Tonight is the opening night for college basketball. Defending champion North Carolina tips off at 7PMtonight on ESPN, followed by Syracuse. Plus teams like California and Ohio State start their season as part of one of the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament. All with little hype despite being on one of the ESPN family of networks. So, the quiet start kicks off what has become the annual lament among college basketball writers. There are no festivities. There is no "celebration." There is no coordination. There is only a quiet and disjointed start to college basketball.
The reasons are familiar. Both external and internal. Pro and college football are dominating most of the market. The NBA and NHL have been underway for a few weeks, as well. Plus the NCAA and basketball programs do themselves no favors with teams no organized start to the season. Teams kicking off their season with no rhyme or reason (other than planning around on-campus football games). College basketball just gets lost in the shuffle.
As usual there are the suggestions that the NCAA, the major conferences and ESPN do more to promote the opening night and week of college basketball. Make it some sort of "tip-off" event that celebrates the start of the season. Get some early high profile games going to drum up interest and kick the season off with a bang. Get the general public paying attention earlier and have fans take notice of more than just their own team's games.
Count me among those who have no interest in changing the system. I love college basketball. I will be in the small group watching games tonight instead of Monday Night Football. The last thing I want to see, though, is a big intersectional game played in the first week of the season.
There's a reason most major programs start out with a bunch of low-level patsies and less than stellar competition. Most teams are still getting their game together. They have only been practicing as a team for a month while classes are well underway -- unlike college football which gets to start practicing before the semester gets underway. They have played maybe two exhibition games against Division II or III opponents.
Unless it is a veteran team comprised of juniors and seniors, the players are still trying to get a better sense of how to play with each other. The play is sloppy and filled with mistakes. Coaches are still experimenting with rotations and maybe implementing wrinkles to their systems.
Even the best teams are not playing particularly crisp basketball for the first couple weeks of the season. I do not want to see Texas play Michigan State this week. I want to see it in December when the teams have worked out a lot of the kinks and will be at a higher level.
ESPN seems to have the better idea with waiting to actively kick off the season. Their college hoops marathon starting at midnight Eastern on November 17 is a fun idea engaging plenty of programs in one 24-hour period. Games include Gonzaga-Michigan State, Memphis-Kansas, Temple-Georgetown and Arkansas-Louisville. It is under-promoted at this point (which admittedly seems an impossibility when it comes to ESPN, but there it is).
College basketball has grown because it builds in attention and excitement all season long. It culminates with the NCAA Tournament, but every year the interest only increases as the season continues. The understated and underpublicized start to the season fits.
