Cardale Jones will be making his decision whether to go out for the draft and turn pro or come back to Ohio State. *****Breaking: Cardale Jones is coming back to Ohio State per a report in Yahoo Sports. If he sticks to this decision, I think that is a really good move on his part. With another year now, he could be something special both next year and in his pro career. Urban Meyer hired the offensive coordinator from Nebraska, Tim Beck, to take Tom Herman’s place. Herman took the head job at Houston. Beck had great offenses at Nebraska, so this is an excellent decision by Cardele. I’m pretty proud of him.I’m a little surprised he’d contemplated whether to go to the NFL. He had three good games, but three good games don’t make you a quality starter in the NFL. Look at guys who stayed all four years: E.J. Manuel was stellar for the most part at Florida State and he has really struggled in the pros. Same for Geno Smith at West Virginia and now the New York Jets. Both were benched this season. The NFL is a whole new level from college. The guys are stronger, faster and smarter on defense. The defensive coaching, in many ways, is more advanced. That’s all these guys do for a living is concentrate on football, both players and coaches. You have to be pretty smart to play quarterback in the NFL along with having the physical tools. I think Jones getting another year of seasoning in college will really get him ready for the league. A lot of these guys are tired of studying in college, which they shouldn’t be because they need to get an education because football doesn’t always work out–a lot of times it doesn’t, less than 1% of college football players who try out for the NFL make it. They obviously want to make a good living and that’s cool. Totally on board with that. I’m just not sure that three really good games, and they were outstanding, makes you a quality NFL starter. So Cardele made a very mature decision for himself by staying another year at Ohio State. He still has to beat out Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett to be the starter next year, but he’s certainly got the leg up after these performances. He will be the number one heading into the spring.
SEC basketball is probably as good as it’s been in a while. Kentucky is good. Are they great? Not yet. They are tough inside with their 6’11”, 7 footers, but they’re not a real good shooting team. Aaron Harrison can get hot from three, but the rest of them really aren’t good outside shooters. People are already talking about them running the table. That’s premature. They’ve got a good team, but not great yet. Florida was struggling, but they’re starting to get it tougher. They had some injuries, but they seem to be starting to jell, so they’ll be a factor in the conference. Donovan will have them playing good ball sooner rather than later. Arkansas, though they lost at Tennessee Tuesday night, is a quality team. They have really struggled on the road under Mike Anderson, but won at Georgia to open the season and came back from double digits to almost knock off Tennessee. They lost by two or three. They are terrific at Bud Walton Arena, their home court. LSU is good, Ole Miss is good, Georgia is pretty good. Alabama is better. Not sure they’re great. They have to host Kentucky on Saturday (4 PM ET/3 CT on ESPN), so that will tell us where Anthony Grant’ program is. They’re better that’s for sure. Auburn is in a developmental season. Pearly has brought in some good players, and is recruiting well. They might be another year or two away from being pretty competitive. South Carolina has a pretty good team. Frank Martin is like a football coach the way he coaches them up. Vanderbilt is the 323rd youngest team in the country out of 328. They’ve got good talent, but they are developing as well.
So it should be an excellent conference season. Nationally, it’s wide open. Duke has lost two in a row, Virginia looks outstanding, they play lock down defense and enough offense to make a run to the Final Four. I like Villanova. Arizona is good out west as is Utah and San Diego State. Gonzaga is outstanding. There are plenty of other teams like Miami, which knocked off Duke last night, Michigan State, always solid and right there in March under Tom Izzo, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Louisville, which will always be there under Pitino, Duke, of course. North Carolina looks stellar now with a home victory over Louisville in the closing seconds and a huge victory @ NC State last night, Kansas will be there, Wichita State is very good, and I really like West Virginia’s team. Bob “Huggy Bear” Huggins has his best team in Morgantown. Indiana will be there in March. They will keep improving under Tom Crean as the season progresses and should be formidable in February and March. Crean is Jim and John Harbaugh’s brother in law and has that kind of intensity.
So there’s no guarantee Kentucky will win the national championship. There are a lot of very good teams, and on any given night, the Wildcats can be shooting poorly and a conference team can beat them. And the NCAA tournament is a one shot deal, so anything can happen with the quality teams in that field.
It’s going to be an outstanding season with some epic games. And the tournament should be phenomenal.
NBA right now the Golden State Warriors have the best record in the Western Conference and the Atlanta Hawks in the East. The West is just loaded with Golden State, San Antonio (always a factor with the Big Fundamental, Tim Duncan, and company) the Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, LA Clippers, Portland Trailblazers and Memphis Grizzlies all competing for the top spot in the west and the coveted home court advantage throughout the playoffs. Of course my Oklahoma City Thunder should be there at the end. KD will get them there, and they have a lot of talent around him. He’s the ultimate basketball player. In the East the Hawks look for real as do the young, super talented Washington Wizards, the young talented Toronto Raptors and the Chicago Bulls which have a pretty star-studded lineup. The question in the NBA is will the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James wake up? They are 19-20 and 12 games behind the conference leading Hawks. They better get going in a hurry or Cleveland is going to be pretty irate that King James couldn’t do better than this.
