The Non-Winners...........Blah, Blah, Blah

www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/sto...ational-championship

8. Kansas Jayhawks
Bill Self says this Kansas team had less margin for error to work with than its predecessors to extend the sport's most incredible streak, and he is what is known as a credible source. The Jayhawks could be headed for a justly deserved NCAA tournament No. 1 seed as the outright champions in the nation's toughest top-to-bottom conference, but the uncanny statistical parallels to a 2017 Iowa State team that was but a No. 5 seed suggest caution might be in order before boarding the bandwagon with this particular top seed.

It's always safe to bet on the 'the field' in a single elimination tournament. The only time you wouldn't is when there's somebody totally dominant, head and shoulders above the rest. That certainly isn't us this year.

Granted, when we're hitting on all cylinders, the ball is moving and shots are falling, I think we can beat anybody. The trick is getting those 4 or 5 little miracles to all happen at the same time. Here's how I see those probabilities:

1.) DG playing well - 90% probability. And an "off" night for him is usually still pretty good.
2.) Svi making his shots - 70% probability. When it doesn't, I always hope for him to at least try to drive the ball, which he does about half the time when he's not "on".
3.) Dok staying in the game - 50%. If he's in, he's proven himself to be pretty hard to stop, but you can toss a coin whether he's going to play +/- 20 minutes any given night.
4.) Newman getting involved - 50%. Seems that if the team does well, he'll jump on the bandwagon, but he's not going to pull our butts out of the fire if we're in trouble.
5.) Vick doing much of anything - 30%. Another one who only seems to have "good" games when everything is ok. Lately he can't even seem to complete a pass, and has taken on the habit of dribbling around for no good reason.

I think we can win with 3 of these things working out, and are really tough if 4 of them are happening. Bottom line, I think we need DG and SVI to play well, and then between our thin bench and one of the other 3 guys contributing in a significant way to have success.

Finally, I do think that Garrett and DeSousa are both still trending upward, which is a good thing for this time of year.

3 ACC teams. What a surprise!

Virginia is definitely strong, an outstanding defensive team this year. Duke, at times, has looked very, very good especially when Bagley is playing strong (see last Saturday's game against the other blue).

But Carolina in this final group? Seriously?