When it comes to college basketball, I’m an unabashed romantic. I wish Ohio State’s Greg Oden would come back for another year of school and laugh at all the money the NBA wants to bounce-pass his way this summer.
I wish he would stick around long enough to lead the Buckeyes band, run for president of a fraternity, sing the school fight song on karaoke night and pull an all-nighter for a midterm.
But I know what’s real, and I know millions of dollars have a way of talking that drowns out anything school spirit and a free college education have to say. I also know I’m probably watching Oden’s last waltz as a college basketball player, and the kid just started dancing.
It’s a bittersweet experience because a player like this comes along every 20 years or so in college. He is graceful and physically dominating, a combination Wilt Chamberlain had and very few others have had since. When was the last time someone was compared to Wilt and nary a dissenter could be heard?
So here Oden is on Thursday night in the Alamodome, a man among toddlers in a Sweet 16 NCAA tournament game against Tennessee, and to see him is to know you’re watching something both special and fleeting. Mostly fleeting.
He picks up his second foul midway through the first half and finds himself on the bench. The Volunteers go up 26-14. He comes back with 6:19 left, gets his third foul a minute later and is back on the bench. Without him on the floor, Tennessee takes it inside again and again. At halftime, it’s 49-32 Tennessee. If this is the end for Oden, it’s a painful way to go.
If Oden were to come back and play another year for the Buckeyes, he would have the undying admiration of some people and hear the unending derision of others, especially if he got hurt. How many people turn their back on money these days, in a culture that kneels at the altar of cash? Can you imagine the amount of good will he would build by being true to his school?
But if Oden goes pro, he won’t be any less a human being for doing it, not when college basketball coaches are walking out on their schools left and right and not when schools are firing their coaches left and right.
I love the players who stay in school, but I don’t begrudge them their decision if they jump to the NBA. I think they’re better for it financially but not developmentally, basketball-wise or maturity-wise.
Tubby Smith is leaving Kentucky to become the coach at Minnesota. He has his reasons, and he surely will reveal a few of them at a news conference announcing his hire. It’s not easy coaching in Lexington, and Smith had his own unique set of challenges. It must have been a difficult situation because he’s leaving a storied program to take over a program that has struggled for a long time. Either way, he will make his money.
But what of the kids he recruited and now leaves behind? What about the players who came to Kentucky because they wanted to play for him? They better start looking for a horseshoe in horse country because they’re out of luck.
Same with the athletes at Iowa who thought they were going to be playing for Steve Alford, who is bolting for the head coaching job at New Mexico just ahead of a Hawkeyes fan base armed with pitchforks and torches.
On the flip side, no one seemed to care too much that Tommy Amaker had three 20-victory seasons when Michigan fired him last week. Few people came down too hard on the school for that. Why? He didn’t get into the NCAA tournament in Ann Arbor.
So, yes, there are more than a few of us who yearn for the old days when star players stayed even two years in college before making the jump to the pro game. And it’s always quaint when a coach stays long enough to remember his school’s nickname.
But it’s hard to blame Oden if he decides to leave after his freshman year. Players leave school early all the time, and coaches think of the off-season as a job fair.
In other words, loyalty is lacking a pulse. Even high school juniors and seniors would have to be naive to think coaches they signed with are going to be around four years.
Here’s some more naivete: How rewarding can it be for a coach to have a star player for just one year? Does a coach feel like he played a big role in the kid’s development?
Yes, I know it’s missing the point. The point is to win no matter what. In that way, it’s the same as it ever was.
Meanwhile, Mike Conley Sr., father of Buckeyes guard Mike Conley Jr., is starting his own business as a sports agent. Mike Sr. was Oden’s AAU coach. He said he has had “zero conversations” with Oden about anything to do with the NBA. Now who in this cynical world would even think there might be such a connection?
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rmorrissey@tribune.com
