This is the time of the year for the earliest Mock Drafts, and I am subbing myself in for our regular guru, Joe Kotoch, who has been writing Mocks for this site for four years. Kotoch will be back … I am a one-and-done guy in this particular category. As I sat down to write this column, I was consumed with one thought: If you are in the business of finding great players and you want to stay employed, you
I’ve learned a ton of things in over 25 years in the game, studying players at every level. First when it comes to projecting a player’s ability and potential and how he will translate to the next level, it’s never an exact science. That’s probably the biggest challenge of all when it comes to evaluating talent. Nowadays, there are many high-tech methods to track a player’s every move. Along with the current analytics movement, there are also countless player workout and
Because it’s early October and we have college hoops practices getting underway, along with NBA preseason action, I figured it was a good time to give my basketball lifer’s opinion on some different rankings and lists I’ve thought about and put together. Why have I done this? Well in this country, we count championships and rings. We keep score and rank and list. I can hear my wife laughing now saying “these are the things you are wasting your brain power on and thinking about during your
I did pick Duke in last night’s NCAA Championship game, in large part because I felt Wisconsin won a sort of national championship of their own on Saturday night when they beat the 38-0 Kentucky Wildcats. Duke cruised into the final after a 20-point win over Michigan State, and I thought it really showed last night in final stretch of the game as Duke had a little more in the tank to close it out. In this interview with Robin Lundberg on
Editor’s Note: Whether coaching or forecasting, Bobby Gonzalez knows college basketball. He went 8-0 picking games in the Sweet Sixteen a year ago, 7-1 in that round this year and 3-1 in last weekend’s regional finals. This is not some Bozo. It’s Gonzo. He knows what he’s talking about. It was 1991 and I was standing in the crowd at the Final Four as a New York City high school coach, watching All-American Larry Johnson of the dominant, unbeaten UNLV team
I have a great Elite Eight story to tell you, but I know you want me to get right to my picks. I went 7-1 in my Sweet Sixteen picks, losing with Louisville — a team I am picking against again Sunday. I went 8-for-8 last year in the Sweet Sixteen, and my Twitter followers and Chris Sheridan want me to take that 15-1 record and try to make it 19-1. So I’ll get right to the picks … and then the story.
Bob Huggins is 8-2 lifetime against coach John Calipari, with most of the games taking place when those two coaches were leading Cincinnati and Memphis. That was years ago. Now they are with West Virginia and Kentucky, and folks are wondering whether Huggins’ personal .800 winning percentage will have an impact on the game. I provided my answer to that question, along with telling my best Bob Huggins story (from back when I was an assistant under Pete Gillen at Xavier), in
The NCAA Committee really deserves to take a bow with the matchups, storylines and drama they helped provide in picking the field this year. After a very compelling and topsy-turvy first two rounds, now it’s what I like to call “big boy time.” After coaching in a few NCAA tourneys and closely following countless others, one thing I’ve learned through the years is that at this point, it’s usually safe to expect the chalk to advance. We will forever have upsets