As a current college student, I have the opportunity to witness many collegiate games in person. So far this season, I have been to 13 total games at Illinois, Northwestern, or Marquette. Last March I witnessed Jimmer Fredette’s final college game in the Sweet Sixteen, which took place in New Orleans. I make it to the Big Ten Tournament every year, whether it is in Indianapolis or Chicago. And the list of college teams home stadiums that I have been inside includes Syracuse, Georgetown, Purdue, Indiana, and Kansas.
When I was younger, it didn’t matter to me whether I was at a game or watching it on television. In high school, I spent plenty of time in local high school gyms watching games, and even saw Derrick Rose play. Actually I saw pretty much every stud in the state of Illinois play during my four years, many of whom play Division-1 ball now. Now that I have a greater appreciation for basketball, being able to see games firsthand are much more enjoyable to me (not that watching on TV is terrible). In fact, my Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights are usually spent watching games, as well as Saturday and Sunday during the day.
So when it comes to fantasy college basketball, how is watching a game on TV different from being there in person? For one, when I’m sitting on the couch at my apartment with the remote in hand, rarely will I ever watch a commercial. That’s because I’m jumping from game to game, seeing the most up to date score. Also, I have access to my laptop when I am watching games on TV, and more often than not my computer is right by my side for me to check the box scores of key games or ones that I have players in. Now I love the environment at college basketball games and would still much rather be present, but it’s much tougher to look up scores and statistics.
Thankfully, Assembly Hall in Champaign (the original one) has much better cell phone reception than our football stadium, Memorial Stadium. ESPN.com is my go to site when it comes to searching for scores. The games of every top 25 team playing on that given day show up, but I usually change it so that I can view every D-1 score. While one of the leagues that I am in only contains players from BCS schools, I like to know what is going on with mid-major games as well. Typically, I scroll through all of the scores and view the box scores of games that I have players in.
My first team has six players from Big Ten teams, three from Big East teams, and one from an ACC school. The other league that I participate in is strictly Big Ten players, so that is easier to follow especially since I write about the Big Ten for my updates and weekly articles. Although I choose with my head, I choose with my heart at times and it’s worked out quite well. As a fan of both Northwestern and Illinois, John Shurna, Meyers Leonard, Drew Crawford, and David Sobolewski are a few names that show up from either squad. Penn State’s Tim Frazier is the lone player that I have on both teams, which is lucky considering Frazier is one of the nation’s most improved players.
Something that I noticed about teams that I see in person, is that after that game I pay good attention to how they perform the rest of the season and usually find myself wanting them to do well. For example, I saw Syracuse play in December 2002 while on a vacation to New York. That happened to be Carmelo Anthony’s freshman season, one that ended with a ‘Cuse National Championship. Ironically, I had a tie to the team that Syracuse defeated in the title game: Kansas. We had family that lived in Lawrence, Kansas, so myself, my brother, and two friends of ours had signed up to go to the Roy Williams Basketball Camp that upcoming June. Well as you know, Williams left KU for North Carolina and the camp changed to the Bill Self Basketball Camp. For those who don’t remember, Self had just left Illinois, my favorite team in any sport. The highlight of the camp for me was being able to take a picture with Self and wearing my blue Fighting Illini cutoff and orange basketball shorts. He even told me that he liked my shirt.
Another example of this is last year’s Florida team. As I mentioned before, Jimmer Fredette’s final college game was an overtime loss to Florida in the Sweet Sixteen. I’ve always been anti-Gators, thanks in large part to Joakim Noah. But after watching them play last year and knowing about their roster additions, I went out on a limb and picked Florida as my National Champion pick before the start of this season. Although I vowed to stop being a Bulls fan if Noah was drafted by the team, I have come to appreciate his game and realize he’s just one of those guys that you hate if he’s on the other team but love if he’s on your team.
This is my first year participating in college fantasy basketball leagues that are run online. The past two years I ran my own Big Ten fantasy leagues and took stats manually, so having them online has been a very nice change. Two members from my Big Ten league were over last night watching the Illinois vs. Minnesota game. It became really fun when the two of them started going back and forth trash talking any time one of their players did something well, whether it be scoring, grabbing a rebound, or dishing out an assist. This makes me excited for the Big Ten Tournament in March, when over half of our league will be together watching the games in what will be the Championship Week.
I don’t believe that I have ever uncovered a fantasy player by going to a game, but I do enjoy being able to brag when someone that I played against in grade school or saw play in high school does well. From the Big Ten alone, I played with John Shurna while my brother played against David Sobolewski and Frank Kaminsky from fifth through eighth grade, and saw an additional dozen players while they were high schoolers. I’m saying all of this not to brag, but because I am thankful to have grown up under parents who love basketball. While they never pushed me to play, my dad coached many of my family's teams. As a 5-foot-9 white boy with a good jump shot but no strength, I still enjoy playing intramural and pickup basketball, but love writing for this website just as much.