College basketball 2009-10 running thread No. 1

I guess she wants more than a kiss this time.

 

Onuaku could return to practice on Monday, with a quad injury. The Orange would be toast if they went down to a six-man rotation.

 

The way numerous higher seeds have fallen in the conference tournaments certainly makes it seem likely that the NCAAs, especially the first two rounds, could be really filled with a ton of upsets.

 

It's becoming more and more obvious that a lot of middle-to-high seeds, who have NCAA bids already locked up, are basically tanking early-round conference tournament games to get out of playing a couple more games.

 

Blitz, if UAB gets in, it'll be a prosecutable offense. You obviously didn't watch them yesterday against Southern. No way that's an NCAA Tournament team.

 

Wow, spectacularly uneven performance from ACC POY tonight. Vasquez shoots 6-21 FG, including 2-11 on 3s, with 6 turnovers ... and still manages to finish with 17 points, 5 steals, 4 assists and 3 rebounds. Say what you want about the kid, he's a gunner but he can fill up a stat sheet.

On another note, let me humbly throw William & Mary into the at-large pool being discussed here. Yes, I know the Tribe inexplicably lost to Towson and JMU and UNCW (all 200-plus RPI teams), but they also won at Maryland, at Wake, beat Richmond at home and reached the CAA final. Three of their 10 losses were to ODU, a dangerous tournament team.

W&M's three OOC wins are as good as anything on Virginia Tech's resume. The Hokies gorged on cupcakes, got even fatter by feasting on the bottom of a mediocre ACC, and yet they're supposedly an at-large lock because they beat an inconsistent Georgia Tech team in Atlanta? I don't get it, and I'm a VT fan.

W&M's RPI is right around the same as VT's, the SOS is better -- remarkable, considering their respective conference affiliations -- and they have better-looking wins. If you took the names/conferences away and did a blind resume comparison, I bet most everyone would have a hard time deciding which team deserves an at-large.

 

Ah, yes, Gus Johnson screaming, it must be about March Madness time. This UTEP-Houston game should be fun down the stretch. Kelvin Lewis has 28 points and six 3's for the Cougars.

 

SHOCK 'EM COOGS

 

As long as Houston finishes this one off, there goes one bubble spot. Illinois might want to beat OSU to feel good about being in the tournament.

 

Not sure why they would want to do that. Eight of the past 10 champs have won their conference tournament. That time off doesn't always work out for the best.

 

Agreed. There's something to be said for rhythm.

 

Time to see if Mr. Turner has some more theatrics left in him.

Edit: A beautiful drive-and-dish gets the game tied.

Edit 2: A reverse layup in traffic by Turner ties it and now Illinois just called a timeout with 3.1 seconds left.