You won’t find too many people saddened by the end of Billy Packer’s 34-year run as color commentator for the Final Four at the men’s college basketball Tournament. For all his hoops credentials, as both an analyst and a former guard at Wake Forest, Packer was considered a grouch behind the microphone.

Packer has a long history of rubbing people the wrong way. When asked to show his press pass at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium in 2000, Packer shot back, “Since when do we let women control who gets into a men’s basketball game?” He also made this comment during a Charlie Rose interview. Not good.

In the end, Packer will probably be remembered most for his animosity toward the smaller programs in the NCAA. He was critical of St. Joseph’s getting a No. 1 seed in the 2004 Tournament, and he was even angrier two years later when the MVC and CAA got six bids between them. Two words in parting: George Mason.

Brandon Jennings (above photo) is boldly going where no basketball prodigy has gone before: straight to Europe, bypassing the Arizona Wildcats to sign a pro contract with Virtus Roma of Italy’s Serie A.

Is this the end for college basketball? Jacob Leibenluft pondered that question for Slate; in his view, a lot will depend on how well Jennings performs in his new environment. Other youngsters should keep their fingers crossed. As basketball spreads across the globe, opportunities open up for skilled players - opportunities that don’t involve taking sham college courses and not getting paid.

College basketball will continue to flourish even if the top high school and AAU players go elsewhere, as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and LeBron James were allowed to do before the NBA put restrictions on its draft. Ultimately, fans of college sports are rooting for laundry. But maybe the Jennings experiment will give young players the chance to make a powerful fashion statement.

Is making the USC Trojans the preseason college football favorites just a case of inertia? They had to settle for the Rose Bowl again last year after going 10-2 (6-6 against the spread). Now they’re changing starting quarterbacks – again – and yet they were 3-1 favorites earlier this summer to win the 2009 BCS Championship game.

Perhaps those odds will change before long; the NCAAF futures market was down at press time. Pete Carroll’s USC program is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but the Trojans aren’t getting as much attention this preseason as teams like the Georgia Bulldogs and Ohio State Buckeyes, both of whom were 6-1 before the odds came off the board.

My pick out of what promises to be a very tough field: OSU. The Buckeyes saw their Big Ten rivals crumble around them last year; we’ll see roughly the same in 2008 as Ohio State plows its way to another one-loss season and a championship.

We’ll learn next month who will go into the 2008 college football season with the No. 1 ranking in the polls. USC was a near-unanimous choice last year, and the Trojans could find themselves right back up top – they’re the 3-1 favorites to win the BCS championship.

The Georgia Bulldogs are getting lots of love from commentators at 6-1, tied with Florida, Ohio State, and Oklahoma in what promises to be a wild season. But the Bulldogs are having some trouble on the disciplinary front. Seven players have been arrested thus far, for everything from aggravated battery to rubbing the belly of a pregnant woman.

Most of the Bulldogs players involved are linemen, including potential starters Jeremy Lomax on defense and Clint Boling on offense. Add the foot injury that will keep starting fullback Brannan Southerland on the shelf for five games, and Georgia’s betting value takes a bath in the insanely rough SEC waters.

College baseball continues to make inroads in the sports gambling scene. If they keep cranking out exciting College World Series like this year’s, it won’t be long before they’re king of the mountain. Fresno State beat Georgia two games to one to win the first national men’s championship in school history – in any sport.

This is the quintessential underdog story. Fresno State went into the 64-team tournament as a No. 4 seed in their region. No previous fourth seed had won the College World Series, or any other NCAA championship. The Bulldogs went 6-0 in elimination games, pulling out two of those victories after losing the opening game of the CWS Finals to Georgia.

Even more impressively, Fresno State right fielder Steve Detwiler went 4-for-4 and drove in all six runs in last week’s title-clincher, all while playing with a completely torn ligament in his left thumb. Detwiler has earned his summer vacation.