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| NCAA Basketball Power Rankings |
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YouTube means different things to different people in college basketball. The Hokies' Deron Washington is a star on the site. Steve Lavin is a fan of it ... for a specific reason. Brent Musburger fears it.
An actual conversation between Lavin and Musburger during Tuesday's Michigan State-Michigan game, which has been YouTubed:
Musburger, responding to Lavin's Google discovery -- via the production truck -- that Brent's middle name is Woody: "You can't get away from anything with that Google thing around. That's why it's been such a good stock."
Lavin: "How about YouTube! Go look up Erin Andrews on YouTube. My goodness."
Musburger: "Be careful what you do in a bar with YouTube around, let me tell you that."
Next games: 3/1 at Virginia, 3/4 vs. Clemson, ACC tournament. |
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Terps point guard Greivis Vasquez -- who was one rebound short of a triple-double against Duke on Wednesday night -- might be my favorite freshman not named Kevin Durant. Which is interesting, considering that Vasquez and Keb-Keb played together last season under Stu Vetter at Montrose Christian in Rockville, Md. Just like Durant, Vasquez seems to thrive off of hostile road environments. "I love when the crowd is on me," he told the Washington Post in reaction to the Cameron Crazies. "They were trying to make me mad. They were talking about the president of Venezuela. I love it. It was so nice. I've got three more years, and it's going to be fun. They might be worried about me now."
Next games: 3/3 vs. N.C. State, ACC tournament. |
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Why Joey Dorsey isn't more of an NBA prospect is a mystery to me. The Tigers' invaluable bruiser is listed as the 56th pick in NBAdraft.net's 2008 mock, and doesn't crack the board on DraftExpress. He's one of the nation's most productive rebounders, ranking second overall in offensive rebounding percentage and 40th on D. Dorsey also blocks a ton of shots for a 6-foot-9 forward, ranking 22nd in block percentage. He may lay bricks from the free-throw line (shooting 44.8 percent) but he's improved his numbers in points, rebounds, blocks, steals and field-goal percentage in each of his three years at Memphis, and could potentially be a Ben Wallace-type character in the NBA.
Next games: 3/1 at UTEP, 3/3 at SMU, Conference USA tournament. |
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Damn you, unbalanced Big 12 schedules: Couldn't things have been rearranged to give us two Texas-Kansas games instead of one (which is on Saturday)? The Longhorns will head into Lawrence on Saturday without having lost in nearly a month, and, although they were left off of the Magic Eight's regrettable omissions list, should probably be thrown into the darkhorse Final Four discussion. As Stew Mandel wrote in his column from Austin, Texas A&M is the safer pick to head to Atlanta, "but Texas will also be sitting there, and boy will the 'Horns be tempting."
Next games: 3/3 at Kansas, Big 12 tournament. |
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I like entertaining the notion that the college game's hulking big men are members of a different species than their smaller teammates, and liable to get lonely if not in the company of other behemoths. Panthers 7-footer Aaron Gray returned from an ankle injury earlier than expected to face Georgetown last Saturday, and immediately after entering the game told 7-2 Hoya Roy Hibbert, "I missed you, Big Roy." Hibbert responded, "I missed you, too" -- and said he "can't wait to play against [Gray] again." I wonder if 6-10 Ousmane Barro -- the tallest starter on Saturday's opponent, Marquette -- is big enough to keep Gray company in the meantime.
Next games: 3/3 at Marquette, Big East tournament. |
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Just how big was the Cougars' comeback win at Air Force on Tuesday? It ended a 30-game winning streak for the Falcons at Clune Arena -- a building in which AFA's four senior starters had a career record of 53-2. "Wow," BYU point guard Austin Ainge told the Salt Lake Tribune. "I tell you what, I have been embarrassed in that arena a lot of times, and I've had this one circled on my calendar a long time. It feels about as good as any win I've ever had." The Cougars will most likely be the No. 1 seed for the Mountain West tourney in Las Vegas ... an affair that should be slightly more tame than the NBA's All-Star Weekend.
Next games: 3/3 vs. Utah, Mountain West tournament. |
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Will the Wolf Pack, the team with the fewest losses in the country, get a top-three seed for the dance? The consensus early this week was that Fazekas & Co. were bound for a No. 4. That's what resident bracketman Stew Mandel had on Monday, and ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi had as of Feb. 28 as well. Nevada fans, I'm assuming, will like what Atlanta unknown Andy Cox has cooked up. As a grad student a Georgia Tech, Cox developed a model of a machine learning that seeds the NCAA selection committee's S-curve based on decisions made in the 2000-06 brackets. Called "Crashing The Dance," the site's artificial intelligence says that the Wolf Pack best fit the profile of a team on the third line of seeds, rather than the fourth.
Next games: 3/1 at Utah State, 3/3 vs. New Mexico State, WAC tournament. |
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Beating UConn on the road -- as the Cardinals did on Sunday for their fifth straight Big East win -- is no longer a big deal, given the Huskies' rebuilding plight. But what Louisville did in the final 3:42 at Hartford Civic Center was stunning: With UConn mounting a late comeback, the Cards went 6-for-6 from the free-throw line and 5-for-5 from the field to close the game. It wasn't just a matter of one player going en fuego, either; five different guys contributed to the perfection.
Next games: 3/4 vs. Seton Hall, Big East tournament. |
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ON THE CUSP: USC, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Butler, Tennessee, Syracuse, Michigan State, Marquette, UNLV, Oregon, Villanova, Stanford, Alabama, Virginia, Drexel, Winthrop, Creighton, Appalachian State. Send your Power Rankings mail to Luke Winn here.  |
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