Long before starting Collegiate Basketball News Company in 1991, Jim Sukup was involved with several aspects of college basketball. Sukup was a freelance basketball writer for Basketball Weekly from 1985 through 1991 and wrote articles that covered a wide range of topics that were mainly centered around the NCAA tournament. The NCAA and NIT tournaments are some of his favorite college basketball-related interests.

Sukup gained a love of college basketball at Indiana University, earning a B.S. in Geology in 1975, and he kept an eye on IU basketball and coach Bobby Knight for the better part of three decades. Continuing on at the University of Wyoming, Sukup critiqued coaches Moe Radovich and Don DeVoe as they prowled the sidelines at the old Fieldhouse when the Cowboys took to the court. He received an M.S. in Geology from UW in 1978, with a thesis topic of Cretaceous Planktonic Foraminifera from Salzer-Saltzgitter, West Germany.

Sukup worked for Union Pacific Resources Company (previously called Rocky Mountain Energy Company, which is now known as Anadarko Petroleum) from 1978 through 1991, working his way up from Entry Level Geologist to Senior Geologist. His work was primarily involved in uranium exploration in the states of Wyoming and Arizona. While with UPRC Sukup was based near Shoshone, Wyoming; Casper, Wyoming; Denver, Colorado; and Flagstaff, Arizona. However, his work was scattered throughout most of the western United States. Sukup has been an independent geological consultant from 1991 through the present, working on many different and diverse projects. They include involvement with minerals exploration and development, on-site management of an EPA Superfund site, groundwater monitoring and statistical analysis of groundwater components and contaminants at several landfills, trace element studies at a U.S. nuclear facility, investigation and remediation of groundwater at an elementary school in Indiana, along with many additional facets of environmental geology. Sukup was a Project Hydrogeologist with Indianapolis-based Keramida Environmental from 1993 to 1997, and since then he occasionally works during the college basketball off-season as a Project Geologist with Mundell & Associates. Mundell is based in Indianapolis and specializes in providing groundwater and contaminant modeling, geophysical services, subsurface investigations, scientific evaluations, and litigation support to both public and private sector clients. Sukup is a member of several geological organizations and is a licensed professional geologist in Indiana and Wyoming.

On the basketball front, Sukup was a freelance basketball writer for Basketball Weekly from 1985 through 1991 and wrote articles with a wide range of topics. He covered the 1990 Maui Invitational for BW, and he detailed the components of the RPI in another BW article that year. He covered Northern Arizona University basketball while in Flagstaff during the late 1980's and early 1990's. Sukup launched Collegiate Basketball News Company (CBN) in 1991 and published Collegiate Basketball News, a Big Ten basketball newsletter, from 1991 through 1993. Sukup is currently the Editor and Publisher of The RPI Report, The Women's RPI Report, and The BracketBusters Report, which is a publication for the popular BracketBusters games played in late February. The first issue of The RPI Report was published on January 6, 1992 and it has been published on a weekly basis during the college basketball season since then. The 2012-2013 season is the 22st year of publication of The RPI Report. The first issue of The Women’s RPI Report was published on January 20,1997, and the 2011-2012 season is its 17th year of publication. CBN's www.rpiratings.com web site, which Sukup updates on a daily basis during the season, has been online since 1997. Sukup has been a member of the U. S. Basketball Writers Association since 1987.

Sukup also has been writing a monthly column, called The RPI Report, for Basketball Times since November of 2005. BT is now in its 35th year of publication and is known as "The Voice of College Basketball." It is the only regularly published magazine that covers college basketball on a national basis. 

Sukup enjoys camping, hiking, and backpacking in the midwest and western U.S. and gets out west at least once a year to visit some of his favorite haunts in Wyoming and surrounding states. Several of his recent hiking and backpacking treks include Bryce, Zion, and Canyonlands, and Glacier national parks (2012), Bighorn Mountains, Wyo. (2011), Black Canyon of the Gunnison (2009), Wind River Mountains, Wyo. (2008), the Knobstone Trail, Indiana (2006), the Navajo Mountain/Rainbow Bridge Trail, Utah (2005), Kettle Moraine/Ice Age Trail, Wisconsin (2004), Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (2003), and Shoshone Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park (2002). Check back here later to view some of the areas where Sukup has worked and played.