By Ryan Dunleavy
If you already have started increasing the number of late-night hours you spend watching college basketball in hopes of discovering that Cinderella team no one else is talking about, let us help you get some extra sleep. Here is a look at who is worth watching and who is worth passing by on the national campus hoops scene with, of course, an eye toward March.
HOT
Tune your satellite in to...
- Marist
The Red Foxes are 1.5 games behind first-place Loyola (MD) and tied for second with Manhattan in the MAAC. A chance to avenge an earlier loss to Loyola comes Saturday, and Tuesday night is the first of two games with Manhattan. But the real reason to catch this team is senior point guard Jared Jordan, whose 8.9 assists per game lead the nation. Jordan edged former Connecticut standout Marcus Williams for the national assist title last year, but with Williams playing for the New Jersey Nets this season there is nobody on the same stratosphere as this unheralded playmaker. He is Steve Nash playing all his games in the NBA’s Atlantic Division.
- Stanford
I never understood how this school fits the Division I athletics profile. With all due respect to Duke, Georgetown and Notre Dame, Stanford is the premier academic power playing in one of the big-six conferences. And with all due respect to the Syracuse Orange, the Akron Zips and the UC Irvine Anteaters, the Cardinal is the worst mascot in any conference. A cardinal is a bird, yet some dude in a tree costume parades around the floor at Stanford games. The Cardinal had a lot to dance about this week after Stanford pulled off the home sweep against Los Angeles’ best – No. 25 USC and No. 3 UCLA. This team plays a lot of close games, gets balanced scoring and already has exceeded preseason expectations. If you are still not sold, however, you can watch a bunch of brainiacs rush the court like frat guys racing to a sorority mixer, all while mapping their routes carefully enough to avoid cutting down their beloved tree.
- Virginia Tech
Remember in 2004 when Virginia Tech left the Big East to join the ACC? That was considered a football-first move. The basketball program – which was mediocre in the Big East – stood no chance against traditional ACC powers. Well, the world is now upside down along the Atlantic Coast. Traditional basketball power Wake Forest won the 2006 ACC football crown, and the Hokies sit atop the basketball standings with wins against Duke and North Carolina. Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon combine to form one of the best senior backcourts in the nation, and you would be hard-pressed to find a group of kids having more fun. After last season – when it seemed every player on the team endured some sort of personal hardship – these guys are prepared for the challenge of securing the school’s first NCAA Tournament bid in a decade.
COLD
Choose napping over...
- Connecticut
After a remarkable 10-year run, the Huskies finally have started losing NBA lottery picks faster than it can recruit McDonald’s All-Americans. If the Big East Tournament started today, UConn – along with Rutgers, South Florida and Cincinnati –would be left out. The eighth man on either of coach Jim Calhoun’s national championship teams might be the go-to scorer for this offensively challenged bunch.
- Tennessee
Ultra-exuberant coach Bruce Pearl deserves a lot of credit for incorporating more orange into his wardrobe than an entire staff of Hooters waitresses. Did you see him with his bare chest painted at last week’s Tennessee-Duke women’s game? Maybe he should have spent more time brushing up on the strokes of Ole Miss and Kentucky – who beat the Volunteers by a combined 33 points recently – and less time with the brush strokes. At 2-4 in the SEC, this team is going nowhere.
- Witchita State
Six weeks ago, Wichita State was undefeated and ranked No. 8 in both major polls. Now, still less than a year removed from a Sweet 16 berth, this team has a sub-.500 record (5-6) in the Missouri Valley Conference and inconsistent defense and guard play have the Shockers facing an uphill climb in their own conference tournament. Sure, the MVC is really, really good. But is it worth skipping shut-eye for the sixth-place team in any mid-major? You are not willing to do it for run-of-the-mill Big Sky teams such as Eastern Washington, and you can safely pass here, too.
With an eye toward March...
Carefully review schedules for strength and variety before picking a team to advance too far.
The Pac-10 and SEC are being heralded as the nation’s top conferences – and rightfully so – but if their teams were not battle-tested out-of-conference than neither league will produce a national champion.
Conference action makes up the latter half of most teams’ schedules, but more often than not teams in the same league play similar styles and that reveals very little about a team’s preparation for the NCAA Tournament. In a three-day March span, teams can face a run-and-gun offense and a patient backdoor-cut offense in back-to-back games.
For example, the up-tempo Pac-10 showdowns between UCLA and Arizona make great television, but what if the Bruins were to face potential Horizon League champion Butler – which allows just 56.2 points per game – in a first-round game?
Chances are UCLA would be less prone to an upset than some of its Top 25 peers because it has been exposed to a variety of systems while enduring a brutal schedule that includes Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Texas A &M, Michigan and Big West leader Cal St. Fullerton.
If you subscribe to the schedule strength and variety theory, then expect North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Duke, Marquette and Arizona to make deep tournament runs, and defending-champion Florida, Texas A & M and Oregon to make early exits.
Questions or Comments?
Contact Ryan at rdunleav@hotmail.com.
