The next time you hear Aaron Craft referred to as “blue collar” or “lunch pail” by an announcer, remember that Craft is a pre-med major at Ohio State, and that he graduated valedictorian at Liberty Benton High School in Findlay, Ohio. The Duke Blue Devils Point Guard disguised as an Ohio State college basketball player led his #20 Buckeyes to a (well, for the sake of the image of Big Ten basketball, I’ll leave out the final score) win over the Illini.
In a “grindy, gritty, slugfest” (or “street fight”), the “gamer” that is Aaron Craft led his team to victory through “hard work on both ends.”
However, if you’re someone who doesn’t like Aaron Craft, don’t blame him. He’s the last one at fault for that. Blame the media instead.
ESPN’s Dan Dakich while calling OSU’s win at Iowa on February 4th said “if you don’t like Aaron Craft than there’s something wrong with you, he works hard.” This, coupled with Dakich’s “they should pull their scholies” comment about the activists in All Players United makes me think Dakich is desperately trying to be to college basketball what Darren Rovell is to Twitter. Or what Rovell is to sports media in general.
So blame Dakich, don’t blame Aaron Craft.
Illinois trailed for only 15 seconds of the first half tonight, and the Buckeyes didn’t take control of the game until early in the second half when Aaron Craft hit a three to break a 25 all tie. The star point guard is good what he does and he tries really hard. If we find that annoying, so what. We’re free to be annoyed by that. Personally I find Rick Reilly a zillion times more annoying than Aaron Craft, at least I did when Reilly tried to his story on Craft being annoying, and asking Craft if he’s annoying, Reilly was the annoying one.
Craft is hated, excuse me let me say that more professionally, Craft is polarizing because he’s a four year starter. He’s not good enough to go early to the NBA, but he’s good enough to start the minute he got on campus. Like Tyler Hansbrough, a big reason that Craft has all the records he accomplished is because he isn’t/wasn’t exceptional enough to leave early. Or as Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said on the Big Ten conference call this week “if you stay all four years these days, they act like you have the plague or something.”
Of course, Izzo was talking about a completely different topic, not Aaron Craft.
Aaron Craft is disliked because he’s not new. We have shorter attention spans than ever before, because we get our news in 140 characters or less. Four year starters are polarizing because they’re anything but new. And if you’re a Caucasian four year starter at a high profile college basketball program, ESPN will promote the hell out of you. The overexposure will cause a backlash.
College hoops is just like politics, you lose your appeal after you’ve been relevant for awhile. Your Q rating is highest when you’re new and mysterious.
Barack Obama ran for President at the perfect time; he had been a senator for like two days and we didn’t know anything about him yet.
Chris Christie should have ran in 2012, when he had no baggage. Well he has plenty of extra physical weight, but he had no political baggage. Now after bridgegate, he’s finished. Aaron Craft, who finished with 12 pts, 1 reb and 1 ast and 1 steal, was likable and exciting as a freshman, now we’re sick of him.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent analyst on news talk radio; with regular segments on ESPN,NBC, CBS and Fox. A former NBC Chicago and Washington Times writer, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)