The Race is On

March is the month where fans of basketball, sports and just straight up gambling can come together to a Buffalo Wild Wings and watch hours of college basketball. It may not be a time most enjoyable to the gamblers, but us basketball fans couldn't find anything better. Every year, gamblers (and every other guy) fill out the NCAA tournament bracket picking the teams that they think will take the cake or make a Cinderella run. Gamblers can pick their winning teams from an array of strategies. Some may choose from ranking to location of the game. Others may even choose from size of school to race of the teams? The racial diversity in college basketball has been present for the past half century, and continues to change today.

Fifty years ago last Friday was a special day in college basketball. Mississippi State played a game of basketball versus Loyola of Chicago. That game was the first time an all-white collegiate basketball team faced an integrated squad. This happened during a time of racial segregation where some teams, including Mississippi State, were not allowed to leave their state to play a game. This game set forth the principle that all teams, no matter of race, could play each other in a collegiate basketball game. As we know, the NBA is dominantly African-American now and that may possibly always remain that way. However, college basketball is different. Although there are usually more African-American players on successful teams in the NCAA Men's Division-1, there are still white players that play key and even dominating roles for teams. Gonzaga, Wisconsin and Duke are three excellent teams in which their star players have been mostly white. According to ESPN.com this year, Gonzaga finished the season ranked number 1, Duke, number 6, and Wisconsin, 18. There may be two reasons for why teams have stayed mostly white over the years. One could be the coaches. The Coaches recruit players that they want to play in their system. The players then decide where they want to play. Being a West Point graduate, Coach K of Duke has a need for discipline and team chemistry to go along with talent. He seems to find this trait more often in white men. I can remember a game this year when Wisconsin had five white men on the court at the same time. Although this is a rare sighting, the sight is not so rare for a school like Wisconsin. However, coaches have preferences and always will. It may be safe to say that the race of a head coach would be more likely to recruit players of the same race. All three successful teams I have mentioned earlier have white head coaches. According to the New York Times and The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, in 2010, 21 percent of head coaches in NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball were African-American. This is down from 25.2 percent just five years before. The article also states that 61 percent of players were black. These statistics show that the number of black head coaches is slowly declining, which could also mean a decrease in the number of black players.
Whichever strategy you may use to fill out your brackets this March, whether it be a Dolphin, Dick Vitale or Paul the Octopus, race will always play a factor whether you recognize it as so or not. The sport of basketball today is dominated by black athletes. However, the demographics of Division 1 Men's College basketball could change that in the near future.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/sports/ncaabasketball/revisiting-a-decline-in-minority-college-basketball-coaches.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://the60sat50.blogspot.com/2013/03/friday-march-15-1963-loyola-vs.html

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings