College Basketball - Get Ready for a Phenomenal March Madness Run This Year

Ed's Sports Corner:

Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

They do not pay Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar the big bucks because he is stupid. Romar made another in a long line of smart decisions Friday (2-8-08)—he took the blame for his team's 4-game losing streak.

Romar has praised his players all season long because they have been willing to do whatever he asks. He has now shouldered the blame because what he was asking of them did not work.

He was rewarded two days later when his Huskies played their best game of the year, upsetting No. 5 UCLA at home 71-61 before a sellout crowd at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

Romar, tired of losing, pulled starting guard Venoy Overton just 57 seconds after the opening tipoff. Overton, a true freshman with outstanding potential, opened the game with a turnover, but then did not hustle back on defense. In came junior guard Justin Dentmon and responded with 20 points off the bench on 7-of-12 shooting, and the Huskies were off and running.

Jon Brockman grabbed a game-high 17 rebounds (including his 800th career rebound) and added 12 points for his Pac-10 leading 16th double-double of the season. Ryan "Dead Eye" Appleby added another dozen points and sank his 200th career 3-pointer, 12 short of the U-Dub record.

Washington even played some defense as Artem Wallace held UCLA freshman center Kevin Love to 13 points, and true freshman Justin Holiday put the "D" on UCLA's Josh Shipp when he was mounting a comeback for the Bruins.

Even UCLA coach Ben Howland was impressed. "They were more physical," said Howland. "They outrebounded us by 8. Brockman had 9 offensive rebounds alone."

The Huskies, now 13-11 overall and 4-7 in Pac-10 Conference play, must play 5 of their remaining 7 games on the road. Washington still is probably going to be watching the NCAA and NIT playoffs on television, but they showed Sunday just how great parity is in the Pac-10 and around the country by being ranked No. 82 by Sagarin and upending No. 5-ranked UCLA.

Despite its lackluster record, Washington did jump to No. 74 in Sagarin's Ratings by beating such a high-ranked team. The Sagarin Ratings change daily during the basketball season because, unlike football, games are played during the week as well as the weekend.

As of Sunday (2-10-08), No. 2 Memphis remains the only unbeaten team in the country (23-0) among 341 Division 1 teams. There were only 3 teams left with a single loss—No. 1 Duke (21-1), No. 3 Kansas (22-1) and No. 13 Drake (20-1).

Heck, there are just 3 more teams left with only 2 losses—No. 4 North Carolina (22-2), No. 6 Tennessee (20-2) and No. 25 Butler (21-2).

Here is another interesting fact to note: Three of these top 7 best-record teams have poor strength of schedule standings—Memphis (124th toughest), Drake (105th) and Butler (88th). Unless they start playing tougher teams, they are not going to go deep into the NCAA tournament.

Compare their strength of schedule to Duke (21st toughest), Kansas (60th), North Carolina (18th) and Tennessee (10th).

To highlight the competitiveness of the Pac-10 this year, the Washington Huskies, who are 9th in the Pac-10 standings with a 4-7 mark, are ranked 25th by Sagarin in strength of schedule. And you have to ask how Washington could upset such a good team as UCLA? Be thankful your team is not playing in the Pac-10 Conference this year.

All of this bodes really well for the networks who will televise March Madness, and for any team that makes the cut to play in the NCAA tournament. Because upsets happen even when there is little parity among teams, when there is a lot of parity like this year, we are going to see some shockers.

Editor's Note: Read my other articles on the Washington Huskies, including "Lorenzo Romar's Washington Husky Recruits Are Among Top 15 Classes", "Huskies Earn Spot in NIT Season Tip-Off Semis, Head to the Big Apple", "How Can Losing Still Be a Positive? When You Are Playing Good Teams" and "We Love Our Dawgs with Bite, Not Our Dogs With Bark".

Editor's Note: Explore my main blog at:
http://www.edbagleyblog.com
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