Recruiting Wire Vol.6

Recruiting Wire- The Jayhawks fall
Well, it is the week after the Super Bowl, which means for college basketball that Big Monday starts, also this is the start of rivalry week. This is also the week that separates college basketball from college football. In college football, if you have 2 loses, you usually have no shot of making the playoffs. It isn’t uncommon for a team to go undefeated (it is almost expected), but that isn’t college basketball. You could see that yet again this weekend with 6 teams in the Top 10 lost, and 9 teams in the Top 25 lost. The biggest story out of the weekend has to be Kansas losing for the first time in 54 home games at Phog Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks suffer just their 10th at home under Bill Self, so I think Kansas will be just fine.

The Top 25 will look a lot different when in back to back weeks’ majority of the Top 10 losses (and it will again with the Louisville lose last night). Here is the Top 25 for now:
1.      Gonzaga
2.      Villanova
3.      Kansas
4.      Louisville (subject to change)
5.      Oregon
6.      Baylor
7.      Wisconsin
8.      North Carolina
9.      Arizona
10.  UCLA
11.  Cincinnati
12.  Virginia
13.  West Virginia
14.  Florida State
15.  Kentucky
16.  Perdue
17.  Florida
18.  Duke
19.  South Carolina
20.  St. Mary’s
21.  Maryland
22.  Butler
23.  Creighton
24.  Xavier
25.   SMU
Personally I don’t mind the shifting of the Top 25 after the weekend that just happened. And even with the Louisville lose yesterday I don’t want them to move because well, the loss to the Cavilers was expected and the Cardinals are a good team. Also, the knock down of Kentucky was a bit much (even with my feelings about Kentucky, it was), the loss to the Gators on the road is not an easy game—especially with the amount of freshman that Kentucky has every year. With that said, here is my Top 10 for this week:
1.      Gonzaga
2.      Kansas
3.      Louisville
4.      Arizona
5.      Villanova
6.      UCLA
7.      Kentucky
8.      Virginia
9.      Cincinnati
10.  West Virginia
As I said last week, when the Top 10 has this much stir up in one weekend. With 60% of the Top 10 losing nothing is going to happen. Which, by the way will make for great TV this weekend when the college basketball committee does a selection show for the Top 16 teams at the moment.

Getting into the Undepreciated Performance of Week… this week it belongs to University of Ohio guard Jaaron Simmons. The Junior guard was unconscious going 10-16 from the field which included hitting all 5 threes that he attempted and going 13-16 from the free throw line. Simmons scored 38 and grabbed 10 boards on the way to an overtime win against conference rival Akron. A double-double is rare in college basketball and for that double-double to include an insane shooting night, this man deserves more attention than he is getting at Ohio. Now, my Performance of the Week includes the Jayhawks again, but this time it’s on the other side. In the shocking win in Phog Allen, Iowa State Senior guard Deonte Burton almost messed around and got himself a triple-double (the hard way). Burton had 29 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 steals. When you triple-double has something to do on the defensive end of the floor—you are giving it your all in the gym that day. Burton had the game of his life in the biggest win for the Cyclones in a while. Iowa State hasn’t had the best year this year, but the program can still hang their hats on breaking the Jayhawks home winning streak.

Finally, the upcoming schedule for the week. As it is rivalry week, it will be an interesting week. Tonight isn’t the best for games, but I will have my eyes on the Michigan-Michigan State game at 9 on ESPN. Tomorrow, NC State travels to #14 Florida State for a possible upset. Now, Thursday is the day of the week. The reason being can be described in two words; Duke-Carolina. The game between #8 and #18 tips off in Durham at 9PM EST on ESPN. Then, jumping into the work week on Big Monday #3 Kansas gets their rematch against #13 West Virginia and their chance to start another home winning streak. That’s all for the week of February 7, keep your eyes on the recruiting wire, because it’s that time of year where things starts to get interesting.
Sources:(espn.com)

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