So what did we learn during the feast?  A little bit about some teams, but November is still a little too early to figure out too much of anything about these teams as a whole.  Thanks to thirty games, though, and not eleven like in college football, we’ll have a few more months of analysis capped by a playoff to determine our champion.  That will all shake out when it does, but until then, here’s the Top Twenty, as I see it, in the last week of November, 2007.

1)    UCLA – What a game that was the Tuesday before Turkey Day against Michigan State.  Holy cow!  That game laid out exactly why UCLA is my number one team until they lose: they are fast, they are tough, they will not be flustered, and a good team on a great night still probably won’t beat them.  Kevin Love changes their dynamic from last year, but in the best possible way, i.e. the way a precocious seven-footer with vision and range might for a national semifinalist.  Nasty team.

2)    Memphis – Too athletic for you or anybody else to stop.  It’s not Memphis’ fault Oklahoma and UConn aren’t that good this year: they still went into each house and beat the hell out of the home team.  A massive home game next week against USC will further prove that Rose, Douglas-Roberts, and the rest are nothing to fool with, and kudos to them for accepting their weak conference and doing what they have to with their non-conference schedule to gain respect.

3)    North Carolina – A four-point win over Davidson and four blowouts against schools you’ve never heard of will not convince me this team isn’t just a touch overrated.  And I won’t be sold until they run roughshod through what’s shaping up to be a decent ACC.  Let’s see how Hansbrough handles Ohio State’s Kosta Koufos before we go handing him the Naismith.

4)    Georgetown – I know, I know: they haven’t played anybody yet either.  What’s more, they don’t, really, until heading to Memphis December 22.  But hey, it’s my poll, not yours, and their games haven’t been what could be called close yet, so they aren’t going anywhere.

5)    Kansas – That was a huge win at Arizona, made all the larger by Brandon Rush’s emphatic confirmation that he is going to be okay after off-season knee surgery.  It was the Kevin O’Neill Wildcats, though, and not the Lute Olson ‘Cats, but an OT win in Tucson when Budinger went off for 27 is a big win no matter how you slice it.  Bill Self can already raise the 2008 Big 12 North Champions banner.  If they do that.  I honestly don’t know.

6)    Washington State – There are three reasons I have Washington State ranked here, and I believe they are the same three reasons all the official pollsters do as well: teams immediately above them all lost, they held serve against their cannon fodder, and they have a lot of goofy early season appeal.  That looming date with Gonzaga will be their first official test, but so far so good here.

7)    Duke – Yes, they beat my boys in Maui.  Yes, Kyle Singler is awesome, an upgrade over McRoberts (though that comment falls into the “faint praise” category).  As I write this, they are in the process of demolishing Wisconsin in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.  They are a Duke team, through and through, complete with an annoying white boy point guard as adept at draining threes as he is infuriating anyone not directly affiliated with the university.  And here I thought we might get a year off from having to care too much about the Dukies.  So it goes.

8)    Texas – They get the bump here for absolutely dismantling Tennessee, who you will read about shortly, in their head-to-head last week.  They get UCLA next week, so a loss is coming (and it might get ugly), but after that performance against the Vols I’m prepared to acknowledge that this year’s Longhorns might be glad to be out from under Kevin Durant’s long, long shadow.  But let’s wait and see how this UCLA game goes first.

9)    Texas A&M – They manhandled a decent Ohio State team and seem to have hung onto all the toughness Billy Gillespie was supposed to take with him to Kentucky.  If I played college ball instead of talked shit about it, I would be absolutely frightened to play this team at any point this season.  DeAndre Jordan alone would keep me up all night.  Yeah, the 7” tall, 240 pound freshman center.  That guy.

10)    Tennessee – One game, they win by 69 points (you read that correctly).  Two games later, they lose by 19 to Texas.  The next game, they win by 34.  This team has “beats the will to live out of teams that don’t deserve it but loses even match-ups” written all over it.  They score in bunches, though, and Bruce Pearl no doubt ran the complacency out of them after that Texas debacle.

11)    Marquette – Hey, my boys almost came through huge in Maui, and they certainly didn’t get embarrassed.  As this is still, the last time I checked, my rankings, I’m dropping them a spot from their starting rank but recognizing that as soon as Dominic James relaxes and starts trusting his teammates in big situations, and I mean the exact moment that happens, they will win out.  It’s just a matter of that happening, see.

12)    Michigan State – They held their own against the best team on this list, when those freshmen proved they are going to be a godsend for Tom Izzo and Drew Neitzel.  They then followed that performance up by beating Oakland by four.  Freshmen are going to be Freshmen, flying by the seat of their emotions in good times and bad.  A difficult December looms on the horizon, and the New Year may see Izzo and the boys humming a Counting Crows tune.

13)    Louisville – BYU is better than a lot of people will give them credit for, so I won’t dock them too much for that L.  The loss of David Padgett will no doubt affect these Cardinals in a big way.  I personally think he was among the more overrated tall, gangly white dudes in college basketball, but losing your starting center for the year in November is not a good omen for your season.  Lucky for them, their schedule is friendly for the next month while they adjust.

14)    Indiana – Solely because of Eric Gordon, this team is going to have to do an awful lot to fall out of my top twenty this year.  That kid is the definition of explosive, and his 27 ppg average right now is only one reason why fans of Illinois will neverevereverevereverevereverEVER forgive Kelvin Sampson and the Hoosiers for sniping him late last year.

15)    Pittsburgh – Here is what I know about Pittsburgh: Jamie Wright is a good coach; they are in the Big East; they have yet to lose a game; aside from a home game against Duke just before Christmas, they have a friendly schedule for the rest of 2007; they have yet to lose a game…wait, I already said that last one.  Whatever, fifteen sounds good for an undefeated Big East team right now.

16)    Oregon – St. Mary’s ran them out of the building in the upset special last week, but Oregon’s overall talent level was more than obvious.  Ernie Kent needs to go back to the laboratory and figure out what he has to do to extract the most from this crew on any given night, but they should be okay when their brutal Pac-10 schedule rolls around.  Watch that Kansas State game November 29 if you know what’s good for you.

17)    Arizona – Taking Kansas to overtime with Kevin O’Neill guiding the ship says all that needs to be said about this team.  Lute Olson is back in full effect and the Wildcats should take off in short order.  They get Texas A&M next week, and we will see whether or not this team can bang.  Jerryd Bayless, yet another ridiculously talented freshman, is ready for his close-up.

18)    Clemson – Last year they started 17-0 and missed the NCAA tournament, so I remain unmoved by their 5-0 start this year.  However, I cannot in good conscience put Gonzaga or Butler above them…you know what, Butler has won games so far against teams I’ve heard of, so screw it…
18)Butler – Sorry, Clemson.  Beat someone I’ve heard of.
 
19)    USC – They have rebounded nicely from that opening night loss to Mercer, replete with Sunday night’s destruction of Southern Illinois.  They also win points with me for scheduling Kansas and Memphis back-to-back next week in what should be OJ Mayo’s nationally-televised potty training.  He, Taj Gibson, and Daniel Hackett give USC as good a top-three as any team in the country, so don’t sell these guys short based on one EMBARRASSING loss in the first game of the season.

20)    Kansas State – Solely because the Michael Beasley Era is shaping up to be everything we hoped and prayed it might be (averages of 27 and 16 so far!)  Something tells me they just might lose enough and then win big in response to keep them firmly entrenched in this position for the remainder of the season.  Beasley, Bill Walker, and Jacob Pullen are all freshmen and provide K-State with the single greatest Gus Macker team in the history of the universe.

Peaking through the window at all the cool stuff they wish they could afford on the other side: Clemson, Gonzaga, Wisconsin, BYU, Xavier, NC State, Villanova, Vanderbilt, Syracuse, Southern Illinois, Arkansas, Virginia


And lastly, to all college hoops fans reading this, next time you are in the mood to do something good to prove how thankful you are for the lives you are fortunate enough to live, send David Stern a thank-you note for doing whatever it was he had to do to pass that Under-20 draft rule.  It is currently going a long way towards saving college basketball (anyone remember that awful “RedMo” year a little while back and understand how terrible those two are as pros?).  How many outstanding freshmen did I reference in the above piece?  If you haven’t done so yet, read Riebeil Durley-Petty’s piece on hoopswriters about the best of the 2012 class: not one of those guys goes to college if the rule is not in place.  Even if Stern had to do someone like Hoffa, it was totally, totally worth it.  And just think: it’s still only November.  We are in for a good season, folks.

On that note, until next time, may you always make it rain.

Discuss this article on the forums. (1 posts)