Last weekend marked the start of basketball practice for many universities around the country. In other words, many schools held Midnight Madness last weekend, where fans pack the arena to mark the start of official practice. The NCAA has allowed many schools to hold the event at 7pm to allow fans to make it home earlier, but I will get to that later. However, college basketball season is one of the most fun to watch. There is always at least one surprise team and small schools and mid majors have a chance to compete with the big schools.


Derrick Rose

For those you who don’t follow recruiting and the offseason activity in college basketball, I am going to give a quick rundown of what to expect this year. Many teams that will make a run at the Final Four, are teams that you may not quite expect. Duke, a school that continues to land solid recruiting classes, lost Josh McRoberts to the draft, and is still very young. One team that should be one of the best in the country all year should be Memphis. Yes, Memphis does play in Conference USA, however Coach Calipari landed another stellar recruiting class, including Derrick Rose, one of the best players in the class this year. UCLA should continue to be strong, and cross town rival USC is going to be very strong once again, especially with the addition of man child OJ Mayo.

For me, the best part of watching college basketball is seeing mid major schools upgrade their programs because of success. Many of the teams in the Missouri Valley Conference, which has recently gained credibility, have opened or are opening brand new, 15,000 plus arenas. And what is better than parody? For Duke followers, there is nothing much worse than parody. For a student at Duquesne, parody is something to get excited about.


Renardo Sidney

Want to get a head start on the recruiting class of 08? Well, college basketball recruiting is way out of control, and getting a head start on this class will be hard. Many of the recruits have already signed or are very close. Thad Mata is continuing to build a national powerhouse at Ohio State, and recently landed the top recruit in the 2008 high school class, Greg Monroe. If you want the inside scoop on the 09 high school class you have come to the right place. Many of my usual readers will remember an article I did on high school phenoms, one of them being Renardo Sidney. You won’t see it on the web for a while, but word out of Fairfax is that Renardo, the top recruit in that 09 class, is ready to sign on the dotted line at OSU as well. The craziest part of all; three of the top ten recruits in the 2010 class have signed. In the end, the best part is when they start playing the games, and lucky for me, that is right around the corner.