I Wanna Dance with Somebody...from the Big East

With Selection Sunday just 20 days away...yes, 20 days...we wanted to explore who'd be dancing from the Big East Conference. You might be saying, anyone can look at the standings and figure who the best teams in the conference are. That may be true. But can anyone predict who will make the Tournament while also comparing the teams to, and in turn honoring, the late, great Whitney Houston? Challenge accepted.

1. Syracuse - "Greatest Love of All" or "I Will Always Love You" - No brainer here. The only school that I've ever truly loved, and will love forever. Syracuse has been in control of the conference since Day 1. They look to be in the drivers seat for a #1 seed in the Big Dance as well (most likely in the East), which would mean opening round games in Pittsburgh, and Sweet 16/Elite 8 games in Baaaahston. Even at 27-1, the Orange have their flaws. If they don't fix the rebounding woes that have hurt them all season, there could be an upset before New Orleans.
Bold Prediction: The Final Four is on Bourbon Street, and Jimmy B has been there in '87 and '03. Why not just invite him and the Orange back for '12, as well.

2. Marquette - "It's Not Right, But It's Okay (Thunderpuss Remix)" - The Golden Eagles beat Syracuse during the regular season last year, and then knocked them out in the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament. If I had to root for another Big East school this year, it'd be Marquette (It's not right, but it's okay). I don't know about you, but Marquette scares the crap out of me. They are a tough as nails team, have a crazy coach (in a good way, not in a Frank Martin/Mike Rice way), have a couple of guys that are seniors and have been there before (Crowder and Johnson-Odom), and there have been at least three or four games this year in which they've been down by at least 15 points, and have come back to win the game.
Bold Prediction: They not only make a run to Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in the final "real" Big East Tournament, and continue the streak with a Elite 8 run in the Tourney. Don't be surprised if you see in NOLA as well.

3. Georgetown - "Run to You" - As in, run the Princeton offense. Hoyas have been solid all year long. Nice mix of young and old, as well as inside and outside. Jason Clark can go for 25 time any time he steps on the court, Hollis Thompson is an experienced swingman, while Henry Sims and Nate Lubick provide skill and experience in the paint. However, the Hoyas also depend a group of freshman who have gotten big minutes all year. Can a team with a lot of freshmen go far in the tournament? It's happened before, and G'town would like to rebound from last year's 1st round exit.
Bold Prediction: The Hoyas will be one of the last Big East teams standing in the NCAAs, along with Marquette and Cuse. Look for Georgetown to be playing for a shot to go to the Elite 8, come late March.

3a. Notre Dame - "Saving All My Love for You" - This references all the love Notre Dame is getting from around the country. "Mike Brey does it again....Coach of the Year in the Big East....they lost their best player before the season started....they're they only team to beat Syracuse..." To be honest, most of it is all warranted. Notre Dame has come out of nowhere, running their "burn" offense when they want to control the tempo of games, like they did against Syracuse. Since losing to UConn and Rutgers in mid-January, Notre Dame has won 8 in a row and are now ranked in the top 20.
Bold Prediction: The Irish might be pulling a Rick Pitino, and may be peaking too early. They got trampled out of the NCAA tournament last year during opening weekend. A great story this year, but don't expect the Irish to be around after St. Patty's Day weekend.

5. Louisville - "Heartbreak Hotel" - Unfortunately Fortunately Whitney didn't have a song titled "Italian Restaurant Bathroom," or else we'd have the perfect match for Pitino and the Cardinals. We'll go with the Heartbreak Hotel instead. Syracuse was able to beat the Cardinals at the Yum last Monday, after Louisville basically owned the Orange in their last 7 meetings. Coming off that loss, Cards needed OT to win at DePaul. Big game at Cincy on Thursday. L'ville needs to get some confidence back.
Bold Predication: Louisville is obviously in, and most likely a 3-5 seed. This sets them up perfectly for 13-4/12-5 upset, and "Pitino Doesn't Last Long" jokes lighting up Twitter.

6. West Virginia - "One Moment in Time" - The Mountaineers are taking their final breathes of Big East basketball. Whether or not they'll be spending late March in the NCAA Tournament or the NIT still remains to be seen. WVU has a Huggy-sized huge game against Notre Dame on Wednesday. A win in South Bend would go a loooong way for selection committee members. If WVU wins the games they are supposed to (ND not included) down the stretch, and can get a pair of Ws in NYC in their final Big East Tournament, they should be dancing.
Bold Predication: Their final moment in time in the Big East includes a trip to the NCAA Tournament, but a loss in the Round of 32. Kevin Jones can't do it all.

7. South Florida - "How Will I Know" - The Bulls are a tough team to predict. They are 10-4 in conference (good for a tie for 4th overall), with a trip to the Carrier Dome on Wednesday looming. After Cuse, they have Cincy at home, Louisville at the Yum, and host WVU in the season finale. If they go 2-2 over the final four regular season games, and win at least one in NYC, Bulls will be running into the NCAA Tournament.
Bold Predication: USF isn't quite ready to take the next step yet. They go 1-3 to finish the year, and get bounced early in the Big East tournament, punching a ticket to the NIT. With that said, can you keep an 11-7 team in the Big East out of the Big Dance? Redact prediction, Bulls are in if they win 3 more games before Selection Sunday.

8. Cincinnati - "So Emotional" - It's been quite the rollercoaster of emotions for Cincy this year. The Bearcats have a couple of black eyes on their resume that won't do them any favors on Selection Sunday (Presbyterian and Marshall). Throw in the black eyes they gave to Xavier players, it's been an up and down season for the 'Nati. The Bearcats sit basically in the same position as USF. I'd say they are in right now, but losing to the Bulls or Villanova in the final weeks of the season could be the knockout punch for Cincy.
Bold Predication: If the Bearcats can defend their home court and beat Louisville on Thursday night, they are in. If they lose, they still have a chance, but that's a resume building win and they need it at this point in the season.

9. Seton Hall - "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" - Did you know that Seton Hall lost 6 games in a row during the month of January and early February. Even with that stretch of games, most "experts" have said the Pirates are in, despite being 7-8 in the league right now. The Hall hosts Georgetown and Rutgers before closing out the year at DePaul. To say the Pirates still have some work to do, would be putting it lightly.

Bold Predication: The Hall loses 2 of their final 3, and answer the question, Where Do Broken Hearts Go....the NIT.

10. UConn - "I Have Nothing" - If you looked at UConn's Tournament resume, changed the name at the top to Storrs College, there is no way they'd be a tournament team. But they are UConn, the defending National Champs, so they get the benefit of a perennial tournament team. Similar to Villanova last year, who had no business making the tournament (and lost in their first game), UConn could get some benefit of the doubt votes. Throw in the fact UConn won't be in the tournament next year (NCAA violations), could this year be Calhoun's last opportunity to coach in a NCAA tourney game?
Bold Predication: It's been a rough year for the defending champs. Suspensions due to NCAA violations for a player as well as Calhoun. They've basically quit in a number of games, where it really showed that they had nothing. Shabazz Napier kept hopes alive with his ONIONS on Monday night at Villanova. Don't think that will be enough though. No NCAA Tournament for the Huskies, and loyal reader Ramy has to console his little brother, Jeremy Lamb (that's if he didn't trade in this Jeremy for Jeremy Lin).

Final count: Big East definitely gets 7, possibly 8. Only get 9 if someone has a Gerry McNamara/Da'Sean Butler/Kemba-esque run in NYC. Give me 4 of those teams in the Sweet 16, 2 in the Elite 8 and 1 in the New Orleans.

Wolverines, Cats and Hoyas....Oh my

Three games to comment on from last night: In-state battle between Michigan and Michigan State in Ann Arbor; Kentucky Rolls again and records fall; Hoyas win on the road.

#20 Michigan 60 - #9 Michigan State 59: That's two straight road losses for The Fighting Izzos (Northwestern over the weekend and Michigan last night). Freshman Trey Burke led the way for Michigan with 20 points and the assist to Stu Douglass (Stu-pac, Stu-manji) on his game winning bucket with 36 seconds left. Another cool part of this game, seeing Denard Robinson go nuts in the student section (video posted by mgodisney).



#2 Kentucky 86 - Arkansas 63: As expected, blowout city in Lexington. Freshman Anthony Davis had 27 points and 7 block shots. With five minutes left in the first half, Davis blocked his 84th shot of the year, which breaks the school record for blocks in a season (remember Davis blocked the game winning attempt by UNC's John Henson back in December). Oh, and Kentucky still has 12 regular season games left. At least we don't have to worry about Davis breaking his own record next season, because he'll most likely be wearing a Washington Wizards jersey.

Daily Onions was basically on the G'town bench last night (#22 Photos)

#10 Georgetown 83 - DePaul 75: Winning games on the road is never easy in conference play, regardless the opponent. Georgetown led for the majority of the game last night in the suburbs of Chicago, but DePaul would never quite go away. The Hoyas were without guard Markel Starks who had the stomach bug, and you could tell something was missing. Georgetown didn't handle DePaul's pressure that well and had 18 turnovers as a team. Freshman Otto Porter (how did he not go to Syracuse with a name like that) had 15 rebounds, but also turned the ball over 5 times and looked pretty shaky against pressure. Luckily, Georgetown has the a senior that can step up. Jason Clark had a career high 31 points, including 5 3 pointers. Should be a good battle between the Hoyas and the Orange in the Carrier Dome on February 8th.

Reporting Live......

Daily Onions hits the road this week to check out a few college hoops games in the Chicago area.

Tonight we start with a Big East matchup in Rosemont, when Georgetown takes on a much improved DePaul team. We'll be sure to do a little advance scout for the Orange, who host the Hoyas on February 8th.

Thursday, we'll check out our third Horizon League game in the past two years (Butler at Loyola last year, Valpo at Butler in December), when Butler visits UIC (see a common theme with these Horizon League games?). 

On Saturday we make the hour and a half drive to South Bend, Indiana to see the top ranked Syracuse basketball team take on Notre Dame. The Irish are a bit down this year (who isn't in the Big East this year), but have a nice road win at Louisville in double OT. However, more recently, they got blown out at home by UConn and dropped one on the road to Rutgers last night. Entering the Syracuse game, the Irish will be 11-8 overall, 3-3 in conference play and Mike Brey will still be wearing a mock turtleneck with a blazer on the sideline.

Order of Onions for the Hoyas

Before we get into last night's action, let's talk about Onions. Bill Raftery coined the phrase for when players come up with big time shots down the stretch. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, better than a classic Raftery "ONIONS" call. We can talk all about his other phrases and made up words that Raftery goes to throughout a game, but Onions is what we all want. Here is one of our favorite examples of an classic Onions call from last year's NCAA tournament.



Since it's Friday, here's another CLASSIC Raftery call, along w/ Gus Johnson. I wish we had a camera on what Gus and Bill looked like as they were doing this. I mean you have a couple of Onions calls from Raftery, you have Gus going nuts, even letting out a "Larry Bird" (where'd that come from), and you get a lot of weird noises.
                                                    

Anyway, back to current day. To follow up the Big Ten-ACC Challenge, last night kicked off the two day Big East-SEC Challenge. While tonight's games between Syracuse and Florida, and Louisville and Vanderbilt will get most of the hype, a few of last night's games had some classic finishes. Before we get to that, let it be known that Kentucky put a spanking on St. John's behind the ridiculous 15-15-8 (blocks) line from super frosh Anthony Davis. Providence got one back for the Big East with their nine point win over South Carolina.

The two exciting finishes featured Ole Miss getting a running layup in the final seconds of the game to break a tie and defeat DePaul in the suburbs of Chicago.

The best game of the evening was between unranked Georgetown and #12 Alabama, in Tuscaloosa. Bama used a 10-0 run in the final minutes to take a 55-54 lead with 12 seconds to play in the game. In a perfect world, Raftery would have been calling this game, but he wasn't. Regardless, Hollis Thompson w/ an order of Onions for the Hoyas.

This is a huge victory for the Hoyas, who have now knocked off Memphis and Alabama early on this season. Expect G'town to join the Top 25 next week.

One time, at Big East Media Day....

If Midnight Madness is the official kickoff of college basketball season, then the conference Media Days are the....end of the first quarter? Hold on, what? Screw the football analogy (we'll get to an interesting analogy in a little bit though), let's just say, Media Day is awesome. We get to see who the coaches pick as the best teams and players in the conference, and you get to see a bunch of college kids look uncomfortable in a shirt and tie.

Scoop, in a Suit. (Syracuse.com)

Today was Big East Basketball Media Day in NYC, which is the home of one of the homes of Syracuse University basketball. The coaches selected Syracuse and UConn as the co-favorites for the league title this year. Next was Louisville, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Marquette, West Virginia, Villanova, Notre Dame and Georgetown rounding out the top 10. Jeez, this conference is tough.

On an individual basis, Pitt's Ashton Gibbs (and his undershirt) was selected as the Player of Year, while UConn's Andre Drummond was voted Freshman of the Year. Syracuse has Kris Joseph on the 1st team and Scoop Jardine on the 2nd team. West Virginia's Kevin Jones and Tim Abromitis of Notre Dame, both return for their 8th year of college, and were both voted as preseason 1st Teamers as well.

Daily Onions had the opportunity to attend Big East Media Day back before the 2002-03 season, when we were more Orange than Onion. We thought it'd be fun to reminisce about some of the names we chatted with that day at Madison Square Garden.

Let's check out the preseason 1st All-Big East honors that were handed out that day:

Probably taken before 1 of Bell's 6 NBA Games

• Brandin Knight, Pittsburgh - Selected as the preseason conference player of the year in '02-03, you can still find Knight in the Steel City, now as an assistant coach.
• Troy Bell (left), Boston College - This guy could absolutely light it up in college, is BC's all-time leading scorer, and had half a cup of coffee in the NBA.
• Emeka Okafor, Connecticut- Almost 10 years later, its crazy to think there was a debate over who should go #1 in the NBA Draft, Okafor or Dwight Howard. With that said, Okafor did win a National Championship, and has had a serviceable NBA career.
• Mike Sweetney, Georgetown - Undersized, big man for the Hoyas. Didn't have the body for an NBA career.
• Darius Rice, Miami, Jr.- Remember this guy? Freakishly athletic, McDonald's All-American, nephew of Jerry Rice. He ended up staying all 4 years of college, went undrafted and bounced around overseas and the D-League.
• Marcus Hatten, St. John's - Kind of like Bell, a pure scorer. Best memory of Hatten has to be playing for Uncle Phil at St. John's.

The 2nd team featured guys like: James Jones - yep, the same James Jones that is hitting 3s for the Heatles. He got his start in Miami as Hurricane; Chris Thomas - In a recent survey we just made up, this Notre Dame PG was voted most annoying player by opposing fans teams. Good to know he got an acting gig playing the PG in the movie Finding Forrester; Jerome Coleman - this Rutgers shooting guard led the Scarlet Knights to an upset over the eventual National Champions (Syracuse) that year in...New Jerrrrsey, and allowed me to exclaim "Send it in Jerome" (a Raftery fan even at a young age!) over the Syracuse radio airwaves. Shout out to Herve Lamizana as well.

Always a good time to look back at some of the players who came through the Big East. Carmelo Anthony was a freshman in 2002-03, and was picked to be the best Freshman of the Year in the conference, but was left off the 1st and 2nd team. Looks like Melo got the last laugh there.

Slick Rick: Why Don't You Sit the Next Few Plays Out

Speaking of laughs, today at Big East Media Day, Rick Pitino had some choice words about Syracuse and Pitt leaving the conference. Rick, who has been known to compare a tough start to a seasons to... 9/11, added this analogy to his resume:

"My problem is not them leaving," he said. "My problem is you did it in 48 hours. Don't run away with a girl after one date when you've been dating someone else for three or four years. You've been dating this woman for 30 years, show a little respect."

In case you forgot, Pitino, who has been married to his wife for more than 30 years, once met a woman in a restaurant, had a few drinks, and then proceeded to have sex with her in the bathroom. This occurred in 2003, and in 2009 Pitino admitted to not only having consensual sex, but also paying for an abortion. 

Pot, meet kettle. Hope you enjoyed media day.

Syracuse in the Eye of Conference Realignment Hurricane

There aren't many things that could bring Daily Onions out of hibernation before the start of the college basketball season. However, there are a few things...in no particular order:

• A face to face meeting with Daily Onions favorite Brad Stevens
• Winning a contest that allows us to go to the Final Four the next 10 years
• Daily Onions being bought by a huge sports website
• A monumental move that changes the landscape for Syracuse and Big East Athletics.

We really wish we were writing about one of the first three items on that list. But instead it looks as if Syracuse, one of the founding members of the Big East Conference back in 1979, is packing its bags and heading to the ACC.

Our initial reaction, as you would expect from a life-long fan and alum of Syracuse, is anger, disgust and sadness. While football is obviously driving this decision, we immediately turn our thoughts to the effect on Syracuse basketball. Let's think about the potential changes we'll see:

• Long-time rivalries with Georgetown and UConn, become yearly matchups with Wake Forest and Virginia (yes, as well as Duke and UNC....still, not the same).
• The Big East Tournament every March at Madison Square Garden turns into a trip to Greensboro, NC...I hear its lovely in early March.
• At least 4-5 games on ESPN's Big Monday, with Sean McDonough, Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery calling the game, the obvious best team of college basketball announcers in the business. We'll now have to endure Mike Patrick and Dick Vitale making out with each other on the air while talking about how good Duke is.

It's obvious that Big East die-hards and traditionalists are disappointed with this move. However, with conference realignment such a fluid situation (seems like you sound smarter if you say something is "fluid"), this could be a case of Syracuse making a proactive move to ensure that they aren't "standing up when the music stops" (credit to 'Cuse fan @cbombard for that analogy).

Hurricane Realignment headed straight for Big East

We'll take it one step further. Conference realignment is a hurricane, and it is coming straight for the Big East. Syracuse Athletic Director Daryl Gross gets a call that says "if you know what's good for you, evacuate now." The storm is coming, and you are better off getting to a safer place now because we don't know how bad this could get.

How bad could it get for the Big East? Well, there might not BE a Big East (somewhere Mike Tranghese is crying). With rumors of four super conferences emerging - Pac12, Big 10, SEC and ACC - said hurricane could take out what we all once knew as the Big East.

If Syracuse ignores the evacuation warning, and like a stubborn homeowner on the east coast in the eye of the storm, says "I built this place, I'm not going anywhere," they could end up standing on the roof of their house waiting for someone to rescue them. If Syracuse waits to long, there might not be anyone coming to pick them up.

We're not quite ready to embrace this potential change, and it will indeed take some time to get used to it. But if this hurricane is as bad as it could be, we should be glad Syracuse got out before it was too late. 

Day 2 of the Madness: Digital Getdown

With the NCAA tournament playing games in our backyard at the United Center, it was a must that we went to check out the action live and in person. That meant we'd be depending on texts, tweets, and the March Madness On Demand App on iPhones, iPads, etc to stay up to date on the action. With this year's tournament being shown on four channels (thanks to Turner Sports and CBS), ratings are up 22% compared to last year and the highest in 20 years. That is what we call bi-winning. Now let's get to some bite sized thoughts on some action from yesterday.

-Bruce Pearl, it was nice knowing you at Tennessee. We were hoping you and your team would show up for a win or go home situation. Instead it was Coach Beilein and his "do it the right way" program at Michigan that spanked the Vols all the way back to Rocky Top.

-Great to see Texas living up to the inconsistency and squeaking by Oakland, 85-81. Huge matchup for the Longhorns tomorrow against #5 Arizona who needed a Derrick Williams block (again) to save a win against Memphis.

-Big Least: Thank you Villanova and Georgetown for carrying the flag for the Big East. Gross. Nova let up a 10 point lead to lose by four to George Mason. Meanwhile, we watched the Hoyas in person, and it was really never a game. G-town looked tentative and out of sync all game, while VCU was on fire from outside and controlled the tempo of the game with their full-court pressure. Yesterday, CAA > Big East.

-Syracuse took care of the Fighting Larry Birds as expected. Now they face Marquette, who made the Big East look good by dominating Xavier the entire game. Cuse and Marquette met in Milwaukee ("the good land") back in late January the Orange losing by 4. Revenge is a female dog.

-We also got to see Notre Dame and Purdue in action in Chicago. If those two teams end up meeting next weekend in the Sweet 16, it could be one of the best games of the tournament. Lots of Daily Onions love for the Notre Dame team, as well as JaJuan Johnson and the Boilermakers.

Big day of hoops about to get underway. Enjoy! We'll catch up with you on Monday to preview the Sweet 16, and show you everyone's ONIONS!

Things Fall Apart

Shout out to my high school freshman year Honors English class in today's title. A little Chinua Achebe references for the literature buffs. Daily Onions wants to show its more than just basketball. I'd say its 99.9% basketball, and 0.1% of random mentions.

So, what exactly fell apart last night in the college hoops world? Where to start? North Carolina, Villanova, Syracuse?

Let's begin close to our heart. Syracuse and Georgetown. One of the classic rivalries in college basketball. After a back and forth first half, in which Cuse took a two point lead into the locker room, there was more of the same in half number two. Coming down the stretch though, it seemed like the Orange were taking control of the game. The surprise was that they were doing this with Rick Jackson on the bench in foul trouble. Daily Onions favorite CJ Fair did what he does, 12 points and 5 rebounds, while Baye Mousa Keita patrolled the middle of the lane (4 points, 4 rebounds, 5 blocks) with Jackson out. With about five minutes left, "I'm Sorry" came back into the game with Cuse holding a slim lead. From that point on, it was all Hoyas. G-town ends the game on a 14-3 run (two touchdowns to one field goal), and that's that. It seemed like the game just evaporated before the Orange's eyes. And with the loss, they've dropped three straight at the Carrier Dome.

Less than an hour later, off the NJ Turnpike, the Rutgers-Villanova game was coming to end. With 4:28 left in the game, Nova's Corey Fisher drained a 3 pointer to give the Cats a 67-54 lead. Time to head for the exits right? Not so fast, my friend (Corso, Lee). Four minutes later, James Bell drained a 3 pointer to give the Cats a 75-70 lead with 17 seconds left. Let's leave now, beat the traffic, all Nova has to do is make some free throws. Nope. A three by Rutgers made it 75-73 with 11 seconds left. They foul Corey Fisher with 9 seconds left. Fisher, a NJ native and a 79% FT shooter, could seal the game with two makes. He makes one. As a Villanova fan, you have to think, "That's ok, we are still up three with 9 seconds left, there is no way we should lose this game in regulation. At worse, we go to OT." Hmm, not quite. Rutgers makes a three with 0.8 seconds left.....and gets FOULED! Now, when you watch the replay the call is definitely questionable. It looks like there was some contact on the elbow, but that play probably doesn't get called just as much as it does. Jonathan Mitchell makes his free throw, and the Rut pulls off their biggest win of the Mike Rice Era.

Right around that time, down in Durham, North Carolina, arguably the best rivalry in sports was underway, Duke vs. North Carolina. Blue Devils were the preseason favorite, but with an injury to their top player, they've shown they are beatable. UNC has started to turn things around recently, winning 7 of their first 8 conference games.  But this game was at Cameron Indoor, so most experts were picking Duke to win this one. Three minutes into the game, the score was 10-2. North Carolina. At the half, UNC led 43-29. Just like everyone expected. Dukies, have no fear because you got two guys by the names of Nolan Smith and Seth Curry. Smith went for 34, and Curry went for 22, as they combined for 21 made buckets. The comeback, granted it was at home, shows that Duke's still got it (even with out Kyrie), and is one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the country.

So what team had the bigger collapse last night? Congratulations, Villanova. No reason you should give up a 13 point lead to Rutgers in the final four minutes, and no reason you should even be close enough to someone shooting a three with two seconds left that the official could mistakenly think you fouled him. I'm sure Jay Wright already has this game in their rear view though. They have Pitt coming to town on Saturday night. Should be a real dog....I mean cat fight.

Diced Onions

Some random thoughts from the basketball world, both NBA and college:

Freeman has the Hoyas playing well of late.

-As quickly as Syracuse is imploding, Georgetown is surging. The Hoyas have won five in a row, including an impressive road win at Nova (who has lost two straight) on Saturday, and a home win against Louisville last night. What a difference a month makes. At the beginning of January, no one could figure out G-town, as they lost four of their first five conference games (their only win was against DePaul). If they can continue their win streak this Saturday against Providence (who beat Villanova last week), the Hoyas could end up back in the Top 10. Ahh, just another year in the Big East conference.

-Texas might be the hottest team in college basketball right now. The Horns have won 13 of their last 14 games, with their only loss coming in overtime to the UConn Fighting Kembas (Walker put on a show in Austin that game). Since that loss they've had impressive wins over Texas A&M (both home and away), Mizzou, and at Kansas, snapping the Jayhawks 69-game home win streak. Will the Longhorns be the next Daily Onions Final Four projected team? Ehh, not quite yet. Texas tends to lead you on in the regular season, only to bow out early of the tournament. They haven't made a Final Four since 2003, when Syra.....actually, maybe I will pick the Longhorns to go to the Final Four.

-Switching gears to some Association talk...Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, should write an apology letter to the teams fans (in comic sans, obviously) for the horrific team he puts on the court each night.  The Cavs have lost 21 games in a row, just two shy of the NBA record. Gilbert guaranteed the Cavs would win a championship before the "King" did, and Gilbert said you could take it to the bank. Would love to find that bank right now.

-Derrick Rose is the best point guard in the NBA. Deron Williams is second. Chris Paul on one and a half legs is third. Russell Westbrook is 4th, but could very well be second or third by the end of this season. Rajon Rondo is fifth.

-Congrats to Indiana Pacers interim head coach, Frank Vogel for his first win last night against the Raptors. Vogel is a South Jersey native (the birthplace of Daily Onions) and ran in the same basketball circles/camps as I did growing up. Vogel got his start as a student-manager at Kentucky, under Rick Pitino. He then followed Pitino to the Celtics as the video coordinator, and got hooked up with Jim O'Brien. Vogel served as an assistant coach for O'Brien during his time as the head man for the Sixers and Celtics. Best of luck to Vogel. We hope the rest of the year is a success and that interim tag is dropped for the 2011-12 season.

The Weekend that Was

Kemba was kept in check for only so long. (AP)

-Kemba Walker reads Daily Onions! Or at least that's what I am telling myself, after he went out and willed UConn to a win on the road at Texas. Using my post last week as bulletin board material, Kemba was 8-27 shooting and he scored 22 points, including this ridiculous shot as the shot clock was expiring at the end of the game. He also hit the game winner in overtime and grabbed 9 rebounds. Big time win for the Huskies, and they get Rutgers and DePaul next.

-Georgetown continues to baffle me. I want to like the Hoyas and possibly pick them as a team to go deep into the tournament, but late game situations have been killing them of late.  Despite having an experienced PG in Chris Wright, the Hoyas turned it over on their final four possessions of the game against West Virginia. For the game, Wright had 5 turnovers and 2 assists...not really what you are looking for from your floor general. G'town drops to 1-3 in the Big East and now has to host Pittsburgh on Wednesday night. On the flip side, huge with a capital U, win for the Mountaineers. Exactly what they needed after dropping two of their first three conference games.

-University of Kentucky fans took out their frustration on the Enes Kanter decision on a New York Times writer, and then watched their team lose on the road to Georgia, 77-70. Hey UK fans, your team might be young and immature, doesn't mean you have to be.

-As predicted on Friday, Villanova knocked Cincinnati from the unbeaten list. Other notable results from the weekend: Penn State knocked off Michigan State, Colorado beat 8th ranked Missouri, Notre Dame beat St. Johns, Kansas needed overtime to win in Ann Arbor, and UCF dropped their first game of the season at Houston.

-Coming tomorrow: Daily Onions starts to breakdown the games that are a part of the upcoming Big E Hoops Weekend.