The Ultimate Foodie's Guide (Cont.)

Louisville

The Cardinals play in the opulent splendor of the somewhat appetizingly named KFC Yum! Center. But a few miles away, in the basement of someone's house, is a dining experience that will steady the nerves of those fans either coming down from the dizzying highs or up from the horrifying lows of watching Peyton Siva play the point. Hammerheads serves lamb ribs, elk burgers and duck-fat fries covered in barbecue seasoning from the Grippo potato chip company. Best of all, you can end the night with a bacon brownie.

North Carolina

Considering it houses one of the nation's premier basketball programs, the Dean Smith Center isn't the greatest venue. It's huge and relatively antiseptic. But when that many people are willing to pay boatloads of money to watch basketball games, you build an arena to accommodate them. Fortunately, those looking for ambience can find it at Sutton's Drug Store, a hamburger joint on Franklin Street where the walls are covered with vintage photos of all the great Tar Heels. Owner John Woodard began taking customers' photos and slapping them on the wall in 1983. Since then, anyone who was anyone in Chapel Hill has wound up hanging above a booth at Sutton's.

Indiana

A game at Assembly Hall when the Hoosiers are good -- and they're very, very good this year -- is reason enough to visit Bloomington, but I would get in big trouble with former Big Ten Network sparring partner Gerry Dinardo if I didn't recommend DeAngelo's, the Italian restaurant he and wife Terri operate in Bloomington. Dinardo, who was the head football coach at Vanderbilt, LSU and Indiana, got some pointers during his time in Cajun Country. That's how Shrimp and Crawfish Diavolo wound up on the menu. If you're feeling a little more adventurous, drive 36 miles to Mooresville, Ind., where you can eat deep-fried biscuits at Squealers Barbecue. They taste even better than they sound. On the night I ate them in 2011, I returned to my hotel and wrote the following paragraph: "You read that correctly. Fried. Biscuits. Imagine a Cracker Barrel biscuit met a Krispy Kreme doughnut, dropped a few of his best lines and took her back to his Old Country Store to make doughy carbohydrate love on a Travel Checker Rug. The offspring of that union is what a fried biscuit tastes like."

Ohio State

Value City Arena is a relatively charmless building, though Aaron Craft and the Buckeyes play a very charming brand of basketball. Fortunately, Columbus has plenty of local flavor elsewhere. I made a pledge in 2005 -- after eating a three-pound hamburger to win a free T-shirt and free dessert (which I also ate) -- that I wouldn't eat more giant burgers, but I plan to break that pledge at The Thurman Café on my next trip to Columbus. There, I will order The Thurmanator. What's that? According to the menu, it's bun, mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickle, banana peppers, 12-ounce burger, bacon, cheddar, another 12-ounce burger, sautéed mushrooms& onions, ham, mozzarella and American cheese, top bun. Hold the mayo and tomato on mine, but I'm more than happy to load up on more mushrooms. Or, if you don't feel like a burger, go to City BBQ (multiple locations in town) and have a slab of ribs. That's what I ate at the Gahanna location on Dec. 21, 2007 to celebrate a job offer from Sports Illustrated.

Saint Louis

The cruelest thing you can do to me is taunt me with famous barbecue I have yet to taste. So if you're in town to watch the Billikens play, you can torture me by sending me photos of the ribs from Pappy's Smokehouse. Last year, some sportswriter buddies were passing through St. Louis on the way to a football game. For an entire afternoon, I received texts containing pictures of glorious ribs. The motto of Pappy's owner Mike "Smokey" Emerson is "We've got nothing to hide so the sauce is on the side!" Smokey sounds like my kind of guy.

Missouri

When the Tigers got upset by a No. 15 seed in last year's NCAA tournament, I wondered if they had lost just to get back to Columbia to eat more of the perfect little hamburgers at Booches Billiard Hall. That probably wasn't the case, but I was only a few weeks out from my first visit to Booches, a hole in the wall that serves diminutive burgers so delicious that, left unchecked, I could probably eat about 20. The cravings still hadn't subsided at that point. So if that had been the reason for the loss, I would have understood completely.

Notre Dame

The Fighting Irish will begin their second season at Purcell Pavilion, but they aren't the only ones in the metro South Bend area enjoying new digs. Giannetto's, home of overstuffed deep dish pizzas and breadsticks with the consistency of raised doughnuts, has moved from its basement location in Mishawaka to an easier-to-find location in Granger. The old location felt like a secret shared only by the initiated, but it really wasn't fair to the greater world that such amazing pizza was so difficult to find.

Creighton

Did Bluejays forward Doug McDermott hang 25 and 12 on your team? Don't despair. You're not alone. The good news is you can sop up your sorrows with the juice from the Whiskey Filet at The Drover. I haven't eaten one in 11 years, but if I close my eyes and think of Omaha, I can still taste that perfectly cooked steak with a sweet whiskey finish.

UCLA

The Bruins will unveil the renovated Pauley Pavilion -- which recently received a $136 million facelift -- this season, and they should celebrate their updated digs with a lot of wins if the NCAA eventually clears star recruits Kyle Anderson and Shabazz Muhammad to play. Bruins fans looking to center themselves while waiting for the NCAA to finish investigating should head north to Tarzana for breakfast at Vip's Café. That was John Wooden's spot. Be quick, but don't hurry to order the No. 1 or the No. 2.

Duke

After watching a game at intentionally old-fashioned Cameron Indoor Stadium and having Cameron Crazies correct the game story while looking over writers' shoulders, the scribes on the college basketball beat like to indulge in the finer things. Jeff Goodman, one of the excellent college basketball writers at CBSSports.com, recommends Revolution, a slice of fine dining in downtown Durham. A perusal of the menu turns up several tantalizing items. Duck Two Ways with a side of cheese grits might do the trick, but I'll probably have to start with the Cider Braised Pork Belly.

San Diego State

In honor of The Show -- which might be the wildest student section in college hoops -- indulge in a truly wild burger. I realize the Slater's 50/50 started in Orange County, but they've opened in San Diego, and if you have a chance to eat a half-ground beef, half-ground bacon burger, you do it no matter where the chain has its roots. Let's take that one step further. When you have a chance to eat a half-ground beef, half-ground bacon burger slathered in peanut butter and jelly, you do it no matter where the chain has its roots.

St. John's (Or any early-season tournament game played in Madison Square Garden)

The Red Storm plays its Big East home games in Madison Square Garden, but a bevy of quality teams will pass through for tourneys during November. Only a few minutes' walk from the World's Most Famous Arena is some of the world's best fried chicken. Hill Country Chicken is at the corner of 25th and Broadway, but the staff cooks like it should be slinging chicken and sides on the side of a country road in Mississippi. Order your chicken Mama Els style, and make sure to get the mashed potatoes, which are covered in cheese and fresh-cut French fries. Also, sample one of the mini, single-serve pies. Whiskey buttermilk and Maker's Mark bourbon pecan are my favorites. But don't limit your pie consumption to a circular, solid state. If you ask, they'll cut you a slice of cheddar-crust apple pie, chuck it in the blender with some milk and vanilla ice cream, hit frappe and then serve you heaven in a cup.

Arizona

Sure, point guard Mark Lyons might have graduated from Xavier and transferred to play his final season in Tucson because he loves Wildcats coach Sean Miller, who coached Lyons back in Cincinnati. But isn't it also possible that Lyons saw the "Man vs. Food" segment on the bacon-wrapped Sonoran Dogs at El Guero Canelo and decided he should play hoops and attend grad school in the desert? Ok, maybe he just transferred because of Miller -- but a bacon-wrapped hot dog smothered in jalapeno sauce seems like a sound enough reason for a cross-country move.

Michigan State

Tom Izzo's teams don't do anything fancy over at the Breslin Center. They just outwork, outhustle and out-bang their opponents into submission. The Peanut Barrel, an eatery/drinker near the edge of the Michigan State campus, doesn't do anything fancy, either. It has simply served great hamburgers for not too much money since 1973. In fact, a few Peanut Barrel burgers would satiate any Spartan who worked up an appetite during one of Izzo's famously physical practices.