as you all know, i’m a huge fan when it comes to college sports. football & basketball in particular. these are reasons why i think college basketball is better than the NBA (in no order):
College Gameday
If you follow college football/basketball at all, you would know. College Gameday is a TV show that takes place weekly. Every saturday, they will go to a school’s campus and do a pregame show full of games, analysis & just having fun. In the fall, they do football, and in the winter they do basketball. I think that there’s no better feeling than waking up on a saturday morning in January and watching college gameday while preparing for a Big 12 matchup between two ranked teams. It gets you hyped for a saturday full of college basketball, and I love it. So does the crowd.
Tradition
There’s diehard fans in professional sports, and we all know that. But there’s something different about college. Student sections, bands, program tradition, it’s great. I feel like the crowd is more into college games than NBA games. On a saturday night NBA game between the Lakers & Warriors, the crowd is way less into it than a big college game. And it’s very noticeable. I think it provides excitement to a viewers prospective, making the game more enjoyable to watch and more exciting.
March Madness
Even diehard NBA fans will admit, March Madness is better than the NBA Playoffs. It’s iconic. Who wants to see the same team win the finals for three straight years? Dynasties are cool, but I don’t think the NBA playoffs compares to march madness. Everyone makes march madness brackets. There’s nothing better than getting home on a Thursday in March and getting ready to watch march madness for eight straight hours even though I have a spanish test to study for. But some of the greatest sports upsets/stories have been made in march madness, such as: FDU beating Purdue in 2023, Saint Peter’s making the Elite Eight in 2022, Christian Laettner’s shot against Kentucky, NC State beating Houston in 1984, the list goes on. Theres nothing better than witnessing a big upset.