Posted by jstevrtc on February 1st, 2011
David Ely is an RTC Contributor
Introduction:
It’s Feb. 1. That means there’s only 40 days left until Selection Sunday, or 40 days left for teams to build up their resume so their bubble doesn’t pop. We’re sure there are going to be a lot of heated discussions about teams hovering within that last four in-last four out zone over the next six weeks. Heck, here at TWTW, we’ll probably change our opinion on certain squads three or four times until the end of the regular season. It should be a crazy six weeks, but we know it’s going to be fun.
What We learned
After a weekend that saw 13 ranked teams lose (and the entire top 25 go 22-20 for the week, as Seth Davis pointed out on SI.com) the chic thing to do is talk about the gigantic bulging central part of the bell curve that symbolizes this college basketball season. It’s nearly impossible to make sense of who’s good and who’s bad on a weekly basis, as a team is liable to have a monumental win one night and then lose to a lesser school a few days later. Let’s use Georgetown as an example. Just over two weeks ago the Hoyas were a mess at 1-4 in the Big East and losers of four of their previous five games. Now, they’ve won five in a row, including recent triumphs at Villanova and at home against Louisville. Georgetown isn’t the only school that enjoys playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Check out this paragraph from Davis’ Monday column:
“Texas can lose at USC and then win at Kansas. Tennessee, which should be this movie’s poster child, can win at Villanova and Pitt (at the Consol Energy Center) and lose to College of Charleston and Charlotte. Louisville loses at home to Drexel but beats UConn on the road. Providence loses to LaSalle but beats Louisville and Villanova. Auburn loses to Samford, Campbell and Presbyterian, but it beats Florida State, which later beats Duke. What, you didn’t know Presbyterian was better than Duke? And on Sunday, St. John’s (which lost to Fordham) blew out Duke.”
Given all this uncertainty, can anyone honestly say with any assurance that there’s a clear-cut elite set of teams? Ohio State might be undefeated, but the Buckeyes have had their fair share of nail biters over ho-hum teams (Michigan, Penn State, and most recently, Northwestern). TWTW would like to put its eggs into Texas’ basket. The Longhorns are this week’s Team du Jour, having torched four ranked teams in the last 13 days, but you wouldn’t be shocked if Texas didn’t have a hiccup or two to an unranked team before the season’s end, would you?
This Tristan Thompson-Nathan Walkup Encounter Accurately Summarizes Texas' Throttling of the Aggies Last Night (B. Sullivan/Dallas Morning News)
Read the rest of this entry »
| Regular Features, the week that was
| Tagged: auburn, bob huggins, bruce pearl, butler, byu, campbell, casey mitchell, charlotte, cincinnati, cleveland state, college of charleston, colorado, connecticut, darius morris, darryl bryant, drexel, duke, eddie sutton, florida state, fordham, georgetown, gonzaga, harrison barnes, jared sullinger, jeremy lamb, jim boeheim, jimmer fredette, joe mazzulla, kansas, kemba walker, klay thompson, kris joseph, la salle, louisville, lsu, matt howard, miami (fl), michigan, mickey mcconnell, milwaukee, mississippi, new mexico, north carolina, north carolina state, northwestern, notre dame, ohio state, oklahoma state, penn state, pittsburgh, portland, presbyterian, providence, purdue, samford, san diego state, shelvin mack, st johns, st mary's, steve lavin, syracuse, tennessee, texas, tobias harris, valparaiso, vanderbilt, villanova, washington, washington state, west virginia, william buford, wright state
Share this story