Dave Sez

Rasslin' With Flair

This is a great story. Apparently rasslin' star Ric Flair's teenage son is a real wrestler. Unfortunately, his opponents all know who he is.

After he was beaten in a match in February, his opponent taunted him by lampooning his dad. Little Flair (Reid Fliehr) body slammed the boy, knocking him out. The article doesn't mention if a folding chair was involved, but I like to think it was.

I loved the quote from the dad of the kid who got knocked out - "I won't tell you wrong, Colby is a hothead."

As Powerman 5000 sang (more or less), this is what it's like when rednecks collide.

Clicky

McSweeney's On The Wiz

McSweeney's is not a site I read regularly, but whenever I'm sent there, I'm amazed at how good and funny the writing is. I found an article there yesterday (via the Sports Frog) about the last 25 years of the Washington Wizards.

Pure genius.

Check this quote:

As part of a seven-player trade with the Dallas Mavericks, the Washington Wizards acquire former Syracuse standout Etan Thomas. The burly center has an athlete's body and a poet's mind. In describing teammate Brendan Haywood, Thomas paraphrases e.e. cummings: "No one, not even the rain, has such small hands." He then adds his own poetry: "It's a beautiful wonder—like golden sun on a child's face and the medicinal aroma of Executive Nachos—that Brendan can shoot a basketball with such immature digits."

No one, not even the rain, has such small hands. Beautiful.

Jumpin' Jack

In news that sure to surprise everyone (OK, no one), the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that Jarrett Jack will enter the NBA Draft. The AJC reports that, like Eric Williams, Jack won't hire an agent, leaving open the possibility that he will return.

I wouldn't count on him coming back. I think he'll go in the first round. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see him back - I like all of the ACC players to play out their eligibility - but I doubt it will happen.

Looking Ahead

After Monday's announcement that Shelden Williams will stay at Duke one more year, Caulton Tudor, like a lot of people, is ready to declare Duke the ACC favorites in 2006.

He goes on to rank all twelve teams. It's hard to quibble with his picks too much, as there are still a few unanswered personnel questions.

The only sure things are Duke and BC near the top and Virginia and FSU near the bottom. Actually, UVA has a new coach, so you never really know how that will turn out, but FSU will certainly suck.

Bird's Eye View

Jeff Quinton has a very cool post on his blog showing (nearly) all of the ACC football stadiums from space via GoogleMaps.

Pretty fun. Coincidently, it appears they caught Wallace Wade Stadium during an actual game.

Cooke Cutter

Virginia Tech freshman Marquie Cooke was kicked off the team yesterday by coach Seth Greenberg.

Cooke was the first Virginia state player of the year that the Hokies had signed since Dell Curry in 1982.

It's not clear on what Cooke did to warrant getting booted, but I guess it was worse than liquoring up and having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

There's no word yet on whether Cooke will enroll at Cincinnati or Fresno State next year.

Turned Away

NC State's T.A. McLendon left school a year early to enter the NFL Draft. Unfortunately, the NFL didn't want to draft him.

T.A. sat through the whole weekend and heard the names of three other ACC running backs, including UNC's Madison Hedgecock, but never got that big call. Instead he had to wait until Monday, when the Atlanta Falcons signed him as a free agent.

Now, T.A. might still catch on in the pros, but I guess the lesson is that gifted as a runner may be, the NFL just doesn't want slow, injury-prone players who like to fumble when the game is on the line.

I wonder if Josh Powell needs a roommate?

Give It To Me ... Shelden

Shelden Williams released a statement through Duke's athletic department yesterday that he will not entry the NBA Draft and will return for his senior season.

This is bad news for the Duke haters of the world. Very bad news.

With both Williams and J.J. Redick returning along with everyone else except for Daniel Ewing, the Blue Devils have a powerhouse group coming back. Add to that a sensational trio of freshmen and you have a legit preseason #1 squad. How good the team ends up likely depends on the development of point guard Greg Paulus.

The other ACC teams are fighting for second place next year.

Great Take On Tar Heel Exodus

Finding good writing on ESPN's Page 2 (outside of Bill Simmons) is a bit like looking for basketball trophies in Clemson's trophy case. You ain't gonna find much.

Which is why I was surprised to happen upon this article about today's UNC press conference and its impact on the program.

The writer is a guy named Bomani Jones and I'm going to start looking out for his stuff. The man can write.

A little excerpt:

"[Insert player here] will be holding a news conference" means the same thing in basketball lingo that "we need to talk" means in female-ese – it's time for me to do some things, it's not your fault, etc. No matter the spin, she's leaving.

"[Three players] will be holding a news conference" is even worse – she's leaving, the kids are waiting in the Benz, and she needs help loading the plasma screen into the trunk.

It's good stuff. Trust me.

He apparently wrote another article a couple of weeks ago, just after the Heels' title win. That one is a keeper as well.

The Anti-Duke Manifesto

Jeremy Gold over at Turtle Soup seems to hate Duke nearly as much as he likes Maryland. I think he even picks his non-Terp friends by how much they dislike the Blue Devils.

Case in point, a buddy of his, a Carolina grad who went to Duke law school (I know a guy who fits that description. Hmmmm.), wrote an incredibly long piece titled The Anti-Duke Manifesto.

I have to admit that I haven't read it yet. It's just too damn long, but it looks interesting for those of you who just can't stand that darker shade of blue.

Pack Rate

The News & Observer ran an interesting story yesterday about the new luxury boxes being built at Carter-Finley Stadium.

The boxes sound quite nice - a wet bar, sofa, television, cable, high-speed Internet, etc - and they better be. To land one of those suckers, you need to pony up $45,000 or $55,000 a year for a five year lease. That price doesn't include an annual "donation" of $3,000 to the Wolfpack Club.

Now, I don't really know if those prices are out of line with other ACC teams, but man, that seems pretty steep. Just think how much they'd be if NC State had finished above fourth in the conference recently!

Dark Clouds

... in a Carolina Blue sky.

In a press conference today at 1:30, North Carolina stars Sean May, Raymond Felton and Marvin Williams will announce their intentions for next year. All three are expected to declare for the NBA Draft.

Felton and Williams have said for a few weeks that they've already made up their minds and were just waiting to announce. No one would decide to stay in school and wait to tell everyone the good news. If that's not enough circumstantial evidence, the rumor that Felton is driving around in a new Jaguar out to do it.

The really bad news here is that Sean May is joining them in the press conference. He had stated for a long time that he was not interested in leaving early, but clearly he's changed his mind.

So Carolina will lose four underclassmen to the draft and including the seniors, their top seven players overall.

No college team has ever lost four players to early entry. The worst hits that I can recall in the past were when Duke lost Corey Maggette, Elton Brand and Will Avery in 1999 and Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy and Carlos Boozer in 2002.

I also can't remember any team losing its top seven players.

With Reyshawn Terry and David Noel as his best returning players, Roy Williams will have to earn his money next season. He has a nice recruiting class, with three McDonald's All-Americans and the whole ACC is bleeding talent to the Bigs, but there's no way to pick Carolina for anything other than a bottom-half finish next year.

Update: The presser is over. It's done. Gone.

Best One and Two-Year ACC Players

With Chris Paul announcing that he was taking his skills to the NBA, I got to thinking about other ACC players who have gone pro after just one or two years. I don't think any player can really be considered one of the conference's all-time greats with just one or two years in the league. Instead, I think it's useful to just compare them against each other.

There have been some incredible talents with short stays - Kenny Anderson, Joe Smith and Stephon Marbury quickly come to mind. To me, those two Georgia Tech guards were the most exciting of the short-timers, but Joe Smith probably had the best two years. Maybe he wasn't quite as dynamic as Anderson or Marbury, but he was damn close. Elton Brand wasn't quite so entertaining, but he was virtually unstoppable in his second year. Brand and Smith are the only two ACC sophomores to be named national player of the year and then leave (Ralph Sampson was also NPOY, but he stayed two more seasons).

Looking back at the players on my list (scroll down to see the whole thing), I'm reminded again at just how amazing the freshman of 1994 were. Three of those players - Joe Smith, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace - were 1st team All-Americans in their second season, with Smith being named ACC and national POY. If that's not enough talent, you know who else was in that freshman class, but hadn't received quite as much attention yet? A guy you may remember named Tim Duncan.

In the table below, I've listed all of the ACC players who left after their first or second year. I did not include JUCOs or transfers, so you won't see Steve Francis or even Stephon DonDon.

Six players, including Paul, were named first-team All-American. Two others made it to the second or third team. Two of those players, Anderson and Smith made AA in both of their seasons.

Oddly enough, only half of the players were named ACC Freshman of the Year, although a couple of those lost out to other players on the list.

Six players made the leap without ever being named first-team All-ACC. Two of those players, Dion Glover and Corey Maggette, never made any of the top three ACC teams.

Without further ado, here is the list of players along with their year and what conference and national honors they earned:

 Player           School    Year     Class  All-ACC  All-American

 ----------------------------------------------------------------

 Skip Wise        CLEM      1975     Fr.    1

 Chris Washburn   NCSU      1986     So.    -, 2

 Jerrod Mustaf    MARY      1990     So.    -, 3

 Kenny Anderson   GT        1991     So.    1+, 1    2, 1

 Joe Smith        MARY      1995     So.    1+, 1*   3, 1*

 Jerry Stackhouse UNC       1995     So.    -, 1     -, 1

 Rasheed Wallace  UNC       1995     So.    -, 1     -, 2

 Stephon Marbury  GT        1996     Fr.    1+       3

 William Avery    Duke      1999     So.    -, 2

 Elton Brand      Duke      1999     So.    -, 1*    -, 1*

 Dion Glover      GT        1999     So.    -, -

 Corey Maggette   Duke      1999     Fr.    -

 Joseph Forte     UNC       2001     So.    2+, 1    -, 1

 Chris Wilcox     MARY      2002     So.    -, 3

 Chris Bosh       GT        2003     Fr.    2+

 Luol Deng        Duke      2004     Fr.    3+

 Chris Paul       WF        2005     So.    3+, 1    -, 1

 

 * Player of the Year

 + Freshman of the Year

And now here is my purely-subjective ranking of those players:

 My rankings

 -----------

1. Joe Smith

2. Kenny Anderson

3. Elton Brand

4. Stephon Marbury

5. Joe Forte

6. Chris Paul

7. Jerry Stackhouse

8. Rasheed Wallace

9. Skip Wise

10. Chris Bosh

11. Luol Deng

12. William Avery

13. Chris Wilcox

14. Corey Maggette

15. Chris Washburn

16. Dion Glover

17. Jerrod Mustaf

 

The Eagle Has Landed

You wouldn't expect objectivity from the Duke Basketball Report in a story about a former North Carolina coach, and thankfully, we get none in their review of Matt Doherty's new gig at Florida Atlantic.

It's a nice piece with a few stories of Doh's UNC career that I hadn't heard.

I also liked two aspects they revealed of his new job. First is that FAU averaged fewer than 550 fans at their home games last year. The other is that Doherty helped raise money for his own salary! How weird is that? I don't know what's worse, that he begged people to chip in to pay his salary, or that he did it to join a school that averages fewer than 550 fans per game.

Virginia Hires Dave Leitao - Links

Surely you've heard by now, but I'll report it anyway. Virginia has hired former DePaul basketball coach Dave Leitao to replace Pete Gillen. Leitao has a somewhat short but solid resume as a head coach and also worked for long time as an assistant to Jim Calhoun at Connecticut.

Here are a ton of links about the hire and what it means for Virginia in the near future:

TheSabre.com
The Daily Progress - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Richmond Times-Dispatch - 1, 2, 3
The Roanoke Times - 1, 2
The Washington Post
The Cavalier Daily
The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA)
The Virginian-Pilot
Gregg Doyel (SportsLine.com)
The Duke Basketball Report

And a couple less-glowing articles from Chicago about DePaul's unwillingness to fight for Leitao:
Jay Mariotti
Rick Telander

(Thanks to The Sabre and the DBR for the link compilations).

Assist Info

Ken Pomeroy has emerged from his postseason hibernation to throw up a post today. Today's post is about assist average and Ken says that according to his numbers, Boston College was the best passing team in the country last year.

I didn't see them play nearly enough to comment on that, but it does make some empirical sense. They are a team that was widely believed to overachieve - your classic "total greater than the sum of their parts" team. To be a team that achieves more than their talent would let you feel is possible, they would need to play together extremely well - good team defense, good team rebounding and good team passing. Well, Ken shows that the passing part of that was certainly true.

BTW, I wish Ken had published his numbers!

One last point, and actually the real reason I'm posting about this. Ken quotes an excerpt from the NCAA Basketball Statistician's Manual that an official assist "should be more than a routine pass" and that "[i]t is not even necessary that the assist be given on the last pass." Wow! I've never heard that second part before. I bet you could win a lot of bar bets with that little nugget.

Fact, Fiction & Rumor

It seems the only news out these days about ACC basketball deals with who is or is not going to take the Virginia job and who is or is not going to jump to the NBA. As a public service to my loyal readers, I'll run down a few of the most recent ones and award them with title - Fact, Fiction or Rumor.

Tubby Smith has declined the Virginia job - Rumor. This one is probably true, but you won't get any verification until Virginia hires someone else. Tubby's certainly not going to come out and publicly state that he was ever a candidate.

Dave Odom has said he will not take the Virginia job - Fiction. Dave Odom held a long news conference the other day to ramble endlessly about the South Carolina program and his love of it. In that presser, he did admit to an attraction to Virginia and while he said that he was not currently planning on leaving, he never said he wouldn't take the job if offered.

I've heard through the grapevine that Odom is still considered the fall-back plan if UVA can't land one of their first choices.

Dave Leitao is going to be the next Virginia coach - Rumor. This one is getting closer to being a fact. Evidently, he is in Charlottesville today. Supposedly he is "formally interviewing," although we all know he already met with Craig Littlepage over the weekend. It sounds to me more like final negotiations and house hunting.

The other day, Leitao had a curious comment about being concerned that Virginia had struggled off-and-on over the past decade or so. Uh, Dave ... the programs that are winning aren't hiring. You're gonna have to build somewhere if you want to step up.

Rashad McCants is going pro - Fact. Well, duh.

Raymond Felton is going pro - Rumor. There was a line in the article on Rashad McCants that said that Felton had made his decision, but was waiting to announce it. Somehow, I don't think that if he'd made the decision that would make everyone happy he'd be keeping it a secret. He's gone.

Sean May is going pro, but won't select an agent - Rumor. This one is pure speculation, at least the no-agent part is. May had a comment after the Carolina banquet the other night that he wasn't sure he'd want to stay if all his teammates leave. Well, the teammates are leaving.

Marvin Williams will return to Carolina for another year - Rumor. People seem to think he's going to stay, but I don't know why. nbadraft.net doesn't even list him anymore. If the pundits are right and he's a top-three pick, I don't see why he'd stay to play on what may be a mediocre team.

BTW, nbadraft.net predicts Felton at #10, McCants at #19, Chris Paul at #3, Jarrett Jack at #25 and John Gilchrist at #34. They don't have predictions for Marvin Williams, Sean May, Eric Williams or Shelden Williams.

College Hoops Net predicts Paul at #2, Felton #9, Jack #22, May #23, Gilchrist #33. They too don't predict Marvin, Eric or Shelden Williams

Shelden Williams has gone to Tibet to become a monk - Fiction. I don't know why I'm not hearing anything about Shelden. You'd think there would be some rumors flying around.

Eric Williams is leaving for the NBA - Fact. He says he won't take on an agent and thinks he'll likely return to Wake Forest.

Chris Paul is leaving for the NBA - Fact. You just can't pass up a projected top-three selection.

J.J. Redick is returning to Duke - Fact. He has said several times that he is staying. I believe him.

Jason Cain is not leaving for the NBA - Fact. The NBA's loss. They'll just have to wait.

Jarrett Jack will declare for the draft, but not select an agent - Rumor. That may just be semi-wishful thinking. He may want to consider returning, because with Paul, Felton and Gilchrist all gone, he should rule the point guard position in the ACC.

John Gilchrist will leave for the NBA - Fact. Gilchrist claims he won't select an agent so he can return, but I don't think that would work out. He'd come back to find all of his stuff out on the curb and the locks changed. Gary Williams is ready to move on.

NC State elected a pirate as student body president - Fact.

NCAA - No Shame

This is rich. The NCAA is headed towards changing the rule on football scheduling to allow 12 games instead of 11.

Sounds great, right? I mean that's more football for fans and more money for the schools!

But wait a second. I thought that a playoff would be Very Bad because the extra games would be too much of an academic burden on the players?

Think about that. If there were an eight-team playoff, a size most agree would be reasonable, half of those teams would play just one game (they'd lose in the first round). Those four teams would play the same number of games they otherwise would have, because the playoff would replace their bowl game. Two teams would play one extra game and two more would play two extra games.

And that's bad.

But having all 117 D1 schools play an extra game is OK?

So maybe it's not really an academic issue.

Hmmm, this isn't about money is it? It couldn't be that the bowls are bribing the universities to maintain their system, could it? No, no, that can't be it. Can it?

Felton To Go Pro

A TV station out of Raymond Felton's hometown (well, close enough) is reporting that he's leaving for the NBA.

This isn't really shocking news, but it's obviously critical. Sean May has said he's returning, but you have to wonder how he feels now. The game will be much tougher without Felton getting him the ball. Not to mention the losses of Jawad Williams, Jackie Manuel and Rashad McCants. If Marvin Williams leaves (and I'm sure he will), will May decide that it's not worth returning to a team of guys he barely knows?

Hat tip to Heels, Sox & Steelers for the find.

Keeping Perspective

The Duke Basketball Report has published a letter from one of their readers. The guy is a lifelong Duke fan, but if you replaced a few names, his letter could be about any school. The gist of it is that we all need to remember that the players we root for, jeer, taunt, criticize and idolize are really just kids. They feel pressure that the vast majority of us could never truly amagine.

Give it a read. We could all use a dose of perspective from time to time.

Packing It On

Billy Packer sure brings out a lot of hate in people. For years, ACC fans were torn about him. Some loved him as an icon of the conference while others hated him for his criticism and seeming anti-UNC partisanship.

It seems that the hatred has now gone national.

The guys at the ACC BasketBlog have compiled an impressive list of blog posts about Mr. Cash. Methinks the boys over there have found Technorati!

Rarer Than We Thought

I missed this post from a few days ago, but apparently a reader of Ken Pomeroy's blog pointed out something that everyone else seemed to have missed - 1975 was not the most recent time a pre-tournament #1 played a #2.

Evidently, in 1975 the AP put out polls during the tournament, so when Indiana lost to Kentucky in the regional finals, they fell from the top spot. That Hoosier team was undefeated going into the tourney.

Great catch! All the "real" media folks got this one wrong and I was foolish enough to believe them. According to Ken's subsequent research, it had been 40 years since a #1 played a #2 in the finals!

Tar Heel Title

I can't believe it's taken me this long to do a writeup about the National Championship, but with that game late on Monday night followed by a lot of work (real work) and taxes ... well here we are.

First off, congratulations to the University of North Carolina. It's gotta feel great to be a Tar Heel right now.

Like any national championship, this game had a lot of meanings on several different levels. I'll walk through a few of them in separate sections here, starting with a review of the game itself.

The Game
All year, people looked around the country and declared that the two best teams were Illinois and North Carolina. The Illini proved their worth early and, as well as any team in recent memory, maintained a high level of play for the entire season. They nearly went wire-to-wire as #1 and clearly deserved it. North Carolina on the other hand, was a bit more uneven, but their highs appeared to be higher than any other team's. There were times when they looked to be the best team in the land and other other times they appeared headed for an embarrassing early exit.

When the two top dogs finally and improbably met for the NCAA title, it was a game worthy of the hype. Recent title games have been poorly played at times and usually featured a mismatch, but this one was well-played from start to finish. Sure, Illinois shot poorly in the first half, but that was due in large part to Carolina's outstanding defense.

Before the game, I predicted that the winner would top 85 points and that if Carolina were to win, it would take a great night from Jawad Williams (or possibly Melvin Scott). I was wrong on both counts, but both for the same reason. The key for Carolina was not the excellent play from a role player, but their excellent team defense. Illinois has a great halfcourt offense and the Tar Heels are known to be mediocre in defending for the whole 35 seconds, but all night the Illini had to try and try and try to find good looks. They usually had to go deep into the shot clock and often a good look never materialized. That time Illinois had to use kept the total score lower than I expected.

In particular, Carolina's zone defense was effective against the sharpshooting boys from Champaign. Typically, Illinois is exactly the wrong kind of team to zone - a team filled with good three-point shooters and one that passes around the exterior as well as any team you'll ever see. On Monday night though, the zone worked better for the Heels than their more-typical man-to-man. Against the man D, Illinois' screens freed their shooters. Those same screens are much less effective against a zone and the Illini seemed less prepared to attack those sets.

Carolina's effective zone was just one aspect of what I thought was a masterful coaching job by Roy Williams. After the semifinal win over Michigan State, I criticized his liberal substitutions in the first half. He kept his stars - Sean May, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants - on the bench for way too long. On Monday night, Felton picked up his second foul early in the first half. Foul trouble for Felton was the one doomsday scenario for this team, but Williams found a way to keep Felton in the game using a mix of the zone defense and clever substitutions. He managed to give Felton and May rests throughout the first half without compromising their lead. Those rests enabled both to play nearly all of the second half when things got tighter. May and McCants each played three minutes more in the finals than against the Spartans on Saturday, while Felton played the same amount despite his foul trouble.

I also bagged on Melvin Scott for his horrendous play on Saturday. On Monday night, he still failed to do much positive, but he didn't hurt the team nearly as much. I don't remember ever seeing his man take wide-open jumpers like I saw all night the game before. Ole Roy played Scott about three minutes less on Monday night.

All-in-all, it was a great effort by the Heels - the coaches and the players. For the Illini, it probably wasn't their best game, but they didn't really play that poorly. They were just beaten by a better team who played better on that night.

The Program
We all remember just how far the Carolina program had fallen just a few years ago. Several years of poor recruiting choices left them with a team chock full of high school all-Americans (Kris Lang, Jason Capel, Jawad Williams) but with precious few decent college players. They went 8-20, a record Clemson would be embarrassed with and ended nearly all of their impressive streaks.

As shockingly bad as that year was, it was not totally unforeseen. I never expected they would be so bad, but I saw the foundation crumbling way back in Dean Smith's final seasons. The teams often still did well, but they weren't recruiting the kind of players they had in the past. This continued through the Bill Guthridge years even though they somehow managed two Final Fours in his three years. Like a great mountain range, Carolina didn't collapse overnight, they slowly crumbled and eroded. Everyone, including me, thought that Matt Doherty would fix things, but he somehow managed to push all of the wrong buttons and made things worse.

But enough of the bad. Roy Williams came back to rebuild the Empire, and he did it. UNC is back. Sure, they may slip a bit next year if all of their studs leave early, but make no mistake - there will be no more 8-20s in Carolina's near future. They will land one or three McDonald's All-Americans every year and they will always be a threat to make the Final Four. Duke's unimpeded run over the ACC in the past half decade or so is officially over.

The Rivalry
Carolina - Duke wasn't always the preeminent rivalry in the country or even in the ACC. In the early days of the conference, NC State and North Carolina ruled the conference. Over the years, State fell back (and rose back up from time to time) while Carolina always stayed at the top. Duke did well in the 60s, but fell back until Mike Krzyzewski's system took hold in the mid 80s. It was only then that Duke-Carolina really grew into the monster it is now. Sure, they have always hated each other, but to be a great rivalry, both teams need to be really good.

Well, in recent years, Carolina hasn't been that good. While Duke was becoming the best program in the nation over the last 15 years, Carolina was falling down. It got so one-sided that some were saying that Duke-Maryland was now the conference's top rivalry.

Well not now. Not for a long time. Carolina is back (and has retaken the national championship lead - four to three) and the rivalry is better for it.

The Conference
I mentioned this in my last long post, but that title game, Carolina's third in a row against the Big Ten, would settle the conference battle in the NCAA tournament. With the win, Carolina gave the ACC not just the national championship, but the best overall winning percentage in the tournament and a 3-2 head-to-head record against the Big Ten. I guess they crowed too soon!

After the past two seasons, when Big East teams Syracuse and Connecticut won titles, my Big East friends made it known to me that they felt that proved that they were indeed the best conference. Head-to-head matchups, conference power ratings and over post-season winning percentages didn't matter - just the national championship. I didn't think that made much sense then (although in fairness, the Big East had the best postseason record last year along with their title) and I don't now.

Still ... I'd be remiss if I didn't throw a bit of their logic back in their face. If winning the title makes a conference the best, you have to agree that the ACC is the best yet again. (Of course, the ACC also had the best overall NCAA tournament record and the highest rating in every single conference power ratings.) Oh, and that title neatly bookends the back-to-back titles Duke and Maryland won before the Big East's mini-streak. That's three NCAA champions (three different schools, no less) in five seasons.

And now for the final postseason results. By dint of South Carolina's NIT title (and Vandy's nice NIT run), the SEC had a stellar NIT record of 7-1. That offset their flat 5-5 in the Big Dance to help them catch the ACC and Big Ten for overall postseason winning percentage of 66.7%.

As I mentioned earlier, the ACC had the best NCAA record and while it tied the Big Ten and SEC in overall percentage, it did so with four more wins overall.

Final 2005 conference postseason results:

Demon Popes?

You know that Nigerian Cardinal who is one of the front-runners to be the next pope?
(In fact, he's the favorite according to Paddy Power, where you can bet on him at 11-4 odds.) Well, he's the uncle of former Wake Forest guard Niki Arinze.

How cool would it be to have a pope who was familiar with ACC basketball? OK, maybe it wouldn't mean too much, but I like the idea.

Hey, I wonder if Uncle Francis can play ball too? Maybe there is a court in the Vatican where the Cardinals play pickup. Vestments vs. skins.

Arinze for pope!

As The Cavalier Turns

Yoni has done a good job of summing up the latest rumors, news, truth and lies (you decide which is which) in the Virginia coaching search.

It certainly has been pretty interesting, in large part because this is by far the biggest job out there right now. In that regard, this has been pretty good timing for the Cavs. In most years, there would probably be a bigger job and the Cavs would have to wait until that one filled before making their target list. Not so this year. Any coach that wants to move this year has one best choice - Virginia.

We'll see what happens...

Season Wrap-up - Featherston Style

I haven't gotten around to writing up my thoughts on last night's game and its implications, but fortunately there are those with more focus than I.

Al Featherston has a nice review as well as a great look at next year. He steals a bit of my thunder in his comparison between the ACC and Big Ten, but I'm still gonna write about it because it was in my head before I read his.

You can read my (clunkier) version later.

Odom To Virginia?

In a word, no.

The whole rumor that Dave Odom had been offered the Virginia job came from one careless article in the Washington Post. A few other papers mentioned that Odom was being targeted, but no others said that he'd gotten the offer. So, either the Post had scooped the hometown Charlottesville paper as well as all of those in Richmond, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Tidewater and South Carolina or they were wrong.

I was all prepared to write about that when Odom released his statement saying what I thought.

It ain't true. It's a good thing too, because it would have been a pretty poor hire. Believe me, the Virginia fans have been lighting up the message board at TheSabre.com railing against the hire. Even the SC fans were perplexed about why UVA would hire him.

Update: Gregg Doyel says Odom is still in the running. (Thanks Yoni!)

Oh, and by the way, it appears that I was wrong about the Dean Smith hire. Sorry about that.

ps. What's funny about the whole Dean Smith thing is that I wasn't really trying to fool anyone. I just wanted to write something somewhat funny and make up some fake Dean Smith quotes, which is always fun. I never figured anyone would think it was real. Well, they did. Both on my message board and on SportsFilter. It also got linked up at the DBR and Inside Carolina, although those folks didn't seem to fall for it. That article even got a mention on USA Today's website!

High Heels

I was wrong. I admit it. I said last week that I thought Michigan State would beat UNC in the Final Four. I don't mind eating crow on this one because A) I wanted UNC to win and B) I've watched sports for way too long to think I can accurately pick games.

To be fair to myself, if I had written another preview at the end of week, say on Friday or Saturday, I wouldn't have been so sure that the Spartans would win. I don't know why I softened on them, but I think that I just thought more about Carolina's play the previous weekend. They played poorly - tight and without enough passion. Given a week to reflect on that, I figured they'd rebound (no pun intended) the next weekend.

And that's what happened.

Many national champions have a close call or two on their run through the tournament. It often happens in one of the first two rounds; they find themselves losing and facing an ignoble end to a great season. They survive though and vow to never get caught napping again. I think that may have happened to the Tar Heels after their struggles with Villanova and Wisconsin.

So, how to explain the first half, when they were outhustled and found themselves down by five? I chalk that up to two things - first, Michigan State is pretty damn good and their specialty is playing hard and outscrapping their opponents. Being outworked by the Spartans is no shame. Second, Ole Roy overcoached the team. He was shuttling players in and out like a YBA coach making sure each kid gets the same number of minutes. It looked like he was trying to match MSU's depth and avoid getting tired late in the game. The thing is, this is the Final Four. Kids shouldn't be getting tired, especially with the outrageous number and length of the timeouts (I mean seriously. During the season a 30-second timeout usually means no commercials and regular timeout gets you 2 or 3. Last week, a 30-second break meant three commercials and a full timeout got you one Geico, one Taste Loss, two Krzyzewskis and a CBS promo to be named later. Drove me nuts).

In Roy's attempt to be prudent and save his team for the second half, he nearly blew the game. Sure, Carolina has a lot of talent (God am I tired of hearing that though), and reasonable depth, but they aren't that deep. A lineup of Melvin Scott, Jawad Williams, Marvin Williams, David Noel and Quentin Thomas would have done pretty well in the NIT, but they had no business playing together in the Final Four. Frankly, I don't know why Melvin Scott plays at all. What positive contributions does he make? He can't bring the ball up against any sort of pressure. He can't penetrate. His defense is some of the worst I've ever seen (I couldn't even keep track of how many times his man got open looks while Scott jogged along behind him after getting stuck on a screen or maybe watching people in the crowd.). All he does is shoot three-pointers, and he needs to be wide open for those. The ones he did end up taking were horrendous - several feet behind the line and without even squaring up.

Whew. Sorry about that rant, but watching McCants, May and Felton jog back to the bench while Scott played drove me (and my wife, a huge Carolina fan) nuts. Fortunately, the damage was reversible and Roy kept his Junior class guns on the floor in the second half. With their best players on the floor and with a renewed sense of urgency, the Heels rolled. Consider that they won by 18 after being down 5 at the half. That's a 23-point swing over a good defensive squad in just one half. The Heels had it going on.

As for tonight's game, I'm not going to make any predictions. It's not that I'm afraid of being wrong, it's just that I don't have a feel for who's gonna win. I picked Illinois in my brackets and I still think that's the smart choice, but it may not be the right choice. At least not tonight.

With three great guards, you can count on the Illini putting a lot of pressure on Felton. They are going to want to force him into turnovers (which doesn't appear to be that hard to do), get him tired and maybe get him in foul trouble. Considering that Villanova was able to do just that, I'd hope the Heels are worried about this. Illinois' guards are clearly better than Nova's.

The Illini are also very patient and efficient on offense. Carolina will need to pay attention on defense, which is not their strong suit. The Heels would rather force chaos and feed on the turnovers, but the Illini have so many good, experienced ballhandlers that it could be hard to disrupt them.

Carolina's advantage obviously is inside where Sean May and Marvin Williams should be able to dominate. Illinois' big men are underrated, but they are still no match for May. The Heels will need to dominate the rebounding like they did in the second half on Saturday.

I think the X-factor for the Heels will be the same as it was on Saturday - Jawad Williams. The big three will probably produce and Marvin Williams will probably have a solid game. If Jawad adds offensive production to that, the Heels can (and likely will) win. If he reverts back to his four-point scoring ways, it's going to be very tough.

Whatever happens, I think it'll be a hell of a game. I expect it'll be uptempo and exciting. Illini plays at a fairly slow pace, but they are capable of running with Carolina. It's hard not to get sucked into a fast pace against UNC, and with those guards, I bet Illinois will comply. The winner is gonna score 85 or more points.

Random notes:

The Horror
One thing I won't miss about this tournament will be the constant promos for CBS's horror shows. First we had the ridiculous Shark Attack: Spring Break. Then, we got Locusts. And all along, the scariest of them all - The Thing On Greg Gumbel's Head. I mean, have you seen that thing? It cracks me up every time I see him. It's so dark it bends light.

Woof Woof, Uh Oh
Remember all that yapping last week from the Big Ten folks? They were so excited that they knocked out two ACC teams on that Friday night and that they landed three teams in the Elite Eight. Then, they put two into the Final Four and the smack continued, pointing out how they had a better record than the ACC and that they won the "challenge that matters." Well, that should be lesson #1 of why you shouldn't brag too much before the tourney is over. UNC has beaten two Big Ten teams in a row and might just make it a third tonight. The Big Ten stands at 12-4 and the ACC 11-4. That means that whoever wins the game tonight earns their conference bragging rights, both in the fact that they won the title over the other and that they'll have the best winning percentage (straight up and head-to-head). In effect, it's a tie right now.

Don't Hurt Yourself
Rashad McCants is one frustrating player. He played a great game against Michigan State, hitting big shots on one end and getting a couple of nice blocks on the other. But then there were those two plays where he watched Spartans snag loose balls right in his face. There was one in each half. All he had to do on the first was drop down and pick it up. On the second, a half step forward would have done the trick. But no, in each case, he just waved his hand at the ball like a toddler waiting on a beach ball.

He must drive Roy Williams insane.

Nice Hustle
That play in the Illinois-Louisville game where Roger Powell, Jr. (every time I see his name, it reminds me of Roger Mason, Jr.) missed a three and dunked in his own rebound, was maybe the nicest individual play I've seen all year. That one play summed up everything about the right way to play hoops. Coaches always yell to follow your shot, but it's so hard for players to do it. They just want to see the swish. But not Powell. He knew he missed it and ran in with enough speed to meet the ball as it came off the rim. Very, very impressive.

Virginia Names New Coach: Dean Smith

Man, I never saw this coming. Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage announced last night that UVA had hired former North Carolina coach Dean Smith as their new basketball coach.

Obviously, Coach Smith is too old to coach for long, but he says he plans to coach for at least five years and he'll reevaluate after that.

Coach Smith had several interesting quotes about the situation.

On making the decision to get back into coaching:
"Ever since I retired, I've been doing nearly as much coaching as before. Bill, Matt and Roy all spent so much time in my office that I never could get anything else done. Well, not Matt so much. He helped matters by moving me down to this small office in the basement. I really appreciated his trying to help me out like that."

On Virginia and his rivalry with Terry Holland:
"I always had the utmost respect for the Virginia program. Terry Holland and I used to have a nice rivalry in the early eighties. I never understood why he couldn't keep it up while we just kept on winning. I see Terry's down at East Carolina now. I'm glad he found something perfect for him."

On Mike Krzyzewski:
"I'm really looking forward to competing against Mike again. He's a good coach and I wonder if he still feels challenged. He has so much confidence now that he's able to spend lots of time away from his job filming commercials. Have you seen his commercials yet? It's great that he's able to use his fame to such great ends."

So, all-in-all, I'm still in shock about the whole situation. While it's odd that Virginia would hire such an old coach, they really couldn't found anyone better.

According to Littlepage, Smith actually approached him about the job. Littlepage had been having serious discussions with former Cavalier great Olden Polynice, who's apparently working as a sheriff's deputy in Boca Raton.