I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

1) A question close to my heart. Big schools refused to play them this year, but they still won road games at Alabama and Tennessee and beat St. Louis and Arizona St. on a neutral court. First team in DI history to hit 30-0 in the regular season. Granted, the Valley was down this year, with only Indiana St as at least an NIT team. As was pointed out last week though...Creighton has dominated the new Big East tfor the most part this season and blew out Villanillla, but wouldn't have been able to touch the Shockers if they had stayed in the Valley.
2 NO ONE from the new Big East deserves to be seated ahead of Wichita, including Creighton. Prior to conference tournaments, I think the top 4 seeds should be Wichita, Syracuse, Florida and Arizona in no particular order. Not a single one of those other teams deserves a 1 seed ahead of Wichita, including Duke. Villanova I'm not even sure deserves a 2 seed.
3) The committee would automatically give them a 2 seed because they are idiots. The ONLY team that has a chance to beat Wichita in the Valley tournament would be Indiana State.. a top 50 team that gave The Shockers their only real test in conference play. And they wouldn't meet before the conference championship.

The consensus in the Valley is that the Shockers have a better starting line-up than they dd in their final 4 run last year, but not as much depth. If they aren't screwed in the seedings they should be able to make it past the first weekend of the tournament easily. Against teams in the top 15, a big concern is that Wichita has had a tendency to get off to really slow starts, and then tear it up in the 2nd half. Against a good team if that trend continues, would they be able to come back?

[CoachC]

The last team before Wichita to run the table in the Valley was the Bradley team that went 29-1 in the regular season in the 84-85 season, losing in the championship game to a very good Tulsa team in a year when the tournament was played in Tulsa. Despite finishing 32-2 going into the tournament (their other loss was to Clemson on a neutral court) and being ranked in the top 10 they were insulted with a 7 seed. They blew out #20 Texas A&M in the first round, before losing by 7 to eventual national champion Louisville in the 2nd round. They were the only team to even give Louisville a challenge in the tournament that year, but they were totally hosed by the selection committee. No way that a team that was 31-2 headed into the tournament should have been forced to play 2 top 20 teams in the first 2 rounds. That's what I think of when I think of Wichita this year, and the year that Bradley ran the table the Valley was a much stronger conference.

[CoachC]

A surprising and disappointing development for us. Red-shirt Freshman Michael Alston has announced his decision to declare for the Pro draft without ever having played a minute of college basketball. I have to believe that the young man is making a huge mistake.

[CoachC]

MWC tourney:

Boise St. W 66-38
POG: Travann Ohl 14 pts, 5 rebs, 1 block
Notable Lines:
Matt Houston 15 pts, 2 rebs
Dominique Webster 6 pts, 7 asts, 5 rebs, 3 steals
Jon Angeli 6 pts, 5 rebs, 3 assists, 3 steals

UNLV W 71-59
Some home team lovin' from the officials kept the final score closer than the game actually was. It was never in doubt
POG: Jon Angeli 12 pts, 4 asts, 3 rebs, 1 block, 6 steals
Notable Lines:
Matt Houston 19 pts
Nate Betts 4 pts, 7 asts, 0 turnovers in 24 minutes
Isaac Garren 14 pts, 3 rebs

Air Force W 59-52
Poor rebounding early and 11 turnovers in the 2nd half along with a fine game from their 2 guard Matt Drakeford allowed the Falcons to keep it close, but the cream rose to the top as we shortened the bench in this one in the 2nd half.

POG: Travaan Ohl 13 pts, 11 rebs, 2 steals, 2 blocks
Notable Lines:
Martin Ray 10 pts, 12 rebs, 3 blocks
Domique Webster Career high 15 asts, 2 pts, 2 rebs, 2 steals
Matt Houston 14 pts, 2 rebs.
Isaac Garren 10 points, 2 asts.

We head into Selection Sunday 29-3 with a 23 game winning streak ranked #3, and still #1 in RPI with decisive wins over top-ranked Duke, and 4th ranked Gonzaga. We already know we are going to get screwed again by the selection committee. The only question is, how badly?

The answer is, very badly. The selection committee gets more and more incompetent with each passing year. Clearly the seeding process is completely broken. We are insulted with a 3 seed in the east where 2nd Ranked UCONN is the top seed.

Duke is the top seed in the midwest
Stanford is the top seed in the south, where fellow mid-major and 4th ranked Gonzaga is also insulted with a 3 seed.
Michigan St. is the top seed in the west, as football rules the seeds once again.

We are 4-2 against this years field and 4-0 against teams seeded 3 or higher.
Air Force makes it into the NIT as the 4 seed in the east.

[CoachC]

Air Force loses in the first round of the NIT 72-66

[CoachC]

NCAA 1st round: South Carolina St. W 72-50
Not only do we get insulted by the selection committee, the talking heads on the equally biased ESPN actually insult us further by claiming the greatly undermanned Bulldogs had a chance at us in this game. At the half we lead 44-19, and began substituting liberally 2 minutes into the 2nd half. Granted if we had started our deep bench and played them throughout, the Bulldogs might have been able to hang.
POG: Matt Houston 20 pts, 2 asts, 5 rebs, 2 stls
Notable Lines:
Jon Angeli 12 pts, 2 asts, 6 rebs, 3 stls
Travann Ohl 8 pts, 9 rebs
Martin Ray 8 pts, 10 rebs, 2 blocks

[CoachC]

In the 2nd round we'll have a rematch of our last loss which seems like eons ago when we were still struggling with our defensive identity against #18 Memphis.

[CoachC]

#18 Memphis W 75-64
Revenge! Memphis still remains a potent offensive team, but despite foul trouble our defense was up to the task this time, despite 18 pts 16 rebounds from their big man Lawrence. The deciding factor was A/TO ratio (20-6, 14-15) and a 20-8 margin in transition.

POG: Isaac Garren 12 pts (4/5 from 3), 3 asts, 1 st, 1 block
Notable Lines:
Dominique Webster 6 pts, 5 asts, no turnovers in 17 minutes
Matt Houston 12 pts, 5 rebs, 2 asts
Jon Angelli 12 pts, 2 asts, 3 rebs. 2 steals
Martin Ray 6 pts, 11 rebs, 1 steal, 1 block

[CoachC]

In the sweet 16 we'll have another rematch, this time against the #6 Oklahoma St. Cowboys.. a team we blew out in November but who were somehow seeded ahead of us. #7 Stanford, inexplicably given a 1 seed were beaten handily by Georgia Tech in the 2nd round.

[CoachC]

#6 Oklahoma St. W 57-55
No blow out this time as we stunk offensively shooting just 32.7 from the field and turning the ball over 19 times. But we pounded the boards and shot 21/24 from the line which proved to be JUST enough.

POG: Martin Ray 14 pts, 11 rebs, 2 blocks
Notable lines:
Dominique Webster, 4 pts, 7 asts, 2 rebs, 4 stls, despite 6 turnovers
Matt Houston 12 pts, 7 rebs, 2 blocks
Jon Angeli 8 pts, 3 rebs, 4 steals

It'll be #2 and top seed UConn in the regional final