Dishin & Swishin Podcast: The roundtable discusses the first half of the college season

[DishNSwish]

The Roundtable returns with a look at the first half of the college basketball season!

The participants on this roundtable, hosted by David Siegel are:

ESPN columnist Mechelle Voepel
Pac-12 Network and Fox Sports analyst Cindy Brunson
ESPN and Big Ten Network analyst Stephanie White

On the heels of the No. 1 Connecticut’s victory over No. 7 Baylor, the roundtable had a lot to talk about!

Topics covered this week include:

What we learned from the UConn-Baylor game.
A look at all of the top teams.
Is Notre Dame, with a fairly unimpressive out of conference schedule completed, as good as their record indicates?
Injuries and flaws, which teams are for real and which are not.
A look around the country at all of the top conferences.
Who has been the most impressive players around the nation

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[pap49cba]

Dumbest comment of the session..... Cindy Brunson saying Uconn is going to have to schedule a "BCS-style" conference slate (??) preseason to get ready for the Baylor's of the world and be ready for the post-season.

"That just leapt off the page to me last night that UConn was used to executing against the Houston's of the world." WTF?

We've just played Duke, Maryland, PSU, Baylor, Cal and Stanford and you make a dumb comment like that???

Sorry David, I got so pissed I stopped listening.

 

[DishNSwish]

Why? A lot of people are saying UConn will need a strong OOC schedule to compensate for weak conference schedule when Louisville is gone.

She meant in the future, she wasn't disparaging this year's schedule.

What am I missing other than the BCS style part being a little iffyxpression.

 

[pap49cba]

You didn't have a problem with this pablum? "That just leapt off the page to me last night that UConn was used to executing against the Houston's of the world." She wasn't talking about next year.

You began the question by saying "So what did we learn about UConn" and then talked about depth with Tuck being out and Chong seeing limited minutes. Neither of you was talking about next season regardless what your definition of "down the road" might be. JMO

 

[DishNSwish]

I see your point. Yeah, it did give a little too much reliance on one crappy team to extrapolate that was what Uconn was used to seeing.

Invariably someone says something I don't agree with but part of the gun of the round tables is what the other panelists see on a topic.

 

[pap49cba]

I see your point. Yeah, it did give a little too much reliance on one crappy team to extrapolate that was what Uconn was used to seeing.

Invariably someone says something I don't agree with but part of the gun of the round tables is what the other panelists see on a topic.

Thanks David. I just wish you or one of the other panelists had called her on it. It was a stupid comment.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Why? A lot of people are saying UConn will need a strong OOC schedule to compensate for weak conference schedule when Louisville is gone.

She meant in the future, she wasn't disparaging this year's schedule.

What am I missing other than the BCS style part being a little iffyxpression.

Okay, let's get started.

• Has CB asked this question about Stanford for any year in the last couple millenniums? Has having a terrible SOS kept Stanford from making FFs? Is maybe having a handful of games against elite opponents in the way that UConn has set up for the future not going to put enough grit in the Husky slate? Has it not been enough for Stanford in the past? Does having one of those brutally heavy OOC schedules like UTenn used to have inevitably lead to an NC? Is somehow at the roundtable just speaking unsubstantiated pap because maybe that's what she somehow thinks is the perceived wisdom? As a West Coaster, you would think that Brunson might have got clued in to how Stanford at least operated.
  
• "Will have to?" Clearly CB hasn't followed any developments relating to future scheduling for UConn. Seems like the Huskies have pretty much taken care of that. Is CB saying that all 12 or so slots need to be filled up with top 20 teams? Then again, no one really expects commentators like CB to have followed developments much over the last few months.
  
• Is BCS style kind of a Gangnam style mashup of Alabama, Auburn, Oregon, Clemson doing a horsey-trot display to show that they are the supreme sports powers? WCBB and BCS, a match made in heaven.
  
• And again, no matter what BCS types like Brunson think, the AAC is already making big strides, in some measures already rating ahead of her precious PAC-12. After L-ville and Rutgers hike off, there will still be a core of teams with Temple, East Carolina, SMU, and Navy that have good potential to develop well in the UConn orbit. Not a big worry, even if Brunson of course just picks out the worst team in the conference and uses that to tar every team in the conference. Mind-boggling how this stuff gets thrown out in WCBB discussions and no one else has the marbles to clue her in.

 

[UcMiami]

David - I enjoyed the podcast but agree with pap that CB was talking as if about this season in that what struck her watching last nights game was that playing Houston hadn't prepared Uconn to play Baylor forgetting of course that Baylor had up until Uconn played a murders row of bottom feeding WCBB teams with one decent KY team thrown in a month ago. Their RPI/SOS/Sagarin rating coming into that game was an embarrassment to their own fans and included almost no road games, vs. a Uconn schedule that included the current 3, 4 , 5, 6, 15, and 16 team in this weeks AP rankings
I also found it a little disingenuous to speak about teams like Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, etc. now struggling in conference play who had gaudy records or were undefeated in OOC without also mentioning the really horrible OOC schedules they had compiled those records during rather than implying that that proved the conference was good. I think it is important for the betterment of WCBB that folks like Michele and Cindy and Stephanie who I do respect call out teams for that kind of scheduling. Everyone asks the question is Uconn being so good bad for the sport. The question they should be asking: Are BCS teams scheduling cannon fodder games for the first two months of the year good for the game.
I personally am giving Mulkey a pass for her scheduling this year because of such a young team, but ND not playing a single top fifteen team (maybe the late change of conference messed them up?) or some of the others like Iowa State (Iowa being their only ranked OOC) have no excuse if they want to be considered 'good' teams. The ACC was notorious for very poor scheduling OOC to the point they would show up against Uconn undefeated and get blown off the court (UNC, Duke) and then go on a losing streak in conference but most of those teams have done a good job of upgrading.

ON EDIT:
Just another little correction - the guard Geno was surprised by at the end of the Baylor game being more vocal in the huddles was Moriah the sophomore. Bria has been vocal and a leader from the beginning of the year.

 

[UcMiami]

David - an addendum - really enjoy your show and there was some interesting stuff as well as the stuff above I objected to. And I really liked the little story at the end that Cindy provided about Geno making a video for the Baylor fan who couldn't attend the game. Interesting that Baylor and Uconn which is a good rivalry if of short duration have fan's that generally are very respectful of each other - not usual at the college level to have a 'polite rivalry' that is very competitive on the court. I guess it is somewhat true with Duke as well, though that one is a lot feistier.