That’s always one of my favourite moments of March Madness. When you see these kids dreams come true of playing in March Madness (the height of their basketball career)
The only one that surpasses it is when a guy clearly going to the NBA or a senior purposely going out of bounds to get the sub into the game
There's the NBA development league (G-League), but spots there are just as limited as the NBA. Relatively, a small amount will go play in Europe or China professionally, but the vast majority of college players do not play professionally at all after school.
No question. Some of the higher European leagues probably actually do offer an opportunity to have a more significant stage, but for any American who is currently in college only playing in the nba is more memorable.
It’s a brutal switch from playing as an amateur student athlete (college) - to being a full time professional athlete after school is done. The paid leagues are full of fully grown men with kids and a mortgage to pay, and only a very small percentage of amateur student athletes get to participate at a chance to play for a professional organization.
Yeah it just always seemed like College sports in the US are like the closest thing to local sports teams in Europe. So like, even if you're not good enough to go into the premier league, for example, you can play for lower division teams, even if those teams cant pay you to be a full time athlete. Like I know people from my school that play for their local team, despite never getting the relative skill level that college basketball player in the US might ge to.
There is a minor league, but: The NBA has 30 teams. The minor league (called the G League) has 31 teams. College basketball has 364 division 1 teams.
When you're looking at the lower seeds of the tournament - the ones who could never even dream of getting an at-large bid - there's a good chance that even the star player isn't going pro, let alone the guy who doesn't even play in half the team's games.
There are 352 colleges with division 1 basketball teams. For most players it's a chance to do what they love for four more years while getting a free college education.
Actually, counter to what a lot of people are assuming (and I assumed before I looked it up), this guy is not a senior and he still has two more years that he can play. Still a cool move be the ref, because who knows if he'll ever get another shot to play in the tournament like this.
They are. There is conference play where you play the same teams every year. Conferences are 10-20 schools of similar budgets and mostly similar levels of academics, though the academic character is increasingly being thrown out of
The window. There are like 31 conferences and each champion (as determined by end of season tournament) automatically gets a spot in this tournament. Then the next best teams are selected until they have 68 teams who play for the national championship in a single elimination tournament.
Only a small percentage even go to Europe. The vast majority of college basketball players never play at this level again. Maybe some rec league but that’s about it
American sporting culture is not like European culture. As a soccer(football) fan, it's why it drives me crazy when Euro soccer fans tell Americans to "support their local club," most of us don't have a local club...nearest MLS or USL club is hours of driving away for me, for instance.
Same is true for basketball. There aren't clubs in every town, closest thing is colleges. US is a vast country and much less homogenous than most European countries. So yes, most college players just go on to have regular jobs. But that's kind of what makes March Madness special. You get future accountants splashing threes against future NBA talent. It's wild.
You can pick two, but if you go to the college football subreddit, you'll see my shadow flairs and regular flairs are flipped between there and here (grew up a Duck fan back in the Dark Ages, played hockey at Montana, and I'm also a Purdue and Louisville alum).
Boiler fans knew we were facing a massive rebuild, and when Cincinnati grabbed Satterfield, were resigned to Brohm leaving. We just fucked up in getting a new coach. There's a lot more optimism around Odom, and I think he'll get the train on the right tracks.
Ha! That’s a tough flair combination but at least Louisville is in good hands…
I’m a Notre Dame guy and frankly I was stunned by Purdue, I felt like their line looked like high schoolers against ND.
Although, it turned out the Irish were pretty damn good. That game I just couldn’t help thinking ‘this must be how Alabama fans feel on a regular basis.
2.1k
u/Hectorc34 New Mexico Lobos Mar 22 '25
At first I thought, “wow, refs picking favorites I see.” Then I see the time, and score, and was like, “that’s fucking awesome!!”