NCAA B-Ball

With pro sports I watch all the teams, each game interests me. But with college basketball I pretty much only watch Kentucky until the tournament. So this is just a basic sketch of what I've noticed about basketball as we had into the conference tournaments.

I think there are a lot of deeply talented teams that can play too loose for their own good on any given night. That's definitely what I would say about Kentucky but that seems to be true of Duke, UCLA, North Carolina, Louisville, Arizona and Baylor too. On any given night any of those teams can blast past their opponent and the next game they can stumble around and look like a bunch of leftovers.

Right now I gotta say Kansas is the best all around squad. Not that they have the most talent, I don't think they do, but I think they are solid at every position and they don't play stupid. They're used to working for their wins, they don't panic, they keep control when times get tough. Let me rephrase that: they're not the best team, they are the team most likely to be there at the end. I suspect Villanova might be 2nd for similar reasons.

Duke has the deepest team but this is not a cohesive squad, UCLA is fun to watch and talented but I'm not convinced they're winning squad, North Carolina has plenty of good players but they've got a soft underbelly, Louisville and Arizona both have talent and luck but neither have the consistency needed to get hot in the tourney. Baylor matches well with some teams but could get run out of the gym to others. Kentucky, the team I've watched a lot this year, has explosive scoring and active defense but they lose focus and sputter at times; if you've been watching them all year long you can see how they're going to lose: getting down 10 early on is fine against a weak opponent but it also shows a lack of maturity that will doom them deep in the tournament (flip side: if they win it all, it'll be an amazingly exciting tourney!).

I haven't seen Gonzaga or Butler, I haven't been terribly impressed by Oregon or Florida. I have no sense of who the out-of-nowhere- teams will be largely because I've enjoyed all the classic programs rising to the top with the talent. But all that talent is green. I think the veteran squads have the best chance this season. We'll see, tournament time is right around the corner.