I Also Like Bad College Basketball

High skill level isn't why I watch

From Subscriber EK:

Since you like to tackle subjects that the mainstream is too scared to discuss... Here's an obvious one: the quality of play in the women's NCAA tournament has, for the most part, been abysmal. Even the best teams and best players, even South Carolina and even Hidalgo. Is this something we as a basketball viewing public can be honest about? Or do we have to equate close games for quality play?

I like this topic because it approaches the mystery of what we want from sports. Yes, we enjoy displays of incredible skill, but “high skill” might be ancillary to whatever compels our interest.

If you want to read an honest sentence that you’ll never hear on television, here goes: Personally, I don’t need basketball to be “great” to enjoy it and that’s why I can happily watch women’s basketball. There are basketball snobs out there in NBA media whose aversion to the women’s game is more rooted in what it actually lacks relative to the men’s game vs. some crass misogyny. They quietly feel this way but would never dare share.

I might be a snob, but I am not a basketball snob. True, I enjoy seeing great displays of skill, but I don’t need every competition to be the absolute height of competition. I like how Caitlin Clark just moves differently than anyone else on the court within the context she plays in. I don’t need her to actually be objectively on par with Steph Curry to feel similar to the sense I get when I’m watching Steph Curry.

If all I cared for was skill optimization, I wouldn’t be watching the women’s game. This is all pretty obvious and yet nobody mainstream just says it. It’s highly taboo to make an unfavorable comparison to the men’s product, even if people just flat say it in private. But yes, duh, the players aren’t as capable as the men on average, and yes, that’s fine. Hell, it’s great at times.

I watched Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame flame out as Hailey Van Lith of TCU got rolling. The action was suspenseful in part because aspects I’d take for granted in the men’s game suddenly weren’t guaranteed at this level. An open layup went from a foregone make in my mind to a, “Maybe?” proposition as Hidalgo repeatedly struggled to put the finishing touch on her drives.

Some people are bothered by that sort of thing. They require the absolute top skill level from their basketball and anything less frustrates them. I respect that, but also don’t entirely understand it. Personally, I like basketball, which means I like different kinds of basketball. I enjoy watching a high school championship. I enjoy watching my son play first graders. I was even into Summer League games when it was my job to cover them. The only real requirement from me is that the participants care.

I’m reminded of Roger Ebert’s rule for giving reviews:

It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.

Critics have a tendency to take certain kinds of movies seriously and act dismissively towards entire genres. Ebert’s law dictates that you merely assess these works of art within their own contexts. If a raunchy comedy is hilarious, then it earns 4 stars. You don’t punish it for failing to be a dense period piece.

I don’t discredit a college basketball game, men’s or women’s, for lacking NBA skill level. I dismiss it if it’s a boring blowout. Actually, my main gripe with college ball is that the giant chaotic tourney makes for championships that feel less earned, but this is a digression. The point is that a “worse” product isn’t necessarily worse to watch. I don’t need a player to be objectively great across all basketball anymore than I’d need prime Manny Pacquiao to be capable of felling heavyweights. I just need to see the best within whatever parameters. I need the competitors to care. I need the atmosphere to elevate the experience.

Maybe you’re different. Perhaps you need to watch pioneers of the sport whenever you tune in. That makes sense as an inclination, but personally, I can handle watching missed open layups. I can also admit that the people missing them aren’t as good at basketball, on average, as the men.