Rich Kansas Gets Richer
With the college basketball season one-month old, teams’ strengths and weaknesses are starting to become clear.
But hold on.
The end of the first semester means a number of new players are about to enter the picture and they may just throw the order of power off a little bit. It also means some players will become ineligible over grades but there’s no way of knowing which, if any, teams will be affected.
The most high-profile of the players who will become eligible in the next week or so is Lester Earl, the 6-foot-8 power forward who transferred to Kansas from Louisiana State. Earl will help Raef LaFretz with the rebounding, and that means freeing Paul Pierce for more perimeter work and an immediate boost to the Jayhawks’ depth.
Among other players who will see their first action of the season in the final shopping days until Christmas are:
Souleymane Wane, a 6-11, 235-pound center who will add bulk to Connecticut’s frontline and probably push Jake Voskuhl for the starting center spot.
Winfred Walton, a 6-9 forward-center who will make an impact on Fresno State’s spotty roster with his offensive game. He wasn’t allowed to practice so it may take him a while to get back in game shape.
Keon Clark, a 6-11 center with an NBA future was suspended for 11 games for dealing with an agent. His return will make UNLV one of the top teams in the country’s surprise conference, the Western Athletic Conference.
Ricky Price, the 6-6 swingman will add experience and scoring to Duke’s already deep rotation.
Kris Johnson and Jelani McCoy have been reinstated by the UCLA athletic department. The 6-4 Johnson returns this weekend and the 6-11 McCoy, one of the country’s best shot blockers, most likely comes back for the start of Pac-10 Conference play just after the first of the year.
There are some other players who could surface as they wait to hear about eligibility. They include Anthony Perry at Georgetown and Lamar Odom at Rhode Island.
Counting cupcakes
The NCAA tournament selection committee has made it known for a number of years that games against non-Division I teams will not be considered when at-large time comes, unless they were losses.
Why then do so many teams have so many games against non-Division I teams every season? There are some explanations, such as tournament pairings like Duke playing Chaminade in the Maui Invitational or UCLA facing Alaska-Anchorage in the Great Alaska Shootout, or a school like Kansas that gives one in-state small school a chance every season at a big payday and the opportunity to play in Allen Fieldhouse.
But what about the others?
Through games of Dec. 8, 43 schools played two or more games against non-Division I competition, according to Collegiate Basketball News Co., which generates the weekly RPI ratings.
For some of those schools, postseason consideration isn’t likely but some may come to regret their early schedule such as Ball State, Valparaiso, Pacific and Chattanooga, teams that could put up great regular-season records in midmajor conferences and still find a way into the field of 64 even if they lost their league tournament.
Then there are the schools from the big conferences such as Oklahoma, West Virginia, New Mexico State and Washington State, all of whom had at least two non-Division I games and that could hurt when the committee starts breaking down their seasons.
Unlucky seven
The Atlantic Coast Conference has had seven teams in the Top 25 for the second straight week, only the second time a league ever had that many teams in the poll at one time.
The Big Ten had seven teams in the rankings for one week in January 1993 and that year’s NCAA tournament wasn’t as bountiful for the league as one might have expected.
Five Big Ten teams made the field of 64 that year and only four of those were among the seven teams ranked at one time.
Michigan went to the championship game that year and Indiana reached the regional finals. Iowa and Illinois, which wasn’t one of the seven, were eliminated in the second round and Purdue went out in the first.
Michigan State, Minnesota and Ohio State, all ranked that week in January, didn’t even get invited to the NCAA tournament.
xxxx REAL HOME COOKING Kansas’ close call with Massachusetts last week (73-71) was the Jayhawks’ 50th straight home win, the longest current such streak in the country and just five off the school record. It’s always good to put numbers in perspective, however. The Jayhawks are less than halfway to the NCAA record for such a winning streak. Kentucky won 129 straight at home from Jan. 4, 1943, to Jan. 8, 1955.