Thursday, January 15, 2004
Freaks and Frauds
I learned about two highly rated teams last night...
Cincinnati, in their first real test of the year and I think their first national TV appearance, shined on the road against Marquette. As usual the Bearcats are filled with a bunch of rail-thin athletes (except for Maxiell) that have 40" verticals and 6 foot long arms. In other words, freaks of nature. Next Wednesday they travel to Louisville for some must-see TV.
Oklahoma failed another road test miserably. Their only quality wins so far are close ones against Purdue and Michigan St. Those wins don't look nearly as impressive as they did at the time. Even against their fairly weak early schedule they were barely able to shoot 40% from the field, ranking a paltry 240th in D1 (Ok. St. was #1 going into last night). After getting pummeled by UConn and Oklahoma St., the Sooners game on Saturday hosting Missouri is huge for restoring their credibility.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
3-pont line stays
Andy Katz reported today that the 3-point line will remain at its current location for another year. The main reason is that there appears to be much reluctance to going with the international-style trapezoid lane.
It would be nice to see the data that came out of the exempt games this year where these rules were tried. Were fewer fouls called? To me, that should be the determining factor as to whether changes need to be made.
Monday, January 12, 2004
America’s Team
Air Force is off to its best start (9-2) in 49 seasons of playing basketball. Their last winning season was 1965-66. Tonight at Colorado State they look to match their longest winning streak ever of 8 set in 1958.
Coincidentally, the style the Falcons play is reminiscent of 1958. Their games average less than 100 points for the two teams combined. Against Belmont, the halftime score was 15-12! They don't have history on their side tonight - they've lost 27 consecutive Mountain West road games.
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Test
Which conference's teams have more non-conference wins vs. the RPI top 50...Big XII or Big West?
You're wrong. OK, it's a trick question, each one has only 3 top 50 wins to their credit. But the Big West has had just 35 non-conference wins overall vs. 94 for the Big XII (do they really deserve to use roman numerals?). For reference the WAC has 5 top 50 wins, the Big 10 has 7, and the ACC has 11.
Oklahoma provided the latest dissapointment today against Connecticut. This conference will still scrape together 6 bids - Missouri and Oklahoma are bound to start doing something remotely close to pre-season expectations - but it's possible only 1 or 2 teams will get a top 4 seed.
This says it all
Jorge L. Ortiz, San Francisco Chronicle on the Stanford win over Arizona....
Salim Stoudamire, a 6-foot-1 shooting guard who was one of five Wildcats averaging at least 12 points coming in, probably had images of Childress' Afro blocking his view in his sleep Saturday night.