When does hoops season start?

I’m sorry, but I just can’t find the energy to get excited about basketball season. No other sport hides its light under a bushel like college hoops. Starts in the shadows, under football’s glare, and plays cool games when much of the American sports fan is preoccupied elsewhere. This week, we can finally focus on college basketball — OU hosts Tulsa and Stephen F. Austin; OSU hosts Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and East Tennessee State — but how much better it would be if this was the opening week. If the Tuesday night doubleheader at Madison Square Garden, featuring three of the nation’s best freshmen (Memphis’ Derrick Rose, USC’s O.J. Mayo and Kansas State’s Michael Beasley) had been a season tipoff doubleheader.

College basketball is a sport that is killing itself. Even in the hotbeds, fans aren’t warming up to the sport. Kansas-Arizona drew 2,000 no-shows on 10 days ago to Allen Fieldhouse. That’s an ominous sign. College basketball needs a scheduling overhaul.