White College BBall Players: A Fluke or a Trend?

[DjTj]

ESPN has an interesting article up by Pat Forde:

Is this crop of white stars a fluke or a trend?

In a startling spasm of inverse desegregation, this season has been dominated by Duke's J.J. Redick and Gonzaga's Adam Morrison. They don't come from overseas (such as last year's player of the year, Andrew Bogut) or north of the border (reigning NBA MVP Steve Nash). The two high-scoring upperclassmen are neck-and-neck for the national scoring title, they're the only realistic contenders for national player of the year honors, and their bicoastal competition has captured the country's imagination.

Beyond Morrison and Redick, players like Michigan State's Paul Davis are enjoying very good seasons.

This occurs at a time when today's college kids seem encouragingly unburdened by The Race Thing. There appears to be less obsessing over race, less distrust between races in today's youth, more melding of black and white music and dress and vernacular. That's societal progress.

Still, anyone who says they haven't noticed that Redick and Morrison are white hasn't been paying attention. And anyone who shrugs it off as nothing unusual hasn't checked the history books.

Last time two white guys stood atop college hoops? Try 1970, and even that's debatable. LSU's Pete Maravich won the player of the year awards, but you could have a healthy debate about who was second-best: white players Dan Issel of Kentucky and Rick Mount of Purdue, or black players Bob Lanier of St. Bonaventure and Calvin Murphy of Niagara. Prior to that, you have to go back to the early 1960s -- before Lew Alcindor and after Oscar Robertson -- to find a white tandem comparable to Redick and Morrison.

"I was with an NBA scout at the Maryland-Duke game and we started our NBA talk with two guys: Redick and Morrison," said Washington Post columnist and "PTI" co-host Michael Wilbon, one of America's most astute commentators on race and sports. "When is the last time two white kids led the NBA draft conversation? And the scout is black."

And this is not just a two-man production. Meet the supporting cast:

• There is a chance that the first-team consensus All-America team will be a majority-white affair for the first time in 36 years. Those who could join Redick and Morrison include North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough, West Virginia's Mike Gansey and Kevin Pittsnogle, Michigan State's Paul Davis and possibly Nevada's Nick Fazekas.

• Hansbrough is the prohibitive favorite to sweep national freshman of the year honors.

• The nation's No. 1 team, Duke, has started a majority-white lineup for the first time in a decade. Four other AP Top 25 teams start majority-white lineups as well (Gonzaga, West Virginia, North Carolina and Iowa). Last year, there were two teams in the final AP Top 25 with majority-white starting lineups. No team has won the national title starting three or more white players on championship Monday since Duke in 1991.

• In America's best league, the Big East, white players led the conference through mid-February in eight of 12 statistical categories (rebounding, field goal percentage, assists, free throw percentage, 3-point percentage, 3-pointers made, assist/turnover ratio and defensive rebounds).

• In America's second-best league, the Big Ten, white players led the conference in five categories (scoring, rebounding, assists, blocked shots and defensive rebounds). White players ranked third or better in 10 of 12 categories.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=2355728 (there's a lot more to the article)

...So is this a fluke or a trend? Is the NBA going to get more white players over the next few years? Is the NFL? Why is this happenning now?

[the burgundy and gold]

i've noticed that trend as well, so 2 answer your question i'd say its a trend

[Major Harris]

this article is a good read on the topic.

[Ignatius J.]

i wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that more high school players are going pro without going to college. The majority of those prospects are still black, so maybe that's shifting the population of available talent in college. It will be interesting to see over the next few years whether these guys do become the kind of pros we expect them to be.

[TheSteve]

I don't think Reddick stands a chance of being a superstar, or even a star on the NBA level. Morrison seems much more suited for the NBA game.

[SnyderShrugged]

Good case for Gerry Mac from the 'Cuse!

[TradeTheBeal!]

It's a sociological matter, IMO. No matter the race, if a kid starts eating and sleeping basketball from age five, practices everyday relentlessly and envisions the sport as a means of self-expression and achievement then that kid will be a hell of a player. If he should happen to grow to six-foot-eight, all the better. The black dominance of basketball is due solely to the fact that the game is integral to the American urban experience. The same applies to white Americans in regards to golf or tennis. I played quite a bit of Bball in my youth but I never saw it as a defining activity - I simply had other interests of equal or greater value. The emergence of Reddick, Morrison, Pittsnogle, etc. is due to an increased commitment to the mastery of the game in areas of America (rural/suburban) that previously viewed the sport as a pasttime and not the pre-eminent collective experience it has developed into. i think the racial aspect of it can be put to bed.

Additionally, the high numbers of Dominican athletes in MLB can also be attributed to this attitude. They just immerse themselves in baseball from an early age.

[wahoos911]

college basketball= white cuz all the good black players leave early

kekeke

[Major Harris]

n/m,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[kreitmaster]

i wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that more high school players are going pro without going to college. The majority of those prospects are still black, so maybe that's shifting the population of available talent in college. It will be interesting to see over the next few years whether these guys do become the kind of pros we expect them to be.

It has everything to do with this. Next year, b-ball will become bigger and blacker since prospects can't jump straight to the NBA. If there was a rule forcing them to stay in school for three years, stars would be almost all black, like the NBA.

[Teller]

OK...

I've tried to avoid posting in this thread, but I can't anymore.

First, how many players go from high school to the NBA each year? Four? Five? How many D-1A schools are there? 140 or so? Somehow, I don't see the high school-to-NBA thing making much of a difference.

Can we please just give credit where credit is due? Redick and Morrison EARNED their scholarships and the points they put up this year. There is no affirmative action for white college basketball players. Afterall, that would be racist.

[DjTj]

It has everything to do with this. Next year, b-ball will become bigger and blacker since prospects can't jump straight to the NBA. If there was a rule forcing them to stay in school for three years, stars would be almost all black, like the NBA.

The article does mention that:

Early entry to the pros has been a largely black vehicle. And white players are the ones filling that vacuum.

If there were no early entry, for example, LeBron James would be a junior in college and Dwight Howard would be a sophomore. And Redick and Morrison would have just a little competition for player of the year honors. In many cases, players most likely to stay in college longer and develop their games are white. The list of recent white early entrants is short: Chris Mihm of Texas; Mike Miller, Jason Williams and Matt Walsh of Florida; Michael Bradley of Villanova; Troy Murphy of Notre Dame; Mike Dunleavy and Shavlik Randolph of Duke; Joel Przybilla of Minnesota; and Robert Swift, straight from high school.

Of the All-America candidates mentioned above, Redick, Gansey, Pittsnogle and Davis are seniors. Morrison and Fazekas are juniors. All but Gansey either considered going pro last year, or could have considered it. All stayed in school.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that Morrison and Redick are junior and senior," said Roby, the former basketball coach at Harvard. "J.J. Redick isn't anything now like he was as a freshman."

There's no doubt that this is a factor, but the article also cites many other factors. If it's only that black kids are making the jump to the NBA, then that means there will be no change at the NBA level. Do you think that is what's going to happen over the next few years? Will the number of American white players keep going down?

Or is there something happenning with white kids on travel teams and suburban hip-hop that's going to bring an increasing number of American white players to the NBA? I mean it's not just J.J. and Morrison - Tyler Hansbrough is a monster at North Carolina, and I can't think of any high school draft pick, black or white, that is tearing up the NBA right now.

Is it really inevitable that basketball will become bigger and blacker forever? That would imply some sort of racial thing, but given the growing number of Europeans in the NBA, I don't think anyone can reasonably point to genetics. The college game really does seem to be producing more and more white kids that can ball, and I don't think it's crazy to expect some carryover into the NBA in the next few years.