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| No. 6 Syracuse vs. No. 1 Louisville is one of five matchups between top-25 teams Saturday. (usatoday.com) |
Conference play is in full force, which means no November games where Duke plays a local junior college team with no player taller than 6-foot-6. Conference play means rivals and legitimate match-ups. Saturday is giving us five games between top-25 teams that are sure to produce exciting moments. This will probably end up being a weekly feature, so don't worry about the brilliant analysis only being limited to five games. Here's the breakdown:
No. 6 Syracuse vs. No. 1 Louisville
This Syracuse team isn't the same without James Southerland (Fab Melo
2.0), who is ruled ineligible for academic reasons, which means guys
like Brandon Triche and Michael Carter-Williams will have to carry even
more of the load. Louisville is proving to have one of the top defenses
in the country and it will be put to the test against Syracuse's scorers.
What makes this more exciting is the coaching match-up. Jim Boeheim has
more than 900 wins and Rick Pitino has a white suit, and, you know, is
also a great, future hall-of-fame coach.
L'Ville's Russ Smith (18.9 ppg) has proven his great play is less fluke and more Wooden Award candidate and
is living up to the nickname Pitino gave him, "Russdiculous." So to sum
up the game in Pitino speak: Russdiculous will have to play great
against Boeheim's Zonediculous defense while Pitino yells from the
sideline hopefully wearing his Whitediculous suit. Should be fun — I
mean, ridiculous.
No. 8 Gonzaga vs No. 13 Butler
Cinderella fans are about to explode with excitement over this one.
Smart move by ESPN starting the College Gameday series at historic
Hinkle Fieldhouse as darling Butler takes on the original mid-major
darling Gonzaga. And it's a battle of the Bulldogs. What else do you
need?
It was almost perfect. ESPN officials were beaming with pride at this
scheduling. The only downside, and it's a fairly large one, is Butler will be without top scorer
Rotnei Clarke, who suffered a neck injury against Dayton last Saturday.
(Dayton just ruined its chance of getting any games on ESPN this year.) The loss of Clarke is probably too much for Butler to overcome. Scoring
could be tough to come by with the absence of his 16.3 ppg average
and Gonzaga has too many weapons. But don't count out the magic of
Hinkle (oh, hey Indiana) and coach Brad Stevens. Butler won't give up
without a fight.
No. 17 Missouri vs No. 10 Florida
I know Missouri well from growing up as a fan of the Big Eight-turned-Big 12 and living within a close proximity of part of their fan base. The
feeling I got from them at the beginning of the season (once Kentucky
started losing) was Florida was good, but they had a legitimate shot at a
SEC title. This is still the case, if Mizzou stops losing to teams like
Ole Miss. I know, I know, Mizzou didn't have Laurence Bowers, and
that's looking to be a big blow, but you still can't score only 49 points
against a team like the Rebels who hadn't played a ranked team all year.
Florida not only has the home-court advantage, but they can score in
bunches. The Gators are averaging 77 ppg in their last four games. Bowers
being out does hurt the Tigers, especially from a scoring aspect.
Mizzou is still looking for that signature win to announce its welcome
into the SEC, in football and basketball, and this is the type of win
that would send a big message to the conference.
No. 11 Ohio State vs. No. 18 Michigan State
Coming off a big home
upset of then-No. 2 Michigan on Sunday, Ohio State can't afford a
let-down against rival Michigan State. But will they again rise to the challenge? Who knows. The Big Ten might as well be a
lottery drawing. Just when we think we've kind of got the conference
sorted out, Bo Ryan and Wisconsin come in and destroy everything we once
thought. Maybe Illinois is what we originally thought and isn't a title
contender? Maybe Michigan runs away with the title? Maybe Iowa wins 12
straight conference games and shocks everyone? Maybe we find out Aaron
Craft's red cheeks give him superpowers that suddenly stop working in
big games? Truly anything could happen with this conference.
All I know
is Michigan State really needs a big conference win for the resume and
this is the time to get one. The Buckeyes have been unstable and unable
to play a complete game. Now is Michigan State's chance to strike and
get a signature win to start a brutal conference stretch.
No. 21 Oregon vs. No. 24 UCLA
Oregon has been a great rebuilding
story that reached its height with an upset win over then-undefeated
Arizona last Thursday. UCLA has a coach, Ben Howland, on the hot seat
and a group of freshmen still learning to play together. Both the Ducks
and Bruins come into this game undefeated in conference play, both
trying to convince the public that the hype (UCLA's came at the
beginning of the season, Oregon's is now) is deserving.
UCLA has more
big-name stars in Shabazz Muhammad and Kyle Anderson, but don't overlook
the balance of Oregon. UCLA gets the advantage playing at Pauley
Pavilion, so it just depends which Bruins team shows up: the one that
scored 97 against Missouri or the one that scored 57 against Utah.
