College basketball was absent from our lives for 222 days, so no one was complaining when No. 3 Kansas and No. 11 Indiana gave us five bonus minutes of opening-night action before the Hoosiers emerged from the nightcap of the Armed Forces Classic with a 103-99 win.
In some ways, it felt like early November basketball. Both teams battled bouts of sloppy play. There were air balls and heat checks. And there were fouls. Goodness gracious were there fouls. 63 of them, in fact, with a grand total of seven players getting disqualified before it was over.
But this was anything other than your average November game between teams with a lot of work over the next four months.