College bowl season starts on Saturday. Yawn. I mean, I like the Rose, Orange,and Sugar Bowls, etc., but I could care less about the EagleBank, New Mexico, Magic Jack or Las Vegas Bowls. Fellow FanHouse-r Brian Gummell says the bowl games are worth watching. I'm sure the families of the players, the schools involved and gamblers will check it out but I'm not scheduling my day around any of it.
While you football guys are watching "The Ocho" for those games featuring second-tier schools playing in half-empty stadiums, I'll be enjoying one of the best weekends that college basketball can offer during the regular season.
Give me UConn-Gonzaga, Xavier-Duke, Michigan State-Texas, Davidson-Purdue and Syracuse-Memphis. All those hoops games will be grabbing my attention Saturday. I mean, UConn and Gonzaga are both ranked in the top four; Xavier and Duke will face off in the New Jersey; and little Davidson gets another chance to knock down a Goliath.
That's why I love college basketball. We get better games all year long. College football goes with that "every game counts" crap (which is a falsehood because Boise State's undefeated season doesn't seem to count for much), so schools rarely schedule intersection games between powers. UConn is going all the way to Seattle to face Gonzaga so it will be battle tested for the Big East season and the NCAA Tournament. The key in college football is to schedule teams you can beat to set you up for a chance to play for something important.
Boise State's football program doesn't have any big wins on its resume because no big teams will play them. In basketball, Gonzaga gets to play UConn, Memphis, Arizona and twice against Tennessee. We actually get to see how they'd match up against the big schools from big conferences. They'll need the experience because they'll actually get a chance to play for a championship.
That would be like a Saturday in September with these football matchups: Ohio State-Texas, USC-Penn State, Utah-Alabama and Florida-Oklahoma. You call those bowl games. That is the capper to your season since you have no playoff. Ya know, great intersectional matchups do happen once there is no reason for the schools to play it safe anymore.
Remember the hype heading into USC-Ohio State early in the college football season? Imagine having that more often. Imagine watching a great team challenged by another great team. That's what college hoops fans will get to devour on Saturday.
Also at FanHouse
Saturdays Are For College Football
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-20-2008 @ 10:52AM
Bill said...
You are obviously as big a football hater as I am a basketball hater. I dread even the thought of sitting through a lot of boring inconsequential minutes just to get to the last couple where the game is actually won or lost. Unless it is a total blow out where one of the teams shouldn't have even shown up. I mean hey, watching a bunch of guys . . . girls too, running up and down a big floor trying to stuff a round ball into a net. Sounds about as exciting as grade school soccer game. And even one of the best weekends that college basketball can offer during the regular season is just not going get me excited. So I'll tell you what, why don't you just keep your one-sided and meaningless anti-football opinions to yourself and I'll keep my anti basketball opinions to myself. And as they say, we'll agree to disagree. There are thousands of people who love basketball, and thousands of people who love football, and thousands of people who love both. They all have their opinions and have their right to express them. So let's all leave all of us to our opinions and let it go at that. I think that you posted this simply to get people all riled up and start slinging one insult after another at each another. I for one hope that it does come to that.
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