Fanhouse NCAA Basketball Blog

Rundown of March Madness, Volume 3

Brett McMurphy — 2010-02-09T17:46:00+00:00

There's no questioning the strength at the top of the Big East Conference. For the second consecutive week, the Big East has a record four teams among the top seven teams in the Associated Press poll.

Syracuse and Villanova are virtual locks to land No. 1 seeds for next month's NCAA Tournament. And if the Orange and Wildcats land top seeds, it would give the Big East five different No. 1 seeds in the past two seasons.

Besides Syracuse and Villanova, West Virginia and Georgetown are strong candidates to receive No. 2 NCAA Tournament seeds.

As dominating as the league's Fab Four have been, it's the handful of teams bunched in the middle of the league standings that will make this one of the maddest March's in league history.

After the top four teams and fifth-place Pittsburgh, there are six teams within two games in the league standings. All six teams -- Louisville, Notre Dame, Marquette, South Florida, Cincinnati and UConn -- have RPIs between 42 and 60, according to CollegeRPI.com.

Overall, the Big East features 12 teams with a 64 RPI or better. It's doubtful this year's Big East Tournament will feature another six-overtime classic, but every single game in the five-day tournament could determine who advances to the NCAA Tournament or drops down to the NIT.

Here is a look at FanHouse's NCAA Tournament projected field of 65 if the season ended Monday. This does not attempt to predict future results. All records are through Monday's games.

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Two Oklahoma Players Cited for Shoplifting

Terrance Harris — 2010-02-09T17:40:00+00:00

Filed under: Oklahoma, Big 12, Police Blotter

Oklahoma freshmen Steven Pledger and Andrew Fitzgerald apparently had an interesting way of celebrating the Sooners' impressive win over Texas on Saturday afternoon.

Hours after the game, the two were cited for shoplifting at Dillard's at Sooner Mall in Norman, Okla., according to a story that appeared in the Oklahoman. They were ticketed for petty larceny around 8:50 that evening and released.

This was hours after both Pledger and Fitzgerald played roles in the Sooners 80-71 upset of then No.9 Longhorns. Pledger, a 6-foot-4 guard, scored nine points in 24 minutes. Fitzgerald, a 6-7 forward, started the game and finished with three points in 19 minutes.

A school spokesman told FanHouse Tuesday that head coach Jeff Capel has not issued any statement on the incident.

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Drew Crawford, Son of NBA Ref, Emerges As Big Ten Star

Chris Tomasson — 2010-02-09T15:06:00+00:00

Filed under: Northwestern, Big Ten

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Drew Crawford used to be much more anonymous.

The son of NBA referee Danny Crawford remembers once attending a game in Charlotte. He sat in the stands next to a Bobcats fan who was riding his father throughout the first half.

Halftime arrived and the referee gave a high five to his son as he left the court. Suddenly, it dawned upon this Bobcats season-ticket holder just who was sitting next to him.

"He realized that was my dad, and he was feeling all sorry for me,'' said the son. "He apologized and he took me back to the VIP section and got me a soda and things like that. I even met the owner (Robert Johnson) of the team.''

If you're a basketball fan, you might just know now if you're sitting next to Drew Crawford. He's a leading candidate for Big Ten Freshman of the Year, averaging 11.3 points, including 13.7 in conference play, for Northwestern.

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Wet Ball Causes Morningstar's Comical Free Throw

Michael Katz — 2010-02-09T12:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kansas

Kansas' Brady Morningstar is a nice enough shooter. Between this season and last, he's shooting 78 percent (35-45) from the line.

That made this flailing, failing free throw effort in Monday's win against Texas all the more enjoyable. It also sent bloggers scrambling to Google for the correct spelling of schadenfreude.

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Brey Turns to Two-a-Days for Notre Dame's Tournament Push

Brett McMurphy — 2010-02-09T11:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Notre Dame, Big East

Two-a-day practices followed by two Big East wins: that was Notre Dame's recipe for success during the past week.

Following a stunning loss at Rutgers Jan. 30, Notre Dame coach Mike Brey had the Irish practice twice last Tuesday, including an 8 AM workout, and the Fighting Irish responded with home victories against Cincinnati on Thursday and South Florida on Sunday.

"We will have to compete that way the rest of the way to have a shot at the NCAA tournament. Period. Plain and simple," Brey said about the Fighting Irish's 83-65 victory against Cincinnati.

The Fighting Irish (17-7, 6-5 Big East) currently have a 59 RPI ranking, according to CollegeRPI.com, and is not included in any of the various online projected NCAA tournament fields.

However, they will have several opportunities to improve their NCAA tournament resume. Notre Dame's remaining seven Big East games include three consecutive games against Top 50 RPI teams - at Louisville (Feb. 17), home vs. Pittsburgh (Feb. 24) and at Georgetown (Feb. 27).

Brey, who also had the Fighting Irish practice twice daily last year to snap a seven-game skid, said he needed to create a sense of urgency with his team with the two-a-day workouts.

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Kansas Proves It's as Dominant as It Gets

Terrance Harris — 2010-02-09T01:58:00+00:00

Filed under: Kansas, Texas, Big 12

AUSTIN, Texas -- As college basketball teams go these days, the top-ranked Kansas Jayhawks are about as dominant as they come.

They defend well, rebound and can get scoring from all five positions on the floor.

Flawless, they aren't. But the Jayhawks aren't preoccupied with achieving perfection when even on their not-so-best-night they can still manage an 80-68 road win against a respectable team as they did during Monday night's dismantling of the 14th-ranked Texas Longhorns.

"I don't think there are any dominant teams," said KU forward Marcus Morris, who led his team with 18 points. "We have a lot of faults in our team as far as rebounding and guarding. But I think we came out real aggressive against them guys. We took the first punch and never let up."

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Kansas, Texas Meet Headed in Very Different Directions

Terrance Harris — 2010-02-08T15:18:00+00:00

Filed under: Kansas, Texas, Big 12

AUSTIN, Texas -- This was the one you circled the calendars for -- even before the Big 12 season began.

Kansas vs. Texas.

You were looking at two of the top teams not just in the Big 12, but in the nation, squaring off for likely the regular season conference title. The No. 1 seed implications for next month's NCAA tournament were there, as well.

But with the anticipated matchup between the Jayhawks and Longhorns looming Monday night at the Erwin Center, only No. 1 Kansas has held up its end of the bargain. Texas, the consensus No. 1 team in the country just a few weeks ago, limps into this matchup having lost four of its last six games and seeming just a shell of the team it was just a month ago.

The Longhorns are coming off a disappointing wire-to-wire 80-71 loss at Oklahoma on Saturday that left them searching for answers with their biggest game of the year coming up in 48 hours.

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Duke Most Consistent in Crazy ACC

Jim Henry — 2010-02-07T20:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, ACC, North Carolina, Florida State

Gary Williams figured it would take 10 Atlantic Coast Conference games before a league favorite emerged.

Williams, part-time soothsayer and full-time head coach, and his Maryland Terrapins solidified their grip on second place in the ACC with Sunday's 92-71 home victory over toothless North Carolina. The Terps play host to fourth-place Virginia Wednesday before heading to first-place Duke Saturday.

Go ahead and count 'em: That will be 10 conference games for Maryland by week's end.

"Our team is interesting," Williams said following the UNC victory.

"We were just in the locker room with the players. [Winning] was a great feeling obviously, but we weren't getting carried away. We know what is ahead of us. We'll enjoy this and just go from there."

The ACC continues to be a jumbled, entertaining mess.

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Maryland Getting It Done, North Carolina Just Done

David Steele — 2010-02-07T17:03:00+00:00

Filed under: Maryland, North Carolina

There is a lesson (or two, or more) to learn from Maryland's 92-71 dismantling of the program that, technically speaking, is the defending NCAA champion.

* Don't bet against the home team when a record-breaking blizzard hits town. As thoroughly as Georgetown handled Villanova the day before in Washington, Maryland handled North Carolina even easier Sunday afternoon -- and anecdotal evidence suggests that the D.C. suburbs, including the College Park area surrounding the on-campus Comcast Center, were in worse shape from the snowstorm than the city was.

* North Carolina resembles last year's national titlists less than it does the rock-bottom teams at the end of the Matt Doherty era.

* Every indication is that the post-championship malaise Maryland's program underwent, the one that got many loudly calling for Gary Williams' job, is over; the Terps are seriously in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship hunt.

* The unconscionable racism displayed at Florida State last week aside, it's not hard to understand why Maryland opponents would want Greivis Vasquez to go away.

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Williams Beats Snow, Sleeps in Office

Michael Katz — 2010-02-07T17:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Maryland

The Terrapin men's basketball team returned to the Comcast Center on Friday afternoon, following a road win against Florida State. Gary Williams still hasn't left.

The Terps' coach slept in his office to avoid being snowed out of the arena for Sunday's game against North Carolina. Given the white doom that befell the Washington metro area, it was a smart choice.

So much snow fell that Maryland encouraged fans to stay home if they live beyond walking distance. The athletic department also eschewed the standard student ticket system, instead admitting any person with a valid student ID.

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Oklahoma Stuns No. 9 Texas

FanHouse Newswire — 2010-02-06T18:53:00+00:00

Filed under: Oklahoma, Texas

NORMAN, Okla.(AP) -- Willie Warren showed it when he limped his way in for a key layup in the final 2 minutes.

Tommy Mason-Griffin and Cade Davis did, too, in the way they cramped up but came back to help Oklahoma hold off a charge from No. 9 Texas for an 80-71 victory Saturday.

On a day dedicated to Wayman Tisdale, coach Jeff Capel thought it was only right that his players gave their all in memory of the late Sooners star.

"I thought our guys played with the heart that Wayman displayed so much in not just basketball but his life," Capel said.

Mason-Griffin scored 24 points, Davis added 20 points and 10 rebounds for the second double-double of his career and Oklahoma was able to protect its 19-point lead from a Longhorns' charge to win for the 12th straight time at the Lloyd Noble Center.

"We expect for it to be a war like this every time," Davis said. "Being down a few men, it's just been a struggle for us all year, so we know we have to fight even more to get wins."

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No. 2 Villanova? Sno' Problem for Hoyas

David Steele — 2010-02-06T16:18:00+00:00

Filed under: Georgetown, Villanova

The secret for Georgetown, apparently, is: play every game as if it's Saturday afternoon at home against a top-10 team, preferably in the middle of Snow-mageddon.

The secret for Villanova: play the entire game, regardless of the opponent and site, as if the other team is trying too hard to pile up numbers.

The result of it all was a loss by the second-ranked team in the country that wasn't all that surprising in retrospect. The credentials Villanova had brought through the mid-Atlantic blizzard into Verizon Center Saturday afternoon were beyond impressive, but nobody was fooled into thinking they could last, even if they could have lasted past Georgetown. They couldn't, getting handled 103-90 by the seventh-ranked Hoyas, who capitalized on the sloppiest half the Wildcats had played all season, got a career game from Jason Clark, survived Chris Wright fouling out with 5:16 left and fought -- almost literally -- to hold onto a 23-point first-half lead until the end.

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No Freefall, but Hoyas Still on Rollercoaster

David Steele — 2010-02-05T16:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Georgetown, Villanova, Big East

WASHINGTON -- As the player who assumed the mantle of leadership for Georgetown at a time the program needed him to, junior guard Chris Wright has also become the go-to guy for the pulse of the team in good times and bad.

Recently, Wright has had to measure both. Two Mondays ago, the Hoyas began the latest renewal of their rivalry with Syracuse by scoring the first 14 points, then were run out of the Carrier Dome the rest of the way and lost by 17. They followed that with what appeared to be a signature, season-defining win over Duke last Saturday, in front of the most raucous crowd -- and prestigious, since it included President Obama -- since the team began playing in downtown Washington 13 years ago.

Then that momentum came to a crashing halt Wednesday, in the same building, when lowly South Florida roared back in the second half and stunned the Hoyas 72-64.

All of which prompted Wright to say this week, "We've got to learn how to deal not only with adversity, but deal with playing well, too.''

It might be as simple as that, but that doesn't make Georgetown's play the last two weeks, or the questions arising from it, any less perplexing. The throttling of Duke has signified a couple of good omens for the rest of the season. For one, it brushed aside, probably for good, doubts about whether this team would repeat the collapse of last season; at this time last year they already were in free-fall, but after last Saturday, Coach John Thompson III and the players got to repeat, for possibly the last time this season, that they're not the same team.

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Villanova Might Be the One

David Steele — 2010-02-05T16:28:00+00:00

Filed under: Villanova

Can you be the top-ranked team in America, and can you win a national championship, when the greatest praise given to you is that you're just good enough to win almost every night?

Villanova might find out. In fact, one could make a case that it should have found out already.

Kansas might very well be the best team in the country, deserving of the No. 1 ranking it held as the season began and now has regained -- and oblivious to how close the wins have been lately. And it's impossible to make a case that anyone is sleeping on Villanova when it's ranked No. 2. But to see what both Villanova and Syracuse are doing so far, in a conference that has eaten its own all season long as well as on the national stage, is to wonder whether the Wildcats' time is about to come.

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Former Hoosier Todd Leary Arrested, Faces Multiple Felony Charges

Matt Snyder — 2010-02-05T14:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Indiana, Police Blotter

Former Indiana University guard Todd Leary was arrested Thursday night in Bloomington, Ind. on preliminary charges of 18 counts of misappropriation of escrow funds. Leary was allegedly involved with a title insurance broker -- who has already pleaded guilty -- who netted $2.7 million in a real estate scheme.

Leary, 39, was a member of the Hoosiers basketball team from 1989-1994, playing on the 1992 Final Four team. He was a sharpshooter from the outside, ending with a career three-point percentage of 42.3. He's most famous as a player for a late 3-point barrage against Duke in the Final Four that nearly brought the once-buried Hoosiers back into the game.

More recently, Leary has served as the color commentator for the Indiana basketball radio broadcasts for the past nine seasons. As a radio broadcaster, Leary became popular with Indiana fans for acting as an on-air fan and is notable for standing on his seat during the waning seconds of a Sweet 16 round upset of No. 1 seed Duke in 2002.

Leary was arrested just before the Hoosiers' 78-75 home loss against in-state rival and eighth-ranked Purdue.

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On-Court Obsession: Beats More Super Bowl Pregame

Chas Rich — 2010-02-05T13:17:00+00:00

Filed under: WCC, A-10, ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Conference USA, MWC, Pac-10, SEC, Media Watch

Saturday is the busiest day for college basketball. On any Saturday during the season, there can be well over 40 games on TV. Unfortunately, many are completely unwatchable. Every Friday, FanHouse puts together a handy guide of the best options for how to spend your Saturday on the couch watching college hoops.

No one denies that the Super Bowl and all the accompanying hype is the one big story in sports. All the major sports don't even bother airing anything to compete after 4PM. Saturday, however, offers plenty of great games to cover more than12 hours of advanced preparation for Sunday evening.

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Greivis Error: FSU, Fans Can't Rattle Vasquez, Terps

Jim Henry — 2010-02-05T08:24:00+00:00

Filed under: Maryland, ACC, Florida State

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Greivis Vasquez flashed a friendly grin. He knows Atlantic Coast Conference fans either love him or hate him.

Florida State's fans demonstrated their feelings Thursday night, booing Maryland's mercurial senior guard each time he touched the basketball in the Terrapins' 71-67 road victory. There were plenty of catcalls and name-calling, too, though Vasquez was quick to point out the home fans were wrong about an important fact.

"They were calling me Mexican when I am Venezuelan," Vasquez said.

This much is certain: Vasquez, who is known for his celebratory antics and tendency to focus too much on the crowd, displayed the maturity and resolve that Maryland will need as it soon enters the second half of the ACC season.

Vasquez had 23 points, seven rebounds and seven assists as Maryland overcame a late rally to win at FSU for the first time in five games.

With the victory the Terrapins (15-6, 5-2 ACC) moved into a tie for second-place in the ACC standings with Virginia, one-half game behind Duke. Five teams, including FSU (16-6, 4-4), are bunched together like five o'clock traffic, each two games behind the surging Blue Devils.

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Big East Coaches: Bigger Is Better for NCAA Tournament

Brett McMurphy — 2010-02-04T19:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Big East, NCAA Tournament

Bigger is better. At least that's what Villanova's Jay Wright, Seton Hall's Bobby Gonzalez and Georgetown's John Thompson III believe. All three Big East coaches said Thursday they are in favor of expanding the NCAA Tournament field.

"I love it, I think it's time has come," Wright said. "As we add Division I teams [now up to 347], look at college football, close to 50 percent go to bowl games. There are so many good teams that don't go to the [NCAA] tourney."

Wright is realistic enough to know that television will be the biggest factor in determining how much and when the NCAA tournament might expand.

"What's best for TV is what's going to happen and we have to understand that," Wright said.

Gonzalez said until recently he didn't think the tournament needed to expand. But now he believes the tournament field should grow.

"If you're in the middle of the pack in our league, you deserve to be in the NCAA [tournament]," Gonzalez said.

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Baylor a Team No One Wants to Face

Terrance Harris — 2010-02-04T14:10:00+00:00

Filed under: Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Texas, Texas Tech, Big 12, Missouri

Once a doormat in the Big 12, Baylor has become the team this season every conference coach hates to see coming.

Just look at the Bears' work so far against the league's top three teams. They pushed the Kansas Jayhawks to the limit before succumbing to an 81-75 defeat at Allen Fieldhouse Jan. 20. Last Tuesday, they controlled 10th-ranked Kansas State much of the night before the Wildcats escaped with a 76-74 win.

Then, finally, this past Saturday, Baylor got one when point guard Tweety Carter and the Bears outlasted sixth-ranked Texas for an 80-77 victory in overtime on the road. Not only was it the highest-ranked road win in Baylor's history, but it also sent a resounding message that the program is a serious threat.

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Rundown of March Madness, Volume 2

Brett McMurphy — 2010-02-02T18:22:00+00:00

Filed under: NCAA Tournament

The first week of April. Two of college basketball's historic powers meeting for the national championship. North Carolina and UConn - for the NIT Championship, that is, in Madison Square Garden.

The defending NCAA champion Tar Heels and the Huskies, both a year removed from NCAA Final Four berths, would be NIT-bound if the season ended today.

Thankfully for the Tar Heels and Huskies it doesn't, but for NIT executive director Jack Powers the end of the season can't get here soon enough. The NIT would salivate over a matchup between the Tar Heels and Huskies for the NIT title on April 1.

And if the Tar Heels and Huskies don't get hot -- extremely hot -- in the final few weeks of the regular season, they will have to adjust their goals from being NCAA champs to NIT champs.

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