Free Kicks: College Basketball Edition!

These last few days have been great for college basketball, it is only appropriate we devote a free kicks to it. Let’s line up for the tipoff…

Early Exits for Many Bubble Teams
Providence, Miami, Arizona, Kansas State, Northwestern, Rhode Island, and UNLV all went down yesterday, all but ending their hopes for a bid to the NCAA Tournament. This should be good news for any bubble team still hoping to make a run (Maryland, anyone?), as this year appears to be historically weak as far as teams stepping up and making a case. So many bubble teams appear to be fading down the stretch, and very few mid-majors appear ready to take an at-large bid away from the major conference teams. Only Cleveland State, with its win over Butler, was able to “steal a bid” and put more pressure on the bubble teams from major conferences. Sure, Penn State, Temple, and Oklahoma State won, and Baylor’s run in the Big 12 tournament is cause for concern, but I would’ve bet that the Nittany Lions and Cowboys already had bids before their conference tournaments.

Of course, this all comes back to Maryland. Maryland has to win today to have any chance at a bid, but the rest of the country appears to be doing them a lot of favors.

Big East Tournament Living Up to Hype
Maybe the Big East really is the best conference. First DePaul, who had no wins in all of conference play, takes out the bubble hopes of Cincinnati and played Providence down to the wire. Then West Virginia pastes Notre Dame to the floor and puts a stake in their at large hopes. What is their encore? A dominating win over Pitt, arguably the best team in the nation. I may hate the Mountaineers, but they are recovering quickly from their regular season finale against Louisville.

And that of course leads us to last night’s SIX overtime thriller between Syracuse and Connecticut. I will spare the recap, but last night’s performance was inspiring to me for one critical reason. These teams were not battling for a bid, and not even (really) for seeding. Syracuse has a slightly better seed to gain from a win, but UConn may get a #1 seed regardless- they were playing for pride. It was almost 1:30 in the morning before all was said and done, and these teams were exhausted. I don’t see how they can get up for the physical play of West Virginia, but I will be watching to see whether Syracuse has anything left in the tank.

So… What Does This Mean for Maryland?
Well, as I said before, Maryland hasn’t been hurt by so many bubbles being popped in the conference tournaments, and while some teams may solidify their resume a great deal of damage has already been done. Some of these teams would already be placed ahead of Maryland even with a loss in the first round- Miami, for one, so Maryland will still need to do a lot more than scoreboard watching to go to the tournament this season.

It starts today against a rested and rejuvenated Wake. Maryland had far too much trouble with NC State last night, doing nothing to assuage my worries about their performance outside of the friendly confines of the Comcast Center. The Terps gave Wake everything they could handle and couldn’t pull together a win at home, so I have to question their chances tonight. Eric Hayes will need to be a consistent 3 point threat; he has disappeared far too often for stretches of the game and left the pressure entirely on the shoulders of Greivis Vasquez. When Vasquez has all the pressure on his shoulders he tries to do more than he can pull off and commits puzzling turnovers and falling away shots that are incredible when they hit… but rarely do. Mosley will have to take a more aggressive role offensively to complement his solid defensive play.

In the end, I can’t discount Wake’s size or desire in this one- they will be able to massively outrebound Maryland and they want to prove to the selection committee that they are in fact deserving of a #2 seed. I can’t give the win to the Terps; the -6.5 line in favor of Wake sounds conservative to me. I hope I am wrong, and luckily I usually am.

"The Express" Unfairly Attacks West Virginia

Normally I wouldn't care about something like this, especially not for this blog. But this incident is on a whole different level, and deserves to be mentioned in defense of our rival.

Matthew Thompson of the Charleston Daily Mail wrote an article about this today. "The Express," the new movie about Ernie Davis's year with Syracuse when they won the national championship in 1959, portrays a vicious game between Syracuse and West Virginia where the fans in Morgantown were shouting terrible racist things at the Orange.

The problem? The two teams did not play in West Virginia that year. Worse, when they did the next year, almost everyone from Syracuse players to West Virginia players and media don't remember that. In the Thompson article, Dick Easterly, the Orange quarterback in the 1960 game, even said "The scene is completely fictitious."

I understand movies take poetic license, but this is way over the line. This means someone decided to paint West Virginia in a racist light for no reason at all and just make up a game that never happened. This is just outright terrible. What if Glory Road, a great movie about the 1966 Texas-Western team that won the 1966 Championship, had made up a game against someone else and painted them as racist? The movie would have been cheapened. Obviously with a movie like this, a poetic license would have been taken with opposing crowds, but to make up a game that paints a school as racist is just awful.

(Photo credit of 1959 West Virginia Mountaineers Football Team: Jim's Vintage)

West Virginia Football is Self-Destructing

Many of us saw this coming. But not this soon.

West Virginia was made into a powerhouse by Rich Rodriguez. From 2005-2007, the Mountaineers had a combined 33-5 record including BCS wins in the 2006 Sugar Bowl over heavily favored Georgia and the 2008 Fiesta Bowl under interim head coach Bill Stewart over heavily favored Oklahoma. By all means, with Rodriguez only 44-years-old and the fact he was a WVU alum, the Mountaineers looked like they could rule the Big East for years.

Then, because of inner problems in the athletic department, Rodriguez left WVU for Michigan before the '08 Fiesta Bowl. He had been offered the Alabama job in 2006, but declined then. WVU hired interim head coach Bill Stewart shortly after the Fiesta Bowl win, a coach with only three years head coaching experience.

During the offseason, many players had liked Bill Stewart's new system. Some even said that with Rodriguez that they were afraid to come to practice. Now workouts weren't as tough. And the Mountaineers had Heisman watch quarterback Pat White and speedster Noel Devine back in what should be a powerful offense. But the results of a change in style are very clear already.

The Mountaineers are already 1-2, losing on the road to East Carolina and Colorado in OT, which equals their number of losses all last year. And the reasons are clear. Almost every throw Pat White had, all 14 of them, were short passes and/or behind the line to a running back. And WVU may be a rushing powerhouse, but 52 rushes with 14 short passes is a terrible offense. They look undisciplined and there is no leadership on the field. WVU got the ball back with 2:09 left and two timeouts in a tie game, and horrible clock management was used and with they didn't have a chance to score, ending regulation with a timeout. They would lose the game when their kicker missed a 23-yarder in OT and Colorado hit their 25-yarder.

I don't claim to know Rich Rodriguez's practice runs well, but the fact is he had his team ready everytime they took the field. The three times I saw the Mountaineers face Maryland, Steve Slaton, White, and eventually Devine would tear the Terps apart with a strong and tactical rushing attack. To be honest, I don't care that some players were "scared to come to practice." With WVU's very low academic standards and Rodriguez's track record, the Mountaineer football team is a nice place to play. If you don't like it, get better grades or play for a worse football team! It is easy to see why Michigan would want a guy like Rodriguez, and I have no doubt he'll get that program in top form.

Now under the player's choice of Stewart, WVU looks like an average college football team that is completely undisciplined. But West Virginia did this to themselves. They had a tremendous coach who wanted a lot of control over the team, which isn't an unreasonable request, and fantastic players despite an average history before Rodriguez. But now, they have a head coach with no useful experience and who's unable to control his team. But they did this to themselves. In the words from the movie Cool Runnings, "You had it all! Why'd you do it?"

I guarantee Big East teams and Maryland are laughing at West Virginia right now. We just didn't think it would happen this quickly.

(Photo credit: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)