I’m not sure where it all went wrong, where I lost the passion, the fire, the desire to watch college basketball. When I was a teenager in rainy south-central Oregon watching and playing basketball was pretty much the way I spent a good portion of my year. Now you would probably have to hold a gun to my head to get me to watch an entire NCAA basketball game on television (or at the very least provide me with all-you-can-drink beers.)

I have no timetable for when I lost all interest in the sport but it is starting to trouble me. Here I am, a sports writer, smack-dab in the middle of what should be a very exciting time of the year for any sports fan and all I can do is yawn. Did someone say Texas A&M made the field of 64? That’s nice. What time does the hockey game start?

It is well documented that my father coached high school and junior college basketball for some 45 years. I was practically born inside a gymnasium. On one of my first outings after leaving the hospital my mother took me to the gym at Lamar Junior High in Bryan to pick up my not-so-old man. Apparently on this trip I was hit in the head by an errant basketball. The incident left such an impression on the young player that when I saw him year’s later and he was a grown man he apologized to me. You see, if anyone has basketball in his blood it should be me. So what went wrong?

As is usually the case when I actually bother to write a column about something, I have a theory and I’m laying the blame for this at the feet of the NBA. It is my sincere opinion that if college basketball still had actual stars, then I would probably still care about it. What’s that you say, there are plenty of stars in college basketball! Really? I could not disagree with you more. Sure, there are plenty of talented players, but it seems like the ‘stars’ of the sport are one-and-done freshmen just waiting to get their $100 million payday and probably won’t be affiliated with their team or university by the time this month ends. And I truly think this lack of star power is what has killed my interest in college basketball. It is hard enough to keep track of a sport when you have two or three years to learn the names of all the top players. It is near impossible when everything resets on a yearly basis.

Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to stop this from happening. I suppose the NBA could refuse to draft anyone who isn’t at least 21-years old, but let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. And really, why should it? If a guy is 18-years old and good enough to play in the NBA he should be allowed to play in the NBA. Most other sports don’t have some age limit, why does pro basketball?

A plan I’ve always favored is to get the NBA to have a minor league like baseball. If you take all the players who have no interest in playing college ball out of the equation, then college teams would have a more stable roster and the college game could really flourish. The system is already in place with the NBA-D league, but it seems like that’s a pipe dream as well. After all, if the NBA can keep using college basketball as its farm system, what reason does it have to change? Absolutely no reason at all. Which is why I will spend the better part of the month of March watching hockey instead of embracing the month-long madness.