Vacation

I'm on vacation this week, so this will be my last post until Monday, at which point most of my posts will be about the NCAA tourney. I cannot wait. In the mean time, a few thoughts.

• UCLA is a really good team. Clearly one of the top 4 in the nation. As Stephen A. Smith would say, HOWEVA, their past two wins have been entirely, outrageously, shenanigan-filled. The last play of regulation in the Stanford game was clearly NOT a foul. Some have been claiming that their was body contact on the play. I am not stupid or blind. I play basketball. I am fully aware that a defender can get all ball with their hand and still foul a player with their body. This was not one of those plays. It was a clean block, and the Cardinal community should be outraged. Luckily, it probably will not affect their tournament standing, as they will probably be a two seed anyway, but it does rob them of a share of the Pac-10 title, and that sucks. Additionally, UCLA's comeback against Cal, while impressive (although why was Cal beating them like that?), was also filled with nonsense. Kevin Love's 3, while impressive and lucky, but that is part of the game. The ensuing foul on Ryan Anderson was pretty outrageous, but the final shot by Josh Shipp was the proverbial final straw. It was an amazing shot, and I wish there was not a rule that made that illegal, but there is, so it should not have counted. Despite all this, UCLA is still probably a final four team.
• I am convinced every team in the Big Ten sucks. Ohio State, as previously discussed on this very blog, sucks. Now they are probably going to make the tournament because they beat Michigan State and Purdue? Let's be real, those teams are pretty mediocre too. Unless they receive some miraculously easy draw, I would not be surprised if the Sweet 16 lacked any Big Ten teams. Seriously.
• The SEC sucks too. Kentucky was ridiculously bad in the 2007 portion of the season, and now, because they have been good in conference, they are a tournament team? And they got better without their best player (Patrick Patterson)? While I am willing to believe that they are a decent team due to the senior talent that has underachieved the past 4 years (Bradley and Crawford...), I think their success is more of a reflection on the general mediocrity of the conference.
• Speaking of Crawford, he and Malik Hairston played together in High School. They were also both top 10 recruits in 2004. Out of the top 14 recruits that year, 12 of them are currently in the NBA. The only exceptions are these two. Just an interesting note...
• Carolina beat Dook. Sure, the officiating was bad, but really, it was bad in both directions. However, based on UNC's style of play, this loose officiating should have been more detrimental to them. But they still won. Needless to say, I am quite pleased with the result.
• On a serious note, applause to the Gameday crew, the UNC, and the Duke administrations for their handling of the tragic Eve Carson murder. They handled it respectfully and with class. Even the Duke student body, for the most part, acted with class and dignity. It was a senseless tragedy and my thoughts are with her friends and family.
• With that said, I hope everyone enjoys all the conference tournaments, and I shall return once the tournament field is unveiled.
  

March Happiness

It's March, and that means the long college basketball season is reaching its culmination. For a lot of America, it means it is time to start watching college basketball in general. Not for yours truly, however. I've been watching since day 1, and I have some thoughts:

Sure College Basketball Means Dick Vitale and Billy Packer... It also Means Erin Andrews!

• The three best teams are, in no particular order, North Carolina, UCLA, and Kansas. My UNC homerism aside, these three teams are able to combine talent and depth, and do not really have an alarmingly glaring weakness aside from the occasional inconsistency, and it figures that such let down games will not resurface now that tournament time is here.
• Duke, Memphis, and Tennessee are all good teams, but I cannot put them in the same tier as the top 3. As mentioned before on this blog, Tennessee's weakness is that they can go cold from the line or from downtown, Memphis is absurdly awful from the line, and Duke has no inside presence and lives from three point range. If they go cold and start turning over the ball, they become quite beatable. All three of these teams are excessively talented, but in tournament time it is very tough to win when you have such glaring weaknesses.
• Other probable/ definite tournament teams wish they only had the problems of the aforementioned teams. Frankly, Vanderbilt and Kansas State suck. Michael Beasley is the truth, and is easily the most skilled player in the nation. Hell, even Bill Walker is talented sometimes. But the rest of Kansas State's team is so horrendous, I honestly feel they could legitimately go winless if they did not have those two players. And Frank Martin is an awful coach. I have seen games where large stretches of time have passed without Beasley touching the ball. Beasley double teamed is still a better option than the rest of Kansas State's crap Smörgåsbord. Vanderbilt has similar problems with suckitude. They have two good players- Ogilvy and Foster. If you lose to Vanderbilt (Talking to you Tennessee), it is because you failed to shut down these two individuals. The rest of this team is simply mediocre. Plenty of other potential tournament teams are not good, but these two happen to stick out.
• Two weeks ago, some people were arguing that Texas should be a number one seed. Sure, they are talented. They also lost to Texas Tech. Not only did they lose to the Red Raiders, but they lost to them between two games in which Tech lost by over 100 points combined. There is no way a team can be taken seriously as a contender when they lose to a team that got housed by Texas A & M, who in turn was housed by Oklahoma. Basically, everyone in the Big 12, except Kansas, are OK teams at best.
  
• Speaking of Texas A & M, I saw them play at the Preseason NIT, and they looked fantastic. Now? Not so much. I really cannot explain how a team with such talent up front can collapse so heinously. How do you go over 16 minutes without a point when you have DeAndre Jordan? It is inexplicable.
• The team the Aggies looked so good against earlier this year? Ohio State. The Buckeyes are probably on the outside of the bubble looking in right now, but they are also the 5th best team in the Big Ten. I bring this up because the Big Ten sucks. Wisconsin just clinched at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title, and they are not good. I was at Cameron Indoor to witness them getting absolutely decimated by Duke. Good teams do not get crushed like that. Moreover, the Big Ten style of basketball works against some teams, but quality athletic teams, like the teams of the ACC, Pac-10, and some of the Big East, dispose of such teams with ease. Maybe one of the Big 10 teams can make a run, but I highly doubt any of them can get past the Sweet Sixteen, let alone the Elite Eight.
• Plenty of more College Basketball thoughts will come as march progresses, don't fret!