The Perfect Sport

College Basketball is the perfect sport. Consider...There is really 4 distinct parts to the season. Performing well in any one of them and holding your own in the others will get you into the fourth, the Tourney.

Part 1. Nov through Dec. This is non-conference play. You schedule up some cupcakes and maybe a couple tough home games. What you want to do here is go about 12-2. With that non-conf record, you can hit 8-8 or so in your conference play and still be a 20 win team which will pretty much always get you dancing if you're a BCS conf team.

Part 2. Ok so maybe part 1 didn't go so well. You ended up with a couple tough games on the road and maybe lost one at home. So you're now at .500. Now you're looking at the conference schedule to redeem yourself. Of its tougher than part 1, but if you perform well, say 10-6 with maybe a big marquee win on the road, youre still looking at maybe a 18-10 record. On the bubble but a definate chance to make it.

Part 3. Ok you blew the non conf schedule. You had some early conf season injurys and only put up 6 wins there. But you won 4 or your last 5 and are on a roll. You have no chance at an at large but you do have the conference tourney as your final gasp of hope.

So you have 3 distinct ways to get to the tourney.

Ahhhh the tourney.....It is the perfect sporting event. 3 weeks of non-stop action. (well it stops on mon-wed, but you spend those entire days talking about the action)