TEE'S TOP 10
by Terence Kane

Here’s an opening look at one of Tee’s Weekly features, the Top 10, as voted* on by our unique collection of Tee’s Weekly staff, guest columnists, sabbatical professors, and privateers. We’re also proud to say that it’s one of the few features that remains from the original Tee’s Weekly. So without further ado, here is our Tee’s Weekly Top 10.

*Voting tabulation is the same as the one used for College Football’s Bowl Championship Series only we added two standard deviations and subtracted three from every other number.

10). Texas (636 votes): The Longhorns have one huge win at UCLA that they can hold onto like a trump card all season when it comes to seeding. They have since slipped up against Michigan State (see #6 below) and again at home to Wisconsin December 29th but they should prove a major force this year despite losing Kevin Durant to the Oklahoma Supersonics.

9.) Pittsburgh (747 votes): Someday Lavance Fields will list Ganseybitches Big Shot of the Week [add hyperlink] among his great collegiate accomplishments. One note of concern: Pitt was 2-18 from beyond the arc before Fields hit the game winner against Duke. Pitt then ran into a wall against the underrated Dayton Flyers in Dayton. Even though Dayton is in the A-10 with George Washington, I have a begrudging respect for their fans. They’re absolutely mad about their basketball in Dayton and they make it a difficult place to play. Dayton fans also travel to other arenas with a fan contingent well above their national profile. I was flipping back and forth between the Pitt-Dayton and Giants-Patriots games and Dayton was hitting threes from all over Montgomery County, Ohio. The point is we’re giving Pitt a pass for this loss. Of course, if the foot injury Lavance Fields suffered in the game is as serious as some are suggesting, than I'll have to re-evaluate their position. More importantly, it could lead to Ganseybitches Big Shot of the Week’s curse outstripping the EA Sports Madden cover curse.

8.) Tennessee (851 votes): Who isn’t looking forward to more Bruce Pearl? The people of Tennessee certainly aren’t, considering “the real UT” was fourth in NCAA attendance last year.

7). Washington State (984 votes): A definite mystery team of sorts for us east coasters, but with reigning AP coach of the year, Tony Bennett, as head coach you can be sure this is a good physical team. This is Bennett's second year as the Cougars’ head coach after taking the reins from his legendary father, Dick Bennett. Dick Bennett had more reclamation projects in his career than Dick Nixon.

6.) Michigan St. (1,201 votes): This team exemplifies the best of what Tom Izzo teams bring to college basketball: depth, rebounding, defensive effort. Michigan State also features a couple of cornbread-eating, crew-cut Hoosier extras who add toughness and a total lack of athleticism. Izzo has managed to make a fine blend of these Hoosier wannabes and the Spartans’ more athletic wing men. They’ll be a factor in March.

5.) UCLA (1,313 votes): We love Ben Howland teams. Who doesn’t love teams that play great consistent defense? They are a gambler’s dream. A mid-week road game can scare away even an action junky gambler, but with Ben Howland on the bench you know a team is going to give it a solid effort. According to Wikipedia (Michael Scott from “The Office” assures me it’s the best thing ever), Howland got his first coaching job as a graduate assistant at Gonzaga under Jay Hillock. Hillock hired Howland so that he would have someone to guard his star player (someone named John Stockton) during practice. In a related story, Goucher College’s soccer team has rehired graduate assistant Dan Kane because there was no one on the practice squad who could replicate the prototypical famine-stricken, no-left-foot midfielder style that characterizes the Landmark athletic conference.

4.) Georgetown (1,492 votes): This is still a potential national championship team, but there are several key lessons they need to learn from the Memphis game and they mostly revolve around Roy Hibbert. It’s no secret that Hibbert didn’t show up against Memphis and Joey Dorsey, but I think the greater problem was the pace of play. Georgetown may have its best collection of athletes under JT III, but it is not (nor is anyone else in the country) going to win a track meet against Memphis. You can bet if they meet in the second or third weekend of the NCAA tournament JT III will try to keep the game in the 60s. Hibbert is a great offensive weapon, but he has to be taken out of the game if Georgetown is down and needs to pressure teams defensively.

3.) Kansas (1,776 votes): You’d think this was the year Kansas broke into the Final Four with Bill Self. I’d have a lot more confidence in this if a “Pardon the Interruption” producer hadn’t told me four years ago that Self had a hair piece. Not sure why it matters, but I’m always a bit shaky when it comes to putting Kansas in the Final Four when it’s bracket week. Beyond matters relating to alopecia, this team is loaded. Mario Chalmers has hit almost half of the 47 threes he has taken this year. He’s also a great defensive player who had led the Big 12 in steals the past two years. If there’s one statistic I love in college basketball above all else (and I have a fondness for many statistics), it’s the steal. John Hollinger, ESPN.com’s NBA stats guru, came up with a formula to help predict future NBA success based on college stats. Hollinger discovered that one of the key predictors of NBA success is steals. I agree, it’s a great measure of quickness and athletic ability – something you absolutely have to possess to succeed in the NBA.

2.) Memphis Grizzlies University of Memphis (1,848 votes): I’m told this isn’t actually an NBA or NBDL team, but a collection of “college athletes”. Who do you think goes to class more often: the nine-man rotation from this team, or the Florida State football team? You know that nightmare where you’ve been missing class all semester and suddenly find out you have to take the final exam? My guess is none of the players on either of these teams gets that dream (nothing I say has anything to do with bitterness about the Georgetown game). One of my colleagues at Tee’s Weekly remarked that the game was really the difference between Chris Douglas-Roberts and DaJuan Summers. Memphis and Douglas-Roberts in particular did a great job of attacking the rim and getting offensive rebounds. I’m not a big fan of Calapari’s “dribbling to create” offense because it puts the ball on the floor too much, making it turnover-prone. On the other hand it does attract a lot of fouls and ensure a lot of offensive boards. Memphis’ defensive effort was an A+ in the second half, which took me by surprise.

1.) University of North Carolina (1,916 votes): As you can see, we don’t think very much about conventional wisdom at Tee’s Weekly. The big story on December 26th was the loss of junior guard Bobby Frasor to season-ending knee surgery in a second-half blowout of Nevada. Frasor is a solid enough player, but he was eighth on the team in scoring heading into the game and will unlikely do much to dampen the Tar Heels’ Championship hopes. I tuned in at the end of the first half, just in time to see Ty Lawson put on a one-man clinic and lead UNC on an eight-zero run in the final 49 seconds. Lawson scored six of those points while adding a steal, defensive rebound, and an assist. He was simply playing at a different speed.

Others Receiving Votes (total votes are in parentheses):

The George Washington University (2 votes): One of the best features of the coaches’ poll is when the coach from a mid to low major conference feels the need to vote for a mediocre yet untested team from his conference with a gaudy early season record. At Tee’s Weekly we’re so shameless that it doesn’t even matter that GW absolutely stinks. GW made the tournament the last three years, (something that not all that many teams have done) and I’m more than just a little bitter that the year we bring back Tee’s Weekly GW’s losses include UMBC and Binghamton (former Harper College). Just so you know, you can pretty much count on GW being here all year unless we get bought out by Google.

West Virginia (586 votes): It’s nice to see one of the great academic American educators returns to his native mountain home. For years West Virginia has complained about brain drain. No word if part of Bob Huggins’ contract includes a clause that he can retire as chair of the philosophy and ethics department.

Indiana (610 votes): We will have plenty to say about freshman point guard Eric Gordon before the season is finished.