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.

Backdoor Cuts is a weekly college basketball discussion between RTC correspondents Dave Zeitlin, Steve Moore and Mike Walsh that occasionally touches on relevant subjects. This week the guys debate the merit of conference tournaments — and you can guess where the Ivy Leaguer stands.

DAVE ZEITLIN: Let me start by saying that I love everything about March. The weather is better. The food is tastier. People are friendlier. Even this German kid is less annoying. Such is the power of college basketball. From the first day of the conference tournaments until the final lyric of One Shining Moment (which is, as you probably guessed, “one shining moment”), wall-to-wall college hoops takes a hold of you and doesn’t let go until your eyes are bloodshot, your voice is hoarse and all your dreams are of Digger Phelps’ ties. And if I just made watching college basketball sound creepy, that wasn’t my intention. Everything about March Madness is perfect. Well, almost everything…

You guys may disagree, but I think conference tournaments need to be changed. More specifically, I find it unfair that automatic NCAA bids go to conference tourney champs as opposed to the winners of the regular season. Did I just pour a bucket of cold water over my gooey-gushy first paragraph? Maybe.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still delighted to watch the final few minutes of any conference championship game and get even more excited when there’s an upset involved. It just doesn’t make sense that a team that gets hot over a few days gets rewarded over the team that already proved it’s the best in the conference over the regular season. Read this recent column by Jeff Goodman if you disagree. Or read this disgustingly pretentious column I wrote in college. You’ll come around.

Every Game Counts?

Now, you guys may be thinking I’m just saying all this because I’m an Ivy Leaguer and the Ivy League is the only conference in America that doesn’t have a tournament. I guess that’s part of it. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the value of league play with so many titles coming down to a thrilling regular season finale between Penn and Princeton. But even now, as Penn has floundered to the bottom of the league standings, I wouldn’t feel right about my Quakers having a chance to go dancing just by going on a three-game winning streak. I mean, come on, they have 20 losses. I love the idea that every team can win a national championship, but don’t you think the regular season should hold just a little value?

I’m not saying get rid of tournaments. I just think there should be some compromises. Make it so it’s a privilege (not a right) to play in the conference tournament, kind of like the way it is in Division II or III. Sorry but if you’re in the bottom half of your league, you don’t deserve the chance to steal a bid from a 25-win team just so you can play in Dayton on Tuesday. And how about home games and byes for top seeds in every league?

All that said, I have no problem with the big-conference tournaments (other than the fact I can never tell which of the NCAA locks are actually trying). The Big East Tournament at the Garden, especially, has given me many great memories over the years. And any team that runs the table against the nation’s giants over the course of a few days (remember Georgia?) deserves a bid in my mind. So by all means, keep the money pouring in for those leagues. It’s just the one-bid conferences (where revenue isn’t as much of an issue) that seem to be doing a disservice to the NCAA Tournament — and mostly their own teams.

So what do you guys think? At the very least can we agree that the changes I suggested would be much better than that heinous 96-team NCAA tournament proposal?

MIKE WALSH: First off, let me go on record as saying that I’d rather be strangled with one of Digger Phelps’ aforementioned ties while he was still wearing it than see the tournament expanded to 96 teams. In a world where everyone gets a trophy just for trying, I think a little disappointment is good for the teams whose bubbles burst each year. Sorry, Rhode Island, better luck next year! And let’s be honest with ourselves, stretching the field to 96 teams is just another way to get more power conference schools in the Big Dance – or would we have to call it the Bigger Dance? And who doesn’t want to see Rutgers get in? Those kids try so hard…

This concludes the soap box portion of the show.

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1. We love this bracket science stuff, which is reminiscent of some of the work we did when this site was in its infancy nearly three years ago.  It’s good to see Peter Tiernan continuing to do this every year, now for CBS Sportsline.  Maybe the NCAA Selection Committee should bring him on board.  Here’s a taste: best team against seed expectation in the last decade?  Florida.  Worst?  Wake Forest.  Sounds about right.
2. The NCAA’s Greg Shaheen came out yesterday with the news that there has been no decision made to expand the NCAA Tournament.  Sounds great, but is Mr. Shaheen playing the role of Colin Powell standing before the UN here, or is this more like Mark McGwire’s contention that he only took steroids for health reasons?  Willfully misleading or delusional — you tell us?
3. If you’re lucky enough to live in an area with a select movie theater chosen by the NCAA overlords, the Final Four will be shown in living, breathing 3-D.  Because nothing says March Madness like seeing Sherron Collins barreling down the court at you at 100 miles an hour.  We have no idea if this will be incredibly awesome or incredibly lame, but we’ll make sure to send someone out there to check it out.
4. Speaking of all three dimensions, here’s Seth Davis’ 2010 All-Glue team.  The headliner is Ohio State’s David Lighty, but we also love the Willie Veasley (Butler) and Rick Jackson (Syracuse) picks.
5. More conference awards today.  POY – ACC: Greivis Vasquez, Maryland; Big East: Wes Johnson, Syracuse; SEC: John Wall, Kentucky.  COY – ACC: Gary Williams, Maryland; Big East: Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; SEC: Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt.  FrOY: ACC: Derrick Favors, Georgia Tech; Big East: Lance Stephenson, Cincinnati; SEC: DeMarcus Cousins, Kentucky.  Some weird goings-on in the SEC there.  First, how does John Wall win POY but not FrOY?  Isn’t he a freshman, and isn’t he the best player in the league according to the voters?  Second, how does Kevin Stallings win COY — DeMarcus Cousins was so shocked he didn’t even know who Stallings was!

1. According to a well-connected Kentucky columnist, Sunday will be junior Patrick Patterson’s Senior Day.  We know that John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins will not be in a UK uniform next year either, so why not end the charade and celebrate their final games at Rupp as well?
2. The Mountain West reprimanded New Mexico coach Steve Alford for his embarrassing outburst against BYU guard Jonathan Tavernari on Saturday night after their game.  We mentioned it last night, but Alford’s later admission that he was just trying to congratulate Tavernari on his career rings a little hollow given the heated circumstances of the game, the jawing between Tavernari and Darington Hobson in the final minute, and the subsequent result with Alford caught on tape.  Next time just tell us the truth, Coach.
3. We really don’t understand nor can we agree with the decision by Binghamton brass to punish itself by removing its team from the America East Tournament a mere three days prior to the opening round.  It was bad enough when USC officials threw their promising team under the bus midway through the 09-10 season, but the players who remained at Binghamton along with interim coach Mark Macon made the best of a horrible situation this year and actually far exceeded expectations.  The Bearcats finished 8-8 in the conference and were scheduled to be the #5 seed in the tournament.  In a year without a truly dominant Am East team, imagine the story if Binghamton had been able to claw its way to the NCAA Tournament again this year!  It doesn’t make a whit of sense to us to punish the remaining players for prior transgressions, but the school has consistently made poor decisions in this arena for some time now, so it shouldn’t surprise us.
4. Some awards:  In the WCC, Gonzaga’s Mark Few and Matt Bouldin are the 2009-10 COY and POY, respectively, while in the Big South, Coastal Carolina’s Cliff Ellis and Radford’s Artsiom Parakhouski were likewise.
5. Seth Davis is back this week with one the absolute best features around this time of year… analysis from coaches off the record about the top teams in each conference.  This week his Deep Throats discuss the Big 12, Pac-10, Mountain West and Atlantic 10.  It’s good to know that we were right about Texas all along (“guys not knowing their roles and not knowing their identity offensively”).

1. Purdue’s Matt Painter is not pleased at all with his team’s effort over the last few games (three straight losses for the Boilers).  Great quote: “I’d like to start E’Twaun Moore, E’Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummel, Robbie Hummel and Robbie Hummel. No one else deserves to start…”  The defensive efficiency numbers bear him out, as their three worst performance of the year on that end have been in the last three contests.
2. Charlotte forward RaShad Coleman injured his knee on Sunday (fractured patella) and will miss the rest of the season.  He only averaged 4/3 in fourteen minutes per game, but with the corollary loss of guard Shamarr Bowden to transfer last week, Bobby Lutz will have to keep the rest of his wing rotation healthy if he expects to compete for the A10 title.
3. Seth Davis outlines the eight teams that helped themselves and eight teams that hurt themselves with their non-conference schedules.  Also some good insider information in the hoop thoughts section, as always.
4. Interesting that Gonzaga might get to play its first and second round NCAA games at the nearby (as in 1.6 miles) Spokane Arena if it becomes a home-protected seed (h/t S. Davis, above).  The arena is not their home venue, having played only one game there this season.  Here’s the bigger question, though: why does Spokane (pop: 200,000) have two basketball arenas (including the on-campus Kennel)?
5. Fear the Beard.  Over 1,000 fans received and wore fake beards to honor Jacob Pullen’s scruffy facial hair, and even Frank Martin got into the act last night as Kansas State knocked off the #1 Texas Longhorns in Manhattan.

A More Hirsute Frank Martin (AP/Charlie Riedel)

So When Do Boise and Alabama Play? The interminable bowl season finally came to an end with the only game that mattered, as Texas’ Colt McCoy got knocked out of the BCS National faux-Championship Game and Alabama’s Nick Saban earned his second title as a member of a rival SEC school.  So we’re once again left with more than one unbeaten team in the college football season and we have no legitimate way of separating those teams other than using statistics and computer printouts, a tenuous proposition at best.  After all, Cal was a ten-point favorite versus UCLA last night.  That’s what all of the computer algorithms told us.  So they’re clearly the better team, right?  No reason to even play the game, right?  Let’s just declare Cal the winner based on their strength of schedule and power rating…  Get outta here with that nonsense.  Seriously.  Thankfully we’re moving on to basketball, where our championships are earned on the court.  (ed. note: we’re going to publish this picture every time it’s appropriate, which, given the BCS’s foibles year after year, will be annually).

Other Games of National Interest.  Well, sorta.  Slow night.  There was only one game involving any of the BCS conference teams, and they were both from the Big Ten.  Guess they knew that league wouldn’t be playing on the gridiron tonight.

• Michigan 64, Penn State 55.  The Wolverines got off to a horrid start in State College, shooting 0-12 from three and finding themselves down 31-16 at the half.  But they kept their poise and made a huge second-half run of 38-13 to close out the game and put John Beilein’s team at 2-1 in the Big Ten.  DeShawn Sims was huge, scoring 25 points and pulling six boards, but it was really Laval Lucas-Perry’s four second-half treys that helped spur the run.  With games against Northwestern and Indiana coming up at home, UM has a good shot to go to 4-1 before trips to Madison and West Lafayette later this month.
• Western Kentucky 67, South Alabama 64 (OT).  This was a key early-season game in the Sun Belt, and WKU got the leg up by taking this one in overtime tonight.  Steffphon Pettigrew (16/5) hit a layup with five seconds remaining to tie the game and send it to the extra period.  In the OT, which  only saw a total of seven points between the two teams, AJ Slaughter (18/5) hit the go-ahead three and WKU hung on.  USA will get another chance at the Hilltoppers in Bowling Green on February 18.
• Xavier 68, La Salle 62.  XU got a win in its A10 opener after nearly blowing a 20-point second half lead on the road tonight in Philadelphia.  Jordan Crawford had 22/6/4 assts to improve upon his 19 PPG average coming into the contest.  Of course, he’s also thirteenth in the nation in shot% at 35.4, which means he’s our candidate for Human Cannon Midwest.
• Oakland 67, Oral Roberts 64.  Oakland picked up a key Summit League win tonight on the road against its likely toughest competition in Tulsa behind Keith Benson’s 13/8/5 blks and Johnathan Jones’ 16/4 assts/3 stls.  Interesting that Jones was the nation’s leading assist man last season at 8.1 per game, but he’s only dropping 5.6 dimes so far this year.

1. The inaugural Skip Prosser Classic was a great idea and although emotionally draining, a great game too.  Mike DeCourcy reflects on Sunday night’s Wake Forest-Xavier tilt.
2. This is wonderful and all regarding the success of Eric Reveno at Portland, but do you get the sense that this article should have been written a month ago (you know, after the nice run in the 76 Classic and before the Pilots lost games to Portland State, Idaho and Nevada)?
3. Seth Davis’ mailbag includes even more stock reports, including those of Pitt, Vandy and much discussion of some of the others discussed earlier this week.  Great banter, as always.
4. Hoops historians, do you know who Travis Grant is?  He scored over 4,000 points and won three national championships at Kentucky State, but he isn’t in any Hall of Fame at any level of the sport (actually, he is in one HOF as of last two months ago).   Fanhouse has a good read on the player nicknamed the “Machine Gun.“
5. Gary Parrish is doing a weekly article counting down the top ten NCAA Tournament games of the last decade.  We remember this tenth choice very well.  Let’s just say that the Ron Lewis three at the end of regulation was a dagger through our wallet that we felt for at least a month after that fateful shot.  Which game will be #1?  Arizona-Illinois?  Kansas-Memphis?  West Virginia-Louisville?  Arizona-Gonzaga?  We could go on and on…

1. Rutgers inside force Gregory Echinique will miss approximately a month due to eye surgery to correct a pre-existing condition recently.  Which begs the question – if it was pre-existing, why not have the surgery during the offseason?  Did it become aggravated?  The 6’9 forward is averaging 13/8/2 blks on the season, and the Scarlet Knights will undoubtedly miss his presence in upcoming games against beefy frontlines at North Carolina, Cincinnati and West Virginia.
2. This is rich.  Binghamton continues to pay coaching disaster Kevin Broadus his full $230k yearly salary while interim coach Mark Macon draws one-quarter as much money for, you know, actually coaching the remaining players on the team.  At least Macon is getting a raise, although the amount of the increase was not disclosed by the university.  As for Broadus, the “job” he’s earning six-figures for right now is to assist SUNY with their investigation into the Binghamton athletic department.  What does that mean exactly?  Get coffee?  Make copies?  Do both at the same time?
3. Luke Winn probably knocked this article about the first Irianian player in D1 basketball out in fifteen minutes while surfing his blackberry iPhone and eating a bran muffin, which should probably tell you something about the talent he has for research and writing.  It would take us three straight weeks just to pen the first paragraph.
4. Memphis filed an appeal against the NCAA’s decision to vacate its 2008 season based on the Derrick Rose SAT scandal, even with the distinct possibility that the school could face a harsher punishment than currently imposed if they did so.  We’re not really keen on the NCAA Committee on Infractions using this heavyhanded method of leverage to try to force schools to swallow their initial decision just because they said so.  Memphis correctly argued that this creates a “chilling effect” for schools that wish to use their legal right to appeal, and even cited language from a 2001 case against UNLV to that effect.  We’re starting to wonder if someone at the NCAA lost a lot of money on Memphis that season, because this is taking the appearance of vindictiveness.
5. Jumping back to Tuesday’s discussion on Expansion 96, Andy Katz weighed in yesterday on his blog.  He noted that recently deceased NCAA President Myles Brand was steadfastly opposed to expansion along with several of the other traditionalists, and we’re wondering if the power vacuum in Brand’s absence hasn’t created a bit of a money grab among some of the dissenters within the NCAA heirarchy.  Let’s hope tradition wins out, or at worst, the option that Katz describes (four play-in games, pushing the Tourney up to 68 teams) is the preferred result if things must change.

1. A little fun or a some serious jabs between UConn’s Stanley Robinson and Kentucky’s DeMarcus Cousins prior to tonight’s game in the SEC/Big East Invitational at MSG?  You be the judge.  Was Robinson joking when he called Cousins an “arrogant player?”  Separate.  Sources.
2. Has Butler painted itself into a corner by losing nearly every one of its marquee games thus far this season?  Gary Parrish, Jeff Goodman and Luke Winn believe so, and we’re inclined to agree with them.  Horizon League POY Matt Howard has ok numbers, but he’s averaging a ridiculous FOUR fouls per game, including five DQs so far this season, which is 25% more than his career average of 3.2 FPG, so he really needs to get that under control.
3. Remember former Louisville enigmatic big man Derrick Caracter?  In case you missed it, he’s currently at UTEP and the school is awaiting his grades to see if he will qualify to play this season.  UTEP is sitting at 8-0, so Caracter could help shore up a frontline that is already getting the job done.
4. Here’s a whole laundry list of additional reasons why Expansion 96 is a terrible idea, building upon our argument from yesterday that there simply aren’t enough deserving teams.  Seriously, who do we need to bribe to ensure that this NEVER happens???
5. Occasionally, we’ll come across a tweet that gives us a chuckle, and we’ll share it with you guys as part of this feature.  Today’s comes from the rather hirsute northwesterner, Matt Bouldin from Gonzaga, who succinctly puts his thoughts on head-shearing into tweet form.  We’ll be interested to see how it came out, Matt.

Each week RTC will posit a That’s Debatable question or topic that is relevant to the world of college basketball.  Sometimes whimsical, sometimes serious, we’ll post the thoughts from our core editing crew (in 200 words or less), but we’ll also be expanding to include our contributors and correspondents as appropriate throughout the season.  We also invite you, the readers, to join us as we mull over some of the questions facing the game today.  Feel free to send us your takes and/or leave them in the comments below.

This Week’s Topic: How do you expect Ohio State to handle the loss of NPOY candidate Evan Turner for up to two months after his back injury over the weekend?

zach hayes – editor/contributor, RTC

I expect Ohio State to have an incredibly difficult time recovering from this devastating injury. No player meant more to his team than Evan Turner. Now Thad Matta is left with P.J. Hill and Jerimie Simmons at the point guard position for two months. Not only that, but Turner was the Buckeyes’ best passer and their most reliable rebounder. Turner will likely miss six crucial games – at Butler, at West Virginia in the non-conference and four Big Ten road games in 21 days against tournament teams in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Purdue. Without Turner, the Buckeyes will probably be decided underdogs in all six of these games which could have garnered quality wins on their resume. Unless Jon Diebler and William Buford get extremely hot from outside, Ohio State could be trending more towards the bubble than the top-15 the rest of the way.

john stevens – editor/contributor, RTC

I’m not sounding the death knell on Ohio State just yet.  Obviously they’re better with Evan Turner, but this is where that whole Thad Matta recruiting prowess comes into play.  This is a deep team of talented players, illustrated by the fact that they have ten guys who average over ten minutes a game.  They know the value of shot selection, as they’re currently second in the nation in FG%.  Jon Diebler has played excellent basketball so far, and now guys like William Buford, Jeremie Simmons, and Dallas Lauderdale will have to play a few more minutes and hit a couple more shots.  But I’m putting the spotlight squarely on David Lighty.  When he went down last year, it really hurt this team, but they carried on.  This is his chance to pay them back.  Diebler and Lighty are still a tough duo and, assuming Turner doesn’t come back early, only have to get to early February without him.  Then, Turner will return to a squad of more empowered players.  Certainly they’d love to have him now, but if Matta convinces his team to use the Turner injury as a rallying point, they could be even tougher come March.

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