I don’t think there is any game tonight that really stands out as “Game of the Night”, but there are several intriguing games tonight. I know that everyone is waiting for the “Title Bout” tomorrow night (Duke at Wake Forest).

• Boston College at Maryland at 7:30 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Normally I wouldn’t include a game featuring two unranked teams from BCS conferences, but these have been two of the more confusing teams this year. BC finally appears to recover from the hangover (4-game losing streak) following their big win over UNC. The Eagles are led by All-ACC guard Tyrese Rice, who, like his team, has shown flashes of brilliance (25 points on 7/13 FG, 8 assists, and 5 rebounds in the big UNC win) and been awful at other times (6/18 FG against Miami and 6/19 FG against Virginia Tech). Al Skinner will need a solid performance out of Rice along with Joe Trapani to pick up a big road win at struggling Maryland. As for the Terrapins, I’m not even sure what to say about a team that trailed by as much as 44 points against its rival after its star player (Greivis Vasquez) called out the opposing team and its fans. I would check out this game if only to see the look on Gary Williams‘s face at the start of the game after what happened at Cameron on Saturday.

Rough Day at the Office (BaltimoreSun.com)

• #12 Texas at Baylor at 9:00 PM on The Big 12 Network, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: Baylor is looking to bounce back after getting blown out at Oklahoma on Saturday. The good news for the Bears: The game isn’t on the road where they have just 5-30 in the Big 12 in the last 5 season. The bad news for the Bears: Texas is ranked and Baylor is just 1-18 in their last 19 games against ranked opponents. To stay in the upper half of the Big 12, Baylor will need to get solid performances out of Curtis Jerrels and LaceDarius Dunn. The Longhorns come in tonight looking at what is most likely their last tough game before a surprisingly easy stretch of six Big 12 games before they get another shot at Oklahoma in Austin. Rick Barnes will look to A.J. Abrams and Damion James (fresh of a 28-point performance in his last game) to come up big for the Longhorn, who should be a top 10 team heading into their rematch against Oklahoma if they win tonight.

• #17 Purdue at Wisconsin at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: After starting its conference season with 3 wins, the Badgers have lost 4 in a row and are in jeopardy of falling out of contention for a NCAA bid unless they right the ship quickly. As a result of a quirk in Big Ten scheduling, Wisconsin will be attempting to do it against Purdue, the team that they started their skid against just 16 days ago. Bo Ryan will need a solid effort out of Joe Krabbenhoft and hope that the Badgers can limit the production out of E’Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummel, and JaJuan Johnson. On the other sideline, a win in Madison would position Matt Painter‘s crew to challenge Illinois and Michigan State for the Big Ten title.

After my trip to Chapel Hill last weekend where rtmsf handled all of the duties for Boom Goes the Dynamite while I mingled with ESPN personalities and college basketball stars, I will be in charge of today’s edition while rtmsf does relationship stuff with his significant other. Pretty weak if you ask me. . .

11:00 AM: Although we are a men’s college basketball site, we feel that it’s appropriate to mention the passing of Kay Yow, the former NC State coach, to breast cancer (or more precisely complications related to breast cancer). We can’t really do justice to her impact on the women’s game so it’s probably better just to refer you to a chronology of her life.

11:10 AM: The Notre Dame GameDay crowd looks a lot larger than what I saw last weekend at UNC. I am not sure if it is just a bunch of camera tricks by the GameDay crew, but they definitely have more signs. It may be that UConn is much, much better than Miami was last week or that the UNC crowd may be a bit jaded, but the Chapel Hill crowd was not as into the GameDay experience as I expected them to be.

11:45 AM: Digger Phelps has been doing a good job of working the crowd, which he also did last week at Chapel Hill (even off camera), taking the homer pick of Luke Harangody as his choice of tough player after the other analysts picked Blake Griffin, Tyler Hansbrough, and Stephen Curry to boos. As expected the crowd went wild with Digger’s pick. A little later in the show, the crowd gave the stereotypical college crowd response to a Duke segment by chanting “overrated”. Not surprisingly, the analysts all defend Duke. Appropriately enough, Bobby Knight calls out the Notre Dame students by questioning their education. It looks like he is getting more comfortable with his role on ESPN.

11:50 AM: Another awful half-court shot. Where does ESPN find these guys? He deserved to be embarrassed like that on national TV for popping his collar. Someone should tell him that hasn’t been cool since. . .actually it has never been cool. Congrats on the airball.

Noon: Wow. All of the GameDay guys except Knight picked LSU to beat #13 Xavier. I guess it’s in Baton Rouge, but Xavier is definitely the better team. Least surprising pick of the day: Digger picks Notre Dame. Knight abstains from picking a team.

12:15 PM: Duke is off to a good start against Maryland after Jon Scheyer opens the game with two 3s. What’s going on with Brian Zoubek? He actually looks like a legitimate center today. I have seen him play several times this year and he certainly has improved from last year, but he has never played like this. If he can do this even for spurts this year, Duke might have a legitimate chance to win the title this year instead of their usual great regular season and flop in March.

12:20 PM: Villanova is tied at 10 with USF 6 minutes into the game. Dante Cunningham has 8 of Villanova’s 10 points. I don’t have much else to say about this game since I don’t have ESPN360 available since I am out of town. If anybody has this game on TV, let me know if anything interesting happens.

1:00 PM: Duke goes into halftime with a 25-point lead despite having one of the ugliest possessions I have ever seen to end the half. Do you remember when the Duke-Maryland games used to be the best games of the season? I still remember trying to figure out where I could go to watch the game on TV my freshman year of college. (My school didn’t believe in providing cable to dorm rooms.) Meanwhile in Tampa, Villanova is struggling against USF (tied at 32 at halftime).

Read the rest of this entry »

Game of the Day. Xavier 63, Virginia Tech 62 (OT).  This ending was almost as ridiculous as the Brandon Roy nonsense from a couple of weeks ago.  After it appeared the Va Tech had won the game on a layup by Jeff Allen with under three seconds remaining, Xavier threw it up ahead to Dante Jackson, who at that point was 0-8 with 2 pts in the game.  So of course he throws in a bank shot from 50 feet to win (see below).  This was easily the best game-winner of the young season, and will probably be in the running for best of the season this year.  XU’s Derrick Brown led the Musketeers with 16/6, but Va Tech may not have been in that position if their star had shown up on the offensive end – AJ Vassallo had a mere 4 pts on 2-13 (0-6 3FG) shooting, 15 pts below his average.  At least he stepped it up otherwise, though, with 10 rebs and 8 assts.

CvC.

• Duke 71, Michigan 56. Hey, Duke won another tournament title at Madison Square Garden!  Never seen that before!  Coach K is only 94-10 in November at Duke, so if you didn’t see this one coming, then you haven’t watched college basketball in the last three decades.  It got us wondering, how many of these tourneys has Coach K won over the years?  Surpisingly, he’s only won three of the five PNITs that he’s been in (1985, 2000, 2008) – sure feels like more. The Blue Devils relied on a balanced attack–both in terms of depth and playing both halfs (looking at you Henderson and Singler)–to vault themselves into a #1 seed in everyone’s Week 3 NCAA tournament mock bracket. On the other side, John Beilein and the Wolverine faithful should leave New York City happy though as their win over #4 (not for long) UCLA has served noticed that the Wolverines should be significantly better than last season’s 10-22 record. Perhaps the biggest thing last night’s win over UCLA may have done is make more recruits think about heading up to Ann Arbor so one day Beilein can start more Manny Harrises (game-high 25 points) and less. . .well everybody else on his team. We may find out just how far along these Wolverines have come on December 6th when they get a rematch against Duke in Ann Arbor.
• UCLA 77, S. Illinois 60. UCLA improved its east coast record to 2-3 under Howland by pulling away from SIU in the last quarter of this game today. The Bruins relied on a 20-2 second half run to win this game. This trip to MSG should be a useful motivation tool for Ben Howland to motivate his team, which is made up of hyped freshmen and remnants of a team that has made 3 straight Final 4s. The Bruins relied on their veteran leaders (Alfred Aboya, Josh Shipp, and Darren Collison) to win the game as that trio combined for 49 of the Bruins’ 77 points. If Howland is going to make a 4th consecutive trip to the Final 4, his freshmen will have to grow up fast.

More Paradise Jammation.

• Miami (FL) 70, Southern Miss 60. Honestly, I’m more interested in what Larry Eustachy was doing between games in the Virgin Islands than this game. However, I suspect that most of you are here for some keen insight into the game. Cliffs Notes summary: Lance Hurdle led the Canes to a victory despite an off night from Jack McClinton. I wouldn’t read too much into this game as a top 25 team should win games against teams like Southern Miss fairly easily, but it is still November so I’ll give The U the benefit of the doubt tonight, but they will have to step it up when they face the winner of. . .
• UConn 89, Lasalle 81. Speaking of teams that didn’t quite play up to expectations, #2 UConn struggled to put away LaSalle, a middle-of-the-pack Atlantic 10 team. Jim Calhoun got big games out of Kemba Walker and Jeff Adrien to avoid the huge upset against the Explorers (seriously, what kind of nickname is that?) who shot 50% from the field. However, the biggest story of the night (other than Psycho T returning) was the return of A.J. Price, who was solid if not spectacular in his return. In a related story, Price maybe getting a Facebook invite from Cameron Newton that is assuming, um, Newton can find a computer to log onto the site.
• USC 73, UT-Chattanooga 46. It’s the return of Taj Gibson who was AWOL for much of last season (I’m not sure who to name that type of performance after–Taj Gibson or Steve Slaton? We’re a college basketball site, so I’ll go with “pulling a Taj Gibson”.) Gibson paced the Trojans with 17 points and 15 rebounds. For the adolescent girl demographic, the big news of the night was that Lil Romeo took his first college shot. . .and missed.
• San Diego, 73, Valparaiso 66. The Toreros were led by center Gyno Pomare’s 17 points and 12 rebounds. The Toreros, who knocked off UConn in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year as a #13 seed face the winner of. . .
• Wisconsin 60, Iona 58 (OT). The 25th-ranked Badgers snuck by the Gaels behind 21 points from Trevon Hughes. Somehow, the Badgers won despite going 15 of 48 (31.2%) from the field. So basically, it was a typical Bo Ryan win. I can’t wait to put my Big 10 TV channel to use this year.

Other Games of Mild Interest.

• Utah 83, Ole Miss 72. The SEC is now 21-7 with losses to Mercer (x2), VMI, Utah, Illinois, Loyola (IL), and UNC. Other than UNC, not exactly murderer’s row there.
• Syracuse 86, Oakland 66. Jonny Flynn brought 18/4 off the bench to assist four others in double figures, but most importantly, SU held Oakland’s Johnathan Jones to 7-23 shooting and only 16 pts.
• Pitt 86, Akron 67. I’ll just leave you with this quote from Akron coach Keith Dambrot about Sam Young:

Sam Young physically reminds me of LeBron. Obviously, he’s not as good a player as LeBron, but he’s got that quick-twitch strength and ability to put the ball down. He’s a tough matchup.

I will be waiting to see Young try LeBron’s patented bullrush to/through the basket this year.

• Davidson 97, Winthrop 70. Stephen Curry with a ho-hum 30 points and 13 assists. The bigger news for Bob McKillop is the 20 and 15 from Andrew Lovedale. If the Wildcats can get a legitimate inside game going this year, they could be an extremely tough out in March with Curry bombing away from outside.
• Memphis 84, Seton Hall 70. Not much to say here. Memphis took an early lead and never looked back. One interesting stat: 30/46 or 65.2%. I’ll let you guess what that represents. (Hint: Don’t ask John Calipari about it.)
• Maryland 89, Vermont 74 (OT). That’s not a typo. The Terrapins outscored the Catamounts 17-2 in the 5-minute OT period. I think even Gary Williams will have to be happy with how his team finished the game. He may be a little pissed off about the other 40 minutes though. . .
• Tennessee 76, MTSU 66. A thoroughly unimpressive win for the Volunteers. Do top 25 teams really struggle to put away Middle Tennessee State?
• Notre Dame 65, LMU 54. Luke Harangody with a beastly 27 and 17. Hasheem Thabeet is still not impressed. . .

On Tap Saturday (all games EST):

• Delaware State at Kentucky – Noon
• Drexel at #22 Georgetown – 1 PM
• Gardner-Webb at #12 Oklahoma -2 PM
• Indiana (PA) at #6 Pittsburgh – 4 PM
• Morehead State at #3 Louisville – 5:30 PM
• Wisconsin-Milwaukee at #15 Marquette – 8:30 PM

It’s Wednesday afternoon, 72 degrees and sunny, and we’re heading outside…

• Kelvin Sanctions fires back at Indiana – get this blasted bus off of me!
• Good news – Bob Knight will be back on your television set in some capacity this winter.  Will Digger’s jealous rage get in the way?
• We like this – which coaches got begotten, er, begatten? 
• Let’s call it the “trickle-down effect” of college basketball.  Although unlike the economic version, this kind, you know, actually works?
• Two weeks ago, we (and our bookies – seriously, the check is on the way) might have been worried about this…  luckily, the implosion of the Palin-drone appears nearly complete, and our worries have subsided.
• The guy who allegedly killed Tubby Smith’s nephew pleaded not guilty in Worcester, Mass., yesterday.  There were numerous witnesses – good luck with that. 
• For fear of karmic payback of mammoth proportions, we’ll abstain from captioning the below photo (h/t Hugging Harold Reynolds), but LORDY…  you’ve got Jim Boeheim, Gary Williams and Mark Gottfriend all in one place!  All you need to add is Steve Lavin and Dave Odom (6th man: John Brady) and you’d have a starting five of mediocrity unmatched in history.

Ed. Note:  Don’t like ESPN’s Prestige Rankings?  Provide your comment on how to improve them here.  We’re going to take this information and create a new set of rankings based on additional factors (and getting rid of the moronic NIT appearance = NCAA appearance (1 point) criterion). 

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that ESPN was trying to fill the dead space between the NBA Finals and the Olympics with yet another list. Normally I wouldn’t have even bothered to look at it because ESPN’s lists have been getting progressively more ludicrous (hitting its peak–or nadir–when John Hollinger put Dwayne Wade’s 2006 “Fall down 7 times, shoot 14 free throws” performance above every single one of Michael Jordan’s masterpieces). However, when I noticed that ESPN was trying to rank the most prestigious programs for college basketball in the 64-/65-team era, I was intrigued and figured it was worth some analysis.

The first thing I always do when looking at any list is to see the scoring system used and ESPN sure picked an interesting system. I’ll break it into segments with some analysis:

• National title … 25
• Title game loss … 20
• National semifinal loss … 15
• Elite Eight loss … 10

– All four of these things seems pretty reasonable. I think that most fans would value the post-season performances in a way that is pretty close to the points awarded although it seems like a Final 4 berth is considered a great accomplishment for any program (even for the Duke’s and North Carolina’s of the college basketball world). I probably would have bumped up the national title, title game loss, and national semifinal loss by 5 points to give a 10 point spread between an Elite 8 loss and a national semifinal loss.

• Best W-L record in conference’s regular season … 5
• 30-plus wins in a season … 5
• Sweet 16 loss … 5

– This is where the scoring starts to get questionable. I’m assuming the “Best W-L record in conference’s regular season” is lawyerspeak for regular season conference champion. I’m glad that ESPN has decided that the America East regular season champion deserves more points for their in-conference performance than the regular season runner-ups in the ACC, Big East, and SEC. The 5 points for the 30-plus win season may seem like a lot, but in fact they are very rare (Duke leads with 9 such seasons and I could only count/remember 16 programs with any 30-win seasons since the start of the 1984-85 season) so that seems reasonable (as does the 5 points for a Sweet 16 loss although 16 programs achieve are awarded this each season while approximately the same number have achieved it for a 30-win season during the entire era). My main question with the 5-point awards is if they really consider all regular season conference titles the same as it is easier to win certain titles than others. One interesting note about this methodology is that Princeton with 10 regular season Ivy League titles is awarded 50 points with this methodology while Duke with 9 30-plus win seasons is only awarded 45 points for that feat (ignoring the fact that Duke probably won the regular season conference title most of those years).

• Conference tournament title … 3
• AP first-team All-American … 3
• Losing in NCAA second round … 3

– I’m assuming that the Ivy League regular season champ automatically gets the 3 points for winning the conference tournament title since they don’t have a post-season tournament. This only further skews the points Princeton and UPenn get in this system as they receive 80 points and 96 points respectively for their Ivy League titles not to mention the 20-win seasons they racked up beating up on Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, and Brown. I’m perfectly fine with the AP 1st-team AA points as at most 5 teams a year will have a player earn that distinction. Perhaps they should have thrown in a National POY bonus as that player is the one who usually defines the season (Ralph Sampson, Christian Laettner, etc.). Likewise, I’m in agreement with the 3 points for the 2nd round NCAA tournament loss.

• Player in top 10 of NBA draft … 2
• NCAA first-round win as a 12-16 seed … 2
• NIT title … 2
• AP second-team All-American … 2

– This is where it starts to get really weird. Let’s get the reasonable things out of the way first. Top 10 pick worth 2 points? Ok. That seems fine even if the draft was dominated by high schoolers and Euros for a few years. In the future, the one-and-done rule might make this benefit the schools that are willing to take the one-and-done guys even if it does hurt their APR. That is unless those guys start going to Europe. Cinderella getting 2 points for a 1st-round upset? Fine with this too even if we will all remember the Hampton upset of Iowa State more than we will remember the annual 5-12 upsets. AP second-team AA worth 2 points? Ok with this one too even if I think once you start getting to the 2nd team the players selected start getting more dependent on the voters. I’m too lazy to check this out (perhaps rtmsf can do it), but I’d be willing to venture there is a lot more variation in the guys selected to the 2nd team by various publications/groups than there is with the 1st team. Now for the crazy one. . .Awarding 2 points for a NIT title? Maybe in the 1950s, but today winning the NIT only makes you the butt-end of every more successful team in your conference. How many message board threads have trolls made mocking the 65th (now 66th) best team in country? I’ll admit that the NIT champs would probably beat the 13-16 seeds most of the time, but is there really any pride in being the small fish (mediocre team) in the big ponds (power conference) that can beat up on the plankton (13-16 seeds)? I’d give the NIT champ 1 point overall, which leads into the next big problem. . .

• 20-29 wins in a season … 1
• NCAA tournament berth … 1
• Postseason NIT berth … 1
• AP third-team All-American … 1

– Let’s get the easy ones out of the way. No problems here with the 20-29 wins or AP 3rd team AA getting 1 point. I would probably differentiate between 20-24 wins, which is usually a solid season, and 25-29 wins, which usually will put you into consideration for a top 4 seed if you’re from a power conference. Like I said before the further down the AA list you go, the more variation you will have by publication/group, but it’s not really worth arguing about for 1 point. The thing worth arguing about is giving the same number of points for a NCAA tournament berth and a postseason NIT berth. To borrow an over-used phrase from John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious!” While I recognize that in this system the NIT team can only receive 2 points from the tournament (if they win), it is ridiculous to even consider invitations to the 2 tournament similar when the entire selection special is based on camera crews camping out in rooms with bubble teams to see if they got into the NCAA tournament. Maybe the ESPN stat whizzes have access to different camera feeds than I do, but it seems like the players, coaches, and families are happier when they get into the NCAA tournament than when they find out they are going to the NIT (even if Madison Square Garden is a slight upgrade from Boise, Idaho–unless we’re talking NBA). That’s just one man’s interpretation of the reactions I see although I could probably point out that a few years ago Georgetown declined an invitation to the NIT because they wanted to give their players more time to study for exams. . .in March. I wonder why Georgetown didn’t turn down its #2 seed this year. Do John Thompson III and the Georgetown AD not care about those same exams any more?

• NCAA first-round loss to a 12-16 seed … -2
• Losing season … -3
• Ban from NCAA tournament … -3

– No problem with the first two although I wonder if a losing season is counted against you if you have it expunged from your record and throw your long-time assistant coach under the bus? Also, I’d consider a 15-16 season a disappointment while I would consider 8-20 a complete embarrassment, so I’d probably make the less than 10-win season a significantly bigger penalty. I think the NCAA tournament ban should be a much larger penalty in this scoring system as the public (and press) reaction tends to be pretty bad (see below).

>> Minimum 15 seasons in Division I
** Ties are broken by overall winning percentage since the 1984-85 season

– After all the issues with the scoring system, I’m not going to complain about these minor qualifiers and tiebreakers. Both of them seem reasonable and none of the top 50 teams were tied.

Now that we’ve looked the methodology it’s time to pick apart the rankings to see what ESPN got right and what they screwed up. Duke is the run-away winner as even the most ardent Duke-hater (feel free to chime in here rtmsf) would agree that Coach K’s Blue Devils have been the most dominant program of the era even if their results have been underwhelming the past few years. The Blue Devils are followed by the Jayhawks in 2nd and the Tar Heels in 3rd. I’m not going to argue much with this although I would have UNC in 2nd just because I consider Kansas a team that historically underperforms in the tournament (Mario Chalmers’ shot and Danny and the Miracles not withstanding). Now onto the rankings I am utterly confused by.

Overated:
– UNLV: 8th?!? I loved Jerry Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebs, who may have been one of the best college teams ever even if they lost/threw the 1991 national semifinal against Duke, but there is no way this has been the 8th most prestigious program in the country over the past 20+ years just like Memphis isn’t in that category. ESPN provides a pretty clear summary of why UNLV shouldn’t be in the top 10: “2 NCAA sanctions; 10 coaches since 1984-85; 0 NCAA tourney wins between 1992 and 2007”. I’d keep UNLV in the top 20, but they definitely don’t belong in the top 10 with that track record.
– Xavier: The Muskeeters (at #17) have a nice Atlantic-10 program, but the fact that they have never made a Final 4 should automatically keep them out of the top 25. The Musketeers are buoyed by 21 combined conference titles, but have not really been a threat in the NCAA tournament having only racked up 15 NCAA tournament wins. Interestingly, Xavier came in 2 spots ahead of Cincinnati even though Xavier is widely considered the red-headed stepchild in the city.
– Temple: I don’t mean to sound like Billy Packer ripping on the mid-majors (sorry, if you’re not a BCS conference, you’re a mid-major in my eyes), but the Owls never made the Final 4 despite five trips there under John Chaney. I think they’re a very good program, but like Xavier, Temple shouldn’t be in the Top 25 without a Final 4 appearance.
– Murray State: Now this is the point where I rip the little guy. I was absolutely stunned when I saw this one. The Racers always seem to be one of those teams you see at the bottom of the bracket and maybe every once in a while you decide to take a chance on them to pull off the huge upset. Unfortunately, if you’re one of those people, you’ve only been rewarded once (1988 against 3rd-seeded NC State). The Racers piled up the points by dominating the Ohio Valley Conference racking up 22 (or 24 depending on your addition skills) conference titles and twelve 20+ win seasons (thanks to an easy conference schedule). Somehow this manages to put them above Villanova, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest.

Underrated:
– Maryland: The Terps (28th) are killed by the fact that they play in the ACC and have lost out on a ton of points thanks to playing in the same conference as Duke and UNC. Although Gary Williams hasn’t had good teams the past few years, the Terps run especially in the Juan Dixon era should have been enough to propel them into the top 20. How does this program only rank 2 spots ahead of Murray State?
– Utah: I don’t think the Utes would be able to move up much higher, but it would be interesting to see how high they would be on this list if they didn’t have the misfortune of playing Kentucky so many times in the 1990s. While the Utes benefited playing in a softer conference than some of their peers on the list (SEC and ACC), the Mountain West has been a fairly strong conference in recent years.
– Florida: I’m not sure how much higher the Gators could move up because of their relative lack of success (not counting Lon Kruger’s 1994 Final 4 run) before Joakim Noah and company ran off back-to-back titles, but it seems like that alone should be enough to crack the top 20 especially when programs like Xavier and Temple are ranked ahead of them despite not making a single Final 4 appearance. The Gators probably belong in the top 15 although that may be more of a recency effect, but it just seems that there recent run puts them at a level that isn’t that much different than UNLV with its run with Larry Johnson.

Other points of interest:
– Coach K’s current program (Duke) ranks #1. The program he left (Army) comes in tied for 298th, or as it is more commonly referred to “DFL”. Hopefully the Duke athletic department program has a better succession plan in place than Army did when Coach K decides to leave the sidelines.
– I found this rather amusing from personal experience. Boston University comes in at 108th ahead of programs such as Clemson, Providence (with a Final 4 appearance), Washington, and USC.
– In the current SportsNation voting, Kentucky is in the lead (good work out of the Sea of Blue crowd) with Duke in 4th even though they have the most #1 votes (something tells me they were left off a lot of ballots or voted 25th). The three teams I singled out as being overrated in the top 25 were moved down quite a bit. Note: I thought they were overrated even before I saw the online voting.

Remember Gus Gilchrist?  He’s the 6’9 forward who we took to task last year around this time for backing out of his commitment to Virginia Tech based on the tragic school shootings there last April.  He said that he was “mentally unprepared” to deal with the fallout of that situation, and instead decided to sit out his first year.  We wondered aloud at the time whether Gilchrist wasn’t using his newfound status as a highly-rated recruit to leverage the Va Tech shootings into a better landing spot for himself, and last fall he re-committed to Gary Williams’ Maryland Terrapins, enrolling in January.

Fast forward to the current spring, and Hot Wing Gary’s program appears to be crumbling like the steps of Rome.  Super-juco Tyree Evans backed out of his commitment over the Memorial Day weekend, and Bobby Maze (another recruit) won’t be making it to College Park either.  One of Gary’s expected returnees, freshman forward Shane Walker, already transferred out of the program in April.  The rats appear to be jumping ship, and despite “Once I commit to something, I’m committed,” (yeah!  irony!) Gilchrist has proven that he’s not one to hang around in the face of adversity.  From the Baltimore Sun:

Gus Gilchrist, a talented 6-foot-9, 235-pound forward who was expected to play a major role next season, asked for his release so he could possibly play immediately at another school outside the Atlantic Coast Conference. Because of ACC rules, Gilchrist had to sit out the first semester of games because he had initially signed to play at Virginia Tech.  “Gus has asked for a release to explore other options which may allow him to play more games at another university outside the ACC, pending an NCAA waiver,” Maryland coach Gary Williams said in a prepared statement released by the university.

Once again with Gilchrist, rumors are surfacing that West Virginia is a possible destination.  Joe Alexander appears to be headed to the L, and Gilchrist would likely be eligible to play right away.  That is, until Gilchrist decides that he finds mountaineers distasteful and he wants to play somewhere else after the first semester.  Next stop – back to Virginia Tech (it’s safe there now)!    

A year after having giving Gary Williams and Maryland all they could handle with 30 points in the opening round, Stephen Curry came back this year with an even bigger performance. His 40 points (30 in the 2nd half!!!) including his 3 with about a minute left (the signature moment of the tournament so far) pushed #10 seed Davidson by #7 Gonzaga 82-76.

With Davidson becoming a mid-major power, they will likely be in the NCAA tournament as long as Curry remains in school. Although we consider him one of the best players in the country (do you think schools would like to recruit him if they had another chance?), we realize that he isn’t a big-time NBA prospect (according to scouts) because he isn’t that tall, strong, or athletic. In fact his biggest attributes are his shooting and intelligence, which are two things the NBA scouts don’t seem to care about these days. We are assuming that his family is doing ok financially given the fact that his father (Dell) had a long and distinguished career in the NBA. When you combine all of that, it seems like he might be one college star who remains in college all 4 years. In this day and age, that might be enough to make him a legendary player in March by the time he finishes his college career in 2010.

Next Up:  ACC Tournament.  Does anyone else have the feeling that this league was consistently better when it was only nine teams?  At any rate, the ACC Tourney kicks off tomorrow for the 55th time, and while it used to deserve top billing on Fri/Sat of conference tourney weekend, we’re not sure that it places in the top four at this point.  The projected Big East, Pac-10, Big 12 and SEC semis all look more compelling to us.   

Where:  Charlotte Bobcats Arena, Charlotte, NC
When:  Thursday-Sunday

The Favorite(s).  Um, Carolina?  Look, there are two really good teams in this conference (although Duke is flawed when it comes to the NCAAs), two johnny-come-latelys who will probably lose their first ACC and NCAA games (Miami and Virginia Tech), and a morass of mediocrity and inconsistency remaining.  UNC and Duke are too well coached and talented in March to lose to any of these teams – each can probably sleepwalk to the finals on Sunday, setting up the monumental spoogefest on ESPN all over again. 

The Darkhorse.  Maryland has enough talent to make a run in this tournament, if  only they could get over their tendency for brainlock, their complete lack of understanding of the game, and Gary Williams.  Maybe those are all the same things.  Still, to believe they could beat Duke and Carolina on consecutive days (days 3 and 4 of the tourney, mind you) is laughable.     

Bubble Buster Game.  If it comes to pass, Virginia Tech vs. Miami.  The Hurricanes have the better computer profile, but Virginia Tech was 9-7 in the conference.  In our opinion, both teams are complete garbage and shouldn’t even be considered for the NCAAs, but if the committee is looking at taking a fifth team from the ACC, Virginia Tech has the most to gain with a win here. 

Cinderella.  Both Georgia Tech and Wake Forest have enough raw talent to win their first game and pull off a monumental upset in round two, but neither team has the consistency or discipline to turn that into a serious run at the title.  Expect Duke-Carolina in the finals again.   

Games We Want to See.   As we said above, there isn’t much worth watching here this season.  If Maryland can get to the Duke game, that would be interesting because that means the Terps are playing well enough to challenge the Devils.  And of course, the presumptive Duke-Carolina final will be intriguing, even if we have to wash ourselves of the Dickie V. effluvia afterwards.   

Champion.  Carolina.  They sometimes lose focus, but this is clearly the class of the conference, especially now that Tywon Lawson is back from injury.  The only team we see as having a serious shot at beating them is Duke, and that’s only if the threes are falling and Gerald Henderson’s elbow is freshly sharpened.  Otherwise, the Heels are the choice. 

Still Unbeaten. #1 Memphis and #2 Kansas remained unbeaten through the weekend, and until both lose a game, this will be the top storyline for the last six weeks of the regular season. This is the latest point in a season that two teams have been undefeated since 2005 (Illinois and Boston College), and there are no signs that either team is slowing down soon. Kansas, the top defensive efficiency team in America, knocked the stuffing out of Nebraska 84-49, but we figure the Big 12 (#2 conf in both KenPom and Sagarin) is too tough as a conference for the Jayhawks to go 16-0 this year (est. KenPom chances of running the table = 38.5%). The real intrigue is whether Memphis (#2 defensive efficiency) will run the table until March, and given that they handled Gonzaga 81-73 in a workmanlike manner on Saturday, we’re feeling like Calipari’s team has a great shot at getting into the postseason unblemished (est. KenPom = 58.3%). He’s no stranger to this kind of pressure, either; remember, in 1996, UMass was 26-0 and #1 deep into February before finally losing a late A10 game to GW. That year also happens to represent Calipari’s sole trip to the F4, before Marcus Camby’s “homemade” bling ultimately led to its vacation by the NCAA. Both teams face somewhat tough opponents on the road Wednesday, however (Memphis @ Houston; Kansas @ Kansas St.), but if they survive those tests we might have a situation similar to 2004 when both Stanford and St. Joseph’s made it to the first week of March unbeaten. It must be noted, though, that neither of those teams made it to the F4.

The Truth About Duke. We were absolutely sure that Duke was going to lose at Maryland yesterday. After watching the first half, where James Gist and Bambale Osby seemingly scored inside at will, we were beyond absolutely convinced that the Terps were on track to beat their second top five opponent in eight days. So what happened? Duke 93, Maryland 84. We’re not going to pile on Gary Williams and his squad for their typical carelessness with the ball, etc., here – that’s what they do, and they were still able to beat UNC in Chapel Hill last weekend. No, we’re going to give all the credit to Duke for their hustle, resilience and clutch play down the stretch last night. It was funny, once Duke got the lead with 12 minutes remaining, we knew in our gut that the game was over. Sure enough, Duke methodically pulled away by getting after the loose balls, battling on the boards despite being undersized, and forcing some of those poor Maryland turnovers. We generally try to avoid the stereotypical “Duke is smarter” BS that you hear the Dick Vitale and Mike Patricks of the world prattle on about, but this year we have to give it to them. Duke plays with a very high basketball IQ, they absolutely get after you defensively, and they simply don’t beat themselves. They just don’t have enough of an inside attack to win another national championship this year, but Duke haters everywhere should prepare themselves for another depressing February and a #1 seed for the Devils in March.

Conference Muddling. The middle of the six BCS conferences are about as wide open as we can remember. In the ACC, after Duke (5-0) and Carolina (4-1), who is the third best team? There are nine other teams with either three or two wins. The Big East is even worse – after Georgetown (6-1) and Louisville (5-2), there are eleven teams with four or three wins, including an absurd six teams with identical 4-3 records. The Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC are a little better, but it’s the Big 10 that is the only league exhibiting true have/have-not behavior. Five teams have five-plus wins, five teams have two or fewer wins, and poor Iowa sits in the middle at 3-5.

Saturday Games. Here are the games that caught our attention on Saturday.

• Notre Dame 90, #23 Villanova 80. As soon as we think we’ve got ND figured out, they do something like this.
• Connecticut 68, #8 Indiana 63. We watched this game and still can’t figure this one out.
• Texas-Pan American 54, NJIT 42. 0-21 now… Circle the home date v. 4-19 Longwood on 2/4 as the breakthrough win.
• NC State 69, Florida St. 66. This was pretty much a must-win for the Pack.
• #19 Texas A&M 59, Oklahoma St. 56. OSU continues to struggle in the Big 12 (1-4).
• Arizona 84, Washington 69. Arizona is starting to look like the third best team in the Pac-10.
• Louisville 67, St. John’s 57. Terrence Williams with triple 8s (8/8/8 assts).
• UNLV 72, San Diego St. 69. A key road win in the Mtn West for Vegas.
• Virginia Tech 81, Boston College 73 (OT). Would the real BC please stand up?
• Oklahoma 77, Baylor 71. BU’s first B12 loss is at the hands of the surging Sooners (Blake Griffin with 17/15).
• Purdue 60, #11 Wisconsin 56. Very nice home win for the young Boilers (6-1 in the B10).
• Mississippi St. 88, #15 Ole Miss 68. MSU is starting to look a little like that team SEC:TGTBTD predicted back in September.
• Rutgers 77, #17 Pittsburgh 64. Nice egg-laying by Pitt in this one.
• Kansas St. 82, Iowa St. 57. KSU continues to surge (Beastley 33/15).
• #18 Drake 58, Northern Iowa 54. The class of the MVC continues to roll…
• #6 Washington St. 56, #25 Arizona St. Heartbreaking home loss for the Sun Devils.
• #22 Stanford 82, California 77. Once again, it appears as if Cal is the odd man out in the Pac-10.
• Richmond 80, #14 Dayton 63. Two straight blowout losses for the Flyers – what happened?
• #10 Georgetown 58, West Virginia 57. GTown just keeps sneaking by…
• #3 Tennessee 85, Georgia 69. Lofton came out of his shooting slump with 7 threes.
• #12 Texas 73, Texas Tech 47. DJ Augustin with 19 as Bob Knight continues to teach mediocrity.
• #21 Marquette 79, Depaul 71. MU’s backcourt combined for 44 pts.
• Arkansas 68, LSU 52. The John Brady firing watch continues…
• USC 95, Oregon 86 (OT). Forget what we said last week about Oregon always winning at home – tough weekend for the Ducks.
• #7 UCLA 85, Oregon St. 62. What’s laughable is that OSU thought they were in this game at halftime (43-39).

Sunday Games. A few more…

• #20 Xavier (OH) 77, Massachusetts 65. UMass has really fallen off, but Xavier continues to look fantastic.
• Florida 86, #16 Vanderbilt 64. Let’s remove Vandy and Ole Miss in favor of Florida and Miss St. in this week’s blogpoll, shall we?
• #9 Michigan St. 77, Michigan 62. We just can’t get a sense as to how good this MSU team really is (6-1 in the B10, but that one loss was so hideous!).
• Miami (FL) 75, Clemson 72. Miami really needed this win to avoid a freefall in the conference race.
• Syracuse 71, Providence 64. Both teams needed this one, Cuse got it.
• Georgia Tech 92, Virginia 82 (OT). Tremendous ending in regulation in this one, but Virginia has now earned itself last place in the ACC.

With respect to yesterday’s story about Gary Williams’ 0% graduation rate, Maryland has since responded with a press release stating that all ten of its players that qualified under the latest GSR ratings left school before graduation to pursue professional basketball careers. These players include:

• Chris Wilcox (left after two seasons for the NBA draft)
• Juan Dixon (four-year player)
• Lonny Baxter (four-year player)
• Steve Blake (four-year player)
• Terrence Morris (four-year player)
• Tahj Holden (four-year player)
• Drew Nicholas (four-year player)
• Byron Mouton (transfer who completed eligibility at Maryland)
• Jamar Smith (transfer who completed eligibility at Maryland)
• Ryan Randle (transfer who completed eligibility at Maryland)

In response, Gary Williams stated, “These people are very successful people. If you go to school to improve yourself economically, where have they failed? They make more than the average college graduate. Far more. If you’re judging them just based on getting a degree, then OK, they haven’t gotten a degree.”

Betcha Bonnie Bernstein Got Her Degree

While we’re perfectly willing to hear GW out here, the fact of the matter is that only one of the above players left school early for the guaranteed millions (Wilcox). The other nine players exhausted their playing eligibility, and yet none of them graduated within the six-year window. Gary doesn’t see a problem with this?

He acts like Maryland was the only school to have its players move on to successful professional careers, whether here in the US or overseas. Sure, the Terps had some nasty teams in 2001 & 2002, but so did its archrival down on Tobacco Road (Duke) who still managed to graduate 67% of its players despite losing several to the League. Same thing with Michigan St. (67%), who went to three straight F4s from 1999 to 2001. Arizona (25%) and UConn (22%) were also loaded squads (Arizona – 1997 and 2001; UConn – 1999 and 2004), and yet neither of them pulled an aught – at least they graduated somebody.

Sorry, Gary, while we recognize that Maryland has improved its graduation rate in the interim (Maryland reports that four of last year’s six seniors graduated, and both of this year’s are on pace), we also have to recognize the reality that the program on your watch has consistently finished at the bottom of the ACC in this regard. It may not be at 0% for the duration of your career in College Park, but it’s painfully evident that your program places minimal emphasis on getting a degree. Shame on you.