Anthony Davis has had a special season for a special freshman, and today he added another accolade to an impressive first year campaign, Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year.

He is just the second freshman ever (Kevin Durant) to win the prestigious award which has been given out since 1961. Unlike the NFL, which sees many Heisman winners crash and burn, players who win the AP College Basketball Player of the Year tend to hit the fast track to stardom, with an astonishing rate of them ending up in the Hall of Fame.

Davis is also the first Wildcat in history to claim this award — which is amazing in it and of itself, considering Kentucky’s unprecedented college basketball success.

Davis beat out Kansas’ Thomas Robinson and Michigan State’s Draymond Green to win the award.

Was Davis the right choice for AP POY? What kind of pro will he be? And taking out your crystal ball, do you think he will dominate the NBA to the tune of a Hall of Fame caliber career?

It takes 67 games to complete the NCAA Tournament. We now have just 3 left. The field has been whittled down from 68 to 4, and as we zero in on New Orleans, site of the 2012 Final Four, a quadrant of programs steep in tradition remain: 1. Kentucky, 2. Kansas, 2. Ohio State, and 4. Louisville.

It’s a far cry from last season, which featured the strange sight of 8. Butler vs 11. VCU in one of the two National semifinals (UConn-Kentucky was the other matchup).

While this year didn’t quite go ‘chalk’ (it rarely does, just ask 2008), it does feature a foursome of teams that were in the AP Top 15 to start the season, and top 20 to end it. Louisville is the most surprising of the bunch considering how they were playing before their impressive Big East tourney run (aka: not good), but they can beat anyone in the country. Kentucky has shown that their youth will not be their undoing (they’re playing way beyond their years), Kansas has shown a penchant for playing well when they’ve had to (12-0 run to knock out UNC in a terrific game), and Ohio State was expected to be here ‘last year’ before falling short (hence the return of Jared Sullinger).

So, we ask you, who will win it all? What game are you most looking forward to this coming weekend and how many Final Four teams did you have right in your bracket (Kansas, Kentucky)?

52 games down, 15 to go. It’s been a wild NCAA Tournament, but the Curse of Gus lingers — there has yet to be an overtime or buzzer beater (which is quite simply astounding). Still, with just 16 teams left — including 4 from Ohio (a record), 4 from the Big 10, and 4 from the Big East — and a critical Tar Heels injury threatening to derail North Carolina’s run, there is still much to be determined in this year’s version of March Madness.

Here’s a visual explanation of where we stand:

By Region:

By Conference (Ohio teams in red):

By State (no, this isn’t a Republican primary map):

Original graphics: Scott Jacobs

What a strange, double-personality this 2012 NCAA Tournament has taken on. On odd days it’s status quo, business as usual for the top seeds with a hiccup here and there, and on even days, it’s pure, unadulterated chaos!

We watched two 2 seeds and a 4 seed fall on Friday, and on Saturday the expectation was, that despite having a lot of chalk matchups, that some lower seeds would prevail as well.

Not to be!

In spite of a number of spirited finishes and some games much closer than their final score would indicate, there was no upsets on day 3. By seed that is.

Call Wisconsin beating Vandy a mild upset if you wish, but the Badgers are going back to the Sweet 16 for the 5th time in 11 years. Gonzaga nearly got Ohio State but ran out of gas.

Indiana won the game of the day over a determined VCU team on a Will Sheehey shot with just under 13 seconds to play, capping an impressive turnaround, but even if VCU had won, it wouldn’t have been a complete shock, given their Final Four run last season.

Kentucky and Syracuse disposed of their opponents, moving on to the Sweet 16 comfortably with double digit wins over Iowa State and Kansas State respectively. Colorado hung with Baylor for 3/4 of the game, and then the wheels came off, as the Bears roared to a 26-9 close to end Colorado’s nice little story. And speaking of good stories, Murray State’s program identifying season came to an end courteous of Marquette, just the Racers 2nd loss of the season.

Finally, New Mexico gave Louisville a scare, but the Big East tourney champs survived a furious finish as Peyton Siva and friends advanced to the Sweet 16.

Player of the day: this one is easy, Brady Heslip. His 9 threes carried the Bears and broke open a close game. What a night for him.

Winners: How about college basketball fans! We got an array of terrific games and I’m salivating at that Kentucky-Indiana rematch from earlier in the year. That was one of the great games of the year and the Hoosiers won. Should be fantastic.

SCOTT JACOBS

Shockers! I’m sure someone will do the research on this, but I can’t recall another tournament in recent memory boasting 9 double digit seeds surviving the second (**cough cough**) first round:

A breakdown by seed (note: the only seeds unscathed through 2 so called rounds: 14 and 16, though we could technically be obnoxious and state that 14. BYU beat 14. Iona and 16. Western Kentucky beat 16. Mississippi Valley St. and 16. LIU Brooklyn beat… o whatever).

This is going off the second round (seeds that won):

09: 1-3 (St. Louis)
10: 2-2 (Xavier, Purdue)
11: 2-2 (NC State, Colorado)
12: 2-2 VCU, USF)
13: 1-3 (Ohio)
14: 0-4
15: 2-2 (Norfolk State, Lehigh) — It had been over 4000 days since a 15 beat a 12. In hours, 2 did it. First time ever. 5th, and 6th all time.
16: 0-4

Only two of those came from yesterday and in all honesty was VCU beating Wichita State that shocking (see what I did there) or Colorado dethroning UNLV?

Which means that of the 16 games that were played on Friday, 8 were one by the underdog. Eight!

And it could’ve been more: 3. FSU barely squeaked out a win over 14. St. Bonaventure.

This is what’s whacky:

- In the midst of all this upset madness, the East went completely chalk 1-8. Unbelievable considering how many big name teams were falling today.
- Both the South and Midwest regions lost half of their favored seeds in the second round; The West was luckier with just 2 upsets.
- The ACC, Big 12, and Big 10 had 3 clear cut top 3 teams in each conference and each one lost one of those today: 2. Duke, 2. Missouri, 4. Michigan.

So while Saturday is about big-time matchups, Sunday is about big time quirkiness:

Were you expecting either of these matchups when the brackets were unveiled:

Xavier-Lehigh, USF-Ohio (2 of those 4 teams are going to the Sweet 16… Xavier is a top caliber team with Tu Holloway, but c’mon, the other 3…)

Duke and Michigan were bounced on the same night. Missouri takes their Tigers to the SEC after bowing out in the second round. Karma perhaps? After winning the Big 12 tourney title Tigers fans were taunting “SEC, SEC”

Teams left by power conference:

SEC: 3 (Kentucky, Vandy, Florida)
ACC: 3 (UNC, FSU, NC State)
Big10: 5 (Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, Wisconsin, Purdue)
Big12: 4 (Kansas, Baylor, Iowa State, K-State)
Big East: 6 (Syracuse, Georgetown, Marquette, Louisville, Cincinnati, USF)
Pac12: 1 (Colorado)

Teams left from other conferences:

VCU, Xavier, Lehigh, St. Louis, New Mexico, Murray State, Norfolk State, Creighton, Gonzaga, Ohio)

How about by state:
O-H-I-O, Kentucky and the Sunshine State (basketball state, what?) have the most teams left in the dance. Let’s break it down all the way down:

4 Ohio (Ohio State, Ohio, Xavier, Cincinnati)
3 Florida (FSU, UF, USF)
3 Kentucky (Kentucky, Louisville, Murray State)
2: Virginia (VCU, Norfolk State – talk about housing bracket busters!)
2: Indiana (Indiana, Purdue)
2: Kansas (Kansas, K-State)
2: North Carolina (UNC, NC-State)
2: Wisconsin (Wisconsin, Marquette)

11 states and Washington D.C. make up the rest of the bracket.

All in all, 20 states are left and 1 District of Columbia.

Awesome possible Sweet 16 matchups (assuming this weekend is a little more normal):

Kentucky-Indiana
Xavier-Baylor
Michigan State-Louisville
Marquette-Florida
Syracuse-Vandy
FSU-Ohio State
Georgetown-Kansas

And if Creighton shocks the world and knocks out UNC, we’ll have a Sweet 16 matchup of, gasp, this:

Creighton-USF  or this: Creighton-Ohio. Madness!

That’s enough of that! Two qualms:

1) C’mon refs! Enough with the lane violations. It’s not right for you to decide the outcome of a game, nevermind possibly 2.
2) Those scoreboards: unless your HDTV is crystal clear it is hard as heck to read Double Bonus and Bonus underneath each team’s name. Clean it up.

Besides that it’s been one heck of a tournament. More madness surely to come.

Photo: Getty

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