Corey Johns is the RTC correspondent for the America East Conference.

Two weeks ago the America East Conference looked to be wide open.  Everybody was beating everybody and the bottom team was just two games away from the top of the conference.  But in the past two weeks the conference has started to even out.  Boston U, Vermont and Binghamton have started to separate themselves from the rest of the pack and very surprisingly the two teams in the conference championship last season, UMBC and Hartford, look to be at the bottom for good along with Maine.

Team    Overall Record    Conference Record

1. Boston U    13-9    8-2
2. Vermont    16-7    7-3
3. Binghamton    14-8    7-3
4. Albany    13-9    5-4
5. Stony Brook    13-10    5-5
6. New Hampshire    9-12    4-5
7. UMBC    9-13    3-7
8. Maine    8-15    3-7
9. Hartford    6-18    2-8

Projected Awards

First Team All-Conference

• D.J. Rivera, G, Binghamton- (20.4ppg, 6.2rpg, 1.6spg, 49.1% FG)
• Darryl Proctor, F, UMBC- (19.6ppg, 8.6rpg, 1.3spg, 48.9% FG)
• John Holland, F, Boston U- (18.5ppg, 5.4rpg, 1.9spg, 47.3% FG)
• Corey Lowe, G, Boston U- (17.9ppg, 4.0rpg, 4.0apg, 44.3% FG))
• Marques Blakely, F, Vermont- (15.5ppg, 8.6rpg, 3.0bpg, 60.1% FG)

Player of the Year

• Darryl Proctor, F, UMBC- (19.6 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 2.0 apg, 1.3 spg, 22 games in double figures)

Defensive Player of the Year

• Marqus Blakely, F, Vermont- (8.6rpg, 3.0bpg, 2.1spg)

Freshman of the Year

• Bryan Dougher, G, Stony Brook- (11.7ppg, 1.8apg, 1.5rpg, 40.6% three pointers)

Coach of the Year

• Dennis Wolff, Boston U- (13-9, 8-3)

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During the “Massacre at Littlejohn”, Clemson couldn’t miss and Duke couldn’t hit anything (or even break a simple press). It was a night of rejoicing for Duke haters as just about everything went right for Oliver Purnell and the Tigers. Well almost everything. . .

The one exception was the attempted aerial acrobatics of one Terrence Oglesby. I have been searching for video of the attempt since it happened, but couldn’t find it until tonight when I stumbled upon two videos. The first is a Zapuder-like film from what appears to be the last row of Littlejohn.

On the surface, it appears to be just another routine blown break-away dunk. It happens to the best of us. (Ok, maybe not me unless we’re playing on a 9-foot rim.) The part where this becomes an instant classic is when you watch ESPN’s coverage. I wasn’t able to find a condensed clip of it, but if you go to the 2:20 mark you will get the pay-off.

I can’t definitively say what was going through Purnell’s mind after that attempt, but I believe it was something along the lines of what the great Sidney Deane once said, “Billy, listen to me. White men can’t jump.”

Friday Night Hoops. It’s rare that there’s enough going on to justify a Friday night ATB, but it’s also rare that a 9-0  major conference team goes down to a conference opponent who has proven they can only beat Depaul (2 Ws vs. the Blue Demons; zero against all others).

• South Florida 57, Marquette 56. Thanks to the miracle of ESPN Full Court, we caught the second half of this one, and it was clear that Marquette got themselves into a maelstrom that they didn’t anticipate.  USF came to play, as they typically do at the SunDome (they’ve had tough losses to Louisville and Villanova this year in Tampa), but the story of this game was that the Marquette guards simply weren’t dialed in (4-24 from three), and it showed in their lackadaisical effort throughout.  Shooting 44% from the line didn’t help either.  Marquette can’t say that they didn’t have chances – Lazar Hayward will undoubtedly not sleep the next few nights re-living the easiest of easy putbacks that he blew with one second remaining in the game, and everyone except Jerel McNeal (22/4) seemed “off” tonight.    Marquette is still a good team, and not the first top 10 squad to get punked on the road this week, but with a veritable Murderer’s Row of games coming up in the last four weeks of the season, we think it’s time for the Golden Eagles to realize what they are – a really good team that is good enough to make the Sweet 16 with some nice matchups.   No more, no less.

Tune In Tomorrow! We’ll be back starting at Noon EST with our weekly feature, Boom Goes the Dynamite! Feel free to check in and make comments throughout the day’s games.  There are some good ones, including Syracuse @ Villanova and Memphis @ Gonzaga.

Michael Hurley is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-10 Conference.

News and Notes

• Arizona State‘s Rihards Kuksiks leads the nation in 3-point percentage, but is only third in the Pac-10. How is that possible? Well NCAA statistical leaders need to make a minimum of 2.5 per game from three-point range to qualify, while Pac-10 needs to make one per game and play in 75 percent of the team’s games. Theo Robertson is shooting 56.2% and Michael Roll is shooting 54.5%, both ahead of Kuksiks’s 46.7%. Either way Kuksiks has had a tough time the past two games going 3-for-20 from behind the arc.
• Ben Howland‘s 13-4 record against California is his best against any team in the Pac-10.
• UCLA’s recent victory over Stanford was UCLA’s largest victory over Stanford at Pauley Pavilion in over 30 years. It was also UCLA’s highest scoring game under Howland. UCLA shot 73% from 3-point range and only 62% from the free throw line. Maybe they should start taking their foul shots from behind the arc.
• California, the best three-point shooting team in the nation at 47%, shot 2-for-16 from three-point range against USC.
• UCLA dominated teams this week. The Bruins went 3-0 with average margin of victory over 21 points.
• Darren Collison, who earlier this year broke the UCLA record for consecutive free-throws with 43, is shooting 94.4% from the line, which leads the nation.
• Craig Robinson has turned it around for Oregon State. The Beavers have four wins in the first half of the Pac-10 schedule for the first time since 2002-03.
• After another week of ups and downs in the Pac-10, there are really only two locks for the tournament at this point: UCLA and Washington. Four others (Arizona, Arizona State, California, and USC) still have work to do.

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Ed. Update (02.08.09 @ 9:30pm EST) – the Ebay listing has been removed.  The below screen grab is the only evidence remaining.

We all know that securing tickets to one of the annual Duke-Carolina matchups is a difficult task (particularly in the 9,000 seat Cameron Indoor Stadium), but sensing that change is indeed in the air, North Carolina state senator Eddie Goodall (R-Mecklenberg) has decided to offer his senate seat for a pair of tickets to next Wednesday’s game.  Channelling ousted Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich, Goodall didn’t choose to reach out to Jesse Jackson, Jr.; rather, his choice of a targeted customer base was… Ebay?

See, Goodall has for some cockamamie reason put his actual senate seat, as in his chair, on Ebay.  We know the economy’s bad and all, but you’d think that the NC Senator’s salary of $13,951 per annum would leave him in much better shape than that.  Ok, probably not, but his tax and financial consulting business probably enabled him to buy the monogrammed $787.95 chair in the first place.  A CBS Sportsline report that broke the story today suggests that Goodall cannot legally sell either one of his seats – physical or political – which begs the question as to what his orginal motive was here.  He claims that the whole thing is an “elaborate goof,” but that rings about as hollow as the assertion of yellowcake in Niger.

We’ll have to wait to see what happens with the chair, but we can rest assured of one thing – Goodall may have played ball at UNC-Charlotte instead of Chapel Hill, but he’s clearly no Dook fan.

Kevin McCarthy of Parsing the WAC and Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net are the RTC correspondents for the WAC.

Current Standings (Updated through games played on 02/05/09):

1. Utah State (10-0, 22-1)
2. Nevada (6-6, 13-9)
3. Boise State (5-3, 15-6)
4. New Mexico State (5-5, 11-12)
5. Idaho (4-4, 10-11)
6. San Jose State (4-5, 10-10)
7. Hawai’i (3-7, 11-11)
8. Louisiana Tech (3-7, 9-14)
9. Fresno State (1-7, 9-14)

Official WAC Player of the Week — Jahmar Young

The sophomore Young did just about everything but pop the popcorn and take tickets at the Pan-American Center last week and rightly came away with the WAC Player of the Week award. Young averaged 28.5 points per game on 72.7% shooting from the floor in wins against San Jose State and Hawaii. He was ‘en fuego’ from three-point range — seven for ten — and sank 18 of 20 free throws. Young also grabbed 10 rebounds and made four steals.

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Mark Bryant, the Coordinator of New Media for the Big South Conference and writer of Big South SHOUT, is an RTC correspondent.

The Big South had a small tremor at the top, but it still divides out into three tiers as we work through early February:

The Dynamic Duo
VMI and Radford are on top of the heap these days and rightfully so. With VMI’s rapid-fire assault and Radford’s inside-outside game, they have been the two teams to beat in Big South play this season. VMI’s hold on the lead took a blow with a surprising home loss to UNC-Asheville (103-95) that, coupled with a Radford win at Winthrop the same night (59-55), created a deadlock at 9-2. Strangely enough both the Keydets and Highlanders have suffered a pair of home losses yet they remain spotless on the road in conference play.

Fight to the Finish
The middle ground in the Big South battle finds five teams clustered together as we march into the second half of the conference schedule. Don’t forget that the top four teams will host quarterfinal games in the conference tournament so getting one of those four seeds carries a lot of weight. If one assumes that two of those slots belong to VMI and Radford (a sensible assumption although still far from a lock), that means only two of these five will earn the bonus home game. Presbyterian College’s ineligibility for postseason play this year bumps the Blue Hose from the group, so here’s who’s in the hunt: Liberty (7-5, fresh off of a 95-90 loss at GWU), Gardner-Webb (also 7-5, thanks to that big win over the Flames), UNC-Asheville (6-6, with a clutch win over VMI on the resume now), and Winthrop (struggling at 5-7 but the four-time defending champ is still in the discussion).

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Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is the RTC correspondent for the NEC and MAAC Conferences.

NEWARK, NJ – Player of the week was Joey Henley, a senior forward,  who averaged a double-double (15 points, 11.5 rebounds) in two Sacred Heart victories. LIU freshman forward Julian Boyd earned his fourth Rookie of the Week honor with a 15 ppg, 8 rebound showing in a 1-1 week.

The standings as of Friday February 6, 2009:

1. Robert Morris        10-1
2. Mount St. Mary        8-4
3. LIU                7-4
4. Central Ct.            7-5
5. Sacred Heart            7-5
6. Quinnipiac            6-6
7. St.Francis (NY)        5-7
8. FDU                5-7
9. Monmouth            4-7
10. Wagner            3-9
11. St.Francis (PA)        2-9

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JC of HBCUSportsBlog is the RTC correspondent for the SWAC and MEAC Conferences.

The big news in college sports this week was national signing day for high school football players. But basketball is king in the MEAC, so we look back on the obvious, the shocking and the downright ugly in this week’s wrap-up.

THIS WEEK – And here come the Coppin State Eagles. Again. Last year’s team ripped off eight of their last nine regular season contests heading in to the MEAC tournament, and you know the rest. They’ve won four in a row and five of their last seven after a murderous 2-13 start. Maybe there is something to taking so many out-of-conference beatings.

While the Eagles are rising, the Bethune-Cookman University Wildcats are falling. The Wildcats were tops in the conference at the outset of conference play, but have lost their last three games at home, the last two to conference bottom feeders Delaware State and the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.

Here’s what’s in between.

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Marty Leon is the RTC correspondent for the Patriot League.

Leon’s Leads – Tom Brennan to Georgia !!!  The Current ESPN Hoop analyst and Georgia Alum could bring his Vermont Magic to Athens.

Rush the Courts Ten Reasons Why Tom Brennan Could Coach Georgia !!

1. Graduate and former player.
2. Great Recruiter.
3. Will demand academic performance of players.
4. Players coach.
5. Turned losing Vermont team into nationally respected program.
6. Terrific at promoting University.
7. Never takes himself to seriously.
8. People of Georgia would love him.
9. Beat Syracuse.
10. Would be a great addition to homecoming festivities.

Holy Cross Getting It Done

At 6-1 in the league, Holy Cross has  proven they are for real and the top contender to take the title away from American. Freshmen R.J Evans has been awesome, averaging 13 ppg and second in the league in steals. The guard from Norwich Free Academy in Connecticut has been rookie of the week SEVEN times!!  Andrew Keister has helped carry the load, leading the Patriot in field goal percentage and seventh in rebounding. Ralph Willard has done a great job regrouping his team after a rocky injury plagued start to the season.

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