Three Thoughts on Last Week in College Hoops

Now that college football is behind us, we can start to pay attention to college hoops in earnest (unless we somehow find out that Katherine Webb was just a hologram). That said, trying to predict who is going to have a good run in the tournament in January is about as futile as trying to figure out which popular starlet is going to go all Lindsay Lohan next (hint: it’s  Justin Bieber). Some teams are going to catch fire between now and then while others will flame out (only to catch fire again in the tournament). Despite all this, sports writers continue to speculate, including me. Here are three thoughts I have on the week that was:

Louisville really needs to stop scheduling these guys.

• For basketball season, I should change the name of the blog to “Everyone else and the SEC.” Let’s face it, if it weren't for Florida, the SEC wouldn't have a legitimate top-25 team (don’t give me that Missouri bullshit). Sure, Ole Miss is a nice story, but I trust Andy Kennedy to finish the season strong about as much as I trust Lance Armstrong to run a Turkey Trot 5k without EPO.
• Top 25 polls in college basketball should cease to exist. People love to rank things. Seriously, I think the Bleacher Report would cease to exist if they couldn't rank things. However, these rankings need to go. Much like there should be no rankings in college football until the fifth week or so, college basketball would be none the worse if these rankings went away until the end of the regular season. This isn't to say that the regular season doesn't matter, it’s simply to point out that so many teams have four losses or less at this point in the season that ranking them is a lesson in futility. Seriously, ranking basketball teams in the regular season is as frustrating as Mant’i Te’o trying to decide which Nigerian businessman to send his bank account information to first.
• Speaking of polls, no one wants to be #1. First it was Indiana, then it was Duke, now it’s Louisville. There is nothing like the bulls-eye that is the #1 ranking to bring out the best in your opponent. Having said that, it’s really irrelevant at this point, since getting the number one overall seed in the tournament is hardly the formula for winning a championship. Still, losses at this point of the season don’t bode well for the future, since you’d hope that your team would be on autopilot by the time they get to conference play. However, for AP voters, it’s time for the next team to step up and take one on the chin. Personally, I hope its Duke, since they have a couple of infinitely loseable games coming up this week against Miami and Maryland. The Maryland game should be destination TV after Coach K’s words on conference realignment.