This is going to be a brief update because we realize listing the scores is kind of useless since you’re already on the Internet. We’ll just give you a little commentary and offer some more thoughts in the morning.

– The big story of the night was Belmont’s nearly historic near-upset of Duke. The amazing thing is that Belmont didn’t even have a player going off or a great night from beyond the arc. That just shows you how vulnerable this Duke team is when it doesn’t hit the 3. They needed a great 2nd half and end-to-end layup by Gerald Henderson to escape with the win. We also have to question the decision-making by Belmont in the final 10 seconds. Given their distinct disadvantage athletically we thought the decision to come back after Henderson’s layup without taking a timeout a questionable one. Then when DeMarcus Nelson short-armed a FT, they ran a horrible in-bounds play. How does Belmont expect to get a jump-ball against Duke? We also wonder why Coach K didn’t put Brian Zoubek by the basket to prevent that type of play anyways.

– In the only legitimate upset of the day, #11 Kansas State knocked off #6 USC. Surprisingly, they did it without a huge game from Michael Beasley (by his standards). Instead, Beasley used a solid game from Bill Walker and an off-night from OJ Mayo to lead the Wildcats to the win and ruin my bracket. Yes, you’re looking at the sucker who thought USC would make a run to the Elite 8.

– In the only other interesting game of the evening/early night, Texas A&M beat BYU 67-62 behind 26 pts from Josh Carter. This marks the sixth straight opening-round loss for the Cougars. Let that be a lesson before you pick BYU again. Well unless they have Danny Ainge on the team again. . .

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. 

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!

12.01.07

The clock struck December today, which meant that the last day of the college football regular season coincided nicely with the first big Saturday of college hoops. Although today’s menu looked better than the actual meal tasted, there were still quite a few interesting results today.

Game of the Day. #18 Gonzaga 85, Connecticut 82. We got to see this one, and it was a very fun game to watch. Neither team had much of a lead throughout the second half, but you have to hand it to the Zags for playing two very tough road games against quality teams 3000 miles away and coming away with two wins in the process. We really feel that once Gonzaga gets Josh Heytvelt back healthy this could be their best team in the Mark Few era. The key difference is that Jeremy Pargo (23/4/5 assts) gives them a degree of athleticism and skill at the guard position that they simply haven’t had in past years – usually they had players with one or the other, but rarely both (we’re giving him a pass for that stupid-ass foul on a three that nearly cost them the game). Then you throw in the versatile games that Heytvelt, Matt Bouldin, Austin Daye and David Pendergraft gives them, and you have a tough team to stop. Traditionally, the Zags’ problem has been on the defensive end, but at least so far this season, they’re getting the job done in that area (#13 in defensive efficiency nationally and held UConn to 38% shooting). As for today’s game, Gonzaga made just enough plays down the stretch to get the victory, but we were struck for the first time in two years with UConn’s fight. AJ Price had a nice game (22/3/6 assts), but does anyone else feel that Hasheem Thabeet (6/5/3 blks in 23 foul-plagued minutes) is the most overhyped player in America?

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Other Good Games. #6 Duke 79, Davidson 73. ESPNU game, so we didn’t get to see it, but it looked like it went just as expected. Close game until Stephen Curry (20/5) got called for a questionable charging foul in each half, at which point Duke rebuilt its cushion to double digits each time. Davidson once again showed that it can hang with the nation’s elite, but simply has not been able to break through and win one of these things. We expect they’ll get the upcoming game against NC State. Still, give Duke their due – a balanced attack led by Gerald Henderson’s 21/8/4 assts resulted in another quality neutral court win. #3 UNC 86, Kentucky 77. Sticking in the ACC, remember when UNC-Kentucky was a big early-season game? There were several years in a row where CBS began its college hoops coverage for the year with this game – now it’s being shown on ESPN2 of all places. We watched this game too, but it was mostly boring because you knew that UK never really had a chance to win the game, even at home. Carolina didn’t shoot particularly well (43%) or look particularly good, but we could quickly tell that UK didn’t have enough good players to win this game. Two things we noticed – Danny Green (20/6 on 8-11 shooting) is really coming on for the Heels, and Patrick Patterson (19/9) is the real deal for UK. Oh, and we’re already sick of watching Psycho T’s incredibly awkward post game. Providence 98, Boston College 89 (OT). With 14:40 remaining in the second half, Providence was leading BC 62-38. Over the next thirteen minutes, BC outscored Providence 37-8 (incl. a 17-0 run) to take a five-pt lead with just over a minute remaining. Unbelievably, PC’s Weyinmi Efejuku (21/9/4 assts) (yeah, you try saying it) hit two key threes in the last minute to send the game they’d totally blown into overtime. In the extra session, the Friars went on a 13-2 run to finally put the wild game away. Our whipping boy Tyrese Rice had 25/3/6 assts/4 stls for BC, but he did miss the game-winning shot with 5 seconds remaining in regulation.

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Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series. California 86, Missouri 72. This was a very solid home win for Cal to remain unbeaten, as these were the types of games they typically lost in past years. Down for much of the game, the Bears fought back to finally take a lead with eight minutes remaining in the game on the strength of guards Patrick Christopher (18/4) and Ryan Anderson (15/11) as well as big man Devon Hardin (16/12). Cal is definitely a team with NBA talent to keep an eye on this year. Oklahoma St. 96, Washington 71. Speaking of keeping an eye on someone, we just cannot figure out Washington. A relatively tight game broke open to a 20-pt deficit for UW late in the first half, and they never challenged after that. Jon Brockman (22/13) appears to be the only Husky who showed up, but where’s the defense (UW gave up 58% shooting to OSU). For the Pokes, freshman James Anderson continued his under-the-radar early season stellar play with 22 pts. The Pac-10 now leads the HS 4-2 by our count.

Upset of the Day. Harvard 62, Michigan 51. Poetic justice, anyone? God knows there’s no Tommy Amaker fans around here, but we had to laugh at the fortuitous scheduling that allowed Harvard to play a home game against Amaker’s old employer in the year immediately following his dismissal. Michigan isn’t very good, obviously, but they should never be getting whipped by Harvard down the stretch like they did tonight (Harvard scored the last 11 pts of the game). Good for Amaker – that’s a great signature win for his first year in Cambridge. Good to see the Harvard kids RTC there.

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More Upsets.

• Centenary 70, Texas Tech 66. Ugh. Sam Houston St. and Centenary already, and it’s only Dec. 1. Shouldn’t Knight hang ’em up soon?
• IUPUI 89, Massachusetts 77. Two short days after dropping 107 on Cuse in the Dome, UMass gets blitzed 57-32 in the second half v. IUPUI and loses all their mojo. IUPUI’s George Hill poured in 30.

Other Ranked Teams.

• #5 Georgetown 61, Fairfield 49. Another ho-hum win for Georgetown.
  
• #10 Louisville 47, Miami (OH) 44. Louisville really isn’t looking very good anymore (Tim Pollitz 22/11 for MU).
  
• #11 Butler 65, Ohio St. 46. OSU was outscored 45-16 in the second half – these droughts are killing the Buckeyes. Not that anyone in C-bus noticed today (thanks WVU and Mizzou).
• #13 Michigan St. 80, Jacksonville 51. Raymar Morgan with a career-high 24/7.
  
• #15 Indiana 64, #23 S. Illinois 51. E-Giddy with 22 and DJ White with 10/12 in a tremendous road win for IU.
• #17 Pittsburgh 78, Toledo 52. Sam Young with 17/12 in another easy win for the Panthers.
  
• #18 Clemson 85, South Carolina 74. KC Rivers with 24/8 with one more nail in Davey O’s coffin.
• #20 BYU 78, Portland 54. Trent Plaisted with 16/8 in another efficient win for the Cougs.
  
• #21 Xavier 90, Belmont 49. Wow, the margin here amazes us. Belmont shot only 27% for the game.
• #24 Villanova 84, Pennsylvania 61. Scottie Reynolds with 21 in another blowout win for a ranked team.
  

Other Notable Scores.

• Vanderbilt 92, Georgia Tech 79. Vandy is the second-best team in the SEC right now (7-0).
  
• West Virginia 70, Winthrop 53. Huggins’ guys are already #1 in defensive efficiency – they held Winthrop to 30% shooting today.
• Mississippi St. 78, Murray St. 61. Charles Rhodes with 22/5 in only 25 mins tonight.
  
• Arkansas 62, Oral Roberts 51. Gary Ervin with 16 off the bench for the Hawgs.
• St. Mary’s 85, Seton Hall 70. SMC is very very tough at home.
  
• Pacific 70, Nevada 66. Nevada (2-4) is on its way to not making the NCAAs this year at this rate.
  

On Tap Today(all times EST). More Big 12/Pac-10 action and little else.

• Kansas (-2.5) v. USC (FSN) 2pm – we kinda figure KU will destroy USC in this game, but it’s worth watching to find out.
• Nebraska (-2.5) v. Arizona St. (ESPNU) 2pm. a clunker in the Hardwood Series.
  
• Stanford (-7.5) v. Colorado (ESPNU) 4pm – this is only interesting to see how Stanford handles another road game.
• Texas A&M v. Arizona (-2) (FSN) 6pm – this could be a tremendous matchup if Zona decides to protect its home court.
  
• Maryland (-3.5) v. VCU 7:30pm – the battle of disappointments.
• UCLA (-11) v. Texas (FSN) 8pm – Vegas giving Texas no respect here. We’re very excited about this matchup regardless.
  

Aside from Bruce Pearl’s newly-freed, um, pearls, what else is going on this week?

• From the we-don’t-see-this-often file, Memphis’s home newspaper called out Tiger star and smack-ophist Joey Dorsey for being a piece of oversized dung troublemaker who deserves expulsion from the team.
• Speaking of trouble, former Oklahoma State all-american Byron Houston was sentenced to four years in prison for violating probation based on a public nudity charge.  Memo to Byron: please stay away from railroad tracks.    
• Rivals makes a pair of arguments that the Big 10 or the ACC will be the worst major conference this year.  Our vote, just like last year:  Big 10. 
• Tim Donaghy’s employer waxes poetic on the dangers of gambling to UNC athletes, while simultaneously casing the damage to Psycho T’s nose from Gerald Henderson’s errant ‘bow. 
• A former Bruin riffs on his coach Steve Lavin’s wedding that he didn’t get to attend. 
• Tony Mejia at cbssportsline.com came up with a list of top NBA players by school attended, and we found it fairly cool. 
• Goodman talks about Arizona’s offseason (Chase Budinger got stronger), while Parrish confirms that UK fans are indeed nuts (lining up 3 days early for Midnight Madness tix). 
• Finally, Norman Chad takes our fun, stomps on it, and renders it immature, selfish and otherwise useless. 

In the hypercompetitive world of college basketball recruiting, last year’s new NBA rule requiring a player to be one year removed from his high school class prior to declaring for the draft sent repercussions throughout the game. Coaches at the elite programs generally fell into two camps – you either recruit players who you expect will stick around for more than one season, hoping to keep stability (and consistency) within your program; or, you recruit the very best talent available year over year, hoping to catch lightning-in-a-bottle Carmelo-style without experiencing the program volatility that such a strategy may entail. Now that we have one season of one-and-dones behind us, let’s take a look at how the programs employing that strategy fared. We considered the top twenty players in the Class of 2006 (login required) as the most likely one-and-dones.

Looks like one and done worked out for Greg Oden.

Ohio State – Well Worth It

This program, along with UNC, had the most players listed (3) in the 2006 top twenty – Greg Oden, Daequan Cook, Mike Conley, Jr. As of today, they’re definitely losing Oden; Conley is likely to leave, and Cook is a tossup. However, even if they lose all three, it would be fair to say that OSU got its money’s worth. A 35-4 (15-1) record, NCAA runner-up, Big Ten championship, and the best season in Ohio State’s post-UCLA history will do that. Essentially, this group of players made Ohio State relevant as a national powerhouse again. For many programs, losing a group like this would equal the NIT or worse next season; but with Matta bringing in another group of blue chippers next season (and the season after), OSU won’t take a terrible hit. This gamble definitely paid off, and will continue to do so, long after these players have moved on.

North Carolina – Well Worth It
Brandan Wright, Tywon Lawson and Wayne Ellington were all potential one-and-dones when they were recruited by Roy Williams to Chapel Hill. UNC dodged a substantial bullet by losing only Wright to the draft. Led by these three rooks (+ Tyler Hansbrough), Carolina played itself into a 31-7 (11-5) record, an ACC championship and a run to the elite eight where they were simply out-executed by a game Georgetown squad. Still, with Lawson and Ellington returning, Carolina’s gamble came in like Ari Gold at the blackjack table – they’re set to be preseason #1 next year.

Georgia Tech – Not Worth It
Thaddeus Young and Javaris Crittenton were the two jewels of Paul Hewitt’s class last year, and both have declared for the draft this year, but neither has yet signed with an agent. It remains to be seen whether one or both of these players will return, but with Young projected in the low lottery and Crittenton in the mid-low first round, it is likely both will stay in the draft. So how did Georgia Tech fare with these guys? Not as well. A maddeningly inconsistent 20-12 (8-8) record with a first-round NCAA loss versus UNLV isn’t the type of season that the teams above enjoyed. Hewitt has a couple of decent players coming into Atlanta next season, but the 2007-08 campaign will be made or broken on the decisions of these two players. This was clearly a tenuous gamble that may actually set the program back if both fail to return.

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