Syracuse and Pitt are joining the ACC

The announcement has been made that the ACC unanimously voted to accept the two new members.   No word yet on when they will officially join the conference.  Big East by-laws state that teams have to give 27 month notice.  If that's the case they could possibly get them in for the 2013-2014 basketball season.

It'll also be interesting to see what else the ACC does, and how they arrange their divisions.  It makes sense to have an ACC North division with Pitt, Syracuse, BC, Maryland, Virginia, and Virginia Tech.  It would make sense to group NC State, Duke, UNC, and Wake into an ACC South, though they're already broken apart.     State and Duke already don't play each other in football every year.  UNC is their annual crossover football rivalry.   I'd also like to see State play home and home with Duke in basketball again every year.

sudden rumors of ACC expansion

All the talk of conference expansion lately has been the SEC, the Big 12, and "What are Texas and Oklahoma going to do?"

Apparently under the radar the ACC has been doing some work.  Rumors have heated up over the last couple days of Pitt and Syracuse being interested in the ACC and vice-versa.

CBSSportsline is reporting that sources say that both teams have submitted applications to join the ACC.

It would be a perfect match for the athletics of the conference.  Both teams have strong basketball teams.  Syracuse is a big time basketball program obviously and brings another legendary coach  to the ACC in Jim Boeheim.  I doubt that Coach K, Roy Williams, and Jim Boeheim would be forming a Big 3 of coaches for very long.  At their ages I'd say the end has to be visible on the horizon for Boeheim especially and for Coach K.

Jamie Dixon is another hot coaching commodity right now for Pitt and he has them as a national force for the last several years.  They've achieved 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, though they haven't broken through to cut down the nets.

In football, Syracuse has struggled the last few years but they're rebuilding.  Both they and Pitt bring in 7-8 win programs that can be frequent participants in non-BCS bowls.  The ACC has had more teams in bowls  than any other conference a couple times the last few years.  They're not a BCS power player like the SEC but they have to be popular with non-BCS bowls because they put together a bunch of second tier football teams every year.  That may not be the reputation that the ACC dreams of as they look down south at the SEC, but the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, Meineke Bowl, Papa Johns.com Bowl, etc. have to love it.  The ACC will live with it too as long as the basketball is elite.

This addition certainly furthers that.  If there is any truth that the ACC has been a Duke and UNC then nothing conference over the last couple years this would help.  I agree that's true over the last couple years but it's more of a natural ebb and flow than anything long term.  Duke and UNC don't rebuild.  They re-load.  But Georgia Tech, Maryland, and Wake have taken major losses to their rosters and coaching staffs the last few years.  NC State has put talent together but underachieved.  Maybe a coaching change can be an infusion there.

We'll see if this happens, but it seems like the kind of match the ACC is looking for.

Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt has been diagnosed with early onset dementia

That's certainly a bummer.  Summitt is only 59.   She's on the short list of best basketball coaches, men's or women's, ever.  Her 1079 wins are tops for any coach.  Coach K has 900 for Duke and will become the Men's Division I record holder with Duke's third win next season, presumably against Colgate.  For reference, even Pat Summitt stopped coaching and didn't win another game (which won't happen) even at a typical Duke average of 27 wins a season, Coach K would still have to coach for about 8 more years to pass her.  Pretty amazing.

Her 8 NCAA Championships would be second to John Wooden I'd assume off the top of my head without looking.  Her success put women's basketball on the map, and possibly all of women's sports.  She put Tennessee basketball on the map period.  For many years the women's team outdrew the men's team.  University athletics programs are still men's sports driven, but Pat Summitt has been no less than the second most powerful coach at Tennessee, and would be THE big dog there now given the recent upheavals with both the football team and men's basketball team.

Her legacy is tremendous.  For women's basketball she's Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Adolph Rupp, Bobby Knight, and John Wooden rolled into one.  She's vowed to keep battling this with medication and mental exercises and intends to coach this coming season.

basketball and international diplomacy

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/6873726/georgetown-hoyas-chinese-professional-team-game-ends-brawl

Georgetown showing China how to play basketball the Big East way I see...

more news from that All-Time Duke Great Kyrie Irving

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2011/news/story?id=6566218&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

At least since his college career lasted 11 injury marred games, Kyrie Irving is giving scouts a look at his skills in on-court drlls so they have some information with which to....oh wait...never mind.

Apparently he's going to hand out "Would you like to draft me? Y____ N_____" notes written on crumpled and folded notebook paper to all the team representatives, using the wildly successful "3rd grade girl with a boy crush" method of personnel evaluation.

I wonder what this says about the NC State head coaching job

Sean Miller, who immediately expressed no interest in the NC State job after Sidney Lowe was fired and even declined to be interviewed, is leaving Arizona to take the Maryland job, 2 days after Gary William's retirement. At least according to Washington DC media outlets.

I wonder if this is a direct statement on what he thought of being State's coach, or if it's lingering hard feelings as a member on Herb Sendek's staff during the run-up of stuff that led to Sendek leaving (which would not be unreasonable), or if it's just a statement that the Washington DC Metro market is more intriguing for him as an environment than Raleigh and The Triangle.

But he was quick to say no to the State job offer, and apparently quick to say yes to the Maryland job.

So any concerns that Williams retired too late in the off-season to bring in a big name coach, and any wonder if their coaching search would draw more coaching interest than NC State's job seem to have been answered. Maryland quickly got the guy that all accounts said was State's top choice going into the search.

Maryland head basketball coach Gary Williams calls it a career

Gary Williams announced his retirement today. He had a record of 668-380 in 33 seasons. The last 22 seasons, with 461 wins and the 2002 National Championship, were at Maryland.

Williams was a great coach. Stories swirled over the last 4 years or so of him becoming egotistical and bitter, feeling that he didn't get the respect he deserved. That's always going to be a bit of a problem when you coach against Coach K and Roy Williams. Sure Gary had 1 national championship. But Roy has 2, and K has 4. That's just kind of the way it goes. Williams was also dogged about not being a strong recruiter the last couple years, expecting premiere players to "want" to come to Maryland? Is that true or fair, I don't know. State had a great recruiting class last year and went 15-16. You can have a mediocre class that gels well.

So what is his recruiting prowess being based on? McDonald's All-Americans don't automatically yield results. Great classes don't always yield great results, and lesser classes can. So I don't know that that's fair. From the outside they've had some good players. Grevious Vasquez, as much as I couldn't stand him, was one of the ACC's best.

So long Gary. I'll miss your sweat stains and your side lines theatrics. I guess there's still Seth Greenberg at Virginia Tech, but he's kind of B-List in my book.

Well well well...guess who's already had Ryan Harrow on campus?

Kentucky media outlets are saying that Ryan Harrow was on campus there. John Calipari is such a sleazy douchebag. I'm sure he was calling up Harrow doing whatever he could to get him to transfer before the office chair in Sidney Lowe's desk was even cold.

One of the great annual migrations of the natural world has again occurred

The animals of the Serengeti making their great marches across the plains of Africa in search of the seasonal watering holes?

Majestic flocks of songbirds making their migrations northward once more from the warm winter nesting grounds in Central and South America?

The swallows returning to Capistrano?

The monarch butterflies returning to the San Francisco area?

No. No. No. And No.

I'm talking about the annual march of the Kentucky One-and-Doners to the NBA Draft.

Kentucky freshmen Brandon Knight and Terrence Jones and junior DeAndre Liggins are heading for the draft, though they're not hiring agents so they could be back. That probably just means that they're doing a careful search for the best possible agent, or waiting to see if the NCAA might catch up with John Calipari for something between now and the deadline to withdraw from the draft. With Calipari that's always a very real possibility.

EDIT:

DISCLAIMER: Lest I get in the same hot water that Bob Knight got into the other day for saying that Kentucky had One-And-Done players not even bothering to attend class in the spring semester last year, I will say the same thing that Knight added and be careful to not single out Kentucky individually.

This type of one year rental of 4 or 5 players just to cocktease your fan base into hoping you can maybe win a championship with a roster of 5 or 6 freshmen (you can't) then hoping that MAYBE you can grab that same level of recruiting class the next year to MAYBE win a national championship in that one magic year (you still can't) doesn't happen at JUST Kentucky.

It could happen at any college....coached by John Calipari. Memphis. UMass. Providence. Hell, if Calipari magically started coaching Duke tomorrow that's suddenly how their program would operate.

....and lo, a great cheer was heard from the west in Chapel Hill

Harrison Barnes announced he's returning to UNC for his sophomore season. Tyler Zeller and John Henson already indicated shortly after the season ended that they were returning.

With that core group intact you'd have to make UNC a pre-season favorite to win it all next season. Certainly that won't be an overwhelming sentiment like when Hansbrough, Lawson, and Ellington all came back a few years ago, but if you have to make 4 or 5 early favorites, UNC is on that list.

Duke's 11 game rental of Kyrie Irving has ended

Irving announced yesterday he's hiring an agent and declaring for the NBA draft. He's on the short list of #1 candidates. But he played all of 11 games in his single season at Duke. He probably goes down as their most "useless" One and Done. More like 0.25 and Done.

After Arizona dropped a 55 point second half on Duke in the NCAA Tournament, showing them the door, Irving was out the door quicker than Rent-A-Center repo-ing a big screen TV if you miss a payment.

congratulations to UConn and the Big East

UConn beat Butler 53-41. Butler shot 18%, the lowest ever in an NCAA Championship game.

Jim Calhoun claimed his 3rd title. At the age of 68 he's the oldest coach to win a title.

And to the Big East....they took the "throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks" approach to winning a title. Aka "Sending 11 teams to the tournament and managing to cram one home".

But to UConn's credit, 5 wins in 5 days to win the Big East Tournament. Running the NCAA Tournament. They were the undisputed kings of the post-season this year, credit where credit is due.

this game has been woeful

This is the worst NCAA Championship game I've ever seen. Butler can't buy a basket. They're shooting about 15% for the game. 2 points in the paint. Butler is down by half the points they've scored. They're going to be hard pressed to hit 40 points at this rate.

I feel bad for Butler though. All they've done over 2 seasons and they'll be remembered for this bricktastic dud about all of it. That's kind of unfair, but they just came up with about the worst shooting performance I have ever seen, on the biggest and worst possible stage.

It will be UConn vs. Butler in for the NCAA Title

UConn beat Kentucky 56-55, as Kentucky couldn't make a shot on the final possession. It'll go down as more "What If?" for a John Calipari led team. Kentucky lost by 1, and shot 4-12 from the free throw line. Flash back to Memphis missing key free throws down the stretch a few users ago in the title game versus Kansas.

That's another reason I don't like John Calipari, besides the NCAA allegations are are one step behind him at every stop in his coaching career. He seems to preach style over substance, flash over fundamentals. Free throw shooting is secondary to him. A point guard that can run a flashy fast break is important. Free throws cost his team a title in Memphis. They cost his Kentucky team a trip to the finals here.

Contrast that with the coach Calipari won't be facing off with on Monday, Brad Stevens. Substance over style. Fundamentals over flash. Butler is appearing in its second straight title game as a result.

Maybe Calipari would learn something if he tuned into the game. But I'm sure he's already turned his attention to sucking in the next round of recruits that will replace this year's legion of One and Dones who will be committing a mass exodus out of Lexington to the NBA Draft.

The Butler Does It Again

Butler went on a 3-point barrage about midway through the second half against VCU to open a tight game into a 10 point lead. VCU closed to within 4 a couple times late but Butler held them off and advanced to the NCAA Championship game with a 70-62 win over VCU.

Butler is in the championship game for the second consecutive season. That's very impressive for any program. For it to be a mid-major school is even more impressive.

The Final Four

It's Final Four Saturday, and this is our most unlikely Final 4 ever. I read that ESPN reported that out of 5.9 million brackets that were submitted through their bracket pool contest, only 1 selected this Final Four. I swear whoever did ever had to have submitted multiple brackets with all sorts of variations, be an honest to God psychic, or be a VCU student or alum. Because nobody could have seen VCU coming.

This is the first Final Four ever to have no number 1 or number 2 seeds in the field. The combined seed number of 26 is the highest ever. I think the Butler vs. VCU 8/11 semi-final is the highest seeded semi-final ever. 11 seed VCU ties 2006 George Mason and 1986 LSU as the lowest seeds to ever reach a Final 4.

Villanova, as an 8 seed, is the lowest seed to ever win it all, when they shocked Georgetown compliments of their virtually flawless second half in 1985.

Either Butler will have a chance to tie that record on Monday or VCU will get a chance to break it.

I don't know who to pick in that game. I think Butler is the more fundamentally sound team. They also have the big game experience of playing in the Final Four. However VCU seems to have more quickness, tempo, and explosiveness in their game, if they're able to break down the Butler defense.

Both teams are obviously hot though, and playing very well. Looking at it on-paper and even with the "predictable" intangibles I would say that Butler is going to win. But VCU has looked very good in the tournament. They dismantled a Purdue team that, while their play fell off late in the season, at one time looked as good as any team in the country. They held a double digit lead for most of the game against Kansas, who I considered a co-favorite with Ohio State to win it all going into the Tournament. So I'm not going to discount VCU. It's a big toss-up and I want to see that game.

In the other semi I'm going with UConn since they have been on a post-season tear. Kemba Walker was 4th in the country in scoring average. He's carried them even more in the post-season. I'll take that over a young Kentucky team.

So I think it will be UConn vs. ????? for the National Championship.

I think The Underdog (whoever it is) has a very good chance of winning it all. But like the rest of the tournament, who the hell knows what will really happen.

This season has been a season of super parity. Even as teams accumulated gaudy records it never seemed like there were any dominant teams all year. There were just a bunch of teams who played very well for stretches of the the season. So the National Champion will end up being that team that plays well last.

more magic from VCU...

VCU ran out to a big lead against Kansas. They maintained that lead at 14 at the half, then turned back Kansas' rally attempts in the second half. VCU stunned the last #1 seed, 71-61.

Maybe the biggest Cinderella of all time moves into the Final 4. They'll be taking on Butler in one Super Cinderella National Semi-Final. VCU, maybe the biggest Cinderella of all time, versus Butler, probably the greatest 2 year Cinderella ever and the only team to ever make back to back Final Fours and not be a 1 or 2 seed either year.

So either Butler or VCU is going to the Championship game, which will be the second straight title game featuring a mid-major crashing the show. On the other side will be a traditional power. UConn awaits the winner of UNC-Kentucky.

Cinderella still has a spot in the NCAA Tournament

There was a bit of traditional order in the regional semifinals last night. UNC led Marquette 40-15 at the half en route to an 18 point win.

Kansas blew out Richmond, shattering that glass slipper. But VCU beat Florida State by 1 to roll into the Elite 8. Interestingly VCU's run should squash any talk of the First Four concept being pointless. It's a bit strangely executed true, and may need a revamp. But it's not like the winners all went on to lose by 20 in the next round. VCU's now taken it run to the Elite Eight out of the very first First Four.

Butler held off Wisconsin on Thursday. Then they beat Florida in OT to punch their second straight ticket to the Final Four. Pretty much before the confetti had stopped falling after the championship game last year, people said Duke could be poised to repeat next year, while Butler would go the opposite direction after losing key personnel. Butler started out slow this year. They got crushed by Duke in a neutral floor rematch. That was the game that Kyrie Irving got hurt for Duke and was gone until the tournament. All that though, and Butler came alive at the right time. They're the first team outside of one of the Big 6 Power Conferences to go to back to back Final Fours since Jerry Tarkanian's 1990 and 1991 UNLV teams got there one step ahead of the NCAA rule committee.

Butler's coach is the first coach to make 2 Final Four appearances before the age of 35. Instead of falling to mid-major mediocrity it's Butler with 2 Final Four appearances, not Duke.

Kentucky upset overall #1 seed Ohio State last night. That sets the stage for UNC-Kentucky, college basketball's 2 winningest programs, to go head to head with the Final Four on the line. They met back in December, with UNC winning 75-73 in Chapel Hill.

Tonight UConn punched a ticket to the Final Four by edging Arizona. UConn is on one of the more memorable post-season runs ever. They may not have had to win the Big East Tournament to get into the Big Dance, but they ripped off 5 wins in 5 days to do so, and have now won 4 more. 9 straight post-season wins.

Can VCU ride its white stallion one game further? Kansas is a tall order. A beast of a team. This would be their biggest upset yet.

It's My Favorite Moment of the NCAA Tournament

That moment right after the final horn of the championship game? Nah. It's the moments just after Duke gets eliminated.

The slackjawed looks on those blue painted faces. The thousand yard stares from the cheerleaders. That absolutely incredulous look that only a Duke fan can get, as if they never expected that a loss can happen.

Coach K now will not be passing Bob Knight as the all time men's winningest basketball coach by winning the NCAA Championship. It looks instead that will happen on November 19th against mighty Colgate.

The Big News in the NCAA Tournament

Arizona has Duke on the brink. They're up 82-68 with 4:40 to play. Arizona has outrebounded Duke 19-6 in the second half.

Still a bit too early to count Duke out, but they're definitely on the ropes and wobbly.

This win would make NC State want Arizona coach (and Herb Sendek's former assistant at State) Sean Miller as their next head coach. He's got Arizona atop the Pac-Ten and has said he has no interest in leaving.

It's now 86-69 with 3:47 left. I think they can turn off the lights at Cameron at this point.