Bo Ryan declares college basketball’s death premature

Bo Ryan wants you to know everything is OK with college basketball, that the sky is not falling and the game is not on death’s doorstep, that when issues like this rise to the surface of conversation, it’s usually more about people wanting to stir a pot than making a reasonable point.

He doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.

“I’ve coached this game six decades now — shot clock, no shot clock, 45-second shot clock, 35-second shot clock, 30-second shot clock and 24 when we were up in Canada playing there two summers ago,” the Wisconsin coach said in Los Angeles last week. “It was still basketball. We still got good shots. We still taught the same fundamentals, the same strategies.

“You know, I still see NFL games that end 17-10 and I’ve never heard a fan walk out of there going, ‘Oh, man, I only saw a couple touchdowns. We need to change this game.’ Come on. If you can’t appreciate a sport for what it offers and to simply say a dunk is worth more on a meter for fan appreciation, they’re not my kind of people. They’re not the kind of people I hang with. I’ll just take the two points and, hey, a dunk is great.

“We have a doggone good game. It’s a lot of fun. You can teach life through it. I’m OK with the game right now.”

Not everyone is, frustration built from low scores to inconsistent whistles to a theory that the game is in a definite state of crisis.

I’m not ready to jump off that bridge just yet.

I also don’t believe everything is as rosy as Ryan suggests.

Look, people still watch. Tens of millions. Ryan and his team play Kentucky in one Final Four game on Saturday in Indianapolis, and given the Wildcats are in pursuit of the perfection of a 40-0 season, there is every chance the second game at Lucas Oil Stadium will draw record television ratings.

I’m sure many will also be interested in the opener between Duke and Michigan State.

The madness continues to draw eyes. Ratings are up 3 percent from last year and haven’t been this high — an average of 6.3 and a 14 share nationally — in over two decades. Kentucky played Notre Dame in an Elite Eight game Saturday. It was the highest rated college basketball game in cable television history. Think on that for a second.

But it’s also true that scoring is at an all-time low, that as exciting and magical and popular as March Madness remains for three weeks, it’s the previous four months each year that seem to be dragging play down.

At an NCAA regional last week, Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said he thinks much of it has to do with inconsistency in how the game is called. His point: Officials were instructed to clean up all the contact and body-checking and grabbing and holding to begin last season, hoping all the whistles might eventually translate into more freedom of movement.

It did for a while, but now referees are back to calling every little thing.

I think there’s a bigger problem: coaching.

There’s far too much of it going on.

Perhaps never in its history has the college game been this micromanaged by those instructing it. You have men either trying to save jobs or get better ones, afraid of losing the inflated salaries they receive and lifestyles from which their families have become accustomed.

Job security isn’t a problem for those at the Final Four. The leading storylines in Indianapolis will be as much or more about coaches this week — Ryan, John Calipari, Mike Krzyzewski and Tom Izzo are beyond an elite group — than anything.

But in its entirety, coaching is off the rails. The timeouts. The constant instruction. The need to influence every play, every movement, every in-game decision.

Point guards nowadays look as much to the sideline for direction as they do teammates on the court.

Players leaving school early haven’t helped offenses develop. Officials tend to emphasize different things depending on the conference and part of the country in which they’re working. Kids protecting the rim are bigger and stronger than ever. There are more timeouts than fans.

All of it plays a part in an obvious decrease in scoring and flow.

But if coaches could somehow get out of their own way once in a while and allow for not only freedom of movement, but also of thought by their players, things might gradually become better.

You can shrink the shot clock all you want, but that will only make scoring tougher and turn the college game into the little brother of NBA offenses, meaning one high ball screen set after the other.

If change is to come, it must begin with those teaching the game having the self-confidence to loosen the reins.

“No matter what the rules are,” Ryan said, “coaches are going to coach to them.”

Then maybe a new rule should be adopted: Coach less during games.

Don’t hold your breath.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.