MISSES GOING TOHURT
With the loss of Grant and Connaughton, don’t expect Irish to make another run
It’s a tradition unlike any other. OK, fine, it’s still a practically brand-new idea for a weekly column. Here’s installment No. 2 of the Bucket List—10 observations on the college basketball season. NOTRE DAMEIS HANGING IN THERE AT 11-5 and has some decent wins under its belt, but it’s unreasonable to expect the Irish to be as clutch in close games as they were last season.
Needless to say, the team misses the versatile talents of former stars Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton. Without them, the highquality players who returned just don’t have as much space with which to operate. Demetrius Jackson’s and Steve Vasturia’s three-point percentages have dropped significantly. Likewise, Zach Auguste and Bonzie Colson are finishing with less success from two-point range than they did a season ago.
The Irish still are more efficient than most teams offensively but not enough so to have much hope of getting crazy-hot for a second straight March. THEWOODEN AWARD ANNOUNCED ITS MIDSEASON LIST of candidates this week, and guess how many of the 25 players on it are centers? Try none. Seventeen guards and eight forwards will vie for theWooden, given to the top player in the country. When did the straight-up big fella-ing become such an antiquated notion? THAT SAID — PLEASE— DON’T EVEN TRY TO TELLME Utah seven-footer Jakob Poeltl isn’t a center. Listed at forward by his school and on theWooden list, Poeltl is a modern-day center in all the best ways. He can play with his back to the basket and score with either hand. He can face up and hit from midrange or put the ball on the deck. He’s a terrific shot blocker and rebounder.
Put it another way: Some NBA team will make him a 2016 lottery pick and call him what he is— a center. ANY CHANCE YOU WATCHEDWEST VIRGINIA DOMINATE top-ranked Kansas on Wednesday? Bob Huggins’ 11th-ranked Mountaineers aren’t teeming with talent, but they’re a huge fun to watch—“Press Virginia” is the utterly awesome nickname used to describe the team’s attacking defensive mentality. If WVU wins at Oklahoma on Saturday (3 p.m., ESPN2), it could leap all the way
into the top two or three in the polls.
WEST VIRGINIA’S SUCCESS
REMINDS ME of something people keep saying about this season: There are no great teams. Perhaps that’s accurate, though the perception surely exists in part because blue-bloods Duke and Kentucky aren’t as off-the-charts good as they were in 2014-15.
There are teams that have “great” in them, though. The Big Ten has Maryland and maybe Michigan State (though Iowa probably disagrees with that one). North Carolina is overflowing with winning ingredients. The quality atop the Big 12— Oklahoma, Kansas, West Virginia— is undeniable. I’m not
giving up on “great” yet.
ALL THIS TALK ABOUT 16-0
SMU making it to the end of the regular season without a loss is silly. It’s not going to happen, folks. The Mustangs— who are ineligible for the postseason— still have home-and-homes with Memphis and UConn; they’ll still visit Houston and Cincinnati and face a huge test against Gonzaga. A three- or four-loss regular season is a likelier outcome. THE 2011-12 SEASON WAS THE LAST FOR THE LATE, GREAT
RICK MAJERUS, who turned the corner at Saint Louis with a memorable 26-win campaign. Majerus fell ill and was replaced by Jim Crews, who took the Billikens to a school-record 28 victories in 2012-13 and basked in major national recognition.
The plummet since for the program has been shocking, especially given the school’s envy-of-the-Atlantic 10 oncampus arena. Crews still has the job, but for how long? The Bills have become the dregs of the A-10.
THERE’S NO REASON NOT
TO SAY IT— Saturday’s home game against Penn State (7:30 p.m., ESPNU) is a must-win for Northwestern. With a 2-2 record in the Big Ten, the Wildcats absolutely have to get to 3-2 before dealing with a fourgame gauntlet of Maryland and Indiana on the road, Michigan State in Evanston and Iowa on the road. The schedule lightens up from there for a team that desperately wants to get the NCAA tourney monkey off the school’s back.
EARLIER THIS WEEK, I WROTE ABOUT THE PLAYERS
who could make up the all-Big Ten first team. Not mentioned: Indiana senior guard Yogi Ferrell, who is playing as well as he has at any point in his excellent career.
Readers let me have it for omitting Ferrell, and they were well-justified in doing so. Especially given the Hoosiers’ hot start in Big Ten play. Ferrell has as strong a chance as anyone outside of Maryland’s Melo Trimble and Michigan State’s Denzel Valentine of being a firstteamer. I APPLAUD THE SUGGESTION OF CBS SPORTS’ MATT NORLANDER that Butler make Andrew Smith’s 44 the first number retired in program history.
Smith, a key contributor at center for Butler’s national runners-up in 2010 and 2011, died Tuesday of cancer. He was 25 years old and beloved by fans, teammates and former Bulldogs coach Brad Stevens, who called Smith the toughest player he ever coached. Hang that No. 44 up high in Hinkle Fieldhouse. What a beautiful gesture it would be.