INDIANAPOLIS — With fewer than five minutes left in the first half of a game that was spiraling away from Arizona, freshman point guard Brayden Burries dribbled up the sideline near the Michigan bench and right into the grown-up body of 22-year-old senior Roddy Gayle.
Unable to power through the trap and with no room to escape it, Burries’ only option was to call timeout. As he walked toward the bench, he glared toward his fellow freshman, forward Koa Peat, who had been frozen at half court. The look Burries gave him said it all: Why did nobody come to help?
For an Arizona team with three freshmen in the starting lineup, there was no more defying gravity in the new college basketball landscape, where teams are older, more physically mature and fully professional. The history of this sport has long told us that winning a national title with a freshman-dominated team is exceedingly rare…