it feels like something is happening just outside your vision. You can’t always name it, but you feel it. Lots of Stranger Things vibes.

As that show got bigger, the stakes got bigger. At some point you could tell the writers were trying to protect the heart of it…while also feeding the machine.

That’s college basketball right now. The little belief that made it special keeps getting harder to hold onto. And I hate saying that, because I’m not rooting against athletes. I’m rooting for them.

I’m just looking at the sport I grew up loving and thinking, we might be destroying the exact part that made people care in the first place.