David is a chip off the old block

Gonzaga guard David Stockton shows that he has full command of his father's basketball genes in the final seconds of the first half.



John is definitely a proud papa.

(Seen during the Oklahoma State/Gonzaga show)

Hoosiers disapprove of you, Sullinger.

Ohio State 85 - Indiana 67

So there was that. And here is your reference point.

880

Why are people so concerned with Duke coach Krzyzewski and his 880 wins? He passed Dean Smith and with a handful of wins will pass Booby Knight. But who cares. Will those wins get the Blue Devils an ACC Championship? Will those wins get them another Final Four appearance?

Will those wins get Duke another National Championship?

We think not. So once again who cares. Titles are what people respect, not wins. Just ask Dan Marino.

CBS attack

We are starting to become fans of Gary Parrish's CBS Poll Attacks. Very thoughtful and insightful and more times than not right on the money. The only thing we disagree with in this installment is that Michigan State has a good win by beating Washington.

We wouldn't count any beaten Pac-10 team as a good win obviously.

Red Reign

"Ain't no way some candy ass snake oil salesman ESPN fuckin' ANALYST fake coach can come into our house and beat us. No. NO!"
- Coach Bob Huggins, West Virginia

"Yes we can."
- Coach Steve Lavin, St. John's

St. John's 81 - West Virginia 71

Two words: field goals, son. That's how you win games. You get 61% of them and you tend to be victorious. You get 37% of them and you tend to drown your sorrows with alcohol.

Hit me!

Now I looked at the Pac-10 some time ago
Don't you see how much they be losing
They only win when they play division 2A
Feasting on cupcakes even in division play
But they don't care because they get ranked anyway
To Larry Scott the AP voters won't betray
They seem to stumble with lightweight teams
If you bet on the west then you're broke today
ESPN's Game Day won't visit their campus
Unless a top ranked team is coming to do damage
The student bodies are all in a panic
The hype over Washington State is making 'em say cram it.
Bruins, Wildcats, Trojans and Cougars
It's a race to the bottom and the fans are saying "screw ya"
So get up get get get down
The Pac-10 conference is a joke in yo town

Meh

Syracuse 81 - Providence 74

Is it just us or did the Friars have this game within reach only to give it up? Yes, the Orange technically had the advantage in all statistical categories but Providence was never behind by more than a dozen. For a team ranked 5th in the nation we expected this game to be more like the Ohio State/Tennessee-Martin pounding. I guess what we are trying to say is that Syracuse may be a tad bit OVERRATED.

The present that keeps on giving

Ex-Ohio State guard J.J. Sullinger: "I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but you need to offer my brother a scholarship."
Ohio State coach Thad Matta: "Julian?"
J.J.: "No. Jared."
Thad: "Your fat brother?"

And the rest is amazing history unfolding before our eyes. Now J.J. sends text messages to coach Matta constantly saying "your welcome, you lucky bastard." And looking at their remaining schedule it doesn't seem entirely impossible for the Sullinger led Buckeyes to go undefeated. No, we are not predicting anything. We are just saying their stiffest competition in conference play is Michigan State. Yes, that Michigan State.

You're sorry?!

Look away. The Hilltoppers are hideous.

On December 1st Western Kentucky played Vanderbilt and got disciplined to the tune of 82 to 62. It was embarrassing. So embarrassing in fact that Hilltoppers coach Ken McDonald issued a public apology and offered refunds to their fans:

"I told anyone that came to the game I'm going to write them a check for the gas money," McDonald said. "It's not right. It's not right."

We do admire his honesty. But with WKU sitting at 5 and 7 coach McDonald may be writing a few more checks to fans.

(HT: Ballin' is a Habit)

BCS? What's that?

The big six conferences in basketball according to ESPN:

That's right. No need for an auto bid neither.

Kentucky girls love Vitale

We told you...

Happy holidays everyone.

ESPN announcers annoy us sometime

What are you, the UPS Whiteboard guy?

Blimp boy

They must be pumping laughing gas into Viejas Arena. Ain't no way this was as funny as the Stewart Griffin laugh guy made it out to be. But it did remind us of Black Sunday. If Seth Rogen wrote it.

So, about last night...



It's pretty bad when you are shouting at your team NOT to take three point shots. We clearly reverted back to the classic version of Aztec basketball and not the sleek version 2.0 that we saw against UCSB. A win is a win blah blah but this would have been a loss if there were 30 more seconds left on the clock. This was truly an escape from Las Vegas.

And we're going to Texas

Texas 67 - Michigan State 55

Well, that was a good old fashioned ass kicking by the Longhorns. Texas dominated the boards from beginning to end. And then they added to the pain by being dominant in the takeaways department as well. It was almost like the Spartans were playing with only three guys. Michigan State coach Izzo's face says it all but the fans leaving the game halfway into the second half may tell of a deeper story about what's going on in East Lansing.

Happy Holidays, Spartans!

Know your enemy

Music here.

Introducing the Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis Jaguars

We have played the school that is more than a mouthful already in a 61 to 46 outing. That game took a herculean effort from Kawhi Leonard in the second half to lift the Aztecs to victory. Think that was a fluke and possibly the Jaguars had a lucky night? The same thing happened to 2nd ranked Ohio State when they played the Jaguars earlier this month. The Buckeyes needed a herculean effort from forward Jared Sullinger to lift them to victory. IUPUI is no joke. Keys for SDSU to win this game -

1) 3 point shots. Yes I know we have gotten better. But IUPUI shoots a respectable 50% from the field and we need a strong counteraction to that.
2) Keep them out of the paint. When Ohio State started to apply defensive pressure on the Jaguars in the second half of their game, that severely limited IUPUI's production. In combination with the first key this can give us a chance.
3) Give Leonard his snaps. Keep on feeding him the rock inside and only good things happen.

Go Aztecs.

Condemnation

Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen and forward Curtis Kelly have been suspended from the team for taking some "free" clothing.

Did we mention that Pullen and Kelly are the only starting seniors on that team?

Did we also mention that this suspension happened just hours before their game against UNLV?



Result of that suspension can be found here.

Rocky (Top) Tennessee

USC 65 - Tennessee 64

Go here first. Ok, so what we observed was a complete lack of closing a game out by the Volunteers. Add to that an inordinate amount of turnovers by Tennessee and then cap that off by points scored off those turnovers by the Trojans and you have the above. Did we miss anything? The Vols are going downhill faster than Shaun White.

Dragon slayers

Great snippet over at Sports Illustrated on how Tennessee better watch out when they play USC today. The Vols are vulnerable. Very, very vulnerable. And USC is not.

Shot of the night!

As seen during the UConn/Coppin State tussle:

Coppin State guard Tony Gallo was so far away with zero seconds left on the clock they should have given him 4 points.

Jackson Emery's a liar

"We believe, looking at our schedule, that we can go undefeated. The kind of confidence that we have in our team is that we can win every game."
- BYU guard Jackson Emery



We're guessing UCLA had some words with Jackson last Saturday. And with UNLV's second helping of lose that leaves SDSU as the lone Mountain West survivor on Ballin' is a Habit's Emery Board. There was a small part of us that was hoping the three teams would go into conference undefeated and have an epic battle royal cage match to the death. C'est la vie.

(HT: Hey Jenny Slater on the vid)

Wolfer of the night

The University of Arizona Wildcats versus the North Carolina State Wolfpack

Someone had to win. These are two teams that normally would be shoo-ins for March Madness (ok, maybe not NC State) but now are fighting for their lives in December. Oi vey we watched this game but really have nothing to say about it. Good night.

Hurry!

A complete game

San Diego St 90 - UC Santa Barbara 64

It happened. It finally happened. An excellent showing by the Aztecs in all phases of the game. Excellent field goal shots (56%), 3 point shots (50%), free throw shots (82%!), rebounds, everything. Our story has always been... Wait, we'll just let one of the players explain:

"Usually the first half is always kind of lazy for us, we always start off kind of slow and then we pick it up in the second half."
- SDSU forward Billy White

There. And we all know that you can't keep winning games like that. They'll be one team that will produce such a lead going into the half that you can't overcome it in the second. But as the flow chart shows we were hitting on all cylinders last night -



This is how you play to win the game. Now only if we can do this every game.

Kansas gets Selby-fied

Kansas 70 - USC 68

Those dragon slayers USC almost got another one if not for the help of newly eligible Jayhawk guard Josh Selby. Selby was on fire with 21 points (leading all Jayhawks) including the game winning three. Appears this guy was worth the wait.

%^*&%$@!

Sigh. We've been through this before:

The official March to Madness position of Article 10, Section 1(b)(i) of the 2005 NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement is that of opposition.

The rule that basically forces high school kids to play college basketball for a minimum of 1 year before joining the NBA should be changed to 3 years. There is a lot of support for this out there but then comes this jackass who apparently feels that people should believe the sun rotates around the earth again:

"With the NBA's labor agreement about to expire, the players' union reportedly is going to ask the league to drop the age restriction. Good. It's time to stop this charade and for all said parties to quit faking it. The NBA and the NCAA need to agree that if a kid is going to college, he has to do more than sleep through two courses before cashing a check."

We. Couldn't. Disagree. More. This is precisely why this rule needs to be strengthened, not eliminated. He then goes on explaining how all these one-and-done players are "fake students" and are making a mockery out of the NCAA and the NBA. Well no shit dude, this is precisely why the rule needs to be strengthened. If you strengthened the rule you would not have kids "sleeping through two courses before cashing a check". The environment right now is producing what you do not like. To eliminate it would take a step back to the wild west days of Kwame Brown, Robert Swift and Jonathan Bender. We HATE the NBA so peace be unto you if that's what you want. However if you were to see it OUR way it would be a win-win situation:

1) Committed student-athletes for the NCAA
2) More polished and mature players for the NBA

Is it really this hard to understand this needs to be done?

Kansas Jailhawk

So, Kansas guard Mario Little has been arrested yesterday and subsequently suspended by coach Bill Self. The folks here at the M2M Research and Development Department have come up with some handy illustrations to help explain what happened to Little:


According to Lawrence Police Sgt. Matt Sarna, Little went to 1231 Ohio Street early this morning to see his girlfriend, a 22-year-old Lawrence resident who is a former KU basketball manager.



Little got into an altercation there with a 19- year-old man who's a member of the KU baseball team.



Little's girlfriend then ran to a friend's apartment at 1241 Ohio, where a gathering was taking place. Little followed his girlfriend and entered the apartment, where he allegedly pushed another 22-year-old woman in an attempt to find his girlfriend. After finding his girlfriend in an upstairs bedroom, Little allegedly battered her and pushed her into a sink.



Another man, a 24-year-old male Lawrence resident, tried to break up Little and his girlfriend and was shoved into a desk by Little. Several persons subdued Little until police arrived at about 2:45 a.m. and arrested him.



The 19-year-old man suffered minor injuries to his head, and Little's girlfriend had injuries to her neck, but neither were treated at the scene. Little was booked at 5:14 a.m. on four counts of battery, two counts of criminal damage to property and one count of criminal trespass.




Now if all this plays out it will be an incredible end to a 2nd string player. God speed.

What does it mean?

A sunflower
Hootie & The Blowfish
Kermit the Frog
Miss Piggy
Connie Chung

What are things that will make you miss a free throw, Alex?

(Observed during the Boston College/Maryland throwdown)

LA face with an Oakland booty

Oakland 89 - Tennessee 82

Gabby sent us this from the hospital after we were discussing what happened. Tennessee went up to Pittsburgh and knocked out then 3rd ranked Pitt only to now lose to Oakland at HOME? Yes, Oakland is a good squad but to beat the Vols on their home floor after that impressive win? Shit!

This is Sparta, Golden Grizzlies.

On another note Gabby and Mrs. March to Madness are doing well with their newborn son. Born Monday morning at 5:40 am! Gabby says they'll be back home on Wednesday afternoon to promptly start watching games together beginning Thursday. We're hoping the new baby will start contributing posts shortly thereafter. They'll probably be more coherent than ours.

What's eating Gonzaga?

Our compañeros over at Ballin' is a Habit and Rush The Court have already pointed this out but after Saturday's loss against Notre Dame now we are starting to question what the heck. In our fantasy we dreamed that SDSU would get a close victory against the Bulldogs in week 2, and then Gonzaga would go on and terrorize the rest of their schedule. What we didn't expect is what's happening now:

Kansas State 81-64 (L)
Illinois 73-61 (L)
Washington State 81-59 (L)
Notre Dame 83-79 (L)

Wait, is that a loss against Washington State? The Washington State Cougars? Anyways, we first we thought that the injury Bulldogs forward Elias Harris sustained a month ago was contributing to this decline but even message boards that shouldn't even care are saying he is healthy. With the two games we watched (SDSU and Notre Dame) it seemed that the Zags had the game in hand only to fall apart in the final minute with mental lapses. Or it just could be the malaise of compounding loses. Whatever it is they better find some magic soon because Baylor is about ready to tap dat ass.

Buy, sell or hold the top 25

Let's take a look at some of the teams in the top 25 and treat them as if they were stock. We tell you who should you have in your portfolio come March and whom should you not.

Buys
#1 Duke - Buy buy buy! 'Nuff said.
#22 Minnesota - Looks like Tubby Smith has got his Kentucky mojo back with wins against West Virginia and North Carolina. Plus the Gophers margin of victory is averaging 10+ points a game.
#18 Brigham Young - Jimmer Fredette can do anything, even move economies!
#6 Connecticut - Kemba Walker is UConn's Fredette.

Sells
#21 Washington - They've lost against every ranked team they have come up against. They are beating up on cupcakes like McNeese State and Virginia to inflate their stats. They play in a conference of no ranked teams (the closest to the Huskies according to RPI is Arizona at 30 then Washington State at 41).
#2 Ohio State - They have Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State coming up. So what you say? Stiff competition will prove that the Buckeyes are top shelf you say? You sure? Did you see that near loss at the hands of IUPUI? Did you see the way Florida State's defense handled OSU?
#15 Missouri - Mike Anderson is not a miracle worker. And the Tigers are in the same situation as Ohio State.
#25 Texas - Mediocrity should not be rewarded.

Holds
#17 Kentucky - They have the all the pieces. They just now have to make them fit.
#23 Notre Dame - Who have they played? Don't say Kentucky. Definitely a work in progress.
#13 Memphis - Who have they played? Don't say Kansas. However there are some who say that this team will turn into a BUY real fast.
#5 Kansas State - Don't get us wrong, we love The Beard. But something seems a little off with the Wildcats plus with that murderer's row schedule we are waiting just a bit.

Baby blues

Well, our very own Mrs. March to Madness just went into labor this morning.  Which means Gabby will not be around to provide content for a few days.  We'll try our best to hold the ship together but if a day goes by with no posts don't freak.

Love,
Staff

Goodfella

Villanova 84 - La Salle 81

We seriously thought that La Salle coach John Giannini was going to go all Dennis Green at the press conference after that game. The Wildcats are who we thought they were. And we let them off the hook!!! If you looked at the game flow Villanova was in trouble nearly the entire contest. This wasn't a matter of the Wildcats slipping as it was a matter of Explorers being really good tonight. They might be a force to be reckoned with in the A10 conference this season.

Take them to another place

So the Vols beat 3rd ranked Pitt 83 to 76 last night. We have an idea for a post! Check this out...

Scene (in b/w): Tennessee players are jumping up and down in excitement after their big win. Pittsburgh players are walking away dejected, heads hanging low. Camera pans in on Panther guards Gibbs and Wanamaker...

Ashton Gibbs: "Lord I've really been real stressed. Down and out, losing ground."
Brad Wanamaker: "Although I am black and proud, problems got me pessimistic."
Jamie Dixon: "All these brothers keep messing up. Why does it have to be so damn tough?"
Pitt fans: "We don't know where were can go to let these ghosts out of our skulls."

We can go on and on with this. All we need now is someone like LSUfreek.

Richard likes a cold one

Louisville 77 - UNLV 69

Oh Chace. We should break into haiku describing how you guys had Louisville where you wanted them. How awesome would that have been if the three of us (UNLV, BYU and SDSU) would have started conference play undefeated? That would have been must see TV. But hats off to the Cardinals for their suffocating defense that shut down the Runnin' Rebels.

Trash talking in the Mountain West

Even trashing talking in our conference is calm and refined. Enter exhibit A:

Yeah, why do people think Trak421 is a New Mexico fan?

Gus Johnson love

Great post over at SB Nation on petitioning Gus Johnson the Great to call the Final Four games this season.

If we had our way he would call every single game of importance on CBS. And Jim Nantz would call late night ESPN games.

Too many Black kids

Yesterday at the Consol Energy Center where 11th ranked Tennessee is preparing to play the 3rd ranked Panthers of Pittsburgh...

Coach Bruce Pearl: "The SEC needed a team to volunteer to play at Pitt without a return game, and we were stupid enough to do it. It's what Tennessee does with scheduling. This is a balance between respect and fear. The quality of Pitt's play will scare us, but we've got to make sure we respect ourselves enough to not lose by much."

Vols guard Cam Tatum: "You go in there with your hard on knowing it will help you down the road as well as see where the team is at."

Vols center Brian Williams: "Growing up I watched Pitt basketball, and it has always been a tough team with a lot of Black kids who are tough and strong. They will come into this game looking to destroy us, and we can't beat a team like Pitt."



Fin. And go Vols!

Jantel Lavender is not impressed

Ohio State 75 - IUPUI 64

Hello Buckeyes. Did you have a late night? Did you forget about your game against the Jaguars? Must have been something like that. How else can you explain being behind until the last 7 minutes of the game? How else can you explain letting IUPUI forward Alex Young run roughshod over your defense for nearly 20 minutes? How else can you explain needing your freshman Jared Sullinger to bail you out of a game when he should have been on the bench early in the second half relaxing?

Anyone? Bueller?

Quick Steve Fisher presser

(HT: Rush The Court)

No freedom for Ben Hansbrough

Kentucky 72 - Notre Dame 58

Notre Dame basically fell apart like smoked chicken in this game. With the score 42 Wildcats 40 Irish at the half Notre Dame came out in the second half and did... nothing. Except shoot 36% from the field and 26% from beyond the arc. There were so many missed shots by the Fighting Irish that the word "Really?" started being bandied about by a few of us. It was essentially like watching two different teams. On the other hand Kentucky was the same as a few days ago really. Inexperienced, dumb errors but this time were able to pull it out because of Notre Dame's mental collapse.


San Diego State 77 - UC Berkeley 57

"We've never been ranked, so everything is positive when it happens. We embrace it. We think we deserve to be there. I told our team today, I want to look on December 9 and see if we're still there."
- SDSU coach Steve Fisher

Oh yes, it is December 9th and you are still here. And we are speechless. On the road the Aztecs played an even more complete game than last time. And finally SDSU was on target with their three point shooting. In fact it was that aspect that put the game out of reach for Cal. The Golden Bears played a great game and we were right to fear Gutierrez. But in the end great defense and terrific perimeter shooting (can't believe we are saying that) won the day. Go Aztecs.

Know your enemy

Start music now.

Introducing the Cal Golden Bears

The fact that we are going up against Cal stud Jorge Gutierrez is reason enough to be nervous. But to be playing at Berkeley with him and the crowd roaring at near after burner levels just compounds that. Gutierrez will not give you Jimmer Federette type production but he makes the shots that makes his team win games. There is only one key for SDSU with this game -

1) Do not get rattled or fall behind early

Oh hey, did we mention that the Bears also beat #20 ranked Temple a couple of weeks ago? Yeeeesh.

Go Aztecs.

Coaches once again beat up on cancer

Kansas 81 - Memphis 68 (Jimmy V Week)

Syracuse in the house. Anyways, Memphis guaranteed a national championship earlier this year and the Tigers did hang with Kansas tonight. For awhile. But the Jayhawks really showed their possible national championship mettle. The game broke down in one of two ways:

A) Kansas forced Memphis to take bad shots
B) Kansas simply took the ball away from Memphis whenever they attempted to drive down the court

If we were a team in the Big 12 we would be really afraid to play the Jayhawks right now.


Iowa 51 - Northern Iowa 39

Well, there was that. If you're thinking this was a defensive game it wasn't. It was just a poor shooting, poor rebounding, poor everything game. Like two porcupines fucking. Iowa won only because Northern Iowa was that much worse. And to think only 9 months ago the Panthers were celebrating their Sweet 16.

That's wood, son

Those cabinets were probably installed by a jealous Mizzou fan. They be hating on the Jayhawks.

Is this real life?

If someone would have come up to us after the 2007-2008 season and told us to close our eyes and imagine a season where San Diego State was ranked higher than North Carolina, Texas, Purdue, Kentucky and Louisville we would have responded in one of two ways:

1) Laughed them out of the room
2) Said "Yeah, in about a decade with a new coach"



We just opened our eyes to the tank cannon reality that it's really happening. Bocce balls, SDSU is ranked as one of the top 15 college basketball teams in the country!!! We're trying to keep the perspective of taking this one day at a time because... Well because it's SDSU. We've been here before.

But as long as it's an open bar we'll keep drinking.

The George Mason Quartet

We had no idea George Mason's band had violins. Actually we had no idea that any band that plays at basketball games had violins.

They are pretty funky though...

(Seen during the George Mason/NC Wilmington beatdown)

It's going to take more than belief against Cal

Last night during pre-game warmups versus Wichita State...

Does UConn play like girls?

And when we say girls we mean these girls. The UConn men's basketball team are the media darlings of the moment. They went from unranked barrel scrapers to #7 in the country (2nd biggest debut in history) virtually overnight. Husky guard Kemba Walker is playing like Michael Jordan and all of Connecticut is buzzing with excitement and a major superiority complex.

Oh, there are Husky haters out there saying things ranging from "they're just lucky" to "they haven't even gone through their Big East schedule yet." But they obviously do not play like girls. At least not yet. Although they wish. They probably cuddle their pillows at night dreaming they were girls.

Post game notes: SDSU 83 - Wichita State 69

Ok...