It can’t be anything but good for college basketball that two of the top three most-efficient offensive teams in the nation, per Kenpom.com rankings, play for the national title tonight in Indiana.
Sure, both Duke and Wisconsin play good defense, better than good in Saturday’s semifinals, but it’s their basketball skill that enabled them to become the last two teams standing.
UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma used the most colorful language of anybody in describing what’s wrong with the too-physical state of the men’s game in calling it, “a college scrum where everybody misses six of out every 10 shots they take.”
Not Duke, which makes 56.1 percent of its two-point shots and 38.7 percent of its three-pointers. And not Wisconsin, which hits 55.1 percent of its two-pointers and 36.5 percent of its threes.
For Wisconsin, Frank Kaminsky, a 7-footer, and Sam Dekker, a 6-9 forward, both handle the ball and shoot from the perimeter with the skill of guards. Forward Nigel Hayes, a 6-7, 250-pound sophomore, wanted to play more than the 17.4 minutes per game he was on the floor as a freshman. So he made himself better over the summer and averaged 32.8 minutes. He didn’t do that by practicing diving for loose balls. He did it by working on his long-range shooting. He didn’t attempt a three-pointer as a freshman. He has made 37 of 97 (.381) threes heading into the title game.
Duke ranks third in the nation in offensive efficiency, one spot ahead of Notre Dame, which barely missed the Final Four in a classic battle with Kentucky. Freshman Jahlil Okafor, like Kaminsky a first-team All-American, earned that distinction thanks mostly to polished offensive skills in the post.
Blue Devils point guard Tyus Jones is as savvy a freshman point guard as the game has seen in a long, long time.
Duke freshman Justise Winslow — son of Rickie Winslow, former Phi Slamma Jama teammate of Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler at Houston — can slam and jam with the best. But he’s loaded with skill, too, shooting .417 from three.
With any luck, the copy-cat aspect of sports will kick in, and a greater emphasis will be placed on recruiting and developing skill, which makes for more pleasurable viewing than cage-fighter matches.
So much basketball skill takes the court tonight that this promises to be the second title game in the past six that the winning team scores more than 67 points. In four of the past five title games, the loser hasn’t reached 60 points. Ugly.
