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Daily Dribble: Friday Report Card

February 22nd, 2008 by Shawn Siegel
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The Report Card

 

A - Tony Lee

Despite winning 10 in a row and 15 of 16, Robert Morris is still in a tight battle for the NEC title. Senior guard Tony Lee is the Colonials best and most consistent player.. and quietly putting up some of the best numbers in the country. Averaging 7.0 rpg and 6.6 apg, Lee is one of the game's few true triple double threats. He's already had two this season and came close last night with 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists. Amazingly, he grabs all those rebounds despite being 6-1, and despite not even playing 30 minutes per game. Lee averages 29.8 mpg and if you prorate his numbers to 40 mpg, you get monster totals of 19 ppg, 9.6 rpg and 9.0 apg.

 

B - Bracket Busters

Granted, most of the Bracket Busters event is rather useless.. but there are some worthwhile games on tap. Perhaps more intriguing than even Drake/Butler, is Davidson at Winthrop tonight. Davidson's been on a tear and Winthrop is in the midst of the Big South title race.  Winthrop is better than their RPI of 107 suggests. They've beaten quality teams like Miami, Georgia Tech, Akron, and Old Dominion.  Such wins are much more than Davidson can claim, despite the Wildcats 17-game winning streak.  Should be a fun game, especially compared to the usual Friday night slop.

 

 C - Atlantic 10

This conference is a mess right now. Outside of Xavier at the top and Saint Bonaventure on the bottom, the other 12 teams in the middle are good enough to beat each other on any given night. This had led to a muddled ledger in which 10 teams are within 2 wins of each other. There's nothing wrong with parity and depth.. but for NCAA Tournament consideration.. too much quality might be a bad thing. If more teams were automatic losses, it would make the records of the better teams look better.. and the selection committee is easily fooled by looks. UMASS, for example, has as many Top 50 wins in league play as Arizona.. but the committee will be fooled by the letters PAC.

 

D

 - Arizona

Because of the name on their jersey, Arizona's considered a virtual lock to make the NCAA Tournament. But at 6-7 and with an upcoming game at Washington State.. the Wildcats could easily be in second to last place in the Pac-10 by the end of the weekend. And after that you have home games against USC and UCLA.. by no means easy wins. Someone not named Jerryd Bayless better step up soon.. or Kevin O'Neill's mini-reign in Tucson could be disastrous.

 

F - Oregon State

It's nothing new to note the Beavers struggles.. so that's not why they're on the list. What kills me about Oregon State is that it's just a free win for the rest of the Pac-10  and makes mediocre Pac-10 teams look good. Washington's 6-8 record doesn't look bad.. and gives a false sense that they have NCAA possibilities. Take away Oregon State, and 4-8 looks hideous. The same thing can be said for Cal.

 

The Daily Report Card tells you all you need to know about the day in college hoops. From good to bad and bad to worse, I'll be laying down the law.

 

Previous Best / Worst

February 20th - Hasheem Thabeet / Aaron Bruce

February 19th - Josh Duncan / Tim Welsh

February 18th - Wake Forest / NJIT

February 15th - Oral Roberts / Big Ten Predictions

February 13th - Mike Green / Ed Donato

February 11th - Charron Fisher / Tim Morris

February 8th - Big West / Virginia

February 6th - Chris Lofton / Dick Vitale

February 5th - Bob Knight / Josh Heytvelt

February 4th - New York Giants / Washington State

February 1st - Nevada / Penn

January 31st - Kansas State / St. John's

January 29th - Winthrop  / Dyson & Wiggins

January 28th - Rutgers / Doris Burke

January 25th - Ron Hunter / Princeton Offense

January 23rd - Kentucky / Archbishop Burke

January 22nd - DJ Augustin / Scott Sutton

January 21st - New York Giants / Marquette

January 20th - Maryland / ESPN.com editors

January 18th - Cleveland State / Marquette

January 17th - Drake / HP Laptops

January 14th - Roy Hibbert / Michigan State

January 10th - Tony Bennett / Saint Louis

January 9th - DJ White / CSTV

January 8th - Robert Morris / Schedule Makers

January 7th - Wayne Ellington / Illinois

January 6th - Herb Sendek / Kentucky

 

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Comments

Submitted by Nuss on Fri, 2008-02-22 23:29.

Washington's 4 other wins are victories over UCLA, Arizona State, Oregon and Arizona. Cal's record includes wins over Washington State, USC and Arizona State.

If we want to play the "picking up wins against crappy teams in the conference" card, we can do that with just about any other team in any other conference. Consider the fact that every team in the Pac-10 other than OSU has an overall winning record. That conference is strong, as people will find out come tourney time.

WSU HOOPS

Submitted by Shawn Siegel on Sat, 2008-02-23 00:56.

the only real comparison (which i was going to mention in a later article) is northwestern. acc has no real bad team, sec and big 12 have weak teams.. but all its teams are capable of winning (and have won) a few games here and there. and big east has bad teams no doubt.. but at least its bottom again can win games or keep games close. oregon state's only even been competitive in one game i think (to cal).

Submitted by Shawn Siegel on Sat, 2008-02-23 01:02.

also, in terms of the overall league records.. the pac-10's overall non-conference sos was pretty weak. for example, cincy played 8 top 100 rpi teams ooc, while stanford (2), wsu (2), asu (1), oregon state (0), oregon (3), ie half the league.. combined for 8 top 100 games combined..