Hang on, junkies

College basketball is almost here

I love college basketball.

And I’m impossibly pumped its season is close to starting.

It’s the only sport that succeeds with a six-week season, and four of those weeks are playoffs. From the day after the Super Bowl to the first week in April. You might or might not be paying attention to February — college basketball is the main beneficiary of the worst month of sports on the calendar — but you will be taking note in March.

Imagine a MLB season starting on Labor Day. That’s college basketball.

Imagine the NBA tipping off May 1. Oh, wait. You mean it doesn’t already?

What if, all those years ago, God and Pete Rozelle had decreed a four-game regular NFL season, commencing Thanksgiving weekend?

We’d have had three fewer months of Joe Buck.

More isn’t always better. Occasionally, more is just more.

Um, Doc, they’ve been playing since before Thanksgiving.

Yeah. But have you been watching?

Disclaimer: If you are a huge fan of the quasi-am game, or if you have big rooting interests, maybe this doesn’t apply to you. If you’re like me, you appreciate the preseason, i.e. any games before the conference season and all games against lilliputians.

More than any sport, college hoop offers fans a chance to see how their teams improve (or don’t) between November and March. UC, for example, is noticeably better today than it was when it lost to NKU. Xavier is better for having played IU, Duke and Gonzaga in November. That’s good coaching.

Howevuh. . .

The economy of college basketball is unmatched. It’s the difference between Blanton’s and Kentucky Tavern. The November-to-March season is what players spray in a championship locker room. Mid-February-to-March is Moet, sipped slowly. Good things come in small (six-week) packages.

I love college basketball. The OG covered MJ when he was in the ACC, interviewed the only coach whose office featured a bona fide Oriental rug (Dean Smith) and was blessed to speak with Clarence “Big House’’ Gaines and Earl “The Pearl’’ Monroe on the very same day back in 1985.

The ACC toonamint was the 2nd-best show in sneakers, beaten only by the big top of March. You think the Big East is large now? It toddles compared to the early 90s. Don’t agree? Take it up with Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, Pearl Washington, Reggie Williams, Derrick Coleman and a certain head coach at Xavier. And that was just the late-80s, early-90s.

College basketball is the only room big enough for and Bill Raftery and Dick Vitale. And don’t forget Al McGuire, who said this of his players at Marquette:

Our guys took Shop and Advanced Shop. Shop is when you make a chair. Advanced Shop is when you paint it.

College basketball is the only sport with a coach cult so vast, it only needs first names or nicknames to identify the participants:

K.

Dean, Bobby, Cal, Huggs, Phog. Rollie. Lefty.

Name five famous NBA coaches not named Red, Phil or Riles, win season tickets to the 1977-78 Buffalo Braves.

This year, the Six-Week War promises to be crazy good. Not for the titanic struggles. The high rankings are remarkably light on bluebloods: North Carolina, Duke and until recently, UK. Others — Gonzaga and Kansas — loiter on the fringes of Top 10-ness.

Purdue is No. 1, followed by the likes of Houston, Tennessee and Alabama. Not exactly royalty in shorts. What this should mean is that little guys — the lilliputs in their finest high-heeled sneakers — should have a bigger puncher’s chance come the first week of the Madness. Those opening-round upsets provide a tang like none other in sports.

And we only have to a month or so from now to get them.

Gotta love the six-week college basketball season.

Now, then. . .

Cincinnati.com

FOLLOW THE BOUNCING BALL. . . Is it heresy to suggest that when Zach Freemantle returns from his foot injury that he play the 6th-man role while Jerome Hunter starts?

What Xavier loses in offense does it gain on the other end? Points haven’t been a problem in Freemantle’s absence. In Sunday’s W over St. John’s, the Musketeers had 26 assists on 32 baskets.

Defense continues to be spotty. I realize the Freemantle move probably won’t happen. Who removes from their starting lineup a scoring and rebounding force? Sounds like a dumb sportswriter idea.

But assuming Freemantle bought in, it could strengthen X’s D while not greatly impacting its punch.

ARE THE BEARCATS LEARNING HOW TO WIN? That could be the takeaway from the W Saturday. Cynics might suggest that an 81 percent free-throw shooter for UCF missed three shots on the same trip to the line, while a guy shooting sub-.50 percent made both his freebies. That happened in the final stages of a close game.

A positive person would note that UC withstood the late charge and beat a decent team. This is how momentum, trust and confidence build.

AND IT’S AMAZING TO ME how some fans still disparage the work John Brannen did. They don’t find it at all ironic to be praising Wes Miller’s job, even as the core of Miller’s team (minus Landers Nolley) was signed by Brannen: Lakhin, DeJulius, Davenport and Adams-Woods.

The Bearcats are one formidable low-post guy from being a Madness participant. Lakhin is playing well. He can’t do it alone.

Moving right along. . .

ARE DUMB AND FUN mutually exclusive?

Absolutely not. Youse wouldn’t be reading this if they were.

That’s the best observation I could make after trying to watch NFL “stars’’ play non-tackle football Sunday, also known as Another Hour I’ll Never Get Back. It’s also a conclusion worthy of The Hangover movies. Who didn’t like that epic slice of raging stupidity?

More than 58,000 fans attended the flag football performance in Vegas Sunday, proving the world is full of sports fans who also ask for a card while sitting on18 at the blackjack table. Maybe every fan named “Harry’’ or “Lloyd’’ got in free.

I will say this: The Tyler Huntley Show has never looked better.

A NEW TERM: Snowplow parent. I’d never heard of it until some Mobster used it in This Space last week. The website todaysparent.com defines it as a parent “who constantly forces obstacles out of their kids' paths. They have their eye on the future success of their child, and anyone or anything that stands in their way has to be removed.’’

I know people like that. Youse?

And finally. . .

ROUGH ECONOMY? WHERE? Not at bars and restaurants. On Saturday night, we went to Dead Low Brewing on Kellogg. At 7 pm, we were told the wait was two hours. Luckily, we nabbed the last two seats at the bar. Otherwise, our only move was for the door.

Last weekend, we attempted Ramsey’s, on the bike trail in Loveland.

Haha.

Forget a table. We couldn’t even find a place to park. It wasn’t the first time. Downtown Loveland has been blowing up for several years, but nothing quite like this. We’ll save our dinners out for weeknights.

Ditto, Milford, where Little Miami Brewing and the new distillery just across the street are loaded seemingly every night. (Loaded. See what I did there?) That’s great, of course, but I always wonder how people are affording this in Joe Biden’s allegedly lousy economy.

AND A BAD TREND. . . Beer prices aren’t merely edging up. They’re sprinting northward. Seven-fifty for a pint of craft at Dead Low and Milford. A year ago, it was $6. A year before that, $5. Are we killing the golden goose, proprietors?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . My 6th-grade sweetheart is a Mobster. Don’t tell anyone. When we were 12, we’d hang out in Mark Wooldridge’s basement, where all the cool kids danced on Saturday afternoons. Think of it as American Bandstand Meets the Mickey Mouse Club.

My favorites were Crimson and Clover, and Hey Jude, for its endless nanananananana finish. (More dance time.) And this one. All the cool kids loved Tommy James and the Shondells.

Youse Mobsters of a Certain Age can relate. Favorite slow-dance tunes, please.