Tonight, the Big Ten Network will, it says in a news release, "capture the madness and hysteria associated with the beginning of another thrilling basketball season with two and a half hours of live coverage during Big Ten Tonight: Basketball Season Tip-off Special."
The show will have live coverage of "Hoosier Hysteria" at Indiana, Michigan State's "Midnight Madness," "Tubby's Tipoff" at Minnesota, and Wisconsin's "Night of the Grateful Red."
In Los Angeles, there will be no hysteria, madness or anyone particularly grateful after UCLA Coach Ben Howland gets down to the business of coaching defensive principles and USC Coach Tim Floyd starts tutoring newcomers such as DeMar DeRozan and Leonard Washington about the rigors of scoring against, say, UCLA's defense.
The Bruins will practice from 8 to 11 tonight in a locked-down Pauley Pavilion. USC will begin at 7 p.m. without TV cameras or students filling the stands at Galen Center to welcome a new basketball season.
Howland has never embraced the idea of Midnight Madness, which makes the first day of NCAA-sanctioned team practices more like a televised recruiting show than a workout. What Howland wants when practice is officially allowed is, well, practice.
"There's not much time until the first game," Howland says. "I don't want to waste a practice."
USC's Floyd had held Midnight Madness the last three years.
"We have a shortened calendar," Floyd said. "Our season opens Nov. 15 and that really doesn't give us much time to get prepared. I want to go have a real practice and not a carnival atmosphere. I guess I figure we're on TV enough, there's enough other stuff going on in our city now, we don't need it. We did it, we loved it, I just prefer to have good practices."
Oh, and the Trojans have lost their season opener three years in a row.
ESPNU will provide, it says, "whip-around coverage" of Midnight Madness events at Gonzaga, Davidson, Kansas, Georgetown and Indiana.
Anyone in Southern California who wants to experience hoops hoopla does have options.
UC Irvine is offering "Midnight Magic" as part of a student event called "Shocktoberfest" where there will be a street fair and a Bren Center concert by local rocker Matt Costa before the basketball.
Anteaters Coach Pat Douglass said his team will have a practice at 5 p.m., and then come out after the concert to dunk and shoot three-pointers.
