I hate to write about the obvious nationally televised stuff, but that’s all I’ve got this week. First, Arizona football fans jinxed their own team on Saturday night. ABC cameras caught them flooding onto the sideline with Arizona leading by 7 and 31 seconds left, preparing to storm the field. But Oregon had the ball and was in position to score! Logically Oregon completed the drive and got a TD with 6 seconds left to tie the game. A fan on the field was caught shouting, “You have got to be kidding me.” And the premature celebration was a full jinx as Oregon prevailed in overtime.
Second, I hope you didn’t miss Verne Lundquist’s signature call of the end of the LSU vs Ole Miss football game which Ole Miss led by two.
“The LSU Hail Mary is complete. Wow. One second left on the clock. They’ve got to get the field goal unit on the field. LSU has to get the field goal unit on the field. They are lined up with their offense. What are they doing? They have to go for it. They spiked the ball. The game is over. What were they thinking?
[Dramatic Pause]
Oh my goodness.”
OK, I didn’t have a DVR on the small TV near our washer/dryer. So this isn’t the exact quote, but it’s pretty close. Regardless, Lundquist’s shock at LSU’s bad strategy made the ending three times as good.
Feast Week Tournaments
I’m ecstatic about these early college basketball tournaments, but disappointed to see so few on TV. Why wasn’t the Georgia Tech vs Dayton game on ESPNU? People have DVRs. Is ESPN afraid it wouldn’t draw ratings on a Thursday at noon? ESPN wanted people to take Tuesday off to watch 24 hours of basketball, so shouldn’t some of those same people want to tune in to see Derrick Favors against legitimate competition? Dayton’s victory over Georgia Tech is going to be mentioned a thousand times in March as people talk about Dayton as an NCAA tournament team. And almost no one saw it.
Part of the fun is taking pity on the early tournament losers. Heading into Sunday, Penn St. and Indiana are playing in the last place games of the Charleston Classic and Puerto Rico Tip-off. Indiana’s fall-from-ahead loss to Boston U. had to be particularly disheartening to Hoosiers fans who expected the still young team to be an immediate NCAA tournament contender. On the plus side, I’ll enjoy the chance to see a Big Ten team in action at 10:30am ET on a Sunday. Indiana plays George Mason at that pre-NFL hour on ESPNU.
Already Completed:
2K Sports Coaches vs Cancer: Syracuse is the champ. In my Big East preview I wasn’t willing to anoint Wesley Johnson as the best player on Syracuse. But when he’s shooting 57% on twos, 47% on threes, and scoring 17 points per game against legitimate competition, I may soon change my mind.
Sunday:
Charleston Classic Title Game, Miami vs South Carolina, 6pm ESPN2. South Carolina won a pair of closer than expected games against La Salle and South Florida to reach the title game. Will the high octane Gamecocks have something left in the tank against Miami?
Puerto Rico Tip-Off Title Game, Villanova vs Ole Miss, 8pm ESPN2. Yeah, you’ve already heard it, but I’ll say it again. How would you like the first shot of your career to be a three pointer to win the game? That’s what Villanova’s Isaiah Armwood did in the first round against George Mason.
Also, the 5:30 ESPNU game between Dayton and Kansas St. is worth watching. I said most transfers don’t have a huge impact, but already Kansas St’s Curtis Kelly is proving me wrong.
Monday:
Paradise Jam Title Game, CBE Semis, Maui Quarters
Tuesday
CBE Title Game, Maui Semis, Cancun Challenge Semis
Wednesday
Maui Title Game, Cancun Challenge Title Game, NIT Semis
Thursday
Old Spice Quarters, 76 Classic Quarters
Friday
NIT Final, Old Spice Semis, 76 Semis, Legends Semis, Chicago Invitational Semis, Las Vegas Invitational Semis, South Padre Island Semis
Saturday
Legends Title Game, Chicago Invitational Title Game, Las Vegas Invitational Title Game, South Padre Island Title Game
Sunday
Old Spice Title Game, 76 Title Game
I’ve already posted the links to the printable brackets for each of these tournaments. I’ll be spending most of the week with family and not basketball, so consider the blog on hiatus.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Oddest Rival
Sports Illustrated currently has a survey which lists the top football rivalry for each school as voted on by the fans. Some basketball bleeds over. Why is Duke getting any votes as a Maryland football rival? But most results seem pretty football specific. See North Carolina choosing NC State as the top rival.
For the 65 BCS teams, there are 34 teams in 17 mutual rivalries. These are rivalries where the fans of both teams say the other team is their primary rival. These are Cal – Stanford, UCLA – USC, Oregon – Oregon St., Arizona – Arizona St., OU – Texas, Missouri – Kansas, Auburn – Alabama, Georgia – Florida, Michigan – Ohio St., Indiana – Purdue, Minnesota – Wisconsin, Pitt – W. Virginia, UConn – Rutgers, UNC – NC State, Miami – FSU, Clemson – Georgia Tech, and Virginia – Virginia Tech
That leaves 31 teams where the rivalry is unrequited. Why do teams not have an obvious rival? For recently modified conferences, sometimes the conference rival is still a new concept. Lousville, South Florida, and Syracuse all consider West Virginia the top rival. But that probably has to do with West Virginia’s dominance since the forming of the new Big East, not a permanent rivalry. Other surprising one-sided rivalries require a lot more history to understand. See Tennessee fans listing Alabama.
There are examples where the hate shows a hierarchy. Texas Tech and Baylor consider Texas A&M the rival. A&M considers Texas the rival. And for Texas, it has to be Oklahoma. But sometimes there is no hierarchy. What about the lesser schools with multiple teams claiming them as rivals? Both Iowa and Wisconsin choose Minnesota. Both Virginia Tech and Maryland choose Virginia. Clearly geography is the most important factor. But why is Washington shunning Washington St. for Oregon. And why is Ole Miss choosing LSU over Mississippi St? Maybe recent poor performance can eliminate an in-state rival.
But what is the most unexplainable rivalry? To me, it has to be Illinois. Do Illinois fans pick Northwestern, their opponent in an annual rivalry game? Do they pick Iowa, Purdue, or Indiana, all within a bus ride? Do they pick Wisconsin, Michigan St., or Ohio St. based on some perceived basketball rivalry? No, Illinois fans top football rivalry pick is Michigan. Hey, I’ve lived in Champaign, and I still don’t get it.
For the 65 BCS teams, there are 34 teams in 17 mutual rivalries. These are rivalries where the fans of both teams say the other team is their primary rival. These are Cal – Stanford, UCLA – USC, Oregon – Oregon St., Arizona – Arizona St., OU – Texas, Missouri – Kansas, Auburn – Alabama, Georgia – Florida, Michigan – Ohio St., Indiana – Purdue, Minnesota – Wisconsin, Pitt – W. Virginia, UConn – Rutgers, UNC – NC State, Miami – FSU, Clemson – Georgia Tech, and Virginia – Virginia Tech
That leaves 31 teams where the rivalry is unrequited. Why do teams not have an obvious rival? For recently modified conferences, sometimes the conference rival is still a new concept. Lousville, South Florida, and Syracuse all consider West Virginia the top rival. But that probably has to do with West Virginia’s dominance since the forming of the new Big East, not a permanent rivalry. Other surprising one-sided rivalries require a lot more history to understand. See Tennessee fans listing Alabama.
There are examples where the hate shows a hierarchy. Texas Tech and Baylor consider Texas A&M the rival. A&M considers Texas the rival. And for Texas, it has to be Oklahoma. But sometimes there is no hierarchy. What about the lesser schools with multiple teams claiming them as rivals? Both Iowa and Wisconsin choose Minnesota. Both Virginia Tech and Maryland choose Virginia. Clearly geography is the most important factor. But why is Washington shunning Washington St. for Oregon. And why is Ole Miss choosing LSU over Mississippi St? Maybe recent poor performance can eliminate an in-state rival.
But what is the most unexplainable rivalry? To me, it has to be Illinois. Do Illinois fans pick Northwestern, their opponent in an annual rivalry game? Do they pick Iowa, Purdue, or Indiana, all within a bus ride? Do they pick Wisconsin, Michigan St., or Ohio St. based on some perceived basketball rivalry? No, Illinois fans top football rivalry pick is Michigan. Hey, I’ve lived in Champaign, and I still don’t get it.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Six Thoughts on ESPN’s 24 Hour Hoopfest
1) On what date did you learn how to properly pronounce Xavier Henry’s name?
a. Still don’t know - Normal
b. During last nights game – Obsessed fan
c. Two years ago – Recruiting junky
d. Last week watching SportsCenter highlights of a Kansas exhibition game – Lucky fan
e. Next March at a sports bar with 5 of your buddies – Unlucky fan
f. In June at the draft – NBA fan
g. Possibly never – Digger Phelps
2) Derrick Nix is my new favorite Spartan. Yes, he probably isn’t that important to the team. But when someone with that much mass can get up for 3 blocks, wow. Also, I thought for awhile Draymond Green switched jerseys. How does Tom Izzo keep finding these bulky (and yet strangely athletic) big men?
3) The highlight quote from Rush-The-Court’s 24 hour coverage: “Aw, man. We’ve been duped. ESPN is replaying the studio portions of their halftime show from game-to-game during the overnight games, assuming we’re not going to catch onto that since, well, only an idiot (*ahem*) would watch all of these games.”
4) Look, I could watch Michigan St. vs Gonzaga on infinite loop forever. This is basketball the way it is meant to be played, and not over-hyped. But unlike Championship week, I can’t advocate taking off work for the 24 hour marathon. I need to be able to flip between good games in order to claim basketball nirvana, and prior to the evening session, we mostly had a bunch of Kyle Whellistion style games. Some of them were good with significant tournament implications (see Drexel – Niagara), but it is hard to care at this point in the year.
I think someone recently described this phenomenon. When you turn on a game, you naturally start cheering for one of the teams, even though you may have no attachment to either team. I have a basic hierarchy for this:
a. Does either team play my team at some point in the season? Hmm, I guess I’m rooting for Louisville against Arkansas since Louisville plays in the same conference as Georgetown.
b. Does either team have a coach or player who is a natural villain? See Isaah Thomas who has so far i) complained about having to face North Carolina, ii) whined that Tulsa ran up the score on his team, iii) and spoke about how it was about time his team won a game. The only caveat for Isaah Thomas is that I wish his team was better so that watching them lose would mean something.
c. Does either team have fans that seem like jerks? I’ve grown to appreciate Coach K. And I do appreciate the passion of Duke fans. But Duke fans have a trademarked image as preppy and insufferable, and almost everyone roots against Duke.
d. Does either coach clearly need to be fired? Look, I think Todd Lickliter is a great guy who fell into the wrong situation. But at this point, I’m not going to cheer for Iowa to beat anyone else in the Big Ten unless that team has an insufferable coach or fans.
e. Is either team ranked 3-5 spots ahead of my team in either the polls or the bracket projections? Fake example: You mean Joe Lunardi has Minnesota as a 9 seed and Alabama as a 7 seed? Alabama is not that good. Usually you root against the ranked team, but this is one example where that might not happen. If highly ranked Kentucky plays Alabama, I may still root for Kentucky because, as I’ve said, Alabama is criminally over-rated.
f. Root against the ranked team.
g. Root for the mid-major against the BCS team. Note that this is way down on the list. The BCS team can’t be in the same conference as your team and the mid-major can’t be taking an NCAA bid from your team.
h. Root for the team with a fun player. Hey, that Edwin Ubiles of Siena was really good when I saw him last year. It might be fun to see him play well.
And that leaves games like St. Peter’s vs Monmouth where I can’t form an opinion. And I’m not going to take off work to watch a game when I can’t form an opinion.
5) The other key component, as mentioned above, is being able to flip games. At 5:30pm, there were at least two games to flip between. In the Rush-the-Court recap, John Stevens mentioned flipping over to SportsNation at 4 in the morning. Incidentally, I like Calvin Cowherd a little better on SportsNation than I do on his radio show, but his negativity on the radio is a bit much for me. This would be Cowherd’s standard analysis of UCSF knocking off UCLA for the first time in school history.
“Congratulations to UCSF for knocking of UCLA, but let’s face it, if UCSF was a good team, they wouldn’t have needed two overtimes to beat this young UCLA squad. Furthermore, this upset basically happened in the first game of the season. That means at the end of the year it isn’t going to mean anything to the selection committee. The last 10 games count a lot. Of course UCSF is not the kind of school you would find on the bubble anyhow. That basically means this game is irrelevant. And the UCLA fans clearly showed it by not showing up to this one. The stadium was practically empty. So congratulations to UCSF for the biggest upset in school history or whatever you want to call it. But it happened at 2:30am ET and no one is going to remember this game tomorrow.”
6) It is really too early to judge much of anything. But for those of us who wrote previews this year, (now available on Amazon), each early season game is a painful evaluation of our work.
-I had Louisville alone in second in my Big East preseason ranking, but after every other publication I read buried them, I gave them one more loss in my projections. On Tuesday I was regretting that move. Louisville lost a lot of returning minutes, but the Louisville bench and role players could have started for a lot of Big East team’s last year. And I would take a recruit like Peyton Siva any day of the week. Plus, no matter what he did off the court, Rick Pitino can still coach.
-Meanwhile, I had Georgetown as a borderline NCAA tournament team, lower than many other prognosticators, due to the team’s lack of depth. And they looked pretty similar to last year in a 1 point win over Temple. OK, yeah there are some key differences that followers of the team can catch. Julian Vaughn was virtually never on the court at the same time as Greg Monroe last year, but JT3 had them both starting and playing together for most of the game. But does anyone outside the Georgetown community care about this? What most people care about is that the team still has virtually zero scoring outside of the big three of Wright, Freeman, and Monroe.
But before I pat myself on the back for having Louisville higher than other ratings and Georgetown lower than other ratings, you need to recognize that this is a long season. And most of the ratings are based on the whole season, when the young players get a chance to develop. I think Kansas is a national title contender, as I wrote in the Jay-hawk tip-off. But they need to find the right combination of role players, and that is going to take some time.
So for now, let the season develop, and enjoy the games for what they are: good games. How often will you see a big man like Greg Monroe drive from the top of the key for the game winning basket as Georgetown beats Temple? How often will you see UCLA fall at home in a non-conference game? How often will you see Memphis fight its heart-out to hang with Kansas? And how often will you see Gonzaga-Michigan St. play down to the wire. This is college basketball.
a. Still don’t know - Normal
b. During last nights game – Obsessed fan
c. Two years ago – Recruiting junky
d. Last week watching SportsCenter highlights of a Kansas exhibition game – Lucky fan
e. Next March at a sports bar with 5 of your buddies – Unlucky fan
f. In June at the draft – NBA fan
g. Possibly never – Digger Phelps
2) Derrick Nix is my new favorite Spartan. Yes, he probably isn’t that important to the team. But when someone with that much mass can get up for 3 blocks, wow. Also, I thought for awhile Draymond Green switched jerseys. How does Tom Izzo keep finding these bulky (and yet strangely athletic) big men?
3) The highlight quote from Rush-The-Court’s 24 hour coverage: “Aw, man. We’ve been duped. ESPN is replaying the studio portions of their halftime show from game-to-game during the overnight games, assuming we’re not going to catch onto that since, well, only an idiot (*ahem*) would watch all of these games.”
4) Look, I could watch Michigan St. vs Gonzaga on infinite loop forever. This is basketball the way it is meant to be played, and not over-hyped. But unlike Championship week, I can’t advocate taking off work for the 24 hour marathon. I need to be able to flip between good games in order to claim basketball nirvana, and prior to the evening session, we mostly had a bunch of Kyle Whellistion style games. Some of them were good with significant tournament implications (see Drexel – Niagara), but it is hard to care at this point in the year.
I think someone recently described this phenomenon. When you turn on a game, you naturally start cheering for one of the teams, even though you may have no attachment to either team. I have a basic hierarchy for this:
a. Does either team play my team at some point in the season? Hmm, I guess I’m rooting for Louisville against Arkansas since Louisville plays in the same conference as Georgetown.
b. Does either team have a coach or player who is a natural villain? See Isaah Thomas who has so far i) complained about having to face North Carolina, ii) whined that Tulsa ran up the score on his team, iii) and spoke about how it was about time his team won a game. The only caveat for Isaah Thomas is that I wish his team was better so that watching them lose would mean something.
c. Does either team have fans that seem like jerks? I’ve grown to appreciate Coach K. And I do appreciate the passion of Duke fans. But Duke fans have a trademarked image as preppy and insufferable, and almost everyone roots against Duke.
d. Does either coach clearly need to be fired? Look, I think Todd Lickliter is a great guy who fell into the wrong situation. But at this point, I’m not going to cheer for Iowa to beat anyone else in the Big Ten unless that team has an insufferable coach or fans.
e. Is either team ranked 3-5 spots ahead of my team in either the polls or the bracket projections? Fake example: You mean Joe Lunardi has Minnesota as a 9 seed and Alabama as a 7 seed? Alabama is not that good. Usually you root against the ranked team, but this is one example where that might not happen. If highly ranked Kentucky plays Alabama, I may still root for Kentucky because, as I’ve said, Alabama is criminally over-rated.
f. Root against the ranked team.
g. Root for the mid-major against the BCS team. Note that this is way down on the list. The BCS team can’t be in the same conference as your team and the mid-major can’t be taking an NCAA bid from your team.
h. Root for the team with a fun player. Hey, that Edwin Ubiles of Siena was really good when I saw him last year. It might be fun to see him play well.
And that leaves games like St. Peter’s vs Monmouth where I can’t form an opinion. And I’m not going to take off work to watch a game when I can’t form an opinion.
5) The other key component, as mentioned above, is being able to flip games. At 5:30pm, there were at least two games to flip between. In the Rush-the-Court recap, John Stevens mentioned flipping over to SportsNation at 4 in the morning. Incidentally, I like Calvin Cowherd a little better on SportsNation than I do on his radio show, but his negativity on the radio is a bit much for me. This would be Cowherd’s standard analysis of UCSF knocking off UCLA for the first time in school history.
“Congratulations to UCSF for knocking of UCLA, but let’s face it, if UCSF was a good team, they wouldn’t have needed two overtimes to beat this young UCLA squad. Furthermore, this upset basically happened in the first game of the season. That means at the end of the year it isn’t going to mean anything to the selection committee. The last 10 games count a lot. Of course UCSF is not the kind of school you would find on the bubble anyhow. That basically means this game is irrelevant. And the UCLA fans clearly showed it by not showing up to this one. The stadium was practically empty. So congratulations to UCSF for the biggest upset in school history or whatever you want to call it. But it happened at 2:30am ET and no one is going to remember this game tomorrow.”
6) It is really too early to judge much of anything. But for those of us who wrote previews this year, (now available on Amazon), each early season game is a painful evaluation of our work.
-I had Louisville alone in second in my Big East preseason ranking, but after every other publication I read buried them, I gave them one more loss in my projections. On Tuesday I was regretting that move. Louisville lost a lot of returning minutes, but the Louisville bench and role players could have started for a lot of Big East team’s last year. And I would take a recruit like Peyton Siva any day of the week. Plus, no matter what he did off the court, Rick Pitino can still coach.
-Meanwhile, I had Georgetown as a borderline NCAA tournament team, lower than many other prognosticators, due to the team’s lack of depth. And they looked pretty similar to last year in a 1 point win over Temple. OK, yeah there are some key differences that followers of the team can catch. Julian Vaughn was virtually never on the court at the same time as Greg Monroe last year, but JT3 had them both starting and playing together for most of the game. But does anyone outside the Georgetown community care about this? What most people care about is that the team still has virtually zero scoring outside of the big three of Wright, Freeman, and Monroe.
But before I pat myself on the back for having Louisville higher than other ratings and Georgetown lower than other ratings, you need to recognize that this is a long season. And most of the ratings are based on the whole season, when the young players get a chance to develop. I think Kansas is a national title contender, as I wrote in the Jay-hawk tip-off. But they need to find the right combination of role players, and that is going to take some time.
So for now, let the season develop, and enjoy the games for what they are: good games. How often will you see a big man like Greg Monroe drive from the top of the key for the game winning basket as Georgetown beats Temple? How often will you see UCLA fall at home in a non-conference game? How often will you see Memphis fight its heart-out to hang with Kansas? And how often will you see Gonzaga-Michigan St. play down to the wire. This is college basketball.
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