Conference play is just getting interesting as the young guns so much talked about this season are either making or breaking, the newly installed systems of freshman coaches are finally coming to fruition, and injuries (as well as returning players) are weighing heavily on teams. Let's look at a couple of my favorites from each category:
Diaper Dandies:
(Is this phrase copy written by Dickie V.? Godspeed on his recovery; I've been jonesing for the voice of NCAA Basketball. And I'm glad he'll be OK, of course. God I'm a selfish bastard. Point is, if ESPN owns the rights to this term, sue me. I work at Kinko's, and I own a '78 Cherokee that won't start.)
Michael Beasley, K-State
24.6/12.6. Enough said, but I'll say more. Domination. 6'9 playing like 9'6. Held his own with Oklahoma's own frosh phenoms of Longar Longar (note to Mr. and Mrs. Longar: how about a little creativity? How about "Fred"?) and Blake Griffin (OU is done as far as an NCAA birth if he's done for the season), then Beasley played the most timely minutes of his short career as his team destroyed Texas A&M. As a Cincy boy, I'd like to credit Huggy-Bear for procuring this amazing talent, not to mention why Bill Walker cared to grace the wheat fields of Manhatten. But you have to give props to Frank Martin, who is certainly worthy of being revered in the second part of this segment. And less not forget the misfortunes of David Hoskins, to tie this in to the aforementioned trifecta. Assuming he could have recovered from his left knee injury, and even slightly improved on last season's accomplishments of 14.5/5.9, we may be talking K-State as a Final Four contender.
Eric Gordon-Indiana
Sure, there are many other one-and-done college players that could be discussed, but let's take a quick look at what Gordon has meant in the first few months to this storied program. 22.4 pts. is certainly a blessing, but only 3.3 reb., and turn/assist ratio of 2.3 to 3.6? Sure, IU is 16-1, their only loss being to a fantastic but inconsistent Xavier squad. But with a SOS of 152, who has Eric had to face? And the Big-Ten is the least of the BCS schools in RPI by conference, so he and his team are not going to be seriously challenged save for a sparse tough match-ups. Will Kelvin Sampson's team be ready for a March draw (assuming as Joe Linardi does they land a 3-seed) against an inspired 13 seed, such as Davidson? Or maybe Big-Ten teams decide to clamp down on Gordon, and Indiana (guaranteed a bid already) ends up a 5 against the roll-of-the-dice MAC tourney champ? And your hypothetcial second round dance partner? Bet they've had a tougher road to travel. Indiana may make it to the Sweet Sixteen as the Big-Ten rep, but if I was a betting man, I'd check the lines at game time.
Something's freaking out with this blog site, so I'll get to our other topics tomorrow.
late-craig
