weekend review: the sunshine edition

Ah spring. We had a fine weekend indeed, did we not? The sun shone and the jackets and sweatshirts came off, and I finally understand why people do spring cleaning, because all that sunshine streaming in makes you realize how godawful dirty the house gets over the winter when it's dark and you don't see what a mess you've been leaving. So, energized by the successes of our mighty athletes, I busted out the Swiffer and did some serious cleaning around the house. Gone is the dust of despair; a new breeze of success is in the air, and so I promise you a post today that's 99% emo-free.

Basketball

Maryland vanquished, we turn our eyes to Boston College. I stick with my earlier sentiment that success of any amount in the tournament is simply a bonus. However, that doesn't mean hope is out the window. I may have been in the Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts on Saturday, but the host team went out of their way to make me feel at home. I watched a team whose superstar was double- and triple- teamed all day and made most of his points on free throws, who bricked 15 of 18 three-pointers, and who looked like a clown show inbounding the ball. Sound familiar? If nothing else, Thursday's game will be mighty entertaining every time a ref hands someone the ball underneath the basket - BC threw at least two inbound passes straight out of bounds again without them even touching another player.

BC is probably going to the tournament regardless of what happens in our game. But after dispatching Maryland to the NIT, it would at least be fun to make Eagles fans a bit nervous on Selection Sunday, no?

In the Good For You Department, ACC honors came out this week, and Sylven Landesberg is a unanimous selection for the all-freshman team. He's also honorable mention for the all-conference team, by the way Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu is the other unanimous pick, setting up an interesting announcement tomorrow for ACC ROY. Let's see what the arguments are for both:

Landesberg:

- Freshman scoring leader
- Freshman minutes leader
- Carried team on shoulders as go-to guy
- More Rookie of the Week honors

Aminu:

- Better rebounder
- Rookie of the Week selections came mostly during actual league play
- Team doesn't suck

Personally I would vote for the guy without whom his team might not have won a single ACC game, and that's objectively speaking. Tyler Hansbrough is a stone-cold lock for POY, and people don't much care about DPOY, so the ROY selection tomorrow is the interesting one.

Baseball

If Landesberg loses the ROY selection to Aminu, we can always point out the godsmacking the baseball team put on Wake this weekend. My God. 47 runs in three games. Wake threw two freshman starting pitchers at us in the three-game series and we gave them such a welcome to the conference they must still be hearing PING in their nightmares.

The starting lineup is now hitting .415 on the season. With a couple of military academies rolling into town this week (Navy and VMI), I don't really see that getting smaller in the next two games. It might interest you to know that VMI's team ERA is 7.07. All this is exciting, but I will hold off judgment for a bit yet. The next two weekends feature three-game home series against FSU and Miami, both of which were in Omaha last year, and both of which swept us but good last year too.

By the way, I'm considering for a weekend project, a sabermetrics addition to the library over on the side there. You can get all the standard stats at the official site, of course, but sabermetrics in college baseball are tougher to come by. Let me know if this stirs any interest. I might do it anyway, whether or not I hear from anyone, but a response or two or ten would go a long way toward reassuring me I'm not wasting my time with that.

Lacrosse

The baseball team isn't the only ones lighting up the scoreboard. Their challenge this week will be to match the lacrosse score against VMI: 19-3.

That's not what's got me all sunshiney though. I'm allowing myself to get genuinely excited about the chances for a national championship, because this week saw two of the biggest concerns melt away with the last of the snow into virtual nothingness. One, faceoffs: Chad Gaudet is the ACC Player of the Week. A faceoff specialist. 11-of-13 in the second half against Cornell had everything to do with it, which segues beautifully into the second concern. The Hoos proved they can play after halftime by outscoring Cornell - that's "#4 Cornell" - 8-3 in the second half.

To wrap up the feel-good-itude of this post, here's a great little article from yesterday's CDP about Mo Diane. See how beating Maryland puts a little pep in your step no matter how bad the season?