Five years ago today, Virginia won the 2019 men’s basketball national championship.
This was, you may remember, one year after suffering the sport’s most colossal failure.
Five years ago, in the current climate, may have as well been 50 years ago.
A lot has changed in college sports in the last five years.
Tonight, Purdue and Connecticut will battle for the 2024 national championship.
For the Boilermakers, it’s an opportunity to become the second team of redemption, as Purdue was the second #1 seed to lose to a 16 seed.
Connecticut will be seeking a repeat of its 2023 title.
This game is clearly a matchup of college basketball’s two best programs this season and has the makings of a classic.
This game might just end up like the 2019 title game between the Cavaliers and Texas Tech with 40 minutes not being enough time to decide a winner.
Yep, five years ago.
Or to a time when paying student-athletes was a no-no.
Didn’t mean it wasn’t happening, just not legal.
OK, technically, it still isn’t.
NIL is not about paying players, but rather providing players the opportunities to make money on “their right of publicity,” capitalizing on anything that identifies them.
Whatever.
The players get paid now, plain, and simple.
Five years ago, transferring from one school to another had consequences.
Like having to sit out a year.
A former head coach and longtime assistant coach has repeatedly told me that the transfer portal, not NIL, will be responsible for the complete undoing of college sports as we know them.
College sports has already lost Hall of Fame coaches, because of the uncertainty of roster makeup and management.
Nick Saban in football and Jay Wright in basketball all but said thanks, but no thanks, as they rode off into the sunset.
It takes time to build a successful program, something NIL and the transfer portal doesn’t lend itself to.
Tony Bennett has built a successful program at UVA, and he did it through talent evaluation and player development.
As a high school player, or a player in the portal, there’s a culture change as to how things used to be.
Five years ago, a player evaluated which school and coach seemed the best fit, and they went to it. Now it is more about the best offer.
Five years ago, it was easy to see Bennett’s blueprint on building a program leading to many Final Fours and deep tournament runs.
Now, that blueprint may simply not work.
The transfer portal clearly did not work in Virginia’s favor this season.
Was that a result of Bennett and staff doing a poor job of evaluating players, or more to the fact that the incoming transfers needed longer to learn the Virginia system?
One thing is certain, it won’t take long to get another chance for the coaching staff to get another chance of redemption.
With the transfer portal in place, it starts over every year.
Five years ago.
You know, when they were using peach baskets.
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