Previewing the Sweet 16 - Friday

Small loss yesterday pretty much because of the 5 unit loss on the Wis/UNC under.  I still feel like I read that game right as it was just a 60 possession game so I nailed the pace. Carolina hitting 8 of 13 three point attempts really sunk me.  I figured Wisconsin would are UNC to shoot and they'd miss a bunch, but they nailed them so what are you gonna do?  Even given that I still had a chance until that stupid UNC foul on the perimeter with less than a minute left took out the possibility of Bucky running the clock down.  Whatevs.  We move on.  Had most of the other stuff nailed.  Here's what I'm thinking for Friday.



UCLA vs. Gonzaga.  I really, really, really didn't expect UCLA to get here, so I'm at a bit of a loss. Bryce Alford, who was becoming more and more of a chucker as the year went on, has been white hot in the tournament, and after a lucky, grind it out win against SMU (with a questionable call to boot) they looked like an absolute offensive juggernaut against UAB.  That might not sound like much, but don't forget the Blazers pretty much completely shut down Iowa State.  Is UCLA a lucky team who snuck into the tournament undeservedly, lucked into a first round win, and then decimated a shoddy opponent in round 2?  Or are they a team worthy of inclusion who has won two games playing vastly different styles and is now peaking at the right time?

Nothing in these teams' profiles suggests the Bruins have a prayer of stopping Gonzaga.  The Bulldogs are a smoothly run offensive operation with plenty of firepower both inside and outside and other than some suspect free throw shooting from their big guys no real weaknesses.  UCLA is going to have to score to keep up with them, and the Zags defense is far superior to the Bruins so it won't be easy.  They're going to want to try to get down the court as soon as possible with their athletes and try to get moving towards the basket before Gonzaga can get their half court defense set up, but an uptempo game also suits the Bulldogs just fine.

These teams played earlier this year, with Gonzaga coming out ahead 87-74.  The Zags absolutely shredded the UCLA defense with the Bruins hanging as close as they did thanks to good 3-point shooting and a bunch of offensive rebounds.  I don't really see much of any reason to expect anything wildly different, though without question this is the game I feel I have the shakiest read on.

Bet:  Gonzaga -8.5 (1 UNIT), Over 146 (1 UNIT)

Louisville vs. North Carolina State: I’m such a horrible traitor. For years I've been a huge Rick Pitino fan, which helps to explain some of my enthusiasm at the Gophers’ hiring of his son, and have always backed them to overachieve in the NCAA Tournament. I won a 20-1 future bet three years ago when they won the title and won my NCAA pool the year he won with that awesome Tony Delk Kentucky team and that should have been enough to make me a believer for life, and I thought I was. So why did I pick Louisville to lose to UC-Irvine? Was I enthralled with that giant 7-6 guy? Did I think losing Chris Jones would make a chaotic, and sometimes limited, offensive team even more chaotic? Did I think a poor close to the season made the Cardinals a prime candidate to flame out early?  Yes to all of it.  I'm horrible.  It's Rick Pitino, you dummy.

Of course, we can't discount NC State seeing as they completely dismantled what I thought was a very good Villanova team, not to mention beating a very athletic LSU squad in round 1.  Both teams have played tremendous defense in the tournament thus far holding all opponents far under their points per possession average with both putting up an extremely impressive performance versus an elite offensive team (Northern Iowa and Villanova). Both teams do it with a hellacious half court defense, though Louisville holds an edge here because they also excel at causing turnovers whereas NC State never does.  Neither team shoots the ball particularly well, so if this turns into a half court game it could end up quite a slogfest.

It will most likely end up that way, at least on the NC State end since the Wolfpack like to take their time and the Louisville defense, despite the press, generally forces teams to take up quite a bit of the shot clock on each possession.  Louisville will probably get a few easy baskets in transition thanks to turnovers, though NC State is pretty good at taking care of the ball, and they'll need them since their tendency is take a lot of terrible long twos.  I have a feeling this is going to be a very ugly game, or a beautiful game if you like defense.  In that case I'd be crazy to pick against Rick Pitino again.

Bet:  Louisville -3 (2 UNITS), Under 130 (4 UNITS)

Utah vs. Duke.  The Blue Devil start and end with Jahlil Okafor, who is the key to everything they do on offense.  He has an incredibly polished game in the post, is an adept and smart enough passer to find open shooters when double-teamed, and is a terror on the offensive boards.  He struggles against defenders who can match his size, however, and I found a little factoid that he's averaged just 11.6 points per game against teams with a 7-footer they can throw at him.  Well guess what?  Utah has two in Jakob Poeltl and Dallin Bachynski, and neither are just a big body, both have skill.  This bodes well for the Utes.  Not that Okafor is all Duke has, especially with Justise Winslow really coming on in the tournament, but having the ability to potentially limit Okafor is a really good start.

Offensively Utah also matches up well against Duke.  The Blue Devils excel at perimeter defense giving up very few three pointers and they rarely foul, but over 60% of their points allowed this year came from 2-point shots, not a problem for Utah since they shot 53% from there this year.  They were a little more reliant on three pointers than you'd like to see in this spot, but shooting 41% from behind the line on the year can do that to a team.  At least you know that even if they get limited looks they should be able to knock them down.  Delon Wright is an underrated super star at guard for Utah and he should be able to get into the lane against Duke, which could create some of those open looks.

If this becomes a half court game, I really like the Utes' chances.  I think their size on defense and ability to pound the ball in the paint are huge issues for Duke.  Even if Duke tries to get up and run, and they will, Utah's offense should be good enough to keep pace.

Bet:  Utah +6 (3 UNITS), Over 134 (1 UNIT)

Michigan State vs. Oklahoma. Two inconsistent teams (MSU lost to Texas Southern and Nebraska this year, Oklahoma lost to Washington and was swept by Kansas State) who seem to be peaking at the right time, this should be a pretty entertaining game. Though both teams play great defense, both also enjoy running with much quicker average possession times on offense than on defense. The Spartans defense generally ends up with them playing games that look to be slower tempo but their opponents average time of possession was 20.1 seconds, the second slowest mark in the country. That’s against plodding big ten teams, not a team like Oklahoma who averages under 17 seconds per possession, one of the quickest in the nation. This reads like a potential track meet to me, so the question is: who wins a track meet?

The Sooners were 6-4 this year in games against the kenpom 100 that hit 70 possessions or more; the Spartans 1-2. Sparty is definitely a deeper squad, but with almost a week of rest at this point in the season that’s pretty meaningless outside of foul trouble and neither team draws many fouls, so that advantage is pretty much irrelevant. Michigan State is a better rebounding team by a little bit, but if this game goes as I’m picturing it that won’t matter all that much either. Same goes for Oklahoma’s advantage in the turnover department, which could come into play but it’s small enough and this game should be wide open enough I don’t think it matters all that much.

I guess, in my opinion, it’s all going to come down to making shots. Michigan State is a better shot making team, but Oklahoma is a better shot defending team. Oklahoma has the best offensive weapon in Buddy Hield, but Michigan State probably has the next three in Travis Trice, Denzel Valentine, and Branden Dawson. Oklahoma is a great free throw shooting team, while Michigan State is terrible. How much is that going to matter in a game where neither team draws many fouls? I really don’t know. I don’t have a great read on the side here, but I think we’ll see points.

Bet: Oklahoma +2.5 (1 UNIT), OVER 134 (3 UNITS)

Tournament Talk. Stupid NIT.

I am back from Florida now and it sucks.  I'd much rather be there than here what with their beaches, fishing (I caught a snook!), ocean life (saw many dolphins, a couple of manatees, almost stepped on a stingray, and found a baby crab to show my kids), happy hour every day, the ocean, spring break chicks in bikinis who invite me into their bungalow to play drinking games and give me jello shots (actually happened!), fresh seafood, Yuengling evewhere, awesome sunsets and sunrises, the ocean, and consequence-less drinking.  I won't dwell on how awesome Florida is because it should be pretty self-evident, but if you ever have a choice to be on Estero Island or Sanibel Island rather than being in stupid Minnesota you should totally do it. 

One piece of advice I will give, is if you love seafood like I do go to the Farmer's Market (Fridays) or drive just over to the bridge to one of the fish markets.  Even though it's so abundant in the gulf it's also really expensive - a typical grouper dinner is 20-25 bucks while a pound of shrimp appetizer is up to $15.  At the markets you can get the grouper for about $20 a pound and the shrimp for a lot cheaper as well.  If you know how to cook (and I do) and like to (and I do) you can get out of there a lot cheaper considering two pounds of grouper is about 8 portions, so you're only paying like $5 per meal instead of $25.  I made an awesome almond-crusted grouper and an almost as good chili-lime preparation, and made some butter poached shrimp seasoned with this local seasoning blend that thsi one dude who my parents had try them said they were the best shrimp he had all week and he had some every day for a month.  So yeah, I rock.  And I got to de-head the shrimp, which is something I'd never done before.  That's right, manly enough to rip the head off a shrimp and talented enough to cook a gourmet dinner.  Settle down ladies, I'm taken.

Lots of basketball to catch up on, so we might as well get to it.

First, Gopher thoughts: 

-  Major bummer the Gophers missed the tournament, but not at all unexpected.  They were essentially a single win away from getting in most likely, and it wouldn't have mattered when it happened.  I think if you take any single one of their losses and turned it into a win the Gophers get in the tournament.  Not having Dre Hollins for a couple of those losses sucked and who knows how much the committee looked at that and if it even would have mattered, but their name wasn't called, it would have been an upset if it had been, and we move on to the prestigious NIT.

-  Despite missing the big tournament, I still consider this season a relative success since I didn't really plan on them making the tournament anyway (I'll delve further into a season recap after the NIT).  They won a couple of games I normally wouldn't have thought they'd win, and competed well against teams I thought would blow them out.  Despite a little regression by Austin Hollins, in general the players improved quite a bit from last year to this year, particularly the big men, and Dre Mathieu emerged as the type of player who should be on preseason all Big-10 lists.  Even somebody who looked completely worthless in Joey King emerged to show he could end up being a decent big 10 player. 

-  Recruiting has been more interesting, if not any better.  If you follow it you know how often the Gophers made top 5, top 3 lists and were mentioned as being in contention for a whole lot of highly ranked players.  They pretty much failed to land any, however, which an optimist could chalk up to the late start Pitino got.  I am that optimist.  Looking forward to seeing what he can do with the class of 2015.  If he doesn't land any high level talent in that class, then we can talk.

-  NC State getting in is, yes, a pretty big surprise and yes, I would have thought the Gophers would get in over the Wolfpack but it's not really worth bitching about.  If not NC State it would have been SMU.  If not SMU it would have been Green Bay or Ole Miss or Cal or somebody like that.  The Gophers just weren't there.

-  Their NIT bracket is interesting, I guess.  The first game against High Point is like, shoot me in the face, but a second rounder against either St. Mary's or Utah should be pretty fun.  Then, if they make it, a game against Southern Miss would be interesting, although if they end up against Missouri the Gophers will get destroyed, but it'd be fun to watch their guards (Jabari Brown and Jordan Clarkson who each average over 17.5 points per game) in person, if that game would be at The Barn.  I really don't know how that works.

-  And I don't want to hear that a deep NIT run is more valuable/important than a first round NCAA exit. It's not, and anyone saying so is rationalizing, a pollyanna fan, or a complete idiot.  That being said, a deep NIT run can be fun and entertaining and sure, may even help the team a bit for next season, so let's try to enjoy this even though I'll completely ignore any Gopher NIT game that clashes with any NCAA Tournament game. 

Speaking of, now onto to general NCAA tournament things:

-  The first thing I hate is Kansas and Florida in the same region, and I hated it because it popped up right away in the first region.  But then I thought more and looked more and I think it might have saved me from making the terrible mistake of putting the Jayhawks in the Final Four.  Without Embiid they're weaker inside, and in the second round they'll play New Mexico (who will kill Stanford) and their two headed giant monster of Cameron Bairstow and Alex Kirk.  New Mexico could totally beat an Embiid-less Kansas, and I'm calling it now - they will. 

-  The second thing I hated was the potential round 2 match-up for Iowa State in North Carolina.  When you're whole bit is to play fast and loose and basically try to outscore someone, the last thing you want to see is somebody who might be better at that style than you, and that's how the Heels look compared to the Cyclones (remember, I'm a pretty big Cyclone fan).  Good news for the Cyclones is that UNC plays insanely fast, but they have struggled offensively at times this year.  The bad news is that they've also beaten Michigan State and Louisville.  As a fan of circus ball, and if  you read this blog you know I love circus ball, as scary as this match-up is for ISU I really hope it happens - it would be circus ball galore.  They couldn't make this over/under number high enough for me to not take the over.

-  I had four teams in mind as my Final Four, as I usually do, prior to bracket release.  Unlike usual, they actually are in three different brackets, so I only have to figure out what to do with the West.  I like the idea of Ok State knocking off Arizona, but if that happens I basically have to take either OK State or San Diego State all the way to the Final Four, because there's no way anybody is making it out of that bottom bracket.  I am a believer in Wisconsin, but the flame out too often to trust, so it's either Ok State, SDSU, or don't pick the upset and go with Zona.  I don't know yet, but I'll let you know what I decide.  Don't act like you don't care.

-  The other place where I'm really having trouble is in the bottom half of the South.  I already said I have New Mexico beating Kansas, but I don't feel really confident in their ability to make the elite 8, which means my choice is pretty much Ohio State or Syracuse.  If Syracuse's late season plunge hadn't been so drastic and they still ended up as a 3 somehow that would have been perfect, but I'm not a big believer in the Orange right now.  But Ohio State can't shoot, so as much as I think Syracuse is open to upset I don't think the Buckeyes are the team to do it.  So basically I don't know what to do.  I think New Mexico could do it, but I also know that's not how you win brackets.  I'll probably end up going with Syracuse.  Lucky draw for them, considering neither Western Michigan nor Ohio State can shoot for shit.  Could get interesting if Dayton gets by the Buckeyes though, but they aren't really anything special.  Lucky break for the Cuse.

-  Although SWAC Champion Texas Southern is horrible, Aaric Murray could make things interesting.  If you remember, Murray was a hot shot recruit who ended up choosing his hometown LaSalle, and averaged 12 and 7 and then 15 and 8 his two years there before, if I remember, a rather ugly transfer to West Virginia.  After a rough year there (averaged 9 and 6) he somehow got another year of eligibility for, you can probably guess, Texas Southern.  Murray averaged 21 and 8 against the terrible SWAC competition, but at 6-10, 245 lbs. with some serious offensive skills (not to mention 2.5 blocks per game) he could be a March hero.  Here are the "real" teams they've played this year and Murray's results:

• Miami:  16pts, 1 reb (foul trouble)
• Texas Tech:  8pts, 4 rebs (foul trouble)
• Stanford: 28 pts, 5 rebs
• Tulsa:  30 pts, 6 rebs
• Temple:  48 pts, 8 reb

Pretty nice numbers.  Ok well his rebounding isn't that great and actually his shooting percentages in those games aren't very pretty and he's awfully inefficient for someone with his size and skill but whatever.  It's a story, man.  Or more like a narrative I just started running with and couldn't pull out.  Now they just have to get by Cal Poly, aka Shane Schilling U.  Then he can destroy Wichita.  Probably.

- Very little controversy it seems this year, which is a new thing.  What are the beefs?  SMU out, Louisville a 4 seed, and a loaded region for Wichita?  Pretty low on the outrage meter.  It's nice, because usually people bitch a whole lot more.

-  Really, this is such a fun bracket.  Can team's build on defense but with trouble scoring like Cincinnati, Ohio State, San Diego State, Virginia, and St. Louis have success?  How about high flyers like the aforementioned Iowa State and UNC as well as BYU, VCU, Oklahoma, and Iowa who get up and down the court in a hurry?  There are tested and experienced smaller conference teams like Wichita State and Harvard, and super young teams like Kentucky and Kansas.  New Mexico State is the biggest team in the country by kenpom's Effective Height metric, and three of the five most experienced teams in the entire country made the field (Tex Southern #1, NC Central #4, and Mercer #5).  Then there are teams with guys who could pull a Danny Manning/John Wallace in Oklahoma State, UCONN, and Creighton.  I'm excited every year, but somehow this year seems better, even though there is no Chicago trip :sadface:.

- First pass - Final Four: Florida, Louisville, Arizona, Michigan State.  Other Elite 8s: Syracuse, Creighton, Michigan, UCONN. 

-  Lastly, it could change but I'm taking Florida as my national champion, and yes I realize that's probably going to be a popular pick but I can't help it if this year the popular pick is also the correct pick.  They play great defense and they can play in an uptempo game or a slow down game so they aren't vulnerable to any particular style of play.  They have a guy in Michael Frazier who could win a game by himself by shooting threes, a smart experienced point guard in Scottie Wilbekin, and a mish mash of athletic big men who can pass and are comfortable anywhere on the floor and look like NFL tight ends.  I love having a bunch of exchangeable players who can all do the same things, and Florida has that in spades with Will Yeguette, Dorian Finney-Smith, Casey Prather, Chris Walker, and Patric Young.  Plus they have Billy Donovan.  I know they're the #1 overall seed so it's not exactly going out on a limb, but who is going to beat these guys? I would absolutely love to see a Florida/Louisville game.

Be back later with a preview of the big NIT tilt on Tuesday.  Looking super forward to researching High Point.  Don't act like you ain't all jelly.

DWG College Hoops Preview: Teams #6-1

Well here we are kids.  The last six teams.  I'm kind of impressed with myself that I actually wrote up all 68 teams.  You're impressed too, right?  Yeah, you are.  I can tell.

Anyway, Jay Bilas published his top 68 teams as well, and as you'd guess we have some differences.  We both have the same top 2, but only Michigan also makes both our top 5s.  Eight of my top 10 are also in his top 10, but the two teams he has that high that I don't ranked as #s 17 and 22 for me.  There were 15 teams Bilas ranked that I didn't, with his best two that didn't make my cut being West Virginia (34) and Butler (44).  Of the 15 teams I had that Bilas didn't rank, the best were St. Mary's (34) and Valpo (36).   Some of the biggest difference in teams we have ranked are Drexel (me 29, him 66), BYU (me 30, him 50), Iowa State (me 63, him 39), Alabama (me 60, him 32), Pitt (me 56, him 23), Tennessee (me 45, him 22), and Michigan State (me 22, him 7). 

Wasn't that an interesting paragraph?  Whatever.  I hate you.  Just read these and be done with it already.

6.  UCLA Bruins.  This lofty ranking assumes things get figured out with super star freshman Shabazz Muhammad's eligibility, but even without him they'd have a shot at being a top 10 team.  They're loaded with talent all over the place, partially thanks to the #1 recruiting class this year according to ESPN including Tony Parker, the #7 rated center and #26 overall who should either push Josh Smith to be what he was touted to be or just straight up replace him.  Other than Muhammad's eligibility the biggest question facing UCLA this year is if a team with National Championship aspirations can really count on Larry Drew as their only real point guard.  You may remember Drew as the guy who quit in the middle of the season at UNC after Kendall Marshall won the starting PG job and whose mom went nuts on Tar Heel message boards.  The fact is that Drew was a terrible shooter and not much of a play-maker for being such a horrendous shooter (like the shooting of Ed Cota with the playmaking ability of Kris Humphries).  If he's improved (and Muhammad is eligible) these guys are absolutely a Final Four team.  Otherwise, they're probably just very good.  It's probably nice to have a "downside" to your season that would likely still be a top 4 seed in March.  Stupid power program jerks.

5.  Syracuse Orange. Scoop Jardine is gone, but that's ok because it's time for Michael Carter-Williams to become a star PG.  Fab Melo is gone, but that's ok because Rakeem Christmas might end up being better than than him anyway.  And Dion Waiters is gone but that's also ok because C.J. Fair is about to explode.  An excellent mix of returning talent (Brandon Triche is back as well for I think his 8th year) and newcomers (DaJuan Coleman is the 14th overall player and 6th best incoming center according to ESPN) should have the Orange back in Final Four contention.  There are questions, mainly because Carter-Williams is going from 10 minutes per game to running the show and he didn't exactly look great last season, but he should be game for the job considering he was a top 27 recruit last year and is an awesome 6-6 which is always awesome in a PG.  And if he's not the man, they have Triche who can slide in and take over.  Syracuse should contend for the Big East title, and it sucks that this will be the last time since they're going to the ACC.  That's just wrong.  Syracuse in the ACC?  That'd be like finding Super Sioux Fan in the library.

4.  Michigan Wolverines.  If Michigan's freshmen are as good as advertised this ranking is right.  Obviously they're loaded at guard with Trey Burke being one of the top point guards in the country and Tim Hardaway a scoring machine when he's on, but the front court is weak if you're only counting returning players (foul machine Jordan Morgan and coming back from a foot injury Jon Horford and that's it).  Both SF Glenn Robinson and PF Mitch McGary are top 30 guys according to ESPN, and if all goes according to plan both will end up starting.  Speaking of top recruits, in case you're wondering Michigan already has three top 100 guys (#s 24, 35, and 99) on board for season after this one and ESPN rates them as having the 7th best class in the country.  Indiana is #12.  Illinois #24 and Purdue #25.  Michigan State and Iowa (along with Indiana, Michigan, and Purdue) were in the top 25 for this about to begin season.  The last time the Gophers made the list was 2009 and two of the three guys who signed ended up transferring out.  I'm not exactly inspired here.

3.  NC State Wolfpack.  Talk about a quick turnaround.  Just two years ago NC State went 15-16 and won just 5 ACC games.  Then they fired Sid Lowe and hired Mark Gottfried, went to the Sweet 16, and are ranked 6th in both polls to start this season.  This season they have three new recruits coming in ranked in ESPN's Top 100 and already have two more on the line for 2013.  They're also among the final few teams still in the running for the #1 PF and #3 Center for next year.  As for this year's team it's basically the same team that made the Sweet 16 last year, but with three McDonald's All-Americans added to it, one of whom (Rodney Purvis) is either the best or second best freshman coming into the ACC this year.  They've also got two guys (Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie) who could win ACC Player of the Year and could be first round draft picks next year.  Now THIS is what you hope happens when you hire a new coach with a good pedigree, even though Gottfried's pedigree prior to NC State wasn't nearly as impressive as Tubby Smith's before coming to Minnesota.  What?  I'm just sayin'. 

2.  Indiana Hoosiers.  When I first heard the Hoosiers were considered the favorite to win the National Title I was all like, "Dude, what?  Get out of here, nerd" but then you start reading about all the other teams out there and you realize yeah, it's pretty legit.  If you had to pick one player to build a team around Cody Zeller would likely be your top pick as a legitimately skilled and polished center who can play on both ends, and with Christian Watford next to him that's probably the best 1-2 forward punch in the Big 10 if not the country.  And holy cow on Victor Oladipo the dude went from a raw athlete to a polished offensive player in one off season.  Pretty much the only weakness you can find with Indiana is at point guard if you don't like Jordan Hulls - which I do not - but they remedied that by signing Yogi Ferrell, who ESPN ranks as the third best PG in the class.  Crazy how quickly Tom Crean turned this program back around, which is great because I've always said the Big Ten needs even more perennial powerhouse programs to make sure the Gophers don't ever rise too high.

1.  Louisville Cardinals.  I may be biased because I love Rick Pitino even more than that chick he did on the table does, but there are a lot of reasons to love this team this year.  First, you know they're going to have a dominating defense.  They have that monster (Gorgui Dieng) in the paint erasing shots all over the place and plenty of athletes to run Pitino's press and he's always had great defensive half-court teams.  The only real question is if they'll be able to score enough, especially with Kyle Kuric and Chris Smith are gone and those were the only two reliable outside shooters on the team.  I'm betting they can, which pretty much means I'm betting on Peyton Siva to finally "get it."  I actually have no idea why, because looking at his stats he's basically been a horrific shooter and turnover machine from day 1, and even after he supposedly "got it" at the end of last season his numbers didn't really change much.  Maybe you had to see it to believe it, but I'm buying in.  There's an incredible amount of talent assembled at Louisville this year and Siva is basically going to be the difference between another Final Four and possible Championship and a lackluster season.  Come on dude, don't make me look stupid.  I do that enough on my own (see:  my football predictions). 


Previous:
Teams #68-60
Teams #59-53
Teams #52-47 
Teams #46-39 
Teams #38-34 
Teams #33-26 
Teams #25-20 
Team #19 (GOPHERS) 
Teams #18-12 
Teams #11-7

Week in Review: 2-20-2012

 Jesus what a completely pathetic defensive effort.  You name it, the Gophers did or didn't do it.  They didn't close out on shooters.  They got confused on their defensive scheme which led to not switching when they were supposed to and open lay-ups for Northwestern.  The continually went under screens instead of over the top and then made no real strong effort to get in a shooters face.  They got lost on back cuts.  They allowed offensive rebounds like candy, including on missed free throws which should be grounds for a lawsuit in some way I don't know I'm not a lawyer.  A five foot nothin' lesbian ball boy was able to get to the rim at will.  Just a completely putrid effort.  Combine that with an offense that seemed confused in the second half and completely went away from what worked in the first game and the half (can anyone actually tell me why they completely quit going inside when it's the whole reason they won the first game?).  Credit Northwestern with playing better defense and knocking down all those wide open shots, but this was a truly terrible game by the Gophers.  Now they need to win 2 of the next three (Michigan State, Indiana, @Wisconsin).  LOL.  Can't wait for baseball!


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Murray State Racers.  I've gone on record here as saying I'm not remotely a believer in Murray State, but after they waxed St. Mary's with ease in their Bracket Busters game on Saturday I've definitely seen a bit of a tick in the "I believe" direction on my "Do I believe in Murray State"-inator which I always wear on my wrist.  They just completely dominated the game from beginning to end, and St. Mary's is a very good team.  They did turn it over 15 times, but overcame that by shooting the lights out and winning by 14.  I can't quite throw my support behind them yet as being for real and I'd love to see them play one more good team to get a real sense of how good they are, but sadly they won't play another good team until the tournament.  The tournament which, by the way, they are an absolute lock for now no matter what else happens. 

2.  Other Bracket Buster winners.  Besides Murray State some other teams picked up very big wins this weekend.  Wichita State moves into lock territory after knocking off Davidson, while VCU (beat Northern Iowa), Drexel (crushed Cleveland State on the road), George Mason (over Lamar), Weber State (over UT-Arlington) and Iona (beat Nevada) all jump up from "probably not" to "we better take a look" status thanks to their wins.  Their were some huge wins outside of Bracket Busters as well, and probably none bigger than Kansas State's win over Baylor which is absolutely a monster for their profile.  Middle Tennessee State continued to roll through the the Sun Belt (they can afford zero losses prior to the Sun Belt Championship game), while South Florida has now moved to 10-4 in the Big East after an easy win at Pitt.  The overall profile is still a bit lacking but you can't ignore them anymore.  And finally, although they're not in consideration for an at-large, Loyola Marymount had a huge week, beating St. Mary's and then winning their Bracket Buster match-up against Valpo and that now gives them three wins over RPI Top 50 teams.  Which is pretty much their entire resume, so yeah.  Oh, and Harvard beat Yale, so that was good too.

3.  Oakland A's.  When I first saw the news that the A's had signed Yoenis Cespedes, the cuban defecting outfielder and supposed superstar, I was just stunned and was wondering what the hell Billy Beane was doing.  I mean, a team that basically just gutted it's entire roster outbidding everyone else to get a Cuban dude who has never faced major league quality pitching?  Bizarre.  But when I really stopped to think, it actually makes a lot of sense and is a worthwhile gamble.  They got him for 4 years/$36 million which is far less than it was originally thought he'd sign for ($50 mill+), and because of their situation they don't need him to come in a play right away and he can take some time in the minors to assimilate himself.  The A's suck now, but are primed to be a contender in a couple of years thanks to a farm system Keith Law ranked as the 9th best in baseball (and that was before this signing) with five guys in Law's Top 100 including three pitchers who project as top of the rotation type guys.  Add some hitters, like Cespedes, and Oakland becomes a contender.  And seriously, would you rather have Cespedes and his potential at $9 million per year, or Cuddyer at $10+?  Cespedes is basically a bargain - a gamble, but a bargain.

4.  New Mexico.  I'm not entirely certain if a team has EVER had as good a week as the Lobos just did.  There are two teams considered as "elite" in the MWC - San Diego State and UNLV.  New Mexico, due to a couple of shitty early season losses (to New Mex State and Santa Clara) and losses to both those teams, was considered a step below.  Well no more, because this week alone the Lobos beat SDSU at their place by 10 and then stomped UNLV at home by 20 to lock up a bid to the NCAA Tournament and assure the Mountain West will be sending three teams (at least) once again.  They're awfully good, and have a great point guard who can control the game in Kendall Williams, plus a star in Drew Gordon (finally) who put up 27 & 20 against the Rebels.  Hopefully they don't run the table and then win the MWC Tournament, because I want them to have a lower seed for sleeper potential.  

5.  Tyus Jones.  Jones scored 45 points in a game against some team earlier this week to go along with 7 assists, 7 steals, and 7 rebounds.  He also received a scholarship offer from Duke.  That now means the Gophers are competing against not only Ohio State and Michigan State but now the freakin' Blue Devils, and Jones has zero interest in staying home and the Gophers' continual mediocrity isn't going to win him over any time soon.  If you still believe Jones may end up a Gopher, just remember Naadir Tharpe who looked like he was all set to join the Gophers before Kansas suddenly swooped in out of nowhere with an offer which Tharpe accepted within the week.  The Gophers, at present, simply cannot compete for that type of player, and when that player is from here and they still can't get him it just reinforces how big of a wasteland the program is right now.  Man do I miss Clem.  Sure he cheated, but at least he made the team relevant.  I'd kill for relevancy.  I'm going to light matches and see how long I can hold my finger in the flame, just so I can feel something.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Ralph Sampson.  I truly believe this is the last time I'll ever write about Sampson because I think we're pretty much done here.  Whether it's his fault or Tubby's (well, probably both) nothing has changed since Day 1 and I think even his most ardent supporters, yours truly, have realized that he's going to go down with Rick Rickert as the biggest disappointment in team history.  His numbers are virtually unchanged from his freshman year.  He wasn't progressing as much as anybody had hoped, but there was a bit of a progression so you could still hold out hope he would have a monster senior year, and when Mbakwe went down the door was wide open.  Rather than going through, however, Ralph timidly shut it and, with a shrug of the shoulders, said "No thank you." 

He's never shown any drive or any aggressiveness, and never improved in any way (in fact he's regressed in every possible way other than shooting percentage).  He never refined his hook shot, nor added a second move in four years.  Seriously he never added another move.  And, for all his outside shot promise, he never delivered on that either.  I suspect Ralph had the talent, but spent his off seasons not in the gym, but playing nintendo or dominoes or dungeons and dragons or whatever kids do these days.  His downside should have been Sam Perkins, but he never even got there.  This pretty much sums it up.  I'm just pissed I didn't think of it first.

2.  Illinois Fighting Illini.  As disappointing as the Tubby era has been, at least he's not Bruce Weber.  After a pretty rough home loss to Purdue on Wednesday that made four straight defeats and a record of 1-7 in their last 8, Weber gave interviews where he sounded alternately confused (bad look for a coach) and defeated (even worse) and his boss gave an interview where he pretty much went out of his way to say Weber was still his guy.  So, naturally, rather than rallying around their coach and coming out all fired up against Nebraska the Illini did what you'd expect them to do and rolled over like a bunch of two-bit hookers.  I mean they lost to Nebraska by 23 and it wasn't even that close.  The Huskers had walk-ons in with like 3 minutes left in the game.  Brandon Paul shot 1-7 and scored 2 points.  Terrible game, and it's basically guaranteed that Weber is gone after this year.  Illinois has a continual pipeline of talent in Chicago so they'll always be dangerous, so as a Gopher fan I'm very sorry to see Weber go, because with him at the helm you always knew you never had to worry about the Illini. 

3.  Conference USA.  When I did my bubble watch I counted both Southern Miss and Memphis as IN along with a group of other teams with the caveat that none of those teams could handle more than 1 more loss.  Well, C-USA, poised to possibly get more than one team in the dance for the first time since 1998*, just kicked itself square in the balls because both Southern Miss and Memphis - the only two teams in the conference with at-large chances - both lost to bad teams this weekend.  So Miss lost to Houston and their RPI of 220, while Memphis got dropped by UTEP (RPI 149).  If both teams manage to get to the C-USA championship game without another loss I'd expect both to still get in.  But if either picks up another loss things are going to be very dicey.  I was feel bad for C-USA.  It was formed to compete with the big boys and was competitive for a bit, but then was completely raided, is now losing Memphis, and will dissolve and form with the leftovers from the Mountain West and is going to be just completely brutal.  Don't forget, Cincinnati, Marquette, and Louisville all used to be C-USA schools, and now the jewel will be what, Marshall?  UTEP?  Gross.  This is like being the black sheep of your family and then quitting your shitty job to join a cult.  And not one of the good ones either, more like one that forbids group sex (which I assume is the only reason anyone joins a cult). 

4.  Mississippi State Tigers.  Remember like, not all that long ago when Mississippi State was 6-3 in SEC play and had a non-conference win over West Virginia (RPI 37) and no bad (RPI sub-100) losses and everything was hunky dorey?  Well a three game losing streak has included losses to Auburn (RPI 123) and Georgia (RPI 107) and they're now 6-3 and in a wee spot of trouble.  They have four games left before the SEC Tournament and one is home against Kentucky and another is on the road at Alabama (which is a very tough game if their dudes are reinstated).  And it's sad because any team with Dee Bost, Arnett Moultrie, Rodney Hood, and Renardo Sidney should coast to a bid - I mean there's a reason this team was ranked 15th at one point this year.  Although Sidney is still way fat and his game has taken a pretty significant step backwards this year, so that doesn't help.  Of course, beating Kentucky this week will solve all ills.

5.  NC State Wolfpack.  This week was a monster of the Wolfpack who were right on the cusp of the bubble and just needed a marquee win or two to push them towards the top, and the opportunities were there with a game at Duke and then a home contest against Florida State.  Everything was looking good as NC State raced out to a 16-point lead at the half and were up 19 with 11 minutes left to play, but then they remembered they aren't supposed to win at Cameron and the refs also must have gotten a little jolt in their brain implanted microchips because Duke ended up winning thanks in part to 16 free throw attempts in the final 10 minutes compared to just seven for NC State and three NC Staters fouled out.  So that sucked, but even worse they let that hangover drift into Saturday's game against FSU and got their doors blown off.  They still have UNC at home this week, but that's their last chance to get a real good win prior to the ACC Tournament.  They're looking like they're a year away, and I say that because their recruiting class next year contains Rivals recruits #6, #23, and #55 and ranks as the fourth best in the country for 2012.  And yet Tubby's class for that year contains two 3-star guys.  It's like impossible to follow college basketball as closely as I do and not get depressed at least three times about the Gophers.


Two additional quick points and then I'll shut-up:

1.  The Gophers weren't the only team who took their NCAA bid hopes and pissed all over them this week.  Other than Illinois, Miss State, NC State, and the C-USA teams mentioned above, you also had Davidson (loss to Wichita) who is now done along with Akron (loss to Oral Roberts), and Nevada (loss to Iona).  Long Beach is still in pretty solid shape as long as there aren't any major slip-ups, but if they had won at Creighton (lost at the buzzer) they would have punched their ticket.  And a few major conference teams, although not killing their chances, hurt them badly including Texas (got smoked by a shitty Oklahoma Stat team) and Arizona (lost to Washington).  That win for Washington moves them to12-3 in the Pac-10, but the conference is so incredibly shitty that doesn't guarantee them a bid, not even a little.  I read somewhere that the Pac-10 overall was something like 2-25 against the RPI Top 50 outside of conference.  That's ridiculous.  So bad it's like Tubby Smith's record against them since coming to the Gophers. lol.

2.  I really like the A.J. Burnett trade for both sides.  The Pirates add a veteran arm who undeniably has some talent to a rotation where almost nobody can name a single starter while not giving up any prospects of particular note while the Yankees pay for most of the contract.  The Yankees get rid of a guy who clearly struggled with both the AL East and the NY spotlight and saved enough in the process to turn around and sign Raul Ibanez - a RH DH they desperately needed.  And Burnett gets out of New York into a non-pressure and no lose situation, not to mention he gets out to the AL (and specifically the AL East) which can only help.  win-win-win.

* = I completely made this up because I didn't feel like actually looking it up

NCAA Hoops Preview - The ACC

As much as the idea of Syracuse not being in the Big East kind of churns my stomach, the upside that at least there will be a team in the conference capable of challenging UNC and Duke once in a while.  I know they've traditionally been the best 2 teams, but things have just been ridiculous lately and might be topping (bottoming) out this year because nearly ever team has been killed by graduations and can't reload like those two nancies, so Duke and UNC are Final Four contenders at the same time you can't definitively point to any other ACC squad and say "that's a tournament team."

So I guess there's that.

1.  NORTH CAROLINA TAR HEELS.  For most teams losing a guy like Leslie McDonald for the season to a knee injury would be a big blow, but not this year's Heels.  That is basically the only loss they suffered from their roster.  Harrison Barnes, last year's #2 recruit and potential top 3 pick in the NBA draft last year, decided to return for another year of seasoning and, after a rough start to his career, began to flourish at the end, scoring 18+ points in 9 of the team's last 10 games.  Tyler Zeller is still there and his offensive game is really turning into a thing of beauty, and the defense of John Henson will be there as well to block more shots than jesus.  They also have their point guard back in Kendall Marshall, who is already turning into one of the best PGs in UNC History (although nobody will ever be better than Ed Cota).  In case you want more, they also bring in a couple of new studs in F James McAdoo (#8 by Rivals) and P.J. Hairston (#13 and called the best shooter in this class), and have a bunch of other former top recruit types from the last couple of years who I haven't even mentioned.  Yes, they're loaded.  There's a reason why they're 3-1 to win the whole thing (sucker bet).

2.  DUKE BLUE DEVILS.  Kyrie Irving, Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith is a huge amount of production and talent to lose, but you know the drill - unfortunately for every one who doesn't worship Satan, they just replace talent with talent are look to once again be one of the best teams in the nation.  That isn't to say they won't have some weaknesses, however, because I refuse to believe that no matter how many Plumlees you have (and Duke is now up to 3) those aren't the type of bigs who are going to take you to a National Championship.  Not counting, of course, the one they won 2 years ago, but that was really all Brian Zoubek.  The three most interesting story lines to me are whether or not Seth Curry can be a team player and not end up a massive chuck monster like his brother, whether or not Austin Rivers (#1 freshman in the country) can integrate himself into a real (and good) team when his whole high school career has been him having to score 40 to carry a lackluster supporting cast, and just how gay is Duke, anyway?

3.  MIAMI HURRICANES.  The Canes are one of the few teams that were not hit hard by graduations/defections and return a couple of dynamic guards in Durand Scott and Malcolm Grant along with double-double machine Reggie Johnson who pretty much destroyed Duke last year since those pansies can't handle big, strong post players.  And I'm sure you remember Scott and Grant, seeing as how they combined for 36 points against the Gophers two seasons ago in Florida completing the teams 3-game collapse after faltering in Anaheim and completely buzzkilling all the good feelings after they beat Butler.  Yeah, I hate Miami.

4.  VIRGINIA CAVALIERS.  Mike Scott and his 16 and 10 averages are back after red-shirting last year due to an injury, and I like their plan of going with Scott and spreading a bunch of shooters out on the floor.  And no, it's not just because Virginia shot 10-13 from three last year to kill the Gophers, they legitimately have some good shooters (Joe Harris, K.T. Harrell, and Sammy Zeglinski can all shoot it and both incoming freshmen can hit from outside) and Mike Scott is a legitimate beast.  Overall Virginia was 19th in the country in 3-pt percentage and 23rd in % of points coming from behind the line, and that was with Scott only around for 10 games.  I don't know.  Maybe it is my memories of that game coloring my opinion, but I see the Cavs as a dangerous team this year.

5.  FLORIDA STATE SEMINOLES.  FSU is likely a near guarantee for an NCAA bid because their defense is always so good it's unlikely they'll completely implode, but you can't quite trust them because they are never offensively a good team and this year they don't have a real PG.  They didn't last year either and things worked out, but last year they had Chris Singleton (most of the year) and Derwin Kitchen, both of whom could actually score once in a while and both of whom are gone.  You know the defense will be there and you know they'll probably beat either UNC or Duke in Tallahassee, but it will be up to the offense whether this is a good team or a very good team.  They're bringing in three top 150 recruits, all of whom are supposedly offensive players, so if any of them can get going right away that'll be a big boost.  Remember the name Antwan Space.  Just do it.

6.  CLEMSON TIGERS.  Not unlike the Seminoles, Clemson was hit hard by graduation, losing Demontez Stitt (leading scorer and assist man) and Jerai Grant (second leading scorer and leading rebounder) but they are such a solid defensive squad under Brad Brownell that they'll still be in the hunt for an NCAA bid, although at this point in the ACC most of these teams could finish anywhere from 5th to 10th.  Still, the Tigers will have some talent including Devin Booker, the younger brother of former Clemson All-ACC performer Trevor.  He hasn't quite made the same splash that Trevor did in his first two years, but the potential is probably there I'd assume.  And speaking of potential, they actually have a McDonald's All-American on their roster in Milton Jennings.  He managed 4 double-doubles last season, which makes Trevor Mbakwe laugh, but he could end up being the x-factor for Clemson.  Whatever that means.  I don't know, I'm just typing, man.

7.  VIRGINIA TECH HOKIES.  The Hokies have a couple huge holes to fill, losing both Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen who basically did everything for them.  Fortunately, the have plenty of options to fill those holes, including two other returning double-digit scorers and a nice big recruiting class that includes some likely future stars - PF C.J. Barksdale, SG Robert Brown, and SF Dorian Finney-Smith are all top 100 on Rivals list with Finney-Smith topping the list at #31.  So yeah, there are some big losses for the Hokies, but they might end up better in the long run.  They had some serious choke jobs the last couple of years, and Delaney was a big part - mainly because he wanted the ball and everybody knew he was getting the ball.  Perhaps a little balance could work in V-Tech's favor?  Whatever it takes so we don't have to listen to Seth Greenberg whine about the selection committee again.  My least favorite spring ritual.

8.  NC STATE WOLFPACK.  Losing Tracy Smith is tough, but losing both your point guards - including emerging star Ryan Harrow (who transferred to Kentucky after the coaching change from Lowe to Gottfried) is going to be tougher.  State still has one of the most exciting players in the conference in PF C.J. Leslie, who was the #14 recruit in the nation his freshman year and averaged 11 & 7, along with a couple of other nice players in SG Lorenzo Brown (#37 last year) and dead-eye shooter Scott Wood so they'll be middle of the road with some chances to surprise people.  If Brown can handle the point - or incoming CS-Bakersfield transfer guy can - they could finish significantly higher than this.  I really love me some C.J. Leslie.

9.  GEORGIA TECH YELLOW JACKETS.  Do you think Glen Rice Jr. might have to look at a picture or two of Sarah Palin when Tech travels to Cameron or the Dean Dome or really anywhere?  Hopefully for them he'll be able to block it out, because he's going to be the main offensive weapon on this team and has the talent and situation to potentially blossom into an All-ACC type of player, particularly with Iman Shumpert leaving for the NBA and Brian Oliver transferring to Seton Hall.  Maybe the best news for Tech, however, is that Paul Hewitt is finally gone because even though he was a hell of a recruiter the guy was routinely out coached and over matched.  Brian Gregory turned the garbage dumpster of Dayton into something reasonably mediocre and Tech is a much better program so he'll likely have them turned around sooner rather than later.

10.  MARYLAND TERRAPINS.  Yet another team that got hit hard by graduation, not only did Maryland lose a ton off last year's team but when Gary Williams decided to quit coaching an a pretty inopportune time like some kind of sweaty rhinoceros he didn't do the team any favors because most of the recruits he'd signed, and there were some good ones, jumped ship.  They did manage to hold on to Nick Faust, a hometown kid who is a very good player (#48 rivals) and will make this team's strength - the back court - even stronger.  The biggest questions will be on the interior.  With the beast that was Jordan Williams and his double-double average off to the NBA and no notable additions with size, they'll have to turn to unproven upperclassmen to play in the paint.  That always works well.

11.  WAKE FOREST DEMON DEACONS.  Wake might have been the worst major conference team in 300 years last season, so they can only get better.  You'd think.  Unfortunately lack of talent continues to meet up with knuckleheadism, with former top 100 recruit J.T. Terrell leaving the team after getting arrested for a DWI and fellow top 100 recruit Melvin Tabb currently suspended indefinitely for some ambiguous reason.  The one big bright spot is SF Travis McKie who led the team in both scoring and rebounding last season.  And this is where I'd write a sentence to tie all of that together, but every time I tried to watch a Wake game last year they were losing by 25 in the first half so I didn't really pay all that much attention.   

12.  BOSTON COLLEGE EAGLES.  I don't know that I've ever seen something this dramatic, and it's hard to believe in this conference this year, but the Eagles come into this season with 92% of last year's scoring gone.  92%, yo.  That means I got a 92% chance of embarrassing myself.  I'll roll up on some shorty and be like "whats' up, yo" and she'll be like, "you don't know 20 ways to make me call you big poppa" because I don't, yo.  I just typed that from memory so it might not be dead on but it's definitely close.  Anyway, BC has 9 freshmen this year and I've never heard of any of them and they aren't on any lists so let's be honest, the quote was a much better use of our time.

Other Previews:
Big 12

Week in Review - 12.06.2010

 Back by popular demand - the week in review.  I would have had this up for your Monday morning consumption, however Comcast decided to make sure nobody in the midwest who uses their service was able to access the internet.  I was caught in their evil web of lies and evil.  Luckily, we're back, so let's go.


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Trevor Mbakwe.  I'm starting to think calling him Reign Man II was maybe the most accurate thing I've ever done.  Freakishly athletic?  Check.  Strong dunker?  Check.  Incredible rebounder?  Check.  Unable to score from further than 8 feet from the rim?  Check.  Commits dumb fouls?  Check.  Seriously, all he needs is a bunch of kids by different ladies and a bunch less IQ points and he'd be Shawn Kemp, and I mean that as a total compliment because Kemp was one of my all-time favorites.  Really maybe the lone bright spot in a pretty crappy week for your favorite team, Mbakwe put up 18 and 11 against Virginia, and nearly brought the Gophers back in that game, and then followed it up with 12 and 16 vs. Cornell.  It will be interesting to see how he fares against the other Big Ten bigs, but so far he looks like he's on a whole different level out there - something the Gophers haven't seen at PF since......Courtney James, I guess?

2.  LaceDarius Dunn.  The Baylor star guard has simply been on fire since being cleared on a domestic assault charge that was clearly a case of either mistaken identity or someone trying to frame him.  In his three games back he's scored 24, 20, and 24 and averaged 4.3 rebound and 3.3 assists to go along with that while shooting 53% from the floor and going 16-31 from three, including 6-12 in Thursday's win over Arizona State.  The Bears are looking good with Lace looking primed for a big year, stud recruit Perry Jones living up to the hype, and the guys the needed to step up (A.J. Walton, Quincy Acy) have played well.  They've had a candy soft schedule so far, but keep an eye open for their December 18th game against Gonzaga, that one should give an idea of just how good Baylor can be.  They're still 30-1 to win the whole thing.  I suggest you grab some of that action now.

3.  Jon Leuer.  Of all the Minnesota high school players who the Gophers have lost out on, Leuer might end up hurting the most.  He joins a nice list of high school greats who spurned Dan Monson and found success elsewhere (Troy Bell, Cole Aldrich, Cory Johnson, Ryan Amoroso, Kammron Taylor, Lawrence McKenzie (initially), and Isaiah Dahlman (just kidding) to name a few) but if his stats so far this year are any indication Leuer might be the best of the bunch.  He dominated in both games this week, both in the big win over NC State (22 pts, 11 rebs, 2 stls, 2 blks, 2 assists) and in the easy win over South Dakota (29 pts, 9 rebs, 4 blks, 2 steals, 2 assists), and his overall numbers are certainly Big Ten POY worthy (20/8/2/1/2 with 50% shooting).  Pretty depressing.  He's like Mike Bauer if he actually kept improving instead of falling in love with the three-pointer and ignoring everything else.

4.  North Carolina Tar Heels.  I wouldn't exactly say they're going to be alright, but the win over Kentucky shows they can at least beat a quality, if overrated, team.  Tyler Zeller looks like an absolute player and he absolutely dominated the Wildcats, putting up 27 points (on 8-13 shooting), 11 boards, and 5 blocks and teamed with John Henson to block 8 shots and force Terrence Jones, a super-stud as a freshman so far this, into 3-17 shooting, basically confusing him, not allowing him to get any clean looks in the paint, and basically winning the game for the Heels because their guards and Barnes are still meh.  I don't know if they can get into the NCAA Tournament, but every quality win they can get helps the Gophers' chances so let's go Heels. 

5. San Diego State Aztecs.  A couple of very solid wins this week for SDSU, who continue to cruise.  This week they played a couple of other quality mid-majors - St. Mary's and Wichita State - and had zero problems.  They beat both teams by 14, and now sit and 8-0 with a quality win over Gonzaga on their resume already.  They've got a pretty easy road until they hit Mountain West play, and the MWC should be strong enough this year that SDSU should cruise to a bid as long as they don't complete crash and burn, and there's no reason to suspect that they might.  They have enough balance (6 guys score at least 8 per game) to handle a bad night from anybody, and the star power in Kawhi Leonard to carry them far in March.  Consider them a solid sleeper.  And I have them at 100-1.  Holla.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Minnesota Gophers Perimeter Defense.  Once is a fluke, twice is a problem, and a season-long issue is a major major problem that is going to kill this team at some point.   Virginia shot 10-13 from behind the arc and Cornell followed that up going 14-33, and the Gophers are now allowing their opponents to shoot 38.8% from three for the season, which ranks 296th in the country and dead last in the Big Ten.  Making the alarm bells right a wee bit harder is the fact that Northwestern, Michigan State, and Illinois all rank in the top 25 in three-point shooting in the country, and every Big Ten team outside of Penn State, Iowa, and Michigan shoot better than the D-I average.  So basically we're looking at two choices - learn how to defend the perimeter, whether through scheme, hard work, smarter decisions, or some combination, or get shredded all season long.  Not exactly Sophie's Choice here.  And if Tubby can't fix this, we have to start questioning him a bit, don't we? 

2.  The Pac 10.   USC did manage to beat Texas on Sunday, but prior to that the Pac-10 was cruising towards a second straight year of terribleness.  Just this week USC lost to TCU, Oregon State lost to Utah Valley (and got crushed by Colorado), and UCLA lost to Montana - and you can find a handful of games just like that for the conference each and every week.  Washington is looking like a Final Four type team and Arizona looks solid, but that's pretty much it.  UCLA and Washington State each have a shot at a bid depending on how things go, but it's very likely we're looking at just two tournament teams here.

3.  Atlantic 10.  If you pay way too much attention to this blog you know I probably like the A-10 a little bit more than I really should (with the exception of Dayton, which is full of whiny poser pansies), so it is with great pain I must announce that the A-10 is most certainly down this year.  There were supposed to be four very strong teams (Xavier, Dayton, Richmond, and Temple) along with a handful of sleeper candidates (St. Louis, Charlotte, and Rhode Island) - unfortunately it's not quite looking that way.  Just this week, St. Louis got smoked by Portland, Charlotte was downed by East Carolina, Xavier got rolled by Miami (OH), East Tennessee State came into Dayton and beat the Flyers, and Richmond, the one team that's looking good so far, lost to Old Dominion.  With the exception of the ODU game those are all bad, bad losses.  I'm thinking two bids might be the best case scenario here.  Shame.  And it would be a double shame if one of them went to Dayton.

4.  Virginia Tech Hokies.  The past two years have ended the same way for the Hokies:  Coach Seth Greenberg whining and bitching because Va Tech didn't get an NCAA tournament bid despite a good conference season because they would schedule an insanely weak non-conference slate.  This year they finally scheduled up, but that doesn't help if you can't win, and they can't win.  So far they've lost to Kansas State, UNLV, Purdue, and Virginia - the last two this week alone - and are now just 4-4 with only a win over Oklahoma State to show for their efforts.  They still have shots coming up against Penn State and Mississippi State, but man, they better do something.  Special shout-out to Hokie star Malcolm Delaney for shooting 2-18 (TWO FOR EIGHTEEN!!lol) and committing the fourth of his turnovers on the final play of the game to lose the game.  Bravo. 

5.  North Carolina State Wolfpack.  Not so much for their loss to Syracuse on Saturday, because the Orange are a very good team and NC State hung tough until the end, but for their embarrassing destruction by Wisconsin in their Big-10/ACC Challenge match-up.  They lost by 39, shot 32% while allowing 50% from Wisconsin, were out-rebounded 40-26, turned it over 13 times to just 9 assists, and forced just six turnovers.  In short, a total disaster.  They are certainly a talented team, but still very young, so a game like this was probably inevitable, but they need to start grabbing some quality wins here in order to justify my faith in them.  They have a game coming up in a couple weeks against Arizona.  Better win that one.



Honorable mention to Old Dominion, who were basically following a perfect blueprint on how to get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament as a mid-major until this weekend when they lost to Delaware in their conference opener.  The Fightin' Blue Hens are expected to be a factor in the CAA race or any race, really, so this loss is going to hurt.  ODU has probably done enough to buy themselves some breathing room, but this loss cuts that cushion way, way down.  Way to go, jerks!

Also, can we please calm down about Michael Jordan's kid?  Thanks.

ACC College Basketball 2010 Preview

 The ACC has been almost been a two team league lately, and it looks like it might stay that way.  Sure, NC State and Virginia Tech are up this year, but Clemson, Georgia Tech, and especially Wake Forest are down.  Even when UNC was bad last year, you knew it wouldn't last, and in Duke's darkest days they recovered.  It seems every other school is on a constant up/down cycle.  Either Duke or UNC has either won outright or tied for the ACC regular season championship the last seven years and 17 of the last 20.  That's lame.  Somebody do something. 

1.  Duke Blue Devils.  I mean, you pretty much have to pick them first, right, no matter how much it burns when you say it?  Scheyer is gone, but they are so loaded with everybody else coming in, and the rumor is that incoming frosh PG Kyrie Irving is the best player on the Duke roster - and Singler is still here.  About the only real issues are with Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas gone there are some questions about Duke's toughness inside since they're all a bunch of dandies down in Durham.  I'll also be curious to see how many games Seth Curry shoots the Devils right out of.

2.  North Carolina Tar Heels.  I hate putting them second since they didn't even bother to make the NCAA Tournament last season, but the talent level is there - at least on paper.  Harrison Barnes is going to be a great one, Kevin Durant II, maybe, and Henson and Zellar are supposed to be star types as well.  The real question, as it was last year, is what of the PG spot?  Larry Drew was a disappointment most of last season, and I've read some are questioning if incoming freshman Kendall Marshall is really ACC material (and of course, the next thing you read says he's the best PG in this class).  Projected starting shooting guard Will Graves was also just dismissed for the ever ubiquitous "violation of team rules" so there's even more uncertainty in the backcourt.  Combine those questions with the thin frontcourt and although they have the talent and I'm picking them at #2 they also have to potential to fall apart for a second consecutive season.  I'm hoping for the second one.

3.  North Carolina State Wolfpack.  This is the team I'll be rooting for out of the ACC this year, and they pretty much deserve to have a nice season.  Sid Lowe hasn't show himself to necessarily be much of a game coach, which we are all pretty familiar with here in Minnesota, but his recruiting efforts are paying off.  The Wolfpack landed one of the best classes in the country (ESPN ranks it as the 7th best) with power forward C.J. Leslie and guards Lorenzo Brown and Ryan Harrow all ranking in the top 37 in the country according to Rivals.  With their All-ACC second team PF Tracy Smith back along with big-time shooter Scott Wood, all the talent is there for NC State to be relevant for the first time since Fire & Ice.  Yes, Fire & Ice.  You know you remember them.

4.  Florida State Seminoles.  There are plenty of question marks, but FSU also has some seriously top flight talent coming back, and this team continues to be a defensive powerhouse year-after-year, which means they always have a chance.  Helping out would be some offensive firepower, and they have two guys with a chance to really bring it:  Chris Singleton, a junior forward who can do it all, and Michael Snaer, a sophomore guard and great athlete who needs to improve his shot.  Also look for Xavier Gibson to try to fill in for Solomon Alabi.  He might end up as the biggest key to FSU's season.  Also, literally since he's 6-11, 240.    

5.  Virginia Tech Hokies.  They were going to be my sleeper and I was going to pick them second in the ACC for this year, but injuries have hurt their depth and although I fear I may be dropping them too far, I also think their depth behind Malcolm Delaney was their biggest strength.  And there's no doubt Delaney is an ACC Player-of-the-Year candidate and a possible All-American, but it will be up to that supporting cast to take VT as far as they are going to go.  The best news for the Hokies, however, is that they finally put together a decent non-conference schedule, so the annual tradition of coach Seth Greenberg bitching that his team deserves an NCAA bid despite not having played anybody out of conference all year should mercifully come to an end. 

6.  Maryland Terrapins.  The Terps lose a ton, with three career 1,000 point scorers on their way out in dirty stud Greivis Vasquez, backcourt mate Eric Hayes, and swingman Landon Milbourne, but Gary Williams still has some good talent and also sweats a lot.  Jordan Williams proved himself to be one of the best rebounders in the conference last year and has a very good all-around game, and Sean Mosley is one of those solid, all-around guards who score when needed, are smart with the ball, and grab too many rebounds for their size; an excellent complementary piece, but they need a star to team with Williams.  The recruiting class is deep, but not exceptional at the top, so expect Maryland to be a solid, yet unspectacular team this year.  Sort of like set-up man extraordinaire Scott Shields.  

7.  Miami Hurricanes.  It's not often a team loses it's highest scoring guard (James Dews) and highest scoring post player (Dwayne Collins) and gets better without an outstanding recruiting class, but that may be the case for the Hurricanes this year thanks to Durand Scott.  Don't forget that although Miami finished last in the ACC at 4-12 (way to go, Gophers) they did have a nice little run going in the ACC tournament beating Wake, Virginia Tech in a game the Hokies needed desperately, and losing by just three to Duke, and the biggest reason for their success in two of those three games was the play of Scott.  He's not much of a shooter (just 29% from three on just 58 attempts), but if he ever adds that piece to his game he could end up an all-league type of player, or get good enough to transfer like Denis Clemente did.

8.  Virginia Cavaliers.  Most of the positive affects of hiring Tony Bennett won't be felt until his recruiting classes have more time to gel, particularly with Sylvan Landesburg no longer being on the team, and last year was pretty meh but I have a hunch this year the Cavaliers are going to be tough and knock off a team or two they shouldn't (please not the Gophers please).  A large and talented class of freshmen, led by guards K.T. Harrell (#30 recruit by Rivals) and Joe Harris (#119) and forwards James Johnson (#108) and Will Regan (#148), will join an established star, if second tier one, in forward Mike Scott and two other returning starters.  That's a lot of talent in Charlottesville, more than we've seen in quite some time.  They probably aren't ready to be truly dangerous yet, but they're going to be pesky.  You watch.  If they don't knock off more than one top 25 team this year I'll send everyone who remembers this prediction a token of my shame as an act of contrition.

9.  Boston College Eagles. Most of the squad is back from last season, with just the transferring Rakim Sanders missing, but the problem is what's left just isn't all that exciting.  Joe Trapani is already an excellent all-around player and should thrive in new coach Steve Donahue's offense, and there are a couple of other decent players but the team is thin, both in bodies and in talent.  Donahue is already paying dividends on the recruiting trail (one site I saw has them with the #17 recruiting class in the country for next year) so things should turn around soon for B.C., just not this year.   

10.  Clemson Tigers.  Nearly everybody is back from last year's NCAA team, but the one guy missing is going to be very difficult to replace in Trevor Booker, who was top 10 last year in the ACC in scoring, rebounding, and field goal percentage, even if they do have his little brother.  Booker basically carried that team last season, and it may be up to the only other double-digit scorer from last year, point man Demontez Stitt, to carry them this year.  He did score 21 in their NCAA Tournament loss to Missouri, but reached 20 points just two other times last year, and doesn't average many assists for a point guard (just 3.1 apg).  Really there is a lot of blah talent here, and unless somebody takes a big leap forward the Tigers' streak of three straight NCAA Tourny bids will end at three. 

11.  Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.  The Jackets have a lineup of guards that could potentially be as good as any group in the country.  Mfon Udofia, Iman Shumpert, Brian Oliver, and Glen Rice, Jr. was a nice group last year and will be outstanding this year.  Unfortunately, there's nothing in the front court after Derrick Favors and Gani Lawal took off for the NBA and Zack Peacock graduated, so it's going to be awfully difficult to compete.  The only non-freshman over 6'-6" is seven-footer Brad Sheehan whose scored less than a hundred points in his combined three years, and the freshman aren't exactly superstars, with one who redshirted last year because he wasn't ready and another coming off a torn ACL.  It's going to be a rough year in Atlanta (although honestly when isn't it?  Talk about murder-happy people, sheesh), but with the shooting and perimeter skills of the guards they might shock a team here and there.

12.  Wake Forest Demon Deacons.  At least the Jackets have their guards, the Demon Deacons can't even say they have that with the losses of Al-Farouq Aminu, Ishmael Smith, Chas McFarland, and LD Williams, leaving them with just C.J. Harris (9.9 ppg) as their only returning scorer.  There is a good recruiting class coming in to Winston-Salem with four players in Rivals top 100 arriving on campus this year so the future looks bright, but this is going to be a pretty awful team this season.  I mean, like, Dan Monson's Gophers terrible.  Yes, for real.


Other Previews:

The Big 12

Week in Review - 5/3/2010

 Sorry for the delay this week, but I've basically been on a 48-hour bender and couldn't find the time to post.  See if you can tell which entries below I wrote earlier in the week, and which I just slapped up there right now.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Wilson Ramos.  Time to trade Mauer now while he has the most value, we don't need him.

2.  Justin Smoak.  Finally got his first hit and first home run, and although the numbers don't look all that great now, he's still walking and the hits are going to start to come as he tears up pitching on his March to rookie-of-the year.  It's a lock.

3.  Colorado.  I'm talking the college basketball team here.  I know, you're all like "say what?" but the Buffaloes caught a huge boost when freshman stud Alec Burks decided not to enter the NBA Draft, despite a decent chance that he'd be a late first-round pick and the fact that you've never heard of him.  Burks was the Big-12 freshman of the year (suck it, Xavier Henry) and had NBA scouts slobbering all over him most of the year, despite very little high-major attention coming out of high school (which would explain how he ended up in Boulder).  He's now back, super stud and Big 12 third-teamer Cory Higgins is back, and new coach Tad Boyle is basically guaranteed to be better than Jeff Bzdelik (he's done a nice job with No Co).  I'm not quite ready to say things are looking up for the Buffaloes, but they're looking slightly better - like working at Taco Bell instead of Taco Johns's.

4.  NC State.  Sticking with the college hoops theme, it looks like the Woflpack are back, for the first time since the days of Julius Hodge.  This assumes that Tracy Smith's entry into the NBA draft is similar to when Dan Coleman and Spencer entered a few years ago and isn't anything real -although don't mistake what I'm saying, T. Smith is far better than either of those two clowns (I will admit I kind of might be starting to like Spencer as a radio guy).  They just picked up a commitment from C.J. Leslie, an outstanding swingman and McDonald's All-American who ranks as the 14th best recruit in the country according to Rivals.  He joins fellow recruits PG Ryan Harrow (ranked #19), SG Lorenzo Brown (#36), and a very talented group of sophomores (as well as Smith) to give NC State as much talent as they've had in a long time.  They also have a good shot at inking the #45 recruit PF Luke Cothron.  Of course Sid Lowe couldn't out-coach a wet paper bag or medium-sized rock, so there's a ceiling to their potential success.

5.  Chris Tillman.  If your firs reaction was that this guy is some kind of cornerback, congratulations you're wrong.  And also an idiot.  No, Tillman is a minor-league prospect of the Balitmore Orioles - a pitcher, to be precise - and is looking like he's every bit as good as advertised.  He one-upped a much publicized outing by Stephen Strasburg where he threw five no-hit innings in AA by throwing a full-game, 9-inning no hitter in AAA.  Tillman, who was acquired in the Erik Bedard trade, was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the #3 talent under the age of 25 on the O's (behind #2 Adam Jones and #1 Adult Jesus (Wieters)) and is one of a slew of good looking pitching prospects that have brought a little bit of optimism back to Camden Yards.  With the back end of the O's rotation struggling and this outing, expect to see Tillman hit the bigs sooner rather than later.

WHO SUCKED

1.  Tiger Woods.  I suppose it has to be said that if you thought Tiger was all the way back, he's probably not.  Not after shooting 74-79 at Quail Hollow and missing the cut by 8 shots.  Eight!  Out of 152 players, he finished better than nine of them, and his 79 on Friday (highlighted by back-to-back double bogeys) was better than only five rounds shot in the entire tournament.  That 79 was the second worst round of his career, and his 153 is his worst outing through 36 holes - ever.  Simply put, this wasn't just an off weekend, it was a complete disaster.  Clearly he is a golf robot fueled by sex with hookers and he's running pretty low on fuel.  Might be time to get back on that horse there, guy.  And I said horse.  Not whores.

2.  Dallas Mavericks.  Remember how the Mavs were supposed to be a sleeper to make the finals from the west?  :fartnoise:  Good work guys.  In case you missed it, the #2 seed in the West got bounced 3 games to 2 by San Antonio, once again proving that the Spurs will never die - like Al Davis or Jesse Crain.  Combine an inability to guard Manu Ginobilli's nose, Jason Kidd's Colt Iverson-like three-point shooting, and the curse of Mark Cuban, and the Mavs were doomed.  Seriously, these guys had one shot in the 2006 finals versus Miami and got screwed by the league mandate to give Dwyane Wade every call.  Now, no matter how many trades they make, whether good  (Josh Howard for Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood) or bad (Jason Kidd for Devin Harris), they aren't getting back to the finals any time soon.  Plus that team is WAY over their allotment of Mexicans.

3.  Ben Sheets.  Two starts this week, and he got absolutely shelled in each.  I'm thinking that experiment is not exactly going according to plan.

4.  Trevor Hoffman. Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.  Hells Bells indeeed.   

5.  Jevan Snead.  You know how you hear about guys who go early-entry into the NBA draft and don't get drafted?  Well, that's exactly what happened to Ole Miss QB Jevan Snead, except it was the NFL draft he entered early, and instead of not getting drafted in a two-round draft, it's a seven rounder.  Ouch.  Evan more confusing is that it wasn't exactly like his stock was rising.  Snead was supposed to be a fringe Heisman candidate to start, but after a Junior year that was worse than his sophomore year and inconsistently play all-around, it should have been clear he wasn't ready for the NFL draft.  And now 32 NFL GMs agreed, an average of 7 or so times a piece.  What's the NFL equivalent of the D-League?  The CFL?  Arena League?


And yes, the NFL draft was technically last week, but I didn't know about Snead until this week so I'm including it here.  Sorry, those are the rules.  The moose out front should have told ya.