Jason Whitlock = Clueless Windbag

OK, I've got to get this off my chest: Jason Whitlock is an assclown.  I wish I didn't have to resort to name-calling, but my vocabulary cannot accurately put into words the way I feel about him.  After reading Whitlock over the years it is quite clear that his number one objective as a journalist to to make a name for himself.  And what better way to do that than to stir up controversy.  He is sports journalism's version of a "shock jock".  Earlier this year, Whitlock ignited what K-State fans refer to as "Hummer-gate" when he wrote that Michael Beasley was cruising around Manhattan in a Hummer, insinuating that Beasley was receiving extra benefits.  Never mind the fact that there was no truth to his statement, it served it's purpose in Whitlock's eyes.  It reflected negatively on K-State while bringing attention to himself.  Then, Jason got his feelings hurt when he was booed by K-State fans as he entered the arena for a game and decided to take a shot at K-State fans.  If this column doesn't wreak of an agenda, then I don't know what does.

So by now you're probably wondering what has sparked this rant of mine, so here it goes.  Following K-State's loss today, Whitlock wrote this article, which claims that K-State's basketball program is doomed because they have Frank Martin as a coach, calling him "the least qualified coach in the Big 12".  He goes on to say that K-State will be left with no talent calling them a team full of "unskilled energy players" and predicts a last place finish in the Big 12 next year.

Now maybe you're saying that as a columnist, Whitlock's job is to share his opinion.  Well, I can't argue with that, but I can expect for him to be steadfast in his opinion.  However, following K-State's win over USC on Thursday, Whitlock wrote this, a column in which he praises Martin and credits his coaching in the win over the Trojans.  On top of that, I can expect Whitlock, as a journalist, to support his opinions with facts.  As highlighted by his "Hummer-gate" story, Whitlock never lets a lack of facts get in the way of a good story.  Calling Martin "the least qualified coach in the Big 12" is yet another example of overlooking facts.  How is Martin any less qualified than Pat Knight or Sean Sutton?  Whitlock's assertion that K-State's talent will be non-existent is also a egregious error.  He does mention Jacob Pullen and Ron Anderson to be contributors next year, yet does not mention Dominique Sutton.  Sutton was a 4-star recruit and may be the best athlete on K-State's team.  Next year, K-State will also add Dennis Clemente, a transfer who was the starting point guard for Miami as a sophomore, Jamar Samuels, a red-shirt who chose K-State over Georgetown, and will be hoping that David Hoskins, a second-team All-Big 12 player last year, will return from a knee injury.  And looking down the road, K-State already has commitments from 2 top-100 recruits for the 2009 in Wally Judge and Rodney McGruder.  So to suggest that the cupboard is bare at K-State is just plain false.

I struggled with whether or not to write about Whitlock because giving him attention is exactly what he seems to want, but when a journalist is being this irresponsible I feel the need to call them out.

Round of 32 Saturday

I'm actually a little bit excited about the end of this weekend coming. Watching these games is exhausting.

(2) Duke 67 – (7) West Virginia 73

The announcing in this game made it tough to watch. My favorite part was towards the end when Bob Wenzel said something about the guys in the white uniforms having a lot of pride and tradition so we were likely to see a run (which was immediately followed by an easy backdoor cut for a West Virginia lay-up). I guess that means the guys in the dark, satanic uniforms love losing basketball games and killing babies. Luckily for the Baby Killers, Duke is a pretty bad basketball team that fell in love with the three. That’s not surprising, considering they were in love with the three all year. Alexander wasn’t shooting the ball well but his presence seemed to help the offense run. Mazzulla was obviously fantastic as well.

(3) Wisconsin 72 – (11) Kansas State 55

I realize it was a double-digit lead when it occurred, but the officials calling a double technical and essentially giving Walker a technical for flopping on a shove that shouldn’t have knocked him to the ground was outrageous. Wisconsin ended up winning fairly easily but this game could have been a lot closer had each team shot more like season averages from three point range.

(3) Xavier 85 – (6) Purdue 78

Xavier needs to get out of this habit of getting in huge early holes. That might be OK for Georgia and it might be OK for Purdue. That’s probably not OK once they start facing tougher teams. If they can come out of the gates a bit better they should be fine though. They’re tougher defensively and West Virginia will probably have trouble with the Musketeers.

(4) Washington State 61 – (5) Notre Dame 41

Harangody’s 22 rebounds sounds impressive until you realize he went 3-17 from the floor. I guess he had lots of opportunities for those 7 offensive rebounds. You just can’t expect to beat a team if you shoot under 25% from the floor. As it should be, clearly defense was the story for Washington State.

(3) Stanford 82 – (6) Marquette 81

God the Lopez twins make me actually physically nauseous. Yes, you guys are good; just shut the hell up. Marquette’s last possession and that thrown up jumper by McNeal was pretty stupid. They really gave Stanford all the opportunities they needed which is too bad because that means I have to watch Sideshow Bob and his stupid brother again.

(1) Kansas 75 – (8) UNLV 56

Although Notre Dame made UNLV look like a bunch of sharpshooters you still are not going to beat Kansas shooting 26.7% from the floor. In fairness to Kansas, they had an awful lot to do with the horrible shooting but it was one of those things that when UNLV did get an open look (and they did) they freaked out about it and threw up something horrible. If I’m a Kansas fan I’m happy that my team is advancing to next week but I’m not feeling all that confident in my team. They let a team that couldn’t hit anything stay in the game far too long despite shooting 58% from the floor themselves. Neither Villanova nor Siena is likely to struggle that much even with Kansas’s legitimately good defense.

(4) Pittsburgh 54 – (5) Michigan State 65

This game was extremely close until pretty late when Drew Neitzel hit three straight huge jumpers. In a game where offense was hard to come by the difference was that one team had Neitzel and one team did not.

(1) UCLA 53 – (9) Texas A&M 49

I feel the same way about UCLA that I feel about Kansas, only more so. The thing is that I trust Kansas more to get the bucket when they need it. Sure, Collison came up huge on those last two lay-ups, the last on in which he had Kevin Love running ahead as a lead blocker. Still, they couldn’t finish off the Aggies when I think Texas A&M went 3 weeks without a field goal and the Aggies were relying on their 43% free throw shooting? Texas A&M, by the way, is the worst lay-up shooting team I have ever seen. I know I need to credit UCLA for incredible interior defense but you gotta make one eventually or get fouled (although I’m convinced that Love had a lot of body on a lot of those blocks but that might only because Love has a lot of body period). And one last thing: if I am a UCLA fan and I ever see Love outside shooting a three I would walk over to Pauley, find him, and smack him. I don’t even care that he’s not terrible at threes. He’s just so dangerous inside and such a great offensive rebounder that he loses a ridiculous amount of value when he’s hanging around the perimeter.

NCAA Tournament, Day 1 and 2

OK, I admit this is going to be a weak review of some great action thus far. Unfortunately I was unable to see most of Thursday’s games and I was so engrossed with yesterday’s games that I cannot give it justice so I’m really not even going to try. I just feel compelled to write something, so here we go.

East

Assuming you don’t consider 9s over 8s and upset (and my goodness, Eric Gordon was terrible), there was all chalk in the East. Worse yet, there were not even good games. Oklahoma-St. Joseph’s was moderately entertaining but St. Joseph’s got themselves in too big of a hole to escape. Really the best game of the bunch was American putting a scare into Tennessee. The most impressive performance of the region was the hot shooting of Butler and Pete Campbell just slaughtering South Alabama.

Midwest

Starting with the Tampa games, we’ll see a 12/13 match-up so that’s fun. Siena looked terrific in slaughtering Vanderbilt. Beasley, Walker and company beat up on USC pretty easily. One of the big stories of the first two days was Stephen Curry blowing up against Gonzaga. That set up a pretty fascinating match-up against Georgetown. UMBC actually has some really good shooters but they couldn’t hit anything against the Hoya defense. As good as some of those UMBC shooters are, they are no Stephen Curry. My guess is Davidson will need to have someone else step up to knock off Georgetown. I feel cheated by the Kent State-UNLV game. I’m not saying Kent State should have won but they’re better than a 10-point a half team and that really should have been a good team.

South

Absolute chalk across the board in the South. I think the big thing to mention here was Jack McClinton’s second half performance against St. Mary’s. Curry got a lot of attention for his 30 point half against Gonzaga, and rightfully so. However, I really never heard much about McClinton’s 32 point half against a St. Mary’s team that forgot all about the whole thing where you’re supposed to score points; in fact, McClinton single-handedly scored as many points as St. Mary’s scored in the second half. The biggest thing I’m looking forward to seeing in round 2 is if Mississippi State can keep up their momentum that they got in that comeback win over Oregon to beat a Memphis team that really wasn’t that great against Texas Arlington.

West

The West has been by far the most exciting region thus far. A 15 seed had a lead with 12 seconds left and it was by far not the story of the region. Once again the Tampa pod dominated and in this case even more than the Midwest region as the 12 and 13 seeds won on buzzer beaters (or near buzzer beaters) in overtime. The Drake-Western Kentucky game was just a glorified three-point shootout and surprisingly WKU actually won it. I felt that the San Diego win was a bit more smoke and mirrors. Scoring was a bit of a chore for the Toreros (except for Gyno Pomare) and UConn seemed like they could score anytime they went inside, which they shockingly did not do every possession.

QUICK! YOU'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

Don't forget to challenge Chad and I in a bracket contest!!!

A Quick and Dirty Look at Possible NCAA Tournament Upsets

I don’t have time to do much previewing of tomorrow because of midterms and the like, but I wanted to rank each seeding match-ups in order of likelihood of upset (with the first game listed being most likely of an upset). So, here we go.

1 vs 16

Memphis vs TX Arlington

Kansas vs Portland State

North Carolina vs Mount Saint Mary’s

UCLA vs Mississippi Valley State

Obviously none of these are going to happen. I listed Memphis first as the weakest of the 1 seeds and then Kansas second because Portland State really isn’t bad. I think Mississippi Valley State is the worst team in this field.

2 vs 15

Georgetown vs UMBC

Duke vs Belmont

Texas vs Austin Peay

Tennessee vs American

We are almost certainly not going to see an upset on this line either, although if Georgetown plays down to the level of competition, they fail to get Hibbert adequately involved, and UMBC shoots the ball the way they did in the first half of their conference title game it would be interesting. That’s a lot of ifs, none of which are likely to come through. I would say of the other three Duke is the weakest 2 seed and Belmont is not horrible. The other two are unlikely but I think American has a particularly bad match-up with Tennessee.

3 vs 14

Xavier vs Georgia

Wisconsin vs CSU Fullerton

Louisville vs Boise State

Stanford vs Cornell

I don’t like any of these games. Georgia is likely to fall back to Earth. Fullerton has no match inside for Wisconsin’s size. Boise State will not be able to match Louisville’s athleticism, although if their shots are falling well they could stay alive. Cornell should not be able to play with Stanford.

4 vs 13

Washington State vs Winthrop

Vanderbilt vs Siena

Pittsburgh vs Oral Roberts

Connecticut vs San Diego

I actually think any of these games could be interesting. I like Winthrop’s defense and if they get one hot player, as they did with Michael Jenkins against UNC Asheville, they could stay alive against a Washington State team that is not explosive offensively. Siena has guards that can run with Vanderbilt. In my upset scenario I have not figured out who guards Ogilvie but if those guards are on Vanderbilt could have a battle. It’s hard to forget how well Pittsburgh played last weekend but Oral Roberts plays enough defense and if Robert Jarvis goes nuts they could stay in it. San Diego just has some wins over quality teams this year. I don’t see where they get the size to compete down low however.

5 vs 12

Notre Dame vs George Mason

Michigan State vs Temple

Drake vs Western Kentucky

Clemson vs Villanova

None of these ending in an upset would surprise me. George Mason has some high major talent and that Thomas-Harangody match-up should be good. If George Mason shoots well they could compete although the Irish have some shooters as well. Temple as quietly been playing good basketball for a while now and Michigan State has been awfully inconsistent. Drake is better than Western Kentucky but that assumes Drake shoots as well as they have all year. If the lids are on the bucket from 25 feet then Drake might not have other scoring options. Clemson has been really good but Villanova has some weapons, primarily in Scottie Reynolds, that are tough to stop if they get going. Clemson is a better all around team, however, and seems to be the safest bet of the 5s to survive.

6 vs 11

Purdue vs Baylor

USC vs Kansas State

Oklahoma vs St. Joseph’s

Marquette vs Kentucky

Those Baylor guards can play and while we know Purdue will defend I’m not sure they’re ready for the quickness Baylor can bring. Kansas State is a key upset threat for the simple reason that they have the best player in this tournament. I can easily picture a scenario in which St. Joseph’s beats Oklahoma but I just don’t see it happening because of St. Joseph’s sometimes refusal to play defense and I don’t see them being as strong as Oklahoma inside. Kentucky was a nice story this year, coming back from some horrible play early, but Marquette’s guards are just way too good for them.

7 vs 10

Miami vs. St. Mary’s

Gonzaga vs Davidson

Butler vs South Alabama

West Virginia vs Arizona

At this point it’s hard to consider anything an upset and I might end up picking all 10 seeds to win. I pick St. Mary’s as the most likely one just because I think they’re better than Miami. Davidson is not as athletically gifted as Gonzaga but I think they win if they play one of their better games. I don’t think Gonzaga would have enough answers for Curry. That is a fascinating game though. I think Butler is just better than South Alabama but South Alabama really is good and it should really help them that they don’t have to leave the state (although that didn’t do a lot of good in the Sun Belt tournament). I only put Arizona last on this list because Arizona just doesn’t like to win basketball games. Frankly, they should beat West Virginia though.

8 vs 9

Indiana vs Arkansas

Mississippi State vs Oregon

UNLV vs Kent State

BYU vs Texas A&M

The opponent of Indiana automatically jumps to the top. It’s still scary though because Indiana has far better than 8 seed talent (even if they are playing far worse than 8 seed quality basketball right now). I put Oregon second only because of Oregon’s talent. I think they’re definitely a more talented team than Mississippi State although they really haven’t been better. I actually like the MWC to go 2-0 in the first round of the tournament.

Is This Lead Safe?

As a fan of college basketball, you probably ask yourself this question during every game you watch. And now, you can finally answer that question accurately thanks to Bill James. Many of you may be familiar with Bill James as he is well-known in baseball and has had much to do with the popularization of "sabremetrics." In this article on Slate.com, James reveals his statistical formula to determine the safeness of a lead. Enjoy!

Chad vs. Joe Lunardi - Final Round

Well, this is it folks. One of the inspirations for starting this blog was the ridiculousness of Joe Lunardi. Mr. Lunardi has become a celebrity in the world of sports talking heads and all along I've felt that he has accomplished this despite the fact that he has little discernible talent. But as they say, the proof is in the pudding or in this case the proof is in the bracket. The people at The Bracket Project compile brackets from across the "blogosphere" and rate them by two scoring systems. Unfortunately, due to the newness of our blog, we are not featured yet on The Bracket Project (I'm working on changing that). In the mean time, I used the two scoring systems to compare my bracket to that of Joe Lunardi. And here are the results:

Parish Method
Chad: 149
Lunardi: 148

Paymon Method
Chad: 309
Lunardi: 307

Verdict: CHAD WINS!!!!

Challenge Chad and Josh in a Bracket Contest

First of all, thanks to everyone that was with us for our live blog. It was a good time.

So, Chad and I have started a group on Yahoo and we encourage you to join our group as well. We'll even do something fun for the winner. We haven't decided for sure what it is but it will probably be something like an entire blog post devoted to talking about how brilliant you are. That sounds like fun, doesn't it?


So, I don't know what information you need to join, but go to http://fantasysports.yahoo.com. The group name is Bizarro Joe Lunardi and the group ID# is 92985 (I think the number is what you actually need) and the password is Lunardi. I know you filled out a bracket anyway; just add it to our group and see how you measure up!

Live Blog

Chad's NCAA Bracket

So here's my official take on the bracket. I should note that I didn't attempt to follow any bracketing rules, so that may result in being off slightly in my seeding.

#1 seeds: North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis, Kansas
#2 seeds: Tennessee, Texas, Georgetown, Duke
#3 seeds: Wisconsin, Xavier, Stanford, Louisville
#4 seeds: Clemson, Notre Dame, Pitt, Purdue
#5 seeds: Marquette, UConn, Drake, Vanderbilt
#6 seeds: USC, Butler, Indiana, Washington St.
#7 seeds: West Virginia, Oklahoma, Michigan St, Arkansas
#8 seeds: Texas A&M, Gonzaga, Mississippi St, Davidson
#9 seeds: Kentucky, Miami, Kansas St, BYU
#10 seeds: Baylor, Kent St, UNLV, Arizona
#11 seeds: St. Joseph, St. Mary's, Oregon, Arizona St.
#12 seeds: South Alabama, Western Kentucky, Temple, Oral Roberts
#13 seeds: George Mason, San Diego, Georgia, Sienna
#14 seeds: Cornell, CS Fullerton, Boise St, Winthrop
#15 seeds: UMBC, Belmont, Austin Peay, Portland St
#16 seeds: American, Mt St Mary's, UT-Arlington, Coppin St, Mississippi Valley St

Last 4 out: Villanova, Illinois St, Ohio St, Virginia Tech

An Unenthusiastic Take on the Bubble

So, I guess today is a big day for the bubble. That said, it seems like today is as good a day as any to put forth my official take on the bubble. Before discussing the bubble we need to say who is already in. First I need to take out the 31 automatic qualifiers. For the sake of argument I am going to assume wins by Arkansas and Wisconsin to save two bids (and consequently you will not see those two listed as locks although they both are).

My locks for bids right now are the North Carolina/Clemson loser, Duke, Miami, Xavier, Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, Connecticut, Marquette, West Virginia, Purdue, Michigan State, Indiana, the Texas/Kansas loser, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, BYU, Stanford, Washington State, USC, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, and Gonzaga.

So, if I’m any good at math (I’m not) that leaves 10 open spots for what I have deemed 15 teams. If I didn’t list your favorite team that means the committee would be wrong to include them (not to say that’s impossible; they seem to be egregiously wrong pretty much at least once a year). So, I’ve ranked the 15 teams and here it goes:

1. St. Mary’s
2. Arizona
3. St. Joseph’s
4. Baylor
5. Kansas State
6. Kentucky
7. South Alabama
8. Villanova
9. Illinois State
10. Oregon

CURRENT CUT LINE

11. Arizona State
12. Massachusetts
13. Ohio State
14. Virginia Commonwealth
15. Virginia Tech

In my mind the true bubble should probably start after Kentucky. If you’re a fan of a team I ranked South Alabama or lower and your team does not get in you don’t deserve to whine; you had PLENTY of opportunities.

Be sure to check back in a couple of hours at the start of the selection show for our live blog!