College Basketball Recap - End of 2008

Happy New Year everybody! Hope you all had a great 2008, and here's to a very exciting year in sports in 2009. I know this season's shaping up to be pretty good, and already we've had some very good games to close out 2008, so let's take a look:

Monday, Dec. 29th

Georgetown beat UConn, 74-63

I watched a bit of this game in the 2nd half, so I missed the G-Town onslaught at the beginning, but I owe this Hoyas team an apology. They were ready for the task. I think this team actually looks BETTER than last year's team in terms of execution offensively and overall talent level. In the segment I watched, Greg Monroe barely did anything, but whether it was Austin Freeman taking it to the rim, or Jessie Sapp hitting a three, or Summers, or someone else, somebody seemed to step up and come up with a huge play. When UConn tried to claw their way back in it, G-Town simply would not let it happen. That being said, UConn was NOT ready to play this game, and take the first few minutes out of the equation and this was a pretty even ball game, maybe even leaning UConn's way, for most of the contest. Still, Thabeet needs to be more of an offensive presence inside IMO and take some of the pressure off of these guards. Also, I didn't think Adrien got nearly enough touches either. Give credit to G-Town though. This team is the real deal, especially defensively, and although they're extremely thin, this starting 5 can play with anyone.

Memphis beat Cincinnati, 60-45

You're not going to win too many games shooting 26% from the field. That's what the Bearcats did on Monday, and it pretty much doomed them. Other than Deonta Vaughn (17 points) absolutely nobody showed up offensively. As for their resume entering conference play, well... they have a win @ UNLV, which all of a sudden looked a LOT better after Wednesday's results, and win at home vs. UAB. Losses to Xavier and Florida St. (neutral court) are understandable (sort of). I think .500 in Big East play is probably neccessary to get in the dance.

Memphis wasn't pretty, but they got the job done. They still can not shoot from beyond the arc, and the roster isn't dynamic enough to make up for it against good defensive teams, but they stepped it up on D and got a good non-conference win. With the way UAB's looking, I'm not sure anyone's going to give the Tigers much of a challenge in the C-USA, although I feel like they'll lose to someone at some point. But their three losses are all reasonable, and I think they've done enough that with a C-USA title, they should get in barring any catastrophe in the C-USA tournament.

ALSO on Monday... Davidson squeaked one out over Charleston, 79-75, on the back of Stephen Curry and his 29 points and 9 assists. Villanova got a decent win over Temple, 62-45, and everyone else pretty much took care of business.

Tuesday, Dec. 30th

Illinois beat Purdue, 71-67 (OT)

Purdue - To those of you who heard my reaction after the game, I overreacted a bit. Okay, a lot. This team will be better than .500 in conference (although it's still concievable IMO, I think we'll figure out how to finish games sooner of later). The frustrating thing is this: we can't hit shots the entire game, we finally make a small run and get over the hump and take a small lead, then we give it back and our offense goes into the crapper. Seriously, we can't even execute a play. It just bogs down into one guy taking it in against 4 defenders and getting the snot beaten out of him. It doesn't work. And this happened in the Oklahoma game as well. The other frustrating thing is, I think if we look back on this later in the season, this was a game we NEEDED to have. It's a winnable game at home against a good, but by no means unbeatable team, and looking at this Big Ten schedule, we MUST defend our home court. And we failed to do that. Okay, the positives. We still played fairly well defensively. Our shots weren't falling all game but I thought we did a much better job of getting the ball to the rim, even if we couldn't finish. We sucked at free throws but that's never been a chronic problem for us. I've learned over the past few years that I'm a very emotional fan, and my emotions swing back and forth a ton. I can also be very pessimistic about our team. So from now on: no expectations about this team. We are who we are. We'll win some, we'll lose some, and while I think we won't win the Big Ten, I'm going to enjoy having a good team at my school. There. That's my schpiel. Anyway,

Illinois - This is a very well coached, very disciplined team that looks much more calm and confident than they did last year. They won't overwhelm you with athleticism or difficult matchups (although having a 7' 1" guy that can shoot really helps) but they execute their offense well and they get open shots. They weren't hitting a lot on Tuesday, or else they would've ran us out of our own gym. They didn't have any one guy that really impressed me, but they have a lot of guys that can hurt you. In fact, minus the overall talent level and athleticism, this team reminds me very much of the '05 team... lots of options, similar offensive style, stout defensively. This team will be a tough out in Big Ten play. Will they compete for the Big Ten title? I'm not sure yet. I'm still not completely convinced this team will be able to take down the big boys night in and night out. But the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards believing it could happen.

Arkansas beat Oklahoma, 96-88

Man, talk about an impressive win. Blake Griffin was "held" to 21 points and 13 rebounds, and 6 Razorbacks scored in double figures. They put up 96 on a team that I thought was pretty solid for the most part defensively in OU. So how do figure Arkansas into the equation? Well, for one, the SEC West is wide open, so this instantely makes them the favorites to win the division. It also gives me a legit reason to put in a second SEC team (yes, I said second... because beyond Tennessee the wins simply aren't there to justify putting anyone else in, although there will be eventually). As for OU, they'll be fine in conference, because Texas isn't going to run away from anybody, and Baylor has no one to match up with Griffin in the post.

ALSO on Tuesday... Syracuse went into triple figures on Seton Hall, 100-78. Yea... this whole 10th Big East thing? I don't see it happening. Clemson beat South Carolina, 98-87, despite 37 points from Devan Downey (who has to be one of the best players I've never heard of). Radford was beating Wake Forest early until the Demon Deacons shook off the cobwebs and obliterated them. And finally... San Diego got a legit win! Sure, it was Mississippi State, and it was overtimes, but still... baby steps here. Baby steps

Wed., Dec. 31st

Michigan St. beat Minnesota, 70-58

Minnesota suffers their first loss at the hands of the Spartans. I've been thinking about the Big Ten recently in terms of who will get in the NCAAs, and I have concluded the following: one of the teams that will be left out in the Big Ten will have at least one, possibly two, solid wins. Something like a home win over Wisconsin or Michigan State. Right now there's 7 teams you could make a case for to make the NCAAs, but 7 teams are not making it in. There's simply not enough wins to go around. Someone is going to get left out... and I'm guessing it's the Golden Gophers. Yes, they have a win v. Louisville (that win's looking worse as the days progress though) but other than that, there's simply nothing there. Their out of conference schedule is too weak to back them up and honestly, if they go 9-9 in conference or worse I could see them legitimately being left out. If they finish below .500 (which is what I think the 7th place team in the Big Ten will do) then they're definitely not getting in. Michigan State, on the other hand, appears to be slowly progressing to the form we all expected them to be in at the beginning of the season, and the conference schedule starts off relatively slow for them (no real tough road games until Jan 25th @ Ohio St). They could build some momentum early on and make a real run at the Big Ten title.

Wisconsin beat Michigan, 73-61

The AP called this an upset, but for us that follow college basketball, we know it's hardly an upset, as Wisconsin was very capable of winning this game. I like this team more and more every time I see them. Marcus Landry has taken over the role of go-to guy and seems to be handling the added pressure/defensive attention that comes with that very well. Trevon Hughes has stepped up, Jon Leuer has given them great minutes off the bench, and this team as a whole is a lot more skilled than I thought. In my opinion, this team is built to handle the daily grind of the Big Ten and they are my current pick to take the Big Ten title this year.

Michigan is a slightly different story. Actually, many of the things I said for Minnesota, you could say for Michigan as well. And yes, I understand this team has wins over UCLA and Duke but here's the thing: a mediocre conference record, maybe coupled with some bad losses, can erase those memories VERY quickly. I'm not saying this team should panic, because they're still good and 9-9 will probably be good enough to get in. But two good non-conference wins don't guarantee anything.

Couple of upset specials tonight as well.

UNLV beat Louisville, 56-55

Louisville is starting to lose that "Well, we're not great right now, but we will be, so put us in the tourney" tag. Take a look at what this team's done on the court. They pounded UAB in their house, but UAB might not even be a tournament team at this point. What's the next best win? Ole Miss? South Alabama? There really not much else there, and there's ZERO road wins because they haven't played a road game. I'm not saying this team's in danger of making the tournament, because they should and will get enough wins to get in. I'm just saying... time to be concerned. UNLV, though, is moving in the right direction. Add this win to their home win over Arizona a few weeks ago, and this team is probably dancing. Of course, splitting with BYU in conference wouldn't hurt either. But judging by the quality of at-large teams so far, I think the Rebels are safe at this point.

Utah beat Gonzaga, 66-65

The Zags are in free fall at this point. I can't possibly believe this team will get left out, because they have enough solid wins, like Tennessee, Maryland, Oklahoma State, but a couple of bad WCC losses and this thing could get ugly VERY quickly. Best take care of business, Gonzaga. Also, this team does play @ Tennessee next week, so if they want to put away any tournament debates, they can do that on Jan 7th.

We also need to start debating Utah's spot in the tournament. They're 8-5, which is as bad as any bubble team so far, and they have an ugly, ugly loss to a Division II team as well as losses to Idaho State and Utah State (but that one's not as bad as it looks), but they just picked up a marquee win of sorts over Gonzaga and they still have multiple shots at BYU and UNLV for big wins. As we've seen in the past, teams can put away bad non-conference resumes with good conference performances, so this thing's not set in stone by any means.

Most top 25 teams took care of business. The ones that didn't... Ohio State was neck and neck with Iowa until putting them away late 68-65. At home, that was not a game Ohio State could afford to lose. LSU squeaked by UL-Lafayette 80-78. They're not top 25 but that's still a game they had to win. Providence picked up a good win over St. John's (yes, I will stop talking about St. John's being a bubble team), ND handled DePaul 92-82 on Harangody's 26 points and 16 boards, and Pitt was down 18 at one point to Rutgers before clawing back into it and winning 78-72. Guess that shows that nobody is safe in the Big East, especially when you go on the road.