At Georgetown, there is only one thing you need to purchase when it comes to sports: men’s Basketball season tickets. Instead of getting a care package from your aunt, just ask her to write you a check for one of the best investments you can make. Sure, they cost as much as a text book, but seriously, students will open most of those books six times during the semester.
Since many people don’t develop an allegiance to a college basketball team until they actually go to college, it is important to catch up quickly. Even the most rabid sports fans spend their teenage years lost in the college hoops shuffle.
The first difference is the players and the main reason for the variation is money. No school can pay their athletes (except for teams coached by John Calipari). But in the NBA, money breeds widespread narcissism and selfishness, which fuels the league’s player-first, team-second mentality. Only in the NBA could a player like Lebron James hijack the biggest sports channel in the country and hold an hour long special called “The Decision” to announce which team would be lucky enough to have him.
Unlike in college basketball, most teams in the NBA are built around one or two star players with complementary players assisting them. Every TV advertisement made it seem that the 2009 NBA Finals were between Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard, not the Lakers and the Magic.
Superstars have a harder time overshadowing their team in college. Both Duke and Butler, the teams in last year’s NCAA Final, didn’t have a single player who averaged more than 20 points per game for the season. Georgetown had Greg Monroe, who is now in the NBA, but the team’s success came from unselfish teamwork and tactical offensive strategy.
The fans are better in college, too. College students and alumni will drive miles and pack any venue from a downtown arena to a tiny gymnasium just to see their team play. Not only are they supportive, they form a formidable presence that gives a whole new meaning to home court advantage. At the Verizon Center last year, the “Gray-Out” helped the Hoyas beat eventual National Champion Duke in front of a packed house with President Obama sitting courtside. At schools, students stand the entire game and yell until their voices are gone.
The closest an NBA team can get to home-court advantage is having Tim Donaghy on its sideline. At a New York Knicks game, the only time fans yell is when they are angry with their BlackBerry service. It is a sad fact, but a majority of Knicks, Lakers, and Heat fans only go to games to be seen and make themselves look fashionable.
On both levels, the regular season is really only a tune-up for the postseason. There is nothing better in sports than the NCAA Basketball tournament. Come March, the brackets, the upsets, and the buzzer-beaters will even affect workplaces as adults abandon their work and are pulled into the insanity. Top contenders can always fall prey to embarrassment, losing in the first round to a no-name school. (But that can’t happen two years in a row, can it?)
In the NBA, the playoffs take forever. They last two months, almost as long as the annual Brett Favre Saga. The only enjoyable way to watch the playoffs is to turn on the TV and watch the final 10 minutes of game seven of the Finals. Nothing interesting happens in the first 59 days anyway.
When students walk through the front gates for the first time, the NBA takes a back seat to a kid’s game. But Georgetown is a top national program, so take them seriously. There are only a little over two months until Midnight Madness.
