Sorry, NFL, But This Is Not The Best Weekend In Sports

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

The arrival of college football season to me is the best time of year, but that actual opening weekend isn't necessarily the best the sport has to offer, what with its many lopsided games between powerhouses and weak sisters.

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And pro football fans have reason to bark about the second weekend of the NFL playoffs. You've got the Round 1 winners taking on division champs, a Saturday and Sunday each filled with at least seven consecutive hours of football at its finest.

But the real weekend in sports has always been somewhere in the middle of March, the first weekend of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

No other weekend in sports brings what those opening two rounds offer. First of all, the tournament begins at noon on Thursday, so the weekend consists of four days, which is awesome. That's a lot of beer and pizza.

Secondly, 16 games on Thursday and 16 more on Friday give fans plenty of opportunities to witness thrilling buzzer-beaters, heartwrenching upsets and miracle comebacks. And eight more games on both Saturday and Sunday bring a better quality of matchups. Forty-eight games in four days? Can sports seriously get any better?

And here we are talking about this weekend's four football games over a span of about 27 hours. Sure the NFL playoffs are fun to watch, but this weekend falls well short of what we'll be able to enjoy in less than nine short weeks now.

College Basketball Notebook: Tar Heels In Trouble

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

With exactly two months left until Selection Sunday, it's about time I start posting on college basketball.

Let's do it in notebook fashion, shall we?

+ Defending champion North Carolina is in trouble this year. The Heels only lost four times last season, but already have five losses this year, three of them by double figures, including last night's 83-64 dismantling at the hands of Clemson.

+ Speaking of Clemson, don't be fooled by the Tigers' 14-3 record. It's not uncommon for them to rush out of the gate, win a bunch of games and even earn a nice national ranking. But once the February doldrums set in, for some reason, Clemson teams are rarely up to the grind and they often flame out.

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+ And speaking of flaming out, has anyone seen Cincinnati the last few games? I used to criticize Bob Huggins' teams for not being mentally strong enough to finish tight games against good teams. Late mental mistakes cost the Bearcats many close ones back then, and that seems to remain the trend under Mick Cronin, now in his fourth year there. But unlike Huggins' teams, Cronin's don't finish seasons well, missing out on the NCAA tournament with weak late-season showings the last two years.

+ Just down the road in Lexington, it's great to see John Calipari restore the tradition at Kentucky, but given his track record, you can't help but wonder what kind of trouble looms there. Nonetheless, John Wall isn't just the best freshman in the country; he's the best player. And he and DeMarcus Cousins are the best young tandem in the nation, and with Patrick Patterson manning the post, look for the Wildcats to play deep into March.

+ Back to Huggins ... As much as I wanted him out at Cincinnati long before he was fired, he's like that ex-girlfriend that I just can't get over. If West Virginia is on television, I will almost always watch. I even became a one-and-done Kansas State fan when he had a cup of coffee there. But he's got his Mountaineers playing solid basketball, and I reckon they'll get a nice tournament seed and advance to at least the second weekend.

+ The best game left on the regular-season schedule is a no-brainer. Former No. 1 Kansas visits current No. 1 Texas on Monday, Feb. 8. Each side boasts a core of veterans, a good mix of perimeter and interior players and a star freshman. Kansas' Xavier Henry is a nice scorer with three-point range and a great body for such a young guard. Texas' Avery Bradley is improving on offense, but he's a lockdown perimeter defender and a fierce competitor.

+ Don't sleep on Ohio State. Sure I'm a homer, but the earlier-than-expected return of all-everything star Evan Turner already has paid huge dividends. ET scored 23 of his career-high 32 points in the second half of a huge comeback win at No. 6 Purdue Tuesday. OSU doesn't have a great record (12-5, 2-3), but a road win like that, coupled with a healthy conference player of the  year candidate, can only boost the Buckeyes' confidence.