Not everyone, apparently.

There's an emerging meme today -- Gary Parrish mentions it, Seth Davis devotes an entire column to it, and Mike Miller weighs in -- about the relatively quiet beginning to college basketball's season. It's true. College hoops is a slow build, one that starts with a whimper and ends with a bang. Most major sports get at least two bangs out of the deal; naturally, college hoops guys feel deprived.

And can you blame them? Tonight is our official opening night. The most noteworthy game has some minor off-court intrigue -- Isiah Thomas's heavy-hearted coaching debut coming against national power North Carolina -- but on the court, North Carolina is likely to win by 30. The rest of the slate isn't all that much fun, either. California-Murray State, Ohio State-Alcorn State, Albany-Syracuse ... these are not the type of match ups likely to get anyone's blood boiling.

There have been efforts to build a hypothetical college hoops Opening Day. The committee in charge of the idea soon got distracted with more pressing matters. But we might be getting closer. From Davis's piece:

"I don't know that there's a lot of momentum, but there's a consensus that we need to explore the best ways to try and unify around an opening day or opening weekend in a way that paints a clearer picture for college basketball," Greg Shaheen, the NCAA's senior vice president for basketball and business strategies, said. "There's no easy answer, but it's definitely something we have to take on."

In the meantime, college hoops fans will have to deal with crappy games in the first and second weeks of November. Really though, so what? College basketball's offseason is so deserted that the first water you drink can be gross and brown and mildewy. It's still water. I'll be gulping it up all the same.

And maybe even more than that, tonight can serve as a reminder that the real joy of college hoops isn't in rankings and high-profile match ups and hype, but rather in the sublime pleasure of what happens between the lines. For now, that's good enough.

Related: College Basketball Media