Who says these are the slow summer months? With news regarding Tom Izzo, conference realignment and the USC fallout, there’s hardly a lack of blog-worthy material.
But can we pause a moment to consider the World Cup?
Randomly, it seems many college hoops writers and bloggers (Grant Wahl, Mike DeCourcy, Andy Glockner, Jonathan Tannenwald, Jeff Borzello, among others) are soccer fans. Yet it was Rush the Court that provided one of the best World Cup posts of the week: The College Basketball Fan’s Guide to Watching the World Cup.
There’s plenty to like in this post, including a champion prediction (nervy pick with the Netherlands) and an announcer breakdown, but my favorite is the rundown on the teams to know and what college hoops program said teams compares to. For instance, the Dutch remind them of this year’s Duke team - nice draw, poor recent tournament performance and plenty of talent.
They go on: England is Kentucky (hyper-aggressive fan base that’s gone largely unsatisfied lately), Spain is 2009-10 Kansas (loaded favorites who may choke), Germany is Michigan State (spot on) and the U.S. is Northern Iowa (good, but a longshot).
The one that misses? Argentina. The Albiceleste are tagged as Wake Forest from 1995 to 1997 because they have the world’s premier player (Lionel Messi) who has a decent supporting cast and a “boob of a coach whose talented players only made him look like slightly less of one.” Man, a setup like that and they don’t use Texas with Kevin Durant? Rick Barnes always has Argentina-like talent, but has been to the Final Four just once. And with Durant - the nation’s best player during his one season - it was spot-on Argentina.
But that’s a small quibble. Well done, RTC.
Mike Miller’s also on Twitter, usually talkin’ hoops.