I watched a sparsely attended Vanderbilt basketball game last night and let me tell you -- this team is going to suprise most bookmakers. Vandy was a suprise Sweet 16 team last year, but lost the school's all time leading point scorer to the NBA.

However, this year the team looks to be 10 deep with 5 very athletic freshmen. More importantly, Junior Julian Terrell is in MUCH better shape and discipline this year, and junior point guard Mario Moore has matured enough to take on the mantle of team captain.

The freshmen will face tough tests in the pre-SEC schedule in the Las Vegas Invitational and in road games against teams like Cincinnati. By the time the year gets into full swing, they will be more prepared for SEC play than their freshman peers at programs like Alabama, Florida, and Arkansas, but by then the bookies will have caught up.

If you have the ability to place a bet on Vanderbilt's mens BBall team, I would *highly* recommend it. First regular season game is against Toledo on 11/19.

Cheer for Vanderbilt, bet on Bob Knight..

Living in Britain, Basketball certainly isn't the most popular of sports, an NBA game is shown late at night once a week and there are other games on the US-equivalent of cable.

Against this backdrop, whats the deal with college basketball? Most of the time I hear about it relates to betting (okay, this could be purely me), Is it just beause it's more basketball to watch, enjoy and bet on? I understand that it's the main talent feeder to the NBA and that, size of the country and all, the quality must be high.

So spill,

Molina

College basketball is popular in the USA for several reasons. Among them,

(1) the talent level really is pretty astonishingly high;

(2) the sportsmanship is mostly pretty good too;

(3) the enthusiasm of the crowds, the students, and the bands adds tremendously to the game;

(4) (most important) the end of year tournament ROCKS. There is a single-elimination format, 64-team tournament to crown the champs. Fans get to argue about which teams should and shouldn't be in the tournament, then we argue about which teams should have the top seeds, and we argue about which teams should be matched up, and where they should play (most games played at neutral sites, on nobody's home court; when somebody gets a favorable court location there is bitchin' aplenty from the other team's fans). And once the brackets are made, every workplace in the entire country (slight exaggeration, but only slight) runs a pool. Typically, you have to pick who will win every game in the tournament; whoever picks the most games correctly wins. So now every worker in the whole country has an interest in every game. Even if you only threw 5 or 10 bucks at the thing, the pool can be enough to win you a nice little present for yourself or your wife, and in any case the bragging rights are awesome.

Cheers for the explanation K3nt!