Here are some highlights of Russell and here are his career stats.
1) WINNING (Part 1): The Celtics were ho-hum right before Russell joined the team, pretty bad right after he retired, and even worse when he missed games during his career, but when he was there they were the most dominant title-winning franchise in sports history, which proves how ludicrous the “He was simply the best player on a loaded team” comment is. DETAILS: a) Boston won 2 total playoff series in the 10 seasons before Russell arrived, and both were short best-of-3 series (‘53, ‘55), b) Boston went 34-48 and missed the playoffs in ‘70 right after winning the title in Russell’s final season, and c) when he missed games during his career, the Celtics were 10-18 (.357), and 18 of those 28 missed games were against teams with losing records, so there was no excuse for a “loaded” squad to be so bad. When Russell missed 3 or more games in a row --meaning his teammates really had to adjust & couldn’t just “get up” for one game without their leader-- the Celtics were a pitiful 1-12. They were horrible without him. There is NO evidence the Celtics were any good when Russell wasn’t on the floor, rather a ton of evidence to the contrary.
2) WINNING (Part 2): It's been commonly reported that Russell was 21-0 in winner-take-all games, but that’s incorrect …. he was 22-0. If Russell's team played even with an opponent throughout a series or got to the same place in a tournament, Russell's team was ALWAYS going to pull it out in the end.

• At USF, his '55 team was 5-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• At USF, his '56 team was 4-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• In the '56 Olympics, the US squad was 2-0 when it came to the winner-take-all Final 4 for gold after the group stage.
  
• In the NBA, the Celtics were famously 10-0 in Games 7's throughout his career.
  
• In the '66 playoffs, the Celtics won Game 5 in the best-of-5 series with Cincinnati (link).
  

3) WINNING (Part 3): The Celtics didn’t win the title only 2 times during Russell’s 13-year career, and both were (very likely) due to difficulties experienced by Russell.

• In 1958, the Hawks topped Boston 4-2 in the Finals (winning by 2, 3, 2, & 1 points), during which Russell missed 2 games and played at far less than 100% with a horribly sprained ankle when he was available in the series. It’s safe to say Boston would have won that title with a healthy Russell.
  
• In 1967, the aging Celtics, fresh off of 8 straight championships, lost to the loaded and younger Sixers in the ECF. This was the first year Russell was Boston’s player-coach, which is significant since he faced horrendously stressful & over-the-top racism as the first black coach in major US pro sports history. He played so much and so intensely (43.3 min/gm in the playoffs) that he often forgot to sub players which hurt his team. The next season, the Celtics were older & considered “done”, but he added a bench coach to handle subs, and they beat the favored defending champion Sixers in the playoffs, and then won the title. Then the “seriously, they’re done now” 1968-69 Celtics clawed their way into the Finals & beat the loaded West-Wilt-Baylor Lakers 4-3 in Russell’s final season. Two giant asterisks have to go beside the only two championships Boston didn’t win during Russell’s career.
  

4) WINNING (Part 4): Russell went to college at the University of San Francisco which had just suffered through 3 straight losing seasons before he joined the varsity team. He lead an unranked USF team to 2 consecutive NCAA titles during his junior and senior seasons, going 57-1 along the way, and he could have won a title all 3 seasons he played at USF if not for losing teammate K.C. Jones one game into their sophomore season; they smashed the #17 team 51-33 in game 1 with Jones who was hospitalized that night with a burst appendix, but Russell still lead them to a 14-7 record before going on to those 2 titles. Even at the college level, he could lead players who weren’t supposed to win to the ultimate heights; it wasn’t just in Boston. Also, he was the leading scorer, rebounder, and defender on the 1956 gold medal winning US Olympic team, which had an average margin of victory of +53, the highest ever (’92 Dream Team was +44).
5) CLUTCH: I already mentioned how dominant Russell’s teams were when it was all on the line, but I’ll add that his list of clutch games, series, and moments is ridiculously long, plus his ppg, rpg, and apg averages all rose in the playoffs. I’ll simply point out that he had the greatest Game 7 performance of all-time in the 1962 Finals, scoring 30 points & grabbing 40 rebounds to win the title in a super-tight Game 7. If you didn’t know, the NBA Finals MVP award is officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award.
6) INTELLIGENCE: Part of what made Russell so unbelievable in big games and moments was that his IQ and level of manipulating opponents is unparalleled historically. On defense, he’d often intentionally “just miss” blocking a particular star player’s shots earlier in a contest, but late in the game when the opponent was lulled into thinking they could get a certain shot off over Russell that night, he’d extend the extra inch and come up with clutch blocks & defensive plays they weren't expecting. I’ve never heard of another player doing stuff like this. The stories about his IQ are legendary & numerous; here are some clips about his hoops IQ. At least watch the 3rd one on that list ("Some more mindgames") to see a short interview with him talking about manipulation of a star opponent in a way I’ve never heard another player articulate; he truly was thinking on a whole different level to create advantages for his team.
7) VERSATILITY: Bill Russell was so versatile on the floor because he trained and played all 5 positions on offense. The only other players in history who could maybe do this are Maurice Stokes and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Russell’s results were quite different, plus immediate & sustained. His value to the Celtics’ offense is WAY underrated, especially on the fast break where he arguably had a bigger influence than Steve Nash did for the Suns’ fast break due to how well he could start, run, and finish it.
8) PASSING & OFFENSIVE INFLUENCE: Speaking of his versatility on the fast break, Bill Russell was a great passer, both in the half-court & full-court, and put up insane assist numbers for a center, especially in the playoffs (averaged >5 apg in the playoffs during 7 different seasons, far more times than any other center).
John Havlicek, in his 1977 autobiography, said the following about Russell's effect on Boston's offense when specifically discussing their first post-Russell season ('70):

"You couldn't begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders, and myself. None of us were one on one players ... Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been over-looked.”

I’ll add that Bill Russell finished 4th in MVP voting with an 18% vote share in 1969, his final season (‘69 MVP voting). I believe this is the best MVP finish by any player in their final season.
9) MORE ABOUT HIS OFFENSE: Fans often knock Russell for not being a high scorer. He played on a team that spread around the scoring, so very few Celtics ever had big scoring numbers, and he often had the best FG% on the team. Russell was top-5 in FG% in the league 4 times, while more recent dominant-scoring centers Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing all did it once. Russell understood what individual sacrifices to make and how to improve his teammates so they collectively would be winners, which is why he won the 1962 MVP (voting) over Wilt Chamberlain (his epic 50 ppg & 26 rpg season) and Oscar Robertson (his epic triple-double season). By the way, Russell holds the record for the most consecutive MVP awards (3), most consecutive top-2 MVP finishes (6), and has the 2nd most MVP’s of all-time (5). It was clear that Russell’s approach was far more valuable to his team’s success than that of other superstars with monster stats.
10) DEFENSIVE IMPACT: There is no hyperbole in saying Russell was unquestionably the most impactful defensive player ever. The Celtics consistently & regularly had the #1 defense in the NBA throughout his career, yet they were FAR worse before he joined the team, and they immediately dropped in the ‘70 season right after he retired. Here are Boston’s annual rankings in Defensive Rating, starting in the ‘54 season: 8, 8, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8 (the highlighted parts represent Russell’s career). He had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the entire team’s defense to a degree we’ve never seen from any other player.
11) ATHLETICISM: Watching film of Russell, it’s clear he was extremely fast and active, elite even by today’s standards. He also possessed Olympic-level leaping ability (7th ranked high jumper in the world in 1956). For the record, he was measured as 6-ft-9-and-⅝ without shoes, taller than both Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. This incredible athleticism is what allowed his defense to be a cross between Tim Duncan & Kevin Garnett, covering everything everywhere with phenomenal explosiveness, plus impeccable timing & decision-making.
12) LEADERSHIP: Bill Russell had the best combination of elite on-court impact on team synergy plus elite locker-room unity & positivity. Very few guys are even in the discussion of having this type of elite combo: Tim Duncan, Jerry West, Larry Bird …. not many more, especially when you also consider a player’s impact on his team’s defensive synergy.

Here are some highlights of Russell and here are his career stats.
1) WINNING (Part 1): The Celtics were ho-hum right before Russell joined the team, pretty bad right after he retired, and even worse when he missed games during his career, but when he was there they were the most dominant title-winning franchise in sports history, which proves how ludicrous the “He was simply the best player on a loaded team” comment is. DETAILS: a) Boston won 2 total playoff series in the 10 seasons before Russell arrived (he was a rookie in '57), and both were short best-of-3 series (‘53, ‘55), b) Boston went 34-48 and missed the playoffs in ‘70 right after winning the title in Russell’s final season, and c) when he missed games during his career, the Celtics were 10-18 (.357), and 18 of those 28 missed games were against teams with losing records, so there was no excuse for a “loaded” squad to be so bad. When Russell missed 3 or more games in a row --meaning his teammates really had to adjust & couldn’t just “get up” for one game without their leader-- the Celtics were a pitiful 1-12. They were horrible without him. There is NO evidence the Celtics were any good when Russell wasn’t on the floor, rather a ton of evidence to the contrary.
2) WINNING (Part 2): It's been commonly reported that Russell was 21-0 in winner-take-all games, but that’s incorrect …. he was 22-0. If Russell's team played even with an opponent throughout a series or got to the same place in a tournament, Russell's team was ALWAYS going to pull it out in the end.

• At USF, his '55 team was 5-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• At USF, his '56 team was 4-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• In the '56 Olympics, the US squad was 2-0 when it came to the winner-take-all Final 4 for gold after the group stage.
  
• In the NBA, the Celtics were famously 10-0 in Games 7's throughout his career.
  
• In the '66 playoffs, the Celtics won Game 5 in the best-of-5 series with Cincinnati (link).
  

3) WINNING (Part 3): The Celtics didn’t win the title only 2 times during Russell’s 13-year career, and both were (very likely) due to difficulties experienced by Russell.

• In 1958, the Hawks topped Boston 4-2 in the Finals (winning by 2, 3, 2, & 1 points), during which Russell missed 2 games and played at far less than 100% with a horribly sprained ankle when he was available in the series. It’s safe to say Boston would have won that title with a healthy Russell.
  
• In 1967, the aging Celtics, fresh off of 8 straight championships, lost to the loaded and younger Sixers in the ECF. This was the first year Russell was Boston’s player-coach, which is significant since he faced horrendously stressful & over-the-top racism as the first black coach in major US pro sports history. He played so much and so intensely (43.3 min/gm in the playoffs) that he often forgot to sub players which hurt his team. The next season, the Celtics were older & considered “done”, but he added a bench coach to handle subs, and they beat the favored defending champion Sixers in the playoffs, and then won the title. Then the “seriously, they’re done now” 1968-69 Celtics clawed their way into the Finals & beat the loaded West-Wilt-Baylor Lakers 4-3 in Russell’s final season. Oh yeah, Russell was the only player-coach in NBA history to win a championship, and he won two.
  

Two giant asterisks have to go beside the only two championships Boston didn’t win during Russell’s career.
4) WINNING (Part 4): Russell went to college at the University of San Francisco which had just suffered through 3 straight losing seasons before he joined the varsity team. He lead an unranked USF team to 2 consecutive NCAA titles during his junior and senior seasons, going 57-1 along the way, and he could have won a title all 3 seasons he played at USF if not for losing teammate K.C. Jones one game into their sophomore season; they smashed the #17 team 51-33 in game 1 with Jones playing who was then hospitalized that night with a burst appendix, but 1st-year Russell still lead them to a 14-7 record without the HOF PG before going on to those 2 titles. Even at the college level, he could lead players who weren’t supposed to win to the ultimate heights; it wasn’t just in Boston. Also, he was the leading scorer, rebounder, and defender on the 1956 gold medal winning US Olympic team, which had an average margin of victory of +53, the highest ever (’92 Dream Team was +44).
5) CLUTCH: I already mentioned how dominant Russell’s teams were when it was all on the line, but I’ll add that his list of clutch games, series, and moments is ridiculously long, plus his ppg, rpg, and apg averages all rose in the playoffs. I’ll simply point out that he had the greatest Game 7 performance of all-time in the 1962 Finals, scoring 30 points & grabbing 40 rebounds to win the title in a super-tight Game 7. If you didn’t know, the NBA Finals MVP award is officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award.
6) INTELLIGENCE: Part of what made Russell so unbelievable in big games and moments was that his IQ and level of manipulating opponents is unparalleled historically. On defense, he’d often intentionally “just miss” blocking a particular star player’s shots earlier in a contest, but late in the game when the opponent was lulled into thinking they could get a certain shot off over Russell that night, he’d extend the extra inch and come up with clutch blocks & defensive plays they weren't expecting. I’ve never heard of another player doing stuff like this. The stories about his IQ are legendary & numerous; here are some clips about his hoops IQ. At least watch the 3rd one on that list ("Some more mindgames") to see a short interview with him talking about manipulation of a star opponent in a way I’ve never heard another player articulate; he truly was thinking on a whole different level to create advantages for his team.
7) VERSATILITY: Bill Russell was so versatile on the floor because he trained and played all 5 positions on offense. The only other players in history who could maybe do this are Maurice Stokes and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Russell’s results were quite different, plus immediate & sustained. His value to the Celtics’ offense is WAY underrated, especially on the fast break where he arguably had a bigger influence than Steve Nash did for the Suns’ fast break due to how well he could start, run, and finish it.
8) PASSING & OFFENSIVE INFLUENCE: Speaking of his versatility on the fast break, Bill Russell was a great passer, both in the half-court & full-court, and put up insane assist numbers for a center, especially in the playoffs (averaged >5 apg in the playoffs during 7 different seasons, far more times than any other center).
John Havlicek, in his 1977 autobiography, said the following about Russell's effect on Boston's offense when specifically discussing their first post-Russell season ('70):

"You couldn't begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders, and myself. None of us were one on one players ... Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been over-looked.”

I’ll add that Bill Russell finished 4th in MVP voting with an 18% vote share in 1969, his final season (‘69 MVP voting). I believe this is the best MVP finish by any player in their final season.
9) MORE ABOUT HIS OFFENSE: Fans often knock Russell for not being a high scorer. He played on a team that spread around the scoring, so very few Celtics ever had big scoring numbers, and he often had the best FG% on the team. Russell was top-5 in FG% in the league 4 times, while more recent dominant-scoring centers Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing all did it once. Russell understood what individual sacrifices to make and how to improve his teammates so they collectively would be winners, which is why he won the 1962 MVP (voting) over Wilt Chamberlain (his epic 50 ppg & 26 rpg season) and Oscar Robertson (his epic triple-double season). By the way, Russell holds the record for the most consecutive MVP awards (3), most consecutive top-2 MVP finishes (6), and has the 2nd most MVP’s of all-time (5). It was clear that Russell’s approach was far more valuable to his team’s success than that of other superstars with monster stats.
10) DEFENSIVE IMPACT: There is no hyperbole in saying Russell was unquestionably the most impactful defensive player ever. The Celtics consistently & regularly had the #1 defense in the NBA throughout his career, yet they were FAR worse before he joined the team, and they immediately dropped in the ‘70 season right after he retired. Here are Boston’s annual rankings in Defensive Rating, starting in the ‘54 season: 8, 8, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8 (the highlighted parts represent Russell’s career). He had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the entire team’s defense to a degree we’ve never seen from any other player.
11) ATHLETICISM: Watching film of Russell, it’s clear he was extremely fast and active, elite even by today’s standards. He also possessed Olympic-level leaping ability (7th ranked high jumper in the world in 1956). For the record, he was measured as 6-ft-9-and-⅝ without shoes, taller than both Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. This incredible athleticism is what allowed his defense to be a cross between Tim Duncan & Kevin Garnett, covering everything everywhere with phenomenal explosiveness, plus impeccable timing & decision-making.
12) LEADERSHIP: Bill Russell had the best combination of elite on-court impact on team synergy plus elite locker-room unity & positivity. Very few guys are even in the discussion of having this type of elite combo: Tim Duncan, Jerry West, Larry Bird …. not many more, especially when you also consider a player’s impact on his team’s defensive synergy.

Welcome back to Build a Bear Dynasty, the least lit series about the most lit team in the NBA. This week I will be discussing Jonas Valanciunas.
Before I get to that, there are a few topics I need to discuss to give context to what I consider Jonas’ strengths and weaknesses. I realize that in the introduction I had brought up alternating player profiles and analysis of modern NBA terminology, but in planning for this first player piece I quickly realized that it would be helpful to be ‘on the same page’ so to speak when using certain words and terms to discuss his game.
So before getting to the analysis, there are a couple of the more vague terms used to describe basketball that I would like to break down first: Modern Offense, and Positionless Basketball.
Modern Offense
Broken down to its simplest terms, the game of basketball from a team’s perspective is played in two distinct phases: offense and defense. In the fewest words possible, offense is the team’s attempts to score points by putting the ball through a basket, and defense is the team’s attempts to prevent the other team from doing the same.
What makes basketball unique amongst North American major sports, and in my personal opinion makes it the most intriguing and beautiful sport, is the fact that it is the only one where the rules are written so that every player on the floor is allowed to perform every single legal action. All players are allowed access to every spot on the floor, and when the ball is in theirs or their defender’s hands they are allowed to do the same things every other player is.
Through a combination of the fluid nature of the sport, the inherent advantages both size AND speed can bring, and various changes to the ruleset, the game of basketball has evolved over time, valuing certain traits and attributes over others as they prove more or less useful in the changing landscape.
If you are at all familiar with competitive video gaming, you might refer to this concept with the term ‘Meta.’ In esports players develop optimal strategies through time and experience, and due to games often having fixed values for things like ‘damage’ and ‘health,’ players quickly find the statistically most ideal strategies, and the best teams spend hours and hours honing very specific skills and counters to give themselves the best odds of winning based on the rules of the game.
To counteract this rote memorization of inputs, modern game companies that produce multiplayer titles will often continue to update the game periodically after its release, not only to fix bugs and glitches, but to also change the game’s ‘meta’ to prevent the game from getting stale. They do this primarily through improving or worsening the values of certain items or characters in a practice known colloquially as ‘Buffing’ and ‘Nerfing,’ or by introducing new characters and gear all together. Players get used to the new changes, adopt new strategies, and the cycle continues as long as the developers continue to update, or as the players continue to uncover new strategies that provide further optimization.
WARNING: Incoming extensive history of the game Super Smash Bros. It does relate to later content, but is unnecessary if you wish to skip ahead to the next section about basketball.
An Unlikely Comparison
In theory, if the values of a game remain fixed, given enough time the players will develop the optimal strategy to play the game. A popular meme referring to the game Super Smash Brothers is the phrase ‘no items, foxes only, final destination’ referring to the presumed ‘optimal’ way to play the 2nd game in the series, Super Smash Brothers Melee. No items that might randomly give a player an advantage, the character many veterans of the game consider to be the all around best when combining his speed, attack power, and ability to survive, and a completely flat and empty stage that quite literally levels the playing field.
It took a very unique history for the game Super Smash Brothers Melee to get a point where there’s an almost universally held belief that there is a single ideal way to play the game. Before companies had the ability to update games over the internet thereby giving them the power to adjust the game after its release, one on one style fighting games like Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Street Fighter would release a new installment every few years. They would usually keep the majority of the same character roster and mechanics, while updating graphics, movesets, and the values of things like health and damage to keep the ‘meta’ game fresh between installments.
Unlike the directors of those other game series, the creator of Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai, prefers the elements of a game that are fun for everyone, over those that make for an ideal competitive experience. Things like powerful items appearing next to players out of nowhere, and certain parts of some stages randomly hurting players all add to the chaos of Smash Brothers that makes it a fun party game.
But as with any game, whether it’s intended for fun or competition, players came along that wanted to adjust the rules to make it more challenging and skill based. By turning off the in game items and picking only certain stages agreed on by the competitors, a whole community developed to play an intrinsically anti-competitive game in a way that was more skills based.
In 2001 Nintendo released the Gamecube and Sakurai released the second Super Smash Brothers game, Super Smash Brothers Melee. The new game not only introduced new characters, but also massively changed the speed and feel of the game, making use of the new console’s better processor to create a more dynamic and fast paced game. The competitive community grew some more, but Nintendo as a company is very protective of their intellectual property, and at the time would go to extreme lengths at times to shut down grassroots tournaments and consumer created content, so it remained small in comparison to other fighting game communities.
Though a large number of players enjoyed the new gameplay, Sakurai felt that an overly competitive game was taking away from his vision of a fun and friendly game, and in the third installment he released, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, he slowed down the gameplay a bit, and added in random mechanics like tripping players that moved too quickly.
Unable to turn off those mechanics like they could with items in previous games, the competitive scene rejected the new game with large sections of the community sticking with the older Melee, and some going to incredible lengths to actually rewrite the code to modify the properties of the game itself.
Through a combination of a failure of the third game to capture the hearts of the players, and Nintendo focusing most of its efforts on shutting down the fan modified versions of Super Smash Bros Brawl, the competitive Melee scene exploded in a way unprecedented for a decade old fighting game. To this day, across the country tournaments are held fielding hundreds of players from here and abroad. Players new and old spend hours scouring over statistical data and practicing to hone the most optimal skills to give themselves an edge in tournaments with huge cash prizes. And it all culminates in a silly internet joke about Fox being the statistically optimal character.
If you’d care to know more about the ‘golden age’ of competitive Melee, there is a very well done, fan-made, 9 part docu series on youtube called ‘The Smash Bros’ that follows one of the most unique fandoms and cultures of any group that I’ve encountered.
But as I am sure most of you are thinking, what in the hell does a 20 year old Japanese video game played by a bunch of nerds have to do with basketball?
BACK TO BASKETBALL
Well, when it comes to sports in general, I feel that the term ‘meta’ is an excellent way of framing how basketball has changed as a sport over time. Players work on specific skills they feel give them an edge, coaches come up with plays that have more chance of success, defenses work to adapt to those and the league evolves.
New players enter the league every year, rosters change through trades and free agency signings, and league management ‘updates’ the game with occasional rule changes that they feel will balance the game better for the players and viewers.
Sometimes the changes are poorly received, like when they removed dunking from the college level of basketball from 1967-1976 as a result of a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NCAA dominance. Other times they drastically affected the entire fabric of the sport.
In 1979 when the league introduced the 3 point shot during Magic Johnson and Larry Bird’s rookie seasons, it changed the sport more drastically than anyone at the time may have realized. In the previous 87 years of the sport’s existence, having every shot during play have the same value of 2 points meant that the shot that went in the most is by default the best shot. This obviously led to taller players having an advantage, and a natural tendency for players to work as hard as possible to get as close to the rim when they can for an easier shot. If you looked at an overall ‘heatmap’ of an NBA court of how successful players were at shooting from certain spots, it would loosely look like a smaller hot circle centered on the basket, that cools in all directions the further from the basket it gets.
But with some shots being worth 3 points, a player could shoot a worse percentage while adding more value to the offense. A player that could shoot 50% while 20 feet from the rim would add 6 points for every 6 shots, and compared to other players in NBA history would be a midrange god. But a player shooting just 34% from just a few feet further away would add a slightly better 6.04 points for every 6 shots, and would have been considered a below average 3 point shooter in the league last season.
Kevin Durant, known as one of the greatest scorers of all time, over his career has shot 44.5% from between 3 and 10 feet from the basket, effectively 0.89 points per shot. On the other hand, the 2019-2020 league average 35.8% shooting from 3 is worth 1.074 points per shot. If you looked at a heatmap shot chart from today’s league, it would now have a ring that is the 2nd hottest part of the floor, behind the efficiency of the space immediately around the rim.
Suddenly there was a spot on the floor that theoretically had the same offensive value as a spot much closer to the basket. In a sport dominated by long limbed giants, any time a team gets to spread out the defenders makes it a little bit easier to get off clean looks. We refer to this trend in modern terms as ‘Spacing’ which I’ll focus on a bit more in next week’s piece.
It essentially boils down to that ‘spacing’ is all about generating separation between an offensive player and a defensive player. The more separation a player has from their defender, the more likely they’ll make their shot.
If you’ve ever seen NBA players warm up before a game, you’ll notice very quickly that they almost never miss when shooting a wide open set shot. By the time most of these players get to the league, they’ve played thousands of hours shooting from all over the floor. The hard part of the sport for most of them isn’t being able to shoot well, it’s shooting well while being defended by 7 foot monsters that can reach above the height of the rim without leaving the ground.
But the disadvantage that most 7 footers have that shorter players can potentially take advantage of is foot speed. Until 1979 this wasn’t a huge concern outside of transition basketball, as the goal of most players was to get as close to the rim as possible and taller players could camp out and wait, instead of chasing smaller, faster players around. But now there was an area of the floor that offers good value and covers a comparatively huge area. It’s easy to play defense when you know the team is working towards one direction and you don’t have to move as much, but when the offense can now move forwards AND backwards to get a better shot, it opens up a completely new realm of possibilities for offensive and defensive strategy.
Since that point and unless the league removes the 3 point line, all strategies and players have worked towards optimizing that potential. Modern Offense is the culmination of all of those efforts. But what strategy has evolved from all of this combined talent and effort? It took the Smash Brothers community more than a decade of study and practice to come to the conclusion that Fox is the best character. What type of ideal player archetype has the past 40 years been building towards? The trend I personally feel the NBA is moving towards is another vague but oft repeated term.
Positionless Basketball
It's an intriguing pair of words that is often used when discussing players that don’t fit the historic trends. Giant playmakers like LeBron and Ben Simmons that make point guards of look tiny, PJ Tucker playing the center position full time despite being a good 4 inches shorter than most other centers, 7 foot shooters like Jaren and Kristaps Porzingis that play more like a traditional small forward on offense.
But this loose definition feels like it’s only halfway there to me. There still seems to be this underlying assumption that positionless basketball is the positions themselves still existing, but players don’t have to play a specific role based on their size or skills. People will describe an idealized team of a 6’8 point guard with 3 6’8 wings and a 6’10 guy to play center and they all switch on defense. But they still expect the point guard to make most of the plays, the center to get most of the rebounds, and to generally run traditional NBA sets, just with a larger group of guys that are closer to a median height so they can all defend each other on the other end.
But a few recent things lead me to believe that it’s more than that. Could positionless basketball actually mean the end of the concept of positions in the sport of basketball? While I’m not sure we’ll ever get to a point where every player does every skill equally well, I do think we are starting to see a fundamental change in the way NBA teams across the league build their rosters around this idea of positionless basketball, and nothing is more responsible for it than the combination of Steph Curry and YouTube.
Breaking the Game
From the start of his career, Steph Curry has worked his way to breaking nearly every record you can think of when it comes to 3 point shooting. For his career he has shot 43.5% from 3 on over 8 attempts a game. That kind of shooting is not only unprecedented, it is statistically dominating when it comes to winning games. At an absurd 1.305 points per shot, a player would have to shoot 65.3% from inside the 3 point line to match that kind of scoring output per shot. When you consider that the true shooting percentage of the average NBA champion over the last 10 years is around 57.5%, Steph is hands down the best player in league history when it comes to adding offense through 3 point shooting, and he does it at a level that can win championships.
When the league average for 3 point shooting hovers around 35%, the value it provides is mostly from spacing the defenders, as though it’s efficient it’s not enough to beat scoring at the rim over the course of a game. The fact that Steph can shoot that volume, that efficiently, and maintain that performance against championship level defenses is game changing. He essentially proved that it’s possible to focus your game entirely around the 3 point line and still lead an NBA offense in scoring, something never done before.
In terms of positionless basketball this might have changed everything. If a player can shoot from 3 better than most can from 2, then ideally you’d want players that can shoot from 3 more than players that score inside unless they’re truly elite at scoring inside.
But not every player is Steph Curry, or Klay Thompson. Those two were raised by former NBA players that were above average 3 point shooters. You could argue that it might be that genetics gave them the shooting gift, but I think it’s more likely that they just practiced shooting more than any other kid playing basketball, and the part of genetics they benefited from most is their above average height.
Just look at Jaren Jackson Jr. another player raised by a former shooting specialist. He has a completely different form and build from his dad, but because his dad likely had him practicing like a shooting guard he naturally spent more time shooting 3’s than most kids.
Of course the vast majority of players coming into the league don’t have former players to teach them from a young age. But for players entering the league in this decade this might not be as big of a hindrance as it has been for players in the past.
Unlike every other kid to grow up and play in the NBA in the past, any player born this millennium has access to YouTube from the time they are physically able to manipulate a touchscreen. Across society this has had far reaching consequences that I think we were entirely unprepared for, and are only just now starting to come to fruition.
If you or someone you know is heavily into makeup as a hobby and artform, you might have jokingly said or heard them talk about the fact that “there are 13 year olds on YouTube that are experts at contour, and why don’t 13 years look like cabbage patch kids in overalls like when we were younger?” And it’s not just makeup. You look at any hobby, talent, skill, activity and you will see a bunch of experts expressing incredulity at the number of young people demonstrating master level skill in all these things that took them decades to hone.
The internet, and specifically streaming video is still in its infancy as a human technology, so there isn’t a ton of long term research of the effects of things like social media. While some it is likely bad for humanity as a whole, I don’t think we’ve considered just yet how positive it could be as well. We have instant access to every bit of information you could think to find, and videos posted by talented people of every interest that want to share that interest with others.
When you consider the fact that kids brains are at the height of their plasticity when it comes to learning new things, and that on average they have more free time to obsess over their interests, it seems like we have a combination specifically tailored to create super talented kids that seek out more and more advice from as many experts as they can. They watch videos, read, practice, and train until they themselves are experts, learned from the greatest minds on the planet in their chosen interest.
Ja Morant didn’t have a superstar dad. He played AAU, but usually on teams in secondary gyms. He didn’t go to a major blue blood university with an elite basketball mind head coach to teach him the important things other star players would be taught coming through their programs. All Ja had was a loving and supportive family that pushed him as hard as he wanted to go, a natural abundance of athleticism, and the internet.
Is it just happenstance that Ja Morant’s game reminds people so much of so many different great point guards? Westbrook, Wall, Chris Paul, and Rose have all been used dozens of times in Ja comparisons. Is it coincidence all 4 of those players had their primes overlap with Ja’s formative years?
From whatever age his parents let him get online, he could look up highlight videos and film of any player he wanted to, whenever he wanted to, studying and breaking down all their movements to recreate them himself. He didn’t need to be taught, as much as he taught himself through pure motivation and drive.
And it’s not just Ja. International players like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid have both talked about watching film of American players while they were learning the sport of basketball. Growing up across the Atlantic ocean they didn’t have access to all the coaches and leagues young players here have, but they could still watch the best of the best whenever they wanted to.
The first players to grow up this way are now into their NBA careers, and the results haven’t gone unnoticed even if the means aren’t talked about. Players like Luka, Trae, Tatum, Ja, Jaren, Mitchell, Murray, Jokic, and Giannis have all displayed skill far beyond their years when compared to other NBA superstars of the past.
But it’s not just the star players. John Konchar recently made local media laugh a bit when asked what player he compares himself to, and he said ‘Pat Connaughton.’ Almost every player that enters the league has been the best player on every team they’ve played on for maybe a decade and rookies will usually compare themselves to stars that they watched and idealized growing up. So for Konchar to compare himself to an NBA role player that’s still in the league and only a few years older than him seems silly.But if you go back and look at their college numbers and their physical profiles, you start to realize that John Konchar might just be the single most self actualized player in the entire league.
Both 6’5, 210 pound guys, played all 4 years at schools that aren’t traditional basketball powerhouses. Efficient scorers that score in the paint and from 3, incredible at rebounding for their size, above average passing for off ball players, very solid defense, and advanced numbers that blow most players out of the water, though against weaker competition than most NBA recruits. John Konchar was never heavily recruited and always played against weak competition, even if his own numbers suggested he was incredibly good. Is it possible that he went out and found the best possible player that looks and plays like him, and did everything he could to emulate that player knowing it would be his best shot of making the NBA? I don’t think it’s that far fetched.
If this trend continues for all the young players entering the NBA for the foreseeable future, it might mean that we are right on the edge of a new era in the sport, where the best players come into the league ready to lead within the first year or 2, and role players perfectly comfortable with their smaller roles on NBA rosters. Players that hit early growth spurts won’t necessarily be regulated to center positioning, and a lifetime of paint scoring and rebounding. If a taller player wants to work on their 3 point shot, independent of coaching or parenting they can now study videos of the best 3 point shooters ever and add that element to their game if they choose to. And the most motivated players, the ones that live and breathe basketball, they have limitless teachers and lessons to watch with as many hours as they can spare.
Flirting with the Future
A future where maybe basketball truly is positionless, where players all know how to box out when they're in the paint and a shot goes up, that can all shoot the 3 when open, drive the paint if they see a lane, and pass to the open man when the defense slips up. Of course smaller players will on average tend to have an easier time creating separation on the perimeter through their speed, and taller plays in the paint through their verticality, though both types of players may at least be able to do both well when the opportunity presents itself.
Some teams have already experimented with this concept to some extent, but right now the majority of the players in the league are not ready for that type of offense. For the majority of players over the age of 25, they grew up in a basketball culture that placed certain focus on their game based on their size. Most aren’t capable of playing all aspects of basketball at an NBA level because they didn’t get the practice in all the necessary skills as they developed.
The Houston Rockets might be the most aggressive team when it comes to molding the team to this mindset, with them refusing to sign players that aren’t capable of all those aspects of basketball. With a lack of players above 6’8 meeting all the criteria to be a truly good basketball player, this limited them to playing PJ Tucker, the largest such player on the roster, against other teams playing true 7 foot centers. It’s not that the Rockets overvalue smaller players, there just aren’t many players that are tall and capable of meeting those requirements, and the Rockets valued the concept of positionless basketball offense above getting players capable of defending elite frontcourts in a playoff setting.
Miami might be the best recent example of a team that has gone ‘full positionless’ when it comes to their roster. Pretty much every player on the roster in the recent playoffs was capable of making the right play on the offensive and defensive ends, and though they weren’t very efficient compared to other playoff team offenses, their ability to change roles on a moments notice got them all the way to the NBA finals against one of the strongest teams in NBA history.
If you go back even further, take a look at the playoff numbers of the 2014 Spurs that ended the Heat’s chances at a third title under the dominance of LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. An incredible balance of scoring, playmaking, and overall basketball talent from all the players to get significant minutes in the playoffs led to a sum greater than the whole, and a team that went down in history as playing ‘the beautiful game.’
But where does that leave the Grizzlies with their current roster? While other young star studded teams went after vets that they felt would compliment their current talent, the Grizzlies continued to go young and replaced the open spots on the roster with more players on their rookie deals, and resigning young players coming off their first contracts. Most of these young guys have more in common than you might expect.
To give you an idea of what kind of players the Grizzlies have focused on acquiring, here is every player that in their final year of college play had an above average assist, rebound, steal, and block rate when compared directly to players roughly their height and weight, a true shooting percentage that was above the NCAA average for that season, but did NOT lead the team in shot attempts. Listed by their season, along with their box plus minus rank of all college players from that season (minimum 500 minutes played) In other words, these are the players that were above average in almost every NBA counting stat we track to measure a players success:
Xavier Tillman (1st - 19/20)
Killian Tillie (5th - 19/20)
Desmond Bane (19th - 19/20)
Brandon Clarke (2nd - 18/19)
John Konchar (91st - 18/19)
Jontay Porter (42nd -17/18)
De'anthony Melton (102nd - 16/17)
Justise Winslow (33rd - 14/15)
Kyle Anderson (13th - 13/14)
Grayson Allen met all the requirements except rebound rate and block rate, but was still 62nd overall in box plus minus.
Ja and Dillon (yes, Dillon too) met all the requirements except they both led their respective teams in shot attempts in their final seasons. Ja was 29th overall in 2018-19, and Dillon was 42nd in 2016-17.
Jaren met all the requirements except an above average assist and rebound rate, and was 4th overall in 2017-18.
Notably, every player saw their assist rate and 3 point attempt rate increase dramatically each year they returned to play in college.
If you asked me, the FO is 100% bought into the idea of positionless basketball, and they've got a whole group of some of the best all around players to come out of college in the last 5 years with the proper skillset for it. I don't think the fact that so many players on the list played with each other in college is coincidental or something as simply as appeasing the star players by signing their friends.
The Grizzlies FO has gone out and gone after elite all around players, that played at some of the programs in the country with the most long term success. Coaches like coach K and Izzo are basketball geniuses that instill smart play into any player that comes through their program, and between 5 players on the roster we have over a decade of collective experience under those guys, on top of their own individual talent and expertise.
I think the team will hit the ground way faster than anyone expects. Don't be shocked if they blow past expectations this year. The Grizzlies as a whole seem very forward thinking when it comes to the ‘meta’ of the NBA, and their plays have all paid off so far. But where does that leave a player like Jonas Valanciunas?

(Self-admitted [very] casual long-time Indiana Fever fan here who enjoys the fact that, for the past few years, the WNBA is/has been playable in the 2K and NBA Elite series giving greater incentive, and fueling greater desire, to watch the real-life games).
After reading this article today quoting Sue Bird on ESPN https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/30134840/sue-bird-backs-megan-rapinoe-contrast-women-soccer-wnba and reading the preceding article by Megan Rapinoe in the Players' Tribune https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/megan-rapinoe-seattle-storm-wnba-finals (at the risk of gaslighting), I think while it is absolutely true wat they are saying regarding the (often false) perceptions sports fans may have of the WNBA, I think they are also making a bit of a false equivalency between the U.S. Women's "NATIONAL" soccer team and the WNBA; which, like the NWSL (the more apt comparison) is a domestic professional sports league.
By making this comparison between the USWNT and the WNBA, they risk being in danger of causing both critiques and critics to calmly dismiss the overall legitimate points they are making about bias and bigotry of sports fans (i.e. how conscious or unconscious prejudice can and do affect the viewership/ratings/money for female sports).
Firstly to address why the USWNT gets the support it does (notwithstanding the whole "straight/white/girl next door" thing they've rightfully pointed out):
1) They (the USWNT) plays for a country (America) rather than a city
There's a reason why the Texas Longhorns (NCAA) men's basketball team gets more support than the Austin Toros G League team even though the Toros are objectively better players and the G League is a higher quality of basketball (given that the players are full-time, paid professionals; see also why the Canadian Football League is better quality than the NCAA version): there is a visceral feeling created between supporters of sports teams and the athletes when they all share the same common identity (in the case of the 'Horns, being a student/future alumni of the University of Texas at Austin).
In pro sports, players are merely mercenaries who (with few exceptions) didn't grow up in the city they play for and don't reside there during the offseason. That is to say the Oakland Athletics aren't Oaklanders in the purest sense of the word and so there's is a separation between the players and the fans on that team.
In college, on the other hand, you may literally be classmates with the point guard on the basketball team which means, in that lecture hall or seminar room, you're equals; you're both University of whatever students.
Internationally, when Olympians or the USWNT puts on the "red, white, and blue" they become Americans and so there is a sharing of identity with the supporters that transcends their athletic status because they, like the people that are watching them on TV or in the stadium, are part of a common group; holders of U.S. citizenship (whether by birth or naturalization). And although (unlike college) the USWNT pays it's players (see the ongoing pay disputes for more detail), they can't sign, draft, or trade for players from other countries to make their teams better because of the requirement that the athletes be citizens (though Canadian soccer fans may make a stink about Sydney Leroux choosing to play for the US despite being born and raised in Canada; her dad was American).
This common outside-of-the-game identity is also why less popular sports at home (see ice hockey for example; Miracle on Ice) can get overwhelming support once players put on the national colours. This is partially why a thing women's pro sports leagues might want to try/experiment with to gain more followers is to play for a region (say, the Pacific Northwest Seattle, Portland, etc.) or city (Seattle) and have a requirement that a certain percentage of the players must come from that region/or city. This could help gin up that support that the players are playing for say "the Northwest" or "Seattle" more than for just the "Storm."
2) The Women's World Cup is a stand-alone prestigious international tournament
Another reason why the USWNT gets the support it does vis-a-vis other women's sports teams and sports is that the main competition they compete in, the FIFA Women's World Cup, is a stand-alone prestigious international tournament which, unlike the Olympics, is not "one amongst many." While the USWNT equivalent for basketball, the USA women's basketball team also competes internationally, the FIBA Women's World Cup is not seen as must watch TV; a status that (funnily enough) the FIBA Men's World Cup also suffers. While both national basketball teams in the USA get support during the Olympics, it's while other teams and athletes, including the USWNT, are also competing, meaning sharing the spotlight and thus less attention on their sole performances.
3) Quite frankly, the men's team sucks
Finally, what cannot be unremarked upon as to why the support for the USWNT is so high; the men's team downright sucks (and has for a long time). One of the crazy benefits of the irrelevancy of the men's team has meant that if you want to see America compete and win at the world's most popular game, you've to watch the women. In fact, you could pretty much wager that, along with perhaps their northerly neighbours in Canada, the USWNT is the only soccer team in the world where the soccer players on the women's team are more well-known/more popular than the players on the men's team. While both countries (Canada and the US) men's teams seem to have some young and up and coming talent that may make them competitive (along with the hosting rights to the '26 FIFA World Cup) the support for the women's teams of those countries is unlikely to go away since people have grown up watching/supporting the sport for so many years while the men's programmes have been trash. People also love winners and if you win you get that support.
All this to say I think framing the argument only (or mainly) in the terms that they've used (racism, homophobia, etc.) make it easier for critiques to more easily dismiss the legitimate points they are otherwise making about that racism and homophobia that prevents the WNBA from gaining wider spread viewership and support.
TLDR: Yes Rapinoe and Bird are right; male fans (who make up the majority of sports viewing audiences) may/do have unconscious biases and/or are bigoted BUT (as I've stated) there is a danger of making a false equivalency here between a national team (the USWNT) that competes for a COUNTRY versus as domestic sports league (WNBA, NWSL) that compete on a local level. Because while the USWNT may enjoy more broad support than the WNBA, it is indisputable that once those players join their club teams, they are not getting nearly the levels of the support of the NWSL. The more relevant aims should then be to 1) how do to get the FIBA Women's World Cup to be must watch TV and 2) how to get people to watch the USWNT once they return to play for the NWSL.

Just by glancing at the list of the games available today, it would be fair to say that there is slim picking to choose from. With just one ranked team in action in Richmond, it would be very fair to have your attention taken away to reactionary galaxy brain takes on the AP and CBB rankings. However, taking a little deeper look, there are actually pretty interesting sets of mid-major games that could give you a preview of some potential tournament teams that can give powerful teams a run for their money. After all, we are all addicted to the sweet sweet drug that is live college basketball in any form. With that being said, let’s see what we can consume.
Wofford (2-0) vs 19 Richmond (2-0) - 2 pm EST, ESPN+
Richmond captured the attention and the heart of the die-hard college basketball fans when they sank the universally loved Kenyucky. Perhaps the scary part is that the Spiders weren’t even that great that game (or perhaps, that shows more about the state of the Wildcats). Enough has been said about their star point guard Jacob Gilyard, a diminutive defensive monster who can also do it all on the offensive end as well, but I also want to give a shoutout to their big man Grant Golden who is a key engine in their Princeton offense.
Richmond is genuinely a good, experienced old team that is a certified tournament team, and it’s a huge task for the young Wofford team. Gone are the days of Fletcher Magee heroics against the evil North Carolina, and the Terriers will need their star guard Storm Murphy to have a perfect game to have a chance at an upset.
Fairfield (0-3) vs Hartford (2-2) - 4pm EST, ESPN3
For so long, the American East has been dominated by Vermont. Except for that one time UMBC stumbled its way into the big dance (what did they do there anyway?), it has been the Catamounts to lose.
Except for last year.
After over a decade of suffering, Hartford finally had a chance to upend the power structure of the AE and take its throne back from the dictatorship of Vermont. They were on a roll late last season, beating Stony Brook to advance to the conference final against that no good Vermont team. With its crown jewel within its reach, everything was swept away when COVID-19 hit.
The Hawks bring a lot of talent back, led by their top talent Hunter Mark and young Moses Flowers. With their heartbreak behind them now, maybe this is the year where they can return to the glory. Watch them on their journey back to the top, today.
North Carolina Central (1-0) vs Coastal Carolina (2-0) - 6 pm EST, ESPN+
North Carolina Central is a favorite to win their conference, and you can brag that you watched this conference champion before the March Madness rolls around. What? They play in the MEAC and they might not even escape Dayton? Nevertheless, some MEACtion on Monday afternoon is not the worst way to spend your day. Coastal Carolina, on the other hand, has beaten two non-D1 schools, so to be honest, I have no idea what to expect from them.
Moorehead State (1-3) vs Eastern Kentucky (3-1) - 7 pm EST, ESPN+
Eastern Kentucky is showing some signs of life in what will be a competitive OVC. They comfortably took care of their business when they should have, and really pushed a very solid Xavier team until the end. With strong teams like Belmont, Murray State, and Austin Peay all lurking around, every single win counts by the Colonels, especially in conference play, will matter. Now, they take on their rivals Moorehead State to hopefully start 1-0.
Sneakily, Eastern Kentucky is also a very successful betting team, for those CBB moneymakers (shoutout to the guy who betted $500 on Texas yesterday, RIP). They have successfully covered the spread every game, and sometimes it’s a good idea to ride the wave while it lasts. Jomaru Brown is the one to watch here.
Northern Arizona (0-0) vs Arizona (2-0) - 9 pm EST, ncaa basketball streaming?
The only other bubble team that I consider who plays today, Arizona didn’t exactly put on a convincing performance when they squeaked by Eastern Washington by only three points. However, the Wildcats SHOULD comfortably take care of business against the Northern Arizona team that was forced to pause basketball activities due to COVID cases.
The player to watch for sure is James Akinjo, the do-it-all guard who has been carrying the team, perhaps a bit too much, considering he’s had only 8 minutes of rest so far. However, without him, the offense seems a bit lost without their point guard leading the line, and this could be a good test to see who can grab some minutes behind him for the future.
Another star from Arizona is Jordan Brown, a big man who is clearly the best of the bunch of bigs in the Wildcats. Again, this should be more of a game to find out the pieces next to the star. Christian Koloko, Azuolas Tubelis, and Ira lee are all vying for front court minutes next to Brown.
Honorable Mentions
George Washington (1-2) vs UMBC (1-1) - 4 pm, ESPN+, Lipscomb (1-3) vs Southeast Missouri State (1-1) - 7:30, ESPN+
Both UMBC and Lipscomb are chasing a pair of respective dominant champions in their division - Vermont in American East and Liberty in ASUN. While they might not be favorites, they have a good outside shot of knocking them down to make it to the big dance once again. I’m sure Virginia fans would be thrilled.
South Carolina State (0-4) vs Charlotte (0-2) - 6 pm EST, maybe possibly on that subreddit that streams college basketball games
One of them has to win right? Right?
Loyola Marymount (2-2) vs UC Santa Barbara (1-0) - 8 pm EST, to be completely honest this might be impossible to watch
Loyola Marymount hit the first mid-major buzzer-beaters, so maybe they can do it again?
Lewis vs Bradley (3-2) - 8 pm, ESPN+
I couldn’t justify asking you to watch Bradley take on a non-D1 school this Monday, but the Braves are one of the better mid-major teams in the country.
EDIT: After I wrote this up, I just saw the Oregon-Eastern Washington game got added. You should probably watch that over a lot of the games here, as Oregon is a legit bubble team that has legit players like Chris Duarte.

ABA (American Basketball Association) (9 seasons, 1967-68 through 1975-76): Most of you are probably familiar with the ABA. It was a poorly run league with teams constantly relocating, renaming themselves, changing ownership, folding, and generally barely existing (timeline of ABA teams). That being said, the ABA was way ahead of its time in certain respects: it had 3-pointers, introduced 4 key stats we use today (steals, blocks, turnovers, offensive rebounds), figured out how to get guys into the pros without being stuck in college for 4 years (Spencer Haywood case), finally got playground legend Connie Hawkins into the pros, and gave us the dunk contest. Several great players played in the ABA (profiles for several of them), and although its overall talent level was pretty bad during its first 3-4 years, it definitely appears to have had superior talent over the NBA during its final 3-4 years (routinely beat the NBA in head-to-head exhibition match-ups). Speaking broadly, the NBA was more of a controlled league during this time that was seen as guys "playing the right way" with a continued emphasis on pounding it inside with big guys, and the ABA was more of a "just give them the ball and let them run" situation, but it's important not to downplay that the ABA's style allowed for the natural flow and rhythm that great athletes bring to the game (and the ABA certainly had better athletes). If you're surmising that this last sentence when taken within the context of the 70's might have meant there were some racial components to how the leagues were viewed, and how the ABA was denigrated by basketball traditionalists, you are correct. This picture at the time of the merger in 1976 helps sum up how the leagues were seen: hard-working white guy from Boston and the black razzle-dazzle "hot dog" in New York. Although the ABA was always on the verge of collapsing, it did finally get its much sought after merger with the NBA in the summer of 1976. A lot of great ABA players continued to thrive in the NBA (the 4 most notable being Dr. J, David Thompson, George Gervin, and Moses Malone), while some did not as their new NBA coaches really tried to hammer the free-flowing nature of their game out of them, and discipline them into "playing the right way" which meant like Hoosiers if you get what I mean. There are some great ABA resources at this link, most notably the always fascinating Remember The ABA website.
BAA (Basketball Association of America) (3 seasons, 1946-47 through 1948-49): The BAA was the official forerunner to the NBA, as its formation in 1946 is seen today as the start of the NBA. A huge reason for this is because Maurice Podoloff was the BAA's president for all 3 years and then the NBA's president for their first 14 years. It's more complicated than that (more about this below with the NBL), but basically the BAA was founded shortly after the end of WWII by rich guys who owned hockey arenas and/or hockey teams in major cities in the Northeast in order to make more money when hockey teams were out of town. Yes, pro hockey was definitely bigger than pro basketball in the 40's. Whereas the longer established NBL mostly avoided the big cities, the BAA went right into New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, and Toronto. Again, they were trying to fill hockey arenas on off-nights. Early stars included Joe Fulks, Max Zaflosky, and Bob Feerick, but the league really got cooking in its 3rd & final season ('49) when 4 NBL teams jumped over to the BAA. This included 3 of its 4 best franchises (Lakers, Royals, Pistons), which meant numerous star players from the '48 NBL Finals (Lakers vs Royals) were now in the BAA: George Mikan, Jim Pollard, Bob Davies, Al Cervi, Arnie Risen, Bobby Wanzer (I've written profiles of all of these guys - that's how important they were for the 40's & early-50's). The BAA and NBL officially merged into the NBA in 1949 for the good of pro basketball so that the two leagues weren't fighting over the best college players, although the NBA today really sees it as an expansion more so than a merger. Here is some more info about the BAA.
NBL (National Basketball League) (12 seasons, 1937-38 through 1948-49): The league was a rebranding and/or restructuring of the Midwestern Basketball Conference (MBC) which had formed two years prior as America was finally making headway out of the Great Depression (more on this restructuring in 1937). The NBL (which was the 5th and final league created with this name) was formed by some large corporations (GE, Goodyear, Firestone) and factories which often provided more stable day jobs for the players, and this league generally existed in smaller mid-western cities like Sheboygan, Tri-Cities, Fort Wayne, and Toledo. Due to pro basketball's bad reputation at the time, NBL teams for the most part were not welcome in major arenas in big cities, even though most college teams were. During the time of the BAA's short existence, the NBL's big advantage was its star players; in addition to the 6 listed above who joined the BAA for the '49 season, the NBL managed to sign 4/5 of Kentucky's beloved "Fabulous Five" who won the NCAA titles in 1948 and 1949 and formed them into a pro team, the Indianapolis Olympians (the Fab Five were all gold medal-winning Olympians in 1948). This team was headlined by the famous and talented duo of Alex Groza and Ralph Beard, both of whom had brief but very successful pro careers before being banned in 1951 due to a college point-shaving scandal at UK (info about Groza). The team was formed for the 1949-50 season and became a big bargaining chip for the league when it merged with the BAA in the summer of 1949, so the Olympians' first season was actually played in the NBA but it was formed by the NBL. Although the common narrative --and what I assumed was the case until very recently-- is that the BAA basically just absorbed the broken scraps of the NBL in 1949 so that one pro league could finally have all the talent and play in the big cities, u/CorphisJokes brought it to my attention that the NBL had a strong position in their bargaining with the BAA, and really it was the BAA that needed the merger after the NBL formed the Olympians with Groza and Beard (link 1, link 2). I'll point out that in the NBA's first season (1949-50), 4 of the 5 players named 1st-team All-NBA were originally signed by the NBL: Mikan, Pollard, Davies, and Groza. Also of great importance, the NBL integrated black players in 1942 (5 years before Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers), mostly from the Globetrotters and Rens.
ABL (American Basketball League) (1-and-a-half seasons, 1961-62 until mid-way through 1962-63): Like the ABA, the ABL had some great ideas that eventually helped the NBA, but it didn't have the chops to remain profitable and successful, nor was it on the same level as the ABA. The ABL was formed by Harlem Globetrotters' owner Abe Saperstein who felt the NBA betrayed him by allowing the Lakers to move to LA in 1960 since he claimed to be promised an NBA franchise in LA. The positive contributions of the ABL are few but obvious: they were the first league to have a 3-point line (which lead to the ABA's 3-pointer), and they were the first league to have a wider free-throw lane (I've read it was either 16 or 18 feet wide, and the NBA's was still only 12 feet wide at the time). The league hurt itself right away by spreading its 9 franchises way too far apart, from coast to coast, and even putting a team in Hawaii. The ABL had a trio of bona fide players with Connie Hawkins (banned by the NBA), formefuture NBA star Dick Barnett, and future NBA All-Star Bill Bridges. They were certainly the league's 3 best players, but the league also picked up some former stars of note like Bill Sharman, George Yardley, and Neil Johnston. Barnett lead his team to the title in '62 (on the George Steinbrenner-owned Cleveland Pipers) while Hawkins was the MVP, and then the league suddenly folded about 30 games into their second season on December 31, 1962. Here are some cool links about the ABL: 1) great history of the ABL, 2) full ABL stats, 3) ABL player registry with photos, 4) 3-pt stats for players of note.

Came across an interview titled Longtime Reddit GM, Erik Martin, Discusses Managing “The Front Page Of The Internet,” Free Speech And The Time Obama Was Banned From /Politics from KnowYourMeme (KYM) which people might find interesting.
I've provided most the text below, but it's probably easier to read on the KYM site directly than with Reddit formatting.
When Reddit emerged in the mid-2000s, it was a bare-bones startup with big dreams and an uphill battle. In 2008, Erik Martin joined the team as its first-ever community manager, eventually becoming general manager where he saw the site through some of its most crucial growing pains. As GM, Martin acted as a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, managing communities, operations, sales and even the famous AMAs with prominent people like Barack Obama. Although one of Reddit’s most well-liked staffers, he ultimately parted ways with the site in 2014 and moved on to continue his endeavors elsewhere. Now, Martin is chief community officer at a new startup called Teal where he helps job-seekers to develop their careers. We caught up with him to learn more about his time at Reddit, see what he makes of the recent debate surrounding free speech and share a few of his favorite memes and moments from over the years.
Q: Hey there, Erik. Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us. Can you kick things off here by introducing yourself a bit and telling us what you’ve been doing lately?
A: Excited to chat with y’all. I guess I’m most known for being an early employee at Reddit and being the General Manager there from 2011 to 2014. Since then, I’ve worked on community and marketing stuff at a few companies, including Depop, WeWork, Airtime, and most recently at Nike. I’m currently the Chief Community Officer at Teal, a relatively new startup that’s focused on helping guide people throughout their careers. I’ve been working hard on that since the fall. I’m also really into church cookbooks from 100-plus years ago, even though I’m not religious and I can’t really cook. Other noteworthy internet stuff would be that I started a project a while back called Assholes on Demand. It’s kinda dormant now, but when it was going, we helped people who weren’t “extremely online” deal with bad customer service issues at enormous banks, cable companies, etc. I was also a videographer and sometimes editor for Improv Everywhere, the hidden camera prank collective that had a lot of viral videos in the early to mid-2000s.
Q: So you obviously have a pretty extensive history with the internet, particularly Reddit, but I’m curious to learn more about your background and some of your earliest experiences with the web. Could you recap how you got your start online and what places you used to frequent?
A: I think my internet background really starts sort of pre-internet with my mom’s old Mac SE. My mom was a graphic designer and had this glorious, ugly, 25-pound black-and-white Mac. Apple called it “portable” at the time because it came with a giant-ass carrying bag and had a handle on top of the display. My uncle was also a Machead and he would bring us stacks of 3.5-inch floppy discs with every kind of pirated video game and software. There were no labels on the discs, no instructions and no reviews or anything. You just put a disc in and tried out all the applications. Sometimes it was a fun game, sometimes it was a drawing tool, sometimes it was a boring business program I didn’t understand, and sometimes it crashed the machine. The really good ones I’d copy and share with friends. Eventually, that beige/grey computer got hooked up to an ancient modem and we got online, but to me, it feels like “the internet” started with those unlabeled disks. I think when I see something new online or I explore some rabbit hole, I’m trying to chase that feeling of being a curious child and loading a new disk of unknown content.
I graduated from college in 1999 and went to go work for a variety of long-defunct startups in North Carolina. It was an exciting time to be an inquisitive and green kid willing to work on anything. I did everything from helping a visual search engine QA [quality assurance] their taxonomy of rugs, to helping a browser companion company write reviews for websites. I had an amateur knowledge of videography and also starting shooting videos of NCAA Division III basketball games for this basketball lifestyle site called HoopsTV that was about 20 years ahead of its time. The dotcom crash happened and all those companies failed. Over time, I picked up more video work, learned to edit videos and worked on a variety of low-budget films. My internet addiction blossomed with things like IRC [Internet Relay Chat], IMDB, webrings, blogs and Fark.
Q: In 2008, you then became Reddit’s first-ever Community Manager. How did this position come about, what did it entail, and what drew you to it?
A: I applied to the very first Y Combinator founders program as a documentary filmmaker. They rejected me, but after that, I was kinda hooked on seeing what happened, so I became a user and fan of Reddit soon after they launched out of that first YC class. At some point, I reached out to the site by sending a cold email to info@ or hello@. Alexis Ohanian responded and we exchanged emails. At the time, I was doing digital marketing for a film and music company. I think we discussed doing some sort of online Q&A on Reddit with one of the music video directors we were promoting, but I was basically a lurker, still am really. I got to know Alexis, and a few years later when Reddit needed someone to be their representative on the production of weekly current events that were, in theory, going to incorporate an online audience through a Reddit show pilot with a PBS affiliate, they asked if I was interested. The pilot ended, but I got to know the site and team more.
Later that year, Alexis asked me if I wanted to be a community manager. It was hourly and didn’t pay well, but I had enough other freelance gigs that I could make it work. Most of what I did early on was promoting new subreddits or other new Reddit projects and some very basic spam fighting. There was only a tiny team, but Alexis, Steve [Huffman] and all the engineers were all super-active users, so every employee was a community manager. During that time, I also started doing video Ask Me Anything [AMA] interviews. The Reddit community wanted some celebrities to do AMAs but getting someone not familiar with Reddit to devote time to navigating the threaded text comments was a tough sell. So, we got the top 10 questions from the community, recorded the person answering them on video, and posted the YouTube video on our blog. That way, we only needed to get them to commit to 30 minutes of their time. Eventually, Reddit and the AMA format grew to a point where celebrities would take part in the native text AMA with minimal hand-holding or convincing, but the video AMAs helped build that momentum.
Q: During those initial years, what were some of the biggest differences between Reddit then compared to now? Do you think it was easier or more difficult with a smaller userbase?
A: The biggest difference is just size. Reddit doubled in traffic every year until recently. So, each year there was just more and more activity and users and subreddits. Early on it was also mostly links and then self-text posts. It took a while before Imgur and other services made it easy to link pics. I think it was easier. Reddit was always understaffed and the engineers had to work magic to keep the site up, but one could at least be aware of most of the new subreddits, trends and fun organic moments. As time went on, that just became increasingly impossible for users and staff.
We were also this scrappy underdog. Even though Reddit had been around for a while, it was such a bare-bones operation compared to other competitors at the time that users, mods and people we worked with were forgiving. You can’t really be the underdog if you’ve been around for 15 years and you’re big enough to be seen from space.
Q: After a couple of years, you moved up to Reddit’s General Manager and you were often one of the most public faces of the company during that time. Can you briefly describe that role and some of your biggest moments from those years?
A: When I became General Manager it was a weird time, Reddit was still part of Conde Nast, but it was starting a process where it eventually spun out and recapitalized as an independent entity. The role was a catch-all, and I ended up doing whatever Reddit needed. Sometimes it was operations, sometimes community and sometimes sales stuff. Growth in terms of traffic wasn’t ever a problem, but we wanted to keep the site growing in terms of the subreddits and discussions and even formats on Reddit. I focused on promoting subreddits like /IAMA, all the unique “Ask” subreddits like “AskScience” or “AskHistorians,” the sports subreddits, the various fandom subreddits, college subreddits and non-U.S.-centric subreddits.
The biggest moments for me were helping get the local subreddits active. We held a Global Meetup Day, and each year, more and more cities around the world took part. I’ve been to meetups all over the world. Even now, anytime I travel somewhere for the first time, I spend time on the local subreddit and try to learn as much as I can.
A big awareness moment during that was when we were part of the SOPA/PIPA blackout and helped defeat a bill that had enormous support in D.C. It seems quaint from today’s perspective, but it was an important issue, or at least felt like it. We always felt that the press should mention Reddit in the same breath as Twitter, Facebook and other gigantic internet places. That SOPA protest movement felt like the first time when the mainstream media did that. Also in 2012, when Obama was running for reelection, he stopped by Reddit for an AMA. We’d been working up to a POTUS AMA for years, and it was incredible to see that happen. The thought terrified me that news would leak and people would have time to figure out ways to cause mischief, or worse, but it worked out and the small team of engineers did amazing work to keep the site from completely buckling under the onslaught of traffic and attention.
Some of the biggest challenges were growth-related. As Reddit grew, the work the mods had to do got more and more overwhelming. By 2012, you had moderators who were doing their best to moderate subreddits that were bigger than all of Reddit was just two years ago. They were creative, resourceful and came up with ways to use CSS and automod tools, but it was a hard and thankless job even in smaller, relatively tranquil subreddits. We had a lean team, to put it mildly. When I left, we had around 70 employees, which seemed like a lot to me, but in hindsight, it was nothing compared to other, similar companies. We were all spread thin and juggling a lot. Who knows, I’m sure the alternative universe where we had more staff and resources would have come with its own additional problems, but when I think back about that time, it’s all a bit of a sleep-deprived blur.
Q: During your time as GM, you were sometimes asked about the site’s position on free speech. In 2011 during an AMA, a Redditor asked about your stance on certain controversial subreddits and you said, “We're a free speech site with very few exceptions and having to stomach occasional troll reddit like picsofdeadkids or morally questionable reddits like jailbait are part of the price of free speech on a site like this.” Can you elaborate on your answer more and speak to that time period of the site?
A: I wish I could unsay that. Even back then, saying “Free speech” was a lazy and bad answer. I was trying to describe a generally hands-off approach but didn’t even do that well. It’s a metaphor or bumper-sticker phrase that isn’t useful. If we were making blithe comparisons to the Bill of Rights, then Freedom of Assembly might have been a better framework than always talking about speech and content. Still, it’s wrong. I think what I and many people at Reddit believed was that as much control and decision-making should be in the hands of the subreddit mods and individual users. Not all control, but as much as possible. I don’t think we felt absolutist about it, but I think, at the time, we felt inertia, and we feared to make decisions -- we didn’t prioritize making them, or at least I felt that way. The whole point of Reddit was that the users would decide what was “on the front page,” not the editors or people working at the company. That worked! But then as the site and other infrastructure grew, the infrastructure around who gets to create a subreddit, for what purpose and how to grow the global rules thoughtfully didn’t keep up.
Q: Since that topic is something so commonly debated when discussing Reddit, what are your personal opinions on online freedom of speech? Have those opinions changed over time since then?
A: I still believe that as much control and decision-making as possible should be in the hands of the subreddit mods and individual users, and I think that’s why Reddit is still relevant and growing 15 years after Alexis and Steve started it. That doesn’t mean there has to be some hideous “price” or that there shouldn’t be thoughtful and dynamic rules. The organization and humans running Reddit can still be accountable without needing complete control. Again, I think content and speech is not a relevant framework anymore. I think behavior, impact, scale and speed are all more useful ways to discuss the topic than talking about speech.
Q: Was that something the founders or admins also pushed while you worked at Reddit, or was it an issue that you personally clashed with others at the company over?
A: People disagreed, but I don’t remember philosophical clashes. It was more pragmatic. People disagreed about the degrees, priorities and the best way to approach updating rules and moderation. There was always a tension between things like the role of improving tools and more improving human moderation, but it wasn’t ideological that I remember.
Q: What's the weirdest or most interesting thing you dealt with during your time at Reddit? Got any good stories from over the years?
A: So many wonderful stories. I really was fortunate to experience so many unreal stories, big and small. The first one that comes to mind is when Obama’s post got banned from /politics. So, everyone knows that Obama did an AMA, but most people didn’t know or forgot that he also posted a message on election day. He posted a brief message to the politics subreddit encouraging people to get out and vote “no matter your political persuasion,” and it had a link to look up your polling place. When the AMA happened, we had advance notice and all that, but we didn’t know about the election day message until I got a phone call from one of the campaign people asking, “Do you know why POTUS got banned?” “Uhhh, let me look into that.” Apparently, one or more of the mods felt that the nature of the post broke one of the subreddit rules, so they banned it. I sent a message to the mods politely asking if they could reconsider or even make a sitting head of state exception for some minor rules infraction. They discussed it and eventually unbanned the post. Simpler times. You can complain about Reddit mods all you want, but you can’t say they’re afraid to ban a sitting president’s posts.
Another thing that comes to mind is a minor snafu that happened when I went to record a video AMA with Noam Chomsky. I videotaped Chomsky answering the top questions from Reddit in his office. I thought it would look good to have Reddit open on a monitor in the shot, so I set up my laptop in the background behind him. I forgot that I had whatever “word of the day” screensaver came installed on the laptop turned on. So about 10 minutes into the interview, my screensaver comes on and I realize, in horror, that people watching the video will think the laptop is Chomsky’s and that the founder of cognitive science uses some super basic, vocabulary-builder screensaver. He was on a roll, so I didn’t have the heart to stop the interview or apologize afterward. Fortunately, the words were like “conformity” and “impoverished” and so simple that when we published the video, people realized it must be a joke or some default factory setting.
Q: So then in late 2014 you stepped down as GM without a huge plan as to what you wanted to do next with your career. Could you tell us more about what led you to walk away from Reddit after you’d been so heavily involved since it started?
A: In hindsight, I was burned out. I hadn’t been taking care of myself and felt ragged. It also felt like a good time to move on. Reddit had just raised a fresh round of funding. Also, I got married earlier in the year, so it just felt like the right time professionally and personally to do something new. I felt like if I didn’t leave when there was a moment, then Reddit would define me. Like if I stayed much longer, I wouldn’t be able to function anywhere else. I recently moved from NYC after living there for the last 12 years or so. It was a similar feeling. I love NYC and I love Reddit, but there was this underlying feeling of “if I don’t leave now, I never will.”
I didn’t know what the next thing was, but I knew I wanted to work with a different community and company. I ended up helping Depop launch in the U.S. I was excited about the experience of working for a non-U.S. company and marketplace, both unfamiliar things for me. Where Reddit’s userbase skewed male, Depop’s userbase skewed female. I believed that the basics of running and growing a community-based company and brand were still the same, no matter what the community was, and I wanted to explore that.
Q: What are your thoughts on some of the controversial decisions in recent years regarding Reddit’s policy changes, ban waves and other moves that many argued went against the free speech roots of the site? Do you think some of that fallout is justified, or are these individuals missing something?
A: I haven’t followed everything closely, but I’m all for the changes. They should have happened sooner, but it’s easier to say that on the outside as a normal citizen. I’m sure there was some backlash but also seemed like a lot of users and mods supported the decisions.
Q: So taking all of this history into consideration alongside your own experience working with Reddit, how do you think these changes will impact the site’s future? Where do you see it in the next five or 10 years?
A: I think the change is good. I don’t have many predictions or insights … I mean, Reddit is too big to look at the entire picture, at least for me. I try to focus on the long-standing and brand new subreddits. The Formula1 subreddit recently posted about reaching 1 million subscribers and how they grew the subreddit over the past 12 years. As long as existing communities on Reddit can keep thriving while new subreddits can emerge and grow, like /LiminalSpace, then Reddit will keep trucking, keep mutating and be healthy.
Q: Aside from Reddit, lots of other social media platforms have also been seeing some major shifts in terms of policy changes, censorship and things of that nature in recent months. Can you speak to social media as a whole and what you think the future holds for the industry?
A: I think there’s been a failure of imagination and experimentation. In the grand scheme of things, we’re still in the early days of social media platforms. There needs to be more experimentation and less calcification. Dealing with the unique scale and speed of large platforms is hard, but there are solutions and frameworks with more creativity that can help, and the users of these platforms want to help contribute. For example, back in 2010 or so, Reddit tried a feature to combat spam called Jury Duty. A small group of users would be randomly selected to review a specific potential spam post, and they would vote if it was spam or not. The system didn’t solve the spam issue for a few reasons, but the basic premise worked. Users, and not just the ones who are normally the most vocal or extreme, were willing to do some “work” to improve their community if it was easy to take part. Users have already come up with shared solutions like that organically across all the platforms, but the platforms need to prioritize those types of experiments and systems more.

HELLO COLLEGE BASKETBALL FANS!

What is going on here? For a refresher, click here. For our First Four hub, click here!
 
After an unbelievable finish to #11 Texas Tech vs. #11 NC State, our full bracket for the 2020 Reddit One Shining Tournament is set. Tomorrow, March Madness (un)officially returns with all of the action a twelve-year-old video game AI can muster. And we can't wait to watch it all with you!
 
 

Quick Links

Schedule (and full bracket)

Find the full First Round schedule here!
The First Round will consist of eight games per day from 3/19 - 3/22. After that, we'll take a few days to get a head start on simulating the next games.

Where can I watch these games?

We'll have direct links in the game threads, but you can find our Youtube channel here!

Bracket Challenge

Unfortunately, since we normally run our bracket challenge through ESPN, we can't use it this year. Thankfully, user leprachaun77 has kindly put together a Challonge bracket here. Since we see no need to reinvent the wheel, we're treating this as the official bracket. Be sure to fill it out by noon ET March 19th!
 
 

FAQ

Some of today's players were six years old when College Hoops 2K8 came out. Are you using updated rosters for 2020?

Yep! We originally took rosters from Operation Sports, but they've been modified so much at this point that we've uploaded a new file here. We did our best to balance via updated stats where necessary. If you see an issue with your team during a stream, be sure to let us know - there's a lot of teams (68, to be exact) and we're happy to update as the tournament moves along!

How can I spread the word?

We want this to get to as many college basketball-deprived people as possible, so feel free to use #RedditMarchMadness on Twitter and to tell anyone who'd be interested!

Can I get a downloadable bracket?

Yes. Just go to File -> Download -> PDF Document in the bracket link above!

I think I can help with something for this tournament. Where should I send suggestions?

You can always message the moderators by clicking the button on the sidebar! If you'd like to DM us, our Twitter is here. Otherwise, we try to monitor game threads, our Discord, and the Youtube channel, so chances are we'll see something wherever you post.

HELLO COLLEGE BASKETBALL FANS!

What is going on here? For a refresher, click here.

• Postponement Update
  
• First Round Hub
  
• First Four Hub
  

THIS

IS

...APRIL

That's right! CD/DVD manufacturing quality standards in 2007 did what the onset of global pandemic couldn't: they delayed our second round to April. But through the miraculous powers of global ecommerce supply distribution lines, March Madness (un)officially returns with all of the action a twelve-year-old video game AI can muster today, Thursday April 2nd! And we can't wait to get back to it with you all!
In our delay time, we've put in some work to deliver a bit more production to the games, especially from the Sweet Sixteen on. Look out for updates in the coming weeks, and be sure to get your friends in on the action! Whether it's a Zoom watch party, a Reddit game thread, or a Youtube chat box, you'll always have an excuse to blame the refs with your friends here.
 
 

Quick Links

Schedule (and full bracket)

Find the full Second Round schedule here!
The Second Round will consist of four games per day (3 on Thursday) from 4/2 - 4/5. After that, we'll take a few days to get a head start on simulating the next games.

Where can I watch these games?

We'll have direct links in the game threads, but you can find our Youtube channel here!

Bracket Challenge

Unfortunately, since we normally run our bracket challenge through ESPN, we can't use it this year. Thankfully, user leprachaun77 has kindly put together a Challonge bracket here.

Where can I keep up with everything?

• Twitter
  
• Discord
  
• And announcement posts here on Reddit!
  

 
 

FAQ

Some of today's players were six years old when College Hoops 2K8 came out. Are you using updated rosters for 2020?

Yep! We originally took rosters from Operation Sports, but they've been modified so much at this point that we've uploaded a new file here. We did our best to balance via updated stats where necessary. If you see an issue with your team during a stream, be sure to let us know - there's a lot of teams (68, to be exact) and we're happy to update as the tournament moves along!

How can I spread the word?

We want this to get to as many college basketball-deprived people as possible, so feel free to use #RedditMarchMadness on Twitter and to tell anyone who'd be interested!

Can I get a downloadable bracket?

Yes. Just go to File -> Download -> PDF Document in the bracket link above!

I think I can help with something for this tournament. Where should I send suggestions?

You can always message the moderators by clicking the button on the sidebar! If you'd like to DM us, our Twitter is here. Otherwise, we try to monitor game threads, our Discord, and the Youtube channel, so chances are we'll see something wherever you post.

Can I bet on these games?

We're running no official lines from our HQ, but DraftKings has joined us in the fight against boredom! Check out our post here for more info.
DISCLAIMER: Those who are running this tournament are not participating in any betting on it and will not profit off it in any way.

HELLO COLLEGE BASKETBALL FANS!

What is going on here? For a refresher, click here.

• Post-Second Round Update
  
• Postponement Update
  
• First Round Hub
  
• First Four Hub
  

Welcome to the Sweet 16!

The Sweet 16 will consist of four games per day today and tomorrow (4/9 and 4/10). After that, we'll go straight to the Elite 8 on Monday, April 13th. Then, we'll pause briefly to prep the Final Four and Championship games.
Four days. Two rounds. Twelve games. Can you feel the madness?
 
 

Quick Links

Schedule (and full bracket)

Find the full schedule here!

Where can I watch these games?

We'll have direct links in the game threads, but you can find our Youtube channel here!

Bracket Challenge

Unfortunately, since we normally run our bracket challenge through ESPN, we can't use it this year. Thankfully, user leprachaun77 has kindly put together a Challonge bracket here.

Where can I keep up with everything?

• Twitter
  
• Discord
  
• And announcement posts here on Reddit!
  

 
 

FAQ

Some of today's players were six years old when College Hoops 2K8 came out. Are you using updated rosters for 2020?

Yep! We originally took rosters from Operation Sports, but they've been modified so much at this point that we've uploaded a new file here. We did our best to balance via updated stats where necessary. If you see an issue with your team during a stream, be sure to let us know - there's a lot of teams (68, to be exact) and we're happy to update as the tournament moves along!

How can I spread the word?

We want this to get to as many college basketball-deprived people as possible, so feel free to use #RedditMarchMadness on Twitter and to tell anyone who'd be interested!

Can I get a downloadable bracket?

Yes. Just go to File -> Download -> PDF Document in the bracket link above!

Can I bet on these games?

We're running no official lines from our HQ, but DraftKings has joined us in the fight against boredom! Check out our post here for more info.
DISCLAIMER: Those who are running this tournament are not participating in any betting on it and will not profit off it in any way.

HELLO COLLEGE BASKETBALL FANS!

What is going on here? For a refresher, click here.

• Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight Hub
  
• Post-Second Round Update
  
• Postponement Update
  
• First Round Hub
  
• First Four Hub
  

 

Welcome to the Reddit March Madness FINAL FOUR WEEKEND

This Saturday, the virtual ball will be virtually tipped in virtual Atlanta.* And by day's end, we'll have our final two teams set for Monday night's championship game. Will you be there?
 
^{*the Alamo Dome, which is like the Georgia Dome, except it exists in 2K8}
 
Saturday, 4/18: Final Four

• 5:45pm ET: #6 West Virginia vs #5 BYU
  
• 7:15pm ET: #3 Seton Hall vs #1 Gonzaga
  

Monday 4/20: Championship Game

• 8:15pm ET: Winner of West Virginia / BYU vs Winner of Seton Hall / Gonzaga

 
 

Quick Links

Schedule (and full bracket)

Find the full schedule here!

Where can I watch these games?

We'll have direct links in the game threads, but you can find our Youtube channel here!

Bracket Challenge

Unfortunately, since we normally run our bracket challenge through ESPN, we can't use it this year. Thankfully, user leprachaun77 has kindly put together a Challonge bracket here.

Where can I keep up with everything?

• Twitter
  
• Discord
  
• And announcement posts here on Reddit!
  

 
 

FAQ

Some of today's players were six years old when College Hoops 2K8 came out. Are you using updated rosters for 2020?

Yep! We originally took rosters from Operation Sports, but they've been modified so much at this point that we've uploaded a new file here. We did our best to balance via updated stats where necessary. If you see an issue with your team during a stream, be sure to let us know - there's a lot of teams (68, to be exact) and we're happy to update as the tournament moves along!

How can I spread the word?

We want this to get to as many college basketball-deprived people as possible, so feel free to use #RedditMarchMadness on Twitter and to tell anyone who'd be interested!

Can I get a downloadable bracket?

Yes. Just go to File -> Download -> PDF Document in the bracket link above!

Can I bet on these games?

We're running no official lines from our HQ, but DraftKings has joined us in the fight against boredom! Check out our post here for more info.
DISCLAIMER: Those who are running this tournament are not participating in any betting on it and will not profit off it in any way.

Thanks to the coronavirus, this NBA season may be a disjointed mess, and the NBA offseason may be as well. There’s no telling how much information teams will have to work with in regards to the prospects (their medicals, their workouts, their interviews, etc.) In a sense, it’s going to make an already-dicy draft class even riskier than ever.
That said, there are some things that we know about the new crop, so I thought I’d break them down for those NBA fans who don’t follow the NCAA and have run out of Tiger King episodes already.
Today, we’re going to start with the player listed at the top of the charts (on most sites.)
SG ANTHONY EDWARDS, GEORGIA
his resume
After a successful stint as an E.R. doctor, Anthony Edwards turned his attention to basketball full time. Best known as an explosive scorer, the guard became a five-star recruit that was ranked top 5 by all major sites. The Atlanta product decided to stay local, and attend Georgia for college. At the time, it was seen as a major coup for coach Tom Crean and a redefining moment for the Bulldogs program.
As we all know, snagging "one and done" superstars is a great way to stay relevant in college basketball. If you can load up with 2-3 of them at once, you can be a true title contender. However, as we've seen many times recently, landing ONE superstar recruit doesn't necessarily lead to glory. Solo stars like Ben Simmons and Dennis Smith Jr. didn't have loads of team success (and saw their coaches get fired soon after). Future # 1 pick Markelle Fultz's Washington team went 9-22 in his lone season there.
Some of those same problems plagued Anthony Edwards at Georgia. As a one-man band, he could rack up good raw stats (19.1 points, 5.2 rebounds per game), but struggled with his efficiency. He shot only 40.2% from the field, and only 29.4% from three (on 7+ attempts per game.) His playmaking also left something to be desired (2.8 assists, 2.7 turnovers.) Coach Tom Crean will survive, but this 16-16 team wasn't a year to remember after all.
Despite those mixed results, Edwards is still ranked as the # 1 overall prospect on ESPN. Other sites have him a little lower (with tankathon's # 6 slot the lowest), but he's generally considered a heavy favorite for a top 3 pick along with PG LaMelo Ball and C James Wiseman.
his game
When you watch Anthony Edwards play, the first thing that comes to mind is his explosion and power for the position. He's listed anywhere from 6'3" to 6'5" (so we'll settle on 6'4") but he has a long 6'9" wingspan. More than that, he's a sturdy 225 pounds. He’s going to be a handful to match up with, even in the NBA.
Offensively, Edwards utilizes his athleticism well, pressing the issue and (at times) forcing his will. The 19.1 PPG may not jump off the page, but Edwards has all the tools to be a big-time scorer. He can get buckets anywhere on the court. And while his 29.4% three-point percentage may jump out as an immediate red flag, his actual shooting form looks fine. His FT% (77.2%) also indicates as much. He's also clearly not shy about taking shots either, illustrating his confidence in that part of his game. With better teammates and better shot selection, he should be an average to above-average three-point shooter (maybe 36%.)
Defensively, Edwards should be better than he’s shown so far. He’s a natural SG, but his size and length should enable him to guard some 1s and 3s as well. However, the effort and attitude isn’t always there on that end at this stage.
his comps
Because Anthony Edwards played for Tom Crean, there's a natural tendency to compare him to other shooting guards that Crean has coached -- including Dwyane Wade and Victor Oladipo. Presuming any prospect will be as good as Dwyane Wade is setting yourself up for disappointment, but as far as best case scenario, that's not ridiculous at all. Like Wade, Edwards is a long-armed power guard with All-Star potential. I'd even say that he's farther ahead than Wade was offensively at this stage of their careers (Wade stayed two years at Marquette.) In order for Edwards to unlock that upside, he'll need to continue to hammer his way to the line. He averaged 5.3 free throw attempts per game -- which is "good" but not "great." Wade himself improved from 4.8 FTA to 7.5 FTA in his second year in college, and I'd encourage Edwards to make that a point of emphasis as well.
In terms of "worst case scenario," a few come to mind as well. If Edwards doesn't get to the line much in the NBA, then his scoring efficiency will become very dependent on his shot making, which is no sure thing right now. I've heard some people here on reddit throw out a Dion Waiters comparison, and that's not a ridiculous suggestion either when considering Edwards' floor. If he doesn't improve his efficiency and he doesn't improve his defensive intensity, then perhaps a life as a mediocre empty-calorie scorer is in the cards for him.
If I had to bet on a most likely outcome, the truth would be somewhere in between. Utah SG Donovan Mitchell immediately comes to mind for me. Like Edwards, Mitchell is a little undersized (in terms of height) but has good length and a powerful frame. He thrives best as a multi-level scorer, although his efficiency will also hinge on how often he's getting to the line. Right now, in Year 3, Mitchell averaged 24-4-4 for the Jazz, and that seems like a realistic expectation for Edwards down the road as well.
how he fits on every team (listed by current lottery order)
(1) GOLDEN STATE. chances of # 1 pick: 14%, chances of a top 4 pick: 52%
Based on some rumors, Anthony Edwards is the top player on the Warriors' board, although you could wonder about the immediate fit. Presumably, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson will be locked into the backcourt, and Andrew Wiggins (flaws and all) will still be further ahead than a 19-year-old rookie. There's some chance that the Warriors may decide to go SUPER small and play all four together with Draymond Green, but it's more likely that they'd bring Edwards off the bench to begin his career. That would serve as a nice boost for their shaky depth, but may not be the best use of an asset like this.
I'm more bullish on Edwards' fit on Golden State from a long-term perspective. Steph Curry is 32 now, so by the time that Edwards hits his prime, Curry will likely be 35+ and best used as a complementary scorer anyway. Edwards would inherit the kingdom, so to speak. And if you're worried about his habits and playing style, then you're unlikely to find a better home to develop him than a top-flight organization like Golden State. overall fit: 3 (out of 5).
(2) CLEVELAND. chances of # 1 pick: 14%, chances of a top 4 pick: 52%
Last year, the Cleveland Cavaliers surprised many by taking a scoring guard like Darius Garland only one year after taking a scoring guard in Collin Sexton. Presumably, Anthony Edwards could fit with either one of the two because of his size/length, but it'd be hard to imagine all THREE playing together. To add even more murkiness to the equation, the Cavs also have an explosive young scoredevelopmental project at SG in Kevin Porter Jr.
If the Cavs do get a chance to draft Anthony Edwards, they'd likely go ahead and hand him the keys to the kingdom (and throw the other babies out with the bath water) if need be. He can be the type of signature star that they've lacked since LeBron James. That said, it's one of the clunkiest fits on the board. overall fit: 1.5 (out of 5).
(3) MINNESOTA. chances of # 1 pick: 14%, chances of a top 4 pick: 52%
Karl-Anthony Towns and GM Gersson Rosas finally landed their man in D'Angelo Russell, another high-volume scoring guard that theoretically would clash with Anthony Edwards. However, I actually think Russell and Edwards could play in the same backcourt. They're both long (Russell has a 6'10" wingspan, Edwards 6'9"), and project as decent shooters from range. Aside from some back and forth battles for the basketball, they should play well together.
The bigger domino effect of Edwards landing in Minnesota may be the fate of mid-season acquisition Malik Beasley. Beasley has some similarities to Edwards, with an underrated scoring touch. You could play Beasley as a 6th man scorer, but he's a free agent right now and may have higher aspirations than that. That hanging question will dock us a half point in this score. overall fit: 3 (out of 5.)
(4) ATLANTA. chances of # 1 pick: 12.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 48%
The Atlanta Hawks already have their signature star in tow in Trae Young. They've (wisely) endeavored to build the supporting cast in a way that covers for him on defense, selecting D'Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish in the draft, and trading for Clint Capela in midseason. On the surface, Anthony Edwards doesn't fit int that mold. He has the tools to be a good defender, but like a lot of young scorers, doesn't always lock in (advanced stats list him as a modest +0.8 in defensive box plus/minus.)
All that said, the fit still isn't bad. If the Hawks want to make the playoffs, they need to improve their defense. But if they want to win championships down the road, then grabbing another potential All-Star to pair with Trae Young is a good recipe too. Young's ability to spread the court would also help Edwards as he attacks inside. Offensively, they'd be a bad-ass duo. overall fit: 4 (out of 5.)
(5) DETROIT. chances of # 1 pick: 10.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 42%
The strength of this year's draft is the point guard position, and that works out well for the Detroit Pistons. They could use a young guard who can develop behind Derrick Rose for a season or two, and ultimately take the reins of the offense and become the star of the franchise down the road.
That said, the Pistons could also use a star small forward. Or a star shooting guard. Basically: any star at all. Certainly, Anthony Edwards has star potential. That makes him a good organizational fit, even if the roster fit isn't cookie cutter (SG Luke Kennard is pretty good; let the Pistons know that.) overall fit: 3.5 (out of 5.)
(6) NEW YORK. chances of # 1 pick: 9%, chances of a top 4 pick: 37%
Like the Detroit Pistons, the New York Knicks aren't going to get too picky with their needs. Sure, they'd like a superstar PG, but any superstar would add a much-needed jolt of electricity to the building.
Would Anthony Edwards be the best type of superstar to provide that? Eh. Kinda-sorta. There's definitely some overlap here with R.J. Barrett in terms of a young wing with All-Star potential but some inefficiency issues to iron out. In an ideal world, they could be a superstar duo (LeBron James + Dwyane Wade worked out okay), but there's too much murkiness and projection involved there to give you confidence in that fit. overall fit: 2.5 (out of 5).
(7) CHICAGO. chances of # 1 pick: 7.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 32%
Wait, an athletic scorer with defensive lapses? Would Chicago Bulls fans be seeing double here when Anthony Edwards shows up to play alongside Zach LaVine?
Again, as with Minnesota, I don't think it's a total duplication to pair the two together, because Edwards and LaVine both have size and the ability to shoot it. You could play the two together and put the pressure on defenses. That said, it's not a perfect marriage by any means, unless the Bulls can change their culture and get their kids to lock in on both ends. overall fit: 2 (out of 5.)
(8) CHARLOTTE. chances of # 1 pick: 6%, chances of a top 4 pick: 26%
The Charlotte Hornets' top two scorers this year were both guards -- Terry Rozier and Devonte' Graham -- but neither one of them are good enough or efficient enough to make you change from a "best player available" approach to the draft.
More than anything -- and dare I say, more than any other NBA team -- the Charlotte Hornets need a SUPERSTAR. With all due respect to Kemba Walker, they haven't had one since their expansion. I don't know if Anthony Edwards will necessary be that superstar, but he'll have every opportunity here on a team that would feature him heavily. And while the Hornets get a lot of flak for their organization, their coaching staff isn't half bad at all. Candidly, I hope they win the lottery, because they deserve some good karma for not egregiously tanking despite their obvious rebuild here. overall fit: 4.5 (out of 5.)
(9) WASHINGTON. chances of # 1 pick: 4.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 20%
Conversely, the Washington Wizards don't need a superstar to slap on the marquee as much as other lottery teams like Charlotte. They have Bradley Beal, and John Wall returning next year. Moreover, both of those stars are guards who thrive with the ball in their hands. Anthony Edwards would represent quite a bit of duplication here.
To repeat, the Wizards (and every team) should take Edwards if he's the clear best player available, but it's just not the best marriage for both parties in this particular case. Edwards could be a great 6th man for them or perhaps play as a small SF, but it's not the ideal remedy for what ails them. More than anything, the Wizards need frontcourt help, and defensive help, and Edwards' talents lie elsewhere. overall fit: 1 (out of 5.)
(10) PHOENIX. chances of # 1 pick: 3%, chances of a top 4 pick: 14%
At a certain point, years and years of lottery picks are going to give the Phoenix Suns so much talent that the scales will tip over and turn them into a winner. Probably. Maybe.
Anthony Edwards would help with that, even if there's some natural duplication here with scoring guard Devin Booker that will dock them a point or two in our metrics. That said, Booker has the ability to play PG if need be, and is one of the better spacers in the league. If coach Monty Williams can get Booker and Anthony Edwards to be a two-headed monster on the perimeter and unleash Deandre Ayton's potential as well, this could be a sleeping giant. overall fit: 3 (out of 5.)
(11) SAN ANTONIO. chances of # 1 pick: 2%, chances of a top 4 pick: 9%
It feels awfully strange to say, but the San Antonio Spurs are actually one of those teams like Charlotte (gasp) that needs a future star to build their team around. DeMar DeRozan is 30 (and a potential free agent), LaMarcus Aldridge is 34. The young kids like Dejounte Murray and Jakob Poeltl are solid, but limited. Anthony Edwards would immediately come in and become the centerpiece of a rebuild. (Lonnie Walker IV may bristle at that, but our eyes will have wandered past him in this scenario.)
What works best in this hypothetical is the fit from a developmental standpoint. Edwards has star potential, but isn't a sure thing. There's no organization better at maximizing talent than the San Antonio Spurs, from a shooting perspective to a basketball IQ perspective to a long-term load management perspective. overall fit: 4.5 (out of 5.)
(12) SACRAMENTO. chances of # 1 pick: 1%, chances of a top 4 pick: 6%
Do the Sacramento Kings have a big need at SG? I don't know. They may not know. The team found some success toward the end of the year by starting Bogdan Bogdanovic and bringing Buddy Hield off the bench, but that may not be a sustainable scenario. Bogdanovic is a restricted free agent, and may cost upwards of $15M a season. Adding another wing to the mix would be an expensive proposition; the team would either need to bring either Hield, Boggy, or Anthony Edwards off the bench for a while.
At the end of the day, talent wins out, so you wouldn't complain to add even more to this young core; still, it doesn't appear to be the best fit on our board. overall fit: 2.5 (out of 5).
(13) NEW ORLEANS. chances of # 1 pick: 1%, chances of a top 4 pick: 6%
Young talent definitely isn't a problem in New Orleans. Along with Zion Williamson, they also have Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram (a restricted free agent that they're intent on re-signing.)
The current presence of Jrue Holiday and J.J. Redick may not leave a lot of minutes available in the backcourt right now, but the true upside of this team isn't going to be in 2020 or 2021. If the Pelicans can develop a starting lineup of Lonzo Ball, Anthony Edwards, Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson, and Jaxson Hayes, they could have the making of a true title contender in 3-4 years time. Zion + Edwards would be an especially wicked brand of bully ball on poor opposition. overall fit: 4 (out of 5).
(14) PORTLAND. chances of # 1 pick: 0.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 2%
Like Golden State, the Portland Trail Blazers already have two stars in their backcourt with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. As mentioned with the Warriors blurb, Anthony Edwards' best fit with the Blazers may be in the long term. As Lillard and McCollum age, Edwards can take on more of the mantle as the star of the team.
But still, that's not an ideal marriage for all parties involved. What makes this even less seamless than the Warriors situation is that the Blazers already have a promising young combo guard in Anfernee Simons. If the Blazers move up into the top 3 and take Edwards, I would expect a trade (of either Simons or McCollum) to follow. fit: 1 (out of 5.)

Now that we're in late April, Reddit March Madness has come and gone, and Seton Hall can celebrate its first national championship and FIRE IT UP! Congratulations to the Pirates, and a hearty congrats to BYU, West Virginia and Gonzaga, too, for reaching the 2020 Final Four.
As the exclusive* media home for the tournament, I covered every game from the first round through the championship, plus features and previews along the way. That's a lot of content, and I know you want to go through all of it. That's why I've put it here, all in one post, for you to conveniently and consistently browse your modern-day Bible.
It has been a privilege and an honor to serve you fine folk with Internet connections (fuck anyone who doesn't, am I right?). You all mean so much to me. I wish you all a Merry Pandemic!
Without further ado, here is your entertainment.
FIRST ROUND
Shaka Smart self-declares invincibility as Iowa clobbers Texas

“At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m going to live forever,” Smart said. “There doesn’t really seem to be any negative consequences for my failures. It’s pretty dope.”

BYU survives Stephen F. Austin in late scramble

“That was a fuck up for sure,” said Kevon Harris, who took the terrible shot.

New Mexico State falls to Oregon as Payton Pritchard shows out

“It’s a process,” said New Mexico State head coach Chris Jans. “The first step is getting here, and the second step is losing.”

Vermont shocks Louisville with Everett Duncan heroism

“There are several people named Duncan on this team for some reason,” Duncan said. “That’s first and last names. I’m sick of it. I want to stand out. I want to be my own man. I want to be the top Duncan of Vermont.
“I think I accomplished that tonight.”

Michigan State slams Little Rock in basketball 'game'

“It was good to see the generosity our players showed Little Rock,” head coach and part-time garden gnome Tom Izzo said. “A few of our guys gave the Little Rock players words of encouragement even after they embarrassed themselves live on YouTube for everyone, even their crushes, to see. Sportsmanship is at the core of our program.”

Akron stuns Ohio State as Xeyrius Williams posts double-double

“Xeyrius Williams has a great name, but it’s arguably not even the best on our team,” Groce explained. “We got a guy named Ali Ali. We have another dude named Channel. One guy’s last name is Cheese. The name ‘Enrique Freeman’ does not sound correct. I’m still not sure how to pronounce Maishe Dailey. And the best might be LePear Toles, which again, is the real name of a player on my team. He’s a sophomore guard from Canton. I’m not making this up.”

Eastern Washington blindsides San Diego State in 15-2 upset

“Fuck your brackets,” Legans said. “EWU, bitch.”

Creighton outlasts UC Irvine as Denzel Mahoney goes off

“Oh lord, no. No, no, not again, no. Please, God, no, not like this,” McDermott said he pleaded to God on the sideline in the second half. “Just one Sweet 16, please, even if it’s in a video game.”

Illinois holds off Utah State with late shots

“As you can see, I’m wearing one of my energy crystals, which have helped bring me incredible good fortune in recent months,” Frazier explained. “This one right here is for love, which is what I try to spread with my basketball game. That’s the secret to everything, man, it’s love. There can be nothing without love.”

Marquette handles Arizona behind 37 via Markus Howard

“I have been working part-time as an extra-absorbent paper towel in the event I lose this job,” Sean Miller explained. “Business is booming, and soon I can take this operation full time. I won’t even need Arizona for much longer. Pump and dump, baby, pump and dump.”

Oklahoma slices Colorado as Tad Boyle has public breakdown

“I forgot Battey was on the team, okay?” Boyle said through sniffles as he held back tears. “It’s hard. This job is hard. It’s hard to keep track of everything.”

Saint Mary's edges Houston as Kelvin Sampson discovers offense exists

“He was telling me about this thing, offense I think I remember he called it,” Sampson recalled. “Anyway, he was talking about this offense thing, going on and on about working for good shots, ball movement, attacking the rim, what have you. It sounded odd to me, but we were down quite a bit. I didn’t know what else to try.”

Virginia defeats East Tennessee State, Tony Bennett bewildered

“I hate basketball,” he said. “I’ve been spending decades trying to destroy it from the inside. For my own players to undermine me like this, I find it disgusting. You can expect to see a lot more bricks and turnovers in our second game, I can promise you that.”

John Calipari avenges Evansville loss through Bradley

“I don’t care for those wise guys out in the Missouri Valley, see,” he said while wearing a trench coat and playing cards. “Where I come from, we take care of people like that, and their associates, too. Bradley got what it had coming.”

Bill Self suffers cardiac arrest as Kansas narrowly escapes NC Central

“Our guys fought until the end, and that’s something they can keep with them for the rest of the time the owner of his game keeps these rosters,” Moton said. “Besides, Kansas probably cheated, anyway.”

Gonzaga begins Cinderella run with incredible start-from-ahead victory

“It’s a huge day for our program,” said Gonzaga head coach Mark Few, who has assembled a rag-tag group of barely top-100 prospects and some of the best foreign talent into a Round of 32 participant. “It’s incredible the things you can accomplish when you leave your ego at the door.”

Michigan beats Florida as Hell arrives on Earth

“I just figured, if you’re trying to create a hell on Earth, what would be the easiest way to do it?” Satan said. “It didn’t take long for Michigan and Florida to come to mind. Putting them together, on the same field or court, at least once every calendar year in meaningful games, surely it would allow some amount of a realistic hell on the planet.”

Providence mounts unreal comeback as Rutgers falls apart

“Just another day in the Big East,” Cooley said after the game. “It’s like Buttgers never left.”

Cincinnati fails to upset Auburn, just like we knew they would

“Once we saw we had Cincinnati in our first game, we weren’t too worried,” Fred Flintstone, known in modern times as Bruce Pearl, said. “You can take the Cronin out of the Cincinnati, but you can’t take the Cincinnati out of the Cincinnati.”

Wisconsin takes out North Texas a Greg Gard garbles

“Garble, garble, garble,” Gard garbled, emphasizing the importance of Wisconsin’s free-throw shooting in crunch time. “Garble, garble, garble.”

Maryland holds off Yale as Terps fan can no longer stand it

Good job, Mark! You did it! You beat another mid-major, double-digit seed! Time to pop the champagne!

Butler beats Liberty as LaVall Jordan and Kamar Baldwin change my life

“Thank you, my son,” Jordan said, placing a wreath upon thine head and waving his hand to grace me with great fortune. “You are at peace now.”

North Dakota State dumps Florida State in all-time surprise

“I’m going to the liquor store, I’m buying all the liquor they got, and I’m getting drunk as fuck tonight, boys,” promised North Dakota State head coach David Richman.

Darrin Horn preaches Odin's teachings as Villanova trounces Northern Kentucky

“As we are taught in the the Hávamál, it is important to move on from things,” he explained graciously.
“The unwise man is awake all night, and ponders everything over; when morning comes he is weary in mind, and all is a burden as ever,” Darrin Horn continued, quoting his favorite of the 10 proverbs from the Hávamál.

Bob Huggins mauls innocent ref as West Virginia eliminates UCLA

For minutes, the brutal attack wore on with thousands listening to the tearing of skin, the breaking of bones and the final yelps of a dying man’s last pleas. After it was done, Huggins slowly rose, standing on only his hind legs and faced the two remaining refs, bearing his teeth.

Chris Beard helps make Texas Tech-Penn State rivalry renewal possible

“I’ve been eating nothing but mountain lion for weeks,” said Texas Tech student Benny “The Multiplier” Martinez. “My stool is hardening. Wreck ’em Tech!”

Skylar Mays explodes as LSU routs Arizona State

“We do a lot of preparations before games, and before the season even, to be prepared for our, shall we call them, opponents,” Wade slithered through his fingers as he tapped their tips against each other, menacingly. “We had been saving up for the tournament for a while.”

Indiana defeats USC as Hoosiers Faithful lose faith

“Great, fucking great,” complained Richard Stroganoff, Class of ’87. “One damn win in a video game, and we’re stuck with Archie for another two years, minimum.
“You’ll never replace Bobby!” he shouted as he stood to face at a wall poster of Miller with googly eyes, a crudely drawn mustache and a goofy sombrero vandalizing the coach’s appearance.
“You’ll never replace Bobby,” Stroganoff quietly muttered, slumping against the wall and collapsing into a heap of tears and woe.

Mike Krzyzewski makes media forget Hofstra exists after Duke win

“The chest pat is everything,” his holiness explained later when us mortal media members were fortunate enough to be graced with his words of wisdom. “Without it, you have nothing.”

Seton Hall blows out Belmont in Reddit March Madness First Round

“It’s not what we came here hopin’ for,” Belmont head coach and country music studio recording artist Casey Alexander sang with a twang, “but it is what we’re leavin’ here cryin’ for.”

Obi Toppin gets stalked as Dayton throttles Winthrop

“I’ve been getting very unsettling phone calls from numbers I don’t know from Cleveland,” Obi Toppin explained. “It’s a distorted male voice that keeps telling me he loves me over and over again, and that everything is going to be okay. Sometimes he shushes me. Plus, I received flowers from a ‘secret admirer,’ and they were all dead. I’m starting to get scared.”

Scott Drew arrested for murder after Baylor kills Boston University

“The NCAA wanted eliminate Boston University because its name is dumb,” the report from Scoops Callahan reads. “They think it’s pretentious that they always have to have the University or U in there, and that it’s too much of a mouthful. So, they put Baylor and Scott Drew on the job, and now an innocent university is dead.”

SECOND ROUND
Jake Toolson leads with 31 as BYU gets to first Sweet 16 since 2011

“My mommy and daddy said that if the Cougars go to the Final Four, God is listening to my prayers!” said 8-year-old BYU fan Ammon Bluth, jumping up and down with joy before stopping, his face dropping and the sudden malaise of reality beginning to churn in his young mind. “Wait, what does it mean if they don’t?”

Bob Huggins apologizes for ref mauling in Reddit March Madness

“I don’t see what the big deal is, but lots of people got mad, so here you go,” Huggins said in a special press conference. “I’m sorry if I offended you. There you go. There it is.”

Greg McDermott considers his bleak future as Illinois beats Creighton

“I’m gonna lose my job, and then I’m gonna lose the house, too,” McDermott said, pacing ferociously and periodically hitting himself in the head with an open palm in feeble attempts to knock himself into an alternate, more successful reality that does not exist, not even in the make-believe land of College Hoops 2K8 simulations. “Theresa is definitely gonna leave me. What am I going to do without Theresa?”

Kentucky comes back to topple Iowa for fourth-straight Sweet 16

“I would like to dedicate this performance to the otters,” Hagans said. “No one in basketball is talking about otters. I’m sick of it. It’s time to start, #OtterTalk.”

Randy Bennett attacks assistant as I meet the love of my life

“I think I love you,” Shemika said, biting her lip.
“Word,” I responded, sexily.

Shantay Legans continues trash talk as Reddit March Madness goes on

“Ain’t nothing golden about Marquette,” Shantay Legans explained. “You ever been to Milwaukee? They should call themselves the Gray Eagles. At least that would make sense.”

Marquette discards Eastern Washington, Mike Wazowski Astounded

“Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Paul, Peter, all of them,” Wazowski said in disbelief. “Moses, Avraham, Yakov, Mohammad, Buddha, Confucius. Thanks to all of them. Whomever is responsible for this, thank you.”

Michigan State stomps Virginia hearts yet again as the cruelty continues

“Tom Izzo,” he muttered in his stupor as he rolled over from his back to his side to face me, a pool of vomit slipping from his lap onto the pavement. “He ruined my life.”

Payton Pritchard goes 25 and 10 as Oregon hammers Akron

“I ate a lot of bugs before, which provides me with my species’ equivalent to protein, so I was extra strong for today’s game,” he explained. “My metabolism processes the bugs much faster than humans process their food, and it gives me strength immediately that same day. I was sent to this planet to win basketball games for Dana Altman. I am not collecting valuable information so that my species can destroy the human race.”

Lon Kruger reads the funnies after Gonzaga tackles Oklahoma

“I’ve been in basketball a long time, long enough to remember the great Buddy Hield,” Lon Kruger reminisced. “Oh, what great days those were. You could just give him the ball, and he would do something magical with it. Now all these kids want to do these days is sit around on their iTabs and their GameDudes, living in some kind of fantasy. Well, I prefer the real world, where we’re really watching simulations of a 13-year-old college basketball video game instead of March Madness this year because of A GOD DAMN VIRUS!”

LSU backs Will Wade as Reddit March Madness Second Round rages on

“There is no change to Coach Will Wade’s employment status at LSU and we will continue to not give a shit,” the school said.

Maryland Fandom: A Story of Struggle and Strife

“‘AYALA FOR THREE’ WILL FOREVER HAUNT MY NIGHTMARES!” shouted business major Georgio Mancala as he climbed on top of the bar and began throwing cups, napkins and everything else he could get his hands on into the air, causing mass mayhem.

Jeremiah Robinson Earl tackles inner demon as Villanova bests Michigan

“We’re a scorpio, and today our horoscope said that for a few weeks, we’ve been struggling with our physical appearance,” said the medically-conjoined elite basketball machine. “Our horoscope also said that a decision we make at the end of the day will help with those negative thoughts, and tonight was that decision. We decided that we don’t care if having three people smashed into one mechanical-engineered monster of a basketball superhuman doesn’t fit into the constraints of conventional attractiveness. We’re all beautiful in our own ways, and basketball is how we share our beauty with the world.”

West Virginia beats Duke, Bob Huggins proves his literacy all in one day

“In case he was wondering if I can read, I took a look at the scoreboard and wanted to let him know that I read, ‘WEST VIRGINIA 81, DUKE 74,'” Huggins said. “He can let me know later if I read that right.”

LSU stuns Dayton, proving the arc of justice bends however it wants

“This world is a sick place. There’s no righteousness in this place,” said Toppin, turning up his upper lip in disgust, then changing his expression to complete anger after his phone rang and he saw who was calling. “And these fucking calls won’t stop either! I know it’s you, Dan! Leave me alone! I don’t need this right now!”

Texas Tech, Lubbock prep for possible Sweet 16 on 2nd Round's last day

“I’ve become connected with an anti-human trafficking human trafficker who fools, then kidnaps and smuggles Somali pirates to various parts of the world as property, and it’s totally legit,” Martinez explained. “So, while I doubt the pirates that Seton Hall is referring to in its nickname come from Somali, it’s really the most realistic route you could expect one to take given that pirates are an endangered species in 2020. Wreck ’em Tech!”

Seton Hall survives Texas Tech as late-game incompetence dominates

“It was a crazy game to be a part of. It was an offensive explosion from both teams,” Rhoden said, using his hands to illustrate things blowing up. “It was like, BOOM! And then like, BOOM! And, and then, BOOM! You know? It was like that. A lot of booms.”

Austin Wiley bemoans graduation after Wisconsin ousts Auburn

“But … mom … I … don’t … wanna … come … HOOOOOOME!” Austin Wiley struggled to get out to his mother over the phone amid the intense sniffles and tears he was fighting through. “I’m gonna miss my friends, and all my toys and stuff are here. I don’t wanna leave. I don’t wanna come to Hoover. I WANNA STAY!”

Hoosiers are losers to Baylor, sending some IU fans into total despair

“How has this happened?” Richard Stroganoff, Class of ’87, asked the empty void he couldn’t escape as he wept on the floor of his kitchen in the fetal position, leaning against the dish washing machine and clutching a framed picture of Bob Knight.

David Richman sets records as 15 North Dakota State joins Sweet 16

“I was the drunkest anyone has ever been in the state of North Carolina,” his statement read. “Pretty sweet, right?”

SWEET 16 PREVIEW
Reddit March Madness Sweet 16 is (finally) upon us

“IT’S A WAR ZONE OUT HERE,” shouted Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo from the inside an active helicopter, camouflage paint and clothing covering his body for safety precautions during the medical supply drop. “NO ONE IS SAFE, NOT EVEN DUKE."

SWEET 16
Calipari watches dazzle Bunderwood in landslide Kentucky win

“Did I plan for it to go like it did?” Calipari asked, laughing and sitting back his chair, crossing his arms. “I guess we got a wise guy ‘ere, huh? Well, kid, I did plan for it to go like this. Know how? Because I wanted to make sure Illinois knew where it belongs. I wanted it to know that even when the light at the end of the tunnel looks like it’s getting brighter, I can close the blinds.”

Izzo does it again as Michigan State trumps Marquette for Elite Eight bid

“It’s all about yelling at your players, but doing it the right way,” Izzo explained. “You gotta do it in a way that makes people laugh. Screaming is fine as long as you’re little and goofy, especially in comparison to your players. That’s the key.”

Tom Riddle becomes more brazen as BYU takes out Kansas

“People are always going to try to find a way to bring down the almighty and all-powerful,” he said, his cheeks and forehead beginning to throb a light blue as a uncontrollable grin spread wide across his face. “We will vanquish them, as we do all enemies, as we prove ourselves as the most dominant force in the world. Our power is growing, Cougars. Remain with me as I bring us to the end of the muggle nightmare."

Zags cruise through Oregon, continuing six-year Cinderella run

“Gonzaga in the Elite Eight,” he said to Tracy Wolfson on the court after the game, tears welling in his eyes as their genuine and powerful charisma captured the heart of America. “Wow, what a world.”

Kevin Willard has emergency while Seton Hall ends North Dakota State

“WHERE ARE THE BATHROOMS IN THIS PLACE FUCK FUCK FUCK,” Willard is thinking, right now.

Jay Wright gives inspirational speech as West Virginia washes Villanova

“I don’t understand,” Jay Wright said in the post-game press conference, flabbergasted. “It worked for the championships…”

Greg Gard scolds me after Wisconsin falls to Baylor in Sweet 16

“Garble, garble, garble,” he garbled, insulting me for bringing up such a hoax and shouting at me to leave, insisting that he would not continue the presser until I was gone. “Garble, garble, garble.”

Javonte Smart has a talk with the Lord and LSU tops Butler

“I just felt something come over me,” he explained, jubilantly. “I felt something mighty, something powerful. I felt an internal phone ringing in my head, and so I answered it. I knew right then and there that that was the Lord, and when the Lord calls, you answer the phone."

ELITE EIGHT PREVIEWS
Seton Hall Arrives in First Elite Eight in 29 Years

“It’s an amazing thing,” Willard said, eager to get off the topic of his accident. “It’s a testament to the amount of work these kids put in each and every day, adjusting to this tournament being played with one fewer dimension than they’re accustomed to and how fortunate our draw has been.”

Baylor Basketball Aims at First Final Four Since the Truman Administration

“There were presidents before Obama?” sophomore guard Matthew Mayer asked, innocently.

BYU Basketball Has Provo Preparing for Marriage Mayhem

“The Cougars are one win from the Final Four!” said 8-year-old BYU fan Ammon Bluth, whose parents told him after the Vermont game that if the Cougars made it to the Final Four, then God was listening to his prayers. “I can’t wait until God listens to my prayers about world peace and hunger, too!”

Big Blue Nation Ready to Pounce if Wildcats Fail

“We ain’t even won shit yet,” said card-carrying Big Blue Nation member Peevis Moon. “This is the season, right here. Final Four or never more for John Calipoopi.”

LSU Basketball Fan Rejoices as Will Wade Takes Franchise to Next Level

“RAH RAH RAH,” the only LSU basketball fan in existence, Buford Fontenot, unintelligibly shouted at me from his shrimp boat, wearing only overalls and a hat he clearly just found somewhere, while I stood on the dock at a safe distance in case things got too Cajun. “BASSETBALL!”

WVU Basketball Could Complete Epic Turnaround with Final Four

“We have been working to expand our drunk tanks and get extra pumps to J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in preparation for WVU basketball this week,” said Morgantown police chief Hobart McDonald’s. “I can’t wait to get West Virginia wild.”

Cassius Winston Plans Surprise for Tom Izzo ahead of Elite Eight

“If we win, we’re gonna get a great, big pinata of Coach K, hang it up and surprise him with it in the locker room after the game,” Cassius Winston said. “We already have it all planned out for how to make it a secret. We have a few other guys on the team in on it. Kenny Goins provided the bat, because he had several for some reason. I can’t wait for the look on his face. And think of the candy, too!”

Cinderella of Reddit March Madness, Gonzaga Stands for Little Man

“Well, there’s one thing: they can’t order us to stop dreaming,” explained Ayayi, his breathtakingly beautiful dress blowing so elegantly in the wind. “So we’ll trust our hearts, what else can we do? We can’t live in dreams if our dreams are to come true.”

ELITE EIGHT
BYU Gets to to First Final Four, 'Calipoopi' Trends on Twitter

“I said Final Four or never more for John Calipoopi before the doggone game, and my mind ain’t changed,” tweeted card-carrying Big Blue Nation member Peevis Moon from his handle @UKWildcatzFan1972. “That was pathetic! Never seen UK play worse! I’m done with Calipoopi the Fraud!”

Kevin Willard Goes Jersey as Pirates Punch Baylor for Final Four Ticket

“People have been talking about our draw coming into this round,” Kevin Willard said on the court right after the game. “How we didn’t play anyone, so we were going to lose to big, bad, murderous Baylor. Well guess what? Seton Hall don’t give a fuck, jack, and that means Jersey ’bout to run up in ATL with some GTL, you feel?”

West Virginia Clips LSU, Sends Bob Huggins to Third Final Four

“I feel like I am West Virginia,” he said. “I act like West Virginia, I think like West Virginia, I’m shaped like West Virginia. There’s nothing but West Virginia in me, you can be damn sure of that."

Mark Few Sprinkles Me with Fairy Dust as Cinderella Dances to Final Four

“Look at how pretty I am!” Gonzaga forward Corey Kispert said while frolicking about the media room, a wide smile on his face. “I’m the prettiest girl at the dance. Why, I think I might be the prettiest lady this side of the Mississippi!”

FINAL FOUR PREVIEWS
Final Four Teams Meet with Atlanta Schoolchildren to Give Back

“Your dads give you a beer yet?” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins asked a group of fifth graders, taking a sip of his whiskey, then lighting his cigar and puffing it out into the room.

Tom Riddle Takes in First Final Four of Coaching Career

“You always dream about getting to a point like this when you’re drafting plans for how to eliminate an entire subset of the population from existence,” Riddle explained. “It’s not until you’re actually here, standing in Atlanta and feeling the energy around you, that you realize it can be real and not just a fantasy.”

Romaro Gill Explains his Horsey Lifestyle

“We have a chores list, WHICH PATCHES IS NOT GOOD ABOUT FOLLOWING,” Gill said, elevating his voice loud enough during the criticism so Patches could hear him in the other room. “But we have it all broken down, AND WHEN IT’S FOLLOWED, things move pretty smoothly around here.”

Chase Harler Comes Clean about Stamp Collections

“I’ve been collecting since I was a little boy, maybe 3 or 4 years old,” Harler said, beginning to choke up. “My cousin showed stamps to me, told me they were a nice hobby. I didn’t think anything much of it then, just thought they were interesting. I had no idea what it would turn in to. I didn’t know it would be like this.”

FINAL FOUR
Chase Harler Entirely to Blame as BYU Bounces WVU in Final Four

“We are truly at the precipice now,” he said he encouraged his players. “The darkness is near. Soon, the muggles will have no light with which to live, and the darkness shall envelope them. It shall be you who bring the darkness, and you will continue our long path to eventual muggle eradication in the second half.”

Myles Powell Proves Higher Power, Lifting Pirates Over Zags in Final Four

“I’m probably never going to be back here again,” Willard said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good coach. Seton Hall is fortunate to have me, and I’ll probably go to more Sweet 16s, lots more tournaments, all that. But win a national championship? Are you shitting me? Only in a season that is cancelled right before March Madness because of a pandemic, then the tournament is played out in a 13-year-old video game could I possibly pull that off, and those are the exact circumstances we find ourselves in. That’s why I have to capitalize. Now.”

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEWS
Final Four of Misfits Provides Public with Entertainment, Danger

“Well, I can promise you that we won’t commit a genocide if we win,” said Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard. “We won’t if we lose, either. In fact, I can guarantee you that Seton Hall will never play a role in the creation or propagation of a genocide. We’re pretty committed to our values here, and genocide is something that goes against those values.”

BYU Remains Focused on the Day of the Big Game

“Please, God, won’t anyone listen to me?” Deep Stroke pleaded into the void of repeated history as I yawned. “Riddle says, ‘DEATH TO ALL MUGGLES’ almost every time you talk to him. Doesn’t that scare anyone? Do people even listen to the words this guy says? The dude is one win away from erasing a massive segment of the population from existence, and it feels like no one is reacting. WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!”

Seton Hall to Build Myles Powell Cathedral as Thanks for Title Game Run

“We’ll start with conception,” said Seton Hall president Eduardo Quinceañera, beaming with pride. “Then move on to birth, attending public schools in Trenton, the work on his basketball game, high school, coming to Seton Hall and then now, leading us to this point. And if we win, there will be a special panel dedicated just to his work in bringing us this title. And we’re going to leave out that thing from his past that he told us to because he didn’t want it getting out, so no concerns there.”

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Seton Hall Shocks Us All with World-Saving National Championship

“Hello, muggle world,” the man we understood to be Kevin Willard said. “I am Albus Dumbledore, and I have come to save you.”

AFTERMATH
Tom Riddle Defeated, World Saved as Pirates Take First Title

"I mean, hooray that BYU and Voldemort lost, I guess,” he said, miserably. “But no one even really seems to care, so it’s going to happen again. Nothing has changed. Tom Riddle, or someone or something like Tom Riddle, will be back in a short amount of time, and then we will go through this all over again.
“You spend your life trying to make the world a better place, trying to sound the alarm of impending danger and doom that you know is coming. You try to do the right thing. You try to help people. And society spits in your face and laughs for your efforts like you’re somehow the crazy one.
“It’s a joke. It’s all a cruel joke.”

THE FUTURE
From the response to my writing for this tournament, and from how much I enjoyed doing it, you can expect continued satirical writing on Nothing But Nylon. A good friend of mine, who is a stand-up comedian, is also joining the satirical army, though you can expect more NBA-focused jokes from him. If you enjoyed NBN's coverage of Reddit March Madness, be sure to stay tuned for much more like it.
As for me, I am going to enter hiding for fear of retaliation from Tom Riddle and his ilk. Although he was disembodied following the national championship loss, we've seen him come back from that before. I'll continue publishing online despite the danger, because that's how much my fiercely loyal readership means to me. Keep that in mind when you lay your head on your pillow in your safe, comfortable home, free from the threats of The Dark Lord, and check your fucking privilege*.
^{* = this means you can't sue me}