2012-13 College Basketball Running Cordial Discussion

"Again, congratulations to them, and they should have fun and burn benches and do all that stuff. I'm all for that." -- Coach K

Burning benches?

 

I'll be the last person in the world to defend K, but that's just not true. Someone asked about it because people (not me, but people, since the wireless is so shitty inside JPJA that I had to rush down to file rather than watch the court storming) saw Duke players exchanging barbs with UVa students and someone said there was a near altercation between K and a student. He gave the answer that appeared in most stories, then ended with, "They had a great crowd, and I won't want to demean the game like that. They played great. Harris was unbelievable. That's the story of the game. Not what happened. We lost. Please, that's not where I want to go with this. I don't want to take away from Virginia's great win."

 

Sonner, the Duke beat folks told us that's what they do after big wins over UNC or whoever. We had the same reaction.

 

Weird.

 

Michael Phillips (Richmond beat writer) blogged last night that when it became clear the students were going to rush the court a security guard came up and tried to have the Duke team wait till the rush had gone by, but K screamed at him before pushing his way past.

http://uvasports.blogs.timesdispatch.com/2013/02/28/duke-coach-unhappy-crowd-handled/

 

We know what he sits on to watch TV now at home.

 

There are a few things that come close to somewhat explaining Virginia's loss to ODU.

1.) The freshmen are a lot better now than they were early in the season.

2.) There were several injuries. Starting point guard Evans didn't play. It was the first game without Darion Atkins.

3.) The flu was going around the locker room. Harris played with it, but apparently told some reporters last night he had to go to the hospital after.


Still, if Duke loses to Miami and UNC we could have an ACC Tournament where the No. 1 seed lost to Florida Gulf Coast and the No. 2 seed lost to ODU.

 

Like I said, I didn't see anything after the initial wave of students because I had to rush down that back hallway so I could file. I'll defer to him on that.

And Jake, yeah, Harris said last night he spent Christmas in the hospital. Was a little sick during the ODU game and flying home to Washington right afterward exacerbated it.

 

Actually, the freshmen have been struggling the last few games. Part of it is the freshman wall, part of it is Mike Tobey's urge to kiss hoes on the mouth. But aside from Justin Anderson's mini-breakout, it's been the upperclassmen that have carried the team.

 

Random thought:

How is Purdue as awful as they are now? Watched them on Wednesday. Absolutely lifeless. Are they paying the price for Butler being so good and just down the road? Or they just paying the price for being in West Lafayette?

 

Possibly paying the price in recruiting for Matt Painter's flirtation with Missouri?

Michigan, more than Butler, has made inroads on Purdue's natural recruiting pipeline. Look at that roster. Glenn Robinson III, Spike Albrecht, and Mitch McGary are all from Purdue country.

 

And you know what, UVa's not the first team to lay a stinker down the day before leaving for Christmas break. That's not an excuse you can give the selection committee, but it happens.

The problem with strictly crunching numbers is that teams evolve from November to March. UVa started to figure it out around the time ACC play began. Miami's blowouts of Duke and UNC are much more indicative of how good it is, but carry the same weight when you thrown them into the computer as the injury-plagued loss to Gulf Coast.