No more Maui Invitational, no more Great Alaska Shootout, no more Preseason NIT. I can't take it anymore. These tournaments are killing my early-season enthusiasm for college basketball.
I don't want to see whether Oregon State will advance to play the winner of South Dakota State and Bethune-Cookman. I don't want to see how ridiculous Gene Keady looks wearing one of those Hawaiian shirts. I just want to watch regular basketball games.
| Chris Duprey
|
| Dupe's Scoop |
Just as we're starting to be deprived of our college football, we're force-fed this garbage. And, knowing these Hawaii tournaments, my favorite team will probably end up playing at 3 a.m. local time anyway. There's a reason they don't call it December Madness, you know.
ESPN could at least warn us by telling the truth on commercials:
"Over the next three nights, we're going to stuff your face with the same eight teams. Learn more about Utah State than you ever wanted to know. Get ready-you're going to be sick." By the end of the third night, the low-budget color commentators can't find anything new to say.
Playing games five time zones away deprives the college campuses of some marquee matchups. Why should season-ticket holders be forced to sit through the Indiana States and Akrons of the schedule, when the team takes off for the Pacific every time it plays someone halfway decent?
It's no good for the teams, either. You fly halfway across the country, play three games in 72 hours in some glorified high-school gymnasium (you can tell by the drinking fountains built into the side wall and the pull-out bleachers), and then fly home, and take two weeks to recover. Sounds like fun. By the time the players get over the jet lag, Clem Haskins could be hired by Minnesota as Dean of Student Affairs.
The preconference schedule is meant to give teams an opportunity to get ready for the season - a game on the road, a game at home. (Or if you're Michigan this season, a game on the road, six games at home.) Do you learn more about the character of your team playing in front of 15,000 hostile opposing fans, or 2,500 tourists and the Hawaii Five-O reunion cast?
In-season tournaments can be absolutely destructive. Ask Travis Conlan, Robert Traylor and Maceo Baston and the rest of the 1996-97 Michigan squad. They were 8-0, ranked No. 3 in the nation that year, having beat Duke on the road and Arizona. Then they got suckered into playing at Maui over the Christmas holiday, where they lost two of three games to some really laughable opponents, flew home just two nights before their Big Ten opener, and lost that too. They ended up having a pretty nice postseason run, though-in the NIT.
So Santa, please grant me this one request. I promise I won't forget the milk this year.
- Tell Chris Duprey what you think of his Christmas wishes by e-mailing him at cduprey@umich.edu
11-30-99
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