Rush The Court

We’ve been anxiously awaiting the next thirty days for the last eleven months.  You have too.  In fact, if this isn’t your favorite time of year by a healthy margin then you should probably click away from this site for a while.   Because we plan on waterboarding you with March Madness coverage.  Seriously, you’re going to feel like Dick Cheney himself is holding a Spalding-logoed towel over your face.  Your intake will be so voluminous that you’ll be drooling Gus Johnson and bracket residue in your sleep.  Or Seth Davis, if that’s more your style.  The point is that we’re all locked in and ready to go.  Are you?  To help us all get into the mood, we like to click around a fancy little website called YouTube for a daily dose of notable events, happenings, finishes, ups and downs relating to the next month.  We’re going to try to make this video compilation a little smarter, a little edgier, a little historical-er.  Or whatever.  Sure, you’ll see some old favorites that never lose their luster, but you’ll also see some that maybe you’ve forgotten or never knew to begin with.  That’s the hope, at least.  We’ll be matching the videos by the appropriate week, so all of this week we re-visited some of the timeless moments from Championship Week.  Enjoy.

Championship Week

Dateline:  1974 ACC Tournament – Maryland vs. NC State

Context: If you’re old enough to remember this game, you’re probably not reading this site, so this is for you youngins out there.  When this game was played in the mid-70s, the NCAA Tournament only selected one team from each conference to go to the 25-team event.  It truly was a tournament of champions, but the problem was obvious, in that some leagues such as the ACC, were far better than others.  1974 was also the season where UCLA, who had won the last seven national titles, finally saw its own blood (yes, you read seven correctly).  Their 88-game winning streak came to an end against Notre Dame in January, and the Bruins even lost a couple of games that year in Pac-8 conference play.  Even though John Wooden’s team was still loaded with talent, there were two teams back east that seemed just as good, if not better.  #1 NC State came into the ACC championship game at 25-1, while #4 Maryland was 23-4 and both teams enjoyed serious future NBA talent — NCSU with the spectacular David Thompson along with big man Tom Burleson, and the Terps with an all-star cast including Len Elmore, John Lucas and Tom McMillen.  In a game that many who witnessed still today claim was the greatest game ever played (even over 1992 Duke-Kentucky), NC State prevailed 103-100 in overtime.  The Wolfpack went on to vanquish the mighty Bruins in the Final Four and cut down the nets for their first national championship two nights later.  The Terps, well… they went back home and wondered what could have been, labeled as one of the best teams to never play in the NCAA Tournament.  In large part due to the outcry after this game featuring two of the nation’s very best teams, the NCAA expanded to 32 teams in 1975, opening the door for the at-large bids that have been a key component of the Dance ever since.

In our attempt to bring you the most comprehensive Championship Week coverage anywhere, RTC is covering several of the conference tournaments from the sites. One of our RTC correspondents is at the ACC Tournament.  In addition to live-blogging select games throughout the tournament, he will post a nightly diary with his thoughts on each day’s action. Here is his submission for the quarterfinal games.

Duke 77, Miami 74

• Miami gave the effort today, but finally ran out of gas. That’s why it is so hard to win 3 or 4 games in as many days. No matter how good these young kids’ conditioning is, fatigue will eventually catch up. It caught up with the Canes today.
• No Duke player has committed a foul. Ever. In history. And if you don’t believe it, just ask them. [Ed. Note: To be fair, no player has ever committed a foul. Just ask Tim Duncan.]
• A lot of opposing fans are going to hate the Plumlee twins by the time they are finished at Duke. Actually, I can already say that a lot of them do…particularly with Mason.
• Best comment of the day. When asked about his technical, Coach K replied, “I don’t call a technical on me. I don’t know why the technical was called on me.” Of course you don’t Mike. You’ve never berated a referee before, have you?

Georgia Tech 57, NC State 54

• Georgia Tech played spoiler last night by upsetting the 2nd seeded Maryland Terrapins, virtually assuring themselves of an NCAA bid. Today’s game guaranteed it, and should have helped improve their seed.
• It blows my mind how an ACC team could have as little talent on it as NC State does. How did this team even win 5 conference games? I’m not sure that there is an NBA player on that roster. I’m not even sure there is an NBDL player on that roster.
• State fans are loyal, I’ll give them that. To follow a program that believes it belongs in the rarefied air of Kentuckyin basketball and Alabama in football rather than the actuality that it is a middle-of-the-road ACC program, how can they not be loyal? I believe that’s called mass hysteria.
• Georgia Tech will provide Duke with a tired opponent tomorrow, which will probably lead to another Duke coronation much to the chagrin of many college basketball fans across the nation.

What a wild ride the 2010 version of the ACC Tournament has been. 12th seeded Miami has sent home the 4th and 5th seeds. 7th seeded Georgia Tech has sent home fan-favorite North Carolina and 2nd seeded Maryland. 11th seed NC State took out 6th seeded Clemson and 3rd seeded FSU. The only two first-team all-ACC players left heading into semifinal Saturday are those from top seeded Duke, Kyle Singler and John Scheyer. The basketball hasn’t always been pretty, but the ACC is what it is this year, a group of mediocre teams without any great teams. That’s why I’m expecting more of the same today. Duke will certainly have an advantage over a Miami team that has played two consecutive days, but twice before (NC State both times, in 1997 and 2007) a team has won three straight games to make it to the championship game. Can Miami become the third to do it? Georgia Tech will meet NC State in the second game of the day with a spot in the championship game on the line. The Yellow Jackets became only the 4th #7 seed to win a pair of games in ACC Tournament history while NC State became the first 11th seeded team ever to win two games in a row. All this should make for a very interesting semifinal Saturday. Buckle up fans and join us for another exciting day of RTC Live from Greensboro.

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Coming into conference tournament week there had been a lot of talk coming from the college basketball media that this might be the weakest bubble ever. We are loath to admit it, but they might just be right.

Ticket Punched. Lost in all the mess of the BCS conference also-rans blowing their chances every night is that one team actually earned a NCAA Tournament bid in the last .

• Lehigh 74, Lafayette 59. For the 16th time in 20 years, the Patriot League will send its regular season champ to the NCAA Tournament after that same team also won the post-season tournament. In a game that was closer than the final score indicates (Lehigh led by 6 with less than 3 minutes to go), the Mountain Hawks (22-10) earned their 4th trip overall to the NCAA Tournament and first since 2004 behind a strong performance from senior Zahir Carrington’s huge game with 18 points (on 9/11 FG), 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 4 blocks while their star freshman C.J. McCollum added 20 points and 7 rebounds. The game between schools just 17 miles apart was the 213th meeting between the schools, but the first time that they played with a NCAA Tournament bid on the line. We would normally rip a player who comes up with something as trite as Carrington’s post-game quote, “No offense to those guys, but they just didn’t want it as bad as we did,” unless they played UConn in this year’s Big East Tournament, but we’ll give him a pass today because of how well he played. What’s next for the Mountain Hawks? Most likely a #16 seed assuming The Committee decides to throw them in the game that shall not be named.

Bubble Burst? Where do we begin? Plenty of teams that would be perilously close to the bubble in a normal year lost games that we would usually call fatal, but that might not matter this year. Yes, Virginia Tech, Florida, and Wake Forest, I am talking about you. This year you will probably get away with it. Memphis, UAB, Arizona State, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Mississippi State, and Seton Hall? You probably will not be so lucky. On the plus side there is a small chance that CBS or ESPN might get a camera on Bobby Gonzalez when the Pirates are not selected. [Ed. Note: If you aren't familiar with Gonzalez's body of work, check out what The NY Times wrote about him recently during his time at Manhattan and at Seton Hall.] If you’re wondering if we left somebody out, you’re right. We’re saving that elimination for its own special section.

Dumbest Play of the Year. Last year we had Jamelle Horne. This year’s recipient may not have made as egregious of an error, but his will ultimately be more costly. Allow me to introduce you to Dayton senior guard Rob Lowery. With his team fighting for its NCAA Tournament life and the game winding down, the Flyers trailed Xavier by 2 points with 33.6 seconds left when Lowery called timeout to set up a potential game-tying play. On his way to the bench, Terrell Holloway slapped at the ball which was still in Lowery’s hands. Lowery responded by swinging/slapping at Holloway and was given a technical. The Musketeers hit their free throws which essentially iced the game and now the Flyers and the uber-hyped Chris Wright will be making plans for a trip to the NIT.

It’s worth noting that while Brian Gregory continued to state that he did not see the play in the post-game press conference and continued to insinuate it was a questionable call one notable player was not made available to the media: Lowery.

Your National Player of the Year.

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In our attempt to bring you the most comprehensive Championship Week coverage anywhere, RTC is covering several of the conference tournaments from the sites. One of our RTC correspondents is at the ACC Tournament.  In addition to live-blogging select games throughout the tournament, he will post a nightly diary with his thoughts on each day’s action. Here is his submission for the quarterfinal games.

Duke 57, Virginia 46

• Virginia was again playing without second team all-ACC Sylven Landesberg, who was suspended by head coach Tony Bennett for the remainder of the season due to academic issues, and senior guard Calvin Baker, who left the team for personal reasons.
• Sammy Zeglinski did not score in today’s game after leading the team yesterday with 21 points. Duke did a good job of limiting his open looks and keeping him out of the lane. He shot 0-9 from the floor, 0-4 from three point range.
• Duke got its usual production from the big three of Singler, Scheyer, and Smith, accounting for 48 of the team’s 57 points. No other player had more than three points. This is going to bite Duke hard at some point, because one of those players is going to have an off night, and that will spell doom for their NCAA run. This looks like no better than an Elite Eight team, but I could easily see them losing in the Sweet 16.
• Give Virginia credit, they scared Duke for about 33 of the 40 minutes. They fought hard on both ends and did not back down. Tony Bennett’s team may not always be the prettiest thing to watch, but they do compete. This could be a very solid program in a few years after Bennett has a couple of recruiting classes under his belt.

Miami 70, Virginia Tech 65

• Miami starting PF Dwayne Collins was again not available for today’s game due to a “stress condition” of his left leg. Reggie Johnson, who scored a career high 22 points yesterday versus Wake, replaced him in the starting lineup. This game was not nearly as successful for him, scoring only five points.
• Virginia Tech’s Malcolm Delaney, the ACC’s leading scorer at 20.5 ppg, was held to seven points on 3-15 shooting today, one of his worst performances all season. He was short on just about every shot, including an airball from three on Tech’s last possession.
• Miami pulled off their second consecutive upset in as many days, having defeated the 4^th and 5^th seeds. No one was happier than coach Frank Haith, except for maybe the Duke fans who were cheering the loudest. They will now see a worn-down Hurricane team for a chance to advance to the championship game. As usual, the lucky ones get luckier.
• Who needs Dwayne Collins? Apparently not Miami. They’re playing better now than at any point since the conference season began. No Collins clogging up the middle allows the lightning quick guards to penetrate for either a lay up or a dish for three. The threes didn’t fall today (4-16) as much as yesterday, but continued penetration put Miami on the line, where they were 83% yesterday and 76% today.

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In our attempt to bring you the most comprehensive Championship Week coverage anywhere, RTC is covering several of the conference tournaments from the sites. One of our RTC correspondents is at the ACC Tournament.  In addition to live-blogging select games throughout the tournament, he will post a nightly diary with his thoughts on each day’s action. Here is his submission for the 1st round games.

Virginia 68, Boston College 62

• Virginia was playing without second team all-ACC Sylven Landesberg, who was suspended by head coach Tony Bennett for the remainder of the season due to academic issues.
• Virginia opened a 34-27 halftime lead mostly in part to 6-11 (55%) 3-point shooting, compared to only 3-8 (38%) for BC.
• This was a clean, well-played game with both teams combining for only 12 turnovers (UVa – 5, BC-7), but not a thrilling game by anybody’s definition.
• Virginia held BC’s leading scorer, Joe Trapani, to 2 points on 0-7 shooting. Maybe he should consider transferring back to Vermont.
• BC’s Corey Raji injured his shoulder during the game. “We’ll let the doctors look at it, and hopefully rest will do it.”

Miami 83, Wake Forest 62

• Miami starting PF Dwayne Collins was not available for today’s game due to a “stress condition” of his left leg. Redshirt freshman big man Reggie Johnson, from Wake’s backyard in Winston-Salem, got the start in his place, scoring a career-high 22 points. Even without Collins, Miami still outrebounded the taller Deacons 39-34 for the game.
• Wake’s 2nd team all-ACC forward Al-Farouq Aminu again pulled a disappearing act, as he has been oft to do. He managed only 11 points on 3-10 shooting and 7 rebounds, a less than stellar performance for a supposed lottery pick. This kid pulls more disappearing acts than Lance Burton. If he’s ready for the NBA, then so am I. Maybe he should spend less time tweeting and more time finding out why he’s slumping. He needs another year of college ball, because he doesn’t have the body or the handle to be effective in the NBA next year.
• #12 Miami led 41-27 over #5 Wake Forest at the half. Miami opened the second half on an 8-0 run, extending their lead to 22. Their lead never dropped below 16 points in the second half. Miami was unconscious from the floor, shooting 52% for the game versus Wake’s 35%.
• Wake Forest never displayed the ability to keep Miami’s guards, particularly freshman Malcolm Grant, out of the lane. Wake’s usually stingy 3-point defense, which held teams to 32% during the regular season, was torched by Miami for 47% (8-17).
• Wake Forest is in their annual end of the year slump, which coach Dino Gaudio can’t explain. “I thought we were tired down the stretch last year, so we changed things this year, going with more time off.” Guess what coach, that hasn’t worked either. Maybe he’ll be able to explain why he doesn’t have a job this time next year.

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Steve Moore is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The ACC Update finally returns after a few weeks away due to uncontrollable fried-laptop-related issues. But before we start looking ahead to this week’s ACC Tournament, I want to take a quick look back.  Late Friday night, with my laptop still fried and my shiny new MacBook not yet purchased, I found myself flipping channels in the wee hours of the morning. I was so bored, that I even ventured outside my HD comfort zone to find ESPN Classic. With the Duke-UNC game the following night, the channel was airing prior “classics” in the rivalry. Of course, I came across the final five minutes of regulation in the epic February 2, 1995 affair.

In case you need a refresher: Duke was 0-7 in the ACC at the time, while UNC was LOADED with stud players, like Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse, and ranked #2. Jeff Capel’s one-footed 3-pointer at the buzzer tied the game, and sent Dickie V into a insane frenzy.  Considering I was 12 years old at the time, there were many things about that game that I forgot, and that made it unbelievably fascinating:

• Duke was left for dead, trailing 26-9 at one point in the first half and by as many as seven in the final minutes. As they continued to fall behind, I actually kept checking to make sure this was the game I thought it was.
• Hindsight is easy, as they say, but Cherokee Parks just looked like one of those great college players who would never materialize in the pros. He was dominant inside, but really unathletic.
• If UNC had hit even one or two free throws down the stretch, Capel’s shot never would have happened.
• Dickie V questioned the decision at the time, and I agree wholeheartedly — why wouldn’t Dean Smith put any UNC players on the lane to rebound the final free throws? He had a terrible foul-shooter at the line, and by giving Parks a free rebound and hand-off to Capel, he gave Duke at least a second of time and probably 20 extra feet of court. Even if UNC doesn’t rebound it there, at least Wallace or Stackhouse could have put a body on Parks or Capel.
• Finally, I gained an even greater (if that’s possible) appreciation for today’s video and production quality. This game was only 15 years ago, but for someone used to HD, 30 camera angles, and excellent sound quality, this might as well have been in black and white. Replays were scarce, there appeared to be three cameras in the entire gym, and the lack of a constant score and gameclock on the screen was jarring to say the least.

Anyway, I just found that interesting, and was jotting down notes as I watched. Now let’s jump ahead to 2010. We’ll take a quick look at each matchup, and even toss out a few meaningless predictions. First, let’s examine the NCAA Tourney fates of our ACC friends:

BOOKING TRAVEL PLANS

• Duke, Maryland, Florida State and Virginia Tech are absolutely in at this point.

SAFE AND SOUND

• Wake Forest and Clemson probably shouldn’t go out and lose in the first round, but otherwise, both the Deacons and Tigers are safe bets.

DON’T CHOKE…

• I’m looking at you Georgia Tech. You are just too talented to even be on the bubble at this point. But if you don’t take care of lowly North Carolina on Thursday (and I can definitely see a UNC stunner), you are NIT-bound.

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The recent report from Sports by Brooks relaying information from an insider ESPN source claiming NCAA Tournament expansion to 68 or 96 teams was a “done deal” caused tremendous frustration and anxiety amongst college basketball diehard fans and followers. The complaints are numerous and completely fair: the regular season would be rendered basically meaningless, the conference tournaments utterly ruined, the NCAA tournament field watered down to the point of being a joke. Fans are irate at the thought of destroying the greatest sporting event known to man. To confirm just how ridiculous the bracket would be if the tournament expands by 31 teams, here’s the rough layout of which teams would be dancing in a hypothetical 96-team field if the season ended today:

That's One Sad Bracket

Teams very comfortably in the field (#65-#73)

• #65: Connecticut- 13-9 (3-6), 0-5 in true road games, 2-6 vs. RPI top 50
• #66: South Carolina- 13-8 (4-3), losses to Miami and Wofford, 1-4 vs. RPI top 50
• #67: Maryland- 14-6 (4-2), best non-conf win at Indiana, 1-6 vs. RPI top 50
• #68: Wichita State- 19-4 (8-3), #164 SOS and #330 non-conf SOS, 3 losses vs. sub RPI top 100
• #69: Tulsa- 17-4 (6-1), #62 RPI and #178 SOS, 1 win vs. RPI top 100
• #70: North Carolina- 13-8 (2-4), #75 RPI, 1-6 vs. RPI top 50, only road win at NC State
• #71: Mississippi State- 16-5 (4-2), #65 RPI and #167 SOS, 3 wins vs. RPI top 100, lost to Rider
• #72: Illinois- 14-8 (6-3), #79 RPI, 2-4 vs. RPI top 50, losses to Bradley and Utah on neutral courts
• #73: William & Mary- 15-6 (7-4), four losses in CAA including UNC-Wilmington, lost 3 of 4

Teams fairly comfortably in the field (#74-#82)

• #74: Minnesota- 13-8 (4-5), #61 RPI, 3-7 vs. RPI top 100, losses to Indiana and Portland
• #75: San Diego State- 16-6 (5-3), 2-5 vs. RPI top 50, losses to Pacific and Wyoming
• #76: Virginia- 13-6 (4-2), #87 RPI and #118 SOS, losses to Penn State, Auburn, USF and Penn State
• #77: South Florida- 14-7 (4-5), #207 non-conf SOS, 1-4 vs. RPI top 50
• #78: Seton Hall- 12-8 (3-6), #174 non-conf SOS, 1-5 vs. RPI top 25, 8 losses overall
• #79: Northwestern- 15-7 (4-6), 3-7 vs. RPI top 100, #246 non-conf SOS, 6 losses in Big 10 play
• #80: Virginia Tech- 16-4 (3-3), #74 RPI and #255 SOS, #345 non-conf SOS, 0-2 vs. RPI top 50
• #81: UTEP- 15-5 (6-1), #72 RPI and #141 SOS, 1-3 vs. RPI top 50, best non-conf win at NM St.
• #82: Texas Tech- 14-7 (2-5), 0-7 vs. RPI top 50, best non-conf win vs. Wash, best conf win vs. Oklahoma

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Black Wednesday in RTP.  A bit of hyperbole here, as we make reference to Black Sunday (March 11, 1979), the infamous day when both UNC and Duke lost NCAA second round games on the same afternoon.  Still, tonight’s surprising losses by both Carolina and Duke to the two ‘other’ schools in the traditional Big Four represent the first time in nearly seven years that they both lost conference games on the same night.  How on earth could this have happened?  Are big scary red/black aliens shaped in Deacon and Wolf form landing tonight to take us all away?  Will tears of blood flow from the sky as God weeps for us?   Will high-profile recruits clown Uncle Roy?  These are all good questions for the people of central North Carolina to be asking tonight, so we’re here to help them make sense of it all.  (ed. note: what?  NC State wasn’t shipped out to somewhere like Pembroke in the late 80s?)

NC State Exorcised Their Devils Tonight (N&O/Ethan Hyman)

• NC State 88, #6 Duke 74.  There were a lot of shocking parts to this game, but by far the biggest shocker was the knife-through-butter ease by which NC State repeatedly shredded the Duke defense.  The Devils have held their opponents to 41% from inside the arc and 28% from beyond it all season long, but the Pack paid that no mind, shooting a red-hot 58% for the entire game and hitting five timely threes on a reasonable twelve attempts.  Even the expected collapse that everyone thought was coming immediately after halftime (and Nolan Smith’s ridiculous catch-and-shoot trey just before the buzzer) never materialized.  Instead it was NC State that appeared to have the confidence, pushing their lead back out into double-digits and answering the Devils each and every time they cut the lead to eight.  The night belonged to NCSU’s Tracy Smith, the 22d birthday boy who could seemingly do no wrong, dropping 23/5 on 10-12 FGs on a variety of post moves and drives to the hole.  The Duke defense, one of the very best in the nation coming into tonight, seemed bewildered and confused by Smith all night long, almost as if he’d been left off the scouting report.  Coach K’s group allowed over a point per possession for just the fourth time all season, and at 1.23 PPP tonight, it was easily their worst performance of the year.  Something tells us that their level of effort on that end will not go unnoticed by Krzyzewski.  With the win, NC State moves to 2-3 in the ACC race, and would you believe that the leaders of this conference are Virginia (3-0) and Maryland (2-1)?  Is it too early to start calling the ACC the Pac-10 East with its nuttiness so far this year?  Final thought: nice RTC, State students.  And, deserved (start at 2:50).

• Wake Forest 82, #23 UNC 69.  Freshmen?  No, I don’t think so.  Wake’s C.J. Harris and Ari Stewart were impolite guests in their first visit to the Dean Dome as collegians, to say the least.  In the first half, Wake cajoled UNC into questionable shot selection while taking good ones themselves and went into halftime with a three point lead.  When UNC came out quickly early in the second and almost immediately made it just a one-point deficit, you got the feeling that Roy Williams had indeed gone into his magic bag and come up with a speech that would now put things right.  You could feel that UNC had finally shown up and that they — the ranked team, at home — would redeem themselves, take advantage of the young Deacon guards, pull out a win, and SURELY avoid a three-game losing streak, something that’s never happened here under Roy Williams.  It cannot happen here under Roy Williams.  Right?  RIGHT?  Well… it just did.  Harris and Stewart looked like anything but frosh in the second half right about the time UNC started getting their legs under them.  First, almost halfway through the second half, it was Stewart.  A three.  Then another.  Then ANOTHER.  That last one is in caps because it was from about 22 feet, finishing the triple of triples that came in a span of a minute and 26 seconds.  About a minute later, it was Harris, drilling two straight from the same spot on the left.  Those five threes were courtesy of assists from four different players.  At that point the Deacons’ lead was 15, and the Tar Heels were done.  A couple of minutes later Ish Smith — a terror tonight, with 20/7/6 on 9-17 shooting — drilled another three for the official dagger.  A team on which each player knows and cherishes his role is a dangerous thing, and that is this Wake Forest team — at least, it was tonight.  Aside from the aforementioned guards providing the outside threat, Smith distributes well and is a heady senior point guard.  Al-Farouq Aminu, whose 13/11 we haven’t even mentioned, is a fine interior defender and rebounds like a maniac.  Chas McFarland might not take many shots (1-3 tonight), but he gets to the line and hits the boards (ten against UNC) and anchors the defense inside with Aminu.  And they seem to be buying in to what Dino Gaudio is teaching.  Sure, the Heels didn’t have Ed Davis, and this might have been Wake’s best outside shooting night of the season.  But this is North Carolina.  At home.  What can you say about this team at this point?  Is Roy about to lose them?  It’s been an incredible three-year run.  But sometimes after such a period of sustained success, when hard times arrive it can be easy for a young team to fold.  They’re 12-7 and 1-3 in the ACC, have twelve games left, with seven of them away.  A split does not get them in.  The Heels have six days off, and it’s a good time for it.  They have a lot to think about.  It’s soul-searching time.

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1. Knowing what we know about NC State, this idea to use a real wolf as the team mascot will not end well.  Then again, maybe the wolf can “escape” and devour Sidney Lowe during a rampage — that might make some of their fans happy.
2. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan pulled no punches in his address to the NCAA yesterday, stating that college basketball is tainted by ‘renegade’ coaches and that the one-and-done rule is essentially an academic sham.
3. The hits keep coming for DePaul.  Just days after firing their coach Jerry Wainwright, the Blue Demons lost their best player Mac Koshwal 2-4 weeks with a foot injury.
4. Luke Winn is back with his power rankings in the best read of the week, as usual.  It’s a little scary that we remember those LJ/Augmon t-shirts from the days when the high fade was still rockin like Marley Marl and De La Soul.
5. OJ Mayo continues to hide behind his agent when it comes to substantive answers while maintaining that he loves USC and would have never done anything inappropriate like, oh, maybe take money to attend the school.  Look, we know he’s not legally obligated to say a word, but just once we’d like to see an athlete come out in his prime and say, “yeah, I did all that stuff and more.  So what?”  Maybe by thumbing his nose at the NCAA, it’ll help embarrass the organization into re-assessing how they do business.

New Year’s Football? Coulda fooled us, as there were nearly 200 basketball games over the last four days in every corner of America.  And here’s the rub — a couple dozen of those games held more value than all those meaningless bowls over the same time period.  The bowls are fun for the players and the fans of the teams involved (another reason to tailgate), but they have absolutely no (as in zero; as in 0.00%) bearing on the national title picture in football.  At least games like West Virginia @ Purdue and Louisville @ Kentucky and William & Mary @ Hofstra have implications toward invitation and seeding in the NCAA Tournament in March.  These games matter.  The bowls (save Thursday night) do not.  Let’s see what some of the highlights of the long weekend were.

Unbeaten No More.  Two of the remaining six undefeated teams lost over the weekend — one expected, one unexpected.  On Friday afternoon, a New Year’s Day tilt between the #4 (Purdue) and #6 (West Virginia) teams in America resulted in the Boilermakers running away with the game 77-62.  JaJuan Johnson was awesome on the interior (25/10), completely outplaying the WVU big men Da’Sean Butler (17/7) and Devin Ebanks (11/6) and showing that when he, Robbie Hummel (18/2) and E’Twaun Moore (15/3 assts) are clicking, the Boilermakers can play with anybody in America.  Oddly, WVU shot the ball ok enough to win, and was absolutely scorching from deep (9-12 3FG), but it was the 17 turnovers that did them in.  Time and time again a poor possession on the WVU end (in large part because of their lack of a true PG) led to Purdue points on the other end.  This game was arguably the ‘biggest’ game of the preconference schedule, and Purdue made a real statement as to its legitimacy in this one.

The unexpected loss was #5 Syracuse, who has looked so fantastic this season, dropping a game to rebuilding Pittsburgh on Saturday.  There were quite a few people in the preseason who were writing off Pitt after what was admittedly huge personnel losses from last season, but those people obviously don’t know or care to know that Jamie Dixon is a phenomenal coach (same as Bo Ryan at Wisconsin).  He always figures out how to win with the team he’s got.  His guards attacked the Syracuse zone to the tune of ten threes while holding their own on the boards and forcing Syracuse to miss most of theirs (1-13 from deep).  A 55-point second half behind Ashton Gibbs’ 24 /8 and Jermaine Dixon’s 21/5/4 assts/5 stls for the game gave Pitt its defining win for the season, and it was clear throughout the second twenty minutes that the Panthers were the more aggressive team.  Syracuse’s Wes Johnson (19/6) didn’t have his usual double-double, but the Cuse players are going to have to remember that Big East foes know how to play against their zone and will need to adjust accordingly.

There are four unbeatens remaining. You may have heard of them.  #1 Kansas, #2 Texas, #3 Kentucky, #4 Purdue.

Bluegrass Bloody Brawl.  #3 Kentucky 71, Louisville 62. This was an ugly, ugly game, and the tone was set from the first eight seconds when it was clear that one of Rick Pitino’s primary strategies was going to be to rough up the young Wildcats in an attempt to get in their heads.  It worked with Louisville’s first target, Eric Bledsoe, as he was sent to the bench almost immediately, but it never fazed DeMarcus Cousins (18/18/3 assts) or John Wall (17/4), who were subject to repeated hacks and hard fouls throughout.  This game was a turnover-filled foulfest that included five techs, but when Louisville came back to take a one-point lead at 42-41, it was Wall (who later said he’s not even close to fulfilling his potential) who once again took over the game and made several key plays to give the Wildcats breathing room.  This put UK at 15-0 and at its best start in forty years, making the Wildcat faithful apoplectic over the possibility of what lies ahead.  UK will most certainly lose a game or several in the SEC, but what’s even more amazing to us is that John Calipari is now 86-6 over the last two-plus seasons.  Those are John Wooden/Coach K in their prime type of numbers (before you get all crazy, we’re not saying Calipari is as good as those guys… yet).

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When the Gators and Wolfpack got together last season, it was the third day in January and Nick Calathes scored 32 points to help Florida pull out a 68-66 win in Gainesville. Exactly one year later, the faces have changed, but many expect the 2010 version of Florida (10-3) v. North Carolina State (10-3) to be just as exciting: Ken Pomeroy predicts a 66-65 win for Billy Donovan’s team. For NC State to come out on top, star big man Tracy Smith (17.2 ppg & 9.1 rpg) needs to be a factor—his foul trouble relegated him to the bench in State’s loss to Wake Forest and his comments on said foul trouble garnered Smith a one-game suspension in the Wolfpack’s 2-point loss to Arizona in the following game. This being the Gators’ final game before SEC play begins, expect them to look to their standout freshman, Kenny Boynton (14.2 ppg) to step up and dominate the speedy yet mistake-prone Javier Gonzalez. This game should be a good one, so please stop by and join the chat!

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A Very Wise Man.  Arizona 76, NC State 74. Why is this our lead game tonight?  Because it’s not often that you see two difficult length-of-the-court layups within the last ten seconds of a game, and it’s even less often that the player who hits the game-winner does so for the second game in a row.  Nic Wise must have been a very good boy this year because Santa is treating him right this holiday season.  Just two nights after making a ridiculously difficult touch/push three from about 25 feet to win a game against Lipscomb (we’ll overlook the fact that it probably shouldn’t have counted), Wise (17/3) did it again tonight.  NC State’s Javier Gonzalez (18/3/6 assts) had tied the game at 74-all with a part-the-waters layin with around seven seconds to go.  Wise immediately grabbed the inbounds pass and pushed downcourt.  After a couple of hesitation/crossovers at three-quarter speed, he found a seam to his left and beat the trailing defenders to get the shot up off the glass with the wrong hand and won the game with a mere tick left on the clock (when we get the vid, we’ll post it below).  Wise is like the anti-Jamelle Horne for Arizona.  Awesome finish, and gives Arizona two more wins that they’ll need en route to putting together a resume for inclusion to their 26th straight NCAA Tournament later this season.  UA shouldn’t have put themselves in this position, but they managed to blow a late eight-point lead by allowing NCSU to hit several threes down the stretch — the Wildcats’ Derrick Williams had 24/6 in the win.

Wise Keeping Arizona Afloat (AP/Dean Knuth)

Upset of the Night.  Oral Roberts 75, #12 New Mexico 66. Unbeaten no more.  We’re now down to just six undefeated teams left this season, and all six of those are currently ranked as the top six teams in America after Missouri State and now New Mexico dropped games this week.  ORU has already beaten Stanford and Missouri thus far this season, so this shouldn’t be a huge shock (especially in Tulsa), but the Golden Eagles have also had some blowout losses (most notably, by 37 to Louisville, 21 to Virginia and 20 to Wake Forest).  Tonight was a different story, though, as Scott Sutton’s team built a first-half lead and was able to hold on when UNM made its expected run late in the game.  Michael Craion had a great game, going for 18/13/7 assts/2 blks, and Dominique Morrison had 17/4/4 assts/3 stls, but more importantly, the ORU defense forced the Lobo stars into tough nights — Darington Hobson shot 5-14 for 11 points and Roman Martinez was even worse at 1-9 for 4 points, and their 15 total points tonight was nineteen points off their combined average this year.

Braggadocio.  Missouri 81, Illinois 68. Here’s the thing about naysayers who thought that Missouri would take a hard fall after losing DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons from last year’s team.  So long as Mike Anderson has a stable of ten or so athletic players to run his modified 40MoH system, his teams will always be successful.  Now, will this year’s version be as good as last year’s E8, thirty-win team?  No way.  But they’re still pretty darn good, and we’d expect to see the Tigers back in the Dance again, especially after a performance like tonight.  For the first time in a decade, Mizzou won this rivalry game, and they did it behind their standard MO of forcing turnovers (21), hitting threes (10) and causing a faster-than-normal pace for their opponent.  Kim English led the way with 24/6, but he got help from freshman Michael Dixon, Jr., (16/5 assts/3 stls) and JT Tiller (12/5/5 assts).  As for the Illini, other than their amazing comeback win at Clemson in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, we haven’t been impressed with this team yet this year.

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If you’re an obsessive schedule-tracker like we are — and you sorta have to be in this business — you quickly realize the rhythms of game scheduling.  It becomes more stark during the conference season when most schools play a regular schedule of two games per week (usually on the same days), but you can still see it in November and December based on general patterns of tv viewership, travel and holidays.  By way of example, Mondays and Fridays are usually not very good nights for games, as most teams are either going into or coming out of a weekend game (usually on Saturday).  Conversely, Tuesdays and Thursdays are often busy, with the penultimate day of the work week being preferred for many western-based teams.  Wednesdays, the Hump Day, are often busy just because it’s the middle of the week and games on that day maximizes rest and practice time for students before the next one on the weekend.  If you’re reading this site, none of this information will be new to you; you already inherently know it. 

Is There a Basketball Under There? Why Yes, There Is.

So it’s a little odd that this week — Christmas week — a random Tuesday night will be the biggest game night of the entire slate of games this week (Mon-Sun).  Most teams take time off for the holiday, allowing their players to spend some quality time at home if they’re close enough to travel and/or with friends and other teammates if they’re not.  To that end, there are a grand total of zero games this Thursday and Friday, one game on Saturday (RTC Live will be at WVU-Seton Hall), and only eleven games on Sunday.  Our point: if you want to satisfy your hoops jones, you’d best tune in tonight (91 games) and tomorrow (39 games) to cure the anxiety. 

And what a schedule of games it is!  Our little box of  Nightly Nonsense listings wasn’t big enough to hold all of tonight’s goodies, so we will do you the service of listing the games you should be tracking along with us throughout the day and evening (yes, there are day games!) and into tomorrow.  It may not be Christmas just yet, but the treats have come early this year.  Settle in for your long winter’s nap with nonstop hoops over the next two days. 

Christmas on December 22

• 3 pm – Nevada vs. BYU (ESPN360).  This game, as part of the Las Vegas Classic, features a MWC/WAC matchup between two talented teams that could really use this RPI-increasing victory. 
• 3 pm – Northeastern vs. St. Mary’s (ESPNU).  This 10 am (local time) game from Hawaii wil be one of your few opportunities to watch SMC’s Omar Samhan, who is averaging 22/12/2 blks while shooting over 60% from the field this season.
• 5:30 pm – Tulsa vs. Nebraska.  Tulsa has looked good this year, but they’ve played nine home games (all wins) and dropped their only game away from home (@ Missouri State).  This neutral-site game in Las Vegas is a must-win if the Golden Hurricane want to position themselves for an at-large berth in March.
• 7 pm – #9 Michigan State @ #2 Texas (ESPN2).  The Horns are plowing through teams to the tune of a 29-pt average margin of victory, but MSU has had their number the last three seasons (all neutral court wins, though).
• 7 pm – South Alabama @ #18 Florida (ESPN360).  The Gators try to get off of a two-game losing streak with a home date against USA.
• 7 pm – Ohio @ Pittsburgh (ESPN360).  These two top 35 defenses should deliver a close game that you probably won’t want to watch, so keep this one on in the background.

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Over the weekend there was a lot of talk about questionable officiating, but it turns out that the most controversial officiating of the weekend may not have occurred in Indianapolis. Lost in the controversy of the awful Butler-Xavier finish was the supposedly awful officiating at the NC State-Wake Forest game. I say supposedly because I wasn’t even aware of the questionable officiating and our correspondent for RTC Live didn’t mention it except for commenting on the foul trouble for the two teams. It turns out that Wolfpack forward Tracy Smith, who fouled out with 5:28 to go played just 23 minutes in the 67-59 loss, was less than thrilled about the officiating. After the game Smith told anybody who would listen that the officials called too many “touch fouls” (undoubtedly only against NC State) and “favored Wake Forest all the way, but that’s ACC basketball” (not to nitpick, but ACC basketball is about favoring Duke and UNC). The result? Smith has been suspended for one game by NC State so he will not be available for the Wolfpack’s next game where they will travel to Arizona to take on the Wildcats. Given the way that the Pac-10 has played this year with the notable exception of USC trashing Tennessee this weekend we doubt that Sidney Lowe will miss Smith’s 17.6 PPG and 9.5 RPG. For his part, Smith apologized for his comments:

“I was caught up in the heat of the moment, but should not of made the comments I did. I want to apologize to my coaches, my teammates, and (Sunday) night’s officials for this situation.”

Interestingly, Smith’s statement does not say that the content of his comments were wrong just that he should not have said them. It should be worth while paying attention to how ACC officials treat Smith the rest of the season as the Tim Donaghys of the world may have found their latest edge in Vegas.

The Debacle in Hinkle.  #17 Butler 69, Xavier 68. The story over the weekend was the bizarre and (some say) unconscionable ending to the Butler-Xavier game on Saturday afternoon.  If you somehow missed it, check out our post on the subject from last night.  We pretty much agree that the referee crew followed the rules as they’re written, but that the rules as they’re written pretty much suck in a situation such as this.  RTC Live was there, and as our correspondent wrote at the time:

That would be one ballsy crew to take a full second OFF the clock against a visitor down by 1 point.  HUGE controversy WOW…. I have been doing bball for years and I cannot believe that they just did that?!?!?!?!?!”

Ballsy they were, but also correct by the letter of the law.  Unfortunately for Xavier and Chris Mack, the Musketeers were left holding the bag when a timing error led them to believe they’d have a final shot to win the game.  The NCAA needs to step up and immediately clarify this rule, including what kind of stopwatch can and cannot be used to estimate the time so that we’re not faced with an equally ridiculous ending on a much bigger stage later this year.

Jerry’s Joint.  #2 Texas 103, #10 UNC 90.  The featured game of the weekend at Jerry’s World known as the new-and-improved-to-a-ridiculous-degree Cowboys Stadium showed why many people are very high on Rick Barnes’ Texas team to cut down the nets in April.  UT put four players in the 20+ points column, including huge dub-dubs from seniors Damion James (25/15) and Dexter Pittman (23/15) to go along with Avery Bradley’s 20/4 assts/3 stls and J’Covan Brown’s 21/5/3 assts.  Showing the depth that Barnes now has at his disposal, much ballyhooed transfer Jai Lucas (recently eligible) only played six minutes and recorded zero points.  He’d start for most of the teams in the Top 25 from day one.  UNC’s Ed Davis was the only Carolina player who seemed comfortable with the waves of Texas players inside, as he blew up for 21/9/4 blks for one of his best performances of the year.  Texas will get another test on Tuesday of this week as Michigan State visits Austin, while UNC will head back home for a few easier games prior to the start of the ACC in early January.  We’re still worried about UNC’s point guard play, but we’d imagine that Texas is going to make a lot of pretty good teams look bad over the course of this season.  That team is loaded!

The JumboTron Dwarfs the Court (AP/Tony Gutierrez)

Gonz-awfulness.  #7 Duke 76, #15 Gonzaga 41.  In a game all too reminiscent of other early-season blowouts that Duke has administered on overrated teams, the Devils completely overwhelmed the Zags defensively to, as Mark Few put it after the game, “woodshed” his team on Saturday afternoon at MSG.  Duke’s defense held Gonzaga to a mere fifteen FGs for the game, 28% shooting, a single three-pointer and a quarter-century team low of 41 points.  Despite all the hype for the Duke bigs coming into the season, it’s been the backcourt play of Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith, combining for 36 PPG, 7 RPG, and 10 APG that has truly driven this team to have the look as one of the best teams in America this year.  Scheyer’s ridiculous A:TO ratio of 5.8 to 1 actually went down after two TOs in this one, but his 20/5/8 assts more than made up for the miscue.  Smith added 24/3/3 assts, and we’re going to spare talking about the Gonzaga awfulness since not a single Zag got into double figures on the day.

Shot of the Weekend.  Cornell 91, Davidson 88 (OT). Ryan Wittman’s 30-footer at the buzzer in overtime gave the Big Red its eighth win of the year and a shot at a Big East team (St. John’s) on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.  Lost in the heroics and glee of Wittman’s shot was the fact that it wouldn’t have even been possible had Louis Dale not hit a driving layup with 0.7 seconds remaining in regulation.  Cornell’s only two losses this year were against Big East teams (Seton Hall and Syracuse), so this will likely be the Ivy League favorite’s best chance to get a huge win this season (Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse is not realistic).  We haven’t been able to locate a video of this shot yet, but if you see one, let us know.

SEC Sucktitude. A week ago, we were ready to start believing that the SEC is much-improved this year.  Then the SEC East craps itself on Saturday and Sunday.  We’re reserving judgment for now, which of course means we really think this league is terrible and deserves only one bid (ok, not really).

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Both Wake Forest and NC State enter ACC conference play as relative unknowns: sure, the Demon Deacons beat Gonzaga in Spokane, but what are we to make of their double-digit homecourt loss to William & Mary that same week? Similarly, NC State’s victory over Marquette on the road was noteworthy, but their less than impressive victory in their last game over Elon, one of the weakest teams in the nation, has Wolfpackers scratching their heads. Wake enters Sunday’s game at 7-2, riding on the back of Al-Farouq Aminu (15.9 ppg, 10.4 rpg). Ishmael Smith has increased his production for the Deacs, but the true compliment to Aminu this season has been freshman guard C.J. Harris’ shooting, bringing 12.4 ppg while shooting 53% from the floor. State will rely on Tracy Smith and his 18.3 ppg and 9.4 rpg to go toe-to-toe with Wake Forest’s Aminu. In the end though, offensive rebounds could be the factor in this matchup: neither team has shot the ball well this season, Wake is the tallest team in the nation and rebounds accordingly, while NC State has been below average on the defensive glass. Both Dino Gaudio and Sidney Lowe are under pressure from the fanbase to produce after underperforming last year. For both teams, a win in Winston-Salem would be a good place to start for proving they belong in the top half of the ACC.

Game of the Night. Florida State 76, Auburn 72. You know we’re having a slow as molasses night when this is our top game.  No disrespect to FSU or Auburn but this isn’t a bowl game, and we know just how apathetic these programs generally are about basketball.  The ACC moved to 6-3 against its southeastern brethren tonight with this hard-fought victory over Jeff Lebo’s team behind Solomon Alabi’s (22/9/3 blks) second straight superb and fourth straight good game.  If this isn’t a fluke and the FSU big man is starting to really find his game — and the evidence supports that he is (20/8/3 in his last four games) — then the Seminoles are a completely different team than they were just a few short weeks ago.  Freshman stud guard Michael Snaer also had his his fourth straight good game, garnering 14 points in 24 minutes of action.  We know that Auburn is one of the bottom teams in the SEC, but thirteen threes (on 39 attempts!) is a peculiar strategy considering that the Tigers came into this game hitting only 30.4% from deep this year.

Alabi (right) Brought His Game Tonight (AP/Steve Cannon)

Some Close Calls.  Two BCS schools were forced to fight back from halftime deficits tonight to avoid disastrous losses at home, both teams winning by a mere three points on an otherwise very blase’ evening.

• NC State 79, Elon 76. Elon held a six-point lead at halftime of this one in Raleigh, and it took until the last five minutes of this one for the Wolfpack, behind Tracy Smith’s 21/8, got the lead and put this game away.  NCSU is hard to gauge this year, with an away win at Marquette and a home loss to Northwestern on its resume, but if the Wolfpack are going to endeavor to move out of the cellar of the ACC this season, they’ll need a much better showing than tonight on Sunday when they travel to Wake Forest for the first ACC game of the season.
• LSU 63, Nicholls State 60. Tasmin Mitchell hit a three with 36 seconds remaining to give LSU a three-point lead, which the Tigers used to get the win in the final seconds versus a Louisiana school for the 79th consecutive time.  Mitchell had 27/6/3 assts for the now 7-2 LSU team, who are completely reliant on he and Storm Warren (13/11) and Bo Spencer (12/4 assts) to lead this team.  Other than that, there is no depth for Trent Johnson’s team.

Other Games of National Interest.

• #23 UNLV 72, Weber State 63. UNLV pulled away from Weber State in the second half behind 16/3 from Matt Shaw and 15/5/4 blks from Chace Stanbeck tonight.  The Rebels look to head into Mountain West play on January 6th against BYU at 12-1 with two more easy wins in the next two weeks.
• Nevada 73, Eastern Washington 70. Luke Babbitt dropped 29/9 in another stellar performance for the big man from Reno tonight.  Babbitt is averaging 19/10 while shooting 50% from the field and 90% from the line.  Still, his team has struggled to a 5-4 record this year, although each of the four losses came in road games against top 100 opponents.  If Nevada wants to get back into the picture for an NCAA Tournament bid, though (as in 2004-07), they’ll need to figure out a way to shore up a leaky defense.  In tonight’s game Brandon Fields (17/8/3 assts) hit the game-winning three with 4.3 seconds remaining.

The sports world may have told us that this was a college football weekend, but we know better, right?

CHEERS

That Kentucky vs. UNC is Meaningful Again.  Now that John Calipari is at Kentucky and his Cats are ranked in the Top 10 with a legitimate shot at postseason glory for the first time in a long while, it’s good to have this game on the early-season schedule.  UK rode a masterful 28-2 run to build an early 19-point lead behind John Wall’s 16/5/7 assts even though he spent much of the game cramping up, and the record crowd of 24k+ at Rupp Arena loved it… until UNC got their young legs settled in the second half, and a late 12-1 run got the Heels within one bucket with 0:33 remaining.  Eric Bledsoe and John Wall made five pressure-filled FTs to close it out 68-66 and UK moved to 8-0 on the season while UNC fell to 7-2.  One thing was clear, though — both of these teams are going to get a lot better before March – can we set a rematch in Indy on Semifinal Saturday four months from now?

Oregon State.  For putting an end to the discussion that was already gurgling (ahem) about the Pac-10 getting swept in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series.  The Beavers defeated Colorado 74-69 on Friday night to give the Pac-10 its first win in the Series, and through the weekend games, only Cal’s dominant home victory over Iowa State was the other.  The Big 12 now leads 8-2 in the matchup, and with two games remaining at Pac-10 venues, we’re still not coinvinced that the league will get another win (Oklahoma State @ Stanford & Texas A&M @ Washington).

Reggie Jackson. It didn’t count, but lordy…  Jackson damn near brough the entire world down with this ridiculous dunk (below) at the end of the BC-Miami (FL) game on Sunday.   Still, Jackson dropped 18/9 in a conference opener for both teams that showed both of these teams will be heard from in the ACC this season.  BC dominated the glass 43-19, but it was Jackson’s FTs (not a dunk) with three seconds remaining that gave BC the home win to go to 1-0 in league play.

Dunk to Win.  How about a dunk that did count?  On Saturday afternoon, Ole Miss’ Eniel Polynice broke free for a throwdown right before the buzzer that ended up being the winning margin, 81-79, over Southern Miss.  This was the capper on a wild game that saw the 7-1 Rebels come back from six pts down in the final minute to take the lead and win the game on that dunk.  We’ve yet to find online video of this play but it’s really impressive, so if someone finds it a link to the dunk only, please let us know.  Chris Warren added 20/6 assts for Ole Miss, while Gary Flowers contributed 20/8  for Southern Miss.  Afterwards, USM coach Larry Eustachy found time to throw Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury under the bus for not playing his team.  Good times.

JEERS

Gravity.  If you haven’t heard by now, Ohio State superstar Evan Turner took a nasty spill after attempting a dunk in the first few minutes of the Buckeyes’ 111-60 mauling of Eastern Michigan on Saturday afternoon.  He landed on the small of his back and broke two vertebrae which will shelve the early-season leading candidate for NPOY for at least eight weeks.  Ohio State will undoubtedly have trouble recovering from his loss during that time.  For a more detailed description and video of the fall, see our report from Saturday.

A 22-point Half.  You probably missed this on Friday night, but we didn’t.  Pitt and New Hampshire tried their best to set the game back fifty years with a wretched offensive performance during a 15-7 first half.  You read that right.  15-7.  The 22 combined points was the lowest for a half in the shot-clock era, which began in 1985.  It may as well have been 1955, though, as Pitt won 47-32 with the two teams combining for 31% shooting and Pitt in particular getting almost all of its points from two players — 23 from Ashton Gibbs and 19 from Brad Wanamaker.  In fact, the entire Pitt front line contributed a total of three points.  We’re not sure what exactly caused this, guys, but let’s please not let this happen again, ok?

She Looks Different With the Lights On.  Nouveaux-riche WCC powers Portland and San Diego are learning what it’s like to be Gonzaga after all these years.  Just one week after one of the most successful weekends in both schools’ basketball history, the giant red target that was placed squarely on their backs is weighing down both teams.  On Sunday, both teams took blowout losses at the hands of schools that were clearly fired up to get a shot at a team playing with the big boys into their arena.  Portland, the media RTC darling of a week ago,  lost its second straight game to a middie after finishing as the runner-up to West Virginia in the 76 Classic.  Idaho ran out to a 16-pt first-half lead and never looked back, holding Portland to 32% shooting and 6-22 from deep.  Things have been even worse for San Diego since returning as the runner-up in the Great Alaska Shootout.  The Toreros have dropped three straight games, including Friday night’s loss to UC Riverside and a 37-pt  (19% FG) stinker on Sunday at Fresno State (note: Brandon Johnson did miss the game for disciplinary reasons, but SD was still down 38 pts in this one at one time – ugh).  It was Idaho’s first win over a ranked team in 27 years and Fresno’s first win in five tries.  Both of these WCC teams are going to need to right the ship in home games this week (Denver and New Mexico, respectively) or be considered irrelevant by Christmas after such good starts.

Weekend Upsets.

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The More They Stay the Same… #11 UNC 89, #9 Michigan State 82.  Ok, can we now all just agree that UNC just has Michigan State’s number?  For the fifth straight time, and the third episode within one calendar year, North Carolina made Tom Izzo’s Spartans look like charlatans on the basketball court.  How is this possible?  How can a team like Nevada hang with the Heels a few days ago for most of the game, and a loaded, deep, talented, athletic team like MSU continually get punked and embarrassed by the same squad?  Well, motivation helps.  Ed Davis (22/6) and Larry Drew II (18/6 assts) both had career highs in points, and in watching the game, it seemed as if Carolina could get and make nearly any shot it wanted.  Michigan State, for some reason, seems to think that it can run with Carolina, and as they learned for the third time with the same core of Lucas, Morgan, et al., they cannot.  Why do they try?  The thing about MSU is that they weren’t the second-best team last year, and they surely aren’t this year either — but aren’t we used to this with Izzo’s teams by now?  They typically underachieve in the regular season, only to overachieve in the NCAA Tournament.  The problem is that teams that are routinely blown out do not win national championships.  Granted, Michigan State made a run in this game to get the margin back to a respectable score, but Carolina was never seriously threatened after the first ten minutes of the game.  So what went wrong other than allowing UNC to shoot lights-out again?  How about 2-20 from three (and many of those misses were open looks), a terrible evening from deep for a team that came into this game shooting 37% from distance?  How about allowing point guards Drew and Dexter Strickland to torch the MSU defense for repeated forays to the rim for easy buckets (9-12 FG)?  How about the rough-and-tumble Spartans getting outrebounded (36-34) by the admittedly bigger (but tougher?) Heels?  Honestly, the reason we thought this game would go Carolina’s way was because they were playing at home, but we’re not sure that it would have gone any differently had they played this game on Mars.  Michigan State simply cannot get over on Carolina, and it’s starting to get ridiculous.  At least Raymar Morgan (18/6) looked healthy and played well, right?

ACC/Big Ten Challenge.  We’re deadlocked at 3-3 going into the last day, and yeah, it’s gone exactly as we predicted so far.  Which of course means all five games tomorrow will go crazy — expect all kinds of upset specials.  Seriously, though, we still think it comes down to the BC-Michigan game tomorrow night.  Winner of that one wins the Challenge (our choice: UM).

• #6 Purdue 69, Wake Forest 58.  Wake played well enough for a half to win this game, but the Deacs don’t have enough offensive threats beyond Al-Farouq Aminu when he has an off game (12/10 on 3-11 FG including 6 TOs) and they turn the ball over like it’s their job.  But we knew that already.  Purdue, on the other hand, is only getting production from their Big Three of Robbie Hummel (11/11 on 3-11 FG), E’Twaun Moore (22/4/3 assts) and JaJuan Johnson (21/9/3 blks) — the rest of the team only scored fifteen points.  That’ll carry the Boilermakers against the lesser teams, especially in Mackey Arena, but we have concerns about when they start playing athletic teams like WFU that also have multiple serious scorers.  Wake played superb defense, holding Purdue to 34% for the game and 1-15 from deep, but their endemic problems with ballhandling and lack of a three-point threat will be problematic all season.
• Northwestern 65, NC State 53. Northwestern is quickly becoming our second favorite team of this season (behind Portland).  With the injury troubles that they endured to start this season, we would have completely understood if the Wildcats had simply packed it in and hoped for next year.  But they didn’t.  Beating Notre Dame, Iowa State and NC State isn’t exactly equivalent to Michigan State, Purdue and Ohio State, as they’ll face in the Big Ten, but the key is that NW is gaining experience with winning and they’re doing it in environments away from the comforts of home.  Tonight Michael Thompson stepped up with 22/4 and Jeremy Nash also chipped in 12/8/4 assts in the win.  The Wildcats could realistically enter Big Ten play at 10-1 by the end of this month.  Good for them.

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