Thought Clock: College Basketball USA Today/ESPN Poll – October 27th

Thought Clock takes an absurdly quick look, and analysis into, the latest USA Today/ESPN Poll.

The first edition of the Thought Clock–running down the first Coaches Poll. Each week I will bring you some quick hitting one-liners about the top 25 and beyond using the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll as the setting. This one is just getting us warmed up with much more to come.

Also there will be tons more in the way of preseason college basketball coverage on the site–don’t you worry. Here we go…

Ranking	Team	The Thoughts:
1	North Carolina	Everyone knew they were #1
2	Connecticut	Everyone knew they were #2
3	Louisville	A bit surprised they are top 3 but a definite top 10 team that adds a five star recruit
4	UCLA	Can we even question them at this point? Shipp is ready for the next level
5	Duke	Again, too high. They are going to be better but #5, I think not.
6	Pittsburgh	Always have the talent and the coach but always disappoint
7	Michigan St.	Izzo is the man and will have his team performing to the highest of their abilities
8	Texas	Abrams is good enough to carry this team to this spot
9	Notre Dame	Look out for this team, tons of Jr. and Sr. players
10	Purdue	See above-this is a total team effort if they can live up to this hype
11	Gonzaga	Well balance and still have Pargo the Sr. but always disappoint
12	Memphis	This is when is pays to be in C-USA, off-years like this – they lost a lot
13	Tennessee	A good (insane) coach can take you far
14	Oklahoma	Blake Griffin is back and he has some new talent around him
15	Arizona St.	James Harden is legit, this could be a nice story this season in ‘Zona
16	Miami (FL)	Probably over ranked but do have primarily Jr. & Sr. starters with some young Frosh talent
17	Marquette	Another ‘teams team’ with a great backcourt
18	Georgetown	Need someone to step up to be the #1 option
19	Florida	Still very young believe it or not, Calathes will lead the team
20	Davidson	Curry will be a big story but this team will have a short leash as far as losing
21	Wisconsin	I never pay much attention to them and they are always solid
22	USC	Demar DeRozan; the new OJ Mayo
23	Kansas	Where does Sherron Collins go from here? They will need him to lead
24	Wake Forest	Underrated, they should be the class of the ACC with UNC
25	Villanova	Why not one more Big East team?

A ton more on the upcoming college basketball season in the coming weeks. We are very excited and I hope you are too.

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The Bottom Line: last night in sports – October 31th edition

The Philadelphia police have reported 76 arrests to date, thus far exceeding my over/under of 25. The parade through the streets of Philadelphia is set for today at noon. The mayor has stated that he wants good behavior during the event. Bottom line: yeah, that will happen… good luck with that one

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Andrew Bynum signed a $58 million contract extension to keep him in Los Angeles through the 2012-2013 season. This coming just days after Andrew’s 21st birthday. That buys a lot of strings of bowling. I had a couple friends in elementary school who through birthday bashes at bowling allies. Bottom line: if Bynum did the same, his party would likely be better

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South Florida and Cincinnati showed us just how awful the Big East is. On tap this weekend, West Virginia visits Connecticut in a battle for #1. Both teams still play Pittsburgh if they can get their act together. Bottom line: one of these teams is going to get a major bowl…

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Both Obama and McCain will appear on Monday Night Football this week. They will be asked questions by Chris Berman. Yeah, this can’t go terribly wrong. No better a way to spend the night immediately preceding an election but chillin’ on Monday Night Football. Bottom line: they should do a punt, pass and kick skills competition for an extra 5 electorial votes

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