Show Me Something

With a busy weekend on my schedule, I wasn’t able to get in as much game watching as I would’ve liked. I followed scores religiously, as always, but I was still able to catch a few key games from the weekend. Instead of the usual weekend quick fire ideas, here are my thoughts from the three games I caught in full.

I’ve been harping all year on West Virginia’s need to impress me. Despite being #9 in the Pomeroy rankings, Saturday night showed their true colors. WVU has now lost to Connecticut, Pittsburgh, and Louisville (twice). Their best conference road win is Georgetown; a team we all know is having a poor season. Despite all this, I saw some flashes of talent from the Mountaineers last night. Devin Ebanks and Kevin Jones are nice players. They have athleticism, height, good basketball sense and have progressed dramatically in their freshman season. It’s a shame Joe Mazzulla got hurt because we’ll never know how good this WVU team could’ve been. Darryl Bryant shrank in the bright lights and we won’t even get into Alex Ruoff’s best reenactment of Stevin Smith. Assuming WVU gets to a second Big East tournament game, they’ll need to win that to earn my respect.

On the Louisville side, the questionable guard play will always prevent me from having them go far. Add in Earl Clark’s ability to waste his natural talent from time to time and you’d think I’d be anti-Cardinals. Despite all this, Louisville still delivers on most nights. Terrence Williams gets everything done on the floor and the rest of the players do enough to get Louisville the Ws. Give Louisville credit for going 16-2 in the Big East. Even with the unbalance schedule, it’s not easy to do.

Duke and North Carolina squared off and the result wasn’t a surprise. Whenever Duke made a run in the second half, Carolina built their lead right back up. Duke couldn’t keep Lawson out of the lane and they couldn’t keep the Tar Heels off the offensive boards when it mattered. It was a valiant effort for the Dukies, but I’ll once again point out that you’re not winning any games when the opponents shoot over 50%. Carolina still seems to be lacking something. I could see them losing before making it to Detroit.

Finally we have the Clemson vs. Wake Forest affair. The analysis boils down to the second half where Clemson’s brightest stars disappeared. Besides not being able to stop Wake’s offense, Clemson’s offensive didn’t find Booker enough down low as the game went on. When he doesn’t see enough of the ball, the defense doesn’t sink into the paint, so Rivers and Oglesby don’t get as many open looks. Rivers and Booker seemed to float around the floor, not looking for the ball. Wake’s size probably threw them off their game. You want to think Clemson has a run in them, but when they always crumble at this time of year it’s hard to back them.

Wake Forest made their run by pushing the ball off misses and turnovers. Ishmael Smith did a phenomenal job while Jeff Teague was in foul trouble. The Demon Deacons were able to dominate the defensive boards and make a delightful 80% of their foul shots. They seem to have righted the ship after a mid-season stumble, but they’ll need to make the ACC conference finals to prove their back for good.