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Dick Weiss

College basketball needs special events to launch its season

 INDIANAPOLIS– The Championship Classic is the answer to college basketball’s prayers for added national exposure in the first month of the season.

  The special event was started in 2011 when Duke and Kansas invited Kentucky and Michigan State to participate in a three year, four team showcase that would be shown on ESPN. The event  has been extended through 2016 with the teams playing each other on a rotating basis on a neutral sites at Indianapolis, (2014), Chicago (2015) and New York City (2016).
   From a basketball standpoint, Tuesday’s games at sold out Baker Light Arena — the home of the NBA Indiana Pacers–  featured four current or future Hall of Fame coaches — Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, Tom Izzo of Michigan State, John Calipari of Kentucky and Bill Self of Kansas. Each of the storied programs have won a littany of national championships. Kentucky has won eight. Duke four, Kansas,  three and Michigan State 2. Three of the teams involved– Kentucky, Duke and Kansas– are ranked in the Top 5 and have legitimate shots to return here in March for a spot in the NCAA Final Four at Lucas Oil Stadium. So the games should be competitive. and the doubleheader is guaranteed to be sold out.  Each team should take home $1.4 million, which should more than enough to offset the profit margin of a home game.
     “It’s huge,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “I think all four coaches are honored to be part of this. The venues, the sponsorships, the way ESPN has been all over it. It’s great for college basketball.”
     This is the new reality of college basketball where heavily hyped, early season events like this involving elite teams with no lasting value are  taking the place of many pre-season tournaments for the sake of TV programing in a four month season.
     But special events that are bigger than games are desparately if college basketball wants to compete with college football, which has become the second most popular sport on television behind the NFL.  It’s all about controlling the interest of the TV sports fan on a given night in a world that is increasing filled with choices.
     Other than this event, the Battle for Atlantis, an eight-team tournament in the Bahamas that features six ranked teams including Wisconsin and North Carolina; and the 2K Classic at the Garden, the first month of college basketball season has little or no real sizzle for the average sports fan, who will be consumed in the race to see which four teams will fill the brackets for college football playoffs through Dec. 6.
      For the elite programs involved, this is a huge marketing boost and branding opportunity designed to differentiate those schools from the rest of college basketball by making them as prime time attractions at the end of ESPN’s two game basketball marathon
    This sadly also illustrates the gap between the haves and have nots in the sport, but that is never going to change.
    .College basketball is constantly looking for new ways to promote itself, dating back to the now passe Midnight Madness. This year, Calipari, the most innovative coach in the sport, conducted a pre sesason combine so NBA scouts could watch for his nine McDonald’s All Americas for two days. The event got ESPN coverage and gave the Cats a four hour infomercial. Teams like Michigan State and UConn have played on aircraft carriers to open the season on Veterans Day and next year there will a doubleheader featuring Michigan State, Kansas, Indiana and Arizona that will be played at Pearl Harbor in the shadow of the USS Arizona.
    The idea of creating special events dates back to 1968 when UCLA played Houston in the Astrodome when Lew Alecindor and Elvin Hayes were both underclassmen and Georgetown vs. Virginia in 1982 when seven-foot giants Ralph Sampson, a three-time national Player of the Year; and Patrick Ewing, the ultimate beast of the Big East were in school.  
    ESPN has been in the vanguard of forward thinking, promoting the Champions Classic for over a week in its effort to launch the new season.
      It’s all about controling the interest of a TV sports fan on a given night in a world that is increasing filled with choices.
      This doubleheader, which could have drawn 50,000 fans if had been played at Lucas Oil Stadium, gave die hard college basketball fans a chance to celbrate the dawn of a new season, watching what may be John Calipari’s  most talented team ever and witnessing the formal introduction of Duke’s special freshman class to big time basketball.
     The Blue Devils defeated Michigan State, 81-71, in a game where Krzyzewski’s three freshman starters– point guard Tyus Jones, 6-11, 270 pound center Jahlil Okafor and 6-8 guard Justice Winslow all showed flashes of brilliance. Okafor, who finished with 17 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks and a pair of steals, looked like he had the opotential to be Krzyzewski’s best low post center ever, ahead of Elton Brand and Carlos Boozer. Point guard tyus Jones, who did not score a field goal in the fist half, exploded for all 17 points in the second half and Winslow added 15.  All three played for youth teams in USA basketball and their unselifshness and fundamentally sound play was nnoticeable against the Spartans, a solid Big Ten power.
    “The harder the experience you aer successful in, the more confidence you have,” Krzyzewski said. .
      Kentucky was just a stream roller in the second game, using its enormous size and devastating platoon system to blow away Kansas, 72-40, limiting the Jayhwks to 11 field goals and 19.6 shooting while blocking 11 shots. The Cats, who have seven players who are 6-8 are taller, simply wore Kansas out.
   “We come at you like waves,” Calipari said. “We don’t have subs. We have reinforcements. It’s like tanks over the hill.”
           
     The final scores of most non-conference games disappear quickly because college basketball is a 40-game season, but because of all the hype and promotion for this event generated by cable giant ESPN,  the wins by Kentucky and Duke left a huge impression about how good these two teams are now and can be in the future. With that in mind, the idea of elite showcase doubleheaders featuring marquee progams with biggest traditions could become the wave of the future. 
     Calipari  pitched and sold his own fabled four doubleheader involving Kentucky, Ohio State, UCLA and North Carolina — who have combined to win 25 national championships– have agreed to play in a similar format in Chicago on Dec. 20 that will be televised on CBS. The event will shift locations to Broooklyn in 2015 and Las Vegas in 2016.
    “Games like this give you a good idea of where you are,” he claimed.
      With 68 teams in the NCAA brackets, there is little risk for any of these teams.  .
      Self said that Kansas has played home-and-home series with Michigan State and Kentucky, but said it’s hard for big-time schools to play true home-and-home series because of pressures to play home games.

   “You schedule what’s best for your program and there are a lot of reasons — recruiting, exposure and money. Sometimes you can’t play too many road games due to money,” Self said. “It’s hard to go home-and-home with Duke. It’s hard to do that with Kentucky or Michigan State. That’s why this neutral site is a good deal. I don’t think any of the coaches involved will see anything negative with this.”

    

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Dick Weiss is a sportswriter and columnist who has covered college football and college and professional basketball for the Philadelphia Daily News and the New York Daily News. He has received the Curt Gowdy Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and is a member of the national Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He has also co-written several books with Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Dick Vitale and authored a tribute book on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.

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