CBB Stock Market: March 8th-9th

Looking for something else on Sports News on Tap, I found a gem called 'CBB Stock Market' which highlighted what happened on the weekend of college hoops. Sometimes I will use this space for a longer form recap, but mostly, it will be a subheading.

BUY BUY BUY 

Wichita State's unbeaten year - I know we wrote last week about Wichita State, but it needs to get mentioned again. It is hard to believe a team without a single loss is the 'Nobody believes in us at the NCAA Tournament.' Honestly, it will all depend on their draw. I think Gonzaga's futility in the postseason have made people nervous to really go all in. Nonetheless, an unbeaten season with a sweep of both the regular and conference tournament is impressive. Shockers are one of the best offensive and defensive efficient teams, and it will honestly depend on their draw to see how things will shake out for them. They are locked in as a one seed though. No question about it.  

Wiggins and Parker rising to the top - At the beginning of the season, all we could do is talk about Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker's future with their respective teams. They went up and down yet at the end of the year, we have both players at their highest level thus far in the conference season. Wiggins finished with 41 points in a losing effort against West Virginia where it only took 18 shots. Parker dropped 30 points and eleven rebounds against rival North Carolina in a win. This is exactly what every college basketball fan should want heading into the tournament season. Having these two guys play so well makes things so much more interesting. I am hoping we get one more Parker v. Wiggins duel.

 

Iowa State's celebration of Marcus Smart flopping - I am always a fan of creativity in the student section that is not cruel or offensive. Marcus Smart got the label of being a flopper for good reason as he really does not care how dramatic he makes a simple touch look. Iowa State's solid student section took it upon themselves to send a message and flop in the student section. This is perfect almost to the point where I wish the Woodland Conference had a known flopper so we could have done the same in my formative years.

HOLD HOLD HOLD

Matt Norlander's mid-major theory - In lieu of Green Bay losing this weekend, Matt Norlander came out with an article explaining why conference championships should get the NCAA berth versus the conference tournament champion. Here's the thing, if they are the best team in the conference, they should be able to win the game. Green Bay got tight and lost to Milwaukee. I watched nearly the whole game. They did not play very well throughout the game and did not look an NCAA Tournament against a 7-9 team in the Horizon League. Just because they beat Virginia and nearly beat Wisconsin in December, does not guarantee them a spot in the Big Dance. I do think we could do some sort of idea when it comes to making sure the best teams are in, but to make the conference tournament a consolation prize is pretty ridiculous.

SELL SELL SELL 

Iowa Hawkeyes - What the hell happened? We see this every year where there are some real good teams in January and by March, they look like average teams. Iowa lost at home to Illinois which apparently is the cool thing to do. I think the people saying if they lose to Northwestern, they are closing in on the bubble is stupid, but they desperately need a win just to rite the ship a bit before the tournament. I do not think Iowa has a long shelf life in March, but things could change with a bit of a hot run at Indianapolis.

NOTE: I do not have much today as this once again is late and I feel like it is pretty tiresome at this point of the season. We will have something up and running about the major tournaments on either Tuesday or Wednesday with predictions in there.

Charlie. 

CBB Stock Market: January 4-5th

Looking for something else on Sports News on Tap, I found a gem called 'CBB Stock Market' which highlighted what happened on the weekend of college hoops. It was a pretty decent weekend for college basketball with a couple unbeatens going down along with a couple teams losing at home that probably should not have on Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes I will use this space for a longer form recap, but mostly, it will be a subheading. 

BUY BUY BUY 

Ohio State Buckeyes - Why is no one talking about this team? They are unbeaten and might be the best 'team' right now in college basketball. When I say 'team' I might just them as a unit versus the best players out on the court. They have a balanced scoring attack with Lenzelle Smith Jr. and LaQuinton Ross being the two top scorers for this team. While Smith and Ross are the only two averaging double-digits, they have six more averaging at least five points a game. Efficient team who has big games against Michigan State and Iowa. Excited to see how they handle both teams. 

San Diego State Aztecs - When Marquette lost to San Diego State, I felt like this could be a bad loss moving forward. Aztecs seemed like a team playing above their head, but now, I have to think this team is a legitimate contender this season. Hyperbole or not, but teams do not just go into Phog Allen Fieldhouse and win a basketball game. They made Kansas played at their pace, and on defense, they forced a ton of 3-pointers as Kansas shot 16 threes in the game only making four of them. Judging by this team's resume, it is not out of the question for them to be a top three seed if they play well in the Mountain West.  

Villanova Wildcats - Hands down, Big East favorite at least at the beginning of the year. They went into Butler earlier this week and took care of the Bulldogs in a tough overtime. Sure, Butler is not what they used to be, but that's a tough environment to win a basketball game especially coming off a road loss against Syracuse where they were outclassed in the second half. And on Sunday, they boat raced a supposedly better Providence team by 30 points at home putting up 90+ points. This is the Big East favorite until a couple teams can beat them. 

HOLD HOLD HOLD

North Carolina Tar Heels - What a confusing team. North Carolina loses their fourth game against an unranked team. This was an uninspired effort from the Tar Heels with them not getting to the line very often (7/11) and convincing themselves they could make threes when they were not falling at all.  They also had 17 turnovers. I am standing by what I said in November that North Carolina is going to be a five or sixth seed and find themselves at least in the Elite Eight or they lose in the first round. No in-between.

Jabari Parker - From a scoring standpoint, the last two games have been a struggle for the heralded freshman, but this had to be expected right?  Parker could not just fly through the season like Superman. It is just not possible. He struggled to score against Elon only having 12 points (It should not be forgotten he had 10 rebounds which is equally important), and a season-low seven against Notre Dame, a team not really known for their defense this season. There is a book on Parker, and he needs to make adjustments to his game to find more scoring.

Kansas Jayhawks - I am not ready to bury this team. Big 12 is a really good conference with the play of Baylor, Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Kansas State meaning Kansas needs to figure out their freshman-led team quicker than usual yet at some point, it will come together. They are too good for it not to happen. Even if Kansas goes into the tournament at a three or four seed,  Jayhawks would be completely lethal. Soon enough, they will find a way to win one of these close games. Kansas has a massive four-game stretch starting on January 11th.

SELL SELL SELL 

Memphis Tigers - Oh Memphis. I wanted to believe in this team. I saw them against Florida and then they beat Oklahoma State the second time around, it seemed like a different team. They really should put paper in front of their nickname. They got their asses kicked at home to a good yet beatable Cincinnati team. I have no idea why their guards kept trying to throw things at Justin Jackson only to get blocked. Josh Pastner's seat moved from lukewarm to suddenly warmer in the last couple days. 

Fran McCaffery - If you missed it yesterday, Iowa's head coach lost his shit costing his team the game against Wisconsin. Iowa was up 41-39 before the double technical foul on McCaffery and after it, Iowa never led after it. Four points is all it took for Wisconsin to win this game which was equally the two technical fouls. Nothing is wrong being a fiery coach, but if you do, it needs to be controlled and not screaming at officials like a drill sargent. My assumption is he will miss two or three games for bumping an official meaning he could miss games against Northwestern, Ohio State and Minnesota.

GAMES TO WATCH THIS WEEK 
Tuesday: 7. Baylor at 9. Iowa State 6:00 pm ESPN2,  3. Ohio State at 5. Michigan State 8:00 pm
Wednesday: 23. Illinois at 4. Wisconsin 8:00 pm Big Ten Network
Thursday: 24. Memphis at 12. Louisville 6:00 pm ESPN,  1. Arizona at UCLA 8:00 pm ESPN

Charlie. 

The Tap Ten: 2013 College Basketball Stories

This is the beginning of our 2013 end of the year lists for sports.  I know we will do one for MLB, CFB, CBB, NBA, PGA and NFL. I probably will do a top 20 list of overall moments and if we get real frisky, maybe top 20 figures in sports giving away our first annual Tapper of the Year or something dumb like that. Also as always, these are my lists and I can imagine you have a different one, cool story. 

10.) Wisconsin becomes a top five team -  I still cannot believe this is a real thing. Wisconsin is playing well as they head into the Big Ten season. People are excited, but we have not hit extreme levels where the causal Badgers fans come out to play. If I ever bring back my true Badger basketball dislike, this has to happen because I will get annoyed checking Facebook. There is not a better year for Wisconsin to get to the Final Four, a place they have not been since 2000.

9.) P.J. Hairston's dismissal from North Carolina - This year for Tar Heels will be a bevy of 'what if's' as they lost their top scorer and rebounder as he took gifts that the NCAA deemed impermissible. North Carolina has not missed a beat against ranked teams, and they are a nightmare when playing unranked teams. There are definitely situations when watching North Carolina where you can definitely say this team needs Hairston in the worst way.

8.)  Rules change in college basketball - I could not have been more against this at the end of the 2012-2013. I had enough with Jay Bilas playing the preacher of college basketball. Seriously, I wondered whether Bilas should get a Pope hat given how many times he complained about this shit.  But Bilas turned out to be right for the most part. There is much more scoring in college basketball, and only a couple games are going in two hours and 30 minute range. Everyone is quiet about it now but just wait until a critical conference game is decided by something like this and people will freak out again.

7.) Best One-And-Done Class ever? - Right now, 2007-2008's class of one-and-done has the title of the best class since the rule change (Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook), but this group is figuring to make a run at this with Jabari Parker, the emerging Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins, Aaron Gordon and others. The best part about this class is all of these games become must-see television. If Kansas is on, I am watching. Same goes for Duke and probably Arizona but not really for Gordon yet although the Cats are fantastic.

6.) Kevin Ware's gruesome injury - Never before have I seen a moment in a game where no one on Twitter or Facebook wants to show the injury. Whenever someone blows out a knee or ankle, there are like 10 or 15 tweets about it happening along with some pictures, maybe video. Ware's injury did not have the same sort of thing as everybody talked about how brutal it looked on first glance. The Louisville guard recovered from the injury and he is playing this season which is what everyone wanted when the injury first happened in March.

5.) DUNK CITY 4 EVER - I had these guys as low as eight, but that seems inaccurate. This was a prop-up, fake life college that everyone got behind after they beat Georgetown and San Diego State. They were the story of the first weekend of March Madness, and everyone loved the way they played basketball. It got Andy Einfeld a new job at USC, and they will probably always be remembered in montages. Who can forget somebody created a half-decent parody about 'Dunk City' by using Tyga's 'Rack City' beat. Never forget these boys.



4.) Louisville wins their first National Championship in the Pitino Era - With Louisville being one of Marquette's biggest rival, it is never good to see them take home the title, but they played well throughout the year including their run during March Madness. Honestly, the biggest takeaway from their National Championship for me is I never have to watch Peyton Siva again in a Louisville uniform and that's a joy. Siva always bothered me with the way he played and I cannot explain why. While I miss Marquette-Louisville will not play each other, the way it is going this year I am #blessed for it.

3.) Mike Rice's bullying brought to light - I watched a couple Rutgers games throughout the year with them playing Marquette at least once in conference play, and I noticed Rice would be angry yet I never thought the levels it reached with Rice before his ousting. The audio that came out about Rice was beyond just being a hardass coach rather Rice could not have been more of a dick. People were scared of Rice, and he had the power when he did not deserve it. The fact he wants to coach in college basketball again is a straight up joke.

2.) Clutch Vander Blue leads Marquette to the Elite Eight - I really wish I could be talking about how Vander Blue is carrying this year's version of Marquette team and might be looking at being a top 20 pick. But instead, Blue tried to ride the wave of big tournament performances to enter the NBA Draft which did not work out for him and now Vander is in Israel.  Blue made a game-winning layup against St. John's to finish the season and win the Big East championship. Marquette has an incredible comeback against Davidson and then Blue comes up big again in the following game playing Butler with 19 second-half points. It was a joy to watch all the game-winners and why not watch them all again?!?!





1.) The final old Big East season - Yes there is still a Big East, but it will never be the Big East we have seen in the last seven years and beyond. As a Marquette fan, I liked that I actually cared about Georgetown-Syracuse rivalry as well as others in the conference. I find it fitting that Louisville, a Big East team, took home the National Championship in the final year of the Big East. I still think there will be nothing like Big East basketball ever again, but I am excited to see how the new age Big East will continue some of the traditions without some of the teams.

Charlie.

13 Thoughts About College Basketball Thus Far

It has been awhile since we have talked about college basketball here. I will start writing more in the coming weeks as we have conference games coming up after Christmas. I will probably do something Monday and Friday for college basketball plus whenever Marquette plays I will have a recap the following night. If you are wondering about Wisconsin, the door has been wide open for someone to start writing about them, but no one seized the opportunity. Yes this is a blogger's version of a subtweet.

The off-base Kansas and Andrew Wiggins' criticism - No one expected Kansas to lose three games in the first month or so of the season. It really comes down to this is still a young team, and they are not going to be perfect right of the gate. Big 12 is off to a fast start with good non-conference wins meaning this could be a better conference than expected.  Andrew Wiggins has took some heat because he does not have the one 'Holy shit, that's why he's Andrew Wiggins' yet averaging 15 points, five rebounds and assists per game is not a bad stat line for a freshman, but people act like he's going to be a bust. Wiggins, Joel Embiid and the boys will round perfectly into form. If they are not a one or two seed, I will be shocked.

Kentucky finishing 37-3 apparently - Kentucky's fan base believed this team could go unbeaten. Even though they were freshman for the most part, people wanted to live the dream with their loaded class featuring Julius Randle, Harrison Twins and others. Sadly for Wildcats fan base is everyone expects all their freshman classes to be in the 2011 squad forgetting they had guys like Darius Miller and Doran Lamb who were both experienced leaders. 2011 is not walking through that door.  Kentucky fell to North Carolina, Baylor and Michigan State this season. They have one more difficult non-conference game against Louisville, but then the SEC should be a breeze other than Florida/Missouri matchups. Kentucky will be fine even if their fan base wants to fire John Calipari.

Arizona is a true number one - In college basketball, it is nice to see the number one whom deserves their ranking at this time of year. Sometimes that can be hard to achieve yet Arizona is the real deal. Who cares Aaron Gordon is not having the best freshman start. They have the likes of Nick Johnson whose off to a great start as well as new transfer T.J. McConnell running the point. Besides Johnson, Gabe York is playing at a high level as well. The fact of the matter is Arizona lucked into a big freshman not having a great year in 2012 meaning almost all of them stayed combining classes making them a true threat for the National Championship.  It really looks like Arizona could be number one by the time they play UCLA on the road in mid-January.

B1G is far and away the best conference - It is pretty easy to say this team won the non-conference belt for conferences. Three of the top five are Big Ten teams. Iowa and Illinois will be rated in and around the top 25 all season. Minnesota is not that shabby either with young coach Richard Pitno. Indiana will be better in January when their freshman start to get cooking. Not to mention, Michigan who has four losses already should be better in conference play. I do not expect a one seed out of the Big Ten honestly. I could see them getting two 2 seeds, but that might be generous. It is not a knock to the B1G, in fact it is a compliment because everyone is going to beat up each other.

Joel Embiid is the college basketball hipster favorite freshman - A part of me thinks by March, he will be right up there with Wiggins and Parker in terms of the best players in college basketball that casual and NBA fans are talking about. ESPN Chad Ford already has him in his top three which means Embiid does not need to do much more for the expects. It will be interesting to see if casual fans will end up buying into him. When a player is getting compared to Hakeem Olajuwon at age 19, you know he could be really great

Jury is still out on Marquette - It probably is time where I talk about Marquette. I would love to say Marquette solved all their problems with wins against IUPUI and Ball State yet they could really use a marquee win this weekend against New Mexico. They looked good with a trap/press defense plus they have found their balance scoring yet it is still concerning who will be the go-to scorer with four minutes left to go in a tight game. Duane Wilson might be coming back this Saturday from an injury. Freshman Deonte Burton and Jajuan Johnson are looking more confident with each game. But I am not ready to be sold on this team until they can do it against solid competition.

I cannot figure out North Carolina - What a bizarre team. They are undefeated against ranked teams and they are 4-3 against unranked teams this year. I have no idea what to think about this squad. Marcus Paige looks like an All-American, but other than that, there is not much there to feel confident in. Leslie McDonald did come back this week in a loss against Texas and the P.J. Hairston decision should come down before the end of the week. This has all the makings of a sixth seed that ends up in the Final Four.

Jabari Parker and Duke are must-watch - People hate Duke all the time. It is the fun thing to do, but is this the most likable Blue Devils team in the last 10 years?  I would say it is damn near close. They do not have the one hateable guy that everyone can rally behind. Jabari Parker is fun as hell to watch because he can shoot six threes or bang it down in the post. At least right now, he is more fun to watch than Wiggins. They have a top three player in the country along with other key contributors. If Duke wants to be more disliked, we need to get Marshall Plumleee some more time

How did people forget about Shabazz Napier? - Naturally, he did not play well last night against Stanford at home, but Napier seemed to be the lost soul in the 'Player of the Year' talk.  I am not saying he will take home the award, but rather, he deserves to be mentioned as one of the best 10 players in the college basketball. I think the reason why Napier did not get the same amount love besides freshman is UConn plays in the AAC versus heading to ACC or you know the Big East.

Not ready for Wisconsin to be this good - As a Marquette fan, I made mention earlier this year about the weirdness of this rivalry but I cannot deal with Wisconsin being a top five team right now. This looks like their best year to get to the Final Four. Sam Dekker will be right up there for Big Ten Player of the Year, and the jury is still out whether Evan Anderson will take J.P. Gavinski's title of 'Best B1G Towel Waver.'  I expect we will see much more Bronson Koenig in conference play.  

Could Wichita State get a top three seed? - This is a honest question with Wichita State sitting at number eleven in the polls, and they are unbeaten for the non-conference. Missouri Valley Conference is missing two games with Creighton meaning Wichita State might have the ability to damn near run the table in that conference. If they do, I would not be surprised if the Shockers get a top 16 seed given their Final Four run last season. I feel like that gives them a little more respect than other mid-majors.

Villanova is not the best team in the Big East, right? - To be frank, it has not been the best start for the new Big East. Villanova clearly has the best win against Kansas in late November, but none of the teams are off to quick starts besides Nova. Is it fair to call Nova the favorites? Probably not. I would say it is wide open, and teams will round into form. Villanova is rated eighth due to beating Kansas and Iowa in one weekend after that, they have played virtually no one. It should be fun to see them against Syracuse next Saturday.

It will never be easier to make the NCAA Tournament - Look at how many teams have three or four losses already and I think it will be very easy for people to get into the tournament. It is not because there is parity in college basketball rather there are more good programs than ever before. This means there will be more upsets leading to a couple eleven or maybe 12 loss program gets into the tournament. I may or may not be saying this to ensure Marquette finds a way in, I don't know.

Charlie.