The whispers were almost deafening. Coming into the game, there was talk that Michigan, the team that looked like a high school team last year, would come into play UCLA, the nation’s 4th ranked team, in the 2K Sports Classic Benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer in New York, and win.

And those whispers turned to loud cheers at the end of the game when the Wolverines walked off the floor to “Hail to the Victors” with a broad smile across Coach John Beilein’s face.

Manny Harris scored 15 and hit two huge free throws in the 55-52 shocker in the semifinals of the classic, and now they face Duke–who they will play again in 2 weeks. (Yes, no rest for the weary, apparently) The Wolverines harassed the Bruins to 17 turnovers and Michigan shot over 60 percent in the second half, despite only making 5-20 three pointers all game.

Stu Douglass tallied 10 points for Michigan, which beat a ranked opponent on a neutral court for the first time since 1998. Michigan had lost 12 straight games to ranked teams. It’s also the first win over a top-five team since 1997 when the Wolverines topped Duke. (AP)

Can they do it again? My crystal ball is a little fuzzy, but who cares! Yeah for the Big Ten!

It’s hip to be square. Right? In, Wisconsin’s case, it better be. They aren’t pretty on offense, they do not have a dominant scorer that can take over games, and they’ve gotten by on tenacious defense to earn them a number 3 seed. So….what can you do with that in the NCAAs? Well, more than you think.

Yes, the Midwest regional is stacked. Yes, the Badgers may have gotten a bit of a raw deal when coasting through the Big 10 tournament, ranked six in the polls, and end up with a 3. But that’s what the Big 10 has to prove this tournament–that they can still play with the big boys. Wisconsin may be the conference’s biggest hope to prove all the naysayers wrong.

FIRST ROUND: Cal State-Fullerton

The Titans are in their first ever NCAA tournament, and they boast a pretty high-octane offense, chiming in as one of the more “efficient” field goal percentages in the country. However, when you look at their schedule, they’ve never really played a lockdown team like Wisconsin, and my feeling is that the Badgers will frustrate them early and knock the wind out of their sails in the second half.

SECOND ROUND: Winner of USC/Kansas St.

This is a rather curious call, and while USC seems to be the hip pick of the tourney due to their RPI and strength of schedule, I’ll base this game on that assumption. The Trojans bring in future NBA star OJ Mayo and a tenacity on defense that is similar to UCLA and Wisconsin, but the issue with the Trojans is that they don’t have much depth than their very good starting five. They rebound well, but against the big polar bears Brian Butch, Joe Krabbenhoft, and Greg Stiemsma, I don’t know if it will be enough to overcome the experience and planning that Bo Ryan can give the Badgers. While over 70% of Yahoo! users have picked Wisconsin for this game, it all depends on the ability to shoot the ball well and defend Mayo, who averages over 20 a game.

THIRD ROUND: Georgetown/Davidson/Gonzaga

With the seedings, it will more than likely be Georgetown, who is trying to make it back to  a repeat Final Four. While the Hoyas haven’t normally fared well against stronger defensive teams, their defense as compared to Wisconsin is almost like looking in a mirror. With Roy Hibbert leading the team in the frontcourt, this team can also score–their margin of difference was 12 points per game, and considering they played in the strong Big East, that’s something worth noting. Wisconsin would darn near need to play a perfect game to beat the Hoyas, and considering the experience they bring, I just can’t see the Badgers pulling the upset here, especially considering the weak offense they have shown over the last month.

Yes, they COULD pull the upset, and it may bring a bit more respect (or at least a little, maybe), but going to the Sweet Sixteen is nothing to scoff at; this team is solid, and if they were in an easier regional, I could be talking about them going a lot further, but unfortunately, not only did they get snubbed a bit on the seeding, but they also double-whammied them with the Midwest. Good luck, Badgers, you’re going to need it.

USC Frosh O.J. Mayo asked his coach, Tim Floyd, if he could go to the Denver Nuggets and Lakers game. He had received tickets from Carmelo Anthony, a friend of his since seventh grade. And now the NCAA Men in Black are investigating it. Floyd is saying that Mayo shouldn’t be held liable for that because he asked Floyd about it and that Floyd was ignorant of the rules violation. Read the rest of this entry »

While the California Golden Bears haven’t exactly gotten off to the starts that teams like UCLA, Washington St., and even Arizona St. have in the league, there is a player that the Bears have that many covet–and that’s sophomore Ryan Anderson, who coming into this week has shot over 52% from three-point land over his last 10 and 94% from the charity stripe. In a college basketball world where shooting the ball has become more art than science, Anderson is Van Gogh with deadly range.  (But he has both ears).

The Golden Bears will probably need actually much more from the sophomore, as they take on ASU and Arizona this week. The schedule never seems to let up in the Pac 10, so having Anderson capitalize on the seven double doubles he’s already achieved is paramount to Cal moving and staying in the upper echelon of the league; it won’t be easy.

I say that because even though on paper the Golden Bears have an 11-4 record, the wins haven’t exactly come against powerhouses. The closest thing to high quality opponents have been USC and Missouri, and when they’ve faced quality competition, they haven’t fared so well. Can they ride Anderson to the promised land? Ben Braun sure hopes so!

I think in order to make things more streamlined and formative, I am going to start doing some frequent posting that encapsulates different items on certain days in order for fluidity to the site. That being said, here is what my schedule will be going forward per conference:

Monday-Big Ten

Tuesday-Pac 10

Wednesday-ACC

Thursday-Big East

Friday-Big 12

Saturday-SEC

Sunday-All others

In these daily capsules, I will have different posts discussing the previous week’s events, news, and future discussions about the teams and conferences themselves (not limiting to specific sports). I will also post on news events as they transpire with my two, or three cents, maybe even a dollar’s worth. For those of you out there that would like to have a discussion on a certain topic, shoot an email my way and I’ll be happy to give it a shot.

Thanks for your support of the site and I look forward to getting started on this!

Tim AKA “The Athletic Supporter”

Wazzu continues their upward descent and have eclipsed the top 4 ranking in the country. I know I wrote a pretty harsh article about the Cougars a while back, but here they still are, plugging away, albeit some people have formed a similar opinion (yahoo’s preview of the Wash St-USC game notes that “After cruising through a mediocre non-conference schedule and defeating instate rival Washington 56-52 in its Pac-10 opener on Saturday, Washington State’s (13-0, 1-0) schedule is getting considerably tougher.”)

Now, I don’t want to disrespect Wash St. at all, but these next couple of days will ultimately prove with the ranking they have–is it live or is it Memorex? Is it the real deal or is it hype? Because from today until Saturday night, Wazzu plays USC with hyped up frosh O.J. Mayo (His parents had to have been hungry after childbirth) and then travels to Pauley Pavilion for a matchup against #5 UCLA.

I think that, unfortunately, the Cougars won’t leave LA unscathed. While I don’t think they’ll get beat both games, I do think that with the rigorousness of facing two high-quality teams back to back will be a curse for the Cougars, and at best I see them leaving the city of angels with a 1-1 record. What will be the ultimate factor is experience and depth and how the role players can contribute to such a physically demanding stretch here. I actually think that if it would have been reversed and WSU played UCLA first, they would have had a better chance of leaving at 2-0, but I think that the fact that they are facing UCLA second really makes a big difference and gives the Bruins, with their staunch defense and physical nature, a huge advantage. I know that WSU is one of the best statistical defenses in the country, and if they have the wild notion to win both games, they will absolutely have to keep tempo for the entire two game set, in my opinion, and playing away from home, it makes that darn near impossible.

Now, if the Cougars come out of this still undefeated, I’ll be the first one to post about my “bad”. But I just am going with a realist theory here that it’s too much to ask for a team that has been for the most part relatively coasting for some time now.

It’s a bird…no wait, it kind of looks like a snake with spikey things coming out of it…is it a cougar? Noooo! I got it! It’s an overly hyped team that will be remembering the glory days of being in the top 10 after they fall to smithereens and the gray line of mediocre teams after they play some real teams!! Ahhhh how could I have missed that???

Every year it seems that a new team bursts onto the scene like pimples on a 13-year old boy. This year is no different, as the upstart Washington St. Cougars are sitting at 9-0 and have a big win under their belt at Gonzaga. Problem is, that’s pretty much their only big win, yet here they are at a number seven ranking. Sure, sure they beat Mississippi Valley St. by almost 50 and Idaho by over 30, but…umm…so what?

Remember South Florida in football? Yeah, me neither. After the Bulls reached the pinnacle of #2, a strong dose of reality hit them where it counts. Once the Pac 10 season opens, Wazzu will be taking that same dose when team like UCLA,  Oregon, and Arizona take them on.  Oh–but Mr. Athletic Supporter, this Cougar team is sooooooooooo balanced. Oh really? It’s great to have 4 player average in double figures, but once again, the bench of the Tarheels could do the same with the teams WSU has faced.

Give me a break. Enough with the hype. This is what got college football in trouble.

Ernie Kent was coming home. In classic Thanksgiving fashion, his highly-touted Ducks, whom I have pumped, were coming to Moraga, California, to play the Saint Mary’s Gaels. It would be a good game for the Ducks, a nice non-conference tuneup, plus it would put a little chunk of change in Saint Mary’s athletic fund.

What Kent didn’t expect was to leave with an L, and that’s just what happened.

Although the Gaels are now 4-0, no one really thought that they could out-man and out-play, but that’s just what occurred in a convincing 99-87 win. St. Mary’s is known for its throwback run-and-gun type offense, but the difference in this game was at the charity stripe, where St. Mary’s outscored the Ducks by the exact margin of the game–and it wasn’t as if the Gaels were doing anything special there–they shot an average 77% from the line, meanwhile Oregon was clanking up a 64% free throw percentage.

Folks, that’s not going to win you many games unless you’re scorching hot from somewhere else, and the Ducks weren’t. Congratulations to the Gaels, this will more than likely start giving them a fair amount of votes in the poll, and perhaps this is just a sign of things to come. Hopefully not for the Ducks, but the parity once again shows in college basketball.

For me to say that the Oregon Ducks are looking impressive, I am sure you’d start raving about Dennis Dixon and the spread offense and the greatness of the Pac-10 and, I would say, “nay”.

Not that those things aren’t true, but I am not talking about football–I am referring to hoops. Standing at #11 in this week’s NCAA basketball poll, the Ducks are an impressive 3-0 and looking to capitalize on some early competition–albeit that it’s not stellar (when is it this early?) . But even beating a team like Western Michigan by almost double digits is nothing to sneeze at (Bless you). And the fact that they’ve rolled these 3 games out in three days is impressive as well.

Lead by Malik Hairston, who had a helluva year last year with a plethora of injuries,  the Ducks are deep and poised; with coach Ernie Kent who isn’t just your average coach, the Ducks could be one of the most dangerous teams in the country that many seem to forget amongst the Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12.

Oregon does need to improve from the charity stripe, but it makes up for that with prowess from the arc. Against the Broncs, they shot a measly 69% from the free throw line yet sank 48% from deep (go figure).

Look out for good things from this squad.