Male Maturity Levels No Match for March Madness Environment

Hatelin Clark ’22

Twinkle Toes

Now reaching the home stretch of play, the NCAA national championship has once again proved that basketball is a sport reserved for one gender (of the total two). Based on play statistics, audience response and player maturity levels, it continues to be blatantly obvious that men’s basketball should not have a spot on the national stage. 

“He’s just a big guy, I don’t really see much skill,” said one teenage girl who has never played basketball outside of local pickup games about Purdue star Zach Edey. The girl even went so far as to compare Edey to “Shaquille All’Meal,” referencing his immense size and evident inability to stop eating. Other fans have also expressed justified disgust at Edey’s place at the 99th percentile, taunting his recent 40-point game as “not the only 40 piece [he] dropped tonight.” In order to compete in this tournament, men’s players should be size-conscious – not too big like Edey, but not too small that they will get dominated on the court. 

Another obstacle men’s players have yet to defeat is their outward disrespect towards other athletes. When men’s players win, they have no right to express any sort of pride or competitive nature – even though this is an incredibly competitive environment. For example, when KU’s Christian Braun pointed to his ring finger in the face of UNC’s Armando Bacot, flexing KU’s national championship win in the loser’s face. This was completely unacceptable and Braun is still (rightly) getting backlash for it. Many people have dubbed the KU team, mostly full of white guys, completely “classless.” UNC’s team, made up mainly of Black players, evidently has much more class in the game. One could only hope for UNC to finesse a win against KU as revenge, and soon. 

“Please save us, I hate Christian Braun,” said 30 year old Chris Clumsington, who has only ever paid attention to one men’s basketball game in his life. “Christian Braun is too ghetto to ever be professionally successful. He is such a [insert trashcan emoji] of a human.” 

The subject of race has been a large one in this year’s men’s bracket. Some fans believe that people are hating on certain teams because of their higher numbers of white players. One team that has come under particular fire is Clemson, which has a number of white players. However, many other fans – who have been quite critical of these whiter teams – dispute these racist allegations, saying that it is only about character, citing other white players who are perfectly fine. 

“Grant Nelson [of Alabama] is white and everyone loves him. Your team is just unlikeable,” said Duane Doltsworth, a reverse racism scholar. “Alabama’s men’s team is all white except one guy and no one treats them any differently. The reason Clemson gets treated like they do is because they act the way they do. It has nothing to do with race whatsoever.”

Finally, men’s teams simply do not have the numbers to compete on the level of the much more skilled female athletes. “Star” player Caleb Love from Arizona only averages 31.7 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. Compared to women’s numbers, these men simply cannot compete. 

“Love gotta be the most overrated men’s basketball player ever,” said one interviewee, who opted to remain anonymous due to the humiliation of his men’s bracket failing after the first round. Many others agree, mostly people who did not do their research before submitting their sports bets on FanDuel. 

It is obvious from conduct and analysis that these men cannot handle the national stage. If you are starting to watch men’s basketball as it starts to expand, do yourself a favor and stick to the women. 

All quotes used are real comments that have appeared on women’s basketball posts in the last few weeks, referring to various female athletes such as Audi Crooks (NC State), Angel Reese (LSU) and Juju Watkins (USC).