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Revenge is a dish best served cold

Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, this 1982 movie is where you might have heard the phrase used as the headline uttered by Captain Kirk’s nemesis Khan. Before proceeding with the basketball portion of this account lets detail the why. “The proverbial phrase ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’ expresses the notion that vengeance is more satisfying when exacted sometime after the harm that instigated it.” Arizona players had February 28 circled on the calendar, they took their revenge beating Kansas 84-61. On February 9, the Wildcats had traveled to Lawrence Kansas to play KU, at that time they were winners of 23 consecutive games.

At the close of the day the Wildcats had suffered a loss having succumbed to KU by a score of 82-78. The refrain “Beware of the Phog” at least for February 9 was real as the Wildcats suffered their first loss of the season. The follow up game was nothing like the previous one, Arizona jumped off to a lead and never relinquished it. At the half it was Arizona 39 KU 28, the second half of the game the Wildcats stepped on the gas pedal outscoring them 45-33 resulting in the final outcome. Darryn Peterson didn’t shoot particularly well but led the way for KU with 24 points. Arizona maintains its first place standing in the Big 12 while KU is tied with Iowa State for third place.

Nicknames, Part Deux

The February 25 edition you read about nicknames given a number of NBA players. As with any undertaking of this type, it’s never fully comprehensive as I attempted to point out when it was published. This account brings you even more names; some may still be unfamiliar—so you know what to do, research the player. Here’s a detail you might find interesting I sure did, there were two NBA players known by the same nickname Bad News. With that, let's begin with our next list of nicknames:

World B-Lloyd Free, Sixers

Truck-Leonard Robinson, Bullets (Wizards)

X-Man-Xavier McDaniel, Sonics

Mountain Man-Bill Walton, Blazers

Cornbread-Vernon Maxwell, Celtics

PG-13-Paul George, Pacers

Boogie-DeMarcus Cousins, Kings

Jellybean-Joe Bryant, Sixers

Marvin “Bad News” Barnes, Spirits of St. Louis (ABA)

Jim “Bad News” Barnes, Knicks

Defense

No matter the sport football, hockey or basketball…generally speaking tough defense will win you most games. In the NBA as often mentioned we tend to look at the offensive side of the game. If we go back in time we discover the Bird Celtics, Showtime Lakers or Jordan Bulls we tend to focus on the scoring. It’s true those teams and others could get buckets however they played tough hard-nose defense as well. I certainly am not omitting the Bad Boy Pistons of that time either, if we fast forward to the present who are the teams of today? We look at the Warriors, see the Splash Brothers, and decide it’s all about offense, not true. We miss the point if we fail to see the defensive work put in by Draymond Green and other Warriors that aided in winning championships.

Just this past season the Thunder were NBA champions, SGA and crew could score buckets however they played team defense. Playing defense is not glamourous in the same manner scoring baskets. One of my co-workers put it this way, “It certainly does your team no good if you score 30 points but give up 31 to the player you are supposed to be guarding.” Look at the team overall but check the players near the top in steals and blocked shots. That to me demonstrates a different type of commitment. As this is written the Sixers Tyrese Maxey leads the NBA in steals, he’s followed by Cason Wallace Thunder and Kawhi Leonard of the Clippers. How about blocked shots, Wemby Spurs forward is the leader followed by Alex Sarr of the Wizards and Thunder forward Chet Holmgren. As for team defense, it’s the Thunder leading the NBA followed by the Pistons and Spurs.

KenPom vs AP Top 25

Like many others, I often pay attention to the Top 25 ranked teams each week. However, KenPom.com offers a more accurate ranking system because it considers the underlying statistics behind each team's position. The AP poll, on the other hand, is essentially a popularity contest to decide which team ranks highest. I fail to include the Coaches Top 25 poll for this reason alone, do you really believe with all their duties during the season a coach has time to sit down and rank the Top 25 teams.

Maybe the responsibility is assigned to an assistant coach or the coaching staff however I continue to believe of all the polls it’s the most inaccurate of all. Of course with that last statement I can offer you no proof. With that bit of information at hand in mind below is the comparison of KenPom’s Top 10 teams and the AP Top 10. As you can see there is a vast bit of difference positioning between the two poles. Michigan State appears in KenPom but is omitted in the AP poll. Gonzaga is listed in the AP poll but is missing from KenPom.

KenPom                                   AP

Duke                                         Duke

Michigan                                   Arizona

Arizona                                     Michigan

Illinois                                       Iowa State

Florida                                      Houston

Houston                                    UConn

Iowa State                                Florida

Purdue                                      Purdue

UConn                                      Gonzaga

Michigan State                          Illinois