12-26-2005, 05:53 PM
Memphis and Gonzaga are both headed in the same direction: temporary obscurity.
Gonzaga will get there first. Tuesday night's game at Memphis is the last genuinely high-profile game the Bulldogs will play until the NCAA Tournament begins -- unless we count that Feb. 11 visit from Stanford. Or, I should say, unless Stanford makes it count between now and then.
Memphis has a couple more big ones after this. Texas comes into FedEx Forum next week, and no matter what's happened in December, that'll be big. Tennessee stops by on Jan. 18 for a game that will disrupt each team's conference routine -- good for the Tigers, not so much for the Vols.
After the Zags and Tigers get through with their business, though, they will compete in obscure conferences against uninspiring opposition. In a good year, the West Coast Conference gives Gonzaga one stellar opponent to challenge its supremacy; Pepperdine, San Diego and St. Mary's have all been that team, at one time or another. This is not a good year.
Memphis will have it a little tougher. UAB, in the NCAAs the past two seasons, has done OK. Visiting Birmingham will be no treat. Houston beat both LSU and Arizona, and thus is dangerous, but hasn't been able to build on those victories.
What both Memphis and Gonzaga have in common is that each is capable of winning the national championship. They've got that kind of talent. But what they'll have to do in the next two months is continue focusing on that goal, which means not just trying to win every game, but trying to use every game to get better.
For other teams with the ability to win it all -- UConn, Duke and the like -- trying to win every game and trying to get better happen concurrently. If you're not improving while other Big East and ACC teams are, games that you might win in January will become losses in February. Gonzaga and Memphis have to avoid complacency on a regular basis; the other contenders do not. Honestly, this isn't something the Zags have been particularly good at doing in the past couple years. Their defense stagnated, and they became early tournament victims in 2004 and 2005.
Basketball success has become so concentrated in the football-rich conferences that not many teams have been where the Tigers and Zags are now. But there are a couple of examples they can follow. The first is Jerry Tarkanian's 1990-91 UNLV team, which was defending national champion and stormed through a substandard league. As Tark explains in his book, Runnin' Rebel, that the team focused on becoming the best defensive team in the game's history and thus was not defined by its competition.
Last year's Louisville team also offers something of a parallel, given that 2004-05 was not the greatest year for Conference USA. The Cardinals won 18 of 19 to close the regular season, but only three of those wins required beating an NCAA Tournament team away from home. They found a formula, though, shifting into a zone defense and working to make it better.
So this is doable.
And there is plenty of incentive to get it done.
http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/vie...hp?t=47645
Gonzaga will get there first. Tuesday night's game at Memphis is the last genuinely high-profile game the Bulldogs will play until the NCAA Tournament begins -- unless we count that Feb. 11 visit from Stanford. Or, I should say, unless Stanford makes it count between now and then.
Memphis has a couple more big ones after this. Texas comes into FedEx Forum next week, and no matter what's happened in December, that'll be big. Tennessee stops by on Jan. 18 for a game that will disrupt each team's conference routine -- good for the Tigers, not so much for the Vols.
After the Zags and Tigers get through with their business, though, they will compete in obscure conferences against uninspiring opposition. In a good year, the West Coast Conference gives Gonzaga one stellar opponent to challenge its supremacy; Pepperdine, San Diego and St. Mary's have all been that team, at one time or another. This is not a good year.
Memphis will have it a little tougher. UAB, in the NCAAs the past two seasons, has done OK. Visiting Birmingham will be no treat. Houston beat both LSU and Arizona, and thus is dangerous, but hasn't been able to build on those victories.
What both Memphis and Gonzaga have in common is that each is capable of winning the national championship. They've got that kind of talent. But what they'll have to do in the next two months is continue focusing on that goal, which means not just trying to win every game, but trying to use every game to get better.
For other teams with the ability to win it all -- UConn, Duke and the like -- trying to win every game and trying to get better happen concurrently. If you're not improving while other Big East and ACC teams are, games that you might win in January will become losses in February. Gonzaga and Memphis have to avoid complacency on a regular basis; the other contenders do not. Honestly, this isn't something the Zags have been particularly good at doing in the past couple years. Their defense stagnated, and they became early tournament victims in 2004 and 2005.
Basketball success has become so concentrated in the football-rich conferences that not many teams have been where the Tigers and Zags are now. But there are a couple of examples they can follow. The first is Jerry Tarkanian's 1990-91 UNLV team, which was defending national champion and stormed through a substandard league. As Tark explains in his book, Runnin' Rebel, that the team focused on becoming the best defensive team in the game's history and thus was not defined by its competition.
Last year's Louisville team also offers something of a parallel, given that 2004-05 was not the greatest year for Conference USA. The Cardinals won 18 of 19 to close the regular season, but only three of those wins required beating an NCAA Tournament team away from home. They found a formula, though, shifting into a zone defense and working to make it better.
So this is doable.
And there is plenty of incentive to get it done.
http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/vie...hp?t=47645