Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Boomer's Basketball "Full-Court" Press

Another week of hoops has past, and lets take a look back and a look ahead, 40 days until Selection Sunday and 89 days till the NBA Playoffs.
Over the past 48 hours we have seen 2 great NBA dunks.  The first is last night's Clippers vs. Thunder game.  Blake Griffin.  Boom.

The second is Sunday's game featuring the Heat and the Bulls.  LeBron James. Shakalaka.



Which one do you think is more impressive?  Which would you vote as dunk of the year thus far?


Now on to the college hoops world.  Here are the updated rankings:  UK is the bomb dot com.  You'll notice Gainer's 2 schools nicely complete the rankings at #1 and #25.

ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll
RK
TEAM
RECORD
PTS
1
Kentucky (31)
21-1
775
2
Syracuse
22-1
730
3
Ohio State
19-3
726
4
Missouri
19-2
635
5
Duke
18-3
631
6
Baylor
19-2
622
6
North Carolina
18-3
622
8
Kansas
17-4
548
9
Murray State
21-0
511
10
Michigan State
17-4
456
11
Florida
17-4
445
12
Creighton
20-2
426
13
UNLV
20-3
399
14
Georgetown
16-4
355
15
Marquette
18-4
323
16
Saint Mary's
21-2
284
17
San Diego State
18-3
264
18
Virginia
17-3
253
19
Mississippi State
17-5
193
20
Indiana
17-5
142
20
Wisconsin
17-5
142
22
Michigan
16-6
120
23
Harvard
18-2
116
24
Florida State
14-6
85
25
Louisville
17-5
68
Others receiving votes: Gonzaga 65, Vanderbilt 36, Connecticut 21, Nevada 18, Kansas State 15, Iowa State 9, Middle Tennessee 9, Wichita State 7, West Virginia 6, New Mexico 6, Southern Miss 4, Long Beach State 3, California 2, Temple 2, Notre Dame 1

A link to the NCAA Top 25/Division 1 games for the rest of the week http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/schedule

#3 Ohio State Buckeyes 19-3 (7-2 in the Big Ten)

Like expected, the Buckeyes went 2-0 this past week winning both games by a combined margin of victory +39. The Buckeyes extended their homecourt win streak to 38 (2nd longest active streak in the country). The Buckeyes beat Penn State on Wednesday, 78 to 54, then again Sunday afternoon vs. that team up north, 64 to 49. With the two wins the Buckeyes are on top of the Big Ten standings alone at 7-2. The Buckeyes continue to get balance scoring from the starting five and production/minutes from the bench. The Buckeyes play one game this week up in Madison vs. the Badgers, Saturday afternoon. With the game on Saturday, the Buckeyes start a stretch of games that included Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan St., and Minnesota. Here is a look at the updated Big Ten Standings:
Big Ten Standings
TEAM
CONF
OVERALL
Ohio State
7-2
19-3
Michigan State
6-2
17-4
Wisconsin
6-3
17-5
Michigan
6-3
16-6
Purdue
5-4
15-7
Indiana
5-5
17-5
Illinois
4-4
15-6
Minnesota
4-5
16-6
Nebraska
3-6
11-9
Iowa
3-6
11-11
Northwestern
2-6
12-8
Penn State
2-7
10-12

NBA Minute


Cleveland Cavaliers (8-11)

Well, after a 2-2 week, the Cavs continue to hang around in the Eastern Conference Standings. After losing a hard-fought game to the Heat in Miami 92 to 85, they bounced back to beat the NY Knicks at home, 91 to 81. Dropping their next game to the NJ Nets on Friday, 99 to 96, the Cavs then went up to Boston and shocked the Celtics on Sunday, 88 to 87. Kyrie Irving used a spinning move and drive to the hoop to score with less then 3 seconds in the game, which capped a 12-0 run to end the game for the Cavs vs. the Celtics. The Cavs sit in the 9th spot right now in the East, and have games this week vs. Celtics (Tuesday), @ Magic (Friday) and then vs. Mavs (Saturday). The Cavs just need to continue getting better on both ends of the court and tally up the W’s.

Now, here is a great clip of former NBA dunking machine Shawn Kemp (and one-time Cleveland hoopster). I was reminded of this clip yesterday, while watching an episode of SportsCenter. Enjoy! If I could dunk, this is what I would do every time.