Happy New Year, everyone! After a brief hiatus over the holidays, the RTC Podblast is back for the first edition of 2014 and ready to get on with the rest of the season! As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosts the proceedings, guiding the guys through topics that included the biggest takeaway from games the last two weeks, a number of injuries and suspensions that have come down lately, and most importantly, #rootforthesuit. A full rundown is below. We’ll be back on our regular schedule with the next full RTC Podcast dropping on Tuesday.
Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2013-14 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. For the next three weeks, you’ll get two hits of excitement each weekday. We’ve captured what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. To see the entire released series so far, click here.
Yesterday we mentioned that SI.com‘s Andy Glockner was brewing up a firestorm with his series of articles ranking the top 20 current programs in college basketball. Such an endeavor has two verifiable truths: first, everyone loves lists; second, everyone loves to rip lists. With that in mind (and he’s well aware of those truths), his honorable mentions came out Monday, followed by his rankings of programs from #16 to #20 on Tuesday. In order, let’s welcome Gonzaga, Illinois, Michigan, Georgetown and Texas to the top 20. Of this group, we’re having the most trouble with the Illinois pick at #19. The Illini had a renaissance season under the tutelage of new head coach John Groce last year, but spent most of the previous five years struggling to regain its national relevance of the early-to-mid 2000s. We realize of course that Glockner is using historical and other qualitative metrics to make these determinations, but we probably would have had Pittsburgh, Marquette, Xavier and several others ahead of the Illini. Still, that’s nitpicky. What will really make or break this list will be how Glockner handles the top five (and the fans of the four runners-up will let him know it!). We’re excited to see the next group released later today.
As more and more people marry themselves to the idea that college football and basketball players are being exploited by their schools and the NCAA, we’ll continue to see analyses like one from Business Insider published on Tuesday. Their methodology for determining the fair market value of players at the top 25 revenue-producing football schools is quite simple, probably overly simple — just multiply football revenue by 47 percent (per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with its players), then divide by the number of scholarships (85). What BI found mimics the numbers we’ve seen elsewhere — at the richest athletic schools such as Texas, Alabama and Michigan, college football players are worth roughly a half-million dollars each annually in value. The same analysis is also easy enough to do for college basketball players. Louisville‘s hoops revenue of $42.4 million in 2012 is divided in half given the NBA’s rough 50/50 split with the players, leaving $21.2 million to be split 13 ways. The result: a Cardinals’ basketball player is worth $1.63 million to the university (if you buy into this methodology). This is the mistake that many of these gridiron-centric analyses don’t realize — while it’s definitely true that football provides more aggregate revenue to the schools, the players in college basketball are individually much more valuable. If you want to make the point most strongly, which is the better headline? Texas football players are worth a half-million each; or Louisville basketball players are worth three times that much?
While on the subject of football powers, the NCAA announced yesterday that Penn State would regain some of the football scholarships it lost as a result of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. In announcing the removal of those sanctions, the NCAA recognized that the school had made great efforts to change its culture of abuse but NCAA president Mark Emmert made it clear that other schools shouldn’t expect a reduction in their own penalties. That’s too bad, writes The Dagger‘s Jeff Eisenberg, who outlines four major recent (and fixable) misfires by the NCAA, two of which were focused on men’s basketball. The most well-known example, of course, was the NCAA’s “strict liability” punishment on Memphis for playing Derrick Rose in the 2007-08 season, even though the NCAA Clearinghouse had deemed him eligible to play before that season. The other is far less recognizable, involving the NCAA’s decision to rule that Old Dominion’s Donte Hill was ineligible for his senior season because he played eight minutes in a closed-door preseason scrimmage against Clemson back in 2010. We’re quite sure that we could probably come up with a dozen more of these if we spent the time on it, but Eisenberg’s list is a good place to start. It wouldn’t hurt the NCAA to consider more reductions (or commutation) of sentences based on additional facts, precedents and behaviors.
What’s a Final Four appearance worth to an MVC school like Wichita State? We’ll have to wait for the Business Insider analysis on that one, but it’s at least worth around $600,000 to its head coach, Gregg Marshall. The university announced his new salary on Tuesday, with a base of $1.6 million that kicks in this November and another raise to $1.75 million that begins next April. The long-underrated head coach will move into the top 25 or so highest-paid college basketball coaches as a result of this raise, which is a substantial financial commitment for a school living outside the Power Six or Seven hoops leagues. But Final Four appearances at schools like Wichita State tend to result in ironclad job security.
Believe it or not, but with the new practice rules in effect this season, schools will actually begin suiting up for real, live, full-on practices this Friday. As in 48 hours from now. One of the players who will definitely be there to play post-practice games of HORSE with his teammates is Ole Miss’ Marshall Henderson. As reported by Gary Parrish at CBSSports.com, Andy Kennedy expects the all-SEC shooting guard to be on the floor Friday. The controversial shooting guard reportedly failed multiple drug tests and spent much of the offseason “suspended” from the team, whatever that means, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. There aren’t all that many name-brand players who pass through Oxford, Mississippi — especially in roundball — so there was not much of a question as to whether Henderson would suit up this year.
RTC is reporting from the Final Four in Atlanta, Georgia, this weekend.
Three Key Takeaways.
Luke Hancock’s Game of His Life Ensured Louisville Advanced Tonight
The Game Was Ugly, But Louisville Can Do Ugly. One reason the Cards are so difficult to match up against is that they are just as comfortable playing an ugly, foul-ridden, poor-shooting train wreck of a game as they are an up-and-down virtuoso performance. This was the former. In the first half, the Cards allowed Wichita to force them to settle for long-range jumpers to the tune of 4-of-13 with only seven field goal attempts coming from two-point range. By the time Louisville had fallen behind 12 points just shy of midway through the second half, those numbers looked even worse — 18 shots from three and only 11 from within the arc. Only when Louisville started driving the ball inside to a more equitable split (the Cards finished the game with a 25/24 ratio) did openings appear for the only hot shooters on the floor, Luke Hancock and Tim Henderson.
Tim Henderson and Luke Hancock Saved the Day. Speaking of those two, there’s no question that their contributions on nights where Peyton Siva and Gorgui Dieng couldn’t make shots (they combined for a 1-of-10 performance) saved the Cardinals’ hides tonight. It wasn’t so much as the volume of scoring — Hancock ended up with 20 points, while Henderson had six — but it was the when that mattered most. After the Shockers’ lead ballooned to 12 points, it was Henderson who nailed consecutive threes to bring the lead back to a much more manageable six very quickly. If Wichita had pushed its lead up to 15 or more at that point, it’s questionable whether the Cards would have found enough offense to come back in this one. After Henderson’s pair of bombs, it was Hancock’s turn. He followed up with a pair of layups and a three, ensuring that the Louisville push was for real, and then not only gave the Cards its first lead in a long time with a three at the 6:30 mark, but essentially sealed the game with another one at two minutes. He also managed to get his hands on some balls for deflections and steals, but the key point is that 13 of his 20 points came in the last 12 minutes of the game. More on his Final Four-saving performance below.
Wichita Was One Bad Stretch From the Unthinkable. For much of this game, the appearance on the floor was that Gregg Marshall’s group was the better team. Their ability to not fall victim to the Louisville pressure was outstanding for the majority of the contest, mishandling the ball only five times in the first 33-plus minutes of action. Once Louisville started to finally get some shots to go down, Wichita got rattled for the first time all game, turning it over four times in the next two minutes and three more times down the stretch. It’s certainly not worthwhile to delve too much into hypotheticals, but Wichita had the exact game plan and execution it needed to win this one. Peyton Siva and Gorgui Dieng were offensive nightmares. Russ Smith was solid, but high-volume in his attack. Wayne Blackshear and Chane Behanan weren’t going to beat the Shockers tonight. It really took a totally couple of unexpected efforts from Hancock and Henderson to make the difference here in Atlanta, or it says here that Wichita would have been playing on Monday night.
Star of the Game. Luke Hancock, Louisville. Certainly didn’t have that one on the SOTG pool, and I’m not sure anyone else did either. As noted above, it wasn’t just his overall numbers — 20 points, four rebounds, two assists, two steals, on 6-of-9 from the field, including 3-of-5 from distance — it was that so much of his offensive effort was exactly when Louisville needed a player to step up. Hancock averaged 7.4 PPG this season and only hit the 20-point mark once all season (22 against Notre Dame in 46 minutes of action).
Andrew Murawa is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report from the Round of 32 game between #1 Gonzaga and #9 Wichita State at the Salt Lake City pod this evening.
The Shocker certainly live up to their name Saturday evening. (AP)
Three Key Takeaways.
Spectacular Ending. After trailing much of the first and start of second half, Gonzaga took a 43-41 lead with 13:39 remaining on a Mike Hart three. For the next seven minutes or so, it seemed like the Zags were on the verge of pulling away and a Kevin Pangos three with 6:30 remaining put the Bulldogs up seven. That was just the start of the madness. That Pangos three was just the start of five threes on six offensive possessions and a Carl Hall jumper gave Wichita State the lead back. Then, following a Ron Baker personal 5-0 run, Fred Vanvleet nailed the calmest, sweetest three anyone (anyone except a Zag fan, that is) ever did see with one second left on the shotclock to put the Shockers up seven and effectively seal the game. It was a wild stretch that left the West region without four of its top five seeds.
Wichita Three-Point Shooting. For the year, Wichita State is a 33% three-point shooting team, good for 213th in the nation. And just one player on the roster had made more than 40 threes this season. Today? The team went 14-of-28, got four threes from 29.8% three-point shooter Cleanthony Early and four threes from Baker, a freshman who missed 21 games in the middle of the season. That type of performance was, well, shocking, but ultimately it is what puts Gregg Marshall and company through to their first Sweet 16 in the Marshall era.
Gonzaga Rebounding. We knew coming into the game that Gonzaga would have a big size advantage inside, but with the way Wichita handled their business on the glass against Pittsburgh, the expectation was that the Shockers would be okay. Suffice it to say, they were not okay. While they did a fine job on their own offensive glass (35.7 OR%), they got smoked on the defensive glass, allowing the Zags to collect 21 offensive rebounds, grabbing better than half of their own misses. It was this, and a striking advantage from the free throw line (at least until the Zags had to foul in the end game scenario) that even allowed the Bulldogs to remain as close as they did.
Star of the Game. Ron Baker, Wichita State. First off, this is a kid that missed the last 21 game of the regular season, returning only in time for the start of the MVC Tournament, where he immediately jumped back into the fire by dropping 15 points. He joined the starting lineup against Pitt (but went 0-of-5 from the field), then tonight dropped a phenomenal game, doing a little bit of everything for the Shockers. He scored 16 points, knocked down four threes, grabbed six boards and has four assists, along with some excellent defense against the Zag guards. In a game with a six-point final margin, the Shockers were +19 with Baker on the floor.
Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), an Oregon-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive (or bike!) anywhere to watch a basketball game.
WINNER: Miami (FL)
Miami Fans RTC’d the Blue Devils Wednesday Night (credit: WaPo)
Jim Larranaga’s Hurricanes, by extension the subject of an NCAA inquiry regarding the alleged payment of former player DeQuan Jones, had one of the best weeks on and off the court of any school this season. First, the NCAA botched its investigation so much that it has to investigate its own investigators, according to CBS Sports. Then the ‘Canes went off and destroyed No. 1 Duke by the score of 90-63 on Wednesday, putting the third-worst beating ever onto an AP top-ranked team. Wednesday’s game also marked the return of gargantuan center Reggie Johnson (listed at 6’10”, 292 lbs.), who scored two points and grabbed five rebounds in his first game back from a broken thumb that was supposed to leave him out for up to another month. Miami now has a two-game lead on the rest of the ACC, although a return trip to Duke does remain. You know you had a good week when knocking off the top team in the country isn’t even the best thing that happened to you.
(Related winners: Miami guards Shane Larkin and Durand Scott, who combined to shoot 17-of-28 from the field on their way to 37 total points. Related losers: Duke guards Quinn Cook, Seth Curry and Tyler Thornton, who combined to go 1-of-29 from the field on their way to six total points; the NCAA – see below.)
LOSER: The NCAA
This was all set to be Frank Haith’s spot, as his Missouri team got shellacked by Florida 83-52 on Saturday, barely escaped at home Tuesday against South Carolina, and then news broke that Haith could face unethical conduct charges from the NCAA relating to the aforementioned DeQuan Jones issue. But instead, the NCAA now must review its own investigators’ conduct, particularly related to the release of Haith’s supposed looming punishments. So Haith is safe for now, and all of a sudden NCAA President Mark Emmert has another public relations maelstrom on his hands. Bummer.
(Related winners: Florida, because it still shellacked Mizzou. Related losers: Ethics.)
Chris Johnson is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.
Tonight’s Lede. Finals Week Is Nearly Gone. On a night dominated by talks of revolutionary conference transformation and the impending destruction of one of the sport’s proudest and most successful leagues in the past quarter century, paying any real attention to games – outside of a few noteworthy outcomes – was hardly anyone’s first priority. The good news is, thanks to the college hoops fan nightmare we like to call finals week, there weren’t many games worth watching in the first place. If you’re looking for big storylines or massive statement-making wins, Thursday night’s slate provided none of the sort. Instead, we witnessed the denouement of finals week torpor, and can now officially start looking ahead towards the biggest non-conference game of the season: Saturday’s Florida-Arizona showdown in Tucson. Tonight’s recap will underscore the recent scheduling lull, which only means you’ll feel doubly excited for Saturday’s big-time sampling. So here’s to the final remnants of college hoops’ weakest offering of games. May you rest in peace… at least until next season.
Your Watercooler Moment. Tennessee’s Offense Has Sparked To Life.
The Volunteers showed signs they’re moving out of their offensive slump (photo credit: AP photo).
The only thing more impressive than Tennessee scoring 69 points at home to knock off undefeated Wichita State is that the Volunteers did it despite star big man Jarnell Stokes logging just 18 minutes. Even if Stokes hadn’t gotten wrapped up in foul trouble, the Volunteers’ 69-point output is encouraging for several reasons. For one, Wichita State has put to rest any notion that losing four starters from last season’s five-seed would prevent another MVC title challenge. The Shockers have quality wins over VCU and Iowa, and are defending like a top-30 team, to the point where last season’s 18th-ranked defensive efficiency is within one percentage point of this year’s mark (89.8) to date. For another, Tennessee had failed to break the 50-point threshold in its past two games, consecutive losses to Georgetown and Virginia. Granted, both teams rank among the nation’s top 10 teams in per-possession defense, but when you boast one of the top five-or-so centers in the country, along with a bevy of talented guards to provide a capable perimeter scoring complement, there’s no excuse for getting held under 50 points. It’s really that simple. The Volunteers were a trendy pick to broach the SEC power triumvirate – Florida, Kentucky, Missouri – but had failed to substantiate that praise with anything resembling a quality win thus far. Knocking off Wichita State, a Top 25 team in its own right, is a good sign, but I’m loath to acknowledge the Volunteers have officially put their scoring woes in the rearview mirror. Upcoming tests against Xavier and Memphis before entering SEC play will serve as a barometer of whether Tennessee has finally unlocked its offensive quagmire or whether tonight’s performance was a minor positive blip that can’t be sustained over the long term.
Tonight’s Quick Hits…
Anthony Bennett: Best Freshman In the Country? The silver lining in Mike Moser’s month-long injury-related absence is that UNLV’s frontcourt rotation will benefit from more minutes and greater opportunities to carve out bigger roles over the long run. Most importantly, we’ll see even more Anthony Bennett, who Thursday night lead the Rebels with 27 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks in a comfortable win over La Verne, and who thus far is making as strong a case as any for Freshman of the Year. The vast majority of preseason freshman big man hype was directed towards Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel and Baylor’s Isaiah Austin. Neither player has underperformed expectations – Noel’s offensive game needs work, but we knew as much coming in; Austin has been as lanky, stretchy, and, at times, flimsy as advertised – but there’s no disputing Bennett has been the best of the three. When Pitt big man Khem Birch becomes eligible on December 17, he’ll slide in alongside Bennett to form one of the nation’s most talented frontcourt duos. That’s a ridiculously long, athletic, rangy interior. And we’re not even considering what Moser brings to the court; talent-wise, no team in America matches that vaunted trio. Read the rest of this entry »
Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference. You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.
Looking Back
Wichita State chugging along, or are they? The Shockers are sitting at 8-0 and the only team in the league without a loss after a tight victory over Air Force in the MVC/MWC Challenge. But how strong is that 8-0? The Shockers may now be in the Top 25 rankings, but at this point it is hard to tell how legitimate that record is when you look at their schedule so far. Wichita State survived bad free-throw shooting by VCU to get that early victory on the road. The Shockers beat DePaul and Iowa in Cancun to take that tournament, but both of those teams have been at the bottom of their leagues for a few years now. A win over Tulsa? The Golden Hurricane are not where they used to be either. And the aforementioned Air Force is not exactly UNLV or New Mexico. The silver bullet might be at Tennessee on December 13. You do have to give the Shockers credit, though, as they are off to their second best start in school history.
Carl Hall (22) has given Shocker fans plenty to be excited about.
Creighton stumbles but makes a statement: Creighton came back from Las Vegas with big victories over Wisconsin and Arizona State. The hangover from those wins must have taken the toll on the Bluejays as they didn’t recover in time to take on Boise State. On the other hand, Boise State might be better than everyone expected this season, especially after taking Michigan State to the wire. We’ll have to see how the season plays out to determine if this turns out to be a bad loss. Creighton responded by getting off early against a highly anticipated match-up with St. Joseph’s where they were up by more than 20 points early in the first half. The lead extended to as much as 34 in the second half as the Bluejays did a total 180 from the game before. Highlights from both show it. With St. Joseph’s expected to win the A-10 this year, the victory and the way in which it was done was impressive.
Great matchups, but disappointing results: The Valley, though getting a lot of positive reviews, has already left a lot of important games on the table. It is one thing to schedule big games, but it is another thing to go out and win some of them. Outside of Creighton, pretty much the rest of the Valley has come up with goose eggs against teams from the power conferences. Notre Dame, Louisville (twice), Michigan, Stanford, Memphis, South Carolina, San Diego State, Northwestern, New Mexico, UCLA, Cal, and Xavier have been on Missouri Valley schedules and the league is a whopping 0-13 against them. In 2006, the Valley won a lot more of these games. The non-conference resume sets up the conference season and how far teams can go in the postseason. Opposing coaches, including Rick Pitino, have given some great praise to the conference, but the victories against those conferences are few and far between so far. There are still a few weeks left for the MVC to pick up some bigger wins, but the positive look is that Valley teams are winning the games they should which will also help in the long run.
Reader’s Take
Power Rankings
Creighton (7-1)–The Bluejays stay at the top after rebounding from their loss against Boise State by demolishing St. Joseph’s. A key to Creighton’s success has been having Doug McDermott AND Gregory Echenique to have good nights down low. Echenique struggled in the loss against Boise scoring nine points, but only getting three rebounds, but turned things around to score 16 and grab six rebounds in the win against the Hawks. Echenique leads the MVC in field goal percentage at about 74%. When the frontcourt is going, the Creighton outside game can bury opposing teams. Creighton leads the nation in 2-point shooting percentage at 61.2%. Read the rest of this entry »
Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference. You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.
Reader’s Take
Looking Back
Wichita State Enjoys Quiet 4-0 Start: Coming into this season, Gregg Marshall had a lot of components to replace with the graduation of five seniors who had significant playing time and scoring. The Shockers have started the season 4-0 (three games in the last five days) including a win at VCU that went down to the wire. However, Marshall wasn’t necessarily happy with his team’s play in its latest game against Howard. They are second in the MVC in scoring defense, giving up 55.2 points a game. The thing about Wichita State will be its schedule — there is a good chance that we may not know how good the Shockers are until their December 13 showdown with Tennessee. Wichita State owns the nation’s best road record since the 2010-11 season. The Shockers are 20-3.
Creighton is More Than McDermott: In Creighton’s first game of the season, Doug McDermott scored 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the win over North Texas. However, against UAB, McDermott got saddled with two fouls early, sat the bench for most of the half and finished the game with only five points. Creighton was down by as many as 10 against the Blazers in the second half but 18 points from Josh Jones and a beast of a game from Gregory Echenique with 13 points and 16 rebounds pushed the Bluejays to a 17-point victory. So while teams will try to stop McDermott, there is a lot more to the Bluejay offense than him.
Surprise Starts, Conference Record in Non-Conference Play: Heading into this week, there are six Valley teams still undefeated. Creighton, Illinois State, Wichita State, Northern Iowa, Bradley, and Southern Illinois are all sitting with perfect records. As a whole the MVC is 24-5 in non-conference play. Three of those losses have come against Top 25 opponents: Notre Dame (Evansville), UCLA (Indiana State) and San Diego State (Missouri State). At the same time however, five of the conference’s wins have come against non Division-I competition. The MVC cannot let opportunities against top opponents slip through their fingers. This upcoming weekend of holiday tournaments will be a great opportunity for the MVC to continue to rise its RPI stock.
Tonight’s Lede. Hoops Marathon Ends With Basketball Royalty in Atlanta. The fifth iteration of ESPN’s College Hoops Marathon went from Spokane to Albuquerque to Honolulu to New Jersey to Indiana to Amherst to Ohio to NYC to Cincinnati to Atlanta, with 16 games of varying quality and competitiveness, but it finished at the Champions Classic with two hard-fought and generally well-played games befitting the assembled hoops royalty of Izzo, Krzyzewski, Calipari and Self. Last season’s inaugural event in Madison Square Garden featured Krzyzewski’s 903d all-time victory and the coming-out party of Calipari’s talented band of super-freshmen. This year’s set of games in Atlanta featured a Michigan State team finding itself after a surprising loss to a scrappy Connecticut team last week in Germany, while Duke was looking to shore up its perimeter defense to reclaim its usual spot among the nation’s elite as a national title contender. Tonight’s losing teams, Kentucky and Kansas, came away from the experience not feeling terrible, realizing that November games — while important to their resumes — are more a time for reflection and focused learning than worrying about finished products. Let’s jump into the day’s games…
Your Watercooler Moment. Calipari Calls Out Duke’s Flopping.
What else could it be? In one of the better preaching to the choir moments in recent college basketball history, John Calipari told ESPN’s Andy Katz at halftime of the Champions Classic nightcap in a half-joking/half-serious manner that Duke’s players were “flopping all over the place.” The Twitter-verse immediately seized the moment because if there’s anything that gets Duke haters riled up, it’s the tendency for Coach K’s defenders to find their backs on the floor with the ball headed the other way. For what it’s worth, Calipari said after the game that he was just joking. Nevertheless… the head coach may have made some new friends tonight.
This Other Thing… Both Kentucky and Duke Impressed. Duke walked out of Atlanta as the clear winner of the event, knocking off the #2 Wildcats and showing that some of the defensive deficiencies that caused so many problems for the Blue Devils last season may be solved. Seth Curry (23 pts) was outstanding in his twin roles as leader and scorer, and his game-finishing drive to fake Nerlens Noel off his feet and drop in a right-handed layup was a thing of beauty. Mason Plumlee, when not in foul trouble, showed that he is an elite big man (18/3 on 7-8 FG) and the rest of the Duke cast was at least serviceable on this night. Coach K was not going to let the Kentucky perimeter beat his team, and a 9-25 shooting night from Kyle Wiltjer, Archie Goodwin and Julius Mays ensured that Duke wouldn’t have to get into an 80- or 90-point game to win this one. As for the Wildcats, we anticipated that John Calipari would get a much better effort on the glass, and he did (27 each) while also allowing his talented big men, Alex Poythress and Noel, to pick their spots and follow the fluidity of the game. The duo combined for 36 points and 16 rebounds, and the mere sight of those two flying around the airspace above the rim should send shudders throughout the rest of college basketball wondering how good they’ll be when they figure out the plays. Brian Joyce was at the game and provided his takeaways here from watching it courtside, but from the perspective of talent (Kentucky) and cohesion (Duke), it wouldn’t surprise us to see both of these squads matching up again in that very building next April.
