Sunday Sundry

Who would win if you took five of them and had that squad play the adidas team?

College Basketball
- UConn doesn't have it this year. Without a single upperclassman on scholarship, the absence of leadership is staggering, and you saw it yesterday as the team pissed away the game against Indiana in crunch time. What a waste of talent.

- The more he writes, the more I think the Sports Guy just needs to stick to the Red Sox. People aren't already falling over themselves to talk up Kevin Durant? This guy wants to break the news on him? At what point did Simmons stop participating in the world?

- Michigan is 16-4 with its best win coming against Davidson (which is 14-4 and something like 57 in the RPI) or Illinois (14-7, 47in the RPI). It's next seven games (through February 21): @ Wisconsin, @ Indiana, Iowa, @ Ohio State, Minnesota, @ Michigan State, Indiana, @ Illinois. I think that in a month, Michigan will be 18-9 with its best win still being one of the two already mentioned. *Sigh*

- Has anyone who's watched Kansas since the Florida game come away feeling good about potentially picking it to make the Final Four? I feel as though every time I watch this team, it's doing something to make me nervous, win or lose. But what else is new for a Bill Self team? His squads very rarely play in a way that makes you wholly confident in their ability.

- Tyler Hansbrough is the most overrated player in the country. If he's a success in the NBA, it will be a miracle. I can't believe how long it takes him to get the ball from his waist up above his head when he's around the basket. And in traffic, dude gets no lift. He will get owned by NBA big men.

- So far, I'd have no problems if the Big Ten only got three bids in this year's Tournament.

- How can Duke recruit so well and have such a great coach yet always be so shallow? It seems like a 7-man team every year.

- The Big XII is overrated in football (just about every year) and underrated in basketball.

- At no point in yesterday's second half did it feel as though Arizona was really threatening UCLA. And I can't say that I was surprised. Ben Howland is a better coach than Lute Olson, a guy who always seems to be overrated, and Arizona's roster leaves me wanting more. I don't get the hype on Marcus Williams--I don't watch Arizona all the time, but when I see him, I don't see anything all that special.

NBA
- Rasheed Wallace must have an incredible agent. As you can see in the photo above, he remains a key part of Nike's NBA lineup despite the fact that he's reliably inconsistent and has been playing uninspired basketball for more than a year at this point. Rasheed will go down as one of the all time greatest wastes of talent, and perhaps the most notable recent reminder that for all of the athletic gifts, a basketball player has to have the mental and emotional composition if he wants to achieve greatness. And don't get me wrong, I love Roscoe. It's part of why I find him so frustrating.

- I think that this is something I'd like to further develop, but it's occurred to me a few times this week and I'd be interested in some other takes on the idea: Jerry Stackhouse started out his career as a brash scorer who was celebrated for his talent but chastised for his attitude. Antoine Walker endured similar treatment, although his game certainly is not directly comparable. And Jamal Crawford has thus far been judged with similar sentiment--great at what he does, but what he does isn't good enough. Now on the Mavs, Stack is lauded for sublimating his game as a role player. Antoine was the subject of analogous praise when the Heat played well last season. And Crawford seems destined to ultimately only earn true acceptance if he provides scoring on a team that earns the consensus respect of the NBA taste-makers. So my questions are these: Is that fair to them? Is it fair that we only judge a player like Crawford using the almost punitive, binary terms of winning and losing? Is there no intrinsic value to what he contributes? And is it lazy of us, collectively, to ask that a Crawford or a Stackhouse change to fit an accepted mold rather than attempt to innovate and find a sustainable means of winning that maximizes the contributions of this sort of player? Are those talents actually maximized when we ask them to acquiesce to a diminished role?

I'm not sure that I am articulating this properly, but do you see where I'm going?

- I found my joint: