Glenn Junkert of Grizzly Journal is the RTC correspondent for the Big Sky Conference.

BIG SKY CONFERENCE REPORT

1. Northern Colorado 5-0 W5
2. Montana 4-1 W1
3. Sacramento State 3-3 L1
4. Eastern Washington 2-3 L1
5. Montana State 2-2 L1
6. Northern Arizona 2-2 L2
7. Portland State 1-3 W1
8. Weber State 1-3 W1
9. Idaho State 1-4 L1

RPI BOOSTERS

• Northern Colorado – Earned a Mid Major Poll rank of 25th with championships in both the Rainbow Classic and the Reggie Minton Air Force Classic and are currently ranked 69th in the USA Today Sagarin Ratings.
• Sacramento State – Defeated Oregon State 65-63 in Corvallis.
• Montana – Defeated Oregon 68-55 in Portland.

EYE-OPENERS

Early results in the Big Sky indicate a return to parity after several seasons of distinct “upper-lower division split.” PROOF: perennial bottom-feeder CSU Sacramento, under the reins of second-year coach (and Sac State alum) Brian Katz, is 3-3 with an impressive 65-63 win at Oregon State and a decent showing at Idaho. Katz’ rebuilding project of a decimated Hornet program appears decidedly ahead of schedule.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference.

Standings (as of 11/26)

1. New Mexico   (5-0)
2. BYU     (4-0)
3. UNLV    ( 4-0)
4. Air Force     (2-1)
5. TCU     (4-2)
6. Colorado State   (3-2)
7. San Diego State     (3-2)
8. Utah     (2-2)
9. Wyoming    (2-2)

Superlatives

Team of the week.  New Mexico – this could have been UNLV or BYU in this spot, but the nod goes to the Lobos for their sheer volume, hoisting five wins before Thanksgiving, including the win over their in-state rival, four impressive wins over mid-to-low major programs and a Basketball Traveler’s World Vision Classic title.

Player of the week.  Darrington Hobson, Jr, New Mexico – Hobson has been a versatile wonder for Steve Alford so far this season. The 6-7 JuCo transfer from the College of Eastern Utah has done a little bit of everything for the Lobos. Just check out these stuffed stat lines: 16 pts/7 rebs/6 asts vs. UC Riverside; 17 pts/7 rebs/5 asts vs. New Mexico State; 14 pts vs. Nicholls State; 30 pts/10rebs/3 3s vs. Louisiana Tech; and 11 pts/6 rebs/5 asts vs. Miami (OH). With numbers like those, it is no wonder that Hobson won the MVP award at the World Vision Classic and the player-of-the-week award from the MWC.

Newcomer of the week.  Hobson.

Game of the week.  Utah vs. Utah State: A classic in-state matchup between two strong programs came right down to the wire as the Utes dodged 27 points and a potentially game-tying three from Aggie senior point guard Jared Quayle in the waning moments of a 68-67 Utah victory. Carlon Brown led the Utes with 22 points (on 8/19 shooting), and Luka Drca kicked in 11 points and six assists.  RTC Live was there in case you missed it.

Game of the upcoming week. Louisville @ UNLV: The Rebels have looked strong so far, especially in the backcourt, but they will need to get some strong contributions from their frontcourt talent in order to give the Cardinals a run for their money. The backcourt battles between the Rebels young stable of talent and Louisville guards such as seniors Edgar Sosa, Preston Knowles,  Jerry Smith and Reginald Delk and freshman Peyton Siva should be quite fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

NEC Standings

1. Quinnipiac    (3-1)
2. Mount St. Mary’s    (2-1)
3. Sacred Heart      (2-2)
4. LIU       (2-2)
5. Monmouth      (1-3)
6. St. Francis (PA)       (1-3)
7. Robert Morris         (1-4)
8. FDU     (1-4)
9. Central Conn St.      (0-2)
10. Wagner       (0-3)
11. Bryant          (0-4)
12. St. Francis (NY)      (0-4)

Choice Hotels NEC Co-Players of the Week

• Jeremy Goode (G), Mount St. Mary’s – Instrumental in victories over American and Loyola (MD). Goode averaged 20 PPG shooting ,55% from the field and 81.8% from the line.
• Justin Rutty (F), Quinnipiac – Had a double-double week averaging 21 points and 11 rebounds per game. In a win over Yale, Rutty cleared the offensive boards  with 10 caroms. Rutty is eighth in NEC scoring (15.7 PPG) and 2^nd in field goal percentage (66%).

Choice Hotels  NEC Rookie of the Week. Kenny Onyechi (F), LIU – Averaged double figure scoring highlighted by a career high 13 points in a win over Navy. Onyechi has started every game for the Blackbirds and leads the conference in FG Pct (68.8%).

Read the rest of this entry »

Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net and Travis Mason-Bushman of Vandal Nation are the RTC correspondents for the Western Athletic Conference.

Current Standings:

1. Louisiana Tech (4-1)
2. Idaho (3-1)
3. Nevada (2-1)
4. Boise State (3-2)
5. Fresno State (2-2)
6. Hawai’i (2-2)
7. Utah State (2-2)
8. New Mexico State (2-3)
9. San Jose State (1-2)

The general consensus among the WAC’s head coaches during the preseason media day teleconference was that on paper this was one of the strongest, deepest set of teams in league history.  Through the first two weeks of play, that depth and strength has not translated into as many non-conference wins as the league had hoped.  At a combined 21-16, the league has not had the type of showing early that it wanted or needed to prove that it was capable of once again becoming a multiple bid league.

In the first two weeks of play, the WAC had eight head-to-head games against the Mountain West.  Only Idaho has come away with a victory, an impressive 94-87 decision on the road in Salt Lake.  Only two of the seven other WAC/MWC games, all WAC losses, have been decided by single digits.

Consistently inconsistent would be the best way to describe the league thus far.  Idaho followed up that big victory over Utah with a head-scratching 72-65 loss at Texas Southern.

Read the rest of this entry »

John Templon is the RTC correspondent for the Horizon League.

Current Standings:

1. Butler (3-0)
2. Detroit (3-1)
3. Loyola (3-1)
4. Wright State (3-1)
5. Green Bay (4-2)
6. Milwaukee (4-2)
7. Youngstown State (3-2)
8. Cleveland State (3-3)
9. UIC (1-2)
10. Valparaiso (1-2)

Top Storylines:

• Horizon League regular season:  the regular season for the Horizon League kicks off on the first weekend of December.
• Close calls, not breakthroughs:  no Horizon League team — besides Butler — has managed to knock off a power conference team.  The Bulldogs’ only power conference victory was over Northwestern and even Butler has a loss to Minnesota on Thanksgiving.
• Youth will be served:  there are a lot of young Horizon League teams leading to a variety of results thus far.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Dunn is RTC’s correspondent for the Atlantic Sun Conference.

Current Standings

1. Campbell (3-1) – Off to a nice start with only loss to Virginia Tech.
2. Mercer (3-2) – Earned a couple wins at the World Vision Invitational in Providence.
3. Belmont (2-2) – Went 1-2 at the Athletes in Action Classic in Seattle.
4. Kennesaw State (2-2) – Earned two victories over two non-Division I opponents.
5. East Tennessee State (2-3) – Knocked off two pretty good SoCon opponents.
6. Stetson (2-3) – Two victories both came over non-Division I opponents.
7. North Florida (1-2) – Knocked off Savannah State for their only victory.
8. Jacksonville (0-2) – Were not competitive at all against FSU and Cal.
9. Florida Gulf Coast (0-3) – Opened season with three straight road games.
10. Lipscomb (0-4) – Has allowed its opponents to shoot close to 60 percent.
11. USC Upstate (0-4) – Played its first three games away from home.

League Nuggets

Well, since most of these teams have played an extremely tough opening non-conference schedule, the records are less than stellar.  The combined records of the 11 teams in the league is a shaky 15-28 through the first month.  The A-Sun has been a league that has a history of early season upsets but so far no team in the league has that marquee win against a high major.  There are still plenty of opportunities out there for upsets in the next couple of weeks.   Mercer’s James Florence (21 PPG) earned the league’s first player of the week award after receiving All-Tournament honors at the World Vision Invitational.  Even with Lipscomb’s early season struggles, our preseason player of the year in the league, Adnan Hodzic, has not disappointed.  He is averaging close to 23 PPG to go along with close to eight boards after four games.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ray Floriani is an occasional contributor and the RTC correspondent for the MAAC and NEC conferences.  He covers college basketball in the greater New York City area.

NEW YORK CITY – They are visible on the baseline. They certainly are noticed during timeouts with their dance routines and gymnastics-based daredevil moves known in the field as “stunts.”  Cheerleaders are a part of the college basketball fabric.  But how many people realize the behind-the-scenes aspects of cheerleading ?

About fifteen minutes prior to the Coaches vs. Cancer final at Madison Square Garden, North Carolina and Syracuse players are going through pre-game warm-ups.  UNC cheer coach Curt Brossman is on the baseline taking a few minutes.  He had his squad stretch for about 30 minutes and gave them final instructions.  Cheerleading is anything but a haphazard venture.

Brossman cheered 5 years at North Carolina.  He is in his fourth year at UNC as cheer coach.  During high school Brossman played on the baseball and golf teams. He cheered on his high school co-ed squad during his senior year and essentially was hooked.  “At North Carolina a lot of the guys try out with no prior cheer experience,” he said.  “The women have a lot more experience in cheerleading when they come to UNC and try out.”  Among 30 or so cheer candidates each year, there are fewer men. They probably have played a sport in high school or they simply want to be part of the Carolina program.  The women have cheered from recreation, through middle school, high school and now are taking the next step.  The tryouts, especially emphasizing stunting and dance with the women, last a few days and Brossman notes with a smile there are candidates who are simply overmatched and just will not make the grade.  With the men, it is more of less seeing if they can handle their part of the stunt at the finish (usually) and have the necessary strength.

Hope this doesn't jeapordize Ray's longtime friendship with Coach K.

Brossman has made a smooth transition from the baseline to coaching.  “I’ve been involved in and worked at a number of cheer camps the past few years,” he said.  “It hasn’t been a tough adjustment (to coaching).  I really like to teach the skills involved in cheerleading.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to MSG as we take in the third place game and the finals of the Preseason NIT. In the first game, tipping right at 2:30  pm today, LSU takes on Arizona State. The Tigers were run off the court against UConn, as their backcourt was unable to handle the pressure from the Huskies. The Sun Devils come out strong against Duke, but looked lost on the offensive end over the final 30 minutes of the game. A big issue for the Tigers is going to be how they match up with Arizona State defensively. The Tigers are pretty big — Storm Warren and Tasmin Mitchell are the two forwards, but neither is what you would call a “pure” small forward. ASU plays four guards (including Rihards Kuksiks), meaning that Trent Johnson is going to have to decide between dealing with the mismatch or playing zone. At the other end, ASU is going to have their hands full with Warren inside. He had 15 and 6 in limited minutes against a good Husky front line. Eric Boateng (4 points, 4 boards, 9 turnovers) will need to play much better for ASU.

The final is the game everyone will be waiting to see. There are a few certainties in life — gravity exists, turkey puts you to sleep, Dickie V loves Duke — and one of those certainties is that Duke-UConn is going to be a classic. Think back to 1990 and Christian Laettner‘s heroics; or the 1999 title game and Trajan Langdan’s travels; or the 2004 national semifinal and the UConn comeback. Whenever these two teams tango, it is an event, and tonight will be no different. Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith have been playing fantastic basketball, but they have yet to face a team that has the athletes that UConn has in the backcourt. Jerome “Slicin'” Dyson (ESPN really needs to stop using that nickname, it is terrible. What’s wrong with Romey?) and Kemba Walker are as good defending on the ball as anyone in the nation, and the ability of the Duke guards to handle the 2-2-1 press (with Romey and Kemba up top) will be a huge determinant in the outcome of this game. That said, the difference between UConn last night and UConn of the first three games was their aggressiveness going to the glass. But for the first time all season, they will play a team that can match up with them size-wise. Will the Huskies still be able to rebound the basketball?

Two things to keep an eye on: 1) Who controls the tempo of this game. UConn is going to want to get this thing going up and down, as Duke does not have the athletes to run with them. But Duke is going to want slow this down, sit back in a packed-in zone, and let the Huskies try to shoot their way to the title. 2) Stanley Robinson vs. Kyle Singler. Singler is the best player on this Duke team, and is the guy they look to for big shots. But Sticks is a phenomenal athlete, and will be counted on to slow down Singler.

Is it 5 pm yet? In the immortal words of Fergie, “Let’s get it started in here.”

Read the rest of this entry »

1. So instead of fighting the mobs of penny-pinchers today angling for that last 1080p LCD on the shelves, we recommend a relaxing day watching more live hoops than you can possibly handle.  During the commercials, fire up the Youtubes for each and every one of the games listed here (and yes, we’re extremely bitter we didn’t think of this…).  With respect to the #1 game, we’d recommend throwing in two other games from the best E8 weekend of all time: 2005 Michigan State vs. Kentucky and West Virginia vs. Louisville.  Each game was seemingly better than the last that weekend (UNC-Wisconsin was the only stinker).
2. In case you were busy filling your face with non-avian bird flesh yesterday, you might have missed that West Virginia’s Devin Ebanks suited up but did not play for Bob Huggins’ team in their blowout win over Long Beach State.  Gary Parrish came right out and said what this actually is — not a problem of “personal issues,” but a suspension for some undisclosed reason.  So depending on how close today’s game against Texas A&M is, we may or may not see the preseason all-american in the lineup.
3. How bad was the ballroom setup at the Cancun Challenge?  According to John Calipari, pretty terrible.  Gaps in the floor big enough to lodge a foot in, warped areas of the hardwood, chandeliers hanging a mere 29 feet above the floor…  just wait until the year some star player blows out an ankle or a knee because this venue can’t or won’t upgrade its facilities.
4. Misleading Headline Theater.  This article by Scout.com explains that Memphis head coach Josh Pastner has done something that not even John Calipari could do, which is ink the #1 class in their recruiting rankings at Memphis.  Well, sure.  Technically.  But if Calipari had stayed at Memphis, he would have had John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Xavier Henry — assuredly the #1 class in America.  The only reason he didn’t get one at Memphis was because he left there; not that he couldn’t do it.  The other thing that bothered us about this article was a quote by Josh Pastner: “You look at the last four years, and it’s the greatest run in the history of college basketball and may never be done again.” Josh, Coach Wooden and his seven national titles in a row is on line three for you…  Greatest run in the history of CUSA?  Yes.  College basketball?  UCLA, Duke, Kentucky, and many, many others say hello.  Spare us with the hyperbole already.
5. Finally, since we were all giving thanks yesterday, Jeff Goodman gave us the ten things that he’s thankful for this year.  Right there with ya on #1, Jeff.  Right there with ya…

Word of the Day.  Exposure.  What we’re starting to see throughout this week of holiday hoops as good teams play other good teams is which teams are better than we all thought and which teams aren’t.  Like last night with Kentucky, some teams such as UCLA and Oklahoma are being exposed as works-in-progress with a lot of problems who are a long, long way from making any noise in March.  Others, such as Minnesota and Marquette, might be better than anyone thought they were and could be extremely underrated at this point in the season.  This is what’s great about this time of the year and all of these tournaments — it provides some clarity for how good these teams actually are — much moreso than the standard garbage game against Northeastern State U.

UCLA Gets Waxed in the 76 Classic.  Portland 74, UCLA 47. Ben Howland took the worst loss of his UCLA era, as the Portland Pilots shot a blistering 57.9% from three-point land to defeat his Bruins in front of a large fanbase from nearby Westwood.  In a weird irony from the basketball weauxfgods, Steve Lavin, the last coach to get obliterated like this on the UCLA sideline, was there calling the game for ESPN.  Portland’s lead was as great as 31 (!!!) in the second half, and UCLA had trouble against a zone defense for the second time they’ve faced one this season. Pilot guards T.J. Campbell and Jared Stohl (yeah, it really does always go in) led the Pilots with 15 points each, as the former hit three treys and the latter was a perfect 5-5 from downtown — the whole team ripped UCLA for 54% while the Bruins could only muster 33% from the field themselves. Meanwhile, UCLA is searching for leadership that has yet to show itself (Michael Roll?  James Keefe?) and has another tough matchup against Butler on Friday. Portland is beginning to turn some heads and has a chance to make real noise in this tournament if they can  beat #16 Minnesota tomorrow.  As for UCLA, the best way to sum it up may be like this…

• #16 Minnesota 82, #10 Butler 73. Tubby Smith’s team looked the better squad from start to finish of this one.  Minnesota appeared much stronger, more athletic and quicker to the ball as the Gophers repeatedly got production from its deep bench (even with three players currently suspended).  The Minnesota bench contributed 46 pts (to 8 for Butler), but we were struck by how UM’s inside players such as Colton Iverson were getting to the rebounds and physically knocking Butler stars Matt Howard (who fouled out) and Gordon Hayward around.  The Gophers’ defense was in Butler’s face on everything, holding the Bulldogs to a tepid 33% from the field and (ouch) only 5-23 from deep.  While the big three of Hayward, Howard and Shelvin Mack combined for 56 pts, they were hard-earned, and the Minnesota defense was busy locking everyone else on the team up.  If Tubby gets his suspended players back in the lineup, his team could be one of the deepest in the Big Ten this year.
• #8 West Virginia 85, Long Beach State 62.  LBSU looked completely outmatched today against WVU’s suffocating man-to-man defense and they were never really in the game.  The big story of course was that star forward Devin Ebanks dressed out but did not play, as his ‘personal issues’ seem to still be bothering him (snicker).  The Mountaineers hit twelve threes in a scintillating shooting peformance, led by Casey Mitchell, who went for 18 pts in only fifteen minutes of action.  In a nice sidenote, Jerry West’s son, walk-on Johnnie, also had a career-high eleven points to get in on the action.  Bottom line: WVU has the pieces, but Texas A&M will be a good test tomorrow.
• Texas A&M 69, #19 Clemson 60. TAMU got into Clemson’s shorts defensively early in this game, and ultimately held the Tigers to 34% for the game and 3-18 from deep in a mild upset for the Aggies.  BJ Holmes and David Loubeau came off the bench to combine for 32 pts and 14 rebounds for Mark Turgeon, but the story of this game was their defense as only Trevor Booker (18/6) and Tanner Smith (14/5/3 assts) were able to get going.  Clemson will get well in a hurry with LBSU tomorrow, but A&M will need that defense against the top ten Mountaineers.

Read the rest of this entry »