Missouri at Kansas

The game of the weekend and a big one it is. We're talking Big 12 deciding, 1 seed potential and player of the year implications going on. Oh yeah, and possibly a bitter end (for the foreseeable future at least) of a great rivalry given Missouri's departure to the SEC next year. So what are you gonna be watching Saturday at 4pm?

If you've been following the player of the year race at all, you know it's a bit of a two way competition (MSU's Draymond Green in a close third) between Thomas Robinson of Kansas and the human block machine, Anthony Davis of Kentucky. I'm rooting for Robinson because he means more to his team, his stats are more impressive and I'm not afraid his eyebrows are going to become self aware and lead an eyebrow rebellion against mankind (Uni-killer). Between him and Jeff Withey, the surprisingly good step up center for the Jayhawks this year, I think Kansas just has too much size for Missouri.

Missouri was able to get it done against Kansas earlier in the season, but that was at Missouri. And Marcus Denmon played out of his gourd for the Tigers. He had 29 points in that game, two 3 pointers and a 3 point play in the final 2 minutes to rally for the win. I wouldn't bank on a repeat performance in Allen Fieldhouse. Of course, Denmon isn't the only hot shooter on the team. Missouri has a bevy of them from Michael Dixon to Kim English. Still, it will take a great shooting night as a team (or a vintage February 4th Denmonesque one) to pull it off.

Bottom line, the Tigers know what is on the line. So, no, it's not crazy to think that they could walk away with a victory. But I think this isn't a good week for them to be playing teams that start with Kansas (see their lose to Kansas State Tuesday). I think Frank Haith's team is coming away with the L, and it will be a long time coming before Missouri will be able to get a rebuttal.

Expectations Rammed

Colorado St 71 New Mexico 63

I believe New Mexico is the best team in the Mountain West. Their past two wins, a drubbing of UNLV and a handy win on the road against San Diego State helped reaffirm my belief. The Lobos were really rolling. Last night Colorado State derailed their roll and gave me a mini crisis of faith. Then I took a breath. Pierce Hornung played an amazing game for Colorado State with 13 points, 15 rebounds and 4 steals. The Rams are undefeated at home and have another quality win against San Diego State. And they are playing with an outside shot at an NCAA Tourney bid. So, I still believe New Mexico is the best in the Mountain West and I still believe they are capable of the deepest tourney run outside of the power conferences with the possible exception of the Wichita State Shockers. Now that I've gotten over last night's shock.

Northwestern Heartbreak

Yup, the Wildcats dropped their second OT loss in as many tries against the Michigan Wolverines last night. Can they still make the tournament? I think they may need to win out. I think they likely won't. Oh, the Shurmanity!

Missouri Shuffle

Missouri lost at home to Kansas State last night 78 to 68. Rodney McGruder scored 24 points and the Wildcats (of the purple Manhattan variety) got an excellent win to move themselves out of bubble talk and into the tournament. A tale of two purples.

What it says for Missouri, who trailed by as much as 16 points, is nothing new. They rely on great guard play on offense. Their defense is so-so. It's a veteran group, but when that's your team when you're off you're off. And Missouri will likely get its second loss in a row when it travels to Kansas this Saturday. Still, 4 losses on the season isn't shabby.

Could They Really?

Could the Wildcats (of the purple Chicago variety) make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in Northwestern history? Their RPI ranking right now is 43rd, their record sits overall at 18-12 and 8-10 in conference. With 4 games remaining on their schedule, winning 3 would bring them to 500 in conference. That's in the B1G Conference, by the way. The one every pundit is gushing over this year. Winning 3 of their next 4 would also give them at least 1, possibly 2 more wins over other top 50 RPI teams. That would help because they're standing kinda weak in that department at 2 for 6 tries.

So what are their last 4 games? In order: home against Michigan, on the road at Penn State, Ohio State at home and then Iowa on the road to finish. They should be favored against Penn State and Iowa, but nothing is given. Especially when you consider Iowa's recent 78-66 ambush of Indiana. But these Cats can smell tourney in the air and I expect them to play like they have super rabies...the kind that makes you good at basketball, not the kind that would lead to the euthinization of John Shurna.

They play both Michigan and Ohio State at home, but which is the more realistic top 15 squad to topple? Recent Ohio State struggles aside, Michigan is the better match up for Northwestern.

Battle of the 3 pointers for supremacy? At simplistic first blush, but there is more to it. They're both good 3 point shooting teams. Northwestern better than Michigan at 38.2% from beyond the arc compared to U of M's 35.6%. If one team is hot and the other not, it will make a difference. At the end of the night, however, I just don't think there will be a great disparity in their 3 point shooting...unless Hardaway decides to re-up the slump.

How Jordan Morgan defends against Davide Curletti and how Michigan as a whole defends the back door cuts of Northwestern will be big. On the flip side, does Northwestern have an answer for Trey Burke? Aaron Craft, who they tell me is one of the best on ball defenders in the nation, had trouble with him in the closing minutes of Saturday's action. Northwestern does not have one of the nation's best on ball defenders, but they can not afford many breakdowns if they plan on donning their dancing shoes. For the first time ever.

Will Northwestern go dancing? We'll probably know after tonight.

Last Night

TCU 102 UNLV 97 OT
I do get that upsets happen. I get that good teams will drop the occasional game to an inferior team over the course of a season and that overreaction is not required. I just didn't buy that UNLV was the number 11 team in the country before last night and I certainly don't buy it this morning.

They beat North Carolina early in the year. Yes, I remember. It was a case of an inferior team beating a superior opponent over the course of a season in reverse. Other than that their best win is over San Diego State at home. How good that win is depends on whether or not you buy San Diego State as the number 15 team in the nation. I don't. New Mexico, despite being un-ranked, is probably the better win for UNLV and they got that one at home too.

The reality is that their defense is ranked 52nd in the nation by Ken Pomeroy and it looked worse than that last night as they let TCU come back from an 18 point deficit. We'll see what comes of their next game at New Mexico on Saturday, but I get the feeling we're going to see another loss unworthy of a team ranked 11th in the nation.

Ohio State 78 Minnesota 68
Minnesota decided to spot Ohio State 21 points to start the game. Just for funsies. Ohio State came out determined to bounce back and they did. Buford atoned for his horrible performance at home against MSU with a 24 point outing. Jared Sullinger chipped in 23 with 8 boards.

But I'll be damned if Minnesota even seemed to know where Buford was half the time when they were on defense in the first 10 minutes of that game. Half of the Buckeyes seemed unaccounted for when they were on offense. Minnesota was slow, lazy and unfocused to start the game. Did they think Ohio State was going to wait for them to come around?

Two Yearly Narratives That Should GoThe Way Of LOL

These two narratives are ones that I really wish would die. Title confusing given that people still use LOL? Yeah, LOL isn't dead, but people who use it are dead to me.

Useless Narrative #1: Will College Basketball Ever be the Cool Kid?

http://eye-on-college-basketball.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/26283066/34594180

If you go to the 6:52 mark you'll hear Pat Forde and Matt Norlander hand wringing over the failure of College Basketball to grab more of the national spotlight given the NBA delay this year. If it didn't happen this year, when will it happen? And there are no good story lines. There are no heroes and no villains. Worst of all, there's no Jimmer! So forth and so on.

The vast majority of the American public will never, ever pay much attention to College Basketball before March. Accept it and move on. Football isn't over till January. What can you do? A lack of national buzz didn't change a brilliant month of December for Indiana, in which they knocked off the number 1 and 2 teams in the nation and brought the luster back to Hosier nation. It didn't stop the game winning 3 by Michael Snaer at Cameron Indoor Stadium to upset Duke. It didn't stop Austin Rivers from paying it forward with a game winning 3 of his own against North Carolina a few weeks later. It didn't stop a coaching hire that everyone questioned (loudly), Frank Haith, from taking his team on a 23-2 run and put them at the 3 spot in the national rankings.

The season is good. The games have been good. This is not a tree falls in the forest conundrum. Quality is not determined by popularity. And let's be honest, most people didn't even know Jimmer's name till March anyway. Accept it. Move on.

Useless Narrative Number 2: Which is/are the Best Team/Teams in the Nation

Kentucky is clearly ahead of everyone else? Right? And Syracuse and Ohio State, depending on who you ask, at what time, depending on the lunar cycle, which direction the gales are brewing from and which flavor of soft serve ice cream they just had, one of those two is right behind them.

I could not be more sick of this need to define a team (or small handful of teams) that are clearly above all the rest. North Carolina in 2009 was heads and shoulders above everyone else. Clearly. They were an NBA lite team. That is an exception to the rule, not the rule. In modern college basketball there are very few years in which you are ever going to have 1 team (or a small handful of teams) that are clearly better than all the rest. I thought this year, with the extreme shuffle going on at the 1 spot in the rankings, with some of the wacky early season results, that we might have finally outgrown this. I was wrong.

Remember in 2010 when Kansas was clearly the elite team in the country? How'd that work out for them? Northern Iowa? You don't say. Just out of curiosity, in 2011 did any national media member anoint UConn as the head and shoulders best team? No? Well, they didn't do much besides win a national title, right?

We have a tournament. This isn't the fraudulent post season of the college gridiron. There is no need to try and crown a national champion 2 months before it's all said and done. Keep on trying to construct artificial separation. The results will keep tearing it down.

Did you see?

That blurry image is Kelsey Barlow embarrassing Sullinger as the big man attempted to take a charge. Ohio State won, but they gave up some many lanes for easy layups you started to wonder if this really is the clear number 2. Their defense, at home, against a desperate Purdue team sure didn't play like it. Also, Jared Sullinger got a highlight moment from the other side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-GHhA6ET2o

Pay for Pom

Yup, Ken Pomeroy is charging now to his see his statistical breakdowns and predictions. A man's gotta eat, I suppose, and it was kind of incredible that such an insane wealth of stats was free for the picking. Combine a matter of time with a recent rash of Pomeroy ego stroking and it is what it is. Asking price is 20 bucks for the year.

I wonder if he could have made more by opening up his site to advertising. I don't pretend to know the difference these days between advertising and subscriptions, and maybe Pomeroy didn't want to go the way of ads regardless. I'll just say I personally wouldn't have minded dealing with some flashing nonsense if it meant continued free use.

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/an_important_message/

Season's Here

It officially started on November 7th, say you? Yeah, technically. And that game on the aircraft carrier was fun, even if it was more of an exhibition spectacle. You'll just have to forgive me if I label tonight the true start to the season.

Michigan State vs. Duke, 7pm on ESPN Michigan State lost their first game on a boat to the number one team in the nation, North Carolina, and shot an abysmal 30% from the field in doing so. The upside is that they out rebounded the Tar Heels by 15, so if they can find a way to get some of their shots to actually go through that round thing attached to the backboard, State could be in much better shape. Duke lost Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Kyrie Irving from last season. Spartan fans are likely happy to see Irving gone, as he torched Michigan State for 31 points in Duke's 84 to 79 victory last year. The bad news for State is that Duke has Seth Curry, Mason Plumlee and Andre Dawkins back. Duke also added a third Plumlee brother, Marshall. Miles, Mason and Marshall. Weird? Beyond. And, oh yeah, Coach K is going for the all time win record with 903 wins if his team can take care of MSU tonight.

Ohio State vs. Florida, 8pm on ESPN 2 Number 3 Ohio State had no trouble dispatching the Wright State Raiders, but I think everyone is interested to see how a slim downed Jared Sullinger will perform against an opponent with teeth. Enter the Gators. Sullinger was quoted as saying this game will "determine what kind of team" Ohio State is and I tend to agree with him. I know the Buckeyes are a talented team. You don't have to convince me of that. But a team doesn't lose players like Jon Diebler, David Lighty and Dallas Lauderdale and pretend like nothing's changed. William Buford is the only senior on the roster and I'm interested to see how Aaron Craft steps up this season in the absence of Diebler and Lighty. As for Florida, they're looking to atone for an embarrassing 93 to 75 loss to Ohio State on their home court last season. Florida has good guard play returning in Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker. The big, though trimmer, question that any team playing Ohio State this year will be asking, does Florida have an answer for Sullinger? Probably not, but I get the feeling this one could be good.

Kentucky vs. Kansas, 9pm on ESPN Kentucky boasts the number 2 ranking and has another ridiculously stacked freshman class, highlighted by the likes of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague. They also have two great returners in Darius Miller and Terrance Jones, who each played 30 plus minutes a game last year for the Wildcats. Yet after the Jayhawks impressive dismantling of Towson, 100-54, Kansas is poised to give Kentucky all they want and more tonight. Of course, it's hard to read much of anything into a blowout of Towson, but the speed of Tyshawn Taylor and Elijah Johnson in the backcourt could make Kansas scary good this year. Talent and speed. Look for an absurd display of both in what should be an incredibly entertaining night cap.

Pangos Is Greek For 3 Points

Kevin Pangos, freshman guard for Gonzaga, went 9 for 13 on 3 point attempts last night as he led his team to victory over Washington State, 89-81. He scored 33 points altogether and quick math says 27 of those came from 3's. It doesn't look like we're going to get to watch Jimmer Fredette take aim in the NBA anytime soon. Kevin Pangos is looking like a good substitute.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/38769/video-the-kevin-pangos-show-in-spokane

24 Hours of Hoops Starts Tonight

At 12 midnight, going till 12 midnight tomorrow. College basketball players can tip off at 2 am, but college football players can't have a playoff because the student athlete is a student first and it would prove too disruptive to their student life *wink, wink*.

I love the idea of 24 hours of college hoops in theory, but ESPN's lineup for the majority of this marathon isn't worth cracking a red bull for. Washington State at Gonzaga tips off at midnight and registers as mildly compelling. Northern Iowa at St. Mary's pits two schools with recognizable basketball names against each other, doing little else to garner excitement. These two games aren't likely to keep many awake till 4 am. For those still giving it the old college try, Cal State Northridge at Hawaii should kick that right out of them.

The marathon doesn't really get good till about 6pm the next evening with George Mason vs. Virginia Tech, leading into the likes of Duke vs. Michigan State and Florida vs. Ohio State. It ends with a flash. As for the start, ESPN should have let the student athletes get their rest like the rest of the nation will be.

Don't Look Now, Big Ten's Recruitin'

According to ESPN's Class Rankings for 2012, the Big Ten has 3 teams in the top 10. Michigan State leads the charge at number 3 after landing 5 star SG Gary Harris last night. The Wolverines are next up at number 6, anchored by star PF Mitch McGary, and Indiana is right behind at number 7. It's been a long time since the Big Ten's recruiting has looked this good. Purdue is just outside at number 14 and even Iowa (I know, I had to rub my eyes too, but apparently Fran McCaffery can recruit) round out the Big Ten appearances at 19.

The most surprising aspect to the numbers is the lack of Big Ten super recruiter Ohio State among them. Competitive, parity, cliches. The Big ten is stepping up its game and this should make for a very entertaining league in years to come...minus Nebraska, where shucking corn is still right behind football and well ahead of basketball.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/recruiting

*Writer's note, this is what I've been saying the Big Ten should have been doing all along.

http://keepinthebenchwarmbig-ten-recruiting-commandment-number-1.html

Back to Bracketology

Is it too early? Yes. But, mostly no. Joe Lunardi is back at it and his first bracket of the season has been released: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology.

Three of the four 1 seeds are simply the first three teams in both polls: North Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio State. Then Lunardi gets really crazy and skips right past number 4 UConn to give the fourth 1 seed to Syracuse, the number 5 team in both polls. And that's about as crazy as you would expect things to get this early in the season. I know there is a lot of work that goes into Lunardi's method, so I'm not going to try and tear any of this down. For the record, I agree with Syracuse over UConn sans Kemba Walker anyway.

For anyone pondering the age old question of when will Northwestern dance (which I always am), Lunardi has them sitting at an 11 seed right now. Crossing my fingers.

Oh, and by the way, for anyone who would like college credit in bracketology, here you go http://www.sjuprofessional.com/bracketology-course.asp. No, this is not a joke. Yes, you can take a college class in bracketology from Professor Lunardi. I know, the world is awesome.

"Stats are for losers!" -Pat Narduzzi

Yes, I borrowed a football quote to talk about basketball. The nerdy, glasses push up stat-love that has become so prevalent in college basketball isn't nearly as common in college football land. You likely won't hear a basketball coach make as brash a statement as the ever so quotable Pat Narduzzi, defensive coordinator for Michigan State Football.

Over the past 5 years, or so, tempo free stats have become all the rage. If you want a sentence capsule, the basic point of tempo free stats are to gauge how effective a team is based on each possession (which takes tempo out of the equation). For an excellent breakdown, refer here http://tempo-free-stats-for-dummies. Ken Pomeroy, stat nerd extrodanaire, is the godfather of the tempo free stats and you can view his impressive array of work at http://kenpom.com.

As a fan, this is great stuff to geek out over. But how useful is it to a coach? First lieutenant in this good fight of basketball analysis, John Gasaway of Basketball Prospectus fame, was quoted in his perception that while not many head coach's are into them, the younger assistants are all over it. Well, be that as it may, I found this piece from CAA Hoops telling life as a mid major tempo free stats. Turns out most coach's in the Colonial Athletic Conference, including coaching wonderkid Shaka Smart, pay no or only partial attention to them.

Why is this? Stats, tempo free or otherwise, can help identify areas in which your team is doing well, or poorly. They can tell you the same of your opponent. But they have no context and they offer no solutions. Stats can't tell a coach how to fix a set play that didn't go right, or what to do about your center's free throw shooting mechanics that are dragging down the average. That's where a coach earns his money.

Any coach worth his salary should be able to tell you the reasons for his team's success or failure well before the statistician has his say. Typically speaking, a coach knows the reason his team lost that last game game was because they turned the ball over 24 times and he doesn't have to wait for the stat's guy to crunch the percentage. There is no substitute for a feel for the game. If you need the "four factors to winning" to tell you the reason your team got beat was because you got out-hussled on the boards and your guys couldn't hit a free throw to save their lives, I hear the sport of competitive ping-pong is always looking for coaches.

The real challenge in coaching is knowing how to correct your teams mistakes. That is the key. Tempo free stats are fun for us a fan. It's an activity that we can wrap our hoops starved minds around. It makes us feel like we have a better understanding of our team. For the head coach it can't hurt to take an occasional glance. But if the stats are what the coach needs for an understanding of his team, coach is in trouble.

Tu Holloway Out for Opener

Tu Holloway will not be allowed to play in Xavier's season opener against Morgan State on November 18. Why, you may ask? Miss some practices? Fail to meet an academic obligation? Did he get himself into a DUI tangle and then ask the officer if he knew who he was, Miguel style?* Nope, no, not quite. He played in too many summer leagues. That's right, too many voluntary, just for fun, no money involved leagues. Apparently that breaks some NCAA rule. Basketball is suppose to be fun, right? When there are so many ugly abuses of college athletics out there, why is the NCAA enforcing this joke of a rule?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-81x9c5G038

The Season is Upon Us

I'll forgive you if you didn't greet the new season by turning your devout attention to Valpo tussling with Arizona, St. Johns vs. William and Mary or Mississippi State pitted against a directional Kentucky. Like so many college basketball seasons before it, this one started with three largely unremarkable and forgettable games.

Arizona was the only ranked team in action and their performance was just about as underwhelming as the evening's viewing menu, finishing the Crusaders by a final margin of 9. If you were looking for someone to step up and fill Derrick Williams shoes for the cats, you're going to have to keep looking for now. Solomon Hill managed only 4 rebounds and 8 points in 24 minutes of action. Jesse Perry did come through with a double double, recording 14 points and ten boards. Kyle Fogg managed to be the other bright spot racking up 16 points. Does that make them number 16 in the nation? At this point in the season that's hard to define, but Arizona certainly didn't bring any of the lines into focus.

While Mississippi State's victory wasn't any more resounding than Arizona's, Dee Bost picked up where he left off last season with 23 points, 6 assists, 6 rebounds and a block. We're talking Eastern Kentucky, but still. St. Johns had the most complete team performance of the night, beating William and Mary 74 to 59 without Coach Steve Lavin, who is still recovering from prostate cancer surgery.

Not a terribly exciting Monday, but this Friday's lineup is just a tad bit more enticing...yes, I'm talking Carrier Classic.

The Michigan Hype

We're specifically referring to the Michigan Wolverines here and their 18 spot ranking in the AP and the Coach's Poll. It feels a slight bit like Déjà Vu. The funny thing about hype is that is it has a ridiculously short memory and dusts off scripts that are only a few seasons removed from the cutting floor. (Do scripts and cutting floor go together? I don't think so, but I've acknowledged what you were thinking so onward we march.)

I'm talking, of course, of the 2008-09 season. Remember that one, where they went 21-14, beat Clemson in the first round of the tournament and played a competitive game against Oklahoma before bowing out? Michigan started out that next season ranked 15 in both polls. Manny Harris was back. DeShawn Sims was back. Much less exciting, but still there, were Zach Novak and Stu Douglas. You even had a plucky young freshman guard on the scene named Darius Morris. John Beilein's kooky 3 point-fest and chess board antics were finally getting into a grove. Yes, the Maize and Blue Kool Aid was in vintage form that preseason. Harris even started out recording the second ever triple double in school history. That season concluded with a 15-17 fizzle of a record.

Here we are fresh off another 21-14 Michigan season and an even closer and more competitive loss to the Duke Blue Devils in last year's tournament. The din is rising. Why, if only Morris had returned we'd be looking at a Final Four contender. But surely, even without, this is a team that can push Ohio State at the top of the Big Ten. If you believe the hype. For those of us in the skeptics' column, why is this season different? I'm not convinced it is.

For starters, the 2009-10 class lost far less production from the previous year's success story than the current version of the Wolverines is losing. They gave up a role playing guard and forward in David Merritt and Jevohn Shepherd. They were both good for about 10 minutes a game, bare minimum production and were hardly missed. Undoubtedly, if any team was ready to build on the previous year's momentum, it was this team.

So why the backslide? There were rumors that Harris wasn't happy in the system and it didn't take a master of detection to figure out that the Wolverines never really gelled on the court that season. Since I was never in the locker room and can only speculate on chemistry issues, we'll call that a wash.

What is telling, however, is the Ken Pomroy ranking from 2008 through 2010. In their 21-14 season, their tempo free rating was good for 50th in the nation. Other than an early season upset of Duke, two wins against Minnesota were their only Ws with a pulse. A competitive bout with Oklahoma and the return of all their major players built the buzz for the next year. But for a team that finished 50th, what was the realistic ceiling? Finishing 63rd in the kenpom rankings and a 15 and 17 record was disappointing by any measure, but not completely shocking.

Last year U of M finished 25th in the tempo free rankings. Even if Morris were coming back, is it really realistic to think Michigan would be competing for a Final Four? We can make those arguments in theoreto-land, where they belong, but either side you come down on Morris is a part of a locked out crackpot of a league right now. And he was their point guard. A position that's kind of important in this game we call basketball. A guy who led the team in assists, points and steals last year. I think they just might miss him.

You may cry that Tim Hardaway Jr. is back and you'd be right. But who do you think was one of the main beneficiaries of Morris's 6 plus assists a game? Morris made everyone on that team better, including Stu Douglas and Zach Novak—a feat in itself. The next highest assist per game total after the 6.7 from Morris was Stu Douglas at 1.7 per game. This year it’s up to either Stu Douglas or Trey Burke, the freshman point guard, to fill the Morris shoes. If I’m a Michigan fan, I’m praying Burke is a fast learner.

Still, people will talk of the improvement Michigan made in the second half of last season, after a 6 game losing streak made them appear dead in the water...but it was a bit of a mirage. Their best win during that span was against Illinois. The average kenpom ranking of the teams they beat in that stretch comes out to 50. That first win in the tournament was against a hapless Tennessee team who had lost 7 of their past 11 games in the regular season.

A close loss to the blue blood of college basketball in last year's tourney aside, 18th in the nation really? I realize preseason polls are a patchwork guessing game. I realize it's hard to fill out that top 25 ballot at this juncture in time. But for me, I've read this script before and it doesn’t end 18th in the nation.

The Spartans Vs. The Blue Devils: Possibly Epic in Name Only

This was billed preseason as number 1 vs. number 2. An epic early season battle. A clash of the titans. Then Michigan State lost to UConn and now it's 1 vs. 6. Less sexy. It seems like every year the Spartans decide that the season actually starts sometime towards the end of January. Then, some good teams that got the memo about the actual start time make them look silly. For my money, tonight is destined to be one of those times.

If you would like some good analysis and serious breakdowns of tonight's action:

look here
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20101201/GW0201/12010329/Spartan-men-s-basketball-aim-to-silence-Duke-crowd

here
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=oneil_dana&id=5865980

and here
http://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-prepares-battle-spartans

If you want my off the cuff rambling wander down a road that I feel remotely resembles something approaching analysis, by all means keep reading. The obvious and heavy hit bit in this match up are the 17 turnovers the Spartans are averaging a game. That black eye of a stat isn't a result of the competition. Against Tennessee Tech on Sunday, MSU coughed the ball up 17 times. When you're dealing with a team whose opponents are averaging 20 turnovers a game, you get how this could turn into a long night for fans of the Green and White.

Add early season chemistry issues to that concern for Michigan State. Derrick Nix, 6'8 sophomore center, could really cause some match up problems for Duke down low. After sitting out the Hawaii trip due to possible issues with his playing time, however, he may not be out of Izzo's doghouse. If Nix isn't contributing, it decreases the small chance MSU has of winning to an even smaller chance.

Meanwhile, the plan for MSU is to stick Korie Lucious on Kyrie Irving on defense. If you watched the UConn game and saw the systematic dismembering job Kemba Walker performed on Lucious, you wonder if tonight is going to be the dismembering part deux. Kyrie is younger than Walker, and isn't as pure of a scoring threat yet, but he has so much more talent around him it's scary. How do you account for Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, Mason Plumlee and Seth Curry? It's a question that is going to be giving coaches in the ACC nightmares all season long.

So what does Michigan State have going for it? Draymond Green, Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers. The past three years they've been through a lot. No matter what Duke can boast, I still believe they will be the best 3 players on the court. Izzo hasn't figured out his rotation yet (surprise, surprise). The turnovers are glaring. Sadly, the Spartans aren't rebounding particularly well this year and that used to be something you could count on with this team. Still, if the 3 upperclassman perform like they're capable of, which means no disappearing act from Summers, State has a chance. A very small chance. They are 10 point dogs, after all. But a chance is a chance.

It's Back With a Whimper (The Blog, Not the Season)

I've been out of it forever. I could blame the real job. I could blame personal crises. I could blame the loss of my awesome dog to my ex--seriously, I've lost sleep over it. However, in the end the truth is the best policy. I've been lazy. There you have it. My long absence has now been explained to my 2.5 followers. Don't spend an overabundant amount of time trying to figure out how I have half of a follower, just accept it and move on. I already have.

Now here is a smattering of rapid fire topics to make myself feel like I've caught up to the season thus far:

Duke Really Is Number 1, No Question...Sadly I'll admit my bias. I'm a dookie hater. I really love Coach K, I'm a fan of Nolan Smith and I think the Blue Devil mascot is pretty damn cool. Still, their level of sustained success rankles me. In the end it's just fun to hate them. So, preseason I was going to call the unquestioned Duke is number 1 mentality out. I was going to point out that a lot was resting on Kyrie Irving, a freshman point guard who had never played a single college game. I was going to call the universal acceptance that the Plumlee brothers would step up laughable. After all, Coach K didn't exactly show much faith in Mason during last year's NCAA tourney run as the kid rode pine for ever increasing stretches. Zoubek was the man while Mason was an afterthought. Add the unknown Seth Curry variable to the team chemistry equation and there was certainly reason to doubt Duke's place on the throne.

Man, I'm I glad I never wrote that. It would just look silly at this point. I'm accustomed to looking ridiculous, of course, but the more I can avoid it in one season the better. They looked almost human for stretches of their game against Marquette. Then Duke throttled Kansas State and the Beard, in the Octagon of Doom no less, and I was forced to accept the truth. Duke is playing as the best team in college basketball. No question. The freshman, Kyrie Irving, is one of the most efficient point guards in the country. Mason Plumlee is a beast (that hurt to write). Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith are just as good, if not better, than last year. It's a complete team, that happens to be number 2 in the nation in KenPom's tempo free stats right now. So yeah, I accept that number 1 ranking now.

North Carolina Ain't So Great, Again Taking a small trip down Tobacco Road, there's that other team that's really fun to hate. And the hatin' is good in this young season. North Carolina is a meager 4 and 3 so far. Their losses are to Minnesota, Illinois and Vanderbilt. Granted, two of those teams are in the top 25 and the Tar Heels aren't. At least they aren't in the top 25 anymore. They were to start the season. Then people realized that Harrison Barnes wasn't the second coming. He's playing well as a freshman, averaging 11 points and 6 boards. Sadly, that isn't the missing piece that takes a tourney-less team from mediocre to top 10 as many had anticipated. Considering the lack of competitive play in a loss to Illinois last night, 79 to 67, it would appear the young Heels are in for some more growing pains this season. Do they miss the tourney for a second year in a row? I would hazard to say no. Still, unless you're an NC fan, one can hope.

The Best Conference Is I should wait until after the conclusion of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge tonight, but I'll be foolhardy instead. Why, might you ask? Because the best conference might be the Big East. This isn't really scientific at this, or any point. And if you're looking top to bottom, it's pretty hard to argue against the Big Ten right now. After all, Michigan was picked to finish near the bottom of the league. Nobody told the Wolverines that they were supposed to roll over this season, I guess, because they played Syracuse tight before going to Clemson last night and handing them an embarrassing loss on their home court.

On the Big East side of the debate, you have some really sleek and shiny offenses. And I like sleek and shiny. UConn has Kemba Walker averaging a flashy 30 points a game. Michigan State couldn't stop him in a close loss, and neither could Kentucky as the Huskies blew by them 84 to 67. They're also getting some really good, unselfish play from the rest of the team highlighted by Alex Oriakhi and Shabazz Napier.

As for the rest of the Big East? Georgetown just had a very impressive 110 to 102 overtime victory over number 8 Missouri last night. Notre Dame is looking sharp early, with a solid win over Wisconsin. Syracuse is carrying on without missing a beat, despite missing Andy Rautins and Wesley Johnson. Pitt's doing what it does every year, and already has a resume win over Texas. Villanova...well, there are still some really solid teams in the Big East. Top to bottom solid? Maybe not as much as the Big Ten.

Washington, Arizona and the Rest of the PAC 10 The PAC 10 is not in the discussion for best conference this year and for good reason. Especially after the sad, sad showing of just last year. Despite the lack of quality, or depth, you have two dangerous tourney bound teams in Washington and Arizona. Washington has two close losses to Kentucky and MSU on its record, but that doesn't diminish their value in my eyes. Isaiah Thomas started a little slow last year, and tended to be turnover happy at points. This year he's starting sharp out of the gate and has been masterful at the point for Washington, averaging 15 points and 4 assists a game. Justin Holiday is another gem for the Huskies. An experienced senior forward who is making the best of his final go round.

Arizona, I am also in love with thee. They lost by 8 to Kansas, at Kansas, but gave Bill Self and the Jayhawks a tough game. Derrick Williams, sophomore forward for Arizona, is averaging 21 points and 7 boards a game. He had 27 points and 8 rebounds against Kansas, before fouling out in the final 3 minutes. I'm not saying Arizona would have won that game if Williams had played to the end. It just would have been a whole lot more interesting.

The rest of the PAC 10 has been written off in my book. Luckily for the PAC 10, my book is very tiny and often flawed. There's my catch up.

Sorry, But Gotta Link This First

I haven't posted squat recently, choosing to simply enjoy this past weekend. For all my loyal readers (I love you three guys), I apologize. But before I unleash a bevy of thought provoking and well articulated and vastly entertaining pieces covering as much of the madness as I'm able, I have to draw whatever attention to this article from ESPN that I can:

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/insider/news/story?id=5017899

It's an insider story, so you gotta pay. But 20 bucks for a year subscription to the magazine and all the juicy insider stories (not being facetious, actually juicy) is worth it. It's part of a series entitled "Dance Lessons." The basic premise is to look at "tournament truths" many subscribe to that may or may not have much basis in reality. This particular article, "NBA Talent Required?" debunks the incredibly popular, often parroted view that you need at least three NBA draft picks on your team to win a national championship. After all, that's the way it's been the past three years, so that's the way it is.

Wrong. I'm saying this directly to you Gary Parrish from CBS Sports, even though I know you will never, ever read this. Turns out that just since 2000, four squads have won a national title with teams that had 2 or fewer draft picks. Duke and Syracuse both did it with just 1 in 2001 and 2003. If you go back just one more year to the 99 UConn champs, Rip Hamilton was the only draft pick from that squad. And, as the article points out, the championship often determines the draft pick, rather than the other way around.

I make a special point of calling out Parrish because he loves the NBA Talent = National Titles truism. He even made up some meaningless statistic about how every team for the past umpteen years that has won a national title had three or more NBA players on their team. The trouble is, he didn't count whether or not they got drafted the year their respective college team won it all. In other words, you could have a title team that has 1 player drafted in that year's draft. Then, 2 years later, a sophmore from that team gets drafted. Then, after 2 additional years, a red shirt freshman who sat on the bench during the title game 5 years ago, also gets drafted. This criteria is so broad that it's meaningless. There are probably a dozen or more teams that would meet this standard every single year. Please shelve the cliche, and focus on more than what draft experts are chirping in your ear.

Shit is Annoying

Onuaku is day to day my ass. Syracuse is giving me fits while looking at this bracket. They should get by Vermont no problem, despite chatter that it might be a problem. But that's why chatter is just chatter. After that, Wesley Johnson, Andy Rautins and the rest of the Orange should have what it takes to get past Gonzaga or Florida State. That puts them in weekend number 2. Frankly, I think the Cuse will have more trouble without Onuaku against Gonzaga or Florida State's bigs than they will against UTEP, Vanderbilt, Butler or Murray State. Thus we have the Elite 8, and a likely matchup against Kansas State. Can they beat the cats without Onuaku? No. With him? No question. So, I'm left taking a coin flip on one of the most important picks of my bracket. Annoying.

What else is annoying? Glad you asked. That Baylor is a trendy Final Four pick. For all of us who had them as a trendy pick before it was trendy, now we're just also rans. And I was high on Baylor back in December. Damn that soft ass 1 seed for Duke, and the 2 seeded Villanova Wildcats who really feel more like a 5 seed (and should have been so ranked, in this bloggers' mind). Well, you know what, I actually like Duke's chances. No, they shouldn't have been placed in the softer than soft south bracket. But they are. And they can win it. So nah!

Big East getting mad love All right, Big East is blah, blah, blah. We get it. They got 3 1 seeds last year. This year, they have a 1 seed, two 2 seeds, two 3 seeds, Marquette at the 6 line and Louisville at 9. Please explain to me how a team like Villanova, with a similiar profile to a team like Michigan State and Maryland, without a share of a conference title and with a similiar early and dissapointing exit from a conference tourney lands a 2 seed while Maryland gets a 4 seed and Michigan State gets a 5. There is no justification for it. And, no, the Big East is not head and shoulders above either the Big Ten or the ACC this year. You can point to past tournament success to justify Big East love, but when you are ridiculously overseeded year after year, you better have something to show for it. More to come on this vent later.