ACC tourney to include all 14 teams (AP)
The Atlantic Coast Conference will play a nine-game schedule in football and every team will compete in the ACC basketball tournaments once Syracuse and Pittsburgh join the league. The league announced Friday how it will incorporate the schools once they leave the Big East Conference. ACC commissioner John Swofford said Friday it’s still unclear when that will happen since Big East bylaws…
View full post on Yahoo! Sports – NCAA Men’s Hoops News
2012 NCAA Tournament: The 5 Best Teams That Will Not Make the Final Four
The 2012 NCAA Tournament, aka the best time of the year, is quickly approaching. March Madness has consistently been one of the most exciting sporting events due to its unpredictable nature, Cinderella stories, and its ability to vault a relatively unknown school into the national spotlight (see Davidson, Butler, George Mason etc).
With that being said, for every Cinderella story, there is a top team that under-performs.
Here are the five best teams that will NOT make it to the Final Four this year.
View full post on Bleacher Report – College Basketball
Los Angeles Lakers: Road Trip Will Determine Team’s Relevance and Place in West
The Los Angeles Lakers left the cozy confines of Staples Center yesterday, heading out on the road for a grueling six-game, 11-day trip—the basketball equivalent of going to the moon and back in a week.
And while this critical trip will not define the entire season for Los Angeles, it will go a long way in determining just how relevant this year’s team is. And it will set a tone.
Go 4-2 or better, and the Lakers come home brimming with confidence, knowing they can play with anyone in the league. Come home 2-4 or worse, and this team will not look the same—meaning, change to the roster, maybe even while traveling.
The Lakers are the Jekyll and Hyde of this not-so-young NBA season. At Staples Center, they look like a team that could make significant noise in the playoffs, thus far compiling an 11-2 record. On the road, Mike Brown’s team is a woeful 2-7 and have yet to beat an elite team away from Los Angeles.
Between today and February 12, the Lakers will play at Denver (14-8), Utah (12-8), Philadelphia (16-6), Boston (11-10), New York (8-14) and Toronto (7-16). There are no easy games on this schedule, with the first four in particular being against teams with a combined record of 53-31.
The Lakers have an opportunity to get off on the right foot, as wins against the Nuggets and Jazz would give them momentum heading into Philadelphia to play the surprisingly strong Sixers who are playing extremely well on offense and defense.
Just how ready are the Lakers to face teams like Denver (15-7), who likes to run and averages over 105 points per game? The two teams traded victories at their respective homes on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Denver has been as steady on the road (8-4) as they are at home (7-3). Last night, they trounced the red-hot Clippers in Los Angeles, 112-91.
Six players average double figures for the Nuggets, including Danilo Gallinari (17.4), Ty Lawson and Al Harrington, each scoring 15 a game. Add in Nene (14), Andre Miller (14), Arron Afflalo (10.8), Rudy Fernandez (8.9) and Corey Brewer (7.9), and you can see that Denver will be a formidable first test. I think the Lakers start their journey getting tripped up in the Mile High City.
When asked about the upcoming swing, Mike Brown told Lakers beat reporter Mike Trudell, “I’ve never been the kind of guy who says we need to get so many wins on the road. Let’s get Denver, let’s win that game and then go from there, one game at a time.”
With a glean in his eye and brandishing that Cheshire Cat-like grin he brings out prior to doing battle, Kobe Bryant said to Trudell, “We need to play with a sense of urgency. But we’ll be OK regardless, I am not really worried about it.”
Kobe’s word are calming but also telling. Playing with a sense of urgency is his way of telling the rest of the team they need to step it up a notch or two, play with passion for 48 minutes each game and make plays.
Coming off a 33-point blowout of the Charlotte Bobcats earlier this week, no one on the Lakers seemed to be too worried about how this trip will go. I think they should be worried—it’s time for this team to play with a “sense of urgency.”
If nothing else, these six games will serve as a barometer for how much fight Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum have in them and how well the team will defend against the pesky point guards they will face, from Ty Lawson and Devon Harris (Denver, Utah) to Jrue Holiday and Rajon Rondo (Sixers and Celtics).
I think the Lakers believe they can take care of business.
I’m just not so sure the passion or depth is there.
Read more NBA news on BleacherReport.com
View full post on Bleacher Report – NBA
The Top 11 Teams Who Will Miss the Final Four
The Big Dance is a sacred college basketball tradition that has defined the sport for decades, making a usually boring month into one of the most anticipated times of the entire year.
With the newly implemented system of a 68 team spread in lieu of just 64, every squad’s chances at ending up in the coveted Final Four dropped slightly. Programs now have an even tougher time finding that perfect team to secure a slot in the sports biggest stage.
However, last season we once again had a Cinderella squad prove to us that no matter where a team starts out or what seed they might be, a championship run can always be in the cards.
VCU, a lowly 11 seed who was placed in the First Four round, ended up losing in the Final Four to Butler. On their way to Houston, Virginia Commonwealth took down classic powerhouses Georgetown, Purdue, and even a star-studded Kansas squad in what turned out to be the conversation of the entire tourney.
If that doesn’t show the college basketball world anything is possible, I don’t know what will.
There will only be four squads allowed into New Orleans this postseason, and with teams like Butler and VCU always stealing away one or two of those slots, it is becoming more difficult for top programs to secure a position in the Final Four.
We will take a look at the best 11 squads who have all the potential to make it into the sport’s most acclaimed level of the Big Dance, but will fall short before reaching New Orleans.
View full post on Bleacher Report – College Basketball
Bubble Tracker: Shuffling teams in the Big East, Big 12
Check out the latest edition of USA TODAY’s Bubble Tracker to see which college basketball teams will make the field of 68.
View full post on USATODAY.com Feed
2012 NCAA Tournament: The 5 Best Teams Who Will Not Make the Final Four
The 2012 NCAA Tournament, aka the best time of the year, is quickly approaching. March Madness has consistently been one of the most exciting sporting events due to its unpredictable nature, Cinderella stories, and its ability to vault a relatively unknown school into the national spotlight (see Davidson, Butler, George Mason etc).
With that being said, for every Cinderella story, there is a top team that under-performs.
Here are the five best teams that will NOT make it to the Final Four this year.
View full post on Bleacher Report – College Basketball
10 College Basketball Teams in a Midseason Free Fall
As UConn demonstrated so aptly last year, a college basketball team can make up for many flaws by getting hot at the right point in the season. Conversely, though, an ill-timed losing streak can take a promising squad and keep it from getting a shot at a postseason run.
In a down year for the Pac-12, Johnny Dawkins’ Stanford Cardinal looked like one of the conference’s leading contenders for a spot in March Madness.
Those hopes are dwindling rapidly, however, thanks to a three-game losing streak that has dropped the Cardinal two games behind the league leaders with a month remaining on the schedule.
Herein lies a closer look at Stanford and nine other teams that are currently plummeting down the standings after strong starts in 2011-12.
View full post on Bleacher Report – College Basketball
Rasheed Wallace to the Lakers? Kenyon Martin has a list of teams to sign with
In a couple of weeks Kenyon Martin will be able to sign with any team in the NBA after his contract runs out after playing basketball in China. Any team in the NBA can sign Martin. Also in the same boat as Martin are Wilson Chandler and J.R. Smith.
So what teams are on Martin’s radar? According to Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports Martin is down to 6 teams and will likely choose his team this weekend.
Kenyon Martin is expected to decide by this weekend which NBA team he’ll join, league sources told Yahoo! Sports. The Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs, Atlanta Hawks and New York Knicks have expressed interest in signing the veteran forward.
Martin is currently 34 years old and he still has a little game left. He would add solid quality depth off the bench. Last season in the NBA with the Denver Nuggets he averaged 8.6 points per game, 2.3 assists and 6.2 rebounds per game. He also shot 51 % from the floor.
Right now I think the favorites to land Martin…
View full post on Yardbarker: NBA
SEC Basketball: 5 Dark Horse Teams That Could Win SEC Tournament
Halfway through conference play, the SEC is still as mixed as it was to begin. The SEC East has three teams with two losses or less, and three teams with five losses. Every team in the West is within two games of each other, so it is safe to say the West is still up for grabs.
The SEC tournament is without a doubt Kentucky’s to lose. They have an impeccable conference record, 8-0 as of this writing, and hold opponents to a league-best 57.9 points per game. With that being said, they have shown that they can be prone to lapses in their play.
Florida is another team from the SEC East that has been dominating conference play, currently sitting at 5-1 in conference play. They are almost certainly the “next best” in the conference.
But past Florida and Kentucky, who could surprise us like Georgia did in 2008?
Here are five dark horse teams that could shock the conference and upend Florida or Kentucky in the SEC tournament.
View full post on Bleacher Report – College Basketball
The 50 Best Teams in College Basketball History
In college basketball as in other sports, there’s no single answer to the question of what marks a team as “great”. Some of the game’s most famous champions—say, Jim Valvano’s 1982-83 NC State squad—were respectable teams that got hot at the right time, while some of the most astounding collections of individual stars never made it to the pinnacle of the sport.
Sometimes, of course, enormous talent does lead to championship success, as it did in 2009 for Tyler Hansbrough’s North Carolina juggernaut. Just as often though, a team like Paul Pierce’s 1996-97 Kansas Jayhawks seems to have all the pieces but can’t put together a title run.
Herein, a closer look at those two loaded squads and the rest of the 50 greatest college basketball teams ever assembled.
Note: in the interest of making the list less repetitious, teams that had very similar lineups in more than one season have been consolidated into a single entry. For example, the Florida Gators, who won the 2006 and 2007 national titles with the same starting five, appear once for both seasons.
View full post on Bleacher Report – College Basketball
