Wednesday Random Thoughts and Picks
by Loretta8 on Feb 10, 2010 12:25 PM CST
in Basketball
5 comments
- More gloom and doom bubble talk came out today, with Jerry Palm, Cheap Rug Lunardi and various blogs all discounting Northwestern's chances. FBC has all the links organized here, so just go there and check them out. In a related story, I may punch Lunardi if I ever see him, what a pompous ass.
- Fanhouse did a lengthy piece on Drew Crawford and his father.
- Wild night in the Big Ten last night with Illinois pulling off the impossible and winning in Madison. Demetri McCamey was outstanding in that game, outplaying Badger point guard Trevon Hughes. For much of the Big Ten season, Illinois has been written off as a product of playing a soft schedule, but with their last two wins they now have to be taken seriously as a conference title contender. Their remaining schedule is very tough and I'd be surprised if they won the Big Ten, but they have clearly played themselves off the bubble, and now deserve to be talked about in the same sentence with the rest of the league's elite, despite their inconsistent non-conference performance.
As impressive as Illinois was, Purdue looked even better while winning at Michigan State, with their big three of E'Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummel, and JaJuan Johnson did all the heavy lifting. I was most impressed by Johnson's play, as he dominated the interior on both ends of the court. The Spartans had no one to guard him, and on defense he blocked 3 shots and altered many more. I was a bit premature last week in naming DeShawn Sims the front-runner for All-Big Ten center, as Johnson is playing up to his potential now and taking over games.
- I lost on both my picks last night, most notably putting the kiss of death on Wisconsin after declaring them favorites to win the league on Monday. Tonight I'll try to win back that lost cash.
Ohio State at Indiana (+10.5), 5:30 PM CST, BTN
While Indiana has no one to guard Evan Turner, we here at SippinOnPurple.com do not give double digit points on the road in conference play except in rare circumstances. Look for Verdell Jones to have another big game and keep Indiana within single digits.
Pick: Indiana
Season Records
Overall: 33-26-2
Northwestern games: 13-2
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Lunardi says Northwestern is not in his top 86, how is that possible, I hate him.
by jackbuc@aol.com on Feb 10, 2010 2:16 PM CST reply actions
Am I the only one?
Is anyone else EXTREMELY angry that the Cats may win 22 or 23 games here in the regular season, and STILL miss the Tournament? And all because:
(A) the rest of the conference didn’t live up to expectations in the non-con,
(B) Michigan fell apart (those 2 Michigan wins would look better if UM had played better the rest of the year),
© having Iowa/Penn State/Indiana 6 times at the end of our conference schedule, and all three of those teams inexplicably having RPIs over 150, and especially
(D) our non-conference opponents, who looked PRETTY TOUGH going into the season ended up being terrible? (I’m looking at you NC State, Iowa State, Stanford…and don’t get too comfortable either, That School in South Bend)
Oh, sure, pulling out wins in 3 of our narrow conference misses (Wisconsin, at Minnesota, at Illinois) would put us in better position….but I’m blaming the above, most notably D, if we end up missing the tourney this year.
Sobering post
Can’t say that the pundits are wrong, though. Some of this is our fault – we played one non-conference road game, and that was only b/c it was part of the ACC-BT challenge. We knew before the Coble injury that this was a big year for us, and we loaded the non-conference schedule with cupcakes. Like the Tommy Amaker Michigan teams and some Florida State teams before us, if we want to be among the big boys and play in their sandbox in March, we have to schedule some of them in November and December, too.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m bummed that the bubble picture is so ugly. All we can do is keep winning and hope some things break our way, and not worry about the overall view.
You guys are nuts
If we go 10-8 in BT we are in. Period. 11-7 is beyond a lock. Lol. BTW Mike DeCoursy from Sporting News and Gary Parrish CBS have us in if we do the first.
Derrick Rose will lead us back to the promise land.
In Vinny We Trust!
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