Men’s college basketball tips off this week, and it’s still my favorite sport. There’s no tournament like March Madness, no time better spent than two hours in a Big Ten arena.

Yet the game is not what it once was, and may never be the same again.

Innocence ended in 1992, when Michigan’s now-disgraced Fab Fraud took over college basketball. We were too enamored to notice at the time, but everything that hurts the game now took hold then. Namely: Players expecting to star as freshmen, players expecting to make the NBA in two years and programs being put under exceeding pressure to win in the NCAA Tournament, ethics optional.

If the only legacy of ’92 were the baggy shorts, we could live with it.

As it turned out, other parts of the game are sagging, too, with the best players all too antsy to get in and get out.

“We’ve taken away winning being the premium,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said during the recent Big Ten meetings in Chicago. “Now it’s ‘How fast can I get somewhere?'”

“Somewhere” is immediate stardom at the college level, regular highlights on ESPN’s SportsCenter and a handshake with NBA commissioner David Stern at the draft within two years. That’s the players’ ideal. The reality is, for every Jared Jeffries, who left Indiana and was a first-round pick, there’s a Marcus Taylor. Taylor left Michigan State after last season, was drafted in the second round, failed to latch on in the NBA and was cut by the National Basketball Development League.

Instant gratification was the goal for the Fab Fraud-and they were gratified in media glory and, it turns out, secret stashes of cash-and it’s been the ideal ever since.

Izzo has felt the change as heavily as anyone. He has lost Taylor, Jason Richardson and Zach Randolph in the last two years to early entry. Richardson was an immediate NBA presence, Randolph is a well-paid project, and Taylor is almost out of the game. That’s the gamut in three examples, and the reality every coach of a major program must confront.

“Every kid who comes in thinks he has to start and star this freshman year or he’s a failure,” Izzo said. “That puts more pressure on them, more pressure on the coaches and more pressure on everybody. I think everybody has been affected by it at some level.”

Fixing the problem is another story, with no easy solution. To compete at a high level, coaches must pursue the elite high school players. But many of those same high school players are simply shopping for the most direct route to the NBA.

Solutions floated by various parties have been unsatisfactory. The NBDL is not yet a viable alternative to college as the NBA grooming ground. The possibility of a player testing the NBA draft and returning if he’s cut sounds good on paper, but is unrealistic in practice. He would have to maintain college enrollment during training camp, avoid signing with an agent, and somehow fit back in with a team he’d planned to leave behind.

If the NBA instituted guidelines against drafting players under 20, it could stem the tide, but would be bound for legal challenge. Maybe the influx of foreign players will have the peripheral effect of slowing interest in 19-year-old freshmen. Probably not. Everyone has to keep up with the basketball Joneses.

The natural progression of a player is hurt by early entry in most cases, even if they can’t be blamed for chasing the big money.

The result of players leaving early, or skipping college altogether, is more parity in college basketball, but it also is a lesser product. The best young players are no longer necessarily on campus and the programs intent on a Final Four must decide whether to push the ethical envelope to get there. If you choose shortcuts, it’ll have long-term consequences.

It might be unfair to blame the whole thing on Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and the rest of the Fab Fraud, but the early ’90s could eventually be known as college basketball’s lost generation.