Author: Coach Z (Page 16 of 38)

Two players to watch in the NCAA Tournament are Adam Emnecker of Drake and Jeremiah Dominguez of Portland State. Both point guards led their teams into the Big Dance and were named MVP of their respective conferences. After watching Emnecker all year and Dominguez last night I fell in love with both players ability to win games without scoring points.

They are prototypical point guards who set up their teammates for easy baskets. While the major media people only watch BCS level leagues and pump up those players, I will give you a heads up. Find out when Drake and Portland State play in the NCAA tournament and tune them in. You will be treated to FUNdamental basketball at it’s best.

How about the job that Scott Sutton has done at Oral Roberts. After bowing out to UMKC in the first round of the conference tournament 2 straight years he has went on a run that has seen the Golden Eagles win 3 straight Summit League Championships and finish runner-up in the other year (lost at the buzzer). A great run this year considering he lost his two best players (and two of the best to ever play at ORU– Caleb Green and Ken Tutt).

The following is my prediction for the conference tourney winners: (If you get more right than me–see me in San Antonio for an adult beverage on me)

Pac-10: Washington State
Big 10: Purdue
Big 12: Kansas
SEC: Florida
Big East: Georgetown
MAC: Ohio U.
Atlantic 10: Temple
ACC: Duke

This week is championship week. For some leagues like the Summit, you need to win three in a row to make the dance (Congratulations to Oral Roberts!!). It doesn’t matter what you did during the regular season. Other leagues like the Big 12 and Pac 10 and ACC are playing for seeds.

I have a suggestion to make it more interesting. Let’s take the regular season winner from each conference and they are automatically in and then let’s have the conference tournament winner from each of the top 17 conferences (minus the regular season winner who doesn’t play in the conference tourney) get bids. That will give you 48 teams and it will put more emphasis on the top conference tournaments. Also, it will make the regular season important from top to bottom for each team in each league.

Congratulations to North Carolina for winning the regular season ACC. However, they are not the ACC Champions unless they win the tournament. That is a fact. Look it up.

Tyler Hansborough was named the Player of the Year by Sporting News (no wonder they are going out of business.). Are you kidding me? Michael Beasley had better numbers (rebounding, scoring, shooting percentage) and they give it to Hansborough. Why? Because his team won the ACC. Please!! Take him off North Carolina and they are still in the tourney and have a great year. Take Beasley off Kansas State and they are lucky to be above .500. Come on, you can’t give him the award when he has better players around him and comes from a name school.. This is a total disservice to the future number one pick in this years NBA Draft.

A couple of games caught my eye yesterday. St. Joes upset of #11 Xavier at home may have saved their season. By beating the Muskateers 71-66, they provided a late season marquee win to their resume. At 18-10 and 9-6 they are in the hunt. A win at Dayton and a couple of conference tournament wins will put them in. But they still have work to do.

In the Valley, Wichita State ended a depleted season with Head Coach Greg Marshall being thrown out of the game. Watching it on replay made me even more furious at the officials. He was thrown out for turning around quickly in the coaches box. Not a word was uttered. They ended up losing by four (the number of technical foul shots Indiana State made). Do you think the officials will be penalized for this lack of judgement. Once again a game is taken out of the players hands. Why do officials have such big egos?

In the other Valley game, Missouri State perservered and won their fourth game in a row. Withg rumors swirling about Coach Barry Hinson’s dismissal (and Eddie Sutton’s hiring–didn’t he have a crash a year ago while drunk on the way to the team plane? Then another AD hires him mid-year and he doesn’t show any improvement at USF. Sounds like a good move to me.) Sorry about the tangent…
Missouri State takes on Illinois State today in hopes of keeping their season alive.

Over in the Big South, I watched two great games. Check out this clip of 7’7 Kenny George of UNC-Asheville. If he stays healthy he could be a ten year pro.