repubgazette3-28-07govtriestodistancenbaoverncaa

grueling NBA championship battles are legendary.

I'm amazed at my friends who worship the college game, know all the players and their stats, but the minute these same players -- these same exact human beings -- move into the NBA, it's like they've dropped off the face of the earth, or somehow had their games tainted if for no other reason that they are now receiving a paycheck (as though the college game is somehow more pure, which it is not, nor has it ever been).

Of course, the fact is the college game has lost much of its luster for the very fact that so many good players turn pro as soon as they can, often right after their freshmen seasons, as Ohio State's Oden will likely do. When I do watch college ball, it's only to scout the incoming pros, like Oden (who I think is probably overrated in regard to how good a pro he will be).

For years, "purists" have derided the pro game for various reasons. Too much holding. Too much roughness. Too much traveling. Too much ball palming. But over the years, the college game looks more and more like the pro game in every one of those areas.

College lovers used to turn up their noses at the NBA's shot clock, preferring a coach to have the option of stalling for 20 minutes at a time and turning the contest into a game of keep-away. For me, only after the college game embraced the shot clock did it even become watchable at all.

After years of calling it a gimmick, the college game also finally adopted the 3-point shot. It won't be long before college basketball recognizes the value of the NBA's semi-circle under the basket, used now to determine the difference between a charging or a blocking foul.

The other rap on the pro game is that the players don't play hard until the playoffs. This is simply not true, nor has it ever been. Just because players don't come out of the locker room so pumped with adrenalin that they can't catch a pass doesn't mean they aren't playing hard. In college, it often takes five minutes before the players have settled down enough to actually make a jump shot.

A few years ago, I took a college-loving friend of mine to an NBA exhibition game in Cincinnati between the Karl Malone-led Utah Jazz and the Larry Bird-led Boston Celtics. As a newspaper editor, I managed to get a photo pass to sit right on the court under the basket. I let my friend use the pass for half the game.

Afterward, he admitted he had been wrong about NBA players not playing hard. Even in this mere exhibition game, the level of pounding, positioning, defense and hustle was impressive. It doesn't always come across on TV, because NBA players are a little smarter through experience and a little more subtle, but they play hard every night.

I became a pro fan at the age of 13, when Bill Russell was in his last season and the Celtics were playing Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1969 NBA Championship. The Celtics, after dominating the NBA for more than a decade, were considered too old and over-the-hill. Nevertheless, they prevailed in Game 7, and Russell's legend was enhanced and secured forever.

The Lakers, incidentally, won Game 1 of that series rather easily (and Game 2 as well). Under the college format, it would have all been over after that first game, and a true measure of a champion would never have been revealed.

Gov. Joe Manchin is trying to distance himself from the Manchin Gambling Act of 2007, first signing the bill in private with no fanfare, and now offering excuses about placing his signature on the bill.

The governor's spokesperon, Lara Ramsburg, told the Beckley Register-Herald this week that Manchin prefers other kinds of economic development to gambling, but shoot, he had promised to sign the bill if it contained certain criteria, and darned if it didn't. So, you know, he had no choice.

Meanwhile, those anxious to addict more people to gambling are wasting no time getting the issue on the ballot in three counties. Kanawha, Hancock and Ohio counties will all apparently put referendums on the ballot for a big June 9 Super Saturday all or nothing roll of the dice.

The gambling lobby would rather pay for the cost of a special election, where they hope turnout will be extremely low, than wait until November when the state would pick up the costs, but turnout will be higher and it's harder to slip the election under the radar.

As a lifelong NBA fan, most of my existence has been spent in a region of the nation that has the least appreciation for professional basketball. Southern Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia are crazy for college roundball, but the professional brand holds so little sway that the old Cincinnati Royals were forced to abandon the Queen City in 1972 and now reside in Sacramento, calling themselves the Kings.

I've always been struck by the fact that people who prefer the college game over the pro version do so for the very reasons people like me prefer it the other way around.

Fans of college ball love the jacked-up excitement, the painted faces, the out-of-control student section, the players so hyped they can't hit a shot for the first five minutes.

I prefer to watch a basketball game, and can do without the pep bands, fright wigs and ticky-tack fouls that inevitably turn college games into free throw contests and keep players like Greg Oden on the bench for half the game.

That astute observer of life, Hoppy Kercheval, in his Tuesday column lamented the fact that "this year’s NCAA Tournament has featured 60 games and the final four teams are all either a one or two seed in their region. This is March Madness? If this keeps up the NCAA Tournament will be as predictable as the NBA playoffs." To use your own phrase, Hop, what are you saying?

Actually, everyone last year predicted the Dallas Mavericks would beat the Miami Heat, so it wasn't that predictable. But what's wrong with the NCAA Final Four including only the teams that were considered the best in college basketball going into the tourney? Isn't that what a tournament should really reward?

What Hoppy and other college fans really like is the Cinderella story -- the saga of a lowly, small college overcoming all odds and playing for the championship.

That's a nice fairy tale, but it also does little to determine a true champion. A truism of sports is that any team can beat any other team on any given night. One bad night in the tournament, and a clearly superior team can be undeservedly gone from the competition.

The NCAA's one-loss-and-out format is ready-made for upsets, which, again, is what many fans like. But it doesn't encourage the crowning of the best team in college basketball, just the luckiest.

The NBA's best-of-seven format offers a much truer test of the best team in the game, which is what a champion should be. In college, you can go 30-0, clearly dominate your opponents, but one bad game in the tournament and you're history.

Aside from the made-for-upset tournament format at the college level, the other reason I prefer the NBA to the college game is simple, and it's the same reason I prefer Major League Baseball to the minor leagues -- I like to watch the best play against the best, and I like to watch players at the height of their skills.

Michael Jordan was a good player at North Carolina, but he didn't become Michael Jordan until he honed his game in the pros. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were great college players, and their 1979 championship matchup still holds the record for the highest TV rating ever for the college game. But they both became even greater over the next few years, and their