11.14.07

Story of the Night. Gotta be #20 Davidson giving #2 UNC all it could handle in a “neutral” (if neutral means a light blue haze falling over the proceedings) environment in Charlotte. When we did our SoCon preview, we mentioned that Davidson could position itself for an at-large NCAA bid with solid performances against the ACC troika of UNC, Duke and NC State + UCLA in its non-conference schedule. Consider tonight’s game Exh. A to the selection committee. It’s much easier said than done, but Davidson fans should try to keep their minds on the long-term benefits of playing well in a nationally-televised game v. UNC instead of bemoaning the loss of the game down the stretch. Now, about the game itself. Clearly Davidson had no answer for Psycho-T, that is, whenever Carolina decided to get him the ball (14/14 on only 3-6 shooting), but we find it downright criminal that the beef of UNC’s frontcourt (Hansbrough and Deon Thompson) only had eleven shots combined the entire game. We know Roy wants to run as much as possible, but he’s got to get his guards to understand where their strength really is – and it’s not with Danny Green chucking seven threes while the big guys set screens for him. As for Davidson, they played hard and put themselves in good position to win the game. Stephen Curry was really off on his outside game (2-12 from three), but what was really noticeable was just how easily he got to the rim on several occasions. The crossover in the open court on Quentin Thomas was particularly disgusting. Honestly, we didn’t know he had that, and color us impressed. So what does this game say about both teams? For Carolina, it showed a couple of things: 1) Wayne Ellington is ready for prime time this year (20 pts); and 2) at least right now, they miss the length and defense of Brandan Wright and Reyshawn Terry. For Davidson, they shot 39% and 18% from three, and yet they were within reach with a minute to go – that should be an encouraging sign for their other big games coming up. At least one DU blogger seems to have the proper perspective (UNC 72, Davidson 68).

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Things We Saw. We also caught quite a bit of a pretty good Pac-10/Mtn. West matchup between Utah and Washington. The problem was that we spent most of the first half trying to figure out how every Utah player could coincidentally also have the last name “Utah.” We know Utahns have a tendency toward big families, but it still seemed a little much. We finally realized that some Nobel laureate adidas has decided to put the name of the team on both the front and the back of the jerseys. We’re not even sure how to respond to this other than to say this could be the most disturbing uniform trend since the late 80s NC State unitards. We were so confused by the uniform issue that we lost track of the game for a while, but when we got our head straight, we noticed that Utah appears to be on its way back to respectability. Center Luke Nevill provided 14/10/3 blks and two ridiculous fouls after a made basket that ended up fouling him out, but he could not match up with UW’s beast Jon Brockman (several inches shorter), who blew up for 31/18 and used his quick feet to do as he pleased inside. Still, new Utah head man Jim Boylen should be pleased that his Utes fought hard and showed promise, shooting 55% on the road in an arena where the home team simply does not lose non-conference games (29 in a row now) (Washington 83, Utah 77).

Big 12 Woes. Called it. Sam Houston St. at home defeated Knight and Texas Tech tonight by keeping Martin Zeno in check and killing TTU on the boards (42-29). We’re sure that Knight ripped some waitress/intern/ballboy staffer a new one after the game for some indiscretion or another – why won’t this guy just go away? His act was tired ten years ago, and he’s just not a very good coach anymore (Sam Houston St. 56, Texas Tech 54). Another Big 12 team went on the road in Texas and also came out of the evening with an L – Oklahoma St. Sean Sutton’s team allowed big nights from North Texas’ Keith Wooden and Josh White (combined for 50/14) while getting good production from only one of its own players, Marcus Dove (23/7). Could another .500 year be in store for the Pokes (North Texas 82, Oklahoma St. 73).

Ranked Teams.
#7 Tennessee 101, Ark-Monticello 44. We know it’s a D2 team, but whatsup with Lofton? 3-15 in two games.
#13 Michigan St. 83, UL-Monroe 65. Raymar Morgan is averaging 19/15 in two games this year.
#18 Texas A&M 81, UTEP 76. TAMU will meet Washington in the NIT semis.

On Tap Tonight (all times EST). Only 32 games, but a couple of good ones on the tube.

• Houston (pick) v. VCU (ESPNU) 9am – PR Shootout features Eric Maynor.
  
• Marist v. Miami (FL) (-7) (ESPNU) 11:30am – more PR shootout.
  
• Temple v. Providence (-6) (ESPNU) 2pm – and still more (why do we feel like Borat in the cheese aisle?).
• Arkansas (-15) v. Charleston (ESPNU) 5pm – we’d like to see how John Pelphrey handles this team.
  
• Connecticut (-13.5) v. Gardner-Webb (ESPN2) 7pm – the GW story ends here.
  
• Hampton (NL) v. Kent St. 7pm – fantastic mid-major matchup – give us Kent at home.
• Georgetown (-15) v. Michigan (ESPN 360) 7:30pm – how is Beilein’s offense coming along?
• Kansas (NL) v. Washburn (ESPN FC) 8pm – it’s on tv, so we put it on the list.
  
• Mississippi St. (-4.5) v. Clemson (ESPN FC) 8pm – best game of the night potentially – we think one of these two is a fraud, but we’re not sure who yet.
• Northwestern v. Stanford (-9.5) (ESPN FC) 9pm – the last 2 yrs, Stanford laid an egg in an early road game – this year?
• Memphis (-8.5) v. Oklahoma (ESPN2) 9pm – early test for Calipari’s Tigers.
  

After 12 seconds of hand-wringing and almost twice as much debate, the first regular season Blogpoll is out. Make sure to tip your local bloggers for this public service. The complete ballots (we’re up to 11 bloggers now!) are located here.

Justifying Our Ballot. We moved UCLA into the #1 spot and dropped Kansas from there simply because we watched both teams play several times this week and just feel like something is off with the Jayhawks. Maybe it’s Brandon Rush not back yet, maybe we’re just seeing things. But for now, we think UCLA is the better team. Memphis and Indiana also impressed us more than KU, so we moved them ahead also (and we expect UNC to do so tonight). Similarly, we watched parts of all three Oregon games over the weekend and felt they were underrated at #10. Same goes for Duke (up to #13 from #20) and Stanford (#15 to #12). The only other teams we dropped were simply a spot or two in order to make room for teams we watched play and thought deserved the higher rankings. The first few weeks will be like this, as we work to adjust based on expectations v. performance.

Two Left Out. The two teams we voted for on our ballot who were left out were #20 Syracuse and #25 Gardner-Webb. What can we say, we’re a sucker for those kickass Orange unis. And we made a vigorous pitch for the inclusion of GW as a symbolic #25 (similar to what App St. got in the AP poll for football after beating Michigan), but nobody was listening.

Early Season Creep. Obviously, this early in the season there isn’t going to be a lot of movement unless someone loses, but we’re seeing a little bit of creep in either direction with a few teams. The top seven teams are the same, but clearly the bloggers took Michigan St.‘s exhibition loss to Grand Valley St. into account by dropping the Spartans from #8 to #13 (interestingly, we only dropped MSU one spot on our ballot). Oregon, Indiana, Duke, Stanford, Davidson and VCU were rewarded with slight bumps up the list, while Marquette and Mississippi St. were downgraded for, um, what exactly (it wasn’t us!)? NC State (grrrr…) and Southern Illinois entered the blogpoll in place of A-Sun upset victims Kentucky (who still shockingly had two blogpoll votes) and USC.

Where’s the Argument? We added the Standard Deviation column (Std Dev) this week to show where bloggers were having significantly disparate opinions on teams. A high number (> 5.0) represents substantial variance between how the bloggers ranked a team. A low number (< 3.0) represents consistency in the strength of the ranking. So here are the teams that bloggers are having the most trouble getting a handle on.

• Michigan St. (stdev = 7.39; range = 6 to NR)
• Stanford (6.04; 10 to NR)
• Indiana (5.53; 4 to NR)
• Gonzaga (5.52; 10 to NR)
• NC State (5.36; 12 to NR)

The top 4 are tight, though. Kansas has the lowest collective ranking among Memphis, UNC, UCLA and itself at #7 in one ballot.

• Memphis (stdev = 0.81; range = 1 to 3)
• Kansas (1.19; 2 to 7)
• UNC (1.21; 1 to 5)
• UCLA (1.60; 1 to 6)

It’ll still be a few more weeks before we get a good sense of who the favorites will actually be this season.

11.12.07

Story of the Night. Boring. There was really only one good game tonight – Syracuse 72, St. Joseph’s 69. We had this one on our upset alert radar last night, and it took a three from Jonny Flynn at the top of the key to put the Hawks away at the Carrier Dome tonight (see vid below). Amazingly, that was Flynn’s only hoop of the game, coming after his record 28 pts last night. His backcourt mate Paul Harris picked up the slack tonight, going for 18/14/6 assts/2 stls in the win. How a 6’5 guard tallies 29 rebounds in two games confounds us. Syracuse has shown that it has the guards to play with anyone, but will the Orange have anything on the interior this year? We shall see, but until then, Cuse blog Axeman Cometh tells us to get the popcorn ready.

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Things We Saw. Not much else tonight. Ohio St.-Columbia was the other ESPN game tonight, and although the Ivy League Lions gave a good effort, there was never a realistic chance for the upset. Once again, OSU didn’t really impress us, but we thought back to last year, and when did they ever impress us then either? They won 35 freakin’ games last year and we can only remember a handful where we thought ‘this is a pretty good team’ – the Big 10 championship game v. Wisconsin, the Tennessee second half comeback, and the Georgetown F4 game. So that’s how they do. We’re not going to count them out this year based on first impressions. Koufos (19/7/3 blks), Butler (18/7/3 assts) and Lighty (13/4/4 assts) led the way (Ohio St. 68, Columbia 54).

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SEC Goes on the Road. Two interesting games for SEC teams involved Vanderbilt going on the road to Toledo and Alabama going to upstart Mercer tonight. These were games that neither could afford to lose if they expect to be seriously considered for at-large bids next March. Vandy burst out to an 18-0 lead before Toledo bothered to score a single point, and although the game got close, Vandy continues to show with a balanced attack from Shan Foster and AJ Ogilvy why it will be heard from in the SEC East this year (Vanderbilt 77, Toledo 70). Bama went into a sold-out arena at Mercer and survived A-Sun Mayhem thanks to Richard Hendrix’s 28/14, but we’re patiently waiting the bottom to fall out on this team without a true point guard (Alabama 90, Mercer 83). Ole Miss also got a solid mid-major win at home over South Alabama tonight (Ole Miss 81, South Alabama 78).

Big Halftime Leads. #8 Michigan St. up 19 on Chicago St., Missouri up 30 on Fordham, #2 UCLA up 35-11 on Cal St.-San Bernardino, Washington up 21 on NJIT… (all blowout wins).

Ranked Teams.
#9 Washington St. 86, Boise St. 74. Wazzu struggled before blowing it open with a 60-pt second half.
#16 Gonzaga 80, Idaho 43. Another huge second half (44-13) led by Austin Daye (18/4/3 assts/6 blks).
#19 Texas A&M 67, Oral Roberts 53. This surprised us that it wasn’t very close.
#20 Arizona 76, N. Arizona 69. Lute is due back soon. Budinger with 25/6/4.

Upset Alert. Like we said, it was a boring night.

On Tap Tonight (all times EST). 50 more games tonight, including numerous ho-hums on FC .

• Florida (NL) v. NC Central (ESPN FC) 7pm – yes, this is the same team Duke beat by 1000 pts.
  
• UNC (-11) v. Davidson (ESPN) 7pm – Stephen Curry, neutral court??? Naaaah…..
• St. John’s (NL) v. St. Francis (NY) (ESPN FC) 7:30pm – these are the games we wish we could give back to ESPN FC.
• LSU (NL) v. McNeese St. (ESPN FC) 8pm – tune in just 5 mins to see Anthony Randolph.
• North Texas (NL) v. Oklahoma St. (ESPN FC) 8pm – see above re: St. John’s.
• Sam Houston St. (NL) v. Texas Tech (ESPN FC) 8pm – upset alert! SHSU is legit, and Knight isn’t what he used to be.
• Bradley (NL) v. Iowa St. (ESPN FC) 8pm – Bradley should win this game for the Valley.
• Texas A&M (NL) v. UTEP 9pm – Turgeon’s crew impressed tonight.
  
• California (-8) v. Southern Mississippi 10:30pm – if Ben Braun weren’t still coaching there, Cal could surprise this year.

11.12.07

Story of the Night. For the life of me I cannot remember, what made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise, for the life of me I cannot believe, we’d ever die for these sins, we were merely freshmen… (h/t Verve Pipe ca. 1997) Ok, we’re already sick of talking about this year’s freshman class, but GOOD GOD are these youngsters talented or what? The idea that college hoops was somehow “better off” when kids were going preps-to-pros looks a little ridiculous now, doesn’t it? We’re not necessarily fans of one-and-done either, but we have a sneaky feeling that during the next CBA between the NBA Players Assn. and the owners, the rule will change to two years post-HS as to when a player can declare for the draft. We can’t wait to get these guys in college for more than a year.

Things We Saw. So given the SOTN, we’ll start with a game we didn’t actually see, #11 Indiana v. Chattanooga (see below vid). Out of all the frosh, the player we’ve been most excited to see has been E-Giddy – no disrespect to Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley or anyone else, but Eric Gordon has been the guy who seems most likely to make our jaws drop. We still haven’t actually seen him, of course, but look at this debut line – 33/6/4 on 9-15 shooting (7-11 from three). Plus, some of those threes on the highlights were about 6 feet behind the line – kid has mad range. What’s more is that Kelvin Sanctions’ team needed it, because the Hoosiers were down 4 at the half to a game Chattanooga team. DJ White added 17/4/2 blks in the winning effort, and yeah, IU showed some areas for improvement (rebounding), but make no mistake about it, this is probably the best inside/outside tandem in the country and a huge reason why we have Indiana going to the F4 next April (Indiana 99, Chattanooga 79). Moving to games we actually viewed, #14 Duke was impressive tonight – better than we’ve given them credit for. The thing about the Devils (esp. at home) is that they’re absolutely going to terrorize people defensively with their m2m defense and their traps. Traps lead to turnovers, turnovers lead to dunks and threes, dunks and threes lead to an avalanche of points and a rocking CIS, and before New Mexico St. anyone knows it, you’re already down twenty and your players are completely befuddled and rattled. That’s how Duke plays, and therefore, the only way to beat the Devils at home is to treasure possession of the ball and avoid those demoralizing runs. NMSU had 26 turnovers and allowed Duke to hit 13 threes tonight – how do you think that’s going to end for them? We do still wonder about Duke’s lack of interior size, though (Duke 86, New Mexico St. 61). Tonight’s #11 Oregon-W. Michigan game exhibits why we’re so high on the Ducks this year. Four of their five starters (Taylor, Porter, Hairston and Leunen) can lead the scoring column on any given night. Tonight it was Hairston’s turn, as he went for 29 on 9-11 shooting (3-3 from three). Not many teams have that kind of skilled and experienced offensive balance that they can throw at you every night. Now… defense might be their achilles heel. The Ducks did give up 58 pts in the second half tonight, and it’s hard for us to believe a team that gives up that many pts to anyone is a legitimate contender, but maybe Ernie Kent can shore that up as the season progresses (Oregon 97, Western Michigan 88).

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Other games we caught briefly. LSU once again brings out some lineup of five jumping jacks ranging in height from 6’4 to 6’10, and not one of them has the first clue how to play basketball (thanks John Brady!). Another rook who is getting no hype but is in the Stromile Swift/Tyrus Thomas mold is Anthony Randolph. He very nearly put up a trip-dub in his first game as a Tiger (19/13/6 blks) (LSU 72, SE Louisiana 62). We tried to watch some of #13 Texas’ debut w/o Kevin Durant, but the pace put us to sleep. We heard that DJ Augustin led the way with 19/2/4 assts (Texas 58, UT-San Antonio 37). We also watched a little bit of Ohio St.’s first game since the Findlay disaster, and it appeared that the Buckeyes were getting Matta’s message. Even though four players scored in double figures led by David Lighty (17/8/4), we really wonder if OSU has any depth to speak of this year (Ohio St. 91, Wisc-GB 68). #2 UCLA was the nightcap, and even though Kevin Love had good numbers (21/9), there was one second-half series of shot/block/putback/block/putback where K-Love just didn’t look very explosive around the rim. Thick, yes. Strong, yes. Skilled, yes. But explosive? We were hoping he’d power through and dunk on someone like that when he held position to the rim. Didn’t happen (UCLA 83, Youngstown St. 52).

Interesting Scores. Boston College 68, Florida Atlantic 62. BC might be in for a really rough year. Syracuse 97, Siena 89. What is UP with those horrid Cuse unis (see below vid)? Oh, and rook Jonny Flynn (28/5/9 assts) looks like he’ll be a fun one for Boeheim. Maryland 70, Hampton 64. This one didn’t surprise us that it was close – we’re not sure what to expect from the Terps this year, but we know that Hampton is a good team.

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Upset Alert. Another D2 team over a D1 team, albeit a low major (Cal St. San Bernardino 71, Weber St. 59).

On Tap Today (all times EST). 53 games, but not very many interesting ones. The best ones are either not televised (Toledo-Vandy) or on the freakin’ U (TAMU-ORU).

• Michigan St. (NL) v. Chicago St. (ESPNU) 7pm – ho-hum.
  
• Toledo v. Vanderbilt (-5) 7pm – this is a really interesting game for both teams’ at-large profiles.
• Syracuse (NL) v. St. Joseph’s (ESPN) 7pm – upset alert – Cuse goes down at home.
• Mercer (NL) v. Alabama 7:30pm – Mercer has a chance for another big win at home this time.
• Miami (OH) (NL) v. Xavier 8pm – should be a good southern Ohio battle.
• Gonzaga (-28) v. Idaho (FCSP) 8pm – we want to see if Daye can keep it up.
  
• Ohio St. (NL) v. Columbia (ESPN) 9pm – an Ivy school not named Penn or Princeton on ESPN?
• Texas A&M (-15.5) v. Oral Roberts (ESPNU) 9pm – upset alert – TAMU could lose this game.
• UC Irvine (NL) v. Nevada 10:30pm – Nevada needs to regroup and win this game.
• UCLA (NL) v. Cal St. San Bernardino (ESPN2) 10:30pm – there won’t be many other D2 teams on ESPN2 this year.

While we’re at it, here’s the CBE Classic (formerly Guardians Classic) bracket, which actually started last night (Maryland and Hampton won), but has the bulk of games starting tonight.

M

Unless Hampton takes down Maryland later tonight (very possible!), we don’t see the possibility of an upset in the four regionals of the CBE Classic.  Mizzou is currently keeping Central Michigan in the game, but we figure they’ll open it up in the second half and come out of their region easily the next night.  UCLA will have no problems whatsoever with either team it plays.  And Michigan St. could struggle a little with UL-Monroe, but it should no worries tonight against Chicago St.  Our take – all four hosts advance.

The grandaddy of the preseason tournaments starts tonight at four first-round sites (Syracuse, St. Joe’s, Ohio St., Columbia) with four more tomorrow evening (Washington, Utah, Texas A&M, UTEP). Here’s the bracket for your viewing pleasure.

In keeping with the early season madness, we’re going with an upset in two regions – Syracuse is getting challenged by Siena tonight, and they’ll have to play much better to beat St. Joe’s tomorrow, so we’re going with the A10 team there.  Texas A&M‘s region has three teams that could potentially beat the Aggies, but we’re going with Scott Sutton’s ORU squad in round one.   We’re going chalk in the other two – Ohio St. doesn’t have to play a D2 team so they should be ok (Columbia-Delaware St.?  Seriously?), and Washington should handle Utah in the second round of its region.

11.11.07

Story of the Night. Our preseason F4 picks are UNC, UCLA, Indiana and Gonzaga, so it’s no surprise that we really like the Zags this season. Imagine our own surprise, however, when we learned just before tipoff of today’s #16 Gonzaga-Montana game that Josh Heytvelt will miss the next 4-6 weeks with a stress fracture in his foot. Given what we know about these sorts of things, we wonder just how effective he’ll be when he gets back. Obviously, without Heytvelt, the Zags have no chance to reach their first F4. Or do they? Heytvelt’s replacement, 6’10 freshman forward Austin Daye, put on a show in his first game, going for 20/10/2 blks on 8-13 shooting and 2-2 from long range. Daye’s performance along with Jeremy Pargo’s high-wire act (he totally went B-Diddy on one of his dunks) and 17/5/5 asts were more than enough as Gonzaga put down Montana without much of a problem. If Heytvelt can come back healthy in January, this team is going to be a major player next March. (Gonzaga 77, Montana 54). One other comment from this game’s coverage on FCS Pacific – commentator Craig Ehlo needs to go back to guarding MJ or something; dude is terrrrible.

Things We Saw. We got to see pieces of five other games today, and here were our impressions. #4 Kansas once again showed just how good they can be, while never actually showing us how good they are. We never had a moment where we thought they were playing all that well, and yet they still won by 23. There were four missed dunks by the Jayhawks during the game, tons of missed foul shots (16-31), and still… UMKC was never really a threat to win in Allen Fieldhouse. Mario Chalmers was the lone bright spot, going 8-13 (6-9 from three) for 23 pts, but Bill Self said they have to get better at many phases of the game if they expect to do anything significant this year (Kansas 85, UMKC 62). Another game we watched was #11 Oregon v. Pacific. Judging by tonight, if there was any doubt as to whether Tajuan Porter can take over for Aaron Brooks, let that notion be put to rest. Porter was scintillating with 28 pts on 10-15 shooting (5-8 from three) and acted as much a leader as we had previously seen from him. Malik Hairston added 20/6 and Maarty Leunen contributed 17/10 in a well-balanced attack against a Pacific team that hung in there. We’re expecting big things from the Ducks this year (Oregon 80, Pacific 64). The Pittsburgh-St. Louis game was a little boring, but it showed us (once again) just how good of a coach Rick Majerus is, as the Panthers didn’t put the game away until a minute to go. If SLU can play like this all season, they’ll be a factor in the A10 race (Pittsburgh 69, St. Louis 58). We didn’t catch as much of the #17 Stanford-UCSB game as we would have liked, but we noted that Stanford once again handled business without much sweat, as Anthony Goods (23/6) outplayed Gaucho star Alex Harris (18/2) in the battle of the guards (Stanford 67, UCSB 48).

Upset Alert. Two minor ones. Nevada will need to win these games if it expects to make it back to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth straight time (UCF 63, Nevada 60). And Cincinnati dropped its second home game in a week tonight – the Bearcats are a long way from “Big East competitive” at this point (Bowling Green 69, Cincinnati 67).

Line of the Night. Michael Beasley (Kansas St.). Again. Only 30/14 tonight in a 29-minute, 5-foul performance against Pittsburg St., a D2 team. It should be noted that K-State was down 40-38 at halftime to this team, though.

On Tap Today (all times EST). 43 games, including Indiana’s debut and a solid test for Duke at home (i.e., not NC Central).

• Indiana (-24) v. Chattanooga 7pm – Eric Gordon makes his long-awaited debut.
  
• Duke (-17) v. New Mexico St. (ESPN2) 7pm – if Duke is playing with a chip this year, they’ll win this by 30.
• Syracuse (-15.5) v. Siena (ESPNU) 7pm – looking forward to seeing freshmen Flynn and Greene(oh wait, we don’t get ESPNU).
• LSU (NL) v. SE Louisiana (ESPN FC) 8pm – Anthony Randolph, anyone?
• Missouri (-14.5) v. Central Michigan (ESPN FC) 3pm – year 2 of 40MoH begins.
• Oklahoma (NL) v. Alcorn St. (ESPN FC) 8pm – more Blake Griffin.
• Texas (NL) v. Texas-San Antonio (ESPN FC) 8pm – DJ Augustin is our favorite PG.
• Ohio St. (-15.5) v. Wisconsin-Green Bay (ESPN2) 9pm – first game since the Findlay debacle.
• Oregon (NL) v. W. Michigan (ESPN FC) 10:30pm – third game in three nights – any tired legs?
  
• UCLA (-28.5) v. Youngstown St. (ESPN2) 11pm – first chance to watch K-Love’s superb outlet passing – haven’t you heard?

11.10.07

Story of the Night. Is the A-Sun the best conference in college hoops this season? Three nights after Gardner-Webb shocked the hoops world against Kentucky, and one night after Belmont whacked Cincy… the Mercer Bears went into LA and pushed around #25 USC and OJ Mayo. That’s three road wins against three BCS teams in the span of about 72 hrs (remember: the A-Sun was 0-34 v. BCS teams last year!) As for this game, sure OJ got his numbers (32/7/4 assts on 12-27 FG + 8 tos), and isn’t that really why he’s there? In shooting 59% for the game (led by James Florence’s 30), Mercer rode a 17-pt halftime lead into an easy win. We have a bad feeling that more of this is on the horizon for USC with Mayo running the show. We’re just sayin… (Mercer 96, USC 81)

Things We Didn’t See. #5 Georgetown appears to have had a shaky opening game against Bill & Mary tonight, leading by only 2 pts with under 10 mins to play. When the Hoyas finally realized they have something nobody else in CBB has – a skilled 7’2 center named Roy Hibbert (23/8/3 blks) – they put the game away. We love the Hoya backcourt of Wallace and Sapp (combined for 33/10 assts), but we’ll continue to have a lingering concern over the long-term prospects of this year’s version until we see if Dajuan Summers or someone else can adequately fill the departed role of Jeff Green (Georgetown 68, William & Mary 53). Staying in the Big East, Pitt is a team we never know what to make of from year to year game to game. Tonight they throttled a solid NC A&T team, with a big contribution from Sam Young (career-high 24/11/4 stls). We’re sure they’re on their way to another 20-25 win season and a top 4 seed, where we’ll either pick them to go to the E8 and they’ll lose in the first round; or, the reverse (Pittsburgh 86, NC A&T 61). Tubby Smith’s debut today at Minnesota went much as his debuts at Kentucky (88-49 v. Morehead St.) and Georgia (91-71 v. W. Carolina), with a blowout win versus an overmatched team. In typical Tubby fashion, the Gophers held Army to 35% shooting and forced 23 turnovers. One Gopher blog lauded the hustle and dedication from players that has been missing in recent years (Minnesota 84, Army 52). Over at Oregon, we were interested to see how the Ducks would respond to the loss of Aaron Brooks, and so far, so good, as a balanced attack quickly overwhelmed Pepperdine tonight. Malik Hairston, Tajuan Porter and Bryce Taylor all had 17 pts each as the Ducks raced out to a 30-pt lead at halftime and cruised the rest of the way – we likey (Oregon 100, Pepperdine 70). Vandy is an SEC team that we probably have overlooked this year, but the Dores picked up a solid win over a mid-major tonight by beating Austin Peay. Showing just how tough it is to beat Vandy in Memorial Gym once again, the Commodores shot 55% from the field and 52% from three in keeping AP comfortably at bay most of the night. Shan Foster (21 pts) and AJ Ogilvy (18/9/2 blks) led the way for Vandy, while AP star Drake Reed had a rough night (12/7 on 3-16 shooting) (Vanderbilt 81, Austin Peay 67). There was a great game tonight in Milwaukee when Marquette took on another talented mid-major, IUPUI. Marquette’s 8-pt halftime lead was quickly erased by a second-half 17-2 run by IUPUI, but spurred by Jerel McNeal’s 20 pts, the Warriors came storming back with a 23-8 run of their own to ensure victory (Marquette 76, IUPUI 68).

Score of the Night. Unbelievably, we’re going back to The Farm. For the second consecutive night, Stanford had a 30+ pt halftime lead over an opponent, and again, no starter played more than 20 minutes. Tonight’s beneficiary was Northwestern St. – what’s TJ giving those boys (Stanford 97, Northwestern St. 58)?

Upset Alert. Other than the above USC game, there were no big upsets today.

Joey Dorsey Award. OJ Mayo (USC). Not for his game tonight, but for his quote that hearing his name called in the starting lineup “was a lot of fun. I wish we would’ve won.” Maybe we’re being nitpicky here, but after getting thumped by Mercer, we’re not sure any part of the night should be remembered as fun.

On Tap Today (all times EST). 47 games on tap, several of which are worthwhile (assuming Comcast doesn’t screw us again and gets FC working).

• Loyola (MD) (-5) v. Pennsylvania 12pm – our favorites in the Ivy and the MAAC.
  
• Rutgers (NL) v. North Dakota St. 1pm – NDSU gave Florida trouble; they can do more than that with Rutgers.
• Seton Hall (NL) v. Monmouth (ESPN FC) 1pm – um, we’ll be washing our hair at that time.
• Virginia (NL) v. Vermont 2pm – don’t understand why this isn’t FC worthy but the garbage game above is.
• Florida (-17.5) v. Tennessee Tech 3pm – really would like to see if Calathes can keep it up.
• Gonzaga (-12.5) v. Montana 4pm – we’re very high on Gonzaga this year, but Montana is no slouch.
• Stanford (NL) v. UCSB 6pm – if Stanford is up 30+ at half of this game, we’re putting them #1 in Monday’s blogpoll ballot.
• Pittsburgh (NL) v. St. Louis (ESPN FC) 6pm – we’re tuning in just to see Majerus back on the sidelines.
• Kansas (NL) v. UMKC (ESPN FC) 8pm – let the Kansas Kremations continue.
• Oregon (NL) v. Pacific (ESPN FC) 9pm – both of these teams had great first games.

11.09.07

Story of the Night. 93 Games. 186 teams. Thank God college hoops is back, baby. We’re a little late, but this is why we care. We got to watch pieces of six games tonight, and while the games looked like Nov. 9, meaning sloppy, it was soooo refreshing to see and hear the sneakers squeaking on the hardwood again.

Things We Saw. Kansas is so loaded we can’t understand how they lose to anyone. Darnell Jackson (21/4/4 stls) off the bench, Sherron Collins (22/6 asts/4 stls), and so much more. UL-Monroe isn’t that bad either, but they were really never in the game (Kansas 107, UL-Monroe 78). In Florida, the Gators are (as expected) extremely young but talented – their freshmen scored 46 of their 75 pts and Nick Calathes looked great, leading the team with 21 pts. They were never threatened with an L by North Dakota St., but they could never really put them away either. That will likely come with experience (Florida 75, North Dakota St. 65). Staying in the SEC, Tennessee took a while to get going against Temple, and they didn’t shoot well from 3 (27%), but they still won comfortably. We still have trouble distinguishing between the 47 Smiths they have on the team (all of them are about 6’5 and wear headbands), but they combined for 38/9/6, while Lofton was otherwise limited (10 pts) (Tennessee 80, Temple 63). One question – will Temple ever be relevant again? The best game of the night that was televised was actually the Ohio-NMSU game. New Mexico St. played without stud freshman Herb Pope, but it was evened out because Ohio’s star forward Leon Williams spent most of the night on the bench in foul trouble anyway. The rest of the Ohio starters picked up for Williams, though (64/25/11), despite NMSU clearly having the more athletic team. Martin Iti (7’0, 240) has an NBA body, but why isn’t he more productive (8/9) (Ohio 80, New Mexico St. 72)?

Score of the Night. Stanford 111, the Tommy Amakers 56. None of the Stanford starters played more than 17 mins, and keep in mind they were w/o Brook Lopez in this game as well. The halftime score was 63-28. Good grief, man! Way to inspire confidence in your first game at Harvard, TA.

Upset Alert. UNC-Greensboro 83, Georgia Tech 74. Who said this yesterday – “upset alert if Ga Tech doesn’t come ready to play…” :-) It appears that mid-major all-american Kyle Hines absolutely shredded the Jackets’ front line (25/9/2 blks on 10-12 shooting). You never know what you’re going to get with Ga Tech, but UNCG is a team to watch as a potential at-large out of the SoCon next spring if they get a couple more of these. Belmont 86, Cincinnati 75. This really isn’t an upset, but Cincy was a 9-pt favorite at home. Wait… who said this yesterday also – “upset alert again – UC was horrid last year. Have they improved?” Now that we’re 2-0 this season on upset alerts, we’re quitting. Great BCS win for Belmont, who we perhaps foolishly did not pick to win the A-Sun again this year (gulp… we didn’t pick Gardner-Webb either). Belmont had 19 layups, 12 threes and 10 FTs, which amounted to 84 of their 86 points – now that’s efficiency. Wow. Other upsets: Tulane 77, Auburn 62 – maybe not the result, but the margin.

Line of the Night. There is no question about this one. Michael Beasley (Kansas St.) (34/24/4 assts/4 blks). 24 rebounds sets a new Big 12 conference record. Just sick numbers for a first game. Kansas St. 94, Sacramento St. 63.

Freshmen. Aside from Beasley at K-State, Kevin Love at UCLA also had an impressive debut (22/13) in a Bruin whomping (UCLA 69, Portland St. 48). The Duke trio of freshmen Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Taylor King combined for 51/14 in a complete and utter destruction of NC Central (Duke 121, NC Central 56). The Devils even pulled out some zone defense, they say.

In Memoriam. Wake Forest honored Skip Prosser by hanging a banner in their arena recognizing his contributions to the school and athletic program. The Deacons played hard and honored his legacy by winning easily (Wake Forest 85, Fairfield 60).

Nov. Bracketbuster. George Mason already helped their at-large profile with tonight’s win over Vermont, one of the better teams in the America East this year. GMU’s Will Thomas (yes, he’s still around) blew up for 16/17, overcoming the Patriots’ abysmal 1-17 from the three point line (George Mason 60, Vermont 53).

Joey Dorsey Award. We like him, but tonight’s award goes to Chris Lofton (Tennessee), for shooting 1-8 (0-5 from three) from the field and only scoring 10 pts. With a stroke like that, we expect nearly all of them to go in.

On Tap Today (all times EST). Another pretty big day with 63 games, although not much on tv because of college football. Here are some of the games to keep an eye for along the bottom line while you watch pigskin.

• Yale (NL) v. Sacred Heart 1pm – presumptive favorites from the Ivy and NEC play.
  
• Texas Tech (-19.5) v. UC Riverside (ESPN FC) 2pm – we have no idea why this is FC worthy.
• Minnesota (NL) v. Army 3pm – Tubby’s debut will probably go a little better than Billy G’s last game.
• USC (NL) v. Mercer 4pm – we cannot wait to see the OJ highlights from this one.
• Bucknell (NL) v. Albany 7pm – a game that could affect seedings (#14 or #15) next March.
• Oregon (-26) v. Pepperdine (ESPN FC) 7:30pm – how will the Ducks look w/o Aaron Brooks?
• Vanderbilt (-12) v. Austin Peay 8pm – beating the dead horse here, but this is the kind of game we wish FC would have instead.
• Marquette (NL) v. IUPUI (ESPN FC) 8:30pm – we’re not completely sold on MU – this could be an interesting game.
• Pacific v. W. Michigan (-4.5) 9:30pm – if Pacific is back this year, they need to win this game.
  

11.08.07

How’s that for a debut? We mentioned last night that we were anxious to see how the debut of Oklahoma 6’10 freshman Blake Griffin would go, and it’s safe to say that it went fetchingly. How does 18 pts (4 flushes), 13 rebs, 2 assts in 29 mins of play sound? Oh, and Oklahoma 71, San Francisco 55. Needless to say (OU was involved, after all), neither team shot the ball worth a damn from outside (6-37 combined). We weren’t really sure what to think of Jeff Capel’s Sooners this year because they just seemed so… average… last year, but with a serious post presence like Griffin now on board, we may need to rethink where we place them in the Big 12 this year.

Connecticut 82, Buffalo 57. UConn had a much easier time tonight even though this was a second round game in the CvC. Buffalo really isn’t a good team, and UConn made that apparent mid-first half when they ran off a 17-0 run to take control of the game. AJ Price finally came out of his shell to hit for 24/3/3 assts/3 stls, while teammate Stanley Robinson had a monstrous game (10/13/6 blks). Most importantly, the Husky defense was equally as good as last night, holding Buffalo to 33% shooting for the night. UConn will meet upstart Gardner-Webb at MSG next Thursday night in the semis of the CvC.

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On Tap Tonight (all times EST). For all intents, tonight is opening night. There are 93 games on the slate, including four ESPN Full Court games and two Fox College Sports games, which means we’ll finally get to evaluate some teams live. Here are some of the games to watch for.

• Saint Louis (NL) v. NC A&T 4:30pm – this should be a competitive first game for Majerus.
  
• Georgia Tech (-17 ) v. UNC-Greensboro 6pm – upset alert if Ga Tech doesn’t come ready to play.
  
• Villanova (NL) v. Stony Brook (FCSP) 7pm – how many times will Scottie Reynolds shoot – we have the o/u at 18.
• George Mason (NL) v. Vermont 7pm – how is this excellent mid-major duel not on Full Court?
• Ohio (-3 ) v. New Mexico St. (ESPN FC) 7pm – the first of Ohio’s nine FC appearances.
  
• Tennessee (-17.5) v. Temple (ESPN FC) 7:30pm – we’re excited to see how Tyler Smith fits into Pearl’s system.
• Alabama (NL ) v. Troy (ESPN FC) 8pm – w/o Steele, we just can’t get excited about Bama.
• Florida (NL) v. North Dakota St. (ESPN FC) 8pm – NDSU is no patsy – we’ll be watching to see the nation’s #1 recruiting class.
• Cincinnati (-8 ) v. Belmont 8pm – upset alert again – UC was horrid last year. Have they improved?
• Kansas (-26.5) v. Louisiana-Monroe (ESPN FC) 9pm – Will the KU of Oral Roberts fame or last Feb/March show up?
• Washington St. (-25.5 ) v. Eastern Washington (FCSP) 9:30pm – a late tilt to see if Tony Bennett still has his magic.
  
• UCLA (-23.5 ) v. Portland St. 10:30pm – how will the Bruins start the season?