Kentucky is no longer THE basketball power—GET OVER IT!

Fryingpan Sports

Kentucky is no longer THE basketball power—GET OVER IT!

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By Bill Smith

Wildcat fans are standing outside the Athletic Director’s office at Kentucky waiting for the white smoke from the chimney that indicates coach Billy Gillispie has been fired. No white smoke yet but it is just a matter of time. Kentucky’s years of dominating college basketball are over. The SEC is no longer the conference that super talents flock to. Granted, Ky has one of the greatest histories in all of college BB, but times have changed. To Blue fans—GET OVER IT!

Since the days of Adolph Rupp [42 years 876-190 (82.2%)] and Joe B. Hall [13 years, 297-100 (74.80%)], the Wildcats have gone through coaches like they were paper towels—useful but disposable.

Eddie Sutton [4 years 88-39 (69.3%)] followed Hall and committed two unforgivable sins. First, he had less than a 70% winning percentage. But even worse, he was caught in a tsunami of NCAA rule violations and was run out of town.

Rick Pitino [8 years 219-50 (81.4%)] left the New York Knicks to save the program and he did. He took the team to a great record. But when the NBA came calling, Pitino … Read more at FryingPanSports

Thoughts about the first 2 rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

Fryingpan Sports

Thoughts about the first 2 rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

By Bill Smith

College basketball has been hurt by the lack of upper class stars.

The quality of play has degraded over the last few year. Part of that is due to a lack of upper class stars from big schools. One of the reasons that small school teams are competitive with much bigger schools is that small school players tend to be more experienced and older.

College basketball suffers from a lack of fundamentals.

If you follow College BB, you must have noticed the explosion of unforced turnovers and the poor shooting percentage in mid range shots and at the free throw line. This is a lack of fundamentals. Players in todays game are much more athletic and rely on that quality to make up for poor technique.

Many players can not even dribble at full speed, let alone pull up and hit a 12 foot shot consistently. College coaches just don’t have the time to work on fundamentals the way they would like due to restrictions on practice time. As more and more players leave after 1 year, that will only get worse.

The players experience … Read more at FryingPanSports

My thoughts on betting the NCAA Tournament—For entertainment purposes only!

Fryingpan Sports

My thoughts on betting the NCAA Tournament—For entertainment purposes only!

By Bill Smith

There are some basic principles for selecting winners in your office pool. The goal for most guys is to at least be able to place higher than the secretary that makes her picks based on the team colors. Here are 10 thoughts to consider before making your picks.

  1. The committee has watched more college basketball this year than I have and I am willing in most cases to honor their ranking. Picking upsets is a road to last place in the pool. When in doubt, pick the higher seeded teams.
  2. If you are going to pick upsets, check out the 8-9 games. The one place you can statistically find upsets in the 8-9 game. The 9 has won more than 55% of those games over the last 20 years.
  3. Don’t worry about top seed teams that lost early in their conference tournament. Somehow, I don’t let North Carolina falling in the first game of their league tournament worry me. A team’s performance in their league tournament statically has very little to do with how they do in the Dance. Syracuse played their hearts out in
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