What a fantastic game played by two teams with their Tournament fates already secured. Before the incomparable Gus Johnson mentioned after James’ foul on Wallace’s 3 attempt, I kept saying to my roommates, “How much does this feel like a Saturday afternoon Tournament game?” Just watch and enjoy. The clip is nearly 10 minutes long, so just put the video on and turn the speakers up and listen to Johnson and Clark Kellogg call this one while you clean up your kitchen. Oh yes, and a hat tip to Awful Announcing, who already had this video up, so I didn’t have to really hunt one down this morning.

Please, CBS, we are all wondering why you don’t have this man at LEAST calling second weekend action. Will you be subjecting us to James Brown again?

Whoops. That’s not Kevin Stallings—That’s Kevin from “The Office.” Still, they’re both bald and quite cerebral.

Anyway, Tennessee travels to Vanderbilt tonight, and it seems as though many are predicting a letdown from the Vols, coming off the heels of that great win on the road against Memphis on Saturday night.  (more…)

There were nine 3s made before the first TV timeout. Players were cramping up and crouching down. Dick Vitale (predictably) dressed up like Elvis. .Even Peyton Manning crawled out of his cave for a public appearance. Yes, if you weren’t watching Tennessee-Memphis tonight, you better have had a damn good reason. Otherwise, you’ve stumbled upon the wrong website.

And if you are doubting Tennessee’s likelihood of getting a 1, think again. If this game is Memphis’ only loss heading into The Tournament, and the Vols only lose one or two more, then they’ll definitely be receiving a top line gig.

As for the game: It was basically glorified street ball. Was it exciting? Definitely. Fast-paced? For sure. Upright-in-your-seat drama? Absolutely. But it was a terribly executed basketball game. There was at least 15 layups missed. It’s probably fair to say that if either of these teams play like they did tonight in the second weekend of The Tournament, they’re going home. I want to say it was the nerves, but both teams continue to play into the environment and make plenty of bad decisions. Tennessee just seemed to allow Memphis to make some more mistakes down the stretch.

That Dozier-Dorsey rebound-into-travel was KILLER. If they could’ve kept the board, Memphis would’ve had the ball for about two minutes of game time after all of those missed shots and subsequent offensive rebounds. They wouldn’t have allowed Tennessee to score until later in the final minute and could’ve had a chance for two more points.

Also, the foul on Derrick Rose (when Memphis was down by three) with under 10 seconds to go was such a great move. Memphis was exposed right then and there.

Some stats:

• 26 combined turnovers. (Though it felt like 40.)
• Memphis had 10 steals.
• Memphis didn’t score a field goal in the final 3: of the game.
• Memphis shot 47 percent from the line.
• Chris Lofton only had seven points, but two of them were the game-sealers from the foul line.
• Derrick Rose led all scorers with his jersey number—23.
• Memphis loses its first regular season game in 45 jumps.
• The teams were a combined 14-46 from behind the arc.

An announcement from athletic director Rick Greenspan is expected by Thursday, and most believe that Sampson is doneski, so will tonight be his last game patrolling the sidelines of a Big 6 school? You have to assume he’ll eventually get another chance down the line, but will that chance be at a much smaller school or in the pros?

So the question is: Does he go out with a win over hated intra-state school Purdue? Or does this Boilermaker train keep plowing through the Big Ten on its way to a high seed in The Tournament?

Consider me riveted. I’m not really sure that all this phone hubbub nonsense is even that much of an issue, but Dick Vitale’s pissed! That means *does Vitale karate chop point of emphasis* there is no excuse for this kind of behavior on college BASKETBALL.

Either way, it’s a scandal at the college level, so that allows people to pretend to get all upset about a bunch of things (I’m looking at you, Mariotti) that they probably couldn’t even specifically identify to you if you asked them on the spot.

I hope Sampson survives. It’ll infuriate that many more people and make this stroll into March all the more eventful.

Since Duke is near no ghettos, I can only imagine that a few Carolina fans had to burp that out of their system as the seats emptied last night.

Duke was very workmanlike and you’d even think this was a Battier-led team, the way they handled themselves in the 89-78 win under the circumstances. But no, they are a bunch of undersized, overachieving kids that have their hateable qualities, but also have some endearing ones as well.

Also, I knew the slurpage factor would be high in this game, but Mike Patrick gave me about all that I could tolerate for one broadcast. God Mike, get off the ACC cock, please!!

For Hansbrough, another sick yet run-of-the-mill performance: 28 and 18. No one else should be considered for POTY; he is lengths ahead of everyone right now.

So Duke is pretty good and I’ll now acknowledge that; I was wrong about them. They are in the driver’s seat for the 1 seed and appear to be legitimate. Yeah, they can’t rebound the ball and yeah, that will come back to haunt them in a half-court, slower-tempo game in March, but they’re hot now and the national love will certainly start to pile on.

Sorry, but it’s true.

Post-note: thank God we didn’t have a terrible moment when Roy Williams almost passed out from apparent

Or something. And y’know, for all the reasons that Duke can be hateable, UNC fans (and their coach) have plenty of reasons to be mocked and ridiculed as well. (Need I remind you? Six second mark is what I’m referring to here.)

As for tonight, Dickie V is back just in time from his vocal chord surgery to scream his lungs out over this one. C’mon, don’t tell me that you don’t miss that bald, one-eyed man’s obstreperous tones penetrating your eardrums.

Yeah, and in case you missed it: the combined total of these teams’ rankings is 5. How many times have both of these teams met while both being ranked in the Top 5 in the polls? Try 10. That’d be the most ever. (With Carolina holding a 6-4 edge in those games.)

I cannot believe in this Duke team until unless they win this game tonight, on the road, at the Dean Dome. Ty Lawson will not be playing tonight and that should about balance the scales.

Duke-Carolina is back and I think it’s actually being a little bit underplayed (which should be an indictment on how good the national media really thinks Duke is). I’d do a live blog, but I fear that I’ll make this really nice spinach dip and all and no one will show up, so I’ll have a post on it after the game finishes tonight.

The game is UCLA @ Stanford and it’s on tonight @ 10:30 p.m. (ET) on Fox. Sports. Net.—it should be pretty good. What’s the storyline that might come from the game? It could be Brook Lopez outplaying Kevin Love, so look for that. See, Lopez is extremely quick (while Love isn’t) and has a lot of stamina (which Love doesn’t), while also having longer range than the UCLA freshman. Maybe Love shows up and really out-muscles the stud Stanford sophomore…we’ll see. But I’d expect the Bruins to look to their guards more and more as the game wears on.

In case you hadn’t been keeping up, Darren Collison is back for UCLA, and they’re pretty healthy. In fact, both teams are, so hopefully we can get some of that quality Pac-10 ball that we’ve been hearing about for the past couple of months. It’s the biggest West Coast showdown this side of Gonzaga/Washington State, and I can only hope Marques Johnson (the most underrate enthusiastic broadcaster out there) is calling the game.

Sorry for the long headline, but I really wanted to get the message across. Take a second to glance at the athletic prowess of UCLA’s Kevin Love, as it is depicted so well in the picture above.

Yes, Michigan State will battle a Darren Collison-less UCLA team tonight at 10 p.m. ET on “the deuce” as they used to call it. (more…)