-
2 years ago
Horns and Hawks Roll, Raiders Fall
In a weekend that had several college basketball story lines, here’s what you need to know moving forward:
The Texas Longhorns are very, very good.
I’m not sure what was the most interesting part of this game, but let’s start with the stadium. I’m not sure how, but they managed to turn that 800 billion square foot gigantodome into a decent looking basketball setup. Sure some of the seats are about 1.7 miles from the court, but it looked like you still had a decent view of the action, and even if you didn’t you could look up at the worlds largest HD TV and see what you missed.Also, by having field level suites in the football set up, it allowed them to have a decent angle to the bottom level of seats as opposed to the usual “first 20 rows on the same level” setup we usually see in football stadiums.
How about North Carolina’s defense? I mean, what a disaster. Allowing 103 points is really really hard to do in college hoops. The Tarheels were also outrebounded 60-41 and Dexter Pittman (side note: the weight loss thing has really gotten to a ridiculous level, seriously we get it, he used to be fat) absolutely abused everyone around him in this game.
Texas looked every part of their #2 ranking, and let’s be honest, North Carolina was lucky that this wasn’t a complete blowout. Avery Bradley and J’Covan Brown were extremely impressive alongside the veterans in Pittman and James. Kansas looked good in their win over Michigan (really good) but if I had a vote in the top 25, I’d have a hard time not putting Texas at #1 after watching them dominate on the big stage Saturday.
The Xavier vs Butler officials were out of their minds… but they were right.
In what has to be one of the bravest calls of all time, the officials in the Butler - Xavier matchup had to make a ruling that could have resulted in either a riot, a coach on official homicide, or some combination of the two. The ruling they made was absolutely insane. They pulled out a stopwatch and figured that had the clock guy not messed up, that the shot would have gotten off with .4 seconds left and that the clock would have hit all zeroes as the ball fell through the hoop and Xavier wouldn’t have gotten the chance to call a timeout. So they pulled the coaches together, and announced that the game was over. No really, that’s what they decided. Right there in front of the Xavier coach, they told him that if the Butler timekeeper wouldn’t have messed up, they would have ran out of time and they ENDED THE GAME without giving Xavier a chance to shoot the ball. This decision was crazy, unheard of, and absolutely and 100% correct. (video posted above)
The Coaches Poll is an absolute joke
So this is the Big 12 Hoops Blog, and I focus and try to defend our 12 schools because I don’t think that the conference ever gets the credit it deserves outside of the Longhorns and Jayhawks. However, we all knew Tech wasn’t the 16th best team in the country. To prove it, they decided to go ahead and lose at Wichita State. So what do the coaches do? They drop Tech completely out of the top 25, which is completely deserved. However, sitting just 5 points above Texas Tech, and outside of the top 25, is Texas A&M. A team who’s two losses are by single digits to #6 West Virginia and #12 New Mexico.
For those of you not paying attention, which at this point seems to be most of the people that vote in this poll, let’s recap what has happened this season. #22 Georgia Tech has two losses, one to Dayton and one (at home) to Florida State. Their best win is probably over Siena. #24 Gonzaga has a couple impressive wins, including Cincinnati and Wisconsin, but has three losses including a 35 point neutral court MURDER this weekend at the hands of Duke. Then there’s #23 Clemson. Now you see these little “#’s” by each team that I’ve been using? This means that people have (supposedly) watched these teams play and typed out that they are the Xth best team in the country. Including #23 Clemson. Clemson has two losses this season which includes one to an unranked Illinois team at home. Their best win is over #16 (which is another story altogether) Butler. But here’s the real kicker here. In that same tournament that they beat Butler, THEY LOST TO TEXAS A&M. The same Texas A&M that has also defeated Minnesota, and who’s only defeats (as previously mentioned) are against top 15 teams. Okay, rant over, the Aggies will get their chance tomorrow in a road game at #19 Washington.
Notes
Following
