3 fun college hoops dates in February

When it's not snowing or something, February can be a little blah. So here are 3 college-basketball related events I'm looking forward to in the next 3 weeks:

1) Sat., Feb.7, 6 p.m. Charleston at Davidson (ESPN2). The Wildcats face another challenge to that amazing Southern Conference win streak. And Dick Vitale, who's called nearly 1,000 games, makes his first-ever appearance at a Davidson home game.
I talked to Vitale today for a column that will appear in Saturday's Charlotte Observer and on charlotteobserver.com. "I'm really enthused," he said. "I'm usually doing Carolina or Duke or Kentucky or Connecticut -- I've been to all those places so many times. And don't get me wrong, I like to do those games. But this Davidson game is really going to be refreshing."

2) Wed., Feb.11, 9 p.m. UNC at Duke. No explanation needed.

3) Mon., Feb.23, 9 p.m. If you've got HBO, you'll want to check out "Battle for Tobacco Road," a new HBO documentary on the Duke-UNC rivalry. They've interviewed a host of greats on both sides for this one and I know firsthand the HBO folks are well-prepared on the subject -- I sat down for an interview for this documentary myself and heard their questions. I haven't seen the one-hour film yet so I can't tell you how good or bad it is, but if it's up to the usual HBO standards, you know it's going to be enjoyable.