In defense of the Big Ten

Recently, my beloved Big Ten conference has come under quite some fire yet again for their play in basketball. Normally, I let this shit slide. Hell, sometimes it's even true (see: 2006 NCAA Tournament). In this case, I can't. I just can't. I won't sit idle as they are being torn apart left and right by a man who has probably logged less college basketball games in his life than I have in the past year. Not when he's (once again) wrong. Not when he carries the readership he does.

Of course, I am speaking of ESPN.com's Bill Simmons, who has attempted to tear the conference a new asshole with his smug and douchy attitude. Most recently, Billy proclaimed,

"Did I tell you or did I tell you? If that foul was called on Oden, there would
have been ZERO Big Ten teams in the Sweet 16. I love being right. It happens so
rarely. Anyway, don't fret, Big Ten fans -- you can still get your fix of
defense and fundamentals by watching the women's tournament."

First of all, everyone said the Big Ten was down this year. Hell, I'd even agree. It was a down year for the conference as a whole. They lost a bunch of experienced players from a year ago, which dragged the middle and lower halves of the conference down. The only teams that were supposed to be better this season (Ohio State and Wisconsin), were just that, sitting in the top-5 almost all year. What a bold prediction there, Bill! Secondly, you're about as right as you are about your gambling prowess. Let's examine...

Here I am going to list 5 conferences and their resumes from the last two weekends of play. I'm going to list their record alongside their "expected" wins. By this, I mean the number of games the teams within their conference should have won if the bracket was entirely chalked (1 beats 2, 2 beats 3, 8 beats 9, 4 beats 5, etc.).

Conference A: 7-7 record, 11 "expected" wins
Conference B: 7-5 record, 8 "expected" wins
Conference C: 8-5 record, 6 "expected" wins
Conference D: 7-4 record, 8 "expected" wins
Conference E: 10-5 record, 9 "expected" wins

Now, logically, if I had to place them in an order from "best" performance to "worst" performance, I'd be inclined to say E (best overall record plus game over expectations), C (good record, highest percentage above expectations), D and B (simply "meh" profiles), A (shat the bed). The respective conferences, you ask? E would be the Pacific-10, C would be the Big Ten, D would be the Big 12, B would be the Big East and A would be the Atlantic Coast.

Now let us rewind back a mere two weeks to March 12th. Your college basketball Nostradamus over at ESPN said,

"Most overrated conference: A tie between the Pac-10 and the Big Ten. So hard to
choose between these two. When you're watching dozens of games over the course
of five days, it's impossible not to notice the varying quality of play from
game to game... Anyway, watching all these games and comparing the conferences
to one another, I don't see how anyone who knows anything about basketball could
argue that the Pac-10 and Big Ten are better than the Big East, ACC or even the
Big 12 (my vote for "most underrated conference")."

You can't make this shit up, people. Brilliant work, William, you have outdone yourself once again. I didn't think it was possible for you to look any dumber, after proclaiming to be an NFL gambling expert and losing to your wife this season, but you somehow managed to succeed at the task at hand. Don't worry, I'll be sure to mail you one of those turd sandwiches you've been clamoring on about real soon.

It's okay, claim all you want about the Big Ten only sending 1 team to the Sweet Sixteen. The truth of the matter is they beat their competition when they were at their level (won both 8-9 match ups and their 7-10). Their lack of teams deep in the field is more of the result of their lesser talented teams (Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue) running into 2 Final Four teams and an Elite Eight (UCLA, UNC, Florida) than it was a lack of talent. Why? Each of those teams held their own very respectably before falling at the hands of some of the powerhouses. It should also warrant mentioning that perhaps no team in the field took a bigger injury than Wisconsin did with Brian Butch. I could go on and on about how this injury affected the scheme of their offense, but I won't. I'll simply state that the only team in the conference that did not meet or exceed seeding projections lost while heavily undermanned. Just saying...

So, Bill, next time you open your mouth, remember you don't know dick about the game. I look forward to your literary beejes of Durant in the NBA and to a day when college basketball no longer concerns you. Good riddance.

-- RK

Updated House Picks

Kasko's Picks:

Sweet 16
Purdue, Maryland, Winthrop, UNLV
Kansas, Southern Illinois, Pittsburgh, UCLA
UNC, Arkansas, Washington State, Georgetown
Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Memphis

Regionals
Maryland over Winthrop
UCLA over Southern Illinois
UNC over Georgetown
Ohio State over Texas A&M

Final Four
UCLA over Maryland
UNC over Ohio State

UNC over UCLA

PS's Picks

Sweet 16
Florida, Maryland, Winthrop, Wisconsin
Kansas, Southern Illinois, Pittsburgh, UCLA
North Carolina, Texas, Vanderbuilt, Georgetown
Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Memphis

Elite 8
Maryland over Wisconsin
Kansas over Pittsburgh
Georgetown over North Carolina
Texas A&M over Ohio State

Final 4
Kansas over Maryland
Georgetown over Texas A&M

Georgetown over Kansas

JH's Pick
Sweet 16
Florida, Maryland, Oregon, UNLV
Kansas, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Indiana
UNC, Texas, George Washington, Georgetown
Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Creighton

Elite 8
Florida, UNLV
Virginia Tech, Pitt
Texas, Georgetown
Ohio State, Texas A&M

Final Four
Florida, Pitt
Texas, Texas A&M

Texas over Florida

Gregg Doyel Is an Asshat

Wow.

As the inaugral All-Asshat team comes to completion, we may have found our hatter of the year.
I'm not much of a reader of CBS Sportsline because ESPN does a good job with it's online content, but this Gregg Doyel is reason to read, and wonder whose compromising photos are in his possession. Earlier this week, he essentially ripped Scotty Reynolds and others for leaving Oklahoma when Kelvin Sampson left the program. Today, it was Bruce Weber and Ron Guenther for having the audacity for losing a game to a higher seed in the NCAA tournament. I have never seen writing so poorly and terribly biased from a professional writer. It's one thing to be angry, and let your readers know about it, but good Lord, man. How can anybody take this douchebag seriously after reading this article?

Friday Chicago Wrap-Up

You may (or may not) have noticed my presence missing here at OSM today. Fear not, I was actually busy at the games after waking my hung-over ass up early to get down to the United Center here in Chicago to catch the action. Here’s what I saw:

Early game:

The early game featured UNLV and Georgia Tech with the Rebs coming out on top. UNLV was able to hold down Tech’s fantastic freshman duo of Crittenton and Young to minimal damage and survive and advance in a tight game at the end. The Rebels did a phenomenal job on the glass, particularly on the offensive end, something I felt like could give Wisconsin (minus Brian Butch) fits in round two. Despite winning, UNLV shot relatively poorly on many open looks. I really feel like the Rebels have a very good shot at knocking off the reeling Badgers on Sunday.

Second Set:

It really is amazing how much America loves the Cinderella story. A couple of threes and a 10-0 lead and it was astounding how quickly the United Center crowd was rallying behind the 15th-seeded Islanders. It wasn’t even so much that Texas A&M-Corpus Christi was outplaying Wisconsin. I thought Corpus Christi’s up-and-down pace took Wisconsin out of their comfort zone in the first half (something that disappeared as time went on) and the flipping between the man and zone defenses kept Wisconsin on their heels. The bottom line, though, was the Badgers were ice cold from the field. They were missing wide open jumpers left and right. Fortunately, for them, Kammron Taylor (played by Chris Rock) got his head out of his ass and figured out he didn’t want this to be his last college game. Alando Tucker had a relatively quiet (but very solid) game and Corpus Christi’s 7-footer Chris Daniels ate up the short-handed Badgers down low.

Third Set:

Instead of watching Kansas run train on Niagara, my buddy Rage and I used the break in between games to get some seats at the bar for the Illinois-Virginia Tech game. If you haven’t seen much of Illinois this season, this game was their season in a nutshell. I began mentally preparing to write in this post that the Illini played their most complete game of the season. They controlled the pace, held Dowdell and Washington completely in check and dominated the glass. The offense looked competent for once and their role players (Meacham, Arnold and Brock) played phenomenally solid. Then… shit hit the fan. The Illini completely crapped the bed. Credit the Hokies for putting on the press and converting their chances, but Illinois seemed to take the foot off the pedal and started playing not to lose. They turned the ball over nearly every possession and missed their shots and free throws. I’m sure Illiniboard will have some sort of conspiracy theory with the refs brewing, citing the no-call on Warren Carter with under a minute left (a horrendous no-call, by the way), but the fact is Illinois completely blew the game and didn’t execute at all the last 8 or so minutes. Ugggh – terrible times. Another blown halftime lead, another heartbreaker. This was just an Illini team that couldn’t stretch leads (due to their horrific offense) and couldn’t close games due to their lack of a go-to scorer and inability to convert free throws. That right there is a terrible combo.

Nightcap:

I was pretty mentally cashed out by this point, unfortunately. Randolph Morris was a beast. Scottie Reynolds was a chucker. I did run into Coach Jay Wright at the end of the game. He wanted me to pass along to the OSM readers that he felt like he dressed phenomenally sexy on the sidelines tonight, once again. Kansas-Kentucky should be a spectacle at the UC on Sunday. I hope it’s warm out so that the Wildcat faithful can bust out their jorts (jean shorts) for the game. They probably lowered the average tooth count in the stands by a good 1-2 teeth today. Oh, stereotypes!

Random Thoughts:

- The Big Ten was 5-1 in round 1. Texas almost choked. If only Reggie Theus had played Julie Connor more. She’s lethal from 3. Suck a dick, Bill Simmons.

- You can’t put a price on walking back to the stadium for the 4th game and walking by a greyhound bus filled with depressed, face-painted Niagara fans. It was like they came all this way and expected to win. Good scene.

- Funniest conversation of the first round: Narrowly beating out the hour-long convo I had with a few girls over which NCAA mascot (non-animal like Colorado’s buffalo or Georgia’s bulldog) would be the creepiest to fuck in full costume, was this gem. So we have a buddy that knows very little about sports that spent the Thursday with us. Very good looking dude, has absolutely no game whatsoever. None, zero, zilch. He and Rage (Duke fan) head to the bar to catch the Duke game last night because it wasn’t on regional coverage (Michigan State-Marquette). We met them out for the last set. Pretty empty scene, but they were sitting a few seats down from a set of girls. Shortly after the Idong Ibok injury (awesome stuff there), the girls gets into a convo with our buddy, naturally over what is going on.

Girl: “So who do you got in your Final Four?”
Buddy: “Uhhhh… uhhh… UNC… uhhh… Rage, who do you got in your Final Four?”

Terrible. How do you not fill out a bracket? How can you not even bullshit yourself into a Final Four? Moreover, how do you completely blow it with a girl that is willing to talk sports and is at a bar to watch sports. This kid is going to hear about this from me tomorrow

- The NCAA pisses me off. Ways they could improve the viewing experience at the venue:

(1) Show the other games! If not at halftime or between sets on the jumbotron, then at least put the other games on in the concourse. Listen, I’m paying $240 for 6 games, show me the other games when you get a chance.
(2) Along the same token, show the days’ highlights. All day long we saw 1 highlight over and over, that being the highlights of the 2006 national title game. Gee, I wonder who won that one?
(3) Have a sense of humor. They did put some classic NCAA moments up on the jumbotron during TV timeouts. You know that key Kentucky run that caused Villanova to call a timeout and got the UK faithful riled up? All I’m asking for here is ’92 Laettner on the big screen. You played it earlier, but now would be perfect.
(4) Serve beer. I don’t think I need to expand upon this.

- In case you are wondering, I hit 24/32 games. Since there were virtually no upsets (none of the top-5 seeds went down) I assume everyone's brackets are fine and that everyone is still in the game. I'm still rocking 15/16 Sweet 16s (missed Arkansas). I fully expect the brackets to break wide open in the next two rounds. It's bound to happen.


-- RK

Friday Live Blog

12:35- This GT-UNLV brings back a lot memories. Lethal Weapon 3 and Tark's bunch were two teams that led me to love college hoops as a kid. It's a good matchup today, but couldn't they have brought back Tark and Cremins for some ceremonial BS. -PS

12: 37- Lundquist drops some knowledge. Memphis shooting 61% from the stripe? That will hurt. Nothing beats not being at work and Raftery calling games. I'm eagerly awaiting the first Onions call of the day. -PS

12:42- Seems that more teams are getting the doors blown off early this year. Today's early victim is semi popular upset special, Albany. Down 29-11 and we haven't even reached the under 8 timeout. Thanks for coming, Albany. -PS

12:53- Thaddeus Young- Stay in school! It seems a given that some NBA GM is going to take this guy in the lottery, but he isn't ready. The talent is there, but this guy isn't at the level yet where he can consistently be a #1 option. He'll disappear and than start forcing bad shots. Javarris Crittenton is the more NBA ready player on this team. Give it another year, Thaddeus. -PS

1:18 Looks like there is an addition to the token contest-- it's Justin Howerton for the Mean Green of North Texas. A 6'10" sophomore, Howerton is easily the stiffest and most cerebral player for Johnny Jones' team. He hasn't really contributed much in terms of tangible results, but I like what he does out there-- which is look awkward, recklessly fly into the picture, and diving onto the floor for the ball two seconds too late. -JH

Day One Tourney Thoughts

- First and foremost, let's give it up for the Virginia Commonwealth Rams of the mighty Colonial Athletic Association. Sure, Eric Maynor ripped the heart out of my alma mater and favorite team last week. A weaker person would be cursing him for months, and wishing that he would trip into a vat of bubbling acid...but not me. Any win by the CAA is a good win; Drexel, for instance, shit the bed in the NIT, and therefore has no more legitimate gripes about how they should have been in the NCAA tournament. Old Dominion put up a good fight, but when it boiled down to it, it didn't seem like they wanted to win as badly as Butler. Hopefully, this newfound success will be enough to establish an annual CAA-MVC challenge to not only boost the RPIs of the top teams, but to also give these mids more exposure. Anybody who was surprised last night by VCU's win or Maynor's heroics should have the bracket privilages stripped for two years.

-List of schools who recruited Eric Maynor: VCU, Appalachian State, James Madison and Winthrop. List of schools pwnd by Eric Maynor on national television: George Mason and Duke.

- Other players who turned in huge games were Martin Zino (Texas Tech), Josh McRoberts (Duke), Reyshawn Terry (UNC) and D.J. Strawberry (Maryland). Zino was unstoppable going to the basket; McRoberts, free throw woes aside, turned in a monster game against an undersized VCU frontline; Terry had a critical stretch in the second half when EKU got within five (just like he did against NC State; and Strawberry had the undesirable task of chasing Stephon Curry around for most of the Davidson game, to the result of a 9-20 performance.

- Worst idea ever is DirecTV's game mix on channels 701-704. For starters, there is too much shit going on to the side of the screen, and the game windows are too damn small. Once you get past that, the stupid-ass blackout rules are still in effect, so if there is a game blacked out in your area, you will see this ridiculous cartoon message about it. Very, very, very lame.

- When it was all said and done, I spent eight hours on the couch watching basketball with only one minor spill (liquor on the couch), reasonable food intake (six pieces of fried chicken, two pieces of pizza) and moderate sobriety during the day games. JH's health and well-being 1, Ides of March Madness 0.

- Notes on the commentary:

James Brown-Len Elmore (Sacramento): definitely gum nuts idea if I've ever heard one. Brown is too smooth; I'm pretty sure that Brown could cover a hysterectomy, and make it sound like silk. Elmore seemed a few beats off, not working with gigantic homer Mike Patrick. It was as if he was just amazed that he didn't have to break out his UNITY ring on his partner. As a team, they're just not capturing the moment. There's a story to be found in every game, but they just found time to ramble on about themselves/the past like two old, black dudes in a barbershop. GRADE: C

Gus Johnson-Dan Bonner (Lexington): When it comes to first round basketball, Gus Johnson was made for it. Nothing says "upset" or "close game" than the vocal equivalent of a birthday party full of hyperactive children on blow. Unfortunately, the Lexington region had exactly one close game (BYU-Xavier) yesterday, leaving Johnson to create stories and atmosphere. At one point, he went as far to say that he wishes that the college careers of three random Africans on Central Connecticut State could go on for fifteen years. Why? I have no idea. People will still need cabs in Bridgeport this summer. Why hold the good people up, Gus? GRADE: C+

Dick Enberg-Jay Bilas (Winston-Salem): Good, but nondescript outing for these guys today. Enberg is a poor man's Verne Lundquist (not that that is anything to be ashamed of) and Bilas is one of my favorite analysts. I'm not sure if Enberg was even awake for the BC-Texas Tech game, but the rest of the day was a snooze. Hopefully, things pick up for them on Saturday. GRADE: Incomplete

Kevin Harlan-Dan Wenzel (Buffalo): Everybody's had that moment when they go to work or school, and somebody there is making such a big ass of themselves, you have to wonder "Are they drunk?". That was me listening to Harlan and Wenzel last night. If Dan Wenzel was a more prominent member of the college basketball media, he would be ripe for asshatting. I can't stand anything less than announcers continously filling dead air with the same throwaway tidbits about a team, which Wenzel did repeatedly during the Davidson-Maryland and VCU-Duke games. Yes, we understand that both teams like to play at a fast pace, and came from the Southern and Colonial conferences (respectively)...please shut the fuck up about it. The Davidson game was infinitely more tolerable, because they had Stephan Curry lighting it up early. The douche keg was tapped hardest during the Duke game, when Wenzel and Harlan were egregiously downplaying the Rams, and hyping up the most minute Blue Devil plays. Granted, Paulus did score a lot of points last night, but he has done that a lot recently. How about explaining to the viewing audience why Duke's point guard was guarding Virginia Commonwealth's shooting guard? At one point, I heard Harlan refer to Eric Maynor as "number three". Now, I may have egregiously missed the context, but it sure sounded like he forgot his name for a moment. Would that ever happen for America's team? GRADE: D-

- Here's the breakdown of who's announcing where today:

Tim Brando-Mike Gminski: Columbus (note: Mike Gminski's hair looks like some kind of small rodent)
Jim Nantz-Billy Packer: Chicago (note: expect Packer to land on the asshat list today)
Verne Lundquist-Bill Raftery: New Orleans
Ian Eagle-Jim Spanarkle: Spokane

- Looking ahead to today's action, the game that is the most intriguing for my brackets is Notre Dame-Winthrop. I've seen the Irish play a few times this year, and shocked at the lack of comparisons to Duke. They're lacking the hatable personalities of Coach K and Greg Paulus, but they are one of those teams who never seem to do much "right", but find ways to win games. Winthrop has only lost four games this year (all to tourney teams), and should not be intimadated by the Irish today. Russell Carter (more on him below) likes to shoot, and ND is very tall across the frontline (6-9 and 6-8), so it will be imperative for Winthrop to rebound the ball well.

- The Clarence Thomas Token of the Year finalists are: Carter (Notre Dame), DeMarcus Nelson (Duke), Jeremy Pargo (Gonzaga) and Kenny Izzo (Georgetown) . Call 1-866-TOKENIG for your vote, or Verizon Wireless customers, you can text your vote to "TOKEN".

- In an attempt to help our college basketball illiterate fans, here is a listing of locations for the "Where the hell is THAT school" teams playing today:

North Texas (Sun Belt/Denton, TX
Winthrop (Big South/Rock Hill, SC),
Creighton (MVC/Omaha, NE
Miami University (MAC/Oxford, OH)
Jackson State (SWAC/Jackson, MS)

How Bad Is Greg Paulus? (Live Blogging the Late Games)

7:13- Greg Paulus has been moved off of Eric Maynor to start the game to keep the Rams from embarassing the Blue Devils on national television. Strangely enough, DeMarcus Nelson is covering Maynor, and Gerald Henderson has found his way into the starting lineup. I guess I can say "You saw it here first, folks". -JH

7:39- Marquette, you are on notice. Feel free to score a point. -PS

7:43- After going on a nine minute plus scoring drought, Marquette is poised to go a 5-0 run. Tom Crean calls off the play where somebody cherry picks under the basket in hopes for a backcourt turnover. -JH

7:45- Greg Paulus beats his man to the basket to throw up a 14 foot floater for an airball. How bad is Greg Paulus? Pretty bad, if you ask me. -JH

7:46- While that last entry was posting, Greg Paulus threw the ball directly to the VCU Rams. How bad is Greg Paulus? The analyst described his ballhandling as "suffering" at this point. -JH

7:51- "Paulus is fautiged". No, Paulus is bad. How bad? His last three pointer barely hit the rim. And Coach K is making no moves to get him out of there. If they didn't keep fouling Paulus, there's a great chance he wouldn't score. Now, I would have to say that he'll just be held without a field goal. -JH

8:04- It was just suggested that Paulus not bring the ball upcourt because Eric Maynor is "bothering him so much". Tie game, following another Paulus miss. - JH