I'm as happy as anyone that EA Sports has announced the return of NCAA Basketball. But you come here for my four decades of sports game expertise. From all the excited comments I'm seeing on social media, it seems everyone has forgotten that EA hasn't put a good basketball game out since 2009.
With NBA 2K taking EA's NBA Live franchise to the boards repeatedly, EA Sports opted for a total revamp. In a true "New Coke" moment, the publisher even changed its long-running brand name from NBA Live to NBA Elite. The irony would be palpable, as NBA Elite 11 turned out to be anything but.
A demo that was supposed to generate fanfare certainly did, but not in the way EA hoped. A YouTube video showed Andrew Bynum of the Los Angeles Lakers locked at midcourt with his arms outstretched. Instantly dubbed the "Jesus Glitch," it was the beginning of the end for EA's basketball franchise.
Elite 11 was scrapped immediately, even though some copies had gotten into the wild and are now collector's items. EA took NBA Jam, slated to be a free download for buying NBA Elite 11, and sold it as an NBA Live replacement. Both franchises deserved better than they got that year, as did customers.
After years of sporadic and painful attempts, the disappointing NBA Live 19 would be EA's final basketball game until now. Credit where it's due, College Football 25 was one of the biggest success stories of 2024. All its victory laps are deserved.
But the college football games never fell off as hard as NBA Live did. People were still playing NCAA 14 when CFB 25 came out, that's how good it was. Madden NFL needs work, but it sprints out of the gate every year in August like clockwork. Sure, it has problems, but it's thankfully free of Jesus Glitches.
I hope EA proves I have no need to worry. But I'm not ready to start cutting the nets down for this announcement just yet.