Pittsburgh Impressive at Season’s Start

John Perrotto of BasketballProspectus.com has a nice little article about the Pittsburgh Panthers, the No. 3 team in the nation in the latest version of the AP Poll. Pittsburgh has talent at every position, is deep enough to weather injuries, plays solid defense and can score from inside and out. While North Carolina and UConn have been getting plenty of praise, the Pitt Panthers have been kind of buried as a news story this season. Well, no more, thanks to BP.com and the Final Four Blog.

In the article, Tom Green, the coach of Fairleigh Dickinson, which played Pitt earlier this season, said of the Panthers: “I’ve been coaching 26 years and I’ve never seen a team play better man-to-man. They really get after it and just smother you. We play three or four big-time teams every year and none of them have ever played defense like this Pitt team.”

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Permalink - Posted in General on December 12, 2008 - Post a comment

Learning from the Early Tourneys

FOX Sports has a nice little breakdown of the highlights from the early season tournaments, which are now over. Some of the best teams in the nation played in tournaments ranging from the Jimmy V Classic to the Alaska Shootout, and there was a lot to gleams from the action. Thankfully, there’s a Cliff’s Notes version available.

Fox gives fans the following things: A couple of legitimate national title contenders who surfaced, a couple of probable Final Four participants, some surprisingly good teams, and some clunkers who have not lived up to potential. Check it out to see if your team made the list… but if it hasn’t been in the Top 25 yet it probably isn’t included in the discussion.

It was not that hard to predict that the UCLA Bruins would be slightly less dominating than they were last season. They did lose pretty much everyone besides Darren Collison, so how did the AP expect them to be just about as good as North Carolina (based on their preseason ranking) when UNC brought everybody back?

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 11, 2008 - Post a comment

Gonzaga-Wazzu; Plus Wooden Inspiration

Gonzaga, the No. 4 team in the nation according to the Associated Press this week, is preparing to play the Washington State Cougars by recruiting some alumni basketball players to practice against in scrimmage games. The elderly players, it is thought, will more accurately mimic the kind of slowed down pace that the Cougars bring to the fold. Mark Few certainly knows how to win games (except against the USD Toreros) but this strategy has to really motivate the WCU Cougars. If the Final Four Blog could bet on this, we’d say that Zags are due for a regional rivalry upset beat down.

Also of note, Sports Illustrated is reporting on a story about college hoops legend John Wooden giving the UCLA players a pep talk. Well, more like he just made a comment about patience with the new team, as they need time to gel. Here’s a nice Wooden quote to get you through the Wednesday:

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

—John Wooden

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Permalink - Posted in General on December 10, 2008 - Post a comment

Luke Winn Wins Again …With Style

Luke Winn, constant companion of the Final Four Blog, has yet another sparkling rendition of the Style Archive fresh and up-to-date with the 2008-09 season. Right now he has a Kentucky Tribute volume up, with all the latest fashion trends of one of the nation’s most fashionable teams, the Kentucky Wildcats.

In a league like the NCAA, player apparel and style can sometimes come out in more fabulous and ever increasing zaniness because there are, sometimes, less stringent rules governing player appearance. Since these are amateur athletes, not employees such as those in the NBA or NFL, there is markedly less that the NCAA can do to limit personal expression. In the NBA, fashion is limited to hairdos and arm sleeve length. But in the NCAA, players get a little more wacky. Plus, these are youngsters, some not barely 19 years-old, so they’re bound to still be experimenting with their image. Check out what Kentucky is doing to stand out from the crowd. Look forward to more reports from the fashion front lines.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 9, 2008 - Post a comment

CBS Top 25 Breakdown Give Fans the Low-Down

College basketball fans who want to get their league-wide information even faster (and who doesn’t?), and those who want to make a prediction about the AP Top 25 before the official list comes out, will love this handy feature, a Top 25 Breakdown, courtesy of the great hoops heads at CBS Sports. With this list you can see the games that each team has played since the last list was made, thereby seeing if a team’s stock is falling or rising. For example, the North Carolina Tar Heels, the nation’s No. 1 team, defeated Michigan State (ranked No. 13) by a whopping 96-63 margin. It would follow then, that UNC would keep their spot at the top, and the Spartans will probably slip a little.

Other movement to look out for: Notre Dame lost to Ohio State and Duke lost to Michigan, so both programs will likely fall. Meanwhile, teams near the bottom of the top 25, like Marquette, Baylor and Arizona State, got quality wins, meaning they will probably move up. Florida and Miami are in danger of getting booted.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 8, 2008 - Post a comment

Best Hoops Games to See This Weekend

The weekend is almost here, and since college football is wrapping up, you can use the extra TV watching and tickets buying power that you would have normally used on the gridiron on the hardwood. In order to get you hyped up about the hoops season, here are eight must-see games. If you can’t get there in person, make sure you see them on TV.

Saturday:

Wisconsin-Marquette
Vermont-Pitt
North Carolina State-Davidson
Gonzaga-Indiana
Notre Dame-Ohio State

Sunday:

Florida-Florida State
Nebraska-Arizona State
Ohio-Louisville

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 5, 2008 - Post a comment

Looking at the NCAA Stats Leaders

The college basketball season is just beginning, but some of the nation’s best players are stepping up and assuming a dominant position on the stats sheets. Take a look at CBSsports.com’s stats page to see some of the players who are getting their numbers. Some notes:

  • Blake Griffin of Oklahoma is on the board twice- as the No. 1 rebounder and the No. 5 scorer. In rebounding he’s head and shoulders above the rest, with 19.2 per game. Second place is a struggle with several in the low 13s.
  • As expected Stephen Curry is leading the league in scoring, but he’s just about a point and a half above the next best scorer at 29.2 points per game.
  • Jarvis Varnado gets more blocks than the New York City Planning Commission’s Subcommittee on Street Designs! Oh!
  • Assists per game and steals per game are both tight heats, with ties at the top.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 4, 2008 - Post a comment

Duke Blue Devils Rolling Over Everyone

The Duke Blue Devils are having an excellent season so far, especially on the heels of their fairly effortless victory over a top ten team last night. Duke, ranked No. 4 in the nation in the latest AP Poll, beat No. 9 Purdue 76-60 in the Big10/ACC Challenge. The game should have been an exciting, hard fought one, but it appears that despite the tremendous talent that’s on the Boilermakers’’ squad, Coach K has the Devils in top form already. Does anybody think that the Duke-North Carolina matchups are shaping up to be epic this season? If trends continue, we might have a Duke-UNC game that pits a No. 1versus a No. 2. I hope we didn’t just jinx it.

But fear not Boilermakers, there are plenty of opportunities to make up for a loss to Duke, as the Big Ten has a few easy teams (although there are some exceptions) that you ought to pound in the conference portion of the season. Just ask Coach K, who said this about the B-Makers:

”We think at the end of the season, Purdue will be one of those teams that has a chance.”

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 3, 2008 - Post a comment

Big East Gets 8 Teams in AP Top 25

We’ve been saying it here at the Final Four Blog and they’ve been saying it in the mainstream sports media for a long time: the Big East is stacked this year. They’re like the Big 12 of football, only the basketball version. Just yesterday when the week’s AP Top 25 Poll was announced, the Big East proved that it was deserving of all the hype, landing a total of eight teams in the rankings, a record for the most teams from any one conference in the poll since its inception.

Big East Teams in the AP Top 25

#2. Connecticut
#3. Pittsburgh
#7. Notre Dame
#11. Louisville
#16. Syracuse
#17. Villanova
#20. Georgetown
#25 Marquette

Clearly this is a conference with a lot of good teams at the top, but what happens in conference play at the end of the season, when these teams are all playing one another, will really determine the men from the boys.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 2, 2008 - Post a comment

Western Kentucky Defeats Kentucky; Notre Dame’s Home Win Streak Continues

Western Kentucky, an unranked mid-major basketball program, which you might remember from their sweet sixteen run last year in the Tournament, beat the No. 3-ranked Louisville Cardinals 69-54 yesterday. Does this mean that the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers are earning a giant killer’s reputation, or that they once again got lucky?  Some people are starting to take notice, and you can be sure that if WKU gets to the Tourney this time around, they will not be taken lightly. Make sure you grab some tickets to see them play if they come to an arena near you.

Also- the Fighting Irish basketball team just won it’s 39th straight home game this past Sunday, when Notre Dame beat Furman at the Joyce Center.  This home winning streak beats out their old record, set back in the mid to late 1940s.  The Fighting Irish men’s hoops team is now 5-1 overall.

To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on December 1, 2008 - Post a comment


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