I was never a big fan of Mike Leach, but I always respected what he accomplished at Texas Tech. The scandal that ended his tenure at Tech always seemed bizarre, and he’s in the middle of several lawsuits with the university and with ESPN.
Ron Modra has written an interesting profile of Leach in the Washington Post, which finds him in Key West as he waits for another opportunity to coach a major college football program. he had a shot at the Maryland job but they picked Randy Edsall from UConn instead.
I think he’ll get another shot eventually. My guess is you’ll see him at a BCS conference school that has hit rock bottom.
Jamey Codding of Bullz-Eye.com got the opportunity to attend the Final Four thanks to Infiniti! Read about his experience below.
When complete strangers start chucking mini foam basketballs at you on your way down an airport escalator, you know Final Four fever has settled in. Houston was buzzing already, and we were still more than 24 hours away from the tipoff of the Butler/VCU game. Fans were moving through the George Bush Intercontinental Airport with their team affiliations proudly displayed on jerseys, t-shirts, hats, luggage and, of course, directly on their bodies with temporary tattoos and skin paint. Houston was ready to party. And so were we.
After getting settled at the Magnolia Hotel in downtown Houston, we met with our trusty Infiniti rep for the weekend, Ray Daniels, and headed to Cabo for a quick bite to eat and a couple of cervezas. Great way to start a great weekend. A few hours later, we found ourselves at the Sambuca Jazz Cafe for some dinner — the lobster enchiladas come very highly recommended — and stuck around after the meal for a few more drinks and some great live music. If you ever are in Houston looking for a place to spend an evening out, Sambuca should be on your short list.
Of course, Saturday was game day, and after grabbing a quick burger, we hopped onto the shuttle bus and headed over to Reliant Stadium (home of the NFL’s Houston Texans) to check out Infiniti’s Tip-Off Tailgate event, with all sorts of games, activities and, of course, food and drinks. We milled around the tailgate section for an hour or so, our celebrity radar already on high alert since we could safely assume that some big names would be in attendance to take in college basketball’s biggest weekend. Sure enough, just before we made our way to the gate, we saw former NFL defensive lineman Warren Sapp hanging with a group of people in a tucked away corner of the event, but we wisely resisted the temptation to snap a quick picture. We’ve made a point of not irritating 300-pound former NFL players, and it’s worked well for us so far so why deviate now?
Temple and UConn played during the day today, but the game definitely continued some dark days for the state of Big East football.
The Owls, who a little more than a week ago could be seen trading costly gaffes and fumbles with MAC foe Central Michigan, defeated UConn 30-16. It’s another huge blow for the Big East, which has already had sub-standard results this season.
UConn was thought by some national media types to be the favorite in the Big East, but after this loss and the Week 1 drubbing at the hands of Denard Robinson and Michigan, the Huskies definitely don’t look like a team that should finish on top of any BCS conference. Cincinnati, the defending Big East champion, has looked about as pathetic — minus the loss to a MAC team, that is — losing to Fresno State and NC State. With Oklahoma coming up next week, the Bearcats, who were unbeaten in the regular season a year ago, are staring 1-3 straight in the face.
West Virginia appears to be the most competent team in the conference, but even the Mountaineers needed overtime to beat Marshall. They do have a chance to earn the conference some respect, however, next week at LSU. With Les Miles coaching, who knows what could happen there, but if I had to put money on it now, I’d go with the Tigers.
With the emergence of non-automatic qualifying conferences, namely the Mountain West, you’d think the Big East would need to start proving itself to keep its spot among the six power conferences. Sadly, money probably won’t allow them to fall out of that, or let the MWC move up, even though it’s looking more and more superior to the Big LEast with each passing week.
It took 29 points from Kemba Walker, but the Huskies upset the Wildcats, 84-75, in Philadelphia.
Losers of five of its last seven, UConn still has a lot of work to do, but a win on the road against Villanova sure helps their tournament chances. The Huskies are sitting at 5-8, so they really need to go 4-1 down the stretch against Rutgers, West Virginia, Louisville, Notre Dame and South Florida to get back to 9-9 in conference and 19-12 overall. (A win against the Mountaineers would really help.) Then, a couple of wins in the Big East championship would give UConn 21 wins and a reasonably solid resume for an NCAA bid.
With the game tied and 0:38 to play, Syracuse attempted a shot and Rick Jackson grabbed the offensive rebound. Sophomore Scoop Jardine got the ball and unwisely attacked the hoop. He didn’t realize that Syracuse could run the clock down. As he was driving, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim called a timeout and the ref actually blew the whistle after the ball left Jardine’s hand.
It could very well have been UConn’s ball, but some leeway needs to be given to the ref. If he saw Boeheim signal for a timeout before the ball left Jardine’s hand, then there is going to be some lag time between that moment and when he blew the whistle and stopped play. Boeheim clearly was signaling for a timeout as Jardine started his drive, so the right call was made.
When Jardine came back to the huddle, even the worst lip-reader could see what Boeheim said to him:
“You know I just saved your a** right there. You don’t know what the f**k you’re doing, do you? You know you almost lost the f**king game for us.”
Boeheim looks like a professor, but curses like a sailor.
UConn stupidly fouled on the inbounds play — Stanley Robinson actually grabbed Wesley Johnson’s jersey right in front of the official — and Syracuse went on to win the game, 73-67.
“After spending time with my family and friends and speaking with Coach (Jim) Calhoun, I have decided to give up my final year at UConn and enter my name in the 2009 NBA Draft,” Thabeet said via a statement. “I have had a great experience at Connecticut and cannot thank my coaches and teammates enough. I look forward to the challenge of playing professionally and know that my time here at UConn has prepared me to be successful in the future.”
The 7’3″ center averaged a double-double (13.6 points, 10.8 rebounds) and an eye-popping 4.2 blocks per game on the season. I think he has the potential to be a very good defensive-minded center (think Dikembe Mutombo). He’s pretty fluid for his size and can get up and down the court with ease. His hands seem small (as he loses the ball often when he brings it down below his waist) and his post moves need a lot of work. Like anyone with his size and natural athleticism, he’ll be as good as he wants to be.
He is a likely top 5 pick, so this decision makes sense.
Calhoun addresses the report in the first few minutes of his press conference…
The part I love is this…
“It wasn’t a newspaper, I’m sorry. It was a blog story, I guess, that appeared on something that I probably can’t get a hold of, which is Yahoo.”
While it’s technically true that you can’t “get a hold of” a website, you can certainly get online and read the story before you make any comments about it.
And it wasn’t really a blog. It was a website story just like any other newspaper website story. Coaches (and politicians) like to use the term “blog” in kind of a sarcastic, negative fashion.
1. #11 Utah State looks like a sneaky smart pick against #6 Marquette.
The Golden Eagles are just 1-5 after losing Dominic James, their fourth-leading scorer and best playmaker, for the rest of the season. Granted, those five losses were to UConn, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Villanova, and they only lost by an average of 7.2 points, but Marquette has to travel to Boise to face #25-ranked Utah State, who had a 19-game winning streak this season. The Golden Eagles better account for Gary Wilkinson and Jared Quayle, who make up one of the best inside-outside combinations west of the Mississippi.
2. The committee didn’t do Mississippi State any favors.
Congratulations on winning the SEC tournament, Bulldogs! Now we need you to make the 2000 mile-trip to Portland, Oregon by Thursday, where you’ll play the Pac-10 champions in their neighboring state. Good luck, and enjoy the Pacific Northwest!
3. UConn shouldn’t be seriously challenged until the Elite Eight, but this is UConn we’re talking about.
If the Huskies come out with a singular focus, no team on their side of the bracket should be able to keep up. Washington, Purdue and BYU are nice teams, but they don’t have the star power or coaching experience of the Huskies. Nor do they have anyone to matchup with Hasheem Thabeet on the inside. However, UConn is known for having tournament ADHD, so its entirely possible that one or more of these teams make the Huskies sweat late into the second half.
4. Missouri/Memphis should be a good one.
The Utah State/Marquette winner could easily give Mizzou a run, and Memphis might be challenged by the winner of the Cal/Maryland game, but if the Tigers face the…um…the other Tigers in the Sweet Sixteen, it’ll be a nice matchup. Memphis hasn’t played a good team since early February (when they blew out Gonzaga in Spokane) and Missouri just won the Big 12 tourney in convincing fashion. Both teams are stellar defensively, but Mizzou has an advantage on offense with DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons on the front line.
Lately, I’ve been hitting the Joe Lunardi bracketology page over at ESPN on a daily basis — the guy knows his stuff. But I scrolled down and found myself intrigued by one of the comments (by EliSilverman):
Here’s some math to prove just how much better the Big East is than any other conference. The Big East has the lowest average projected seed amongst the top conferences (3.7), surpassing the ACC (4.2), Big 12 (5.5), PAC 10 (6.4), SEC (8.0) and Big 10 (8.1). Now, here’s a bit more math….I predict there’s a 75% chance that the semi-finalists of the Big East tournament also become the Final Four in the Big Dance.
All right, I’m not a math major — I just have an engineering degree — but in order to prove conference strength, it’s not accurate to only average the projected seeds of the teams that get in the tournament. By that logic, Conference USA is the strongest conference because its average projected seed is 2.0 (Memphis).
Eli might say, “Everyone knows that C-USA isn’t the toughest conference because it only has one team in the tournament.” Well, by that logic, the Big 10 is the strongest conference because Lunardi projects that it will get eight tourney bids, one more than the Big East. You can’t have it both ways.
What makes the strongest conference? Is it the quality of the teams at the top? Or is it the strength of the conference from top to bottom. If it’s the former, then the Big East has a great argument. Pitt, UConn and Louisville are legitimate Final Four threats (and are all ranked in the top 5), while the ACC, Big 10 and Big 12 only have one team ranked in the top 7. If you’re going by total conference strength, then it’s hard to beat the Big 10 since it looks like eight of its 11 teams (73%) could get bids. (I know, it’s dumb to have 11 teams in a conference called the Big 10, but that’s another post.) The Big East has 16 teams (a fact glossed over by Big East supporters), so seven bids out of 16 teams (44%) isn’t quite as impressive.
Personally, I go by Jeff Sagarin’s computer rankings. The guy knows his stuff, so if he says that the ACC is the strongest conference top-to-bottom, then I believe him. And if he says that the Big 10 is second, then I’ll believe that too.
And as for the “more math” part of Eli’s post, where he says there is a 75% chance that the Big East semifinalists will make up the Final Four, I’d take that bet any day. First, that’s not “math,” that’s a prediction, and an arbitrary one at that. Second, for that prediction to come true, Pitt, UConn, Louisville and a fourth Final Four team (Villanova/Marquette/Syracuse/West Virginia) all have to be in separate regions. It’s likely that Pitt, UConn and Louisville will be split up, but I’d say that the chances of all three making the Final Four (PLUS a fourth Big East team emerging from the fourth region) aren’t quite 75%. Maybe 5%, and that’s being generous.
I was never a big fan of Mike Leach, but I always respected what he accomplished at Texas Tech. The scandal that ended his tenure at Tech always seemed bizarre, and he’s in the middle of several lawsuits with the university and with ESPN.
