StF Q&A: Midseason Hoops Talk with Seth Davis

Seth Davis is one of our favorite college hoops experts. He's always there for the NCAA tournament in his role as a CBS announcer, and he keeps us informed and entertained with his writing for Sports Illustrated as well. In addition, he's not afraid to enjoy a good blog now and again, which is exemplified by his interest in talking with us today. You'd be hard pressed to find a more easygoing television personality, and he loves to talk hoops. Consider it an StF bromance. StF: We're all about the fan experience at StF. What's this fan bracket you're involved with? Seth Davis: It's for the Coke Zero Department of Fannovation. On the page, you can submit your ideas for how to improve the fan experience of college hoops. It could be a mascot cam, whatever. The top ideas get put in a bracket of 64 and go head to head in fan voting. If your idea makes the Sweet 16, you get $1,000. If your idea makes the Final Four, we throw in tickets to the actual Final Four with the money. The winning idea is worth $10,000 on top of all that. There's 53 days left to submit ideas. A couple of days ago, we read a tweet from Stewart Mandel [ @slmandel "Consensus in the SI.com office is that this year's coll. basketball season has been unusually boring. Do you agree? And if so, why?"] in which he declared that the SI staff had found this season "boring" so far. What do you think is missing? Yeah, Stewart clearly needs to get out of the office more. He must have been talking about the college bowl season. I promise you, he's not finding his Northwestern Wildcats boring this year. They're fun to root for, we're all becoming Northwestern fans. How has twitter changed your job? What it's done is it's given me a beautiful procrastination method. When I'm not writing, I'll go on there and look around. But, seriously, it's interesting. I look at it like you're building your own website. All the sportswriters and sites I like are right there, so it's the first thing I check. You also have to be careful what you wish for, though, because you can get a lot of hate thrown your way. Right now, most fans are locked in on John Wall for POY honors. Who else should we keep an eye on? You definitely have to look at Evan Turner. He's one of the most dominant players in the game right now. Certainly Damion James should be in that conversation as well, even though he didn't play well against K-State the other night. Wall is certainly one of the most dynamic players on a great team, but he's not alone. Pitt has been a surprise leader of the Big East. Has Jamie Dixon elevated the Panthers from a series of good teams to a consistently dangerous, elite program? I think they were already there. But they're certainly playing better than most of us, you and me included, probably thought they would this year. But Jamie Dixon is one of the best young coaches in the country, and that's partly because he knows how to develop young players so they're ready to play when the upperclassmen leave. Those young guys benefit so much from playing with a Levance Fields or a Sam Young - they know what it takes to be a great player when it's their turn. In the Big 12, Kansas and Texas were accurately pegged as top teams. How have Frank Martin's relatively unheralded K-State Wildcats been able to push their way into that top tier this year? Well, it's not rocket science. He's got good players, and he's got toughness. Watching them in the early holiday tournament (the Wildcats beat Dayton and Boston in Puerto Rico), I thought they were a really tough team. They play defense and they rebound. They have players like Jacob Pullen, Clemente and Colon who are really playing great. Their chemistry is great. You know, Frank Martin is kind of an intense guy, but he's got his players in synch. It's interesting that, against Texas, Pullen didn't have a very good game. Jamar Samuels came out and had a career night and they won anyway. K-State has a lot of options. That's always a good sign, when you can win without a big night from your best player. It's a very good sign. Bruce Pearl has worked miracles at Tennessee so far. Is it realistic to expect the Vols to play deep into March with such a short bench? Well, that bench is getting longer. There were four guys in that car, and they've reinstated Goins and Tatum. I'm not sure where it stands with Brian Williams right now. I think depth is a bit overrated. Chemistry is important, and for whatever reason, they seem to be playing better without Tyler Smith. Maybe they're better off without him. Also, basketball players like to know that they're going to play; if they don't, they transfer. These guys right now know they won't have to sit much unless they get in foul trouble. I wrote a piece about the Ivy League getting two bids this year. Do you foresee any way Harvard and Cornell both get in the tourney? I wouldn't completely rule it out, but it seems very unlikely. You're basically asking the committee to give an at-large bid to the team that came in second in the Ivy. I think it's a result of them not having a conference tournament. It's hard to imagine the committee rewarding a team for coming in second in that league. My argument was that Harvard would have to come in first, because Cornell has better non-conference wins. What's their best win? At St. John's? To get in the tournament, you have to beat tournament teams, and they haven't done that. Cornell's best win was the loss at Kansas. (laughs) Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see it, but it's unlikely. Virginia leads the ACC early on. Will Tony Bennett be able to hold on, or will the talent in the rest of the league overwhelm his overachievers? Their performance in the non-conference doesn't give me a lot of confidence. You're talking about losses to South Florida, Stanford, Penn State, and Auburn. That's not a strong profile. Beating Georgia Tech at home was a nice win, but they have a long road still to go. I will say this for them. Other ACC coaches do not want to play them. It was the same thing when Tony Bennett was in the Pac-10, at Washington State. Nobody wants to face that deliberate scheme. His style of play bothers them. Our founder, Marco, is a Temple guy. Is the A-10 gaining more of a national profile with this year's crop of strong teams? Oh, the A-10 is having a great year. You have teams like Xavier, Dayton, and Temple looking good right now, and there's a possibility that a team like Richmond could slip in there, too. They have some nice wins. Temple looks really strong this year. Juan Fernandez is playing very well, and I think Lavoy Allen is one of the best big men in the country. They have a chance to really do something in that league. I'll end on a personal note. Are you working on a new book? I am, but it's early, so I'm keeping it under wraps for a while longer. I promise you'll be interested in the subject, but I can't say more than that right now. It is about college hoops.