All you can eat Fridays

Why did Oregon sweep Washington State?. Because Ernie Kent made a big discovery that escaped all other coaches: You score more points on Washington State by hoisting wild shots from all over the court than by going up against their set half court defense. The proof? Oregon is the only team (so far) to beat Washington State twice, and the only team to beat them at Pullman!

Complete weekend (saturday and sunday) TV listings of college basketball games on CBS, ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, FSN, CSN, and Fox College Sports are posted below. No ESPNU.

Props to Fox College Sports for covering the winter university games. I'm not a fan of winter/snow sports, but covering them was a great idea by FCS. Having three channels seems to be a great way to cover events like the Olympics, with multiple competitions going on in parallel. Something other tv networks should look into when they are covering the Olympics or March Madness...

New drinking game idea: Every time Lorenzo Mata makes (or misses) a free throw shot. This was inspired by the "hot dog/combo meal friendly bet" between the FSN commentators during the Cal-UCLA game. And by drinking I mean milk, or soy milk, or green tea or carbonated water, or orange juice or vitamin water :-)

A review of this week's edition of Seth Davis Generation Next on CSTV.

One more opening this spring: New Mexico. Failing to turnaround New Mexico to Pit past glory days standards, McKay will be bought out at the end of the season. Apparently the Lobos AD wants to have an early start on the pool of candidates. Mike Montgomerry might listen if you are willing to hand over the team to his son after 5-10 years. After the success of Tony Bennett at Washignton State, this may be the year Monty can force a deal of this nature. But let's not forget that Tony Bennett was his own man, he worked under other coaches (not just his dad) and he even had a brief stint in the NBA, while Monty's son is just a five-year senior at LMU.

Wild March Madness Prediction: Washington State to the Final Four. If you watched last night's game at Oregon, you may have been surprised by two relatively new players in their rotation, guard Hopson (Hobson?) (jersey #1) who recently became eligible, and guard Cross (jersey #21). Let's not forget Dick Bennett made it to the Final Four (like father like son). This Cougars team is actually intriguing to watch, a rag tag group of efficient and effective players, and teamwork is everything. With the NCAA games being played tightly, they get an advantage. And unlike Dick's slow teams, they can speed it up so they are not necessarily doomed if they fall behind.

Speaking of the Pac-10, UCLA may seem to be going faster this year, but leave it to Ben Howland to use fastbreaks for defensive purposes. If you pay close attention you will notice that sometimes UCLA runs on fastbreak not to score, but simply to put pressure on the defense and then run their own offense. To the casual fan it may appear that UCLA is running. But Ben, you can't fool everyone :-)

Home Winning streaks: Memphis 16, Winthrop 14, Ohio State and Bucknell: 11


Of Brackets and Men

Latest RPI numbers at KenPom RPI. You can also see some interesting things by looking at the teams at KenPom's: ranked by SOS, and ranked by non-conference RPI

Updated as of today, The BracketBoard, along with their Lockbox.