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Sunday, December 22, 2024
This introduction was going to be about one of the most anticipated games of the year so far, as Duke and Wisconsin squared off in a battle between top 5 teams, Final Four contenders and legendary coaches. That changed after midnight here in the Central time zone after watching Wichita State face Utah in what was maybe the second-most anticipated game of at least the night, anyway.
Ah, it’s started already. We’re still a couple weeks away from final exams for most schools, a time when especially it seems like highly favored schools need to pay a little extra attention in games that they should win easily. But we saw several teams have more trouble than expected in games Tuesday night that all expected to be blowouts.
With November turning to December, we’re on what is easily the quietest month of the college basketball season. There are good reasons for that, of course (final exams) and not so good ones (far, far too many guarantee games).
As part of this weekend’s big kick off to the Christmas shopping season, yesterday was dubbed Small Business Saturday across the country. The basketball schedule for the day might have qualified under that designation, as few of the biggest names were in action, in part because the big holiday tourneys ended a few days ago. What the day may have lacked in big names, though, it did not lack for stories.
Hoping all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The college basketball action was far better than the football games.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. One of college basketball’s true Thanksgiving traditions got underway once again last night, as the 37th annual Great Alaska Shootout got underway.
The Big East is getting by just fine. Here is how good the Big East has been so far this year: nine of its 10 teams are so far undefeated. Villanova is 5-0. So are Providence and Creighton. Xavier and Seton Hall are 4-0. Georgetown, St. John’s and Butler are 3-0. Shoot, even DePaul is 2-0.
By its extremely lofty standards, this year’s Maui Invitational is rather light fare, though still one of the kings of the in-season tournaments. Maui is always a highlight of November and Thanksgiving week, dating back to its emergence in the late 1980s, and the tourney opened yesterday with quarterfinals. The best game of the four was the last one, as old WAC and Mountain West rivals San Diego State and BYU went at it good deep into the night for us on the mainland.
The weekend has featured several instances of something we don’t see often: BCS conference (or Group of Five, or whatever term you want to use) teams taking to the road against good non-BCS teams.
Holiday tournament basketball tipped off on Thursday, one of the many things we can give thanks for over the upcoming holiday. Though perhaps not too much thanks. The proliferation of large, eight-team in-season tourneys has been a boon for teams looking to get in an extra three games over their NCAA schedule limit each season, but it also has played a part in watering down the importance of such tournaments as a whole.
