The official start of the 2007-08 regular season isn’t until Friday, but the NCAA exempted the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament, which is starting tonight in Memphis and will run throughout the week at several other sites (Storrs, Lexington, Norman) before holding the championship rounds at MSG next week. ESPN and Comcast have ensured that we won’t be able to see any of this week’s games in our local viewing area – thanks, guys! But jeez, this seems really early – we just changed our clocks for chrissakes. Mike DeCourcy has the best take on the matter:

Once again, instead of the triumphant introduction to the season we have in such sports as NFL football and Major League Baseball, college basketball just sort of stumbles in and grabs a seat in the corner.

With college football and the NFL in full swing, it’ll take until Thanksgiving for anyone to notice that we’re already playing games, but that’s ok. It gives us a chance to bone up on early hits and misses (ahem, Michigan St.) while nobody’s watching.

Here’s the CvC bracket:

A few comments:

• Quick Rant. Why the hell aren’t ESPNU games part of the Full Court Package? That makes completely no sense to us as it seems a natural fit. And yes we’re extremely annoyed that Comcast will not offer ESPNU in our area.
• Predictions. Memphis will roll through its regional, keeping the nation’s longest homecourt winning streak (32) alive. Kentucky will bomb Central Arkansas but struggle with Alabama A&M and shotblocker extraordinaire Mickell Gladness in the second round. UConn will get a game from Todd Bozeman’s Morgan St. squad before faltering, then destroy Buffalo in round two. Our possible upset alert is USF over Oklahoma. The Dons probably don’t have enough to pull it off, but we expect a close game there. Still, we expect Jeff Capel’s OU team to represent the Norman region at MSG next week.
• Quick Fact. Kentucky is 0-2 in this event, with both losses coming in 2000 (UCLA, St. John’s) when it was a four-team tourney. Grab the ball, Tayshaun! That record will change this time around.

If you’re a college hoops junkie like us (and you must be if you’re reading this blog), you’ve probably considered the above question. We’ve purchased the $99 ESPN Full Court package for the last four years running and we plan on doing so again this year. Over the years, we’ve spent countless hours on the phone with Comcast (so you want the NBA League Pass, right?) and searching the espn.com website (as of this morning, we still couldn’t find a list on there) to try to find a complete list of all the games that the Full Court Package was going to have, most of the time to no avail.

Now that we have a little more experience with finding this list, we thought it’d make sense to provide it to you guys so you can make an educated decision as to whether you want to throw some bones toward the rapacious bastards your cable company. Whether you should purchase the 427-game FCP depends completely on the following factors:

1) if you’re unemployed how much free time you have

2) if the MSM hates your team how often your favorite team(s) or conference(s) are shown on the package

3) if you live in a hole whether you live outside the local area from said team/conference

Here are a few tidbits about this year’s FCP:

• Missouri has the most games on the FCP with 22 – here are some of the other high-volume notables:
  • 16 – Arkansas, Texas Tech
  • 15 – Oklahoma, Seton Hall
  • 14 – UConn, Iowa St., Kansas, Louisville, LSU
  • 13 – Alabama, Marquette, St. John’s, Texas
  • 12 – New Mexico St., South Carolina
  • 11 – Kentucky, Miami (FL), Nevada, Oklahoma St., Ole Miss, Providence, Rutgers, South Florida, West Virginia
  • 10- Florida, Mississippi St., Pittsburgh, Tennessee

• There will be 115 nonconference games on the FCP this year, most of them obviously occurring prior to Jan. 1. Some of the best of the list are:
  • Texas Tech @ Sam Houston St. (11.14.07)
  • Clemson @ Mississippi St (11.15.07)
  • BYU @ Louisville (11.23.07)
  • Nevada @ UNLV (11.24.07)
  • Boston U. @ Pittsburgh (11.27.07)
  • Missouri @ Arkansas (11.28.07)
  • Oral Roberts @ Texas (12.18.07)
  • Washington @ LSU (12.29.07)
  • Xavier @ Auburn (01.06.08)
  • Georgia Tech @ Georgia (01.09.08)

• The remaining games are conference games, and the BCS leagues are well-represented. Here’s the rundown there (notice anyone missing, Big Ten fans??):
  • Big East – 69
  • SEC – 63
  • Big 12 – 56
  • ACC – 36
  • WAC – 34
  • MAAC – 12
  • Big Sky – 10
  • Colonial – 10
  • America East – 9
  • Pac-10 – 8
  • Missouri Valley – 2
  • Northeast – 2
  • Southland – 1

• Hey, we’re on board with watching more WAC and Colonial games than another depressing slugfest between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Still, we would have liked to have seen a little more of The Valley and Colonial, but it’s better than last year, and we’re hopeful it will continue to improve.

• Best conference matchups:
  • Pittsburgh @ Villanova (01.06.08)
  • Vermont @ Albany (01.06.08)
  • Texas @ Missouri (01.12.08)
  • Notre Dame @ Georgetown (01.19.08)
  • George Mason @ UNC-Wilmington (01.26.08)
  • Vanderbilt @ Florida (01.27.08)
  • Tennessee @ Mississippi St. (02.02.08)
  • Nevada @ Utah St. (02.02.08)
  • USC @ Washington St. (02.09.08)
  • Boston U. @ Vermont (02.14.08)
  • Stanford @ Arizona (02.16.08)
  • Oklahoma @ Texas (02.23.08)
  • Tennessee @ Florida (03.05.08)

Here’s the complete list.