We came across a really insightful article today by Bob McClellan on Rivals that analyzed assistant coaching salaries at the top fifteen schools (by final ranking) during the 2007-08 season.  Using FOIA again, McClellan discovered that there are significant inequities in what assistant coaches at several of these top public university programs are paid.  After we picked our jaw up off the floor from awe at the size of these salaries for the assistants (!!!), we immediately focused in on the anomaly that McClellan made the keystone of his story – Kansas State assistant coach Dalonte Hill was paid $400,000 last season and is set to make $420,000 this year.  From the article:

Hill, entering his sixth season as a college assistant, will make more money for the 2008-09 season than the entire three-man staffs at Ohio State, Washington State and Wisconsin and only $5,000 less than the staff at Texas, a survey done by Rivals.com shows. K-State released Hill’s contract in May. The school paid him $400,000 in 2007-08, and it will pay him $420,000 a year – $150,000 in base salary and $270,000 in “additional compensation,” defined as “television, radio, internet, promotional and other services” – for the next four years. He is entering his third year at K-State. Because private universities are not required to release salary information, it’s unknown whether Hill is the highest-paid assistant in college basketball. But based on Freedom of Information requests, Hill is far and away the highest-paid assistant among public universities that finished in the top 15 in the 2008 coaches’ postseason poll.

So what’s the catch here?  Why is Hill making literally hundreds of thousands of dollars more than his peers?  Oh, that. 

After three years with the [Charlotte] 49ers, Bob Huggins lured Hill to Kansas State. Hill was responsible for the recruitment of [Michael] Beasley, who stuck with his pledge to play for the Wildcats even though Huggins left for West Virginia after just one season.  Hill coached Beasley in the AAU ranks, and Beasley called him “like a big brother.” Beasley had committed to Charlotte while Hill was still there. When Huggins lured Hill to K-State, Beasley followed him. By then, Beasley had become the No. 1 prospect in the country.

So all of this talk got us to thinking…  Beasley spent one year at K-State and it’s been argued in this space before that in terms of exposure and notoriety for the program, Beasley was an absolute WIN, even though he only stuck around Manhattan, Kansas, for one season.  But to echo Howie Mandel, was it a good deal for KSU to pay Dalonte Hill so much money considering the financial impact that Beasley had on the program?  The answer, my friends, is a resounding yes. 

There are multiple ways to measure financial impact, but let’s keep this simple if we can.  We’re only going to consider television and NCAA Tournament revenue because we can easily measure it, although ticket and merchandise sales were both also marginally up for the 2007-08 season.

Television Revenue.  It’s difficult to find hard numbers on what FSN, ESPN and its family of networks pay schools per regular season basketball game, but this much we know to be true: for Big 12 football, ESPN pays $300k per game and FSN pays $150k per game.  Let’s halve that for basketball to $150k/$75k per game.  For ESPNU, ESPN+ and the FSN Regionals, let’s call it $50k per game.  Using this model, in 2006-07, with new coach Bob Huggins but no Michael Beasley, K-State played on ESPN/ABC a total of seven times ($1.05M).  The Wildcats played on ESPNU and the various regional channels another twenty times ($1.0M), which totals out just over $2M in television revenue  in 2006-07 (note: we didn’t speculate about the K-State local channel because it’s unlikely to be substantive).   In 2007-08, with Beasley in tow, K-State played on national television nine times ($1.35M), and the ESPNU/regionals a total of twenty-one times ($1.05M), for a net gain of $300K in television money with Beasley.   (quick note: the Big 12 only participates in limited television revenue sharing, favoring instead a system that favors the teams on television more often – all but one KSU game was televised last year).

NCAA Tournament.  The Big 12, like every other conference, shares NCAA Tournament revenue equally among its member institutions.  In a form of institutional socialism, each school that participates in a game in the Big Dance earns a “unit” of funds available – the more games played, the more units earned (e.g., the Big 12 earned 16 units last year).  The NCAA then takes a six-year average of these units and doles out the aptly-titled Basketball Fund to each league accordingly – truly a payment-for-performance system.  In 2006-07, the Big 12 earned $14.3M ($1.2M per school), and with help from K-State’s two units (the Beasley Effect), the Big 12 stands to earn $15.1M this year ($1.3M per school).  An extra $100k may not seem like much in a vacuum, but the NCAA also provides each school with a $125k appearance fee per school per game (ostensibly for expenses), and since K-State played two games in the Dance, there’s an additional $250k to go along with the prior $100k.  This results in another net gain of $350k from the prior year simply because Michael Beasley was good enough to get the Wildcats into the NCAA Tournament last year.

Result.  So through a simple analysis of television and NCAA Tourney revenues, we can already see a net gain of approximately $650k due to Beasley’s presence.  Keep in mind again that we’re not even taking into account any ticket sales increases or merchandise sales increases that occurred because of the success of Beasley and his team.  Nor are we considering any future residual effects – future exposure in terms of better recruiting and more television appearances as a result of Beasley – and still we’ve determined that, at minimum, Beasley’s one-year contributions to the program were at least $250k more (and likely much more in other impacts) than Dalonte Hill’s salary that season, and therefore, yes, K-State fans, you made a good deal. 

We’re less than 48 hrs from the quasi-official start of practice (at least at Kentucky, Illinois and a few others)… 

• The Class of 2009 will definitely be keeping an eye on Brandon Jennings’ experience in Europe this year.
• So we can have D2 games on tv, but getting some good mid-majors on the ESPN Full Court package is damn near impossible?
• The Big West signed a new deal with ESPN, but unless you get the U, you’re pretty much out of luck.  Note to ESPN – put ESPNU games on the Full Court Package this year!  Find a way to watch Fullerton’s Josh Akognon anyway this year – trust us.
• STF pegs Purdue and Oklahoma as its breakthrough teams in 2008-09, and Baylor and Tennessee as its tipping-point teams.
• Talent = Title Contender.  Thanks, Gary.  This was a fun idea, but we don’t really trust DraftExpress for evaluating NBA talent that far out, do you?
• The Big 12 coaches like Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas/Baylor in that order.  Over in the Horizon League, Butler is picked fifh?!?!
• Tom Crean to NCAA on further penalties:  Enough is Enough!  Meanwhile, Kyle Taber goes on record stating that Indiana will no-way, no-how, finish last in the B10 this year.
• One jewel from Goodman’s blog – wait, Georgetown recruited a white kid?
• Insert Rick Pitino isn’t walking through that door joke here. 
• Speculation on where the top prospects in the Class of 2009 will end up.
• Dickie V. should stay away from MLB Playoffs predictions.   
• We must say, as an unabashed fan of God Shammgod, this is completely awesome.
• One man’s take on the top NCAA program of all-time.

Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is RTC’s Big 12 correspondent and occasional contributor.

During the off season for college basketball, about the only real exciting thing to look forward to is speculation on the schedule for next year–like will a large conference team go on the road to play at a smaller team home court or will teams be playing RPI killers that will hurt them come Selection Sunday?  College basketball scheduling is a little different than college football scheduling in that it is almost an up to the last minute thing to develop a schedule.  Most college football fans have a pretty good idea who is on the schedule up to four years or more in advance.  Most college basketball fans have to wait until a month or two before the current season to find out that season’s schedule.  This probably is more exciting for a small college fan to speculate and wait for, but nonetheless interesting. 
 

Being a fan of the Creighton Bluejays, I was perusing some schedules that have been posted on CollegeHoopsNet.com to see if there were any teams having Creighton on the schedule that we as fans did not know were there yet.  But as I looked a little closer, there was a schedule developing that caught my eye—Mississippi Valley State.

The AD or coach or whoever does the scheduling for the Delta Devils must either dislike the basketball program as a whole or just want to throw the team on the floor because they know they are getting a lot of guaranteed money.  Check out this schedule so far for their month of November:

·         November 17^th–@Oklahoma in the first round of the Preseason NIT

·         November 18^th–@Oklahoma to play either James Madison or Davidson in winner or loser round of Preseason NIT

·         November 20th–@Montana

·         November 22^nd–@Arkansas State

·         November 23^rd–@Washington State

Are you serious?  I know SWAC teams are notorious for lining up all of these guaranteed games at schools to help fund other sports and things at their schools, but this makes no sense and you are creating a team that will definitely be tired.  Going from Mississippi to Oklahoma, then three days later go to Missoula, Montana, back towards home to Jonesburg, Arkansas and then back the other way again to Pullman, Washington in the next three days.  Now mapping out it would made a heck of a lot of sense to actually go to Missoula, take the bus ride to Pullman and then fly back to Jonesburg.  But, to cover both coasts back and forth over a couple day period and logging over 6000 miles doesn’t really make sense to me.  Doesn’t that destroy your profit margin? That is absolutely ridiculous.  BTW, the Delta Devils come into Omaha to play the Jays on December 2^nd.  They should be a tired team.   

I am also excited to mention that I am taking the challenge of a conference correspondent with Rush the Court this winter.   Though I am a Creighton fan and would love to cover the Valley, I am right smack in the middle (well sort of) of Big 12 territory.  This season should be an intriguing one as we have several questions to answer.   Can Kansas reload and vie for a championship repeat?  Will Texas finally answer the hype machine and be in contention for a run in March to the Final Four?  Will Pat Knight be able to step out of his dad’s shadow to lead Texas Tech to the tourney?  And will Doc “Slingblade” Sadler be able to get Nebraska to the NCAA and notch that first tournament win in program history?  This will be a fun year and an exciting time to be a college basketball fan.

Thanks to N-Bug’s liveblog of the NBA Draft last night, we felt like we were almost in the building sniffing David Stern’s manscent and Darrell Arthur’s ire.  What’s the record for lowest pick of someone in the Green Room?  The best we can muster is Rashard Lewis at #32 ten years ago.  Anyone got a lower pick left stewing in the Green Room all night?

Unfounded Rumors of a Kidney Problem Sunk Arthur’s Stock (photo credit: AP)

Darrell Arthur’s Kidney.  The story of last night’s draft, of course, was the unsubstantiated rumor of a serious undisclosed kidney problem that arose during Darrell Arthur’s medical tests.  Luke Winn details the report much better than we can here, but suffice it to say that it now appears that this kidney issue was a complete red herring, and the Memphis Grizzlies (through two subsequent trades) got an absolute steal at the #27 slot.  Winn suggests that the whispers about Arthur’s health could have cost him in the neighborhood of $1.3M over the course of his rookie contract.  Shouldn’t we just go ahead and put Slim Shady at the top of next year’s ROY contenders (Paul Pierce-style) based upon this slight alone?  He’ll have gobs of additional motivation, that’s for sure. 

One-and-Done Redux.  We’ve written about 1-and-dones until we’re blue in the face, but let’s face it, the Class of 2007 is arguably one of the greatest HS classes of all-time.  Four of the top five picks, seven of the top fourteen, and a record ten of the thirty first-rounders were freshmen.  Throw in the eight sophomores chosen in the first round, and that means 72% of the guaranteed contracts that went to American players were to players with 2 years or less of college experience.  Only five seniors were chosen in the first round, and the first at #12 overall, Jason Thompson from Rider, resulted in a perplexed “who?” from much of the crowd and viewing audience.  Again, there is no question that the NBA rule helped in terms of marketing these players.  Thanks to the Season of the Freshman, every basketball fan in America is now intimately familiar with the games of Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, OJ Mayo, Kevin Love, and so on.  If they’d all gone pro after high school, we’d have little to no clue what those teams were getting.

Mayo Posing as Stringer Bell (photo credit: SI.com) 

Beautiful Disasters.  Two of the one-and-dones who were bound and determined to stay in the draft no matter what anyone told them were DeAndre Jordan and Bill Walker.  (note: we were happy to see that our feelings of overratedness (see: HoopsAddict podcast at 34:30) with Jordan and Anthony Randolph were corroborated on draft night, although not so much with Russell Westbrook, chosen fourth!)  Both got drafted in the second round (#35 and #47 respectively) but last night had to be severely disappointing to both players, as Jordan was being talked about as a lottery pick earlier this draft season, and Walker last year (before blowing out his knee again).  Does Walker with his former #1 player in his class pedigree and seemingly constant knee injuries remind anyone else of Randy Livingston?  But the prize for biggest clowns of the draft go to USC’s Davon Jefferson and Mississippi State’s Jamont Gordon, both of whom were undrafted last night.  As for Jefferson, this one-and-done prospect declared early, signed with an agent (assuring he couldn’t return to USC), and then proceeded to float his way through the pre-draft camp.  He was a possible second-rounder at that point, but his uninspired effort in Orlando ensured that he would be left on the outside looking in.  Gordon’s situation was even worse, as he completely skipped the pre-draft camp (incredulously assuming he was a first-rounder), also signed with an agent, and otherwise did nothing to show that he was a serious candidate for the draft.  Ok, we get it, you reallyreallyreallyreally want to play in the NBA, and you reallyreallyreallyreally think you’re good enough… but you guys really need to start doing some listening when people who make these decisions (scouts, GMs, draftniks) are telling you otherwise.  Good luck in the D-League, guys.   

Katz discusses some of the other early entry disappointments in last night’s draft. 

Sideshow Bob Was Drafted by the Suns Last Night (photo credit: SI.com)

Conference Call.  A year ago Pac-10 coaches were telling us that they had far and away the most talent in the nation, suggesting that there are as many as a dozen first-round picks on their squads in 2007-08.  Well, it turns out they weren’t that far off, as there were seven first rounders last night, including three of the top five (#3 Mayo, #4 Westbrook, #5 Love, #10 Brook Lopez, #11 Jerryd Bayless, #15 Robin Lopez, #21 Ryan Anderson), and twelve players chosen overall.  Also keep in mind that several other probable first rounders from the Pac-10, such as Darren Collison (UCLA), Chase Budinger (Arizona) and Jeff Pendergraph (Arizona St.) elected to stay in college another year.  The Big 12 was next with nine players chosen, including four first rounders and five (!!) players – tying the 2006 UConn Huskies and 2007 Florida Gators – from the National Champs (#13 Brandon Rush, #27 Darrell Arthur, #34 Mario Chalmers, #52 Darnell Jackson, #56 Sasha Kaun).  Throw in former Jayhawk JR Giddens (#30) and an astonishing six players passed through the KU program en route to this draft.  The SEC had six draft picks, and the Big East and ACC had four each.  The usually-pathetic Big 10 once again finished last among the BCS conferences with only three picks.  See table below.

Not NBA Material.  We reserve this spot to formally bid adieu to some of the notable collegians who have entertained us for the last four years, but whom the NBA has decided are not worthy to play in their league.  Drew Neitzel (Michigan St.), Demarcus Nelson (Duke), David Padgett (Louisville), Josh Duncan (Xavier), and Pat Calathes (St. Joseph’s) are but a few of the names we’ll probably never see again unless they become coaches someday.  The honor of the biggest undrafted name, though, goes to Tennessee star and cancer survivor Chris Lofton, who holds the all-time mark in the SEC for three-pointers, and ranks third in NCAA history on that measure.  If there’s one guy we’d bank on finding his way to an NBA court near you in the next couple of years (even for a cup of coffee), it would probably be this kid.  He stares toughness and grit directly in the eyes before they walk away in shame. 

Along with all the news/hype surrounding decisions on whether or not to enter the NBA Draft, there are other college basketball headlines:

• Title IX rears its ugly head in a different form than we are used to seeing. The NCAA handed down a 2-year probation sentence to Southeast Missouri. The more interesting thing about it is that it seems like more serious violations came from the women’s program. Are teams really cheating in women’s college basketball?
• Ten cities have submitted their names for the 2012-2016 Final 4. The list seems pretty standard with the exception of Phoenix (never hosted one before) and Arlington-Dallas-Fort Worth (couldn’t they just pick one?).
• In news that probably falls under the “Who?” category, Tennessee Volunteer reserve Ryan Childress recently underwent successful knee surgery. We wonder how Bruce Pearl will replace his 2.3 PPG and 2.4 RPG if Childress has to miss any time.
• Apparently, Georgia Tech head coach Paul Hewitt was quite animated during the most recent Knight Commission. While I agree with some of what he said, I think the point about concerns regarding maintaining eligibility as a reason that many athletes don’t take higher level classes is ridiculous. I don’t think anybody who is taking Theoretical Physics is going to be worried about meeting a minimum GPA. My favorite part of the article is Len Elmore blaming the straight to NBA trend as the reason why the Lebron James has “no mid-range game”. Does anybody think Lebron wouldn’t have just bulldozed his way to the basket if he had stayed in college for 4 years?
• It’s really too bad that Kansas guard Sherron Collins isn’t going pro – next year could be very difficult for him on the road in the Big 12 after he lost a civil lawsuit for allegedly “exposing himself and rubbing against [a woman] despite being told repeatedly to stop.”  Whattayagot Mizzou?
• Air Force head man Jeff Reynolds earned a five-year extension today after his scintillating 16-14 first season.  To be fair, last year was one of the best first seasons from a new coach in the history of AFA’s program.

In the most surprising and disorienting news of the month, Kansas State’s freshman all-american and shoulda-been Player of the Year Michael Beasley has decided to further his game at the appropriate professional level, considering he singlehandedly kicked the living crap out of everyone in college-world for a few months. 

How good was this guy?  In 33 games, he had 28 double-doubles.  He had thirteen 30+ point games, seven 15+ rebound games, and four 30/15 games including a monster 40/17 outing against Missouri.  He led the nation in average efficiency at 29.7,  a key statistic where only 34 players were 20+ this season.  Put simply, he was unstoppable this year, and he’d be wasting his time competing against college players any longer.

Looking at BEASTley’s numbers (26/12), it got us to thinking – where does his year rank among the all-time greatest freshmen in college basketball?  Freshmen weren’t allowed to play varsity until the mid-70s, so we started with Magic Johnson and ended up with thirteen (+ Beasley) names of superb freshmen from the last thirty years so we could do a quick comparison.  We’re quite sure we forgot a couple, so don’t get your thong in a wad – just leave it in the comments section. 

Wow, is there any question that the new NBA age-limit rule has had a major effect on college basketball?  Four of the best individual freshman seasons of the last three decades were in the last two years (and we didn’t even include Derrick Rose or OJ Mayo!). 

The next thought we have is that, yeah, Beasley’s individual numbers outrank everyone else on the list with the closest competitors being his Big 12 predecessors, Kevin Durant and Wayman Tisdale (last spotted on Jazz Cafe).  LSU’s Chris Jackson (aka the American patriot Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf) has him on scoring, but Beasley tears him up on everything else, and neither made it very far in the NCAA Tournament.

Quick aside:  the only team on this list with two of these guys was that 1989-90 LSU team (oh, and Stanley Roberts was also on that team), and they couldn’t even get to the Sweet 16?  Seriously, how is that possible??  Dale Brown only explains the incompetent game management and lack of motivation part, but it doesn’t diminish the talent there.  Sheesh.

Getting back to Beasley, where does the Big 12 find these long, rangy guys who walk right into college and put up double-double averages?  For what it’s worth, they don’t go very far in the Tourney, although we’re sure that the long-term residual effects of having a Tisdale, Durant or Beasley in your program can mitigate that one year (after all, Texas went to the Elite Eight this year, two rounds further than they did with Durant last year).

Best of luck as the #1 or #2 pick in draft, Michael.  We’re sure that South Beach or OKC will suit you even better than Manhattan (KS) did.   

Yes, kiddies, the grades are in from the first two rounds, and it’s obvious that some of you haven’t been doing your homework (ahem, SEC), and others of you are instead choosing to rely on your good looks and history (ahem, ACC).  Still more of you are riding the coattails of your top students (ahem, Pac-10), while some of you have a tendency to perform well early while faltering late (ahem, Big East).  Some of you guys there in the back of the class – the quiet ones – it appears you have been doing a little better than we expected (ahem, Big 10); there may even be top of the class potential here (ahem, Big 12)! 

 How do Conferences Stack Up So Far?

Big 12 (6 bids, 2 remaining, 7-4 record)

The Big 12 looked really good in the first round, going 5-1 and only losing one game where Baylor played pretty well.  The second round was only 2-3 for the league, but the twin powers of Kansas and Texas continued to roll, inspiring confidence that one or both will end up playing in the final weekend as well.   Oklahoma and K-State took it on the chin that round, but Texas A&M pushed UCLA to the brink of elimination.  This league has performed very well given its teams’ relatively lower seeding, already exceeding its predicted win total (6.7) with a substantial chance to really destroy it. 

Verdict: this league was probably a little underrated all year in the middle of the pack, but everyone knew what Kansas and Texas were capable of.  Still, a solid to superb performance so far for this league.

Grade:  A-

Big 10 (4 bids, 2 remaining, 5-2 record)

Yes, we know we’ve crushed the Big 10 all season long, and we’re still not convinced this league is worth a damn as a whole.  But we certainly have to give it up for its performance in the first two rounds, going 3-1 in the first round and 2-1 in the second to push half of its bids into the Sweet 16.  Furthermore, both Wisconsin and Michigan St. have looked really solid in doing so.  With an average seed of 5.5, the Big 10 has already achieved its expected win value (4.8 wins), and probably has a fair chance to get at least one more next weekend. 

Verdict:  the Big 10 run probably stops this weekend, but the teams that made the Tourney have performed admirably as a whole (exception: Indiana and their disgraceful collapse this year).   

Grade:  B+ 

Big East (8 bids, 3 remaining, 10-5 record)

The Big East started off tremendously, going a strong 7-1 in the first round, with only UConn dropping out in an upset loss to San Diego.  The second round wasn’t as kind, as Georgetown and Marquette lost close games with Davidson and Stanford, respectively.  As two of the league’s hotter teams, Pitt and Notre Dame’s poor performances in the second round were also surprising.    If it weren’t for the two Cinderellas (WVU and Villanova) taking the place of three protected seeds who were eliminated (Pitt, ND, Georgetown), the Big East could have had a disastrous second round, getting only Louisville into the Sweet 16. 

We can’t shake the feeling that this conference should have had at least five teams in the regionals this year, though, given the relative weakness of most of the other conferences.   Still, its average seed of 5.4 (including four protected seeds of #4 or higher) suggests an expected win total of about 9.6 (1.2 wins per team) through the tournament, and the conference has already achieved that mark with at least two winnable games (WVU and Louisville) upcoming.

Verdict:  major opportunity lost to put 5 or even 6 teams into the Sweet 16 this year.  Three is a nice compromise, especially considering two of them are Cinderellas. 

Grade:  B

Pac-10 (6 bids, 3 remaining, 6-3 record)

The Pac-10 this year is a classic case of haves and have-nots.  First-class teams such as UCLA, Stanford and Wazzu are all still alive (although UCLA and Stanford should feel particularly thankful), while the second-class teams (Arizona, Oregon, USC) were rather easily dismissed in the first round.  Its average seed (5.5) predicts 7.2 wins, and we’re not sure that the league will get there.  Stanford and Wazzu have extremely tough games in the next round against Texas and UNC, respectively, while even UCLA has proven vulnerable and may run into trouble against Xavier or WVU in the regional finals.  No Pac-10 team in the F4 during a year where it was clearly a deep conference with beauceaux NBA talent would be a huge disappointment. 

Verdict:  so far, treading water.  Last second escapes by its big boys don’t exactly inspire confidence for later rounds.  Wazzu has looked the most impressive, but Arizona and Oregon probably didn’t belong in this tournament at all. 

Grade:  B-

ACC (4 bids, 1 remaining, 4-3 record)

Like everyone else, we watched in shock as Billy Packer harangued the NCAA Selection Committee chairman for only including four ACC teams even though the league enjoyed the #1 RPI rating.  Thank God for small favors.    This league stunk up the joint for the most part, as Duke tried to lay its golden egg on Thursday night before getting exposed for good on Saturday, and Clemson manifested its annual collapse into one game against Villanova.  Miami beat St. Mary’s and fought hard against Texas, but they just aren’t that good.  Which leaves UNC, which has been and continues to be the only real class of the league this year.  The ACC’s average seed was 3.8, which means if the league is to reach its expected win value of 6.4, it’s all on UNC’s ample shoulders as the sole survivor.

Verdict:  this league was garbage this year and we all knew it.  UNC may ultimately make the overall record look good, but this wasn’t a good conference and it showed in its performance in the NCAAs.   

Grade:  C

SEC (6 bids, 1 remaining, 4-5 record)

Speaking of terrible leagues, the SEC was a total and complete disaster this year.  Tennessee is the class of the conference, but even they haven’t been playing very well and are an underdog as the only remaining SEC team in the next round.  The SEC went 3-3 in the first round, and 1-2 in the second round, making it the only major conference with a losing record to date.  Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi St…  they all fought hard, but they simply weren’t very good teams this year.  And what can you say about Vandy other than they’re a complete joke away from Memorial Coliseum?  Ugh. 

Verdict:  it wasn’t as apparent just how bad this league was until we saw the results of the last weekend.  Without Florida and a stronger Kentucky, the SEC remains the seven dwarves.     

Grade:  D

Short recaps now since I’m running short on time before the selection show starts.

SEC
– This deserves a lot more attention because UGA should be the team of the day even if they got a huge no-call against Kentucky in their early game and Dennis Felton was whining before the night game about having to play 2 games in a day. UGA managed to beat UK and MSU in the same day, which is a pretty impressive feat. Arkansas beat Tennessee 92-91, which will cost the Vols a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
– Prediction: Arkansas. We think the fatigue will catch up with UGA the day after.

Pac 10
– UCLA overcame the absent Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (sprained ankle) and an injury to Kevin Love (back spasms) to beat Stanford 67-64. This time they used 28 points from Darren Collison instead of shady officiating to beat the Cardinal. The win wraps up the #1 seed in the West for the Bruins who should be good until the Sweet 16 even without Mbah a Moute.

Big 10
– Wisconsin used a big steal late and Michigan State’s inability/refusal to get the ball to Drew Neitzel late to beat Sparty, 65-63. In the other semi, Illinois beat Minnesota 54-50. Unfortunately, we don’t have much to add here because we took the same attitude Bobby Knight had when asked to predict the game on ESPN (“Who cares?”).
– I guess it goes without saying that we like Wisconsin this afternoon.

Big 12
– We could just use the recap of the previous 2 Big 12 tournaments for this. Texas and Kansas advance to the finals for the 3rd year in a row. The winner will most likely get the #1 seed in the Midwest.
– We’re going with Kansas here to get the #1 seed in the Midwest.

We’d also like to congratulate Coppin State for earning a spot in the play-in game as the first 20 loss team in tournament history.

Next Up:  Big 12 Tournament.  So… last year, with Kevin Durant, Texas finished third in the Big 12, while this year the Longhorns finished first.  Dunno about you guys, but we’re hoping for a rematch of last year’s final game, which Kansas won in overtime 88-84. 

Where:  Sprint Center, Kansas City, KS
When:  Thursday – Sunday

The Favorite(s).  Texas and Kansas are the co-favs (both finished 13-3), although Vegas Watch will have the odds for us soon as to who is the actual favorite.  In the unbalanced schedule of the Big 12, we were only treated with one matchup between these two teams, as the Horns handled the Jayhawks 72-69 in Austin.  You almost never know for certain who will show up in the Big 12 this year, but we’d say that the odds are favorable for both teams to meet on Sunday afternoon again.       

The Darkhorse.  Oklahoma has won six of its last eight and shown some guts in winning on the road against its rival without Blake Griffin.   If Texas should falter, we wouldn’t be surprised to see OU in the finals against Kansas.

Bubble Buster Game.  A second round matchup between Texas A&M and Kansas St. could make things interesting for the committee.  A&M is #47 and Kansas St. is #45 in KenPom’s RPI ratings, and neither team has really lit it up in the last few weeks (K-State 3-5; A&M 2-5).  Would the committee really leave out Michael Beasley and the #3 seed in the Big 12?  Probably not, but we wouldn’t want to give them a reason to put TAMU over them, if we were a K-State fan.      

Cinderella.  Baylor.  But for one home egg laid by the Bears, Baylor finished strong down the stretch, and the route to the finals is more favorable through Oklahoma and Texas.  Baylor was 0-4 against these teams in the regular season, but every game was close, and it’s very difficult to defeat a good team three times in one season.

Games We Want to See.   Part 3 of Kansas-Kansas St. would be fun in the semis, as well as Part 2 of Kansas-Texas.  Basically, the teams that don’t suck. 

Champion.  Kansas is coming off of two straight Big 12 Tourney titles, and they’re playing in their own backyard.  When KU brings it, there are only a couple of teams in American who can hang with them, and they usually bring it in this tournament.  So we’re going with the easy choice here – Kansas.   

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). 

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Photo Credits:  Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle