This year’s NCAA Tournament has been one of the most entertaining in recent memory, with blue-blood programs largely being turned away by this year’s Cinderella teams. Someone should have told TNT personality Charles Barkley this before he made a controversial take on the state of college basketball.
Barkley offered his opinion on the state of college basketball on 60 Minutes Sunday night, calling it a “disgrace” due to the emergence of NIL deals and the surge of players entering the transfer portal.
“It’s a travesty and a disgrace. I’m so mad now how we can mess up something that’s so beautiful,” said Barkley. “We can’t pay all these players.”
Charles Barkley picked the wrong weekend to complain about how college basketball is becoming a landscape dominated by only a handful of teams. pic.twitter.com/D0aEW0fpYc
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 27, 2023
He continued to say that he believes college basketball will be dominated by whatever schools can pay the most in NIL money to get the top players to commit.
“In the next 3-5 years, we’re gonna have 25 schools that’s gonna dominate the sport cause they can afford players,” Barkley added. And these schools that can’t afford, or won’t pay players, are gonna be irrelevant.”
This opinion from Barkley couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Final Four in this year’s tournament is made up of three schools that have never made it to a Final Four in school history.
Many blasted Barkley for this take considering the Final Four field this season largely disproves his stance.
Did he watch the tournament? https://t.co/GdTcm3AN6W
— Coach J. Miller M.Ed, Sy (@MarkhamDisciple) March 27, 2023
Oh no https://t.co/hzi0hIkVig
— Mike Theobald (@MikeTheobald21) March 27, 2023
I definitely hope Sir Charles does some reconsidering https://t.co/98pgUiuCak
— Kevin O'Brien (@deathtaxesball) March 27, 2023
Turns out Barkley doesn’t know it all https://t.co/Uhml5S2cKH
— Mayday (@Mayday814) March 27, 2023
Interesting to hear Charles Barkley complain about NIL. This, from a guy who practically brags about the cheating in the SEC when he played and once offered Dirk Nowitzki, money to go to Auburn. So it’s OK for athletes to get paid under the table but not over it?
— Mark Montieth (@MarkMontieth) March 27, 2023
If anything, this year’s tournament has proven that there has never been more parity in college basketball. We saw a No. 16 seed in Fairleigh Dickenson defeat top-seeded Purdue despite being largely outmatched in terms of raw athleticism.
To be fair to Charles Barkley, he did say that he believes this will be the case in 3-5 years. However, for the time being, he certainly looks to be on the wrong side of this argument.