(10-14-2020 09:47 PM)Springboromark Wrote: I really enjoy college basketball, unless someone gives me a free ticket to a NBA game, I don't go. I have attended UT, Wright State, UD, Miami(OH), and NKU games. Its fun and enjoyable plus tickets are cheaper for the most part. I plan on going to Sinclair (I graduated from this school located here in Dayton) junior college if I am allow to go during COVID. So much is hanging in the balance when this vaxcine will be available. Some sense of normalcy I hope will return.
I agree, with the exception of the NBA playoffs. College basketball anywhere is fun. You're indoors, even with small crowds there's good energy. the quality of play is good. and either you get up close and can really feel the game, or the place is crowded and you're higher up but still, again, indoors with good sight lines and even more crowd energy, although it isn't what it used to be.
college basketball had this arch of becoming really popular on campus nationwide in the 60s, 70s, 80s, in mostly mid sized arenas and halls. it was a game that lived big in person and in sportswriters, but wasn't a media thing. going to the game was more exciting than you expected much of the time. but as far as sports interest went it was baseball then football
and then you went down a tier-basketball, hockey, track, figure skating, gynmastics.
as the 80s went on and cable emerged and the ncaa tournament became a thing college basketball blew up but more as media content-games, highlights, hype. college hoops was bigger than ever through the 90s and into the 2000s, especially at the elite programs and big games. as the 2000s went along that hype and media interest wave ran it's cycle and most places saw declining fan interest. to me this is in part because the game day traditions faded away-if you went to a mac game at most places - toledo, miami, ohio, western, ball st- back in the day there were a lot of student chants, fan cheers, taunting of the opponent. often, there were fun little student contests or games during the timeouts, which were shorter and less frequent. the media and hype phase of college hoops redefined fandom around great players, dunks, amplified recorded hype music, and big games. when, we used to cheer just as hard for our average teams, now, we only cheered hard for the best ones. there wasn't enough blind rocket love or tradition to ground the undergrads, and most of them stopped coming to games after they left school.
in the past 15-20 years or so the game play has gotten cleaner and more entertaining (when you don't put larry bastfield 40 feet from the basket going 1 on 1 as the shot clock runs down every time), and some new fan traditions are emerging. so, long way of saying "I don"t know how Miami gets it back, but it can still be fun to go to a college basketball game for small change at Millet".
as far as your hopes on covid... yeah, a vaccine will help, but this is more like the cold. coronaviruses mutate and change and are hard to vaccinate against. i think the hope is you can get a vaccine that works on maybe 70% of the people for a season. and you can convince 70% of your population to get it, and have your flawed health care system get it to them. if that happens, you add to that the % who have had it recently and have some (likely temporary) immunity and you can bring the new transmissions number down low, so when there is an outbreak you can quickly find and control it, and gradually month by month cases get down low enough to safely bring people together. then, you need to make a new vaccine as the virus mutates and changes the next season. and, if you are good at the medicine and medical care access and distribution, over some years covid-19/corona becomes just another dangerous but uncommon illness that can affect a group or contact network of people and we understand how to best avoid it, treat it, and live with it. which is a long way of saying, even if a good vaccine comes out, it's gonna take a minute to get rid of, stay healthy my friends.