East Breakdown

Continuing on with region-by-region analysis of the upcoming NCAA Tournament, here's a look at the South. (Other regions: Midwest)

* Any analysis of this region has to start with its #1 seed, Kentucky. The Wildcats have more top-end talent than just about anyone in the tournament, with three players projected to go in the lottery of this summer's NBA Draft. It's balanced top-talent, too, with an attack led by lead guard John Wall and fortified by freshman DeMarcus Cousins (6-11, 270) and junior Patrick Patterson (6-8, 223).

There are significant question marks surrounding UK, however. Coach John Calipari favors a drive-and-kick offense that showcases Wall's considerable talent, but works best with a sharpshooting squad. Kentucky, however, is a decidedly middling outside shooting team, hitting just 34.4 percent of its three-pointers on the season (good for a tie for 166th out of 347 Division I teams). Moreover, free-throw shooting -- an Achilles heel of Calipari's teams at Memphis that cost him the 2008 national championship -- is also a problem for the 'cats. Kentucky is a below-average team from the charity stripe, hitting 69 percent of its attempts, which ranks 207th in the nation. Free throw shooting nearly cost them Sunday's SEC championship game against Mississippi State. Poor shooting from behind the arc and from the free throw line is not the stuff of successful tournament runs.

That game against Mississippi State also raised questions about the team's ability to perform in crunch time. Kentucky won a couple of close games against big name programs at the beginning of the year, but those wins against North Carolina and Connecticut look a lot less impressive when you consider that both those teams aren't in the field of 65 this year. Tournament games have a different atmosphere, and without a significant player on the roster who has played in the NCAAs -- remember, the Wildcats uncharacteristically struggled during Billy Gillispie's two-year stint at the helm -- observers are justified in questioning them when it comes to winning time. The ball will undoubtedly go to Wall in those situations, but Wall doesn't rise to the level of "if there's one guy I could have with the ball when I absolutely needed a basket, it'd be him" the way Calipari's most recent lead guards at Memphis did. That's not a knock on the kid -- Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans are remarkable players -- but I do think Wall is overrated. He didn't exactly instill confidence down the stretch against Mississippi State, short-arming an easy shot that would have given his team the lead with 10 seconds left, then leaving a game-winning three-pointer well short. If Jarvis Varnado had boxed out or otherwise prevented Cousins from grabbing Wall's last miss and sticking it back, Wall never would have had the opportunity to redeem himself by tossing in a ridiculous, off-balance three-pointer at the end of the shot clock late in regulation that sealed the SEC crown and MSU's NIT bid -- a shot that he quite simply got lucky on.

* Yes, Kentucky is beatable. Who can or will do it, however, remains an open question. Texas, the #8 seed and a potential second-round opponent for the Wildcats, no doubt will tempt more than a few prognosticators. The Longhorns entered the season with high expectations, won their first 17 games -- including convincing neutral site victories over Pittsburgh and Michigan State -- and earned the top spot in the weekly polls. Almost immediately upon ascending to #1, however, they tripped up, losing on the road to Kansas State, which in itself isn't a big deal, except that it triggered a finish to the season that saw Texas go 7-9 the rest of the way. The Longhorns have only won back-to-back games once since January 16, and their only "good" wins since that time have been two against Oklahoma State. With the exception of a loss to Oklahoma in Norman, none of their losses are particularly bad, either, but combine their inconsistent play with the fact that they've lost a couple of key players to injury throughout the year, and you can make the case that the Longhorns are actually over-seeded.

With that all said, Texas is experienced and rugged. They don't have quite as much size as Kentucky, but they are willing to bang, which combined with experience goes a long way in the college game. I worry about how they'd fare if Kentucky chooses to push the tempo -- which they undoubtedly will -- because with injuries to Varez Ward and Dogus Balbay, the Longhorns have significant issues at the lead guard spot.

I haven't decided for sure yet, but I'm tempted to advance the Longhorns here. What's giving me pause is the fact that I don't have a great track record with teams that underachieve towards the end of the year, which Texas has clearly done.

* In order for Texas to face Kentucky, of course, they'll need to move past Wake Forest, which they should do. I only mention the Demon Deacons to address what I understand is a controversy over Wake's inclusion in the field over Virginia Tech. The Hokies, at 23-8 overall and 10-6 in the ACC, were probably in the field of 65 until Houston and New Mexico State won their conference tournaments, leading the committee to award at-large bids to UTEP and Utah State. The Hokies' schedule ranked something like 339th out of 347 Division I teams, which is pretty remarkable when you consider that they are in a power conference and forced to play at least a couple of games against elite teams.

There are a couple of arguments that people seem to be making in favor of Va. Tech. The one that relates to Wake is that the Hokies beat the Deacs on February 16. First of all, that's never been how the selection committee operates. Secondly, I'm sorry, but a four-point win on your home floor is not enough to convince me that you're better than whoever you played.

The second argument is that no ten-win ACC team has been left out of the tournament since it was expanded to include 64 teams in 1985, and that it's particularly fishy this year, considering how bad the Pac 10 is (it only got two bids, so theoretically, there are a handful more at-large bids available this year than most years). For starters, this argument ignores the strength of conferences like the Mountain West (four bids) and Atlantic 10 (3 bids) relative to other years, as well as the presence of a strong crop of non-BCS types that slipped up in their conference title games. It also ignores the relative weakness of the ACC, which, despite its six bids, is in my estimation rather weak this year. (Duke's elite, Maryland's okay, the rest are kind of blah).

I generally try not to take sides in these types of arguments, choosing instead to focus on whether the snubbed team did all it could be expected to do. And the Hokies didn't pass that test. What's really annoying about this entire argument is that this isn't the first time this has happened to VT under Seth Greenberg; if memory serves, we've been having a similar conversation about the Hokies three out of the last four years. If you want an NCAA bid, you need to schedule somebody out of conference. Virginia Tech might be better than Wake Forest and Georgia Tech, but without a non-conference win like WF's over Gonzaga or a signature conference victory over Duke or Maryland, they don't have much of an argument.

* I've spent a lot of space talking about just a few teams, and that's because I just don't know too much about a ton of teams in this region. Cornell is a fascinating #12 seed, and the #5 they're matched up with, Temple, is supposed to be very good. The #3, New Mexico, was perhaps in line for a #2 until tripping up in the Mountain West semis. Wisconsin, Clemson, and Missouri are probably solid, as they always are. I just haven't seen or heard enough about them this year to make informed opinions.

* One very intriguing first-round matchup, however, is the 6/11 pitting Marquette against Washington. Marquette has probably played more close games than anyone in the country this year, with mixed results. They started Big East play 1-3, beating Georgetown by three while losing to West Virginia, Villanova, and Villanova again by a combined five points. They turned their fortunes around at the end of the year, however, winning three straight overtime games in the last week of February (though against decidely inferior opposition) before crushing Louisville and then losing another OT game to Notre Dame in the regular season finale. Marquette got its revenge against 'nova in the Big East quarterfinals, playing its way into a good seed.

Washington, on the other hand, started the season ranked in the top half of the Top 25 (I can't find my copy of the college basketball preview issue, but I want to say Sports Illustrated had the Huskies ranked in the top ten to start the year) and then really struggled. Given the high seed given to them by the committee, they probably needed the win over Cal in the Pac 10 championship game to get a bid to the tourney. Other than a few segments of that game, the only time I've seen Washington this year is when they came to LA and got absolutely hammered by USC (two nights after narrowly losing to an under-achieving UCLA team). Lorenzo Romar's squad has the talent to make some noise in this tournament, though its focused heavily in the backcourt and on the wing. That shouldn't be a problem against Marquette, and as I said, I don't really know it's going to be a problem against New Mexico (though ESPN's Joe Lunardi says it isn't.) But it might be an issue should U-Dub advance to play Kentucky -- a tall task for an 11 seed, but certainly not out of the question this year.

* Finally, I should talk about West Virginia, a team I've avoided just because I have a hard time figuring them out. They seem to find themselves in a ton of close games, either because they start slow and have to rally or have a big lead and then give it up. The thing is, no matter how they get there, they seem to win those close games, in large part due to Da'Sean Butler. Butler's game-winners against Cincinnati and Georgetown in the Big East tournament were his fifth and sixth such shots of the season -- making him the college version of Kobe Bryant.

I never know what to make of teams like this, whether their luck will run out or the experience in close games will be helpful in the tournament atmosphere. And I still don't. I want to pick them to advance out of the region, but I'm not terribly keen on taking a team that seems so dependent on one player. Sorry folks, but this one's still up in the air.