Unbeknownst to just about everybody, college basketball kicked off this past week with a slate of games featuring major college powers looking to avoid complete and utter humiliation at the hands of teams consisiting of players who averaged under six points for their respective high school teams.
It's strange, the college football offseason felt like the longest one in history, while it seems like we should still be about two months away from basketball season. Maybe that's saying something. What that something is we'll never know because we're not big on "thinking."
College basketball starting not only means the beginning of the greatest sport in the world (fact), it means that we finally get the chance to read college sports stories in which the Big East isn't being torn apart by critics. The greatest conference in the world (fact) is off to yet another great start, with its teams going 16-1 in the opening week of play, the lone loss being Depaul's 78-58 loss to Bradley on Saturday. Thanks guys.
Syracuse and Cincinnati are both off to 3-0 starts, with the 'Cuse sweeping the BCA Invitational, and the Bearcats dominating the Jim Thorpe Association Basketall Classic. Cincinnati's John Williamson and the insufferable Eric Devendorf were named the most valuable players of their respective tournaments.
St. John's (2-0) is the only other team in the conference with more than one win. Uconn, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Pitt, Seton Hall, Villanova and West Virginia all own single wins over teams that have no chance of making the NCAA tournament.
No. 10 Arizona, whom Louisvile plays Dec. 5 in the Jimmy V Classic, got off to a slow start by dropping a 93-90 decision to Virginia on Sunday.
The Cardinals, sans Derrick Caracter, will kick off their 2006-2007 campaign on Saturday when they host Northwestern State. The Demons opened up their season Friday night with an impressive 88-71 dismantling of Utah State. NSU is coming off a 26-8 season which included a Southland Conference title and a first-round upset of Iowa in the NCAA tournament which was largely overshadowed because of George Mason's run to the final four.
This has the potential to be not fun.