Millions watched March Madness, most pulling for the home team. My home team, LSU, didn’t do much, but I love to see those Louisiana boys play basketball. But wait a minute, there isn’t one player on the team from Louisiana. What happened? Is LSU unusual? Michigan has one player from Michigan and Arizona has only two in-state players. Half of Illinois and Arizona rosters are international. Rare is the athlete like Tamin Ipsey, Iowa’s Mr. Basketball. He’s from Ames, Iowa, and played four great years for Iowa State. Indiana has a Mr. Basketball but he plays for UConn. Forget growing up and playing for the home team.
Today, college basketball players are transient, traveling from one team to another in search of better playing conditions and more money. About 30% of basketball players transfer annually. This puts a lot of pressure on coaches. I suspect coaches have had to change their behavior; a player may just get upset and leave. This year the amount of NIL (name, image, and likeness) handouts is over $900 million. The enticement to move is great. Some top players make as much as $4 million a year. NIL money has turned college basketball into a marketplace.
But money cannot always buy victory. The Kentucky Wildcats had the most expensive roster in the sport at around $20 million. They didn’t make the Sweet 16. Louisville spent over $10 million: same result. BYU invested heavily and didn’t even survive the first round. Kansas ($9.5 million) is gone. Ten schools made the Sweet Sixteen and spent less than Kansas.
There’s a wealth of great coaches in the tournament, but I don’t tune in a game to watch the coach. The coach should not become the show. I want to watch great team play, shooting, passing, defense. I don’t want to see the coach running wildly on the sideline as if they had missed the bus. I don’t want screaming, walking on the court, or dressing down athletes on the sideline. I watched two great coaches in the Big 12 championships when Iowa State played Arizona. I like both coaches. T. J. Otzelberger doesn’t scream, he talks. Players listen. He doesn’t lose his cool. Arizona was down by seven at half time against Purdue, but Tommy Lloyd, Arizona’s coach, decided to leave them alone at half time. He trusted them. He said, “A player-led team is a powerful thing.” They won by 15.
I’ve written about screaming coaches before and I suspect that all that screaming is nothing but more noise in a crowded stadium. I remember my track coach wanting me to run the hurdles. So I started practicing the hurdles but results were slow; I got better. Finally, the season ended with the district championship. I got into the blocks and was aware that the boy next to me was the favorite. The gun goes off and so do we. Amazingly, I’m at the seventh hurdle, tied with the good guy. Just then, my mother, who is sitting in the first row and who happens to have a loud soprano voice, screams, “Go Jimmy.” Bam, I hit the next hurdle, tripped, it was over. I don’t want to put my mother in the same category as screaming coaches, but I didn’t need the distraction. Basketball requires one to pay attention; a screaming coach doesn’t help.
March Madness is truly mad and there’s nothing like the NCAA’s version of a lose-and-you’re out–tournament. Nothing expresses this more than betting. We’ve always had the office pool where each participant coughs up a few bucks and fills out a bracket. We still have that but legalized gambling is now allowable in most states and the money pours. For 2026 the prediction is about $4 billion legalized bets but a real total of around $10-12 billion.
Most people bet responsibly, but about 5% do not. This doesn’t sound so bad until we find that about 50% of the revenue to sportsbook companies comes from this 5%. We now have youth bettors with high participation rates on college campuses. Easy access can lead to depression, lying, and financial chaos. The NCAA has forbidden gambling advertising. Betting also leads to player abuse. One in three basketball players are threatened regularly by bettors. Imagine, you’re 18 years old, played your heart out in a big game, missed a free throw, and someone threatened to kill you. Gambling has turned our benevolent fans into hostile bettors?
im Johnson is a retired professor of exercise and sport science after teaching 52 years at Smith College and Washington University in St. Louis. He comments about sport, exercise, and sports medicine. He can be reached at jjohnson@smith.edu.