THE WEEKLY 5-COUNT
By Chris Datres
As this is the first time your eyes have come across some of my words, let me give you a quick background of what you’ll be reading over the next few weeks. I’m currently a producer at Golf Channel but before that, spent 5 years working at ESPN, most of that with the college basketball division. I played ball in high school and am now currently an official. So I’ve seen just about every side of the game there is to see, though I wouldn’t mind a cheerleader’s point of view once or twice. This blog will be pretty simple. As the title indicates, it’ll be a list of five impressions from the week and a bonus look-ahead to the next week. Once the season reaches the conference tournament stage, my work level will go up a little bit more. So without further ado, here’s the ball. Try and get it in-bounds in the time you have.
1 Wednesday night’s North Carolina-Duke game once again lived up to the hype that normally accompanies it. The first half was played at a NBA-like pace which should have suited North Carolina perfectly, given their high-caliber firepower. Yet Duke led by 9 at the half. In the second half, Carolina did something they normally don’t do as well and that’s play defense. This is a team that gave up over 90 points to Maryland a couple of weeks ago, but they locked down Duke’s outside shooting and gave up just 31 points in the second half. Two things stood out from this game. First, Carolina guard Ty Lawson can’t be stopped when he wants to get to the basket. He reminds me a lot of Chris Paul, now, in the way he slithers between defenders and somehow gets the ball all the way to the hoop. Secondly, Duke is perilously moving toward the same demise they met last year. They got smoked by West Virginia in last year’s second round because they had no inside presence and shot 38% from the field. With the way Coach K runs that offense now - up-tempo with constant penetration and kick-outs, any team that can force them inside the 3-point line and turn the game into an inside brawl should find success. Wake Forest, Miami, and Clemson have found ways to do it in the last three weeks. Carolina succeeded in doing it in the second half Wednesday night.
2 Speaking of Wake Forest, their stock has certainly plummeted since beating Duke at the buzzer on January 28th. At the time, the win took them to 17-1, and they were beginning to look like a shoo-in to be a #2 seed or better. Since that win, they’ve dropped 3 of 4. I’ve noticed something very disturbing in the games that I’ve watched of theirs since that Duke game. Wake only has 3 seniors on their roster, though only one really sees appreciable playing time (Harvey Hale). Therefore, it’s a team of youngsters. They’re a very talented team and Jeff Teague is probably the second-best point guard in the ACC behind Ty Lawson. But in the game against Duke, they had a 10-point lead with 4:00 left but played like they were down 10. In their buzzer-beating loss to Georgia Tech, they had a 6-point lead with just over a minute to play but again played like they were behind. Point guards are the lifeblood to any successful team, and when they begin to show their inexperience in big spots, a team can collapse. Wake still has the potential to be a team to make a run at Detroit but only if Teague realizes the situation and guides his team through it.
3 There’s a lot of things that drive me crazy when I’m watching a basketball game, whether it be when I’m officiating a high school game or watching a college game. Usually, my pet peeves in a high school game revolve around coaches who are better refs than they are coaches. But in the college game, my biggest pet peeve is teams that can’t make free throws. It’s 15 feet with nobody in your face, and you practice it every day, or at least you should. What is so difficult about this shot? So far this season, two teams have each lost a pair of games directly because they couldn’t make free throws. Kansas blew a lead against Syracuse in November and then blew another lead against Missouri on Monday night because of untimely free throw misses. Florida lost on the road to South Carolina because of missed free throws and bad free throw defense and then on Tuesday night lost to Kentucky when Nick Calathes missed 3 free throws with :00.6 left that would have tied the game. Just last night, Temple nearly blew an 11-point lead in the final minute to St. Joe’s when they went 7 of 18 from the line down the stretch, and Gonzaga had to weather a 3-point prayer at the buzzer because Jeremy Pargo and Matt Bouldin clanked game-icing free throw opportunities. If you don’t think it’s a valid argument, just ask Memphis about shooting 12 of 19 from the line in a national championship game that they lost in overtime.
4 The word out that Connecticut may lose guard Jerome Dyson to a lateral meniscus tear in his knee for the rest of the season is a huge blow to their national title hopes. Not only is Dyson the second-leading scorer on this team, but he’s also the motor that drives the UCONN offense. Sure, Jeff Adrien and Haseem Thabeet are the headliners, but Dyson as well as point guard A.J. Price (remember, he blew his knee out in their first round loss to San Diego in last year’s tournament) were the penetrators and distributors. This will put a huge bullseye on Price, Kemba Walker, and Craig Austrie to pick up Dyson’s slack.
5 Each week between now and the tournament, I’m going to give you one below-the-radar team likely to be a 11-14 seed that could be a first round upset special. I’ll begin this feature with the VMI Keydets. VMI is known for their up-tempo, pressing style that averages 95.8 points per game. The 20-4 Keydets are led by twins Chavis and Travis Holmes, who were featured in a recent Sports Illustrated article. They’ve already taken out Kentucky at Rupp Arena which used to be an impossible thing to do but is now becoming a yearly tradition (see Gardner-Webb last year) and that high-octane output could give a 4 or 5 seed like an overhyped ACC or Big Ten team (Illinois, Clemson come to mind) huge fits. Keep them in mind if they make it into the bracket. Right now, they are tied with Radford at the top of the Big South standings and will likely have to withstand a battle with Liberty in the conference tournament. Liberty is led by Seth Curry, younger brother of Davidson superstar Stephen Curry.
BONUS
3 games between now and next Friday that you CAN’T miss:
Georgetown at Syracuse (Saturday, Noon, ESPN) - Both teams have taken it on the chin in the last month. Syracuse has lost 6 of their last 8 while Georgetown has dropped 6 of their last 7 and fallen completely off the college hoops map. It’s hard to say which team needs this game more, but a Georgetown road win in the Carrier Dome could go a long way to turning around a season that had a lot of promise just 6 weeks ago.
Pitt at UCONN (Monday, 7:00, ESPN) - With Marquette having dropped two conference games in a row, this game re-assumes its rightful place as the conference game of the year. How will the Huskies respond in their first big game without Jerome Dyson? Who will win the battle down low between Dejuan Blair and Haseem Thabeet? I think the answer to that last question will be whoever stays out of foul trouble.
Washington at UCLA (Thursday, 11:00, FSN) - UCLA may really need this game to get back on track should it lose to Arizona on Saturday. Washington should be coming in here on a high since they have a relatively easy game against Oregon, the worst team in the Pac-10. Washington has been flying under the radar in conference all year, and this could send a real message. UCLA has won their last 4 home games by an average of 22.8 points.
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.