Sully's Court

You can hear it in the distance: Bouncing basketballs on college campuses. Practice has begun and the college basketball season will begin on Tuesday, Nov. 10. To get things started, Sully's Court will once again try to predict the NCAA field in October. We'll re-visit this in March to see how it came out.

Here's how it looks now:

Multi-bid leagues (9 leagues, 43 teams)
ACC (8): North Carolina, Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Boston College, Florida State, Wake Forest
Atlantic 10 (3): Dayton, Xavier, Duquesne
Big East (8): Villanova, Syracuse, West Virginia, UConn, Georgetown, Cincinnati, Louisville, Seton Hall.
Big Ten (5): Michigan State, Purdue, Minnesota, Ohio State, Northwestern
Big 12 (5): Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas State.
Conference USA (2): Memphis, Houston.
Missouri Valley (2): Northern Iowa, Bradley,
Pacific 10 (4): UCLA, Washington, Cal, Oregon State
SEC (7): Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Vanderbilt

One-bid leagues (22 teams)
American East: Boston University
Atlantic Sun: Mercer
Colonial: James Madison
Big Sky: Weber State
Big South: Radford
Big West: Fullerton State
Horizon: Butler
Ivy: Cornell
Metro-Atlantic (MAAC): Siena
Mid-American: Akron
Mid-Eastern (MEAC): Morgan State
Mountain West: BYU
Northeast: Sacred Heart
Ohio Valley: Morehead State
Patriot: Holy Cross
Southern: Charleston
Southland: Texas A&M Corpus Christi
SWAC: Jackson State
Summit: IUPUI
Sun Belt: Western Kentucky
Western (WAC): Utah State
West Coast: Gonzaga

I love college basketball, BUT: While checking the channel guide on the DirecTV last week, I noticed college basketball on Fox Sports Cincinnati. I knew what it was, a replay of Kentucky's midnight madness program. Without a doubt, it was a testimony to the over-hyped, over-the-top idolization of coaches and players coupled with an overzealous desire to impress recruits. It's not good for the game.

Kentucky and other schools need to re-think this. What a colossal waste of money for Kentucky to have a stage set up like it's the MTV Awards, introducing players like they are WWE world champions, and indoor fireworks. I could only stand so much of it, but I did hear about 15 seconds of Coach Cal's first speech. What I heard wasn't very articulate. It's no wonder basketball players suffer from self-absorption more than any other sport (with tennis the only competitor).