Forde Minutes: Champ week colors fun picture
Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college basketball (Clemson white flags [1] sold separately):
It was a swell idea for a moment, but that moment has passed. Arena color-outs -- an orange-out here, a blue-out there, here a red-out, there a blackout, everywhere a whiteout -- have gone from a nice novelty to an annoying cliché faster than Oklahoma State (2) has gone from the Top 25 to the NIT.
While it's fun to see rich old people in the lower arena peer-pressured into putting on cheap T-shirts, and it's nice for the college kids to get free swag, this made-for-TV, copycat monochrome mania has swept the nation and played itself out. Next year, folks, go back to wearing what you want to the gym.
If The Minutes wants to see 10,000 people dressed alike, it will watch old tapes of the Red Army on parade in Moscow.
Don't wait until next week to immerse yourself in conference tournament basketball, which is the de facto first round of March Madness. With the exception of D-I independents, the Ivy League and the leagues that make the irredeemably bad decision to exclude some members from their tournaments -- the Big East and Atlantic 10 most prominently among them -- everyone still has a living NCAA Tournament dream.
The elimination tournament starts now.
The smaller league tournaments begin Tuesday -- and you do not know the true thrill of Championship Week(s) until you have spent hours online fishing for updates on the Ohio Valley Conference quarterfinals. It's also a great chance to see a bunch of fairly regular college guys playing their guts out for the college version of a trip to Disneyland -- the Big Dance.
These are the half-dozen low-to-mid-major tourneys The Minutes will be watching most closely over the next week, as some of the first NCAA bids are handed out:
Southern Conference -- Davidson (7) and Appalachian State (8) both had excellent seasons, yet neither is an NCAA Tournament lock. The Wildcats and Mountaineers could play a ferocious final of their own -- but don't forget about College of Charleston (9), which has 20 victories and has the tourney in its town. (The Minutes will be there for the final Saturday. Bring it on.)
West Coast Conference -- Gonzaga (10) has been the Fidel Castro of the WCC: ruler for as long as anyone can remember. This year, the Zags had to fight off a fresh challenge from Santa Clara (11) to win the regular season, but still don't have an NCAA bid locked up. The Broncos fumbled away the regular-season title by losing their last two games, but the bracket sets them (and the Bulldogs) up with a free pass to the semifinals. Watch out for ultra-dark horse Loyola Marymount (12), which was just 5-9 in the league but went 3-1 against Santa Clara and Gonzaga.
Missouri Valley Conference -- There have been too many peaks and valleys in the Valley to keep track of. The offshoot has been a league that has cannibalized itself, with only onrushing Southern Illinois (13) assured of a bid. There should be at least one more bid, and maybe two, but Arch Madness could be full of upsets.
Big South Conference -- For the third straight year, Winthrop (14) has won 20 games and produced a top-80 RPI. With a 14-0 league mark and only four losses, the Eagles have put themselves intriguingly into the bubble argument -- but would rather end the suspense early by winning the conference tournament. The big challenge could come from High Point (15), which lost by only a point to Winthrop at home.
Atlantic Sun Conference -- East Tennessee State (16) won 14 of its last 15 regular-season games, won the league title and gets the league tournament on its home court. But runner-up Belmont (17) beat the Bucs on that floor back in January, so at least one team should feel confident about challenging the favorites. Both of ETSU's regular-season meetings with Belmont went into overtime.
Here on the brink of March and its attendant madness, momentum seems as difficult to grasp hold of as a greased Glen Davis. As of Tuesday morning, 13 members of the AP Top 25 are on winning (or losing) streaks of two games or fewer. Only five Top 25 teams have won six or more in a row. Season-long stalwarts such as Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Pittsburgh have hit bumpy patches within the last week -- and now late-comer Georgetown has followed after losing Monday night at Syracuse.
So The Minutes is asking the mo-mentous question: Who's got it, and how much is it worth?
Let's answer the second part first: Recent history shows that being on a huge roll is not an automatic predictor of March success, but it helps to be hot.
Sixteen of the last 20 Final Four teams (that's back through the 2002 Final Four) were 8-2 or better over their final 10 games before the Big Dance. All 20 were better than 5-5 but worse than 10-0. And almost all of those Final Four squads had a muscle-flexing run of victories during February and/or early March, when contenders were separating themselves from pretenders.
As for the annual debate over the worth of conference tournaments, some numbers: Six of the last 12 Final Four teams won those events, and six of the last nine national champs won their league tourney.
Nineteen of the last 20 Final Four teams had at least one winning streak of seven games. (The exception: Indiana '02, which never won more than four in a row until that tournament, when it won five straight to reach the title game.) And the last six national champs all had at least one double-digit winning streak on the way to the title.
So who is legitimately rolling heading into March? The Minutes recommends eight teams playing well above room temperature:
Ohio State (19) -- Streak: 13 straight wins. Highlight: The win over Wisconsin Sunday clinched the Big Ten title and gave the Buckeyes inside position on a No. 1 seed. Hold the Hype: Only five road wins in the current streak, and they came against opponents with an average RPI of 122.
Louisville (21) -- Streak: Five straight wins. Highlight: Upset road wins over Pitt and Marquette in a single week put the Cardinals in the Tournament; subsequent wins have strengthened seeding. Hold the Hype: Cards are still just 2-6 against RPI top 50.
Georgetown (22) -- Streak: Lost Monday night, but had won 11 in a row prior to that. Highlight: Won six straight road games during that stretch. Hold the Hype: Still not sure the guards are Final Four-caliber.
Maryland (23) -- Streak: Five straight wins. Highlight: Handled Duke in the first game of the streak and North Carolina in the last. Hold the Hype: This is a team that started out 3-6 in ACC play, including a home loss to Miami. Which means it could lose at any time, to anyone.
Texas A&M (24) -- Streak: Three wins in a row, and eight of the last nine. Highlight: Wins at Kansas and at home over Texas in a 48-hour span. Hold the Hype: Aggies might depend too heavily on point guard Acie Law IV, especially at crunch time.
BYU (25) -- Streak: Lost at SDSU the last time out, but had won eight straight prior. Highlight: Thumped prime Mountain West Conference competitors UNLV and Air Force by a combined 36 points in Provo. Hold the Hype: Cougars have surrendered more than 80 points in five of their seven losses, including 90 to Colorado State.
Hot teams beating up on iffy competition: Memphis and Nevada. (Nevertheless, The Minutes believes both the Tigers and Wolfpack have viable Final Four aspirations.)
Hot team routinely skeeching by against slightly-better-than-iffy competition: Southern Illinois. (Salukis have won 11 straight, but haven't beaten anybody by more than 10 points since January. Average winning margin during the streak: a less-than-dominant 6.6 points.)
And then there are seven NCAA Tournament teams going the other direction (at least temporarily) and potentially hurting their seeding:
North Carolina (27) -- The young Tar Heels are an underwhelming 4-3 in February and stand 10-4 in the ACC -- not quite the envisioned record for a team everyone thought would dominate the league. Befitting their youth, they're 4-5 in games decided by single digits.
Florida (28) -- Two double-digit road losses in a week's time indicate that the Gators are suffering from Effort Deficit Disorder, perhaps brought on by late-season boredom. To combat it, Billy Donovan resorted to benching the star of March '06, Joakim Noah, for most of the second half in a loss at LSU Saturday. Said Monday that LSU deserved the credit and backup postman Chris Richard was playing well and blah blah blah -- Donovan was sending a message for the single-elimination time to come.
Wisconsin (29) -- The Badgers produced an anemic 103 points combined in consecutive losses at Michigan State and Ohio State, and now they've lost their third-leading scorer, Brian Butch, perhaps for the season. Even in the glacially-paced Big Ten, scoring like that is no way to get to a Final Four.
Kentucky (30) -- The Wildcats are perilously close to completing the season without beating a ranked team for the first time in 33 years -- and the fans have noticed. With four losses in his last five games, Tubby Smith has come under unprecedented fire in the Bluegrass -- which is saying something, given the level of heat that always exists in this job. Athletic director Mitch Barnhart issued the following statement Monday in response to several media inquiries about the state of the basketball program:
"Kentucky basketball is important to all of us who are a part of the Big Blue Nation. I know that the fans, coaches and players are disappointed with the results of the season up to this point, but it's important to wait until the most critical part of the season is complete before reviewing the program.
"Our fans' lofty expectations for this program, which I share, have not changed. However, history tells us that the college basketball season can change quite a bit between February and March. If the close games we've lost in February become victories during the tournaments, then this team has a chance to play up to its potential, which is what all of us as Wildcat fans want."
It was a very pragmatic response, but The Minutes is left with one unmistakable conclusion: There is no vote of confidence for Smith anywhere in that statement. Stay tuned as this one plays out.
Butler (31) -- The Bulldogs haven't won two straight since early February, frittering away the Horizon League's homecourt advantage in the process. This is a team that has played its guards an immense amount of minutes, and you wonder if they're wearing down. With nobody taller than 6 feet 7 inches tall on the roster, that's not something Butler can afford.
Indiana (32) -- January was great for the Hoosiers. February, not so much. They're 2-4, and an upset loss in either game this week (at Northwestern, home against Penn State) could throw them unexpectedly back onto the bubble.
Air Force (33) -- The Falcons have lost two straight, including an inexplicable loss to truly bad TCU (RPI 200), and are 4-4 over last eight. They need to be bulletproof in Clune Arena one more time Tuesday night against BYU to regain some mojo heading into what should be an interesting MWC Tournament.
Last week The Minutes reviewed the end-of-game insanity between Buffalo (34) and Bowling Green (35), when the Falcons lost a sure victory by being nailed with a technical foul with 0.6 seconds left for not returning to the court in a timely manner when they thought the game was over. Bowling Green lost in overtime, and coach Dan Dakich (36) went Technicolor ballistic.
"They absolutely [bleeping] cheated us," Dakich told reporters after the game. "I don't give a [bleep], we got cheated."
The Minutes took Dakich to task for failing to get his team back oncourt quickly, doubted his statement that his players already were in the shower and suggested that he held the team in the locker room instead of going back out to finish the game. Dakich called to give his version of events.
"I didn't hold them in the locker room," he said. "My speech after games goes, 'Boys, great job, let's get the hell out of here.' We had a snow storm coming and a six-hour bus ride ahead of us.
"We played the overtime with three guys not wearing any underwear and one guy not wearing any socks. ... As soon as they told me, 'You've got six-tenths of a second to play,' I said, 'Goddamn, let's go.' The way this season has gone (10-16 overall, 2-12 in the Mid-American Conference), we'd take a two-point lead with six-tenths of a second left anytime."
Dakich said the delay in returning to the court was caused by the fact that the visitors' locker room is several hundred yards away from the court, through a labyrinthine set of hallways. And he said he was sure the game was over, because an official told him it was over.
"It wasn't like I sprinted off the court and said, 'Hey, [bleep] these guys,' " Dakich said. "I didn't just run off the court. I didn't just ask the referee once, but twice. My players said, 'Coach, we saw the guy wave it off.' "
Regardless who you want to blame, it does not go down as a stellar moment in MAC basketball history.
This very definition of no respect comes from Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News, who reports that Niagara (37) recently had a tape-delayed radio broadcast of its game against Manhattan cut off -- in the final seconds of a three-point game -- by a polka show (38).
This was revelatory to The Minutes on many levels:
1. There are still polka shows out there. Apparently, polka shows with better ratings than Niagara basketball. (Is there any danger that the target audience for polka radio might all die off from one week to the next?)
2. WJJL, the offending Buffalo-area station, apparently has such a stacked lineup of programming that it does tape-delay radio of live sporting events. Its Web site proclaims it the "true voice" of "old-time rock 'n roll." And apparently old basketball games.
For the record, Niagara won the game, 76-74. Now back to the accordion music.
This is a special episode of Ruthless Interrogation -- not like the "very special episode of 'ER'" that NBC tries to pull over on the public approximately once a month -- but certainly something outside the norm.
Meet Joshua Obiajunwa (39), The Minutes' favorite player of the season. You'll see why shortly.
The Minutes recently read an extraordinary story by Noell Barnidge of the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News about the Savannah State senior forward who, in his spare time, cleans the school gym. He's also averaged 10.7 points and 8.0 rebounds for the resurgent Tigers, who under miracle-working coach Horace Broadnax (40) (a member of the 1984 NCAA champion Georgetown Hoyas) have gone 12-17 after records of 0-28 and 2-28 the previous two seasons.
Cleaning the gym has become his part-time job. When The Minutes caught up with the Nigeria native Monday, he was just coming into the arena to start sweeping in preparation for the women's game that night.
Forde Minutes: How did you get started cleaning the gym?
Joshua Obiajunwa: After the games, I stay around and shoot. The first time I did it, the floor was kind of dusty, so I decided to sweep it before I shoot. After I did it a couple times, a part-time job offer was made to me and I decided to take it.
FM: What was life like growing up in Nigeria?
JO: I have three brothers and three sisters, I'm the last in the family. Basically, growing up, we didn't have that much. You might not have everything you wanted, but everything you needed was given to you.
FM: How long have you been in the United States?
JO: This is my fourth year. Coming to the States was quite a struggle. Taking the [college entrance] exam, getting a visa, then coming over here and not knowing anyone, it's been quite a transition. The social life, the social trends, the academics, everything has been a transition.
FM: You've said you learned your work ethic from your mom, Jessy. What has she meant to you?
JO: What can I say? You can never say enough. I don't think there are enough words or actions to express what she has done for me. I hope someday to let her know. She sacrificed a lot for us.
FM: You played three years of Division II ball at Benedict College in South Carolina, and this is your only year of eligibility at Savannah State. How did you end up there?
JO: When I graduated from Benedict (with a 3.93 GPA in political science), I wanted to go straight to law school. Then I realized the timing wasn't right to go straight to law school. So a family friend said, 'You still have a year to play. Why don't you play your last year?' I decided to play, and luckily the word got around to coach Broadnax and everything worked out perfectly.
FM: How has Division I ball been?
JO: When you play against the best, the best in you comes out. When we played Louisville, it was amazing to see Rick Pitino. In Nigeria, I always watched his tapes on how to be a better basketball player.
FM: What happens now?
JO: Finishing my master's, that's the next thing on my agenda. (SSU athletic director Tony O'Neal told Obiajunwa over the weekend that the school will pay his way to complete his graduate degree. "You've earned that, kid," O'Neal told him.) Then I will get ready for the LSAT exam and law school.
But first, The Minutes' favorite player of 2006-07 had a gym to clean.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
