I thought the documentary was great.
On the surface, it did seem similar to "The U" but I thought there were some big differences, most of which all of the UM players are well spoken and thoughtful, whereas the Miami players to this day still act like they are 18 years old.
You can't deny that this was a very intriguing story. Sure the players got money, but how much? Everyone in that story claimed that they were not living like kings (again compare that to the Miami players "living it up" on South Beach...) and that they were pretty normal dudes.
I thought it was very tragic story really. I know most ND fans loved to see them lose and all that, but I can't really hate on those players too much after watching this documentary. Sure there were some aspects about them that turn you off, but for the most part I thought they were great team basketball players who only really wanted to win.
It's not like they didn't care about UM basketball or winning in college. A lot of people will try to prove that they symbolized what's wrong with college ball, but if you watched this you realized they CARED about winning and they were devastated after losing. How many players have we seen that go to college for one year and seemingly don't care about winning?
I don't know, they are just a group that are hard to hate from my perspective. If they weren't so talented as freshmen right out of the gate, were they really any different than college kids both back then and today? It was made abundantly clear in the documentary that they were not being paid, and if they were, it was pocket change. Again, that's a little off putting but it really makes them no different than the vast majority of D-1 basketball players. They were never angels, but I certainly don't think they deserved the entire bad rap they got, or their image as being thugs. I think it's way off base.