Welcome back, college basketball. You're a completely different sport now than before | Telander

The college basketball season is upon us, and that’s always a good thing. 

Even though college football continues for another couple of months, the indoor game Dr. Naismith invented back in 1891 is here — and it’s a game best served when cooked up on campuses.

The reason is that there are loads of young people on college campuses ready to make a ruckus over an orange ball, their team and winning a game.

Add to that the fact that almost all American adults have gone to college somewhere or live in a state with a university they have sworn allegiance to. A study from some years back, for instance, showed that most University of Iowa supporters had never attended the school. But they lived in Iowa. 

At any rate, Purdue is the pre-season No. 1 team in a lot of polls, and the Boilermakers kick off Tuesday night against Evansville. You assume that would be an easy win. But in college hoops, you never know.  The New York Times, for instance, doesn’t even have Purdue ranked in its Top 5, giving the nod to No. 1 Michigan, followed by Kentucky, Houston, UConn, and Florida. Their writer didn’t like the way Purdue lost to Kentucky in a recent exhibition game and complained about Purdue’s "lack of athleticism compared to other top teams." 

Could be.

It’s all a crapshoot at this stage. Rosters have changed so much at so many schools that players will likely take time to introduce themselves to fellow teammates, pointing out all the schools they’ve played for before they entered the portal and got where they are now.

These are brand new times. This is not college sport as we knew it since the late 1800s. Amateurs? Nope.

Not only do players have control of their name, image and likeness (NIL), they also will share in the approximately $23 million that universities have to pay out this season after the high courts determined college athletes are workers deserving compensation.  Most of the $23 million, of course, will go to the football teams with their large rosters, huge stadiums, massive coaching staffs and grand revenue streams.

But basketball is here, and how much any baller might get is private and hard to calculate.  Nor does that include the NIL cash a player can drum up on his own.  How much might that be? Well, BYU freshman forward AJ Dybantsa supposedly signed an NIL deal for around $7 million. Former Arizona Western and University of Alabama at Birmingham player Yaxel Lendeborg reportedly transferred to Michigan for a $3 million package.

Money chasing and movement is rampant in a sphere that used to be outraged if a guy got a free cheeseburger at the local malt shop, and that made him sit in the penalty box for a full year if he dared to go to another college. It’s all compounded by the transfer portal--March 24 to April 22--wherein a player can launch himself into another dimension (read: school) or high-tail it to the NBA. 

So coaches, good luck, and be sure to introduce yourselves to your guys and steer them toward the nearby ATM. 

This brings us back to Purdue, where its first-team All-American and 2024 Big Ten Player of the Year, 22-year-old point guard Braden Smith, who has a fresh beard and a valuation around $2 million, will be playing his senior year. Four of Purdue’s starters are seniors, which tells you two things. One, they know each other well and know the magic of teamwork.  And two, none of them were ready to go right to the NBA.

College ball is now for what I call Age Group Professional Basketball Players, or "Young Pros," basically professional basketball players aged 18 to 22 who aren’t quite good enough for or willing to go to the NBA.  College might be the end of the line for them.  But they can make good money as Young Pros, which they never could do before. Good for them. 

For comparison, all you have to know is that third-year NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama is younger than Braden Smith.  So is 20-point-per-game man Stephon Castle of the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers’ Luka Doncic never went to college, is in his eighth season in the NBA, making $43 million a year, and he’s just 26.

Some colleges grab the teenage phenoms, use them for a year, knowing they’ll be gone to the NBA by spring. Duke, which once prided itself on never raising a championship banner into the loftiness of Cameron Indoor Stadium until all members of that team had graduated, kissed that quaint tradition goodbye long ago. When it said hello to one-and-done Zion Williamson in 2018, the new day was on. Now, A.P. poll No. 6 Duke starts two freshmen, two sophomores and no seniors.

And then there’s Purdue.

You gotta love the Big Ten Boilers because their outlook is sweetly old school, a touch of the malt shop. There’s the veteran coach himself, Matt Painter, who’s been the head coach at "Silo" for 21 years. Born in Ft. Wayne, Ind., he played high school ball in Muncie, Ind., then did four years as a ferocious point guard at Purdue. (Bobby Knight, by the way, didn’t want him down there at Indiana.) 

Old-school Painter is starting four seniors: Fletcher Loyer, Oscar Cluff, Trey Kaufman-Renn, and Smith. That’s tradition. (Never mind that Cluff already played at South Dakota State, Washington State and Cochise College. Old dudes get itchy feet too.)

So, off we go. 

Enjoy the ride, folks.

Dig deeper:

Want more? Read some of Rick Telander’s recent columns for Fox 32:

• Ben Johnson’s ‘clean it up’ promise gives Bears fans déjà vu: Telander
• The Bears keep winning, but Caleb Williams still raises questions: Telander
• Don't downplay how the Chicago Bears win, but enjoy they're winning | Telander
• A win’s a win, but Bears still have plenty to prove: Telander
• Bears' big win over Cowboys shows money can't buy Caleb Williams: Telander