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Roundball Chatter
Dick VitaleSPECIAL TO ESPN.COM
Every Friday I will give my thoughts on the game I love, college basketball.
How about some consideration for Rick Barnes of Texas as national Coach of the Year? Think about his Longhorns after losing the Player of the Year from a season ago, Kevin Durant. Well, Barnes regrouped his team and Texas is in the hunt for a No. 1 seed at the big dance. The Longhorns have wins over Tennessee, UCLA and Kansas. His name should be mentioned among those doing the best coaching job this season!
It was great to see Rutgers women's coach C. Vivian Stringer collect her 800th career win when her team beat DePaul on Wednesday night. Mike Krzyzewski moved a step closer to that elite club with his 799th career W when Duke knocked off Georgia Tech. He will get his shot at No. 800 against NC State this weekend.
Congratulations to Tennessee guard Chris Lofton, who joined the 2,000-point club. Think about the fact he wasn't highly-recruited out of high school. He has done a remarkable job making himself into a special guard. I am sure he would prefer to have reached that milestone during a win, but it came in a loss at Vanderbilt.
I am really looking forward to going to Lawrence, Kansas this weekend. Rock, chalk, Jayhawk brings a 22-game homecourt win streak into the battle against Kansas State. Bill Self's team is looking to avenge an earlier 84-75 loss to the Wildcats. Michael Beasley and Bill Walker combined for 47 points in that contest and you know the Kansas defense will try to contain that duo. It will be rocking and rolling at Allen Field House, with over 16,000 fans screaming for their Jayhawks.
As you keep an eye on the home stretch in college basketball, with conference tournaments right around the corner, think about some of the postseason ramifications. For example, in the Big East, there is a battle at the top of the conference standings. Those teams will make the big dance, but for now they are also concerned about cementing a first-round bye in the league tournament at Madison Square Garden. A very good team will be playing in the first day of the event. Also it is worth watching the race to stay out of the bottom four slots in the Big East standings. Those four clubs will miss out on the event, though next season all 16 Big East teams will qualify.
Over the next few weeks, performance will lead to favorable placement in the NCAA tournament. Think about the eight sites hosting first and second round games and think how advantageous it is to be playing closer to home. Anaheim, Birmingham, Denver, Little Rock, Omaha, Raleigh, Tampa Bay and Washington, DC will host the opening two rounds.
Can you believe that the first conference championships will be determined next week? Wow, the season is flying along. I love watching the battles for berths into the big dance. The little guy who has struggled this season gets another shot at redemption.
There are already a number of coaching openings for next season. Veterans like Dickey Nutt of Arkansas State and Dean Keener of James Madison have announced they won't be back. South Carolina's Dave Odom is retiring at the end of the season. It will be interesting to see what develops at Indiana. If I was athletic director Rick Greenspan, I would consider a coach with a proven track record, someone who ran a clean program. How about considering this name: Mike Montgomery? The former Stanford coach is an excellent teacher who currently serves as an analyst on Pac-10 games.
When you look at conference standings, there are a number of teams in contention that have not been to the big dance in quite a while. I have talked about Drake a lot this season and its last NCAA tournament appearance coming back in 1971. Cal State-Fullerton is in the hunt and its last visit to the big dance came way back in 1978. Cornell leads the Ivy and its last big dance appearance came in 1988. Jacksonville has a chance to make it for the first time since 1986, when ESPN's Bob Wenzel was the coach. Akron is in the hunt in the MAC and its last trip to the NCAAs came in 1986 under then-coach Bob Huggins. There are a lot of potentially interesting stories of schools that have been absent from the NCAAs for quite a while.
Week in and week out I mention players needing to be accountable for their actions. Bradley guard Daniel Ruffin missed his final home game following an arrest on a misdemeanor battery charge. He will always remember that he did not play in his last home game in college. TCU suspended its second-leading scorer, Henry Salter, for conduct detrimental to the team.
Dick Vitale coached the Pistons and the University of Detroit before broadcasting ESPN's first college basketball game in December 1979. Send him a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.
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