For so long we salivated in anticipation of the Thanksgiving tournaments. They’ve now come and gone, but we have still more great games to consume. This week’s schedule includes the two-day, 16-game SEC/ACC Challenge, as well as the five-day, 11-game Big 12-Big East Battle. Duke-Auburn, anyone? Marquette-Iowa State? Yummy yummy yummy!
That’s not even to mention the Marquette-Wisconsin, Kentucky-Gonzaga and Kansas-Missouri games that will be played over the weekend. You get the idea. This flurry of big games, my friends, has not come about by accident. Many years ago, the NCAA men’s basketball committee made clear that it would emphasize the importance of non-conference schedules when it came to determining who got to play in the NCAA Tournament and where they were seeded. This has put pressure on coaches, TV networks and other stakeholders to make November and December as interesting as possible. And that has been huge for college basketball, which has enough of a hard time competing with football for eyeballs this time of year.
Things will settle down towards the end of the month as we move into final exams and the holidays, but in the meantime, we have yet another week of wall-to-wall action to savor. It's a lot to keep track of, but as always, Hoops HQ will have you covered.
— Seth
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