That’s right, the start of the college hoops season is just one week away and you know what that means: it’s time to unleash the mother effing fury! For the past seven months, I’ve been bottling up a vicious mixture of excitement and rage, just waiting for the moment to release my emotions onto the rest of the world. Well that time has come. Your boy Matty D is back to give you a look at the top teams in the country and to separate the champs from the chumps. Read More »

We’re not sure if President Obama felt the pressure to go above and beyond for the UConn Women’s National Championship squad on their official trip to the White House in order to make up for the most ridiculous story of the year, but this is still cool as hell: Read More »

UConn junior center Hasheem Thabeet, projected to go no lower than third in most ‘09 NBA mock drafts, officially threw his name into the draft today.

Huskies coach Jim Calhoun called Thabeet, “One of the most dominant defensive players in the history of college basketball,” and said he’s ready to make the jump to the League. Read More »

Yao Ming vs. Dwight Howard is the overgrown freak of nature version of Deron Williams vs. Chris Paul; One guy gets all the mainstream love and attention and highlights, while the other just keeps quiet and racks up the W’s in their head-to-head meetings. Yao (20 pts, 16 rebs, 2 blks) got the better of Dwight (13 pts, 10 rebs, 3 blks) again last night, giving him the entire offensive arsenal in a double-digit Houston win. Read More »

Are we seeing the early stages of a new, more mature Gilbert Arenas? The other day he announced his “retirement” from blogging, and instead of gunning for 40 in his season debut last night, Gil was clearly making an effort to pass the rock and get other guys their looks. Read More »

A couple of themes dominated last night’s NCAA tourney Sweet 16 games: Defense and Onions. First you had UConn defensive stalwart Hasheem Thabeet putting together his first dominant game of the tourney (15 pts, 15 rebs, 4 blks) to push the Huskies past Purdue. Then Villanova slapped a stifling total team defensive effort on Duke, ball-pressure and denial for which Coach K’s boys seemed totally unprepared. And then Missouri’s new-school “40 Minutes of Hell” paved the way for them to get past Memphis … As for the onions? Look no further than Levance Fields. Read More »

Duke, Gonzaga and Purdue gave us the “Madness” part of March yesterday, but UConn, Memphis and Villanova made the biggest statements when it comes to what really matters: winning the ‘chip. In its 20-piecing of UCLA (which to be fair, was basically a home game in Philly), ‘Nova looked as good as any team in the East region has looked in the Tournament, putting them right there with Duke and Pitt as Final Four favorites out of that bracket. Read More »

After struggling in their first-round game against Cal State-Northridge, Memphis finally played like a 2-seed should. As for 1-seed UConn, they never missed a beat from their first-round mollywhopping of Chattanooga. Read More »

Whether you’ve got just one empty Big Dance bracket staring back at you or five, here’s a few pointers before you put that crucial $20 on the line:

1. Be wary of the “hot” teams I know it’s tempting to take teams like Mississippi State and USC after they both just ran through their conference tournaments, but be careful. Look at the teams that have pulled off similar runs in the past few years: ‘Cuse in ’06 and Georgia in ’08. Read More »

In the fifth overtime of last night’s game, after UConn’s A.J. Price scored the first four points of the session, and Eric Devendorf was called for his fifth foul, Jim Boeheim looked down his bench and said three works to walk-on Justin Thomas before he entered the game: “Don’t be scared.” Read More »