The off-season sometimes provides you with slim pickins - and when that happens, ain’t nothing you can do by ride that bomb all the way to the ground. Plus, real life has made strong demands on us today, so a-blogrollin’ we will go.

Today’s theme music - the exact opposite of how we feel these days as nuptials draw near:

Jarrett Carter may be our new favorite blogger, with two worthy posts at two worthy blogs - first, five reasons to keep the best D1 HBCU conference tournament in the Cackolack. We agree with him on all points, though we are saddened that the ACC Tournament won’t be in Greensboro, its rightful location. Atlanta is for bad traffic, gun crime, Tech fans, and SEC affairs - the ACC has no business dragging itself to such depths.

In worthy post #2, Carter asks if Gary Williams wants out of Maryland. Based on the offseason he’s had, as thoughtfully collected by the boys at DBR, who could blame him for wanting to get out with his reputation intact?

This is a bit old, but so is recruiting obsession - Mike DeCourcy breaks down the five spring signings that actually matter over at the SN. That one of said five impact players signed with Fresno Freakin’ State says all that is necessary about the current importance of the spring signing period.

In further evidence that as statistics increase, the result equals one, Yet Another Basketball Blog attempts to quantify coaching success based on recruiting and tournament play. Coach K underperforms! Tom Izzo does better than expected! Northwestern sucks! Oliver Purnell can’t beat competition with five breathing players! Surprises all around! (We kid. It’s a good piece that gives evidence to the conventional wisdom. But don’t expect a revelation.) (HT: RTC.)

Finally, while totally unrelated to college basketball, we love when two worlds collide - Above the Law, the preeminent blog in legal snark, links to Clay Travis, he of the CBS Spin on Sports column, as he gives law school selection advice. We link to this without comment, other than to say that given that Messr. Travis has abandoned the law to become a full-time sports writer, UVA Law should retroactively grant him admission.

After a few hours of sleep, a few hours of work, a few cups of coffee and reading more than a few other people’s takes, our final thoughts on last night’s championship game:

Not to be Debbie Downer, but … : You go on a date. Dinner? Mediocre. Dessert? Too small. Parking? Ridiculously expensive. But you get home, the action in the bedroom makes up for it all, and you chalk it up as a altogether excellent night. You then proceed to make the exact same plans the next time you have a night free of the rugrats. Are you lying to yourself a little? Yeah, but you are at least aware of it, and choosing to remember what matters most.

We understand this tendency of us fleshbots - but it makes for too-rosy-by-half reporting at times. The party line this morning was that last night’s game was excellent from start to finish, which is only half right. In the first half, Memphis couldn’t make (or create) a decent shot for Rose or CDR, and Kansas let them stay in the game with pisspoor rebounding. Neither team was passing the ball effectively (each team netted 11 steals, which is awfully high for a championship game, and there a dozen or so more available), and a Jayhawk team that normally relies on the deep ball shot a less-than-mediocre 13 percent from behind the arc.

So, yes, the ending of the game was fantastic, and deserves to be remembered as such. But let’s not pretend that we were watching 40 minutes of world-class basketball. (But, of course, that’s OK, because we got what we signed up for. We’re just being honest with ourselves.)

The Unsung Hero: Now, to shine a more positive light (because after all, we enjoyed the game, didn’t you?), where is the love for Darrell Arthur? We know that the MOP had to go to Mario Chalmers … it just had to … but Darrell Arthur was the real player of the game for Kansas. 20 points, 10 rebounds (5 offensive), solid defense in the paint? His play opened up the lane for Kansas, and more importantly allowed the Jayhawk perimeter players to concentrate on CDR and Rose.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story: Not to pick up the flag in the never-ending bloggers vs. MSM war, but last night’s game provided a perfect example of how it is often a blogger who gets the story right. Every where we looked this morning, writers zoomed in on Memphis’ notoriously terrible free throw shooting as their raison de la mort. Gary Parrish at Sportsline? Free throws. Andy Katz at ESPN? Free throws. Weintraub and Feinstein? Inter alia, free throws. Even usually top level blogs, like Deadspin and Rush the Court, fell for the party line.

We aren’t saying that Memphis didn’t lose the game because of missed free throws - they did, at least in part - but it wasn’t due to their normal bad free throw shooting. In fact, their strategy seemed sound - the entire final two minutes, the ball stayed in the hands of their two GOOD free throw shooters, CDR and Derrick Rose. They just hit a streak of bad luck at the wrong time. MJD gets a tip of the cap, or theoretical dollars, or whatever it is we give out on the internet as prizes these days, for getting the nuance of this story right.

Our grandfather is fond of saying that he’d rather be lucky than good, and KU was both tonight. Lucky when they needed to - Memphis couldn’t make shots or free throws down the stretch, allowing the Jayhawks to overcome a 9-point deficit with 2 minutes left to send the game to overtime. Good when they needed to - Kansas kept up the momentum they stole all through the extra period, and put a foot to Memphis’ neck. Special kudos to Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur, both of whom played with the balls of a porn star all night.

As for Memphis - a fantastic season comes up one win short. No shame for this team - they did everything asked of them BUT win the national title. Not too shabby when you consider that tasks on their to-do list included “make up for playing in a shitty conference”, “put up with being underrated all season with a smile”, and “try not to laugh at Calipari’s slickback”.

More photos grabbed off the wire feeds after the jump. We’ll take the morning off from writing morning roundups, and be back with more thoughts on this game and a preview of the offseason in the afternoon.

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - In response to demands from coaches and fans of college basketball, as well as rising rancor from media coverage of the sport, the NCAA promised that it would make changes to the way in which college basketball chooses its national champion starting in 2009.

“We didn’t want to throw away seventy years of tradition on a whim, but tension against the tournament-style format has been building for years,” said NCAA President Myles Brand on Monday morning after a three-hour meeting with university presidents. “Ultimately, we think that it is time that college basketball came into agreement with our other major revenue sport so that the fans can finally be satisfied with end-of-season matchups that are both satisfying and will conclusively determine the best team in the sport.”

The new Poll of Objective and Observable Percentages (POOP) system*, designed by ACC Commissioner and BCS President John Swofford and a team of trained monkeys, is based on the successful Bowl Championship Series used in Division I-A football. Teams will be rated on a weekly basis, starting Jan. 1 of each year / season. The rankings will take into account three factors: the team’s rank in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), the team’s rank in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, and the team’s average rating across eight computer-based ranking systems. Each of these three sources will be treated equally, and the average of the three values will constitute the team’s straight POOP score.

“Our hope is that by using POOP to determine who plays for the national championship, rather than the current haphazard system of the NCAA tournament, we’ll be able to restore some normalcy to the proceedings,” said Swofford. “I mean, the whole March Madness name is a double-edged sword, ya know?”
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Where posterization happens.

THE GAMES EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Country 1, Hollywood 0
Memphis 78, UCLA 63

We’re guessing that whatever team ends up drafting Kevin Love in a few months will wish that this picture didn’t exist. With just under five minutes to go and UCLA fighting back against a seven-point Memphis lead, Chris Douglas-Roberts (or CDR, because apparently everyone needs an abbreviation) ran a perfect backdoor cut and slammed the ball down onto UCLA wunderkind Kevin Love. If we were Gregg Easterbrook, we would have written “game over” in our notebook. As we are not (and thank God), we enjoyed another delicious bite of honey chicken and resumed conversation with our family.

A nip-and-tuck game throughout the first half, Memphis pulled away early in the second half and never looked back. Both Sadie and Jamie were correct last week - the battle in the paint determined the outcome. We were just surprised that it was Memphis and Joey Dorsey that won that battle.

And Now Kansas Really Doesn’t Give a Damn About North Carolina
Kansas 84, North Carolina 66

In this game’s waning moments, Jim Nantz and Billy Packer described the match as “a play in three acts.” We think Jim was getting a little overdramatic, perhaps in preparation for the Masters this coming weekend. The better analogy was to a debate between two moody mean girls:

First 15 Minutes
Kansas [models in mirror]: I’m fierce!
Carolina [gorges on Doritos]: I’m a hiefer!
Result: Kansas 40-12.

Second 15 Minutes
Kansas [cries into pillow]: Why did he leave me?
Carolina [shoves pins into voodoo doll]: Serves you right, bitch.
Result: Carolina 38-14.

Final 10 Minutes
Kansas [beams as it applies blush]: He still loves me!
Carolina [gobbles antidepressants]: I hate you, God! I hate you! I wish I were dead!
Result: Kansas 30-16.

And everyone lived happily ever after. And, yes, we were visiting our teenage cousins this weekend. How did you guess?

Stockholm Syndrome!

THE GAME EVERYONE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Alright, We Give Up - We Love It
Bradley 83, Tulsa 74

After careful consideration … and the prospect of no more college hoops until November … we’ve been turned around on the College Basketball Invitational. We were initially skeptical since the abject goal of the tournament was to make money off exhibition games, and the sham justification offered was, “Hey, more teams would kill to play in the postseason, even if its completely lame and no one watches!” (Which describes many regular season games as well, FWIW.) We fought against this load of crap, until sleep deprivation and a family sized bag of Funyuns forced us to accept that while their argument was a sham, it was also correct.

Players and coaches, as a general rule, enjoy games. Fans enjoy attending games. And no one is tying the rest of us down and forcing us to watch, so we can’t think of a person who is being harmed by another post-season tournament, even if we all have to admit that it’s kind of ridiculous on its face. Plus, we remembered that we like people making money. (Well, everyone but the noble amateur student-athlete, of course.)

So, Bradley and Tulsa, we embrace your battle to determine which of you is #98 - especially since you seem determined to keep your season going as long as possible. Faced with elimination at home, Bradley rushed out to a 14-point lead in the first half, then held on for the win.

OTHER HEADLINES, JUST FOR KICKS

This Doesn’t Bode Well: Memphis has suspended backup guard Andre Allen for this weekend’s games. As we covered with Sadie yesterday, Allen was a key part of Memphis’ plan to defend Darren Collison and Russell Westbrook. Plus … you know, Calipari has never had a reputation for having a quick hand with punishment, especially when the stakes are high. So our guess is there is more to this.

The Offseason Starts Early: We have no intention to do a Fulmer Cup-style tracking of all the offseason legal transgressions in college basketball (mostly because - Christ, we don’t know how Orson does it, either.) But this was too good to pass up - Penn State guard Stanley Pringle was masturbating in a library. Now, we’re not saying that such library activity is necessarily wrong - everything has a time and inappropriate place - but Pringle started the jackin’ while actively trying to engage a woman in conversation, so it’s a little more funny “oh shit” than funny “ha ha”. But we just … can’t … resist …

Once you pop, you can’t stop - even in the face of arrest.

Each day for the rest of this week, we’ll be previewing one of this year’s Final Four participants, little gunners that they are. oops, we’re about to drop something. What? Knowledge. (That’s deep, but true.) But since we’re babbling idiots, we found another blogger who knows a lot more about the team than us. Yesterday we handled UNC; today - the Memphis Tigers, with the help of Sadie from Go Memphis Tigers.

You know what’s delicious with crow? Barbecue sauce, and lots of it. Strong on spice, just the right amount of sugar and rich in flavor - anything that kill the awful taste of being wrong.

Anything to make the pain go down more easily.

Sufficit to say, we were wrong about the Tigers; we thought a conference season’s worth of weak opponents would leave them ill-prepared for the tournament, but, we suppose that’s the beauty of the tournament. After a close call against Mississippi State in the second round, they’ve breezed their way to the Final Four.

For a much more informed view on the Tigers as we get ready for Saturday, Sadie was kind enough to provide some expert biased opinion. Her responses to our questions come after the jump.

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Motor City Dust Bowl Basketball!

THE GAME EVERYONE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Tulsa is Champion! Something!
Tulsa 73, Bradley 68

Conference USA fans, we owe you a distinct apology. We’ve bashed your conference from the moment we started writing for this here blog. But now, it appears that was all in haste, for CUSA’s own Tulsa Golden Hurricane (do not confuse with Broken Arrow Golden Shower) has clinched a championship by beating the Bradley Braves last night!

[receives a note from off stage left - pauses, and clears throat]

Excuse us - we heard “One Shining Moment” and thought there people were playing in a tournament that actually mattered. Instead, Tulsa continues to play in the College Basketball Invitational, a tournament known only to us, its owners, the fans of the home team, and creepy message board trollers in Rolla, Missouri. And further, their win clinches nothing, since CBI uses a three-game series to crown its champion. Sorry for the confusion. CUSA, go back in a corner and think about what you’ve done - trying to fool us like that. Makes us want to call in that golden shower for you.

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We’re not quite ready to talk about the chalk-tastic weekend just yet. We need something to cleanse our palate with something far more soothing - something from a more simple time, a more hopeful time - something from, say, late Friday night:

Memories of Cinderella and jokes of forcible rear entry soothe the pain of chalk. (HT: Kleph.)

That’s more like it.

As you all know, Davidson missed their chance for the game-winning, lead-story-writing, script-already-in-development shot that would have led every tournament broadcast for the next twenty years because Stephan Curry couldn’t get an open look. Some people are crediting Kansas’ defense on the play - and there can be no doubt that in those last sixteen seconds, the Jayhawks clamped down impressively. Though we do not come to kick those that are down, we disagree.The scripted play (with Curry asked to bring the ball up and find his own shot) was macho but immature in design. Curry has thrived when working with teammates on ball screens and motion plays; on the most important play of the season, sending him up the court to go mano-a-cinque-mano with the Jayhawks was insane.

Though we of course mourn the loss of our last upstart in the tournament, we have a tough time feeling too terrible for Davidson. They had a great season by any standard, a phenomenal season by SoCon standards, and [insert clichéd dig at pampered lifestyle of students at a school where they do your laundry for you here].

However, anyone who has ever played on an underdog team that made it farther than it should have - and back when we could be confused with an athlete, we were on such a team - knows that when you do lose, the hurt is much deeper than it would have been earlier. Davidson’s loss mattered more yesterday because, unlike in any of the previous rounds, they actually had something to lose. While the loss eats at them today, the mere fact that a small liberal arts school from the SoCon made it to that level should be lauded and remembered for years to come.

As for the other three games? UCLA, suddenly awakened from its slumber through the first three rounds (and, really, the last three months), remembered that it had the defenders to shut down Xavier’s perimeter game and a big man who could bully them down low. Memphis, playing with a chip on their shoulder the size of … well, Texas … , shut down D.J. Augustin and forced the Longhorns to (unsuccessfully) rely on other scorers. And UNC continued to play the best ball of the tournament, taking the lead over Louisville five minutes into the game then holding it with a vise grip.

And thus, we are “treated” to the first Final Four with all four #1 seeds. We’ll have more thoughts on this later this afternoon.

Hooray mediocre post-season play!

THE GAME EVERYONE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Same Bad Time, Same Bad Channel
Ohio State 74, Dayton 63 (West)

We have to admit - Ohio basketball fans, we’re impressed. According to reports, Value City Arena in Columbus (and, really, is there any better city to host Value City Arena than Columbus?) was filled to capacity last night. Pretty damn good for a surprisingly good NIT Quarterfinal matchup between two schools from Central Ohio.

But that last sentence holds the key to the NIT - we’re pretty sure that we’re the only person we know who watched a nanosecond of this game. (And, in the interest of full disclosure, we have family in Central Ohio.) In the interest of saving on team travel costs and generating ticket interest, the lower tier post-season tournaments have no choice but to encourage regional matchups (though this one, of course, wasn’t planned.) But regional matchups have regional appeal, and regional appeal means no big advertising dollars, so it should surprise no one that the NIT had to be taken over by the NCAA to remain financially stable.

Meanwhile, a fun storyline that has been picked up already - with tOSU and Florida on opposite sides of the NIT Final Four (with tOSU playing Ole Miss - thanks for beating VPI, Rebs - and UF playing UMass), we could be treated to a rematch of last year’s championship game. I’ll be just like last year! Noah! Oden! Horford! Conley! Brewer! It’s the NCAA championship game on CBS The Deuce!

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To help us prepare for the upcoming tournament weekend, we’re borrowing a tradition from the mothership. Here are our buys and sells for each of the regions for this weekend’s games.

EAST REGION

Buys

Butler - We were at work on Sunday night, so when we let out a Sheila Broflovski-esque “What what what???” when we saw the Bulldogs as a #7 seed, it scared a good number of people. Then we reviewed their schedule, and we understood why - their most impressive non-conference road win is a tossup between Virginia Tech and Southern Illinois. Toss that in with the fact that they are playing another talent mid-major (South Alabama) in essentially a road game (Birmingham), and this should be a loser. But the Bulldogs have one thing that you can’t buy in the tournament, and that’s defense. They held opponents under 60 points in more than half their games this year, and nine times under 50 points. Also, their three losses are by a total of twelve points. The old adage in betting is “don’t fall for the low hanging fruit”, and I think that taking South Alabama (or, for that matter, the unfortunately-placed #2 seed Tennessee) is a little too good to be true; RPI and schedule be damned, Butler isn’t a #7 seed. Bulldogs in my Sweet 16.

Sells

Wazzu - We aren’t in the business of muckraking around here … oh, wait, that’s EXACTLY what we’re in the business of. (Sorry.) Tony Bennett is either the next coming of John Wooden, or he found a killer outline for “Beating NCAA Recruiting Rules 101″, because we have no explanation for how he’s winning in Pullman. Regardless, his team seemed to lose steam as the year went on. Yes, all of their losses were in the Pac-10 - and yes, early in the year, they beat a couple of tournament teams soundly. But we’ve watched these guys, and they seem to be held together with duct tape and shoe polish. Enter Winthrop, a regular tournament participant with a win last year under their belts. We smell an upset.

SOUTH REGION

Buys

Pittsburgh - We’re already on the record as fearing Pitt, but let’s run through the numbers - undefeated until Christmas, including a win over Duke at MSG (known in Devil circles as “Cameron North”). Ravaged by injuries, they finished the regular season 11-9 with both tough losses (by 18 at Marquette) and plucky wins (by 9 over Georgetown). For the most part, they are healthy and playing together again … and showed off by winning the Big East. All this plus a favorable bracket has us thinking they will face Memphis next week. We can’t tell, however, whether we should be nervous or worried that we agree with Bob Knight about Pitt.

Sells

Miami (FL) - ACC bias w000000t! Um … yeah, about that … Miami, we’d like to congratulate you on your invitation to the tournament. Would you have made it, with the exact same squad, if you were in Conference USA instead of the ACC? Not a chance in the world. So enjoy the spotlight and the check, and kindly let St. Mary’s face off against Texas.

MIDWEST REGION

Buys

Clemson - OK, so maybe there is some ACC bias going on here. But as we wrote yesterday, Clemson has a quality squad that has both won and lost very close and tough games against superior competition this year, and has generally owned lesser competition minus a few hiccups. The first round shouldn’t pose much problem for them, but we also think they match up well against Vandy in the second round. As we’ve said before - someone must stop the monster that is Shan Foster, and if it’s not Clemson, don’t think for a second that it will be Kansas.

Sells

USC - We want to believe in Tim Floyd’s squad. (We’re really not sure why - in football season, we hate the sons of Troy with a white-hot heat and wish plagues upon Los Angeles and all of Pete Carroll’s beautiful angels.) We do. We’ve come around on O.J. Mayo and think he might actually be aight. But this team is streaky like taco night boxers, and they are playing against the best player in the country. Even with K-State’s pupu platter on the floor beside Beasley, we like the Wildcats.

WEST REGION

Buys

Duke - You know why? Because we said so. Risky bet? More than you might think - especially if West Virginia, another lanky, defense-oriented, long-shooting team gets to face them on Saturday. But dammit, we’re fans, and we’re gonna pimp our team this weekend because, barring UCLA getting lost on their way to the team buses, we’re pretty sure we won’t be able to do it next weekend.

Sells

Purdue - This was a tough pick for us, because we pretty much see chalk in this region. But of all the “high” seeds, Purdue looks to us to be the most vulnerable. No consistent scoring option, no impressive true road wins out of the Big Ten, and their opponent is an emotionally charged Baylor team. Sure, Baylor has a “just happy to be here” feel to them. But we’re on record as thinking that both of these conferences stink, so we’re going to hope that karma sides with the Bears.

THE GAME EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT (SORT OF)

Enjoy the Enjoyment!
Villanova 82, Syracuse 63

[dusts off Hoyas hat from senior year]

YEEEAAAAHHHHH!!! What you got, Boeheim? Huh? You got nothing. Two straight years, you little mediawhore, you’re on the outside looking in. How’s the losing feel, Mr. Carmelo’s-Coattails? Does it feel bad? Does it hurt? Good. Get the hell out of here, and take your fruity little team with you.

[takes off homer hat]

Seriously though, Jim Boeheim is a prick and a half. (We’re counting Coaches vs. Cancer when we say that - he was a full-on triple prick before that.) People forget this because he laughs and smiles with the PTI guys, but before Carmelo Anthony, he was famous for throwing his players under the bus and choking in big games. Oh, and NCAA violations. We see no reason why a down-year, mercenary-led championship should change this assessment of Boeheim, especially given his moronic advocacy for an expanded NCAA tournament to accommodate his mediocre teams. Every time his team under-performs, we smile, and imagine him kicking a puppy. (Homer hate still clearly on.)

So … um, yeah, nice win Villanova. But don’t be too good, ya here?

THE GAMES YOU SHOULD HAVE WATCHED INSTEAD

We Can’t Count, but We Can Ball
The Entire Atlantic 10 14 Opening Round

There was absolutely nothing you could refuse to love about this day of games. First of all, they are playing the tournament in Atlantic City, which is like the Pac-10 deciding to host its conference championship game (if they were eligible to have one) in Las Vegas. We hope these players are sending thank you notes to Eliot Spitzer, whose own hooker-fueled mess is likely keeping them out of the Tri-State headlines.

Just like Client-9.

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They’ve gone to plaid!

THE GAME EVERYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT (SORT OF)

Man, I’m Getting Sick of Orange
Clemson 79, Miami (FL) 69

Orange and purple. Orange and green. Thank God neither of these teams were wearing their alternate jerseys, or I would have spent most of the game wondering if I had accidentally taken acid and vomited all over my television. (Because that’s what acid does, friends. You get sick, but even the sickness is trippy.)

Clemson led by as much as 21 in the first half, but managed to fall behind with seven minutes to go in the game. Efficient shooting (over 50% from the floor, over 60% from deep) and solid defense allowed them to close the deal. The win gives the Tigers their first season at or above .500 in ACC play since Rick Barnes patrolled their sidelines in the late ’90s. (He must actually dig the orange.) The U needs to close strong to stay in the at-large hunt, since they have only one road win against a likely tournament team (Mississippi State) and none in conference.

TWO OTHER STORIES, JUST FOR KICKS

Midshipmen Accused of Anti-American Sentiment
Navy 83, American 68

Honestly, I just wanted to write about this one for the pun in the tagline.

What? Oh, fine. Bully for the Middies, who now can clinch a Patriot League Championship banner with a win or tAU loss on Saturday. (Redeemable for one free cup of coffee, offer ends after conference tournament when regular season title becomes worthless.) As a proud Georgetown alum, I can’t help but pity tAU as they risk missing the tournament for the forever-th straight year. Poor, poor tAU. Stuck with an annoying definite article in their formal name … practically located in Maryland … wait, what do you mean they have their own Metro stop? Spoiled jerks.

In Heaven, The Protestant Jesus Chuckles
Mid-Major Catholic Schools Go 1-4 on Wednesday

Serves me right for gettin’ all uppity.

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