Saturday, January 9, 2010

Snow, looking for a college basketball team, and running

Snow summarizes the past week in the 'burgh (and much of the country). We had our first snow day cancellation on Friday. Our first track meet Thursday night was cancelled too due to the roads. We'll try again this next Thursday and Saturday.

Now that college football is over and the Steelers aren't in the playoffs, it's time to turn my attention to college basketball. Unfortunately, my three teams are looking in worse shape than they were last year:

Arizona (7-8 overall, 1-2 in the Pac-10) - while I met Sean Miller and company in the airport in San Diego back in December, it hasn't seemed to motivate them. The most painful one was the 99-69 drubbing by BYU back on the 28th. I think Arizona's only hope this year to keep their tournament streak alive is to win the Pac-10 conference tourney because it seems like the entire league is a little weak. Maybe some of the younger guys (I don't even know any of their names yet) will step up by then and Sean Miller's defensive style will have sunk in more with the team. Although, I'm not holding my breath because a quote after last night's 78-76 loss to WSU was, "Our defense is terrible, and there is no easy solution. We are a team that has a cornerback who can't run and has (to defend) a receiver who runs by him." ...even resorting to football analogies uh-oh.

Penn State (8-7, 0-3 in Big 10) - The Lions aren't getting off to the quick conference start like last year. Taylor Battle's having another great year (18.1 ppg), but nobody else is stepping up to help him out. They have ZERO seniors on their team, so maybe next year will be the year they make it back to the tourney. Remember, they are coming off their big NIT Post-season tourney victory, so they can at least hang their hat on the fact that they were the 66th best team in the country last year.

Davidson (7-8, 2-1 in Southern Conference) - Losing the best player in school history (and a first round NBA pick) never helps a team. Davidson's hope is that their conference competition isn't that good and they can win the conference tourney. But, considering the College of Charleston (who beat them twice last year) has already upset North Carolina, I'm not too hopeful for this either. They've also got a young team with their top two scorers being freshmen.

So, I'm making my college basketball fandom available to be loaned out for the season. There is an application process and I need justification as to why I should follow the team. Essays should be 500 words or less and can be submitted via this blog, facebook, or email.

Finally, Beth and I (and other crazies in the area) are doing a 5 mile race up at North Park tomorrow morning. The temperature is going to be in the low teens with a single digit windchill. Brrr! I think the roads should be clearer than when we ran last year though.

4 comments:

Steve said...

That is an easy answer. Start rooting for Cornell. They just gave Kansas all they could handle at Kansas. They beat St. Johns this year. I think they can be a real headache in the tourney, like Princeton several years back.

Also Becky from running-blogs.com graduated from Cornell. Her husband and her are big fans. I am a DePaul fan since forever, so been some slim years.

I haven't been keeping track of College Basketball like I did say 10 years ago, but this year come Tourney time I will be a fan of BIG RED!!! or whatever their name is.

I think that is under 500 words.

I also like what Purdue is doing. Nothing wrong with staying in the Big 10 (+1)

Beth said...

Steve makes a good point. Plus he's really funny. GO BIG RED!! :)

m said...

Duke and Oregon and fun teams to watch :)

The ACC is always exciting and Duke is always good and doing pretty well this year.

Oregon is doing well so far and is leading the Pac-10 right now. That's my vote!

runningyankee said...

Tennessee. Orange looks great on you! :)