A college season with little fanfare
By By Tony Krausz / assistant sports editor
March 14, 2003
It's that time of year again.
Just like the changing of the seasons, the setting of clocks an hour ahead or an hour back (Does anyone really know why we do this?) and taxes, it's here.
That's right March Madness.
We enter this weekend for one of the few times looking forward to the wee-hours of Sunday.
Sure most of us have to return to work Monday morning, but Sunday night is the big night.
It's time to announce which college hoops teams strap on their dancing shoes, and which teams end up being wallflowers watching from their homes, dorms or where ever the squads' not invited to the dance so choose.
What better time to look back on the college basketball season that was 2002-03.
Who can forget that big game on, uh?
Or how about that player who set the college basketball world on fire, you know, um?
Wait, wait, how about when?
Not a whole lot really sticks out at the end of the season does it?
College basketball was the season that simply wasn't there this year.
For the first half to three-quarters of the season, the eyes of the hoops' world were focused squarely on a high school kid named LeBron James.
Now there was high drama.
The endless trials and tribulations of the hummer.
Did he get it legally?
Should he be suspended for it?
Can the big bad high school athletic association of the great state of Ohio nail this basketball protege to the wall for driving around in hot wheels?
And the grand daddy hummer tail of them all Did LeBron run over an old lady with his ride?
Plus, we were all treated to every thing you ever wanted to know about throw-back jerseys but were to afraid to ask for a good month.
All the while, collegiate athletes, the future of basketball in the U.S., were competing in games.
They must have been because there were always box scores in the paper the next day, and a highlight or two wedged between the LeBron show on SportsCenter.
The NCAA couldn't just make up the records of all the college basketball teams, could it?
Considering how captivated everybody was over LeBron and his battles with the Ohio High School Athletic Association, it could very well have happened this year.
But alas, LeBron James and those high flying lads at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary finally faded from the spot light, and college basketball took center stage.
It was late February; the tournament was starting soon; people had brackets to start thinking about; it was time to give collegiate hoops its due.
And what did we get when we finally started to focus on the NCAA basketball scene?
Proof that when you lift up the barrel…
Apparently when the fans and media eyes were away, college basketball fell down a winding road of cheating, deceit, vandalism and other fun boarish behavior to the max.
From St. Bonaventure sending a squad out onto the court with an illegal player, with a welders certificate or something like that.
To surprise, surprise Jerry "Tark the Shark" Tarkanian did something wrong at Fresno State.
And of course the biggest ugly of all in the inaugural year of "March Mayhem," Georgia's Jim Harrick is caught running amok with NCAA rules and better judgment with his program.
How are these things dealt with.
The fightin' Bonnies decide to quit, the players that is.
That's right, the young men who compose the St. Boniveture basketball squad decided since they couldn't play in their conference tournament or the NCAA tournament, it was better to just quit. Even though the team had two games left on its schedule.
What a great lesson for the kids.
When things go wrong, just quit.
Fresno State yanks itself out of any postseason play.
And Georgia follows suit on the eve of the SEC tournament.
The regular season may be completely forgetable this year in college basketball, but at least, it went out with a "Bonnie &Clyde"-like bang.
NCAA basketball, it's Fantastic.
