The college basketball season is now underway and there is a lot of speculation floating around about if certain teams are for real and if early losses or close calls are just flukes. You know, the usual. So I think a little buy and sell is in order. Feel free to comment with your disagreements and reasons for said disagreements.
Mike Krzyzewski is the best college basketball coach of all-time: Sell
He's top five without question, but John Wooden with his .804 winning percentage and his 10 NCAA championships in 12 years is still the best in my book. If Coach K can muster two or three more championships in the more competitive era of today, he'd probably surpass Wooden in my eyes, but not yet.
I think Bob Knight and Dean Smith, deserve to be in the conversation for top five and Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun are on the bubble. But I'd throw in long-time Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp. Rupp won four NCAA championships with the Wildcats and had a winning percentage of .822 over 41 years at Kentucky. To me, it is pretty close between Rupp and Coach K for the number two spot behind Wooden. Edge Rupp, simply because they had shorter seasons back then, which meant less wins to be had. After Coach K finishes season No. 41, we'll talk again.
North Carolina as No. 1: Buy
We don't have to wait long to see the reality of this one. No. 1 North Carolina plays at the current No. 2, Kentucky, on December 3. They have No. 13 Wisconsin in Chapel Hill a few days before that, but that's their only test before the Kentucky showdown. Kentucky gets their first test much earlier (at home vs. Kansas on November 15, which hadn't been played at the time of this article's submission).
Kansas will win the Big 12 championship: Sell
Since the creation of the Big 12 in 1997, Kansas has won the conference title (or a share of the title) 11 times in 15 opportunities. They've won the Big 12 conference tournament eight times. Expect neither this year.
At the end of the 2010-11 season, I would have taken Missouri. They had a very balanced attack with five players averaging 10 points per game or more last season. But the loss of coach Mike Anderson and the loss of Laurence Bowers to an ACL injury will make it tough for Missouri to be consistently good this season.
Some people are big on Baylor to finally live up to their talent, but they are so sloppy. I simply cannot imagine any team that is so prone to turnovers will deal well with the round-robin style of conference play this season. Seriously, last season only one player had more assists than turnovers, 1, that being A.J. Walton. The team averaged 16 turnovers per game compared to 12 assists per game. Their first game of the season didn't show a grand turnaround. As they defeated Texas Southern by 20 points, they still turned the ball over 17 times.
Perhaps if they get hot, Baylor could with the Big 12 tournament and make a run in the NCAA tournament, but they are not disciplined enough to win game in and game out, which is really a shame. They opened the season ranked 12 and I thought that was a bit high considering they didn't even make it into the NCAA tournament last year, but on talent alone, they might be ranked three or four.
I personally like Texas A&M to take the Big 12 in this their final season of Big 12 play. A&M has their top two scorers back in Khris Middleton and David Loubeau, while also adding Elston Turner to the mix, who transferred from Washington. Those three along with Ray Turner, who put up 20-points in each of the Aggies' first two games, should provide some potency as well as a balanced attack.
In the end, I don't think anybody will lose less than three conference games in the Big 12 this season and I think the Aggies will stick it to the Big 12 one last time before existing for the SEC.
Cleveland State is a legitimate top-25 team: Buy
Cleveland State beat the number 7 Vanderbilt Commodores by 13 points. It really was not that close of a game. Vanderbilt never led, nor were they tied at any point in the game after the tipoff, and Cleveland State retained a 7-point lead or better for the last 10 minutes of the game. The Vikings of Cleveland State simply outshot Vanderbilt. They were 27-for-54 from the field, compared to Vandy's 18-for-51.
Cleveland State plays in the Horizon league, where their main competition is the Butler Bulldogs, who opened up the season with an overtime loss to the Evansville Aces, which seems to leave the Horizon rather wide-open. I'm not saying Butler can't still win the Horizon, but that's not a loss you want to see from a team that was in the national title came the past two seasons.
The Vikings are not scheduled to play another ranked team for the rest of the season. It is anybody's guess how well they can perform throughout the season. The team is loaded with upperclassmen who can lead the team to a potential 30-win season. Pencil them into your bracket to be a No. 10 who makes it to the Sweet 16. They are currently unranked (but technically number 29) in the AP poll. If they keep winning, they should end up in the top 25 sooner or later.
Alabama deserves the No. 16 ranking: Sell
I like Alabama, but No. 16, really? They got snubbed last season for the tournament and ended up losing to Wichita State in the NIT championship game. I like them as more of a dark horse, but dark horses don't get ranked No. 16 after one game. Alabama played well in the conference last year, going 12-4 (why didn't they make the tournament last year again?), but they didn't play well in non-conference play and that apparently cost them.
They should make the tournament this season, but don't by the hype on them making the Elite Eight or Final Four. This team hasn't been to the tournament since 2006 and has only made it to the second weekend once in the past 20 years. They don't have the experience going for them to enable them to deal with the pressures of the tournament. I expect them to get a four or five seed and lose in the opening round.
Arizona will repeat as Pac-12 champions: Sell
While Derrick Williams has fun not playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Arizona Wildcats are simply not as good as last year. Last season, the final AP poll had the Wildcats at 17. The preseason AP poll had them at 16 and they're now at 15. After losing their best player in Williams, the number two overall pick in the NBA draft, how can they move up? I just don't see the logic.
The only thing the Wildcats have going for them is that the Pac-12 is rather weak. Cal and Washington look okay, but who else is going to challenge the Wildcats? UCLA opened their hopeful season with a loss to Loyola Marymount. The Pac-12 is very wide open. Any team that decides to start playing well after Christmas could easily take the Pac-12, including USC or Colorado.
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