Only One ACC Team In the Top 25

For the first time in over thirty years, only one team from the Atlantic Coast Conference is ranked in college basketball's AP Top 25. In the rankings that were released today (rankings are released every Monday during basketball season), fifth-ranked Duke is the lone representative of the vaunted ACC.

One year after winning its second NCAA National Championship in five years, North Carolina (14-12 overall, 3-8 ACC) has endured its worst season since Roy Williams became head coach (Williams succeeded Matt Doherty after Doherty's teams finished 8-20 in the 2001-02 season, and 19-16 in the 2002-03 season respectively). Wake Forest and Clemson began the season with much fanfare from the national media, but those teams have failed to live up to the lofty expectations that were placed upon them (which comes as no surprise to the Drive and Dish staff). Georgia Tech looked very good early in ACC play, and they had an impressive win over Duke in January. But they've fallen off as of late.

So Duke stands as the only ranked team from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The ACC has not suffered for lack of media attention over the last ten to fifteen years. But despite North Carolina's recent 5 year mini dynasty in college basketball, the ACC has been in a quiet downturn in the last few years.

As for today's updated AP Top 25, aside from the aforementioned No. 5 Duke from the ACC, the rest of the top 10 is made up of three teams from the Big East (No. 4 Syracuse, No. 7 Villanova and No. 8 West Virginia), two teams from the Big Twelve (No. 1 Kansas and No. 6 Kansas State), two teams from the always maligned Big Ten (No. 3 Purdue and No. 9 Ohio State), one team from the SEC (No. 2 Kentucky) and one team from the non-BCS Mountain West conference (No. 10 New Mexico).

AP Top 25:

Ranking	Record	Pts	Pvs
1. Kansas (61)	26-1	1,621	1
2. Kentucky (4)	26-1	1,559	2
3. Purdue	23-3	1,470	4
4. Syracuse	25-2	1,455	5
5. Duke	23-4	1,323	6
6. Kansas St.	22-4	1,302	7
7. Villanova	22-4	1,189	3
8. West Virginia	21-5	1,183	8
9. Ohio St.	21-7	1,097	9
10. New Mexico	25-3	997	12
11. Georgetown	18-7	846	10
12. Pittsburgh	21-6	806	19
13. BYU	25-3	795	16
14. Michigan St.	21-7	794	11
15. Butler	25-4	673	18
16. Vanderbilt	20-6	599	17
17. Wisconsin	20-7	528	14
18. Gonzaga	22-5	506	13
19. Tennessee	20-6	480	20
20. Temple	22-5	452	21
21. Texas	21-6	445	15
22. Texas A&M	19-7	225	24
23. Richmond	22-6	202	25
24. Baylor	20-6	147	22
25. N. Iowa	24-3	128	--

Others receiving votes: UTEP 86, Virginia Tech 76, Maryland 57, Missouri 17, Illinois 14, Xavier 13, Marquette 11, Louisville 9, Mississippi St. 5, Oklahoma St. 4, Utah St. 4, Cornell 2, Murray St. 2, Wake Forest 2, Clemson 1.

Thoughts On the ACC

The Drive and Dish editors spent the last week traveling through the Carolinas. We weren't traveling for pleasure, and we only had a limited time to watch basketball. But we did get the chance to see several games on Saturday, Feb. 28, as well as a couple games on the preceding Wednesday and Thursday. Since the Drive and Dish headquarters are located in Chicago, we normally get to see plenty of Big Ten local programming. But our travels in North and South Carolina afforded us the opportunity to see several local (i.e., not nationally televised) Atlantic Coast Conference games (to the extent that we've been able to view games, which, as stated before, has been limited).

On a side note, it was fun to watch two disappointing Clemson losses games with a cousin who's a 2008 Clemson alumnus. I've never been around Clemson fans during basketball season (just football season), and it was fun to bear witness to their angst and frustration during losses to Virginia Tech and Florida State. Clemson is a football school first and foremost. As such, I wasn't aware that Clemson fans really cared about basketball. And after watching Clemson basketball with some them, I'm still not convinced that they actually care about basketball. But they like to see Clemson win, and they root hard for their Tigers. Plus, they hate Tyler Hansbrough and North Carolina ... but no more than they hate Mike Krzyzewski and Duke.

I also got the chance to watch Duke narrowly escape an upset at the hands of Virginia Tech with family members who are fairly recent UNC alums, and big Heels fans (my cousin and her husband -- whose father is a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and played basketball for the Tar Heels in the 1960's). In my experience, UNC fans tend to be knowledgeable, sophisticated college basketball fans. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule, the Heels' fan base is among the best in college basketball. Certainly, the Heels fans who I watched the Duke game with fit that description.

But lest Drive and Dish plunge head first into full-fledged digression mode, we return our focus back to the original intent of this post: our impromptu, early-March Drive stay in the Carolinas allowed Drive and Dish's editors to take in plenty of late-season ACC basketball. And although we've been monitoring the ACC all season long from our Chicagoland headquarters (and haven't really changed our opinions of the key players in the ACC), being immersed in ACC country with fans of ACC teams has prompted Drive and Dish to have a renewed interest in several of the league's less-glamorous, and less-publicized teams.

In other words, we've got some thoughts on the ACC, and we're willing to share them.

First, we'll offer a quick take on the Final Four prospects of the top teams in the ACC. Then we'll give a few thoughts about the NCAA Tournament prospects for the other ACC Tournament hopefuls.


North Carolina:

As we've stated before, Drive and Dish expects North Carolina to make it to the Final Four. We're not sold on the Tar Heels' chances of winning the National Championship, but we think that they're an elite level team (which should be obvious to anyone with eyes).

The Heels have three -- and possibly more -- likely future NBA first round draft picks on their roster. Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington may not be destined for NBA superstardom, but they will probably be drafted in the first round. And Danny Green probably has an outside (albeit considerably outside) chance of making it to the "league."

Teams that contend for National Championships almost always have multiple future NBA players on their rosters. The Tar Heels definitely fit that bill.

Drive and Dish takes the position that Connecticut will, most likely, win the National Championship (although the loss of all-important guard Jerome Dyson to injury has the potential to cause the Huskies untold problems). We think North Carolina will probably make it all the way to the National Championship game, but we suspect they'll fall short of capturing their second National Championship in four years (UNC won the 2005 National Championship).


Duke:

Duke doesn't strike us as a legitimate Final Four contender, but make no mistake: Duke has two great players in shooting guard Gerald Henderson and forward Kyle Singler.

Henderson has solidified himself as one of the premier players in college basketball (and a likely lottery pick in the NBA Draft). He's such an excellent one on one player that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has appeared to have loosened up the reins on the motion offense to create opportunities for him to isolate his defender. At the college level, there aren't many teams that can slow Gerald Henderson. He's an outstanding athlete and he has good size and strength for his position. What's more, he's a good shooter, he's very adept at taking his defender off the dribble (to either get to the basket, or create an open shot) and he has a variety of Kobe Bryant-esque, NBA-style scoring moves in his arsenal.

Kyle Singler is a versatile, new school power forward. He's not a banger, but he's a very good scorer. He has a nice perimeter shot and he's good at taking the ball to the basket from the wing. Singler should be a solid NBA player someday, but he's not a great presence in the paint. That would be fine if Duke had some other rugged big men to offset Singler's game. But since the rest of Duke's front line is widely -- and rightly -- considered to be suspect (Greg Zoubek's improved rebounding notwithstanding), the Blue Devils are unlikely to have what it takes to make a Final Four run.


Wake Forest:

Drive and Dish believes that Wake Forest has enough talent and enough size to be a Final Four team, but we question their maturity and ability to make good decisions. The Demon Deacons are a very young team, and we think that they're a year away from being a legitimate Final Four contender.


Clemson:

Clemson is ranked No. 18 in the AP Top 25, but we think they're overrated. Their guard play is suspect. K.C. Rivers is a nice point guard, but shooting guard Terrence Oglesby is an one-dimensional 3 point shooter whose shot selection is iffy and who makes many questionable decisions with the ball.

Forward Trevor Booker has shown an ability to score in the paint, but Clemson's guards have had trouble getting the ball to him in the post (especially Oglesby). Center Raymond Sykes is an athletic, strong rebounder/"garbage man." He and Booker give Clemson a formidable front line. Sykes is one of those tough, scraping, big men who seem to have a special ability for always being around the ball in rebounding, drive and dish, and interior defensive situations. That allows Sykes to get easy baskets from simple cuts to the basket, and to pull in tons of rebounds (both offensive and defensive) and loose balls. But it also means that he gets fouled a lot. And that's a problem for Clemson, as Sykes' decidedly poor free throw shooting has been a critical factor in several of the Tigers' losses.

Clemson may have a nice starting front line, but they're not very deep inside. Thus, Raymond Sykes will have to play most of the game (and stay out of foul trouble) in order for Clemson to be competitive in the NCAA Tournament. And he'll absolutely have to be in the game during "crunch time" in any close Tourney contest. Unfortunately for Clemson, that will put him in position to be fouled (frequently) in late game situations. If Clemson finds itself entangled in a "nail-biter" game in the NCAA Tournament, expect the opposing team to go out of its way to foul Sykes. Thus, Raymond Sykes' free throw shooting could be a critical factor in determining Clemson's prospects for making a run in the Tournament.

Ultimately, Drive and Dish remains skeptical of Clemson. We expect them to be granted a favorable seed, but to make an early exit from the NCAA Tournament.

Now for the rest of the league:

North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest and Clemson are certain NCAA Tournament teams. There's simply no question that those teams are in. And they're all certain to get high seeds. No. 22 Florida State is also, for all intents and purposes, "in." The Seminoles won't likely be seeded as highly as the four aforementioned teams, but it's nearly a sure thing that they'll get into the Tournament. Boston College, Maryland, Miami and Virginia Tech are all essentially "bubble" teams.


Boston College:

Boston College turned a lot of heads on Jan. 4, when they upset unbeaten and No. 1 ranked (at the time) North Carolina in the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill. BC also beat Duke on Feb. 15, and has wins over Florida State, Maryland and Providence. Their only bad loss -- and it was, indeed, a bad loss -- came at the hands of Harvard, one game after they upset No. 1 North Carolina.

Drive and Dish expects Boston College to get into the NCAA Tournament. They're a 20-plus win ACC team with wins over North Carolina and Duke. They're certainly not an NCAA Tournament sure-thing, but they appear to be in pretty good shape (barring a collapse in the ACC Tournament). It will be close, but as of this writing, BC is likely to get in.


Maryland:

Maryland is 18-12 and head Coach Gary Williams has come under fire for not having the Terrapins atop the ACC in 2008 and 2009 (despite the fact that he was hailed as a miracle worker after guiding the unheralded Terps to the 2002 National Championship). Maryland has an impressive, fairly recent (2/21/09) upset win over North Carolina. But the Terrapins only have one other big win, and it's been gathering dust all season: they upset Michigan State way back on Nov. 27, 2008. Maryland has a recent "good" loss at the hands of Wake Forest (3/3), but they have a more recent "bad" loss to hapless Virginia (3/7). What's more, Duke crushed Maryland by 41 points (85-44) at Cameron Indoor Stadium back in January. Normally, a road loss to Duke wouldn't count as a bad loss. But "bubble" teams can't afford many 20-plus point losses, regardless of who their opponents were. For a team on the "bubble," having a 40-plus point loss on it's resume could prove to be a deal-breaker.

Verdict: Maryland needs more wins over quality opponents. If they can put together an impressive run in the ACC Tournament, the Terps could force their way into the NCAA Tournament. As it stands right now, they're likely headed to the N.I.T.


Virginia Tech:

It seems like Virginia Tech finds itself on the NCAA Tournament "bubble" every year. It's become commonplace for the Hokies to pull several stunning upsets (usually road wins over Duke and/or North Carolina) followed almost immediately by several equally stunning -- or at the very least, head-scratching -- embarrassingly bad losses to sub-.500 teams.

This year, Virginia Tech's huge upset road win came at the expense of Wake Forest, who was undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 at the time. The Hokies fell just short of upsetting Duke and/or UNC, but they also avoided their usual subsequent letdown losses to teams at the bottom of the ACC standings (save for their Feb. 18, loss to Virginia). As it stands, Virginia Tech has a 17-13 record and, once again, sits firmly on the NCAA Tournament "bubble." But the Hokies' resume, while not as checkered as in years past, appears to be a bit thin. On the plus side, the Hokies have one signature win (Wake Forest), and a have a nice five game winning streak from late January that includes wins over Boston College (1/17), the aforementioned then-undefeated and No. 1-ranked Wake Forest (1/21) and Miami (1/25). The Hokies' only notable "bad" losses came at the hands of Georgia (12/9), Duke (once again, for the purposes of determining a team's viability for receiving an NCAA Tournament bid, a loss to Duke would normally be seen as a "good" loss, but VA Tech's 25 point loss to the Blue Devils on Jan. 4, will be considered "bad" because the Hokies lost by more than 20 points), and the previously mentioned Virginia Cavaliers (2/28).

Virginia Tech also has two notable losses that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will likely consider to be "good" losses (although neither is recent): a 1 point loss to Xavier (11/21), and a 2 point loss to Wisconsin (12/1) in the ACC vs. Big Ten Challenge.

Ultimately, Virginia Tech finds itself in the same position as Maryland: they desperately need a few more wins over good teams. If VA Tech can make a run in ACC Tournament, they'll probably punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Anything short of that, however, and the Hokies will have to settle for an invitation to the N.I.T. (which is nothing to scoff at, by the way).


Miami:

Miami is a quintessential "bubble" team. They're 18-11, they've got a big win over Wake Forest (2/4), a season sweep of Boston College (2/21 & 1/10), and in shooting guard Jack McClinton, the Hurricanes have one of the most electrifying players in college basketball. Miami has helped itself by steering clear of bad losses (they have none), and they have a few notable "good" losses on their resume: a 3 point loss to Duke (2/7), a 4 point loss to North Carolina (2/15) and losses to No. 3 Connecticut and Ohio State.

But like Maryland and Virginia Tech, Miami is a probably a few "big" wins shy of receiving a bid to "the Dance." Again, like Maryland and VA Tech, the Hurricanes will need to string together a few wins in the ACC Tournament -- which would include an eye-opening upset (or two) over one (or more) of the conference's power programs -- if they hope to go "dancing" in the NCAA Tournament.

That said, if Miami can make a run in the ACC Tournament, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee may look favorably upon them because the Hurricanes feature the exciting, All American caliber McClinton.

Make no mistake: Jack McClinton will be a first round draft pick in the NBA Draft. He's a smaller, combo guard who can break down defenders at will and light it up from deep beyond the three point arc. And he's one of the toughest, most grizzled competitors in the college game. Drive and Dish maintains that McClinton's telegenic playing style brings to mind the playing styles of the Memphis Grizzlies' O.J. Mayo and the Chicago Bulls' Ben Gordon (although McClinton is bigger than the 5'10"ish Gordon). No doubt, Jack McClinton is fun to watch. What's more, flashy perimeter players like Jack McClinton are attractive to TV audiences. And the CBS and the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee know as much.

All things being equal, the presence of Jack McClinton on Miami's roster could give the Hurricanes an advantage over other bubble teams from the ACC in the eyes of the Tournament Selection Committee (although Maryland's star guard Greivis Vasquez is, at the very least, deserving of mention in that regard as well). He's a legitimate star who is capable of "putting the team on his back" ... and that has the potential to make for good TV. But Miami needs to win some ACC Tournament games if they want the Selection Committee to seriously consider their pros and cons. The Hurricanes play Virginia Tech in the first round of the ACC Tournament. Whichever team which loses that game will have to settle for the N.I.T.

Guest Post: Wake Forest Basketball Through a Student's Eyes

Drive and Dish has been paying close attention to Wake Forest all season long. The reasons for our are new-found Wake Forest interest are obvious: the Demon Deacons have undergone a basketball renaissance in 2008/09 which resulted in their ascension to the No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 Poll (although it was a brief stay at No. 1), they've bounced back from the sudden death (in 2007) of head coach Skip Prosser to rally around new head coach Dino Gaudio, and -- for some reason -- Drive and Dish gets a lot of traffic from Wake Forest fans.

However, despite our renewed interest in Wake Forest and the apparent popularity of a few Wake Forest-related Drive and Dish posts, this blog has never had a tangible connection to Wake Forest University. To be sure, we've got no shortage of friends who either currently attend, or alumni of, Big Ten schools. And we've spent plenty of time on Big Ten campuses. The same goes for most of the Big 12 and many of the Big East and Pac-10 schools. What's more, we've got several relatives and friends who are alums of ACC schools. And we're well acquainted with Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Durham, Clemson, Charlottesville, Tallahassee and Miami. But to date, we've never set foot on the Wake Forest campus (or even in Winston-Salem, North Carolina).

So we're pleased to welcome guest blogger Izzy to Drive and Dish. Izzy is a Wake Forest student -- class of 2009 -- from Los Angeles, CA, and he maintains the fine NBA blog Dishing Dimes (he's also appeared on ESPN to discuss Wake Forest football and to represent Wake Forest in a debate with students from Duke). Izzy brings to Drive and Dish his insider's view of life at Wake Forest in the year of Wake's basketball rebirth:

What is it like to be a Student at Wake Forest?

Since my time at Wake Forest we have been a football school. Crazy, I know. Wake Forest has traditionally been thought of as a basketball school. In reality, that is what I cling to hailing from the Southern California. People ask, “Where is Wake Forest?” I explain that it is a school in North Carolina, and drop the names Tim Duncan and Chris Paul, sometimes to no avail. Aside from the academics, I don’t tell those people that Wake Forest is the 2^nd smallest Division 1 School (behind Rice University) with only a bit over 4,000 undergraduates. I don’t tell those people that Wake Forest has beaten the mighty Duke Blue Devils two years in a row. I don’t tell them that we have been to the NCAA tournament 20 times in our school history and had 16 straight postseason appearances (the most in ACC history). No. I don’t tell them any of that because frankly, I don’t care. I’ve gotten used to the underdog label that Wake Forest is commonly ascribed. I’ve gotten used to being the forgotten nationally ranked university. We are the forgotten North Carolina school after Duke, Carolina, and NC State.

We like to think that Duke is our rival, but they have Carolina. That is how bad it has gotten over here. We have no defined rival. We play who we play. No one has any strong opinion about Wake Forest. We are the black sheep of the ACC. Seldom does anyone think of Wake Forest when they think of the ACC. In all honesty, if I didn’t go to Wake, I wouldn’t either. The two biggest programs in the country are in ACC country. Their shadows are seen in Terapin country all the way down to the University of Miami campus lake.

How do we get noticed? We rise to #1 in the country for the first time since Chris Paul’s tenure here in 2005. We beat North Carolina. We beat Duke. We beat Clemson. We go 16-0. We have one of the most underrated student sections in the country. A student section that prides itself on wearing the most obnoxious tie-die shirts, coming up with new chants, and harassing every away team that comes into Joel Coliseum. Simply put, Wake Forest sports are a way of life around here. We are the forgotten middle child of the ACC. We need to be heard every time we play.

With all that said, hopes are high around campus. We have been taken, once again, on the roller coaster ride of Wake Forest basketball. With three NBA caliber players in Jeff Teague, James Johnson and Al-Farouq Aminu, and with the tallest front line in the country, we scratch our heads when we lose. We haven’t lost to a ranked opponent yet this season. Every loss we have had has been in the conference. Yeah, you could say that it is just the instability of the ACC, but we truly believe that we can play with anyone in the country.

In all honesty, I think the student body is scared. We are scared that the team won’t get the benefit of the doubt when it comes tournament time. We know that Duke can lose to an unranked team and probably move up in the rankings. We know that when we lose to an unranked team it is death. We play with a chip on our shoulder. As of me writing this, we dismantled Georgia Tech, a team that we lost to earlier this season. We know what we need to do to be successful.

We have a couple of x-factors on our team, Chas MacFarlane and LD Williams. LD Williams is a good perimeter defender, but he is inconsistent on the offensive end. Chas MacFarlane obviously gives us good height down low, but he is an emotional player. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I think that if he channeled his emotions in the right way, we can be a successful team. I know that authors on this site have criticized Wake’s lack of maturity, and in all honesty, that is true. We are an immature team, but a Final Four appearance is not out of the question if we are able to find our identity, and work out the kinks in our game. Ish Smith is developing as a player. I have publicly questioned both Smith and Teague’s decision making, and they have both improved their decision making. The team has a lot of work to do in order to get to the Final Four level. March is a crazy month. So many factors play into the tournament. Sitting here and trying to dissect every bit of that is not going to give us a better picture. It is just my opinion. All we know is that college basketball has seen every single #1 team fall this season. It will make for a great tournament. Until then, all I can say and hope for it, Go Deacs!

Izzy

Guest Writer

Author of dishingdimes.blogspot.com

Connecticut = No. 1 (Feb. 2)

Connecticut is the new No. 1 team in America. The Huskies replace Duke as the highest ranked team in the AP Top 25.

Last week, Duke replaced Wake Forest as the No. 1 ranked team in the AP poll. But Wake Forest beat Duke 70-68 on Wednesday, before falling to Georgia Tech on Saturday.

Oklahoma takes over the No. 2 position in this week's poll, and North Carolina moves up to No. 3. Duke and Louisville round out the top 5.

Drive and Dish has been skeptical of the claim that Wake Forest is a legitimate Final Four contender. After the Demon Deacons beat Duke, we adopted the position that Wake Forest has the requisite talent and the size needed to contend for a Final Four, but that they may not have enough maturity/experience to get them there this year. And we've also stated that North Carolina is likely to make a return trip to the Final Four, but that they're unlikely to win the National Championship. But make no mistake, the UConn Huskies are a legitimate Final Four and National Championship contender.

AP Top 25

1. Connecticut (64) 20-1 1,792

2. Oklahoma (5) 21-1 1,691

3. North Carolina (3) 19-2 1,639

4. Duke 19-2 1,563

5. Louisville 17-3 1,464

6. Pittsburgh 19-2 1,427

7. Wake Forest 17-2 1,409

8. Marquette 19-2 1,358

9. Xavier 19-2 1,176

10. Clemson 18-2 1,077

11. Butler 19-1 1,051

12. Purdue 17-4 961

13. Michigan State 17-4 876

14. Memphis 18-3 798

15. UCLA 17-4 787

16. Texas 15-5 724

17. Villanova 17-4 698

18. Gonzaga 16-4 632

19. Minnesota 18-3 426

20. Syracuse 17-5 415

21. Kansas 17-4 316

22. Washington 16-5 216

23. Illinois 18-4 198

24. Arizona State 16-5 146

25. Utah State 21-1 99

Others Receiving Votes Dayton 95, Davidson 85, Missouri 39, Penn State 37, LSU 36, West Virginia 33, South Carolina 33, UNLV 29, Florida 24, Providence 14, USC 8, Notre Dame 7, Siena 4, Kansas State 4, Northeastern 3, Ohio State 3, Kentucky 2, Arizona 2, Florida State 1, Northern Iowa 1, Virginia Military 1.

Wake Forest Beats No. 1 Duke

Wednesday night, No. 6 Wake Forest beat No. 1 Duke 70-68. Last week, Wake Forest earned its first No. 1 in the ranking AP Top 25 since November, 2004. But Virginia Tech upset Wake Forest on January 21, just two days after the Demon Deacons took over the No. 1 position.

On Monday, Duke (18-2, 5-1) replaced Wake Forest (17-1, 4-1) as the No. 1 men's college basketball team in America (the AP Top 25 is released each Monday during college basketball season). But just as Wake Forest did last week, Duke lost a game two mere days after garnering their first No. 1 ranking of the 2008/09 season. Thus, the Blue Devils' stint at No. 1 will likely be as short-lived as Wake Forest's one week No. 1 run.

No. 3 Pittsburgh Falls

Also on Wednesday night, Villanova beat No. 3 Pittsburgh 67-57.

Duke Claims No. 1 (January 26, 2009)

Duke is the new No. 1 team in America. The Blue Devils sit atop the AP Men's College Basketball Top 25 for the first time since the 2005/06 season. Duke's climb to No. 1 comes as no surprise: last week's No. 1 team, Wake Forest, lost its first game of the season to unranked Virginia Tech on Wednesday. Duke beat North Carolina State and Maryland convincingly during the week, which practically guaranteed them a promotion from last week's No. 2 ranking.

Wake Forest's stay atop the polls was short-lived: last week, the Demon Deacons captured the No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2004. But thee days after taking over the top position in the AP poll, Wake fell at home to the unheralded Virginia Tech Hokies.

The Big East leads all conferences with four teams in the top 10: Connecticut is No. 2, Pittsburgh is No. 3 , Louisville is No. 7 and Marquette is No. 8. The Atlantic Coast Conference has three teams in the top ten, with the aforementioned No. 1 Duke, No. 5 North Carolina and No. 6 Wake Forest.

Only three non Big East or ACC teams appear in the top ten (No. 4 Oklahoma, No. 9 Michigan State and No. 10 Xavier).

AP Top 25:

1. Duke (62) 18-1 1,789

2. Connecticut (6) 18-1 1,694

3. Pittsburgh (3) 18-1 1,647

4. Oklahoma (1) 19-1 1,539

5. North Carolina 17-2 1,529

6. Wake Forest 16-1 1,509

7. Louisville 15-3 1,351

8. Marquette 17-2 1,209

9. Michigan State 16-3 1,136

10. Xavier 17-2 1,084

11. Texas 14-4 1,017

12. Clemson 17-2 929

13. Butler 18-1 916

14. Arizona State 16-3 834

15. Syracuse 17-4 808

16. Purdue 15-4 724

17. UCLA 15-4 544

18. Memphis 16-3 530

19. Illinois 17-3 401

20. Gonzaga 14-4 381

21. Villanova 15-4 276

22. Saint Mary's 18-1 247

23. Washington 15-4 218

24. Kentucky 16-4 217

25. Georgetown 12-6 189

Others Receiving Votes Notre Dame 154, Minnesota 138, Kansas 84, Florida 65, Missouri 52, Virginia Tech 37, Baylor 34, West Virginia 32, Davidson 27, Utah State 23, Dayton 14, California 13, UNLV 4, Florida State 3, Ohio State 1, Virginia Commonwealth 1. Dropped From Rankings Notre Dame 19, Minnesota 21, Florida 24.

Virginia Tech Deals Undefeated No. 1 Wake Forest First Loss; Northwestern Upsets No. 7 Michigan State

Over the last several days, Drive and Dish has devoted a lot of time to talking about Wake Forest and Northwestern (more here, here, here, here, and here). How fitting then, that Wake Forest and Northwestern were participants in Wednesday night's two shocking upset games.

Virginia Tech traveled to Winston Salem, NC, and stunned No. 1 Wake Forest 78-71, handing the previously unbeaten Demon Deacons their first loss of the season.

And Northwestern ventured into Michigan State's intimidating Breslin Center and upset the No. 7 Spartans 70-63 (more here). With the stunning win, the Wildcats ended Michigan State's 28-game home winning streak and earned their first road win over a top ten team since the early 1950's.


What's more, the Wildcats' newfound winning ways have prompted some Northwestern fans to start looking down the schedule and speculating about the broader implications of the 'Cats' two recent upset wins (and it's prompted Drive and Dish to link to the fine Northwestern blog Lake the Posts for the third time this week):

Before you go into "coulda, shoulda, woulda" mode with the Purdue and Penn State games, just be thankful we grabbed this one thanks to a combination of stellar defense and poor Michigan State shooting. Northwestern moves to 10-6 (2-4) with several winnable games in the near future (Iowa, Chicago State and Indiana). However, after winning AT Michigan State, it makes you wonder what game isn't winnable? To the Carmody-must-go-ists, including myself, it makes you also wonder if he secured another year with tonight's win (along with at least four or five more to be .500-ish).

As alluded to above, Wake Forest and Northwestern have taken to making college basketball headlines, and have, thus, been the subjects of several recent Drive and Dish posts. If the Demon Deacons and Wildcats stay at the forefront of college hoops, Drive and Dish will be forced to continue talking/writing about them. Sure, we're well aware that with all our recent WFU/NU talk, we run the risk of looking like WFU and NU fanboys (fanboy pictures: here, here, here, here and here). But what's a basketball blogger to do? If the aforementioned teams keep making waves, we'll have to keep writing about them ... although we might be well advised to stop wearing the Demon Deacon underoos (more here) and to stop sleeping in the purple and white Wildcat sheets.

Tidbits, '09 Part 2

On Friday, Drive and Dish published the maiden 2009 edition of our ever-popular Tidbits series. As it happens, our Friday Tidbits edition was so well received that the Drive and Dish editors have ordered a special impromptu Tuesday edition of Tidbits.

So with out any further ado, we present the second edition of Tidbits for 2009:

1. -- Hoopraker provides pre-game analysis of tonight's marquee Big Ten games: Michigan at Penn State and Ohio State at No. 25 Illinois.


2. -- Fresh off of Sudnay's Northwestern upset of then No. 18 (now No. 21) Minnesota, Lake the Posts discusses the lack of student support for the Northwestern basketball program, ponders what it will take for the Wildcats to fill the traditionally empty seats of NU's Welsh-Ryan Arena and calls for the firing of Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody.

(Photo: Lake the Posts)

Drive and Dish has long held the position that Northwestern basketball has the potential to rise from its decades-long stay in college basketball's wilderness and become a respectable, competitive program -- much like Northwestern football has done. Welsh-Ryan Arena is an old school, band box-style gym that could provide the Wildcats with an intimidating home court advantage, were it ever to fill up with boisterous Northwestern students/fans. But as long as alumni and fans of Northwestern's opponents continue to outnumber Wildcats supporters in Welsh-Ryan's stands, Northwestern basketball will likely continue to flounder.

If Northwestern could ever establish a consistent home court advantage, the 'Cats would almost certainly pull a few more of their close games out. Bill Carmody's system allows Northwestern to slow their opponents down and keep games close. A hostile Welsh-Ryan arena could spell the difference between Northwestern losing even more nail-biters, or finally starting to win a few (as they did against Minnesota) -- which would allow them to build some momentum. And that could be the difference between finishing with a winning record, or finishing with yet another losing record.

More:

On a personal note, when yours truly, Trashtalk Superstar, was forced to leave the grind of life as a Division III college basketball walkon in order to return home to Chicagoland for surgery in February 1996, I made my first visit to Welsh-Ryan Arena to watch then-first year head coach Tom Izzo lead his Michigan State team into battle against Northwestern. I had been in downtown Chicago that afternoon/evening and made a last minute decision to attempt to check out the MSU Northwestern game (despite the fact that I was by myself ). Due to the hasty nature of my decision, I didn't walk through the Welsh-Ryan turnstiles until a little past the halfway point of the first half. To my surprise, the kind folks at Welsh-Ryan Arena granted me admission free of charge, and I hurried into the gym where I took a courtside seat amidst a sea of Michigan State alumni and fans. After that night, I would go on to make several last minute decisions to shoot up to Evanston in order to check out Northwestern games. And since I almost usually arrived late, I almost never paid to get into the games.

Over the years, the promise of being able to breeze into cheap (possibly free) first rate seats to watch Northwestern take on the Big Ten's best teams afforded me many opportunities to convince family and friends to make the trek to E-Town to take in NU basketball games (often at the last minute).

So Northwestern students' apathy for their basketball team has worked out well for yours truly, as it's allowed me to waltz into several NU games on little more than a whim (and often for free). And the perpetually half-full stands at Welsh-Ryan have allowed me to enjoy the spoils of reliably available prime seating.

But I'd love to see Northwestern become a winning basketball program that plays in front of a consistently full (or close to full) Welsh-Ryan Arena. Sure, I wouldn't be able to stroll into Welsh-Ryan Arena at the last minute any longer, but it would be a vast improvement for Northwestern basketball.


3. -- Butler tops The CollegeInsider.com's Mid Major Top 25. St. Mary's, Gonzaga, Davidson and Illinois State round out the top 5.


4. -- Allen Vaughan of the Springfield, MO, News-Leader catches Kansas head coach Bill Self skirting an NCAA rule:

"That's what was so curious when Kansas coach Bill Self came rolling
through. I was puzzled because it's an evaluation period in the NCAA's eyes, meaning coaches and recruits can have no contact, except for an exchange of greetings.

Of course, (John) Wall is the top uncommitted recruit. Self had to know I was a reporter and even said hello to me.

I just thought he'd stand there, maybe even wave to Wall to let him know he was there. Instead, when the Holy Rams poured out of the locker room, Self was excited:

Self: "Johnny, great win man. You really played well."

Wall: "Thanks."

More about past questionable recruiting practices by Kansas assistant coach Kurtis Townsend via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer here (a liquored-up Drive and Dish writer/editor commented on the questionable writing on display in the linked Post-Intelligencer article here).


5. -- Boston University's John Holland played all 60 minutes of Monday's four overtime BU win over Stony Brook (the final score was Boston U 99, Stony Brook 97). Holland's teammate, Jake O'Brien played 56 minutes. Stony Brook's Bryan Dougher played 57 minutes.


6. -- Caulton Tudor of the Raleigh News & Observer discusses what it means for Wake Forest to be ranked No. 1, and states that it means a lot more to be ranked No. 1 in April than it does in January (obviously).


7. -- Finally, since every man, woman and child in America is apparently caught up in the rapture of Inauguration Day fever, Drive and Dish has decided to stand out from the crowd by turning our attention across the Atlantic, and to the workout habits of the President of France. Apparently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy works out his lower abdominal and pelvic muscles to help him prevent embarrassing pre-mature *********** when engaged in amorous activity with his wife, supermodel/singer Carla Bruni. The Mail-Online profiles Julie Imperiali, "the female personal trainer who helps (French) President Sarkozy improve his sex life with his supermodel wife."

Drive and Dish's editors eschew the kind of worship of, and lavishing of attention on, attractive females which seems to prevail at websites that appeal to heavily male audiences (including sports websites and blogs). Drive and Dish is a basketball blog, and as such, we focus on basketball, with the occasional foray into subject matter outside our usual reach. We realize that blogs can increase their traffic by posting pictures of hot girls -- Drive and Dish was even the accidental beneficiary of such traffic after we included a picture of the UCLA cheerleaders/dance team in a post that chronicled UCLA's march to the Final Four -- but we remain committed to our original vision of carving out an online niche by dishing straightforward, non-snarky/catty/sardonic, basketball-intense commentary with a slightly whimsical -- but not derisive, or haterade guzzling -- tone (actually, that part of the vision evolved over time, as we started out by blogging with a healthy amount of sarcasm, derision and ... well, trash talk [more here, here, here, and here], but eventually matured and grew wary of the snarkiness and playa-hating that infests many sports-oriented websites and blogs, as well as the shtick-before sports ethos of ESPN).

Additionally, Drive and Dish editors tend to be worldly, sophisticated, young men of learning and action. In that regard, we're not entirely unlike James Bond. Or Rhett Butler. Or Han Solo. What's more, we're young enough to be in our primes, yet old/experienced enough to have learned a few things along the way. Thus, we naturally avoid the common male pitfall of putting "hot" females (or any females, for that matter) on pedestals.

And most of us have had our share of hot girls over the years, which has helped us learn several essential truths about "the ladies" which have generally evaded and bedeviled males for eons. Not that we're unique in that regard, of course. But to appropriate a common saying, once you know how sausage is made, well ... you may (or may not) still have a taste for sausage, but sausage definitely loses some of its luster. As such, Drive and Dish recognizes that attractive females may be the centerpiece around which our sex-obsessed society seemingly revolves, but we remain mindful of an essential secret: there's really nothing all that special about "hot chicks." Sure, they know how to carry themselves, they know how to get attention and they know how to create a mystique. But deep inside, they're just like all other females (although they're probably more likely to have princess mentalities). What's more, they're just as full of insecurities, jealousies and neuroses as anyone else.

So Drive and Dish never treats "hot" females with awe, lustfulness or worship.

Besides, the incessant ogling of attractive females on the internet -- especially on sports-based websites and blogs -- is really geeky.

All that said, the Drive and Dish editors have taken the official position that President Sarkozy's trainer, Julie Imperiali, is infinitely hotter than his supermodel/singer/coke-whore looking wife, Carla Bruni.

One has to wonder about those training sessions.

Wake Forest Captures No. 1

Unbeaten Wake Forest has taken over the No. 1 ranking in the AP college basketball Top 25. The Demon Deacons (16-0) have replaced previously unbeaten Pittsburgh, which fell to Louisville on Saturday.

Three Atlantic Coast Conference Teams appear in the top 5, with Duke ranked No. 2 and North Carolina ranked No. 5. Big East rivals Connecticut and the aforementioned Pittsburgh occupy the No. 3 and No. 4 positions.

Wake Forest last owned the top spot in the polls in November 2004. The 2004/05 Demon Deacons held the No. 1 ranking for two weeks, but lost their place atop the polls to Illinois after the Illini dismantled them in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

How fitting then, that on the very day that Wake Forest makes its return to the top of the AP Top 25, Illinois returns to the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2006. With Illinois now ranked No. 25, The Demon Deacons and the Illini bookend the Top 25.

Both Wake Forest and Illinois suffered through two down years in 2007 and 2008, so it's especially sweet both for Wake to sit atop the polls, and for Illinois to be back on the college basketball map. Drive and Dish friends Toki Wartooth (Joe) of Paint the Town Orange and Izzy of Dishing Dimes celebrated their schools' rankings in this week's Top 25 by publishing new blog posts (Toki Wartooth [Joe] and Izzy are members of the class of 2009 at Illinois and Wake Forest, respectively).

Also, after having picked Clemson to beat Wake Forest, Drive and Dish friend The ACC & SEC Blog makes amends by rating each ACC team and opining that the ACC is probably as good as it has been in ten years.

AP Top 25 (1-19-09)

1. Wake Forest (68) 16-0 1,793

2. Duke (4) 16-1 1,721

3. Connecticut 16-1 1,590

4. Pittsburgh 16-1 1,569

5. North Carolina 16-2 1,510

6. Oklahoma 17-1 1,498

7. Michigan State 15-2 1,394

8. Syracuse 17-2 1,146

9. Louisville 13-3 1,090

10. Clemson 16-1 1,043

11. Marquette 16-2 1,003

12. Georgetown 12-4 979

13. UCLA 14-3 897

14. Texas 13-4 858

15. Xavier 15-2 848

16. Butler 16-1 726

17. Arizona State 15-3 671

18. Purdue 14-4 553

19. Notre Dame 12-5 469

20. Villanova 14-3 353

21. Minnesota 16-2 298

22. Memphis 14-3 208

23. Gonzaga 12-4 201

24. Florida 16-2 175

25. Illinois 15-3 159

Others Receiving Votes Baylor 148, Saint Mary's 137, Kentucky 105, California 82, Florida State 34, Kansas 23, Ohio State 20, Missouri 14, Davidson 14, Tennessee 14, Utah State 12, Washington 12, West Virginia 8, Miami (FL) 8, Arkansas 6, Michigan 5, Dayton 4, George Mason 1, LSU 1. Dropped From Rankings Baylor 21, California 22, Tennessee 24, Michigan 25.

Two Undefeated Teams Fall: Louisville Upsets No. 1 Pittsburgh, Wake Forest Beats Clemson

On Saturday, two of college basketball's undefeated teams were handed their first loss of the season. And in one of those games, the top ranked team in America get upset by a bitter -- albeit relatively new -- conference rival.

Saturday night saw No. 20 Louisville end No. 1 Pittsburgh's dreams of an undefeated season. More here, and here. The Cardinals beat the visiting Pitt Panthers 69-63 in front of 20,000 observers in Freedom Hall.

Terrence Williams paced Louisville (13-3, 4-0 Big East) with 20 points. Jermaine Dixon finished with a career-high 19 to lead Pitt (16-1, 4-1 Big East).

Head coach Rick Pitino has Louisville surging. Earlier in the week, his Cardinals beat No. 13 Notre Dame 87-73 in overtime.

Saturday's Louisville upset marked another milestone in the emerging Louisville vs. Pittsburgh rivalry. The Cardinals and the Panthers are not traditional rivals. But since Louisville joined the Big East in 2006, the Louisville vs. Pitt rivalry has become one of the most heated rivalries in college basketball.

Wake Forest Hands Clemson First Loss

Also on Saturday, No. 2 Wake Forest put it's unblemished record on the line in Clemson's Littlejohn Coliseum against its similarly unbeaten Atlantic Coast Conference rival, the No. 10 Clemson Tigers. Wake Forest emerged with its perfect record intact, as the Demon Deacons beat the Tigers 78-68.

With its 16-0 record, Wake Forest is off to the best start in school history. Jeff Teague led the Demon Deacons (16-0, 3-0 ACC) with 24 points. Clemson fell to 16-1, 3-1 ACC.

It's been quite a week for Wake Forest. Last Sunday, the Demon Deacons knocked off No. 3 North Carolina. Wake Forest will, undoubtedly, move to No. 1 in the nation when the new AP Top 25 is released on Monday.

The last four years have been a whirlwind for Wake Forest basketball. In December 2004, a Wake Forest team led by point guard and current NBA star Chris Paul took its No. 1 ranking to Champaign, IL, to face Illinois in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. But the Illini blew Wake away in the hostile Assembly Hall and wrestled the No. 1 ranking from the Demon Deacons. Illinois held on to the No. 1 slot until they fell to North Carolina in the 2004/05 NCAA National Championship game. And what had been a much heralded Wake Forest team fell to West Virginia on the first weekend of the 2005 NCAA Tournament.

Wake Forest then went relatively dormant for two seasons, but landed a stellar recruiting class in 2007. Tragically, Wake Forest's head coach, Skip Prosser died of a heart attack before the 2007 Fall Semester began. But assistant coach Dino Gaudio took over the shaken program and continued Prosser's system.

Now, one year later, Gaudio has Wake Forest out to the best start in the history of the program and atop the college basketball world.

Like his counterpart Dino Gaudio at Wake Forest, Clemson head coach Oliver Purnell also has his team out to the best start in school history. But although Clemson's dreams of an undefeated season have been squelched, there's no doubt that the Clemson basketball program is earning respect and making people stand up and take notice at what has traditionally been a football-crazy, but basketball-apathetic, school.

(Image of Louisville vs. Pittsburgh: Breitbart, Image of Wake Forest vs. Clemson, Washington Post).

Tidbits, '09 Edition

2009 is a little over two weeks old, the temperature here in Chicago is somewhere south of ten below zero (once it hits ten below, I stop counting), college basketball teams are nearing the end of the second week of conference play and the Drive and Dish editorial board has decided to press its writers to spend Friday night working on the year's first edition of our ever popular Tidbits feature.

It's worth mentioning that Drive and Dish has been forced to downsize its writing staff; Mark Buckets and the content generating/research conducting/image searching/blog post writing interns have moved on. Trashtalk Superstar remains as the lone writer on the Drive and Dish payroll. All twelve members of the editorial board remain on the payroll, as do all the members of the corporate board. But as for writers and copy editors, Trashtalk Superstar is left to hold down the fort by himself (although the 21 year old, Long Island Iced Tea guzzling, table dancing, Pussycat Doll impersonating interns remain on staff, of course).

Unfortunately, the period of time encompassing the holidays, the end of the year and the start of the new year presented Trashtalk Superstar with several major challenges to his time management skills. Simply, Trashtalk Superstar has been extremely busy, and hasn't had much time to watch, think about, or write about basketball. Thus, as the college basketball season has heated up, Drive and Dish has been unusually quiet.

But although the challenges to Trashtalk Superstar's time management skills are likely to continue for several more days, the Drive and Dish editorial board is demanding new content.

Now.

So without further ado, Drive and Dish and the time pressed Trashtalk Superstar present the maiden edition of Tidbits for 2009:



1.- Thursday night, #18 Minnesota beat Wisconsin 78-74 in overtime at the Kohl Center in Madison, WI. It was a huge win for second year head coach Tubby Smith's upstart Minnesota basketball program. Remember, it's really tough to win a road game at Wisconsin. With the win, Minnesota becomes only the third team to beat the Badgers on their home court in Bo Ryan's eight seasons as Wisconsin's head coach.

Minnesota was down by 14 points midway through the second half, and trailed by six points with just over 40 seconds to play. But the Gophers mounted a furious comeback to tie the game and send it to overtime.

Minnesota continues to demonstrate that they're for real. They're still not getting much shine nationally, but they're getting it done on the court night after night.

Minnesota may not be on the national media's radar, but Drive and Dish has nothing but love for the Gophers. More here.



2.- Thursday night, North Carolina avoided its first 0-3 start in ACC play since the 1996/97 season by hammering Virginia 83-61 on Virginia's home court in Charlottesville, VA (1996/97 was Dean Smith's last season as head coach at North Carolina). North Carolina started ACC play by losing at home to Boston College and losing at Wake Forest. Drive and Dish discussed the Wake Forest vs. North Carolina game here.


Prior to their loss to Boston College, the Tar Heels had been undefeated and ranked #1 in the nation.

North Carolina may have stumbled out of the blocks at the start of conference play, but they remain a legitimate Final Four (and potential national championship) contender. The Heels have an outstanding point guard in Ty Lawson, a pair of deft wing scorers in Wayne Ellison and Danny Green, and a strong inside game courtesy of 2008 Wooden Award winner Tyler Hansbrough. North Carolina may not be blessed with the kind of depth that their 2005 National Championship team had (particularly in the paint), but they have a balanced offense and four starters who will likely play in the NBA.


Drive and Dish does not expect North Carolina to play in the National Championship game, but we wouldn't be surprised if the Tar Heels make another trip to the Final Four.



3.- Also on Thursday night, Purdue survived a scare at Northwestern by coming from behind to beat the Wildcats 63-61.


Purdue committed 22 turnovers and only took their first lead of the game with 1:09 remaining before the final buzzer. Clearly, it wasn't their best night. But make no mistake: Northwestern had a big hand in Purdue's struggles. The Wildcats played nearly flawless for 35 minutes. Unfortunately for the 'Cats, they couldn't keep it up in the game's last five minutes.

With the loss, Northwestern fell to 0-4 in the Big Ten, and 8-6 overall. Northwestern had looked like a much improved basketball team at the beginning of the season. And they even pulled off a convincing upset of Florida State -- a likely NCAA Tournament participant -- in last month's ACC/Big Ten Challenge. But the start of conference play has been unkind to the Wildcats. Thursday night's game provided Northwestern with a golden opportunity to regain momentum and potentially stave off another year of finishing with a disappointing Big Ten record. But they dropped the ball at the end of the game.

Beating Purdue would have served as a statement game to the other teams in the Big Ten and as a confidence builder for the Wildcats players. Northwestern is clearly good enough to knock off good teams. But when teams play their hearts out, yet fall just short of winning big games -- as Northwestern did against Purdue -- the players risk losing confidence and losing hope ... which Northwestern seems to do at some point each season.

Northwestern has never played in the NCAA Tournament. Drive and Dish has been waiting for years to see the Wildcats get to the Big Dance. It looks like we'll be waiting indefinitely.


4.- Since we're talking about the Big Ten, it's worth mentioning that the league is much improved this year. When Tubby Smith and John Beilein took over at Minnesota and Michigan, respectively, Drive and Dish knew that it wouldn't be long before the Gophers and Wolverines were back in the business of winning basketball games and playing in NCAA Tournaments. And when Indiana ditched Kelvin Sampson and welcomed Tom Crean to Bloomington, we knew that, although IU would be in store for some dark days, the Hoosiers would not be down for long (unfortunately for IU, Kelvin Sampson left Crean with quite a mess to clean up; it will take the Crean at least a year or two to get that program back on track).

But what we didn't expect was Illinois' quick resurgence and Penn State's sudden discovery of the game of basketball. Sure, we knew that Bruce Weber was a very good coach, and we expected that he would eventually get the Illini back to prominence. But we figured that the rebirth of Illinois basketball would hinge on the development of big men Mike Tisdale and Mike Davis, as well as the development of point guard Demetri McCamey. And we expected those players to continue to experience some growing pains in 2008/09. The rapid development of Mike Davis and Mike Tisdale has caught us by surprise, as it has the rest of the Big Ten and the national media.

The Big Ten is back. And with Tom Izzo at Michigan State, Bo Ryan at Wisconsin, Bruce Weber at Illinois, recruiting wizard Thad Matta at Ohio State, and now Tubby Smith at Minnesota, John Beilein at Michigan and Tom Crean at Indiana, the Big Ten has some really top rate coaches helming most of its programs (Northwestern's Bill Carmody is a very good coach as well; the Wildcats' struggles don't stem from coaching ineptitude ... Penn State's Ed DeChellis and Purdue's Matt Painter may well be outstanding coaches too, but they will have to produce more of a body of work before Drive and Dish includes them in the same league with the aformentioned coaches).


5.-- Speaking of Illinois, Sports Illustrated has a feature on Mike Davis and the resurgent Illini.


6.-- Former Chicago Bulls radio studio host Carmen DeFalco will apparently join the afternoon drive show at Chicago's ESPN AM radio 1000, after the controversial and temperamental Dan McNeil has been shown the door and will no longer be part of the "Mac, Jurko and Harry" show.

McNeil has never liked basketball, and even used to refuse to talk about basketball on the air. He used to drop out of the conversation, and sometimes leave the room, when his radio partners John Jurkovic and Harry Teinowitz would talk about hoops.

DeFalco, the former ESPN 1000 Bulls broadcast studio host, is very basketball friendly, although his basketball acumen remains in question. I used to listen to many a Bulls game on the radio, but I was always put off by DeFalco's homerism and cheerleading for what was a moribund basketball franchise. Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford, Eddie Robinson, Dalibor Bagaric, Chris Antsey and the rest of the Bulls' former cast of wash-outs, vagabonds, and malcontents would go through the motions and get blown out game after game, but Carmen DeFalco would always tell Bulls fans that the Bulls were just about to break out and take the league by storm.

Game after game. Year after year.

I'm not hating on Carmen DeFalco, I'm just saying that he used to be, more or less, in the business of selling dog excrement sandwiches to Bulls fans. I will admit, though, that I've heard him make some quite intelligent basketball comments in recent years.

On a personal note, I started listening to sports talk radio in the summers when I worked in my family business' factory. The sports talk made the hours of monotonous drill press and assembly line work fly by. I got hooked on Chicago's "The Score" and continued listening to sports talk radio through college and for several years beyond. I eventually migrated from the all-local sports talk "Score" to the national sports focused ESPN radio because of ESPN's outstanding coverage of college football and basketball (even though I had originally disliked ESPN radio -- national sports radio in general). However, over the last couple of years, I've more or less stopped listening to sports talk radio. I still occasionally flip on ESPN radio on weekends, but I'm not very connected to the world of the sports talkers anymore.

But Dan McNeil's departure from the "Mac, Jurko, and Harry" show -- a show which he helped start, and which bears his name -- is worth mentioning, if only because McNeil has been so temperamental and difficult over the years. I don't know how many times Dan McNeil got suspended from the air for disciplinary reasons, but it seemed like he was suspended at least once a month for the entire 9 years he was on the air at ESPN 1000. At least one (but possibly more) of those suspensions was for punching or otherwise physically assaulting his radio partner, uber-nebbish Harry Teinowitz. Prior to McNeil's arrival at AM 1000 (McNeil joined the station after getting fired from "The Score 670"), he had served countless suspensions at the Score.


7.-- Finally, the NCAA has determined that 7th graders can officially be classified as college basketball prospects. Somewhere, Kentucky head coach Billy Gillispie must be smiling (although Gillispie's smile could be alcohol-related).

(Dis)Honorable Mention:

Since it has nothing to do with basketball, the following story about Consuelo Guenther, a half naked, drunken Wisconsin woman who pulled her pants down and ran through an IHOP, didn't make the cut for Tidbits. It is, however, worth posting.

"Half naked woman runs through IHOP with pants pulled down, wrecks car."

Wake Forest Beats North Carolina

Sunday night, # 4 Wake Forest defeated # 3 North Carolina 92-89 (more here) in Winston-Salem, NC. It was the second losing effort of the week for visiting North Carolina -- the Tar Heels had been undefeated ranked #1 in the nation before being upset by #17 Boston College last Sunday (Boston College celebrated their win over North Carolina by going on to lose to lose to both Harvard -- yes, Harvard! -- and Miami).

Jeff Teague scored a career high 34 points to lead Wake Forest. Danny Green led North Carolina with 22 points. North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough, the reigning National Player of the Year in men's college basketball, finished with 17 points, but was held to only 4 points in the second half.

North Carolina fell to 14-2, and 0-2 in the ACC.

(Photo: Winston-Salem Journal).

Navy Upsets Wake Forest

On Saturday, Navy traveled to Winston-Salem, NC, and upset #16 Wake Forest. It marked the first time in 23 years that the Midshipmen have defeated a ranked opponent.

More here.

The Drive and Dish editorial board has a longstanding policy of attempting to remain objective with regard to our observations and commentary, despite the fact that our usual subject matter -- sports -- is known to be one of the most passion inducing subjects on Earth.

But, former Drive and Dish ACC expert Mark Buckets' Duke-centric musings aside, our typical editorial style presents opinion and commentary from the perspective of a relatively dispassionate observer (give or take a few personal admissions of sentimentality).

However, Drive and Dish throws objectivity out the window when it comes to the service academies. We don't hide the fact that we root for Army, Navy and the Air Force Academy.

No Division I student athletes are subject to a more rigorous combination of athletics and academics than the student athletes at the service academies. And the typical day at a service academy is so structured that student athletes have precious little, if any, free time. And the academies are anything but NFL or NBA "factories" -- each student athlete makes a 5 year military commitment upon the completion of his/her studies.

All of those factors make it extremely difficult for the academies to compete at the high Division I level. Which makes Navy's victory all the more impressive.

So congratulations to Navy. November 15, (the date on which Navy plays host to Notre Dame in Baltimore) seems like it's practically just around the corner.

(Photo: Baltimore Sun)

Wake Forest Upsets Duke

Last night, #2 Duke traveled to Winston-Salem to face Wake Forest, in what was supposed to be a relatively easy win for the red hot Blue Devils. Instead, Wake Forest upset Duke 86-73.

In an uncharacteristically sloppy showing by coach Mike Krzyzewski's Devils, Duke committed 22 turnovers and saw all five of its starters foul out of the game.

Early in the season, Wake Forest looked awful. Drive and Dish even made special mention of Wake's dismal showing at Iowa in the Big Ten/ ACC Challenge because both teams appeared to be so inept (Wake did manage to beat Iowa, which looked to be the worst team in major college basketball at the time). After the shocking off-season death of head coach Skip Prosser, the young Demon Deacons struggled to adjust to new coach Dino Gaudio.

But Wake has been hot as of late. They're 14-1 at home. They have talented youngsters in Jeff Teague and James Johnson. And with last night's win, the Demon Deacons may have punched their NCAA Tournament card.

What's more, Wake Forest has an outstanding recruiting class waiting in the wings for next season. When those players arrive and combine with Wake's current young stars, Teague and Johnson, Wake Forest should have the talent to be a legitimate player in the ACC.

And since Wake has found its groove under Gaudio, has turned its season around and is likely headed to the NCAA Tournament, Wake Forest's program will have a strong foundation in place when the vaunted 2008 recruiting class arrives on campus.

Although his coaching tenure didn't start out on the best of terms, Dino Gaudio has clearly established himself as the leader of the Wake Forest basketball program. He's no longer merely the guy who took over in the wake of Skip Prosser's untimely passing. Tonight's win only served to reinforce that. Thus, when the highly regarded 2008 recruiting class arrives on campus in the Fall, Wake Forest will definitely be Dino Gaudio's program.

Wake Forest figures to be one of the top teams in the ACC in 2009.

If Wake Forest basketball were publicly traded, Drive and Dish would issue it a strong "buy" rating.

As for Duke, last night's loss is nothing more than a mere bump in the road. Duke will be fine.