The Starting Five

I should have trusted my first instincts.

The guys in the office were talking back in mid-January about the impending NCAA tournament. I made the statement that I thought there weren’t going to be any really big upsets. I said I thought there were a lot of good teams playing college basketball right now, but very few – probably only the top seeds – would only have a good chance to win the title.

Then, like most everyone else, I got swept up in the madness.

The college tournaments cropped up and the heavy hitters were going down in the early rounds of the conference quilting bees.

Maybe I was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.

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  It is part of a great debate.

 Which college basketball league should be rated the best for the 2008-09 season. … The Atlantic Coast Conference or The Big East?

When it comes to the NCAA tournament, we will find out when the brackets are announced on Sunday. The prognosticators believe three Big East teams will earn No. 1 seeds compared to only one ACC team.

That might be fair. It sure makes it sound like the Big East is the tougher league.

Maybe that was proven on Saturday.

I found it interesting during the ACC semifinal between Maryland and Duke. The Terps were challenging to take down Duke well into the second half, but started to fall off the pace.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In this new techno world of basketball – where speed, flow and movement are the most important facets – it’s amazing how a throwback philosophy has been popping up.

It’s called zone defense.

Teams nowadays run motion offenses and play man defense as regular-season games continue to evolve into a streetball mentality. Now that we have reached the part of the season when games have become more live and death with tournament play, zones are showing up again.

Examples?

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No, I’m not talking about the economy here … I’m talking about Maryland basketball.

OK, I realize that over the last few years I’ve come across as a real pessimist when it comes to the Terps, but let’s face it … they’re certainly not giving fans much to be OPTIMISTIC about, are they?

There’s been very little to get excited about with the Terps since they won the national title in 2002. The improbable run to the ACC Tournament championship in 2004 was one thing, but nothing else has sustained the excitement. For every win over a North Carolina or Duke, there’s a loss to a Morgan State or American.

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Let’s look at two words by definition.

*Throw – To propel something through the air by movement of an arm or hand. Example: “I threw a brick through the window (or backboard, for our purposes).

*Shoot – To take aim at a target while kicking, launching or hitting a ball in an attempt to score a goal or point.

Now with that in mind, which of these best defined Saturday’s Georgia Tech-Maryland basketball game, especially as it pertained to the Terrapins.

Need help? Well, Maryland shot (threw?) 31 percent for the game, including a 10-for-40 performance (25 percent) in the first half.

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… the Maryland choke that is. How else do you explain a loss to Morgan State? That’s just what this team needed in its last nonconference game of the season.

I’ll go on the record now and say that Maryland finishes 5-11 in the ACC, which would put the Terps’ final record at 16-13. Forget about the four-letter postseason tournament and say hello to the three-letter postseason tournament once again.

But hey … at least it wasn’t the worst upset of Wednesday night. Thanks, BC!

I had the pleasure to talk with Ernie Graham for a few moments after Calvert Hall played St. Maria Goretti Sunday afternoon.
I was sitting next to royalty when it comes to Maryland Terps men’s basketball history.
Little did I know until a few moments before I met him, that Graham was still the recordholder at Maryland for the most points scored in a single game — and he remembers the date.
“It was Dec. 20, 1978 against North Carolina State,” Graham told me.
That was a day when Graham poured in 44 points — a number yet to be toppled.
“I never set out to break a record like that,” Graham said. “And for two teams, I think we scored more than 250 points total.”
Graham played for the Terps from 1977-1981 and averaged 14.5 points his senior year.
His son, Jon, is a 6-foot-7 junior at Calvert Hall and has aspirations of duplicating his father’s on-court efforts.
“He looks frustrated some of the time but he’s a hard worker,” said the elder Graham. “He’s got another year and I believe (Terps coach Gary Williams) has interest in him. I’d like to see it.”
Graham, now 48, went through many years of personal addictions before he turned the corner in 1995.
Now, he works closely through the Baltimore County Health Dept in its Get The Message after school program.
He played on three high school state championship teams in Maryland at Dunbar at Lake Clifton.

I have to believe the 9 out of 10 filling out their brackets when the NCAA tournament began did NOT have Memphis winning the national championship.

Despite an outstounding record that had only a blemish on its slate against Tennessee, Memphis really has not received the attention it is deserving of.

Memphis doesn’t have any All-American darlings like Tyler Hansbrough or Kevin Love that grace the pages of magazines such as Sports Illustrated and have pro teams ready to secure their services and yes, that includes Love, whom I do not see spending much more time at UCLA.

Yet, it is Memphis in a position to become 38-1 tonight with a national championship. That would be a record for victories.

How many people can reel off names of the Memphis stars, yet its starting five?

Chris Douglas-Roberts, Joey Dorsey, Derrick Rose and whoever the others are — they are the main ingredients that have brought barnstorming coach John Caliperi’s squad to the final night of the season.

There probably aren’t many fans, outside of Memphis and those that are alums, cheering for Memphis tonight.

I wouldn’t mind seeing them win. It would bring back the underdog days of 1990 when UNLV won the title and in 1966 when Texas Western (now UTEP) shocked Kentucky and carried away the trophy.

Well, it’s been a few days since I was last here, so here’s cleaning out some thoughts …..

BOB KNIGHT
Have you enjoyed General Knight’s insights on ESPN during this postseason Madness?
He has had some interesting takes on college basketball, except for his prediction that Pittsburgh would win the national championship.
He has seemingly fit in with Digger Phelps and Hubert Davis, and also with Dick Vitale when he has been on the set.
It’s interesting that ESPN keeps promoting Knight’s appearances in mid-week, probably while he is out hunting, fishing or soaking up the sun.
When it was first announced Knight would be on ESPN, I was somewhat surprised such a medial mogul would hire a guy that so despises the media, showing he opposed us at every given opportunity.
And, I’m guessing he’s gotten all those sweaters free from ESPN, too.

TIGER WOODS
Well, he didn’t win his 7th straight this past weekend, and while I this he’s on the verge of being the greatest golfer ever, I think he still needs to think some before he talks when he doesn’t win a tournament.
After Geoff Oglivy wins the CG Championship, Woods said he “understood Olglivy had some luck making par because he bladed a shot.”
C’mon Tiger, you mean you’ve never had any luck along the way in winning any of your tournaments?

NCAA TOURNAMENT
No doubt, I can join all of you in making the statement “my brackets are busted” after this past weekend.
In one of my brackets at least my final four — UNC, UCLA, Kansas and Stanford — is intact. In the other, I had Pitt making the final four instead of Stanford.
Nonetheless, we’ve all got to be rooting for Davidson. How can you not? But I think they come to an end this weekend — I just don’t see them beating Wisconsin.
IF there is any upset, I think it will be Western Kentucky beating UCLA because the Bruins are banged up.

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
In my opinion, I think it is absolutely ridiculous Major League Baseball allows the national pasttime to begin its season in Japan.
If MLB wanted to have a game, or two, it should be at some other point in the season — maybe an extended pre, and post all-star trip.
It’s an American game and should open in America. We’re not going to have any influence on Japanese baseball to the point that it needs to be a worldly game. Japan has its baseball, they’ve sent something like 16 players to MLB, and I think their lifestyle and their game is good for them.
Let’s do it the American way and get back to what used to be the traditional season opener in Cincinnati.

Here’s a team that couldn’t hold its socks up in losses to Ohio University and American University.

Can you believe it? Maryland goes into Chapel Hill and knocks off No. 1 North Carolina 82-80.

We really shouldn’t be surprised.

In the Gary Williams era, this is the seventh time Maryland has knocked off a No. 1 team.

And you can’t believe all those guys on ESPN Gameday either. My old pal Digger Phelps, of course the former Notre Dame coach, picked the Irish to beat Georgetown today.

And, what happened? Notre Dame got thumped 84-65.