The Colorado State and Air Force Academy basketball teams on Saturday tip off an always-spirited home-and-home, men’s-women’s split series in Fort Collins and near Colorado Springs. Who cares, you say? You should.
Let’s cut through the muck and set the record straight here and now about college basketball on the Front Range this season.
It’s easy to kick a team when it’s down. Or, in this case, it’s easy to kick 12 teams when they’re down. Between men and women, there are 12 college hoops teams in this area: Men’s and women’s squads at Colorado, CSU, Denver, Air Force, Wyoming and Northern Colorado.
Of those 12 teams, only the Denver women (14-12, 9-6 Sun Belt) are above .500 and in the top half of their conference standings. One. Out of 12. Over the third weekend of January, for example, the teams collectively went 0-12. Not good news.
But none of this matters in college basketball. Here’s why:
The Front Range teams are just as near their NCAA Tournament as any in the nation.
Sure, UNC might be No. 285 out of 343 teams in the RPI rankings. But is it conceivable the Bears could beat the likes of Portland State and Montana to win the Big Sky Conference and gain an automatic tournament bid? Absolutely it’s possible.
This is where CSU and Air Force come in.
CSU men (8-18, 3-9) and Air Force (9-16, 0-12) are in the Mountain West Conference cellar, at eighth and ninth, respectively, in the nine-team league. But the Rams on Wednesday took league-leading Utah to overtime before losing.
“I think that we’ve proven that when we play with that energy, we can play with anybody,” CSU coach Tim Miles said after the game.
Exactly. In college basketball, a team shooting hot can win on nearly any given night.
That brings us back to the home-and-home at Moby and Clune arenas. The CSU men travel south to face Air Force at 4 p.m. And the Falcon women (4-21, 0-12) head north to take on the Rams (8-17, 3-9) at 7 p.m.
Come March, we could look back on Saturday as the start of a hot streak that took one of our schools to the big tournament.
Air Balls
CSU men at Air Force
At Clune Arena, Saturday at 4 p.m., MTN
AFA women at CSU
At Moby Arena, Saturday at 7 p.m., MTN
AROUND TOWN
Wrestlers’ hold on Pepsi Center.
The San Antonio Spurs are known every year for a long, midseason road trip out of southern Texas, when a professional- rodeo stop kicks the NBA team out of its home arena.
In Colorado, the Nuggets and Avalanche face a similar road trip. The cause is the state high school wrestling tournament. The 896 high school wrestlers gathering this weekend at the Pepsi Center will decide 14 state titles in each of four different classes.
Five wrestlers will be going for a third championship. And Class 5A’s Ponderosa is seeking its seventh consecutive team title. Quarterfinals and semifinals compete today. Finals and consolations take place Saturday.
But the highlight happens before the finals, when the Parade of Champions walks all wrestlers through the Pepsi Center. It starts at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.
STAY ON THE COUCH
A case of flight AND fight.
Denver’s Nate Marquardt, in continuing his rise back up the Ultimate Fighting Championship ranks, was forced to travel all the way to London this weekend to remake his case.
The 29-year-old, 6-foot, 180-pound middleweight will take on Wilson Gouveia of Florida in a co-feature bout at UFC 95. The fights from London air on Saturday at 7 p.m. on Spike TV.
Marquardt lost a title fight in 2007 to Anderson Silva at UFC 73. But he since rebounded by defeating Martin Kampmann at UFC 88 in September. His comeback continues against Gouveia, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.
In the other featured fights, Diego Sanchez takes on Joe Stevenson in the lightweight division and Rory Markham goes against Dan Hardy at welterweight.
GET OFF THE COUCH
Time to Springs into action.
An early-morning Saturday drive to Steamboat Springs might be in order for a glide on the sticks.
The Steamboat cross-country ski marathon is being combined with the final race of Sven Wiik Nordic Cup Series at the Lake Catamount Touring Center, outside of town. For those who want to feel their lungs burn, there is a 40K race in classic and freestyle. Oh, by the way, the course runs at either side of 7,000 feet. For the faint of foot, there are the more manageable 1.5K, 5K, 10K and 20K efforts. Early registration ends at 8 a.m., and the classic skiers head out at 9 a.m. For more info, click on .
WHAT WE’D LIKE TO SEE
Four games, two teams, one weekend.
Bumped from their home at the Pepsi Center, the Nuggets and Avalanche hit the road for games this weekend. Fortunately for fans, all four games will show up on TV.
The Nuggets travel to Chicago to face the Bulls today at 6:30 p.m. (ALT) and then play the host Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday at 3 p.m. (ALT2).
The Avs go to Washington to take on Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals today at 5 p.m. (ALT2), then head south to face the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday at 1 p.m. (ALT).
