Most notably, today's outstanding freshmen have opportunities for playing time at blue-chip programs that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

True, their teams would be excellent without them. Their teams may even have made the Final Four without them. The point is not that you need a spectacular freshman to win the national title. (After all, we haven't seen such a team since Carmelo Anthony's time.) No, the point is that college basketball appears to have become bifurcated. On the one side are teams good enough to both attract (that includes Kansas State) and capitalize on (that does not include K-State) a catalytic freshman. On the other side are 330 or so other teams. If the catalytic freshmen were smart, they'd start committing in groups, a la Greg Oden and Mike Conley.