Around the Power 6 "Plus 1"

ACC
Ascending: Duke
Descending: Maryland
Player of the Week: Nolan Smith, Duke (23.3 pts, 4.3 rbs, 4.5 assts, 1 stl)
On the Horizon: Maryland at VT (Tues.), BC at UNC (Sat.)

My favorite team (which so happens to be dominated by freshmen and sophomores) was up 14 points at halftime in Cameron Indoor. This was a shocker, to say the least. More on this game to come, but Duke gets the nod because they proved they're the class of a very weak ACC. Even without Kyrie Irving, the Devils have found another scoring option in Seth Curry to go with an ever-dominant Nolan Smith. Smith hit every big shot and put Duke on his back against Carolina, with Kyle Singler doing nothing and the Plumlee brothers looking like they had money on UNC. He's inched his way ever closer to serious national player of the year consideration. Maryland is now 5-5, sitting at 16-9 overall and needing a spectacular finish to avoid the NIT. Maryland gets a chance to move up a little if they can win in Blacksburg Tuesday, while Boston College gets a chance to avenge the ass-kicking they absorbed at home against Carolina on Saturday.

Big East
Ascending: Georgetown
Descending: Cincinnati
Player of the Week: Chris Wright, Georgetown (16.5 pts, 4.3 rbs, 5.5 assists)
On the Horizon: St. John's at Marquette (Tues.), Georgetown at UConn (Wed.), UConn at Louisville (Fri.), Pitt at St. John's (Sat.).

Georgetown has shaken off its 1-4 start to climb into the top 10. They've now won 8 league games in a row, using multiple contributions to make up for losing Greg Monroe to the NBA. I was seriously considering putting Marquette in the descending spot, as both they and the Bearcats look to be the first casualties of the murderers row that is Big East conference play. Chris Wright struggled right around when the Hoyas were 1-4, but has gotten his act back together just in time for Georgetown latest hot streak. My only knock on him is his inconsistent shooting, but he's one of the best point guards in the country in terms of leadership and intangibles, proving this with his play of late. St. John's looks to continue its streak of big wins at MSG, this time getting a Pitt team that still might not have Ashton Gibbs on Saturday. Also, UConn gets Georgetown at home, then has to turn around and go to Louisville in a rare Friday night contest.

Big 10
Ascending: Wisconsin
Descending: Illinois
Player of the Week: Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin (22 pts, 4 rbs, 6.5 assts, 4.3/1 assist-to-turnover ratio)
On the Horizon: Michigan St. at Ohio St. (Tues.), Wisconsin at Purdue (Wed.), and Ohio St. at Purdue (Sun.)

Wisconsin was the first team to knock off Ohio St. just like they did in football, winning on Saturday and climbing to number 10 nationally. They look ready to go much further than their first round exit last season when they lost to Cornell. Michigan St. has been the team most criticized for leadership questions, but Illinois has fallen to pieces, largely because of a rift between the seniors and some of the younger players. Bruce Weber has benched Demetri McCamey and Mike Tisdale, as a team that was clearly going to be dancing a couple of weeks ago now has some work to do. Taylor gets player of the week (it's actually 2 weeks, but who's counting) largely off of his work Saturday, going off much like Nolan Smith did against UNC. Sparty gets one of their final chances more a marquee win on Tuesday, while the spotlight shines upon West Lafayette as Purdue gets 2 games against the league's elite in four days.

Big 12
Ascending: Texas
Descending: Oklahoma .
Player of the Week: Jordan Hamilton (18.3 pts, 7.8 rbs, 1 blk)
On the Horizon: Kansas at Kansas St. (Mon.) and Colorado at Kansas (Sat.)

Texas continues to roll unexpectedly and at this pace should be headed toward a number one seed. Oklahoma had a decent stretch early on, but the team that lost to D3 Chaminade has shown that they simply have lost too much talent in the last two years (Where the hell are Tommy Mason-Griffin and Keith “Tiny” Gallon even playing right now?) to compete in the second or even the third best league in the land. Jordan Hamilton has been player of the week two times in a row now, providing a little bit of everything as the best player on the 2nd best team in the country. My preseason final four pick Kansas St. gets the Jayhawks at home in a non-eventful week schedule wise, and the Jayhawks also get a relatively frisky Colorado team Saturday at home.

SEC
Ascending: Florida
Descending: LSU
Player of the Week: Chandler Parsons, Florida ( 16.3 pts, 11.7 rbs, 5 assts)
On the Horizon: Vanderbilt at Georgia (Tues.), Georgia at Tennessee (Sat.)

I'm firmly planted on the Florida bandwagon right now, if only because they're another one of my Final Four picks that actually isn't making me look completely stupid right now. The Gators are now 9-2 and running away from the rest of SEC East. Remember when LSU had players like Big Baby Davis and Tyrus Thomas, all of five years ago? Well they don't have them anymore, and their record of 10-15 shows it. Parsons gets a free pass for playing hurt against UT on Saturday, but averaged a double-double in his 3 other games in the last two weeks. Georgia gets a chance to bump up its resume with challenging games against Vandy and Tennessee, which could vault them to second behind Florida.

Mountain West
Ascending: San Diego St
Descending: UNLV
Player of the Week: D.J.Gay, San Diego St. (12.5 pts, 4.8 assts, 2.3 stls, 18/0 asst to turnover ratio)
On the Horizon: New Mexico at San Diego St. (Wed.), UNLV at Colorado St. (Sat.)

I've been as guilty as anyone in perpetrating the “2011 Jimmer Fredette Love Fest,” but San Diego St. should be getting just as much pub as the Mighty Mormons. They're now 25-1, and could arguably make a case for a number one seed if they win out. UNLV now sits at 6-5 in a league that was supposed to be better than it has been (as I rethink whether the Mountain West really deserves to be included as the “plus one” part of this bi-monthly blog enterprise). They've blown chances against the top 2, and now will be on the bubble unless they do some damage in the conference tourney. Again the player of the week spot is usually exclusively Jimmer's domain, but this week I'm going with SDSU point guard D.J. Gay. Stunningly, he has gone a four game stretch without turning the ball over once. New Mexico has been just as disappointing as UNLV, but gets a crack at the Aztecs in San Diego on Wednesday, as the MWC tries to get more than two teams into the NCAA's.

Pac 10
Ascending: UCLA
Descending: Cal.
Player of the Week: Tyler Honeycutt ( 8.3 pts, 7.8 rbs, 4.3 assts, 3.3 blks)
On the Horizon: Washington St. at Arizona (Thurs.), Washington at Arizona (Sat.)

I try not to harbor an East Coast bias in writing this, and in doing so I've actually watched Pac 10 games quite a bit in the last month. The league isn't as bad as it was last year, and the main reason is the reemergence of “Blue Blood” programs like Arizona and UCLA. The Bruins look to be hitting their stride, entering the week at 9-3 in the league, and getting a big non-conference win against their old boy Steve Lavin and St. John's on 2-6. Cal was looking like they were going to shake off their early struggles with a strong conference start, but it looks as though losing in triple overtime to Arizona might have been the death knell to their year. Honeycutt didn't put up huge scoring numbers, but he did have an 8 block game as is considered to be a potential lottery pick. Arizona looks to continue a streak that has them up to number 13 in the country, getting the two talented Washington schools at home in the span of two days.

Duke-UNC Recap and other Observations
I'm not normally a believer in the term “moral victory,” that being said, I came away from the Greatest Rivalry in College Sports in good spirits. Like I mentioned up top, UNC was up 14 points at the half, something that I and probably a great number of Carolina fans would not have fathomed going into the game. Especially after the blowouts last year, even if UNC should have won the game. But to go into Duke and play that well in stretches, bodes well for the rest of the season. The major key that I can see going forward is the need to develop one or two consistent shooters. If Reggie Bullock or someone else can start knocking it down from deep, biased or not, this is a dangerous team that could end up in Houston for the Final 4. Barnes is starting to get it, and Kendall Marshall has been a revelation. They beat people up on the boards, and after some early season problems defensively, they do a good job locking people down. I don't want to say we're back, but after the carnage of last year, I'm highly pleased with the improvement I've seen from Chapel Hill.

Kansas is a lot better than I thought. Last Monday in the Missouri game, they took the Tigers' best punch in the beginning of the game, with Mizzou starting off 7-9 from the field, and ended up putting up 103 points and winning by 17. Russ' cousins Markieff and Marcus are the real deal, and the rest of the supporting cast have all gotten better since last year's early exit, offsetting the losses of players like Sherron Collins and Xavier Henry. They are now number one, and they deserve to be.

Three teams that I saw in spurts over the weekend as I attempted to channel surf sans remote control (harder than you think unless you're 50 or older) that will be top 10 teams next year are Vandy, Louisville, and UConn. Vanderbilt has shooter John Jenkins, Festus Ezeli, Brad Tinsley, and possibly Jefferey Taylor all coming back. Louisville brings in 2 McDonald's All-Americans to a team that has dealt with all kinds of injuries, all the while losing just Preston Knowles. UConn is probably losing Kemba Walker, but will bring back everybody else, including freshman guards Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier who have become the 2nd and 3rd scoring options the Huskies need with teams keying on Walker. All of these teams have Sweet 16 potential right now, but the future is extremely bright as I try to get a jump on actually picking teams for the Final Four in the preseason that even make the NCAA's.

Hoya Saxa

After an extended abscence due to my computer having the HIV, I figured what better time to reemerge than after my attending the Syracuse-Georgetown tilt at the Verizon Center tonight. Here are some random ramblings about what actually was my first major college basketball game I've ever attended.

1. For it being a game in an off-campus, NBA arena, the Georgetown student section brought a little bit of noise. As my girlfriend and I first stepped into the arena, we literally saw the students sprinting to their seats after they had just been let in. They kept up the energy and intensity throughout, making the fact that they were a little bit further away than most on-campus spots less of an issue. Another suprise was that Syracuse either travels pretty well, or just has a good amount of fans from the DC area. There was a lot more Orange in the crowd, thereby making the heckling of one Eric Devendorf that much more fun.

(there's more)


2. I love Johnny Flynn. I'm going to call it right now, or as Dickie V says, "mark it down." Flynn is an NBA point guard whenever he decides to come out. He can dish, shoot the 3, was about the only competitive person with a pulse playing for the Cuse, and put down at least 3 or 4 retardedly disgusting dunks in warmups that someone 6'0" should not be able to do. Think Nate Robinson but a lot better.

3. Georgetown could be just as good, if not better than the Final 4 team of two years ago. I really like the mixture that the Hoyas have. Of the ten people that played tonight, all 10 scored. They have that mix of experience and freshmen that teams rely on in today's game. Granted the Hoyas shot the lights out tonight, hitting 57% from 3. They won't do that, or put up 88 points all too often. But with the leadership of Summers and Sapp, starters on that Final Four squad coupled with the youth of Monroe, Clark, Wright, and Freeman, they could be dangerous come tourney time.

4. Syracuse also could go deep in March. I already talked about Johnny Flynn, but one other suprise from Syracuse was their size. Both Arinze Onuaku, and Rich Jackson are really big. The Orange outboared Gtown 32-25, but really killed on the offensive glass, with an 18-7 advantage there. Jackson, Onuaku, and Paul Harris had 16 between the 3 of them. What this means is that they can beat you from the outside with Flynn, Eric Devendorf, and Andy Rautins, but they can also slug it out and crash with their big boys inside.

As for the game, Georgetown jumped out early and really got the crowd into it when the only white boy on the team, Nikita Mescheriakov drilled two huge 3's, then dove on the floor and controlled a loose ball where he sat on Andy Rautins' ankle, effectively taking him out of the game and responding to Andy's earlier taunts about how Gorbachov was a faggot. (Bad joke I know, I'm kind of rusty. I apologize). Another high point was Dejuan Summers dunking all over Kris Ongenaet and getting undercut, then rising up to fight and making the poor kid probably shit his pants, before being restrained by the rest of the team. The Cuse cut it as close as 53-45 early in the second half, but ended up losing 88-74. Lastly, I think outside of anybody currently playing for Duke, Eric Devendorf is easily the most hated player in the game. He got roundly booed each time he even breathed on the ball, jawed at the crowd when he hit a 3 even down like 15 pts, and generally just acted like he's waiting for the new White Rapper show on VH1. To sum it all up, I couldn't have enjoyed my first big-time College bball game more. Hopefully if enough strings are pulled and I'm able to afford it, the Big East tourney will be in my future. Until then, look for my mid-season breakdown coming up some time this weekend.

LCB 1st Annual Preseason Top 25

College basketball has arrived, and despite the lack of excitement shown by that first sentence, it should be an exciting and eventful season. Hopefully my jinxing my favorite teams streak (see MLB 2008) will end and UNC will triumphantly prevail in winning their 2nd championship in 4 years. I'll get to the TarHeels soon enough, but for now, here's the my top 25, starting with teams 25-21.

#25 Villanova(22-13)
Last Year: Lost in Sweet 16
Coach: Jay Wright
Stud: Scottie Reynolds
Glue Guy: Dante Cunningham
Schedule: Texas, Big East

Nova made a mini-run last year, suprising some as they lost to eventual champ Kansas in the Sweet 16. Reynolds is one of the better PG's in the conference, if not the country. He needs to consistently bring it every night for the Cats to make any headway in a loaded Big East that has become like the bball version of the SEC and Big 12 in football. Reynolds goes cold too often to make him a truly elite player, but he can get there if he can raise his game and avoid dryspells. The Cats don't have any other reliable offensive threats, but Cunningham and Shane Clark will combine to do some of the dirty work inside. Cunningham is a senior, and played on the Randy Foye led team that made a deep tourney run. Corey Stokes, Reggie Redding, and Corey Fisher are the other guards who will see the bulk of the playing time. They need to hit from the outside, giving Reynolds the option of kicking it out for open looks when defenses collapse on him. Aside from the hellacious trip through the Big East, the only other really difficult non-conference match-up is a battle with Texas. If they get through conference play alive, they could make another deep NCAA run.

#24 Florida (24-12)
Last Year: Lost in NIT Final Four
Coach: Billy Donovan
Stud: Nick Calathes
Glue: Walter Hodge
Schedule: SEC, with it otherwise being pretty cake with the exception of maybe a decent clash with Florida State.

After the Gators repeated as champs in 05-06 and 06-07, last year was predictably a rebuilding campaign. They still won 24 games, losing two starters from that team with Marreese Speights declaring early, and Jai Lucas transfering on November 5th. The wheels fell off at the end of last season, as they missed out on the NCAA's by losing to S.Carolina in the 1st round of the SEC. They need Calathes, who put up the highest scoring average by a freshman in Donovan's time at the school, Alex Tyus, and Chandler Parsons to take big leaps and provide some leadership to get back to the dance. Walter Hodge is the only remaining part who saw significant minutes on the championship squads, and provides three point shooting and decent passing skills. Dan Werner is another veteran to bang inside, yet he sometimes plays more like a 3. The Gators recruited 5 freshman who could see significant playing time, with Dominican Eloy Vargas being the most highly-touted. The SEC is down, and look for the Gators to contend for the East crown in a battle with Tennessee and Kentucky, making the tourney as about a 6 or 7 seed that could make the Sweet 16.

# 23 Georgetown (28-6)
Last Year: lost in 2nd round of the NCAA's
Coach: John Thompson III
Stud: DaJuan Summers
Glue: Jessie Sapp
Schedule: Memphis,Duke, Big East and Potential matchups with Gonzaga,Michigan St.Tennessee in the Old Spice classic.

Roy Hibbert is playing for the Pacers. Patrick Ewing Jr. almost made the Knicks. Vernon Macklin transferred to Florida. Jeremiah Rivers moved on to Indiana. Where I'm going with all of this is the fact that Georgetown is going to look a little different this year. They still have Summers,Sapp, and 3 point gunner Austin Freeman back from a 28 team season that ended because Stephon Curry decided to single-handedly destroy them. Summers needs to take over and spend more time slashing and taking the ball inside. He needs to be the legitimate go to guy for the team to get near the success of the last two years. Sapp will be steady defensively, and will combine with Freeman and Soph Chris Wright to keep teams honest outside. Freshman Greg Monroe is highly touted, but he doesn't look to have much help down low, which could spell disaster in the conference. The Hoyas will get an early test playing Memphis, and meet Duke later in the season. They also could see Gonzaga, Michigan State, or Tennessee in the Old Spice Classic. They could win 20 plus games but probably are looking at being an early out in the dance, unless Wright and Monroe turn out to be superstars.

22. USC (21-12)
Last Year: Lost in 1st Round
Coach: Tim Floyd
Stud: DeMar DeRozan
Glue: Daniel Hackett
Schedule: Oklahmoma, (Memphis or Xavier in Puerto Rico Tip-Off) Pac-10

Sometimes it's fun to play the "what if player A stayed for 4 years," game.(Well maybe it's only fun if you're a tool like myself) With USC, they could potentially have fielded a team with O.J. Mayo, Gabe Pruitt, and Nick Young to go along with what they have already in the fold. What they have right isn't too bad however, as the Trojans should challenge in the Pac-10. It starts and ends with another potential one and doner in DeMar DeRozan. From all accounts, he is the best freshman coming in from the class of 08. He is a slasher who can jump out of the gym. He'll have help in the form of Taj Gibson, Daniel Hackett, and Dwight Lewis. Gibson brings muscle inside, while Hackett will man the point, and Lewis brings scoring from the wing. I really liked Hackett two years ago when they were sweet 16 bound. He fell off last year due to injury, so look for him to bounce back. Another key will be whether or not UNC transfer Alex Stepheson is eligible. If so, he'll give Gibson someone else to help with the dirty work inside. Stepheson also has a nice touch inside in close. Also Percy Miller (AKA, Lil Romeo) is on board as a frosh pg. Do with that information what you will.

21. Oklahoma (23-12)
Last Year: Lost in the 2nd round
Coach: Jeff Capel
Stud: Blake Griffin
Glue: Tony Crocker
Schedule: USC,VCU, (Purdue,Davidson in the Preseason NIT), Big 12

I hate Duke with a passion. Therefore I hate to give any former Dookie props unless they somehow get drafted by the Bulls. (See Deng,Luol). Jeff Capel is a really good coach however. He did a pretty damn good job when he was at VCU, and he looks like he's turning things around after Hurricane Sampson tried to ruin his first of two train wrecks. I've only really seen the Sooners play once or twice last year, so I can't completely subscribe to all the Blake Griffin hype. From all accounts, he could have been drafted really high if he went out last year. He should beat up on the Big 12 all season. He has help in the form of his brother Taylor, Tony Crocker, Austin Johnson, and freshman point Willie Warren. I really like Crocker's game, and if he can take care of the ball along with dialing up some 3's, the Sooners will contend and can get a 3 or 4 seed.