'Mid-Knight Madness' ready to descend on college hoops

As it has for the past 30 years, college basketball returns to the sports landscape with a late-night start.

At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, teams can begin practicing, and quite a few will start at that exact minute, just as Lefty Driesell did at Maryland in October 1970.

Back then, Driesell was just trying to get the jump on the competition with a mile run under the lights. Now Midnight Madness has become a can-you-top-this affair, with schools trying to come up with new ways to entertain fans while introducing the latest version of the team.

The most anticipated of this year's late-night get-togethers will be in Lubbock, Texas, where what could be called "Mid-Knight Madness" will have coach Bob Knight starting his first season at Texas Tech.

Knight, who was fired by Indiana University in September 2000 after 29 seasons and three national championships there, will be the center of attention as the Red Raiders start their first season with him in charge.

Rick Pitino, returning to the college ranks, will get started with a late-night session at Louisville. Pitino led Kentucky to a national championship in 1996, then left for the NBA's Boston Celtics. Now he's back in the same state, leaving a lot of fans with split feelings as his inaugural celebration with the Cardinals goes against "Big Blue Madness" at his former school.

As it has every year since 1988, Kansas will start things off with "Late Night with Roy Williams."

"They sort of adopted this dumb guy from North Carolina right off the bat," Williams said of what has become one of the biggest Midnight Madness celebrations in the country. "It's still one of my favorite moments."

One of the smaller schools in the Division I landscape will hold one of the more poignant starts to the season on Friday night.

Long Island University, which sits about three miles from where the World Trade Center towers once stood, will hold "Midnight Thanks."

The school has invited local firefighters and police officers to come and play the Blackbirds in a scrimmage, with all proceeds going to the disaster relief funds established since the terrorist attacks.