NBA GMs - Pay Attention

Do not draft Tyler Hansborough over Blake Griffin!

The Clippers have gotten rid of Elgin Baylor so the leading candidate to do such a foolish thing is not part of the equation.

I have a suspicion on who might do something so foolish. Yes! That's right, the Wizards...

Brennan/Obama/Mens Bracket

Christine Brennan, a relatively famous female sports writer, takes the Obama to task for only filling out brackets for the mens tournament and not the female tournament. Says that the Prez is practicing closet 'sexism'.

For Obama this one's got to hurt. When you're all about inclusiveness and opportunities for all, the bad guys can always get you for not being 'embracing enough'

I'm thinking Obama will have to come out with a public apology to the head of the Women's Tournament. Maybe sing a little Kumbaya with Geno and Pat Summitt to make amends for such a divisive act.

Too funny.

Duke in Hindsight

Wonderful year with 30 wins but this last loss to Villanova will have some aftershocks. With the emphasis on spacing the floor and driving to the basket or playing the pick and roll/pop game, Duke can be as dangerous as anyone.

But, and it's a huge but, when a team tries to do this against a team of equal or greater talent, the whole philosophy goes kaput. Duke didn't have the drivers to go by Nova, Nova played them tough on the perimeter and made Duke take tough 2s and Duke just couldn't do it repeatedly.

Duke's pressure defense is still good and works versus teams that have no plan for attacking them, duke's pressure versus teams that are on the attack is questionable, but they usually stay away from pressing good team. They might need a backup plan for playing against teams they can't beat off the dribble. They probably need to go back to some of their Bobby Knight motion.

Lawson and Griffin

When these two are playing and playing well, UNC and Okla are totally different teams and very tough to beat. Zags and Cuse thought they had something going but these teams were totally neutralized by the quickness of Lawson getting to the basket and by the strength of Griffin around the hole.

Shut Up! Shut Up!

How come Jim Calhoun at his presser yesterday didn't tell all the journalists investigating the 'creatively timed' recruiting scandal to "Shut up! Shut up". Must be his contract is more defensible than his recruiting habits.

Easy to think that whoever was out to get UConn, waited on this to cause the most harm top the program. What UConn should do is say, "we think there is a reason for the timing of these allegations, therefore, we will investigate them, but only after the tournament is over"

Girls NCAA Tourney

Not much support for the tourney so someone needs to step in:

How about lower the buckets to 8 feet, go 'shirts and skins' and we got ourselves a 'product'.

Celtic Strength now a Weakness

Think they are going to miss PJ Brown and James Posey more than people think. Marbury and House were horrible versus Magic last night. Moore was even worse, flopping around and falling down. Last year when the Celtics went to their bench there was not only very little drop off but defensively they might have even gotten better.

Now if KG becomes dominant again and is rolling by playoff time it might not even matter.

Celtics and even Lakers benches are not nearly as good this year. I can see one, maybe both of them, getting clipped before the Finals.

A Little NBA MVP Feedback

MVP -- LeBron, Kobe, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul.

Per a conversation with some of my buddies yesterday not sure that Deron Williams is not surging into the top 5, as guys like Carmelo Anthony and Tony Parker and Steve Nash begin to fade just a little, just a little.

Big East Analysis

Teams that have looked good --- UConn, Syracuse
Teams that have not looked so good --- Louisville, Pitt
Team that has looked bad and good --- Villanova

WVU looked half asleep, Marquette played well today vs. Missouri and played without one of their best players so got to cut them a break.

MD Flex vs. Memphis Dribble Drive

Memphis just kept getting to the basket against MD not much MD could do. MD's offense of baseline screening in the flex forced them to be a jumpshooting team. One team on the attack and being active, the other team moving ball side to side and being passive. Memphis advances.

Greivas' comment that Memphis would have a losing record in the ACC seems way offbase. UNC did not look good today and if Lawson couldn't have gone, UNC would have gone down to defeat vs. LSU, Lawson was the difference!

Why this Game is So Great!

Watching teams like Dayton and realizing that not only once but even in a best of 3, they probably still beat WVU. Dayton's good!

Seeing Siena, small little school in upstate NY, take down a giant state school like Ohio State, a middle of the pack Big Ten team.

Appreciating the effort (or in the case of Wake, a lack of effort) by Cleveland St. in their upset last night.

It should be noted that WVU, OSU and WF are good teams in great leagues but to reiterate previous posts, teams that have really done nothing except have good records. If you don't win tip off tournaments and you don't win regular seasons and you don't win conference tournaments and/or even go to championships games (OSU excluded) why are people shocked that they get beat.

Will the Real Wright Please Rise?

It's official the Chris Wright at Dayton is better than the Chris Wright at Georgetown.

Day 1-Afternoon NCAAs goes to...

Maryland! Upset of California. Maryland outscrapped them, took better shots and had a much better commitment to defense. California's guards were adequate but not as advertised.

In the DC area and have watched Maryland play 10 times this year and here is my description of them.

Maryland has 3 guys Vasquez, Hayes (off the bench) and a chubby white guy who can make a shot, all the rest of them are faceless nondescript poor man DJ Strawberry type players.

Wash Post was giving it to Gary Williams this year about a lack of high level recruitment and not catering to the AAU circuit but give him credit he beats teams with better talent by hustle and commitment.

Watched Georgetown play last night in the NIT, they were the "Not Maryland", they were walking around after loose balls and rebounds!

Barack-tology

Obama's picks on ESPN are not that bad!

Looks like he's much more up on his hoops and teams that might be FRAUDS than he is on financial graft and human beings who are THIEVES.

Stephen Curry

Needs to be a #2 guard in the Pros. The commentators mentioned that his dad grew to 6'7" in the NBA. The experiment of him at PG is a stretch. He's too loose with the ball and even though he has good vision his passes don't always arrive at the right time or place. Wasn't counting but he had to be close to 7 or 8 TOs last night.

NBA prospect - yes. NBA PG - maybe not.

Soso majors vs. Very Good Middies

In defense of the Majors

1) Penn State beat George Mason, even though it took a timely 3pter to send to OT. I guess this is one feather in the bonnet of the lower Big Conferences being better than the next best team, #2, in a Midmajor.

2) Also ND beat UAB for the Majors

In defense of the Midmajors

1) But St. Mary's, the #2 of their midmajor league beat Wash St. the #8 of Pac10

The other games were basically even or no one cares!!!

Games I'm keeping my eyes on tonight - tulsa/nw, vatech/duquesne, and gu/baylor

Rising NCAA Young Coaches

Travis Ford- OSU, Anthony Grant- VCU, Sean Miller- Xavier.

If these guys continue to win or win big again this year that might parlay into an even bigger job. Notice the UVA job just came open, seems like a nice fit for Grant. Kentucky job might come open since their last two coaches Pitino and Tubby are both in the dance with new schools, Ford having played there seems like a logical fit for Kentucky. Miller could end up a Big East coach down the road.

Women's NCAA Brackets Out

Washington Post has a big bracket running over and spanning the entire two inside pages of its sports page. This full newspaper size bracket makes it extremely difficult to xerox the brackets because how is anyone going to be able to do this easily without changing the copy size and copy paper. So inconvenient.

Just makes it hard on the average fan to get your women's brackets out and back in on time.

(Insert Crickets Chirping)

God (Part II) and College FB

The nation's number #1 HS recruit, Bryce Brown, has committed.
"I asked God to reveal it to me," Brown said. "He gave me the sign. When I first went there (on official visit) I wasn't feeling it. I had a lot of concerns about Tennessee and the offense. When I went back, I got the sign. God told me that I was a Volunteer. I just felt it."

God is a Tennesee fan! I knew it! Wonder why he's not a Gator Fan? Must have something to do with Urban Meyer or Steve Spurrier!

10th or lower seeds who might Win

Cleveland St, Northern Iowa, Utah St, Maryland, Wisconsin, VCU, Minnesota, Western Kentucky and Michigan.

I see the East and the West brackets being the ones which screw up everyone's brackets.

Vitale, Phony Holier Than Thou-s

Put him out to pasture, please!

His arguing for St. Mary's getting in was so 'forced', it's almost like he is trying to be an advocate for whoever doesn't get in the tournament. He has sort of become an apologist for the 66th, 67th, 68th best teams.

I like Bilas's comment, "hey, these last set of entry teams, are all seriously flawed, they were lucky to get in". I think Goetlieb or Kellogg even said something to the effect that the tournament field is not as strong and definitely top heavy

Possible Solutions to Help Midmajors

1) Knight Solution play tourney with 128

2) how about winner of regular season, plus both teams who make conference tourney championship game (see earlier post), would increase field but really would increase the midmajors more than the majors

3) don't allow any more than 4 teams per conference, this will force all the big conferences to start to secede, watch how fast the Rutgers will try to go Atlantic 10, watch how fast the Boston College tries to get into America East, watch how fast Penn State tries to get into the Horizon, etc, etc.

4) in next season's preseason NIT, have a blind draw conference to conference lottery where the NCAA committee puts all the 31 leagues in and draws two out, e.g pull out the card with Pac 10 and the card with let's say SEC and then the entire league matches up top to bottom. So the #1 seed from the regular seaason SEC, let's say LSU has to play #1 from Pac 10, let's say Washington, then we go to #2's with Miss St vs. USC, then Tenn vs. UCLA. This way teams have to play other leagues. This would also happen if a power conference took on a weaker conference, lets say ACC vs. MidAmerican --- e.g UNC vs. Buffalo, Duke vs. Bowling green, WF vs. Akron. This would force teams to play each other.

All the above solutions force more midmajors (even some minormajors) into the tournament.

Just thinking about ways to improve the product and make the greatest time of year even more exciting and more inclusive.

Syracuse So So Tired

Biggest reason given for Syracuse falling to Louisville last night. Fatigue!

C'mon, they played two overtime games, one 6 OT and another OT game but they never came out of their 2-3 zone.

How tired can you get, standing there?

If anyone should be tired, it would be Boeheim, whose voice must be strained from yelling, "Hands up!" for 8 quarters and 7 OTs.

Georgetown and Notre Dame

NCAAs are out, NITs might be out, would these two storied programs take the opportunity to go to the CBI, so they can win it.

Georgetown can change their chant from "WE ARE GEORGETOWN" to "WE ARE 85"

Notre Dame can combine their CBI BB championship with their FB's team Hawaii Bowl win. The tradition continues!

NCAA Balance of 'State' Power

Western Kentucky IN, regular ol' Kentucky OUT, Northern Iowa IN, regular ol' Iowa OUT!!!

to a lesser extent, Alabama St in the tourney and 'Bama out, Arizona State is in but 'Zona on the bubble.

still have the argument that maybe, just maybe East Tenn and/or Tenn Chattanooga are just as good as Tennessee.

oh wait, Fla St IN, Florida OUT, Miami OUT!

New Idea for NCAA Tourney

win or tie for your regular season title, win your conference tournament or make it to the championship game and end up runnerup. i'll bet that would add up to 65 teams.

this would allow the 31 tournament champs, plus some regular season champs (let's say 1/2 of the regular season champs lose during the tourneys) and then any other team that makes the conference championships (e.g Fla St, Purdue)

on the down side you would be letting teams like Holy Cross in from Patriot, a College of Charleston from the Southern Conference. Plus you would have to let UMBC in even after loss to Binghamton.

It would be a weaker tournament but at least it wouldn't be a tournament with the 7th and the 8th seeds from the Big Ten, ACC, SEC.

In fact if a team can't end up in the top 4 of its league, it shouldn't be allowed to go unless they get to the championship game. this would make all the teams who are joining this MEGA conferences think again and maybe they would slide back into smaller conferences where they started off and should be at any way.

Women's NCAA Update

between games I accidently turned on a women's game on my espn full court, decided to do a head count.

there are 11 people at the game!

catch the fever!

Duke's Legacy

Just think if Duke beats Fla State in the ACC Tourney, they won't just have won the ACC Tournament Title but Coach K's title will have also produced more 'leaders' for America. He's not just a coach but a 'molder of men'! At least that's what he reminds us of all the time.

Sure Way to Not win Big in the NBA

sign the following good players and start them over what was on the team before or what you might get in the future: Grant Hill, Larry Hughes, Stephon Marbury

another sure way to lose: hire any coach with a Kevin Bacon affiliation to past Bullets/Wizards coaching tree!

Teams (Big Ten?) I don't enjoy

Michigan State, Illinois, Ohio State, Minnesota, okay basically every Big Ten team but i do enjoy Northwestern and Michigan a little but that's not Big Ten, it's really Princeton and West Virginia from two years ago.

Now that i think about it I don't like watching Big Ten Football either!

Crab Dribbling

ESPN ticker is relaying that the NBA is thinking about allowing the the crab-dribble or what i affectionately refer to as the 'tennesse two-step', even though i'm not a fan of all the walking in the NBA already, think of how much ground the King will be able to cover now on his forays to the hoops.

Wizards fans (both of you!) may think the King has already been a consistent 'hop skip and jumper' as is.

The Triangle

Watching the Lakers vs. the Spurs and the Lakers are running the Triangle, after watching a day of college hoops, how come no college program runs the Triangle? just wondering, it looks good for a pro team but no college team readily uses it.

God's (Part I) Divine Providence

Coach Drew from Baylor being interviewed after the game about his team's upset of Kansas in the first round of the Big 12, "God shined down his blessings on Baylor tonight" (not exact quote but something like that).

God doesn't like Kansas? Didn't know that! Must have something to do with Larry Brown.

Changing of the Vocal Guard

The following announcers: Hubert Davis, Gus Johnson, Len Elmore and Stephen Bardo should be the voice of college basketball. This small change would certainly improve the product from a spectator point of view. NCAAs with Dick Vitale and Billy Packer is almost unwatchable, they are just nonsense. Let's bring on the new blood and get rid of those other two.

Also get rid of Knight, he's a grumpy ol' man, the other night he kept saying, "see how he set up his man" he must have said it 50 times almost like he was reading off an index card, "remember to talk about setting up your man".