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College basketball is officially underway with most everyone tipping off in their respective season openers this week. While fans are excited that the action is back, a number of viewers were upset with the lack of high-profile matchups over the first two days.
They’ve let their voices be heard on social media, calling for action from schools and schedulers.
Anticipation has been building for the beginning of the year, and it will continue to do so as we make our ways to March. Unfortunately, this season didn’t exactly get started with a bang.
In other major sports, we often see heavyweight showdowns in the opening weeks.
Look at football, where we saw major brands like Alabama and Texas, Utah and Florida, and Miami and Texas A&M squaring off in non-conference play.
Heck, look over to the women’s basketball slate, which also started this week and featured a matchup between No. 6 South Carolina and No. 11 Notre Dame, as well No. 20 Colorado and No. 1 LSU.
But the men’s schedule left a lot to be desired.
College basketball analyst Jeff Goodman commented on that disappointing start on social media.
It’s great to have college hoops back, but this slate is incredibly underwhelming. There are 185 games involving men’s D-1 teams today and 72 of them are against non D-1’s. Complete joke.
And that was just for Monday…
He doubled down on that take after Day 2, echoing the same sentiment.
There are 29 men’s games tonight and nearly half of them (14) will involve a D-1 team playing a non D-1. The NCAA needs to put in a rule where teams are only allowed to play a max of one Non-Division 1 each year.
Most major programs started with “buy games,” paying opponents to come in and get beatdown. Of course, that backfired for a few unlucky teams. There were no ranked vs. ranked contests.
For college basketball viewers, the warm-ups provided little drama on the court. At least the competition can only go up from here.