Saturday was a big day as conference tournaments get ready to take over. Many have already started, and a few championship games are ahead on Sunday. Noteworthy among the regular season games were a few teams not finishing well down the stretch, which might make their NCAA Tournament candidacy a little more interesting than it should be.
With that in mind, here are some thoughts coming out of Saturday’s games.
Saturday was a big day in college basketball as a number of conferences ended their regular season and a number of big matchups took place among the 147 Division I games. Conference tournaments start in less than a week; by this time next week several NCAA Tournament bids will have been earned.
It was the second time this season I had to cover three games at three different sites and the third time in the past two seasons. In the nine games played on those days, the home team has won just three times, with two of those coming on Saturday. Take from that what you will.
Now, some thoughts coming from the day’s games.
Among the 140 games played on Saturday were the last BracketBusters games, as the event is going away after this season. The event was a mixed bag in its time; great for many of the teams that got TV games, just okay for those who didn’t. It also meant a change to many teams’ conference schedules over the years since it meant one weekend off from conference play, but many teams were already mixing in a conference game or two in December before it starts in earnest in January.
Saturday had more than that, though. What stands out the most is that the SEC had four overtime games, including one that took three overtimes to settle and another that took four. The SEC may not be very good this year, but it’s certainly been competitive, and Saturday was indicative of that.
Some thoughts coming out of the games played on Saturday:
Another Saturday full of college basketball games – over 140 of them in Division I – is in the books. We’re at the time of the year where unexpected results seem to multiply, as younger teams start to grow more and the sense of urgency is either there or it’s not and makes more of a difference. While a few conference races appear to be shaping up, some others are only looking more jumbled.
With all of that in mind, here are some thoughts coming from Saturday’s games.
Saturday was quite a day of basketball all across the country. A blizzard that hit much of New England a day earlier into Saturday morning did more than just dump 31.5 inches of snow on my home area – it also affected a few games. St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island played at 7 p.m. instead of the originally scheduled 2 p.m. tip, and with no television coverage. In addition, Sacred Heart will play at Bryant, Harvard will play at Columbia and Dartmouth will play at Cornell on Sunday and Manhattan will play at Fairfield on Monday instead of Saturday as originally scheduled.
That aside, there were a lot of noteworthy games on Saturday, and not just the one many will be talking about for a while that was near the end of the day. Here are some thoughts coming from those games.
Saturday had quite a bit going on among the 143 Division I games that were played. It continued a wild week that saw a number of ranked teams get knocked off and a few conference races get a little more interesting early on.
A few thoughts on some of the games and what has been happening around the country:
No one is surprised that the game of musical chairs in college sport is about money, or that the big money is in football. (In this writer’s now less frequent articles in this space, the NCAA has often been called the National Collegiate Allocation Association). Those of us from New York and the northeast may not realize it, and the growth and ratings of the NCAA Tournament has closed the gap a bit, but the really big money is still in football. There are many more men’s basketball games than football games, you might say, but the ratings are a fraction of football ratings. College football – with SEC, Notre Dame and many other games on major networks – dominates fall Saturdays and BCS week, with probably 10-20 times as many watchers per telecast than college basketball. Ok, fine.
Some quick hitters coming out of college basketball’s opening day:
I often tell people that September is the second-best month of the year, and basketball has a lot to do with it. A lot gets done with some fall showcases, prep school visits and fall leagues in effect, in addition to college basketball being right around the corner. Right now, though, is not a good time for college basketball.
College basketball has been beset with bad news lately. There are always players declared academically ineligible around this time of the year, which is never good news, but there’s more than that going on and that’s why this has been a difficult stretch.
Last month, Boise State head football coach Chris Petersen talked to local reporters about the BCS. Mainly, he simply unleashed a lot of feelings that many of us have, and rightly so for a lot of reasons. Many of us understand that the BCS is hurting college sports, especially college basketball.
From the outset, the BCS was a joke as far as its place in college football is concerned. There is no national championship in the Football Bowl Subdivision; the winner of the BCS Championship Game is like the winner of the NIT Season Tip-Off or the Maui Invitational in basketball, not a national champion. (The Division I national champion will be either Sam Houston State or North Dakota State, who will play on Saturday.) The system is your basic old boy network applied to college football, as it’s designed to benefit the six conferences that were in on the whole deal all along. The Big East has been a laughingstock in football for a while now, yet it still gets its champion into a BCS bowl while more deserving teams – which often have included Petersen’s Broncos – are pushed back into less prestigious bowl games (and ones without nearly the same payout).
Charlotte naturally had hoped to make the NCAA Tournament, then hoped to make a run in the NIT when it came calling instead. But the 49ers have a season of progress now in the books and should be primed to continue growing next season from what they did this year.
Amidst much talk of whether or not conference tournaments are a good idea, Notre Dame got a boost in New York. They are happy with the tournament and feel more prepared for the NCAA Tournament despite a semifinal loss.
Georgetown vs. Syracuse lives on just a little longer in the context of the Big East. That, and more from Thursday’s quarterfinals, including one team being delayed coming to the press conference because of a special visitor.
The second round of the 2013 Big East Tournament is in the books and the quarterfinal matchups featuring the top four teams are set. Here are some notes from Wednesday’s games at Madison Square Garden.
The first round of the Big East Tournament saw a close overtime game and a blowout, with the former seeing a tournament record tied. We take a look back at the opening night in New York.
As the CAA gets ready to hand out awards, here is a look at how I voted. The biggest award was a tough call, while two other big awards were easy calls to make.
In 2012-13, a couple of consistent powerhouses should remain contenders, including one who lost an NBA lottery pick. In addition, teams with new head coaches are headed for rebuilding years.
