With March Madness and the NCAA Tournament finally wrapped up, for some, basketball season is over; but for NBA fans, it continues on. The shorter season in college basketball and the hundreds of teams that compete in in the sport makes college basketball more appealing to basketball fans.

The NCAA Tournament draws in millions of viewers across the country every year. It does not matter how much college basketball one has watched throughout the year, thousands of people still fill out brackets. With 68 teams receiving bids to compete in the NCAA Tournament every year, filling out brackets becomes an annual competition between co-workers, students and friends. The large number of schools and the many underdog upsets that occur in the tournament each year allow for a broader interest in the tournament as a whole.

Typically, in the NBA, fans only have one team they cheer for full time; however, in College basketball the options are not as limited. One can cheer for a bracket, a nearby college, or a school that has personal connections.

Division I college basketball teams are in towns and cities all over the country, not just major cities like in the NBA. It is much easier to cheer for a team when you can watch them in person just a few minutes or hours away rather than being an NBA fan living in Lexington, where the closest NBA team is over three hours away.

Only 16 teams qualify for the NBA playoffs, and each playoff game is a best of seven series, making it less visually appealing for those who care little to none about basketball. With only 30 teams and over half of the league qualifying for the playoffs, teams do not have to care as much to simply make the playoffs. After all, NBA organizations are already paying their players millions of dollars to simply play the game of basketball. Also, 82 games in an NBA schedule means losing one game every week or so will not hurt the team’s record or playoff seed. However, in college basketball, with only around 30 games in a typical season, losing just one game can be the difference between making the tournament or not. College basketball players are forced to try their hardest all season.

An NBA fan may argue that the low number of mistakes made by NBA players and the skillset of NBA players makes it more flowing than college basketball. However, personally, mistakes from players far from perfect is one of the main reasons to devotedly watch college basketball. Nothing is guaranteed in the college basketball world; anything can happen at any given moment. In the NBA, money gets in the way, and when the NBA season approaches the final rounds of the playoffs, the same group of teams tend to always make it to the finals.

If anyone is contemplating whether to follow college basketball or the NBA in the coming years, choose college basketball. It is easier to watch with shorter seasons and many more adrenaline rushes from mistakes and upsets.