If you had the choice to go to the NCAA Championship game at the Final Four or an NBA Finals game, which would you choose? For me, it’s an easy choice — the NCAA. In my mind, there is no question that the world of college basketball is superior to the NBA.

First of all, the regular season in the NBA is way too long. With 82 games, it is impossible for players to get up for every contest, even if they are getting paid obscene amounts of money for each game.

Honestly, if you watch only the last five minutes of an NBA game, you still see the best part. It seems as though there is always a comeback in the final minutes. This comeback happens no matter how far ahead one team may have been earlier in the contest. I’m not sure whether it is the winning team’s lack of concentration that causes this or what, but this “comeback deal” hardly ever fails.

What’s more, it doesn’t seem to mean anything to the NBA team whether they win or they lose. But why would it? The team has another game the next night.

In college ball, every game counts as the season is much shorter. Each game is important because you rarely meet even the team’s in your conference more than once. A loss is not as much of a killer as a loss playing in the college ranks, but if you have hopes of getting invited to the big dance, you must put up some quality wins over highly-touted teams, or else you will not be selected by the NCAA committee.

Other substantial advantages with the college game is its ticket cost and the quality of its fans. In the NBA, good tickets cost a fortune to get and most of the people are older and rather subdued until the last few seconds. However, at the college level, many contest facilities have student sections right atop of the floor strategically placed behind the opposing team’s bench.

Sidenote, isn’t it great to see a mob of students rush on the floor to celebrate a big upset victory (assuming the DPS doesn’t beat the hell out of them and haul them away)?

More on the cool college fanatics, the shear sound volume at college games is much louder. At Hilton, we have our “Hilton Magic,” Duke has their “Cameron Crazies” and New Mexico has “the Pit.”

The biggest reason that college fans are more enthusiastic is the fact that there simply isn’t a quality professional venue in the area for them to attend.

States such as Iowa, Mississippi, and the Carolinas can’t boast of having a professional team. And as a result, the fans are forced to go wild in their efforts to support the local college team.

If you were lucky enough to attend a Duke/North Carolina game, you would be able to see how true fanatics act. It’s much the same throughout the southern states and the Midwest. Crowds absolutely fall in love with their teams, and often take it personally when things do not go “their way.”

Next, you have to look at the lower-tier teams at the two levels. When poor teams in the NBA realize they’re not going to make the playoffs, they begin to just play out the string.

On the other hand, no matter how bad a college team may be, it still works as hard as possible to knock off the top teams.

The players are also another big difference. In college, the term “work ethic” still means something. These athletes are not playing just to earn a guaranteed contract on the free agent market so they can spend the rest of their career loafing around the court. It is no coincidence that pro athletes seem to have breakthrough years in the final year of their contract.

The entire concept that any good a team can be knocked out early in the tournament is the reason it’s so difficult to see a lesser team advance in the NBA series format. Anyway, it gets awfully boring seeing the Bulls winning all the time.

The NBA has become so commercialized and when its players act like spoiled brats, it is hard to back any team.

When athletes are in the college ranks, they still have a sense of teamwork and a respect for authority. (I’m not even going to start with Latrell Sprewell). I always get a kick out of watching college players slide across the floor after the ball.

Lastly, what can beat the atmosphere of the NCAA Basketball Championships? Nothing. The emotion, the idea that one bad night, the fact that an unfavorable bounce of the ball and you can be eliminated. The shear exhilaration of seeing a Gonzaga downing an Arizona is unbeatable.

Simply said, there is no substitute for a prime-time college basketball game.

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Scott Johnson is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Holstein.