Around the Hardwood

(With the college football season, let's take a look at the story lines so far in college basketball.)

The ACC is bad this year: In his latest mailbag column, Seth Davis of SI addresses why he thinks the ACC is having a down year. (Hint: The football schools are ruining the conference.)

If there is a trend working its ugly hand here, Scott has touched on it. Adding Florida State, Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech may have been great for football (though ACC football ain't no great shakes these days, either), but it has diluted the basketball product. If the ACC ever adds more teams, it will be done also for football reasons. And that will make the basketball even more sucky. I mean, how many total Big East basketball games do you think TCU is going to win over the next five years? I put the over/under at 12.

I don't know if Seth knows this, but Florida State wasn't added to the ACC when Miami, Boston College, and Virginia Tech joined the conference. I also don't know if Seth knows this, but Boston College is actually atop of the conference standings right now.

My point is, that's a simplistic way to look at why the ACC is struggling right now. We've seen these boon's and busts in conferences. A couple of years ago the Pac-10 sent a handful of teams to the tournament. Then last year the Pac-10 only sent two teams and looks like this year they'll only send maybe three teams at best. The ACC right now is experiencing one of those busts. And even in the middle of the bust, it's not like the ACC is that bad. UNC, Maryland, and Clemson have good enough records right now to go to the tournament. So the ACC isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is.


Pitt, Syracuse, and Nova Are the Best Teams in the Big East: While the Big East is still a loaded conference Pitt, Syracuse, and Nova are the elite teams. Syracuse is undefeated and finally found players to replace Wes Johnson and Andy Rautins to give them outside scoring and with Rick Jackson defending the paint in the 2-3 zone, it's going to be hard scoring against them.

Nova finally has a frontcourt player to match their talented guards in Mouphtaou Yarou. Yarou scored 18 points and grabbed 12 rebounds last night against Louisville. When Nova last went to the Final 4, they had Dante Cunningham controlling the paint and protecting the staple of guards. Yarou is filling that void this year.

Pittsburgh might be the most impressive team in the Big East. The Panthers have beaten Georgetown,  UConn, and Marquette by at least five or more points. The Panthers thrashed Georgetown last night by 15 points by beating them in every facet. The Big East is still deep, but Pitt, Syracuse, and Nova are the best teams in that conference.

Indiana As Embarrassing Off the Court as They are On It: Indiana the once great basketball program is just plain embarrassing right now. They're still trying to get out underneath the rubble Kelvin Sampson left when he Nuked the program a couple of years ago. The progress has been has been slow and tedious. Indiana this year is 9-8 on the year and 0-4 in conference. While they're not losing to the Loyola's (MD) anymore, they're still losing to teams like Colorado and Penn State. They've been embarrassing on the court, but nothing is as embarrassing as this "official" music video entitled "This is Indiana Basketball." Notre Dame and Freekbass are embarrassed for Indiana.