Not suspect enough to not make the final four. Only surprise here is Sparty in all honesty. Okafor about to eat someone's food.
Nobody commenting on Chris Mullins to St.Johns ??oh how the mighty have fallen. The big East isn't what it use to be and neither has St.Johns since the mid 90s. A once proud basketball school, city and region (Northeast) has fallen on hard times. The days of NYC being basketball Mecca is long done.
Geno is totally right http://deadspin.com/geno-auriemma-thinks-mens-college-basketball-is-shitty-1695098540 College bball is a total joke! The quality of play is low and the talent decline in the last 10 years have been immense.
It's school ball. If there was quality before, it's only because the NBA was slow at the time to sign guys after HS or 1-2 seasons of school ball even when they were clearly ready for real basketball. And the guy today on ESPN whining that players who sign with colleges should have to stay three seasons is on crack. If the NBA wants to cut that kind of pure business deal with school ball, fine. But nobody owes Duke three seasons of their lives out of any alleged moral responsibility when they could be making a living after one season. All that does is prop up school ball artificially.
The point is college basketball unlike any other sport has not changed with the times. While all others leagues are making the game more offensive oriented college ball is sprinting in the other direction. The 35 second shot clock symbolizes this dying game. The only reason college ball is revelant is because of March Madness, brackets and the gambling pools and brackets that are associated with March Madness. college bball regular season is essential usless when not too long ago it was important, exciting and meaningful.
Just like CFB, it won't die so long as there are students, alums and HS grads with no further education running around supporting the teams. They don't care about the game itself, just the "tradition/pomp/yada", conference titles and nattys. Not useless. The regular season conference titles are more meaningful than pretty much anything else but a natty. It's school ball- none of it is important or meaningful. But you do get rings for the reg season conference title, and I'd consider that useful if I were a player. Virginia, Gonzaga, Wichita State, Belmont... they ain't cutting down any nets in March. But they have a conference title to be proud of. If I was in a position of authority and cared enough about school athletics to make a change, I'd send the reg season champ (instead of the conference tournament champ) from the small conferences.
I agree regular season winners of conferences should be rewarded more I feel like conference tourneys are not what they use to be anymore. College ball is no longer the topic of water cooler conversation or sports talk. Just look at this thread. People only started posting prior to March Madness while the NBA and a College football thread has hundereds of posts. It's is no longer entertaining watching college ball until that is fixed interest will continue to decline.
Quite surprised how easily Duke handled Michigan State. Particularly with the great start that State had. Some excellent team defense by Duke. I really hate the elevated playing court. It is an accident waiting to happen.
The problem college hoops has is that the regular season is meaningless. The season starts with the conference and the NCAA tournaments. Also the quality of play is affected due to players coming out after one or two years.
No surprise, Sparty had no business being in that game with Duke. Dukes bigs and Kentuckys bigs will be one helluva match up.
It depends which broadcast you were watching. There were three: neutral (TBS), pro-Kentucky (TNT), and pro-Wisconsin (truTV).
Wisconsin made the plays they had to down the stretch while Kentucky didn't. There were a lot of bad calls/no-calls on both sides.
Wisconsin fundamentally was the better team. Kentucky may have the thorough breds, but Wisconsin was the most complete team. Great team defense. Kaminsky reminds me of Bird. He's not the shooter or passer Bird was at Indiana State, but he could become that level of player.
The relative strengths of two programs don't matter in this situation. You have to look at the line-ups and the coaches rather than the two names in the box score.