What I found interesting about this informal poll is how the most common answer from casual fans -- that the SEC simply "doesn't care about basketball" -- literally never came up when the question was presented to people who have more than a surface-level understanding of the sport and this league. And for what it's worth, the men's basketball budgets in the SEC expose that explanation -- that the SEC simply "doesn't care about basketball" -- as little more than an oft-repeated phrase that holds no merit. - from Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline.
Parrish totally misses the point. With the exception of three or maybe four schools, NO ONE in the SEC cares about basketball. (Oh, they will say they care, but they do not really.) In the first place, the average SEC sports fan does not even think about basketball until the NCAA tournament: he is too busy keeping up with football recruiting. The schools spend lots of money (after all, they have it to spend), but if basketball is bad, the average fan will not even notice. Let the football team be bad, and they will RIOT. Mr. Parrish, it is not about the schools' budgets; it is about a fan base that simply does not care about anything except football.
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