• Those were ready to crown John Calipari's one-and-done method the new way to win might be having some second thoughts. Kentucky still is attracting some of the top recruits in the nation, but in the past two years, the Wildcats can only be called a disappointment. This year's version is nothing like a season ago, when Kentucky had to settle for playing in the NIT. But the 25th-ranked squad is far from the team that was picked to win the national championship by some experts. Sometimes, Calipari has found, youth can make you extremely successful; other times, it can just make you raw.
• As for my national Player of the Year? I don't think there will be much debate over this one — Creighton's Doug McDermott has had the honor wrapped up for weeks. Averaging 25.9 points and 7.2 rebounds, the senior forward has already played his way into the nation's all-time top 10 in scoring, and he's on pace to break 3,000 points at some point in the Big East tournament. It's not really a contest.
• Who could have predicted Virginia's outright claim of the ACC title? Well, Dan Hanner at realgm.com could have and sort of did, he points out. Before the start of the season, the Cavaliers were ranked 24th in the AP poll, but Hanner's statistical model had them at No. 11, the highest of any notable publication.
