Florida/Kentucky

- Do we really need sideline interviews in the middle of the half in college basketball?

- John Calipari used the term Heebie Jeebies in an interview. I did not see that coming.

- The wingspan of those Kentucky players is scary. On so many possessions it seemed like Florida couldn’t even get a shot off, even from three-point range.

Kansas/Baylor

- Opening minute of the game, Baylor runs a beautiful alley-oop to Perry Jones. Seconds later, Kansas center Jeff Withey can’t handle a pass and misses a chance for an easy basket. It turns out this was not an omen of things to come.

- One 32-4 run later and you are reminded why you love Bill Self’s coaching ability. After two blowout losses, I think it is fair to say Baylor has no answer for Kansas’ disciplined play. This is definitely a case where if Bill Self switched teams, he could win the Big 12 with Baylor’s players too.

Georgetown/Syracuse 

- Syracuse is going to get more criticism for its poor defensive rebounding. The crowd was even booing them early in the game.

- I am debating watching this game with the sound off. If Bob Knight says “dribble into the lane against the zone” one more time, my head might explode. And in our Sesame Street moment of the night, tonight’s game is brought to you by the word “pass-fake”. Bob Knight will be repeating it throughout the night so your toddler learns what it means.

- I really loved Syracuse’s pressing defense in this game. Nine times out of ten, when you inbound the ball against pressure, you can get it back to the player who inbounded it without any trouble. But Syracuse kept jumping the inbounder and got at least one key steal and bucket. Well executed.

- All three times Bob Knight tried to praise Georgetown’s help defense, Syracuse drove to the basket and got points.

- I’ve watched a ton of basketball, but it is amazing how often you see something you haven’t seen before. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a player get called for goaltending on a free throw. Syracuse’s Fab Melo touched it on the cylinder and Georgetown was credited with one point.

- Another thing I’ve never seen before. Georgetown called timeout, during the timeout the check-in buzzer sounded, and then Hollis Thompson went to check in but was not allowed to enter the game. (And Georgetown didn’t have another timeout to call either.) This happened in the final minute with Georgetown down three. I’m sure we’ll hear some debate in the next few days about whether Georgetown screwed up or whether the hometown desk was too quick on the trigger, but this is one of those situations that doesn’t pass the marketability test. If Dwyane Wade was trying to check in to a Heat game at the end, and the guy at the desk buzzed too quickly, would the NBA really have a star player out in crunch time? Also, wouldn’t Syracuse fans have been more satisfied with the win if Hollis Thompson had missed the shot, instead of seeing him sitting on the sideline and having Georgetown fans say the Orange got lucky? This is just another case of college basketball being a sport that doesn’t take care of its stars.

- Kris Joseph started 2-for-9 from the field but had the courage to keep shooting and scored a career high 29, including the game-winning three-pointer in OT. Color me impressed.

North Carolina/Duke 

- My first prop bet for this game was how many times Dick Vitale would mention Anthony Davis of Kentucky. It only took about 10 minutes of TV time for the first mention.

- Jay Bilas, “It is undisputed that Tyler Zeller is the ACC player-of-the-year.” Dick Vitale, “I think Mike Scott of Virginia might be in the discussion.” Who expected Dick Vitale to be the one to stick up for the tempo-free star?

- The ticker shows Florida St. with a terrible loss tonight. Last year, FSU beat Duke and lost to an 11-20 Auburn team. This year FSU crushed North Carolina, beat Duke, and on Wednesday FSU lost to a 7-16 Boston College team. This is the plight of one-dimensional defensive teams. Bruce Weber of Illinois can sympathize after beating Ohio St. and Michigan St. and losing to Penn St.

- My second prop bet was whether Doc Rivers or Cody Zeller would be mentioned first. Vitale vaguely mentioned Zeller’s family, but Doc Rivers was the first full mention, and he was at the game so he got camera time.

- 55 seconds left in the first half, did Reggie Bullock push Austin Rivers to the ground or did he just fall over. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie-roll tootsie-pop? The world may never know.

- Six-second differential between the shot-clock and first half clock, Duke tries to take a shot with so few seconds left that North Carolina can’t get a shot on the other end. Wait, this is North Carolina. They score anyway.

- Two-one-one Seth Curry flares to the outside for a three-pointer. I have no problem with taking a three on a breakaway, but take the shot from the top of the key, not the 35 degree angle.

- Wow, I’m surprised they put a spot-shadow on the Duke travel that wasn’t called, usually they just let that stuff go.

- Tyler Zeller tips the ball in his own basket. That wasn’t anywhere near a goaltending, so I’m missing the logic of why that would be a three-pointer.  The referees eventually agree it was a two.

- And suddenly Austin Rivers hits the game-winning three for Duke as time expires. He’s still no Anthony Davis in my eyes, but after a season of question marks about who should have the ball in crunch time, I think Duke has an answer. Duke may still have legitimate concerns (like defense), but crunch time point guard is no longer one of them. For Duke fans, this comeback is one to savor.

- Wow, Doc Rivers and his family look really happy. 

Conference Changes

Besides Rivalry week the other big story this week is that Memphis is headed to the Big East in all sports. Barring additional moves, that should give the league 17 basketball teams on a permanent basis. Taking an average of each team’s offense and defense over the last 10 years and calculating a Pythagorean rating, here is the strength of those 17 programs:

As noted by everyone, Memphis is the only addition in basketball that improves the league’s profile, while the three teams leaving have all been fantastic in the last decade:

One new question that has been raised is whether the MWC and CUSA should formally merge. While the merger may be advantageous in multiple sports, in basketball the MWC teams are slightly stronger. Here are the 10-year Pythagorean Ratings for the teams in the proposed MWC/CUSA merger:

If the goal was to build a better basketball league, Rice, Tulane, and East Carolina might not make the cut, but the truth is these teams haven’t been terrible. In most seasons East Carolina isn’t going to ruin the league’s RPI. But since San Diego St. and Hawaii are headed for the Big West, they might not be so lucky. Long Beach St. is having a great year this year, but the bottom of the Big West can be pretty terrible.

And the new look WAC is just a hodge-podge. Utah St. is down this year, but they have been dominant for a long time. This year Denver and Texas Arlington are pretty good, but that hasn’t been the case historically.

Since 2005-06, there have been 32 teams that have changed leagues (or have announced plans to change leagues). Additionally, 24 teams have gone from non-D1 status or independent status to participating in a league, and 3 teams have left D1. As a thought experiment, I wondered what leagues look stronger today than they did in 2005-06.

In the next table I take the 10-year average offense and defense for each team to give me an idea of the prestige of each program. Then I calculate the average league membership in 2005-06 and the average league membership based on announced future conference affiliation. Finally, I calculate a Pythagorean Rating for each conference. The next table shows how the power ratings of the top conferences have changed (or will change.)

As noted above, the big losers are the Big East which falls from the second strongest basketball profile to the the fifth strongest, and the WAC which falls from 11th to 16th nationally. The big winners are the ACC (which adds Syracuse and Pittsburgh), the WCC (which added BYU), and the Big West (which adds San Diego St. and Hawaii.)

I was a little surprised that the Big 12 doesn’t look worse, but in the last 10 years, West Virginia has been better than Missouri and Texas A&M. The Big 12 will have two very weak programs next year (Texas Tech and TCU), but the rest of the league should still be plenty strong.