The AP Top 25: New, Improved, and The Likely Source of Public Ridicule In Two Months

As a show of good faith for our extended absence from the blogosphere, we’re unveiling our new, improved look inside the AP Top 25. Like the USA Today, it includes shiny graphics and is written for a fourth-grade reading level.

Each team in the Top 25 is assigned a label. The key for that labeling system is as follows.

 For The Elite we use the New Yorker’s Eustace Tilley, symbol of elitism for almost 100 years.

 For The Contenders it’s our favorite 1970’s heavyweight contender from the golden era of heavyweights, Earnie Shavers.

 The Pretenders get…well, I think it’s fairly obvious, though I think it’s important to point out that we used the original lineup as the first two albums are certified classics while the succeeding ones were certified classics to your dad.

 Don’t sleep on The Darkhorses, the teams who, like Jason Bateman’s career, you just never saw coming. They’re legit, as is Bateman for those of you who didn’t watch “Arrested Development”. According to the ratings and the show’s subsequent demise, that’s most of you, but like these teams you’re only hurting yourself if you continue to miss out.  

 600 mg of Lithium for The Bipolars, typically big conference teams we could easily see losing to the Mountain West champ in the first round, yet have the talent to prove everyone wrong and make a run as a 9 seed.

1. North Carolina

2. Memphis 

3. Kansas

In a fit of either extreme juvenile egotism or paranoid solipsism, I am now convinced that whatever I do with Kansas in my pool will determine their fate. Should I pick them to lose in the Final Four, they will win their first Championship since Larry Brown was lucky enough to hire this guy named Ed Manning as an assistant coach and then found out his son was, like, a really good basketball player. Should I pick them to win they will lose to a 6 seed in the Elite Eight. Bad news for me, good news for you if you know which way I’m leaning.

4. UCLA

Among the other things we did during our time off spent catching up on the docket of Lifetime Original Movies, was to have a live view of Russell Westbrook’s near-Frederic Weising of Jamal Boykin against Cal on January 5. Having seen both of Cal’s games against the LA schools, the conspicuous difference between the two opponents is jarring. Tim Floyd and Ben Howland both procured the one freshman they dearly wanted, but the difference with the Bruins is that no matter how big the dog, they go to Westwood knowing that they will need to buy into a system. The same can be said, for better or for worse, of coaches like Coach K and Dean Smith. Not so in South Central, where it is clear that to a certain extent the lunatics are running the asylum. With UCLA there is a clear commitment to playing defense and crashing boards, from the tallest of high school phenom freshmen to the shortest of walk-on seniors. You can’t get lazy with passes and on the boards or the Bruins will bury you. In comparison, USC looks to only have a commitment to disarray.

5. Georgetown

We’re going to keep the Hoyas as Contenders even after their loss to Pitt, but they’re on watch. Poor Roy Hibbert really should have cashed in his chips, but he can still be a force in the middle, and we like the backcourt especially if freshman Austin Freeman continues to develop. He, along with Vernon Macklin, who had moments against Pitt where he looked like a player, are the X factors for Georgetown.

6. Tennessee

Here’s the thing with Tennessee – both their offense (threes) and defense (steals) is predicated on a gambling philosophy. They do both well, but that’s not exactly a strategy you want to rely on in a one-and-done format. Kansas and UCLA get buckets of steals as well, but their all-around perimeter and interior team defenses make the Vols’ look as permissive as Indonesian child labor laws. 

7. Duke

8. Washington State

Our most wishy-washy pick. We hesitated to dub them a darkhorse except there still seems to be a contingent of the unconvinced or uninformed out there. Don’t be. We also think they are legitimate threats to just about anyone, but their prolonged scoring droughts and the lack of a go-to offensive threat (whither Kyle Weaver?) concerns us.

9. Indiana

10. Texas A&M 

11. Michigan State

We know Tom Izzo likes to win ugly but fuck, I’d rather watch Kelly Osbourne stretch in a bikini.

12. Butler

The SEC sucks, the ACC is down, the Big 10 and Big 12 are woefully shallow. This could be a big year for the little boys in the Tourney, but the truth is this Butler team would be a threat in any year. Love the Bulldogs – they can shoot their way past anyone, a characteristic for any March David, but with freshman post Matt Howard they now have the requisite beef down low. Sweet Sixteen may not be appreciated as much as it is expected.  

13. Marquette

The one team everyone seems most ready to write off. We’ve already made our feelings on future Italian League All-Star Dominic James known, but that’s a pretty damn good college backcourt and if Hayward and Barro can carry the freight inside they will make some noise in March. All that being said, they’re going to lose to Louisville tonight.

14. Dayton 

15. Pittsburgh

We admit this sucks, because if this team were healthy we’re convinced they could finally break past the Sweet Sixteen, but the injury gods have been most unkind.

16. Vanderbilt

Nice team, but this is bad, bad year for the SEC, and unfortunately they can’t take that stupid arena to the Tournament. 

17. Wisconsin

18. Mississippi

19. Texas 

20. Xavier 

21. Miami 

Somebody has to finish 3rd in the ACC.

22. Arizona State

23. Rhode Island 

We’re kind of pissed that our favorite sleeper is now ranked, but Rhode Island should be winning games deep into March even if they can no longer sneak up on people. We love the Will Daniels/Jimmy Baron inside/outside combination. Plus they have a guy named Parfait, a highly underrated dessert, though we’d like them even more if he were named Creme Brulee.

24. Clemson

25. Villanova

The Oscar voters who thought “Crash” was Best Picture think the Wildcats belong in the Top 25. 

  

I Ain’t Dead Yet (Not in the Top 25 but could make some noise in March):

• Louisville/Arizona – Both are better than half the teams above. The five votes to Arizona is a nice gesture for scheduling the toughest slate in the country and having their best player out for a couple of weeks.
• Notre Dame 
• Oregon
• New Mexico 
• St. Mary’s 
• Syracuse – The Orangemen still have a lot of talent, and as much as everyone seems to want to write them off as “too young”, we can’t help but remember the last time that was said about a Syracuse team.

Welcome To Indiana Basketball

Bobby Knight is a dick. I know this, you know this, my Grandmother knows this (This is in no way intended to be overstatement; remember Knight started coaching almost a decade before Brian Jones died.) To which my response remains, “so fucking what?” Last week I was almost fired by a woman wearing a sweatshirt that read “Cats are like chips, no one can have just one.”  

But Knight remains doomed and damned by the better angels of our nature, a victim (and it is acknowledged that this may be the first time anyone has ever referred to Bobby Knight as a victim) of the culture he helped create. College Basketball is the culture of the coach, more so than any other single sport. In fact College Basketball really is the only sport culture in which the coach supersedes all other celebrity. Individual athletes can make a name for themselves in the tournament, but for whatever reason basketball has never been as forgiving of collegiate talent that didn’t translate in the pros as football has; look no further than the varying careers of Bo Kimble and Andre Ware. Additionally no sport is as dependent on good coaching as College Basketball. Proof? Watch CBS Sunday and see who’s on the sidelines opposite Belichick for that afternoon’s AFC Championship Game.  

What does this have to do with Knight? Everything, nothing, something. Knight is the consummate coach. He represents everything we as fans and former athletes love and loathe about sports and their strange duality of aggression and compassion. Knight won 900 games over the course of half a century. His accomplishing this at Texas Tech is problematic, but if Woody Hayes was still coaching at Baylor would we fault him? Yes, if Hayes was coaching at Baylor because of the throat punch.  

And consequently we find the Knight caveat. It isn’t that his success at Texas Tech isn’t impressive, it’s that if Knight had even a modicum of self control he’d be competing yearly for Final Fours despite his age. That Knight seemingly has no haunted conscience about this makes it all the more frustrating. But it is Knight’s torment that makes him so compelling. To call him colorful would be demeaning. He is an artist, the closest we come in the coaching world to Van Gogh‘s absent ear and Hemingway’s suicide. Think of the way Knight has infiltrated our sports sub-conscious – he was the blueprint for Norman Dale in Hoosiers and Pete Bell in Blue Chips, his dismissal at Indiana is the reason that a Philosophy Professor is currently in charge of the NCAA, and he is singularly responsible for two of the most hated (for distinctly different reasons) figures in sports in Mike Krzyzewski and Isaiah Thomas (who also serve as the dual foils for Knight’s mercurial personality).  

It would be comforting for some to look at Knight as a relic, an antique of an era of intimidation long since rendered irrelevant thanks in large part to Knight’s aforementioned protege (not Isaiah in this instance). But he keeps upsetting the Gonzagas and Texas A&Ms of the world, keeps bringing his grandkids to press conferences, keeps winning games in places like Lubbock, keeps daring you to forget him, and you wonder if Knight, for all his fundamental flaws, really is the teacher he so desperately wants credit for being. I have always thought of Knight as the teacher, but he never punched me during practice, and I do understand our reluctance to forgive him being so inextricably hinged on our love for him. Whether we like it or not Bobby Knight is College Basketball, but, even to those who live and die by College Basketball, is that enough?