Big congratulations to Kentucky. Big Blue now only needs to beat Florida to finish 31-0. It wasn’t easy, as the 72-64 score Tuesday night was a lot closer than it looked in Athens. Kentucky outscored Georgia 25-8 in the final nine minutes including a 14-0 run. I am on record as one of the people who believes 40-0 is happening. Think about this… Kentucky’s defense is holding opponents to less than 35 percent from the
field. Only one out of every three shots goes in against these Wildcats. It is going to take a magical night to beat them, and I don’t see it happening.
Next Stop: The Valley
I look forward to covering the Missouri Valley Conference this weekend, and probably another great
game between Wichita State and Northern Iowa for the championship. Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet are incredible, and can you believe both are only juniors? Seth Tuttle is amazing for Northern Iowa and Wes Washpun helps their cause. How important is Tuttle to his team? He leads the team in points, rebounds and
assists. Only one team could prevent this matchup in my opinion, and that is Evansville, which beat Nothern Iowa earlier in the season. Remember the name Egidijus Mockevicius. The Lithuanian junior is 6’10” and averages nearly a double-double for the Purple Aces. As the #5 seed, they’ll need a win to set up a semifinal against Wichita State – assuming of course that the Shockers don’t get upset in the quarterfinals.
For one week, Spokane is a Cougar town
BYU (23-8) grabbed our attention last Saturday with an amazing win at Gonzaga, and I look forward to seeing if they can hold serve in Las Vegas at the West Coast Conference Tournament. Tyler Haws and Kris Collinsworth are Utah kids who are fan favorites and put up incredible numbers. BYU played a very good
non-conference schedule that included Stanford, UMASS, Long Beach State, at Utah State, San Diego State, Utah and Purdue. Dave Rose might just be *that* coach who decides never to look at greener pastures. He has such a great thing going in Provo.
Poll Parity
With the regular season coming to a close here is a reminder that you just never know who is going to have a year where nothing goes right: Florida was #7 and Nebraska was #21 in the preseason Asscociated Press Top-25. Notre Dame and Dayton received six total votes, while Baylor and West
Virginia received one. In 1994, my Arizona State team won the Maui Invitational and jumped from unranked all the way to #12 and ended up making the Sweet Sixteen. More than 50 teams have been ranked in the Associated Press poll this year. What does all this mean? Despite what some people say, we
have a great game. Plenty of underdogs. Plenty of shocking upsets. Plenty of March Madness ahead. Enjoy it! See you in St. Louis for the MVC or Las Vegas for the WCC or Sacramento for the Big Sky in the next two weeks.
– Bill Frieder
Former Michigan and Arizona State head coach Bill Frieder is an analyst for Westwood One’s coverage of NCAA Basketball. In his weekly blog Boxed Out, Bill scours the box scores to bring you interesting stories from the world of college basketball. He’ll be on the call Sunday at the Missouri Valley Conference Championship Game. Coverage begins at 1:45pm ET.
