Depth Could Be A Problem For Kentucky And North Carolina

Despite the shocking upsets sustained by Missouri and Duke at the hands of Norfolk St. and Lehigh in the first round, many of the top seeds were able to survive and advance onto the sweet 16. For the first time since 2009, all four number 1 seeds have reached the regional semifinals, as two years ago number 1 overall seed Kansas fell to Northern Iowa in the second round and last year top seeded Pittsburgh lost to Butler in the round of 32.

However, many of the top seeds may face problems in their sweet 16 match-ups because of a lack of depth.

By now everybody has seen Christian Watford's three point shot at the buzzer to knock off the top ranked Kentucky Wildcats at Assembly Hall during the regular season. Before Watford's incredible shot in the final seconds was even possible, the Hoosiers did a lot of other small things to put them in that position and one of them was exploiting Kentucky's lack of depth.

Aside from Darius Miller, who is a spectacular 6th man for the Wildcats, Kentucky doesn't play any other bench player significant minutes. In fact, only 7 Wildcats average at least 7 minutes per game. In comparison, Indiana has 10 guys who play at least 8 minutes per game.

In their loss to Indiana, Anthony Davis wasn't a huge factor on either end of the court because the Hoosiers tried to force the ball inside to Cody Zeller so that they could get the SEC player of the year into foul trouble. Davis played just 24 minutes in the loss and Kentucky severely struggled without him on the floor, as they were outscored by 12 points when Davis was on the bench. After his third foul with 17:35 remaining in the second half, Davis looked tentative because he didn't want to foul out. From the 17:35 mark until the end of the game, Davis was held scoreless and grabbed just 3 rebounds.

Although Davis can have games where he looks great offensively by grabbing offensive rebounds and getting alley-up passes from Marquis Teague and others, Kentucky can hold the fort without him on the offensive end of the floor. The Wildcats have many other offensive threats, as Doron Lamb and Darius Miller can stroke the three ball as well as slash into the lane, while Terrence Jones and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist provide scoring in the paint.

The Wildcats really miss Davis's presence on the defensive end of the floor. Davis is a terrific rebounder and he holds Kentucky's single-season shot blocking record and he will likely break Jarvis Varnado's SEC single-season shot blocking record by the end of the season. Without Davis blocking or changing shots, the Wildcats sometimes struggle to get stops defensively when Eloy Vargas, Kyle Wiltjer, or a smaller line-up is on the floor.

Indiana will try and pound the post and get Davis into early foul trouble because the Wildcats are so much less effective without him on the floor.

With North Carolina's 87-73 victory over Creighton in the third round, the Tar Heels were one step closer to reaching their ultimate goal of winning a National Championship, which would be Carolina's 6th in program history and 3rd since 2005. However, the Tar Heels actually took a step backward rather than a step forward from their victory because of the injury sustained in the second half by their phenomenal point guard Kendall Marshall. Roy Williams reiterated that point by saying, "When you go to the Sweet 16, it's supposed to be a lot more fun than this."

With a little under 11 minutes remaining in the game, Marshall was driving into the lane when he was fouled by Creighton's Ethan Wragge. Marshall hit the floor hard on his non-shooting right hand. Although Marshall stayed in the game and continued to play, Tar Heel fans got horrible news following the victory. Marshall fractured a bone in his right wrist on that play and he had surgery on the injured wrist on Monday. Roy Williams said that Carolina is preparing "100 percent" to play without their starting point guard and Bob Cousy Award finalist.

If Marshall is unable to play against Ohio, it will be a huge loss for the Tar Heels. The second-team All-ACC selection is Carolina's most important player and is the leader of their offense. Marshall, who set the ACC single season assist record this season, is the facilitator of the Tar Heels high-powered attack.

There isn't a better college basketball team at getting out on the fastbreak after a turnover or a missed field goal attempt than Carolina and that transition is always led by Marshall. He has terrific court vision and is the best point guard in the nation at getting the ball up the floor to open players. Marshall's ability to see the floor leads to easy buckets for the Tar Heels, especially for Tyler Zeller, who has formed a terrific connection with Marshall, as he runs the court incredibly well. Marshall is also terrific at dribble penetration, which opens up jump shots and three pointers for Reggie Bullock, P.J. Hairston, and Harrison Barnes. Marshall is extremely smart on the floor and is always conscious of getting Harrison Barnes and John Henson involved in the flow of the offense.

Carolina has also needed Marshall's scoring ability recently. In the Tar Heels last 6 outings, Marshall is averaging just under 15 points a game and Carolina is 5-1 in that stretch with their only loss coming in a tight ACC championship game against Florida St.. Carolina will miss the scoring threat that Marshall can pose when he is attacking the rim and his ability to get into the lane and finish.

Earlier in the year, Carolina may have been much more adept to deal with an injury to Marshall. However, Dexter Strickland, who could also run the point, suffered a season ending injury against Virginia Tech when he tore his ACL in that game. The Tar Heels lost his much-needed ball handling ability for the rest of the year. Had Strickland been available for Carolina, he would have been able to step in nicely for the injured Marshall.

Carolina now has to play without Marshall and with uncertainty in their backcourt. Marshall leads the Tar Heels in minutes and he played at least 30 minutes in every ACC game, which shows not only his importance to the team, but also the lack of playing time and experience that other Tar Heels have had at the point guard position.

Stilman White is one option for Roy Williams at the point position. However, White has played springily throughout the season and is just a freshman. White could also have some problems on the defensive end of the floor guarding Ohio's quick backcourt players like their two leading scorer D.J. Copper and Walter Offutt.

Williams could also try to move Justin Watts over from shooting guard to point guard. Watts, who is a senior, is a long 6-5 guard that could be very disruptive on the defensive end of the floor against Ohio's guards.

Williams is trying to stress to White and Watts, "One thing I'm trying to get them to understand is, you can help us by not hurting us. Don't try to be Kendall Marshall; be what you are. Secure the basketball, don't put the ball in jeopardy, and move the ball up the floor as quick as you can dribble or pass. Make the easiest play... I think it will be kind of like a quarterback in football. We've got other good players, don't you try to be the dominating factor in the game; get the ball to those other guys and let them make plays."

The Tar Heels are going to greatly miss Kendall Marshall. He is Carolina's floor general and they are not nearly the same team without him on the floor.

Murderers' Row Continues In The Big Ten This Week

The Big East has by far been the best conference from top to bottom in college basketball for years, especially since 2005 when Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette, and South Florida all joined the conference from Conference-USA, which significantly improved the league as a whole. The Big East has dominated in terms of number of bids to the tournament as well, while other conferences, such as the Big Ten, have struggled in recent years to get a lot of teams into the big dance.

The last time the Big Ten received more bids to the tourney than any other conference was back in 2001. In the last four NCAA tournaments, the Big Ten has had 24 bids into the tourney, while the Big East has sent 34 teams to the big dance. Since 1990, just one NCAA champion has come from the Big Ten, which was Michigan St. in 2000. This is an extremely low number considering the ACC has had 8 champions, the SEC has had 5 champions, and the Big East has had 4 champions since 1990.

However, the tides have turned this season, as the Big Ten is far and away the best conference in all of college basketball. 5 Big Ten teams are ranked inside the top 25, which is more than any other conference and it looks like at least 8 Big Ten teams (Ohio St, Michigan St., Wisconsin, Michigan, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota) will make the tourney.

This week continues the excitement of the highly competitive league, as there are a great slate of games.

On Tuesday, #9 Michigan St. (17-4, 6-2) travels to play Illinois (15-6, 4-4) in Champagne at Assembly Hall. Sparty, who have won 17 of their last 19 games after starting out 0-2 with two early losses to North Carolina and Duke, will attempt to knock off the Illini in a hostile atmosphere. Illinois has already knocked off Big Ten favorite Ohio St. at home this year but they have lost three tight games in a row by a combined 11 points including an overtime lose to Minnesota in their last outing.

The following day, the Spartans arch rival, #22 Michigan (18-6, 6-3), is playing host to #17 Indiana (17-5, 5-5). Like Illinois, Michigan has been very difficult to beat at home, as they have wins over Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan St. at the Crisler Center. However, Michigan has struggled of late due largely to the fact that they are settling for so many three point shots. The Wolverines took 25 threes against Ohio St. in their 64-49 loss on Sunday and 28 threes in their 66-64 road loss to Arkansas last week. Although Indiana has extremely impressive home wins over Kentucky, Ohio St., and Michigan in Bloomington, they have severely struggled the road in Big Ten play. The Hoosiers are 1-4 away from Assembly Hall including 0-3 against ranked opponents. Indiana, led by freshman forward Cody Zeller, who had a career high 26 points in the Hoosiers 103-89 victory over Iowa on Sunday, will have a chance to get a big road win on Wednesday when they travel to take on the Wolverines.

Ohio St. (19-3, 7-2) may be the most complete team in college basketball. The Buckeyes have arguably the best defensive point guard in the country with Aaron Craft, the best big man in the country with Jared Sullinger, who is averaging 17.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game, and one of the best seniors in the country with William Buford. All three of these stars will be looking for revenge on Saturday when the #3 Buckeyes travel to Madison to play #25 Wisconsin (17-5, 6-3), who knocked off Ohio St. last season at home when the Buckeyes were undefeated at 24-0. Preseason 1st team All-American point guard Jordan Taylor, who has struggled this year shooting the ball, will try to have a repeat performance of his game last year when he had 27 points, which led to the Badgers huge upset. Taylor has played much better since Big Ten play began, as he is averaging over 16 points in Wisconsin's 9 league games.

The great week of Big Ten basketball concludes with two great in-state rivalry games on Saturday and Sunday.

#17 Indiana continues their difficult week on the road, as they take on Purdue (15-7, 5-4). Purude has been on the short end of several close games this season. They fell to Xavier on the road by 3, to Butler on a neutral court by 2, as well as two Big Ten home losses by 5 points to Wisconsin and 2 points to Michigan. The Boilermakers are led by forward Robbie Hummel, who is one of the most versatile players in the country.

On Sunday, #22 Michigan and #11 Michigan St. rekindle their growingly intense rivalry when the Wolverines travel to East Lansing to take on Sparty. Fuel has been added to this in-state rivalry since Michigan has greatly improved as a program under the leadership of John Beilein and since Tom Izzo said, "Do i respect Michigan? Tremendously. Do I like 'em? Not one bit." Michigan beat Michigan St. in Ann Arbor in a great game earlier this year by 1 point after both Keith Appling and Draymond Green missed shots for the Spartans in the final 11 seconds of the game.

To illustrate how difficult the Big Ten has been this year, just look at the stretches of games some teams in the conference have had to play or are going to have to play. Penn St. is currently in a 6 game stretch where they have had to play Illinois at home, #17 Indiana and #3 Ohio St. on the road, #25 Wisconsin at home, before returning on the road to play Iowa and #9 Michigan St. Iowa had a four game stretch where they had to play #3 Ohio St. at home, #9 Michigan St. in East Lansing, #22 Michigan at home, before going on the road again to play Purdue in West Lafayette.

It's Safe To Say That Indiana Is Back

Indiana is one of the most storied programs in college basketball and Indiana fans pride themself in their basketball team.

The Hoosiers are the 11th winningest program in NCAA division I history with 1,677 victories and they have the most all-time wins in the Big Ten. Indiana's 5 championships are tied with North Carolina for the third most NCAA titles only behind UCLA's 11 championships and Kentucky's 7 titles.

Indiana's 20 Big Ten regular season titles are the second most in Big Ten history only trailing their in-state rival Purdue's 22 regular season conference titles. In a 21 year span from 1973 to 1993, Indiana won 11 regular season conference titles including 4 in a row from 1973 to 1976, which has only been done three other times in the Big Ten's 105 year history when Chicago won four straight Big Ten regular season titles from 1907 to 1910, when Ohio St. won five straight Big Ten regular season championships from 1960 to 1964, and when Michigan St. won four Big Ten regular season titles in a row from 1998 to 2001.

Finally, Bob Knight's 1975-1976 Hoosiers team led by Scott May and Kent Benson that went 32-0 and won the national championship remains the last undefeated team to win the NCAA title.

Therefore, any Hoosiers coach is under a lot of pressure to perform and have Indiana in the national championship picture.

Following the Kelvin Sampson scandal in 2008 when the Indiana coach was forced to resign due to an NCAA investigation involving impermissible phone calls made by Sampson and an assistant coach to recruits, the Indiana program was under a black cloud.

When Tom Cream was hired as the next Indiana head coach in 2008, not only did he have the pressure of trying to live up to his 10 year contract, which made him one of the highest paid college basketball coaches, but he also had the responsibility of restoring the Hoosiers program, a program that had never previously been involved in any NCAA scandal.

Hoosiers fans expected Crean to turn Indiana around right away but that was way too ambitious of a wish. Crean's first three seasons with the Hoosiers were horrible to say the least. He was 28-66 and 8-46 in the Big Ten in his first three dismal years with Indiana.

Crean's 6-25 season and 1-17 record in the Big Ten in 2008-2009 was the Hoosiers worst ever performance in the Big Ten. Their last place finish in the Big Ten that season was their first last place finish since the 1969-1970 season.

The Hoosiers last place finish in the Big Ten in the 2010-2011 season was their second Big Ten last place finish in three years, while Indiana had just three Big Ten last place finishes in their previous 84 years in the league.

Despite the fact that Crean stressed patience with the Indiana faithful, many Hoosiers fans began to call for his job. They were unhappy with Indiana's lack of success in Crean's first three seasons and they wanted to win now. Those Indiana fans that put Crean on the hot seat have backed way off now as Crean has returned Indiana to national prominence.

Indiana's success in 2011 began even before they took the floor for their first game against Stony Brook at Assembly Hall on November 11th. It began when highly touted recruit Cody Zeller (number 14 on the ESPNU 100) committed to Indiana. The 6'11 power forward from Washington High School in Indiana, who was the 2011 Indiana Mr. Basketball, decided to attend Indiana instead of go and play for two-time reigning national runner-up Butler or join his brother Tyler Zeller at North Carolina. It was a huge victory for Crean and Zeller has been better than expected. Zeller leads Indiana in scoring at 14.5 per game, rebounding at 6.5 per game, blocks at 1.5 per game, and field goal percentage (amongst players who have taken at least 5 field goal attempts) at 65.6 percent. Zeller is the front runner to win the Big Ten Freshman of the Year Award and he is in the discussion for the Freshman of the Year Award along with Duke's Austin Rivers and Kentucky's Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

Despite their 8-0 start with victories over Butler and NCST on the road, Indiana's true return into the national stage began after their monster victory over #1 Kentucky 73-72 in Bloomington that shocked the world. After critical free throw misses by Anthony Davis and Doron Lamb down the stretch for the Wildcats, Christian Watford hit a buzzer beating three point jump shot for the Hoosiers to knock off Kentucky and send shock waves through college basketball that Indiana is back. Longtime Indiana fan Roger Tobias said, "I've been coming to game since 1954 and I've never seen anything like this. Never. I can't tell you what it means. It's just. It's just... wow. Finally. We've been waiting for this for a long time." It was Indiana's first victory over a number 1 team since they beat Duke 74-73 in the 2002 Sweet 16.

The Hoosiers started out 12-0 for just the fourth time in school history and the first time since Bob Knight's undefeated season in 1975-1976. Despite a loss to Michigan St. in a crazy up and down game, the Hoosiers would quickly recover.

Indiana pulled off another huge victory by beating #2 Ohio St. at home in Bloomington 74-70. All of the Hoosiers starters were in double figures and they shot nearly 46 percent from the floor. Indiana became the 5th team in the past 10 season to knock off both the number 1 and number 2 ranked teams in the same season.

Indiana beat #13 Michigan in Bloomington 73-71 making the Wolverines the third top 15 ranked team to fall to the Hoosiers at Assembly Hall. The matchup was so highly anticipated because it was the first meeting between the squads with both ranked in the top 15 since 1994. Fortunately for the Hoosiers, Christian Watford was 8 for 11 from the field and had 25 points, while Cody Zeller was 8 for 10 from the field and had 18 points to help Indiana knock off Michigan.

Currently, Indiana is ranked #12, their highest ranking since they were the preseason #8 in 2007 and things are only going to get better for the Hoosiers, if that is even possible. Not only are the Hoosiers going to continue to have a great season this year, but they are going to have many more to come. Tom Crean is bringing in a top 10 recruiting class next season highlighted by three top 58 ESPNU 100 recruits. Hoosiers fans can't wait for point guard Yogi Ferrell along with forwards Hanner Mosquera-Perea and Jeremy Hollowell, who are all from Indiana, to arrive on campus. It's safe to say that Indiana is back and that they are going to be back for a while.