MITCH BLATT

SHANE SMITH

My last article discussed the very real reality of losing the Big East as a whole, but really the only thing anyone would really miss out on would be the amazingly competitive basketball of this conference.

While the ACC or Big 12 may try to claim the rights as the best basketball conference in the nation, they aren’t: plain and simple. The Big East has a total of 15 teams with Final Four appearances and a combined 11 national champions. The Big East set the conference record for teams entering the NCAA Men’s Tournament in 2006 with 8 selections. They then broke their own record with 11 this past season. The Big East is not only a farm system for countless lottery picks, but it is also home to some of the best and most exciting unsung heroes in basketball.

It’s not the loss of seeing future NBA players playing college ball that will be sad to see when the Big East starts to fade.  It will be the loss of seeing ultra competitive programs beat those future millionaires with toughness, heart, and precision (see Jeremy McNamara, Scotty Reynolds, Khalid El-Amin, etc).

So what is the solution after losing Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia, and probably UConn?

Create a new league that is solely comprised of smaller sized Christian colleges throughout the country. No, this is not intended to be some religious segregation ideal, but a reason to unite some of the most exciting and successful college basketball teams in the country. The level of Division 1 play by Christian schools is top-notch. They do not have the funding of the Kentuckys or Kansas’ of the world, but they still put together teams that not only compete, but succeed at every facet of the game.

In this hypothetical scenario the Big East retains all current teams except Rutgers (who has also been in talks with other conferences about leaving), Louisville (the only team that I’d be sad to see go), Cincinnati, and South Florida. The Big East would no longer exist as the Big East. Those defections would leave the conference with eight basketball schools:

1)       DePaul
2)      Georgetown
3)      Marquette
4)      Notre Dame
5)      Providence
6)      St. John’s
7)      Seton Hall
8)      Villanova

Those 8 schools would keep the heart of the Big East alive. Teams like Georgetown, Notre Dame, and Villanova would continue to be a powerhouse for future NBA players, while teams like St. John’s, Providence, and Marquette hope to rebuild the talent repertoire they once supplied on draft night.

To fill out the conference we would then look across the country at the nation’s top religiously affiliated basketball programs.  Just like that, there’d be no trouble in creating a powerhouse basketball conference once again:

9)     Gonzaga
10)   Saint Mary’s College
11)    BYU
12)   Xavier
13)   Temple
14)   Creighton

This idea may be far-fetched, and may be unrealistic, but wouldn’t it be interesting to bring back the days when the best fights on the hardwood could be found at the local catholic high school. The days when the Patrick Ewings of the world chose Georgetown because that’s where the highest level of competitive play was. The spirit of the basketball world is at its purest right now in the Big East and with the inevitable causality of Big East basketball inching closer everyday, it couldn’t hurt to explore this possibility.

Personally, I’d love to to see those 14 schools battle it out every season.

Photo: AP

SCOTT JACOBS

March madness is upon us.  With the conference tournaments in full swing and Selection Sunday just a few days away, it’s time to decertify from NFL Lockout talk for just a moment and enter into the wonderful world that is college hoops. This year the field looks wide open and by weeks end it’s inevitable that a few surprise teams will sneak into the field, knocking out the fringe teams from the field of 68.

This is the first year where fans (who have quality cable packages) can see every game (CBS, TNT, TBS, and TruTv will carry all the action) meaning that we’ll have more March Madness than ever before.  That said, a research study was recently done on people’s gambling habits in the tourney, and some of the results are pretty surprising.

Take a look at some of the numbers (Study conducted by MSN):

85%

Say news of an improving economy will lead them to gamble at least as much money as last year, if not more this March.

35%

Still believe their March Madness betting will outperform their 401k this year.

17%

Women that say they typically participate in at least four brackets or more compared to 9% of men.

27%

Women who plan to fill out 3 or more brackets, compared to 21% of men.

56%

Women that talk to their coworkers about their brackets.

59%

Men that talk to their coworkers about their brackets.

81%

Respondents who said they plan to devote at least some time during the work day to following games, scores and updates.

60%

Percentage of people that will spend at least one hour of work during the first two days of the tournament (Thursday and Friday) watching games or following scores.

Check out the rest of the results at MSN

Photo: Getty

SCOTT JACOBS

There’s no BCS and college hoops fans have to be incredibly thankful for that.  Because after a week where the top 4 in college hoops all went down, allowing #5 Duke (the only team that was able to get out of its own way) to leapfrog all the way back to #1, this sure would have been a lot scarier for teams title dreams if computer numbers dictated who goes to the championship.

Thankfully they don’t.  Which presents an interesting question: In actuality (a shout out to new NCAA Tournament partner TruTV) does being #1 matter?  Like at all.  Besides having bragging rights, and the chance to put it in your media guide and history books, does being #1 really mean anything in college hoops?

To which, I say no.  And a strong no at that.  Bet on College Basketball at BetUS, and you’ll see that most teams within the top 10 are all pretty close.  Especially in a year where there is nothing close to a dominant team.  While Ohio State stayed undefeated the longest, they have come back to the pack, and their young team no longer looks like the world-beaters they appeared to be.

The last time the top 4 teams all lost during the same week?  That would be November 2003, when Connecticut, Duke, Arizona, and Michigan State all lost.  The irony of course is that none of those teams made the Final Four, which doubly ironic, was won by yours truly Carmelo Anthony and his Syracuse Orange.

So what’s the message here?  Just get in.  The higher the seed the better obviously, but the number one overall seed in the tourney hasn’t claimed the title since that 2001 Duke team.  And they were flat out awesome.

There’s no flat out awesome team to note in this year’s field, just a bunch of very good teams who tend to slip up.

Now, if there is a trend that smaller-conference schools have to be wary of, it’s this one:  no non-BCS conference has laid claim to winning the tourney since 1990.  UNLV cut down the nets that year, and that was two decades ago.

Butler (2010), Memphis (2008), George Mason (2006), Utah (1998), UMass (1996), and UNLV (1990, 1991) are the only non-BCS schools to even make it to the Final Four in those 20 years.  So the odds are stacked against the likes of the San Diego States and BYU’s of the world, even though they have an equal opportunity to win it, if they can get in it.  Which getting in has never been more realistic, considering that 68 teams now get a crack at the ruckus that is the NCAA Tournament.

But that doesn’t make it easy.

Even during their glory run, Gonzaga only once made the Elite Eight.  Saint Joseph’s in their dream season with Jameer Nelson leading the way, only made the Elite Eight as well, and they were a #1 seed.  Of course in the past few years teams like Memphis and Butler have made the championship game, so it’s not exactly unfathomable, and it’s a hell of a lot easier than making it as a non-BCS school in college football.

But the Aztecs and Cougars will have their shot to win 6 in a row come March and that’s all you can ask for as a fan of the sport.  Even though there’s only usually a handful of teams that seem capable of winning a championship come April, anything can happen, as George Mason can attest to, when they shocked the world all the way to the Final Four.

But being #1?  Why, that’s hardly necessary.  In fact, it’s probably more pressure than it’s worth.  Kansas got caught in the mousetrap that is top overall seed when they fell to Northern Iowa in the secound round last year.  Remember when Kentucky fell to U.A.B?  And the beat goes on.

The moral to the story: when it comes to college hoops there is hardly a difference being a 1, 2, or even a 3 seed.  The competition is slightly harder the lower your seed, but you’re talking about top 12-top 15 caliber teams, who can beat anyone on a given day.  That my friends, is why it ain’t what you’re seeded.  It’s what you do once the tourney starts.  Like the Packers proved in their historic playoff run.  Just get in.  Anything can happen from there.

Photo: AP

SCOTT JACOBS

“It just keeps getting more ridiculous by the day,” Geno Auriemma said, a quiet raspy-ness to his voice, his arms crossed at the podium inside the bowels of the XL Center in Hartford, CT. He paused.  Maybe he was taking it all in.  Maybe it hadn’t quite hit him.  Maybe the man at the helm of the greatest machine in college basketball history didn’t even know how to process what his unconquerable team had just achieved.

Would you?

89 consecutive wins.  Pretty difficult to describe.

Awesome? Mind-blowing? Surreal?

UConn eclipsed UCLA’s famed John Wooden dynasty tonight, which won 88 games in a row back in the 70’s, a streak few probably thought would ever get touched with a ten foot pole.  Tonight the Huskies cleared that pole, and with plenty of room to spare. Rolling to lucky number 89 behind 41 points from all-everything Maya Moore, the Huskies slithered into college basketball lore.

Streaks are supposed to be tough.  The pressure is supposed to get to you. College kids especially aren’t supposed to have the razor sharp focus that it takes to go undefeated for a season, nevermind this.

But UConn has done it. 89… and counting.  They haven’t just taken out the opposition, they’ve completely obliterated them, tossing asunder 87 of their 89 victims by at least 10 points.  They haven’t lost since President Obama took office. The same president that called in the middle of Auriemma’s press conference tonight to congratulate him.

Look, make of the streak what you will.  Is it as impressive as what the UCLA Men’s team did?  Maybe not.  But I wasn’t around in the 70’s to watch UCLA’s 88 game winning streak. I never had a chance to see Bill Walton and the Wizard of Westwood.  I have had a chance to follow UConn’s streak and what Auriemma has done with that program is nothing short of remarkable.

In the 11 years that UConn’s women’s program existed before G.A. the Huskies were never ranked.  They had one winning season.  25 years later, UConn is the greatest power women’s basketball has ever known.  They’ve swept through 89 consecutive teams, mostly with relative ease. They haven’t lost back to back games in 17 years.  Seven national championships later, and potentially on their way to number 8, the Huskies are the model program in college sports, men or women’s.

Where this streak puts them in the annuls of sports history is up for debate.  But you can’t dismiss the power of the number.  Consider that the Huskies are 11 wins away from 100 in a row.  That in itself is all sorts of crazy.

Oranges. Apples. This juice is worth the squeeze, because at the end of the day, what they’ve done for women sports, and what they’ve done for women’s college basketball is generate publicity, the likes of which has never been seen for women’s sports.

The debate may be if women sports are treated as inferior to men’s. But the reality is that this streak stands on its own two legs.  It doesn’t need anyone to prop it up.

89 wins in a row is 89 wins in a row.  Screw the rest.

Photo: AP

CARRINGTON HARRISON

This season, the thinking has been that it’s Duke and everyone else.  In the early part of this season the Blue Devils have cruised to a 9-0 record, defeating highly ranked teams like Kansas State and Michigan State along the way.

A team that returned everyone except two complimentary players in Jon Scheyer and Brain Zoubek has gotten better and deeper. All of that was put into question however, when leading scorer and freshman point guard Kylie Irving got injured against Butler, now out indefinitely with a toe injury.  Irving up to this point was the best freshman in the nation this side of Jared Sullinger.

So the questions have to be asked.  Has the gap closed between the Dukies and the rest of the nation? What team does this help the most?

A myriad of teams are aided by Irving’s injury (Michigan State, Kansas, Syracuse, and Ohio State to name a few). But there is no reason for Coach K and Duke to panic. Irving will back.  A 18-19 year old heals quickly, especially someone in the elite level shape that Irving is in.

So before fans throw dirt on the Blue Devils take a look at their roster. The 17.4 points per game that Irving was averaging will now be picked up by Andre Dawkins and Seth Curry. Dawkins may be the best shooter in the country right now, shooting 54% from behind the arch and shooting (as older brother Steph and father Dell have shown) is in the Curry family lines.

Translation: Duke will be just fine.

They still have All-American Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and the Plumlee brothers to rely on.  I’m more than confident in Coach K’s ability to coach this team past this injury and for Duke to continue to play at a high level until Irving’s return. Before we know it, it will be mid January or February and the only issue will be whether Irving can get back into game shape, after which we can all resume rooting against Duke like we did before.

CARRINGTON HARRISON

This is the best week in sports. You can keep your Super Bowl week, your opening weekend of the NCAA tournament or college football Bowl Week.

Give me Thanksgiving week: Feast week with meaningful college football games and rivalries. This is why we watch sports for this type of intrigue, drama, and competition. This weekend also shows us how different the two main sports in college athletics are. College football and the current BCS system gives teams minimal margin for error.

If you are Auburn and you lose this week, your national championship dreams are dashed. Boise State, you have been a nice story but lose to Nevada and you are off to the Poinsettia Bowl. What incentive is there in college football to play a tough non-conference schedule and risk a loss before conference play? It almost forces teams to load up on cupcakes and hope to avoid a loss in conference play in order to rise to the top of the rankings.

You want to know why Boise St – Virginia Tech was such a big deal? Games like that rarely happen in college football early in the season anymore. Season defining moments don’t happen in September. College basketball allows and rewards excellent non-conference matchups. Need a gauge for how good your team is? Go play in the Maui Invitational or the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. Want to see how the conferences stack up? Watch the ACC v Big 10 challenge.

Feast Week gives teams resume building wins and prepares teams for the rigors of conference play. It gives you a feel of the incoming freshman, allows teams to set a rotation, and creates pressure situations teams will face come March. College basketball does it right. It allows early season play to build up to a culmination of its season and not the other way around.

Do yourself a favor, in between time with the family, food and football sit down and watch some of the great college basketball this time of the year. It might come in handy when you are filling out your brackets in March.

Photo: AP

CARRINGTON HARRISON

November means short days, long nights, cold weather and college basketball. This past Tuesday, ESPN had its annual 24-hour long marathon dedicated to the sport. Teams from across the country were in action from the first game that tipped off in Memphis as Memphis hit free throws (shocking I know) to defeat Miami all the way to the final game in Spokane as San Diego State shocked the Gonzaga Bulldogs on their home court.

The common thought is that these games are about seeding. Kansas State beating Virginia Tech is the difference between a 2 or a 3 seed same thing for Ohio State’s impressive win over Florida. The games don’t even need to be played to get a feel of what will happen in March:  just take the preseason 25 top poll and you can start crossing teams out that have no chance. We can do it right now but first let’s establish the criteria. Let’s take a look at the last 10 years as the basis for this argument. Every winner since 2000 has two things in common: a top 5-10 head coach and at least 1 NBA lottery player on the roster in the upcoming draft.

2000: Michigan State Spartans – Mateen Cleaves and Tom Izzo
2001: Duke Blue Devils- Jay Williams and Coach K
2002: Maryland Terrapins – Chris Wilcox and Gary Williams
2003: Syracuse Orangemen – Carmelo Anthony and Jim Boeheim
2004: Connecticut Huskies- Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon and Jim Calhoun
2005: North Carolina Tar Heels – Marvin Williams, Raymond Felton, Sean May, Rashad McCants and Roy Williams
2006 and 2007: Florida Gators – Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Al Horford and Billy Donovan
2008: Kansas Jayhawks- Brandon Rush and Bill Self
2009: North Carolina – Tyler Hansborough and Roy Williams
2010: Duke – verdict out on Kyle Singler and Coach K

That’s the method. That’s the theory. In this age of college basketball, you need one elite level NBA talent upperclassmen player to win it all in March. Take a deeper look at the list. Even in this age of one and done’s, they don’t win championships. Carmelo Anthony was the exception, not the rule. 99% of the time, your best player cannot be a Freshman it must be a Junior or Senior. Remember how John Wall, Michael Beasley, and Kevin Durant did in the tournament.

Derrick Rose was a 1^st team All-American and still fell short. Now let’s look at the ESPN preseason top 25 poll and eliminate teams that will not win in 2010.

In the top 10, we can eliminate Kansas State, Michigan State, and Pittsburgh. Where is their elite level NBA talent? Raise your hand if you see it. Ohio State’s and North Carolina’s are led by a Freshman so they must be crossed off as well. When it comes to Villanova, you have to love Jay Wright but Corey Fisher is a 2^nd round talent at best.

A look into the top 15: Gonzaga is a mid-major so I’ll believe it when I see it, Kentucky is under the Freshman rule, Illinois and Missouri have no elite level talent, and Purdue’s best player is out for the season. After eliminating those teams: Duke, Kansas, Florida and Syracuse remain. Given the last 10 years as an example one of these four teams has the best chance to cut down the nets in April. Maybe Jared Sullinger or Harrison Barnes will be Carmelo Anthony great and carry a team on their backs. Perhaps, Tom Izzo or Jamie Dixon can coach themselves to a championship. All these things are possible (and far from improbable) but I like trends and statistics and the numbers go against them.

Could this be the year a team like Gonzaga breaks through and wins it all? Very unlikely. The cream eventually rises to the top and the strong survive in the end, but isn’t it fun to watch along the way?  Hey at least we can all celebrate this novel idea of a tournament deciding the championship in college athletics. What a crazy idea.

Photo: AP

SCOTT JACOBS

Duke was bigger, tougher, and stronger, but against a gritty, veteran Butler team with nothing to lose, it still was barely enough.  As Gordon Hayward dashed up court, with the seconds ticking away on a fairytale run for the Butler Bulldogs, you couldn’t help think that the way things had gone, why couldn’t he make a half court three to win a national championship.  And then he nearly did.  Hayward heaved the ball as hard as he could and it bounced off the backboard, a paralyzing few split seconds, as Duke ran out to celebrate an unforgettable national championship game.

Duke 61 Butler 59.

And even that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Butler remarkably had held all five of their previous tourney opponents under 60 points.  Tonight they allowed 61.  And lost by a basket.

To quote Gus Johnson, “what… a… game!”

Butler took knocks for getting a lot of breaks along the way to the championship game (Kansas State coming off a 2 OT game, Michigan State being diluded by injuries, etc., etc.), but they played a complete and healthy Duke team and they didn’t blink an eye.

Duke shot 10% better from the field.
They out rebounded Butler by 16.
Duke had as many blocks as Butler had assists.
They had less fouls and more steals.

And yet it still came down to one shot.  And Haywood just missed.

And this improbable, sometimes unexplainable Butler run came just short.

But it had nothing to do with heart.  Butler showed so very much.
Hustle wasn’t an issue either.  The Bulldogs were just as feisty as the mighty Dukies.

How close was this game?  No team led by more than six points, and Duke outscored Butler by a point.  In both halves.

But it was the dreaded field goal drought that really hurt Butler, as they went over 8 minutes in the second half without a field goal.  And yet, that patented Bulldog defense still would not let their dreams die.

Haywood had a chance to insert himself into tournament lore twice.  A tough fadeaway 15 footer was too hard, and the afforementioned just miss from half court were the difference.

“We came up one possession short, in a game of 145 possessions,” said Butler coach Brad Stevens, who instantly jumps into most coveted mid major coach in the country.  At 33, this kid has one heck of a bright future.  And if that future keeps him at Butler, the school that first gave him a shot to become a coach, than the Bulldogs will be a team that will be tough to reckon with in years to come.

So you feel for these kids.  Because quite frankly, the team that seemingly lucked into a Final Four and survived the semifinals, proved tonight that they belonged here all along.  Yeah, Butler.

Forget Horizon League versus ACC, forget David versus Goliath.  What you saw tonight was two evenly matched teams that played tooth and nail to the bitter end.  Put a Kansas jersey on Butler and everyone would say these two teams were the best in the land.

In a season of minimal parity besides the heavyweights at the top, Butler proved to the nation that the Dogs are right there… and then some.

But let’s not leave out Duke, which returned to the top of the college basketball mountain after a near decade, with a fantastic overall team, and a center in Brian Zoubek who just swallowed every rebound whole.  Duke may not have appeared to be the best team early on, but they proved it in the tourney that they deserve to be top Dog.

That’s no knock on Butler.

Tonight, Duke was simply two points better.

Photo: Getty

MITCH BLATT

Sports by Brooks is reporting that the NCAA will expand March Madness to 96 teams.

This (pointless) expansion illustrates a system that is the exact opposite of the BCS system, and, while it is entertaining for what it is, it kind of deligitimizes the regular season.

Let’s assume the point of the playoffs is to crown the best team as champion. Any team that places third or fourth in the SEC is obviously not the best team in the sport, yet they are probably going to have a chance to win the title in college basketball. On a practical level, they probably won’t, but they have the chance to mess up the process (and arguably make the games less exciting) and to take away the meaning of the championship.

On the other hand, there are also a lot more teams in college basketball than in football and a some talented but of unknown teams. George Mason doesn’t have a football team, for example. But for every George Mason, there’s multiple “mid-majors” that lose early.

The NCAA, however, apparently with the idea that CBS has enough channels to broadcast five games at the same time, is just creating a whole new round of games that might as well be simulated.

As it is, the #16 seed is 0-100 in first round games. I don’t forsee the #17 seed doing much better.

The #15 seed vs. the #2 seed is 4-96.

The #14 seed vs. the #3 seed is 15-85.

The #13 seed vs. the #4 seed is 22-79.

The #12 is 37-83 vs. the #5. (As is the #11 vs. the #6.)

Even #7 vs. #10 is only 48-76. (Sources)

Already, we can see that the regular season does a good job of weeding out the losers, and we can see that the first round is almost all pointless as is. No one is excited for Wofford vs. Directional School East.

(The NBA playoffs also have way too many pointless games, with playoff spots for .500 or below teams, playoff spots for the top 50% of the league. That’s one reason no one watches the Finals, because the playoffs drag on so long that no one cares by the time the Finals come around, and it’s the first week of summer.)

In contrast to college basketball, college football games actually mean something. Most college football games mean, well, everything.

The NCAA Championship usually means two undefeated teams. (And the college football gods, usually oblige by having only two undefeateds left at the end of the season, with the exception of that year USC tried to claim a “split national championship.” … Cincinnati losing 51-24 to Florida doesn’t count as an undefeated.)

When Florida played Alabama for the SEC Championship this year, that was a big game. If a playoff system existed, that game would have meant nothing, because Florida and Alabama would have both made the playoffs–and maybe they’d match up again during the playoffs, say in the championship, and then if the loser of the SEC Championship won that would present one team with an arbitrary title based on the luck of having their victory on a different date.

Obviously, in college football, there’s usually four, maybe six teams that can make a legitimate claim that they might be the best team in the game.

But when Alabama crushes Florida in the SEC Championship, and when USC crushes Ohio State early in the season, can either of those teams legitimately argue that they are the best team in the nation?

However those are precisely two of the teams that would have made the playoffs.

The final BCS standings had Florida at #3 and Ohio State at #5. What kind of a playoff system would it be to have Florida competing on an equal level with a team that just trounced them weeks earlier?

You reap what you sow. Every team has a shot at the national championship, but losing to the eventual national champion doesn’t make you champion material. It makes you a respectable third-place.

The games matter. Keep it that way.

Photo: AP