What is a season? In worldly climatological terms, it is a period of time where weather conditions and biological attributes trend toward a particular mode, like our winters, springs, summers, and falls. Much of this is based on how the earth's position with the sun rotates, specifically the globe's axis in relation to our solar star.
Some places may have 2-3 climate seasons, while others maybe 8, depending on how the local cultures interpret them.
For sports fans, a season is the period of time allotted to play, compete and perhaps win a championship for their team or competitor. It can be 2-8 months long, sometimes longer or shorter. The Olympics is a brief season in their respective sports every 4 years, like the very popular World Cup. Now baseball has a competition called the World Baseball Classic that has a similar "season", featuring the world's best baseball nations and their representatives.
Some seasons carry over through the New Year's, like US football and basketball, not to mention hockey. Others end with each calendar year, like baseball, tennis, US soccer, racing, golf.
Some have no particular season like boxing and other fighting sports. Although real wrestling seems to operate at its own seasonal format, there is a fake wrestling circuit that appears to be alive and well. The local Toys R Us reminds me with all its gaudy action figures.
I was born and raised in Indiana, as you know. We Hoosiers experience basketball season in a unique way, but perhaps not unlike those in Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, and now Spain and Lithuania.
But because of my native-born bias, Indiana is different.
Perhaps of no consequence, Indiana has the largest high school gyms in the country. People care to watch. High school games are big deals. Or at least bigger than other states, other countries.
And then there is college. I won't go into any of the culture of the professional teams (there is one NBA, and some minor league squads in the confines of the Hoosier state), but there are college communities that care heavily and deeply about their college basketball seasons.
Indiana University, in historic competition with all other programs, perhaps starting with UCLA but also more recently Kentucky, UNC and Kansas, plus Duke and Connecticut, has its own claims to pride and relevence as a major college program.
Coach Bob Knight's first NCAA championship team went undefeated in 1975-1976.
And no one, which has included some great teams, and arguably better coaches and personnel talent, like Knight's protege Mike Krzyzshevski and his championship teams, has done the same since.
So far this college season (2013-14), there were three undefeated teams through January. The season began in November and will be completed in March, about 5 months long, averaging around 40 games, if successfully accomplished. A team has to win 6 in a row to finish on top.
But as the title suggests, us Indiana fans like the results of others' losses, to blemish their season. Number one ranked Arizona lost for the first time last night in Berkeley.
HOORAH! Two more to go: Syracuse and Wichita State. And both, perhaps in the next couple weeks if not March, should taste their own mortal possibilities. And not join the greatness of IU.
The '76 Hoosiers breathe a little easier, and the season of the current becomes a more palatable thing for die-hard Hoosier fans.
Enjoy the season. Shockers and Orangemen? Your'e next.
Blog it. EMC
Some places may have 2-3 climate seasons, while others maybe 8, depending on how the local cultures interpret them.
For sports fans, a season is the period of time allotted to play, compete and perhaps win a championship for their team or competitor. It can be 2-8 months long, sometimes longer or shorter. The Olympics is a brief season in their respective sports every 4 years, like the very popular World Cup. Now baseball has a competition called the World Baseball Classic that has a similar "season", featuring the world's best baseball nations and their representatives.
Some seasons carry over through the New Year's, like US football and basketball, not to mention hockey. Others end with each calendar year, like baseball, tennis, US soccer, racing, golf.
Some have no particular season like boxing and other fighting sports. Although real wrestling seems to operate at its own seasonal format, there is a fake wrestling circuit that appears to be alive and well. The local Toys R Us reminds me with all its gaudy action figures.
I was born and raised in Indiana, as you know. We Hoosiers experience basketball season in a unique way, but perhaps not unlike those in Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, and now Spain and Lithuania.
But because of my native-born bias, Indiana is different.
Perhaps of no consequence, Indiana has the largest high school gyms in the country. People care to watch. High school games are big deals. Or at least bigger than other states, other countries.
And then there is college. I won't go into any of the culture of the professional teams (there is one NBA, and some minor league squads in the confines of the Hoosier state), but there are college communities that care heavily and deeply about their college basketball seasons.
Indiana University, in historic competition with all other programs, perhaps starting with UCLA but also more recently Kentucky, UNC and Kansas, plus Duke and Connecticut, has its own claims to pride and relevence as a major college program.
Coach Bob Knight's first NCAA championship team went undefeated in 1975-1976.
And no one, which has included some great teams, and arguably better coaches and personnel talent, like Knight's protege Mike Krzyzshevski and his championship teams, has done the same since.
So far this college season (2013-14), there were three undefeated teams through January. The season began in November and will be completed in March, about 5 months long, averaging around 40 games, if successfully accomplished. A team has to win 6 in a row to finish on top.
But as the title suggests, us Indiana fans like the results of others' losses, to blemish their season. Number one ranked Arizona lost for the first time last night in Berkeley.
HOORAH! Two more to go: Syracuse and Wichita State. And both, perhaps in the next couple weeks if not March, should taste their own mortal possibilities. And not join the greatness of IU.
The '76 Hoosiers breathe a little easier, and the season of the current becomes a more palatable thing for die-hard Hoosier fans.
Enjoy the season. Shockers and Orangemen? Your'e next.
Blog it. EMC
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