As promised this post will not discuss football, and instead I will delve into the world of college basketball. Furthermore, I will be posting two basketball posts tonight, in an attempt to balance the variety of my posts.
Judging by the title of this post it may seem as if I will be writing a post about women's basketball, but for anyone who thought I would write about women's sports, you are sadly mistaken. My only women's sports comment would be this: Congratulations to the Stanford women's basketball team for beating Connecticut, and suspending the flow of horrendously all-to-frequent women's basketball comments on ESPN. And now no more comments of that nature for tonight.
Switching over to the men's side of Connecticut basketball, they deserve praise for their very successful season thus far. After starting the season unranked, and with no votes in the USA Today polls, the Huskies leaped to an outstanding No. 9 in the very same poll in week 4. So what exactly accounted for this phenomenon of the sports world?
The easy answer is that the preseason poll mentioned above was faulty, which very well may be true. However, this remarkable jump must truly be credited to talent, upsets and possibly a fluky week four poll.
First of all the Huskies previously underrated players must be given a huge deal of credit for this accomplishment. Kemba Walker must be given the most credit, almost doubling his points average from '09 to an astonishing 26.1 points per game (which leads the NCAA). In arguably the team's most impressive wins of the year, against #2 Michigan St. and #9 Kentucky, Walker posted games of 30 and 29 points, respectively. This Huskies team also features Alex Oriakhi, the sophomore Center averaging over 10 points per game, and a respectable 8.4 rebounds on average.
But even so, a 10-0 record rarely warrants a jump as big as this. That credit can be attributed to the Huskies two upsets mentioned above (Michigan St. and Kentucky for my less attentive readers). In a Maui invitational that featured several top teams, including the two mentioned as well as Washington and Oklahoma, Connecticut soared above the competition with upsets over Michigan St. and Kentucky to bring home the tournament trophy, as Walker and Oriakhi made the all-tournament team. After beating the Wildcats in the championship game, UConn was vaulted into the top 25, and have remained in the top 10 since. However, losses to Pittsburgh and Notre Dame, the only blemishes on an otherwise perfect season, will most likely result in a lower ranking in next week's poll.
Either way, this jump is pretty impressive, and may never have happened previously (although I didn't bother to check). Walker may very well be the best player in basketball, an accomplishment which usually comes from a top team. For now, I believe it may have been a minor mistake, although, I'm sure the Huskies hope I end up 'eating my words' come March.
To end, let me show my respect for the women's game, with a clip some may label as a highlight, but is as far from a basketball highlight as I've ever seen:
Last time I checked, dunking was key to a highlight reel, something more like this:
Thank you, Mr. Griffin
Judging by the title of this post it may seem as if I will be writing a post about women's basketball, but for anyone who thought I would write about women's sports, you are sadly mistaken. My only women's sports comment would be this: Congratulations to the Stanford women's basketball team for beating Connecticut, and suspending the flow of horrendously all-to-frequent women's basketball comments on ESPN. And now no more comments of that nature for tonight.
The easy answer is that the preseason poll mentioned above was faulty, which very well may be true. However, this remarkable jump must truly be credited to talent, upsets and possibly a fluky week four poll.
But even so, a 10-0 record rarely warrants a jump as big as this. That credit can be attributed to the Huskies two upsets mentioned above (Michigan St. and Kentucky for my less attentive readers). In a Maui invitational that featured several top teams, including the two mentioned as well as Washington and Oklahoma, Connecticut soared above the competition with upsets over Michigan St. and Kentucky to bring home the tournament trophy, as Walker and Oriakhi made the all-tournament team. After beating the Wildcats in the championship game, UConn was vaulted into the top 25, and have remained in the top 10 since. However, losses to Pittsburgh and Notre Dame, the only blemishes on an otherwise perfect season, will most likely result in a lower ranking in next week's poll.
Either way, this jump is pretty impressive, and may never have happened previously (although I didn't bother to check). Walker may very well be the best player in basketball, an accomplishment which usually comes from a top team. For now, I believe it may have been a minor mistake, although, I'm sure the Huskies hope I end up 'eating my words' come March.
To end, let me show my respect for the women's game, with a clip some may label as a highlight, but is as far from a basketball highlight as I've ever seen:
Last time I checked, dunking was key to a highlight reel, something more like this:
Thank you, Mr. Griffin
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