I hate New Year's Resolutions. Seriously, I have a routine where I go down to the excercise room, put one of the three TVs on college basketball, and enjoy running on the treadmill. But thanks to the "New Year" the place is suddenly jammed full of people trying to better themselves. Um, whoever decided to put it on ESPN Classic to watch boxing, you aren't making any friends.
Look folks, let's keep this simple. You either want to excercise or not. Don't fool yourself. If you are going to give up on this in 2 weeks, do me a favor and give up right now. Thanks.
So eventually I get back to see the end of Villanova vs Seton Hall. The Hall has lost its first two Big East games by 24 and 26 respectively. (Hey, remember when they beat USC. Guess what, so did Oregon St.)
So of course Seton Hall comes back from 8 points down in the final seconds to send the game into overtime. And how do they do it? Seton Hall is shooting 29% from three point range on the season, 302nd nationally. Basically only one player is a half-way decent three point shooter, and that's Jeremy Hazell. So of course, Hazell hits a banked three pointer in the final seconds to tie the game. He even gave us the Reggie Miller leg kick out, which made it look like he was fouled, despite a lack of contact.
To be fair, other than that play, Villanova absolutely denied the ball to Hazell down the stretch and made Harvey try to beat them. And in OT it was Harvey who got called for a travel while trailing by 2. Then the 17% three point shooter Harvey missed an open three in the final seconds to seal the victory for Nova.
Oh, and Scottie Reynolds scored 40 points, becoming the 18th player to do that in a Big East game. But you already knew he was good.
Predictions Without Numbers
After my Marquette post yesterday, I ended up sending a rambling email to Cracked Sidewalks that probably insulted them at some point. Punch line: Their 9-9 prediction was a lot more detailed than I gave credit for, and they are certainly aware of the sample size issues. But the bigger picture still holds. I think certain teams are destined to get a lot better than the Pomeroy Rankings currently indicate.
These include:
30 Miami (FL): See last post about shortening rotations.
18 Washington: Another team still looking for the right rotation. Venoy Overton may get a lot of steals, but he can't shoot and has a horrible assist to turnover ratio this year. Put the right team around Brockman and this could be a top 10 team.
14 UCLA: Not that a ranking of 14 is bad, but once Ben Howland finds the right combination of players, I think this team is going to be very dangerous.
25 Michigan St.: Tom Izzo in November = Frustrating, in March = Amazing
48 Wisconsin: Bo Ryan just wins Big Ten Games
33 Syracuse: This team has seriously played down to the level of competition all year.
19 Louisville: The offense has to improve at some point, right? Right?
I can probably think of more, but I'll leave it at that.