Vegas Watch

The deadline to declare for the draft was yesterday. There are still a lot of moving parts, since players have until June 16th to withdraw their name from consideration. We can make some reasonable assumptions though- most of of the top prospects have hired agents, and it's unlikely that guys like D.J. Augustin and Russell Westbrook will be returning. A full list of who has declared can be found here.

Since I couldn't care less about the NBA (although I do enjoy the draft), I'm primarily concerned with the guys that are coming back. The notables on this list include Earl Clark, Darren Collison, Stephen Curry, Blake Griffin, Hansbrough, Hasheem Thabeet, Terrence Williams, and Sam Young. The thing that jumped out at me is that the Big East is going to be very, very good next year. They dominate the previous list, and they won't lose as much to graduation as other conferences. A look at some of the top contenders:

Connecticut (20:1 at Sportsbook)
Declared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Nobody

UConn would be getting all kinds of hype if Price hadn't gotten hurt in the first round. They'd be a Sweet 16 team (at least) with almost everybody coming back (Wiggins transferred). As it happened, they're an afterthought with a rehabbing point guard. If Price makes a full recovery, with the ever-improving Thabeet returning, this should be a top 5 team.

Louisville (20:1)
Declared for draft: Derrick Caracter
Graduated: David Padgett, Juan Palacios

They return an excellent backcourt- Williams, Smith, Sosa, and McGee- and Earl Clark returning is huge. They lose a lot more than UConn, but were better to begin with. The big question is whether incoming freshmen Samardo Samuels (#9 on the Rivals 150, an "automatic double/double guy") and Terrence Jennings (#18) can replace the production they are losing inside.

Georgetown (20:1)
Delcared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Jonathan Wallace, Roy Hibbert, Patrick Ewing Jr.

Tough break for the Hoyas last week, as sophomore foward Vernon Macklin announced his intention to transfer. That's a big hit to their frontcourt, which was already going to struggle to replace Hibbert. A lot of Georgetown's success will depend on how good incoming freshman Greg Monroe (6'10", Rivals #8) is.


Pittsburgh (20:1)
Declared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Ronald Ramon, Keith Benjamin, Mike Cook

Sam Young and DeJuan Blair will be very tough inside. The lack of guards may be a problem, with three of their top four graduating (Fields is the fourth). With a potentially dominant combo inside, they won't need the guards to be all-world, but there are some holes to fill. Pitt doesn't look to have any highly touted recruits coming in.

Notre Dame (40:1)
Declared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Rob Kurz

Ugh. I'm still bitter. Kurz is a significant loss inside, but they still have Harangody and Hillesland. Combine them with McAlarney, Tory Jackson and Ryan Ayers on the perimeter, and they might even win a road game. Seriously though, that is a very solid starting five. I just don't know if I can deal with another year of Harangody and Hansbrough being on ESPN three nights a week.

I won't give them their own paragraph, but if McNeal withdraws from the draft, Marquette will be a contender. The same is true for Donte Greene and Syracuse, although it seems unlikely that he would return.

At this point in the year, it usually seems like the quality of play is going to be down, since most of the guys we are familiar with are either graduating or heading to the NBA. With every other conference, I think this holds true, but not with the Big East, which looks to be the strongest conference heading into the upcoming season.

Arkansas beat Vanderbilt!? Impossible.

SI's Luke Winn refers to this blog as "esteemed". Questionable, but appreciated.

This is what I was talking about in the live-blog. I can't do better than AA's title- "Digger Phelps Has No Idea What's Going On". That is even an understatement.

Dusty Baker is going to ruin Joey Votto. It's not funny. Okay, maybe a little.

Bob Costas hates bloggers.

BPro Unfiltered headline: "Braves, Angels Have Most Heart". Scientific evidence follows.

Hasheem Thabeet is an excellent Scrabble player.

An interview with Ken Tremendous.

Posnanski's "Stats I Like".

A compilation of forecasted standings. I'm going to do something with all these when the picks for all the ESPN guys are posted.

The full blogpoll is here, my ballot was as follows.

Indiana is screwed. The Sampson mess, the Butch three- not a good day for the Hoosiers. I've thought they were a little overrated for a few weeks now- they're now 9-2 in the B10, but they could easily be 7-4 or even 6-5. But now, if they lose to MSU and Purdue at home in the next week (both at home), it'll all be blamed on the coach. Not that that situation doesn't have any effect, but it's probably not the whole story.

UConn is incredible- tonight makes eight in a row (gotta love Thabeet's line of 4pts, 10 boards, 6 blocks). They were a 4 in Bracketology this week- they may even get bumped up a line on Monday. Their last seven BE games really aren't that tough- they play at USF, Villanova, and Providence, and host West Virginia, but will likely be favored in every game the rest of the way.

Louisville should certainly be higher (although I'm closer than some). It's always tough to know what to do with teams that were missing key players early in the season. Despite having one more loss than Georgetown, they've been the best Big East team in conference games. They have a much more difficult schedule than the Huskies, with games @Pitt & Georgetown, and home games against Notre Dame and Syracuse.

Drake lost in Carbondale tonight, but I won't drop them that far next week. You are allowed to lose once every couple months, I think.