For the Duke haters, who’ve been out in full force for the past week, with all of their irrationality in full bloom. I didn’t notice this until this morning when I saw a replay, but Dwyane Wade’s injury a few weeks ago was at the hands of none other than former Duke player Shane Battier.
Clearly, this was a flagrant, combative foul on Battier with intent to injure Wade. No word yet on Battier’s suspension and/or fine. Hopefully, David Stern won’t let this pass without some disciplinary action.
I plan to comment tonight or in the morning on this weekend’s conference tournaments. I may have a few initial comments on the bracket, once it’s revealed later today, although I’ll likely have a more lengthy post about it in a couple of days, after considering it a little longer.
Predictions for today:
SEC - Arkansas played well at Florida a couple of months ago, actually leading once in the last 10 minutes of the game (although, only for about 12 seconds). But, I don’t know if they can win their 4th game in 4 days (and their 6th in a row overall.) That may be too much. I have to pick Florida here.
ACC - NC State is in a similar boat - 4 games, 4 days. They’ve beaten Duke, Virginia, and Virginia Tech already. How they finished 10th in the ACC is beyond me, but obviously they’re peaking at the right time. But, again, I don’t know if they can pull off one more. I’d love for UNC to go a 9th year without an ACC tournament title, but I think they’ll probably get it today.
Big 12 - I’ve never been a Kansas fan, and I like Kevin Durant and Rick Barnes, so I’m pulling for Texas. They lost by four last week at Kansas, so I think they might have enough left here to get it done this time. I’m going to go with Texas.
Big 10 - This one, far more than the other three, is a toss-up. They played a couple of weeks ago at Ohio State and OSU won by one. I think the teams are pretty similar and it can go either way. Like the Texas pick, I’ll go with Wisconsin to win this time, although Oden is starting to look more and more like what everyone expected of him.