Daily Bubble Talk (Friday)

Coaching Carousel Instant Update!!!

Giacoletti will be gone at the end of the season. After three years of attempting to follow in the large shadow of Majerus. The buyout was just $175,000 for four years remaining (just???). Utah is now hiring! Will Majerus go back?

I would be shocked if sour loser and failure Steve McClain wasn't kicked out of Wyoming. Talk about a classless act!


Bubble Talk

In the Valley of Darkness, Bradley beats Northern Iowa on a late three-pointer.

Updated March Madness and Championship week TV listings

NIT coverage

A Big 10 game broke out in the Pac 10, as UCLA sealed an NCAA #1 seed by beating Washington State in a total slugfest. At one point Washington State had an 8-2 "run" in a spun of 8 minutes (!). What have you done with my Pac 10? Bring me back the Pac 10 of run and gun please!



NBA Draft Early Entries

Marcus Williams will enter the draft. While the timing may sound a bit early or strange, it has the pleasant side-effect of ending all speculation and questions about it.

Budinger claims he will return

Oden and Durant won't decide until after the season

The Big 12 Preview show mentioned that DJ Augustin has created enough NBA-buzz that he may bolt for the NBA at the end of this season

Randolph Morris is an NBA free agent (a rare case when a players get digested undrafted). He could sign with anyone at the end of the season

Take what players say now with a grain of salt (or even a whole packet). Sometimes they'll say whatever it takes to make reporters stop bothering them...



Not Bubble Talk

Not bubble, but the Thad Matta gum story won't go away!

Jump on the Calipari Express! A number of teams got stung by the 17-game-winning streak bug. Florida, Clemson and even an NBA team. But not Calipari's Tigers. The AASAA Tigers managed to beat Tony Barbee's UTEP and get to an 18-game winning streak. Them and of course the undefeated Lady Devils of Duke who are on their way to 30-0.

Memo to Roy Williams: Don't just bench Tywon Lawson. Bench all the freshmen and return to last year's starting team who overachieved. Make the freshmen earn their playing time by coming off the bench and making a difference.

Frustration Boulevard: Wyoming's coach Steve McClain makes a diva exit that would make Mariah, Celine, Diana Ross, Whitney, Madonna, the Dreamgirlz, and Beyonce jealous. Has he been fired already? It's about time :-) Also gone is the Liberty coach, but they may have a hard time finding a replacement: who would want to coach in such an exteremely liberal university? :-)

Funniest comment of the day: Jay Bilas described two Georgia Tech players getting tended to by the trainers for cramps as a "Yoga class".

Okay Illinois is not having a great season and perhaps they want to drown their sorrows in some alcohol, but do they have to all drink and drive? When I saw Rich McBride's name I thought the ticker had a typo and was reporting on Jamar Smith. Not so. This will probably nudge the team into the NIT or even the great beyond. And to think that just two years ago Illinois and Bruce Weber were on top of the world with the almost undefeated team.

Skip O'Bayless did it again by dissing college hoops in favor of meaningless NBA regular season games.

It's Mike Jarvis in the house. His is writing for Yahoo Sports. And he found a way to work two of his former players in the article, including one of the ...coolest names in college hoops, Alexander Kool. His final advice: Mute the announders and analyze the game yourself (as a homework exercise).

Yahoo Sports offers one free and some for-pay games available online (video or audio only)


Bubble Express: Arizona The team has a record of 19-9, 10-7 in-conference, RPI 14, SOS 2, RPI 1-50: 5-7, RPI 51-100: 8-2, RPI: 101+: 6-0, Road/Neutral: 8-4, Last-10: 6-4. Strong resume, very few games against RPI 101+ teams, beating the NIT field, doing okay against the NCAA at-large field. Their record is interesting, while they haven't played stellar out of conference teams, they have avoided cupcakes and beat up a number of at-large candidates.

Best OOC wins: Memphis, Louisville (N), @SDSU, Illinois (home-neutral), UNLV, New Mexico State

Best Conference wins: @Oregon, Stanford, sweeps of Washington and California

Conference losses of note: Swept by UCLA, USC, and Washington State.

Bad losses: Not the losses themselves, but the way they lost: blown away by North Carolina at home, 2nd largest margin of home defeat by UCLA, meltdown at Virginia (not the loss itself, but the meltdown)

In-conference schedule: true round robin

Key injuries/availability: no significant effect on their resume

Resume Evaluation: Solid at-large resume of a team that can make it to the 2nd round, maybe the Sweet 16. The fact that they are 0-6 vs the top 3 conference teams should be noted, but all their losses are against NCAA at-large teams, and wins over other at-large and bubble teams should more than make up for the 0-6 and the meltdowns.