Champions Classic left out college student atmosphere

Bankers+Life+Arena+sits+quietly+before+a+night+full+of+top+basketball+teams+take+to+the+court+to+display+their+talents+in+Indianapolis+%2C+In.%2C+on+Tuesday%2C+November+18%2C+2014+Photo+by+Jonathan+Krueger

Bankers Life Arena sits quietly before a night full of top basketball teams take to the court to display their talents in Indianapolis , In., on Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Photo by Jonathan Krueger

By Nick Gray

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Champions Classic presents itself differently than any other college basketball event, including the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four.

And the reasons why make me love and hate what it has become.

The two-game, four-team event is great for teams and for television. ESPN gets to run its own event with exclusive coverage that includes cross promotion for some of its best personalities (Kirk Herbstreit) and some of its most suffocating (Stephen A. Smith).

I’m sure on television that viewers heard a lot of noise from Smith, Herbstreit and other people who cover college basketball on television. The Champions Classic got all the face time on ESPN Tuesday all evening. What viewers didn’t hear was students.

If someone watched in the arena, they probably could have heard the vague noise of Michigan State students from the rafters. They were there, stashed high above the arena and were rendered voiceless. They could have been screaming at their televisions in East Lansing.

The Cameron Crazies had school on Tuesday at Duke, so I would have been surprised to see a host of Blue Devil students regardless of the access that could have been given.

But, given the chance, I bet Kansas would have brought a good amount of students for a student section in the corner akin to the setup that the NCAA has at the Final Four. Michigan State certainly would. And UK students had a three-hour drive to make, certainly a short enough ride for a game against a top-five team.

At times, the atmosphere suffered because of the lack of vocal students on Tuesday, most notably during the Duke-Michigan State game. The arena was about two-thirds full of Kansas and UK fans, with Michigan State ranking third and Duke sliding along the rear of the pack.

To say the atmosphere was dead, with a game of two teams that have wonderful student sections and overall atmospheres themselves, is an understatement. It did not feel like college basketball on Tuesday, especially in the first game. It felt too much like an NBA game — a lot of people with a lot of money showing up, with some vocal pockets around the arena. Tuesday felt important, but not really important, very much like a NBA regular season game. For a night featuring those programs, that’s a saddening state of affairs.

The Champions Classic is much a basketball event. But it embraces the more obnoxious aspects of the NBA game atmosphere. Organizers have taken the college out of college basketball when these four programs, the four that define the sport, play.