Four Week Checkup
by Matt Jones
We are now four weeks into the season. When I played tennis in high school (it was extremely cool at my school… I promise), our coach used to say in a thick Italian accent, “Guys the volleys should be crisp after the first month.” We here at Hoopville have finally begun making our volleys crisper and the same can be said for the best in college basketball.
Teams are starting to slowly find themselves and storylines are beginning to emerge. Thus I thought it would be a good time to go over what we have learned during the opening month of this exciting college basketball season and to review the highs and lows. In the spirit of the recently announced Golden Globe Award nominations (having seen all the candidates besides Million Dollar Baby, I hereby declare that Finding Neverland is the best movie of the year), I now give you the Early Season NCAA Awards. In order to get the full effect, close your eyes and imagine Jennifer Garner and Verne Lundquist (both fully clothed) reading off the award winners.
Best Team
Picking the best team in the country at this stage of the season is always absurd and does very little except give your critics the ability to write you at the end of the year and remind you how ridiculous you looked for saying that Florida would be a dominant force in December (yes that happened to me). However I am confident in my pick this time around. North Carolina is the best team in the country… hands-down. The Tar Heels are blessed with four, yes four players who will be first-round draft picks in the next two years, and are so stacked that otherwise impressive players like Jawad Williams, are completely forgotten. They have absolutely drilled every team on their schedule, and their only interesting game so far, at home against Kentucky, was really never close. Now I know, you are saying to yourself, “wait a second Paco. This is a team that was beaten badly by Santa Clara, who went onto lose to some team called Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo Irvine at Los Angeles.” However I refuse to acknowledge that this game ever took place. I mean, how many of you remember that last year’s New England Patriots lost their first game on the road to the Buffalo Bills? The answer is no one. Mark my words. This Santa Clara game will one day rank as one of the oddest college basketball results in the history of our fair sport. There is no explanation that suffices (and no Heel fans, Ray Felton being hurt does not do the trick) so we will just assume that the Pete Newell Classic was hijacked by the same people who made Tony Kornheiser think “Listen Up” was a good idea, and just move on.
Best Team (1a)
While I am extremely confident that North Carolina is the best team in the land, in the tradition of the Globes, I get to pick a second winner of this award and just claim that it falls into the “Best Comedy/Musical Film” category. For my money the only team that can compete with the Heels at this point in the season is Illinois. I spent some of my pre-season column praising the beauties of Nick Smith and his famous moustache, and I still want all of you to know that this is my favorite part of the Illini program. However it has come to my attention that in addition to wacky facial hair, this team has some amazing talent. Luther Head (actual name) has become the most unknown dominant force in college basketball since Harold “The Show” Arceneaux was roaming the sidelines in Weberville. And anyone that saw the absolute demolition of Wake Forest during the alleged ACC-Big 10 challenge (a farce if one ever existed) knows that this team can make even the most overly hyped player in recent memory (Hello Chris Paul!) look absolutely mortal. I am not ready to buy stock in Illinois at Sirius Satellite radio levels (340% rise since August), but it would not surprise me if St. Louis has a very Champaign-esque feel to it come early April.
Best Game
For the second consecutive year, Charlotte has been involved in the most thrilling early season tilt, this year losing in triple overtime 102-101 to a vastly underrated Alabama team. The Tide were led with 36 points by a man whose name reeks stardom, one Kennedy Winston. (You know what I am talking about here. Some people have names that require they become famous. There are no guys named Leonardo DiCaprio working at Panera Bread. When he acquired that name, his success in the movie business was predetermined.) Winston – who may have the most talent of any SEC player outside of Lawrence Roberts – controlled the action for most of the contest, and found a way to hit the buzzer beating shot to send the game into overtime, even though his arm must have been throbbing from his exhausting 25 shots from the field. The 49ers (an odd name for a team located in North Carolina) were unable to duplicate their Brendan Plavich-induced magic of their Syracuse upset last season, and found themselves just short when Mitchell Baldwin (he is the one from Bio-Dome) missed a last second shot to give the Tide the victory. Expect both of these teams to have great conference campaigns, and to challenge Louisville and Kentucky for their respective conference championships.
Best Player
Ok I give up. I am finally willing to do what I refused to for two solid years. I am willing to say that Travis Deiner of Marquette is an All-American caliber player. I know what you are saying: “Matt, what took you so long? Deiner has only torched opposing teams for two solid seasons!” True, but for whatever reason, I never believed in this kid before. I mean look at him. He has a haircut that suggests that awkward transition between 8th grade and Freshman year (and no you cannot mention that I still have the exact same haircut), and his arms are thinner than the Bush Administration’s environmental plan (throwing a bone to my liberal readers). But at this point there is no denying the kid. He is currently averaging over 21 points a game, while leading the Golden Eagles to an impressive 9-0 start, which has included victories over Wisconsin and… well they beat Wisconsin. He has also produced a couple of mind-numbing performances that include dropping 34 points on a surprisingly strong Air Force team. I know that there are better individual players in America (Rashad McCants, Julius Hodge, Ike Diogu, Wayne Simien et al.), however none has consistently performed like Deiner. Thus I begrudgingly give him this award…but please graduate soon as you are headed for the Jess Settles “Guy who has been in college forever” award.
Best Early Season Moment
Not only is this the best moment of the early season, it may very well be my favorite moment of recent memory. Rashaun Freeman (who is doing a serviceable job on my college basketball fantasy team) drove to the basket at the end of the UMass-UConn game (thanks to a poor decision to implement a press in the last eight seconds by the normally unflappable Jim Calhoun), making a layup and giving his Minutemen teammates a two-point lead over the favored Huskies. Freeman then did what any reasonable person emboldened by an historic shot like that would do. He ran into the crowd to celebrate with his teammates and fellow students. However there was one tiny problem. There were still 4 seconds on the clock. UConn quickly inbounded the ball and ran the length of the court where one of its players, Freeman’s defensive assignment, took a wide-open three to win the game. Luckily for Freeman he missed, but I am unsure Rashaun even knows that the play took place. He stayed in the crowd, never looking back and celebrating for the rest of the evening. Three cheers to Rashaun Freeman for showing the world that there are significantly more important things than winning a game… such as celebrating when you are close to winning.
Best Breakdown by a Major College Program
Based on their early season results, I am predicting it is only about a month before my inevitable “Quin Snyder is the worst coach with the best hair column” hits the newsstands. Snyder has presided over one of the most dramatic declines of an up-and-coming program that I can remember in recent history.
Remember where we were just a year ago. Snyder was the golden boy of college coaching, handsome and debonair, helping land top-flight recruits to Missouri and seemingly in line to take over his alma mater and inherit the Coach K throne whenever he his back injury flames up again. Then all of a sudden a scandal breaks, implicating school administrators, complete with allegations that their wives had relationships with the players and gave money to various team members. The university had it so bad that Bryant Gumbel came a’knockin (never a good sign) for his Real Sports show, and it looked as if all the University could console itself with was the fact that even if they were slightly dirty, at least they were winning. Now they aren’t even doing that. Early in the season Missouri has lost at home to Davidson, Creighton and Arkansas and on the road to the University of Houston (with neither Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler or Andre Ware involved). In addition, they just squeaked by Murray State, Montana and yes, Brown! (By the way, is there any team in America that would be a worse loss than Brown? I mean Brown… the only people I know who went to Brown have glasses as thick as the ones I wore when I was thirteen and are always interested in talking about something involving the prefix “meta”). Snyder is smart and must realize that a lot will be tolerated in college basketball. You can pay players, shuttle team members to and fro from prison and have shady recruiting practices. But if you start losing, well mister your days are numbered.
Other tidbits and thoughts
- This cannot be the start to the season that Mike Davis was dreaming of in Bloomington. Hoosier faithful knew that the beginning of the year would be difficult, as they were faced with a young team and a very difficult schedule. However they could not have expected to feel this downtrodden after six games. While looking mildly impressive in losses to North Carolina and UConn, the Hoosiers played uninspired against Kentucky and positively dreadful in their home loss to Notre Dame (the first time the Irish have beaten the Hoosiers
in Bloomington in 37 years). The Kentucky game was particularly disturbing as the Hoosiers looked completely unable to score or run any offense at all that did not involve Bracey Wright firing up threes with a man in his face. Davis has never been in the most comfortable position in Bloomington, but if things don’t improve very soon, his days occupying the SFHBK (seat formerly held by Knight) are numbered. - It is very hard to get an early season read on Duke. The Blue Devils have played an absolutely pathetic schedule for a team of their caliber, only hosting Michigan State at home and playing one road game, that being against Valparaiso at the United Center in Chicago. As I stated in my season preview, I think the Blue Devils are much better than many of their critics would have you believe, but I also wish that Coach K would take the gloves off and play more top teams out of conference. Scheduling St. Johns and Temple would have been impressive ten years ago (heck why not see if Georgetown is available… no wait they played them last year), but now suggests a team unwilling to lace it up with the best of the best.
- I must say that I absolutely love the new Kobe Bryant-Karl Malone scandal in Los Angeles. These two guys represent two of the most unlikable players in the NBA in recent memory and now they are feuding over one of the most idiotic disagreements in history. Everyone involved looks absolutely insane, whether it is Kobe’s 19-year old wife saying “what are you huntin’ cowboy?” to a man over twice her age, Malone finding a way to offend a whole ethnicity of people by saying “little Mexican girls” or Kobe making petty comments about the Mailman in retaliation. Ultimately however, even though I find the Mailman distasteful, the blame on this story ends up in the lap of Kobe. I mean here you have a guy who is so unlikable that he doesn’t even have a relationship with his mother. If one were to go the dirtiest, dankest, grittiest prison in America, and ask for the toughest SOB in the place (likely named Raymond), he will come out and speak to you with his shirt off, showcasing a tattoo that says “Mama” on it. No one breaks off ties with their mother, they just don’t. Bryant is slowly slipping into Linda Tripp-esque stages of public hatred and it is only a time before he has a public meltdown. Trust me on this one.
- Folks should give it up for my newest bandwagon team, Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Yes you read that right, there is a team with that name and no I had never heard of them before this year either. The Islanders, who have no conference affiliation and thus no automatic NCAA berth possibility, have begun the season 6-1, gaining victories over Florida State, TCU and Baylor in the process. The Islanders only have seven home games scheduled for the entire season (thanks to the Neville Chamberlin-esque negotiating skills of their AD), and thus it will be very difficult for them to keep up their early success. However they have two very important contests upcoming, one at Alabama and then an epic home game versus Number 4 Oklahoma State on national television. If the Islanders can somehow pull out one of these two games and find themselves in the tournament mix come March, it will truly be one of the more remarkable accomplishments in recent college basketball.
- Here is a name to keep on your radar in terms of the national high school scene. Kevin Durant, who now plays for Oak Hill Academy, is quickly rising to the top of the list of top juniors in the nation. He recently visited the state of Kentucky, where he put on a clinic in helping Oak Hill beat Louisville Manual 69-43. The next night found him at the Kentucky Bank Shootout at Bourbon County High School (which is also quickly becoming a top showcase for future college talent) where he scored 28 in helping his team crush a solid Pendleton County team 98-64. Durant has NBA potential written all over him, but insists he is going to show up in college. One never knows whether to believe such comments, but if he does, word is that Kentucky is the leader for his services.
- I am glad to see Rick Majerus returning to the sidelines to do what he does best, namely obsess over a college basketball team. When Majerus retired from the Utah sidelines, I always felt like he would be a great television announcer, but during the initial stages of his second career, this was not proven to be the case. The jovial side of Majerus which was always so appealing during his coaching days seemed to have left him and he had become serious “Analyst Majerus,” a role that he is far less suited for. Now maybe we will see him let his hair down (both of them), offer a little less objectivity and have more fun, something definitely needed in the college game. Look for USC to be a consistent Top 15 team very soon.
A big weekend is approaching in college basketball and with those pesky finals out of the way (always a drag for the athlete part of a student-athlete), conference season is just around the corner. The big game this week is Kentucky vs. Louisville, as the bluegrass state will once again showcase its holiday goodwill by renewing the second best rivalry game in the country (anyone who says number 1 is anything except UNC and Duke is lying to themselves). This is a big game for Tubby Smith, who has had the misfortune of running into a Louisville buzz saw the past two seasons, something that has caused much heartache for the Big Blue fan base. Smith has a young team that is just busting at its seams with talent, but is also prone to long scoring droughts and a tendency to lose focus. I look for this one to be very close, but because the ‘Ville has no answer for the Cats inside game (or anyone’s inside game for that matter) I see Kentucky winning 77-70. Until next time, shoot me your email at [email protected] and we will see you next week.
