By Connor Hutyler

The Nuggets might only be the second hottest team in the NBA right now after the Miami Heat, but they are second to none in awesomeness.  Now I know you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey! What the hell? Awesomeness is not a real statistic!” and to that I say, calm down.  I will keep it brief, but just let me make my case with list of a few telling statistics and the formula that will allow you to calculate your favorite NBA team’s Connor Awesomeness Rating (CAR).

The Denver Nuggets are:

• 3^rd in the NBA in points per game.
• 3^rd in the NBA in assists per game.
• 2^nd in the NBA in rebounds per game.
• 1^st in the NBA in offensive rebounding.
• 4^th in the NBA in rebound rate.
• 1^st in the NBA in points in the paint per game.
• 1^st in the NBA in fastbreak points per game.
• 4^th in the NBA in blocks per game.
• 2^nd in the NBA in steals per game.

In order to calculate your team’s CAR, simply find their league ranking in each of these statistics and find the average.  The closer the number is to 1, the cooler the team is.  In the case of the Nuggets, their CAR is a league best 2.33.  Don’t be at all surprised to see this stat on Basketball-Reference.com or included in ESPN.com’s Hollinger stats.

He sure is UGG-ly.  Don't blame Nate for that horrible/great joke, the editor (Me) hates GU.

By Nate Barmore

To give you some context, I went to Gonzaga. I know people from Gonzaga. The thing that I saw the most on the Facebooks after the loss by the Bulldogs was that people were proud of the Zags. A lot of things wrong with that. First-and this is my biggest pet peeve-you are not the “Zags”. That’s not a thing. That is something you do after you zig. Get that off the front of the jerseys. If you want to be the Zags, change your name to the Gonzaga Zags (sounds dumb doesn’t it. yeah it sounds dumb to everyone else already). Second, you are not allowed to be proud of this team. You just aren't. You can be proud of players. You can be proud of likable Scrappy Doo AKA Mike Hart. You can be happy Harris didn’t leave after his freshman year. You can be proud that Kelly Olynyk turned himself from a homeless man’s Lamar Odom to a middleclass man’s Lamar Odom. You can be proud of that. You cannot be proud of this team.  That is what progress is. You are not allowed to pretend you are an elite team and then be proud of a second round exit (I know they call it the third round now but that is dumb).  This team was ranked number one in the country and lost in the round of 32. You didn’t even make it to an alliteration round. That’s inexcusable. This was THE TEAM. This was the year where there was so much parity in the NCAA you had a shot.  This is the year that the best team in the country (Louisville) lost 5 times in the regular season.  PARITY!

    Don’t get me wrong though, this is a good team. They had great talent, great depth, and great wins. They earned that number one ranking. The only losses this year were to an Illinois team that has big athletic guards which hahaha no way we can guard that, and to a good Butler team on a last play because who has time to run a inbounds play when you can have everyone stand around and do nothing? That’s it though, nothing else. Only one scare in the WCC really, and it came from an improved San Diego team.

    But if this is such a good team, why are they so clearly woefully unprepared for this tournament? Because they play in the damn WCC. That will always be the problem for this team. They can schedule all the great nonconference games they like, the fart of the matter is the last two months of the year don’t get them prepared for the tournament. Beating up on Portland and LMU and really every team except BYU and St. Mary’s doesn’t make your team better. In fact in years past it has made them worse because they play down to their opponent.  That is why the champion is always from a power conference.  Sure they get better recruits, but they also get better every game they play because they have to play against people that are better than them.  Put Gonzaga in the Pac-12, even in a down year like this, and sure they lose more games but they will be a better team.  

    That is why you have to admire the VCU and the Butlers of the world.  They both made a run in the tournament and said to themselves “we got close, but we need to be in a better conference to have a chance.” So they both moved to the A-10. Butler is moving to the Zombie Big East next year. That is challenging yourself.  Not standing pat and dominating a conference where you are about to welcome in Pacific. Gonzaga doesn’t want to be treated like a mid-major. Well then it needs to stop treating itself like a mid-major.

    I think a big issue is Few.  If I had to guess, he is doing some mental math and figuring if he can stay and win in the WCC, he has a chance to become the winningest coach in NCAA history.  Plus he is an absolute king in Spokane. You move to a big or even good conference and start losing a little more; maybe you don’t get to be king anymore. But it is ok not being king of a place that has no power, because if you move to a larger kingdom and murder the king, you are king of the much larger kingdom. Otherwise if you are the king of a small kingdom you have to try to negotiate and get arranged marriages and it is confusing and not even relatable to this analogy.

    In conclusion, move to the Mountain West, keep your nonconference schedule, take some lumps, and be better at the end of the season.