Ryan Dunn is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic Sun Conference. Click here for all of our 2009-10 Season Preview materials.

Predicted Order of Finish:

1. Lipscomb Bisons                             (20-9, 15-5)
2. Jacksonville Dolphins                     (19-11, 14-6)
3. Mercer Bears                                   (17-15, 12-8)
4. Campbell Camels                            (17-13, 11-9)
5. East Tennessee State Bucs              (15-15, 11-9)
6. Belmont Bruins                               (13-17, 10-10)
7. Florida Gulf Coast Eagles              (14-15, 9-11)              
8. Stetson Hatters                               (13-16, 8-12)
9. North Florida Ospreys                    (11-19, 7-13)
10. Kennesaw State Owls                   (9-23, 5-15)
11. USC-Upstate Spartans                  (4-25, 4-16)

Preseason All-Conference Team (all stats 2008-09 season):

• James Florence (G), Mercer                  20.8 points, 3.7 assists
• Ben Smith (G), Jacksonville                   16.9 points, 4.0 assists
• Jonathan Rodriguez  (F), Campbell        15.6 points, 8.3 rebounds
• Mike Smith (F), ETSU                               15.3 points, 7.7 rebounds
• Adnan Hodzic (C), Lipscomb                17.1 points, 7.1 rebounds

6^th Man.  Daniel Emerson, Mercer.  Yes I know Emerson will not come off the bench but since he is such a good player and he wasn’t mentioned on my all-conference team I wanted to give him some recognition.  Emerson was the only player in the league last year to average a double-double.  

Impact Newcomer.  Justin Tubbs, ETSU.  Transfer from Alabama, very athletic and should provide immediate help in the ETSU backcourt.

What You Need To Know.

• While the A-Sun has 11 teams in the league, only nine teams are eligible for postseason play as Florida Gulf Coast and USC-Upstate are still completing their transition from Division 2to Division 1.  This upcoming season marks the first year that North Florida and Kennesaw State will be eligible for postseason play as they have now completed their transition to Division I.  Only eight spots are reserved for the conference tournament meaning that only one eligible team will miss out.  This year’s tournament will be played at Mercer’s University Center in Macon, Georgia.
• Some headlines that made news this offseason included a coaching change at North Florida as they named former Baylor assistant Matthew Driscoll head coach.  Driscoll has put together quite the coaching staff that features former Campbell assistant Bobby Kennan, former Head Coach at Lander College Bruce Evans, and Jeremy Shyatt, former Director of Basketball Operations at VCU and son of former Clemson head coach and current Florida top assistant Larry Shyatt.  Driscoll and his staff brought in nine newcomers to go along with six returning players.  Five of the newcomers earned all-state honors in the state of Florida. 
• The league features two of the more premier mid-major players in Campbell’s Jonathan Rodriguez and Mercer’s James Florence.  Both have a chance to rewrite their school and conference record books.  Florence is the active leader for career scoring in the league with Rodriguez following in second.  Rodriguez stands second on the Atlantic Sun’s career double-double list with 39, and is just three off the record.  Florence currently sits in fifth on the Mercer all-time scoring list.  Both players should indeed break numerous records and if you haven’t seen them play it would definitely be worth your money to see them in action this season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shamelessly cribbing from the very clever NBA catch phrase, we here at RTC will present to you the Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball as we gear up toward the start of the season a little over a month from now.  We’ll be bringing you players to watch for this season and moments to remember from last season, courtesy of the series of dump trucks, wires and effluvia known as YouTube.

#23- Where Learn His Name Happens

Justin Glover is the RTC correspondent for the Southern Conference. Click here for all of our 2009-10 Season Preview materials.

Predicted Order of Finish:

North Division

1. Western Carolina (13-5 SoCon) 22-11 overall
2. Samford (11-7 SoCon) 16-15 overall
3. Applachian State (9-9 SoCon) 17-14 overall
4. Chattanooga (8-10 SoCon) 15-17 overall
5. Elon (7-11 SoCon) 16-16 overall
6. UNC-Greensboro (2-16 SoCon)  4-26 overall

South Division

1. College of Charleston (15-3 SoCon)  24-9 overall
2. Davidson (11-7 SoCon) 19-14 overall
3. Citadel (10-8 SoCon) 17-15 overall
4. Wofford (8-10 SoCon) 16-17 overall
5. Georgia Southern (6-12 SoCon) 11-20 overall
6. Furman (5-13 SoCon) 10-21 overall

All-Conference Team:

• Andrew Goudelock (G) – College of Charleston (Jr.) – 16.7 ppg
• Cameron Wells (G) – The Citadel (Jr.) – 15.6 ppg
• Harouna Mutombo (F) – Western Carolina (So.) – 14.4 ppg
• Bryan Friday (F) – Samford (Sr.) – 12.5 ppg
• Noah Dahlman (C) – Wofford (Jr.) – 17.8 ppg

6th Man. Jake Robinson – Western Carolina (Sr) – Led the team in three pointers made (60) and attempted (167), coming off the bench in 19 games.

Impact Newcomer. Rashad Wright – College of Charleston – Intimidating presence inside with his 6’9″ frame, averaged 10.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and four blocks a game at South Kent High School last season will look to contribute to a team that is lacking in size.

What You Need to Know. Although this conference lacks the star power of a certain recently departed, diminutive guard from Davidson, the conference is not devoid of talent as witnessed by the fact that the aforementioned guard didn’t even make the NCAA tournament last year. While the Wildcats will certainly fall off this year, don’t be surprised to see the second most famous basketball personality in the league last year (Bobby Cremins) getting plenty of airtime in March.

Predicted Champion: College of Charleston (NCAA Seed: #15) – Made it to the SoCon Championship game last season after a Cinderella type run knocking off the favorite in Davidson on their way to the finals. They have always been an athletic team that uses stellar guard play to offset lack of size inside. With the starting back court of Tony White Jr., who scored 31 points in the SoCon finals game against Chattanooga, and junior all-conference candidate Andrew Goudelock who led the team in points per game and three pointers. CofC should be the team to beat in the Southern Conference this season with close to 75% of its scoring coming back from a team that made the finals in the conference tournament.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shamelessly cribbing from the very clever NBA catch phrase, we here at RTC will present to you the Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball as we gear up toward the start of the season a little over a month from now.  We’ll be bringing you players to watch for this season and moments to remember from last season, courtesy of the series of dump trucks, wires and effluvia known as YouTube.

#24- Where Rivalries Happen

After falling behind Binghamton and Kansas last week for the program making the most negative news this off-season, Louisville is making a strong bid to catch up with the Jayhawks (let’s be realistic: nobody is going to catch Binghamton in this category).  Unlike the other two programs, the Cardinals had been led by their head coach Rick Pitino who has done all the heavy lifting of keeping the program in the news. Wanting to take some of the pressure of their coach’s personal problems, which have made him more delusional than usual, Terrence Jennings and Jerry Smith (one of the Cardinals co-captains this season) were arrested for resisting law enforcement after Jennings was involved in a fight around 1 AM this morning. The altercation happened at a Louisville alumni homecoming party at Kye’s (“THE place for your special event”) in Jeffersonville, Indiana. [Ed. Note: I guess Porcini’s isn’t a popular spot for Louisville parties any more.] Pitino told a local television station that “we are aware of the situation and will be handling it internally”. Details on the incident are hard to find at this point, but after looking at Louisville’s schedule, we are guessing that their punishment will be a maximum of 2 (exhibition) games so they will be ready just in time for Arkansas and Pitino’s former player John Pelphrey.

We are eagerly awaiting Smith’s next tweet as his latest update happened just 12 hours before his arrest:

Start ya day off tellin yourself 5 reasons why lifes great… Haven’t had a bad day since I heard that.. That man knows what he talkin bout

Smith’s next tweet probably won’t be quite so cheery.

Shamelessly cribbing from the very clever NBA catch phrase, we here at RTC will present to you the Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball as we gear up toward the start of the season a little over a month from now.  We’ll be bringing you players to watch for this season and moments to remember from last season, courtesy of the series of dump trucks, wires and effluvia known as YouTube.

#25- Where HugginsBall Is Back Happens

JC of HBCUSportsBlog is the RTC correspondent for the MEAC and SWAC conferences. Click here for all of our 2009-10 Season Preview materials.

Predicted Order of Finish:

1. Alabama State (20-9)
2. Jackson State (16-13)
3. Alabama A&M (15-11)
4. Prairie View (13-16)
5. Mississippi Valley State (13-18)
6. Alcorn State (10-19)
7. Arkansas-Pine Bluff (10-19)
8. Texas Southern (9-20)
   
9. Grambling State (5-21)
10. Southern (5-26)

All-Conference Team:

• Christopher Jones (G) – Prairie View – Purest point guard in the SWAC, but will have to reduce his turnovers for the Panthers to be successful this season.
• Troy Jackson (G) – Alcorn State – Ruthless scorer who also shot better than 40 percent from the field in 08-09.
• Grant Maxey (F) – Jackson State – Versatile forward will likely emerge as the 09-10 SWAC Player of the Year
• Douglas Scott (F) – Southern – Tenacious rebounder, came on late last season with three double-doubles in his last five games.
• Darnell Hugee (C) – Prairie View – If he stays out of foul trouble, could be one of the best post players in Division I basketball.

6th Man. Deandre Hall (G) – Texas Southern – Turnover prone, but can do damage from interior and perimeter.

What You Need to Know.  The SWAC is among the worst conferences in all of Division I basketball. There’s no sugarcoating the lack of talent and the brutal out-of-conference schedules that the SWAC member schools play just to keep their athletic budgets afloat. But what they are lacking in appeal and talent, their upper-echelon teams make up for in competitive drive and great coaching. Alabama State took SEC opponents Auburn and Mississippi to the wire on the road last season before dropping both games by fewer than five points.

Predicted Champion.  Jackson State (NCAA Seed: #16). Jackson State has played second fiddle to Alabama State in the regular season for two years in a row. But while the Tigers return key seniors Grant Maxey and Garrison Johnson, the Hornets of ASU lost a lot in the departure of PG Brandon Brooks and forward Andrew Hayles. The JSU Tigers will prevail in the conference championship, but not without serious tests from the likes of Prairie View and Alabama State.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shamelessly cribbing from the very clever NBA catch phrase, we here at RTC will present to you the Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball as we gear up toward the start of the season a little over a month from now.  We’ll be bringing you players to watch for this season and moments to remember from last season, courtesy of the series of dump trucks, wires and effluvia known as YouTube.

#26- Where Versatility Happens

Like the first trickles of a flash flood, the verbal barrage about our beloved sport really started picking up this week.  There’s a lot more previewing, interviewing, writing, talking and salivating going on around the college hoops blogosphere.  Let’s take a look at some of the items that are catching our interest…

• Dissecting Duke’s Recruiting.  Gary Parrish wrote an interesting article last week about Duke’s recruiting over the past five seasons and we had to comment on it because it fairly accurately depicts what the substantive problem with Duke has been in the postseason (i.e., away from CIS).  We’re on record as saying that Duke hasn’t had a true game-changing stud since Luol Deng graced the gothic campus with his presence for one season in 2003-04.  This is not to say that Duke has been without very good players during that time.  Shelden Williams, JJ Redick and Gerald Henderson all come to mind as great collegians.  But none of those players, and certainly none of the laundry list that Parrish mentions as some of K’s other ‘top’ recruits (McBob, Singler, etc.), are the kinds of elite NBA-level talent that gets teams through the regionals and into the Final Four.  There are of course notable exceptions (George Mason in 2006 is the most obvious), but this is Duke, and Duke is always taking a team’s best shot.  They’re going to be very well coached, but Coach K and his staff know that well-coached moderate talent will lose out to elite talent more often than not.  This is why when Parrish says that Duke needs to secure commitments from Harrison Barnes and Kyrie Irving in order to compete with UNC, Kansas and now Kentucky on the national stage again, he’s right.  The Jon Scheyers of the world are great to have on your team, and will win you a lot of games over four years; but they’re not the players who can carry a team through rough spots en route to the Final Four.  If you don’t believe us, check out who was the MOP of the 2004 Atlanta Regional, leading the team in scoring in both regional games and literally saving the team on more than one occasion with clutch buckets (hint: it wasn’t the more celebrated upperclassmen).    Box scores here and here.  If Duke is serious about getting back to the big stage again before Coach K retires, he needs players like Barnes and Irving to get it done.  Fundamentally, Duke fans probably realize this, which is why each of these visits makes for tense moments in Durham.
• Midnight Madness.  So we’re only eight days away from the start of basketball practice, and thankfully the NCAA closed the loophole that meant we were having these things all month of October, like last year.  But ESPNU will be back with coverage from 9pm to 1am EDT next Friday, with a simulcast from 8:30-9pm EST on ESPN.  There will be coverage from nine schools this year, including Kansas’ Late Night in the Phog, Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness, UNC’s Late Night With Roy, and several others (Michigan St., Duke, Washington, Georgetown, UConn and North Dakota St.).  RTC will hopefully provide live coverage in some fashion, but we’re still working out what that will be.  Make sure to check back early next week for more details. 
• Prodigious Previews, Batman.  From Goodman, the Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC and Big East.  From Parrish, his final Top 25 (and 1) and his preseason all-americans.  Some players getting early-season pub are Gani Lawal, Isaiah Thomas, Alex Stepheson, Lance Stephenson, and the entire Mississippi St. frontline.  Mike DeCourcy answers five questions about his season preview.   
• Quick Hits.  Patrick Patterson: his junior year at UK will be his last.  Kevin Laue:  great to see things working out for him at Manhattan (RTC flashback).  Contract Extensions: Ed DeChellis at Penn St. and Louis Orr at Bowling Green (Parrish calls BS on these).  Zach Spiker: the new head Cadet at Army.  James Keefe: UCLA F injured shoulder, out 4-6 weeks.  Len Elmore: has UNC, Michigan St., Kansas and Michigan in his F4.  Binghamton: Nancy Zimpher was listening to us after all.  CAA: silver anniversary team.  Seth Davis: an interesting read on overworked college officials.  Chris Taft: remember him?  Rivals Team Recruiting Rankings: early list for 2010 is out. 

Sometimes even the spinniest of spinmeisters can make us guffaw out loud (GOL?) with their ridiculousness. 

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino could literally have his arm up to his elbow in the cookie jar and find a way to deliver a condescending lecture on why we shouldn’t be looking in the direction of that jar in the first place.  The guy is like Pooh Bear searching for the honey pot, Lucy holding the football and Wimpy asking for a hamburger all wrapped into one person – his memory capacity runs in nanofractions and he expects us to all blindly follow along.  Baghdad Bob himself must have eschewed Noam Chomsky’s treatise on propaganda in favor of one of Pitino’s missives, so artfully does he dwell in alternate universes of reality. 

Pitino With Yet Another Reach (photo credit: EH Shepard)

From today’s lecture speech by Pitino at the Louisville Tip-Off Luncheon, Pitino was quoted as saying a number of things, including that he thinks his team will be very coachable this year, Edgar Sosa will become one of the best point guards in the nation, and that Louisville’s backcourt can stand up against anyone in America.  All of which are possible, perhaps even plausible on certain days.  But, oh, there was also this jewel:

Louisville coach Rick Pitino insists that he’s having one of the best years of his life.

Really.  After a mostly embarrassing summer where Pitino spent several press conferences apologizing to his wife/kids/players/fans/employer by invoking 9/11, playing the hapless victim, fibbing about health insurance, berating the media and telling everyone to focus on the important things like basketball, he has decided that 2009 represents one of the best years of his 57-year old life.   Well, let’s see about that, shall we?

Below is an enlightening chart that SI’s Luke Winn created to describe the fortunes of the Louisville program since the team was upset in the Elite Eight last March by Michigan State (coincidentally, not one of Pitino’s better coaching moments).  As you can surmise, anything below the black line is a negative thing.  Anything above it is positive.  (h/t CNNSI)  What do you guys think about Pitino’s latest claim? 

Oh, we get it.  Bad means good; best means worst; and so on.  Like the kids used to say…