College Basketball

[S John]

Man, there was a great shot of Huggins just ripping into a kid during a timeout. It was like he was trying to physically hurt him with his words.

:lol: I caught the game, and yea I saw that. Its funny you mention that because I made a similar comment to one of my coworkers. Something like, man I wouldn't want that guy to be mad at me. We came out really strong, I don't know how we let that slip away. But hey, I'll take the W and I do enjoy beating Louisville, especially on the hardwood.

[Rhom]

LeBron James was the "Y" in the Kentucky cheer during the 15:00 timeout. :lol:

[Rhom]

The Wildcats won a physical game over Vandy. So its a great day.

Just got back from dinner and caught KU/KState with 7 to play, looks like a helluva ballgame.

[RedEyedGhost]

Just got back from dinner and caught KU/KState with 7 to play, looks like a helluva ballgame.

You can say that again.

Great game, and a great fucking win.

Cole Aldrich came up huge playing the final 11 mins with four fouls (6 in regulation, 5 in OT).

Collins went down with cramps, and missed about 3 min of OT, but made a huge shot at the end of OT.

Taylor played pretty darn well.

Xavier had some good plays, but he's ran head on into the freshman wall, and he's now balls deep.

@CU and Nebby at home should keep us at #1 until we head down to Austin for a Texas on big Monday. Hopefully the team doesn't start looking ahead to that marquee match-up.

[Piper]

Bah. I don't know who this Lunardi is, but if he thinks Harvard is making it over Cornell, he's a nutjob :P

A scant four weeks ago, ESPN's bracketology had Harvard winning the Ivy and making the tournament. Now, after a 36 point smackdown by the Big Red, Lunardi has Cornell back in - as a 10 seed, no less.

[Celtigo]

A scant four weeks ago, ESPN's bracketology had Harvard winning the Ivy and making the tournament. Now, after a 36 point smackdown by the Big Red, Lunardi has Cornell back in - as a 10 seed, no less.

Its looking good. For the first time in school history the basketball team maybe poised to overtake the hockey team in terms of on campus popularity or so I understand. It was an epic beatdown and I hope the rematch in Cambridge gets televised.

[Rhom]

You can say that again.

Great game, and a great fucking win.

Cole Aldrich came up huge playing the final 11 mins with four fouls (6 in regulation, 5 in OT).

Xavier had some good plays, but he's ran head on into the freshman wall, and he's now balls deep.

It was probably the best game I'd seen this year.

Aldrich playing without fouling for that length of time was amazing. Especially considering the inconsistency with the fouls. One minute, the refs were calling it close... the next they were letting them play. There were a handful of times where I definitely saw Aldrich make contact with the body of opposing players as they went in for lay-ups, but I also saw the same on the other end.

I was really curious about the Xavier Henry situation. Is there more to it than just a freshman "wall"? I especially was curious when I saw the offense/defense substitutions going on and that skinny white kid came in for offense (not Morningstar... a different one) while Henry sat the bench. I'm especially curious about any talk from the Henrys' dad. The guy was mouthing off at the beginning of the year about how CJ was better than any other guard on the team, but I've never seen him get floor time in any of the KU games I've caught. I can only imagine how incensed Mr. Henry must be to see Xavier sit the bench as the team goes into OT.

Great win in a tough environment. Here's to hoping that your run at the top goes better than mine did! :lol: (Although, I won't lie... I was pulling for KState. Anything to possibly pull out another week on top of the polls for my Wildcats!!!)

Watching Cal vs. Arizona right now. Arizona has been playing much better after a pretty slow start to the year (could just be that Pac-10 play finally arrived). But I think that Sean Miller was a great hire for U of A. Way better than Tim Floyd would have been. I'm starting to think now that Arizona is still a top tier program and that whatever drama was going on the last few years really damaged their performance, but they'll rise again quickly.

Arizona is definitely looking better. I thought Cal played really well through the entire second half until the last few seconds when they started losing all their mental composure. I wanted to strangle the kid who took a three with 20 some odd seconds on the clock when the team was down two.

A scant four weeks ago, ESPN's bracketology had Harvard winning the Ivy and making the tournament. Now, after a 36 point smackdown by the Big Red, Lunardi has Cornell back in - as a 10 seed, no less.

Its looking good. For the first time in school history the basketball team maybe poised to overtake the hockey team in terms of on campus popularity or so I understand. It was an epic beatdown and I hope the rematch in Cambridge gets televised.

I don't figure that Mark Coury is playing much, but having a former UK player on the team is more than enough to get me rooting for Cornell! Go Big Red!!!

ETA: Oh... and I can't make a post like this without at least acknowledging UNC's worst home loss under Roy Williams!!! At 4-2 in the conference could the Cavaliers be for real? :stunned: Virginia lost to Stanford earlier this year...

And UNC is now 2-4 in ACC play. This could get ugly.

[Celtigo]

Apparently the doomsday device lurches forward:

http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/source-march-madness-with-96-teams-done-deal-27742

68 teams I could live with, although they really should be cutting the number of invites by one. 96 is a terrible idea. There are never 31 deserving teams.

[Maithanet]

Apparently the doomsday device lurches forward:

http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/source-march-madness-with-96-teams-done-deal-27742

68 teams I could live with, although they really should be cutting the number of invites by one. 96 is a terrible idea. There are never 31 deserving teams.

I will never understand how this thing got momentum. It is so horrifically stupid. The tournament is easily the best thing in college sports, and they want to add more teams just so that mediocre teams appear to be less crappy?

The whole point of the tournament is that not everyone makes it there, but once you are there, you are six wins from a national championship. A good seed helps (a lot) but in the end, everybody has to win their games. Now, they can manage to make both of these virtues untrue in a single sweeping motion.

96 teams - Now we can settle that burning question of whether the 9th place ACC team is better than the 11th place Big East team.

In addition, the top 4 seeds get byes. Byes. Seriously. That's what I want in a basketball tournament, the best teams to not be playing. And more rest for the big dogs? They have enough advantage already. Don't make the mid-majors who survive the first round, there won't be many of them, play a rested team in the second (first? 1.5?) round.

Terrible. Terrible.

[Rhom]

I saw something about that last week on Bloomberg. Don't know why I didn't link it here sooner.

I'm actually a proponent of expanding to 68 teams. That would allow all of the 16 seeds to play a "play in" game and generates a lot of hype on the campuses of those mid-majors. The current 65 team field is ridiculous. I do not favor expanding beyond that.

Villanova moves up to number 2 this week. I'm just happy that Kentucky didn't drop any further than 3. Connecticut and Mississippi both dropped from the rankings... which opens up room for Cornell at number 25! Beware the Coury Flurry! :rofl: Interestingly, Vandy moved up in the poll after splitting their games with Tennessee and Kentucky last week. Its a shame that Ole Miss dropped out, it loses a bit of the hype for tomorrow's game with UK.

ETA: Looking over Villanova's schedule, this weekend should be interesting for them with trips to Georgetown and West Virginia. It could make for an opportunity for UK to move back up behind Kansas.

[Rhom]

Oooh... just noticed the first Bubble Watch is out.

First and foremost... let me just say that its a relief not to be watching that column every week this season like I have for the last four years. :stillsick:

Next... they are definitely not high on the Pac-10, and I guess I hadn't really looked at how bad their records are overall as a league.

Chances are there could be only one Pac-10 team included in the field when the dust settles. And it's a shame the NCAA probably won't have the guts to make the Pac-10 champion participate in the NCAA opening-round game in Dayton, Ohio. That's how lousy the league has been this season.

Entering Monday, California was the only league team ranked in the top 50 of the Ratings Percentage Index ratings, which are used to help determine seeding and at-large bids for the NCAA tournament.

The Bears promptly lost at Arizona 76-72, falling into a first-place tie with the Wildcats in the Pac-10 standings.

Every Pac-10 team has already lost at least seven games.

Ugggh...

[RedEyedGhost]

That AP poll cracks my shit up. The voters respect KSU enough to move them UP a spot after a home loss to KU, yet they don't respect KU enough to give us the unanimous #1 spot. Baylor also moved up four spots after a home loss to KSU (although, Baylor has been so under-ranked this season that they're finally where they should be).

I really don't mind Syracuse getting some first place votes, sure their win over Depaul was less than impressive, but they've got a great body of work. I'm surprised they didn't jump Kentucky in the Coach's poll too. Of course they obviously aren't looking at team's bodies of work or UK wouldn't have gotten any first place votes OVER KU. We have four wins against Kenpom top 25 teams, UK has one; our loss was against Kenpom #25 and UK's was to #75. Our SOS is 26, UK's is 77.

Villinova getting first place votes does irk me though. Overall, 'Nova has a pretty nice resume: three wins against Kenpom top 25, SOS of 39... but we have a common opponent in both playing at Temple - they lost by 10, we won by 32. As long as we're both one loss teams, they should not be getting votes above us.

East coast bias :rolleyes:

Hey, I've got to look any little slight when we're #1 :)

[Rhom]

This isn't the same UConn team I watched play earlier in the year, but then again I'd never recognize the UNC team that lost to Va as the same team that beat Michigan State either. So much of college basketball is momentum and confidence. Texas appears to be reeling as well. They are lucky to only be down 4 at the half to OSU.