{"id":592349,"date":"2026-02-09T11:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T11:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/592349\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T11:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T11:27:18","slug":"cherish-this-college-basketball-season-its-set-to-deliver-a-march-for-the-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/592349\/","title":{"rendered":"Cherish this college basketball season \u2014 it&#8217;s set to deliver a March for the ages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a weekend that served as a reminder about what makes college basketball great, despite all the ongoing issues in the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A few days of thrilling games between top teams that were full of high drama, exciting finishes and highlighted what has been a memorable season up to this point.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It started Friday night at the Garden, the Big East game of the year between <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/06\/sports\/st-johns-rolls-past-no-3-uconn-for-statement-big-east-win\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">No. 3 Connecticut and No. 22 St. John\u2019s<\/a>, a meeting that felt like March, that had MSG <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/07\/sports\/st-johns-fans-did-their-part-and-more-during-electrifying-uconn-win\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rocking like a Knicks playoff game<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It continued Saturday. There was No. 14 North Carolina <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/07\/sports\/unc-fans-prematurely-storm-court-against-rival-duke-in-wild-scene\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">beating No. 4 Duke in the final seconds on Seth Trimble\u2019s 3-pointer<\/a>. There was Michigan State and Illinois, two top 10 teams, going to overtime. There was Kentucky rallying past No. 25 Tennessee, and coach Mark Pope celebrating afterward with teammates from the great 1996 team known as \u201cThe Untouchables,\u201d who were honored during the clash.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a weekend that served as a reminder about what makes college basketball great, despite all the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,66,198,196,218,76572],"class_list":{"0":"post-592349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-sports-columnists","15":"tag-sports-plus","16":"tag-st-johns-red-storm","17":"tag-zach-to-school"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116040436553937750","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}