ASU Snubbed

ASU was left off the big dance again. With a decent 9-9 PAC-10 record including 2 wins against Arizona (though the wildcats had a down year) and a 19-12 overall record, they will be sitting at home watching the tournament and I don't like that one bit. I think ASU deserved a bid, though the loss at Oregon after the USC win was a killer. There are way too many decent teams being left off of a 65 team bracket and I am wondering where the bids go? I have never been a fan of expanding the field, but it might be time. The automatic bids are a killer. I support the mid-majors and they make this tournament what it is, but still the automatic bids rob a lot of good major conference teams. I don't want to leave it all to at-large picks either because then the mid-majors will definitely get screwed. So thats why you expand. I don't want a 128 team field like coach Knight is suggesting or even a 96 team field. I am proposing a 80 team field with 16 extra games among the bottom 32 to round off the final 64. Basically a complete play-in round much like the stupid play-in game. Can you imagine how much fun it would be if there are 8 games each on Tues and Wed leading up to the usual Thurs through Sun games? I am turned on just thinking about it :-) The best time of the year would get even better.

In the bizarro world of the NBA, the Houston Rockets are on top of the Western conference with the Fakers at 2 and the Hornets at 3. The Suns, Spurs and the Mavs are at the 5-Th, 6-Th and 7-Th spot respectively. Are you kidding me? Show me anybody who predicted this at the beginning of the season, I will show you a liar or an idiot or may be both. Of course the race is air-tight and anything can still happen, but still it's amazing that the Rockets are at the top after a 22 game winning streak. They seem to be fine without Yao, though I think that won't be the case in the playoffs. They will miss the big guy in the NBA's version of the big dance. They have had some lucky breaks like today they when they beat the Fakers without Pau Gasol. But anyway you cut it, a 22 game winning streak is impressive. The only thing more impressive might be the Denver Nuggets scoring 168 against the Sonics tonight. Thats 2 games worth of scoring right there for most of the Eastern conference teams. This, after the Sonics gave up 138 points to these same Nuggets in February. The Sonics have lost these 2 games against the Nuggets by a total of 94 points. Noce! How do you score 116 points and still lose 52 points!

The Suns seem to be on a roll coming off the Spurs win. They then beat the Warriors on Thursday with a high-scoring game and kinda got their run-and-gun mojo back for the first time since the trade. They continued that against the Kings with a rather impressive performance. There was a stretch in the second quarter when they were in that zone where they were running up and down and hitting everything. When the Suns are playing that way, it's a thing of beauty like no other. They have not been in this kind of flow in may be a year. Finally the joy of playing and winning seem to be back and if thats the case, that might be the biggest gain from this whole Shaq trade. They seem to have gotten their swagger back after beating the Spurs and they should keep this momentum going. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure anymore if that Spurs win was actually that impressive because the Spurs are just 5-5 in their last 10 and have lost 3 straight. But most of Sports is mental and beating the Spurs seems to have kick-started the Suns. It's ironic that both the Spurs and Suns are streaking in the opposite direction since that game. Oh by the way, STAT is back completely. It has taken a year and a half, but Amare is as good as he has ever been. 30-10 is an average game these days for him and more importantly, his hop seem to have reached the pre-surgery levels. Another gain from the Shaq trade could be Amare's renewed energy, his slightly different role on offense and his commitment on defense.