The year in review: Candy Canes & Coal
Bill Koch, National Columnist
It wouldn’t be the holiday season without passing out some gifts, and that’s what we’re going to do this week. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or anything in between, you can certainly appreciate the value of giving and receiving. Christmas is my holiday of choice, and there’s still nothing better than reaching your hand deep down into the toe of your stocking to find the one piece of candy or the gift card that was trying to remain hidden.
With the promise of goodness, however, always came the threat of coal. Unfortunately, we have to distribute some of that as well. It’s only fair. Not everyone has been nice in the 2011-12 season, and we hope that the naughty mend their ways.
With that said, on to the lists. Happy New Year to all in advance, and thanks for reading as always.
Candy Canes:
-- Long Beach State
The 49ers are safely nestled inside the top 20 of this week’s RPI rankings despite their 7-6 record, and we love the reason why. Casper Ware, Larry Anderson and the rest of the crew have played a diabolical schedule that includes road trips to San Diego State, Louisville, Kansas, North Carolina and Pittsburgh. The 49ers also faced neutral court challenges against Xavier, Auburn and Kansas State at the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu. We dare you to show us a team that will be more battle-tested when March rolls around.
-- Murray State
The beat goes on for the Racers under new head coach Steve Prohm, who has yet to lose a game in his college career. Murray State is off to a 13-0 start under Prohm thanks to senior starters Donte Poole, Ivan Aska and Jewuan Long and a 42.7 percent mark from 3-point range. Prohm toiled for more than a decade as an assistant coach before taking over for Billy Kennedy, who moved on to Texas A&M after last season’s NIT run. The Racers will be playing in a tournament with one extra letter this spring if they keep up their current pace.
-- Power programs facing off
Who doesn’t like watching Kentucky play North Carolina and Indiana on back-to-back Saturday afternoons in December? What about Duke playing Ohio State on a Tuesday night in November? The fact that schools like these are willing to schedule one another is a great thing for college basketball, something that rarely exists in a college football world where the cream of the crop ducks the toughest nonconference challenges until (if ever) they are matched up in a bowl game. May it long continue.
-- The Midwest
The Big Ten is the No. 1 rated conference according to the latest RPI rankings. The Big XII is No. 2. Northern Iowa, Creighton, Murray State and Ohio all call the RPI’s top 25 home. Yes, it’s a good time to be a college basketball fan in America’s heartland. That doesn’t even include Indiana’s return to the national scene, Michigan’s steady progress under John Beilein and the constant threat posed by two-time NCAA Tournament runner-up Butler. East Coast bias? Not from this columnist.
Coal:
-- Cincinnati/Xavier
The Queen City’s two favorite programs share the dishonor of being first on Santa’s naughty list, and it’s a position that is richly deserved by both the Bearcats and Musketeers. Their disgraceful brawl that brought a premature end to the Crosstown Shootout and subsequent meek suspensions were equal parts shameful. Cincinnati has enjoyed a cushioned landing without Yancy Gates thanks to games against a soft part of its schedule (Wright State, Radford, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Chicago State), but previous home losses against Presbyterian and Marshall along with being associated with one of college basketball’s ugliest scenes in recent memory won’t help the Bearcats’ case on Selection Sunday. Xavier hasn’t been as lucky, suffering through its first three-game losing streak since the 2004-05 season and scuffling past 3-8 Southern Illinois in its most recent outing.
-- Syracuse
It should be the best of times for the Orange, who are off to a 13-0 start and riding into the Big East portion of their schedule at No. 1 in the nation. But anything Syracuse does on the floor this season will be clouded by the allegations of child sex acts committed by longtime assistant coach Bernie Fine. Jim Boeheim was forced to backpedal quickly after an initial statement that denounced the talk of alleged molestation by Fine as “a bunch of a thousand lies” and defamation lawsuits against Boeheim and the university are beginning to trickle in. It promises to get a lot worse in upstate New York before it gets better.
-- Pittsburgh
I'll admit right away that Jamie Dixon is a favorite, but the Panthers look more and more like they’ve hit the glass ceiling on his watch. Home losses to Long Beach State and Wagner – Wagner?! – have left Pittsburgh’s Petersen Events Center no longer the impenetrable nonconference fortress that it has been since it opened in 2002. The Panthers have also been chronic underachievers in the NCAA Tournament, bowing out to lower-seeded teams in each of the past four seasons and advancing past the Sweet Sixteen just once since Dixon took over in 2003-04. The early departure of highly-touted freshman Khem Birch, who intends to transfer after just one semester, and a thumping defeat against Notre Dame to open Big East play won’t soothe any fraying nerves.
-- The Big East
Vanderbilt was considered for this final spot – dark horse national title contenders are not supposed to start the season 5-3 at home with losses to Cleveland State, Xavier and Indiana State – but the self-anointed toughest conference in the county is about to shed the lion’s share of its credibility. Losing Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the ACC and adding SMU, Houston, Central Florida, San Diego State and Boise State just for the sake of satisfying a flawed BCS football system smacks of desperation. It doesn’t matter who becomes a full member or a partial member, who plays just football or just basketball or just field hockey. This can't be what Dave Gavitt, Mike Tranghese and the rest of their fellow visionaries had in mind back in 1979 when they set out to form the nation’s finest regional basketball league.
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Monson photo courtesy Courtesy Steven Georges/Long Beach State Media; Sullinger photo courtesy Ohio State Athletics; Jamie Dixon photo courtesy Pitt Media Relations
