Midnight madness is here again.
Let me say this now — I love college basketball. The passion in the game is like none other, and infinitely better than the NBA (as some call the NoDefense Basketball Association). However, the game has become far too gimmicky. What am I trying to say here? Essentially that outside of NCAA Tournament, college basketball has strayed too far from its roots.
A long time ago, college basketball was a regional sport. The season would begin around Thanksgiving Day with a few non-conference games, and 16-18 conference games would follow. The good teams would not be discovered until March Madness rolled around.
As the years have gone on, March Madness has gotten bigger and bigger, yet the popularity of regular season college basketball has remained the same. Viewership and attention paid to regular season basketball lags behind that of college football. The solution that college teams and television networks have tried is a series of bizarre gimmicks, tournaments and glorified scrimmages.
The net result of this growth is the fact college basketball now officially starts game play three weeks before Thanksgiving, and practice begins in mid-October. If I count correctly, that is five months of practice and games before March Madness (which did not truly start until Mar. 20 last year, by the way).
The entire month of November now consists of at least 19 neutral-site tournaments that nearly half of Div. I teams compete in. These tournaments force teams to travel all over the country (and out of it) as the fall semester is winding down. What used to be a handful of events such as the NIT Season Tip-Off or Maui Invitational now includes tournaments such as the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas and Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
I’m sorry, but basketball is played indoors, so seeing a game on TV that just happens to be played in an exotic location is not going to make me any more likely to tune in. The only thing that will is a quality matchup, which is hard to come by early in the season. Last season, Duke University and the University of Louisville faced off in the Battle 4 Atlantis. Both teams were ranked in the top five in the nation at the time, but the game competed head-to-head with major college football games on television. The game was also played in front of a mere 3,511 fans, certainly not the audience deserving of such a matchup. If two top-five teams play in a foreign country in a ballroom-turned-basketball court and no one watches, did the game really happen?
The silliest concept is the expansion of such tournaments to include games in locations far from the actual site. For example, the Maui Invitational held four of its games in Elon a year ago. Sure, it was exciting for the Phoenix and three similar-sized schools, but the placement of surfboards and other Hawaiian-themed objects throughout the gym seemed odd.
Another craze that has swept the sport is playing games on aircraft carriers. Fun fact: all three scheduled carrier games last year were either postponed or canceled due to poor weather conditions. Condensation on the court robbed us of Georgetown University-University of Florida and Ohio State University-Marquette University. I understand honoring the troops, but risking player safety and causing PR nightmares is not worth it.
Even before these tournaments and games on ships, teams stage elaborate practices, known as “Midnight Madness,” to begin their seasons. The practices are now open to the public and many are even televised. Televised practice? Give me a break.
College basketball is trying too hard to be relevant outside of the NCAA tournament. These unnecessary gimmicks need to go away, or the sport will lose its excitement.