Life without live sports has been an adjustment, to say the least.
I still mindlessly flip through the channels on a daily basis, hoping to find any sort of game to watch. Earlier this week, I stumbled upon a regional Fox Sports affiliate replaying the men's college basketball game between Western Carolina and Florida State from this past November.
Four weeks ago, I wouldn't have even considered turning it on. Heck, I didn't watch a second of it when it was being played.
But now? I watched most of it and recorded it to watch again later. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Before you give up on finding sports to watch and resign yourself to a 17th cycle of watching The Office from start to finish, we have some options to help fill that college-sports-sized hole in your life.
Cable Options (all times ET)
If you're trying to plop down in front of the TV and watch some men's college basketball or college football this weekend, hopefully you have access to the CBS Sports Network. Otherwise, your options are quite limited, and they're only going to get more limited as we leave what would have been the 2020 Final Four weekend in the rearview mirror.
The conference-specific networks are doing what they can to keep fans tuning in.
The SEC Network will have men's basketball conference championship games from the past decade rolling straight from 10 a.m. through midnight Saturday. They're skipping 2011, 2013 and 2014, even though '13 and '14 were arguably the two best options from the last 10 years. But, hey, basketball is basketball at this point.
The Pac-12 Network has three football "classics" scattered throughout the day Saturday. The Big Ten Network is taking a similar approach, but with basketball Saturday and football Sunday. The ACC Network is also re-airing a few basketball games Sunday, but they're all from the 2019-20 season. The only one maybe worth watching is Cole Anthony's collegiate debut vs. Notre Dame at noon.
Aside from that, CBS is re-airing the 2012 Kansas-Kentucky basketball national championship at 4 p.m. Sunday, and ESPNU has the 1997 Nebraska-Missouri football gem—AKA the Flea Kicker—at 7 p.m. Sunday.
If watching sports movies with commercials is more your thing, Glory Road will be starting on ESPN at 8:45 p.m. Friday.
But the CBS Sports Network is where it's at, loaded with all-time great basketball national championship games.
Rather than listing them in chronological order of when they re-air, here they are in chronological order of when they were played. Hopefully that makes it easier for you to find any specific game that tickles your fancy.
1982 North Carolina vs. Georgetown—Friday 11 p.m.
1983 North Carolina State vs. Houston—Sunday 9 p.m.
1985 Villanova vs. Georgetown—Friday 7 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m.
1988 Kansas vs. Oklahoma—Saturday 5 p.m.
1997 Arizona vs. Kentucky—Saturday 1 p.m.; Sunday midnight and 6:30 a.m
2001 Duke vs. Maryland (Final Four)—Friday 10 a.m.
2003 Syracuse vs. Kansas—Saturday 7 p.m.
2007 Florida vs. Ohio State—Sunday 2 p.m.
2010 Duke vs. Butler—Sunday 4 p.m.; Monday 1 a.m.
2012 Kentucky vs. Kansas—Saturday 3 p.m.; Sunday 2 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.
2015 Duke vs. Wisconsin—Sunday 6 p.m.; Monday 3 a.m.
2016 Villanova vs. North Carolina—Saturday 1 a.m. and 11 a.m.
2019 Virginia vs. Texas Tech—Sunday 11 p.m.
YouTube Options
There's no better way to lose track of time than by falling down a YouTube wormhole, rabbit hole, vortex or whatever you call it where you're from.
My dad called me Wednesday to ask if I had ever seen the "Pittsburgh Dad" videos (of course I have), because he had just spent the past two hours laughing his way through a bunch of them. It was the first time I heard from my old man in about a week, but watching clip after clip on YouTube was something he thought I needed to know about. Love you, Dad. Keep washing your hands, please.
But in honor of April Fools' Day, I encourage you to lose a few hours this weekend watching "Best Trick Play" compilations from the past few college football seasons.
I'll get you started with this one from the most recent season. By the time you finish it (and inevitably a few others), you'll be wondering why teams don't call at least a few gadget plays every week. The reward certainly seems to outweigh the risk.
Streaming Options
Now that everyone is (hopefully) done obsessing over Tiger King, it's time to go back to using your streaming services to watch classic sports movies.
And I, for one, plan to correct a lifelong wrong by finally watching Blue Chips on Amazon Prime. (I've never seen Forrest Gump or The Godfather, either. You choose which is more unforgivable.)
Blue Chips is a fictional—yet all too realistic—story about a college basketball head coach (played by Nick Nolte) who gives a school booster the green light to start getting blue-chip recruits by any means necessary.
Shaquille O'Neal (as Neon Boudeaux) and Penny Hardaway (as Butch McRae) are among the players who receive lavish gifts to play for Western University. Other basketball figures make cameos, including Jim Boeheim, Jerry Tarkanian, Kevin Garnett and Dick Vitale.
We all should have watched it last weekend as a lead-in to HBO airing The Scheme, which was a documentary about Christian Dawkins' involvement in the FBI scandal that has been hanging over college basketball for several years now. But better late than never, right? Hopefully so, because it has been out for 26 years and I still haven't seen it.
Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.
Read 0 Comments
Download the app for comments Get the B/R app to join the conversation