Who Does the Rankings Anyway?

So you likely saw that third ranked Kansas, loaded with the annual "best recruit from the state of Illinois" for the past two years, among other high school All-Americans, lost at HOME, to ORAL ROBERTS. Yes, they lost to a school not only founded by a Christian fundamentalist, but named after him. And it wasn't a last second shot. They lost by 7 points.
And perhaps you saw that North Carolina, the second ranked team in our fair but overcast nation, nearly lost to Winthrop University. Was this in some tiny gym in Rock Hill, South Carolina? No! It was in Charlotte where the vast majority of the crowd was there to support the sweatered rams with tarred feet.
A normal person might look at the make-up of these teams, notice that nearly everyone getting minutes is a freshman or sophmore, and think "that's probably about right, performance-wise." But then why are these teams ranked so highly?
Perhaps it's their previous accomplishments.
Last season, UNC finished with a fine conference record (12-4), and a solid record overall (23-8), winning eight straight conference games at one point. But there were only two other ranked teams in the ACC last season-- BC and the Dukies-- making the power conference to end all power conferences into actually not that much of a power conference. UNC was rewarded for their conference success with a 3 seed in the NCAA tournament, only to lay an egg, giving birth to the George Mason, feel-good-but-crappy-basketball-cinderella-story-myth, by losing in the second round to the Colonials. Now, I was under the impression that all of UNC's important players last season, like that Hansbrough kid, were freshman. But looking into it further, that was just wrong. In fact, UNC started a senior and two juniors against George Mason. So the whole "well they were all freshman and they should be dramatically improved after a year under their belt" theory may not actually be true, because they weren't all freshman, and UNC depended in large part on developed upperclassmen last season. Interesting.
Kansas seemed to follow the pattern. Last season, they started out 10-6, played very well in conference, and won the Big 12 tournament. Then they lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Bradley University, located in lovely Peoria, Illinois. (I'm not joking; it's a nice town, especially for Illinois). Skaank. Ah, well. In comparison to UNC, they actually were led by younger players, starting no seniors last season, and having no seniors on the team this year. (Note to Self, Bill--where they hell are all your upperclassmen? Has Kansas started giving associate's degrees? Doesn't the NCAA step in and reduce your scholarships if you don't even get close to graduating anyone?). But once again, skeptics can point to a uncharacteristically weak conference (only one other ranked team-- Tejas), and the upset loss early in the tournament-- the 4th seed losing to the 13th seed.
So why are Kansas and UNC so highly ranked this year, despite their embarassing and early exits in the tournmanet? They both have the "full of young players who got their act together" CW, although that's far more true with Kansas than with North Carolina. I also think the "getting the act together" conference runs of last season, while certainly impressive, are overinflated given the suprising mediocrity of their leagues.
So what else has propelled these two teams to the top 3?
Unfortunately, I think it comes down to 2 culprits, both of which are suspect predictors of success--traditional names, and recruiting rankings.
Kansas and North Carolina are obviously two of the most hyped, and best, men's college basketball teams over the past 50 years or so. Producing lots of talented NBA stars, near the top of their league every year, yada yada. With Roy Williams, the UNC coach, there's actually a record of solid success both in the tournament (thanks for beating the FIBs in the final, Roy!), and in the regular season. Bill Self has a solid career record (68% with Oral Roberts(possible collusion?), Tulsa, the dancing feather headed frat boys, and Kansas), but hasn't gotten his team as far in the tournament. So they are both legendary programs, led by very and quite solid coaches.
But what really drives this season's rankings, I believe, is the increasing tumult surrounding recruiting, and equating a class's success in terms of wins far before they've even done anything.
The past two seasons, Kansas' incoming recruiting class have been ranked 1st and 8th.
UNC's have been ranked 4th and 1st. (This is based on Scout.com). The hoopla over Kansas' freshman last year was especially loud, and if UNC's only seems muted this year, that's because it's been drowned out by the OSU-Oden-athon.
The idea seems to be as follows--talented players attend famous basketball institution where coached by famous coach equals instant success. This is a fallacy. High school basketball is dramatically different (read, easier) than college basketball, especially in legitimate leagues. In the vast majority of cases, it takes lots of time to transmorgify a good high school basketball player into a fine college player. Even exceptionally talented people, like Dwyane Wade for example, often need several years in college to develop. The freshmen who do make big impacts, and by this I mean making their team one of the best in the country, are serious rarities. Off the top of my head, I can think of Carmelo and the Fab Five. Anyone else come to mind?
For the last several years, most of the best teams in college have been dominated by upperclassmen. Think of Illinois and UNC in the championship game two years ago, Villanova the past two years, Duke with give it to me Sheldon and JJ Red-dick. More often than not, it's players who are talented, but have at least a few years' experience who push their teams upward and onward.
Now, the new NBA rules may change things. Because of the league's one-year-out-of-high-school rule, a lot of guys who would have jumped directly will probably head to college. So we should see more impact freshman. LeBron and Dwight Howard clearly would have been Carmelo Anthony-type college players. But if the new rule is driving the ridiculous rankings for Kansas or UNC or Ohio State for that matter (Oden doesn't play until January, guys, and the Bucks lost four starters including the Big Ten MVP), I think people will be disappointed. That's because there's one or two of those special, special guys a year, at the most. This year, people think Oden might be that guy. Next year, it looks like O.J. Mayonaisse will be the man.
But I don't see anybody on Kansas or UNC this year or last, being that guy. Both schools have athletic, talented players. But they need some seasoning--Lawry's seasoning salt is delicious, incidentally. UNC has 6 freshmen. Six! Can they even run an organized practice? Roy Williams will need a masters in ego deflation. Maybe, maybe, Kansas' class from last year or UNC's current class will develope into a group of guys like the starters for UNC's NCAA title winning team of two years ago. Four guys from that class were taken in the first round. Does anyone remember that three of them were upperclassmen?
Yes, that's right-- good recruiting class with good coaching does equals top-level success: three years later.

Best Weekend Ever?

So I was in Santa Fe over the weekend, attending a belated wedding reception, which means drinking for free, hanging out with a few old friends, eating a lot of green chilies, and thus having weird experiences in the bathroom. Before I left, I set the generic brand Tivo to record the Packers/'Queens and the Badgers/Idiots Out Wandering Around, and religiously avoided the television during game times.
And hallelujah, come Saturday afternoon, a celebratory text message from my Michigan fan friend arrives. The Dirk Terrentz curse has been broken, with Donovan at quarterback no less. Hell, yes. God, do I hate Iowa. I watched the triumphant victory Monday night, after getting back. It was an odd game. First, we won with a backup quarterback, one that had actually looked terrible during his spot duties this season (he threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown against Western Illinois for god's sake). He performed pretty well, I thought, throwing decent short and intermediary balls, and breaking out some very good runs in key situations. His arm seems decent, but Swan saved him on those two deep balls. Swan had one on one coverage, and made great plays to make the catch, but the second deep pass was dramatically underthrown, because Swan had that guy beat. Stocco is undoubtedly a better passer, and I'm certain that defenses would respect the pass more with him behind center. But Donovan is very reminiscent of Brooks with his running. He's confident, shifty, fast enough, and willing to take off pretty much at any point. It'll be interesting how things shake out with him and Alan Evridge (a starter at Kansas State last year who transferred to Madison and is sitting out his season).
But even though Donovan played pretty well, the most surprising aspect of the Badger game was home we were still able to win despite the fumbles and the uncharacteristic and repeated defensive breakdowns. I refer, of course, to Lance and P.J.'s fumbles, the absurdly open short touchdown passes, and the 60-yard pass play to a tight end. So we played a very flawed game, without a starting QB and corner, at another decent team's stadium, and still managed to win.
Excellent. Now enough of this close game stuff. Lets kick the hell out of Turner Gill's Buffalo team this weekend.

Now onto the Packers. It is always, always wonderful to beat the 'Queens, particularly in the HHH Dome, that is, the worst stadium in the NFL. Even under their new, bizarrely named owner and the steely gaze of the new Childress-mustachioed, zero-tolerance regime, they're still obnoxious. What makes that game awesome, is that like the Iowa game, we were nowhere close to playing a complete game. We couldn't run the ball and our secondary continued to have terrible lapses (Billy McMullen?). Hawk also seemed to have his best game. The play where he beat the double team of those two backs was fabulous. And on McMullen's second (??) touchdown, he forced a fumble right on the goaline. Yes, it was recovered for a touchdown, but it could have been important. Whatever.
I think the problem with the 'Queens may be their offense. The have a great rushing defense because Pat Williams is probably the best run-stopper in the league. Their pass defense is, in a word, semi-passable. But there's no one particularly special for them on offense. Their best player is Hutchinson, and he's a guard for god's sake. Did you see Cullen Jenkins beat him for a sack? Chester Taylor is a decent back, but Ahman's still probably better. Troy Williamson has continued to not develop (ha!). Driver is also probably better than any of their wideouts. Brad Johnson is older than Favre and actually looks it. Point is-- 'Queens are going nowhere unless they miraculously draft some fantastic player late in the game. We should beat them at Lambeau, too. Yee haw.

And to finish it all off, the Badgers' basketball team won their first game of the season handily, beating Mercer easily. Taylor shot the lights out, and though we couldn't hit free throws, it didn't matter, and everyone played, Bohannon the most of any frosh by far. I doubt that that'll last, Bo tends to cut back to people that don't do things he doesn't like, that is, turn the ball over or play poor defense. Hopefully, the younger guys will figure out ways to satisfy his various leanings, get back on the court, and let their athleticism glow, as if it were some variety of geri-curl gel.

All in all, a fabulous sporting weekend. Maybe I should move to New Mexico.

Middle Season Review

The first 9 games of this season have been hilarious. They've made me thankful for last year. Because, since we're nowhere near as bad as we were last year, i don't know if i'd be so ready to accept our record if i hadn't just endured a 4-12 (should've been 3-13 and we'd have Vince Young, i'll never stop hating you sugar bear) season. We should be 6-3. The Losses have been agonizing, while the victories have been convincing. But we absolutely should be 6-3. The Rams and the Bills games were wins. How we blew those games was so comical, that you have to appreciate the entertainment value, or your head will explode.

week 1: Bears Rip our bodies apart. We should've cut Marquand Manuel after the first play. I don't care if Bernard Berrian did turn out to be "good" and the Bears are dominating the "league", STOP HIM, MAKE HIM STOP, PUNCH HIM IN THE THROAT! Just, stop falling down. I live in Chicago. I can't handle that shit.

Week 2: "Hey, since we're up 13-0, I'm gonna go watch the rest of the game at Jesse's house, thanks for breakfast mom". And then i switched TV's. Never switch TV's when we're winning. It's not the nineties anymore. I take full credit. Except for the 2 times Nick Collins fell down. Absolutely terrible. He's having a dissappointing season and I'm saying that based completely on Week 2. He flopped like a homeless person guzzling cough syrup. Twice. He is the reason Marcus Colston is good.

Week 3: Hey... The Lions. Sweet. Favre loves domes now. Kind of an ironic twist on the end of his career but i'll take it. The Lions and Vikings play in domes. And Greg Jennings is a stud. Andy and i threw french fries at each other while he stiff armed "Dre" Bly for 30 yards on route to a 137 yard touchdown. It was great. We almost fumbled it away at the end.

Week 4: Eagles on Monday night. This game made me start screaming at Bear fans at the bar i was in. I think I was telling them that I was, "gonna give all their lakehouses back to the Indians". Why would i say that? It doesn't make sense. I was drunk. What did make sense was cutting Ahmad Carroll. Finally. Thank you, Donovan McNabb.

Week 5: St. Louis. We absolutely should've won this game. Favre and our defense played well, we were in a position to win, and then our weak and inexperienced offensive line crashed the party. Not just allowing Favre to get pressured and stripped, but also embarrassing us when a twitchy, nerve-racked Darren Colledge, shuffled the game losing fumble right into the hands of the closest Ram player. Don't they teach offensive linemen how to recover fumbles? They do. In fact they teach them to jump next to the ball, then grab it. He did neither. He dove on top of it like he was a 300 lbs. house cat with an inflatable ball of yarn; Like it was his diary and the Rams were his pesky older brothers; Like he was mauling a bottle of vodka after ice fishing with his fingers for 10 hours straight. That game was the worst this year. But funny. Hah. Heh. Hmm.

Week 6: Bye week. I used to hate bye weeks. Now i like them. Silver lining?

Week 7: Dolphin fans are the worst. They're always in between dying and coming back to life. So's their team. We stomped them. Joey Harrington is robbing people. The zone blocking thing started to work. Finally we don't have to line up a tight end in the back field to help whichever guard sucks the most.

Week 8: Arizona. We won. I was in California. Zone blocking working. That's all i heard.

Week 9: Buffalo. That was the worst team we'll play all year. Losman completed 8 passes. Favre gave them a touchdown. Jennings got hurt, Driver was still Driver. The game was lost when we drove down to there 2. IT WAS 2nd AND 1 AT THE 2! and Favre throws a slant to Driver that gets tipped up and returned to our 40. they throw a bomb to Lee Evans (good work, Lee), 14 point swing, game over. 2 things.

1- Pass interference on Driver. It was inside 5 yards, but also the ENDZONE. Illegal! call that.

2- Every defensive back they had new it was going to Driver because of the way Favre celebrated the first touchdown, (also a 1 yard slant to Driver). Favre just loves to go back to the well. Fine, we only have one well, just don't point it out everytime he scores.

And could we please run the ball there? 2nd and 1 at the 2. Its better than 1st and goal at the 1.

Week 9: Win @ the Metrodome. Driver. End of story. Vikings suck.

Overall, I like Mike Mcarthy. His demeanor. His schemes seem to be taking shape. I don't know the intriquacies of football strategy, but i can tell he has command of the team. I like that i can see him getting pissed. He doesn't whine, he curses and i guarantee he gets cock-eyed drunk. He's cock-eyed sober. I like it.

I think Ted Thompson has Kept the right young players to build with. Our D-line is playing great. Our linebackers are playing great. Our O-line sucks because they're learning a completely new system and Favre has still only been sacked 10 times. So... We're not that bad. Go team. Please beat the Bears.

Intra-Family Plagarism

Like most of you, I have been reduced to reading newspaper reports about the Badgers' exhibition games. I was hoping to follow the progress of last night's game against Carroll College via the miracle of the internet on ESPN, but they pretended the exhibition game didn't exist. The newspaper reports in the Madison and Milwaukee papers, basically said "we were down in the first half, big men not looking good on defense, missing shots, went small, got lead back, stayed pretty close until we went on a run relatively late in the second half to win by 20." This, of course, is not particularly interesting. What is interesting is how different individual players played, who looked decent and in what manner. Articles noted that Flowers played well, that Tucker shot poorly, and that most of our big men did not play all that much. Seeking further information, I consulted the elder fool for a more in depth breakdown. He attended the game, and provided the following (I know you're not supposed to use quotation marks for block quotes, but I'm doing it anyway):

"The two guys who probably looked best were Landry and Flowers, who really seems to have made a serious step forward in his offensive game. I guess the plan is that Flowers is now the starting point guard, allowing Kam to move back to his more natural position of shooting guard. This is also the reason, according to some, why the development of Hughes and perhaps Perry is considered important, so that Flowers needn't be on the court all the time to allow Kam to play the two. Flowers looks much more aggressive on offense, very much under control and confident. He seems to be looking to use his quickness to attack the basket. His shooting remains solid. Landry is going to be a monster before his time at UW is done. He just looks athletic, very physical, and like somebody who is intimidated by precisely nobody. He had a nasty alley-oop dunk last night. He really got up high and threw it down hard. Although he also did miss on another dunk. Kam looked good. Bohannon looked good. He can clearly shoot the lights out and he has plenty of quickness and ball handling ability. Court said he was one of the players in the slam dunk contest at family fun night. Gullikson got some minutes and looked plenty physical and tough. Butch looked fine, looks physically stronger. Bo just seemed to want to stay smaller. Perhaps that's also a function of wanting to get the young guys some minutes during an exhibition game. Hughes looked good, but also young. I mean, he clearly is an excellent athlete, quick, good handle, but sometimes he seems like he makes questionable decisions and gets a little out of control. He attacked the basket a couple times, getting there very nicely but then having to try to finish with some fairly hilarious maneuvers, neither of which worked. But he also hit a three pointer while being fouled and had one very impressive pass in the lane to Alando. Stiemsma looked rugged and tough. His Casillas-esque mohawk is awesome. He, Butch, and Landry all blocked a shot or two, but Carroll was obviously very short. But they have some guys who can do a couple things."

He then related his disappointment and horror at recognizing certain people sitting in the new $10,000 courtside seats, and concluded with the following:

"Overall, the Badgers looked listless in the first half, much more together in the second half. Krabben[*#%!] also looked good. Yeah, most of Alando's shots were jumpers and, like most of the team, he was off in the first half."

Hmm... I hope Alando's develops two-guard skills, but you'd still hope that he'd be pushing it inside against a team who's tallest player is 6'7". Mix the inside with the outside. Maybe exhibition games are the time to practice your outside shooting, though. Also, it seems like any of our guards could be a point (that is, in our offense, the person who brings the ball up the court), so if setting aside those duties leads to Kam getting more points, I'm all for it.
Anyone know where Mercer is? (Ok, it's in Georgia). Was it founded by my seventh grade math teacher?
Finally, in re this weekend's football, death to Iowa and the Viqueens. May Dirk Terentz be whazzed upon from a considerable height by a former Iowa protege, as he has whazzed upon Barry (also a former Iowa protege). May Brad Childress's porn star mustache curdle in disappointment.
An end to the tyranny of Iowa City and the Metrodome!

Death to Stocco

According to an article in the Wisconsin State Journal, not only is Stocco's shoulder hurt (that much was obvious to anyone watching the game on television), but he also has broken ribs. This tidbit was released by an anonymous source. The obvious conclusion is that whoever the source is, he or she wants our sweet Elvis (Stocco) to die.
What other reason is there to leak the fact that his injuries are more severe than previously thought? If Stocco plays, they're going to try to kill him on every offensive down. Mitch King (that manchild defensive tackle who killed us last year) will be sitting on him. Seriously, there's no excuse for this information being leaked. Have the Iowans inflitrated our ranks? Who are the Benedict Arnolds? Punishment!

Stout!

Right. Sorry for the absence, but election duty and my sports writer friend called. I decline to talk about the Packers debacle and the football Badgers costly success until tomorrow. But I did attend the first home basketball game of the season, against division three UW-Stout, part of Bo's effort to play his way through the WIAC. Stout was interesting, because it had one player, half of a 7-foot twin tower combination, named Jacob Nanemacher, who is a legitimate Division I player. The rest of the team, yeah, not so much. Nanemacher didn't do much on offense, but he made our big men's post moves look bad. I don't remember Chappell taking a shot in the post, but Butch and the pre-frosh Gavinski did not get off a decent interior shot against him. So that seems to be an area where, alas, our big men have not made significant improvements.
But our man defense looked good, and our outside shooting looked excellent. Bohannon, Butch, and especially Chappell were hitting outside shots consistently. Bohannon looked great actually-- making smart cuts to the basket, giving good help on defense, running intelligent breaks. Hughes, while be didn't dunk, also looked solid. He's a committed on-ball defender, and very fast on the break. Gavinski should definitely redshirt. He didn't look so impressive.
Two players I expected to stand out-- Alando and Marcus Landry-- didn't do too much, though Alando hit a nice looking 3-pointer. Landry has busted out the Bo Outlaw style goggles, in an interesting fashion move.
The starting five was, as predicted, Butch, Chappell, Alando, Flowers and Kammron. And despite my lack of enthusiasm, that group played the best out of any combination on the floor. They opened up a big lead at the start, and controlled the game better than any other group of players. I guess Bo actually does know what he's doing.

Portentous Previews

You may have noticed that I'm loathe to comment on games before they occur. This is because I am a silly superstitious man. When I'm at the game, I try altering the various things I shout based on their success. For example, when I shout something non-team specific, like "come on defense!" my teams are generally less successful than when I shout something specific to my team, like "Lets go Pack!" or "Here we go, Badgers!" When I'm watching at home, I switch up my outfits based on the game's momentum-- beanies to baseball caps, putting on/taking off various layers of my all red sweatsuit-- things like that. Given my pre-existing level of paranoia, you can see why I tend to stay mute about the game, especially silencing any impulse to mock the opposing team, which could lead to some weird "My Name is Earl" karma incidents.
What I have decided to do, however, is to serve as a medium to other people's commentary. So below, you'll find a bunch of links to previews of the Badgers/Penn State game. I'll try to have some previews of the Packers/Bills game up tonight or tomorrow as well.
In other news, I will hopefully attend the UW men's basketball home exhibition opener, against UW-Stout, tonight. Did you know UW-Stout was not located in a town called Stout, but rather in Menomonie, which is quite close to the Twin Cities (closer than Eau Claire)? Fascinating. My hope is to see Trevon Hughes dunk. Reports will be forthcoming.
PSU/UW Football Previews:
CBS Sportsline Preview
Centre Daily Times (State College, PA Daily Newspaper) Preview
(Lame) ESPN Preview
College Football News Preview