That Just Happened

While recently at an art show, shockingly yes they exist in Sacramento, I was cornered by an artist who reminded me that it was Rembrandt, and not Thomas Kinkade, who was the original painter of light. I was taken aback by this, not so much by the reminder that Rembrandt was the painter of light (I was not at an art show in fucking Sacramento solely for the sake of the triple cream brie, I was an Art History minor in college) but by the defensiveness of the aforementioned artist. But it made some sense. In art, like College Basketball, we have only the ability to go by aesthetics and outcome to gauge effectiveness. Paul Westhead is still remembered for his Loyola Marymount basketball teams not so much by their achievement – an Elite Eight is nothing to sneeze at but remember recent West Virginia teams have achieved the same goal – but by the beauty of their style of play. This observation was relevant again tonight in the wake of Kansas State’s defeat of Kansas.

The question, then, is who is Rembrandt and who is Kinkade? By all rights Kansas should be the Rembrandt, the long time master, beautiful to observe, momentarily upstaged by a stylistically inferior upstart. But such an assertion is dubious. Kansas has in recent years been the Kinkade, the excessively priced, gaudy portrait of an Illinois cottage placed, conspicuously consumed, over a subdivision fireplace. After 24 years of futility, that point regarding the Bill Self Jayhawks was affirmed last night. Kansas State has solidified their legacy even if, come Tournament time, they turn into last year’s Georgia Tech. Beasley, Walker, and Martin for one night transcended their medium. The legacy of a one and done can be of Pervis Ellison proportions when that one was done so effectively. Just ask Mark Mangino.

AP Top 25: NCAA Tournament Preview Preview

The rankings, and the snarky comments that accompany them, are all well and good, but exactly does it all mean? Who really gives a fuck if Vandy is ranked 19 in January if they’re playing a home game in the NIT in March? In college basketball, the non-conference and conference schedules are all prelude to the NCAA Tournament, so all our legion (legion = more than five) of readers really want to know is what is each team’s prospects are for the Tournament, should they get that far. That being said, let us further qualify our shiny new rankings key…

  Though some of The Elite may have been knocked down a peg since last we spoke, these teams are still the cream of the country’s crop. The odds are very short for these teams to have One Shining Moment, but we’ll make an argument in the coming weeks for why a couple of them won’t.

 The Contenders at least have a good shot at the Final Four. They could also make the Championship game, though we doubt they could knock off one of the big boys in the end. Think the Andre Miller Utah Utes.

 The Pretenders are teams, some highly ranked, who feel a hell of a lot better about themselves than we do.

 A Darkhorse either is a team most of the country doesn’t know about, or most of the country vastly underrates. Like Greek food.

 The Bipolars are generally major conference schools (though a team like Gonzaga also qualifies) that we wouldn’t stake our life’s savings on, one way or the other. They could just as easily go to the Final Four as get knocked out the first weekend.

1. Kansas

2. Memphis 

The favorite for at least half of our editorial crew, but why are we suddenly very, very nervous that they’ll go into the Tourney undefeated? The best thing that happened to the 1995 UCLA team was to lose in the Pac-10 Tourney. That and they told George Zidek lose and it’s back to the circus with you.

3. Duke 

An oddly likable Blue Devils team, even with Greg Paulus. There are three reasons for this: 1. DeMarcus Nelson, 2. They play an entertaining up-tempo style, and 3. Ultimately they’re no threat to win it all. In other news, for those members of the hoopserati still thinking they miss his inside presence, Josh McRoberts is now 43 on David Thorpe’s rookie rankings, behind George Karl’s kid and just two spots ahead of Kosta Perovic.

4. North Carolina

5. UCLA

6. Georgetown

7. Tennessee

College basketball does not exist in a vacuum. The laws of displacement in the physical world also apply to the balance of conference power, so where the Pac-10 is absolutely loaded this year and the Big East is having a typically top-heavy year, other conferences must accordingly suffer. The SEC and the Big 10 suck. So the Vols could go ahead and lay waste to the mediocre-yet-oddly-ranked Mississippi teams and every school in the Southeastern pocket of the country, but unless they show us a little more than we’ve seen right now we’re going to peg them for an early upset in the Tourney. ESPN currently has them pegged for a 2 seed, playing the winner of the UConn/Rhode Island game in the second round. That will likely change greatly by March, but Tennessee fans better pray it doesn’t shake out that way.

8. Michigan State

See above: sucky, conferences.

9. Washington State

10. Texas 

Nice team and about as deep as the cast of “The Hills”.

11. Indiana

So we spent all that time knocking down teams at the top of bad conferences, yet we still like the Hoosiers. If God had wanted opinionated rants to be consistent, he wouldn’t have created blogs.

12. Butler

13. Wisconsin

14. Stanford

15. Xavier 

16. Drake

Korver sounds like neither a Mormon nor an Irish Catholic name, so all we can think is that Momma and Daddy Korver had a lot of cold Midwestern winters with no TV, holed up with nothing but Southern Comfort and the Marvin Gaye box set.

17. Marquette

18. Pittsburgh

19. Vanderbilt

We didn’t suspect that Vandy was as good as their earlier rankings, but this is ridiculous. The Commodores still have a nice little inside/outside combination, but unless they start making some hay, and soon, they’re not even going to make the NIT.

20. Florida

21. St. Mary’s 

I’m sure there are still non-believers out there, particularly after the loss to San Diego. But how good does the Gaels non-conference schedule look now that Oregon is back, Drake is ranked, and even Seton Hall is making some noise? They still have a Bracket Buster game coming up as well, which should be a great opportunity for white suburban kids from Midwestern mid-majors to see how white suburban kids in California live.

22. Kansas State

23. Texas A&M 

24. Mississippi

25. Baylor

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

• UConn/Louisville/Arizona – There aren’t 10 teams above that we would take in the Tourney over these guys. Yes they could easily crap the bed early, but would it suprise you to see any of them in the Final Four? How about Stanford, Vandy, Mississippi, or any team in the Big 10 outside Indiana? We didn’t think so.
• Notre Dame 
• Rhode Island
• Gonzaga
• Oregon – Will make the Tournament. You will smile and think you are very cunning by picking them in the Sweet Sixteen. Then you will watch them and within two minutes be horrified to learn that they don’t have a point guard.
• New Mexico
• USC – We’ve written about them more than any other team this year and still couldn’t tell you what the hell they’ll do.
• Syracuse - Left for dead, but this is a team with a tough schedule and a boatload of first round picks. Let’s call them USC East.
• Kentucky