Maddux Sports Blog

That sound you hear is, I fear, the sound of floodgates opening. For a couple of glorious years now college basketball has been, in my mind, significantly better off for the presence of a few spectacularly talented young players - even if they only stayed for a year. The NBA’s change in minimum draft age meant that we got to see guys like Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley make the college game their personal playgrounds. That has made the world a better place. Now that might all be threatened thanks to a guy named Brandon Jennings.

Jennings is perhaps the top 18 year old point guard in the country. He first committed to USC, then decommitted and eventually settled on Arizona. But then he ran into academic problems. His first SAT score was too low for admission. His score in the second test was so much improved that the authorities guessed he cheated and he didn’t fight it enthusiastically enough to make us think otherwise. He took the test a third time, but he made the decision I dread before he got the results.

Jennings is going to turn pro and play in Europe next year. It’s frustrating to me because it is a good move for the player. Or at least it isn’t a bad one. Provided he lands on a good team he’ll play against decent competition including several NBA draft picks or future draft picks. He’ll also play against older players, so he will be well seasoned for the toughness and experience he will face when he makes his inevitable jump to the pros in a year. European basketball is so closely scouted now that he will get seen just as often as he would in college, and he may even stick out more if his style of play and athleticism are different than the league norm. In other words, on balance he’ll get an experience not too far removed (on the basketball side if not the lifestyle side) from what he would experience in college, and he’ll make a whole lot of money at the same time.

I can guarantee that there are a bunch of younger players watching this very closely, and even more agents. Going to Europe would allow agents to get their claws into stud players a year earlier, and the open availability of other pro options could allow them to leverage the NBA into better contracts down the road. This one year plan was working way too well to last, so a loophole was inevitable. I just wish it hadn’t been found so soon.

The 2009 National Champions will be North Carolina. They clinched the title today.

That is, of course, a ridiculous statement, and I am sort of kidding, but it will be hard to pick a team that has a better chance for them after what happened today. All three of their top underclassmen who had declared for the NBA draft - Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green - hadn’t signed with agents, so all could and did withdraw from the draft at today’s deadline. That means that North Carolina, which was already favored last season, returns their six top players from last year, including national player of the year Tyler Hansbrough. On top of that, they add a top five recruiting class that includes five star freaks Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller. Outside of a notable injury problem with Lawson this was a team that had few holes last year, and that is even more true this year as the top six are more mature and hungrier than ever. The three who entered the draft learned what it will take to make the lottery, and all could potentially do it. Hansbrough has to be the happiest guy on the planet right now, and if he’s not it’s only because Roy Williams is even happier. Of course, for bettors it means that value on the Tar Heels is a distant memory.

I’ve thought it was a no-brainer for all three to choose to come back for another year all along, and that hasn’t changed. I know that it has to be hard to give up a shot at a few million dollars so you can play for free. Of the three, though, Lawson was the only one who was virtually assured to go in the first round, and he will unquestionably benefit from the extra year. He is ridiculously talented, but not as polished as some players above him, so he would have spent a fair bit of time riding the bench next year. Why do that when you can be in the driver’s seat for the big prize? Besides, if they do pull it off and win the title, their draft stocks will all benefit significantly as a result.

So we have our clear-cut, heavy favorite. The only thing that would be better at this point is if I even remotely liked the team.

I know I am supposed to be leaving college basketball behind and focus on baseball or the NBA or the NHL or something, but I just can’t let it go quite yet. As I was taking one last look at things before moving on I came across the odds for the 2009 National Championship. Now, there are a lot of ridiculously bad bets out there, but none are any worse than these. They are full of sucker bets. Here are some of the more laughable:

The favorites - There is a three way tie at the top, with UCLA, Duke and North Carolina all at +650. Just think about that for a second. Duke was pretty terrible in the tournament, UCLA is losing Kevin Love and Darren Collison, and North Carolina will likely be without Psycho T and Ty Lawson. In other words, you can invest now on a team with a clear deficiency, and two others that will likely have their hearts ripped out of them, and if you are right then you get less than seven times your money a year from now. Where do I sign up?

Kansas State - The Wildcats are at 30/1. Huh? Michael Beasley is gone, and Bill Walker will quite possibly follow. That means they will start with 90 percent of their offense gone (and I am only partly exaggerating). I’m pretty sure that a team has to make the tournament in order to win it, so I don’t see how this makes any sense at all.

Michigan - My beloved Wolverines are at 100/1. Now my glasses are as rose-colored as they can be regarding my team, but this is absolutely laughable. The team was truly awful last year. John Beilein is only now starting to recruit his players, and he has very little existing talent to build on. As much as I wish it were different, I think that 100/1 more accurately represents their chances of making the tournament, never mind winning it.

Memphis - The should-be-champs are at 12/1. Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts are likely gone, Joey Dorsey will graduate, and John Calipari is coveted by the Knicks. You would seriously have to be a moron to make this bet.

Syracuse - This one is bizarre, too. The Orange are at 15/1. Now, Johnny Flynn and Donte Greene are very nice players who will only improve this year (unless Greene stays in the draft - it’s questionable at this point), but the team hasn’t even made the tournament in two years, and none of next year’s recruits are can’t-miss blue chippers. Unless Carmelo Anthony has rediscovered eligibility this just isn’t going to happen.

Texas - The Longhorns are also at 15/1. Unlike everyone else on this list they could actually be decent value. Until the second that D.J. Augustin declares for the draft, that is. If he stays back another year, which seems somewhat unlikely, then this team could be the closest thing to a good bet on the board.

Arizona - The Wildcats underachieved this year, and only some of the problems can be attributed to the bizarre coaching soap opera. That will be remedied next year, but Lute Olson will have to figure out a way to make up for the loss of Jerryd Bayless and Chase Budinger. Olson is a legend, but he’s not good enough to make the 30/1 price attractive.

Florida - Let’s get this straight - the team didn’t make the tournament, the coach told anyone who would listen that he hated his players, and the team is once again going to be young, inexperienced, and full of questions. Does that sound like a team that is worthy of being the fourth choice in the country at 10/1?

UConn - The Huskies are at 15/1. Those odds are too low at the best of times, and will be truly ridiculous if Hasheem Thabeet declares for the draft. A guy that big who blocks shots as well as he does will be very attractive to NBA teams, so the temptation will be high.

Louisville - David Padgett is graduating. So is Juan Palacios. Earl Clark is likely to enter the draft. That’s a lot of holes to fill - too many to justify a 10/1 price.

Texas Tech - Bobby Knight didn’t exactly leave the cupboards full, and the Pat Knight era didn’t exactly get off to a running start. Sure, they are one of the longer prices on the board at 75/1, but does that really even come remotely close to reflecting the chances of a championship? Maybe if you add a couple of zeros.

The Field - You can bet every team not listed at 12/1 odds. Sounds like a bargain. Except that they list 57 teams including virtually every major conference contender and some mid-major contenders like BYU and Gonzaga. Unless you think that this is Stephen Curry’s year, or that Tubby Smith is going to perform a miracle in his second year at Minnesota, this is as bad as a bet can be.

Thoughts from the biggest of games:

7:36 p.m. - Not much has been proven in the first six minutes of the game. The teams are just feeling each other out and trying to figure out what will work. Neither team seems uncomfortable or ineffective, so it should be a good game. I am a little surprised that it has been a reasonably low scoring start, but it feels like that could change. I don’t think that we can rule out or elevate either team ion any way based on what we have seen so far.

7:40 p.m. - As a Memphis fan I am a little concerned by how effectively Kansas is forcing Memphis’ big men to take fouls.

7:48 p.m. - Neither Rose nor Douglas-Roberts are plaing their games, and both look uncomfortable. That should change. It had better for the sake of Memphis.

7:51 p.m. - The game has really sped up all of a sudden. The word I would use to describe it is frantic.

8:05 p.m. - Chalmers is doing a great job of containing Rose.

8:12 p.m. - Kansas figured it out at the end and owned the last four minutes. It will be key for Memphis to come out strong in the second half. Rose and Douglas-Roberts look to be lacking confidence. Needless to say, that needs to change. Calipari is a master of halftime adjustments, so this game is far from over.

8:33 p.m. - That was a quietly good half for Douglas-Roberts. He wasn’t as visible as he usually is, yet he is the leading scorer in the game.

8:35 p.m. - Rose looks like a different player in the first minute of the second half.

8:46 p.m. - Memphis seems to have forgotten how to shoot.

8:56 p.m. - Rose has a different look in his eyes the last minute or so. For the first time all game he is aggressive and looks confident. That is bad news for the Jayhawks. It’s not great for the sportsbooks, either - there is heavy action on Memphis.

9:10 p.m. - This is why Memphis is so dangerous - they haven’t really changed much, but they quietly put their foot on Kansas’ throat. It still could change, but for now the Tigers are in control.

9:17 p.m. - With 2:12 left in the game the foul parade begins. That means that the game should end about three hours from now.

9:24 p.m. - Kansas is using fouls to claw back as well as a team can. They are down by two with 44 seconds left. Memphis needs to calm down and keep their head.

9:25 p.m. - Let me say this before we have a final result - this has been a great game that is very worthy of a championship, and the winners will be deserving.

9:30 p.m. - After all that, the foul shooting came back to haunt Memphis. They are going to overtime instead of cutting down the nets because Douglas-Roberts and Rose couldn’t shoot fouls at the end. Mario Chalmers will never have to buy a drink in the state of Kansas again.

9:35 p.m. - Statement of the obvious - not having Dorsey in overtime is bad news for Memphis.

9:37 p.m. - What a stunning turn of fate. Memphis has fallen apart when they had it in the palms of their hands. All the credit in the world to Kansas at this point.

9:42 p.m. - Maybe finally hitting a shot will make a difference, but Memphis looks like they have forgotten how to play basketball. They have given up everything that got them to where they are.

9:48 p.m. - Well, congratulations Kansas. They turned their game around and asserted themselves when it mattered. That one is going to burn in the throats of Calipari and the Memphis players for a long, long time.

9:50 p.m. - College basketball is over for the year. Now what do we do?

That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Few people ever thought that Memphis and Kansas would be playing in the final game, so we didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what would happen if they did. THe public seems to have a pretty good feeling about Memphis. More than two-thirds of bets placed have been on Memphis, and the line has moved significantly from where it opened with Kansas as 1.5 point favorites to the current level of Memphis -2.  So, how is this game going to turn out?

If you go by form of the last couple of weeks then one team is going to blow out the other, and it will only be interesting for the first half hour or so. That seems unlikely in this game, but then it has seemed unlikely in a lot of games that have followed that form, too.

Some experts are saying that it is going to be a defensive battle. There is reason to believe that that could be true. Both teams have played outstanding defense recently, and both did a very good job of shutting down players who had been punishing other teams all tournament. Both teams have the ability to shut down the other team, and both have shown at times this year that they can be frustrated by the right defense. So, a defensive battle could happen.

Unfortunately, so could an offensive battle. Both teams are coming off games that they mostly scored at will, they both have dynamic, explosive offensive weapons, and both can be deadly if they get hot. Kansas has several dangerous offensive weapons, and Memphis has a deadly set of guards of their own. Both teams are stunningly athletic and tough to control. This one could light the board up.

So, what’s going to happen? Well, based on my thought process so far, either Kansas or Memphis is going to win a game that will either be a low scoring defensive battle, a high scoring thrill-fest, or some combination of the two. Helpful, isn’t it? All I can say for sure is that my gut says Memphis, it has been saying that since before the tournament started, that’s worked pretty well for me so far, so I am going to go with it again. I’ll check in throughout the game to see how it is working and share what I am seeing.

I’ll chime in all night with thoughts from both games. All times are mountain time.

4:04 p.m. - Time to settle in and watch some basketball. Just finished watching Colonel John unleash a massive run down the stretch to win the Santa Anita Derby and position himself behind Big Brown and Pyro as the third best looking horse pointed to the Kentucky Derby with four weeks left to go. It was impressive. Now for some basketball. They are doing the cheesy introductions, so we should see some actual game action in about three hours at this rate.

4:16 p.m. - 13-12 Memphis less than five minutes in. This has to be more points and more pace than Ben Howland would like. Memphis is dictating the style, and that is great news for them. I was afraid that the Tigers were going to be intimidated after the quick start by the Bruins, but Memphis quickly counter-punched. UCLA just took a timeout, and they desperately need to slow this thing down.

4:27 p.m. - 10 points in just over seven minutes for Chris Douglas-Roberts. UCLA needs to find a way to control him. Thankfully for them, and for the sake of an interesting game, they have been able to slow the pace down a bit.

4:35 p.m. - You should keep an eye on this kid on Memphis named Derrick Rose. He could be a good player one day. Wow. The guy is freaking everywhere. Incredible.

4:45 p.m. - UCLA is playing a surprisingly sloppy game. They just had an ugly travel call, they turned over an in-bounds pass, and they have generally looked unprepared. I expect that to change significantly in the second half. What may not change is the inability of the team, and most notably Kevin Love, to look like they can match up to the high pace of the Tigers.

4:59 p.m. - UCLA closed it up to be behind by just three at the half. That’s flattering given their effort. The over looks very solid given that the total is just 134, but it won’t be as ridiculously high as it was once on pace to be. Memphis just needs to keep doing what is was doing because it was mostly working. They have a big athletic edge and they asserted it. UCLA needs to step it up. Mostly, they just need to look like a team that wants to win. This one could still go either way pretty easily.

5:21 p.m. - Tough back to back fouls for Dorsey and Taggart. That’s another impressive dimension of Love’s game - he brought both of,the fouls on single-handedly.

5:43 - Joey Dorsey is such a difference maker, especially considering he doesn’t have any points. He just owns the boards, and he has done a solid job of aggravating Love.

5:49 p.m. - UCLA is down by 10 with eight minutes left. They have experience coming back from situations like this, but they don’t have much experience playing teams as good as Memphis is. I’m admittedly biased because I like Memphis so much, but I don’t see a comeback happening here.

6:01 p.m. - That was odd - Darren Collison just took an intentional foul to foul out with almost three minutes left. That was a brainless move, but he had a pretty brainless game, so it fits. Maybe he just didn’t want to be part of a hopeless game any more.

6:05 p.m. - Again, the foul shooting woes are no issue for Memphis. They are over 80 percent tonight and coming through just fine when needed.

6:08 p.m. - Ben Howland deserves a lot of credit for making three straight Final Fours, but he really needs to get it done one of these times. It’s not really an excuse to say he keeps running into hot teams playing well.

6:11 p.m. - The second half slowed down quite a bit, mostly because of the struggles of UCLA. The game only went over the total of 134 in the last minute of garbage time. For a while it looked like the teams were going to double the total.

6:14 p.m. - Memphis is going to be very tough to beat on Monday night. They showed emphatically tonight what an edge their athleticism is, and they have shown all tournament their ability to frustrate and confuse the top players for their opponents, and especially the guards. This team is really, really good. They blew out a very good team and it wasn’t like they had to play beyond themselves to do it.

7:03 p.m. - We are underway with game two. Kansas is off to a solid 9-4 start, and they are forcing the matchups they need. Good start. It can’t be caused by Bill Self’s pre-game talk to his team - they showed the view from the locker room, and Self’s speech was as dull and monotonous as Charlie Brown’s teacher.

7:27 p.m. - I would have checked in sooner, but the pizza wasn’t going to eat itself. I think that the pizza must have been laced with peyote or something, because the only way to explain what I am seeing is that I am hallucinating. This is the most ridiculously dominant performance I have seen in a long time (well, a week - since the first half of the Memphis-Michigan State game). It is 38-12 Kansas with eight minutes left in the first half. There is not a person on the planet that could have seen this one coming. I am stunned by how well Kansas is playing, and how poorly North Carolina is. Roy Williams is looking like he is having three simultaneous aneurysms.

7:31 p.m. - Billy Packer, the king of the overstatement, just said that this game is over. That’s obviously premature, but it is hard to argue with him right now.

7:38 p.m. - Eight minutes without a field goal?!?!?!? Did I really just hear that. This is right out of the twilight zone.

7:40 p.m. - How did Tyler Hansbrough and Cole Aldrich trade bodies? Aldrich isn’t even a good player (yet), but in this game he looks like every great white center in one. Incredible.

7:47 p.m. - How quickly things change. Now it is Kansas that needs to get their act together after allowing ten unanswered. Luckily for them they still have an 18 point cushion to work with.

7:56 p.m. - I would imagine that the North Carolina locker room is neither fun nor quiet right now.

8:01 p.m. - The common trait shared by the two dominant teams so far today is that they have looked wildly superior in terms of athleticism.

8:30 p.m. - Apparently the teams switched uniforms at the half. This is the strangest game I have seen in a long, long time.

8:45 p.m. - Kansas is in a world of hurt, but they just need to calm down and realize that they are still up by seven with seven minutes left. That’s a great place to be if you can just forget that you used to be up by 28.

8:56 p.m. - And just like that Kansas is back in control and North Carolina looks lousy again. The Jayhawks are up by 13 with under three minutes left. This one is over.

9:00 p.m. - Well, we got more of the same with the games today - bizarrely one-sided games with much wider margins than we expected. The blowout is truly the story of the last two weeks of this tournament.

9:02 p.m. - This one isn’t quite over, but I’m done. I’ll sleep on the strangeness we witnessed today, and then weigh in tomorrow with my thoughts on Monday’s game. Not what I was expecting, but it should be great.

I’m going to weigh in tomorrow with in-game analysis during both games. Until then, I just wanted to share a couple of interesting things that have popped up today and provide us with more to think about as we try to make winning picks on the big games:

Kansas loses a player - The Jayhawks become the second team to have to cope with the loss of a minute-eating reserve. Unlike Memphis, though, this was not for disciplinary reasons. In a bizarre incident, guard Rodrick Stewart broke his kneecap in an open practice today. He was mugging for the crowd by doing a big slam and he obviously landed very badly. Stewart, a senior, added just 2.8 points per game, but was good for 11.6 minutes. Like the Allen situation with Memphis situation, I’m not too worried about this one - teams are very likely to shorten their bench and rely more heavily on their starters in a game that is so crucial as this. That’s especially the case when the season ends with a loss, and is almost over with a win, so there is no future to save your players for.

The ‘experts’ weigh in - It is time for the paid geniuses to make their wise picks. There is an interesting contrast between two of the major media outlets. SI.com asked five of their writers who would win. Four came up with UCLA as champions, with three having them beat North Carolina in the final. The fourth has North Carolina beating Memphis. ESPN is a bit different. Three of their five experts has Memphis beating UCLA, though none have Memphis winning it all. Two of them have Kansas winning it all, while UCLA and North Carolina get the nod once. The boldest pick is that he team that is playing best in the final will win it. That’s how you really go out on a limb. If you buy into these expert opinions at all then you have to think that UCLA presents pretty good value in their Saturday game since they are underdogs. The SI writers might want to make a futures bet, too - the Bruins are the longest shots on the board to win it all at 16/5 according to Bodog. Kansas is 3/1, Memphis is 27/10, and North Carolina is fairly significantly favored at 8/5.

The books like their number in the North Carolina game - Almost 80 percent of the bets made so far have been on the Tar Heels, yet the number is still at the -3 that it opened at in most places. That either means that the smart money is hitting Kansas hard enough to balance things out, or that the books are willing to expose themselves at this number. Memphis has had about two thirds of the action, and the line has moved from -1 to -2, so that one is acting more as expected.

I was sitting down to take my first long look at the Final Four today when, as I often do, I started to think about whether there were overriding rules that should be followed when handicapping college basketball’s last three games of the year. I tend to do this kind of thing whenever I am faced with an annual event. It’s not because I am looking for a system or a shortcut - those don’t exist, or at least not without a ridiculous amount of research and study to uncover them. Instead, I do it because it helps me to focus better on the games at hand, and to prioritize the ridiculous amount of information that I will be faced with. If you don’t have some kind of a framework to build upon when you look at a wildly public game like these three will be then you are vulnerable to being led astray by the ‘experts’ and whatever topics they happen to be focused on these days. In the last two rounds, for example, it would have been pretty easy to discount Memphis because we heard endlessly how badly they shot fouls and how much that matters. As it turns out they shot very well from the line, and they would have won both games fairly handily even if they had been much, much worse.

As I looked at these games, these are the four basic rules that I came up with to shape my further analysis. I’m not suggesting that these are definitive by any means, but they will definitely define and containing both the starting points of my handicapping and the places where I spend the most time:

1. The better team wins - This may seem obvious, but it bears saying anyway. This is not the time to question which team is more motivated or anything else. Every team has been focusing on this all year, and they will be at their best. We see lots of upsets every year leading up to this point, but we don’t usually see them past here. The job, then, is not too get too fancy or too cute with th whole thing, but rather to figure out which teams are better and to back those.

2. Ignore the spread - Obviously this only holds up to a point - it would be stupid to make a bet without looking at the spread. What I mean, though, is that I will be ignoring the spread until I have evaluated both teams completely. I have glanced at the odds to check for irregularities or rapid shifts, but I haven’t really internalized them because I think it is more important here than usual to have a sense of how I see thing splaying out before I see what the oddsmakers have to say. With the public attention being so intense for these games, and with very public teams being involved, I don’t want to be in a position to be influenced by the spread as I make my decision because I have very little faith that the spread is particularly meaningful in this game.

3. It’s about stars, not depth - The bench players and the lesser starters figure into these games, but the best players tend to shine through on these stages. Florida didn’t beat Ohio State last year because they had a stronger bench. They won because their lottery picks outplayed Ohio State’s lottery picks, and because they had more draftable, star caliber players on the roster. It is no coincidence that all of the remaining teams are packed with future NBA players while teams like Tennessee and Xavier that don’t have the blue chip talent are watching the games at home. My focus, then, will be on deciding which of these ridiculously talented players have the best opportunity to shine in the brightest of spotlights.

4. Coaching matters, but it is not a relevant differentiator here - Perhaps nothing affects a college team as much as how well it is coached. It is no fluke that teams regularly experience rapid turnovers when they dramatically upgrade their coach. I don’t think that there is any merit, though, in trying to compare the remaining coaches. You don’t make this level by a fluke, and each of these coaches is among a fairly small handful of the best coaches in the country. Each has had a stellar career, and has shown again and again that they are worthy of their reputations and huge paychecks. I personally love John Calipari and think that he is a master of setting up a challenging system and recruiting to it. That doesn’t mean, though, that I can rationally say that he is better than Ben Howland - a guy in his third straight Final Four - or Roy Williams and his national title. Bill Self might have the least impressive record of the four, but he has led his third team to at least the Elite Eight and he is a proven winner. I think that it is a real mistake to do anything other than to consider the coaches a total wash and ignore them - any advantage you assign to one over another is much more due to personal bias than to a real advantage.

For the first time in the 20 or so years that I have been filling out a bracket I have all four Final Four teams. I should be proud of that, but all it really means is that I am a chalk-eating weenie. I did the ultimate newbie thing - take the number one seeds and put them all the way through to the end - and it paid off. That makes me feel like a need to shower for a week or so. Don’t get me wrong - I’ll spend the money if my luck keeps holding. It just seems wrong that something so unimaginative and boring would be the right way to go.

So how did I end up as one of those people that I have always made fun of in the past? How did I end up making pitifully lame picks? I’m not sure, really. I tried hard to talk myself out of it in every region (I didn’t try to hard with Memphis - that was the one that seemed surest to me), but I just couldn’t find a way that I could conceivably feel good about their chances of getting beat. That’s really the story of this tournament to me - for the first time ever we have four number one seeds in the Final Four, each one looked like the best team in their group, and each one proved that to be the case with resounding authority (or something approximating that in the case of Kansas). I am particularly intrigued that this gap between the great and the merely good came in a year in which it seemed for a long time like there were an abnormal number of elite teams and that parity was rearing its ugly head in college basketball.

The big question now is what happens next. These teams have all showed how much better than everyone else they are, but will two of them prove to be prove to be significantly better than the other two, and will one blow out the other? I could make my case for at least one blowout in the next round, but the problem is that I could also make a fairly convincing case for all four teams to win it all. This is going to be a great week of turning these games over and over to figure out what will happen.

Don’t worry, you didn’t miss it - I don’t really have a point. I just think that it is interesting how this turned out, and how notably uncompetitive the games were this weekend. The tournament finds a way to be unique and fascinating every year, and this is certainly no exception. I also find it interesting that the selection committee could be so right with the number ones, yet it seems reasonably clear that the number threes were mostly stronger than the number twos - the clarity only went so deep, it seems.

Tomorrow we’ll take our first look at baseball in honor of the real opening day, and then we’ll spend the rest of the week finding ways to analyze next weekend’s games to death.

Will the last five minutes of a college basketball game ever be interesting or tense again? That’s eight of the last nine which have been over well before they have been over. Tomorrow, hopefully, is another day.

1. Davidson can beat Kansas, and it wouldn’t even be a massive upset. Heck, if I had to rank the eight teams in order of likelihood to win based on the way they are playing Davidson wouldn’t be at the bottom despite their seed.

2. Anyone who calls Davidson a Cinderella team deserves to be slapped. A Cinderella team plays beyond themselves. That’s not Davidson.

3. Take that, Memphis doubters. That first half against Michigan State was the best half of basketball played by any team this tournament. Probably this year. They have to be the favorite to make the final from their side of the bracket now.

4. I never would have thought it possible two weeks ago, but UCLA is arguably the least inspiring of the eight remaining teams based on the way they have played so far.

5. It is amazing to me how often a team can succeed so well up to a point and then look so totally out of place in their next game. Villanova didn’t at any time look like they belonged on the court with Kansas.

6. I get shivers when I think of Louisville - North Carolina tonight. This one could and should be a classic.

7. I’m disappointed by Stanford. I thought that they had more fight in them than that. Unlike that song, they got knocked down but they didn’t get back up again.

8. The Pac-10 isn’t looking nearly as strong as they did coming in. USC went home with a whimper. Oregon and Arizona failed to exceed their seeding. Stanford and Washington State both looked good for a while, but were both wildly outclassed in the Sweet Sixteen. UCLA is alive and favored tonight but has been, by a large margin, the least dominating of the number one seeds.

9. I think that David Padgett is the most important guy on the court tonight. If he can offset Tyler Hansbrough to a significant degree then Louisville can win.

10. In the second half on Friday, Wisconsin looked like a bunch of midwestern farm boys who took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in Detroit. It was not a flattering day for the Big Ten.

11. Eight teams, seven conferences. Two from the Big 12, none from the SEC or Big Ten. Does this mean that the Southern and the A-10 had better years in the end than those two power conferences?

12. I’m making no predictions, but I do think that underestimating Xavier is a big mistake.

The games on Thursday night weren’t entirely entertaining, and they weren’t too surprising, but they were educational. At first glance, three things pop into mind as I process what happened:

1. Xavier is for real - Xavier struggled in the second half, and they should have won their game against West Virginia easier than they did, but they proved that they certainly aren’t out of place in the Elite Eight - the school’s second berth since 2004. Their balance and depth is impressive, and their discipline is relentless. I know for certain that they don’t have an answer for Kevin Love, but I don’t know that the Bruins have an answer for some of what the Musketeers through at them, either. Western Kentucky succeeded in the second half with an up-tempo shooting fest and they will get all of that and more from the Musketeers. Xavier consistently makes the big play when they need it, and they will need several on Saturday. If I was forced then I would say that UCLA would probably win, but an upset would not be an overwhelming or impossible one.

2. The right two teams came out of the East - Perhaps the six most impressive, dominant performances of the entire tournament have been played by two teams. Neither North Carolina nor Louisville has particularly been challenged yet despite playing good teams, and both have looked terrifyingly flawless. It’s really a shame that the two teams have to play this early in the tournament, but it is going to make for one heck of a game on Saturday. Both teams are playing great, they match up reasonably well, they both have strengths that will give the other guys gigantic headaches, and they have perhaps the two best coaches in the country on the bench. I had serious doubts about both Washington State and Tennessee, but they are unquestionably both very solid, so the ease with which the two winners handled them is incredible.

3. Kevin Love is the best player in the tournament - Tyler Hansbrough is great, and Stephen Curry is the story of the year, but Love means more to his team and affects the game more than any other payer still playing (or any not playing, for that matter). He had a truly spectacular game on Thursday with a career high for points. It’s not just his scoring and rebounds that make him so good, though - it’s his presence. It is incredibly hard to believe that he is only a freshman. He does whatever his team needs at the time - when was the last time you saw a big man dribbling the ball down the court after the point guard gets fouled out? He’s balanced, talented and impressive.

It is a heck of a line-up of games we have to look forward to tonight and tomorrow night. There are only a couple that have a real risk of being duds, and several that could come down to the last second. Here is my ranking of the games in order of my level of anticipation as a fan and a bettor:

8. UCLA vs Western Kentucky - I have been pretty impressed by the Hilltoppers so far, and the Bruins are struggling with injuries, but I still can’t see a way in which this one is particularly close UCLA is bigger, stronger, faster, and a huge step up in class from previous opponents.

7. Kansas vs. Villanova - I would love this one to be close, but Kansas has more experience, and I don’t see how Villanova is going to handle Mario Chalmers. He’s red hot right now.

6. Memphis vs. Michigan State - I have seen the Spartans enough this year to know that they are as inconsistent and untrustworthy as any team in the tournament. I don’t think that they can handle Memphis’ athleticism.

5. North Carolina vs. Washington State - I don’t buy into the Cougars, and I really don’t like watching them play. North Carolina is balanced, dominant, and just plain scary right now. It may be a fight, but I bet not.

4. Xavier vs. West Virginia - The top four games could really go in any order on this list. This game could be really interesting, or it could be a flop. Xavier lacks star power, but they are deep and disciplined. West Virginia has found ways to exploit the flaws of their opponents so far. One team is going to be pushed off its game plan.

3. Stanford vs. Texas - You know how sometimes you just feel like a team is in trouble but you can’t precisely put your finger on why? Both these teams are like that to me.

2. Davidson vs. Wisconsin - What happens when an explosive offense keyed around one player comes up against a dominant defense with an impressive big man? It didn’t end well for Georgetown, and it will be very interesting to see what happens here.

1. Tennessee vs. Louisville - What’s not to like about this one? Two great coaches, the hottest team in the tournament, and a team that thinks they should have been a number one. There are storylines all over the place in this one, and it could go either way. A potential classic.

After four long and intense days of watching college basketball I’m taking a bit of a break. I’m not burned out by any means - how can get you get burned out by something as great as college basketball. I just feel like the best thing for my intensity and focus is to take a day where I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about basketball. That means that I will feel ready to jump right back into it tomorrow to get ready for another weekend and to see if there is any value available in any of the other tournaments.

That’s not to say that I’m not paying any attention at all. I am an addict, after all, so I can’t go completely cold turkey. There are a couple of news items that have caught my eye today because they may or may not factor pretty heavily into next weekend’s action:

1. Villanova center Casiem Drummond is out for the year - The 6′10″ sophomore broke his ankle against Siena. I’m not at all worried about his absence, but I really hope that the public sees the headlines and jumps all over it like they do with most injuries. Drummond is the only pure center on the Wildcats’ roster, so people may think that this is a big problem for Nova. It isn’t. First, the guy has only played eight minutes and scored four points in the tournament. More significantly, the team is very overmatched by Kansas anyway, and the presence of a middling center wouldn’t change that.

2. Bruce Pearl won’t name a starting point guard for Thursday - This is a much bigger story, and a much bigger concern. Tennessee has looked fine in the tournament, but they still haven’t excited me any more than they did down the stretch. They are lacking in two big areas - point guard obviously, and an inside presence. The fact that Pearl is playing these games would make you think that he could just be messing with the media, but if you watched the two games the team played then you know this isn’t true. That means that he is legitimately concerned about the problem. That’s not a good place to be when you are heading into a game with a team as hot as Louisville. It makes me like the Cardinals even more than I already did. Unfortunately, everyone else will have seen the two big Louisville blowouts, too, so the chances of finding a line with any value are pretty slim.

1. The Big East confuses the heck out of me - Coming into the tournament I felt reasonably confident that the Big East was the strongest conference. Now I’m not so sure. In some ways they have been better than expected, while in others they have disappointed.

The Good - Villanova has been a pleasant surprise, and a very good indicator of what the future holds for the ridiculously young team; West Virginia asserted themselves nicely in two tough games, and they showed that you can be a sleaze bag and still be a great coach; Marquette did everything asked of them and should be proud; Louisville was ridiculously dominant, and though it is far too early to do such a thing, I am penciling in Louisville - North Carolina as the best game of the tournament.

The Bad - Notre Dame should be disgusted with themselves; apparently people were too quick to elevate Pitt to legend status based on a few tournament wins and should have instead paid more attention to their countless disappointments during the season; UConn has the luxury of getting a mulligan in the San Diego game because of the A.J. Price injury, but I am not totally convinced that they wanted that game badly enough to win with him in there; Georgetown lost to a very good and well seasoned Davidson team with an incredible player at the helm, but they gave up a pretty huge lead to do it.

Overall, the expectations for an eight bid conference would be four teams in the second round and two in the Sweet Sixteen, so they exceeded both nicely with six and three. The problem is that only one of those three teams, Louisville, is a legitimate contender, and they have to get past two incredibly tough opponents just to make the Final Four. I will have to re-evaluate this next statement if two of the three teams wins next weekend, or if Louisville makes it to San Antonio, but right now I have to think that the overall tournament is going to be a bit of a disappointment for the conference.

2. The winner will be… - I have no idea really, and probably less than I did before it all began. With some confidence, though, I can say that I think that the winner will come from this list - North Carolina, Louisville, Kansas, Wisconsin, UCLA. It pains me a bit to leave Memphis off, and I may come back and edit this post at a later date to avoid embarrassment if the need arises, but I just don’t think that anything the South has to offer measures up to the scariness we have seen in other groups.

3. I have a serious man-crush on Stephen Curry - Actually, I have known this one for quite a while now. I’ve been impressed by a lot of players over the last four days, but none more than Curry. The guy is quite a bit shorter than me and I’m too short to start for most power conference teams. He weighs about 12 pounds, which is coincidentally also how old he looks. He has a team around him that is solid and fun to watch, but the coaching staff certainly doesn’t have to worry about any of them bolting for the draft. Everyone in the world knows he is going to get the ball almost all of the time. Despite all that, though, he pretty much single-handedly has won two games for his team. Few if any other players have 55 points in the two games. Curry has that many in the two second halves alone. People will trip over themselves in the next couple of days to find ways to describe Curry as a March Madness discovery, but that’s ridiculous. He had 30 against Maryland in the tournament last year, and he has been a dynamic scoring machine during the regular season for the last two years.