Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. The season is now well underway, with a bevvy of tournaments having come and gone, so there is much to discuss.
We begin outside the scope of tournaments, however, as young Vanderbilt suffered a devastating blow to their hopes for the season. Freshman point guard Darius Garland is out for the season after suffering a meniscus injury. It’s one of a few injuries of note that have occurred recently, as noted in Wednesday’s Morning Dish.
Coming back to the tournaments that made the last week-plus a lot of fun, Ted looks back on the Battle 4 Atlantis, which has become one of the best. We also talk about the Maui Invitational and its great championship game, which vaulted Gonzaga to the top of the polls despite a key injury.
The Big East emerged from the tournaments looking very good, picking up four championships to lead the way. Overall, a relatively balanced picture emerges from a very imperfect metric, as the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten each had three to come in right behind. It tells us no conference appears to be clearly out in front right now.
Along the way, we look at the continuing concern about college basketball being a one-month sport to casual fans, aided by the tournaments mostly coming in November and some of the decisions for championship games that are made by ESPN and others. That launches us into a larger discussion about ESPN’s current situation and what it could mean for other networks when contracts come up in the future.
Additionally, as we talk about part of the sport’s challenge in being relevant in November and December, we talk about rivalry games that have been lost to conference realignment. From Kansas-Missouri to Texas-Texas A&M to so many others that we talk about, we’re losing games that get fans and others interested, including in the challenging times of November and December.
We close with more of what we can look ahead to, as well as an anecdote with a former coach who made the trip to the Bahamas last week.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Check back again soon for our next podcast.
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