Let’s stop and think for a moment, you, the reader of this article. Have you ever watched professional basketball? How? I tried, I really did try, but something was missing for me while I watched it. There was no emotional connection between the players and I, or for me towards the players because they have no idea who I am. I could watch people bounce a bright orange ball on a court all day, but there’s something about these big celebrity personalities and the other people on the team nobody cares about. There’s two definite things that college basketball just does better than professional basketball, and I’m here to describe those things in immense detail. Or a little bit of detail, it depends on how passionate I am about the point.

Home Spirit

Now I’ll be straight with you, I don’t generally like sports. I don’t get football, or baseball, or softball, or whatever-ball that they play every third Saturday at the giant sports complex with millions of viewers. Watching big names on professional teams paid sometimes millions of dollars to hit a ball or throw a ball may appeal to some, all that I can think is “Wow, I bet that guy owns a house bigger than that stadium he’s playing in,” and this distracts me from enjoying the game. It all feels very impersonal, and somewhat fake. While sports teams are affiliated with cities, it doesn’t feel quite intimate enough for me, I want to have an emotional connection with the team and the people on it. This is where college sports step in, even the best basketball teams come from colleges in cities where no professional sports team would be from, like Duke from Durham, North Carolina. The most famous professional sports team is a minor league baseball team. Duke is a Division I school in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), the highest possible level a school can be. For those of you who are wondering what that means, I did extensive research (a cursory Google search) into the subject, and found that, according to one of the most reliable sources I know, Wikipedia, that it is “… major collegiate athletic powers, with larger budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Divisions II and III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.” Duke, in Durham, North Carolina, is one of the highest level schools in college sports. You bet that the people of Durham, as well as the other people that attend the prestigious University, watch the sports that the school is involved in, partly out of pride of their school and their home, and partly because what other sports are coming out of Durham, North Carolina. This applies to all other schools involved in college sports, including the University of Arizona, also a Division I school, and the primary reason I watch college basketball. To recap, cities with little to no professional sports teams have that void filled by college sports teams, and the general pride associated with attending or supporting a college, local or otherwise, provides a more personal feeling than professional sports teams can.

Basketball

The big thing about this entire article is basketball. “Why basketball?” is what you, the intelligent reader, is wondering. Lucky for you, I am here to provide a satisfactory answer to that question that is burning such a hole into your thoughts. Simply put, basketball is fun. It’s a faster paced sport when the ball is on the court, there are stylish dunks, giant men in colored shirts and shorts falling over consistently, and of course the timer and easily understandable score system. It all greatly appeals to my senses, the satisfying squeak of their sneakers on the court, the thump of the ball every time they dribble it, the giant buzzer that sounds at the end of the game, and the flurry of people running back and forth on that smallish court while the unfit referees struggle to keep up, it’s all very aesthetically pleasing to me. There’s not a whole lot to keep track of, and it’s not as slow paced as baseball and football can be. It helps that the tournament has a catchy title, and the last sixteen games do as well. March Madness, with the Sweet Sixteen, The Elite Eight, and The Final Four, it’s all very exciting. The tension of making a bracket with the teams you think and hope will win, and watching it either fall apart or stand strong is definitely a really fun side event that anyone can take part in, with the allure of a 1 billion dollar cash prize if your bracket is absolutely perfect in predicting the winner of all 63 March Madness NCAA tournament games.

It’s a really fun thing to look forward to every year, and you bet that, even though I won’t watch any other sports, I will be closely falling the March Madness games with the fervent attitude of a Harry Potter super fan meeting Daniel Radcliffe at a Starbucks. Or some similar coherent metaphor, whatever floats your boat. Either way, you can expect a follow-up article in March with either happy thoughts about Villanova, Duke and the U of A reaching the Final Four, or a disappointed article when literally anything else happens, so now you have something to look forward to.