{"id":6259,"date":"2017-03-02T15:16:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T19:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/?p=6259"},"modified":"2024-09-01T22:09:15","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T02:09:15","slug":"no-conference-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/2017\/03\/02\/no-conference-love\/","title":{"rendered":"No Conference Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been pimping Mark Titus\u2019 work for several years, first when he was with Grantland and now that he and many Grantlanders have resurfaced at The Ringer. Even on the rare day when I\u2019m not super interested in the subject of his articles, I\u2019ll at least skim them.<\/p>\n

That was the case with his piece last week about the woeful state of Big 10 basketball<\/a>. And I\u2019m glad I skimmed it, because there were two fantastic nuggets in it.<\/p>\n

\nIf either Indiana or Purdue was playing when I was growing up, my ass was in front of a TV watching. And if those teams weren\u2019t playing, my ass was still in front of a TV, probably watching some other Big Ten game.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes!<\/p>\n

Man do I love the ubiquity of college basketball on cable TV these days. There\u2019s the ESPN tier of channels. There are the two national Fox sports networks. The regional FSNs. The Big 10 Network. And the NBC and CBS sports networks. Some nights I can choose from an many as ten games at a time to find a good one to watch. On weekends CBS, Fox, and a couple local channels add even more options. And if, on rare occasions, a game isn\u2019t on a national feed, I can usually find it on the Watch ESPN app. Football might be king, but you can\u2019t complain about how much airtime is devoted to college basketball games.<\/p>\n

But as I read that passage in Titus\u2019 piece, it made me think back to my childhood, when my ass was in front of the TV watching Big 8 basketball. When I was really young, I remember the Big 8 network[1]<\/a> sometimes showing just one game every Saturday. Other times they would have a double-header, but even then half the teams in the conference did not have their games televised. If KU wasn\u2019t picked that weekend, I turned the TV volume down, pulled my radio next to me, and listened to the KU game while I watched Colorado and Oklahoma play. The national networks would often carry a game each afternoon, but that was it. You had to wait for the 10 o\u2019clock news or the Sunday sports page to find out how teams around the country did.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not arguing things were better then. They are way better today. But I wonder if we didn\u2019t have a little more love for our home teams back then. You see more IU, Purdue, and Butler gear on kids than any other school around here. But there are still a lot of kids who are rocking Kentucky, Duke, and Carolina gear. And I bet that number is way higher that it was 30 years ago. If a kid in Indianapolis or Kansas City was a Duke fan 30 years ago, it was likely because someone in his family went there. Now it\u2019s because he\u2019s seen Duke twice a week his entire life. The broader reach of college basketball has weakened the lure that the home team has on kids.<\/p>\n

Then there was this line:<\/p>\n

\nI can\u2019t think of anything that\u2019s dumber in college sports than conference pride\u2026Just cheer for your own team, and when it gets eliminated from national title contention, try behaving like a normal human being would: Hope that every gym in the country is burned to the ground before a champion can be crowned.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exactly!<\/p>\n

Even if the conference doing well independently of KU makes the Jayhawks\u2019 dominance of the conference look better, I still want every Big 12 team losing one round before KU does. I didn\u2019t get all warm and fuzzy when Oklahoma made it to the Final Four last year. I was depressed that KU came up one game short. If KU goes out of the tournament and I decide to keep watching games, I\u2019m not jumping on the bandwagon of the Big 12 teams that are still alive. I\u2019ll wish them luck, but I\u2019m not getting all worked up about them winning and yelling \u201cBIG TWELVE FOOLSSSSSS!\u201d at Big 10 fans around the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Besides, Titus is right. I\u2019m more focused on making sure basketball as we know it ends a fiery death than spending time hoping that Iowa State carries the Big 12 banner well.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
    \n
  1. \n\u201cHello everybody, along with former Big 8 All-American Gary Thompson, I\u2019m Jay Randolph.\u201d  ↩<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I\u2019ve been pimping Mark Titus\u2019 work for several years, first when he was with Grantland and now that he and many Grantlanders have resurfaced at The Ringer. Even on the rare day when I\u2019m not super interested in the subject of his articles, I\u2019ll at least skim them. That was the case with his piece last week about the woeful state of Big 10 basketball. And I\u2019m glad I skimmed it, because there were two fantastic nuggets in it. If either Indiana or Purdue was playing when I was growing up, my ass was in front of a TV watching. And if those teams weren\u2019t playing, my ass was still in front of a TV, probably watching some other Big Ten game. Yes! Man do I love the ubiquity of college basketball on cable TV these days. There\u2019s the ESPN tier of channels. There are the two national Fox sports networks. The regional FSNs. The Big 10 Network. And the NBC and CBS sports networks. Some nights I can choose from an many as ten games at a time to find a good one to watch. On weekends CBS, Fox, and a couple local channels add even more options. And if, on rare occasions, a game isn\u2019t on a national feed, I can usually find it on the Watch ESPN app. Football might be king, but you can\u2019t complain about how much airtime is devoted to college basketball games. But as I read that passage in Titus\u2019 piece, it made me think back to my childhood, when my ass was in front of the TV watching Big 8 basketball. When I was really young, I remember the Big 8 network[1] sometimes showing just one game every Saturday. Other times they would have a double-header, but even then half the teams in the conference did not have their games televised. If KU wasn\u2019t picked that weekend, I turned the TV volume down, pulled my radio next to me, and listened to the KU game while I watched Colorado and Oklahoma play. The national networks would often carry a game each afternoon, but that was it. You had to wait for the 10 o\u2019clock news or the Sunday sports page to find out how teams around the country did. I\u2019m not arguing things were better then. They are way better today. But I wonder if we didn\u2019t have a little more love for our home teams back then. You see more IU, Purdue, and Butler gear on kids than any other school around here. But there are still a lot of kids who are rocking Kentucky, Duke, and Carolina gear. And I bet that number is way higher that it was 30 years ago. If a kid in Indianapolis or Kansas City was a Duke fan 30 years ago, it was likely because someone in his family went there. Now it\u2019s because he\u2019s seen Duke twice a week his entire life. The broader reach of college basketball has weakened the lure that the home team has on kids. Then there was this line: I can\u2019t think of anything that\u2019s dumber in college sports than conference pride\u2026Just cheer for your own team, and when it gets eliminated from national title contention, try behaving like a normal human being would: Hope that every gym in the country is burned to the ground before a champion can be crowned. Exactly! Even if the conference doing well independently of KU makes the Jayhawks\u2019 dominance of the conference look better, I still want every Big 12 team losing one round before KU does. I didn\u2019t get all warm and fuzzy when Oklahoma made it to the Final Four last year. I was depressed that KU came up one game short. If KU goes out of the tournament and I decide to keep watching games, I\u2019m not jumping on the bandwagon of the Big 12 teams that are still alive. I\u2019ll wish them luck, but I\u2019m not getting all worked up about them winning and yelling \u201cBIG TWELVE FOOLSSSSSS!\u201d at Big 10 fans around the neighborhood. Besides, Titus is right. I\u2019m more focused on making sure basketball as we know it ends a fiery death than spending time hoping that Iowa State carries the Big 12 banner well. \u201cHello everybody, along with former Big 8 All-American Gary Thompson, I\u2019m Jay Randolph.\u201d  ↩<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,52,58],"class_list":["post-6259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-kansas-jayhawks"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13675,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions\/13675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}