The Ball Briefing: March Madness Is Perfect So Please Enjoy It
Why March is the best time for basketball plus the NBA's antisemitism problem and unsolicited bracket advice
The Ball Briefing is our quick recap of what has been captivating us in the sports world. Every week, you’ll get a blog post and links to our favorite articles about men’s basketball, women’s basketball, historical subjects and/or whatever has captured our attention. Subscribe to get the Ball Briefing every week and everything else we do by hitting the button below!
March Madness is the only time we watch basketball the right way
On Saturday night, I sat down with my fiancee to watch her alma mater, Georgia Tech, play for the Men’s ACC Basketball Championship. We had not watched the Yellow Jackets until the calendar changed to March. Within the first five minutes, we both came to the conclusion that we would die for GT guard Jose Alvarado because of how hard he played.
Alvarado (and Moses Wright, for that matter) just left everything they had on the court to bring an ACC Championship banner to Georgia Tech. Alvarado, the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year, had five steals and played all 40 minutes of Tech’s victory over Florida State. Afterward, he gave an emotional (and extremely New York) interview about what it felt like to win the ACC title in front of his daughter.
“This will last me the rest of my life,” said Alvarado. He’s right. No matter what else happens in the NCAA tournament, in his super senior if he decides to come back to Tech, or in the rest of his life, he will be an ACC Champion. The moment brought Jose, my fiancee, myself, and probably a lot of other people to tears. And that’s what basketball is supposed to do.
Viewers weren’t all that concerned about how this team would play in the NCAA tournament or if these players would make it to the NBA or what legacy they would leave. We just watched a good basketball game and tried to empathize with the players. It’s what we do every March: hope for crazy stuff to happen, feel the thrill of victory with the winners, and the despair of defeat with the losers. Occasionally, you get people hating on Adam Morrison for crying after a loss or vilifying Chris Webber for making a bad mistake. Overall, the basketball viewing community just tries to enjoy March Madness rather than critically analyze every second.
It always strikes me as odd when this doesn’t happen in the NBA playoffs or the Super Bowl or even the College Football Playoff. Enjoyment often gets pushed to the side for discussions about “who is the greatest of all-time” or “why [insert player] can’t win the big one.” Take last year’s NBA Finals, for example. Jimmy Butler put on two of the greatest performances in NBA history, and some people PAID TO WATCH BASKETBALL criticized him for not being able to do it seven times in a row. Lebron James powered his team to the Finals for the ninth time in 10 years and won his fourth championship, only for Michael Jordan to be shoved in his face.
It’s just tiresome to have people actively trying not to enjoy basketball. Obviously, critical thinking around the game helps people understand the game and can add context to what we’re watching. But too often, the people who think critically are just being overly critical. It’s basketball, enjoy it once in a while.
I hope we can take the energy that Jose Alvarado, Andre Curbelo (Illinois’s men), Tishara Morehouse (FGCU’s women), and Ashley Owusu (Maryland’s women) will give us in March and apply it to sports for the rest of the year. I doubt that will happen, so I’ll just be enjoying every single second of March Madness that I can because it’s truly the best time to be a basketball fan.
Fast Breaks
It’s been a little over a week since Meyers Leonard shouted an anti-semitic slur on a video game livestream. He was subsequently banned from twitch, kicked off his gaming clan (hmmm maybe don’t call it a clan? idk), fined $50k by the NBA and suspended for a week from the Miami Heat. While he has certainly faced consequences, the response from the NBA community has been tepid. Deni Avdija, the NBA’s only Israeli and Jewish player, weirdly half-defended Leonard before side-stepping the issue. NBC’s Dan Feldman deflected the attention to Stephen Jackson’s disgusting, Hitler-esque comments this offseason to keep things in perspective. Udonis Haslem apologized and revealed that Jewish friends have called him “Udonis Haslem-berg,” which is both hilarious and playfully anti-semitic. This article explains why anti-semitism is still “cool,” but it still boggles my mind that a large section of the NBA and society just don’t think antisemitism is a problem. I’m not sure how the league will go about handling the issue, but it feels like this will come to a head at some point until Adam Silver puts his foot down.
Here’s a palate cleanser: a Virginia State (an HBCU in Petersburg) student thought he was slick with basketball and tried to step to the school’s President. He learned a lesson that he won’t soon forget.
I want to give out some free bracket advice that may or may not be helpful. On the men’s side, Illinois and Gonzaga are the real deal. But Gonzaga always ends up heartbroken in March, so I’m picking the Illini and riding Georgetown to the Elite 8 because it’s fun! On the women’s side, I’ve never been more confident in a National Champion pick than I have been in Maryland. Ashley Owusu is frustratingly underrated. My cinderella is FGCU, which has one of the best players in the country in Kiersten Bell and should be way higher than an 11-seed.
Lobbing Links
From Us:
The HOF: An Illegitimate Institution by Curtis Harris (ProHoopsHistory)
One of the best basketball history writers breaks down why the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame is illegitimate and what steps need to be taken to get it closer to accomplishing its mission of representing all of basketball.
The tragedy of Hank Gathers and triumph of Loyola Marymount by John Gasaway (hey, it’s John again!)
Ranking 2021 NCAA tournament coaches as players, 1-68 by Tony Moss