THE WEEKLY 5-COUNT

By Chris Datres

1 I’m going to start this week with the loneliest number. Apparently, nobody wants to be saddled with the number to the left of their name this year. Carolina, UCONN, Pitt, and Oklahoma have had chances to hold on to it and they cough it away. Fortunately, college basketball is a sport that decides its champion on the court instead of through some fraudulent computer program. So basically, the rankings are just for the media and sports information people to get excited about. They mean absolutely nothing. However, if this continues to be a trend as we move into the Big Dance, I’ll be studying those 8-9 seeds pretty closely to see if any of them can pull a second-round upset.

2 The dreaded I-word reared its ugly head to two teams this week. Oklahoma’s stud big man, Blake Griffin, got knocked woozy early in the Sooners game against Texas Saturday night. He missed that game along with Monday’s game against Kansas. Not surprisingly, OU lost both games. It’s unknown when Griffin will return but based on these two results, it’s pretty obvious that the Sooners are not 1-seed material if he’s not out there. Wednesday night, Marquette lost their point guard, Dominic James to a broken foot which will cost him the rest of the season. It’s funny to say this but I think Marquette will be just fine without James. Hear me out. I’ve seen a few Marquette games this year and in every one of them, I’ve watched James and wondered what is going through his head with his shot selection. He might be the point guard, but he isn’t exactly the best decision-maker out there. And amazingly, he’s only a 46% free throw shooter. Marquette will have to get by a little bit more with their defense but as long as they don’t get into a track meet with someone in which they need to score points, they’ll do okay.

3 I touched on Memphis last week and I’m going to go further in-depth on them now. After Thursday’s win over UAB, they’ve won 19 in a row overall and 55 in a row in Conference USA. Granted, C-USA doesn’t have the most competitive of teams but anytime you can go through nearly three full seasons undefeated, it’s an amazing feat. So what might be the blueprint to beating the Tigers? Last year, I thought that if a team could wall off the lane to stop penetration and force them to become jump shooters, they’d stand a better chance. That’s not the case this year. I believe a team like UAB is the formula for success - quick, athletic defenders who also play physical and a couple of dead-eye shooters. The problem for the Blazers on Thursday night was that one of their dead-eye shooters was firing blanks. Robert Vaden went 0-for-17 from the field. This is a guy who averages 18.5 points per game and he couldn’t find the ocean while standing on the pier. As a result, Memphis could be looking at a #1 seed if it wins its remaining 3 regular season games and the C-USA Tournament. Considering the personnel that the Tigers lost last year, this should earn John Calipari some votes for national coach of the year.

4 Looking across the landscape of the country, I’m running out of under-the-radar teams that might show up in the 10-thru-13 seed line that could be a first-round upset winner. ESPN’s concocted Bracketbusters event was held last weekend and it didn’t flush out too much. Utah State is currently 26-3 but because they play in the WAC and because they haven’t really beaten anyone of note outside the conference, they’ll probably show up in the tournament as a double-digit seed. But don’t sleep on them just because they don’t play a Murderer’s Row schedule. Stew Morrill’s squad has been to the Tournament five times this decade and this year, they’re led by 6-9, 240-pound senior bruiser Gary Wilkinson, who is averaging 17 points per game. But where they’re lacking is on the boards. They aren’t in the top-100 nationally and got beat hard off the boards in their 11-point loss to St. Mary’s last Saturday. As usual, my recommendation will be based on their matchup in the first round if they get there.

5 It felt like a trip in the Wayback Machine on Saturday when I flipped on the Carolina-Maryland game and saw the Terps wearing gold jerseys. For a long time, they went with gold as a predominant color at home until Gary Williams got to town. Seeing those jerseys reminded me of Len Bias swooping across the lane with his huge wingspan and laying one in or snatching one off the glass. Something must have worked because the Terps rode Greivis Vasquez’s triple-double to an overtime win. Unfortunately, they couldn’t sustain it Wednesday night as they lost to Duke. Maryland currently sits at 17-10 and Williams has been receiving some heat from the DC-area press about his recruiting practices and his not being able to land the top talent. Let’s not forget that he won the 2002 National Championship with a group that wasn’t too heralded when they came out of high school.

BONUS Here’s your 3-point play viewer’s guide for the next seven days: Marquette at Louisville (Sunday, Noon, CBS): This isn’t the type of game that the Eagles can hide James’s injury as the Cardinals will go full-court for all 40 minutes. Don’t count Louisville out of the #1 seed talk because if they can sweep their way to a Big East Tournament title, they might snatch it. Missouri at Kansas (Sunday, 2pm, CBS): Mike Anderson has his Tigers as the quietest top-10 team this season has seen. But if you haven’t seen them, you’ve got to check them out in this game. They’re a high-octane team that employs the old Nolan Richardson 40 Minutes of Hell defense. They captured the last meeting with the hated Jayhawks on a last-second shot. Oklahoma at Missouri (Wednesday, 9pm, ESPN): You think this is a big week for the Tigers? Should they beat the Jayhawks and then top the Sooners, they’ll likely sew up the #1 seed for the Big XII Tournament. I’m not sure you could have found more than 10 people outside of Columbia that thought that was possible. This could also be the return of Blake Griffin to the OU lineup and I can tell you that Missouri doesn’t have an answer for him on the defensive end if Griffin is 100 percent healthy.

Got any questions or comments? Feel free to e-mail me at gopens24@aol.com. Who knows, maybe I’ll include your “mailbag” comment in a future 5-Count.