I was on my way home from covering a high school basketball game last night when I heard on the Duke Sports Network that the Blue Devils, who beat Michigan Friday night 71-56 to win the 2K Sports Classic, had won their first championship of the season. Interesting. I did not know we were at that point that we've started keeping tracks of "championships" teams win in-season.
There used to be the Great Alaska Shootout. Then came along Maui. But when the NCAA limited how many times a team could appear in the tournament, new tournaments have blossomed all over the country to get us through the holiday season.
The problem is that with all of these tournaments, the value of winning a championship as been diminished, especially when it may only take two games to win one. The way I see it is that these tournaments serve the purpose of recruiting vehicles for high-profile teams like Duke, Memphis and UCLA when they cannot play in the big two, Alaska or Maui.
But they are nothing more than this. To imply that banners should be hung from rafters for an early-season tournament with that included mid-level talent is disingenuous.
Duke can win a championship in New York. Carolina can win one in Hawaii. However, until either one wins THE championship in Detroit , there aren't going to be many victory parades in The Triangle.
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Good job. These "events" are like all of the bowls from Dec. 1-December 29. A waste of time and money. Have you seen the stands at some of these events. They are so emtpy, I thought I was watching NASCAR. The only difference is that the players do not have Lowes printed on their shirts! And of course, we have obnoxious Vitale instead of obnoxious Waltrip. OK, so there is no real difference.
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