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 Siena. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Siena. Show all posts
Monday, January 3, 2011
Monday, December 13, 2010
Week in Review - 12.13.2010
So how about those Minnesota Gophers? The second half, and specifically that huge run to start the half, was great and all, but this team is just flat, man. Sampson and Mbakwe played well when they go the ball, and Trevor continues to shock me with the things he can do, but this team is certainly in a bit of trouble. Up just three points at half to Eastern Kentucky? And that lead was only because Maverick Ahanmisi hit a half-court shot. Not to mention how much worst it should have/could have been if the Colonels didn't miss a whole ass-ton of wide open three-pointers.
I know Al Nolen is gone, and he's the "glue guy" or the "catalyst" or whatever, but he's not going to be back until something like three weeks into the Big Ten season and if they don't learn to play better without him they're going to dig themselves a nice hole in the standings. The Big Ten is deep and very good this year, playing like they have the last three games against any Big Ten team, including Iowa, will result in a quick deficit leading to a quick loss.
I won't say they sucked, because they did win and do a nice job in the second half and pounding the ball in the paint, but I can't say they're awesome either because they won a game they should have won by 25 by just 13. Just two more games to get their shit together before conference play starts and the Gophers travel to Wisconsin and then Michigan State to open. Right now I don't see any possible way they aren't starting 0-2.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Jared Sullinger. In our Big Ten Fantasy Hoops league, Sullinger went #3 overall to Elk and there was some questioning of the pick by some of the other players. Although he was putting up good numbers he was outscored in Week 1 by several players who went right after him - Draymond Green, Jon Leuer, Demetri McCamey, etc. which made the pick look even more curious. But Sullinger turned it on this week with a 40 point, 13 rebound performance against IUPUI and followed it up with "just" 17 and 5 against Western Carolina. No, the competition wasn't exactly the best, but Sullinger is now 6th in scoring and 2nd in rebounding (to Mbakwe) in the Big 10. Not bad for a freshman, and not bad for the #3 pick in the fantasy league.
2. Rick Jackson. I don't know if you're aware of this but Rick Jackson - the Syracuse power forward - has become an unstoppable monster. He's like a better version of Trevor Mbakwe - yes, I'm serious. After putting up a 17 pts./16 reb game against Michigan State during the week he followed it up with an 18 & 10 against Colgate this weekend, and that now gives him 8 double-doubles in the Orange's ten games this year. With Jackson's development into a stud, Kris Joseph's big-time scoring ability, and solid point play from Scoop Jardine, the Orange are suddenly a contender without having gotten anything from their heralded freshman class. If those develop as the season goes along, watch out.
3. Terrence Jones. I read somewhere a lot of talk about how this class of Wildcats isn't like the last one, and you shouldn't expect a full-on stripped down roster: Doron Lamb is almost certainly a 2-year player, Brandon Knight might have to go a second year, etc. But one player who is basically certain to bolt is Jones, who is basically running circles around every opponent other than North Carolina. He's had five double-doubles in nine games and has put up some absolutely monster performances including Wednesday against Notre Dame where he put up a 27 point, 17 rebound performance - and that was his second 17-rebound game on the year. Guy is a beast. He's also going to be a bust in the NBA. That's a call, Bert.
4. Louisville Cardinals. I don't know exactly how this ended up happening because based on personnel it was looking like a down year in Louisville, but suddenly the Cardinals are 8-0 and extremely relevant after beating an awfully good UNLV team this weekend in Vegas. Terrence Jennings is finally starting to show some of the Terrence Williams/Earl Clark he was supposed to be, but this is a very balanced team with 9 players who score at least 5.5 points per game and 6 who score at least 8.4, and is led by a dynamic backcourt of Preston Knowles and Peyton Siva. I don't know if they have enough size to get through in March, but right now kenpom.com has them as the 11th best team in the country and an absolute lockdown defensive squad. Good back court, balanced scoring, and great defense? That's basically a blue-print for March success. Add in Pitino and they could be a nice sleeper team.
5. Boston College Eagles. Coming into the year it was supposed to be Duke at the top of the ACC, followed by whoever emerged out of Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, or Florida State, and then a bunch of crap. While most of the bunch of crap has lived up to it's name, BC has risen to the top and may have had the best week out of anybody this week, beating a pretty good Providence team at home and then going into Maryland and knocking off the Terps. An embarrassing early loss to Yale has basically been wiped out, because other than those two wins they've also knocked off a bunch of BCS teams - not good BCS teams, but good enough to help out that RPI - Indiana, Cal, Texas A&M (also UMass). Nice little surprise team here.
WHO SUCKED
1. Mid-major "dynasties." If we don't count the Atlantic-10 as a mid-major, and I don't, the two biggest mid-major dynasties are clearly Butler and Gonzaga, and suddenly each of them is facing the prospect of having to win their conference tournament to get into the big dance. Butler sits at 5-4 and has lost every meaningful game and lost to crappy Evansville. Gonzaga is 4-5 and in the middle of a three game losing streak, and outside of a win over Marquette they've done nothing, getting crushed by Illinois, Washington State, and Kansas State. A couple of other really solid mid-majors over the last few years, Siena in the MAAC and Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley, are looking like they can forget at-larges as well. Siena is now 2-5 with some really, really bad losses (Albany, Princeton) an dis dead in the water, and Northern Iowa is 4-3 with losses to Iowa and Milwaukee. Basically the first four teams I think of when I think mid-major are all either already out of the running for an at-large or are facing a major uphill battle. Weird year. Not counting the A-10, Mountain West, or Memphis, the Colonial might have the three best mid-major teams in the country.
2. St. Johns Red Storm. Wow we wow wow. Well apparently my sleeper Big East squad is more sleepy than sleeper, because they had an absolute brutal week, losing to two A-10 bottom feeders in St. Bonnie's and Fordham this week. St. Bonnie's is bad, but they are at least a halfway decent squad, but the loss to Fordham is inexcusable. The Rams are 5-4, but are still one of the worst teams in the country after winning a total of just 5 games the last two years. In short, these two losses are hugely embarrassing for St. Johns, and they almost kill their post-season chances. They play in the Big East so they could go on a run and end up in good shape, but losing these two games says pretty definitively that this team sucks way too hard to do that. I am awesome and picking sleepers.
3. Pac-10 Contenders. There are exactly two good teams in the Pac-10: Washington and Arizona. Both played road games against decent, but beatable, teams on Saturday with a chance to show how good they really are. Both failed miserably. Washington lost by one to Texas A&M and Arizona got crushed by BYU. This whole demise of the Pac-10 thing is completely out of control. I think this is year 3 of them sucking it up. Get your shit together or we're going to have to replace you with the Mountain West.
4. The Metrodome. Nice stadium, lol. Where are we, exactly? Bratislava?
5. Kyrie Irving. I'm not a Duke fan, not remotely, but Irving's injury and possible out-for-the-yearedness really sucks in a lot of ways. First, he was incredible and fun to watch. Like a Ty Lawson who could score, and he was only a handful of games into his freshman year and was just getting better. Seventeen points per game on 53% shooting and 45% from three with 5 assists and 4 boards as well and a 2-1 assist-to-turnover ratio? Wow. And we lose out on a juggernaut Duke team that had a legit shot at going undefeated. Not that I like Duke, I hate them, but remember how much fun it was rooting against the Patriots their undefeated year? And how awesome it was when the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl? We could have had that again in March, but now we will just have to root against Duke with all the regular hate, not super extra hate. I miss super extra hate. I wish Favre was still a Packer.
And about this whole JJ Hardy trade: I don't get it. The assumption is that the signing of Nishioka is apparently now imminent, which is fine, but we don't know anything about how his game will transfer. Ichiro is great, but look at Kaz Matsui - no thanks. And either way, he can play both middle infield positions, so would you rather roll with a starting tandem of Nishioka and Hardy, or Nishioka and Casilla? Should be obvious. With such a pedestrian return for him - two middle reliever prospects of dubious value - this trade doesn't make much sense to me. I'll let Aaron Gleeman break it down since he does a better job than I and I've already written enough for one day, but Hardy was a valuable piece. Even if one of the two players they got back becomes a competent reliever that's not as valuable as a quality everyday shortstop. Not impressed with this off season so far. Not at all.
I know Al Nolen is gone, and he's the "glue guy" or the "catalyst" or whatever, but he's not going to be back until something like three weeks into the Big Ten season and if they don't learn to play better without him they're going to dig themselves a nice hole in the standings. The Big Ten is deep and very good this year, playing like they have the last three games against any Big Ten team, including Iowa, will result in a quick deficit leading to a quick loss.
I won't say they sucked, because they did win and do a nice job in the second half and pounding the ball in the paint, but I can't say they're awesome either because they won a game they should have won by 25 by just 13. Just two more games to get their shit together before conference play starts and the Gophers travel to Wisconsin and then Michigan State to open. Right now I don't see any possible way they aren't starting 0-2.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Jared Sullinger. In our Big Ten Fantasy Hoops league, Sullinger went #3 overall to Elk and there was some questioning of the pick by some of the other players. Although he was putting up good numbers he was outscored in Week 1 by several players who went right after him - Draymond Green, Jon Leuer, Demetri McCamey, etc. which made the pick look even more curious. But Sullinger turned it on this week with a 40 point, 13 rebound performance against IUPUI and followed it up with "just" 17 and 5 against Western Carolina. No, the competition wasn't exactly the best, but Sullinger is now 6th in scoring and 2nd in rebounding (to Mbakwe) in the Big 10. Not bad for a freshman, and not bad for the #3 pick in the fantasy league.
2. Rick Jackson. I don't know if you're aware of this but Rick Jackson - the Syracuse power forward - has become an unstoppable monster. He's like a better version of Trevor Mbakwe - yes, I'm serious. After putting up a 17 pts./16 reb game against Michigan State during the week he followed it up with an 18 & 10 against Colgate this weekend, and that now gives him 8 double-doubles in the Orange's ten games this year. With Jackson's development into a stud, Kris Joseph's big-time scoring ability, and solid point play from Scoop Jardine, the Orange are suddenly a contender without having gotten anything from their heralded freshman class. If those develop as the season goes along, watch out.
3. Terrence Jones. I read somewhere a lot of talk about how this class of Wildcats isn't like the last one, and you shouldn't expect a full-on stripped down roster: Doron Lamb is almost certainly a 2-year player, Brandon Knight might have to go a second year, etc. But one player who is basically certain to bolt is Jones, who is basically running circles around every opponent other than North Carolina. He's had five double-doubles in nine games and has put up some absolutely monster performances including Wednesday against Notre Dame where he put up a 27 point, 17 rebound performance - and that was his second 17-rebound game on the year. Guy is a beast. He's also going to be a bust in the NBA. That's a call, Bert.
4. Louisville Cardinals. I don't know exactly how this ended up happening because based on personnel it was looking like a down year in Louisville, but suddenly the Cardinals are 8-0 and extremely relevant after beating an awfully good UNLV team this weekend in Vegas. Terrence Jennings is finally starting to show some of the Terrence Williams/Earl Clark he was supposed to be, but this is a very balanced team with 9 players who score at least 5.5 points per game and 6 who score at least 8.4, and is led by a dynamic backcourt of Preston Knowles and Peyton Siva. I don't know if they have enough size to get through in March, but right now kenpom.com has them as the 11th best team in the country and an absolute lockdown defensive squad. Good back court, balanced scoring, and great defense? That's basically a blue-print for March success. Add in Pitino and they could be a nice sleeper team.
5. Boston College Eagles. Coming into the year it was supposed to be Duke at the top of the ACC, followed by whoever emerged out of Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, or Florida State, and then a bunch of crap. While most of the bunch of crap has lived up to it's name, BC has risen to the top and may have had the best week out of anybody this week, beating a pretty good Providence team at home and then going into Maryland and knocking off the Terps. An embarrassing early loss to Yale has basically been wiped out, because other than those two wins they've also knocked off a bunch of BCS teams - not good BCS teams, but good enough to help out that RPI - Indiana, Cal, Texas A&M (also UMass). Nice little surprise team here.
WHO SUCKED
1. Mid-major "dynasties." If we don't count the Atlantic-10 as a mid-major, and I don't, the two biggest mid-major dynasties are clearly Butler and Gonzaga, and suddenly each of them is facing the prospect of having to win their conference tournament to get into the big dance. Butler sits at 5-4 and has lost every meaningful game and lost to crappy Evansville. Gonzaga is 4-5 and in the middle of a three game losing streak, and outside of a win over Marquette they've done nothing, getting crushed by Illinois, Washington State, and Kansas State. A couple of other really solid mid-majors over the last few years, Siena in the MAAC and Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley, are looking like they can forget at-larges as well. Siena is now 2-5 with some really, really bad losses (Albany, Princeton) an dis dead in the water, and Northern Iowa is 4-3 with losses to Iowa and Milwaukee. Basically the first four teams I think of when I think mid-major are all either already out of the running for an at-large or are facing a major uphill battle. Weird year. Not counting the A-10, Mountain West, or Memphis, the Colonial might have the three best mid-major teams in the country.
2. St. Johns Red Storm. Wow we wow wow. Well apparently my sleeper Big East squad is more sleepy than sleeper, because they had an absolute brutal week, losing to two A-10 bottom feeders in St. Bonnie's and Fordham this week. St. Bonnie's is bad, but they are at least a halfway decent squad, but the loss to Fordham is inexcusable. The Rams are 5-4, but are still one of the worst teams in the country after winning a total of just 5 games the last two years. In short, these two losses are hugely embarrassing for St. Johns, and they almost kill their post-season chances. They play in the Big East so they could go on a run and end up in good shape, but losing these two games says pretty definitively that this team sucks way too hard to do that. I am awesome and picking sleepers.
3. Pac-10 Contenders. There are exactly two good teams in the Pac-10: Washington and Arizona. Both played road games against decent, but beatable, teams on Saturday with a chance to show how good they really are. Both failed miserably. Washington lost by one to Texas A&M and Arizona got crushed by BYU. This whole demise of the Pac-10 thing is completely out of control. I think this is year 3 of them sucking it up. Get your shit together or we're going to have to replace you with the Mountain West.
4. The Metrodome. Nice stadium, lol. Where are we, exactly? Bratislava?
5. Kyrie Irving. I'm not a Duke fan, not remotely, but Irving's injury and possible out-for-the-yearedness really sucks in a lot of ways. First, he was incredible and fun to watch. Like a Ty Lawson who could score, and he was only a handful of games into his freshman year and was just getting better. Seventeen points per game on 53% shooting and 45% from three with 5 assists and 4 boards as well and a 2-1 assist-to-turnover ratio? Wow. And we lose out on a juggernaut Duke team that had a legit shot at going undefeated. Not that I like Duke, I hate them, but remember how much fun it was rooting against the Patriots their undefeated year? And how awesome it was when the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl? We could have had that again in March, but now we will just have to root against Duke with all the regular hate, not super extra hate. I miss super extra hate. I wish Favre was still a Packer.
And about this whole JJ Hardy trade: I don't get it. The assumption is that the signing of Nishioka is apparently now imminent, which is fine, but we don't know anything about how his game will transfer. Ichiro is great, but look at Kaz Matsui - no thanks. And either way, he can play both middle infield positions, so would you rather roll with a starting tandem of Nishioka and Hardy, or Nishioka and Casilla? Should be obvious. With such a pedestrian return for him - two middle reliever prospects of dubious value - this trade doesn't make much sense to me. I'll let Aaron Gleeman break it down since he does a better job than I and I've already written enough for one day, but Hardy was a valuable piece. Even if one of the two players they got back becomes a competent reliever that's not as valuable as a quality everyday shortstop. Not impressed with this off season so far. Not at all.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Minnesota Gophers vs. Siena Saints Game Diary
I was all set to finally make it to Williams Arena for my first game of the year, when the double whammy lightning bolt of pink eye for Wonderbaby and work blowout for Mrs. W knocked those plans out of orbit, leaving me on the couch, watching the game like the rest of you slackers. So I might as well make the most of it and write some stuff down.
20:00 - Game hasn't started yet, we're currently watching the end of the Wake Forest/Hampton game that is inexplicably going down to the wire. Seriously, that Iowa/Wake Forest matchup in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge might feature the worst team in Big Ten history vs. the worst team in ACC history. I guess that's kind of historic, in it's own retarded way.
20:00 - I did finally watch the Gopher/Wofford game and paid like, 75% attention to it. Two things stood out for me: Ralph Sampson III looking like he actually wants to dominate fools this year, and Al Nolen doing three things I didn't think he was capable of: knocking down a three and doing in confidently, penetrating into the lane and aggressively attacking the basket, and getting into the lane and knowing exactly where his teammates were for the dish. If that was for real, and I'm not betting on it, the Gophers are going to be awfully tough to beat because he's still unguardable. And also I think I love Chip Armelin like a fat kid loves cake.
19:44 - Austin Hollins starting? Interesting. And boy did he just get schooled by Clarence Jackson. Really can't let that guy get off. I hope there's nothing going on with Rodney.
19:02 - Siena going zone here, and the Gophers hit threes on their first two possessions, one by Blake and one by Hollins. Both wide open, too. I read Siena isn't maybe the strongest defensive team, so the open shots will be there, just gotta keep knockin' 'em down. Siena has answered with a couple of threes of their own and leads 8-6, but neither of those were due to a defensive breakdown by the Gophers, so I'm not concerned yet.
17:33 - Beautiful move and reverse lay-in by Hollins. Boy does that kid look good. He might be better than Rodney Williams already.
16:37 - Hoffarber answers a Siena three-pointer (wide open) with one of his own (wide open). Not a ton of defense being played here.
15:58 - Al Nolen just hit a shake-and-bake step back jumper. I feel like I'm in bizarro world with Kevin, Gener, Feldman, and Fargas. Next thing you know I'm gonna get yelled at for eatin' olives.
15:43 - Another god damn three-pointer by Siena, and the Saints lead 18-13. The defense isn't even that bad, they're just hitting tough shots. Can't last, right?
15:10 - Nolen dribbles into the lane and picks up his dribble with no idea what he's going to do with the ball. Sigh.
14:29 - Rodney is in, and just passed up a jumper so he could throw the ball into the crowd instead. I wonder if Hollins has just straight up outplayed Williams to the point where he's earned the start. Wouldn't shock me.
13:44 - Siena goes man-to-man, forces Rodney into another turnover after trapping him in the corner. Siena leads 22-15, and I don't want to say I'm getting nervous, so I just won't say anything at all.
13:09 - Rodney drives to the hole. Shot got blocked, which obviously isn't ideal, but it's good to see him try to make that play. And then Jackson hits another three-pointer. Dude is out of his mind right now, with 14 points on 6-6 shooting. Also Siena as a team is shooting 10-12. Yes, that's 10-12. Remember in my preview how I said Jackson was the kind of guy who could single-handedly win this for Siena? Yeah, it's like that.
12:05 - Just saw that Georgia Tech is losing by ten to Kennesaw State late in the second half. The bottom of the ACC this year is just brutal. Like, I think the bottom of the Big Ten might end up being better.
10:22 - Rossiter finally gets on the board, going right by Sampson as if he was standing still. I gotta say man, right now Siena looks like they're playing on a whole different level than the Gophers. Not like the Gophers are playing poorly, but Siena just looks out of their mind good. You may consider me nervous.
9:34 - Nolen clangs a three.
8:50 - Very quick four straight for Sampson, boosted by a good steal, good rebound off his own miss, and good pass by the Hoff. Ok, I'm just going to say it. Blake should play every minute of every game this year. He's not the most talented player on the team, but he's their best player. Of course, as I'm typing that Jackson completely loses him around a couple of screens leading to a shooting foul, and reminding me why Blake can't play every minute of every game. If I had to sum up his offensive contributions vs. his defensive shortcomings in picture form, it would look like this:
You guess which is which.
7:06 - God Rodney Williams drives me crazy. He's now developed a sideways float on his jump shot, meaning that of the two things he did well last year, he no longer does one of them. He also just got schooled by a UTEP two-step by a white dude. I still have faith. But it's more like my faith that the Loch Ness Monster is real than my faith in gravity still working tomorrow.
5:56 - Georgia Tech is about to lose to Kennesaw. Really a banner season so far for the ACC.
3:26 - This game needs more Mbakwe.
2:28 - One handed monster jam by Mbakwe on a run-out off a great pass in transition from Hoffarber (and great catch by Reign Man II). Seriously, I should be coaching this team. Everything I say is right.
1:55 - Armelin with a great drive to pull the Gophers to within two. I gotta say, and I know it's early, but lookin' like Tubby found a couple of gems in this class in Armelin and Hollins. Those two are looking like they are both going to be outstanding four year players.
1:15 - Mbakwe with a nice baseline spin move into a lay-up and the foul, hits the free throw to give the Gophers back the lead at 33-32. Who was it who said the Gophers needed to get the ball to Mbakwe more? Genius.
HALF - Siena goes to half with a 34-33 lead because nobody can cover Jackson. He should cool off here in the second half and the Gophers have most of the momentum and seem to be figuring this thing out, so I'm not worried anymore. Gophers will end up winning by eleven.
19:40 - Another board for Hoffarber. I honestly wouldn't be shocked if he ends up getting a triple double at some point this year. I mean, he probably won't because 10 assists in a college game is pretty damn difficult to do, but it could happen.
18:08 - Gophers clang a couple of three-pointers, while Siena scores on a couple layups. The Saints are the more aggressive team right now. It's leading to a lot of turnovers, but also too many easy buckets.
15:47 - We head to the under 16 timeout with Siena still up, but just by a count of 42-41 after Hoffarber and Hollins each hit a three-pointer. I'll tell you what's driving me nuts in this game, and that's this incredible over reliance on the three pointer for offense. I know that it's what is open, as in other than a couple I don't think most of them have been forced, but they need to be making a more concerted effort to get the ball inside. Sampson and Mbakwe have been damn near unstoppable when they get a chance, so let's do that more often. If nothing else, they're getting doubled and opening up the outside even more.
14:38 - Gophers up two, and Siena is doing everything in their power to give this game away. Time to put this baby to bed.
13:40 - God damn Clarence Jackson. Another three.
12:32 - Nobody wants to win this game. It's just a turnover-fest right now. It would be like watching Wake Forest play Iowa, but if they decided to play at faster than their usual glacial pace. And also if Teen Wolf was on one of the teams, because guess who just hit another three-pointer? Yep, Clarence "Dickface" Jackson. This is like Lazelle Durden all over again. I wonder if he's related to Tyler Durden.
10:34 - Work it inside. Reign Man II gets another dunk. Work it inside. Rodney Williams lay-up. Gophers now lead 53-48, and in case their was any doubt that I'm a god damn basketball genius, I think we can put that debate to rest.
9:30 - Work it inside, missed layup but the double team leads to a Rodney Williams tip-dunk.
8:55 - Trevor Mbakwe's head looks like his brain is on the outside. And he's got another double-double tonight. It's pretty clear the lineup should be Nolen/Hollins/Hoffarber/Mbakwe/Sampson for now, with Joseph in for Hollins when he gets back Then you have a bench of Hollins, Armelin, Iverson,
6:40 - Rodney alley-oop, Sampson lay-in, and the Gophers are suddenly up 59-49. That alley-oop to Rodney was pretty incredible. He just sort of never came down after he jumped, waited for the ball, and dunked it. Even though I think he has holes in his game you could drive a truck through it isn't hard to see why pro scouts are drooling when they watch him play. He's the next Harold Minor.
3:53 - Gophers lead by 10 into the final TV timeout, and right now Siena is a we bit lost and hasn't made an actual field goal in something like 10 game minutes, mostly due to turnovers. Well, that and piss poor shooting. I think it's in their heads because when they have the ball now they look more like a group of second graders who don't know the rules - or the Gophers usual halfcourt offense. I don't know why it's so difficult to remember to just give the ball to Jesus Shuttlesjackson and get out of his way.
2:05 - Rossiter fouls out with 8 points and can't be more than a handful of boards. Really unimpressed, and I was looking forward to seeing him play since he's supposed to be a favorite for the MAAC Player-of-the-year award. Talk about a let-down. This is just like that movie about the werewolf with the guy from that movie with Alicia Silverstone.
1:55 - Six point game and Nolen misses the front-end right after Rodney hit just 1 of 2. Let's not make this interesting here, guys. Remember, they have Kyle Watson from Above the Rim out there.
1:14 - Four point game, Nolen at the line. Rattles home the first, thank god. Misses the second, but Kickass Mbakwe grabs the offensive board. Hoff at the line and I think it's time we put a notch in the win column.
Gophers win 76-69. Good win. Not a great win, but Siena is a solid team who threw their best shot at the Gophers, and Minnesota weathered the storm, shut Siena's offense down completely, and tore them apart in the paint after spending too much of the game living on the perimeter. Nicely done.
20:00 - Game hasn't started yet, we're currently watching the end of the Wake Forest/Hampton game that is inexplicably going down to the wire. Seriously, that Iowa/Wake Forest matchup in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge might feature the worst team in Big Ten history vs. the worst team in ACC history. I guess that's kind of historic, in it's own retarded way.
20:00 - I did finally watch the Gopher/Wofford game and paid like, 75% attention to it. Two things stood out for me: Ralph Sampson III looking like he actually wants to dominate fools this year, and Al Nolen doing three things I didn't think he was capable of: knocking down a three and doing in confidently, penetrating into the lane and aggressively attacking the basket, and getting into the lane and knowing exactly where his teammates were for the dish. If that was for real, and I'm not betting on it, the Gophers are going to be awfully tough to beat because he's still unguardable. And also I think I love Chip Armelin like a fat kid loves cake.
19:44 - Austin Hollins starting? Interesting. And boy did he just get schooled by Clarence Jackson. Really can't let that guy get off. I hope there's nothing going on with Rodney.
19:02 - Siena going zone here, and the Gophers hit threes on their first two possessions, one by Blake and one by Hollins. Both wide open, too. I read Siena isn't maybe the strongest defensive team, so the open shots will be there, just gotta keep knockin' 'em down. Siena has answered with a couple of threes of their own and leads 8-6, but neither of those were due to a defensive breakdown by the Gophers, so I'm not concerned yet.
17:33 - Beautiful move and reverse lay-in by Hollins. Boy does that kid look good. He might be better than Rodney Williams already.
16:37 - Hoffarber answers a Siena three-pointer (wide open) with one of his own (wide open). Not a ton of defense being played here.
15:58 - Al Nolen just hit a shake-and-bake step back jumper. I feel like I'm in bizarro world with Kevin, Gener, Feldman, and Fargas. Next thing you know I'm gonna get yelled at for eatin' olives.
15:43 - Another god damn three-pointer by Siena, and the Saints lead 18-13. The defense isn't even that bad, they're just hitting tough shots. Can't last, right?
15:10 - Nolen dribbles into the lane and picks up his dribble with no idea what he's going to do with the ball. Sigh.
14:29 - Rodney is in, and just passed up a jumper so he could throw the ball into the crowd instead. I wonder if Hollins has just straight up outplayed Williams to the point where he's earned the start. Wouldn't shock me.
13:44 - Siena goes man-to-man, forces Rodney into another turnover after trapping him in the corner. Siena leads 22-15, and I don't want to say I'm getting nervous, so I just won't say anything at all.
13:09 - Rodney drives to the hole. Shot got blocked, which obviously isn't ideal, but it's good to see him try to make that play. And then Jackson hits another three-pointer. Dude is out of his mind right now, with 14 points on 6-6 shooting. Also Siena as a team is shooting 10-12. Yes, that's 10-12. Remember in my preview how I said Jackson was the kind of guy who could single-handedly win this for Siena? Yeah, it's like that.
12:05 - Just saw that Georgia Tech is losing by ten to Kennesaw State late in the second half. The bottom of the ACC this year is just brutal. Like, I think the bottom of the Big Ten might end up being better.
10:22 - Rossiter finally gets on the board, going right by Sampson as if he was standing still. I gotta say man, right now Siena looks like they're playing on a whole different level than the Gophers. Not like the Gophers are playing poorly, but Siena just looks out of their mind good. You may consider me nervous.
9:34 - Nolen clangs a three.
8:50 - Very quick four straight for Sampson, boosted by a good steal, good rebound off his own miss, and good pass by the Hoff. Ok, I'm just going to say it. Blake should play every minute of every game this year. He's not the most talented player on the team, but he's their best player. Of course, as I'm typing that Jackson completely loses him around a couple of screens leading to a shooting foul, and reminding me why Blake can't play every minute of every game. If I had to sum up his offensive contributions vs. his defensive shortcomings in picture form, it would look like this:
7:06 - God Rodney Williams drives me crazy. He's now developed a sideways float on his jump shot, meaning that of the two things he did well last year, he no longer does one of them. He also just got schooled by a UTEP two-step by a white dude. I still have faith. But it's more like my faith that the Loch Ness Monster is real than my faith in gravity still working tomorrow.
5:56 - Georgia Tech is about to lose to Kennesaw. Really a banner season so far for the ACC.
3:26 - This game needs more Mbakwe.
2:28 - One handed monster jam by Mbakwe on a run-out off a great pass in transition from Hoffarber (and great catch by Reign Man II). Seriously, I should be coaching this team. Everything I say is right.
1:55 - Armelin with a great drive to pull the Gophers to within two. I gotta say, and I know it's early, but lookin' like Tubby found a couple of gems in this class in Armelin and Hollins. Those two are looking like they are both going to be outstanding four year players.
1:15 - Mbakwe with a nice baseline spin move into a lay-up and the foul, hits the free throw to give the Gophers back the lead at 33-32. Who was it who said the Gophers needed to get the ball to Mbakwe more? Genius.
HALF - Siena goes to half with a 34-33 lead because nobody can cover Jackson. He should cool off here in the second half and the Gophers have most of the momentum and seem to be figuring this thing out, so I'm not worried anymore. Gophers will end up winning by eleven.
19:40 - Another board for Hoffarber. I honestly wouldn't be shocked if he ends up getting a triple double at some point this year. I mean, he probably won't because 10 assists in a college game is pretty damn difficult to do, but it could happen.
18:08 - Gophers clang a couple of three-pointers, while Siena scores on a couple layups. The Saints are the more aggressive team right now. It's leading to a lot of turnovers, but also too many easy buckets.
15:47 - We head to the under 16 timeout with Siena still up, but just by a count of 42-41 after Hoffarber and Hollins each hit a three-pointer. I'll tell you what's driving me nuts in this game, and that's this incredible over reliance on the three pointer for offense. I know that it's what is open, as in other than a couple I don't think most of them have been forced, but they need to be making a more concerted effort to get the ball inside. Sampson and Mbakwe have been damn near unstoppable when they get a chance, so let's do that more often. If nothing else, they're getting doubled and opening up the outside even more.
14:38 - Gophers up two, and Siena is doing everything in their power to give this game away. Time to put this baby to bed.
13:40 - God damn Clarence Jackson. Another three.
12:32 - Nobody wants to win this game. It's just a turnover-fest right now. It would be like watching Wake Forest play Iowa, but if they decided to play at faster than their usual glacial pace. And also if Teen Wolf was on one of the teams, because guess who just hit another three-pointer? Yep, Clarence "Dickface" Jackson. This is like Lazelle Durden all over again. I wonder if he's related to Tyler Durden.
10:34 - Work it inside. Reign Man II gets another dunk. Work it inside. Rodney Williams lay-up. Gophers now lead 53-48, and in case their was any doubt that I'm a god damn basketball genius, I think we can put that debate to rest.
9:30 - Work it inside, missed layup but the double team leads to a Rodney Williams tip-dunk.
8:55 - Trevor Mbakwe's head looks like his brain is on the outside. And he's got another double-double tonight. It's pretty clear the lineup should be Nolen/Hollins/Hoffarber/Mbakwe/Sampson for now, with Joseph in for Hollins when he gets back Then you have a bench of Hollins, Armelin, Iverson,
6:40 - Rodney alley-oop, Sampson lay-in, and the Gophers are suddenly up 59-49. That alley-oop to Rodney was pretty incredible. He just sort of never came down after he jumped, waited for the ball, and dunked it. Even though I think he has holes in his game you could drive a truck through it isn't hard to see why pro scouts are drooling when they watch him play. He's the next Harold Minor.
3:53 - Gophers lead by 10 into the final TV timeout, and right now Siena is a we bit lost and hasn't made an actual field goal in something like 10 game minutes, mostly due to turnovers. Well, that and piss poor shooting. I think it's in their heads because when they have the ball now they look more like a group of second graders who don't know the rules - or the Gophers usual halfcourt offense. I don't know why it's so difficult to remember to just give the ball to Jesus Shuttlesjackson and get out of his way.
2:05 - Rossiter fouls out with 8 points and can't be more than a handful of boards. Really unimpressed, and I was looking forward to seeing him play since he's supposed to be a favorite for the MAAC Player-of-the-year award. Talk about a let-down. This is just like that movie about the werewolf with the guy from that movie with Alicia Silverstone.
1:55 - Six point game and Nolen misses the front-end right after Rodney hit just 1 of 2. Let's not make this interesting here, guys. Remember, they have Kyle Watson from Above the Rim out there.
1:14 - Four point game, Nolen at the line. Rattles home the first, thank god. Misses the second, but Kickass Mbakwe grabs the offensive board. Hoff at the line and I think it's time we put a notch in the win column.
Gophers win 76-69. Good win. Not a great win, but Siena is a solid team who threw their best shot at the Gophers, and Minnesota weathered the storm, shut Siena's offense down completely, and tore them apart in the paint after spending too much of the game living on the perimeter. Nicely done.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Minnesota Golden Gophers Basketball: Upcoming Opponents (+ Devoe Joseph opinion)
After a couple quick appetizers of exhibition games, the Minnesota Gophers basketball team finally gets things underway with a quick couple of games against quality mid-major opponents in the Wofford Terriers tonight and the Siena Saints on Monday. Since I am going out of town this weekend for a much needed vacation away from the kids I won't be computering at all, so I might as well fire up two previews for the price of one. We love to give out sweet deals like that here at DWG, particularly on all your stationery or invitation needs (look to the right).
I'll start with Wofford, since they're first and that's a logical way to do things. The Terriers may be the Gophers' stiffest test that doesn't take place in Puerto Rico this offseason, because this team is very solid. They return four starters from last year's SoCon Champion team, a team that won 26 games last year and almost knocked off Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last year and almost beat Pitt in last year's season opener.
Most importantly amongst those returning starters is Minnesota-boy Noah Dahlman, the SoCon player of the year last season after 17 points and 6 rebounds per game while shooting 58% from the floor. He's an absolute brute who never stops working on the glass, and because of that relentlessness he's almost impossible to shut down (he's scored in double-figures 48 straight games). Unless he's added a jump shot in the offseason his range doesn't extend beyond the paint, and that should play well for the Gophers. He won't be able to out-muscle Colt Iverson or Trevor Mbakwe, and even if he can push Ralph around a little he's still got the reach on Dahlman. Wisconsin and Illinois both kept him in check last season (10 and 5, 13 and 2), and I expect the Gophers to do the same.
Dahlman is the only returnee who averaged more than 9.5 points per game last year, so there's no one player to focus on outside of him, but Wofford won a lot of games with their defense last year, ranking 41st in the country in defensive efficiency. Luckily for the Gophers, however, they come by that ranking mainly by defending the three well (not a key for the Gophers outside of Blake) and keeping teams off their offensive boards (not something the Gophers rely on). Most of all, I had the opportunity to watch Wofford play against Wisconsin as well as in the SoCon Championship against Appalachian State. They are slow. S-L-O-W. They caught a huge break getting Wisconsin in last year's tournament because both their pace of play and overabundance of non-athletically gifted white dudes helped Wofford to keep pace. That won't happen against Minnesota tonight. Wofford is a good team, but the Gophers shouldn't have any issues here.
Minnesota 71, Wofford 53.
Now we move on to a mini-Mid-Major dynasty in Monday's opponent, the Siena Saints. Siena has made the last three NCAA Tournaments, notching wins over Ohio State and Vanderbilt, but have some big shoes to fill - they lose last year's national assist leader in Ronald Moore, last year's MAAC player of the year in Alex Franklin, and maybe the best all-around player in program history in Edwin Ubiles - not to mention their coach Fran McCaffery who has gone on to national basketball power and totally good situation Iowa.
That's not to say the cupboard is bare, because the Saints return two absolutely excellent in players in 6-9 forward Ryan Rossiter and 6-4 guard Clarence Jackson - either of whom could end up winning the MAAC Player of the Year Award.
Rossiter, one of the goofiest looking mofos you're ever going to see, averaged 14 points and 11 rebounds per game last season, to go along with 1 steal, assist, and block. He's a smart player who uses an almost plastic-man type body to get himself into great position, and is one of the best offensive rebounders in the country. He doesn't have the size to bang with Iverson or Mbakwe or even Sampson, but he's smart and he's crafty. If Iverson starts on him I'd expect Colt to spend a good amount of time in foul trouble.
Jackson, who averaged 14 points per game last year, is a dynamic scorer who can hit from the outside (71 threes last year led the team) and can also put the ball on the floor and get to the rim. He's streaky, and can be shut down (11 games in single-digits) but he can also explode (9 games over 20 points). It would behoove the Gophers to not let Jackson get off, because he's the type that could single-handedly win a game for the Saints. Since he's probably a little bit too big for Al Nolen to take one-on-one, this could be a great chance for Rodney Williams to show that he can be a defensive stopper. He was the physical tools for it, so this could be a great test if he gets the matchup.
Outside of those guys Siena is a great big pile of unknown, since Jackson, Rossiter, and the three departed starters from last year made up 77% of the team's minutes played and 85% of their points scored. I'm sure there is talent there somewhere since McCaffery had created a bit of a mini-dynasty and that recruiting area is rich with potential hidden gems, but if the Gophers can shut down at least one of the Jackson/Rossiter duo they should have little trouble with the Saints. If this was last year I would be concerned, but since this team is in flux and has a new coach, I'm confident in the Gophers.
Also I want to mention that the Saints have a player named Just-in'love Smith. Ouch.
Minnesota 76, Siena 65
[Since I posted this I saw on Twitter that Devoe is suspended indefinitely due to non-academic off the court issues, and won't be playing until at least after Puerto Rico.
Snacks has since texted me that he "hates Tubby" and "hopes Devoe transfers." I'm not quite to that point, but it is rather frustrating how the Gophers are constantly dealing with off the court issues. Either Tubby is far too strict or he recruits nothing but headcases, either way this is hardly a ringing endorsement of the coach. No matter how you feel about the issue or whose feet you choose to lay the blame at, this clearly sucks ass. Once again a promising Gopher season is starting under a dark cloud.
I'll reserve further judgment until we know more (if we ever do), but it's time for the University to decide if it wants to be a basketball school or not I'm not saying they should let athletes get away with murder, but at UNLV Tre'Von Willis choked his girlfriend and got three games. At Michigan State Korie Lucious was busted for drunk driving and got just one game. At Memphis Jelan Kendrick missed a few practices after threatening his teammates, and it's looking like Lace Dunn might not miss any games at Baylor despite being arrested for domestic assault. And Devoe is going to miss at least five games for something that will likely be in the realm of skipping class or smoking a j.
Look, I understand some people's need to believe that their University "does things the right way" and "doesn't put up with any crap" and "only recruits good kids." I do. And that's all well and good, but, with all due respect to those of that view point, Fuck that. I don't give a crap what Devoe does in his spare time, and if he graduates or not is really the thing I care about least in the entire world. I want him to play ball, and I want my team to win games and I don't care how they do it or whether or not the players still call their mothers every week like good little boys or if they go to church every Sunday. I don't care about that, I just want to win, baby. Royce White was already run off, and Trevor Mbakwe almost followed him. Who's next?]
I'll start with Wofford, since they're first and that's a logical way to do things. The Terriers may be the Gophers' stiffest test that doesn't take place in Puerto Rico this offseason, because this team is very solid. They return four starters from last year's SoCon Champion team, a team that won 26 games last year and almost knocked off Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last year and almost beat Pitt in last year's season opener.
Most importantly amongst those returning starters is Minnesota-boy Noah Dahlman, the SoCon player of the year last season after 17 points and 6 rebounds per game while shooting 58% from the floor. He's an absolute brute who never stops working on the glass, and because of that relentlessness he's almost impossible to shut down (he's scored in double-figures 48 straight games). Unless he's added a jump shot in the offseason his range doesn't extend beyond the paint, and that should play well for the Gophers. He won't be able to out-muscle Colt Iverson or Trevor Mbakwe, and even if he can push Ralph around a little he's still got the reach on Dahlman. Wisconsin and Illinois both kept him in check last season (10 and 5, 13 and 2), and I expect the Gophers to do the same.
Dahlman is the only returnee who averaged more than 9.5 points per game last year, so there's no one player to focus on outside of him, but Wofford won a lot of games with their defense last year, ranking 41st in the country in defensive efficiency. Luckily for the Gophers, however, they come by that ranking mainly by defending the three well (not a key for the Gophers outside of Blake) and keeping teams off their offensive boards (not something the Gophers rely on). Most of all, I had the opportunity to watch Wofford play against Wisconsin as well as in the SoCon Championship against Appalachian State. They are slow. S-L-O-W. They caught a huge break getting Wisconsin in last year's tournament because both their pace of play and overabundance of non-athletically gifted white dudes helped Wofford to keep pace. That won't happen against Minnesota tonight. Wofford is a good team, but the Gophers shouldn't have any issues here.
Minnesota 71, Wofford 53.
Now we move on to a mini-Mid-Major dynasty in Monday's opponent, the Siena Saints. Siena has made the last three NCAA Tournaments, notching wins over Ohio State and Vanderbilt, but have some big shoes to fill - they lose last year's national assist leader in Ronald Moore, last year's MAAC player of the year in Alex Franklin, and maybe the best all-around player in program history in Edwin Ubiles - not to mention their coach Fran McCaffery who has gone on to national basketball power and totally good situation Iowa.
That's not to say the cupboard is bare, because the Saints return two absolutely excellent in players in 6-9 forward Ryan Rossiter and 6-4 guard Clarence Jackson - either of whom could end up winning the MAAC Player of the Year Award.
Rossiter, one of the goofiest looking mofos you're ever going to see, averaged 14 points and 11 rebounds per game last season, to go along with 1 steal, assist, and block. He's a smart player who uses an almost plastic-man type body to get himself into great position, and is one of the best offensive rebounders in the country. He doesn't have the size to bang with Iverson or Mbakwe or even Sampson, but he's smart and he's crafty. If Iverson starts on him I'd expect Colt to spend a good amount of time in foul trouble.
Jackson, who averaged 14 points per game last year, is a dynamic scorer who can hit from the outside (71 threes last year led the team) and can also put the ball on the floor and get to the rim. He's streaky, and can be shut down (11 games in single-digits) but he can also explode (9 games over 20 points). It would behoove the Gophers to not let Jackson get off, because he's the type that could single-handedly win a game for the Saints. Since he's probably a little bit too big for Al Nolen to take one-on-one, this could be a great chance for Rodney Williams to show that he can be a defensive stopper. He was the physical tools for it, so this could be a great test if he gets the matchup.
Outside of those guys Siena is a great big pile of unknown, since Jackson, Rossiter, and the three departed starters from last year made up 77% of the team's minutes played and 85% of their points scored. I'm sure there is talent there somewhere since McCaffery had created a bit of a mini-dynasty and that recruiting area is rich with potential hidden gems, but if the Gophers can shut down at least one of the Jackson/Rossiter duo they should have little trouble with the Saints. If this was last year I would be concerned, but since this team is in flux and has a new coach, I'm confident in the Gophers.
Also I want to mention that the Saints have a player named Just-in'love Smith. Ouch.
Minnesota 76, Siena 65
[Since I posted this I saw on Twitter that Devoe is suspended indefinitely due to non-academic off the court issues, and won't be playing until at least after Puerto Rico.
Snacks has since texted me that he "hates Tubby" and "hopes Devoe transfers." I'm not quite to that point, but it is rather frustrating how the Gophers are constantly dealing with off the court issues. Either Tubby is far too strict or he recruits nothing but headcases, either way this is hardly a ringing endorsement of the coach. No matter how you feel about the issue or whose feet you choose to lay the blame at, this clearly sucks ass. Once again a promising Gopher season is starting under a dark cloud.
I'll reserve further judgment until we know more (if we ever do), but it's time for the University to decide if it wants to be a basketball school or not I'm not saying they should let athletes get away with murder, but at UNLV Tre'Von Willis choked his girlfriend and got three games. At Michigan State Korie Lucious was busted for drunk driving and got just one game. At Memphis Jelan Kendrick missed a few practices after threatening his teammates, and it's looking like Lace Dunn might not miss any games at Baylor despite being arrested for domestic assault. And Devoe is going to miss at least five games for something that will likely be in the realm of skipping class or smoking a j.
Look, I understand some people's need to believe that their University "does things the right way" and "doesn't put up with any crap" and "only recruits good kids." I do. And that's all well and good, but, with all due respect to those of that view point, Fuck that. I don't give a crap what Devoe does in his spare time, and if he graduates or not is really the thing I care about least in the entire world. I want him to play ball, and I want my team to win games and I don't care how they do it or whether or not the players still call their mothers every week like good little boys or if they go to church every Sunday. I don't care about that, I just want to win, baby. Royce White was already run off, and Trevor Mbakwe almost followed him. Who's next?]
Monday, August 9, 2010
A Quick and Early look at the Gopher Basketball Non-Conference Schedule
Alright, so before when I said I wasn't going to do a post about the Gophers non-conference schedule I was obviously lying, because here is a post about the Gophers non-conference basketball schedule. I have tried to keep this information as accurate as possible, but there are always things that slip through and not even a genius such as myself can keep up with which players may or may not have been kicked off/left the team for every school in the country. At least I can guarantee their records are accurate. Probably.
Nov 2 vs. Northeastern State, Nov 8 vs. Winona State - Whatever. Pass.
Nov 12 vs. Wofford College
Record: 26-9 (15-3 SoCon), lost in first round of NCAAs to Wisconsin
Good Wins: @ Georgia, South Carolina
Last Year RPI: 70
Starters Lost: 1 (
NOTES: A nice homecoming game for seniors Noah "The more successful" Dahlman and Cameron Rundles, the Terriers should be favorites to repeat in the SoCon and will probably be the Gophers biggest test outside of Puerto Rico. Even so, this is a slow team without the athletes needed to keep up, and should be the first in a long line of easy wins to open the season.
Nov 15 vs. Siena
Record: 27-7 (17-1 MAAC), lost in first round of NCAAs to Purdue
Good Wins: None
Last Year RPI: 33
Starters Lost: 3
NOTES: One of the hottest mid-major type teams the last few years, the Saints should take a step back this year with a lot to replace including Ronald Moore, the national assist leader, and Edwin Ubiles and Alex Franklin, their two leading scorers and all-around threats from the wing. Still, they do have some firepower back (Clarence Jackson is going to explode this year) and will probably be the second best team the Gophers will face - which still means they should be an easy win.
Nov 18 vs. Western Kentucky (in Puerto Rico)
Record: 21-13 (10-6 Sun Belt)
Good Wins: Vanderbilt, Murray State
Last Year RPI: 138
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: Top player A.J. Slaughter is gone, but the Hilltoppers have a bit of a mini-mid-major dynasty going and reload their roster with a very good recruiting class this season. They are bringing in five new players, including SG Brandon Peters who ranks as Rivals #129 freshman and a couple other three star recruits, along with a couple of transfers from Big 12 schools (Oklahoma and OSU). It's probably good the Gophers get them early, because I have a feeling they are going to be a lot tougher by the end of the year.
Nov 19 vs. North Carolina (in Puerto Rico, assuming they beat WKU)
Record: 20-17 (5-11 ACC), lost in NIT Championship game to Dayton
Good Wins: Ohio State, Michigan State, Wake, Miss State
Last Year RPI: 64
Starters Lost: 2 (I think)
NOTES: It's hard to say how many starters the Tar Heels lost because they used so many lineups last season and never really were able to figure the team out until the NIT, but don't let the record fool you they have a ton of talent. Harrison Barnes is amazing, John Henson started to look like he figured it out late in the season, Reggie Bulluck should be awesome, and really it just goes on and on. Of course, I would have said basically the same thing last year, but I find it hard to believe UNC is going to be at that level back-to-back seasons.
Nov 21 vs. Vanderbilt or West Virginai (or Nebraska or Davidson)
NOTES: Most likely this will be either WVU or Vandy, and a win over either would be a challenge and a nice resume builder. I think if they manage to beat UNC I'd hope for a championship matchup with he Mountaineers in order to get the biggest scalp possible, but if they lose to the Heels I'd hope they go up against Vandy, which would still be a nice win but an easier win as well.
Nov 24 vs. North Dakota State
Record: 11-18 (8-10 Summit)
Good Wins: None
Last Year RPI: 267
Starters Lost: 3
NOTES: This is not the same scrappy, rough-and-tumble, senior white boy led squad from a couple of years ago. This is just a bad team. Look at that RPI. Now realize it's going to be about the same this year. Worthless game here, rather than giving a few third and fourth tier former Minnesota high school players a chance to play in the Barn. I guess I can see some value in that, and if this was the only game against an opponent like this, I wouldn't complain.
Nov 29 vs. Virginia (Big 10/ACC Challenge)
Record: 15-15 (5-11 ACC)
Good Wins: UAB, Georgia Tech
Last Year RPI: 123
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: We get Virginia again the Challenge, which is a yawner, especially since their best and most exciting player, Sylvan Landesberg, got essentially booted off the team last year and is currently trying to hook on with an NBA squad. Still, Tony Bennett is already starting to pay dividends on the recruiting trail, bringing in a very good class including #30 in the country K.T. Harrell, #108 James Johnson, #119 Joe Harris, and #148 Will Regan. Wait. Holy crap that's a really good class. Virginia is on their way back to relevance (like, Harold Deane/Curtis Staples territory), and I'm now amending my previous statement and saying that THIS will be the toughest non-Puerto Rico game.
Dec 4 vs. Cornell
Record: 27-4 (13-1 Ivy), lost in the Sweet 16 of the NCAAs to Kentucky
Good Wins: Temple, Wisconsin, Alabama, Harvard x 2
Last Year RPI: 37
Starters Lost: 4
NOTES: Stop. Just stop. This is not a good opponent. Last year was lightning in a bottle because they had 1. A high quality coach, 2. A legitimate scoring threat who could take over the game, 3. A skilled 7-footer who was a weapon on offense and defense, and 4. A point guard who could control the game. All those things are gone. The Gophers will win by 40, and at the end of the season their RPI will be north of 200.
Dec 8 @ St. Joseph's
Record: 11-20 (5-11 A-10)
Good Wins: Dayton, Boston College
Last Year RPI: 180
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: The only true road game on the non-conference slate, always a good sign of a challenging schedule, and it's against a team with an RPI of 180 last year who will probably be even worse. This is a truly horrible game, because nobody gives a crap if you win on the road against a team like this, but they are just good enough (and the Gophers are historically shaky enough on the road) to pull of an upset, which really hurts NCAA bid chances. I am interested in seeing C.J. Aiken, a freshman who Rivals ranks as the #8 incoming center in the country who is playing for the Hawks for some reason that I assume involves a lost bet or alcohol.
Dec 11 vs. Eastern Kentucky
Record: 20-13 (11-7 OVC)
Good Wins: Morgan State
Last Year RPI: 164
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: They play Western, so might as well play Eastern, right? I don't know. A middling Ohio Valley team? They're more likely to be a 200+ in RPI than a sub-100, so I don't really like this. Should be an easy win though, so I guess they got that going for them. Since there aren't enough of those already.
Dec 15 vs. Akron
Record: 24-11 (12-4 MAC), lost in first round of CBI to Green Bay
Good Wins: Niagara
Last Year RPI: 95
Starters Lost: 3
NOTES: My first reaction was "Akron? Cool. They've been a bubble team recently." And then I realized that the days of Dru Joyce and Romeo Travis were actually five years or so ago, so they really aren't a dangerous team anymore (especially with losing their two best players to graduation). I mean, Akron always seems to be a nice team, and I don't hate them being on the schedule at all since they'll probably just be a low 100 RPI, but meh. Although maybe Lebron will show up. Did I tell you I'm a huge Miami Heat fan now?
So really, there's no reason the Gophers shouldn't be, at a minimum, 9-2 heading into Big Ten play. 8-3 would be bad but not a disaster, but if they go in any worse than that the season is basically already done. I don't think anybody realistically thinks they'll be more than a couple few games over .500 in Big Ten play, so a 7-4 non-conf record with that many cupcakes would make an NCAA bid a very tough road.
And it's really not that there are a ton of low-end games. At most they'll probably end up with two teams with sub-200 RPIs, but it's the lack of high-end games that is so disappointing. If everything breaks perfectly in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off they will end up having all of two marquee non-conference games - neither at home. Didn't you think we'd be seeing better in Tubby: Year IV? I did. Yeah, he's better than Monson (and thank god they didn't hire Molinari) and yes, we're seeing a better product and yes, they have indeed made the NCAA tournament two years in a row, so maybe it's my fault for wanting more.
Is it my fault? Am I alone here?
Nov 2 vs. Northeastern State, Nov 8 vs. Winona State - Whatever. Pass.
Nov 12 vs. Wofford College
Record: 26-9 (15-3 SoCon), lost in first round of NCAAs to Wisconsin
Good Wins: @ Georgia, South Carolina
Last Year RPI: 70
Starters Lost: 1 (
NOTES: A nice homecoming game for seniors Noah "The more successful" Dahlman and Cameron Rundles, the Terriers should be favorites to repeat in the SoCon and will probably be the Gophers biggest test outside of Puerto Rico. Even so, this is a slow team without the athletes needed to keep up, and should be the first in a long line of easy wins to open the season.
Nov 15 vs. Siena
Record: 27-7 (17-1 MAAC), lost in first round of NCAAs to Purdue
Good Wins: None
Last Year RPI: 33
Starters Lost: 3
NOTES: One of the hottest mid-major type teams the last few years, the Saints should take a step back this year with a lot to replace including Ronald Moore, the national assist leader, and Edwin Ubiles and Alex Franklin, their two leading scorers and all-around threats from the wing. Still, they do have some firepower back (Clarence Jackson is going to explode this year) and will probably be the second best team the Gophers will face - which still means they should be an easy win.
Nov 18 vs. Western Kentucky (in Puerto Rico)
Record: 21-13 (10-6 Sun Belt)
Good Wins: Vanderbilt, Murray State
Last Year RPI: 138
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: Top player A.J. Slaughter is gone, but the Hilltoppers have a bit of a mini-mid-major dynasty going and reload their roster with a very good recruiting class this season. They are bringing in five new players, including SG Brandon Peters who ranks as Rivals #129 freshman and a couple other three star recruits, along with a couple of transfers from Big 12 schools (Oklahoma and OSU). It's probably good the Gophers get them early, because I have a feeling they are going to be a lot tougher by the end of the year.
Nov 19 vs. North Carolina (in Puerto Rico, assuming they beat WKU)
Record: 20-17 (5-11 ACC), lost in NIT Championship game to Dayton
Good Wins: Ohio State, Michigan State, Wake, Miss State
Last Year RPI: 64
Starters Lost: 2 (I think)
NOTES: It's hard to say how many starters the Tar Heels lost because they used so many lineups last season and never really were able to figure the team out until the NIT, but don't let the record fool you they have a ton of talent. Harrison Barnes is amazing, John Henson started to look like he figured it out late in the season, Reggie Bulluck should be awesome, and really it just goes on and on. Of course, I would have said basically the same thing last year, but I find it hard to believe UNC is going to be at that level back-to-back seasons.
Nov 21 vs. Vanderbilt or West Virginai (or Nebraska or Davidson)
NOTES: Most likely this will be either WVU or Vandy, and a win over either would be a challenge and a nice resume builder. I think if they manage to beat UNC I'd hope for a championship matchup with he Mountaineers in order to get the biggest scalp possible, but if they lose to the Heels I'd hope they go up against Vandy, which would still be a nice win but an easier win as well.
Nov 24 vs. North Dakota State
Record: 11-18 (8-10 Summit)
Good Wins: None
Last Year RPI: 267
Starters Lost: 3
NOTES: This is not the same scrappy, rough-and-tumble, senior white boy led squad from a couple of years ago. This is just a bad team. Look at that RPI. Now realize it's going to be about the same this year. Worthless game here, rather than giving a few third and fourth tier former Minnesota high school players a chance to play in the Barn. I guess I can see some value in that, and if this was the only game against an opponent like this, I wouldn't complain.
Nov 29 vs. Virginia (Big 10/ACC Challenge)
Record: 15-15 (5-11 ACC)
Good Wins: UAB, Georgia Tech
Last Year RPI: 123
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: We get Virginia again the Challenge, which is a yawner, especially since their best and most exciting player, Sylvan Landesberg, got essentially booted off the team last year and is currently trying to hook on with an NBA squad. Still, Tony Bennett is already starting to pay dividends on the recruiting trail, bringing in a very good class including #30 in the country K.T. Harrell, #108 James Johnson, #119 Joe Harris, and #148 Will Regan. Wait. Holy crap that's a really good class. Virginia is on their way back to relevance (like, Harold Deane/Curtis Staples territory), and I'm now amending my previous statement and saying that THIS will be the toughest non-Puerto Rico game.
Dec 4 vs. Cornell
Record: 27-4 (13-1 Ivy), lost in the Sweet 16 of the NCAAs to Kentucky
Good Wins: Temple, Wisconsin, Alabama, Harvard x 2
Last Year RPI: 37
Starters Lost: 4
NOTES: Stop. Just stop. This is not a good opponent. Last year was lightning in a bottle because they had 1. A high quality coach, 2. A legitimate scoring threat who could take over the game, 3. A skilled 7-footer who was a weapon on offense and defense, and 4. A point guard who could control the game. All those things are gone. The Gophers will win by 40, and at the end of the season their RPI will be north of 200.
Dec 8 @ St. Joseph's
Record: 11-20 (5-11 A-10)
Good Wins: Dayton, Boston College
Last Year RPI: 180
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: The only true road game on the non-conference slate, always a good sign of a challenging schedule, and it's against a team with an RPI of 180 last year who will probably be even worse. This is a truly horrible game, because nobody gives a crap if you win on the road against a team like this, but they are just good enough (and the Gophers are historically shaky enough on the road) to pull of an upset, which really hurts NCAA bid chances. I am interested in seeing C.J. Aiken, a freshman who Rivals ranks as the #8 incoming center in the country who is playing for the Hawks for some reason that I assume involves a lost bet or alcohol.
Dec 11 vs. Eastern Kentucky
Record: 20-13 (11-7 OVC)
Good Wins: Morgan State
Last Year RPI: 164
Starters Lost: 2
NOTES: They play Western, so might as well play Eastern, right? I don't know. A middling Ohio Valley team? They're more likely to be a 200+ in RPI than a sub-100, so I don't really like this. Should be an easy win though, so I guess they got that going for them. Since there aren't enough of those already.
Dec 15 vs. Akron
Record: 24-11 (12-4 MAC), lost in first round of CBI to Green Bay
Good Wins: Niagara
Last Year RPI: 95
Starters Lost: 3
NOTES: My first reaction was "Akron? Cool. They've been a bubble team recently." And then I realized that the days of Dru Joyce and Romeo Travis were actually five years or so ago, so they really aren't a dangerous team anymore (especially with losing their two best players to graduation). I mean, Akron always seems to be a nice team, and I don't hate them being on the schedule at all since they'll probably just be a low 100 RPI, but meh. Although maybe Lebron will show up. Did I tell you I'm a huge Miami Heat fan now?
So really, there's no reason the Gophers shouldn't be, at a minimum, 9-2 heading into Big Ten play. 8-3 would be bad but not a disaster, but if they go in any worse than that the season is basically already done. I don't think anybody realistically thinks they'll be more than a couple few games over .500 in Big Ten play, so a 7-4 non-conf record with that many cupcakes would make an NCAA bid a very tough road.
And it's really not that there are a ton of low-end games. At most they'll probably end up with two teams with sub-200 RPIs, but it's the lack of high-end games that is so disappointing. If everything breaks perfectly in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off they will end up having all of two marquee non-conference games - neither at home. Didn't you think we'd be seeing better in Tubby: Year IV? I did. Yeah, he's better than Monson (and thank god they didn't hire Molinari) and yes, we're seeing a better product and yes, they have indeed made the NCAA tournament two years in a row, so maybe it's my fault for wanting more.
Is it my fault? Am I alone here?
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Week in Review - 2/22/2010
Well, I gotta give credit where credit is due: there is very little to complain about in regards to the Gopher hoopsters this week. A big win over the completely hated dickholes from Wisconsin followed by an absolute destruction of the horribly horrid Hoosiers. And they've looked great too. The offense is finally flowing well, and even Westbrook has reigned himself in and begun playing within the flow. The two best games this team has played all year were the two they played this week. If they're going to hit a stride now is the time to do it. Big time games coming up at home against Purdue and then on the road at Illinois this week, and they absolutely have to win at least one and probably both to have a shot at a bid. Of course, if they had played this way they wouldn't have lost to Indiana, Northwestern, or Michigan and would likely have won at least one of the Michigan State games and we wouldn't have to worry about it.
This is such a depressing year. Let's just move on.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Maryland. At this point in the season you're rarely going to see a team with three games in a week, but due to a postponement after the great blizzard of "aught-ten" that's what the Terps had this week and they managed a very nice 3-0. First they beat a tougher-than-expected Virginia squad, then traveled down to NC State and beat the Wolfpack (the same team who beat Wake by 20 this weekend), and then rapped up the week with a buzzer beating home win over Georgia Tech. The Terps are flying under the radar a bit due to a slow start, but since Professor Dirty Beard, Grievis Vasquez, has shaken off an early shooting slump they are one of the better teams in the country. Vasquez and Eric Hayes give them a very good, very experienced backcourt, and you know what they say about good guards in March. The front court might be a little weak, but freshman Jordan Williams is starting to figure it out and has picked up double-digits rebounds in his last three. Very dangerous team. I'd hate for the Gophers to have to face them in the second round.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Kill me.
2. Northern Iowa. The Panthers are definitely the team that helped themselves the most over Bracket Buster weekend, going from "probably getting an at-large bid" to "definitely getting an at-large bid" with their win over Old Dominion. UNI is now 24-3, but didn't have much in the marquee win category. The beat Siena earlier in the year, but that had been their only win over an RPI top 50 team. Mediocre wins abounded: Iowa, Boston College, Iowa State, Creighton, and Wichita State all fell to the Panthers, but the Siena win was the only big victory, and with two losses to sub-100 RPI teams (Bradley, DePaul) they couldn't really feel safe. Beating ODU now gives them that second big win, and increases their RPI rating to #17, and barring a complete collapse in the final regular season week they should be just fine, regardless of the outcome of the MVC tournament.
3. UTEP. If you're a dork like me and were really curious to see how Conference USA would shake out with Calipari jumping ship, you have your answer: UTEP is the tops. Coming into the season there were a bunch of contenders with Tulsa and Memphis the favorites, UAB and UTEP right behind them, and Marshall and Houston the dark horses. Well, the Miners have staked their claim to #1 after beating Tulsa in Tulsa this weekend, giving them a sweep of the Golden Hurricane. With Houston sucking and Marshall being meh it's been a four team race, and UTEP has staked their claim to the top by going 4-0 against the other contenders, and even more impressively three of those wins have been on the road. The Miners still have games left against UAB and Marshall, and have plenty of work to do thanks to a mostly empty non-conference resume, but if they make the tournament they could be a tough out. They are really balanced and can hurt you both inside and out, and will make somebody work very hard to advance.
4. Cornell. When Andy Bernard U lost to Penn two weeks ago it basically killed their at-large chances which would suck because this team can absolutely knock somebody off. The loss to Penn and their #307 RPI is Cornell's only conference loss, but with a dangerous team like Harvard in the conference, and the Ivy giving their auto-bid to the regular season champion, things can get dicey. Luckily for everyone who likes basketball, Cornell took care of business this week, winning at Harvard 79-70 (and then following that up by beating Dartmouth). The loss is the third of the season for Harvard, and with Cornell having swept the Crimson it effectively eliminates them from the race. Cornell's remaining games are home against Penn (4-5) and Princeton (7-2) and then away against Brown (4-6) and Yale (4-6). The only dangerous game is against Princeton who is just 1.5 games behind the Big Red, and lost to them by just three last time they met. Hopefully Cornell can take care of business, because I can't wait to watch them knock off Wisconsin in round 1.
5. Ian Poulter. There is enough going on in college hoops right now where we could fill twice as many places with teams that had good weeks, but I can't just ignore the winner of the Accenture Match Play Challenge - which is Poulter this year. Ian has always had the confidence to be a great player (I believe his quote was something like "There's me and Tiger, and then there's everyone else"), but his game hasn't quite kept up and he's been stuck at that Tier II level. He's had plenty of success in Europe, with eight wins on the European Tour, but has yet to pick up his first PGA Victory, and he's played well in majors, including a runner-up finish at the British in 2008, but hasn't quite broken through. Perhaps this win in the Accenture will get him there, as he beat a nice group of players - Justin Leonard, Adam Scott, Jeev Milka Singh, Thongchai Jaidee (who?), Sergio Garcia, and Paul Casey - and the last two wins over Garcia and Casey weren't close. Guy is a hell of a golfer, hell of a talker, and hell of a dresser (on Sunday he looked like a walking Breast Cancer reminder in a full-pink outfit). Could it be, dare I say it, the Year of the Poulter?
WHO SUCKED
1. South Florida. For all the talk of bracket-busting this weekend, the biggest burst might have been the bubble of the Bulls (how's that for alliteration?). They weren't anywhere near in just yet, and were probably on the wrong side of the bubble, but would have every chance to play themselves into a bid with games left against Villanova and UCONN. Winning either of those, while taking care of business against St. Johns, Providence, and DePaul, would leave USF at 10-8 in Big East play and in pretty decent shape. But, as Gopher fans have seen time and time again, these types of teams are prone to disappointing their fans and the Bulls are no exception, losing at home to St. Johns 74-58 on Saturday and probably killing any at-large dreams. USF allowed St. Johns to shoot 59% from the floor and were out 30-22. Add in Dominique Jones shooting 6-18 and their twin towers Augustus Gilchrist and Jarrid Famous combined to shoot 2-10 and you aren't going to win that game very often. The chances of South Florida coming to the Barn for a first round NIT match up are rising. Get excited, Gopher fans.
2. The Colonial Athletic Association. Going into Bracket Busters weekend, the CAA had three teams fighting for at-large consideration: Old Dominion, William & Mary, and Northeastern. ODU would be taking on the top team in the Missouri Valley in Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, W&M would travel to New York to take on Iona, #2 in the MAAC, and Northeastern would welcome Lousiana Tech, the WAC's number three team, to their place. Overall record: 0-3. Ouch. ODU should be ok thanks to their wins over Georgetown and Charlotte and 13-3 conference record, but W&M and Northeastern are in trouble. The Tribe is in better shape thanks to non-conference wins over Maryland, Richmond, and Wake Forest, but a couple of really bad losses also dot their record (Wilmington, James Madison) and it will be interesting to see how the committee treats them. Northeastern is in the worst shape despite being tied for first in the conference standings thanks to five losses to RPI sub-100 teams, which is hard to overlook. Personally, I think both ODU and W&M should get in, but all three teams had a nice opportunity to boost their profile, and all three whiffed.
3. Siena. It's kind of tough to tell a team that it sucks after they lose on the road to the 13th ranked team in the country, but the Saints needed to beat Butler if they were going to get an at-large bid and didn't despite having the Bulldogs on the ropes early in the second half. The Saints had played Butler to a tie at the 16-minutes mark of the second, but Butler went on 16-5 run and never looked back, closing Siena out by the final score of 70-53 and effectively eliminated any chance of an at-large bid for the Saints. Unfortunately, three major offensive cogs (Ronald Moore, Edwin Ubiles, and Alex Franklin) didn't bother showing up on Saturday, combining to shoot 4-27 (not a misprint) and a 7-7 turnover-assist mark. Maybe the ten AM start was a bit too early for them on a Saturday. Siena is still the class of the MAAC and should be able to win the conference tournament and grab a bid that way, but I'm sure it would have been nice for them to not have to. Way to go, slackasses.
4. Ole Miss. This week was basically a clinic in how not to make the NCAA Tournament by the Rebels. With home games against Florida and Vanderbilt they not only had a good chance to get to third place in the SEC, but they could have done it and grabbed a couple of marquee wins in the process - something their profile is sorely lacking right now. Of course, they are in the "SUCK" portion of this post, so you can probably guess that they lost both games instead and petty much eliminated themselves from at-large consideration. This is really too bad, because as much as I complain about the Dayton fans at that Dayton bar in Chicago their is really nothing better than being in a bar dedicated to a team and watching that team get bounced out of the tournament. Since Dayton is looking less and less likely like a tournament team, we might have to look for someone else, and that bar in Chicago is also an Ole Miss bar (as well as Boston College and Notre Dame). They might not have a single one of their "teams" make the dance, and then we won't have any fans to laugh at. Except Iowa fans. We can laugh at them no matter what.
5. Cincinnati. It's time to give up the dream of me cashing on that 200-1 bet, because the Bearcats aren't even going to make the NCAA Tournament, forget about winning it. After a 0-2 week, they are now 6-8 in the Big East and 15-11 overall and are going to have to go on a huge run to close out the season if they want a chance to reach the big dance. Two very disappointing losses this week against rival bubble teams (at South Florida and vs. Marquette) are going to make it tough, but Cincy still has every chance to make the tournament. Their four final games include chances against #3 Villanova, #10 Georgetown, and #8 West Virginia, and I'd bet winning two of those (and their gimme against DePaul) would set Cincy up in pretty good shape for a bid. Of course, two of those three games are on the road and Cincinnati sucks, so it's more likely they'll close out the year 1-3 and then dip out quickly in the Big East Tournament. The good news is that they would probably be one of the favorites to win the NIT, so they got that going for them. Also Lance Stephenson would be an idiot to go pro after this year, which basically guarantees that he will.
I'd like to mention one other thing that was awesome, and recommend the book Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend by James Hirsch. Let me tell you something, if there is anything you want to know about Mays, this book has it in its 600 pages. It is very focused, and very detailed, and other than a tendency to drift into mini-essays on the racial issues of the 50s and 60s stays focused on the story of Mays. I actually wouldn't have minded a little bit more on guys like Marichal and McCovey, but if you are looking for the story of Willie Mays I wouldn't go anywhere else. Seriously, my appreciation of the guy has gone way up. Despite all his numbers which I've seen again and again, I never realized how great this guy was. Hirsch makes it clear that the players, fans, coaches, and media of the day all considered Willie the best player in the world - except of course for the bigots.
Very cool book. Highly recommended.
Finally, I'm going to debut my own sort of bubble watch thing. It's not fancy, but neither is your mom:
BUBBLE GAMES OF NOTE:
West Virginia @ UCONN -The Huskies looked like they were cruising towards a bid after beating Texas, but hit some road bumps and found themselves on the wrong side of the bubble. After a successful 2-0 week, including a win over Villanova, they are back in the conversation, and a home win over WVU would go a long way.
And that's it. So that was pretty anticlimactic. Ah well, I'm planning on doing a little something like that every day until selection sunday. But I'm also pretty lazy, so we'll just have to see.
This is such a depressing year. Let's just move on.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Maryland. At this point in the season you're rarely going to see a team with three games in a week, but due to a postponement after the great blizzard of "aught-ten" that's what the Terps had this week and they managed a very nice 3-0. First they beat a tougher-than-expected Virginia squad, then traveled down to NC State and beat the Wolfpack (the same team who beat Wake by 20 this weekend), and then rapped up the week with a buzzer beating home win over Georgia Tech. The Terps are flying under the radar a bit due to a slow start, but since Professor Dirty Beard, Grievis Vasquez, has shaken off an early shooting slump they are one of the better teams in the country. Vasquez and Eric Hayes give them a very good, very experienced backcourt, and you know what they say about good guards in March. The front court might be a little weak, but freshman Jordan Williams is starting to figure it out and has picked up double-digits rebounds in his last three. Very dangerous team. I'd hate for the Gophers to have to face them in the second round.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Kill me.
2. Northern Iowa. The Panthers are definitely the team that helped themselves the most over Bracket Buster weekend, going from "probably getting an at-large bid" to "definitely getting an at-large bid" with their win over Old Dominion. UNI is now 24-3, but didn't have much in the marquee win category. The beat Siena earlier in the year, but that had been their only win over an RPI top 50 team. Mediocre wins abounded: Iowa, Boston College, Iowa State, Creighton, and Wichita State all fell to the Panthers, but the Siena win was the only big victory, and with two losses to sub-100 RPI teams (Bradley, DePaul) they couldn't really feel safe. Beating ODU now gives them that second big win, and increases their RPI rating to #17, and barring a complete collapse in the final regular season week they should be just fine, regardless of the outcome of the MVC tournament.
3. UTEP. If you're a dork like me and were really curious to see how Conference USA would shake out with Calipari jumping ship, you have your answer: UTEP is the tops. Coming into the season there were a bunch of contenders with Tulsa and Memphis the favorites, UAB and UTEP right behind them, and Marshall and Houston the dark horses. Well, the Miners have staked their claim to #1 after beating Tulsa in Tulsa this weekend, giving them a sweep of the Golden Hurricane. With Houston sucking and Marshall being meh it's been a four team race, and UTEP has staked their claim to the top by going 4-0 against the other contenders, and even more impressively three of those wins have been on the road. The Miners still have games left against UAB and Marshall, and have plenty of work to do thanks to a mostly empty non-conference resume, but if they make the tournament they could be a tough out. They are really balanced and can hurt you both inside and out, and will make somebody work very hard to advance.
4. Cornell. When Andy Bernard U lost to Penn two weeks ago it basically killed their at-large chances which would suck because this team can absolutely knock somebody off. The loss to Penn and their #307 RPI is Cornell's only conference loss, but with a dangerous team like Harvard in the conference, and the Ivy giving their auto-bid to the regular season champion, things can get dicey. Luckily for everyone who likes basketball, Cornell took care of business this week, winning at Harvard 79-70 (and then following that up by beating Dartmouth). The loss is the third of the season for Harvard, and with Cornell having swept the Crimson it effectively eliminates them from the race. Cornell's remaining games are home against Penn (4-5) and Princeton (7-2) and then away against Brown (4-6) and Yale (4-6). The only dangerous game is against Princeton who is just 1.5 games behind the Big Red, and lost to them by just three last time they met. Hopefully Cornell can take care of business, because I can't wait to watch them knock off Wisconsin in round 1.
5. Ian Poulter. There is enough going on in college hoops right now where we could fill twice as many places with teams that had good weeks, but I can't just ignore the winner of the Accenture Match Play Challenge - which is Poulter this year. Ian has always had the confidence to be a great player (I believe his quote was something like "There's me and Tiger, and then there's everyone else"), but his game hasn't quite kept up and he's been stuck at that Tier II level. He's had plenty of success in Europe, with eight wins on the European Tour, but has yet to pick up his first PGA Victory, and he's played well in majors, including a runner-up finish at the British in 2008, but hasn't quite broken through. Perhaps this win in the Accenture will get him there, as he beat a nice group of players - Justin Leonard, Adam Scott, Jeev Milka Singh, Thongchai Jaidee (who?), Sergio Garcia, and Paul Casey - and the last two wins over Garcia and Casey weren't close. Guy is a hell of a golfer, hell of a talker, and hell of a dresser (on Sunday he looked like a walking Breast Cancer reminder in a full-pink outfit). Could it be, dare I say it, the Year of the Poulter?
WHO SUCKED
1. South Florida. For all the talk of bracket-busting this weekend, the biggest burst might have been the bubble of the Bulls (how's that for alliteration?). They weren't anywhere near in just yet, and were probably on the wrong side of the bubble, but would have every chance to play themselves into a bid with games left against Villanova and UCONN. Winning either of those, while taking care of business against St. Johns, Providence, and DePaul, would leave USF at 10-8 in Big East play and in pretty decent shape. But, as Gopher fans have seen time and time again, these types of teams are prone to disappointing their fans and the Bulls are no exception, losing at home to St. Johns 74-58 on Saturday and probably killing any at-large dreams. USF allowed St. Johns to shoot 59% from the floor and were out 30-22. Add in Dominique Jones shooting 6-18 and their twin towers Augustus Gilchrist and Jarrid Famous combined to shoot 2-10 and you aren't going to win that game very often. The chances of South Florida coming to the Barn for a first round NIT match up are rising. Get excited, Gopher fans.
2. The Colonial Athletic Association. Going into Bracket Busters weekend, the CAA had three teams fighting for at-large consideration: Old Dominion, William & Mary, and Northeastern. ODU would be taking on the top team in the Missouri Valley in Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, W&M would travel to New York to take on Iona, #2 in the MAAC, and Northeastern would welcome Lousiana Tech, the WAC's number three team, to their place. Overall record: 0-3. Ouch. ODU should be ok thanks to their wins over Georgetown and Charlotte and 13-3 conference record, but W&M and Northeastern are in trouble. The Tribe is in better shape thanks to non-conference wins over Maryland, Richmond, and Wake Forest, but a couple of really bad losses also dot their record (Wilmington, James Madison) and it will be interesting to see how the committee treats them. Northeastern is in the worst shape despite being tied for first in the conference standings thanks to five losses to RPI sub-100 teams, which is hard to overlook. Personally, I think both ODU and W&M should get in, but all three teams had a nice opportunity to boost their profile, and all three whiffed.
3. Siena. It's kind of tough to tell a team that it sucks after they lose on the road to the 13th ranked team in the country, but the Saints needed to beat Butler if they were going to get an at-large bid and didn't despite having the Bulldogs on the ropes early in the second half. The Saints had played Butler to a tie at the 16-minutes mark of the second, but Butler went on 16-5 run and never looked back, closing Siena out by the final score of 70-53 and effectively eliminated any chance of an at-large bid for the Saints. Unfortunately, three major offensive cogs (Ronald Moore, Edwin Ubiles, and Alex Franklin) didn't bother showing up on Saturday, combining to shoot 4-27 (not a misprint) and a 7-7 turnover-assist mark. Maybe the ten AM start was a bit too early for them on a Saturday. Siena is still the class of the MAAC and should be able to win the conference tournament and grab a bid that way, but I'm sure it would have been nice for them to not have to. Way to go, slackasses.
4. Ole Miss. This week was basically a clinic in how not to make the NCAA Tournament by the Rebels. With home games against Florida and Vanderbilt they not only had a good chance to get to third place in the SEC, but they could have done it and grabbed a couple of marquee wins in the process - something their profile is sorely lacking right now. Of course, they are in the "SUCK" portion of this post, so you can probably guess that they lost both games instead and petty much eliminated themselves from at-large consideration. This is really too bad, because as much as I complain about the Dayton fans at that Dayton bar in Chicago their is really nothing better than being in a bar dedicated to a team and watching that team get bounced out of the tournament. Since Dayton is looking less and less likely like a tournament team, we might have to look for someone else, and that bar in Chicago is also an Ole Miss bar (as well as Boston College and Notre Dame). They might not have a single one of their "teams" make the dance, and then we won't have any fans to laugh at. Except Iowa fans. We can laugh at them no matter what.
5. Cincinnati. It's time to give up the dream of me cashing on that 200-1 bet, because the Bearcats aren't even going to make the NCAA Tournament, forget about winning it. After a 0-2 week, they are now 6-8 in the Big East and 15-11 overall and are going to have to go on a huge run to close out the season if they want a chance to reach the big dance. Two very disappointing losses this week against rival bubble teams (at South Florida and vs. Marquette) are going to make it tough, but Cincy still has every chance to make the tournament. Their four final games include chances against #3 Villanova, #10 Georgetown, and #8 West Virginia, and I'd bet winning two of those (and their gimme against DePaul) would set Cincy up in pretty good shape for a bid. Of course, two of those three games are on the road and Cincinnati sucks, so it's more likely they'll close out the year 1-3 and then dip out quickly in the Big East Tournament. The good news is that they would probably be one of the favorites to win the NIT, so they got that going for them. Also Lance Stephenson would be an idiot to go pro after this year, which basically guarantees that he will.
I'd like to mention one other thing that was awesome, and recommend the book Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend by James Hirsch. Let me tell you something, if there is anything you want to know about Mays, this book has it in its 600 pages. It is very focused, and very detailed, and other than a tendency to drift into mini-essays on the racial issues of the 50s and 60s stays focused on the story of Mays. I actually wouldn't have minded a little bit more on guys like Marichal and McCovey, but if you are looking for the story of Willie Mays I wouldn't go anywhere else. Seriously, my appreciation of the guy has gone way up. Despite all his numbers which I've seen again and again, I never realized how great this guy was. Hirsch makes it clear that the players, fans, coaches, and media of the day all considered Willie the best player in the world - except of course for the bigots.
Very cool book. Highly recommended.
Finally, I'm going to debut my own sort of bubble watch thing. It's not fancy, but neither is your mom:
BUBBLE GAMES OF NOTE:
West Virginia @ UCONN -The Huskies looked like they were cruising towards a bid after beating Texas, but hit some road bumps and found themselves on the wrong side of the bubble. After a successful 2-0 week, including a win over Villanova, they are back in the conversation, and a home win over WVU would go a long way.
And that's it. So that was pretty anticlimactic. Ah well, I'm planning on doing a little something like that every day until selection sunday. But I'm also pretty lazy, so we'll just have to see.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Week in Review - 2/15/2010
If you came here to talk Gophers you came to the wrong place. Sorry. I know we bill ourselves here as a Gopher/Twins blog, but we are officially switching over to a Twins/Ohio State blog. I just don't see the need to cover a team anymore who, over and over again, plays well and can control the game until they suddenly realize they have the lead and go into complete panic/shutdown mode. It's not particularly fun. The rest of you chowder heads can continue to torture yourself by watching this abortion of a team. I'm out.
Until Thursday against Wisconsin. God I'm such a masochist.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Purdue. The win over Iowa on Saturday is no big deal, but the throttling of Michigan State in East Lansing was like whoa. The Boilers thoroughly beat the Spartans 76-64 and outplayed them all the way around in their own house. They raked Sparty's defense for 57% shooting and 43% from three, and out-rebounded a damn good rebounding team. All three of the Boilers' triplets lit the place up, but the big gun on Tuesday was E'Twaun Moore who hit big shot after big shot. Every time MSU started to make a run, Moore would hit a big shot to start a run right back for Purdue. This was a huge win, and a big statement. I'm not quite convinced that Purdue is a Final Four team, but I'm warming up to the idea.
2. Richmond. I don't know that anybody had a better week than Richmond, and now they're near a lock for an at-large bid. The Spiders picked up a monster win at Rhode Island, tipping the Rams 69-67, and then avoided a letdown at St. Bonaventure, picking up the 68-49 victory. Richmond now stands atop the A-10 standings at 9-2, is 20-6 overall with wins over Florida and Missouri, and with an RPI of 26 it would take an epic skid to knock them out of the tournament at this point. The A-10 is looking pretty set with Richmond, Temple, and Xavier near locks, Charlotte and Rhode Island squarely on the bubble, and Dayton struggling mightily and looking more like an NIT team. Ha-ha Dayton, you suck. Maybe your hippy fans can all go have a good cry together. I wonder if that Dayton bar in Chicago will be all crowded for their NIT games?
3. Cal. It's about time somebody started separating themselves from the pack of Pac-10 mediocrity, and Cal looks like they're the team after sweeping through Washington with wins over both schools this week. The win over Washington State isn't necessarily a big whoopty-doo, but beating Washington by double-digits is since the Huskies are the only other halfway decent team in the conference (sorry Arizona State, I know you're 8-5 but you still suck). It's hard to really get a read on Cal. I mean the Pac-10 sucks worse than the Gophers and Cal hasn't exactly run the table at 9-4, and their best non-conference win was over Iowa State. On the other hand Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher, and Theo Robertson are one of the most talented backcourts in the country, and guards win championships. I'm not really sure what to think, but I'm pretty sure whatever I ended up deciding to do with them in my bracket they'll do the opposite.
4. Louisville. The win over Syracuse in the Carrier Dome on Sunday was very important for the Cardinals not just because of the signature win-ness of it, but also because it cancels out their loss at St. Johns's earlier in the week, not to mention giving them their first win of the year over an RPI Top-25 team and probably taking them from the middle of to the good side of it. Louisville is a really interesting team this year. Thanks to Terrence Jennings's complete refusal to improve and try to become the next Earl Clark/Terrence Williams type player, they're basically Samardo Samuels and a whole bunch of guards.
5. Ohio State. I actually had this spot all reserved and typed up for Illinois since their win over Wisconsin in the Kohl Center was the exact huge signature win they really needed, but then they followed that up by getting so blown out by Ohio State in Champaign that I had the give the propers to the Buckeyes. Seriously you guys, I'm totally not exaggerating when I say that this team is absolutely loaded and playing out of their minds right now. They've won six in a row after winning two road games this week (Indiana and Illinois), have won nine straight Big 10 games, and are now in a tie for first a top the Big Ten. They are absolutely a final four contender, and hopefully you listened to me and slapped some cash down on them when they were 75-1 to win the whole thing, because they've moved to 20-1 now. And man, if I had ever said something like "Ohio State isn't a top 100 team this year" I'd probably like, stop talking. And not just about sports, I'd just stop talking all together. I'd feel like I owed the world that much, you know what I mean? Like, it would just be the right thing to do.
WHO SUCKED
1. Texas. In a wide open season it's been difficult to figure out your final four teams. Kansas is pretty much the only team I'd call a "lock" right now, mainly because I don't trust how young Kentucky is. One team I had penciled in was Texas even during their recent skid, but after Monday night's embarrassing loss against Kansas it's painfully obvious that this Longhorn team isn't nearly as good as I thought. I was ignoring the losses at Oklahoma and Kansas State and even the loss to Baylor at home, but this loss was unignorable in it's ugliness - kind of like Sarah Jessica Parker. And it's not ugly because they lost to the #1 team by 12 at home, but it was the way they lost - absolutely Gopher-esque. Terrible decisions with the ball, poor defensive effort, not getting back in transition, and missing open shots were the story of the day. When the #1 team comes into your house and you're supposed to be a Final Four contender you can't turn the ball over 17 times and shoot 37% - you just can't. I still think they have talent - Damion James is one of the best players in the country - but they are looking like more of a "ripe for a first round upset" team right now than a "sleeper final four team." And no, beating Nebraska by 40 on Saturday does nothing to change my mind.
2. West Virginia. As long as we're talking about teams I had in the Final Four who had shaky weeks, we might as well throw the Mountaineers in here too. They started the week out by losing at home to Villanova (allowing the Wildcats to shoot 57%), and then they dropped a road game at Pitt in which they led by seven with 43 seconds left, only to end up losing in triple-overtime. Neither loss by itself is necessarily a huge red flag, but the combination of the two and the poor defense and late game meltdown are pretty telling, and actually remind me of how Huggy Bear's Cincinnati teams nearly always underperformed their seed. Like Texas, there is still a lot to like with this team and they are still in the Final Four discussion, but now my faith is shaken. And can a team without a real point guard get to the Final Four? Jesus, at this rate I'm just going to pick random teams, everybody sucks this year.
3. Rhode Island. I mentioned above that Rhode Island is still probably in good shape to grab an NCAA bid - and they are - but they whiffed on a couple of big chances this week. First, they had Richmond come in to their place and walk out with a two point victory, and then on Saturday they went into Temple and got their asses completely handed to them 78-56 in a game where Temple shot 68.6% - a Temple school record. I say the Rams are in good shape because they have a good record and a nice RPI, but what they are really missing is any kind of signature win. They have a couple nice wins - one over Dayton and one over Oklahoma State - but those are the team's only victories over RPI top 50 opponents and winning either of their games this week would have given them another. With just one more crack at a top 50 team this year (Charlotte), it will be interesting to see how the committee treats them. Good numbers, but is the profile too empty?
4. UNLV. I don't know if it's the DWG Jinx or just some kind of natural let-down, but just one week after making a huge statement by whooping some Mormon ass they whiffed on two more opportunities to take down their top MWC competitors. First, New Mexico came to Vegas and beat the Rebels 76-66, and then the Rebs traveled to San Diego to take on SDSU and lost that one as well, 68-58. Neither of those are bad losses, and UNLV should be able to win their last five to finish out at 12-4 in the MWC and 24-6 overall so they'll be ok, but pretty much a huge letdown week following up that monster win.
5. Siena. Unlike the other four teams on the suck list this week, the Saints might have actually lost their at-large bid with their play over the weekend, in this case a loss to Niagara by the count of 87-74. What really hurts is that Niagara isn't the good Niagara they've been the last few years - they're under .500 in the MAAC and have an RPI in the 150s. Although it's just Siena's first conference loss, that might be all it takes to eliminate them from at-large consideration. They don't have any wins over the RPI top 50 and they whiffed on every opportunity they had in the non-conference schedule to get a big win. Next weekend is Bracket Busters, and the Saints were lucky enough to draw Butler, but unfortunately they have to go on the road. No matter, this game has gone from a "would be a really good idea to win" to an "absolutely must-have win" for the Saints. In any case, at least they aren't the Gophers. That would really suck for them.
What also sucked was the All-Star H.O.R.S.E. event. A really good idea, but they've commercialized it and regulated it to the point that it just sucks to watch. There's like a 30 second break between every shot so Barkley and the TNT crew can yuck it up, so there's no flow to the game at all. I wondered why they only had three people, and it's because they take so many breaks and there is so much "witty banter" that there's really only about one shot per minute.
Great idea, terrible execution. Like the exact opposite of the last Indiana Jones movie, which had a terrible script that was executed well. Neither one works. Much like this edition of Gopher basketball, which is a terrible idea executed terribly. Seriously. This year's team is like that Paris Hilton movie "The Hottie and the Nottie" - just a horrid idea that was awful in its execution. Jesus, I just compared the Gophers to that movie and I don't think that's being harsh enough. Remind me why I'm going to the game on Thursday? Oh, right. I'm really stupid.
Until Thursday against Wisconsin. God I'm such a masochist.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Purdue. The win over Iowa on Saturday is no big deal, but the throttling of Michigan State in East Lansing was like whoa. The Boilers thoroughly beat the Spartans 76-64 and outplayed them all the way around in their own house. They raked Sparty's defense for 57% shooting and 43% from three, and out-rebounded a damn good rebounding team. All three of the Boilers' triplets lit the place up, but the big gun on Tuesday was E'Twaun Moore who hit big shot after big shot. Every time MSU started to make a run, Moore would hit a big shot to start a run right back for Purdue. This was a huge win, and a big statement. I'm not quite convinced that Purdue is a Final Four team, but I'm warming up to the idea.
2. Richmond. I don't know that anybody had a better week than Richmond, and now they're near a lock for an at-large bid. The Spiders picked up a monster win at Rhode Island, tipping the Rams 69-67, and then avoided a letdown at St. Bonaventure, picking up the 68-49 victory. Richmond now stands atop the A-10 standings at 9-2, is 20-6 overall with wins over Florida and Missouri, and with an RPI of 26 it would take an epic skid to knock them out of the tournament at this point. The A-10 is looking pretty set with Richmond, Temple, and Xavier near locks, Charlotte and Rhode Island squarely on the bubble, and Dayton struggling mightily and looking more like an NIT team. Ha-ha Dayton, you suck. Maybe your hippy fans can all go have a good cry together. I wonder if that Dayton bar in Chicago will be all crowded for their NIT games?
3. Cal. It's about time somebody started separating themselves from the pack of Pac-10 mediocrity, and Cal looks like they're the team after sweeping through Washington with wins over both schools this week. The win over Washington State isn't necessarily a big whoopty-doo, but beating Washington by double-digits is since the Huskies are the only other halfway decent team in the conference (sorry Arizona State, I know you're 8-5 but you still suck). It's hard to really get a read on Cal. I mean the Pac-10 sucks worse than the Gophers and Cal hasn't exactly run the table at 9-4, and their best non-conference win was over Iowa State. On the other hand Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher, and Theo Robertson are one of the most talented backcourts in the country, and guards win championships. I'm not really sure what to think, but I'm pretty sure whatever I ended up deciding to do with them in my bracket they'll do the opposite.
4. Louisville. The win over Syracuse in the Carrier Dome on Sunday was very important for the Cardinals not just because of the signature win-ness of it, but also because it cancels out their loss at St. Johns's earlier in the week, not to mention giving them their first win of the year over an RPI Top-25 team and probably taking them from the middle of to the good side of it. Louisville is a really interesting team this year. Thanks to Terrence Jennings's complete refusal to improve and try to become the next Earl Clark/Terrence Williams type player, they're basically Samardo Samuels and a whole bunch of guards.
5. Ohio State. I actually had this spot all reserved and typed up for Illinois since their win over Wisconsin in the Kohl Center was the exact huge signature win they really needed, but then they followed that up by getting so blown out by Ohio State in Champaign that I had the give the propers to the Buckeyes. Seriously you guys, I'm totally not exaggerating when I say that this team is absolutely loaded and playing out of their minds right now. They've won six in a row after winning two road games this week (Indiana and Illinois), have won nine straight Big 10 games, and are now in a tie for first a top the Big Ten. They are absolutely a final four contender, and hopefully you listened to me and slapped some cash down on them when they were 75-1 to win the whole thing, because they've moved to 20-1 now. And man, if I had ever said something like "Ohio State isn't a top 100 team this year" I'd probably like, stop talking. And not just about sports, I'd just stop talking all together. I'd feel like I owed the world that much, you know what I mean? Like, it would just be the right thing to do.
WHO SUCKED
1. Texas. In a wide open season it's been difficult to figure out your final four teams. Kansas is pretty much the only team I'd call a "lock" right now, mainly because I don't trust how young Kentucky is. One team I had penciled in was Texas even during their recent skid, but after Monday night's embarrassing loss against Kansas it's painfully obvious that this Longhorn team isn't nearly as good as I thought. I was ignoring the losses at Oklahoma and Kansas State and even the loss to Baylor at home, but this loss was unignorable in it's ugliness - kind of like Sarah Jessica Parker. And it's not ugly because they lost to the #1 team by 12 at home, but it was the way they lost - absolutely Gopher-esque. Terrible decisions with the ball, poor defensive effort, not getting back in transition, and missing open shots were the story of the day. When the #1 team comes into your house and you're supposed to be a Final Four contender you can't turn the ball over 17 times and shoot 37% - you just can't. I still think they have talent - Damion James is one of the best players in the country - but they are looking like more of a "ripe for a first round upset" team right now than a "sleeper final four team." And no, beating Nebraska by 40 on Saturday does nothing to change my mind.
3. Rhode Island. I mentioned above that Rhode Island is still probably in good shape to grab an NCAA bid - and they are - but they whiffed on a couple of big chances this week. First, they had Richmond come in to their place and walk out with a two point victory, and then on Saturday they went into Temple and got their asses completely handed to them 78-56 in a game where Temple shot 68.6% - a Temple school record. I say the Rams are in good shape because they have a good record and a nice RPI, but what they are really missing is any kind of signature win. They have a couple nice wins - one over Dayton and one over Oklahoma State - but those are the team's only victories over RPI top 50 opponents and winning either of their games this week would have given them another. With just one more crack at a top 50 team this year (Charlotte), it will be interesting to see how the committee treats them. Good numbers, but is the profile too empty?
4. UNLV. I don't know if it's the DWG Jinx or just some kind of natural let-down, but just one week after making a huge statement by whooping some Mormon ass they whiffed on two more opportunities to take down their top MWC competitors. First, New Mexico came to Vegas and beat the Rebels 76-66, and then the Rebs traveled to San Diego to take on SDSU and lost that one as well, 68-58. Neither of those are bad losses, and UNLV should be able to win their last five to finish out at 12-4 in the MWC and 24-6 overall so they'll be ok, but pretty much a huge letdown week following up that monster win.
5. Siena. Unlike the other four teams on the suck list this week, the Saints might have actually lost their at-large bid with their play over the weekend, in this case a loss to Niagara by the count of 87-74. What really hurts is that Niagara isn't the good Niagara they've been the last few years - they're under .500 in the MAAC and have an RPI in the 150s. Although it's just Siena's first conference loss, that might be all it takes to eliminate them from at-large consideration. They don't have any wins over the RPI top 50 and they whiffed on every opportunity they had in the non-conference schedule to get a big win. Next weekend is Bracket Busters, and the Saints were lucky enough to draw Butler, but unfortunately they have to go on the road. No matter, this game has gone from a "would be a really good idea to win" to an "absolutely must-have win" for the Saints. In any case, at least they aren't the Gophers. That would really suck for them.
What also sucked was the All-Star H.O.R.S.E. event. A really good idea, but they've commercialized it and regulated it to the point that it just sucks to watch. There's like a 30 second break between every shot so Barkley and the TNT crew can yuck it up, so there's no flow to the game at all. I wondered why they only had three people, and it's because they take so many breaks and there is so much "witty banter" that there's really only about one shot per minute.
Great idea, terrible execution. Like the exact opposite of the last Indiana Jones movie, which had a terrible script that was executed well. Neither one works. Much like this edition of Gopher basketball, which is a terrible idea executed terribly. Seriously. This year's team is like that Paris Hilton movie "The Hottie and the Nottie" - just a horrid idea that was awful in its execution. Jesus, I just compared the Gophers to that movie and I don't think that's being harsh enough. Remind me why I'm going to the game on Thursday? Oh, right. I'm really stupid.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Weekend Review
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Providence. I mentioned this previously, but the Friars win over Pitt on Tuesday was a huge lift to the Friars’ postseason chances. They still have a lot of work to do, but that was a step in the right direction. They also picked up a huge win at Rutgers on Saturday – not hard as in Rutgers is any good, they aren’t, but good to go on the road at a traditionally tough place to play and not show any letdown, going in and winning 73-66. They are doing it with defense, forcing both Pitt and Rutgers into 16 turnovers, a very good sign. Plenty of work left to do, and they close out the season on the road against a surprisingly very good Villanova team (despite Scotty Reynolds) in a game they probably have to win to have any hope. But if the Friars can pull that upset off and win a game in the Big East tournament, I don’t see any way they don’t make it.
2. BYU. Another team looking for a bid, the Cougars had a huge week coming up with wins over fellow Mountain West contenders San Diego State 69-59 and Utah 63-50. The win over the league leading Utes is huge, giving BYU its third victory over an RPI Top 50 opponent. With games at Wyoming and at home versus Air Force remaining, BYU should end up finishing 12-4 and second in the Mountain West. The real question is will that be enough? The computer numbers are pretty good, but they are just 3-5 against RPI Top 50 teams, which looks bad when compared to fellow conference bubble team UNLV who is 5-2. There isn’t much here outside the conference, so BYU better get to at least the MWC tournament finals, although the RPI ranking of #21 will certainly help.
3. Oklahoma State. Here’s a weird team that has come out of nowhere to suddenly be included in the bubble conversation, and they just got a signature win they badly needed by beating Texas 68-59 on Saturday, running their winning streak to five straight and pushing their conference record to 8-6, good enough for fourth in the Big 12. A pretty aggressive non-conference schedule and a slow start had them off the radar, but with the recent winning streak that same aggressive schedule has them with some pretty good numbers (#30 RPI, #11 SOS). They haven’t fared well against top teams, going just 3-8 vs. RPI Top 50 and 7-9 vs. The Top 100, but if they can split the last two (home vs. Kansas State, @ Oklahoma) that would put them at 20-10, 9-7 in conference. Take that, along with the good computer numbers and strong finish, and the Cowboys are looking pretty good for a bid.
4. Kansas. They certainly don’t need any help to get in the tournament, but suddenly a “depleted” Kansas team is playing for a possible two seed and took a good step in the right direction this week. They are 13-1 in the Big 12, and just beat the only other two ranked teams in the conference this week, taking down a Blake Griffin-less Oklahoma on the road 87-78 and followed it up by whooping #11 Missouri 90-65 in Lawrence. You knew Sherron Collins would be a stud this year, but the biggest reason for the team’s success despite losing so much talent after last year’s Championship has been Cole Aldrich – and yes, it pains me greatly to say that. After minimal playing time last year, he’s jumped to 30 minutes, 15 points, and 10 rebounds per game, put up 19 and 14 against Missouri, and is projected to be a top five NBA after next season by NBAdraft.net There are a bunch of newcomers who are also helping out, but Cole is definitely the biggest reason the Jayhawks are an unexpected Final Four contender.
5. Geoff Ogilvy. Ogilvy didn’t just win the Accenture Match Play Championship, he dominated it. In a week when Tiger Woods was the main story, Ogilvy moved passed him into first place on the all-time Accenture winning percentage, going 6-0 to push his record to 17-2 overall, a .895 winning percentage – ahead of Woods who is 32-7, .821. Ogilvy beat Paul Casey in the championship 4 & 3, following a run that saw him beat the gay Stewart Cink, teen phenom Rory McIlroy, Dr. Acula’s boyfriend Camilo Villegas, the Chinese Cowboy Shingo Katayama, and Kevin Sutherland. Ogilvy shot a combined 25 under in his last 66 holes (3 matches worth) and never trailed against any of his last three opponents. Ogilvy tends to play better in big events, this is his second time winning the Accenture, winning in 2006 as well as winning the US Open that year. He’s definitely one to watch in the majors this season.
WHO SUCKED
1. Siena. Well, the good ole DWG Jinx strikes again. This time hitting the MAAC leading Saints who, after last weekend’s win over Northern Iowa in Bracket Busters, looked to have a chance, however slim, at an at-large NCAA bid if they didn’t win their conference tournament. You can pretty much forget it now, as Niagara’s Purple Eagles knocked off Siena on Friday, 100-85. The Saints played a tough schedule, but were unable to grab a signature win, with their best win on the season coming against the previously mentioned Purple Eagles. Unfortunately, letting Niagara shoot 52% from the floor was too much to overcome, and the talented, and dangerous, Saints will have to win the conference tournament in order to get a chance to repeat their success from last season.
2. Utah State. The Aggies were in a similar situation as Siena, most likely needing to win their conference tournament to get in, but having an outside shot at an at-large. And, just like Siena, those hopes are now over with their loss at Nevada on Thursday night. It’s just the Aggies second WAC loss, the other being at Boise State, and losing on the road to the #2 and #4 teams in your conference isn’t anything to be ashamed of, but when your at-large resume contains only one win over a RPI top 50 opponent and your strength of schedule is 133, you can’t really afford any losses. So Utah State will now need to win the WAC tournament, and, bad news Aggies’ fans, it’s held in Reno on Nevada’s home floor. Ruh roh.
3. Kentucky. Another team that really hurt itself, the Wildcats haven’t completely locked themselves out of at-large consideration, but it’s really, really close. They completely bombed this week, going into South Carolina and getting steamrolled 77-59 and then following that up on Saturday by dropping a home game to LSU 73-70. Kentucky has been done in by poor perimeter shooting and sloppy ballhandling, as they shot just 7-26 from three in the two games and turned it over 20 and 15 times – trends that need to stop if they have any chance of making the tournament. They have Georgia at home in an easy win, and then close out the regular season by traveling to Florida in what will be a must win. If they can’t win both of their remaining games, the Cats might need to win the SEC tournament to get in.
4. Arizona. Another Wildcat team that didn’t do themselves any favors, Arizona also went 0-2 this week in getting swept by the Washington schools. This was following up a loss to Arizona State, and their safe NCAA hopes are suddenly looking a little more precarious. Losing on the road to a very good Washington team is nothing to be ashamed of, but they needed to win at Wash State, and unfortunately didn’t even bother to show up, getting blown out 69-53. The Wildcats have two home games to close out the season, playing Stanford and Cal this week, and probably need to win both or head into the Pac 10 tournament very nervously. Arizona has some very good scorers in Wise, Budinger, and Jordan Hill, but they need to fix their rebounding issues. Both Washington schools outrebounded them by 9 in their most recent games, and it’s been a season long issue with Arizona being one of the worst in the country in keeping team’s off their offensive boards. Couple that with their inability to turn other teams over, and they are giving up a boatload of shots every game.
5. Marquette. They certainly aren’t in any danger of not making the tournament at 12-4 in the Big East, and actually their 0-2 week wouldn’t normally land them in the WHO SUCKED column since those two losses were at Louisville and versus UCONN. The reason they are here is because they lost their senior leader, starting point guard, and top four conference assist man Dominic James for the season thanks to a broken foot suffered against UCONN. This takes the Golden Eagles from a sleeper final four contender to a sweet 16 max upside type team. They still have their top 3 scorers, and Jerel McNeal and Wes Mathews are still one of the top guard tandems in the country, but it will be very difficult to replace James. Even though they managed to hang tough with Louisville yesterday, losing just 62-58, but they also managed to scrounge up a total of just seven assists in the whole game, where James averaged five per contest by himself.
1. Providence. I mentioned this previously, but the Friars win over Pitt on Tuesday was a huge lift to the Friars’ postseason chances. They still have a lot of work to do, but that was a step in the right direction. They also picked up a huge win at Rutgers on Saturday – not hard as in Rutgers is any good, they aren’t, but good to go on the road at a traditionally tough place to play and not show any letdown, going in and winning 73-66. They are doing it with defense, forcing both Pitt and Rutgers into 16 turnovers, a very good sign. Plenty of work left to do, and they close out the season on the road against a surprisingly very good Villanova team (despite Scotty Reynolds) in a game they probably have to win to have any hope. But if the Friars can pull that upset off and win a game in the Big East tournament, I don’t see any way they don’t make it.
2. BYU. Another team looking for a bid, the Cougars had a huge week coming up with wins over fellow Mountain West contenders San Diego State 69-59 and Utah 63-50. The win over the league leading Utes is huge, giving BYU its third victory over an RPI Top 50 opponent. With games at Wyoming and at home versus Air Force remaining, BYU should end up finishing 12-4 and second in the Mountain West. The real question is will that be enough? The computer numbers are pretty good, but they are just 3-5 against RPI Top 50 teams, which looks bad when compared to fellow conference bubble team UNLV who is 5-2. There isn’t much here outside the conference, so BYU better get to at least the MWC tournament finals, although the RPI ranking of #21 will certainly help.
3. Oklahoma State. Here’s a weird team that has come out of nowhere to suddenly be included in the bubble conversation, and they just got a signature win they badly needed by beating Texas 68-59 on Saturday, running their winning streak to five straight and pushing their conference record to 8-6, good enough for fourth in the Big 12. A pretty aggressive non-conference schedule and a slow start had them off the radar, but with the recent winning streak that same aggressive schedule has them with some pretty good numbers (#30 RPI, #11 SOS). They haven’t fared well against top teams, going just 3-8 vs. RPI Top 50 and 7-9 vs. The Top 100, but if they can split the last two (home vs. Kansas State, @ Oklahoma) that would put them at 20-10, 9-7 in conference. Take that, along with the good computer numbers and strong finish, and the Cowboys are looking pretty good for a bid.
4. Kansas. They certainly don’t need any help to get in the tournament, but suddenly a “depleted” Kansas team is playing for a possible two seed and took a good step in the right direction this week. They are 13-1 in the Big 12, and just beat the only other two ranked teams in the conference this week, taking down a Blake Griffin-less Oklahoma on the road 87-78 and followed it up by whooping #11 Missouri 90-65 in Lawrence. You knew Sherron Collins would be a stud this year, but the biggest reason for the team’s success despite losing so much talent after last year’s Championship has been Cole Aldrich – and yes, it pains me greatly to say that. After minimal playing time last year, he’s jumped to 30 minutes, 15 points, and 10 rebounds per game, put up 19 and 14 against Missouri, and is projected to be a top five NBA after next season by NBAdraft.net There are a bunch of newcomers who are also helping out, but Cole is definitely the biggest reason the Jayhawks are an unexpected Final Four contender.
5. Geoff Ogilvy. Ogilvy didn’t just win the Accenture Match Play Championship, he dominated it. In a week when Tiger Woods was the main story, Ogilvy moved passed him into first place on the all-time Accenture winning percentage, going 6-0 to push his record to 17-2 overall, a .895 winning percentage – ahead of Woods who is 32-7, .821. Ogilvy beat Paul Casey in the championship 4 & 3, following a run that saw him beat the gay Stewart Cink, teen phenom Rory McIlroy, Dr. Acula’s boyfriend Camilo Villegas, the Chinese Cowboy Shingo Katayama, and Kevin Sutherland. Ogilvy shot a combined 25 under in his last 66 holes (3 matches worth) and never trailed against any of his last three opponents. Ogilvy tends to play better in big events, this is his second time winning the Accenture, winning in 2006 as well as winning the US Open that year. He’s definitely one to watch in the majors this season.
WHO SUCKED
1. Siena. Well, the good ole DWG Jinx strikes again. This time hitting the MAAC leading Saints who, after last weekend’s win over Northern Iowa in Bracket Busters, looked to have a chance, however slim, at an at-large NCAA bid if they didn’t win their conference tournament. You can pretty much forget it now, as Niagara’s Purple Eagles knocked off Siena on Friday, 100-85. The Saints played a tough schedule, but were unable to grab a signature win, with their best win on the season coming against the previously mentioned Purple Eagles. Unfortunately, letting Niagara shoot 52% from the floor was too much to overcome, and the talented, and dangerous, Saints will have to win the conference tournament in order to get a chance to repeat their success from last season.
2. Utah State. The Aggies were in a similar situation as Siena, most likely needing to win their conference tournament to get in, but having an outside shot at an at-large. And, just like Siena, those hopes are now over with their loss at Nevada on Thursday night. It’s just the Aggies second WAC loss, the other being at Boise State, and losing on the road to the #2 and #4 teams in your conference isn’t anything to be ashamed of, but when your at-large resume contains only one win over a RPI top 50 opponent and your strength of schedule is 133, you can’t really afford any losses. So Utah State will now need to win the WAC tournament, and, bad news Aggies’ fans, it’s held in Reno on Nevada’s home floor. Ruh roh.
3. Kentucky. Another team that really hurt itself, the Wildcats haven’t completely locked themselves out of at-large consideration, but it’s really, really close. They completely bombed this week, going into South Carolina and getting steamrolled 77-59 and then following that up on Saturday by dropping a home game to LSU 73-70. Kentucky has been done in by poor perimeter shooting and sloppy ballhandling, as they shot just 7-26 from three in the two games and turned it over 20 and 15 times – trends that need to stop if they have any chance of making the tournament. They have Georgia at home in an easy win, and then close out the regular season by traveling to Florida in what will be a must win. If they can’t win both of their remaining games, the Cats might need to win the SEC tournament to get in.
4. Arizona. Another Wildcat team that didn’t do themselves any favors, Arizona also went 0-2 this week in getting swept by the Washington schools. This was following up a loss to Arizona State, and their safe NCAA hopes are suddenly looking a little more precarious. Losing on the road to a very good Washington team is nothing to be ashamed of, but they needed to win at Wash State, and unfortunately didn’t even bother to show up, getting blown out 69-53. The Wildcats have two home games to close out the season, playing Stanford and Cal this week, and probably need to win both or head into the Pac 10 tournament very nervously. Arizona has some very good scorers in Wise, Budinger, and Jordan Hill, but they need to fix their rebounding issues. Both Washington schools outrebounded them by 9 in their most recent games, and it’s been a season long issue with Arizona being one of the worst in the country in keeping team’s off their offensive boards. Couple that with their inability to turn other teams over, and they are giving up a boatload of shots every game.
5. Marquette. They certainly aren’t in any danger of not making the tournament at 12-4 in the Big East, and actually their 0-2 week wouldn’t normally land them in the WHO SUCKED column since those two losses were at Louisville and versus UCONN. The reason they are here is because they lost their senior leader, starting point guard, and top four conference assist man Dominic James for the season thanks to a broken foot suffered against UCONN. This takes the Golden Eagles from a sleeper final four contender to a sweet 16 max upside type team. They still have their top 3 scorers, and Jerel McNeal and Wes Mathews are still one of the top guard tandems in the country, but it will be very difficult to replace James. Even though they managed to hang tough with Louisville yesterday, losing just 62-58, but they also managed to scrounge up a total of just seven assists in the whole game, where James averaged five per contest by himself.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Weekend Review
I certainly can't say the Gophers are awesome after that horrid showing against Michigan, but I also can't say the sucked since the did everything I could have asked against Northwestern. More on the games here and here.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Siena. The Saints went out and did what the needed to do, beating Northern Iowa in their bracket buster game 81-75 in Albany. It ended up looking less impressive than it started out, as Siena took a 40-19 lead into the half, only to let Northern Iowa make a game of it in the second half, but it’s a win, and a big win at that. UNI isn’t an elite opponent, but they are close to the same level as Siena, and their RPI of 88 makes them the second best win the Saints had in non-conference, and just their fourth win over a top 100 opponent.
The Saints have dominated their conference, at 15-1, and played a good non-conference schedule, which ranked the 24th toughest in the nation thanks to games against Tennessee and Oklahoma State at a neutral site, and games at Pitt and Kansas. That’s pretty much all you can do, short of winning the conference tournament. They’ve already wrapped up the MAAC regular season crown, and if they can get to the finals of the conference tourney, they should be in. With Kenny Hasbrouck and the rest of the crew back from the team that upset Vandy in the first round last year, they could do even more damage this time around.
2. Florida State. The Seminoles may have just guaranteed themselves a spot in the NCAA tournament this week, going 2-0 with wins at home over Miami and on the road at Virginia Tech. Those two wins moved them to 8-4 in the ACC, tied for second just a game behind North Carolina. Toss in non-conference wins at Cincinnati, at Cal, and home over Florida, and they are suddenly a surprising lock for the dance.
Interestingly, they’ve done it through defense. Old school FSU teams, going back to the Cassell and Bobby Sura days even, relied more on offensive fire-power to win, but this year’s version play tough defense (ranked 11th in the country in defensive efficiency) and relies on the senior leadership of point guard Toney Douglas. He leads the team at 20.5 points per game, second in the ACC and the only double figure scorer on the Seminoles, and also leads the team in assists and steals. Not only all that, but he hasn’t committed a turnover in the team’s last three games.
The last four aren’t particularly easy, with home games against Clemson and Virginia Tech and road games versus Duke and Boston College, but they likely need to win only one of those to go dancing, and might not even need that.
3. DeJuan Blair. Ok, fine, you want me to say it? I will: Pitt is for real this year. But it has nothing to do with the eternally overrated LeVance Fields, it’s all about that incredible front line for the Panthers. Tyrell Biggs and Sam Young are awesome as well, but Blair has established himself as one of the best players in the country.
This season the sophomore is averaging 15.7 points and 12.8 rebounds (leads Big East, fourth in the nation) and is still getting better. In Pitt’s games this week, he put up 22 points and 23 rebounds in their 76-68 win in Storrs. And these numbers came against Hasheem Thabeet, a guy I touted on here as a Dikembe Mutombo clone. He just attacked and attacked and I don’t think Thabeet was used to it, as he ended up in foul trouble the whole game and finished with just five points and four boards. And just in case that wasn’t enough, he followed up Saturday with 20 and 18 in the team’s 80-61 win over DePaul. Kind of a tweener, so who knows what his NBA future might hold, but for now, he might be Big East Player of the Year.
4. Phoenix Suns. I know they lost to Boston on Sunday, and I don’t really care. They fired some guy as coach and let some other guy coach instead (and I’d love to tell you their names but it’s the NBA so I don’t’ know) and now sine they aren’t under the restraints of guy #1 the team is going crazy to Mike D’Antoni levels. They scored 140+ in three straight games, which is unheard of since 1989 Loyola Marymount (RIP Hank Gathers.) And also went 3-0 in those games, so it’s not like we’re talking the mid nineties Nuggets here (I heart Michael Adams).
Nash is back, with 10-12-8-11 assists in their last four games versus a season average of 9. Three players hit twenty points in game 1, Stoudemire hit 42 in game 2, Barbosa hit 41 in game 3, and, well, game 4 (vs. Celts) didn’t go so well as they gave up 63% shooting to Boston. But who cares, a team who scores that much is just plain old fun.
5. Bill Smith. The Twins’ GM has quickly changed my mind about him – well, not completely, but I feel a lot better than I did a week ago, when I had the team in the “who sucked” category.
It’s not only the signing of Crede that made this an awesome weekend, but the fact that Smith managed to sign him for just $2.5 million guaranteed (with incentives that could push to $7 mil) when it was reported that Crede wanted $7 mil guaranteed (with incentives to $11). I wanted him at $7, and to get him at $2.5 is nothing short of brilliant. Yeah, he doesn’t walk much or hit for a very high average, and in fact, if I was starting a team from scratch I would want nothing to do with him, but he brings a skill sorely lacking on the Twins’ roster – power. He can slug, and if he’s healthy he will bring another dangerous power bat to the team.
Additionally, it’s now being reported that the Twins have officially made an offer to reliever Juan Cruz, who would instantly become their top setup man if it works out. If an agreement is struck, they would have to work out a trade with the Diamondbacks to make it happen, due to MLB rules and their desire to not give up a number one draft pick.
Finally, it’s also being reported that the Twins are watching reliever Chad Cordero, who is recovering from shoulder surgery and is a free agent. Cordero saved over 100 games in three seasons for the Nationals as an elite closer from 2005-2007, but hurt his shoulder early last season and hasn’t pitched since April of last year. He’s still not at 100% yet, but he had a bullpen session that the Twins were reported to have watched with interest on Friday. If he looks like he’s recovered, and they can get him cheap, he would be another way to upgrade the bullpen in a hurry.
Crede, Cruz, and Cordero? No complaints here.
WHO SUCKED
1. Davidson. The Wildcats have no officially put themselves in a bad position, losing to Butler in their bracket buster game on Saturday which followed up a loss to Citadel earlier in the week, giving them two losses in the SoCon and six for the season. The Butler game might hurt the most, since it was not only at home, but Stephen Curry had returned and was fully healthy and it was Davidson’s last chance to get a second win over a top 75 team (Butler’s RPI is 28th). Unfortunately for the Wildcats, Curry decided to suck once again against a good team, shooting 6-23 for the game, including 2-13 from three, and turning it over 7 times.
In his games against teams in the RPI top 120 (Oklahoma, NC State, West Virginia, Purdue, Duke, Butler, and Charleston x 2) he has shot 70-208 (34%) including 23-100 from three (23%), with a 47-44 assist to turnover ratio. Meanwhile, in his other games, he has shot 174-324 (54%) including 79-163 (48%) from three, and has a 105-47 assist to turnover ratio. Read that again. Thank god Blake Griffin is having the season he has had, otherwise this pretender might win player of the year. What a joke.
Feel free to pick Davidson to upset somebody in the first round (if they make it), because it ain’t happening this year.
2. Utah State. Looks like DWG Jinx is alive and well, as Utah State has been on the skids since I praised them after attending their game against Louisiana Tech. Since then, they lost their first conference game of the season, at Boise State, and then lost their bracket buster game to a Patty Mills-less St Mary’s team 75-64, the combination of the two may be enough to keep the Aggies from an at-large bid if they don’t win the WAC tournament – not an easy thing to do in Reno. Their best win is over #9 RPI Utah, and that I sone that will still hold up, but other than that the resume is pretty sparse, wins over Boise State (#86) and Nevada (#90) are the only other top 100 wins here. Combine that with a strength of schedule that ranks 179th, and USU is on shaky ground. I would think the WAC should be a two-bid conference, but there have been plenty of other years with just one. They would be wise to win the tournament.
Oh, and remember how I said Utah State had the quality inside guys to give Blake Griffin some difficulty? I take it all back, as they got shredded by Diamon Simpson (18 and 7) and Omar Samhan (17 and 12) of St. Mary’s who shot 15-22 between them; good players, but not Blake Griffin. Oklahoma would kill these guys worse than Michigan State against the Gophers. I’m such an idiot.
3. Ohio State. Did the Buckeyes just play their way out of the tournament this week? Could be, with losses at Northwestern at vs. Illinois at home. They are still on the bubble, but rather than being at the top – which is where they were prior to this week – they are now squarely in the same mix as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Penn State, all just behind the Gophers. With such a tight race and comparable resumes amongst the middle tier teams in the conference you can’t afford to lose winnable games, which includes any home game, even against Illinois, and even though going into Northwestern is tougher this year, you still need to walk out of Evanston with a win if you’re in the Buckeye’s situation.
Despite all that, Ohio State is still in pretty good shape thanks to how the schedule lines up. They probably only need two more wins to get themselves in, and have two home games left against Penn State and Northwestern. If they falter in one of those, they still have a road game at Iowa (and one at Purdue) to make up for it. In short, OSU is probably in pretty good shape, but they are making this a lot tougher than it needs to be.
4. Michigan. The win they picked up over the Gophers earlier this week was huge, but they erased that and then some losing to Iowa on Sunday. The big wins against UCLA and Duke will still hold up, but the Wolverines are on their last legs by continuing to struggle in Big Ten play. With just a home game against Purdue and two roadies at Wisconsin and Minnesota left, things look bleak considering there’s a good chance the Wolverines have to win all three. At a minimum they have to win 2, and then do some good in the Big Ten tournament.
5. Top NFL Prospects at the Combine. The NFL combine was this weekend, and all kinds of weird stuff happened with three of the top prospects: WRs Michael Crabtree and Jeremy Maclin, and OT Andre Smith.
First, likely top five pick and top receiver prospect Michael Crabtree was examined by doctors at the combine, who discovered he had a stress fracture in his foot that he apparently has had for a year. According to reports, rather than have surgery immediately, Crabtree plans to run a forty at the Texas Tech Pro Day on March 26th, and then have the corrective surgery that would keep him out of action for 10 weeks. That would keep him out until June or July, right up to the beginning of training camp. This means whichever team takes him in April’s draft will be taking him without really knowing how he’s recovering from surgery, which may cause Crabtree to fall (and probably be a bargain for somebody).
Of course, he may still end up being the first receiver picked, as there was some weird injury news that came out about 2nd ranked WR prospect Jeremy Maclin out of Missouri. While running a route in a drill, Maclin tripped and wend down hard – and didn’t get up. He was helped off the field and brought to a training table, and it was reported he wouldn’t be finishing his drills, fueling speculation on the extent of the injury, especially since he had blown out his knee previously in 2006. Of course, it turned out to be nothing more than a bruise, and Maclin ended up finishing the same drills it was reported he wouldn’t be able to get back to. Wrong again, liberal media.
Lastly, and most bizarrely, was OT Andre Smith out of Alabama. He is the top tackle prospect in the draft, but has had some questions surface about his character after being suspended for the Sugar Bowl after having improper talks with an agent, which sounds kind of sexy but really isn’t. He certainly didn’t answer the character questions, as instead of working out at the combine as scheduled he instead decided to fly home, and didn’t bother to inform anyone. He was supposed to work out on Saturday, but was completely MIA and wasn’t located until 30 minutes prior to his work out time. By then, he was already at home in Atlanta, claiming he decided he would rather just try to get back into shape by his pro day on March 11th, saying that he wasn’t in shape. So what amounts to basically your biggest job interview either, and not only are you not prepared, but you decide to just bail? Almost sounds like another Dimentrius Underwood here. Hell, let somebody else draft him, I wouldn’t touch him anywhere near the first round.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Weekend Review
[Sorry this is being posted so late. I had the whole thing typed out and then the internet connection at the NWA lounge crapped out on me before I could post it. At least I'm in Whore-lando now. My hotel room (or, Villa, more accurately) is bigger than my house.]
I'm writing this from the awesome lounge at the airport for awesome people, mostly because I'm so awesome, so I don't know exactly how far I'll get before I have to head to the gate. Be sure to check out the post below this for the first ever live hockey blog on DWG, written by hockey gurus Optimator and The Todd (no, that's not him pictured above. Looks just like him though). Excellent work, despite what a certain anonymous commenter might think. Anyway.......
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Gophers Hoops. Ok, awesome seems a bit strong, but another win over a less than awful team, this time beating NDSU 90-76, has me feeling pretty good about the team. Shamala put up a 20 spot, continuing to show his ability to dominate slow white guys, but I’m more impressed with the completely emotionless Ralph Sampson. The Third put up 12 points, six rebounds, and 3 blocks and was pretty much the catalyst for the second half run to put the game away. So far I’ve been impressed by Sampson, Iverson, Joseph, and even Carter; still waiting on Bostick. The team overall has looked solid, and although the wins over Georgia State, Bowling Green, @ Colorado State, and NDSU don’t register officially on the “quality wins” scale, I certainly consider them good wins. This week we are going to learn a lot more about this team, with games vs. Virginia and Cornell, probably the two toughest non-conference games other than Louisville.
2. Syracuse Hoops. There were a whole mess of tournaments this weekend all during Thanksgiving week, and thus a whole lot of winners. One of the first winners, with their tournament wrapping up pre-Turkey day, was the Syracuse Orange, winners of the CBE Classic in Kansas City. Knocking off two ranked teams, #18 Florida and #22 Kansas, has taken the Cuse from Big East Middle-of-the-packer to a team that will make some noise in March. And why not? Onuaku is a beast in the paint, Paul Harris can do it all, and Jonny Flynn is one of the top point guards in the country. That’s not even mentioning Eric Devendorf, who has looked bad but is coming off an injury that has caused him to miss all of last season. If the Cuse are beating teams now, wait until he gets his basketball ability back and their freshman continue to develop. Very, very good team.
3. UTEP Hoops. I know, right, it’s like, “what?” but the Miners have looked a little bit frisky this season. They certainly aren’t going to challenge Memphis for the C-USA crown, but they might be a little bit of an NCAA dark horse bubble contender. They are just 3-3 right now, but one of those wins is a very impressive 75-62 win over St. Mary’s on Thanksgiving. They also had a near miss with a 82-79 loss to Wake Forest. Their two excellent guards, Randy Culpepper and Stefon Jackson both average over 19 points per game and can take over when need be. I’m not saying they are a lock for the tournament, especially after getting trounced by Arizona State on Sunday, but keep this team in the back of your head.
4. Baylor hoops. I told you all Baylor was going to be awesome this year, and they proved me right. It takes a bit of the shine off their weekend with their loss to a surprisingly stellar Wake Forest squad in the championship of the 76 classic, but it was still a very successful weekend. A big win over Providence in the opening round and a very nice victory over Arizona State in the semifinals have them going in the right direction. They are very dangerous, with four guys averaging over 12 points and two more at 8 or better. Guard oriented to be sure, and that will help in the tournament, but a big key for this team will be the play of freshman forward Quincy Acy. With Kevin Rogers being their only major contributor over 6-4, the 6-7 Acy will need to keep up his high level of play to make the Bears more than just a tournament team and turn them into a real contender. He's averaging 9 points and 5 boards per game thus far, but has struggled to make much of an impact against the better teams. Baylor heads to Washington State to play on Saturday, and how they handle the size of Aron Baynes, Daven Harmeling, and Klay Thompson will be a good indicator if they will be able to handle the size of some of the guys they will face in conference play.
5. Bogart. The legend himself was in town for thanksgiving, and we had a great ole time. He brought Mrs. Bogart with him, who is expecting a little Bogart in May, and she managed to grab a picture with the man Spencer Tollackson (as seen above). Not quite as exciting as meeting Rick Rickert, but close. He also deserves mention for helping me come up with the best bit ever about Ralph Sampson III. Notice how he never, ever shows emotion or even seems to have his heart rate raise above average? Just imagine that he always reacts to everything with that same lack of emotion, and responds in a slow motion, monotone, eeyore voice. I know this makes more sense when you can hear it instead of read it, but bear with me because it’s funny. So, like, as Snake says he will be an All American after his junior year, and they call him and say “Ralph, you’re an all-american!” and he would respond, “Ok” in that monotone, slow voice. Then picture us all laughing like retards. Trust me, it’s funny. Also, back to Bogart, it was cool on Wednesday night when you made the drive over to my neck of the woods to hang, much appreciated, particularly because I didn't really want to do anything that night, and you talked me into it. Great night, great fun had by all. I don't think Oakdale will ever be the same. See you in Chi-town in two weeks.
WHO SUCKED
1. Detroit Lions. Worst loss in Thanksgiving history, and the path is well and laid for a 0-16 season. I know there are some out there who root for a winless season, such as epic douche Jim Rome, but not me. I’d love to see the poor, hapless Lions win a game, I just don’t know when it could happen. The lost their starting QB, and their backup, and their backups backup, and when Culpepper went out on Thursday they were reduced to Drew Henson. Remember him? Former three sport All-Stater in high school, started at QB for Michigan and was drafted by the Yankees. Played a few years in the minors and managed all of 8 major league at bats before calling it quits and deciding to suck in the NFL instead. I don’t think there’s a guy out there whose career ended up as far away as from what I expected as Henson. The bright side here though, is that the Lions are a virtual lock to beat the Vikings in a few weeks for their first win.
2. Siena. It’s not that they necessarily suck, but they definitely squandered a golden opportunity at the Old Spice Classic this weekend, going 0-3 and killing any slim hopes they had of picking up an at-large bid if they don’t win the MAAC. Asking the Saints to beat Tennessee was probably a bit much, but a loss to Wichita State is something that shouldn’t happen to a team that made the sweet 16 last year and had pretty much their whole team back this season, and Oklahoma State was definitely beatable on Sunday. Siena will still have an opportunity to get a marquee win with games at Pitt and at Kansas, but those teams might be out of the Saints’ league. They will probably still win the MAAC, but now will likely have to win the conference tournament in order to make the Big Dance, where a quality win this weekend would have gone a long way towards helping build their profile.
3. Louisville Hoops. I’m a Louisville guy. I’m a big Pitino guy, and always have been, but the Cards laid an absolute stinker out there Sunday against Western Kentucky, losing 68-54. What’s even worse is the game was in Louisville, and they still couldn’t muster up a better effort. The Cardinals shot just 28% for the game, lowlighted by point guards Edgar Sosa and Terence McGee going a combined 0-13. All those missed shots led to a lot of rebounds, and specifically a lot of rebounds for the Hilltoppers, who ended up with a 48-34 edge on the boards. The Hilltoppers aren’t awful, but they did lose Courtney Lee and 60 percent of their scoring from last year’s sweet 16 team, and shouldn’t have been able to even hang around with the Cards, much less beat them. Consider this slightly worrisome.
4. Buffalo Bills. I was informed that when a west coast team, in this case the less than mediocre 49ers, traveled east and played the noon game that they always play poorly. In fact, I was told that the Bills -6.5 was easy money. Not so. The 49ers may indeed have played poorly, but the playoff hopeful Bills played even worse, mustering all of three points against a very bad defense. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, considering they only turned it over once and Marshawn Lynch had 134 rushing yards (they outgained the niners overall 350-195) but I'm guessing it was really ugly. Like your sister. Rian Lindell's two missed field goals certainly didn't help.
5. Pat Reusse. I’ve gone after the retard before, but when he posts articles like this garbage I can't help myself. I won’t get into a whole Fire Joe Morgan style rundown again, but if you read the article his main gripe is that the non-conference home schedule sucks, outside of the Virginia game. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Reusse makes shit up pretty much constantly, and rarely, if ever, does any research. If you want a schedule similar to the ones teams like Michigan State or Duke play, you’re a retard. Will that come in time? Yes, assuming the program continues to improve, but at this point it would be counter-productive. Why would you want to trot a team that is counting on five new comers for major minutes and have them play a top 25 type schedule? It’s asinine. It’s worse that that, it’s unfathomable the depth of stupidity it would take to write this article. Ignoring for a moment the ridiculousness of dismissing the Lousville game because it’s not at Williams, how about I take, oh, about two minutes to look at the non-Virginia non-conference games? Concordia – cupcake, but traditional type of season opening opponent. Bowling Green – Upper division MAC team. Georgia State – Middle of the road Colonial team. Eastern Washington – bad. NDSU – favorite to win the Summit Conference. Cornell – favorite to win the Ivy. South Dakota State – bad. SE Louisiana – bad. High Point – upper division Big South team. So is it awesome? No, it’s not an overly tough schedule, but if you know college basketball – at all – you can see there are some pretty decent teams in this group. Just because there are no “name teams” retards like Reusse are going to sit and bitch like the uninformed dorks that they are. There's other bitching in here too, mainly about recruiting kids from Minnesota and how he hates games that aren't on Saturdays, but it makes less sense than the rest. Yet another reason why I miss Barreiro so much. Sure, he bitched, but he did it well, he did it in the right spots, he was generally informed about what his subject was, and he could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves. This makes me so mad. Luckily I have to stop now and get on a plane to go to Orlando (work, not pleasure) otherwise I could write about this for hours.
I'll holler at you later, probably with a few beers in me.
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