Midnight Madness Day is upon us, and it's time to choose what combination we value most in a preseason No. 1 team in the Power Rankings. We're presented with five options:
A) Gritty defense and back-to-back years of Final Four experience
B) Superstar freshman PG and dribble-driving athletes
C) Ultra-efficient speed and interior muscle
D) Full-court pressure and three guys named Smith
E) Peerless (albeit overstocked) backcourt and pretty bad luck in the NCAAs
There is no correct answer. Here, the preferred choice is C. That's North Carolina. Letters A, B, D and E -- it's pretty obvious who they are, right? -- fill out the first page of the rankings, well within striking distance of the Heels, but not nearly as well-suited to be No. 1.
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Were you aware that the Tar Heels hoopsters are actually ranked No. 1 in two sports? Basketball, because these Power Rankings say so, and Danneyball, because UNC appears to be the only college team playing it. It's one of those hybrid sports that's slightly less interesting than Baseketball; basically, "Danneyball involves heaving around 10-pound medicine balls on a sand volleyball court, and gets its name from the Canadian-bobsledder-turned-trainer who hatched the brilliant idea for the game. Naturally, Tyler Hansbrough 's team took the title in an Oct. 2 intrasquad tournament. The confidence Psycho T gained from that victory will be the key to him winning his first national title as a junior. (Other keys include Deon Thompson 's emergence as an interior stud in Brandan Wright's old spot, Tywon Lawson's added experience at the point, and Marcus Ginyard's ability as a glue guy ... but I prefer Danneyball.)
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The Winter of Love in Westwood is going to also be the Season of the Golden C: In a fashion decision that didn't exactly get rave reviews within the Bruins camp, they've opted to make the "C" in the UCLA on the front of their jerseys gold to commemorate the fact that the school is the first college to win 100 NCAA championships. Noted arbiter of tattoo-and-sweatband style Lorenzo Mata-Real (now with bigger last name, to match his mother's!) went as far as to call the golden C "ugly." I'll side with 'Zo here. When it comes to jerseys, going retro: good. Messing with a classic: questionable.
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Tennessee is now epicenter of college hoops, with a top-five team on each side of the state and a decent SEC sleeper (Vandy) sitting in the middle. Unfortunate that we have to wait until Feb. 23 to settle a rivalry in which both teams play uptempo ball and both coaches actively dislike each other. That leaves us to speculate in the meantime: Even though Memphis is the preseason No. 1 in a few prominent places on the Web, the Vols might be slightly better. They won last year's meeting by 18, and filled a glaring frontcourt need with the offseason addition of Iowa transfer Tyler Smith. The Tigers are bringing in an all-world point guard in Derrick Rose, but does that signal an 18-point improvement? ** Item was corrected from the earlier version to state this year's Memphis-Tennessee game. We regret the error. **
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Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, in this week's SI: "Our style of play suits me because I'm a pain in the ass." What would coach Cal say about his style? Something, perhaps, about being on the cutting edge: The clinic he held this offseason with Pepperdine's Vance Walberg, the inventor of the Attack Attack Skip Attack Attack offense, drew nearly 400 coaches to examine the scheme that Cal has refashioned into his athlete-heavy, Dribble Drive Motion offense. And this year Calipari is beginning an innovative partnership -- funded by FedEx -- with the Chinese Basketball Association. A delegation of 15 Chinese coaches will be on hand to observe Tigers practice next week, and one coach will stay with the team for the entire '07-08 season as an "intern." It's a nice cultural gesture, but Memphis is really planting seeds for recruiting, in hopes that when the next Yi Jianlin emerges in 2014, he'll do his prep-work with the Memphis Tigers rather than the Guangdong Southern Tigers.
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Unless Brandon Rush's ACL injury doesn't heal, combo guard Sherron Collins will have to wait another season to crack Kansas' starting lineup. He has, however, already established himself as the team's most valuable recruiter: Last Saturday, elite juco small forward Mario Little, who played his AAU ball with Collins in Chicago and won as an academic non-qualifier coming out of high school, committed to join the Jayhawks in 2008. In making his decision, Little credited the Collins connection as well as an odd affection for Bill Self ("He's cool. He's country, but he's cool"). The news -- like that of so many other Chicago prospects fleeing the state -- hurt for Illinois, which had offered Little, but it didn't sting for long: Thursday, the Illini bounced back in a huge way by inking three homegrown, Class of 2009 guards: Joseph Bertrand, Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson. 'Twas a huge day for Bruce Weber on the recruiting front.
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