Parity Has Allowed For the Most Unpredictable March in College Basketball History
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With the calendar turning to March, it is time for one of the most exciting sporting events in the world, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The tournament brings with it people hurryingly filling out brackets. thinking they can find the perfect upset in the early rounds as well as riding a certain team all the way to the national championship. What makes this year’s tournament so exciting is the fact that this college basketball season has produced no clear cut favorite to win the championship.
The 2015-16 season has brought with it constant change and utter chaos among the top 25 teams. No one can seem to stay at the top for more than three weeks and below that there always seems to be at least three or four ranked teams losing to unranked opponents. All of this leads to the question, does anyone actually want to be ranked in college basketball?
But how can so many of these elite teams lose to schools that ten years ago they easily could have beaten? The answer basically boils down to one rule that makes fans of college basketball cringe, the One-and-Done Rule. The rule allows for players to simply play one year in college and then be able to declare for the NBA. The perfect case study of this problem has occurred at Syracuse University.
During the 2013-14 season, Syracuse had one of the best teams in the country led by star point guard Tyler Ennis and sophomore forward Jerami Grant. Syracuse enjoyed the longest stretch at number one during the season, but were tapered near the end and were eventually upset by Dayton in the third round.
Ennis and Grant left for the NBA at the end of the season much to the chagrin of many experts who felt that they needed another year or two in college to improve their games. With this, Syracuse could not keep up with recruiting and struggled to keep up with the elite teams. The departure of Ennis and Grant has led to Coach Jim Boeheim being left with only seven players who have gotten the majority of the minutes this season as Syracuse is on the fringe of not making the tournament.
This rule has also put the spotlight on teams who have senior leadership, and it has also allowed for more major upsets to occur in recent years in the tournament. Whatever the case, the parity this rule has created has allowed for one the craziest seasons in recent memory and promises for an even more unpredictable tournament.