WBN Weekend Wrap Up: Thank you Notre Dame and Florida State
Alabama Challenges Kentucky
If you aren’t happy with the Kentucky victory over the Crimson Tide then you need to check your expectations. The Tide may not be ranked and they may have a losing record in the conference, but they are a darn good basketball team.
JaMychal Green is a legit NBA player and showed it against the Cats. His 22 points and 12 rebounds against a talented front court was enough to make me believe. Trevor Releford and Trevor Lacey hit big shot after big shot to keep Alabama within striking distance of the Cats.
But the Boys in Blue and White responded to every big shot with one of their own. In the second half, Alabama was shooting somewhere around 85% at one point. They went 5-7 from the three point line for the game, yet the Wildcats still won. Their resilience is something to behold and something to be encouraged about as we head closer and closer to March. There has not been one second this season when I thought that we could not win the game.
One final thought: enough with the “What’s wrong with Terrence Jones” stuff. He’s fine. He had a very good game against a team that is very good on the post. There will be a game in SEC play where Jones is going to put up 25 points and 10 rebounds and everybody will be singing his praises yet again.
The Seminoles and the Irish: Giant Killers
There is something that I have noticed about the Syracuse Orange: every season they schedule all home games early and 90% of them are cupcakes. Then, once they get on the road in the Big East with their inflated ranking, they start dropping games like Snooki dropes her clothes after a 12 pack of Busch Light and a bottle of Heaven Hill vodka.
Saturday was just a part of the same story as the Orange went down at Notre Dame. Granted, Syracuse did not have starting center Fab Melo because of some type of academic probation, but all I was hearing was that they had the deepest bench in the country and nobody could run with them for an entire game. And it’s not like the Irish beat them on a last second prayer three point shot; the final score was Notre Dame 67-Syracuse 58. Yes, they only scored 58 points against a 12-8 Notre Dame squad.
And what about the Cameron Crazies? I haven’t forgot about you. Florida State held off the Dukies and put a stop to their 45 game home winning streak. Kentucky now stands alone in that department with 47 in a row in Rupp. Ohio State is the closest to Kentucky at 36 in a row at home.
The AP rankings should be interesting today to say the least. #3 Baylor went down to Missouri, so Missouri has a chance to be #2 when the polls are released.
The Louisville Cardinals are going to the Final Four (Not Really)
The Cards finally got back on track with a huge win at Pittsburgh. Well, it wasn’t really a huge win. Pitt is awful this season. They have dropped 8 straight, including a game against DePaul. But this fact does not register with Cardinal fans. In their warped, childlike brains, they see this victory as a sign that they are “back on track” and are poised to make a run to the final four.
No longer are they concerned with their M.A.S.H unit team or the fact that their head coach has seemingly gone off the deep end. They have forgotten the losses to Notre Dame and Providence. Everything is fine. All is well. Until the rankings are released today and they are out of the top 25. And they will snap back to reality when the lose to Seton Hall on Saturday.
Pats vs. Giants Rematch
The NFL Playoffs marched on yesterday with two more stellar games. The Patriots were able to hold off the Ravens as Billy Cundiff missed a field goal to tie the game. And the Giansts saw Lawrence Tynes kick a game winning field goal in overtime at San Francisco to propel them into the Super Bowl for the second time under Tom Coughlin.