We're Number 1

College Basketball Season opens tonight, just in time for you to forget the election and the fact that the Redskins ain't goin' nowhere this year. (Yes, they are only one game out of a wildcard, but so are half a dozen other teams. There are only two wildcards in the NFC.) Otherwise, there is no possible justification for opening the season before Thanksgiving week.

Many, including the USA Today/ESPN/College Coaches and the Associated Press polls both pick KU number one.

This frightens me. My teams never, ever go from pre- to post-season as number one, and certainly never win the championship if they started the season ranked first. In KU's last NCAA championship year, 1988, they weren't even first in the Big 8, much less the NCAA. During the Roy years KU went into the NCAA with a number one seed, and never won, of course. (Roy, we love ya', hope you have exactly as much success at North Carolina.)

KU's ranking is supposedly explained by the large number of returning seniors. Unfortunately, the returning seniors are Simien, Langford, and Miles, who, though good, are not going to make anyone forget Kirk Heinrich and Nick Collison, or Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce (OK, he never made senior). Well, let's hope that experience pays off. I remember a few years ago when KU took a senior NCAA team to the regional finals and got waxed by Arizona, including a very young Luke Walton.

The Washington Post, of course, bows to its statues of John Feinstein and Billy Packer and ranks Georgia Tech 1, North Carolina (phit) two.

Well, it's better than football season, anyway. I'll try to keep up to date.