Tuesday, November 18, 2008
It’s a tournament! It’s a “Classic!” It’s a loosely connected series of games played over the course of 12 days! Whatever the O’Reilly Auto Parts College Basketball Experience Classic is, it’s weird.
Kansas’ weekend victory against UMKC and tonight’s tilt against Florida Gulf Coast are part of the CBE Classic’s Regional Rounds, played at on-campus sites. Next Monday’s game against Washington marks the beginning of the Classic’s final two rounds, played at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo. Thing is, the Regional Rounds and Final Rounds don’t really have anything to do with one another. No matter what happens to regional hosts Kansas, Washington, Florida and Syracuse during the first two “rounds,” they’ll all advance to Kansas City.
That odd process begs the question, “What the hell is the point of the CBE Classic?”
Whatever the point is, there’s no denying the strength of the CBE Classic’s field. The quasi-tournament boasts the winners of the past three NCAA Tournaments in Florida and Kansas. Washington went to the Elite Eight in 2005 and 2006 and has sent the NBA a first-round draft pick each of the last three years. Syracuse hails from the nation’s best conference, the Big East, and has the name recognition that comes with coach Jim Boeheim — 772 wins in 23 seasons at ‘Cuse.
3-point adjustments
Kansas looked befuddled from behind the new three-point arc Sunday, finishing 1-for-13 against UMKC. The NCAA expanded the arc from 19 feet, nine inches to 20 feet, nine inches this offseason, and so far the results haven’t been pretty.
Across the nation, teams are shooting 32.1 percent from long range, exactly three percent worse than last year’s 35.1 percent national average. Despite the extra bricks, teams aren’t taking caution to cut down on three-point attempts. This season, 33.6 percent of all shots have been from beyond the arc, slightly less than last year’s 34.4 percent mark.
Bad tunes = bad karma for Kansas football?
Kansas Athletics and Rock Chalk Video deserve some kudos for the new Kansas basketball pregame video. Granted, they had some great highlights to choose from, but the entire production is stellar.
The most impressive part of the whole thing? Definitely the music, borrowed from Clint Mansell’s brilliant “Requiem for a Dream” score. In general, Kansas basketball has the whole pump-up music thing down. “Where the Streets Have No Name” by U2 was a great addition to pregame introductions a few years back, and the women’s introductions, featuring “Baba O’Riley” by the Who, are also nice.
Kansas football needs some work in this department. The team enters to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” among the most clichéd intro songs in existence. At halftime, fans are “treated” to the pop-punk stylings of The All-American Rejects and We The Kings. And the Zombie Nation song during Kansas kickoffs has definitely worn out its welcome. Thank goodness the Jayhawks don’t score very often. My suggestions for next year’s football soundtrack:
Pregame intro: Rage Against the Machine, “New Millennium Homes”
Timeout: Tom Jones, “What’s New, Pussycat?”
Kickoff: Kanye West featuring Jay-Z, “Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)”
Halftime; any other stoppage of play: Warren G, “Regulate”
— — Edited by Rachel Burchfield
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