With the Super Bowl over and the baseball regular season still a few months away, sports fans such as myself who love baseball and football are at a temporary loss.

Looking for a solution can be tough, and, honestly, I don’t want to be one of those guys who gets overly excited for the NFL Combine or pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training.

So where do I turn?

I could start following the NBA more closely. The Hornets seem poised to make a run, but no one-including the people of New Orleans, judging by their attendance-cares. People are more concerned with how bad the Knicks and Heat are than with how good the Hornets are.

The Celtics were interesting for a while, until everyone realized they are not, in fact, the Bulls in their golden years. I’d go as far as to say that if one of their big three is injured in the playoffs, then they’ll make a hasty first-round exit. With all due respect to Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, the Celtics are a horrible team, minus these three stars. Remember how bad they were last year?

Then there is the NHL, which I don’t even pretend to know anything about. I am an avid Penguins fan, meaning I liked Mario Lemiuex, and I think their jerseys look awesome. I’ve heard that Sidney Crosby is pretty good, so go Pens! Hockey is fun to watch if you’re either at the game or watching Olympic hockey. Otherwise, I’ll pass.

I think I’m doing NASCAR a service here by even mentioning it. I would rather watch poker, since it is more of a sport than NASCAR. The Daytona 500 is coming up this weekend, and I couldn’t care less. There are better excuses for drinking beer (no offense to all of the NASCAR fans out there). Let me know when Ricky Bobby joins the circuit, and then I might just tune in.

So what is it that keeps me from watching nonstop coverage on the Roger Clemens steroid controversy? College basketball.

College basketball is so much more exciting and fun to follow than the NBA that I can’t even begin to compare the two. I am not a die-hard college basketball fan by any means, but nothing passes the time better than watching Big Monday, Super Tuesday, Wednesday Night Hoops or one of the other seven days of college basketball on ESPN that is so cleverly named.

With the exception of a few players, who will only be in the game for a year, the collegiate players have something that NBA players lack: heart. As cliché as it may sound, these games mean something to them, and many of these guys only have one year during which they actually get to play. So, losing to their rival or beating a ranked team may very well be the low and high points of college for these athletes.

Unlike college football, however, one loss doesn’t ruin a team. Hell, 10 losses might not even do that. The best part of the college basketball season is, obviously, the NCAA tournament. The tournament is, without question, the greatest event in college sports.

Every year, people such as myself get pumped up for it and then get pissed off three days in when our “sure thing” third seed loses to the 14th seed, and our upset specials are all wrong. It’s great.

So, until baseball season really gets into full swing, I’ll be watching Memphis try to continue its impressive run (watch out for Tennessee) and loving it. My only complaint is that the more I know about college basketball, the worse my picks are come March. Go figure.

Landon Burris is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.