**I will be covering March Madness for the "Louis Live" show on TLV1.fm. Check back here for weekly updates on March Madness. First post starts now...**
It is March and the Madness is upon us. That’s right folks: while the weather outside is frightful,
the college basketball is so delightful!
This week marks Conference Championship Week, where all of
the Division I Collegiate basketball conferences hold tournaments to decide who
gets to go dancing in the granddaddy of them all: NCAA March Madness.
I’ll be your host over the next month, as we navigate this wild ride
that is universally accepted in an Americentrist world as the greatest sporting
event of the year. Tune in to “Louis Live” as I cover everything
March Madness-related in print and on air. Let the Madness Begin!
Back Problems
Injuries to star players have the potential to derail
championship teams. Cincinnati’s title hopes were dashed in
’00 when future number one overall pick and current New York Knickerbocker
Kenyon Martin broke his leg in the Atlantic-10 Conference Tournament a week
before Selection Sunday. While no
team has suffered a season-ending injury of that magnitude over the past week,
many teams are currently struggling with injuries to their stars. Specifically, back problems have been
an issue as of late.
Syracuse began
the season at 25-0, before dropping four of five games, nose-diving to a 26-4
record before righting the ship against Florida St. on Sunday. The rough patch
included losses to Georgia Tech, and
an inspired, but lowly, Boston College
team. While Syracuse was never
good enough to be an undefeated team and they had a Strength of Schedule (SOS)
of over 100 when they lost to Boston College—meaning that they had yet to play
their toughest opponents, as their SOS now sits at 61st—their streak
did coincide with a back injury to star forward Jerami Grant. Although
Grant was productive in back-to-back losses to Boston College & Duke, he played 13 ineffective minutes
in a nail-biting 57-55 win over Maryland
three days after the Duke loss.
After receiving treatment for the rest of the week, he attempted to play
in Syracuse’s next game, ultimately managing a grimace-filled 13 ineffective
minutes in Syracuse’s blowout-loss to Virginia. In their next game, a home game against
Georgia Tech, Syracuse lost 67-62, while shooting under 40% from the field, as
their vaunted zone surrendered 47% shooting to their opponents. Grant was absent in the loss to Georgia
Tech, sitting on the sidelines in street clothes, watching his teammates
struggle without his interior presence creating spacing problems for opposing
teams. Grant’s return in the next
game couldn’t have come soon enough for the Orange, who blew out a pesky
Florida State squad on the road, behind Grant’s 16 points and eight
rebounds. Syracuse shot 48% from
the field against the defensive-oriented Seminoles, while their zone bounced
back and held their opponents to 38% shooting.
While C.J. Fair leads Syracuse in scoring, Grant leads them
in rebounds and physicality and it became abundantly clear to Syracuse fans
just how much they need him on the floor.
The same can be said for Kansas
and its star center, Joel Embiid. Embiid, projected by some to be the
number one overall selection in this year’s NBA Draft, has missed the last two
games with a stress fracture to his lower back. It was announced on Monday that he will miss the entire
Big-12 Conference Tournament and may miss the first week of the NCAA
Tournament, as well. In his
absence, Kansas crushed a bad Texas Tech team,
before being upset by West Virginia
in what was arguably its worse and most telling loss of the season—a loss that has at the very least
temporarily knocked Kansas out of a number one seed in March Madness. Like Grant, Embiid does not lead Kansas
in scoring—that mark goes to fellow freshman superstar Andrew Wiggins, who scored 41 points in the loss to West Virginia
on Sunday. However, like Grant,
Embiid leads the team in rebounding, blocks and overall physicality and is a huge force for
Kansas on both ends of the floor.
While it remains to be seen just how much time he will miss and when he
will return to the court—if he ever does return in a college uniform—the impact
of Embiid’s loss was felt mightily on Sunday. Kansas is talented enough to win without their big man, but
they are likely not talented enough to win it all if he does not return.
What Does it Take to Be, #1?
With less than a week remaining until Selection Sunday,
three number one seeds are seemingly locked-in: the top-ranked Florida Gators will be a number one seed regardless of what happens in the SEC
Tournament, the Wichita State Shockers
completed a 34-0 season, and the Arizona Wildcats currently have the top RPI (the metric used to reflect the
toughness of a team’s schedule and how they fared against the schedule—the
all-important metric for deciding seeding in the NCAA Tournament) and number
four overall SOS in the nation. A
loss to Oregon was presumably frustrating to the Wildcats, but losing to a
fellow tournament team on the road in a conference game did not hurt their
chances at a number one seed. Like
Florida, they should be a number one seed regardless of what happens in the
PAC-12 Conference Tournament.
Three teams down, one to go.
For those of us who have anxiety over unfinished business,
we are anxious about this fourth number one seed. So are four teams who can’t seem to make up their minds on
whether they want the one seed or not.
Although they were playing without Embiid, Kansas would have all but
locked up the number one seed with a win over West Virginia. Instead, the loss has them trending
downward as a two-seed. Similarly,
Wisconsin lost to Nebraska on Sunday. While Nebraska is a tournament team and
Wisconsin had been playing some of the best basketball in the nation as of
late, the loss knocked them down to a two-seed, as well. Similarly, a Duke loss to Wake Forest knocked them off of the
top-line, despite their bounce-back domination of archrival North Carolina on Saturday night.
So who does that leave to grab the fourth number one
seed? Villanova & Michigan
are the two most-likely candidates, as of now. The winners of the Big East and Big-10, respectively, will
each need to win their conference tournaments to have a shot at the number one
seed. It is currently theirs to
lose, although if Kansas runs through the Big-12 Tournament to sweep the
regular season and conference titles in the toughest conference in the country,
the Jayhawks might just leapfrog Villanova and become the first team in history
to earn a number one seed with eight losses on the season.
History Repeats
Itself…Sometimes
The last time the University of Arizona Wildcats lost to the
Oregon Ducks to end the regular season, they went on to win the school’s lone
National Championship. Arizona
lost to Oregon to close the season on Saturday night…
Wichita State currently has a record of 34-0, going
undefeated in the regular season and their conference tournament, undoubtedly
earning a number one seed and a deserved place in the history books. The last team to enter March Madness
undefeated after sweeping the regular season and their conference tournament
was the Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV, who had a 34-0 record in
1991. That team, a one seed
featuring first round draft picks Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, Greg Anthony (who will be calling games
during this year’s March Madness) and Elmore Spencer, lost to two-seed Duke in the Final Four. Wichita State is a one seed. Duke is currently pretty tightly locked-in to a two seed…
The Florida Gators are currently locked-in as a number one
seed and looking good for the number one overall seed in the Tournament. They finished the regular season on a 23-game
winning streak, breaking a record originally set by the ’06 Florida Gators and
matched by the ’07 Florida Gators a year later. Both of those teams won the National Championship. The last Florida Gators team to be the
number one overall seed was the ’07 squad: they won the National Championship.
Bit of Tid
The Manhattan Jaspers,
who clinched their tournament berth Monday night with a victory over fellow conference mate and tournament team Iona, are named
after Brother Jasper of Mary, who
founded the school’s first band, orchestra, glee club and various literary
clubs. However, Brother Jasper was
not just a lover of the arts: he
also served as the team’s first athletic director and brought the then
little-known sport of baseball to Manhattan College.
According to the school’s website, Brother Jasper noticed on
a particularly warm and humid day of baseball that the students in the stands
were becoming restless as the team came to bat in the bottom of the seventh
inning of a close game. Thinking
on his feet, Brother Jasper called for a time out and told the students to
stand and stretch for a few minutes until the game resumed.
The Jaspers played an annual game against the New York (baseball) Giants in the 1880s and 1890s, at which
point Manhattan College’s “seventh inning stretch” was adopted by the Major
Leagues. This year’s entry marks
Manhattan College’s seventh appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Three stretches for Brother Jasper!
Israeli Dancing!
Oregon player Ben Carter is the son of former Hapoel Holon
star Mike Carter. Although he grew
up in Nevada after leaving Israel with his parents when he was six months old,
Carter is an Israeli Citizen.
While the sophomore plays a reserve role on the Oregon squad, he was
instrumental towards the end of Saturday’s upset win over Arizona. Carter finished with five points, four
rebounds, two assists, two steals and one block in only 13 minutes of
play. Most importantly, the forward
made crucial plays and hit clutch free throws down the stretch to help seal the
win for his team. As a result, the
Israeli-born player will be dancing in March for the second straight year.
We’re Going Dancing!
So far, eight teams have officially punched their tickets to
the Big Dance and will be dancing when March Madness opens next week. Congratulations to the Mercer Bears, Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens, Harvard Crimson,
Manhattan Jaspers, Wichita State Shockers, Eastern Kentucky Colonels and the Wofford Terriers on winning their
respective conferences. A special
shout-out to Delaware, who will be appearing in the tournament for the first
time since 1999.
In the Words of my Former
Governator: “I’ll Be Back”
That wraps up this edition of “Robbins Rants.” I hope it’s gotten you as excited about
college basketball as I am, informed you on what we have to look forward to
together over the next month, and helped you productively spend some time at
work.
To quote Major Clipton and the final line from the 1957
classic and winner of eight Academy Awards in 1958 including Best Picture, Best
Director and Best Actor, The Bridge on the River Kwai, “Madness! MADNESS!”
It is upon us.
Joseph D. Robbins is a poet and an educator based in New York City. He has a BA in Creative Writing &
Judaic Studies from the University of Arizona and a Masters in the Teaching of
English from Columbia Teachers College. He is pursuing a Masters in Jewish Education at JTS and State
Certification in Students with Learning Disabilities at Teachers College. His poetry album, “One Man Gang” was
recently released. You can find it
online here.
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