1. North Carolina - Far and away the best team in college basketball. With Tyler Hansbrough, the hardest working man in college basketball, and Ty Lawson coming back from injury, Roy Williams has got to feel pretty good about his squad going into March.

2. Kansas - Don’t sleep on the Jayhawks. While I question whether or not Bill Self can get it done in the postseason as Kansas head coach (KU has lost in the first round two of the last three years), this is a pretty great, balanced team. Led by All Big-12 first teamers Brandon Rush and Darrell Arthur, Kansas comes into the tournament as an under-the-radar powerhouse. A run through the Big 12 tourney could be a sign of things to come for this team.

3. Memphis - Perhaps one of the most talented teams of the elite teams in the tournament but certainly the most untested. After running through all of the teams in Conference USA, March Madness will certainly serve as an interesting test for John Calipari’s Tigers. No shortage of talent and athleticism, Memphis doesn’t do the little things well that traditionally help teams win close games in the tournament

4. UCLA - The luckiest team in college basketball. If not for two ATROCIOUS calls, UCLA would be a three seed going into March but you can’t argue that UCLA is a pretty good, if not undisciplined, unfocused, team. UCLA is still kind of a mystery to most people. Will they be the team that came back from a double-digit deficit against Stanford or will they be the team that should have lost to NIT reject Cal at home? Time will tell.

For some reason, I remain fixed on the saga that is the Razorback program because I think it’s a perfect example of what can go wrong in modern recruiting. What Houston Nutt is learning is just how dangerous it is to sell your soul and your program for a recruit.

Nutt and former Arkansas AD saw the potential of having an Arkansas kid lead the transformation of the program into a perennial powerhouse and were blinded to the potential consequences. So they hired Gus Malzahn and signed Mustain’s teammates. It was a package deal. And now the Springdale crew is probably going to be Nutt’s undoing as the head football coach at Arkansas with Damian Williams transferring to USC, Malzahn in Tulsa and Mustain still enrolled but almost certainly on the way out. Nutt’s future is imperiled despite the fact that he’s playing with one of the most talented players in all of college football.

Two stories today on CBS Sportsline focus on the downward spiral of Arkansas football, one focuses on who, exactly, is to blame for the dysfunction. The other is about Darren McFadden counting down the days until he bolts Fayetteville for the NFL.

More on The Foul

I didn’t anticipate writing another blog about this subject… ever. But alas, Tyler Hansbrough spoke for the first time since the incident occured and so here I am. After reading an AP story in the Washington Post and watching snippets of Hansbrough’s interview on The Worldwide Leader, one thing becomes strikingly clear to me… if Tyler Hansbrough meant what he said, he’s a far better person than I am. 

The AP is quoting the ACC’s best player as saying:

“‘I was upset when it happened,” Hansbrough said in his first public comments on the subject. “I don’t think he did it intentionally. I don’t really like talking about it because I really don’t know how to handle the situation, but I’m fine right now. I feel fine. I was kind of shocked my nose was broken. … I just thought it was a really bad nosebleed.’”

This is either one helluva classy move or Hansbrough is still concussed from punched in the head. I like Hansbrough’s comments but I don’t believe for a second  that if Duke and UNC meet in the ACC Tournament that Hansbrough isn’t going to hang 30 and 13 on the Dukies. I was honestly a little taken aback by this. Good for you, Tyler.

The first was by New York Daily News columnist Bob Raissman. In the column, Raissman blasts CBS analyst Billy Packer for his blatant and borderline repugnant defense of Duke and Gerald Henderson in the moments after the foul.

What’s worse isn’t that Packer says this wasn’t a dirty foul in the seconds after it happened, it was that he insisted it wasn’t (Jim Nantz, coincidentally remained silent on the matter) even after they replayed the play 9 times. What I thought was comical when listening to Packer’s call was that he insisted that Henderson was going for the ball despite the fact that Hansbrough had been stripped of the ball before Henderson even left the ground.

And the coup de gras was when Henderson was ejected from the game, Packer said, “This a poor piece of officiating.”

Boy, who can wait for March Madness? But wait, you don’t have to wait for two more weeks to see Packer behave like a moron. This Sunday, he’ll, no doubt, be confronting the head of the NCAA Selection Committee on whatever teams they pick, or don’t pick, for the field of 65 and pretty much anything else he feels like criticizing.

Billy Packer has a place alongside sometime-Chicago Sun-Times columnist and ESPN talking head Jay Mariotti in the Blowhard Hall of Fame and I think his defense of Duke and Henderson in this case is reprehensible.

Here’s a link to Raissman’s column.

That’s it. I’m done. No more on Tyler Hansbrough, Coach K, Roy Williams, Gerald Henderson.

Pretty good piece on Coach K’s subtle spin of the incident by Yahoo! Sports’ Dan Wentzel. 

Best of the rest…

Great story in the New York Times today on George and Coby Karl.

The Detroit Free Press’ Drew Sharp on Greg Oden’s freshman experience.

In the past 24 hours, we’ve heard from both sides of the aisle. Everyone who hates Duke seems convinced that Gerald Henderson intended to hurt Hansbrough when he smacked Hansbrough in the face with 12 seconds left in the game with UNC up by 12.

You have Henderson, after the game, saying he “didn’t mean to hurt the kid” but sounding pretty cold saying it. Coach K called any speculation that the foul was malicious, “ridiculous.”

Henderson will be suspended for Duke’s first game in the ACC tournament, according to an NCAA rule that requires ejected players to miss a game but Duke should levy a heavier penalty. This foul was ugly and brutal.

The “What was Hansbrough doing in the game?” defense is absolutely ludicrous.

I don’t think they should through the book at Henderson but Duke, the NCAA and the ACC must send a very clear message to the players. Hard fouls are part of basketball but cheap shots and flagrant fouls will not be tolerated. Commit them and you will be punished. This could easily have erupted into a very ugly scene. And next time, it just might.