They’re fun, they’re fresh and they’re flashy.
But once again, a freshman-led men’s basketball team will no longer be in contention for an NCAA championship. Following the losses by University of Kentucky and Duke University this past weekend, there are no more teams in the tournament driven by first-year athletes.
Instead, it’s left to the old dogs of Auburn University, Michigan State, Texas Tech University and University of Virginia to brawl for the coveted trophy.
We will no longer see the freshmen trio of Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett and Cam Reddish for Duke, or Tyler Herro and Keldon Johnson from Kentucky. When a team with as much firepower as Duke can't get it done, it also lays to rest the idea that we need to hype up teams that are predominantly run by 18 year olds.
Each October the team with the hot, young superstars, traditionally a blue blood program, gets anointed champion before a ball is even tipped. Most years it’s Kentucky, this year it was Duke, and not for unjust reasoning. They had more than enough talent, but those players were freshmen. College basketball fans have yet to learn that freshman teams don’t win.
It’s not something that is so far fetched either. Since 2011, when the bracket expanded to 68 teams, only twice has a freshman-dominated team been crowned champions – Kentucky in 2012 and Duke in 2015 – but even those teams had veterans that greatly contributed to their teams' runs.
It shouldn’t surprise us that experience, time and time again, overpowers talent. It is something that happens day in and day out in regular life. Even in professional sports, seldom do you see a team of first, second or third-year players take down a team of guys on their second or third contracts because the latter group has seen everything the former group hasn’t.
For some reason though, that doesn’t surprise us. But when a veteran Michigan State team defeats Duke, who had to squeak out last-second wins against University of Central Florida and Virginia Tech, we’re colored surprised.
It's always fun to speculate how these teams of young studs will gel and mesh in what is in most cases their only year together, but it's not realistic to believe that it will bond quickly enough to result in a championship.
When the next college basketball season rolls around in roughly six months, remember to pick your winner wisely. Flashiness is great, but sometimes it shines too bright and breaks. It's the dim teams that tend to find just enough to shine on.
