Hey, guess what's awesome: Midnight Madness is tonight! Get your canned goods ready and wedge yourself into your school's basketball arena, because you have glorified practices to watch.

I say glorified practices lovingly, of course. The truth is that while Midnight Madness extravaganzas are technically practices, they're the furthest thing from any sort of real practice the players will begin to go through as soon as the last fan files out of Big State Arena. Even the scrimmages teams put on -- ostensibly designed to give fans a preview of what's to come in the season ahead -- offer very little in the way of useful information. They're just for show.

Oh, but what a show it is! That's the point I'd like to hammer home here: Midnight Madness may not be good for serious basketball purposes, but in terms of officially opening a season, it doesn't get much better than this. Pack a whole bunch of people into a gym on a Friday night. Make admission free (or charge the price of one canned good for charity). Throw a dunk contest and a three-point shooting competition and a scrimmage and a whole bunch of goofiness in the mix. Make Jerry Rice do the Soulja Boy dance; make Tom Izzo dress like a maniac. Voila: Midnight Madness magic.

I'll try to get a complete list of Midnight Madness events posted before the day is over, but in the meantime, let's thank former Maryland coach Lefty Driesell for his contribution here. From Wikipedia:

Lefty Driesell, Maryland Terrapins men's basketball head coach, started the tradition in 1970 or 1971 with an unofficial session that was attended by 3,000 fans at the University of Maryland's football stadium, Byrd Stadium. Every year thereafter until 2008, he celebrated the first minute that NCAA-sanctioned regular basketball practices may occur at the stroke of midnight with a basketball practice event, but in 2008 the event was delayed until sunrise.

Lefty Driesell totally invented Midnight Madness. What a genius. There have been lots of evolutionary contributions to the game of basketball over the years, and Lefty has plenty of his own that trump this, but even if this was his only lasting legacy, it would be a good one. Midnight Madness brings us joy. It's like Christmas for people who spend way too much time thinking about college basketball. Finally, Christmas is here.

Related: Midnight Madness