After a full weekend of hoops – sucked to the couch watching the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, and sucked in by the Nuggets’ newfound resiliency that should land them a spot in the NBA postseason – I asked myself an age old sports question:

What’s better, college or pro?

Everyone will have their own answer, but I wanted to try to assess this question objectively. This is the time of year is perfect, because in many ways, you’re getting the best of both varieties. Some food for thought…

Do we like the game or our brackets? That’s a legitimate wonder during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Go to any bar in Denver, and I’m guessing any other city, and you’ll find the attendance dwindling as the tournament wears on. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? The higher the stakes, the higher the viewership and interest level – kind of like the Super Bowl? Well, that’s definitely not the case; and that leads me to believe that collectively we really are primarily interested in wagering and drinking, and less interested in the best of the best in college basketball.

Then again, it would be difficult to top the four games that determined this year’s Final Four. The Gonzaga game was boring, but the story behind the Zags is arguably the best in the tournament. Oregon upsetting Kansas was fantastic. And on Sunday, both games – South Carolina over Florida and the battle of behemoths Kentucky and North Carolina – were close from start to finish. Any fan of “sport” couldn’t have asked for me.

Actually, I would have one request: I’d like to know more about the players. Scratch that, I’d like to know the players, period. Guilty as charged: I don’t know anyone in college basketball. That’s a problem for me. When I was a kid, I knew all of them. Why? Street and Smith’s? ESPN’s “Big Monday”? These were the ways that I consumed college basketball, and I could actually tell you about the best players and the best teams. Today, it’s overwhelming – games every night, games on every channel – so I basically just “don’t” consume it. By now I’m figuring out who these great players are, but it’s too late. I want to know what they’re going to do in the big moment before the big moment arrives.

The NBA is filled with stars. So is college basketball, we just don’t know them. Between “one-and-dones” and an oversaturation of games, it’s tough to truly follow the game’s best for very long.

Which is why I headed to Pepsi Center as soon as North Carolina-Kentucky wrapped up. The Tar Heels and Wildcats both had a shot to win it all Sunday morning. The Nuggets and Pelicans do not (yes, technically they do, but realistically they don’t). But there’s something I like about the chance to see Nikola Jokic, Anthony Davis and Boogie Cousins all on one court. Plus, the game had something on the line.

But, none of those players – or any of the players on Pepsi Center’s floor at all for that matter – were going to do anything as dramatic as what Malik Monk, then Luke Maye did in the waning moments of North Carolina-Kentucky. I already knew that. That kind of drama can’t be topped.

But there’s no guarantee that next Saturday’s games, or the following Monday’s games, will be that good.

I’m betting that the NBA Conference Finals and NBA Finals will be great. There’s something great about a seven-game series. From start to finish, the storyline just grows and grows. Plus, you’re guaranteed to see the greatest players in the world play their hardest for a bunch of games. The NBA regular season is simply about stats, particularly the first three quarters, but in the postseason, it becomes obvious how good these players truly are. The intensity of practically every college game is better than any pro game, up until the playoffs. Then they’re pretty darn equal. College offers unpredictability and opportunity, Cinderellas and no-names becoming household names with one shot (Luke Maye…remember it now because a year from now he might only be the answer to a trivia queation). The NBA offers the chance to watch the best be their best, guaranteed.

So, in conclusion (my high school comp teacher said not to do this), there’s only one conclusion.

High school basketball. That’s pretty tough to beat.