Ari's Take: The Beauty of College Basketball, as Exhibited by the Mighty Golden Eagles of Oral Roberts

My friend, Ari Kaufman, is a huge sports fan who roots heartily for the Kansas Jayhawks when it comes to college hoops. He was inspired by last night's Jayhawk defeat at the hands of the mighty Golden Eagles of Oral Roberts to write a brief take on the state of college hoops and why it is such a great sport. Anyway, Ari, who is an ex-teacher, is also a professional writer, so having him write here in the space usually filled with my ramblings would be similar to a scenatio in which Wayne and Garth interviewed Walter Cronkite on their cable access show. Schwing. Actually, Ari just published his first book, which I have and am trying to read at the same time I get through The Camel Club by David Baldacci. I will have a book review on both after Thanksgiving. Anyway, Ari's take is below.

And if you are looking for my Duke basketball preview, it was posted earlier today and is the post directly under this one...
__________________________________

Those of you who post comments or read them may have noticed that I am a big Kansas hoops fan. Unlike all my other favorite teams however, I have no family in the Sunflower State, nor did I ever live nor attend school there. I have visited Lawrence twice though, but only during the summer and hence, no game, although I did go inside Phog Allen, which is as magnificent as any old arena in the country, including Hinkle Fieldhouse (Butler's home) here in Indianapolis.

The Jayhawks choked in a major way the past two NCAA tournaments, and did so again last night in a home game with Mid-Continent Conference power, Oral Roberts. This year's squad, still very young, was ranked #1 pre-season by Sports Illustrated and seemingly bought the jinx quickly. (Not that anyone at SI knew much about college hoops back in September when they made their rankings.)

However, this is not a proclamation that KU is soft, over-rated, overly-confident, etc. Rather, Oral Roberts is an NCAA tourney squad, a perennial conference winner, who has players that are cohesive and (literally) stay together, like most mid-majors, for four years. We saw this last year with Bradley, Wichita State and, of course, George Mason. We've seen it with the Bucknells, NC-Wilmingtons, Xaviers and Alabama-Birminghams of the world too. I saw it in person Tuesday night at Conseco Fieldhouse when "mid-major" Butler, picked for SIXTH (out of eight) in the Horizon League, came from double digits down with their best player on the bench, to beat Indiana, in front of 10,000 stunned Hoosier fans. They should not have been stunned if they'd been paying attention the past few years.

Due to numerous factors - most notably the "major" teams shuffling in new players faster than the Oakland Raiders offense goes three and out - pretty much anyone can play with (not necessarily beat) anyone on any given night. One in four games might result in a blowout, but as you can tell via the Vegas lines, most fans understand there is, as I tell my friends often, no "different level of play" between, say, a Cal-Berkeley and a San Jose State. There really isn't.

Dan Patrick pointed out today on ESPN Radio that Idaho State (lower level Big Sky team) took Marquette to overtime, and even Winthrop gave #1 UNC a good game last night in Charlotte. Heck, I believe Georgia Southern (of the MEAC or SWAC or Southern Conference -- one of the worst conferences in Division One) led Duke at halftime the other night. (Editor's Note: Georgia Southern played Duke tough in the first half, but was actuallytrailnig 38-32 when DeMarcus Nelson hit a three at the buzzer).

This is what makes college basketball spectacular.

Oh, and having a playoff system/postseason tourney - and the best one on the planet - is beneficial as well.