Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA?

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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#81 » by og15 » Thu Mar 27, 2025 2:19 am

A good amount of those people saying that probably just mean March Madness, and not "college basketball". I had a friend who would say college basketball is better, but his basketball knowledge was weak, and basically it ended up boiling down the him having more attachment to college basketball, which is perfectly fine.

ForeverTFC wrote:
Nate505 wrote:I don't know what "better" is supposed to mean.

More skilled? No way. A more enjoyable product to watch? For me it is. The games are shorter, and the guys out there actually seem to care. Then again this is their postseason, so comparing it to the regular season is apples/oranges. There's less 3s, which is a massive plus, but they play less time so it's possible it's roughly the same per minute of game.


There is less 3s because they can't generate good looks or hit them at a high clip. I'll never understand why a tranche of basketball fans hate 3s so much that they would prefer objectively worse shots.

Are there fewer three's? Well, at least among the top teams, there are so many teams, that sure, if you add them all including some who don't have much talent, it could be true. I know perception vs reality can be mixed in with some of these things though.

    NBA: 42.0% of shots are 3PT this season (up from 39.5% last season)

    Here are percentage of shots as 3PT for top 10 teams:
    Duke: 45.7% of shots
    Houston: 34.5% of shots
    Florida: 43.8%
    Auburn: 40.7%
    St. John's: 31.1%

    Tennessee: 43.3%
    Alabama: 45.6%
    MSU: 32.8%
    Texas Tech: 45%
    Louisville: 47.7%

Only four took a lower percentage of their shots from 3PT than the average NBA team, and one of those four is at 40.7%, so it's an insignificant difference. Brings us to 3 who are in the low 30%.

Is the percentage of 3PT as much of a problem for people as they think? I don't, maybe for some it's actually not, but we feel it is or should be and it is self fulfilling / we make ourselves more sensitive to it? We do have a similar reality with Euroleague and with International FIBA where people think/feel the 3PT shot is less prevalent, but that's also not the reality.

What is maybe happening is that they are playing a slower pace and of course taking fewer total three's due to slower pace and shorter game, and we are interpreting this as it being "less of a chuckfest".

Also, no doubt of course that, it's probably going to be easier to keep a college team off the 3PT line than an NBA team, so when they play better competition, they might not be able to generate as many good looks.

Here were Sunday's games:
Uconn (19/50 - 38% of shots) vs Florida (29/64 - 45% of shots)
Baylor (25/68 - 36.8% of shots) vs Duke (22/45 - 48.9% of shots)
St Mary's(14/70 - 20% of shots) vs Alabama (17/56 - 30.4% of shots)
New Mexico (13/56 - 23% of shots) vs MSU (15/54 - 27.8% of shots)
Illinois (32/62 - 51.6% of shots) vs Kentucky (21/68 - 30.9% of shots)
Ole Miss (19/55 - 34.5% of shots) vs Iowa State (22/56 - 39.3% of shots)
Colorado (21/62 - 33.9% of shots) vs Maryland (24/62 - 38.7% of shots)
Oregon (20/68 - 29.4% of shots) vs Arizona (20/66 - 30.3%)

Total: 333/963 - 34.6% of shots

Obviously just a one day sample, but the difference to the NBA (-7.4%) when taking into account better ability to create and get off three's in the NBA is not much.

We do also have to remember that college and Euroleague were on the higher 3PA rate train much earlier than the NBA. They both moved their lines further, which decreased Euroleague for a little bit, then it went back up over time. It was actually the NBA "catching up" if you want to call it that, when the 3PT revolution hit the NBA.

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Euroleague was first, and Decline of Mid-Range
Spoiler:
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Euroleague Shot Distribution
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#82 » by puja21 » Thu Mar 27, 2025 1:15 pm

ItsDanger wrote:
puja21 wrote:
ItsDanger wrote:College players don't miss many games due to calf contusions.


They miss plenty of shots though

Exhibit A: 2011 NCAA Championship Game
UConn (Kemba, Lamb, Napier) vs Butler (Shelvin Mack, Matt Howard):

UConn shot under 35% and an amazing 9.1% on 3PA
Butler shot 9.7% on 31 two-point attempts

Totals
FG = 31/119 .261
2P = 21/75 .280
3P = 10/44 .227
FT = 22/30 .733

Final Score: UConn 53 Butler 41

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/boxscores/2011-04-04-butler.html

So what? Giving a 1 game example from 14 years ago? There are a lot of teams in NCAA. WTF


one example, indicative of the quality of the basketball talent compared to the NBA

Which should be obvious and isn't anything to be defensive about

They simply aren't professionals.

They have far less experience -- both just in age and compared to opportunity (82 NBA games per year).

In a game like this, all 10-15 guys have less history to fall back RE: how to play themselves out of slumps, pressure etc...

So yes, some college players may play with more desperation (calf contusion comment).
This makes sense: for the vast majority of them this is the last time they will step on a competitive court.
They have no future to hold back for and protect.

But the trade-off to that is comparably inferior athletes/talent, which at times creates an unwatchable product, like this one memorable example
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#83 » by Wallace_Wallace » Thu Mar 27, 2025 3:00 pm

NCAA for the most part (at least before the NIL), players play for the love of the game. Of course they’re not as talented, but the passion and also its unpredictable nature is what draws the audiences in.

NBA for the most part, players treat the game as a business. The lack of passion plus the entitlement do not resonate with the audience.
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#84 » by bluejerseyjinx » Thu Mar 27, 2025 5:57 pm

I used to be a total NBA junkie like I have always been with the NFL. Because of Lebron James I just watch the Celtic's games and now prefer to watch way more college since. K.D then going to a team that won 73 games the prior year also really rubbed me the wrong way.
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#85 » by LockoutSeason » Tue Apr 8, 2025 7:12 am

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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#86 » by boogiezen » Tue Apr 8, 2025 7:19 am

Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA?

Um, NO.
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#87 » by ChiTownHero1992 » Tue Apr 8, 2025 11:50 am

I much prefer the NCAA game, less 3 point jacking (though still too much), more team play, better defensive strategy and game play. They also hustle more, play harder and leave it all on the line way more often than an NBA player.

Obviously players in the NBA are just plain better and more skilled but NCAA is more pure to the game of basketball, more of a team based game then "star isolation" and much more fun for me to watch.

On average I watch about 5-10 total NBA games and a hand full of quarters a year, where as I watch about 100-150 NCAA games and probably another 50+ half games. Used to be a 50/50 split for me until about 10ish years ago.
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#88 » by Sedale Threatt » Tue Apr 8, 2025 2:01 pm

Houston shot 35% last night and still had a chance to win on the final possession. And that pretty much sums up college basketball.
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#89 » by Clemenza » Tue Apr 8, 2025 2:17 pm

I never agree with anyone who says college is better than the pros. 95% of the time they only watch March Madness. Last night's championship game technically was awful.
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#90 » by DOT » Tue Apr 8, 2025 3:00 pm

People confuse bad offense with good defense

Guys in college just kinda are not good at offense in general, but because the average fan doesn't understand what good defense looks like, they just see more misses and think the defense is better

March Madness is superior explicitly because players are worse. They're more prone to making mistakes, so you can have crazy endings more often than in the pros

But I agree, you don't like college basketball more, you like March Madness as a format more. NBA playoffs feature (not including the play-in) 16/30 or 53% of all teams

March Madness (not including first four) features 64/364 or 17.6% of all teams. For context, that would be like if the NBA playoffs only had 5 teams

You're not watching Mississippi Valley State who scored 54.1 ppg last year, and odds are even if you watch a team or watch multiple games a day, you're probably still not gonna watch them. There's like 6,000 games played per year, you would have to spend 10 or 11 hours per day every day 365 days a year to watch all of them

It's similar to what I talk about with the 90s nostalgia, you're just not watching the bad games

I like March Madness as a system, but everything else about the NBA is superior product.
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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#91 » by LockoutSeason » Tue Apr 8, 2025 3:11 pm

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Re: Any of you agree with the people who say College basketball is better than the NBA? 

Post#92 » by LockoutSeason » Tue Apr 8, 2025 4:29 pm

Not being able to get this shot up is crazy.

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