The Dawgs have a second round NIT game tonight in Colorado Springs against the United States Air Force Academy. If you have the primo cable package, unlike yours truly, you can catch the game at 9:00 eastern on ESPNU. As I said last week, I'm concerned about this game because of Air Force's experience, excellent pressure defense, and substantial home court advantage. As Coach Felton said, this 24-8 Air Force squad, which beat 6 tournament teams during the season, should have been in the Big Dance. This one will be a challenge, no doubt.
In other basketball news: my bracket is toast. I had Wisconsin upsetting Florida in the Elite Eight (they got shellacked by UNLV in the second round) and Texas advancing to the Final Four over Georgetown (instead they got absolutely owned by USC). I watched USC lose by 20+ in the Pac-10 tournament to Oregon and was frankly a little surprised that they avoided being upset by Arkansas. Oh well.
I can say however that Texas freshman Kevin Durant is a walking, talking argument in favor of the NBA's minimum age rule (which requires players to wait until age 19 to declare for the NBA Draft). College basketball has been lacking in serious stars for the past few years as the guys who would have had significant drawing power (LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett) have passed on college to turn pro. While having "one and done" freshmen does have some academic implications, I have to say it has created a far more interesting on-court product. Any thoughts on this phenomenon. Good? Bad? Indifferent?