We were out of town all weekend, so we saw very little in the way of games, so let us know if we missed something…

Weekend Wrapup:

• #24 Notre Dame 86, #20 Marquette 83. ND just does not lose at home anymore (34 in a row).
• Kentucky 62, Alabama 52. Is UK going to make a serious run at the NCAAs?
• #2 Duke 90, Boston College 80. We still have trouble believing Duke is the class of the ACC this year, but the D’Antoni infuence is working pretty well for Coach K.
• #19 Texas A&M 77, Missouri 69. Isn’t half of Mizzou in jail right now?
• Florida 77, Georgia 67. We bet Billy D. wishes every game this year was in Gainesville.
• #6 Tennessee 47, LSU 45. Games like this are why we can never completely trust UT.
• #12 Texas 71, Iowa St. 65 (OT). UT got a scare in Ames.
• #16 Washington St. 74, USC 50. Anyone care to explain what happened here?
• #17 UConn 80, Georgia Tech 68. UConn is playing like they’re a F4 contender right now.
• #1 Memphis 84, C. Florida 65. We really can’t wait for the UT game in two weeks.
• Old Dominion 72, George Mason 64. Mason really needed to win this game, and they didn’t.
• Vanderbilt 66, South Carolina 65. Vandy is going to be very happy they won this game on March 16.
• Arkansas 75, Ole Miss 69. Arkansas appears to be the class of the SEC West.
• #18 Kansas St. 82, Oklahoma St. 61. K-State is a team nobody will want to see in March.
• Oregon 92, California 70. If anyone can figure either of these teams out, please tell us how.
• #14 Michigan St. 70, Northwestern 55. NW is now 0-10 in the Big Ten.
• #9 Stanford 71, Oregon St. 56. Speaking of sucky teams, OSU is now 0-11 in the Pac-10.
• #3 Kansas 100, Baylor 90. How do you score 100 pts w/o hitting a single three?
• #11 Drake 73, Evansville 65 . Who can believe that the Drake is now 13-0 in the Valley?
• #13 Butler 62, Wisc-Green Bay 57. Butler dodged not one, but two, bullets last week.
• #23 Louisville 59, #7 Georgetown 51. Remember when Pitino teams pushed the ball – great win for UL, though.
• Purdue 72, #7 Wisconsin 67. Purdue is for our money the best money in the B10.
• #10 Xavier 76, St. Joseph’s 72. Is Xavier a darkhorse F4 candidate (as Wahl suggested in his M8)?
• #15 Indiana 59, Ohio St. 53. IU had a very successful week (albeit ugly).
• Arizona St. 59, Arizona 54. Man, there are so many good teams in this league this year.
• Washington 71, #4 UCLA 61. How does UCLA win in Pullman but lose in Seattle two yrs in a row?
• #5 UNC 103, Clemson 93. Is there a bigger choker situation than Clemson in Chapel Hill?

NCAA Tournament Field if we were choosing today – added teams in bold (removed teams in italics):

• America East – UMBC (Vermont)
• Atlantic 10 – Xavier, Rhode Island, St. Joseph’s
• ACC – Duke, UNC, Clemson, Maryland
• Atlantic Sun – Belmont (Jacksonville)
• Big 12 – Kansas, Kansas St., Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor (Oklahoma)
• Big East – Georgetown, Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Marquette, UConn, West Virginia, Pittsburgh
• Big Sky – Portland St. (N. Arizona)
• Big South – UNC-Asheville
• Big 10 – Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio St., Michigan St.
• Big West – Cal St. Northridge
• CAA – VCU, George Mason
• CUSA – Memphis, Houston
• Horizon – Butler
• Ivy – Cornell
• MAAC – Rider
• MAC – Kent St.
• MEAC – Morgan St.
• MVC – Drake
• Mountain West – UNLV, BYU
• NEC – Sacred Heart
• OVC – Austin Peay
• Pac-10 – UCLA, USC, Stanford, Washington St., Arizona, Arizona St. (California)
• Patriot – Lafayette
• SEC – Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi St., Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Arkansas
• Southern – Davidson
• Southland – Stephen F. Austin
• SWAC – Alabama St.
• Summit – Oral Roberts
• Sun Belt – W. Kentucky
• WCC – Gonzaga, St. Mary’s
• WAC – Utah St.

We got a cool link in the inbox today from Josh Centor, the Coordinator for New Media Communications at the NCAA.  He is live-blogging the proceedings of the NCAA’s annual Mock Bracketology event where sportswriters and other college basketball media are invited to Indianapolis to go through the grueling process of selecting 65 teams.  This way, the idea goes, the media will actually know what to blather on about when it comes time later this month to discuss bubble teams, strength of schedule ratings and stock-up/stock-down trends. 

We wonder, though, whether Josh recognizes the profound irony of his position as HBIC (Head Blogger In-Charge) for the NCAA.  But that’s another discussion for another time. 

So yesterday the slovenly crew of sportswriters were invited, including such luminaries as Steve Wieberg (USA Today) and Mike DeCourcy (Sporting News).  After twelve hours of debate, several gallons of coffee, and untold levels of stink, the group came up with this bracket (you’ll have to click once here and once on the page that opens to make it large enough to view):

We don’t have time to break down the bracket at the moment, but the commenters on Josh’s page do a pretty good job. 

Today’s group are the less slovenly but more bombastic television media, including the standards Joe Lunardi, Andy Katz and Jerry Palm; but also including guys like Steve Lappas and Tom Brennan.  It’s a travesty that Ken Pomeroy isn’t invited to this thing, by the way. 

Maybe if we get some more time, we’ll do a quick and dirty comparison of how the two brackets turned out.  Our money’s on the sportswriters over the television guys. 

Presumably ESPN is marketing tonight’s clash between Duke and North Carolina as the first big game of the season, with the thinking that most casual sports fans are only now checking into hoops now that the Super Bowl is out of the way.  That’s all fine and well, but there have been other big games already (Memphis-Georgetown and UCLA-Wazzu come to mind), and plenty of interesting storylines at this point in the season (not the least of which is the Bob Knight weirdness). 

Photo Credit:  www.charlottecritic.com

So we come to Duke-Carolina, the mere uttering of which either conjures up images of the college rivalry upon which all others are measured, or projectile vomitus from the rest of the country.  No matter your position, everyone still watches.  In 2006, ESPN received its highest college hoops ratings in four years for this game, and there’s no reason to believe this year, with the #2 and #3 teams in the AP and Coaches polls sparring, will be any different.  There’s also the curious backstory of whether Tyler Hansbrough will greet Gerald Henderson with a friendly pat on the behind or feed him his own teeth after what the Duke forward did to Psycho T’s face last year. 

But what we’re most excited about tonight is the triumphant return of Dookie V. from an operation on his vocal cords (yes, we know), who has no doubt earned that moniker over the years with his unabashed slurping of the Duke program and Coach K in particular.  But what maybe much of the Duke-hating public doesn’t also realize is that Vitale was a Dean Smith promisekeeper long before he became reborn as a Coach K disciple.  Roy Williams, as Deano’s former right (and left) hand man,  is just as much a part of Vitale’s nightly prayer routine as Krzyzewski ever was.  What we’re trying to say here is that when Dickie V. envisions heaven, it surely involves an eternal game of “class and sportsmanship” exhibited by the “true student-athletes” at the “fine institutions” of Duke and North Carolina.  Blue heaven, indeed. 

Photo Credit:  www.dickvitaleonline.com

We have to admit, though, that we’ve actually missed the guy this season.  As much as we tend to view him these days as an unprepared clown and shill for the big boys, we know that he deeply cares about the status and sanctity of the game itself, and his boyish enthusiasm for it surely rubs off on kids today the same way it did when we were watching him gush on about Pearl Washington and Rex Chapman back in ’87.  The guy really cares about the game and its personalities, and for that much, we salute him and welcome him back as a true ambassador to continue carrying on the spirit of college basketball (as opposed to, say, Billy Packer, who along with Dick Cheney, hates everyone and should be excommunicated to some bunker together).  With that, we say…

Welcome back, Dick!

• The Jeremy Pargo dunk in the first half of the open court was one of the most shockingly powerful dunks we’ve ever witnessed from a guy his size (similar to this one). Unreal. Pargo was pretty much unstoppable throughout – he got everywhere he wanted to go on the court with his strength, handle and ability to finish going either way, and he showed some range with two late second half threes that appeared to have given Gonzaga control of the game.

Mills and Pargo Played Each Other Tough

• Josh Heytvelt continued to look like a shell of the former player we saw dominate the likes of Carolina last year. 2 pts and 5 rebs in 19 minutes against a team that clearly struggles with any and all interior size? Maybe he was sick? Still hurting? From our view, Heytvelt should be an All-American on par with what Nick Fazekas was at Nevada the last few years. But he’s not. Most of the time we watched him, he looked completely uninterested in playing basketball. His lateral movement and body language sucked. What’s up, Zag fans?
• Austin Daye is so long and skinny that he looks like Marcus Camby did when he was a freshman at UMass. He’s nowhere near as developed as Camby defensively, but he’s already very skilled on the offensive end. He has great touch out to 3-pt range on his shot, and he clearly thinks very highly of himself, as he loves to woof and congratulate himself after a good play. He’s already projected as a lottery pick in 2009, and we believe it.
• Patty Mills was a wonder to watch. He clearly needs some more strength, and his jump shot looked suspect all night long, but he never got rattled and made several big plays down the stretch. The fast break where he outraced the entire Gonzaga team to reverse the layup and get the and-1 foul was fantastic. He really reminds us a lot of Tony Parker his first couple of years in the NBA. Potentially great things await this young player.
• The unsung hero last night was SMC’s #24 Todd Golden and his push shot jumper, which hit nothing but net all six times he released it. He helped get St. Mary’s the lead in the first half, and hit the huge one in the OT period that pretty much sealed it. When the Gaels were busily blowing their lead in the late second half, we kept referring to our significant other that perhaps they should consider running a play to get the ball to “#24.” They never did, but Mills saved them anyway.

#24 Hits the Big 3 in Overtime

• There were a few home cooking calls where it was clear the refs were unsure what had happened, so it seemed as if they said “screw it, this crowd looks pretty involved, let’s just go their way…” We didn’t see the key disputed call in front of Gonzaga’s bench until we got home and watched the replay, but yeah, that was a horrendous call.
• One cool thing we saw the SMC players do with eight seconds remaining in the game was to motion the Gael Force student fan group to not RTC after the victory was secured 89-85. Although a few students ran onto the court, the majority did not, and that signifies a shift in the attitude of the program about beating the Zags. As of this date on this season, SMC has proven it is every bit the team as Gonzaga; but that’s merely the first step in becoming every bit the program. Still, this acknowledgement by both fans and players was nice to see for a program on the rise.

In our dreams, when we envision writing the great american travelogue about college basketball, last night’s game was exactly the type of environment we’d hope to capture. There was a bandbox arena with poor lighting, a rabid crowd so fired up for the contest that it sang the last stanza of the national anthem in unison, multiple eye-popping plays on both ends of the court, a sprinkle of controversy, and an overtime classic that went to David. Oh, and a 2:1 ratio. :-)

Wow. 

We just learned that everyone’s favorite egomaniacal asshole coach disciplinarian and teacher, Bob Knight, has resigned from Texas Tech.  Kinda strange timing, this being the middle of the season and all. 

Photo Credit:  Indy Star

We truly hope there’s nothing health-related going on with Knight or his family, but with that caveat, here’s RTC’s top 10 reasons why Coach Knight might be leaving Texas Tech.  Remember, there’s always a backstory with this guy.

1. Retirement is fun – Knight should just sit back, “relax, and enjoy it.”   
2. Pier 1 refused to supply him with any further vases for his secretaries. 
3. Texas Tech decided to nail down the courtside seats this year. 
4. It’s all f$#&ing Greg Graham’s fault. 
5. “Hey Knight.”  Some snot-nosed punk kid needed a lesson or two on manners. 
6. Kelvin Sampson was caught three-way calling again, so there will be an opening at Indiana soon. 
7. Folks in Texas don’t take too kindly to whips used on them.
8. Isiah offered him a job as Chief of Ho Security in the Knicks front office.
9. Neil Reed asked for his relevance back.    
10. And oh yeah… his mediocre record this year and every other year since 1994. 

Best of luck to Coach Knight in his next gig at the University of San Francisco.

Cartoon Credit:  Indy Star

Was there a football game this weekend? Maybe that’s why we couldn’t find a hoops game on anywhere after 5pm today.

Weekend Wrapup:

• #7 Georgetown 73, Seton Hall 61. The Hoyas continue to look like the class of the Big East.
• Maryland 88, Georgia Tech 86. Osby with 18/11. Would a third-place team in the ACC please stand up?
• Syracuse 87, Villanova 73. Nova is in free fall mode (3-6 in the Big East), while Cuse is quietly regrouping.
• #17 Marquette 75, Cincinnati 60. God, the middle of the Big East is murky.
• Connecticut 60, #21 Pittsburgh 53. Watch out for the Huskies – they’re starting to get it together (5 Ws in a row).
• Kentucky 63, Georgia 58. The Cats are finally back above .500 (10-9).
• #1 Memphis 70, UTEP 64. UTEP led this game with just over a minute remaining – the Tigers are getting bored and unfocused.
• Virginia Tech 72, Virginia 65 (OT). Good night, Virginia?
• Missouri 77, #22 Kansas St. 74. Hmmm… guess K-State is a young team, huh?
• #10 Texas 80, Baylor 72. Baylor is still quietly playing well just under the Big 12 radar.
• Rhode Island 82, Dayton 70. Two weeks ago Dayton looked like the best mid-major in America. They’ve now lost 4 of 5.
• Louisville 87, Rutgers 50. Complete and utter destruction.
• #16 Stanford 67, #8 Washington St. 65 (OT). Tremendous game that neither team wanted to win down the stretch.
• Arkansas 80, #21 Florida 61. Perhaps Arkansas is the new “it” team in the SEC this week (after MSU and Florida the last two).
• #2 Kansas 72, Colorado 59. KU still looked hung over for most of this one.
• #3 Duke 88, Miami (FL) 73. Can we go ahead and get to the Duke-Carolina game on Wednesday?
• Purdue 83, Illinois 75. Illinois really sucks.
• Texas A&M 60, Oklahoma 52. Can you believe OU’s Blake Griffin (6/8) is #1 on the Big Board (2009)? We neither.
• South Carolina 80, #19 Ole Miss 77. Ole Miss shouldn’t be ranked.
• California 79, Washington 75. Really tough weekend for the Washington schools (both swept at home).
• Iowa 53, Ohio St 48. Another confounding performance from the Buckeyes. We can’t figure them out.
• #6 Tennessee 76, Mississippi St. 71. UT is really starting to impress us.
• #14 Drake 83, Indiana St. 77. Is The Drake going to run the table (11-0 in the MVC)?
• Penn St. 85, #8 Michigan St. 76. It’s games like this and Iowa that mean we cannot pick MSU to go very far in March.
• #5 UCLA 82, Arizona 60. UCLA’s looked like the best team in America its last two games.
• USC 67, Arizona St. 53. USC’s win over UCLA may have turned around their season.
• #11 Indiana 75, Northwestern 63. E-Giddy with 29 as IU went to 7-1 in the B10.
• NC State 67, Wake Forest 65. NCSU won this one on a putback dunk at the buzzer.
• #4 UNC 84, Florida St. 73 (OT). Hansbrough with 22/21 as Lawson sprained his ankle and is questionable for the Duke game.
• #13 Wisconsin 63, Minnesota 47. You really have to marvel at the consistency of Bo Ryan’s program.

NCAA Tournament Field (if we were choosing today):

• America East – Vermont
• Atlantic 10 – Xavier, Rhode Island
• ACC – Duke, UNC, Clemson, Maryland
• Atlantic Sun – Jacksonville
• Big 12 – Kansas, Kansas St., Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Oklahoma
• Big East – Georgetown, Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Marquette, UConn, West Virginia, Pittsburgh
• Big Sky – N. Arizona
• Big South – UNC-Asheville
• Big 10 – Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio St., Michigan St.
• Big West – Cal St. Northridge
• CAA – VCU, George Mason
• CUSA – Memphis, Houston
• Horizon – Butler
• Ivy – Cornell
• MAAC – Rider
• MAC – Kent St.
• MEAC – Morgan St.
• MVC – Drake
• Mountain West – UNLV, BYU
• NEC – Sacred Heart
• OVC – Austin Peay
• Pac-10 – UCLA, USC, Stanford, Washington St., Arizona, California
• Patriot – Lafayette
• SEC – Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi St., Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Arkansas
• Southern – Davidson
• Southland – Stephen F. Austin
• SWAC – Alabama St.
• Summit – Oral Roberts
• Sun Belt – W. Kentucky
• WCC – Gonzaga, St. Mary’s
• WAC – Utah St.

Where’d we mess up? Trust us, there are some arguable picks in there, we know.

Let’s do a quick rundown of some of the key games that occurred this week.

Monday Night:

• Connecticut 69, Louisville 67. Both of these Big East teams appear to be coming on strong of late. Is either poised for a big run?
• Oklahoma 64, Oklahoma St. 61. OSU is in freefall (5 Ls in a row) after losing the Bedlam game – is Sean Sutton on the hot seat?
• Santa Clara 66, San Francisco 48. How funny would it be if Eddie didn’t get his 800th win at USF (he’s only won once in a month; he needs one more win).

Tuesday Night:

• Wake Forest 70, Miami (FL) 68. Wake with Dino Gaudio is the feel-good story of the season so far.
• George Mason 63, VCU 51. The battle to get likely one spot from the CAA this year is going to be brutal.
• #6 Tennessee 93, Alabama 86. Solid win for a Vols team that almost always loses in Tuscaloosa.

Wednesday Night:

• Maryland 85, Virginia 75. UVa is now officially in freefall mode themselves, having lost six of seven in 2008.
• #21 Pittsburgh 69, Villanova 57. There’s a school of thought that says Villanova is completely and totally overrated.
• Cincinnati 62, West Virginia 39. How’d Huggs take that one? Is there a more schizo team than Cincy?
• #19 Ole Miss 74, #22 Vanderbilt 58. Vandy better get back together or they’re starting to look like an NIT team.
• #1 Memphis 89, Houston 77. The lone unbeaten passes one of its toughest remaining tests easily.
• Arkansas 78, Mississippi St. 58. MSU isn’t quite ready for prime time yet, are they?
• Texas A&M 80, #10 Texas 63. We really didn’t see this whipping coming.

Thursday Night:

• #3 Duke 92, NC State 72. It was the green shirts!!! Duke outscored the Pack by 30 in the second half.
• #13 Wisconsin 62, #11 Indiana 49. If you didn’t have the under (127) on this game, then you know nothing about basketball.
• #16 Stanford 65, Washington 51. Gotta admit, we didn’t see the Cardinal being quite this good.
• California 69, #8 Washington St. 64. This was a must-win for Cal to keep hope alive for the NCAAs.
• #5 UCLA 84, Arizona St. 51. Wow.
• Arizona 80, USC 69. The Wildcats are showing some signs that they’re going to be tough come March.

As usual, running late…

Justifying Our Ballot. We actually had to do this for the first time all season. We ranked Florida above Mississippi St. (#25 in our ballot), and one blogger took offense with this notion. His quote was, “Ranking Florida above MSU absolutely makes no sense, however. None.” So here is our carefully-worded justification:

I just think that Florida is a better team right now than MSU. In other words, on a neutral court, I think Florida wins. I think, by and large, they have better players, better coaching, and a more impressive team. Based on the both the #s [UF is ten spots higher in Sagarin] and what I’ve seen on the court this year, I believe this to be a reasonable stance. The only way it’s an unreasonable stance (your assertion) is if you can demonstrate compelling evidence that there is absolutely no way that Florida can beat MSU on a neutral court. I don’t think you can do that based on anything we’ve seen so far this year.

What think, fair readers? Did we miss something?

Those Left Out. What we couldn’t understand was the continued inclusion of Vanderbilt, who, at ballot time, had lost three of four and were trending downward (they have since lost again last night to Ole Miss 74-58). We also had St. Mary’s at #18 (prior to their Monday night loss), Baylor at #22, and Oklahoma at #24. Obviously, as of this writing, we’d like to have K-State in the poll in favor of Baylor. All votes tallied here.

Variance. Wisconsin and Kansas St. are causing the most blogvoter consternation. We’re not sure how anyone can justify leaving the 16-3 Badgers completely out of the poll, but one blogger did.

Conference Call. The conferences who have messed up middles, as we discussed the other day, are taking hits in the poll.

• Pac-10 – 5
• Big East, SEC – 4 each
• Big 10, Big 12 – 3 each
• ACC – 2
• A10, CUSA, Horizon, MVC – 1 each

Kansas Goes Down.  For the first time in 25 years, KU went into Manhattan, KS, and came away with a loss.  Freshman stars Bill Walker and Michael Beasley, prescient cocky in their predictions of a win, blew up for 47/11 combined, putting to rest the notion that KU has superior talent vis-a-vis everyone else in the country.  So how’d they get it done?  We caught the second half, and then spent the next two hours trying to splice some video together off our Tivo before giving up and settling (see below), and here were a few observations. 

• By the numbers, both teams played evenly – FG%, rebounding, turnovers, fouls, and the efficiency stats were roughly the same.  With one exception – threes.  This game-changing stat was heavily in KSU’s favor (12-26 v. 6-17 for KU). 
• This coincides with what we actually saw in that second half.  Every time it seemed that KU was just this close to making a run to get back into the game, Beasley (4-4) or Walker (3-10) would drop one from long range.  We counted four times where KU was within one possession and one of those two would knocked down a three to create some cushion.  Clutch.
• By the way, how sick is Beasley (preaching to the choir…)?  A quick snapshot of his numbers this year – 25/12 in only 30mpg, shooting 56% from the field (and 44% from 3).  There will be Oden/Durant debate this year.  Michael Beasley is the #1 pick. 

• Kansas, to their credit, never panicked; they just simply couldn’t get enough stops in the second half to put together a run.  From the ten-minute mark, KU never got closer than two possessions.  We’re not willing to draw any negative conclusions from this game about the Jayhawks – they didn’t play that poorly; it’s just that KSU, fueled by a frenzied home crowd, simply played better.  If anything, it also gets the unbeaten monkey off of their neck, and they can regroup and get about the business of winning the Big 12. 
• This is a huge win for KSU, however.  Frank Martin’s team has come a long way from the listless squad we watched lose to Oregon and Notre Dame earlier this season.  It’s doubtful anyone is getting a win out of Manhattan the rest of this season, so something like 13-3 in the conference is not out of the question for the Wildcats.  That kind of a record and finish would propel KSU into a top four protected seed in the NCAAs, and their computer profile is already solid (#6 in Pomeroy; #18 in Sagarin). 

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.474316&w=425&h=350&fv=]  

Photo Credits:  Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle

From last night’s Penn St. – Ohio St. game…  (h/t to The Ozone)…

Lawdy!!

(photo credit: Jim Davidson)

Full complement of Erin Andrews photos taken at last night’s game here.  Yeesh.