The Hell is Almost Over – Bring on ACC Play!

(First – Grantland piece up today about Virginia basketball. Are they the new Third Team in the ACC?)

I don’t know about you dudes and dudettes, but I’m finding it harder and harder to take pleasure in late December/early January basketball as I get older. Which is totally selfish and unfair, because the college basketball season is at least 75 percent awesome, as the following mathematical ‘chart’ illustrates:

25% – November, early December – Awesome, and Fun

25% – Mid-December to early January – Horrible

25% – Conference play – Awesome, and Tense

25% – Postseason play – Beyond Awesome, and Terrifying

And this little rough patch is more like 10% than 25%, so I shouldn’t moan. But I can’t help but envy the Big Ten, which has had awesome conference games for a week now. Meanwhile, Duke’s playing Greensboro, and Penn, and Western Michigan, and Temple, and every game is like a week apart. UNC is on a similar path. I know that’ll change when Cuse and Pitt come aboard, but I can’t wait. Sorry, but it’s too much to ask of entitled fans. We deserve more.

But tonight, it ends. This is the last game against a crap opponent where we’ll have to watch Miles Plumlee and Tyler Thornton get praised to high heavens by an announcer who is seemingly unaware that they’re both about to become irrelevant. Because after this…

ACC!

Here’s the schedule for the weekend.

Saturday:

No. 3 Duke at Georgia Tech
Boston College at No. 4 UNC (NEVER FORGET LAST YEAR!)
Miami at No. 4 Virginia (Weirdly, I’m pretty psyched about this game.)
Virginia Tech at Wake Forest (snooze.)
Florida State at Clemson (also a very intriguing game.)

Sunday:

Maryland at N.C. State (again, weirdly excited to see what happens here.)

It’s all gravy from here. This is the best, best, best time of year. And I know I can make it there. I spent most of my childhood suffering through church, so there’s no reason I can’t spend one night suffering through Temple.