Mavs Owner Mark Cuban Criticizes College Basketball

At the moment, the big debate is whether college basketball is hindering players transition to the pros. For the last few months, analysts have been calling for rule changes that would enhance the speed of the game, thus making it more exciting and better preparing potential draftees. For instance, there have been talks about shortening the shot clock, less contact and fixing the timeout system.

And everyone from fans to coaches have weighed in on the issue, including the very controversial statement from UConn Women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma. “I think the game is a joke,” the ten time national champion winning coach stated. “It really is. I don’t coach it. I don’t play it, so I don’t understand all the ins and outs of it. But as a spectator, forget that I’m a coach, as a spectator, watching it, it’s a joke.”

Most recently, Mark Cuban talked about his distaste for the game. He thinks college basketball can and needs to be improved, as he lobbed several criticisms at the sport — from the overall scoring problem to the referees.

“It’s horrible. It’s ridiculous,” Cuban said. “It’s worse than high school. You’ve got 20 to 25 seconds of passing on the perimeter and then somebody goes and tries to make a play and do something stupid, and scoring’s gone down.”

“You’ve got three kids passing on the perimeter. With 10 seconds on the shot clock, they try to make something happen and two other kids stand around. They don’t look for anything and then run back on defense, so there’s no transition game because two out of five or three out of five or in some cases four out of five kids aren’t involved in the play,” Cuban continued. “It’s uglier than ugly, and it’s evidenced by the scoring going down. When the NBA went through that, we changed things.”

And his biggest complaint has to be with the way college basketball is officiated: “The referees couldn’t manage a White Castle. Seriously, the college game is more physical than the NBA game, and the variation in how it’s called from game to game [is a problem]. Hell, they don’t even have standards on balls. They use different balls. One team’s got one ball, the other team’s got another ball. There are so many things that are ridiculous.”

The very vocal complaints have done something, as the game appears to be changing during the offseason. As for the exact rule changes, fans will just have to wait and see.