Big 10 Basketball: Where To Expect The Unexpected

Watching college basketball last night reminded me again just how wacky Big 10 basketball has been this season.  I know the term "on any given night, any team can beat anyone" gets thrown around a lot in sports, but the Big 10 this season has truly lived up to that phrase.  Last night in particular Penn State, who is tied for last place in the league with a 5-10 record, completed a season sweep of Ohio State. Also Indiana beat Iowa, which although it shouldn't be considered a huge upset, it was probably the most un-Big 10 basketball game I have seen in a while.  When people think of Big 10 basketball they think of long possessions, i.e. Wisconsin, and tough physical play with games usually ending in the 50s.  Last night's Indiana-Iowa game however blew that perception out of the water.  I came home from my class last night, flipped on the game and saw it was 52-49 at the HALF, which absolutely stunned me, and the final score ended up being 93-86.  

While everything in the Big 10 seems to have surprised me this year, it has finally come to the point where I will be surprised if I am not surprised.  Basically whatever team you think will win the game, won't.  Nebraska just won at Michigan State, Northwestern has won a game at Wisconsin, Ohio State had a stretch where they lost four games in a row in league play and Michigan, who lost stars Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr from last years Final Four runner up team along with center Mitch McGary due to injury for the season, is currently leading the Big 10. These are just a few examples of how nuts the Big 10 has been this year. 

There appear to be currently seven Big 10 teams worthy of getting into the NCAA Tournament but I think only six will get in.  Nebraska and Minnesota are my two fringe teams who have both played above expectations this season and I believe whichever squad does better in the Big 10 Tournament will be the team that earns their ticket to the dance.  While the ACC and Big East Tournaments have always been the most talked about league tournaments in the past, if I am a fan of college basketball I would pay close attention to the Big 10 tournament this year just because anything can literally happen. 

Enjoy the weekend of college basketball and be happy March is finally here come tomorrow.   

Should I Be Shocked?

On Tuesday night the Wichita State Shockers became the first Division 1 men's basketball team to achieve a 30-0 record in the regular season.  While I consider it impressive. hell it's over four times the amount of wins my seven win Boston College Eagles have had all season, it does not "Shock" me.  Wichita State plays in the relatively weak Missouri Valley Conference, who will most likely be a one bid league come NCAA Tournament time, and they have only had 3 quality wins all year.  The Shockers have beaten two NCAA lock teams in BYU and Saint Louis as well as beating an NCAA fringe team in Tennessee.  Besides these these wins, which all occurred over two months ago, none of their wins jump off the page to me.

I am not saying Wichita State won't be able to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament, since almost all of the Gregg Marshall's squad that made it to the Final Four last year is back.  However, I am always fearful taking mid-major team seriously when filling out my bracket.  Last year Gonzaga was in a very similar position when they were a #1 seed and they were knocked out in the second round  coincidentally by Wichita State. The Shockers deserves to be a #1 seed and should be strongly considered to be the overall #1 seed especially if they win their conference tournament, but there is a good chance their second round opponent will be better than any team they have faced since they played Tennessee in December.

As I said the Shockers definitely have the talent to make a deep run in March.  Fred VanVleet is one of the best point guards in the country, and Ron Baker (who has one of the best haircuts in college basketball), Cleanthony Early and Tekele Cotton are all also great players as well.  What makes the Shockers so tough to play is that all four of the previously mentioned players are all capable of scoring 25 a night and on most nights they all score about 15 point which makes it hard for the opposing defense to focus on just one or two players.

While I do love seeing mid-majors such as Wichita State make deep runs in the tournament, I am always very cautious about what they are capable of since most of the teams haven't been tested for nearly the whole season. The best part about all of this is that in two weeks the fun begins with the conference tournaments and shortly thereafter the Madness begins.

Expect many more college basketball Rants to come as we enter the month of March.

Combine Again Shows That NFL Is the King Of Sports

Although I am a fan of all sports, football is without a doubt my favorite.  One of the main reasons is it is a relatively short season where you only have to invest a day each week to your team, whereas baseball you have to invest usually 6 games a week over a 162 game season.  Another reason I like football so much is that it is the one sport where I truly like the pro game equal to the college game.  Come fall, good luck trying to get me to do anything non-football related on a Saturday or Sunday.  Football however over the last decade or so has shown that it is not just a fall sport but rather a year round sport with the combine this week being a prime example.

I have always thought that the combine is the most overrated thing in sports.  I understand it helps GMs and coaches further evaluate players and it is a place where they can get to know the players personally through interviews, but I am a firm believer that the game film doesn't lie.  I don't care if a player in skin tight Under Armour gear can run a 40 yard dash fast or bench press X amount of times.  My question has always been has the guy proven over his 3 or 4 years in college to be able to play his position at a high level against the nation's best competition, all while wearing full pads?  If the player has been able to do that then I really could care less what he does in the combine.  With all that being said people seem to be fascinated by the combine as can be seen by the NFL Network's wall to to wall coverage.  How people find it fun to watch the players do drills is beyond me yet ratings show people like to watch it.

As a BC alum and season ticket holder of the football team, I will say it was great to see all the players in this week's combine do well.  Andre Williams was able to build on his Heisman finalist and Doak Walker Award winning season, defensive tackle Kaleb Ramsey led all defensive lineman with 36 reps in the bench press of 225 lbs, and most notably linebacker Kevin Pierre-Louis may have helped his draft stock more than anyone with his strong overall performance.  Below is a video BC athletics posted on bceagles.com yesterday showcasing all the Eagles' performances at the combine.  

The NBA Is A Tanking Ship

I think it's safe to say if you are an NBA fan of any Eastern Conference team this season who is not from Miami or Indiana that you have endured a long and painful season.  As a Celtics fan I had very little expectations for this year's team. While I did like the hire of Brad Stevens as the head coach, losing Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers all within one off-season the Celtics were making it clear that they were planning for a full rebuild.  The one problem with the current NBA is that it is so hard to rebuild.  For the most part the star NBA free agents have limited their options to the major media markets or sunny destinations such as Miami and LA, leaving the rest of the NBA to build their franchises through the draft and signing of marginal players.

The problem with building through the draft is very rarely is there a sure thing.  While most drafts contain players that are adequate pieces to building a successful team, very rarely is there a draft that contain one let alone two or three franchise changing players.  This upcoming draft is considered to be one of the deepest in recent memory, with players like Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins and potentially Joel Embiid, and as a result it has become obvious that a lot of teams are tanking this season in order to try to get a high lottery pick.  The 76ers for instance are a team that is not hiding their tanking abilities.  Not only did they recently trade one of their up and coming players in Evan Turner, but they have also been demolished in some of their recent outings.  They have now lost 11 games in a row including last night to the NBA worst Milwaukee Bucks by 20 (and the game wasn't even that close).  Also, in case you were wondering the picture of the guy sleeping court side at the top of my Rant was at the 76ers game last night.

Just to show how bad things are in the Eastern Conference, the third place Toronto Raptors are 10 games behind second place Miami and all 8 teams in the Western Conference currently holding a playoff spot would be a 3 seed or higher if they were in the East.  As mentioned earlier as a Celtics fan I expected a season like this, but for new commissioner Adam Silver the amount of tanking that is going on has to be disconcerting.

There have been talks of changing the draft format in order to prevent tanking but none of the potential solutions have become official.  One thing that I recommend is that once a team has been eliminated from playoff contention that they get a point for each win they accumulate after they have been eliminated.  The team with the most points by the season's end would have the first pick ,the team with the second most points would have the second pick and so on and so on.  While a team could theoretically tank for the first half of the season and then turn it on later in the season to pick up victories, I do think this is a better solution than the current one.  This way a fan of a team can actually root for their team to win later in the season and not for them to lose.

It is for reasons like tanking that I prefer the college game over the pros, and with that being said it's nice to know that March begins next week.

Could Recruiting Save Steve Donahue?

On the heels of BC's upset of #1 ranked Syracuse Wednesday night, Steve Donahue and the Eagles received a verbal commitment  from Jeremy Miller who is without a doubt the most high profile recruit to commit to the Eagles in a while.  Miller is a Massachusetts native but currently goes to The New Hampton School in New Hampshire, the same school current Eagle Olivier Hanlan went to.  Miller is a 6-9 power forward who according to Rivals is a 4 start recruit who also received offers from schools like UConn, Maryland and Providence.  The one catch that I saw with Miller is he is part of the 2015 NOT 20014 recruiting class. As a result he still has to play one more year of high school after this year and who knows what the state of BC basketball will be in come then.

While I am happy Donahue and co. were able to attract such a high profile player, I sure hope Miller picked BC because he liked the school and the allure of playing in the ACC and not just because of the coaching staff.  With the win against Syracuse and now the commitment of Miller, Donahue has been able to add a couple of bargaining chips when it comes to his job security, but the question is will it be enough?  I personally don't think so, but it has been a great couple of days for Donahue without a doubt.  Telling Brad Bates that in 2 years there is a great recruit coming to Chestnut Hill maybe a bit of stretch and I am not sure Bates can give Donahue another full year after this current one to continue to prove himself.  If by chance Bates let's Donahue come back next year BC better make the tournament next or else he is definitely gone.  If Donahue doesn't last until 2015 the question then becomes will Miller still stay committed to the Eagles?  I personally as mentioned earlier would like to think so because he picked BC for the school and not the coach, but rarely is that the case and I am sure the new BC coach will have a say in whether he will honor Miller's commitment.  

Regardless of what happens I don't want to spend this week bashing Donahue and the basketball team. It has been a good week for them and I really hope they keep the momentum going.  Below I have posted a video from YouTube of some of Miller's highlights.  One thing I noticed in particular is he is very versatile; he is strong by the basket but can also hit the mid range jumper and three point shot.  Kind of reminds me of younger version of Adreian Payne who currently plays for Michigan State.  Definitely not as strong and powerful of Payne but I do like the way he will force the opponent's defense to spread out.  Well that's about it for today but as always go Eagles and today go USA.

What Just Happened?

I know I, like many BC fans, have not spoke fondly of this year's basketball team.  Coming into the year there were high expectations based on the way the squad finished last year and the fact that the team had all its talent coming back, but needless to say BC has not come close to living up to these expectations.  The non-conference schedule was brutal and minus a win against a mediocre Washington team The Eagles did not win one of the marquee games.  Their defense has not been good at all and their inability to rebound has been staggering.  I know some of this is due to the fact that the team has been without center Dennis Clifford all season, but you would figure the team would have been able to adjust by February.  Finally, the team has not been able to close out games.  I am not saying BC would be a tournament team, but there were a handful of games that come to mind where BC had a chance to win and somehow blew it in the end.  The game at Notre Dame and most recently at Georgia Tech come to mind.  With all this being said, somehow the stars aligned last night at the Carrier Dome and the Eagles were able to beat the #1 ranked and undefeated Syracuse Orange.

BC clearly came in with a game plan last night and worked it to near perfection.  The game plan was to minimize the number of times Syracuse touched the ball by holding the ball on offense until the final seconds of the shot clock wined down.  While this made for a very boring game, especially in the first half, it proved to be very effective.  Two stats in particular stuck out to me when looking at the box score.  One was BC was 11-22 from 3 point range whereas Syracuse was 2-12, and the biggest eyeopening number to me was BC actually out-rebounded the Orange 40 to 37.  Ryan Anderson played a hell of a game in the post, not only by grabbing 14 rebounds but also making some big baskets down low late in the game.  Olivier Hanlan had one of his best all around games this season by hitting clutch 3's and making some buckets by driving hard to the hole.  The biggest surprise for me however may have been the German born Patrick Heckmann.  Heckmann has been one of the toughest players to understand this year and although he has not gotten much playing time as of late, he made a big 3 and backdoor basket in overtime. Overall, this was a definition of a team win and I am happy the team finally had something special to celebrate. Most importantly however as many have mentioned, including Coach Donahue in his post-game interview with ESPN, this win meant a little something extra with the passing of long time SID Dick Kelley this past week.

After witnessing BC's miraculous upset last night it made me start to think about some of BC athletics' best wins. This win in particular reminded me a lot of BC's football win over Notre Dame in 1993 when no one gave BC a shot to beat the then #1 ranked Irish in South Bend.  Also, there were some correlations between BC's win in football over again undefeated Notre Dame in 2002 and last night's win over Syracuse.  In 2002 Notre Dame broke out the green jerseys, result BC won, last night the Orange broke out the blue shorts, result BC won. Florida State also did a similar thing in 2006 when they wore all black against BC, granted they weren't undefeated, but BC still won.  Moral of the story is don't unveil new uniforms against the Eagles.

Will this win save Steve Donahue's job? I don't think so.  Although I am very happy for him, the team still has only 7 wins on the year. You can tell by watching him and hearing his constant whistling that he gives it his all every game but the big sticking point in determining his future is the fact the team has never made the tournament under his leadership.  I just hope that this victory will boost the team's confidence and help them finish strong.  BC next plays Saturday at Miami.

BC vs. Oklahoma State Debate

At first glance the title to my Rant may seem odd.  BC and Oklahoma State have very little in common and as far as my memory goes I can't remember a time the two schools played against each other in any athletic competition.  However, watching the Baylor-Oklahoma State basketball game last night made me wonder would I currently like being an Oklahoma State/Baylor basketball fan or a BC fan?

Going into last night's game both Baylor and Oklahoma State were fighting for their tournament lives.  Both performed very strong in their non conference schedules but both have struggled immensely in Big 12 play.  I will take Baylor out of the discussion for now since they won the game last night, even though they did their very best to literally throw away the game as time expired in regulation.  With last night's loss Oklahoma State dropped their 7th straight game and their record dropped to 16-10 (a record I'm sure any BC fan would dream of at this point). The Cowboys now will most likely have to make a deep run the Big 12 Tournament to have any shot at making the Big Dance, which must be extremely frustrating to Pokes fans given the team's hot start.  It also doesn't help that their best player Marcus Smart has been suspended for the past 3 games for shoving a Texas Tech fan and whose play has coincided with the team's decline.

Being a BC fan this year has been beyond frustrating.  The team has literally lost a game in every which possible way and it has come to the point where I don't expect the team to win any more games this season.  Would I want Oklahoma State's 16-10 record right now? Of course.  I would do anything to have a winning record but I think the one positive for BC fans right now is I think it's now a given that Head Coach Steve Donahue will not be back next year and as a result BC can look towards moving the program in a different direction with a different coach.  Had BC had a winning record and floundered towards the end of the season like Oklahoma State is currently doing there is a good chance Athletic Director Brad Bates would retain Donahue for one more year and only delay the inevitable.  As much as I would like to have had Donahue succeed at BC, he has shown he can't recruit ACC level talent and the decline of the defense in particular has been staggering.

Now that BC is at 6-19 (soon to be 6-20 and 2-11 in ACC play after facing #1  ranked Syracuse tomorrow) I like knowing that there will be some serious changes regarding the basketball program coming this off season.  Had BC been a fringe tournament team, with a good chance of making the NIT like an Oklahoma State, there is a good chance the team would just be stuck in neutral without much momentum going forward.  It is for these reasons I tell my fellow Eagle fans that is currently better to be a BC fan than an Oklahoma State one.