Oh Look, There Goes Coach Cal With An Idea To Save College Hoops Again (While Making Fun Of The NCAA)
[KSR] - “That is the best way – in a dead month – to promote college basketball. And you do it late July, early August when you have a chance to really have people see your teams… It’s, again, something I’ve been talking about for seven years, eight years. The NBA Summer League; the [Big 3] stuff, the Tournament. I mean, it’s all in a segment that should be college basketball for those couple weeks.”
“We’re all taking foreign tours because it’s educational,” Calipari joked. “Did I say that? I lied. I admit I lied. It’s not educational – it costs $250,000 to go to Spain, Italy, Croatia, wherever you want to go. Let’s just do this stuff here. Why? Everybody gets to play in August… How about this: take one day a week off up until that point and you don’t add any time. It’s the same amount of time and you’re playing games [on] television.
“You think the SEC Network would like content in August? How about that? You think all these other networks – the ACC, the Big Ten, the Pac-12, ESPN – they all would like content? It wouldn’t just be us playing – you’re televising the whole league,” Calipari said. “Now you’ve got another 50 [or] 60 games.”
Calipari is a genius! An absolute genius! First off, he's right. The Champion's Classic opening up college hoops is a bit weird, but also needed. Last year they moved the event to the first Tuesday and started the season on Tuesday. The idea that it would give a couple days to talk about the sport is smart. The season used to start on Friday and you'd lose anything that would happen because of football the entire weekend. You at least have a day now where the national media will talk about Champion's Classic and the sport.
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But here's the thing. We don't have the best version of these teams. We see so many shitty games because it's the first game for 4 blueblood programs. Yeah, no matter the talent we still don't get to see the best version of what should be the best event. So getting more reps in before that in July or August isn't the craziest idea.
What I do love though is the dig at the NCAA. Saying everything is for education, which they love to do, is perfect. Nothing about going overseas is for the educational reasons. It's all so these teams can get a leg up on the rest of the competition. It's another chance to play together in a few games and travel.
Plus, what would be better than some day time hoops in the summer? All we have is baseball during the dog days and by that time 3/4 of the league is eliminated. Give me some daytime college hoops instead.