College basketball is back! This year, I'm debuting a weekly college basketball watch grid, a concept inspired by (aka completely plagiarized from) the great Jason Kirk of Banner Society, who every week puts together a matrix of college football's most watchable games. I've decided to do the same for college basketball, with less of an emphasis on wackiness than Jason's and more emphasis on "will this game be close, interesting, or somewhat important?" Think of this page as your tour guide through the world of college basketball, every evening showing you where and when to hop on and hop off the bus. Let us begin!
Tuesday, November 5th
While I long for the return of ESPN's 24 hour college basketball marathon to kick off the season, this year still has a very strong opening night, highlighted as always by the Champions Classic, college basketball's most reliable early-season hype generator. Rest assured, whichever team looks best tonight will enjoy lofty rankings and endless media coverage all season long. And this year it might not be unwarranted! The computers see the headliner MSU-UK matchup as a legit 1 vs. 2, and while the numbers aren't quite as high on Kansas as the humans, their opening act against Duke should be plenty entertaining.
Additionally, hipster fans of slow-motion swampball 54-52 brick fights will enjoy Wisconsin-Saint Mary's, who for some reason are playing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in an arena called the Sanford Pentagon. I just really wanted to type that sentence.
Wednesday, November 6th
Wednesday, November 6th
Three good-ish games in the later time slots, with the ACC for some reason going straight to conference games in the first game of the season. I gave the nod to the in-state non-conference matchup featuring two teams with pretty lofty expectations despite one featuring a first year coach and the other a freshman point guard.
Thursday, November 7th
Don't watch college basketball today. Do something else with your time.
Friday, November 8th
Today we become world travelers! That early spot might not look like much, but the computers only have the Tigers as a 4 point favorite over Davidson, and the Wildcats knocking off a defending Final Four team would be quite the start to the young season. Then we start to get weird. Baylor and Washington decided to play a game out on The Last Frontier, followed by Arizona State and Colorado traveling 7,000 miles across planet Earth to play a game in Shanghai (in a game that is technically on Saturday morning local time, but for our purposes goes in the Friday grid).
Saturday, November 9th
You should probably watch college football today instead, unless you're a big fan of one of the teams above. Also another game in the Pentagon, for some reason.
Sunday, November 10th
Pay no attention to the AP poll numbers today, because these two games are closer than you might think. Kenpom has UF-FSU as #12 vs #14, making this the most high profile matchup of the weekend. Finally, Arizona and Illinois are programs on completely different trajectories. Arizona will probably still win, but Illinois keeping it close could mean good things for a team hoping to make a big leap this year.
That's all for Week 1! Send me your feedback on Twitter if you think this is at all helpful, or if you have any suggestions on how to make it better. Enjoy the start of the season!
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