Joe Lunardi’s Living Room – The NCAA tournament is just around the corner!
With many mid-major conferences starting their post-season tournaments in the next couple of days, it’s time to take a look at some of college basketball’s hottest topics!
Will Kentucky stay perfect? The short answer is yes. The Wildcats play in the easiest major-conference in all of the land – the SEC. Aside from Kentucky, there is only one ranked team in the SEC this season, and that could change by Monday evening. No. 18 Arkansas was demolished by the Wildcats over the weekend, which was the last real chance Kentucky had to go down before the tournament. If you want to win your pool this spring, you better hope your entire bracket is good.
College coaches need to stop pissing of LeBron James. According to the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar, his 10-year old son LeBron James Jr. has already started receiving scholarship offers.
“Yeah, he’s already got some offers from colleges,” James told CBS Detroit this past Tuesday, according to ESPN. “It’s pretty crazy. It should be a violation. You shouldn’t be recruiting 10-year-old kids.”
If LeBron’s son is already this good, can you imagine how good he’ll be seven or eight years from now?
Big Ten considering requiring freshmen to redshirt first season? Huh!?! Could you imagine what that rule would do to a team like Kentucky? And what would that do to the NBA? It’s certainly an interesting idea.
“While we are comfortable generating multiple ideas about an ‘education first’ approach to intercollegiate athletics in the twenty-first century, we won’t go it alone on any of these matters,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in the statement. “We look forward to working with our colleagues in the NCAA Division I governance structure, and to exploring a broad exchange of ideas from both inside and outside of intercollegiate athletics.”
Watch out for Kansas State! Sure the Wildcats are currently 15-15 and would need to win the Big 12 title in order to make the NCAA tournament. But if they do, look out! Kansas St. has 
beaten six ranked opponents this year and played Arizona close. If the Wildcats can make the Big Dance they won’t go home quietly.
Is this the year for Duke? The Blue Devils haven’t reached the Final Four since 2010, when they won the whole thing. Could this be the season Duke punches their ticket back to the semifinals? With a big man like Jahlil Okafor holding things down in the middle anything is possible. The freshman center is just about unstoppable, and Duke could ride him all the way to the Final Four.
Should the NCAA shorten the shot clock? This question was brought up a week or two ago, and it is worth considering. Shortening the shot clock in college basketball would increase the pace oof the game and lead to more points, but at the same time it hurts defensive teams like Virginia and Louisville. How good would Virginia be if the shock clock was only 30 seconds instead of 35. What would you want?
That’s it for now! What are some of the things you’re looking forward to this March (Madness)?
