College Basketball "Starts" This Weekend

For schools around the country, Midnight Madness marks the beginning of the college basketball season. Why is it called Midnight Madness? Because team's traditionally will hold their first official practice at midnight on the first day that practices are allowed by the NCAA, opening it up to the public and their fans (nowadays, with ESPN covering the practices, a lot of teams will hold their "Midnight Madness" in prime time). As we have discussed here before, Kentucky started a trend by holding their Big Blue Madness tonight at 10:00 pm. Follow the jump for the full schedule of teams holding their Midnight Madness this weekend:

• Mountaineer Madness (West Virginia): Friday, 9:30 pm
• Big Blue Madness (Kentucky): Friday, 10 pm
• The World's Biggest Basketball Practice (Illinois): Saturday, 3:30 pm CDT (or whenever the Illinois-Minnesota football game ends)
• Thundering Herd Madness (Marshall): Saturday, 7 pm

The award for the most interesting goes to Illinois, who will be holding their first practice (weather permitting) on a court set up in the end zone of the Illini football stadium immediately following the Illinois-Minnesota football game.

Don't expect this trend to continue much longer, however. The NABC is already looking into ending it because of the "recruiting overtones" associated with holding Midnight Madness earlier (read this article by Pat Forde and tell me it isn't a very convincing tool).