what is the best story of the month, friends?

Quick, what's the best story that nobody's talking about?

If you guessed "early dominance of the mid-majors" in college basketball, you would be absolutely correct.

Why is this so important? Quite simply, it changes the face of college basketball as we know it.

The formula for success in the tournament has always been rather formulaic: three teams from big conferences with rich traditions, and one surprise team from a big conference that doesn't have as rich of a tradition.

After last year's success by George Mason, we found the formula somewhat wanting, but we shouldn't have been all that surprised, because the signs from Gonzaga had been written on the wall for years. Still, going into this year's Top 25 poll, we found that very few mid-majors were in the Top 25- specifically, two: Nevada and Creighton.

Fast forward to two weeks later.

Now we've had two monumental "upsets," with Gonzaga beating #2 UNC by eight at Madison Square Garden, and Oral Roberts beating #3 Kansas at home. But this hasn't been the only incidence of mid-major dominance; Missouri State took out #7 Wisconsin; Butler beat #21 Tennessee, Old Dominion beat #8 Georgetown, Wichita State won at #6 LSU, and even Vermont took out then #14 Boston College.

(Maybe somebody should page Billy and Jim up at CBS about how good the mid-majors are. No, that would mean they would have to lower themselves to going to Wichita, Omaha, and Springfield. Say what you will about Dick Vitale, but at least he has some idea of what's going on in college basketball before, say, February 15. I seriously think that Packer opens up the paper on Valentine's Day, looks at the AP poll, and decides who his 64 teams are on the spot.)

So we could criticize teams for not being in certain conferences, which is sort of silly because those conferences wouldn't take them anyway, or we could recognize that because power conference teams don't have senior-laden teams like they used to (see UNC-1993, Duke- late 1990s, etc.) the door is wide open for mid-majors who have slightly less gifted players to build teams that are more solid for the college game over time.

To put it another way- the fact that NBA teams are so willing to take young players doesn't hurt Creighton or Nevada as much as it hurts Kentucky or Duke. This was patently obvious last year, when really young Michigan State and UNC teams lost to more experienced (if less talented) George Mason.

We use George Mason as the benchmark for convenience, since it's so obvious now that the selection committee was virtually flawless with their selection procedure last year. We could have easily chosen St. Joseph's, Kent State, or even Southern Illinois as proof positive that the system works, and that the formula is changing.

What does this mean for the future? It means two things: one, that more mid-majors should be selected to the tournament every year. If these teams are going to have five solid starters, they're going to be forces in a setup that rewards experience and a system better than any other setup on the planet, except for maybe the World Series. The fact of the matter is that basketball is different from football; you don't need 40 solid players to win, you need five or six max. This has held true to some extent in the NBA, but is most notable in college basketball. Why is it so notable? Most of the players that go to the NBA draft early are forwards and centers, not guards, so the height advantage that power conference teams used to have is neutralized by the fact that NBA teams hire those big guys immediately to have them develop at a higher level. That's why LaMarcus Aldridge isn't at Texas; that's why Tyrus Thomas isn't at LSU. And that's why next year Kevin Durant won't be at Texas, Greg Oden won't be at Ohio State, and Joakim Noah won't be at Florida.

Second, mid-major teams will be ranked at the start of the year in the Top 25. One of the main problems for mid-majors is that, like college football, they start way off the board and simply can't get "high enough, quick enough" to make any sort of impression on the tournament selection committee, so they get penalized with seeds that range from 7 through 12 because they can't get past 20 in the polls. Gonzaga has circumvented this process by scheduling a brutal pre-conference schedule, which causes them to get a high seed in the tournament (albeit perhaps not as high as they should get) because they've been tabbed as a default major-conference team.

The point of this is that teams in mid-major conferences should be looked at more frequently as "power" conference teams. One of the primary reasons for keeping down the mid-majors has been the argument that these teams simply aren't "national title contenders." Well, for one thing, most at-large teams from big conferences aren't title contenders either (see, for example, Seton Hall, Oklahoma, or any other number of teams from last year) and they shouldn't have any special rights to the NCAA tournament. Those are the "knife-edge" cases that will always be up for grabs. The underlying current is that in the next five years, one (or more) of these teams will be a title contender, and that's something that's more difficult to reconcile. Is Wichita State a title contender this year? Well, if they win out or lose only two to four games, you'd have to say yes. They've already won two tough road games and were an Sweet 16 team last year as a #7 seed. Nevada has Nick Fazekas; Butler won the Preseason NIT. They're contenders, and they're here to stay. We can either pretend they don't exist, or rethink their role in college hoops. I vote for the latter.

RETRO POST: "NBA Draft rant, Bill Simmons-style. (with pictures)"

From four months ago... wait till you see what else I have in the archive...

I am emulating Bill Simmons for this. He has recently released his Top 40 list, and I like it. I do have significant problems with some of his picks, but that's ok.

Let me get this kick-started by saying that the Raptors are up to something, and I think I like it. You've got to give them credit for recognizing that it was unreasonable to have three power forwards on the same team, and extracting T.J. Ford from the Bucks seems to be a reasonable talent upgrade. Unfortunately, trading Charlie Villanueva may prove to be a shady move. Keep in mind, this guy wasn't supposed to have any heart in last year's draft; unfortunately, heart and desire is not required to play in the NBA, which is something I'll get into later.

If you want to read more about this, read Bill Simmons' top 40 article where he lambastes the Raptors for making this decision. He trashes Ford up one side and down the other, despite the fact that Ford recovered reasonably well from near paralysis. I find the whole thing to be sort of rantish. After that, Simmons claims that his mediocre ability would be more than enough to be an NBA GM.

Just remember this Yao quote to disregard that as truth:

“Years from now, we will remember ‘Yao Ming over Jay Williams’ the same way we remember ‘Bowie over Jordan,’ ‘Traylor for Nowitzki,’ ‘Carroll for McHale and Parish,’ ‘Aguirre over Thomas’ and every other great draft day blunder in NBA history. I’m not just predicting it, I’m guaranteeing it."

Yikes, Bill. I want you on my talent evaluation squad right now. Maybe you could tell me how great the Celtics are gonna be this year.

That being said, Andrea Bargnani is a nice pickup, mainly because he's an Italian in Canada, which is perfectly awesome. Since the Raptors love to score points anyway, it should be a perfect fit. By the way, T.J. Ford and Chris Bosh should be fun to watch. They're very fast.

I like what Portland's doing. There, I'll say it. They wanted two things out of this draft: a guard who could do different things, and a power forward who would stay out of trouble. Since they're eventually going to trick some team into taking Zach Randolph, it was important that they get his replacement right now, which is what they did with Aldridge. People have been upset with Aldridge because he got punished by LSU, but I think it's unreasonable to criticize anyone who has to take on a whole team by himself. Just remember, Tim Duncan didn't win jack in college either.

Now Aldridge is no Duncan, but he should be able to do ok in the league, and he won't have to play right away. Plus, being in Portland automatically reduces your expected contribution by a large margin, so Aldridge is cool.

However, Brandon Roy, or "the Return of Eddie Jones," or "EJ2," as I think is appropriate to call him, will really help Portland immediately, and should start in the league for a long time. Keep in mind, Eddie Jones was a three-time All-Star and found his way onto a few defensive teams. If Portland gets that out of Roy, they'll be pretty happy. Their games are similarly predicated on making open jump shots, which is always nice. I'll be talking a lot about the importance of making open jump shots throughout this, mainly because it's something that nobody in the NBA can do.

I've finally gotten over my anger toward Charlotte for taking Adam Morrison over Rudy Gay enough to write something about it.

I just have one question for Bobcats management.

Do you have something against athletic swingmen? Does that sort of idea appall you in some way that we don't know about?

You had an opportunity last year to draft Gerald Green, but you passed. Now Boston has a guy who's likely to shine and you have Sean May, who is on the ropes as an NBA talent. Now this year you pass on Brandon Roy and Rudy Gay for Adam Morrison, a guy who would be great on a team with talent already.

Adam Morrison will be a great NBA player if he's being guarded by, say, one defender. And now he gets to play with the Bobcats, who are the absolute worst match for his skills on the planet. Since the Bobcats aren't going to fool anyone into thinking Gerald Wallace and Kareem Rush are going for 3o a game, we'll get to see Morrison jack up a bunch of shots that will be heavily contested, with the added bonus of seeing Morrison guarded by, say, Bruce Bowen instead of some dude from Pepperdine. That's nice. Charlotte needs a shooting guard now.

At least he can shoot. I think Bobcats fans will be very excited to see open jump shots made on a 50/50 basis. Just to reiterate, Morrison can shoot better than these guys:



That being said, I have to say this: I don't get what Charlotte is trying to do even a little bit. They've managed to draft a team that's pretty slow, with the exception of Ray Felton, who is going to be an absolute star. Unfortunately, Charlotte won't play a whole lot of defense with Morrison on the floor, so there probably won't be a slew of fast breaks. But hey, they already have a "winning combo!"

What makes this pick even better is that it has the Vitale seal of approval, much as the Hawks' selection of Josh Childress over Andre Iguodala a few years ago. If you're athletic and didn't dominate every team you ever played in college, Dickie V hates you. Meanwhile, Vitale is still crowing about how Tskitshivili has sucked from the 2002 draft. , and how you shouldn't draft anyone from Europe because of that. Maybe Americans like Melvin Ely, Marcus Haislip, Chris Wilcox, Dajuan Wagner, Mike Dunleavy, or Jared Jeffries would have been better picks in that draft. What?

Alright, so I'm done slamming Dickie V, which does mean I get to take one shot at Isiah Thomas. Everyone who says that Isiah Thomas is brilliant at drafting is right, in some sense. But it's important to keep in mind that his drafting of Tracy McGrady is what we want to hang our hat on here, not his drafting of Marcus Camby, Damon Stoudamire, or those three dudes he took last year. I'm not impressed with anyone who uses the second pick on Camby in a draft with AI, Kobe, Ray Allen, Peja, Nash, 'Toine, Starbury, or 'Reef. Likewise, every pick before Damon was at least as good. I'm still not sold on Nate Robinson, a guy who I mainly dislike for his bogus win of the dunk contest; not to mention his shot selection. Frye was a nice pick; but last year's draft had a decent top 10 anyway.

At least Renaldo Balkman seems to like playing basketball in Madison Square Garden. I personally dislike him for decimating my Louisville Cardinals.

By the way, Isiah Thomas has so messed up the New York Knicks that it may take more than two stars to fix that team. That's pretty remarkable.

Bulls? Yes, I like what they did too. They managed to fleece the Blazers out of Viktor Khryapa, which means that they're on the verge of creating a legitimate NBA bench. That's something to be proud of.

Now, draftee Tyrus Thomas is "dual-raw," which means he's "tight," but also means he's "undeveloped." In other words, he's Stromile Swift.

While the Bulls clearly overpaid for Big Ben, it is a testament to that franchise's renewal that they were willing to sign him at all. Part of the nice thing about having Wallace around is the instant mentoring he'll be able to provide Thomas with. One of the problems that Swift has had in his career is having to learn everything himself wherever he's been; there's never been a power forward who could teach him much, so he's had reduced development and basically has to go through his entire career dunking everything in sight because he has no tangible skills.


Shown above: Stromile demonstrating the only skill he's picked up since 2000. Wait, he can block shots too.

Here's hoping Wallace teaches Thomas how to be a defensive force.

I suppose now would be the obligatory comment on how the Bulls basically gave up on Tyson Chandler, but J.R. Smith could be alright; at any rate, he's a nice addition to the suddenly robust Bulls bench.

Atlanta drafted Shelden Williams over Rudy Gay or a guard. They deserve whatever happens to them for this. I also wonder if they've completely given up on Marvin Williams already, because I have a feeling he'll be good soon.

My theories for why the Hawks drafted Shelden Williams:

• Shelden was drafted specifically to bully around Marvin in practice. You know, the Duke/UNC thing.
• They're trying to put themselves in line for Greg Oden by not drafting someone who will make a tangible difference to their team.
• They were trying to increase the "highest level of education obtained" level in accordance with NBA requirements.
• Shelden promised to have his extended family buy Hawks season tickets.
• Drafting Williams meant the avoidance of having to sign crappy free agent to teach younger Hawks how to acquire post position, box out, or do up-and-under.

I don't have any reason to get upset at Minnesota for Randy Foye. They're taking him to help ease Kevin Garnett's pain. You have to give Kevin McHale some credit for getting a semi-legitimate backcourt together rather quick in order to try to get the T-Wolves back in the playoffs. Less credit should be given for Ricky Davis though. Ouch!

I wouldn't hate on Ricky Davis so much if he didn't shoot on his own goal to get a triple-double. Please remember that.

Now, let's go on to the beloved Houston Rockets, a team took a gamble by trading Rudy Gay and Stromile Swift for Shane Battier. The this for them is the fact that Battier is a decent NBA starter who can play defense well. It will be interesting to see if his presence finally allows T-Mac and Yao to play well together. He's the best starter those guys will have ever seen.

There comes a time in every draft, in every sport, where you have to scratch your heads and wonder why arguably the most talented player wasn't taken. This draft found its most talented player, Rudy Gay, on the sidelines until the eighth pick.

You can't coach heart, toughness and determination, which is presumably why Gay slipped. It's also important to note that you can't coach ability. Gay's ability is unquestionable; and while he didn't take over in Connecticut as much as he "should have," there were also like five other NBA picks on that team.


On to the Golden State Warriors!

Here's a team that actually took a stab at making their team better by taking Patrick O'Bryant, although it's never good to hear that Chris Mullin might still be the best shooter on Golden State's roster (according to himself, no less). I think the Warriors' main problem is a lack of toughness; well, and Baron Davis.
Warriors fans trying to get excited about their free Mike Dunleavy posters on Warrior draft night... since nothing says fun like a Mike Dunleavy poster and a selection of Patrick O'Bryant. Yes!

I really could have said more about this draft four months ago, but I'll just settle for saying that drafting NBA-ready point guards is a clutch idea. Also, Paul Millsap is the hotness.

Hang on sloopy...

When you live in Columbus, Ohio, it's impossible not to have an opinion about the state of college football, as well as at least a cursory knowledge of what's going on in the Big Ten, as well some vague sense that the Big 10 and SEC are light years ahead of all the other conferences on the planet.

I think that's sweet of the people up here; they're territorial, and why shouldn't they be? After all, what you hang onto in Columbus is frequently characterized by Natty Light and O-H-I-O, so you better make the most of that while you can. Discount beer doesn't grow on buckeye trees, you know.

Now I'm being harsh, and probably unreasonable. Everyone is thrilled to death about arguably the biggest football game ever conceived in the history of college football, and I can't blame them for handing out the "Troy Smith for Czar, Ginn for Prime Minister" flyers that I've seen around campus. There's nothing hotter than seeing two athletes in their prime donning Russian apparel.
Alright, so I just made that last part up. I made the examples particularly absurd so you could get a feeling for the strangeness that is Columbus right now, which has culminated in me selling my tickets to the Game for what will probably end up being close to a month's rent. Nice.

But I would be remiss to leave here without some hard-hitting analysis of what should happen to the loser of the OSU/UM game, as well as my thoughts about the state of the powerhouse conferences today.

Everyone criticizes the Pac-10, and rightly so; their top team, USC, doesn't really like to play any defense, and managed to lose to a team that lost to Boise State, which means that now Boise State has some sort of ridiculous probability of being in a BCS game despite the fact that they recently just barely squeaked by San Jose State. But hey, everyone has their flaws, and San Jose State did beat Stanford. Boise State is a great example of learning by doing: they learned quickly that it's not a good idea to go on the road and try to beat an SEC team, but any time you can sucker a local Pac-10/Mountain West team into a high scoring contest, your style of ball will probably win. Boise State scared Louisville at the Liberty Bowl a few years ago, if only for the fact that Louisville committed four turnovers and went for it on fourth-and-1 at their own 17. I thought for sure that Bobby Petrino had become Hal Mumme for a quick time.

But we should get back to criticizing the Pac-1o, which is a great deal of fun except for the dirty little fact: the fact that we should be criticizing the Big 12, which is the worst big conference around.

Let's look at their non-conference games of note:

Iowa State: lost to Iowa.
Oklahoma State: lost to Houston.
Colorado: lost to MONTANA STATE, a I-AA school.
Texas: lost to Ohio State by 17 at HOME
Oklahoma: the only respectible one of the crew, lost to Oregon in a B.S. manner, but beat Washington.
Kansas State: lost to Louisville by 18 at HOME, but beat Texas.
Kansas: lost to Toledo.
Missouri: beat Ole Miss.
Nebraska: blown out by USC.
Texas Tech: lost to TCU. Beat UTEP.
Baylor: lost to Washington State, Army, and TCU.
A & M: beat Army.

So the Big 12 basically didn't beat a single good team except for maybe Washington that was out of conference. They sure got plastered by a bunch of them, though. Even the Pac-1o didn't show up this poorly: USC's wins over Arkansas and Nebraska carry the conference, which was supposed to have two standard-bearers, except Cal forgot to show up at Tennessee. Who cares, Cal is always good for a nice fail anyway.

We could get on the Big East's case, but West Virginia, Louisville, and Rutgers have beat Kansas State, Kentucky, Miami (FL), Maryland, Illinois, North Carolina, and Mississippi State, so at least there are some quality wins around.

Alright, point made. The SEC and the Big 10 are the best two conferences, with the Big East riding shotgun because WVU stomped Maryland. The ACC has a bunch of good teams, and the Pac-10's alright.

So the best team in the Big 10 should probably play the best in the SEC, provided the best in the SEC isn't Arkansas, in which case USC should get the nod because of the head-to-head de-cleating of the Hogs that took place earlier. I like Florida here: their score against Auburn was sort of misleading because of bad offense; their defense is pretty sweet. Of course, the Gators almost lost to South Carolina last week, but the Gamecocks have to be the best .500 team in the country. I think they've had the most difficult schedule in the country. South Carolina has played Georgia, Florida, Clemson, Tennessee, Auburn, and Arkansas. That's ultra-harsh.

Why can't we put OSU in the title game if they lose to Michigan? It's pretty basic: we don't even know if OSU is the second-best team in the Big 10 at that point; Wisconsin has a legitimate logical stake to that claim due to their close performance against the Wolverines.

Why don't we throw the Wolverines right back into the fire?

That's the better question, and it's the one that deserves a more reasonable answer. The Wolverines, should they lose, will have a legitimate claim to a rematch in the sense that Ohio Stadium is hardly a neutral site. But college football (and, for that matter, the NFL) ain't about no neutrality, and winning on the road is part of the game.

Still, the best answer I heard to why Michigan shouldn't get a rematch came from someone with a more unbiased perspective, a grad student from Costa Rica.

"You're trying to figure out who the best team in the country is, right? Shouldn't Ohio State play someone else, from a logical perspective? We know Michigan isn't the best, because they lost to the Buckeyes."

I couldn't have said it better; it's so basic, but it really captures the idea best. Notre Dame doesn't get a re-match because they were dominated by both OSU and Michigan within the past year. Expect 900 yards of total offense for either OSU or Michigan if they play Notre Dame again this year. Just giving you guys a heads up.

There's only one problem; that problem resides in New Jersey. If Rutgers wins out, they'll have a pretty decent claim to the title game. Of course, there's not a soul on the planet who thinks this team can honestly beat OSU, Michigan, or even USC, but that's beside the point. The point is that they should have an opportunity, just like Utah should have had an opportunity to play a legit BCS team a few years ago. I propose that, should Rutgers beat WVU (which is pretty doubtful), they play the loser of the OSU/Michigan game. But the way the BCS is set up, they'll probably get to play the winner of the ACC, which should be a good enough measure of how good Rutgers is.

Give me my Heisman watch: Troy Smith, Ray Rice, and Steve Slaton (sans Louisville second half). Those are the three best players left. Sorry, Brady Quinn, but you've got to come up bigger against big teams. Hunter Cantwell could throw for three TD's a game and no picks against Air Force, UNC, Stanford and the like as well.

Oh, and I end with a shoutout to UK QB Andre Woodson: you're a future star.

College football, recognize. I'm back.

Michael Fixes Every NBA Team In ONLY Fifteen Minutes.

I'm fixing every NBA team, and it's only gonna take me fifteen minutes.

Atlanta: The next time you get the opportunity to draft, draft the best player available. Alternatively, draft a guard.

Boston: Try to increase the average age of your roster above 17 before Paul Pierce drifts into A.I. mode.

Charlotte: Try to get a refund on your expansion entry fee and quit now. Alternatively, have some sort of plan for getting better that involves signing a free agent scorer. I believe I said that last year.

Chicago: The next time the GM says, "Let's sign somebody for $15 mil. per year," insist that there is a one-for-one correspondence between millions/year and points/game.

Cleveland: See if anyone will take Damon Jones for free.

Dallas: Try to pretend that you're tough, the way you pretended for most of the playoffs last year.

Denver: Tell J.R. Smith that you're playing in Omaha. If he doesn't question you, bench him immediately, Byron Scott-style.

Detroit: The next time you encounter some B.S. chemistry among good-but-not-great players, something that basically ensures you'll win 55 games a year, keep it around at all costs. Case and point: The Utah Jazz's other three starters among Malone and Stockton.

Golden State: Instead of trying to play defense, try playing like the Suns and scoring as many points as you can, since you can't play any defense anyway.

Houston: You're almost there. You now have three competent players (maybe four) on the court at any time. Strive for five.

Indiana: Tell Stephen Jackson that he has to attend community college unless he shapes up.

LA Clippers: Give Shaun Livingston the job now.

LA Lakers: You're actually fine, for now... well, maybe you could let Kobe or Odom play point.

Memphis: Try to win as many until Pau Gasol comes back. Then, tell Northwest to cancel all flights to Madrid/Barcelona/Seville.

Miami: Work out an arrangement with the South Beach PD, telling Shaq his arrests are one-for-one with blocked shots.

Milwaukee: See if you can sucker any more teams into giving you dominant power forwards. If you can't sign 'em, trick 'em.

Minnesota: Let him have Wally back. At least Wally was interested in scoring.

New Jersey: Convince Richard Jefferson that jump shots aren't going to take him to "the next level."

New Orleans: Sign a bench.

New York: Be nicer to Steve Francis, since he's the only guy on the team that could possibly drag a really bad team to the playoffs.

Orlando: Ask Joe Dumars if he'll accept Hedo Turkoglu for Tayshaun Prince. Tell him that you'll give him a first-round pick.

Philly: I think it's time to draft a proven college player, guys.

Phoenix: Stop blaming Amare Stoudemire for all your problems. Blame the fact that you don't play any defense instead.

Portland: Keep Zach Randolph in whatever "angry mode" he's in.

Sacramento: Get a big man. Stop pretending that Brad Miller is comparable to Yao Ming.

San Antonio: Let that Oberto guy shoot every shot. He's perfect.

Seattle: Having Rashard Lewis is nice. Having Chris Wilcox is nice. Having them both on the same team means you get like five rebounds a night.

Toronto: Virtually hopeless; but I'll give it a shot. Try getting a shooter, and don't trade Chris Bosh for a basket of apples like you did with VC.

Utah: Inject Jerry Sloan with the same hatred he had in the 1990s.

Washington: Tell Gilbert Arenas how fortunate he is to be playing with Antawn Jamison, the only scorer on Earth who can put up with the complete wackiness that is Arenas's shot selection. Also, spend money in the offseason.