WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Purdue Boilermakers. Robbie Hummel's injury sucked for him and Purdue fans, but fans of every other school, both in the Big Ten and nationally, should be grateful because this team is incredibly good without him, and might legitimately have been unstoppable with him. JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore are both stars, and all the role players fit around them perfectly. White shooter guy? Ryne Smith. Athletic wing who can defend well? Kelsey Barlow. Next Brian Cardinal/Chris Kramer? D.J. Byrd. Lighting quick PG? Lewis Jackson. They beat Michigan on the road and Northwestern at home, and while those might not sound like great wins they did it in completely dominating fashion. When Hummel went down it seems Purdue was written off as a national title contender, but after seeing them play this week I'd put them right back on the list.
2. Washington Huskies. If Washington was going to stumble on their way to a nearly inevitable Pac-10 crown this would have been the week. Going into to Los Angeles to play the two L.A. teams is easily their most difficult road trip, but Washington managed to escape with a 2-0 record by beating USC in overtime and then knocking off UCLA with ease. The Huskies probably don't have enough size to be a real threat to make the final four, but they play at one of the fastest paces in the country (9th) and combine that with being very efficient on the offensive end (6th), which means they score a ton of points (3rd at 89.1 per game). That, along with their very good guards, make them a threat to pull off some upsets along the way, and they should cruise to a Pac-10 title, especially after this week's 2-0 start.
3. St. Johns Red Storm. I had said St. Johns was a bit of a sleeper in the Big East, and then they sucked. They lost back-to-back games against crappy Fordham and crappy St. Bonnies, and looked dead in the water. Well, like Jesus they're back, opening up their Big East schedule with two road wins, and impressive wins at that. First they beat West Virginia and then followed that up by taking down Providence - not a tournament team, but a team that was 11-3 coming into the game so they aren't exactly a piece of cake. This team still lines up well to be a sleeper: good guards, balanced scoring, good depth, senior leadership. Now they're finally starting to play like it.
4. Iowa State Cyclones. I would like to call your attention to Iowa State, because nobody is paying any attention to them. After going to Virginia and beating the Cavs this week, the same team that killed the Gophers here don't forget, the Cyclones are now 11-2. Now, the Virginia win is one of the only decent wins they've had, along with wins over Iowa and Creighton, and neither loss is particularly good (to Northern Iowa and Cal, neither a likely tournament team) so it's not like they're exactly lined up well for an NCAA bid or anything, but after the last few nightmarish seasons in Ames this has got to feel pretty freakin' good for fans of that program. Hoiberg seemingly has them moving in the right direction.
5. Stanford chick basketball. Thank fucking god. If I had to hear about that UCONN women's team streak one more time I was going to scream. Nobody cares, stop shoving it down my throat ESPN jerks. I don't remotely care enough about women's sports to hate a team anywhere near as much as I hated that UCONN team. Thank god our long national nightmare is finally over.
WHO SUCKED
1. Louisville Cardinals. When you're ranked #20 in the country you're not supposed to get blown out at home, and when you're Louisville, you're not supposed to get blown out at home by Kentucky, so Friday's 78-63 loss to the Wildcats was a nice big double oof. So what this means is that Louisville is ranked #20 on the strength of two notable wins: over a Butler team who has been exposed as terribly overrated, and against UNLV, who followed up that game by losing to Santa Barbara. The other impressive part of Louisville's resume right now is they only have two losses: this blowout at home and an earlier home loss vs. Drexel. So I guess what I'm saying is we probably shouldn't start printing up NCAA Tournament tickets for Louisville family and friends just yet.
2. Mississippi State Bulldogs. Holy crap is this team bad, and I don't think it has anything to do with Renardo Sidney kicking his teammates asses or getting free cars. They got smoked this week by St. Mary's, who joins Washington State, Virginia Tech, and Hawaii as teams that have absolutely smoked the Bulldogs, who also have losses to Florida Atlantic and East Tennessee State this year. They're just awful. I don't even know why, they were supposed to be the favorite for the SEC East title. Or West. Whichever division they're in that I'm not looking up. Maybe things will turn around when Dee Bost comes off his suspension, but by then Sidney may have already beaten up the entire team.
3. Siena Saints. So I know the Saints lost three very good players and their coach off last year's team, but holy crapolavich have they fallen far. They came into the week at 4-6 with some pretty terrible losses, but may have bottomed out this week by losing to crappy St. Bonaventure and crappier Saint Joseph's. With two excellent players back - Clarence Jackson and Ryan Rossiter - the Saints were supposed to be a contender for the MAAC crown once again. Instead they're an absolute disaster of gopher football-ish proportions. Yeah.
4. Big Ten Football. You know how there are a bunch of people in the world who always say stuff like "The Big Ten is too slow" and "The Big Ten sucks at football"? Well, yeah..
5. Washington State Cougars. Remember how up above there I was talking about how the LA trip went really well for Washington? Well the opposite is true for Washington State, who dropped both games. With their wins over Gonzaga and Baylor and a competitive loss against Kansas State the Cougars were looking like a possible sleeper in the Pac-10. With one of the best scorers in the country in Klay Thompson and another guard who can light it up from deep in Faisal Aden along with a solid group of big men, WSU looked really good for most of this year. Well fart on that.
Showing posts with label Renardo Sidney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renardo Sidney. Show all posts
Monday, January 3, 2011
Monday, December 27, 2010
Week in Review - 12.27.2010
Merry Christmas and all that. FYI - I'm off all week, so you can probably expect either a lot of posts or zero posts. I'm probably going to be pretty busy watching Eastbound & Down, Community, and Parks and Rec DVDs or reading Pillars of the Earth, The Girl who Kicked a Hornet's Nest, or Moonlight Mile.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Butler Bulldogs. Just as everyone, myself included, are questioning if Butler is any good this year they head out to Hawaii and take down the Diamondhead Classic. They beat Utah, Florida State, and Washington State, and that's probably two wins over NCAA Tournament teams. The only negative would be that they didn't get a chance to face Baylor, but they did beat WSU, the team that beat the Bears. Butler needed good wins in the worst way after pissing away every chance, so this was huge for their at-large chances. With Cleveland State looking pretty studly in the Horizon, Butler gots some competition, so they're going to need everything they can get to help them out in case they can't get past the Vikings in the conference tourney.
2. USC Trojans. I think it might be time to recognize USC as an actual halfway decent team, which, along with Washington, Arizona, and Washington State gives the Pac-10 four potential NCAA teams. After a very, very shaky 4-4 start that included some embarrassing losses, they seemed to start to hit their stride by beating Texas and then Fordham transfer Jio Fontan joined the team and made them immediately much better, giving the Trojans an outside threat to go along with stellar inside dudes Alex Stepheson and Nikola Vucevic. Fontan, who scored 15 points per game last year for Fordham, has scored 15, 13, and 21 in his three games. leading the Trojans to wins over Tennessee and Lehigh and a near win over Kansas. Official Pac-10 sleeper here. Which doesn't mean much, to be completely honest with you.
3. Klay Thompson. Ok, so I just assumed Thompson wasn't all that good and people were just all spazzy about him because of his dad, but I watched him play this weekend and the guy's pretty good. He scored 28, 20, and 31 points in their three games in Hawaii, and he's not just a deadeye shot who can't leave open, although you can't, but he's also good with the ball, can drive and score, and also has a nice mid-range game. In short, he's a really good scorer. His zero rebounds against Baylor is a bit disconcerting since he's 6-6, but he's a pretty good defender overall from what I saw. Very impressed by him Believe the hype.
4. Dwayne Bowe. Confession time. I traded away Bowe in a keeper league. I really needed a young, franchise type running back and nearly had a trade in place for Maurice Drew, but the other owner couldn't quite pull the trigger. After a couple weeks I put together a different trade with Snake for Ray Rice, but he insisted I include Bowe, who I didn't have to include in the trade for Drew. I emailed the first owner to say I had a trade in place and if he wanted to move he had to make up his mind. I waited four days, he never said anything, and so I made the trade for Rice. The next morning I get an email from owner #1 who says "I came in to work today and was going to accept the trade for Drew, but I see you moved on." Well, suffice it to say, every time Bowe has a good game (like this week's 153 yards with a TD) I die a little inside.
5. Colorado State Rams. Well you can chalk this up as a pretty freakin' big surprise, because I was pretty well convinced this team was terrible, particularly because they lost to Sam Houston State, but they went to Cancun and ended up winning the Cancun Governor's Cup tournament which is a real thing. It wasn't exactly a loaded field, but they did beat two pretty decent teams in Ole Miss and Southern Mississippi. This is the part where I'd usually saying something smart about the players involved, but I don't know a god damn thing about Colorado State this year so I'll just post this picture instead:
WHO SUCKED
1. Gopher Basketball. Seriously, I'm so sick of this team right now I can't really even write any words. If they keep doing this crap where they don't play defense or play hard and let the other team dictate the how the game is going to be played and fall behind early they are going to get absolutely destroyed in the Big Ten play. It's been fine since they've played a bunch of crap schools over the last few weeks, but we're about to start conference play and I have zero confidence that they're going to do anything other than get destroyed. I can't even talk about it right now.
2. Michigan State Spartans. Tom Izzo and the Spartans have earned quite a bit of latitude on slow starts, seeing as their MO seems to be starting slow, grabbing a 3-6 seed in the tournament, and then making the Final Four. So when they lost to UCONN nobody panicked, especially seeing how the Huskies were playing at the time. Then they lost Duke and Syracuse, and everybody was ok with it because those are two of the ten best teams in the country. They struggled to a one-point win over Oakland, and we shrugged. But Wednesday night they again faced a good challenger in Texas, this time in East Lansing, and they got completely and totally shredded. And although Texas may be a good team this was not another case of a good team getting beat by a really good team. This was a case of Michigan State playing like crap: lackluster on offense, mediocre on the boards, and just all-out terrible on defense including getting beat down the floor for easy Texas lay-ups. This isn't the same thing we've seen before, this is far more dire - like getting AIDS instead of the clap. Both suck, but one is annoying while the other can really wreck your year.
3. Baylor Bears. This team is good enough and had a good enough year that there's no need to panic or call the Hawaii trip a disaster, but it was definitely a huge disappointment. The won their opener against San Diego easily enough, but then lost a surprising one to Washington State and got beat by an unranked, but good, Florida State team as well. Coming on the heels of a loss against Gonzaga and there are some warning flags being tossed about here. One thing that would really help is if they could shoot from the outside. In their last four games they've shot just 25% from behind the line, not helped at all by Lace Dunn who went 4-20 in their final two games in Hawaii. Twenty three-point attempts in two games? Hey Dunn, you do realize you don't have to just shoot behind the line, right? You can actually get closer to the hoop. Who do you think you freakin' are, Rick Rickert?
4. Northwestern Wildcats. I've talked about it on here before, but I really don't get Northwestern's schedule. In a year where they have a very good chance of making their first NCAA tournament, they schedule like crap out of conference (293rd strength of schedule in the nation, easily the worst in the Big Ten) and set it up so their only chance to get a decent non-conference game was this week in the MSG Holiday Tournament against St. Johns. But they lost, and they lost bad. So now they sit at 8-1, and it's a completely empty 8-1, and they are guaranteed that their best out-of-conference wins are going to be Georgia Tech, a bottom ACC team, and Creighton, a mid-level MVC. And a bunch of wins against sub-200 teams. In other words, all the other Big Ten contender type teams can aim for 9-9 and be assured of a bid, where Northwestern is going to need 10-8, or maybe even better. Good luck, nerds.
5. Renardo Sidney. The #16 overall recruit last season and #5 power forward, Sidney is a 6-10, 250 lb. beast who by all accounts is extremely skilled. The problem is he can't get on the court. He had originally committed to USC, but late in the process there was a "mutual agreement to end the recruiting process" so he landed at Mississippi State. Where he was then ineligible all last season due to receiving improper benefits while in Los Angeles, and had to sit out the first nine games this year. He finally played against Virginia Tech, scored 12 points in 25 minutes, and was then immediately suspended for a violation of team rules. He went out to Hawaii with the team, played in their second-round matchup against San Diego, put up 19 points and 6 boards in 20 minutes, and got in a fistfight with a teammate and was suspended indefinitely. This guy is a complete mess. Kind of what I imagine Zach Randolph's college career would have been like it he hadn't been under Izzo's capable watch. Footage of the fight is below. Pretty sweet. Freakin' Buster Douglas and shit.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Butler Bulldogs. Just as everyone, myself included, are questioning if Butler is any good this year they head out to Hawaii and take down the Diamondhead Classic. They beat Utah, Florida State, and Washington State, and that's probably two wins over NCAA Tournament teams. The only negative would be that they didn't get a chance to face Baylor, but they did beat WSU, the team that beat the Bears. Butler needed good wins in the worst way after pissing away every chance, so this was huge for their at-large chances. With Cleveland State looking pretty studly in the Horizon, Butler gots some competition, so they're going to need everything they can get to help them out in case they can't get past the Vikings in the conference tourney.
2. USC Trojans. I think it might be time to recognize USC as an actual halfway decent team, which, along with Washington, Arizona, and Washington State gives the Pac-10 four potential NCAA teams. After a very, very shaky 4-4 start that included some embarrassing losses, they seemed to start to hit their stride by beating Texas and then Fordham transfer Jio Fontan joined the team and made them immediately much better, giving the Trojans an outside threat to go along with stellar inside dudes Alex Stepheson and Nikola Vucevic. Fontan, who scored 15 points per game last year for Fordham, has scored 15, 13, and 21 in his three games. leading the Trojans to wins over Tennessee and Lehigh and a near win over Kansas. Official Pac-10 sleeper here. Which doesn't mean much, to be completely honest with you.
3. Klay Thompson. Ok, so I just assumed Thompson wasn't all that good and people were just all spazzy about him because of his dad, but I watched him play this weekend and the guy's pretty good. He scored 28, 20, and 31 points in their three games in Hawaii, and he's not just a deadeye shot who can't leave open, although you can't, but he's also good with the ball, can drive and score, and also has a nice mid-range game. In short, he's a really good scorer. His zero rebounds against Baylor is a bit disconcerting since he's 6-6, but he's a pretty good defender overall from what I saw. Very impressed by him Believe the hype.
4. Dwayne Bowe. Confession time. I traded away Bowe in a keeper league. I really needed a young, franchise type running back and nearly had a trade in place for Maurice Drew, but the other owner couldn't quite pull the trigger. After a couple weeks I put together a different trade with Snake for Ray Rice, but he insisted I include Bowe, who I didn't have to include in the trade for Drew. I emailed the first owner to say I had a trade in place and if he wanted to move he had to make up his mind. I waited four days, he never said anything, and so I made the trade for Rice. The next morning I get an email from owner #1 who says "I came in to work today and was going to accept the trade for Drew, but I see you moved on." Well, suffice it to say, every time Bowe has a good game (like this week's 153 yards with a TD) I die a little inside.
5. Colorado State Rams. Well you can chalk this up as a pretty freakin' big surprise, because I was pretty well convinced this team was terrible, particularly because they lost to Sam Houston State, but they went to Cancun and ended up winning the Cancun Governor's Cup tournament which is a real thing. It wasn't exactly a loaded field, but they did beat two pretty decent teams in Ole Miss and Southern Mississippi. This is the part where I'd usually saying something smart about the players involved, but I don't know a god damn thing about Colorado State this year so I'll just post this picture instead:
WHO SUCKED
1. Gopher Basketball. Seriously, I'm so sick of this team right now I can't really even write any words. If they keep doing this crap where they don't play defense or play hard and let the other team dictate the how the game is going to be played and fall behind early they are going to get absolutely destroyed in the Big Ten play. It's been fine since they've played a bunch of crap schools over the last few weeks, but we're about to start conference play and I have zero confidence that they're going to do anything other than get destroyed. I can't even talk about it right now.
2. Michigan State Spartans. Tom Izzo and the Spartans have earned quite a bit of latitude on slow starts, seeing as their MO seems to be starting slow, grabbing a 3-6 seed in the tournament, and then making the Final Four. So when they lost to UCONN nobody panicked, especially seeing how the Huskies were playing at the time. Then they lost Duke and Syracuse, and everybody was ok with it because those are two of the ten best teams in the country. They struggled to a one-point win over Oakland, and we shrugged. But Wednesday night they again faced a good challenger in Texas, this time in East Lansing, and they got completely and totally shredded. And although Texas may be a good team this was not another case of a good team getting beat by a really good team. This was a case of Michigan State playing like crap: lackluster on offense, mediocre on the boards, and just all-out terrible on defense including getting beat down the floor for easy Texas lay-ups. This isn't the same thing we've seen before, this is far more dire - like getting AIDS instead of the clap. Both suck, but one is annoying while the other can really wreck your year.
3. Baylor Bears. This team is good enough and had a good enough year that there's no need to panic or call the Hawaii trip a disaster, but it was definitely a huge disappointment. The won their opener against San Diego easily enough, but then lost a surprising one to Washington State and got beat by an unranked, but good, Florida State team as well. Coming on the heels of a loss against Gonzaga and there are some warning flags being tossed about here. One thing that would really help is if they could shoot from the outside. In their last four games they've shot just 25% from behind the line, not helped at all by Lace Dunn who went 4-20 in their final two games in Hawaii. Twenty three-point attempts in two games? Hey Dunn, you do realize you don't have to just shoot behind the line, right? You can actually get closer to the hoop. Who do you think you freakin' are, Rick Rickert?
4. Northwestern Wildcats. I've talked about it on here before, but I really don't get Northwestern's schedule. In a year where they have a very good chance of making their first NCAA tournament, they schedule like crap out of conference (293rd strength of schedule in the nation, easily the worst in the Big Ten) and set it up so their only chance to get a decent non-conference game was this week in the MSG Holiday Tournament against St. Johns. But they lost, and they lost bad. So now they sit at 8-1, and it's a completely empty 8-1, and they are guaranteed that their best out-of-conference wins are going to be Georgia Tech, a bottom ACC team, and Creighton, a mid-level MVC. And a bunch of wins against sub-200 teams. In other words, all the other Big Ten contender type teams can aim for 9-9 and be assured of a bid, where Northwestern is going to need 10-8, or maybe even better. Good luck, nerds.
5. Renardo Sidney. The #16 overall recruit last season and #5 power forward, Sidney is a 6-10, 250 lb. beast who by all accounts is extremely skilled. The problem is he can't get on the court. He had originally committed to USC, but late in the process there was a "mutual agreement to end the recruiting process" so he landed at Mississippi State. Where he was then ineligible all last season due to receiving improper benefits while in Los Angeles, and had to sit out the first nine games this year. He finally played against Virginia Tech, scored 12 points in 25 minutes, and was then immediately suspended for a violation of team rules. He went out to Hawaii with the team, played in their second-round matchup against San Diego, put up 19 points and 6 boards in 20 minutes, and got in a fistfight with a teammate and was suspended indefinitely. This guy is a complete mess. Kind of what I imagine Zach Randolph's college career would have been like it he hadn't been under Izzo's capable watch. Footage of the fight is below. Pretty sweet. Freakin' Buster Douglas and shit.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Week In Review - 11/23/09
If you've been watching basketball on ESPN this week, you would have noticed them pimping the hell out of their NCAA Basketball Encyclopedia, and probably become a bit annoyed by it. I got annoyed by it, but I have to tell you that I have this book and it is totally awesome. There is more information in there than any person could possibly need, and I mean that in a good way. Like, did you know Delino DeShields was a top basketball prospect coming out of high school? It's full of all that kind of stuff and more. It's not like a baseball encyclopedia, like where you could say "I wonder what Kenny Lofton's stats were when he played for Arizona" and then look him up, but it's got tons of other info. It lists every D-I team, their best players, best teams, best coaches, some cool little fun facts and other information, as well as their record every single year and their leading scorer, rebounder, and assister for each season. Plus a bunch more cool stuff. I highly, highly recommend it.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Zack Greinke. This was refreshing. The BBWAA actually didn't screw this up and voted Greinke the American League Cy Young award, which is at it should have been. In case you forgot, Greinke went 16-8 with a 2.16 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP this year, leading the league in both of those last two metrics, and if you watched him at all he seemed even better than that. I figured the voters would screw this one up, since they love giving awards to players on good teams (The royals were awful), they love evaluating players based on wins (six pitchers had more wins than Greinke), and they love Yankees (Sabathia looked like a perfect candidate for the idiot voters). But, for once, they made the right call. Also a congrats to Tim Lincecum for winning the NL award for the second year in a row. Who would have known Mitch Kramer would have grown up to be such a success.
2. Syracuse. It seems my prediction of "Syracuse will suck this year" might be way, way off, while the cretins who vote in the polls and had them 24th were closer to the truth (also still underrating them). After the two gimme wins last week, they headed to Madison Square Garden for the final four of the Coaches vs. Cancer classic, and walked out with the title. They did it in impressive fashion, as well, beating #12 Cal in the semis 95-73 and #4 North Carolina 87-71 in the championship. Their defense is still top notch, Scoop Jardine and Brandon Triche have filled in for Jonny Flynn nicely, Andy Rautins is actually making shots, Wes Johnson is as good as advertised, and Arinze Onuaku has stepped his game up. Very nice week for the Orange. I still kind of think this might be a house of cards a bit, and also that Cal and UNC were majorly overrated, but Syracuse has already proved me wrong, and it wouldn't shock if they continue to do so.
3. John Wall. Well, I think we can go ahead and say "believe the hype." Wall was the top recruit this season, was picked by someone I read as the National Player of the Year, and so far neither of those seem too ridiculous. In his three games this year, Wall has averaged 20.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 2.7 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game, all while shooting 56% from the floor. His turnovers are about the only thing remotely concerning (averaging four per game), but he only had two in Saturday's win (to 11 assists) and for a freshman this early in the season it's not a surprise they are a little high. Kentucky still hasn't really played anybody, and won't until December, but for now Wall looks very good, and Calipari is certainly squeezing as much out of him as he can in what his likely his only college season - he's played 38, 37, and 35 minutes in the three games.
4. Minnesota Vikings. Are you like me and life as a Minnesota fan, and specifically a Viking fan, has conditioned you to expect the worst at all times? I mean the Vikes are absolutely rolling, now at 9-1 and just destroying teams, such as the poor, hapless Seahawks who they rolled to such a degree that T-Jax actually played almost an entire half. Everything is perfect. Brett Favre has played nearly flawlessly this season. Adrian Peterson has gone from "possibly the best back in football" to "the best back in football." Percy Harvin is heading towards a possible rookie-of-the-year award. Sidney Rice has realized his untapped potential and vaulted into maybe a top 10 receiver in the NFL (Don't believe me? He's 17th in catches and 3rd in receiving yards in the NFL). And the defense, although showing a few weaknesses at times, is still an elite unit with a front four that is basically destroying everybody - And all this without Antoine Winfield. And yet, instead of relaxing, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and someting to go horribly, horribly wrong. Will it be a Favre injury? An injury to some one else? Or will it be smooth sailing until an epic choke job in the playoffs? I don't know, but you know damn well it's going to be something.
5. Rodney Williams. I think it's finally time to recognize that this kid might not just beat beating up on poor teams, he might legitimately be a Big Ten Freshman of the Year candidate. It seemed the consensus on the Gopher freshmen coming into the season was Royce = FOY candidate, Cobbs = immediate backup, might steal the starting spot, and Rodney = project, possible redshirt. Well, after putting up games of 14, 14, and 17 points, all on better than 58% shooting, and adding an average of three boards and two steals per, he's suddenly looking far beyond a redshirt. Besides his stellar defense and insane athleticism, which were given, he's answered questions about his offense by showing a nice outside touch (3-8 from three) and a good offensive IQ. I'm starting to wish I took him in my fantasy college hoops league. Although I did get Damian Johnson, who is just ridiculous in every way.
To give you some example, in the scoring system our league uses (pts, rebs = +1, asts = +2, stl, blks = +3, TO = -2), he has put up 46, 40, and 42 points. Last year's returning leader was Luke Harangody (also on my team), and he averaged 42 per game. I realize DJ probably won't be able to continue to put up those kind of numbers, especially the blocks and steals, once competition improves, but in any case, he is just so, so valuable, and I'm talking real life - not fantasy. I don't care who ends up leading the Gophers in which statistical categories, Johnson is hands down this team's MVP. Except maybe Ralph.
WHO SUCKED
1. Penn State. Ouch. It looks like Iowa and Indiana won't be battling for 11th place by themselves, the post-Geary Claxton era is looking ugly. The Nittany Lions were basically Talor Battle and that's it, and needed somebody to step up and help out this year. That hasn't happened, and Penn State basically embarrassed themselves at the Charleston Classic this weekend, finishing in 7th place (out of 8). It was a pretty low-level tournament, and was set up for a South Carolina/Miami final, with Penn State and South Florida as potential sleepers and then four cupcakey-type teams. Well, the final happened, but Penn State never got their sleeper campaign going, dropping their opener to UNC-Wilmington. Ok, fine. At least they should be able to rip through the consolation bracket and salvage some pride, right? Wrong again. They lost their first consolation game to Tulane, setting up an epic seventh place game against Davidson, which they mercifully won. Gopher fans have been there - remember the Old Spice Classic? - so we feel your pain, Penn State.
2. Pac 10 Hoops. The Pac was already said to be down this year, but things might be worse than originally thought, especially after watching one of their two "top flight" teams get swept by Ohio State and Syracuse in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, and do so without much of a fight (although to be completely fair, the Bears were missing a couple of players). There are a ton of other black marks as well; Arizona State needed a miracle finish to beat a terrible TCU team, Stanford lost to Oral Roberts, UCLA lost to Bryce Webster and CS - Fullerton, USC was knocked off by a god awful Loyola Marymount team, Oregon lost to Portland, and Oregon State (the conference's big sleeper) lost to Texas Tech to drop to 1-2 and then lost on Saturday to Sacramento State - one of the worst teams in the country - and that all happened just this week. I honestly can't remember ever seeing a major conference struggle this mightily this early. At least the Washington schools are still undefeated, although neither has really played anyone yet. The real winner in this is Arizona, who was heading for a down year and whose 24 straight years with an NCAA Tournament bid record was in jeopardy. With a decent team, in what suddenly looks like a super weak conference, we could be looking at 25.
3. Pittsburgh Steelers. Funny thing about the NFL this year, there are a handful of teams that are so gad awful they never win and never even threaten to win: Oakland, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and Kansas City. Except - whoops - Kansas City beat the Steelers on Sunday, 27-24 in overtime - and did so without Dwayne Bowe, who is suspending for cheating. I have no idea how it happened. Roethlisberger threw for 398 yards, but threw two picks and the Steelers turned the ball over three times, and then allowed Matt Cassell to have a nearly perfect second half and overtime, leading to four scoring drives including the game-winning field goal. I don't even know what else to say. This is like when Forrest Gump won the Oscar over Pulp Fiction. Oakland also beat Cincinnati, and in even more embarrassing fashion, but I still feel like the Pitt loss was more stunning even though the Bengals have a better record than the Steelers. I guess I've learned that you can never trust the Bengals completely. Kind of like a wife or girlfriend. Or any female, really.
4. Gopher football. Did you ever think you'd pine for the days of Glen Mason? I certainly didn't, and yet, that's what I found myself thinking on Sunday watching Maroney run for the Patriots. I found myself harkening back to the days of Barbaroney (and G-Russ) and thinking, at least when Mason was here the Gophers had some talented players. At least they were exciting and fun to watch. And then I stopped myself, and realized what I was saying. I wish Glen Mason was still here. I WISH. GLEN MASON. WAS STILL HERE. And I have a feeling if you're reading this and haven't thought that, you're thinking it right now. Isn't that the most damning evidence that the Brewster era has been a failure?
5. NCAA Fascists. FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! Who's with me? FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO... (also now featured on the front page of the espn college basketball section).
I am crazy fired up for college basketball this year, and this is one of the best times of the season with all the holiday tournaments going on. We already had the Coaches vs. Classic and Puerto Rico Tip-Off winners, but there's plenty more going on, and I'm most interested in the Maui Classic (other than the 76 Classic, of course). I've been pimping Cincinnati as a final four sleeper this year, and this will be their first chance to show if I'm at least near the right track or not. They start off with a good Vanderbilt team today on ESPN2 at 4:30 - check them out.
One other quick note from the weekend - the Gophers opponent in the Big10/ACC Challenge, Miami, won the Charleston Classic this weekend by beating Tulane, UNC-Wilmington, and South Carolina. That's not really all that impressive, since the first two are weak teams (although Wilmington beat Penn State) and South Carolina's second best player went down with a knee injury seven minutes into the game and never returned, but still, it boosts Miami's profile and therefore the Gophers' if they manage a win on the 2nd - which I certainly think they can.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Zack Greinke. This was refreshing. The BBWAA actually didn't screw this up and voted Greinke the American League Cy Young award, which is at it should have been. In case you forgot, Greinke went 16-8 with a 2.16 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP this year, leading the league in both of those last two metrics, and if you watched him at all he seemed even better than that. I figured the voters would screw this one up, since they love giving awards to players on good teams (The royals were awful), they love evaluating players based on wins (six pitchers had more wins than Greinke), and they love Yankees (Sabathia looked like a perfect candidate for the idiot voters). But, for once, they made the right call. Also a congrats to Tim Lincecum for winning the NL award for the second year in a row. Who would have known Mitch Kramer would have grown up to be such a success.
2. Syracuse. It seems my prediction of "Syracuse will suck this year" might be way, way off, while the cretins who vote in the polls and had them 24th were closer to the truth (also still underrating them). After the two gimme wins last week, they headed to Madison Square Garden for the final four of the Coaches vs. Cancer classic, and walked out with the title. They did it in impressive fashion, as well, beating #12 Cal in the semis 95-73 and #4 North Carolina 87-71 in the championship. Their defense is still top notch, Scoop Jardine and Brandon Triche have filled in for Jonny Flynn nicely, Andy Rautins is actually making shots, Wes Johnson is as good as advertised, and Arinze Onuaku has stepped his game up. Very nice week for the Orange. I still kind of think this might be a house of cards a bit, and also that Cal and UNC were majorly overrated, but Syracuse has already proved me wrong, and it wouldn't shock if they continue to do so.
3. John Wall. Well, I think we can go ahead and say "believe the hype." Wall was the top recruit this season, was picked by someone I read as the National Player of the Year, and so far neither of those seem too ridiculous. In his three games this year, Wall has averaged 20.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 2.7 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game, all while shooting 56% from the floor. His turnovers are about the only thing remotely concerning (averaging four per game), but he only had two in Saturday's win (to 11 assists) and for a freshman this early in the season it's not a surprise they are a little high. Kentucky still hasn't really played anybody, and won't until December, but for now Wall looks very good, and Calipari is certainly squeezing as much out of him as he can in what his likely his only college season - he's played 38, 37, and 35 minutes in the three games.
4. Minnesota Vikings. Are you like me and life as a Minnesota fan, and specifically a Viking fan, has conditioned you to expect the worst at all times? I mean the Vikes are absolutely rolling, now at 9-1 and just destroying teams, such as the poor, hapless Seahawks who they rolled to such a degree that T-Jax actually played almost an entire half. Everything is perfect. Brett Favre has played nearly flawlessly this season. Adrian Peterson has gone from "possibly the best back in football" to "the best back in football." Percy Harvin is heading towards a possible rookie-of-the-year award. Sidney Rice has realized his untapped potential and vaulted into maybe a top 10 receiver in the NFL (Don't believe me? He's 17th in catches and 3rd in receiving yards in the NFL). And the defense, although showing a few weaknesses at times, is still an elite unit with a front four that is basically destroying everybody - And all this without Antoine Winfield. And yet, instead of relaxing, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and someting to go horribly, horribly wrong. Will it be a Favre injury? An injury to some one else? Or will it be smooth sailing until an epic choke job in the playoffs? I don't know, but you know damn well it's going to be something.
5. Rodney Williams. I think it's finally time to recognize that this kid might not just beat beating up on poor teams, he might legitimately be a Big Ten Freshman of the Year candidate. It seemed the consensus on the Gopher freshmen coming into the season was Royce = FOY candidate, Cobbs = immediate backup, might steal the starting spot, and Rodney = project, possible redshirt. Well, after putting up games of 14, 14, and 17 points, all on better than 58% shooting, and adding an average of three boards and two steals per, he's suddenly looking far beyond a redshirt. Besides his stellar defense and insane athleticism, which were given, he's answered questions about his offense by showing a nice outside touch (3-8 from three) and a good offensive IQ. I'm starting to wish I took him in my fantasy college hoops league. Although I did get Damian Johnson, who is just ridiculous in every way.
To give you some example, in the scoring system our league uses (pts, rebs = +1, asts = +2, stl, blks = +3, TO = -2), he has put up 46, 40, and 42 points. Last year's returning leader was Luke Harangody (also on my team), and he averaged 42 per game. I realize DJ probably won't be able to continue to put up those kind of numbers, especially the blocks and steals, once competition improves, but in any case, he is just so, so valuable, and I'm talking real life - not fantasy. I don't care who ends up leading the Gophers in which statistical categories, Johnson is hands down this team's MVP. Except maybe Ralph.
WHO SUCKED
1. Penn State. Ouch. It looks like Iowa and Indiana won't be battling for 11th place by themselves, the post-Geary Claxton era is looking ugly. The Nittany Lions were basically Talor Battle and that's it, and needed somebody to step up and help out this year. That hasn't happened, and Penn State basically embarrassed themselves at the Charleston Classic this weekend, finishing in 7th place (out of 8). It was a pretty low-level tournament, and was set up for a South Carolina/Miami final, with Penn State and South Florida as potential sleepers and then four cupcakey-type teams. Well, the final happened, but Penn State never got their sleeper campaign going, dropping their opener to UNC-Wilmington. Ok, fine. At least they should be able to rip through the consolation bracket and salvage some pride, right? Wrong again. They lost their first consolation game to Tulane, setting up an epic seventh place game against Davidson, which they mercifully won. Gopher fans have been there - remember the Old Spice Classic? - so we feel your pain, Penn State.
2. Pac 10 Hoops. The Pac was already said to be down this year, but things might be worse than originally thought, especially after watching one of their two "top flight" teams get swept by Ohio State and Syracuse in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, and do so without much of a fight (although to be completely fair, the Bears were missing a couple of players). There are a ton of other black marks as well; Arizona State needed a miracle finish to beat a terrible TCU team, Stanford lost to Oral Roberts, UCLA lost to Bryce Webster and CS - Fullerton, USC was knocked off by a god awful Loyola Marymount team, Oregon lost to Portland, and Oregon State (the conference's big sleeper) lost to Texas Tech to drop to 1-2 and then lost on Saturday to Sacramento State - one of the worst teams in the country - and that all happened just this week. I honestly can't remember ever seeing a major conference struggle this mightily this early. At least the Washington schools are still undefeated, although neither has really played anyone yet. The real winner in this is Arizona, who was heading for a down year and whose 24 straight years with an NCAA Tournament bid record was in jeopardy. With a decent team, in what suddenly looks like a super weak conference, we could be looking at 25.
3. Pittsburgh Steelers. Funny thing about the NFL this year, there are a handful of teams that are so gad awful they never win and never even threaten to win: Oakland, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and Kansas City. Except - whoops - Kansas City beat the Steelers on Sunday, 27-24 in overtime - and did so without Dwayne Bowe, who is suspending for cheating. I have no idea how it happened. Roethlisberger threw for 398 yards, but threw two picks and the Steelers turned the ball over three times, and then allowed Matt Cassell to have a nearly perfect second half and overtime, leading to four scoring drives including the game-winning field goal. I don't even know what else to say. This is like when Forrest Gump won the Oscar over Pulp Fiction. Oakland also beat Cincinnati, and in even more embarrassing fashion, but I still feel like the Pitt loss was more stunning even though the Bengals have a better record than the Steelers. I guess I've learned that you can never trust the Bengals completely. Kind of like a wife or girlfriend. Or any female, really.
4. Gopher football. Did you ever think you'd pine for the days of Glen Mason? I certainly didn't, and yet, that's what I found myself thinking on Sunday watching Maroney run for the Patriots. I found myself harkening back to the days of Barbaroney (and G-Russ) and thinking, at least when Mason was here the Gophers had some talented players. At least they were exciting and fun to watch. And then I stopped myself, and realized what I was saying. I wish Glen Mason was still here. I WISH. GLEN MASON. WAS STILL HERE. And I have a feeling if you're reading this and haven't thought that, you're thinking it right now. Isn't that the most damning evidence that the Brewster era has been a failure?
5. NCAA Fascists. FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! Who's with me? FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO... (also now featured on the front page of the espn college basketball section).
I am crazy fired up for college basketball this year, and this is one of the best times of the season with all the holiday tournaments going on. We already had the Coaches vs. Classic and Puerto Rico Tip-Off winners, but there's plenty more going on, and I'm most interested in the Maui Classic (other than the 76 Classic, of course). I've been pimping Cincinnati as a final four sleeper this year, and this will be their first chance to show if I'm at least near the right track or not. They start off with a good Vanderbilt team today on ESPN2 at 4:30 - check them out.
One other quick note from the weekend - the Gophers opponent in the Big10/ACC Challenge, Miami, won the Charleston Classic this weekend by beating Tulane, UNC-Wilmington, and South Carolina. That's not really all that impressive, since the first two are weak teams (although Wilmington beat Penn State) and South Carolina's second best player went down with a knee injury seven minutes into the game and never returned, but still, it boosts Miami's profile and therefore the Gophers' if they manage a win on the 2nd - which I certainly think they can.
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