Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger claimed via Twitter over the weekend that a Wisconsin fan spit on him during their RTC on Saturday after the Badgers knocked off then-#1 OSU. We have no reason to disbelieve his take on what a fan may have done in the aftermath of a huge victory such as that one, but Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryansaid in his Monday teleconference: “All I know is that we won the game, deal with it.” Something tells us that Sullinger will remember both spittle and comment in the rematch in Columbus on March 6.
This doesn’t sound good at all, but Florida’s versatile forward Chandler Parsons has been on crutches since Saturday’s win over Tennessee, 61-60. According to this report, he suffered a deep thigh bruise during that game and it has since started bleeding — the expectation is that he’ll be out of practice several days and quite possibly through next weekend’s game against LSU. Florida’s fortunes have risen the past few weeks directly in accordance with Parsons’ play — in the five games prior to the UT victory, Parsons had averaged 15/11 as UF went 4-1 over that period and moved to the top of the SEC standings.
We love this column from Seth Davis each year — his annual Book of Finch, a mash-up of several scouts’ opinions on many of the best players in college basketball this season. You need to read the entire thing, but here’s a preview: Finch likes Jimmer Fredette (comparing him to Mark Price) and Perry Jones (best talent in the class), but isn’t high on JaJuan Johnson (no post game) and Renardo Sidney (“no interest” in a “fat kid”). Awesome stuff.
San Diego State head coach Steve Fisherwas reprimanded on Monday by the Mountain West Conference for his comments last week ripping Wyoming for firing head coach Heath Schroyer with a month left in the season. We tend to agree with Fisher here when he noted that the MWC isn’t the NBA or the NFL. While nobody around here will fall for the idea of amateurism in college athletics, we really don’t see the advantage that Wyoming earned by making the move when it did. The Cowboys’ season will be over soon enough — there’s no reason to make such a change in the middle of the year like that.
Syracuse beat WVU last night, but perhaps Jim Boeheim read this piece from Searching for Billy Edelinabout SU only having three quality wins this season, because he came tonight’s press conference ready to spar with the assembled media about numerous things. Seriously, though, his beef wasn’t with the quality win issue as much as what his record is against certain coaches (namely, Rick Pitino) and why the Syracuse media had printed only a snapshot of his career against him. The whole video is worthwhile, but if you’re short on time, the good stuff starts at around the 3:00 mark up until around 7:30. Enjoy.
The Lede. Who knew that a medium-sized flyover state known more for its brats and cheese could become the center of the American sports universe, even if just for a bit? But with the top ten seasons of both the Wisconsin Badger football and basketball teams (now including victories over #1 Ohio State in both sports), plus a little Super Bowl-winning team a couple hours to the northeast in Green Bay, a fair argument could be made, couldn’t it? This too shall pass, but what will not is that Bo Ryan is an unbelievable coach and we should just go ahead and slot his teams into the top twenty every season regardless of the personnel he has returning. Honestly, it’s getting a little ridiculous just how successful this guy is year after year.
Jordan Taylor: King of Madison, Wisconsin (Cap Times/A. Mertz)
Your Watercooler Moment. Unbeaten Ohio State Goes Down. When the nation’s #1 team dunks, bombs and outmuscles you in your house on its way to a fifteen-point lead in the second half, most teams wilt as quickly as those flowers you bought for your girlfriend surely will about 48 hours from now. Wisconsin does not wilt. In fact, the Badgers don’t even bend much, at least not in their Big 10 House of Horrors known as the Kohl Center. Matching like with like, Bo Ryan’s team simply upped its resolve, made some stops and ripped off a 15-0 run of its own (ten points by Jordan Taylor) to tie the game at the 9:49 mark. The last ten minutes of this game represented some of the most exciting basketball of the season, with each team taking turns showing how to score until Taylor (and his 24/4/7 assts) created some separation with his fifth three-pointer of the game at the 5:34 mark. From that point on, it was clear that the Badgers were going to win the game and put an end to the Buckeyes’ unbeaten season, in much the same way that their football counterparts had last October 16 at Camp Randall Stadium. When OSU cut the lead to two with just under a minute to go, it was the floppy-haired Mike Bruesewitz direct from central casting who shot-faked and nailed a ginormous three to effectively salt the game away and set the Kohl Center on fire. At the end of the game, there was the obligatory RTC, as it was only the second time in history that the Badgers had knocked off a #1 team, and this particular OSU team was also the last remaining unbeaten. Full and complete coverage of the court was achieved, as viewed in the video below. Well done, Badgers.
This Weekend’s Quick Hits…
Pitt Without Ashton Gibbs. It was one thing to win the Backyard Brawl without Ashton Gibbs on the floor last Monday night; but to waltz into the Pavilion on ESPN Gameday and beat the Wildcats in their on-campus building where they had not lost in four years? Very impressive work, Panthers. We realize that Villanova played with Corey Stokes as well, but on this night it was Jamie Dixon’s team who was simply tougher than Jay Wright’s. The physical play and three technical fouls as a result are characteristic of Pitt’s wheelhouse, and when push came to shove, it was the Panthers showing that they are indeed the Big East’s best team and a possible #1 seed next month. Their toughest remaining game is a trip to Louisville, but would it surprise anyone if the Panthers ran the table the rest of the way to 17-1?
Norris Cole’s He-Man Game. 20/10 nights are damn impressive in the college game, but try doubling it. Norris Cole became just the second player in the last fifteen seasons to drop a 40/20 in a single game — and the other was an athletic specimen you might have heard of named Blake Griffin (40/23 against Texas Tech in 2009). Cole went for an absurd 41/20/9 assts against Youngstown State on Saturday, leaving us to wonder if he also ran the sound system, operated the scoring table and mopped up the soda residue and popcorn stains afterward. Sheesh… We know that Cole has had a handful (three, to be exact) of double-figure rebounding games this season, but how a 6’2, 170-pounder can pull down twenty makes no sense to us — he’s up for the Cousy Award as the best point guard in America, and with Cleveland State near the top of the Horizon League standings, let’s all hope that we get to see this kid play on the biggest stage this March.
While we love to celebrate teamwork in college basketball, the truth is that the individual is much more fun. Balanced scoring is fine and tactically sound, but what we really love in college basketball is the virtuoso offensive performance, or as it is called in 2011, the Jimmer. And while the three-headed Devil from Durham may have won last season, perhaps this season, the one man show is back in style. It’s Michael Jordan’s fault, really. His competitive nature and unbelievable personal narcissism motivated him to incredible heights and made him largely unbearable to most of his contemporaries. His success provided a model for greatness that was easy to recognize and hard to argue with. There are lots of different names for the Jordan model, but Bill Simmons’ version is probably the best known: The Alpha Dog.
Yeah, It's Safe to Call MJ an Alpha Dog
Simmons didn’t invent the concept or the term: lots of analysts, sportswriters, announcers and coaches have described the alpha dog model in one way or another over the years. The gist of it is this: A team needs an undisputed leader. The alpha dog is the go-to-guy on offense and is the guy who takes the game-winning shots. To win championships, you need an alpha dog. Jordan was an alpha dog (at least for the Bulls if not for North Carolina), and he is the primary reason his team won championships. Despite being a team game, you need an alpha dog to win, to demand the right to take the last shot. Guys who pass up the last shot aren’t alpha dogs: they are losers. At least, that’s the catechism. However, in the grand world of Simmon-isms, there may be another theory at play.
Specifically, I’m talking about the Ewing Theory, which in short, postulates that sometimes a team will play better without its star player, that the team will transcend the individual. Does this contradict the Alpha Dog theory? Well then it contradicts the Alpha Dog theory. Simmons, like Walt Whitman, contains multitudes. In any case, the Sports Guy has lots of examples, and anecdotally, lots of folks have seen this with their own eyes and believe it. It’s not too hard to imagine a scenario where this makes sense. The star is a volume scorer and fairly inefficient, and when the star is out of the game, the other players get more shots and more efficient shots. This is fairly intuitive and you can see the principle in action every Kentucky game. Terrence Jones is a sensational basketball player and undoubtedly incredibly skilled. That said, he is the fifth most efficient scorer on the team, but takes 30.5% of the shots. If he took fewer shots and his teammates took more, the team’s offensive efficiency would go up.
At Ohio State, Jared Sullinger uses, by far, the most possessions in each game, and for the most part, that’s fine. Sullinger is an incredibly efficient scorer with an offensive rating of 123.6 (points per hundred possessions). That said, Sullinger’s teammate Jon Diebler has an insane offensive rating of 139.1 and yet uses only 12.5% of Ohio State’s possessions. If I were to pretend you were naive here, you would then ask why Ohio State isn’t constantly feeding Jon Diebler. Fortunately, you aren’t naive and you understand that efficency is fleeting. Or if not exactly fleeting, curved.
The Lede. It might have been a Super Weekend elsewhere in the American sports universe, but this weekend’s college hoops slate left a lot to be desired. There were few good matchups on paper, and even fewer in practice. It’s hard to get through approximately 165 games, though, and not have something worthwhile to talk about, so we’ll of course ferret out the best of the weekend here.
Derrick Williams & Arizona Are On the Rise (Az Daily Star/D. Sanders)
Your Watercooler Moment. Game of the Year?Arizona Beats Cal in a Regular Season Classic. RTC Live was lucky enough to be there for the 107-105 thriller, and we’re not sure we’ve seen a more back-and-forth, exciting game in a random regular season setting. Certainly not in person. The comparison that immediately comes to mind was the 2007 Texas-Oklahoma State game, another game where nobody outside of certain local viewing areas actually saw the action. With around ten minutes to go, in what had to that point been a fun high-scoring game that visiting Arizona appeared to be in control of, the Wildcats’ Solomon Hill elbowed Jorge Gutierrez on the break, drawing an intentional foul and handing the momentum back to Cal. From that point on, with the score 59-54, both teams punched and counter-punched each other in a classic final twenty-five minutes of action with more twists and turns than Highway 1 up the Big Sur coast. The game ultimately changed hands seventeen times and was tied fourteen other times, including after regulation and a first and second overtime. So many players stepped up for both sides, including Pac-10 FrOY candidate Allen Crabbe (27/7), POY candidate Derrick Williams (12/18), but the star of stars on this night was UA’s sophomore guard Lamont “MoMo” Jones. The brash New Yorker hit a tough runner (and-1) from behind the basket to send the game into the first overtime, then drained a 22-footer with six seconds to go in the second overtime to tie the game, then made the go-ahead layup with a minute left in the third overtime. “Just a day in the life of MoMo Jones,” he said afterward, but with Arizona now at 9-2 in the Pac-10 and a game ahead of UCLA in the loss column and two games ahead of league favorite Washington, people around the country should do themselves the favor to learn that Sean Miller’s desert rats are more than simply a dominant post player on the blocks in Williams. This Wildcat team is a year or more ahead of schedule, but should anyone who has tracked Miller’s career to this point be surprised?
Buckeyes Roll On. After Ohio State’s Sunday win over Minnesota in Minny, the Buckeyes are 24-0 with its next game scheduled on Saturday, February 12, in Madison. The last time any team has gone this late in the year with an unbeaten record was Memphis in 2007-08, a team that didn’t lose until February 23 that year. The last time a power conference team went undefeated this late was the 2005 Illinois Fighting Illini, who ran out to a 29-0 record before losing in the final regular season game against none other than Ohio State. That Illini team also went to the national title game before losing a close one to North Carolina. Certainly with a diversified offense that includes Jared Sullinger as its centerpiece (18/13 against the Gophers), OSU has designs on a similar or even better track than their conference brethren from a half-decade ago.
A Wildcat Sort of Saturday. We mentioned the Arizona Wildcats above, but a couple of other sets of Cats had pretty a pretty good weekend as well. The Northwestern Wildcats kept what little NCAA pulse they have alive with a nice win over Illinois in Evanston, and the Kansas State Wildcats did likewise with a one-point road win over Iowa State. Jacob Pullen used the bounce to get to the rim for the game-winning layup with three seconds remaining. Neither of these wins are blockbusters, but they’re the type that you simply must have if you have designs on making a final push. The Big 10 Wildcats next five games are against unranked teams, while the Big 12 Wildcats face similar in three of the next four — does either team have the guts to save its once-promising season? Other Wildcat teams — Davidson, New Hampshire, Villanova and Weber State — also won on Saturday. Apologies to Kentucky and Bethune-Cookman, though, the sole losing felines.
Indiana’s Christian Watford broke his hand over the weekend against Michigan State and had surgery on it yesterday; he will be out indefinitely. This is just another gut-punch to the stomachs of Indiana fans everywhere, as Watford, IU’s leading scorer, represents the third Hoosier starter to miss significant time (Maurice Creek and Verdell Jones III are the others). This comes on the heels of what was the most promising week for Indiana basketball in quite some time — a win over Illinois and an overtime loss to Michigan State. Say what you want about Tom Crean as a head coach (and we’ve said a lot), but it’s especially difficult to get wins in the Big Ten when you don’t have your full hand to play with.
A couple of other significant players suffered injuries recently. Tennessee’s Scotty Hopson sprained his ankle at practice on Tuesday and is considered uncertain for Thursday night’s game at Auburn. According to this story, it was bad enough that he had a protective boot on and he left the arena after practice in crutches. UT has won its last four games and part of the reason for their improved play has been Hopson, so if he isn’t at 100%, even a trip to Auburn could be troublesome. Meanwhile, St. John’s announced that forward Justin Brownlee had suffered a fracture of his left thumb during Sunday’s huge Red Storm win over Duke, a game in which he had 20/9/6 assts. He will wear a splint on the thumb, though, and is not expected to miss any time from practice nor games.
Mike DeCourcy writes that Auburn’s Tony Barbee believes that the NBA will go back to the preps-to-pros route as a result of next summer’s collective bargaining agreement between the NBA Players Association and the owners. He says that he’s been talking to “people” who seem to be in the know, but we question if those people are tied into the owners, management and David Stern — the group that will ultimately drive this decision. We’re on record stating that both the preps-to-pros and the so-called “baseball rule” are bad for the game of college basketball, but the NBA’s self-interest will rule the day and ensure that names like John Wall, Kyrie Irving and Jared Sullinger have value and cachet behind them prior to entering the league as rookies.
We thought this was an interesting article from the Cleveland State Cauldron lamenting that CSU basketball is a consistent winner in a town that traditionally has not had many of those, yet it still has significant trouble getting any kind of attention from anyone in the community at-large. The Vikings are currently 20-3 overall and 9-2 in the Horizon League with second-place Valpo and traditional power Butler coming to town this weekend. We agree, Cleveland… get out there and support this team. They just might end up being one of the best mid-major stories of the year in all of college basketball again.
In the inaugural year of this blog, we took SI writer Grant Wahl (who has since moved on to cover soccer) to task over his Magic Eight selections for leaving UNC off his list of teams that would win the title. That season was 2007-08 and, if you recall, he was right. Both Kansas and Memphis were on his list, but the Jayhawk obliteration of North Carolina in the national semifinals validated his concerns. Consider our crow eaten. After what sounds to be significant negotiations, Luke Winn has revitalized the Magic Eight this season, and his choices are a combination of obvious and bold, as such: BYU, Duke, Georgetown, Kentucky, Ohio State, Texas, Tennessee and Washington. As he acknowledges, leaving Kansas, Pittsburgh, UConn and SDSU out are rather huge gambles, but we’ll see how he does as things develop over the next month.
Last Four In: UAB, Washington State, Richmond, Penn State.
Last Four Out: Maryland, Gonzaga, Butler, Colorado State.
Analysis:
With the upheaval at the top of the rankings, there was as much competition for the #1 seeds this week as in any of the previous brackets. After Ohio State as the standout overall #1 seed, Pittsburgh, Kansas and Texas slid into the final three spots. Connecticut likely would have earned the spot occupied by Texas if they had closed out Louisville at home on Saturday. Although the Huskies edged the Longhorns in Austin, the overall portfolio leans ever so slightly towards Texas. As always, this is a fluid situation and could change tonight should Texas fall in College Station.
BYU also would have been in prime contention to snag a #1 seed if they hadn’t slipped up at the Pit against New Mexico on Saturday. The Cougars boasted the top RPI in the land prior to the loss (Kansas re-claimed that esteemed spot). BYU now joins fellow Mountain West member San Diego State on the #2 seed line along with Connecticut and Duke, who drops to the final #2 seed and #8 overall.
This past weekend was a major step forward for the Big East in their quest for obliterating the record for NCAA teams in one conference with Marquette edging Syracuse and St. John’s trouncing of Duke. All 11 contenders remained in the field this week and the lowest was Cincinnati as a #10 seed. The Bearcats look like the most vulnerable team in the conference to miss on an NCAA bid with both Marquette (Notre Dame, Syracuse, a plethora of close losses to NCAA teams) and St. John’s (Duke, Notre Dame, Georgetown, at West Virginia) having compiled some exemplary wins. Cincinnati still plays Louisville, Connecticut and Georgetown on their home floor.
Bid stealer alert! Alabama at 5-1 in the SEC automatically gains that conference’s automatic bid with both Florida and Kentucky having suffered two defeats in conference play. This bumps Maryland just barely out of the bracket.
Where have you gone Cinderella? The most famous of the last decade’s tournament darlings — Gonzaga and Butler –– both find themselves out of the field this week. The Zags have lost three of four in WCC play including road defeats at San Francisco and Santa Clara, while Butler has now fallen four times in Horizon play after running the table a season ago. Downing St. Mary’s in Moraga or Memphis in February would go a long way for Gonzaga and their ugly #90 RPI. Butler may have to win the Horizon League tournament which could be played in Valparaiso or Cleveland.
I’d like to formally welcome Penn State to the field! Home wins over Wisconsin, Michigan State and Illinois carried the Nittany Lions into the bracket for the first time. Close losses at Ohio State and at Purdue also won’t be ignored by the committee. While objectivity always comes first in Bracketology, I’d personally love to see Talor Battle in an NCAA Tournament game.
The Lede. What a weekend. Unless you care about the Pro Bowl (and really, other than gamblers, who does?), we here in the college hoops universe had the sports world to ourselves, and the weekend gods in charge made sure that we had a wild and woolly preview of March even though the calendar still said otherwise. Fully half of the ranked teams in the RTC Top 25 lost over the weekend, and quite a few others including two of the top three teams in America hung on by the skin of their teeth. What this shows us once again is that there are no dominant teams in basketball this year; even though Ohio State remains undefeated, they’ve had numerous close encounters and it’s clear that the Buckeyes are merely one of a dozen teams with the goods to win six straight this spring. It should be a wild ride through the remaining five weeks of the regular season; if this weekend’s results are any indication, we should all down a few anti-vertigo meds and strap ourselves in.
St. John's Made the Garden Rock Again Today (Getty/N. Laham)
Your Watercooler Moment. Duke Destroyed in the Garden. The last time we saw the Duke Blue Devils so thoroughly undressed as they were in today’s matchup with St. John’s at the Garden, many observers at the time believed that Coach K had lost some of his touch on the recruiting trail and his teams simply could not compete at the highest level of college basketball anymore. On that day, Villanova used a dominant second half to rattle the Devils with its superior quickness and athleticism, forcing Duke to fire off 22 bricks from beyond the arc (versus five makes) in the game and generally embarrassing a team that had been ranked as high as #1 at one point that season. Today’s game against Steve Lavin’s fun group of Johnnies was not entirely dissimilar. Duke looked generally slow, uninterested and incapable of making an outside shot (shooting 5-26 from deep after starting out 1-19) while SJU had all the energy and emotion of a home crowd desperate for a winning program again. Whether this is emblematic of a bad day for Duke or indicative of a deeper set of problems, we’ll have to see how February goes before making that decision. Make no mistake, though, today’s result was a major red flag for the defending national champs. Teams that win titles don’t find themselves down 50-25 to anybody, much less unranked teams.
Ashton Gibbs and Jared Sullinger. A couple of big-time players making big-time shots in the clutch with their teams on the verge of defeat. #1 Ohio State appeared to be in serious trouble when David Lighty got the ball into Sullinger deep in the post off a steal. He was fouled and subsequently hit 1-of-2 free throws with three seconds remaining and all the noise and pressure of the Northwestern students weighing on him at the time. Just another day at the office (21/8) for the impressive freshman. At Rutgers, it was the junior Gibbs (24/4) who played the role of Mr. Clutch, drilling a 25-footer as the shot clock wound down and the Panthers clinging to a precarious one-point lead. His three gave Pitt just enough breathing room to keep Rutgers on the fouling strategy, ultimately unsuccessful as Pitt hit twelve down the stretch to salt away another win.
The Texas Defense. It’s starting to scare us. We know that the Longhorn defense is already the most efficient in America, but to put the clamps on an offensive juggernaut like Missouri in holding the Tigers to 58 points (25 below their season average) is ridiculous. In six Big 12 games, they’re holding teams to 54 points per game, a statistic that is particularly amazing when you consider that three of those wins were against teams in the top 15. If Rick Barnes can coax a little more offense from his young team, the Horns might end up as the best team in America by March.
Game #119. The nation’s top-ranked team visits struggling Northwestern this evening.
#1 Ohio State comes to Welsh-Ryan Arena on Saturday night with a perfect record and a dominating cast of players. Jared Sullinger should find plenty of room in the paint against a porous Northwestern interior defense, or the 1-3-1 zone, and the Buckeyes tend to knock down shots from everywhere. Northwestern’s star player, John Shurna, suffered a concussion in the Wildcats’ latest disappointing loss at Minnesota and will be a game-time decision. If he can’t go Northwestern will be undermanned at almost every position on the court. Still, can Northwestern pull the epic upset? It’ll be televised on ESPN2 and you can follow along during the whole game here starting at 6 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. CT.
This is my favorite part of the college basketball season. Everything is more certain, yet still mutable: we know where things stand, but for most, it’s not too late for a strong push to finish the season. We don’t have to rely on pre-season guesswork or early returns: we have an idea of the mettle of most teams. The hype around fall flavors like Kansas State has been forgotten, and instead, we now read up on San Diego State. Here is the part of the season where we have taken stock of the landscape, the prologue is over, and now, we get to the good stuff: the build-up to conference championships and March confrontations. That said, the landscape of college basketball is as interesting as it’s ever been. It would be wrong of us to move along too quickly without stopping to admire some of the interesting and stylistically odd teams that this season has given us. And speaking of moving too quickly, let’s take some time to look at some of the more interesting slow-as-Christmas teams in the country.
Ryan's System Works For Him
In Madison, they are, as always, playing Bo Ryan’s brand of basketball, but this year the team has achieved a special level of Ryan-ness. With an emphasis on fundamentals, this Wisconsin team is the pride of sanctimonious gym teachers across this fair land. The team rarely ever turns the ball over, easily leading the nation by surrendering the ball only 13.5% of the time. As a team, the Badgers are the best free throw shooting team in the nation, making 81.9% of their free throws. With those two distinctions, Wisconsin is now, if it wasn’t already, officially, the epitome of dad-basketball across the nation. Unfortunately, the meticulous style of play also means that Wisconsin leads the nation in one more category: slowest pace. The Badgers average 58 father-pleasing possessions a game.
At Samford, they are playing slowly as well, and while the style of play isn’t exactly dad-pleasing, it’s certainly interesting. It’s mostly confusing, but technically superlative in quite a few ways. Samford leads the nation in assist-to-field-goal ratio, which may or may not mean anything. They also easily lead the nation in proportion of three point shots taken, shooting 56.1% of their shots from beyond the arc. They are also the worst team in the nation at offensive rebounding, grabbing only 19.1% of available boards. I have not seen Samford play, but from the numbers I’m picking up on the kind of mad-genius idea that few coaches and teams have the stomach to implement.
This idea has been batted around for some time now, but it looks like it’s going to come to fruition. North Carolina and Michigan State are finalizing a deal to play each other next Veteran’s Day (November 11) on an aircraft carrier in San Diego Harbor. At first, we wondered why an eastern team and a midwestern team would travel so far to play when they have perfectly good aircraft carriers in their half of the country (Norfolk, Virginia, for example). And then we realized that the game will occur in November, and well, the game will be outside. San Diego’s rather predictable weather makes for a safer bet, and a deal should be announced soon for what will make for a rather interesting gimmick game. Let’s just hope that they properly adjust for the wind coming in off the water.
In advance of tonight’s blockbuster game in Provo, Luke Winn breaks down Jimmer Fredette’sfour worst performances of the season for some clues that San Diego State may use to try to contain him. It was interesting to hear South Florida’s Stan Heath discussing how his team defended both UConn’s Kemba Walker and Fredette, ultimately concluding that Fredette was the tougher cover because “his shooting range is a little more extended [and] while Kemba is quicker and more explosive, Fredette’s changes-of-speed, plus his hops and step-back moves, make him better. And when he elevates to shoot, he really gets up in the air.” Great stuff.
This commentary by the Austin American-Statesman’s Kirk Bohls discusses the gargantuan difference in team chemistry between last year’s Texas team and this year’s edition. It’s clear that even the locals around Austin are sensing a little something special about the group that Rick Barnes has at his disposal this time around. For our money, we’d agree; nobody in the country has more upside than this team. And if Jordan Hamilton can get his Glen Rice on in March, don’t be shocked to see UT playing in Houston in April.
Conference realignment ain’t over. The Mountain West Conference is meeting in Las Vegas this week and is prepared to offer current WAC school Utah State membership to replace the losses of Salt Lake City-area schools Utah (Pac-12) and BYU (independent + WCC). Last year USU turned down the MWC when it appeared that BYU was planning on leaving the conference for the WAC, causing the league to enact an end-around and effectively blow up the WAC by poaching several of its schools.
With Ohio State’s win over Purdue last night and SDSU on the chopping block tonight at BYU, the talk of unbeaten regular seasons is ramping up. We’re still a long way from serious consideration of that achievement by one of the final two unbeatens, but Mike DeCourcy harkened back to the 27-0 2003-04 St. Joseph’s team in discussing how the pressure builds with each passing game. It certainly makes things more interesting for us journo-bloggers out there, eh?
