A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down

I bought a ridiculous book the other day. 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Except it's not really books...it's actually novels. Yet it doesn't include novels such as The Red Badge of Courage, As I Lay Dying, or Watership Down to name but a few. But it does include Aesop's Fables, three Poe stories, and dozens of books published since 2000. Also no Shakespeare. If they wanted to make it an all novel list that's fine. But if they're not going to include essential novels but include non-novels, well that's just dumb.



I haven't talked much about basketball this year. But we're down to 5 unbeaten teams. So I should briefly discuss their chances. In ascending order of likelihood of finishing the regular season unbeaten, which only St. Joseph's has done in the last 17 years.



5. Vanderbilt 16-0: Now I'm really sad I wasn't accepted to the MBA program. Nothing like being able to pull for an unbeaten team. Don't ask about William & Mary. Oh well. It won't last. Vandy hasn't played anyone of great difficulty yet and the meat of the SEC starts soon. And this is clearly the weakest of the five unbeatens. You think they can run through Kentucky, Florida, Ole Miss, Tennesse and others unscathed. They'll be lucky to finish .500 in conference to be quite honest.



4. Washington State 14-0: Wazzu is looking pretty strong, especially the defense. Still...I thought UCLA would be the #1 team, and the Bruins look great. Wazzu has to play them twice. And the Pac-10 is possibly the strongest conference this year. Wazzu is better than Vandy, but they're not going unbeaten either.

3. North Carolina 16-0: Carolina has looked very good at times and has even had some luck and close escapes such as with Kansas. but that defense looks pretty leaky. And in the ACC, someone will make them pay for that. Probably Duke and potentially a team such as Miami or FSU on the road.

2. Kansas 15-0: Kansas has arguably been the most impressive team in the nation. But the Big 12 looks brutal this year. Texas, Texas A&M, Mizzou, Nebraska are all teams capable of knocking off the Jayhawks. They'll have a bad night sometime and it will happen.

1. Memphis 14-0: Far and away the most likely to win out. Clearly look for real the way the beat up on quality opponents such as Georgetown. Plus, C-USA is very weak. I see only three even potential losses remaining but Memphis will be heavily favored in every one. Gonzaga, Tennessee and a game on the road at UAB. At this point, I think the Tigers slip up in one of these games (or perhaps somewhere unexpected) but their odds are looking better and better each game.