There's 1 big villain in NCAA March Madness, and that's great
In any avenue of entertainment, there needs to be a compelling villain.
Marty McFly had Biff Tannen. Jim had Dwight. Batman has the Joker. Taylor Swift has Kanye West. Decent people everywhere have the New England Patriots.
Conflict breeds interest, and sports are not exempt from that fact.
Sports might not always feature a “villainous” team, but when it does, it makes for more compelling viewing.
Case in point: Even people with no particular rooting interest found themselves glued to the television to watch Christian Laettner and the Duke Blue Devils lose in the 1990s. The Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl LII win was momentous because it was their first Super Bowl win, but everyone else reveled in it to watch Tom Brady and the Patriots lose.
Speaking of Duke, this year the school is no more despicable than it normally is. But there is a new contender to the throne for biggest villain in college basketball this year, and that’s great for the sport.
The dubious distinction in 2018 goes to the No. 4 seed in the South Region, the University of Arizona.
The Wildcats check all the boxes that you’d want in a compelling villain.
First and foremost, Arizona (27-7) is legitimately talented and probably under-seeded. Whichever team, if any, is able to knock Arizona out of the big dance will have accomplished something meaningful.
Freshman star DeAndre Ayton is an excellent modern big man whom qualified basketball pundits are describing as a “Hall of Fame talent.” Ayton can pass, shoot, rebound, block shots and move like a gazelle despite being 7 feet 1 and 250 pounds.
Ayton is also at the center of a damning report from ESPN alleging that the 19-year-old star indirectly received impermissible benefits from Arizona head coach Sean Miller during his recruitment process. As far as textbook examples of pay-to-play athletics at the collegiate level go, it doesn’t get much more glaring than that.
Ayton isn’t the only Arizona star with some questions in his history.
Junior standout Allonzo Trier was slapped with a yearlong NCAA suspension for his second positive test of a performance-enhancing drug. Instead of accepting the punishment, the Wildcats appealed the decision and the NCAA has since overturned it. Arizona’s explanation of Trier’s failed test raised more than a few eyebrows. The school basically admitted that there were traces of the drug in Trier’s system, but said it was “minuscule” and left over from his 2016 failed test. Overturned by the NCAA or not, Trier has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.
At the head of it all is Miller. He has done an excellent job of vacillating between a basketball coach who has underachieved with some very talented Wildcats teams and a generally unlikable sentient sideline pool of sweat. Miller’s brazen defiance of ESPN’s bombshell report, while wholly justified if he is actually innocent, has probably earned him more critics than supporters.
On top of that, Arizona fans have a penchant to preen like college basketball blue bloods despite not having won a national since 1997 and not even making the championship game since 2001.
Who wouldn’t want to see this motley crew of characters get punched in the mouth? Can you imagine the uproar and love poured out for the University of Buffalo Bulls if they can somehow pull off the miraculous upset over the Wildcats in the first round?
This is all to say that Arizona is a fantastic villain for college basketball in 2018, especially considering that virtually every other school being probed by the FBI for various violations was snubbed for the tournament.
Full disclosure: Arizona is my alma mater, and I love the Wildcats and hope they win it all. They just need to embrace being the bad guys.
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