Marquette 79, West Virginia 74

New Year's Resolution: Write something -- anything at all -- about every basketball game I watch. I had hoped to get this blog into better shape over break, but my hard drive crashed almost as soon as I got to DC and I haven't been able to do much. I'm currently posting using my Dad's Netbook, which isn't great for stuff like that. Maybe I'll have time to do it once I get back to LA and get my computer fixed.

Woke up this morning hangover-free thanks to a low-key New Year's Eve spent by myself watching 12 straight hours of college hoops and caught a terrific Big East game. Buzz Williams has got himself another solid team at Marquette, with five double-figure scorers -- Jimmy Butler, Darius Johnson-Odom, Jae Crowder, Vander Blue, and Dwight Buycks. The Golden Eagles always seem to have squads like this: a bunch of solid perimeter players without a really strong inside presence, with an undersized four (Crowder in this case, Lazar Hayward in years past) doing some of the dirty work inside. What I like about this year's squad is that it doesn't rely too heavily on the three-pointer. I know that threes are an efficient form of offense, but one thing that has soured me on the college game is how so many teams are just three-point factories. The college line is too close and it's not a terribly difficult shot for many college players, and it can be fun when a capable team gets hot from the arc (like Ohio State did yesterday against Indiana), but it's just not enjoyable to watch when mediocre shooters take so many three-pointers. The Golden Eagles get a lot of stuff at or near the rim -- another very efficient shot -- so it's not as if they are hurt by this year's offensive strategy.

This was a back and forth game. Oddly, given Marquette's balanced scoring attack and perimeter orientation, it was the only bucket scored by Chris Otule that put the Golden Eagles ahead for good. That had to have been a frustrating play for West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. Down by a point with less than two minutes remaining, Buycks took what the defense gave him, which was a wide-open three-pointer from the right wing (Buycks was 11-for-32 from deep on the season heading into the game). The shot hit the front rim and bounced softly off the backboard on the weakside, where Otule was waiting to slam it home. On a play where West Virginia chose to leave the shooter open, it also left the weak-side rebounder uncontested, and that's gotta drive a coach crazy.

The game wasn't sealed until a couple of possessions later, when Crowder -- last year's juco player of the year -- ripped the ball from Casey Mitchell, another former juco player of the year, at the top of the key, and Mitchell instinctively reached out and grabbed Crowder's shorts before he could stop himself, resulting in an intentional foul. Crowder was outstanding all night; career high on offense (I think he ended with 29), some nice assists, disruptive on defense, and leading the way on the boards.

Marquette's experience late in close games showed; they played something like 16 games decided by four points or less last year. West Virginia played its fair share of close games last season, too, and have plenty of returning players. The difference is that they don't have Da'Sean Butler, last year's closer who had like six game-winning shots last year. Mitchell is the Mountaineers most talented offensive player, but he's also something of a loose cannon from what I've seen and I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable with his shot selection in that situation. Truck Bryant had a great offensive game, but couldn't come up with the big baskets late. It will be interesting to see who carries the load for WVU down the stretch going forward.

Bryant did most of his damage, by the way, when he shared the court with fellow point guard Joe Mazzulla. It's interesting, because it's not like Mazzulla was creating a lot of opportunities for him. I guess being relieved of the burden of initiating the offense and getting everyone else involved is enough to set Bryant free on offense.

One other note about West Virginia: On paper, they had the edge inside, but didn't get much out of Deniz Kilicli and Kevin Jones in the early stages of the game, or late in the game. They also didn't get to the free throw line as often as they should have given their size advantage.

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.

Opening Night in the Big East

The Georgetown-Connecticut game marked the opening of ESPN's Monday night Big East coverage, although not technically the beginning of the weekly tripleheaders dubbed these many years Big Monday. The Big East is incredibly deep this year, with eight teams currently ranked in the ESPN/USAToday poll and a ninth -- West Virginia -- just two spots out of it after dismantling previously unbeaten Ohio State in Columbus on Saturday. (The AP poll has seven Big East teams in the top 25, though Marquette and West Virginia are Nos. 26 and 27, respectively). It's just going to be a fantastic season, with ten tournament bids a real possibility.

ESPN's Andy Katz wrote a nice breakdown of the conference, and he makes the point that if the league wants to get ten teams in, it won't be enough for those ten to get to 8-10 by virtue of beating the bottom six teams in the league (likely to be Rutgers, South Florida, Seton Hall, Providence, St. John's, and DePaul) seven or eight times. They'll need at least a couple of wins against each other.

For similar reasons, these non-conference games that are wrapping up (with a few exceptions) this week take on an increased importance in a year where the conference is so stacked. Let's take a look at the ten realistic contenders for tournament bids from the Big East, and see what their non-conference slates look like. I'll take them in the same order Katz did.

Cincinnati: The Bearcats 60-45 loss at Memphis (after the Tigers dropped out of the Top 25 for the first time in a few years) hurts, particularly since fellow Big East foes Georgetown and Syracuse have already beaten last year's national runners-up. Losing to Xavier is nothing to be ashamed of, though dropping a game to Florida State hurts. Still, they have wins at UNLV and against Mississippi State and UAB, so they're in decent shape at 3-3 against potential tournament teams from major conferences.

Connecticut: The Huskies will be fine, provided that they don't make their listless performance against Georgetown a habit. Victories over Miami (FL) and Wisconsin on their way to winning Paradise Jam, along with a win over Gonzaga in Seattle gives them a nice non-conference slate. They can get some insurance, not that they'll need it, on February 7, when they host Michigan (and old foe John Beilein, the former head coach at West Virginia).

Georgetown: Beating Maryland and Memphis more than offsets losing to Tennessee in a very hard-fought game at the Old Spice Classic in November. Given that the Hoyas already have a huge conference road win, they're in fine shape. Like UConn, they have one more out-of-conference test, January 17 at Duke.

Louisville: The Cardinals have a couple of really troubling losses, to Western Kentucky and Minnesota. They rebounded a couple of days ago with a convincing win over UAB, but the Blazers are down to something like six scholarship players, so that victory doesn't look as good as it might have at the beginning of the year. They don't have any other good wins, but they do have two more opportunities to make life easier for them once their conference slate starts. They play UNLV on New Year's Eve at 6 p.m. Eastern, and given that Cincinnati has already beaten the Rebels this year, the Ville could very well have to win that one to avoid needing to be better than .500 in Big East play -- which is more doable for them than it is for others, since they have seven games against the league's bottom six and only get the league's true heavies -- Pittsburgh, UConn, and Georgetown -- once each. They've also got Kentucky on January 4, and although the Wildcats beat West Virginia earlier this year, UK might be the kind of team where a loss to them looks worse than a win over them looks good, if you get what I'm saying.

Marquette: The Golden Eagles have a couple of decent wins against Wisconsin and North Carolina State, a good loss against Tennessee, and then kind of a bad loss to Dayton. That's not really anything to be ashamed of, but Marquette is done in non-conference play, and they're right on the fringe of the top 25 right now. What's more, they finish up with a wicked schedule. Check out this five-game stretch to finish up Big East play: at Georgetown, vs. Connecticut, at Louisville, at Pittsburgh, vs. Syracuse. Brutal. Given the emphasis the selection committee seems to put on the way a team is playing heading into the tournament, Marquette may not have done enough out of conference to survive losing four out of five to end the season, followed by an early exit in the Big East tournament. They haven't made things impossible for themselves, but they are going to have to play awfully well to feel comfortable on Selection Sunday. That loss to Dayton could loom large.

Notre Dame: The Fighting Irish nipped Texas by a point in the Maui semis, lost to Carolina in the final, and slipped up against Ohio State in Indianapolis in Luke Harangody's first game back after missing two with pneumonia. They are fine barring a major collapse in conference play, though a win at UCLA on February 7would certainly help.

Pittsburgh: No one win really jumps out at you. They won at Florida State, but beating the Seminoles, even in Tallahassee, is hardly the kind of win a team hangs it hat on. They beat Texas Tech and Washington State on consecutive nights in November in New Jersey, but I just watched the Cougars play terribly in a loss to LSU, and the Red Raiders lost to Lamar earlier this year and got beat by 45 at Stanford their last time out. Still, they've taken care of business, and honestly should be good enough in the Big East that their non-conference schedule won't matter. Incidentally, they are not quite done with out of conference opponents, as they've oddly scheduled a home date with Robert Morris for February 2.

Syracuse: Losing to Cleveland State at the Carrier Dome wasn't good, but for the first time in a couple of years, the Orange have done quite a lot in the non-conference. Beating Florida and Kansas back-to-back in Kansas City to win the CBE Classic was big, and they added a big win at Memphis on December 20. These teams aren't the same squads that are responsible for the last three national championships (and one national runnerup-ship), but they are good wins over name teams away from home. Syracuse just needs to stay the course in the Big East to get a bid.

Villanova: No bad losses for the Wildcats, their lone blemish being a nine-point defeat at the hands of Texas, then ranked No. 6. No spectacular wins, either. Monday's 62-45 win over Temple looks good if you consider that the Owls beat Tennessee on December 13; it becomes less impressive when you realize that Temple then lost to Long Beach State, and had previously lost to Buffalo and Miami (OH). Katz says that a November 19 triumph over Niagara is 'Nova's most meaningful win, which isn't likely to get too many people that excited about the Wildcats. They're out of non-conference opportunities, but have climbed high enough in the polls that something like .500 in the Big East should get them there.

West Virginia: It would have been nice to beat Kentucky and Davidson, but the aforementioned trouncing of Ohio State in Columbus this weekend makes up for a lot of that. The Mountaineers have two games against each of Louisville and Pittsburgh, which is tough, but it cuts both ways: It can just as easily be seen as two extra opportunities for a big resume win as it can be seen as an extra two automatic losses in conference.

Have a good New Year, all.