I have looked forward to getting The Sporting News College Basketball Preview for the past 17 years.  Its one of the highlights of my year, which is pretty pathetic.  What is also pathetic is that I have never once bought a competitor’s magazine, even if the TSN is slipping a little.  I am so used to the formatting, the stat sheets, and the setup of the magazine that every other preview magazine looks like Russian haiku.  Two things jumped out at me this year:

1) The CAA preview- Jon is the world’s foremost expert on CAA ball, but TSN’s CAA page is absolutely shocking.  Joey Rodriguez – the awful 5”11 point guard for VCU is on the All-CAA First Team.  This is the same guy who couldn’t even dribble the ball up the court against UCLA while they were quadruple teaming Eric Maynor in the NCAA Tournament.  I watched him all last year, and he verifiably sucks balls.  He has no business on a CAA basketball court, let alone its all league team.  Also, there is absolutely no mention of arguably the CAA’s best player – Old Dominion’s Gerald Lee.  Not even in the ODU blurb.  Maybe try giving your CAA hack more than a half hour to write his preview of the most interesting mid major league in the nation.  Just a suggestion.

2) West Virginia is not winning the Big East, or going to the Final Four.  They just aren’t.  I don’t care who is coming back or coming in, the team that lost to Dayton in last year’s NCAA’s is not going to grind out the necessary 15-3 or 16-2 Big East mark.

You have some issues, TSN preview, but you will still sit on my coffee table for the next five months and get leafed through for at least a half hour each day. 

This years final four will be Purdue (second year in a row I’ve picked them, but this is their year) North Carolina (whose frontcourt should be dominant by the end of the season) Kansas (they’re good) and Kentucky (Calipari moves into Pitino territory).