The morning after the Madness
On the night of October 14, midnight came well before the sun went down at the campuses of basketball crazy schools across the United States. At Syracuse, UNC and Kansas, as well as St. John’s and Kentucky and many others, fans got their first glimpses of the new squads ready to compete for this year’s National Championship.
The past weekend’s festivities ranged from the reserved to the manic.
At Kentucky and UConn, prolific head coaches John Calipari and Jim Calhoun predicted success, but with no specifics. During “Late Night With Roy” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, five returning Tar Heels with little to prove took to the hardwood to dance and act out skits, to the apparent delight of a giggling Roy Williams. Before a near-packed house at the 18,000-seat FedExForum, the Memphis Tigers put on both a three-point and slam dunk competition in the last-minute absence of rapper Rick Ross, who was unable to attend for medical reasons.
At Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas, Jayhawks head coach Bill Self, clad in leather chaps, rode his Harley into the gym with all the attitude of your dad in the middle of his midlife crisis to begin “Late Night in the Phog” – although that was later outdone by a staged prize fight between Victor Ortiz and the director of operations for Kansas men’s basketball. Dressed as Maverick from “Top Gun,” Michigan State coach Tim Izzo took center stage at the Breslin Center in East Lansing — completing the costume was a miniature fighter jet as well as Izzo’s wife and children dressed as the landing crew.
At Butler, coach Brad Stevens led his Bulldogs in practice behind closed doors, without a fan or camera in sight.
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The morning after the Madness, squinty-eyed and desperate for Gatorade as the roosters crowed on college campuses all across America, the NCAA men’s basketball season had begun and there is once again hope in the world of basketball.
But since when has the season started like this?
Midnight Madness, as an idea, is nothing new, but the pomp and circumstance of it is. In 1971, Maryland Terrapins head coach ‘Lefty’ Driesell wanted a (legal) competitive advantage over the other teams. He got the idea to hold practice as early as the NCAA would allow him. The Virgin Islands Daily News of October 16, 1971 tells the story:
Under big college basketball rules, practice for the coming season’s games became legal as of yesterday. So at three minutes past 12 in the morning, Maryland coach Charles Driesell put 21 players through a preliminary workout: a one-and-one-half mile run.
The Kentucky Wildcats and Kansas Jayhawks both copied the idea in the ‘80s, with Kentucky being the first to use “Midnight Madness,” while also combining the event with other forms of live entertainment. Since then, most big name schools have adopted some form of the idea, although the NCAA has graciously pushed the deadline to 7 p.m. in a means to not promote excessive partying so late into the night.
As the big name schools amp up the profile of these events, the media has taken notice. Most notably, ESPNU, the branch of the broadcasting giant dedicated solely to high school, college and amateur sports, has transformed the event from one largely covered by student media to one of national importance. With ESPNU broadcasting events live from Kansas, Georgetown and Gonzaga in recent years, coupled with most other schools choosing to broadcast the events live online and allow extensive media coverage, the event’s importance has shifted from campus-wide to nation-wide.
Humble in origin 41 years ago, the event is now something like a debutante ball at the biggest basketball schools in the nation. At Duke they celebrate all things Blue Devil, as fans packed Cameron Indoor Stadium to watch the newest freshmen members of the team. Later, watching the Blue Devils team scrimmage against themselves, the event also combined a dunk contest with appearances by Duke legends Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner. At Syracuse, Carmelo Anthony attended the festivities after organizers changed plans in order to raise the profile of the event, possibly to lure highly-touted recruits Nick King and Austin Nicholls. With Anthony’s appearance, the Orangemen’s events landed them time on ESPN3.com and ESPNU broadcasts.
This year in Maryland, where coach Driesell let the madness originally take hold 41 years ago, there was more on the agenda than a short run around a track: several members of the 2002 National Championship team, including Steve Blake and Chris Wilcox, returned to relive former glories, while Steve Francis and Greiviz Vasquez led other Terrapin alums in a pick-up game.
For school recruiters and marketers, the focus isn’t always on the now. Increasingly, the events are promotional tools for recruiters to bring the best talent to the programs. John Calipari eagerly hosted top-ranked prospect Shabazz Muhammad and a variety of other recruits, while most other schools did the same with the prospects they had their particular eyes on. Looking on as they decide where they will be duly worshipped in a year’s time, the next batch of high school recruits are attending the Madness, with recruiters hoping the young talents are impressed by the lasers and cheerleaders.
The new crop of NCAA basketball talent, still virgin to the intense glare of the spotlight, are often given the most attention at these so-called Midnight Madness events. Freshmen, such as Austin Rivers of Duke and Andre Drummond of the defending champion UConn Huskies, basked in the unachieved admiration of the mindlessly enthusiastic and hopelessly optimistic college students. At UConn’s ‘First Night,’ Drummond dunked between his legs as former alumni Ray Allen and Kemba Walker watched and who weren’t shy in their praise. At Duke’s ‘Countdown to Craziness,’ Rivers put on a shooting clinic during an intra-squad scrimmage, nailing four of five, including his first three attempts from behind the line.
If you’re optimistic about this new tradition, you might cite that fans of college basketball are finally becoming as insane as their fellow college football fans. You also may well be a very drunk, very enthusiastic student at a major NCAA basketball university. Whatever your motivation, this new tradition marks the start of a new season.
And so it begins.
Due to the NBA lockout, NCAA men’s basketball has an unprecedented amount of attention from the entire basketball world on it. Fortunately, as weary NBA fans stagger out of the light and start to avidly consume college ball, they will be witness to a high number of returning juniors and seniors filling the rosters of true contenders (see: Harrison Barnes and Kendall Marshall at UNC, Jared Sullinger at Ohio State, Perry Jones at Baylor), as well as exciting new freshmen-invigorated potential dynasties on the rebound (Rivers at Duke, Drummond at UConn).
From Midnight to March, this year’s NCAA basketball Madness should not disappoint.
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