Ryan Kish of George Mason Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the CAA.
Power rankings:
Michael Chin is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.
So to update the conference, the fact is nothing has really changed:
Saint Mary’s took care of business with a win against San Diego State (SDSU). SDSU is a good team in a mediocre mid-major conference. Saint Mary’s front court played very well, but Patty Mills turned in another subpar performance, going 6-18. He needs to become a true point guard and let the game come to him. Their game against Oregon is now a must-win after San Diego edged by the Ducks this weekend.
San Diego is really an anomaly this year. They lose to New Mexico and San Jose State and the pull off a win against Oregon. This really speaks to the coaching of Bill Grier. Looking at the big picture, if Oregon doesn’t offer Mark Few the job, Bill Grier may also be on their short list.
Josh & Mike of Big Ten Geeks are the RTC correspondents for the Big Ten Conference.
Looking Back
It was a fairly uneventful week for the Big Ten, as most member squads feasted on cupcakes while preparing for finals. There were, however, a few exceptions. Ohio State won a defensive struggle against previously-undefeated Butler, giving the Buckeyes their third straight win over a top 40 team (according to Pomeroy). Ohio State continues to look a lot better than we Geeks expected, and it’s all due to the nation’s best defense according to adjusted defensive efficiency. Dallas Lauderdale’s insane shotblocking rate has been a huge part of that effort.
John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC. His columns appear on Tuesdays throughout the season.
It seems like we’re still feeling things out, getting our bearings, and getting to know some teams in this college basketball season, but believe it or not we are one-third through the 2008-09 campaign. Pretty soon it’ll be the Christmas-time tournaments and then conference play, at which point the season seems to accelerate until we get to those beautiful, life-affirming days of the conference tournaments, Championship Week, and the NCAA Tournament. I was browsing through some of the pre-season columns here on RTC and came across this one that talked about how the fair, wonderful, and beautiful people in Las Vegas saw the season shaping up. Specifically, there’s a pretty sweet table listing every Division One squad with even the most remote chance of winning the 2009 title, and the money line they were offering for each team.
The Lemmings Survey the Cliff
(Note: My sentiments above regarding the gambling gods in Las Vegas have nothing to do with the fact that the yearly RTC Vegas field trip is coming up in March. I think those things are true, no matter what. Wonderful, good-looking people they are, all of them. Every one. God bless them. Seriously…)
Now, in case you don’t know how a money line works, here’s the deal. Let’s say you go to a casino in Las Vegas and look up at the big board at the sportsbook and you see something that says North Carolina +300. This means that if you think UNC will win the title in 2009, you walk up to the incredibly nice man at the front of the sportsbook and tell him you want to make that bet. +300 means that if you bet $100 and UNC wins, the man will give you back $400, meaning the $300 offered in the money line, and your $100 bet (minus a small commission). Often, you’ll see a negative number next to a team, like (and I’m just throwing this name out) Fordham –200. This means that if you bet $200 to win (money lines can be applied to single games, conference titles, national championships, whatever) on Fordham, and Fordham wins, the nice man will hand you back $300 – the $200 you bet, and the $100 offered on that money line. A positive number means that’s how much you’ll win if you bet $100. A negative number means that’s what you have to bet in order to WIN $100. And of course you can bet as much as you want up to the maximum, i.e. with UNC above, you can bet $10 and win $30, or you can bet $500 and win $1500.
The original article covered pretty much everything noteworthy about the accompanying preseason table, but a couple of other items stood out to me. First of all, the very top. Everyone knew how great UNC was going to be, but here’s Vegas, telling us that they’re willing to give us FOUR TIMES our money if we have the so-called guts to put some cash down on what might end up being one of the all-time great college teams. Yeah, that sound you’re hearing right now? That’s me kicking myself. And without recapping the whole original article – who wouldn’t take a shot on Louisville and Connecticut (+1200 and 1400?!?)? I also literally get dizzy and have to sit down when I see Pitt (+2000), Oklahoma (+3500), Gonzaga (+4000!!), and a pretty doggone hot and versatile Wake Forest team (offered at an abominable +8000). Hey, Cincinnati readers, you looking for Xavier? They’re not even listed. You’d have to have your bet cheapened by taking the entire field at +1200.
But of course this is all with benefit of hindsight. I had this information in the preseason just like everyone else and I just sat on it. So the question becomes, where are we now? What is Vegas offering? Is there any value comparable to what we could have had in the preseason? Well, wonder no more, my friends. Here’s the latest:
source: thegreek.com
Vegas is still willing to almost triple your money with a bet on UNC, offering +175, claiming there’s a 36.4% chance that they’ll be raising the trophy in early April. It looks like they’ve woke up to Gonzaga and Tennessee as well, despite recent losses, but certainly not enough to put anyone off such a wager. But look at Louisville – true, they have a couple of things to iron out but that loss to Western Kentucky is far enough back in the rearview mirror, and since his days at Providence Rick Pitino has been the best in the business as far as 1) “learning” about his team from losses, and 2) getting his teams, and specifically the defense they play, to peak in March. Are you telling me that if one of your friends came up to you right now and said, “Give me $10 right now. If Louisville wins the title, I’ll hand you back $150,” you wouldn’t take that bet?
Obviously the story here is that, because of the sheer dominance of North Carolina and the way they’ve just eclipsed the entire college basketball landscape, most of the tremendous value that was on the board back in November is still there even a third of the way into the season. For some teams it’s come back a little (UConn, Oklahoma) but it’s still pretty inviting. For other squads you can get even better deals than back in November (Louisville, Texas, Kansas, Pitt), and you have the Tar Heels to thank for that. I mean, come on — they still don’t even bother to list #7 Xavier. Vegas is telling us here that any bet against UNC is basically a sucker bet. They might be right. But they’re certainly willing to reward you like crazy if you feel adventurous enough to bet against the Tar Heels, should they falter.
Upset of the Night. Cleveland St. 72, Syracuse 69. Cuse has been playing with fire at the Carrier Dome this season, needing comebacks to win against Richmond, Virginia and Cornell, and it appeared they were on track for another comeback, heading to OT after Arinze Onuaku’s putback of Andy Rautins’ missed three that tied the game with 2.2 seconds remaining in regulation. Cleveland St.’s Cedric Jackson had other thoughts, as in… one sidestep dribble and a 60-foot heave at the rim that went glass and actually dropped for the three-point win – it was his first three of the night to fall (of five attempts). CSU has now won their last three trips to the Carrier Dome (notably, their previous two were in the 1986 NCAA Tournament when they upset Indiana and St. Joe’s), and don’t sleep on the Vikings – this is a quality team that could win the Horizon and become a nightmare matchup for some unsuspecting power conference foe in the first round of the NCAAs. J’Nathan Bullock laid an egg in the first half (zero pts), but stepped up for 18 in the second to lead the Vikings. Jonny Flynn had 16/4/5 assts, but at least one Cuse blog thinks he sleptwalked through most of the game.
What Else You Weren’t Watching Tonight.
On Tap Tuesday (all times EST). The SEC/Big East Invitational gets going in Nashville, but not much else.
Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big 12 and Missouri Valley Conferences.
Current Records and my standings (Last Week)
This has been a slow week for the Big 12. Finals are upon us, so just a few games and updates this week.
Allen R of Houston Basketball Junkies is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.
The week of final examinations usually equates to a slow basketball week and Conference USA is no exception to the rule.
In fact Houston, Memphis, Tulane, Rice, ECU, UAB, UTEP, Marshall and SMU all refrained from scheduling games during the week.
However there were a few games and storylines worth talking about in this rather uneventful week: Read the rest of this entry »
Imagine that during your senior year of high school, you manage to scrape and claw your way onto the varsity basketball team. You sit the bench, but you’re the first number called by the coach in most games, and you provide leadership, hustle and smarts in the twenty games you see action for your 26-2 conference championship team. But a D1 collegiate prospect you’re assuredly not – your 3.4 ppg and 2.5 apg averages don’t even rise to the level of your GPA (4.3). So you send your college applications out like everyone else in the Class of 2008, and the year of varsity hoops is but one of your many extracurriculars that you hope will give you an edge in the process. Good fortune intervenes as you are accepted into your dream school, and before you know it, you’re not only on the varsity of a national powerhouse team coming off of three straight Final Four trips, but sitting on the bench in uniform alongside several HS all-americans and actually seeing a minute-plus of playing time in a real game against a Big East opponent (he missed his only three, by the way).
John Wooden with great-grandson Tyler Trapani
Preposterous? Nah. Meet Tyler Trapani, UCLA’s walk-on seventeenth man, who also happens to be the great-grandson of a rather illustrious presence around Westwood – John Wooden. Normally, we’d be up in arms over this clear case of nepotism, but actually, we don’t have any problem with this story. As Ben Howland said in a recent AP report, he’s just acting as a caretaker for Coach Wooden’s program, and it’s not as if Trapani’s presence on the team otherwise injures any current Bruin’s standing (apparently, for most games he sits in the stands in street clothing).
photo credit: Christian Petersen/Getty Images
As part of the Wooden Classic festivities against Depaul on Saturday, the elder Bruin coach was there when Trapani (#4) played for ninety glorious seconds. Given that the current walk-on Bruin once as a child told his great-gramps that he already knew how to shoot the ball when “Papa” was trying to correct his form, what was the WoW’s take on his 6’0, 185-lb. scion’s all-around game?
He’s a little heavy-footed, but he works hard for a young fellow just starting college. He doesn’t have the quickness for changing direction that I always like to have.
Translation: I was too busy recruiting players like Lew Alcindor, Sidney Wicks, Walt Hazzard, Bill Walton, Marques Johnson, et al., than to go after slow-as-molasses chumps like you. Still love ya, though, kid.
Source: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/
Monday
– Stony Brook at #2 UConn at 7 PM on ESPN Full Court, ESPN360.com, and the Big East Network: The only way this game stays within 20 is if the Huskies actually have to take final exams. Nothing to see here unless you know one of the Huskies benchwarmers and want to see him get some PT.
– Cleveland State at #11 Syracuse at 7 PM on Time Warner-New York: Should be another snoozefest, but you might want to check the Orangemen out to see how they are adjusting to life without Eric Devendorf (or not). If Time Warner-New York is on their game, they will run a feature on the 1985-86 Cleveland State team that upset Indiana in the NCAA tournament that was documented in John Feinstein’s classic “Season on the Brink” (great winter break reading for the erudite RTC fan).
Tuesday
– South Florida vs. Vanderbilt at 7 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: This game is officially at a “neutral” location, but the game is being played in Nashville. Even Coach K would be embarrassed to call that a neutral site. The Commodores could use a win here as they have been disappointing so far while the Bulls have been surprisingly competitive. However, since Vanderbilt plays in the SEC and USF plays in the Big East the reverse will be true during league play.
– #23 Marquette vs. #19 Tennessee at 9:30 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: The game of the week (before Saturday). Another “neutral” site game in Nashville. The Volunteers will be looking to bounce back from their loss to Dionte Christmas Temple. The loss dropped them 11 spots from a #8 ranking. They can make a case for a top 10 ranking again if they can beat Marquette. Meanwhile, the Golden Eagles have been playing well (7-1) and come into the game with a top 25 ranking. Unfortunately, that only makes them the 8th highest ranked team in the Big East. I know it’s early and sounds ridiculous for a top 25 team, but Marquette could use a win here to start building a case for a NCAA tournament bid in case they fall back a little in the Big East because I still have a hard time believing the Selection Committee will give the Big East 10 bids.
Wednesday
– Cram for your last finals or go through the games you missed while studying for those finals/writing that term paper because this is a weak set of games.
Thursday
– Mississippi State at Cincinnati at 6:30 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: The Bearcats (6-2) are off to a respectable start–losses to FSU and Xavier–by almost any league’s standards except for the Big East where they will struggle to stay out of the bottom third of the conference. The Bulldogs (7-3) are also off to decent start, but may be without coach Rick Stansbury who was admitted to a local hospital for new-onset migraines (the administration expects him to be able to coach that night). The Bearcats will have their handful trying to score inside with “The Human Eraser” Jarvis Varnado who comes into the game with a 6.2 blocks per game average.
– Evansville at #1 UNC at 7 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: I’m expecting the line for this game to be UNC by 20, but don’t sleep on Evansville. They come into the game with a 7-1 record including a 32-point win over a Western Kentucky team that handled preseason Final Four favorite Louisville its only loss. The Tar Heels may also be a little off their game if they start buying into the hype (we aren’t) or if they continue to have late-night trysts with America’s sideline princess.
– Mississippi at #9 Louisville at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: The Rebels shouldn’t really present a challenge Louisville, but I haven’t bought into Rick Pitino’s Cardinals yet. In their only game that could be considered moderately challenging, they fell apart losing to Western Kentucky. If Pitino hopes to contend for a national title this year, his team needs to be able to put away teams like Mississippi early. We’ll also be watching to see Samardo Samuels, who is playing like the best freshman in the country right now.
Friday
– Get some sleep or go get some sun because you’re going to be glued to your couch all day tomorrow.
A10 Weekend. The A10 used three televised games on Saturday to announce its presence to America, knocking off an SEC, Big East and Big 12 team in the process (two of which were effectively road games). With the relative weakness of the Pac-10 and SEC this year, the A10 could make a run at a legitimate four NCAA bids this season. Today’s results could go a long way in the Tourney Committee’s minds toward that end. Great weekend for the Atlantic 10.
Overnight 5: February 16, 2023
2021-22 Rush The Court Preseason All-America TeamsRTC 16: 2021-2022 Pre-Season Rankings
Preseason Stock Report: Buy Now
Preseason Stock Report: Bear Market
2020-21 Rush the Court All-America Teams and Yearly AwardsEight Questions for the Final FourEight Key Questions for the Sweet Sixteen16 Questions For First Round Saturday of the NCAA Tournament16 Questions for First Round Friday of the NCAA Tournament
