Friday, November 20, 2009

California, North Carolina Struggle

#24 Syracuse 87, #4 North Carolina 71
Roy Williams has been telling anybody who will listen that his team isn't ready for that #4 ranking, that they're too young and inexperienced, and boy did he look right tonight. While the team showed flashes of top talent, at times they looked downright awful. The Tar Heels do have a lot of shooting guard talent, as Marcus Ginyard was the one bright spot for UNC, and Dexter Strickland also looks good. But they have no point guard, and the team is averaging 20 turnovers per game. They'll be better later on in the year, but for the time being there is no way that North Carolina is a Top Five team. And as for Syracuse, I've been saying that the Orange cannot be an elite team without an elite scorer, and Wesley Johnson has answered the call. I knew that Johnson was athletic and versatile from his days at Iowa State, so I assumed that he'd get rebounds, steals and blocks. But his offensive explosion in this game was eye-opening. The scouting report on him is that he's a streaky shooter, so they probably can't expect 50% three-point shooting all season long, but he clearly gives them the offensive spark that they need to be a contender in the Big East. I would urge the media to hold off on the National Championship contender talk, because poor play by Cal and UNC had as much to do with these last two Syracuse wins as anything else. But this is unquestionably as good of a start as any team in the nation has had so far this season.

#15 Ohio State 76, #12 California 70
This game wasn't nearly as close as the final score suggests. Ohio State led by as many as 24 points in the second half, and Cal simply narrowed the final score up in the final 10 minutes of the game. That said, Ohio State still has questions to answer. Evan Turner led the way with 26 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists, but he didn't get a lot of support. The Buckeyes are going to have to get Dallas Lauderdale more involved in the offense, and they still need a second offensive creator - I'm not sold on William Buford yet. As for Cal, I know that they're missing Theo Robertson, but they have been extraordinarily underwhelming thus far. They looked weak against two inferior opponents leading up to the trip to New York, and they got throttled by Syracuse and Ohio State once they got to New York. They are a streaky three-point shooting team that is always a threat to go on big scoring runs, but they are totally invisible in the paint, are weak defensively, and struggle to score when the threes aren't falling. The Pac-10 as a whole has been underwhelming so far, so Cal is still a contender, and I still think they're the second best team in the conference. But they've got to go back to the drawing board.

#6 Villanova 71, #21 Dayton 65
Villanova didn't look great here, and still is struggling to shoot, but they are showing improvement since that near-loss to George Mason. I've been surprised at how Scottie Reynolds seems to have regressed this season. Still, it's hard to be too negative about a team after they beat a Top 25 opponent. And they have put together a tough out-of-conference schedule which means that they'll be sharp when they begin Big East play in about six weeks. As for Dayton, there's no reason for them to be down about a close loss to a Top Ten opponent. It's easy to think that Dayton is just the Chris Wright show, seeing as Wright is thought to be the favorite to win Atlantic 10 player of the year, but in fact this Dayton team has shown a lot of depth. They have a really solid 9 or 10 man rotation, and are still very good even when Wright is on the bench. Dayton is clearly the favorite to win the A-10.

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