UConn at Georgetown

Oh boy! The game started choppy but it turned into a game of the year nominee by the time it was all said and done! UConn had a great game, with Jim Calhoun not coaching due to a health related issue. Coincidence or not? Perhaps Blaney is able to get the players to perform better - his personality is diametrically (I was told to use this word, I don't know what it means) opposed to that of Calhoun.

In a sense this game was a mini-version of the 2007 Elite 8, where UConn has a nice lead, but in the last couple of minutes Georgetown toughed up and won the game! And how did they win the game? Hibbert for three!

This was a good game for both teams, UConn is starting to play to their potential and hype, and Georgetown continues to win games, even though they may not look as pretty or impressive street-ball-wise as some of the other top 10 teams.

Moving Austin Freeman in the starting line-up was a great move by the new Yoda of college basketball coaches (JT 3). Patrick Ewing is more suited for an energy role off the bench, while Freeman gives them more versatility on both ends of the court.

On top of that Georgetown has a solid nine-man rotation to use, which can be great in an NCAA tourney situation with foul trouble or injuries or match-up difficulties. I have no doubt that this Georgetown team is at least an Elite 8 team, with reasonable chances of making it to the Final Four again, and quite possibly to the Real Big Monday game!


Rantology: Why we need six fouls or more
This game was another indication that games are affected and ruined by foul calls. The game of basketball should be decided by the players on the court, not by over-zealous trigger-happy zebras. This was a classic game of two seven footers. People tuned in to watch them. The teams prepared for the games. The two seven-footers NEEDED this game for their own basketball development. Why let three zebras with a pea in their mouth affect their playing time? This is ridiculous!

Memo to the frozen in evolution giant spiders at the NCAA: Move to six fouls or get rid of the whole fouling out! The game has evolved, it's time for the rules to evolve to catch up with the game! Just like we are not playing with peach baskets, and we added things like the three pointer. Evolve and intelligently design the rules! Stop being "statusists!".

NBA: Joakim Noah benched by ...teammates!

A darling of the world of college hoops in the last couple of years, Joakim Noah was He was benched by his own teammates! (Fox Sports story). That's right benched by a unanimous vote by his own teammates!

Apparently Noah had a confrontation with an assistant coach (Star Tribune). The blogosphere is also buzziing about this story, see the SEC Talk boards, MySpace Sports (they have Sports?), Larry Brown Sports, and Rosen's blog.

The ultimate NCAA team is not so team-friendly in the NBA! First head coach Billy "The Diva" Donovan has a long and winding saga about his coaching future, first non-interest interest in Kentucky, then non-interest interest in the Orlando Tragic. Now his star pupil and ultimate team player mixes it up with an NBA assistant coach. Oh dear!

Washington State at UCLA

The Washington State team from 2005-2006 showed up in the first part of the game, and combined with another solid performance by the Beached Whale (Kevin Love), the UCLA Bruins took a comfortable lead in the game.

Or so they thought. With about two minutes left in the game, The Wazoooo Cougars hit about half a dozen three pointers, gave the Bruins fans a scare, and almost managed to send the game into overtime, and could have caused the UCLA players an "Ammo tears" moment.

Derrick Low scored 24 in the second half, but where was he in the first half? The game was in the 70s despite Jay Bilas categorically stating that it wouldn't be in the 70s. Of course that was partially caused by fouling UCLA players and Wazoo hitting a barrage of threes during the last few minutes.

This was a classic deer in the headlights moment for Washington State. UCLA had already played a number of high profile games this season, and a number of their players had back-to-back Final Four experience. Wazoo on the other hand played a rather comfortable and comforting schedule, and this was probably their biggest game of the season.

Their initial deer in the headlights reaction was what took them out of contention, and perhaps exposed them a little bit. The game was not as close as the final score indicates, but then again, Wazoo was just a three pointer away from major drama.

So what does this tell us? UCLA is going to be hard to beat this season, that's for sure. Note that Howland limited Mata's PT and played more basketball skilled Keefe - to match up with the more fundamental Cougars.

Washington State on the other hand may be headed to another second round exit, since so far they have only beaten teams that would likely not make it past the first round of the NCAA tournament. Then again, they didn't play any other top tier teams, so we have to wait and see. Can they beat UCLA on their home court? Come back in February and we'll find out!

NC State at North Carolina

Was NC State that horrible or was North Carolana's defense that good? Probably somewhere in between, but non the less it was an impressive defensive display by the Tar Heels in the first half. And this wasn't just any team, but one of their in-state rivals.

The Red jacket did not help NC State, or perhaps it was the red jacket that allowed them to score in the first half. Jay Bilas pounced and pounded on the Wolfpack while they were down which I am sure will make him some new friends in Wolfpack country ;-)

Danny Green looks more and more like a key player that could determine whether North Carolina wins it all or not. A lot of teams don't have a player as good on their whole roster, let alone bringing him off the bench. Dancing move strictly option.

Where does NC State go from where? They are lucky there is no relegation in the ACC, otherwise they would find themselves replaced by Davidson :-) Some point out to team chemistry problems partially because of the impact of super-frosh JJ Hickson. We blog, you decide, we do not know.

Roy Williams kept his starters in the game, not sure if he was reliving the Georgetown Elite 8 game or just using it as practice time or perhaps it was a side-effect of the Clemson. But he also showed "restraint" by having a *gasp* eight man rotation.

I doubt UNC is going to have such a dominating performance every game this season, but if they do, make room for another banner!

Horizon Fitness T74 Treadmill: While watching college hoops game on TV

This is a good way to watch a game and burn calories at the same time! Jump on the treadmill! Why sit in front of the TV and load up on bad calories when you can burn calories while watching TV instead? One treadmill option is the Horizon Fitness T74 Treadmill offered on special today only at Amazon as their gold box deal of the day for $800 with free super saver shipping. The treadmill ships in the original manufacturer packaging. Don't expect it to come in one of those cutesy Amazon book boxes ;-)



There are three customer reviews and lots of product info at the Amazon product page, and of course, Google is always your friend.

Washington State at USC

DavOn Jefferson was DavOff Jefferson as Roger Walters suspended him for the game for "undisclosed reasons". That hurt USC as the experienced Cougars sliced and diced them (or rather picked and popped them). Hold the Mayo, OJ is not the USC savior people were expecting!

This was a classic neo-Bennett game, with threes, select runs, and Baynes space-eating inside, although most of the first half was more of a classic Dick Bennett slugfest. Perhaps the emergence of Baynes inside is what could be the difference for the Cougars between a second round NCAA exit and an Elite 8 run. You heard it here! You heard me! Not that I am Chief Payne of the House of Payne ;-)

Pink Floyd has his work cut out for him. The team looks much better on paper than on the court and that's not something a coach wants to see happening. Especially when you have a super dooper freshman playing and your team is playing worse than it did before. I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually, but will it be enough, or will they square off with Kentucky in the post-season NIT Final Four? :)

College basketball program valuations by Forbes (and most with 1000+ scorers)

During the broadcast of the West Virginia at Louisville game on ESPN2, they mentioned an interesting statistic which I forgot to mention yesterday in the game critic post: Which college basketball programs have the most players that have scored 1000 or more points during their career?

The answer, according to the ESPN announcers is North Carolina, tied with Louisville as soon as Juan Diego Tello Palacios scores a couple more points (or he may have had already during the game - I did not track). The number of players you ask? 58!

The broadcasters also referenced a recent Forbes magazine valuation of college basketball programs in dollars and sense terms. Want to find out more about that? Here is the story at Forbes.com. The story was last updated on January 2, 2008 by Peter J. Schwartz. Be sure to check the story to find out how they came up with their valuations.

West Virginia at Louisville

Pitino vs Huggins! 500 vs 600! A former Conference USA rivarly! Did the game live up to its billing? Nope! Did defense win? Yes, the buckets were not easy to make. Did anyone get injured from Louisville? Nope!

This was an almost must-win game for Louisville and a nice-to-have road win for Cincy West Virginia.

But Louisville had a rather comfortable night against the "Beileineers", with a four-pack of servicable forwards at Pitino's disposal. And it was indeed the two coming off the bench (Padget and Earl Clark) who had the biggest impact on the game. T-Will did good without scoring, and Edgar Sosa made it clear that Pitino needs to recruit point guards for 2008-2009 and beyond.

Despite the Huggins-bias from the ESPN play by play guy, Huggins was caught by the cameras smiling and laughing at the zebras multiple times. Silly play by play clones! Stop repeating non-sensically whatever crapola you remember from watching Sportscenter ;-)

And speaking of crapola, will someone please teach ESPN's Karl Ravech how to count the commercial breaks during the half time show so he can actually tell when the second half is about to start and when they are coming back for another half-time show segment. It's really not that hard to count: Let's teach Karl: One, Two, Three!

As you can see there's not much to say about the game! :)

Arizona at Arizona State

The Duel in the Dessert started like a Missouri Valley conference game, and it was only very late in the first half that the game picked up in terms of basketball play on offense. The script of the game was different this time.

For one thing, Arizona did not fall behind, but rather started the game ahead and kept the lead throughout the game. For another thing, Arizona State actually made a comeback, instead of having their traditional meltdown when facing off the Lute Olson Cats.

James Harden was almost unstoppable in the second half, Kevin O'Neill refused to change his defensive schemes, and ASU slowly managed to get back in the game and force an overtime.

The overtime was a sea-saw battle and Arizona State ended up getting a storming the court win over their "rivals" who had won 24 of the last 25 "rivarly" games before tonight.

Kevin O'Neill continued with his unpredictable rotations, with Kirk Walters and Jamelle Horne seeing no court time at all. Infact some could argue that O'Neill was ...zany as he asked Zane Johnson to remove the red shirt and put on the blue shirt. All that so that he played five minutes in the first half? As you may recall Lute lifted the redshirt off Kirk Walters a few years ago.

The strange thing is that both Walters and Horne would have been good matchups, especially Walters going against Pendergraph and House of Duke Boetang. Horne is fast enough that he could match up with Shipp or whoever else was playing the undersized four.

Herb Sendek has indeed surprised many people with this quick turnaround. A lot of people thought that it would take him 3-4 years and there were no guarantees he would be able to do it. Of course the season is far from over, but for Arizona State standards, he already has three conference wins, and *gasp* a 3-0 conference start. When was the last time ASU won more than 3 conference games in a whole season?

If you missed this game, you can catch a repeat on Fox College Sports or FSN-Arizona (for those with the regional FSN satellite package). Speaking of TV, this is the January 2008 college hoops tv guide.

North Carolina at Clemson

Was this the game that Wayne Ellington went from a talented player with mad skillz into a Rashad McCants-type killah? If yes, mark North Carolina as one of the four Final Four teams. And were the last 2 minutes of regulation and last play of the overtime a microcosm of Clemson's 2006-2007 season or just how the game ebbed and flowed? We blog, you decide!

Clemson looked great for most of the game, they were able to run and gun with the Tar Heels, beat them at their own game at times, and their four bigs put Tyler Hansbro in a straight-jacket and made him look like a frustrated average player. KC Rivers was making shots left and right, and freshman Demontez Stitt looked like a skinny version of Tywon Lawson at times.

Then came the last two minutes of regulation. Clemson starting slipping up, Hansbro woke up a little bit, and the UNC TarHeels got back in the game and tied it. But Clemson could have won - they had two chances to do so in the last play of regulation and they blew it - they blew an almost uncontested layup (perhaps the injury and crumps got James Mays in that play).

But a similar story developed in the overtime. David "Harry" Potter was magic during the OT and gave Clemson a nice boost, but with five seconds left from the win, he went for the heroic steal instead of just staying in front of Wayne Ellington and bothering him. The result? Ellington hit a Rashad McCants like dagger and that made Ole Roy jump up and down in joy before he realized the cameras were on.

UNC needs a better way to deal with their backup point guard. Since I play Coach Blogjerus on the net, I recommend UNC to put Q-Thomas in the game while Tywon Lawson is still there, and let them play together for a couple of minutes. That way Q-Thomas picks up the game vibes without having to be thrown into the fire. Then you take out Tywon Lawson, so Q doesn't get the baptism by fire.

Why have I just said that? Because unlike Star Trek's Q who can just clap his hands and undo things, UNC's Q cannot do that and undo his three back-to-back turnovers that let Clemson back in the game in the first half and gave them a lot confidence.

The good news for UNC was that they were able to get an "onions" win on the road without Bobby Fraser and Alex Stepheson and make a winning play with five seconds left. And Ole Roy put Clemson's sharpshooter in a straight-jacket. Although Marcus Ginyard deserves most of the credit for that.

The good news for Clemson is that they are not as bad as last year's team, and they were just one play away from winning the game, both in regulation and in overtime. What does that mean? Time will tell! We will have to wait and see how they do against other NCAA-bound teams before we make up our mind. But because of their performance, I have voted them in the BlogPoll Top 25 at #24. This is the first time this year I have voted for the Clemson Tigers in the Top 25 :)

Week #8 of the Blog Poll Top 25 was published!

I forgot to mention this earlier on, the holiday rush got to us too! Week #8 of the Bloggers BlogPoll Top 25 has been published at Vegas Watch. This was last week's poll. This week's poll will be published in the next few hours.

There you can see there the final result as well as how each participating blogger voted using the free Google Docs - you can open the worksheet in your browser and see how each one of the bloggers voted!

How about this week's poll? I submitted my vote last night and as I mentioned earlier I put Clemson in the Top 25 for the first time this year! Other "surprises": Louisville is back at #21 based on how well they play with Juan Diego Tello Ramon Rodrigo Alfonso Palacios and David "I wanted to play for Ole Roy" Padgett. Arizona remains as their loss at home to Oregon was "discounted" by the absence of Jerryd Bayless. Oklahoma is at #19 as they are now starting to play Capel-ball. He is not that bad for a Dookie after all. The further he stays away from Durham, the more the Coach Krapola effect will wear out :-)

After their "onions" win at Clemson, I gave UNC the nod for #1, with the Calipari Tigers at #2, and as much as I hate the Ben Howland slugfest style of play, they are hard to beat, so I gave them the #3 spot. Another team that has shown they can find ways to win games is Georgetown at #4. A team (and a coach) that has not shown they can win games that really really matter but has plenty of talent is Kansas, which is why they are #5.

The rest of the teams were ranked but the votes were just too close to call at the moment. If I ranked them four hours later, I can guarantee you, it would have been a different ranking for sure!

USC at Stanford

This was an ugly game. Ugly! If it wasn't for a "spurt" in the last five minutes which included intentional fouling by USC in order to make a comeback, this game would have been won in the 40s! Ouch! It was an ugly 52-46 (or something like that).

Nevertheless the win counts as a win and the Cardinal (not Cardinals) defended their home court and prevented a 0-2 conference start. The Lopez twins once again were friends of foul, Lawrence Hill has taken a step back, and the guards are the big question for Trent Johnson.

The FSN game was interesting to listen to as well as former Stanford head coach Mike Montgomerry was the analyst. MM seems to start to get accustomed to the analyst gig and he is starting to actually provide some insight - sort of like a Majerus-type of an analyst.

USC was a disaster, and this is confusing. Tim Floyd tried a different line-up (discipline of players or matchups?) - with a perimeter oriented starting five instead of his usual starting five. USC's touted players looked quite pedestrian during the game, and they just couldn't score.

This game was so ugly it made Missouri Valley Games with Southern Illinois look pretty ;-)