Monday Night Musings

Villanova 82 West Virginia 75 First and foremost, for all of West Virginia's student section's antics, they didn't bring it tonight. There is a much more effective way to alter a game in your team's favor. More effective than throwing things, calling people out for extramarital affairs and cussing like your mother taught you not to. It's called making noise. Lots of noise. It's making noise even when your team is down 7 to 10 points with a few minutes left. It's making noise when its been a long, disheartening night. The Mountaineers were in the game the whole time, even when it looked like they weren't. The crowd wasn't in it, even when it looked like their team was.

Kansas 80 Texas 68 For Texas, Dogus Balbay isn't a particularly stunning point. Avery Bradley, their best perimeter player, is a true freshman. Dexter Pittman is prone to disappearing acts. Their only consistent threat is still Damion James. Despite all that, I thought Texas was a much better team than the sum of their flawed parts. I thought there was too much talent and too much size for them to not be a serious threat. Methinks I was wrong. As for Kansas, they're better than I've given them credit for. Sure, I thought they were one of the top teams. But, I wasn't quite ready to buy the number 1 ranking (even though they've been here before). They sure played like number 1 tonight. They dominated. And even a Cole Aldrich foul out wasn't enough to save Texas in Austin.

Kansas scored 27 points off turnovers. They were taking Texas out of their offense, flustering their guards and forcing the Longhorns to foul on defense, or give up the easy bucket in transition. On the other end of the soiree, Texas was changing point guards in and out like they were going out of style. Rick Barnes just couldn't find someone to effectively run his team. Although, J'Covan Brown did show glimpses into why he might be the future. He and Damion James were the bright spots to what was otherwise a dismal offensive outing for the horns. 52 of their 68 points came from one of those two.

Random Musing Trey Zeigler is one of the top prospects for 2010 who hasn't landed on a school yet. He apparently tweeted recently about U of M and how "tight" it would be to have another Fab Five...either I am way behind on the vernacular of kids today, or Trey Zeigler and I seriously disagree on the definition of tight. Sure, coming up short for two national titles was probably pretty cool, right up to that phantom time out. But the close to seven hundred thousand in borrowed money from Ed Martin, the shame, the sanctions, the suspension from the NBA, the marred legacy???? Yeah, Zeigler, real "tight."*

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/features/rumors