LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- So I landed at Orlando International Airport around 7 p.m. after Thanksgiving lunch with the family, picked up a nifty rental car that is a convertible with XM Radio (free upgrade!) and thought to myself, "This sure is a nice way to drive to the Milk House to catch the late game of Day 1 of the Old Spice Classic and prepare for the subsequent showdown between No. 5 Michigan State and No. 9 Gonzaga."
Everything was going as planned.
Hell, things were going better than planned.
(I had a convertible, after all.)
But then I flipped on the XM Radio, found the ACC channel and realized Maryland was kicking the crap out of Michigan State, which was good for Gary Williams' plans to return to the NCAA tournament this season yet bad for Gary Parrish's plans to watch MSU-Gonzaga this weekend. It's now the dream matchup that will never happen, kinda like my date with Scarlett Johansson. But Maryland-Gonzaga should be pretty good in its own right, and regardless I'm still kicking it in a convertible (with XM Radio).
Anyway, let's get on with the Friday Look Ahead.
Game worth flying to see in person: The game of the day was supposed to be here at Disney, but it now appears the marquee matchup will be at New York's Madison Square Garden because the favorites of the NIT Season Tip-off advanced properly, which set up a showdown between No. 10 Purdue and No. 11 Oklahoma that will give Boilermakers coach Matt Painter a glimpse of All-American Blake Griffin. By the way, here's a quote from the last man to coach against Griffin: "I've never seen a physical specimen like that in college," UAB's Mike Davis said. "He's under control. He's really, really, really good."
Game worth driving to see in person: Once I finally made it to the Milk House, I sat with some NBA people, and it seems the consensus is that Tennessee is the best (and perhaps the most talented) team here. "They've got nine or 10 really good players," one scout said. And because Georgetown has at least five or six, the Friday afternoon semifinal between the No. 12 Vols and No. 21 Hoyas should be a treat.
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| Through four games, Arizona State's James Harden is averaging 22.5 points on 59 percent shooting. (AP) |
Some non-BCS love: The game won't draw much interest outside of the New York area, and perhaps not even there. But if you're looking for excitement you could do worse Saturday than the contest between Hofstra and Manhattan considering the past two contests between these programs have each gone to overtime. The home team has won both games, which is a good sign for Manhattan since it's at home. And another interesting tidbit is that Hofstra's Tom Pecora and Manhattan's Barry Rohrssen are two of the eight coaches who participated in Operation Hardwood this past summer and toured Kuwait and Iraq. So naturally, they'll share desert tales before tip-off and compare memories of roadside bombs, I'm sure.
An obvious prediction: Pat Knight's Texas Tech Red Raiders will not match the 167 points they scored against East Central when they play fourth-ranked Pittsburgh on Friday, but it should be an interesting game, still. Texas Tech is 5-0 with five double-digit wins, and if Knight's club can somehow play the Panthers tight -- or win -- he'll go a long way toward proving to skeptics he's worthy of the Big 12 job he inherited.
A crazy prediction (but it might happen anyway): How about Maryland over Gonzaga? It's unlikely, I know. But with that victory Thursday against Michigan State, Williams has beaten a top 10 team every season for the past 12 seasons. So I ask: Why couldn't he do it every day for the past two days?
Player trying to keep rolling: An indication that Wake Forest might be better than expected is that though its freshman class is great, the newcomers aren't necessarily having to lead the way just yet. Sophomore Jeff Teague (20.8 points per game), sophomore James Johnson (14.5 points per game) and junior Chas McFarland (13.0 points per game) are three of the Demon Deacons' top four scorers, and it is Teague who has really been good. The 6-2 guard has made 30 of 53 field-goal attempts (56.6 percent) and six of 10 3-point attempts (60.0 percent) this season, and he has a total of 16 assists and 10 steals. Sure, the turnovers are a little much (12 through four games), but Teague has improved in nearly every relevant statistic, which is one of the reasons 19th-ranked Wake Forest is 4-0 heading into Friday's game against UTEP in the semifinals of the 76 Classic.
Player trying to get rolling: Bo Ryan's Wisconsin Badgers probably would've lost to UConn earlier this week no matter what happened short of Alando Tucker returning for a game, but it didn't help that Jason Bohannon turned in another stinker in a season in which his shooting percentages are down across the board. The junior guard made only two of nine shots and missed both free-throw attempts against UConn, and he's shooting 31.3 percent from the field, 27.6 percent from 3-point range and 68.2 percent from the free-throw line, which is wild considering that last season he shot 42.9, 39.3 and 86.7 in those categories. Simply put, Bohannon must be better if he's going to play the 33.2 minutes per game he's averaging through five games for the No. 25 Badgers, and a good place to start would be Saturday against Milwaukee.
Three things you should know before you go
1. One game off the national radar because it features two unranked teams will be Kansas State vs. Kentucky in Las Vegas, but this just might be one of the more important Friday matchups. If KSU wins, Frank Martin will be off to a 6-0 start in his second season as a Division I head coach (first without Michael Beasley). On the other end is Billy Gillispie, who desperately needs to avoid the 2-3 start that a loss would produce in his second season as UK's coach. So the stakes are high out in Vegas, and if you've ever wondered what it's like to see 8,000 basketball fans going nutso on a message board in the middle of the night, be sure to visit CatsPause.com when the final horn sounds if UK doesn't get past KSU.
2. Yes, Stephen Curry chose to go scoreless rather than fight a constant and inexplicable double-team the other night, and that drastically affected his scoring average. But the Davidson star is still leading the nation in scoring with an average of 29.2 points, and that number will remain intact through this weekend because the 24th-ranked Wildcats won't play again until next Saturday when they meet N.C. State.
3. Meantime, that goofball Jimmy Patsos, who willingly took a 30-point loss because he was more interested in suffocating Curry than trying to compete with Davidson, will return to the court Saturday when Loyola-Maryland plays at Vermont. I imagine his game plan is to quadruple-team Marqus Blakely, try to make sure he never touches the ball once and walk away with an 87-32 defeat. That sounds about right, doesn't it?
Final thought: You know who probably hated Michigan State's loss as much as Tom Izzo?
Travis Ford.
Because the first-year Oklahoma State coach will go from losing to a top 10 team (Gonzaga) in the quarterfinals of the Old Spice Classic to playing another top 10 team (Michigan State) in the loser's bracket, and that's just not supposed to happen in the loser's bracket.
When Ford arrived in Florida, he must have assumed he would either beat No. 9 Gonzaga on Day 1 and play No. 5 Michigan State on Day 2 or lose to No. 9 Gonzaga on Day 1 and play unranked Maryland on Day 2, but that there was no way he would suffer a loss to a top 10 team on Day 1 and have to play another top 10 team on Day 2.
But then Maryland beat Michigan State, and here we are. And though this isn't ideal for a new coach with a presumed middle-of-the-pack Big 12 team, the good news for Ford is that T. Boone Pickens' money still spends well, and that there's still a lot of it.
