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We're
The One The countdown to Selection Sunday starts now....and everybody is jockeying for position. Based on watching the Tar Heels dismantle Duke on Saturday night, you gotta wonder if the Bracketology experts are watching the same game and same team as the rest of us? I totally understand how Ohio State and Kansas are #1 seeds. I can even buy the notion that Pitt, the Big East regular season champ, deserves a #1 national seed, too. However, the fourth and final #1 national seed is wide-open, with conference tournaments left to be played. I laughed Sunday morning when I saw that ESPN's Joe Lunardi had Duke as a #1 seed. Surely, he just watched the Blue Devils get run out of the gym in Chapel Hill. How can Duke be a #1 seed nationally, when they aren't even a #1 seed in their own league? I don't think Duke is even the best team right now in their own state.....hell, I'll take it to a new level....Duke isn't even the best team within a 10-mile radius of their own campus. Now, one thing we've all learned about college basketball is that a lot of stuff can change in the span of a week. Ask Virginia Tech (again)....last week, I thought for sure they had locked up a NCAA bid after their big win against Duke. Enter BC and Clemson, which proceeded to spank Seth's Hokies, and Greenberg is back to riding the fence and chastising anybody that questions their belonging in the Big Dance. Ask BYU....which to their credit, kicked Brandon Davies to the curb, and in the process eliminated themselves as a national factor along with a #1 national seed. The list goes on and on. A week from now, everyone will be breaking down their brackets and justifying their Final Four picks.....and I'm sure Seth Greenberg will be screaming, too. I love this time of year.....and I'll be talking about it this week on "College Basketball Today" from 12-3 on Mondays and Fridays on Sirius 122 / XM 143. While we get stoked up about the Madness that is ready to unleash across the country.....the local teams in and around Charlotte stunk it up in the post-season play. Davidson lost in the opening round of the Southern Conference to UNC-Greensboro......Winthrop was sent home in the opening round of the Big South tourney by VMI, and to make matters worse, the Charlotte 49ers never made it to the Atlantic 10 Tournament. That's a weak effort by some teams that normally get people pretty excited, this time of the year. Congrats to UNC-Asheville, which is dancing....but I guess the rest of us will live vicariously through Duke and UNC for the remainder of the month...and, who knows...maybe into April, too. Wow...Danica Patrick finished 4th in a Nationwide race. Who cares? With that kind of remarkable finish, now she and Dale, Jr. can go back to making more commercials. I have absolutely loved watching the same suits and hairdos that hyped LeBron James and the Heat, along with Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks, try to justify any reason why both teams and individuals have struggled. The Heat will still be a factor in the East, but the dominance that was predicted seems laughable at this point. I wonder if Jeff Van Gundy would like to have his prediction of 70+ wins back ? But how about all the time and effort spent on the Carmelo Anthony trade to New York? I swear I watched the lowly Cleveland Cavs wax their ass again this weekend.....and I believe that makes 11 straight wins for Cleveland over New York. Even Bobcat fans are smirking. The story that has been lost in the Carmelo trade to New York is that the Denver Nuggets have won five of their first six games since getting rid of the overpaid Syracuse product. The excuses are flowing, that Carmelo needs time to gel with his new teammates.....hello? So does Denver, and how is that working out? The Bobcats return home from an awful roadtrip in which they were thumped in all four games. The Gerald Wallace trade was brutal....but the good news is that the bottom of the East is so unwatchable, the Bobcats still have a chance at the final spot in the playoffs. For the record: the team is 10 games under .500.....and still in the hunt. Real basketball fans know garbage when they see it. I'll leave the spin control to Michael Jordan....assuming he can get off the golf course in South Florida. Watch out...everyone duck....Kyle Singler just shot another brick. The Duke senior in the two games against arch-rival North Carolina combined to shoot 6 for 31.....that's 19%. Singler is 1 for 11 from beyond the arc.....that's 9%. It's a good thing that Coach K reminded the media that Singler wasn't in a slump a few weeks ago....but as I pointed out earlier, a lot of things can change in the span of a week. I think Singler needs some rest. If he can find his stroke, the Blue Devils will be fine....otherwise, they are very beatable. Since the ACC apparently is a two-horse league in hoops (UNC and Duke), I thought it would be interesting to see how the other league members were performing in conference games. Listed below are the last four years of ACC play and how each team fared:
Your bar bet winner of the week:
Be sure to tip your bartender. Finally, as we get ready for what should be a wild week of college basketball, not to mention Selection Sunday....there's always a piece of information located on the blog that causes fans to get nervous, upset, excited and fuel the debate of which team(s) in the ACC get all the calls and which team(s) get the shaft. The debate has raged on for years, and for the past fourteen years, I've kept up with the info with the "Infamous ACC Index Card". The conference officials hate it, but the numbers don't lie....check it out for yourself on the front page of the blog....it's on the right hand side...you can't miss it. Remember, don't shoot the messenger....all I'm doing is providing the service, and I'll let you take it from there. Enjoy the Madness and be sure to check out my daily TV commentaries in the Charlotte market on WJZY's 10pm newscast and on national radio on Sirius 122/XM 143 with the "College Basketball Today Show" every Monday and Friday from 12-3pm. |
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