RESPONSE: THE MAG's CBB DEPARTMENT TAKES ISSUE WITH EIC BELSKY'S LIST OF SPORTS

We just finished reading our boss' blog about his 27 favorite sports today. We say "today" because he emails frequently about his 27 favorite sports and the list (he) is pretty fluid (fickle). But this is the first time he's ever omitted college basketball completely (though it's usually low on the list).
     We in the college hoops department often accuse Gary of an anti-CBB bias because he cuts our pages, asks questions like "Who is this Beasley fellow?" and bails on us when we invite him to games and buy him tickets (you know, like Memphis vs. USC). But still he insists that he is a fan of the college game, and usually just looks at us like we're medicatable when we suggest otherwise.
     We'll give him MLB (you're dead inside if you don't get fired up for spring training), the NFL to an extent and the NHL (assuming he means the Senators and the Capitals). But the rest of his list? We're quite certain he's never watched a WNBA game in its entirety and when Ryan Scheckler came in to visit us last year, Gary left after like five minutes. Some fan.
     There's no other explanation: Our EIC hates college basketball.
     And we won't stand for it. So we enlisted the help of our colleagues at The Mag, asking them what they thought about the omission of college basketball IN THE MIDDLE OF FEBRUARY. They, too, were appalled.
     This, is our response:

27 REASONS WHY COLLEGE BASKETBALL SHOULD BE NO. 1
(OR AT LEAST BEAT HORSESHOES)

27. Unlike college football, one loss isn't the end of the world … Even though it feels that way.

26. Bo Ryan. We'll keep waiting for Mike McCarthy to be this awesome.

25. Drew Lavender (Xavier), AJ Graves (Butler) and Tajuan Porter (Oregon). They'll never make The League, so they play every game like it's their last.

24. John Mellencamp lets Kelvin Sampson use his music, but not John McCain.

23. Hating Duke is fun. And easy.

22. Coaches in coats—Bruce Weber and Bruce Pearl in orange, Sidney Lowe in red, Roy Williams in blue.

21. College basketball is America. It's a tad exploitive, with the workers not getting paid their due, and the powers that be looking the other way as their checks clear. But that's why the sport reflects us better than any other. Aha! If you don't like college basketball, you're a Communist!

20. Lester Hudson at little Tennesse Martin. He's putting up 25.4 ppg with 7.8 boards inget this36 minutes a game. He also recorded the first quadruple double in men's DI history this year. Oh, and he's a guard. This kid is a bad ass.

19. You've got to be George Bush to get into the Super Bowl. To reach the Final Four, you can be George Mason.

18. Bandy highlights come with tunes fresh off the Dances with Wolves soundtrack. (And the NBA used John Tesh for a decade.) College hoops has one sound: One Shining Moment.

17. Because no Steinbrenner would ever allow this.

16. Dax Crum. He's a senior scholarship player at the University of Southern Utah who plays over 10 mpg and averages 3.4ppg and 1.1 apg … with one hand. That's right. he was born without a right hand and he plays DI ball. He even turned down scholarship offers to play soccer because he wanted to prove that he could, even though it had never been done before. Think you'll find that kind of heart in beach volleyball?

15. Tyler Hansbrough, OJ Mayo, Roy Hibbert and Brandon Rush sit next to different kids every day in class. A regular guy can't get within ten feet of Tom Brady or Albert Pujols these days.

14. Cold weather and hot gyms.

13. John Edwards just can't quit Ray Felton (Tar Heel Ray Felton, not Bobcat Ray Felton) and will wax poetic about their game of HORSE (that ESPN the Mag set up!) at every opportunity And Barack Obama keeps a Dookie on staff (former G Reggie Love) just to work out with and recount his campus exploits—that one about falling asleep in a UNC frathouse must be priceless. Together the Obama-Edwards ticket could bring a UNC-Duke cease-fire that could pave the way for Mideast peace.

12. Tom Izzo, Ron Burgundy and Magical Johnson.

11. At pro events you hear lame club music blasted over a loudspeaker. At college hoops games, you get the VCU Pep band busting out "Crazy In Love", the Southern band owning every song from a given week's "Rap City" on BET and the Oregon band playing the theme from Ducktails. (Note to selves: Figure out how to get these on our ipods)

10. Hinkle Fieldhouse where the Hoosiers played actually exists and a team actually plays there. That team is Butler. And Butler is ranked No. 8 in the country.

9. Because sometimes all the money in the world won't buy you a ticket. You have to want it badly enough to camp out.

8. The games always live up to the hype. Interleague play? Kind of a letdown. The Rose Bowl? Pretty much a snoozer this year. Memphis vs. Tennessee on Saturday? No way it disappoints.

7. Danny Green was five years old when this album went Platinum for House of Pain

6. 48 games in less than 75 hours. Find four days better than the opening weekend of the NCAA Tourney. We'll be waiting. With a dozen brackets printed out.

5. 17-0 is nothing. UCLA won 88 games in a row from 1971-73 (That John Wooden guy was good. And at 97, he still goes to almost every game at Pauley), Indiana went 32-0 in 1976 and if Memphis wins out, the Tigers will have gone 40-0 this season.

4. Mike Beasley appreciates members of the press and their gadgets.

3. Even DII gets you out of your seat.

2. Because no matter how much you know or think you know, you always lose your office pool to some guy who picked Purdue because he likes chicken.

1. The Super Bowl, The Masters, Title Fights, Wimbeldon—all of those are for executives, for long boring conversations about the merits of Macallan 18 year old versus the 12. But March. That is for fans. For real people, from towns low on stoplights but big on passion. March is Miller High Life, and your best friends, and meat smoking for hours. It's irresponsible gambling and job truancy. The Super Bowl is sports business. March Madness is sports.

Contributors: Elena Bergeron, Jordan Brenner, Luke Cyphers, Matt Giles, Ian Gordon, Jon Scher, Jim Surber, Wright Thompson, Sarah Turcotte

If you think of even more reasons college hoops trumps the sports on Gary's list, email him at gary.belsky@espn3.com

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