The men’s (and women’s) college basketball season is just getting underway, a season that starts early, but really doesn’t start to get going until after the New Year.

Men’s basketball is a strange beast with strong teams scheduling weak teams in a bid to pad their win totals going into league play. By the time January rolls around, many teams already have at least ten wins with just another ten or twelve needed to qualify for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. But beating up on the little guys is no proof of later success — how many times have we seen a team start off with a 10-2 record only to end up with a losing season or falling short of a post season berth? Plenty!

This year the odds on favorite is the UNC Tarheels, one of three terrific teams in my area (Duke and NC State being the other two). North Carolina is the unanimous choice in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today Polls, a testament to just how good the team is this year. After losing to the Kansas Jayhawks 84-66 in the last championship game, Carolina is ready to rebound and take it all. And, thanks to ongoing great recruiting, future teams look to be topflight as well.

As dominating as the Tarheels appear on paper, the conference with the strongest teams appears to be the Big East. This year, the conference has four pre-season Top Ten picks with UCONN and Louisville #2 and #3 respectively followed by Pittsburgh at #5 and Notre Dame coming in at #9 (AP poll). Marquette, Georgetown, and Villanova are three more Big East teams in the Top 25, reflecting just how deep the conference is.

Davidson, which was the Cinderella team the last season won’t be surprising anyone this year. Pollsters have pegged the Wildcats to finish #20 which would guarantee a fairly high seed in the tournament. Credit Stephen Curry with the Wildcats success, a team that nearly knocked off eventual champion Kansas in the Final 8 last year.

Early season games are often played within tournaments which are created to stir up fan interest and give fans a warm place to travel to. A noticeable exception to a warm place is the annual Great Alaska Shootout, a one-time big time contest that got a lot of attention and brought in teams from all over the country. Alas, cold temperatures and difficulty getting to Alaska has taken its toll on the tournament and this year ESPN has decided not to show the tournament. Give it one more year and it’ll be R.I.P.

By the beginning of the year, you’ll start to see endless ads touting the “Road to the Final Four” which will be played in Detroit in April. Games will be played on a court plunked down in the middle of Ford Field (home to the NFL Lions) which will allow a record 70,000 people to watch all three games. Naturally, viewing any game from the nosebleed section will require binoculars but for rabid sportsmen, they’ll take all of that in stride.

Tags: Big East Conference, Davidson, Detroit, Final Four, Great Alaska Shootout, Kansas Jayhawks, men's basketball, NCAA, NFL, UNC Tarheels, University of North Carolina

Not very often a basketball player comes along who is in his senior year of high school and is demonstrating that he has what it takes to play on the professional level. The National Basketball Association (NBA) has made an effort, albeit a tepid one, to encourage high school seniors to head to college instead of turning professional. No one wants to be accused of raiding the colleges for players, certainly not the NBA.

Right now, the NBA requires all high school graduates to wait one year before turning pro and be at least 19 years old. During the time that they wait, colleges hope that student athletes will stay around long enough to help the school win a conference title, perhaps even a national championship.

One problem with that scenario is not every athlete has the grades in order to qualify for college. Brandon Jennings, a standout point guard from Southern California, is one such student. Though committed to attending the University of Arizona this Fall, one of his SAT scores was too low. After retaking the test and before the result has been announced, Jennings has decided to skip college and plans to spend the next year playing in Europe instead.

Jennings situation is a rarity as most talented student athletes choose to follow the NBA guidelines and play at least one year on the college level. While there, NBA teams can assess whether the player has what it takes to compete professionally, something difficult to figure out when their only competition is on the high school level.

If Jennings fails to qualify academically, his decision to play in Europe will be a smart one, though there is always the risk that a career ending injury will send him home early. On the other hand, the sooner he turns professional, the quicker he’ll get paid, monies that will easily outstrip an athletic scholarship to a prestigious university.

(Source: Sporting News, ESPN)

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Tags: Arizona University, Brandon Jennings, college sport, men's basketball