Champions Crowned, N.C.A.A. Returns to Its Pre-Covid Problems

If anything, the coronavirus pandemic only deferred, highlighted or exacerbated the issues confronting college sports.

INDIANAPOLIS — In the early hours of Tuesday morning, as the task of disassembling this year’s N.C.A.A. men’s basketball championship game stage was underway — folding up tables, lowering the baskets, removing the cardboard cutouts of fans — a worker with a wide dry mop was sweeping confetti into a pile. It was hard, in an all-but-empty arena, not to see some poetry in the moment, as if the detritus of the last year might be swept up for placement in history’s trash can. This year’s tournament will be remembered, yes, for Gonzaga’s long stretch toward an unbeaten season that came up 40 minutes short against a relentless Baylor team, which if not for its own midseason coronavirus pause might have been pursuing a perfect season, too.