Can Pitt Make the Tourney?

The Panthers were 0-7 in Big East play. 0-7. It is such a stunning number that it will stick as one of the crucial facts of the 2011-12 college basketball season.

They are now 3-7 in conference after winning three straight, including victories at home over Georgetown and on the road last night versus rival West Virginia. Much of the credit for the recent reversal goes to point guard Tray Woodall, who missed 12 games with an abdominal strain. Pitt went 5-7 without their point guard and are now 9-2 with him. Woodall scored 24 last night as Pitt has now won three of the last four played on the road in this heated rivalry.

But can the Panthers make the tourney? Obviously they have the talent and skill level to win the Big East Tournament and gain an automatic bid, but barring that the Panthers have their work cut out for them. True the conference is not as loaded as last year, but it also does not expect to get nearly the number of bids (11). At the very least Pitt needs to get to .500 in the conference and without marquee out-of-conference wins they may have to do better. With only eight games remaining, they will certainly have their work cut out for them. But with the confidence and hard work on display last night I would not put it past the Panthers to somehow go 7-1 down the stretch and be easily considered one of the hottest teams in college basketball. It is a tall order but crazier things have happened.

Aska Returns for Racers

Murray State is sitting at 20-0 and already enjoys a 2.5 game lead atop the Ohio Valley conference. They are having an incredible season under first year coach Steve Prohm and currently sit at no. 9 nationally in the coach's poll. Despite all of the good vibes, however, the Racers are not getting love from bracketologists, with Joe Lunardi currently (as of 1/23/12) placing the Racers into a seven seed. Add in the fact that Murray State two years ago beat Vanderbilt and then lost to eventual national runner-up Butler by 2 and Morehead State, the conference representative last year, upset Louisville in round one.

But let's focus on their current run, which has featured some struggles as they deal with the pressures of being what is now the nation's sole unbeaten team and the lack of their best rebounder and third-leading scorer, forward Ivan Aska, who missed the last six games with a broken right hand. Aska is back which is great news as Murray State does not have depth with big men and ran out four guards for most of the time he was sidelined. When planning for a March Madness draft, it is always good to see how injuries affect statistics and Murray State replaced Aska's 12.6 points per game by having its two other double digit scores, guards Isaiah Canaan (pictured after leading Racers to championship of the Great Alaska Shootout) and Donte Poole, take on more responsibility. Canaan, who deserves All American consideration, averaged 21 points per game over the last six contests, raising his average for the year to 18.7, while Poole has averaged 18.8 per in Aska's absence, to elevate his seasonal average to 14.6. Murray State's other big man (and they are both 6'7 so...) Ed Daniel also raised his game as he scored 10 points a game--up from 7+--and reached double digits on four occasions, to only three total in the 14 games Aska played. Be careful drafting a player like Daniel however, as he is more 7-pt scorer than one averaging 10. And both Aska and Daniel will have responsibilities come tournament time that may not lead to scoring, while the wave of good guards that the Racers hit you with will always look to score. Two years ago when Murray State played two games, big men, Aska, Tony Easley and Danero Thomas each entered the tournamanet with 10-pt scoring averages. But having to deal with the skilled bigs that played for both Vandy and Butler, Aska averaged 6 pts, Thomas 5.5 and Easley 3.5. Guards Canaan, B.J. Jenkins and Isacc Miles did the bulk of the scoring. Canaan is now the clear go-to guy and should be a high draft pick. Hopefully the Racers will be seeded properly--assuming they get in.

Today's Picks

Paying more attention to the NFL I got hammered with my picks--there is a lesson there boys and girls--and am now 2 games under .500 at 4-6. I like a number of games today, so let's get to it.
Marquette -4 hosting Louisville
Texas A&M +15 at Mizzou
Syracuse -13 hosting Pitt
Rutgers -3 hosting ND
Baylor +7 at Kansas

Today's Picks

I need to write a longer piece on the problems in Chapel Hill. But, for now, I went 3-2 yesterday and am one game over .500. For today I plunked down a nickel or two on St. John's +7 against GTown at the Garden, Clemson +6 hosting Duke and IU getting 13 at OSU. And of course the Giants +9.

Today's Picks

I am entering the day with a .500 mark, sitting at 2-2. So let's go with my picks for a busy Saturday.
Xavier -8.5 hosting te Bonnies. X is back on a roll.
Tennessee +10 hosting Kentucky. Scrappy Vols stay close.
Kansas State -1 at OU: Will win by 10
Texas A&M -11.5 hosting Texas Tech: Red Raiders are tonic for Aggies slow start.
Rutgers +10.5 at West Virginia: Young Knights look impressive.

WCC Wipe-out

St. Marys sent a statement to the selection committee last night with impressive 83-62 rout of rival Gonzaga. Australian guard Matt Dellavedova was unstoppable, hitting 5-10 3-pt attempts, in scoring 26 pts and seemingly answering every Gonzaga threat with a bucket. With Zags forward Elias Harris (17 pts) playing excellent D in holding Gaels forward Rob Jones (14.6 average) to only 2 pts, St. Marys freshman forward Brad Waldow (7.3 average) picked up the slack with 17 pts. Although Jones did not score much he did lead squad with 11 boards and 8 assists as Gaels ended 2-game home losing streak to Bulldogs. St. Marys is now 5-0 in conference play but has a rough stretch coming up with road games versus Loyola Marymount (1/26/12), BYU (1/28/12) and Gonzaga (2/9/12). Gonzaga will look to get back on winning track tomorrow versus LMU.

Another Top Ten Upset

Indiana is young enough that they were bound to be knocked off one of these days. Although reaching the top ten so quickly was a surprising accomplishment, the true accomplishment for the Hoosiers will be their continued growth through the rest of the season. It will be interesting to see how quickly they shake off this loss as they enter the toughest stretch of their schedule with road contests in five of their next seven games including trips to Columbus, Madison and Ann Arbor. Jeez. As for Minnesota, they were not as good as their 12-1 pre-conference record this season nor as bad as their 0-4 Big Ten mark entering tonight's game. This win needs to be a building block for a squad looking to erase memories of last season's epic collapse, when they lost 10 of their last 11 games to finish at 17-14.

Duke Dilemma

Virginia hit 3-16 from 3 (.19%) and 24-61 (39%) from floor...and hung with Duke until very end when they missed 3 attempts numbers 15 and 16 on final, frantic possession. As well as Cavs played--at least in the aspects of the game that do not involve shooting--the Dukies' inability to put away the scrappy visitors is a bit worrisome. Sure they won. And they are 14-2. But the team's play in the waning moments of the game could have easily produced a loss and considering they were playing at Cameron it is safe to say that the team's play in crunch time tonight would more than likely have sent them to a loss on the road in the ACC or on a neutral court in March. In the final 5 minutes, Duke scored only 6 points on a layup by Seth Curry with 4:53 left for a 57-48 lead, a jumper by Curry with 4:02 left for a 69-51 advantage, and 2 free throws by Ryan Kelly with 2:16 remaining that gave them a 61-55 lead. In that time frame they also missed 2 front ends of potential one-and-ones, committed 3 offensive fouls, turned the ball over on traveling and shot 0-2 from field while missing 2 other free throws. Awful.

Manhattan Miracle

The Manhattan Jaspers rallied from 17 points down to stun long-time metro NYC rival Iona 75-72 as Emmy Andujar hit winning three-pointer at buzzer. With 7:58 remaining the Gaels led 65-48 as a 6-0 start in MAAC play beckoned. But the Jaspers pecked away, led by Rhamel Brown who scored 9 of his 17 points down the stretch. Manhattan is getting to be good at late spurts having scored 11 of final 14 points to beat Fairfield Sunday, 53-51. Iona is a half game ahead of Loyola of Maryland and one full game ahead of Manhattan in exciting MAAC race.

Tonight's Pick

I only like Gonzaga tonight getting 4. The game will go down to the wire, as these battles always seem to do, and the Zags have a great chance to win outright.
I went 2-1 last night. There are bargains to be had now as the usual powers are being treated with too much respect. Just look how crazy the Big East has become with Villanova, Pittsburgh and Louisville all struggling of late. Check to see if a line is based more on prestige than actual game results.

Tonight's Picks

I went 3-0 last night with bets, err predictions, and will now publicize what I like each night--unless I get hammered.
One suggestion I have from a lifetime of betting is to place wagers on what you know. That in mind I took Fordham +14 against St. Joes, Temple +8.5 at St. Louis and Rutgers getting 8.5 from Pitt. Good luck.

All Atlantic 10 All the Time

This is early January and there is plenty of time for Duke to correct problems, but Temple showcased the Blue Devils main achilles heel: playing an athletic, tall and experienced backcourt. Now Temple is loaded in that category with Juan Fernandez, Ramone Moore and Khalif Wyatt, et al, and they also feature the lean and tough frontcourt players that can battle the bigger Blue Devils. Most teams cannot do that to Duke, but the better teams can and Duke does not look like a team deserving of a high ranking nor high seed come March.
Meanwhile two other respected programs made statements in their favor last night as Georgetown rallied from 17 points down to stun Marquette and Kansas blew out Kansas State. Both teams played at home and will continue to have doubters, but for night they did what they had to do. The Hoyas shot 76% in their second half rally while the stat that jumps out at me regarding KU's performance was their 48-24 rebounding domination.

Break Up The Rams

It is appropriate that the first true post of this site features Fordham basketball as many of us involved with The Gods of March are graduates of that fine university. Last night Fordham stunned Harvard 60-54 behind 22 points by freshman guard Bryan Smith and yet another double-double by junior forward Chris Gaston (18 pts, 10 boards; in photo), who leads the nation in that category. Smith hit five of eight three pointers, including a clutch one with 15 seconds left and Fordam sporting a one-point lead. The win was the first over a ranked opponent by the Rams at the venerable Rose Hill gym since a Dick Stewart-coached Rams club upset Georgetown back in 1978. Feeling he had nothing to gain and everything to lose, Hoyas coach John Thompson soon killed the rivalry between the two Jesuit schools. As for the current Rams club any win is welcome as the program has been on hard times of late. Unbelievably, the win was their first in the month of January since 2009. Coming on the heels of the victory over Georgia Tech last week, that I enjoyed in person, Fordham may actually have something brewing.

The other game I focused on last night was the huge Big Ten battle between Michigan State and Wisconsin. The game was as hard fought as usual between these two programs and every bucket seemed crucial. That MSU won an overtime game over a top opponent one day after their football team did too and Wisconsin lost a huge game that went down to wire with Badgers on short end of refs going to tape to determine if their final actions counted at both the Rose Bowl and Kohl Center was unbelievable.

Finally Seton Hall stunned UConn last night in Newark. So on the day Fordham beat Georgia Tech, Rutgers beat Florida and when FU beat Harvard, the Hall beat the Huskies. Toss in Wagner's recent upset of Pitt and Iona's good play all season and metropolitan New York City is making some waves.

Welcome

We here at The Gods of March are longtime college basketball fans. We will share our love for the sport with you through the news and opinion presented to you here. We want to keep the information flowing but also want this blog to be a dialogue between us fans. So, Happy New Year to everyone and I look forward to future discussion of the great sport of college hoops.
Paul