College basketball’s regular season is meaningless and ESPN’s TipOff Marathon is evil.
Those are pretty much the takeaways from Mike Francesa’s 10-minute rant Tuesday on WFAN. Francesa went on about how he couldn’t get excited for Tuesday night’s game between Kentucky and Duke and the 6 a.m. game pitting Rider and Stony Brook was downright offensive.
Before I go all Phil Mushnick on Francesa, just let those points marinate for a second. When those are digested, you’ll realize something that should already be clear: The man doesn’t have the slightest clue about how college hoops works.
To say the regular season is meaningless defies any kind of logic. Francesa said Kentucky and Duke are already in the NCAA tournament. Um, Mike, no they aren’t. They still have to win about 20 games and take care of business in their conference. Are they likely to make it to the Big Dance due to their talent? Sure. Are they locks? Absolutely not.
There is an incredible amount of parity in college basketball now. This is an era where mid-major Butler has made two straight national title games. Yet in both those years, 2009-10 and 2010-11, the Bulldogs were far from guaranteed to make the tournament.
I do sort of understand what Francesa is saying, believe it or not. He means that 68 teams in the tournament is too many and I agree. But to say that Kentucky and Duke – or whatever major program you want to use as example – are definitely going to be in the NCAAs is so far off.
And it actually gets worse. Francesa whined about how ESPN forces teams to play in its TipOff Marathon, which is 24 hours of college basketball. He said how terrible it was that the channel is making New Jersey residents travel to Rider in the middle of the night for a 6 a.m. game just weeks after Hurricane Sandy.
Huh?
Francesa added that this is ESPN’s way of showing superiority over the small schools by leveraging them into playing so early in the morning. In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Rider and Stony Brook probably won’t be on national television the rest of the season. That opportunity is awesome for the players and Rider’s gym was packed with energetic students wearing white for the game. It was an incredible atmosphere and the majority of people there were students who walked across campus. They weren’t commuting across New Jersey.
Go back to blasting LIPA, please.
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St. John’s showed a lot of guts coming back to beat Detroit on Wednesday. For a young team like the Red Storm, any win is a good win. But there are some caveats. Too many bad shots were taken down the stretch. Just because shot-blocking machine Chris Obekpa’s 16-footer from the elbow went in doesn’t mean it was wise to take it. A miss there and St. John’s might have lost. D’Angelo Harrison also rushed a few shots down the stretch and Obekpa almost cost his team the game by turning it over and allowing a Detroit 3-point attempt in the closing seconds.
All of these are correctable mistakes and it was only the team’s first game. St. John’s has plenty of time against a weak non-conference schedule to patch things up and quit rushing late in the game with a lead.
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Don’t expect too much from Kentucky early this season. Comparing last year’s Wildcats to this year’s is like comparing the 2012 Miami Marlins to the 2013 version. They are nothing alike. A loss to Duke on Wednesday night was not especially surprising. But once freakishly athletic Nerlens Noel, Archie Goodwin and Alex Poythress get some seasoning, Kentucky will be ready once again for a deep run in the NCAA tournament.
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It’s really fun seeing how far Chaz Williams has come since playing his high school ball in Brooklyn at Bishop Ford. The UMass senior is one of the best point guards in the country and has a chance to get his name called in the NBA Draft. He’s only 5-foot-9, but super quick, explosive and draws comparisons to Nate Robinson – only he runs a team better.
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Rutgers fans should be worried about that season-opening loss to St. Peter’s. The Peacocks didn’t even have power at their Jersey City campus the week before the game and were picked to finish dead last in the MAAC. John Dunne is a tremendous coach, but with Rutgers talent the Scarlet Knights should have won that game by 20. It might be a long season at the RAC.