Is it just this guy or is this college basketball season flying by?
It’s already the last week of January and the first week of February for goodness sakes! No one is ready for Bracket Buster Saturday or Rivalry Week yet! Are we?
Well, one thing we do know at this point in time is that there are at least two dominate teams that are just silly good.
The rest, thankfully, gives us the tremendous drama that is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for College Basketball for Week 11.
The Good
Duke Blue Devils Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski not only won his 1,000 game on Sunday against the St. John’s Red Storm, but he won it in the only way a milestone win should happen.
St. John’s punched Duke in the face from the start of the game and in the second half it looked like the Red Storm looked poised to delay the party for Coach K.
But in typical Duke fashion, they cranked up the defense, hit a couple of three’s and got some dominating play by their big man. All that led to the perfect game for a career-defining win.
Congrats to Coach K. No one will catch you and we all will remember you getting your team to win the way a Duke team wins.
The Bad
Sadly the college basketball career of Robert Upshaw seems to have come to an end. Not to injury. Not to academics. But to drug addiction.
The uber talented seven-footer had transferred from the Fresno State Bulldogs to the Washington Huskies and was having a great year. Upshaw was averaging 10.9 points, 8.4 rebounds and was leading the nation in blocked shot with 4.4 per contest.
But despite his talent on the court, it seems the demon of drugs were controlling him off the hardwood.
“We wish Rob well as he moves forward in his life, and we will do our best to support him in the future,” Washington Head Coach Lorenzo Romar said.
That is a very basic statement that screams so much more.
Let us all hope and pray Upshaw gets the right support he needs to get his life back.
Truly an awful and bad situation for any kid but especially one with so much next-level talent.
The Ugly
The Virginia Cavaliers are extremely good.
That is not news nor is it ugly.
But they can make a lot of teams look so horrendous it is almost like they have never even seen a basketball in their lives.
Case in point…
The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets…
Your eyes do not deceive you folks.
Georgia Tech managed to score 28 points in a 29 point loss to Virginia. That is 16 points scored in the first half and 12 points in the second half.
12…
This guys ten year-old daughter’s basketball team put up 29 last week and shot at least 35%.
12-49 from the floor for 24%, 0-12 from deep, 4-8 from the line, three assists and ten turnovers. That could be one of the worst box score lines in the history of college basketball. Their leading scorer was Marcus Georges-Hunt with seven.
The Yellow Jackets had a lot of promise to start the season, but this beat down put a nail in the coffin to their season. Don’t be surprised if Tech goes winless in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
On Tap
The No. 13 North Carolina Tar Heels seem to finally have an edge and the toughness it takes to be elite. But that will be tested this coming week as they travel to try and sweep No. 10 Louisville Cardinals on the season on Saturday and follow that up with a home contest against the nasty No. 2 Cavaliers. If the Heels come out with a pair of wins, they will be a big-time contender to cut down more than a few nets come March.
Not to be out done and to one up its brother from down the street, Duke has quite the run as well this week. The Blue Devils tangle with the Eighth-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish Wednesday and Virginia on Saturday. Oh and both games are on the road. Wins 1001 and 1002 for Coach K are going to be earned to say the least.
*Section Photo and featured Photo (above) credit to Anthony J. Causi, NY Times.
