A few weeks ago, Mark Cuban had some very strong criticism about how NCAA basketball is run:

"The referees couldn't manage a White Castle. Seriously, the college game is more physical than the NBA game, and the variation in how it's called from game to game [is a problem]. Hell, they don't even have standards on balls. They use different balls. One team's got one ball, the other team's got another ball. There are so many things that are ridiculous."

I don't disagree on any point, and couldn't agree more about the refereeing -- the semifinal between Kentucky and Wisconsin was just painful to watch, as the refs blew nearly every single call down the stretch (my initial impression was that this cost Kentucky the game, but I have since conceded that they botched enough calls going both ways).

But what's curious about these comments is that, clearly, Mark Cuban expects more. It is obvious from this criticism that he thinks the NCAA is a professional organization that could and should do much better on this. After all, if NCAA Basketball were really just a collection of amateurs doing their best, then these would be some pretty harsh words.

One further aside is that if the NCAA's style of play is so ill-suited to preparing players for the NBA, then this would make raising the age limit to 20 or 21 an even worse idea -- older players would just develop more bad habits that they'd have to break in the NBA. And indeed, Cuban has said before that he thinks the D-League could be a better option than the NCAA.

Whatever Mark Emmert might wish you to believe, NCAA basketball is not an amateur organization. It's a big business that makes billions of dollars per year (which, incidentally, mostly go to coaches and athletic directors, and NCAA head honchos, like Emmert). Mark Cuban is just treating it like one.