Sick of the Gophers

First of all, just let me say I have no idea what was going on with Tubby's substitution patterns tonight.  I also don't know what is going on with the Hollinses, but they were inexplicably terrible tonight.  This game was everything we saw against Northwestern, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois all over again and reminded me of how frustratingly bad this team can be.  They're probably still in the NCAA Tournament but at this point barring a huge Big 10 Tournament run they'll be somewhere in the 7-10 range which means even if they somehow won their first round game they'll just get smoked in round 2.  Just.  I don't know.  I should write more but I'm sick and after watching that game I really don't feel like it.  So here's what I wrote before the game, previews and stuff. 


MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE
Oddly this is the only tournament kicking off Thursday, particularly since I remember Thursday always used to be the biggest day of the week.  It seems a lot of the conferences have switched to Friday or Saturday starts (particularly the SoCon and the Colonial) in order to maximize their attendance and revenue which makes total sense for them but sucks for me so I hate it.  Anyway, there's no real intrigue here because Wichita and Creighton are probably both in even if they get dropped in the first round, and nobody else has a chance at an at-large (Indiana State was borderline for a while, but dropped 5 of 6 to close out the season).  Even so there should be some good basketball in this one.
FAVORITE:  Creighton.  At the beginning of the year Creighton was the big swinging dick of the MVC, then they hit a bit of a rough patch and all of a sudden Wichita was the bee knees, then the Blue Jays gave the Shockers a nice beatdown to not only reassert dominance, but also to grab the #1 seed in the tourney.  By the way I still haven't figured out how good Doug McDermott really is and I have no idea what I'm going to do with Creighton when the brackets come out - which I guess is the same as every other team because I'm kind of an idiot.
SLEEPER:  Illinois State.  The Redbirds were supposed to be a MVC sleeper this year, and appeared to be good enough to make my top 68 teams preview at #52, but they struggled a smidge in conference play, dropping their first six MVC games.  They finished out at 8-4 and with Jackie Carmichael have the guy who'd be a shoo-in for conference player-of-the-year if Doug McDermott didn't exist, and he's not even the leading scorer on his own team. 
W's PICK:  Northern Iowa.  The MVC is loaded this year (9th best conference) and with the top two squads already assured of NCAA bids you can be the rest of the teams will be in crazy survival mode and that's when weird things happen.  So why not take the team with the experienced coach (Ben Jacobson) and senior leadership (3 senior starters) who finished hot (won 7 of their final 8 conference games which included wins over Wichita, Creighton, and Illinois State)?  Plus weird shit like this always seems to happen to annoying teams like Northern Iowa.

In meaningful games for Thursday night, we have Kentucky (@ Georgia) and Virginia (@ Florida State) both face pretty much must win road games to keep their bid chances alive, while Butler is on the road as well at UMass and even though they seem pretty solidly in at this point they'd be much better off not losing and giving the committee a reason to reconsider.  The best game of the night (bubble wise) is Oregon @ Colorado in the Pac-12.  Both are in solid shape, but the winner of this one pretty much punches their ticket, while the other will need to pick up another win elsewhere.  Of course the real best game of the night is Wisconsin @ Michigan State, which will matter for seedings and all that jazz and should be entertaining as long as Wisconsin doesn't control pace and gets killed.  Pretty slow for a Thursday, but there are games all day starting at 11am with the last one tipping off at 10:30pm, so who am I to complain?  I love March.

DWG's NCAA Basketball Preview: Teams #52-47

I know plenty of people are busy tonight with the debate and the Tigers/Yankees game, but I can only watch the debates 30 seconds at a time without falling asleep or dying of self-inflicted gangrene and it seems silly to write about the Tigers/Yankees game because I don't really feel like writing "Verlander gets another stupid Yankee out easily" twenty-seven times.  Thus insteadly here are some NCAA Basketball previews.  I hope you enjoy them.

I'm just kidding.  I really don't give a crap.  I know you're reading this at work and have nothing better to do with your time anyway.

52.  Illinois State Redbirds.  Creighton, Wichita State, and Northern Iowa seem to get most of the Missouri Valley headlines and hype, but this could end up being Illinois State's big year.  Last year's team took Creighton down to the wire in the MVC Championship before losing in overtime, then beat Ole Miss in the NIT before falling to eventual champ Stanford (also in OT).  That same team returns pretty much intact (including stud Jackie Carmichael who, according to anything you read on ISU on the internet "wowed" people at the LeBron Skills Academy).  They do lose their starting point guard from last season who transferred to SMU to tag along with the Redbirds' coach last year, and nobody's sure if they have a player who can fill that role capably, but who cares?  Their nickname is the Redbirds for christ's sake, and if the baseball playoffs have taught us anything (other than the Yankees suck) it's that Redbirds never die.

51.  Marshall Thundering Herd.  Marshall hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament since 1987 and has never won a game, but they've been awfully close lately which seems interesting or something I guess.  Last year they were in the hunt until a killer loss to a terrible ECU team knocked them out of the at-large running and then they were crushed in the C-USA Tournament Championship game by Memphis.  Two years prior they came out of the blocks at 15-2 before sucking the rest of the year.  Will this be the year they finally break through?  No.

50.  Belmont Bruins.  Belmont takes a big step up in the world this year, shifting from the Atlantic Sun to the Ohio Valley which means capturing an at-large bid goes from impossible to simply unlikely.  And once again, this will be the same kind of hyper-efficient team that takes care of the basketball and shoots well, but likely lacks the athleticism to truly compete with the big-time programs and really good teams.  And once again they'll probably end up in the NCAA Tournament matched up against somebody better, and everyone (myself included) will talk themselves into how Belmont could be a sweet 16 sleeper and end up picking them to beat a #4 seed in round one only to watch in horror as they get blown out by 20 and a have to put a big red X on my bracket before the first games of day 1 are out.  Looking forward to it already.

49.  Arkansas Razorbacks.  What's the best way to rebound from John Pelphrey trying to run the program straight into the ground?  Hire the sweet Mike Anderson, Nolan Richardson's protege, and let the Hogs run wild.  It didn't quite kick in for year 1, but based on his track record at UAB and Missouri I'd imagine we'll see Arkansas back in the tournament in a year or two.  Guard play is the key to running Anderson's system and Arkansas is plenty loaded here.  B.J. Young, who flirted a bit with the Gophers (while, they more threw themselves at him and he didn't say no right away - like your sister at a kegger) had a monster freshman year and probably could have gone pro but stayed on for another year, and he's got plenty of other perimeter help.  You know fun Missouri was to watch the last several years?  Yeah, that's coming to Fayetteville.  I wish I could bet on things like, Arkansas will be ranked in the top 10 at some point in the next 3 years.  I'd totally win a bunch of money.  Just like how Snacks will owe me fifty bucks when the Royals win the AL Central sometime by 2014 (a bet we made 2 years ago).  Yeah.  It's coming.  I've already spent that money investing in pumpkins.  They've been going up the month of October.  I figure if I hold those babies until January and then cash out.  BAM!  BOATLOADS!

48.  Colorado State Rams.  I don't think anyone would dispute that losing Tim Miles (to Nebraska) is a blow considering how he builds programs, but if you're going to lose a guy like that (and it was inevitable) you could do a whole lot worse than hiring Larry Eustachy.  I know it's easy to think about the scandal where he was busted partying with young college chicks but let's be honest who wouldn't want to do that, but don't forget the guy is a damn good coach.  This is the same guy who just took a garbage program in Southern Miss to the NCAA Tournament last year and had lots of success at Iowa State, and he's also the guy who started Utah State's run of brilliance back in 1998 (hadn't been to the tournament in 10 years).  And now he inherits a team that made the tournament last season and he gets most of the team back, plus Colton Iverson.  Eustachy and Iverson!  Count me in.  That's like a modern day Balki and Cousin Larry.

47.  Cal Bears.  These guys could end up with one of the best backcourts in the Pac-12 and, sad and horrifying as it is, part of the reason is Justin Cobbs.  Freed from the restraints of Tubby's molasses style offense Cobbs ended up averaging 12.6 points (16th in the conference) and 5.0 assists (2nd) per game last season, and he's probably not even the teams best guard - that would be Allen Crabbe.  They have to figure out how to replace two big losses including their lead point guard and their best post player, but having two good guards and playing in the shitbox Pac-12 pretty much assures Cal will at least be in the running for an NCAA bid.  Mother-effing Cobbs.


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Teams #68-60
Teams #59-53