An absolute ton of newsworthy stuff to catch up on from the weekend…
2008 #1 player Greg Monroe committed to Georgetown after his visit there this weekend. It couldn’t have had anything to do with that now-ubiquitous Jerry Rice dance, could it? “Hoops” Weiss has the definitive take on how Monroe will impact the Hoyas. Above the Rim writes that Duke (who was hot-n-heavy for Monroe) isn’t used to losing out on these guys.
Lots of Midnight Madness and practice coverage from the weekend…
Huggins taking over the reins at his alma mater. (there’s an amusing wmv file floating around where Huggins is giving a speech to some WVU booster club – it’s longwinded and rambling, but the DerMarr Johnson payoff is funny)
A general roundup of MM from Lexington to Lawrence.
Sad news that former Georgia star and current surgeon Alec Kessler died of a heart attack last weekend.
Injuries, suspensions and dismissals:
Gonzaga’s Josh Heytvelt was reinstated on Friday but will miss the first week of practice due to shroom farming foot pain.
Louisville’s Juan Palacios injured his ankle and may have to redshirt his senior season.
Brandon Rush reports that he’s on target for his Dec. 1 return to Kansas.
Georgia suspended three players for not attending classes, including top two scorers Takais Brown (9 games) and Mike Mercer (15 games). Seriously, fellas? SEC Hoops:TGTBTD has the take on how this will affect the Bulldogs.
Northwestern’s best player Kevin Coble is taking a leave of absence to be with his sick mother.
Ball St. coach Billy Taylor booted two more players off the team, making a total of six since he was hired in August.
More Preseason goodies:
Gary Parrish and Ben Howland converse about whether the Pac-10 will have the most first round picks ever this year.
Pitino bitches about the difficulty of the unbalanced league schedule Louisville is being forced to play.
MMAS continues its comprehensive review with its non-BCS top 25.
Seth Davis asks us 20 questions, then he answers them.
The Detroit Free-Press reported today that Jalen Rose is responsible for the following monstrosity memorial to the Fraud 5 Fab 5, Michigan’s controversial, engaging, frustrating, overachieving and underachieving teams of the early 90s.
We’re no Mitch Albom, so you won’t see a treatise on five people you meet in Michigan or basketball played in heaven here today, but we do recognize that the team represented on the billboard above was probably the most widely discussed yet schizophrenic college hoops team of the past two decades. When focused, the team was without question one of the best conglomerations of talent in one class ever assembled; when not, they were as maddeningly frustrating as they were enticing.
Were Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson the Fab 5 or the Fraud 5? Ultimately, it depends on your perspective. We took a shot at comparing the two below.
For a recap of the group and their effects on the game at large, check the below ESPN clip:
Lost amidst all the Midnight Madness celebrations this weekend was news from Indiana that head coach Kelvin Sanctions Sampson was caught violating the terms of his agreement with the NCAA related to recruiting violations while he was at Oklahoma. Citing “an environment of deliberate noncompliance” in May 2006, the NCAA Infractions Committee placed several restrictions on Sampson for making excessive phone calls to recruits. One of the key added restrictions was that Sampson was not allowed to initiate phone calls to recruits or be present when a staff member made such calls for a year hence. The meat:
Therefore, his current employing institution shall, pursuant to the provisions of NCAA Bylaw 19.5.2.2 (l), show cause why it should not be penalized if it does not prohibit the former head coach, for a period of one year from the date of the release of this report (May 25, 2006 through May 24, 2007), from 1) making any phone calls that relate in any way to recruiting or being present when members of his staff make such calls; and 2) engaging in any off-campus recruiting activities.
So what does he do? He makes phone calls to recruits, of course.
IU athletic director Rick Greenspan said a two-month review determined that on approximately 10 occasions, an assistant coach initiated three-way calls that connected Sampson into an on-going recruiting conversation with prospective student-athletes, their parents or coaches.
Indiana, fearing that the NCAA would come down hard on the program for such an egregious violation of noncompliance by their coach, handed out its own punishment to Sampson this weekend. As a result, Sampson will not receive his scheduled $500k raise this season and the team will lose a scholarship for the 2008-09 campaign (nevermind that IU recruit Bud Mackey effectively surrendered his scholarship back to IU a couple of weeks ago). The assistant coach who initiated the calls will also give up his raise and not be allowed to recruit away from campus. Here’s Sampson’s explanation:
All of the calls were kids that were calling me. Our coaches did a great job in telling kids that ‘Coach can’t you call you because of the sanctions so will you call him?’ And that’s what we did. I found out about the three-way calls after they looked at the records. They saw that there had been three-way calls made and found out that Rob (Senderoff) had, after the kid had called me and tried to reach me on my cell phone, they would call coach Senderoff back and say ‘Coach Sampson was unavailable. I tried him on his cellphone.’ So what Rob was doing was patching the calls into me, and I was getting them not knowing that Rob had made the connection. But when I answered the phone in these situations, the kid would start talking.
Will this be enough to satisfy the NCAA? We’re not sure about that, but we are a little appalled that Kelvin & Co. had the cojones to run the same trick again. This willful noncompliance on the part of his staff suggests that IU fans may have reason for concern. One of the oft-repeated statements during the weekend by IU brass was that Indiana basketball has not had a major NCAA violation since 1960. Sampson is clearly pushing the envelope with his bosses, and many fans remain skeptical of his legitimacy based upon issues he had at Oklahoma. It’ll be interesting to see what, if any, opinion of Sampson changes with the likelihood of IU’s best team in years taking the court this season.
Update: Say what you want about Sampson’s wilfullness here, but nobody can accuse him of covering things up (yet). Apparently an intern in the compliance department was the person who uncovered these phone calls. He likely works for free school credit, and yet he’s costing Kelvin Sampson $500k/year. Memo to intern – probably don’t want to hit up the IU head man for a rec anytime soon.(h/t March to Madness)
Midnight Madness went off at several venues around the country tonight, and as a result the message boards and blogs have been buzzing all night long with news about how players looked and speculation on what to expect this season. Since ESPN was typically worthlessno help whatsoever in letting us see how some of these teams looked, we decided to try to piece together some fan commentary and photos (and in a couple cases, video footage) of opening night impressions.
We start with Indiana, where expectations are sky high with the unveiling of uber-frosh Eric Gordon in a Hoosier uniform. From The Hoosier Scoop blog:
Kelvin Sampson walked out to the middle of the court, microphone in hand. It took a minute, at least, for him to actually be able to say anything. The fans kept chanting his name.
Sampson is thanking the fans for being here, and telling them how excited they are to start a new season.
He’s called Holman out to the middle of the court, and has congratulated him on being eligible. Crowd loves that.
Now DeAndre Thomas has been called out to mid-court. Sampson is discussing his weight, opening with the line “I don’t want to make a big deal of his weight . . .” I think it’s already become a big deal, with 14,000 people watching. Thomas has gone from 356 to 299.
Now Sampson is talking football, saying that he’s looking forward to watching the Hoosiers beat the Spartans tomorrow. And he’s saying “Why not a BCS bowl?”
What will happen when Gordon faces a little adversity? When his shot doesn’t fall, or he’s fouled four times in a row by a team trying rattle him?
Well, Gordon missed his first dunk attempt during this drill — which is nothing more than the guys running up and down dunking. But then he came back with a behind-the-head slam that was so utterly resounding I only hope somebody got it on video.
After the dunk practice, Indiana ran a transition drills, with three players breaking down the court against two defenders and then, following a possession, those two defenders breaking the other way again one player. Sampson has stated that this team will score more in transition, and here’s early proof.
Oh, and the passes made by Eric Gordon in this video sequence are pretty sick.
What about Billy G. over at Kentucky? 23,000+ filled Rupp Arena to greet the new coach and rooks Patrick Patterson and Alex Legion. Gary Parrish has the take:
We’re Diggin the New Nike Warmups, Mr. Meeks
And then the curtains dropped.
And right there behind them, there he was, the person who made this always wild atmosphere even wilder than normal. Standing and waving and flashing that big old goofy smile, Billy Gillispie received an ovation fit for, well, fit for the new basketball coach at Kentucky. And when the chant died down and the clapping finally ceased, this Texas man who was an assistant at Illinois just six years ago was handed the microphone and asked for his first impressions.
“I can’t talk,” Gillispie said.
Ahhh, (Wild)cat got your tongue, Billy?
But in all seriousness, it’s difficult to blame Gillispie for being totally overwhelmed. Because regardless of all the games he’s won and lost in his still relatively young career (featuring stops at UTEP and Texas A&M), there’s nothing in Gillispie’s 47 years on this planet that happened before Friday night that could’ve possibly prepared him for what it’s like to stand in the middle of Rupp Arena and give other humans goosebumps.
No, I’m not exaggerating.
Over in Lawrence, RTC’s preseason #1 Kansas Jayhawks put on a show in the Phog.
Sherron Collins led all scorers with 13 points coming on 6-of-13 shooting. He hit only one of his six three-point attempts, but that’s no big deal because, well, no one ever looks all that sharp in Late Night scrimmages.
More important on Collins is that he looks like he did in mid-season as a freshman. He drove to the basket in a smart manner, only recorded one of the game’s 14 turnovers and looked noticeably lighter and bouncier.
He put on a display of mid-air acrobatics before the game in layup lines. When asked after the game if he could have done all that a year ago, his answer, with a smile, was simple: “Absolutely not.”
He was also a pretty good dancer, to boot.
Jeremy Case led the Red team with 12 points on 5-for-5 shooting, including a pair of threes. Now, of course, nothing concrete in terms of Bill Self’s rotation can come from tonight’s scrimmage, but Case looked at ease on the Fieldhouse floor. That, too, could be because he’s entering his fifth season as a Jayhawk.
Case said he’s playing right now with no pressure on him, which could do nothing but help his basketball endeavors. It’ll be interesting to see how having his degree out of the way already helps Case as he tries to work himself into the rotation. He could be this year’s feel-good story, I would predict if solely based on what we saw tonight.
Elswewhere… Sasha Kaun had a workmanlike nine points and six rebounds for the Red team, though should probably stay away from wearing top hats, which he donned as a backup dancer during Russell Robinson’s ‘New York, New York’ performance. With his fledgling afro, it wasn’t the greatest of looks…Darrell Arthur was third on the red squad with eight points, while Mario Chalmers paced the offense up and down the floor repeatedly, notching five points, five assists and two steasl in 15 minutes on the floor…Conner Teahan, Brady Morningstar and Darnell Jackson each had six points for the Blue team. Jackson also registered six rebounds, three assists and three steals, giving him the most balanced line of any Jayhawk on the night.
An enterprising and informative Memphis Tiger fan had this to say about his Blogpoll #1 squad:
Rose: Looked confident running the team. You can just tell that this kid has “it.” He showed freakish athleticism on his one dunk in the dunk contest. He is very fast and seems to play under control. He probably will get lost during the season as most freshman do, but once he figures it out. Dorsey: Just a physical freak. He dunked anything he could get his hands on. Douglas-Roberts: CDR always looks uncoordinated, then he just puts the ball in the basket. His upper body looked bigger. He had a sweet stroke on one three pointer. If he improves from behind the line, how do you defend him. Anderson: Didn’t really notice Antonio much, but he always does the dirty work that doesn’t get noticed anyway. Dozier: Definitely looked bigger. Rob showed some fire when dunking the ball, which seemed to be lacking last year. Maybe going up against Taggart every day will turn Dozier’s potential into improved stats. Kemp: Willie looked good. He shot the ball well from behind the line. I think he will do well backing up Rose at the point this year. Probably will play some two guard with the way he can shoot. Mack: I think Doneal hit 12 or 13 three pointers in the three point contest. His shot looked really good. I liked how he dunked the ball during the scrimmage. He has the hops to turn drives into highlight dunks. It is incredible the amount of talent on this roster. No offense to guys on past teams, but it amazes me that we used to start guys like Chad Allen and Michael Brittain in the post.
JTIII and friends had a roaring time in McDonough Gym on the campus of Georgetown, as one fan who got a coveted seat (only 2000 available) reports:
I think it was well received by the recruits, at least the couple I was sitting upstairs with. They were into it and yelling along. I thought the crowd inside was great, loud and much better behaved than last year and Athletics did a great job getting folks in the gym. Some quick hits:
Step team’s routine was 5 minutes too long and way longer than any other performance (wife-beaters, really?). Dance team … well, I’m gonna leave it at that. Groove Theory awesome as usual. Two new male cheerleaders, so now a total of three. Cheerleaders still look as though they are in Junior High. A lot of Soulja Boy, and extended dancing this year (more dancing then anything else): each of the players as they were introduced; men’s vs women’s team; and both teams with AKD’s little brother.
Coach’s dance moves were old school smooth. The appearance of Jeff Green’s mom and dad was great (the unveiled his jersey). The seniors unveiled the 2007 Final Four banner … in fact, they now have new Final Four banners along with a Championship banner on the opposite wall of the jerseys (main entrance side).
Lay-up line turned dunkfest (Tyler Crawford is gonna be a beast this year, you already see the aggressiveness … him, Wallace and Sapp had some solid dunks). A nasty scoop behind the back dunk by Ewing Jr was best dunk of the night. Coach said they probably dance better, so he stopped the drill and they started dancing again: both teams together; both teams vs the crowd; and Ewing Jr. tutoring Mr. Rice for the Soulja Boy.
They did the five man weave full-court drill as well. But it seemed that the program was running long and the team seemed to tucker out a bit towards the end. Gotta say, it was a shame not to see the women’s team get a little bit of time to run drills (they basically sat around and watched the men, was kinda awkward). I know ESPNU was covering the men’s team but some time would have been nice.
Overall I thought the event inside the gym was great and the teams represented Georgetown in a great light for the recruits (recruits busted up at some of the dancing on the women’s team and a few of the guys as well).
We have to go to Yahoo for a report on USC and OJ Mayo:
Southern California has got Mayo, as in O.J. Mayo, and the Trojans showed off their star recruit when he and the rest of the team scrimmaged for fans Friday night.
The Midnight Madness session kicked off the start of practice for the Trojans, who open the season Nov. 10, at home against Mercer.
Introduced next-to-last, Mayo jogged onto the court with the index and middle fingers on both hands signaling the Trojans’ V-for-victory sign. He wore a No. 32 jersey in tribute to his favorite player, Magic Johnson.
Mayo teamed with a female fan in a 2-ball game, with each of them trying to make as many shots as possible in 60 seconds. He tossed up an air ball on his first attempt and smiled as he chased after the ball.
Mayo made four of nine shots, mostly from the perimeter, capped by a miss on a half-court attempt.
Late Night with Roy in Chapel Hill was another exercise in weirdness, but the Heels fans were generally pleased with what they saw, as a fan reports:
I was very pleased with Graves. I believe that we did not look quite as explosive as last year. I will kind of run down the players for you. I will put them in order as to the way that I thought that each player played with an emphasis on expectations.
1. Tywon A+ I thought that he looked a little winded/slow to start, then he settled down, and he was slap awesome!!!! I think this will be his last year.
2. Tyler A+ His usual self!
3. Graves A+ I was very pleasantly surprised. I will preface the rest of my reports to say that I was in the nose bleed section, and much of my view was heavily obstructed by everyone leaving. It seemed that halfway through the scrimmage, half of the audience was gone. It seemed that 1/4 left at the beginning of the scrimmage, and they just kept filing out one by one. I was most surprised at his intensity and tenacity on the defensive effort that he put out there. Then he was equally effective on the offensive side of the ball. Some one needs to tell him that he is not McCants. He even guarded Bobby pretty well.
4. Danny A I will bet that we play a lot of small ball this year. Danny did very well rebounding, and he played under control. His shot was also falling.
5. Marcus A Great job did very well.
6. Bobby A steady, ran the team, knocked down a few shots.
7. Wayne B It was very obvious, he is intent at taking it to the rim, but not great at it yet, and probably to the detriment to his shot. I don’t think he hit any jumpers. I was pretty disappointed with him. I would say that he def. looked like a 4 year player. I hope that his shot returns. His will to drive might well pay off if he can get his shot back on.
8. Alex B about what I expected. I think that he was trying to tear the rims off. He will be a defensive force!! He bobbled the ball some on offense.
9. Deon B- He was kind of transparent in that I did not notice him do very much, except one steal and ran the break. Other than that, I am not sure he was even on the court. He ties with Wayne as the two biggest disappointments of the night.
Over all, I think that we will have a slightly worse regular season, but may actually make it to the final four, because we should have last year. I think that we will def. play small ball a lot. From what I could tell tonight, Deon and Alex were not ready. Of course it was pick up style, and one bad game does not a season make, unless it is in March.
We conclude with Illinois for two reasons – 1) we really wanted to show this pic of Jeffrey Jordan wearing his dad’s jersey rising for a monster flush; and 2) it was kinda neat that everyone in the crowd wore pink as a show of solidarity to fight cancer. Two Illini fans gives their takes on Weber’s squad:
1. shaun pruitt is GOOD. i mean GOOD. ive always been hard on the guy but he brought the ball down the court once and was doing all this ball handling and i thought it was one of our guards at first til he stood up, i was like, what the heck! looks much more mobile and better handles.
2. jeff jordan jumps OUT OF THE GYM. hes short, but good lord can he jump. he did a 360 in warm ups.
3. as someone mentioned in another thread, carlwell wearing jamars jersey was good to see. i think in the end, believe it or not, jamar will be a better person from all this.
4. besides the outside threat, we could be a very solid team. alexander and davis are both very very athletic and seem to have decent shots. mccamey has mad ball handling skills and i thought holdren looked very well too.
5 things i noticed:
1) Mike Davis is a freak of an athlete. He can jump high and far and in control.
2) I agree with Quadcities that Jeffrey Jordan inherited his father’s ability to jump.
3) I also agree with Quadcities that McCamey had some really really impressive ball handling skills
4) Rodney Alexander looks very fluid, smooth, and an overall great package
5) This team is going to be better and more athletic than last years team. I really believe that.
If you seek even more info, Andy Katz gave this report on several other places, including Texas A&M and Washington St. Also, CSTV live blogged several events tonight, although the depth of detail is a little lacking. We guess they get ESPNU on their package.
College basketball doesn’t really have a traditional Opening Day/Night like most of the other sports. It’s more or less a mishmash of games scattered throughout early to mid-November that nobody really pays much attention to. But what we do have that no other sport has is Midnight Madness – a bacchanalia of excitement and frenzy that tips off the college hoops season in earnest. Midnight Madness is Christmas Eve come early – it feeds into every hoops fan’s hopes for the coming year, with visions of upset victories and championships dancing in our heads.
At Midnight Madness, every returner looks lean, mean and ready to have a breakout season.
At Midnight Madness, the freshmen all look like the next Melo or Shaq.
At Midnight Madness, even the walk-ons look ready to contribute this year.
Why Won’t ESPN Cover Midnight Madness Anymore?
And so, with all this excitement and the knowledge that the WWL is planning on showing over 400 hoops games on its 27 different channels this winter, what great things do they have planned for the big night? Live action from KU’s Late Night in the Phog, right? A check-in on Big Blue Madness in Lexington, perhaps? How about Late Night with Roy over in Chapel Hill? Sounds like a great night in front of the tube, right? Right?
ESPNU Midnight Madness Schedule (All times EDT)
Time – School
7 – 8 p.m. – Davidson
11 p.m. – 12 a.m. – Georgetown (delayed)
12 – 1 a.m. – Memphis (delayed)
1 – 1:30 a.m. – Southern Illinois (delayed)
Ummm… or not.
Look, we appreciate that ESPN is going to throw some mid-major love at Davidson and Southern Illinois Friday night. And sure, it’s worthwhile showing top five teams Georgetown and Memphis as well. But come on – ESPNU? We’re sure all five people who get that channel will be glued to their sets.
So what has ESPN decided to show on its other channels instead of Midnight Madness coverage? The flagship channel has college football – Hawaii vs. San Jose St. – no argument with that choice here. ESPN2, though, has NASCAR Busch Series all night – the equivalent of AAA baseball. Can’t wait for that. ESPN Classic is showing a bunch of old heavyweight fights (zzzzzzz…), and ESPN360 is showing its typical fare of the daily news shows repeats. Even the aforementioned ESPNU is wasting the prime hours of 8-11pm to show a high school football game instead, waiting until 11pm to show delayed broadcasts of Georgetown, Memphis and SIU.
The main point we’re making here is that unless you have ESPNU, and we know you don’t, there’s no way you’ll see more than a few clips on Sportscenter tomorrow night. It wasn’t that long ago when a whole night was devoted to this event – what happened? Way to step it up there, ESPN.
WYN2K. On its surface, the Southland appears to be an improving league. Over the last three seasons, the league has won progressively more games against OOC D1 opponents (26/33/41) for an overall record of 100-212 (.321) during this period. Additionally, while the league has been a #16 seed in six of the last eleven NCAA Tourneys, it has earned a higher seed five of the last six years (#14/#15/#16/#15/#14/#15). The #14 seed in 2006 (Northwestern St.) paid off with one of the biggest upsets of that year’s tournament, as the Demons defeated #3 Iowa 64-63 in miraculous fashion (see below). We think that the competitive balance among the top of the league this year will allow the Southland to continue to earn a higher seed than #16.
Predicted Champion. Sam Houston St. (#15 seed NCAA). There are five teams who we figure can win this league, but out of the group, we like SHSU’s experience returning along with POY candidate Ryan Bright. Bright is a stat sheet stuffer extraordinaire – he finished in the top 250 players nationally last year in several categories, including eFG% (183), dReb% (120), blocks% (161) and steals% (178). The Bearkats were poised to challenge Texas A&M-CC last year before a first-round conference tournament upset at the hands of Lamar.
Others Considered. Texas-Arlington is a rising program, returning everyone of consequence from a team that won eight of its last eleven games last year. Still, we’re not completely sold on a team that had a losing record (13-17). Lamar is another intriguing team, as they return four starters and have brought in a couple of juco PGs to battle over that position, but again, they only went 15-17 last year. Texas A&M – Corpus Christi lost nearly everyone from a team that gave Wisconsin a huge scare last year in the NCAAs (Tx A&M-CC was up 25-7 at one point), but the one key player they return (7’0 Chris Daniels) was last season’s conference POY and tournament MVP. Northwestern St. can’t be counted out either, as they always seem to find themselves in the conference mix, having been to five of the last eight Southland title games.
Games to Watch. Again, only one Southland game will be on the national radar.
Southland Championship Game (03.16.08). ESPN2.
RPI Booster Games. The Southland hasn’t shied away from scheduling BCS teams, with 34 on the agenda this season. Last year the conference defeated three BCS bottom-dwellers (Texas A&M – CC over South Florida; SE Lousiana over Oregon St. and Penn St.), and there are some similar opportunities this year.
Northwestern St. @ Stanford (11.10.07)
Texas Tech @ Sam Houston St. (11.14.07)
Lamar @ Mississippi (11.16.07)
Northwestern St. @ LSU (12.15.07)
Mississippi St. @ Texas A&M – CC (12.21.07)
Texas A&M – CC @ Auburn (01.02.08)
Odds of Multiple NCAA Bids.Slim to none. Had Texas A&M-CC not lost just about everyone, we could have made an argument for their inclusion as an at-large and likely 26-4 team, but that’s not the case. This is a one-bid league.
Neat-o Stat.Nicholls St. apparently believes in stomping on its players’ throats and eviscerating their spleens trial by fire, as its nonconference schedule last year was rated #17 by Pomeroy and it is on target for that level of difficulty again. Last year the Colonels played Mississippi St., Northern Iowa, Washington, Pepperdine, LSU, Texas, Ole Miss, Auburn and Vanderbilt, losing every game. This year NSU will play the likes of Florida St., California, LSU, Alabama, UNC, Minnesota and UNLV – all on the road, all before the new year, and all likely Ls. Hard to build much confidence that way.
64/65-Team Era. The Southland is 4-23 (.148) in the era, but those four wins are a little misleading – two of the wins were from Karl Malone’s Louisiana Tech team in 1985 that went to the Sweet 16, and one of the wins is from the PiG in 2001 (Northwestern St. defeated Winthrop 71-67). The only other first-round win was mentioned above – Northwestern St. over Iowa in 2006.
We’ll Take Any Excuse to Bust Out this Pic
Final Thought. The champion of this league is a team to watch next March. Last year, Texas A&M – CC gave Wisconsin all it wanted for 30 minutes. The previous year we know what happened to Iowa at the hands of Northwestern St. And in 2005 #2 Oklahoma St. struggled against #15 SE Louisiana before pulling away to win 63-50. The championship-caliber teams that come out of this league can play, especially against the Big 10 (it seems)!
WYN2K. The OVC is a league that has been incredibly up-and-down depending on a given year. In the last five years its RPI has hovered between the 19th and 25th best conference, and its Sagarin rating between 16th and 26th. As a testament to its herky-jerkiness, no league champion has received the same seed as the prior year’s champion for the last eight years (13/15/14/13/12/15/14/16). But if there is one trend worth noting, it is that the league’s overall profile appears to be dropping. After a seven-year period from 1998-2004 where the league champion averaged a #12.7 seed, the last three seasons have resulted in an average of #15.0. This is supported by the reality on the court, as no OVC team has won an NCAA Tourney game since the 80s, when Austin Peay (1987), Murray St. (1988), and Middle Tennessee St. (1989) comprised a three-year string of first round upsets.
Predicted Champion.Austin Peay (#15 Seed NCAA). This was the easiest pick of the previews yet. “Let’s Go Peay” returns all five starters (including OVC POY Drake Reed) from a team that was the regular-season champion in 2007, but who lost on a buzzer beater to Eastern Kentucky in improbable fashion. 6’5 forward and resident muscle man Fernandez Lockett is likely another first-team all-OVC selection.
Others Considered. Eastern Kentucky was the second-best team in the OVC last season, and Jeff Neubauer’s methodical style (310th in tempo nationally) led to EKU rankings near the top of the nation in effective FG% (18th) and two-point FG% (8th). In other words, the Colonels consistently take and make good shots. If any team is ready to supplant Austin Peay again, it’s likely to be EKU. Murray St. is always in the mix in this conference (20 straight winning seasons), and we expect this year to be no different. The Racers finished strong in 2007 winning eight of their last ten, and return many of their key players from last season. Another team that finished very strong last year was Tennessee Tech, who won twelve of their last fifteen games as their coach Mike Sutton continued to arduously work his way back from Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
Games to Watch. If they OVC Championship game is anything like last year’s, then it should most definitely be on your March viewing calendar.
OVC Championship Game (03.08.08). ESPN.
RPI Booster Games. Last year the only BCS opponent that the OVC managed to defeat was Northwestern (by Tennessee Tech) at a neutral site. Otherwise, the league was 0-20 against BCS teams. We’ve identified several opportunities for an OVC squad to pull an upset this year to help the league’s overall RPI.
Tennessee Tech @ Rutgers (11.09.07)
Austin Peay @ Vanderbilt (11.10.07)
Georgia Tech @ Tennessee St. (11.11.07)
Murray St. @ Mississippi St. (12.01.07)
Samford @ Florida St. (12.02.07)
Tennessee Tech @ Oregon St. (12.16.07)
Odds of Multiple NCAA Bids. Absolutely no chance.
Neat-o Stat. Reigning OVC Player of the Year Drake Reed was the first sophomore to win the honor since Popeye Jones did so back in 1990 at Murray St. It’s unclear whether Reed is related to Jones (see below).
64/65-Team Era. The OVC has gone 3-24 (.111) over the era. As mentioned above, the glory days were the late 80s, when the OVC won a first round NCAA game each year from 1987-89. The league hasn’t won a game since, although it has had a couple of very close calls (#2 Duke 81, #15 Murray St. 78 – 1997; #1 Michigan St. 75, #16 Murray St. 71 (OT) – 1990).
Final Thought. The OVC is definitely a top-heavy league this year. There are three or four teams that can realistically win the NCAA bid, while the others are fairly noncompetitive. Even with the lack of a balanced league, there is likely only one team with the experience and talent for us to consider it as possible first round upset material – Austin Peay. But as we saw last year, even with the best team in the OVC, there’s no certainty that the Governors can win the conference tournament in its own back yard (47 miles from Clarksville, TN, to this year’s site again, Nashville, TN).
But first, have you heard that Stanford’s Brook Lopez can’t pass calculus? He’ll be out until he figures out derivatives (presumably Dec. 19, after nine games).
Along the same lines, the NCAA cleared Marquette big man frosh Trevor Mbakwe to play this season.
New Mexico swingman and all-Mtn West selection Tony Danridge had surgery on his broken left leg, and is expected to be back by January 2008. Arkansas forward Sonny Weems is due back from his hand injury within the next couple of weeks.
A hoops pollster explains why college football polling is misguided.
CSTV claims Louisville and UConn have the top 2008 Big East recruiting classes so far.
We already know why George Mason will get an at-large bid next spring – one name: Tom O’Connor.
DeCourcy goes with Chris Lofton as his preseason POY, but there’s no way we think he’ll win it.
Catching up with coaches… Parrish looks at how Dan Monson is adjusting to life at Long Beach St. Katz examines how Jim Calhoun is recovering from his worst season ever. And the AP reports on John Beilein not knowing what to expect at Michigan.
Luke Winn also has an interesting Q&A with Jerel McNeal, defensive dynamo at Marquette.
Finally, the offense that’s taking over the nation – Memphis’s AASAA.
