The Torrington (CT) Police Department had a busy day impacting the college basketball landscape in the last 24 hours.  The first blurb of news was that Duquesne sophomore guard BJ Monteiro, a backup expected to play a bigger role this season, was charged with larceny of $1400 worth of goods, including an Ipod, a laptop and some cash.  Monteiro is originally from the area, having attended Crosby HS in nearby Waterbury.  Soon after this news hit, the Torrington PD was at it again, this time announcing that it was dropping assault and breach of the peace charges against Maryland freshman forward, Jordan Williams.  This incident stemmed from a fight between Williams’ girlfriend and another girl, but police said nobody was injured and all parties were willing to let things slide.  Torrington is Williams’ hometown.  So does Torrington have a reputation for troublemakers or is this just a really odd coincidence?  We’re going with the latter. 

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. Morgan State (22-9)
2. North Carolina A&T (17-14)
3. South Carolina State (16-12)
4. Coppin State (14-13)
5. Bethune-Cookman (14-16)
6. Hampton (12-18)
7. Delaware State (10-17)
8. Norfolk State (9-19)
9. Florida A&M (9-16)
10. Howard (4-23)
11. Winston-Salem State (4-26)
12. UMES (3-27)

All-Conference Team:

• Tavarus Alston (G) – North Carolina A&T – Should lead the MEAC in assists this season, and could be a scoring threat as well.
• Reggie Holmes (G) – Morgan State – 3rd leading scorer and leading 3pt shooter in the MEAC in 08 will expand his role in 09.
• Jason Flagler (F) – South Carolina State – Dynamic scorer is SC State’s best chance at post-season success.
• Neal Pitt (F) – UMES– Tenacious rebounder and defensive force under the basket will lead conference in glass cleaning for second straight season.
• Kevin Thompson (C) – Morgan State – Could emerge as a secondary scoring option in the low post, and will fill role as interior stopper.
• Alexander Starling (6th Man, F) – Bethune-Cookman –Versatile forward is Bethune-Cookman’s primary scoring option.

What You Need to Know.  The MEAC is a mid-major conference that, while among the lowest rated in RPI, is among the more recognized brands in college basketball outside of power conference competition. The MEAC champion has won three first-round tournament games in the last 20 years, and has produced tough out of conference wins over quality competition in the last three years. (Morgan State defeating Maryland, Hampton defeating George Mason in 2008)

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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.

#29- Where Pure Athleticism Happens

Quick.  Name the top six programs of all-time. 

(waiting…)

If the names Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA didn’t come immediately to mind, then you probably shouldn’t be reading this site.  The gummy bear picture that you’re looking for is somewhere else.  These six schools represent, oh, only about half of the NCAA championships, a boatload of great players and tradition, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 11,000 wins.  Not too shabby. 

Now, who would you have on the next tier of great programs?  Certainly Louisville, Ohio St., Cincinnati, Syracuse, Michigan St., NC State and some others would have a good argument, right?  You might even throw an Oklahoma St. (two titles as A&M) or a Georgetown in there, right?   Riddle us this, though.  Where would you place a program that has been admittedly solid over the years, but even with five Final Fours on its resume, has never quite grasped the brass ring itself?

If you’re a computer program such as Jeff Sagarin’s all-time college basketball ratings (released today as part of the ESPN CBB Encyclopedia out tomorrow), you might rank that program sixth.  As in, the sixth best program in college basketball history.  Ahead of Duke, Louisville, and all but the elites mentioned above.  And therein lies the problem with purely quantitative analysis such as this – whether it’s the BCS or the Helms Titles – there absolutely must be a qualitative component where you can consider the look and feel of what you’re evaluating, or you end up with an embarrassing result that suggests Illinois is the sixth best college basketball program of all-time. 

Look, we have nothing against the Illini.  There’s no question that the Big Ten stalwart is one of the top twenty programs ever, as five F4s, plenty of great players from Red Kerr to Deron Williams, and a long history of achievement will attest.  But if the boys from Urbana-Champaign are one of the top six programs in history, having never won a national title (and only sniffing it once, in 2005), well, we simply cannot accept that result.  By contrast, the #7 team in Sagarin’s all-time ratings, Duke, has by itself won three titles, been a runner-up six other times, and enjoyed the final weekend another five times.  How is this possible? 

Aggregation of data is how.  At some point during Duke’s long basketball history, their ‘down’ periods were worse than Illinois’ even though Duke’s ‘up’ periods are much better, and despite all the phenomenal success of the Blue Devil program over the course of 72 years of basketball, Illinois’ profile looked slightly stronger in Jeff Sagarin’s insane mind on paper (although after reviewing all-time records here and here, we’re still having trouble figuring that out).  

Ed. Note: we just learned that the methodology JS used was to double the value of NCAA Tournament wins vs. regular wins, with no regard for when they occurred.  We’d have thought that Sagarin might have put a little more thought into that, eh?  Perhaps giving bonuses for winning games deeper into March, perhaps?

Here are some other head scratchers:

• #10 Iowa – with 3 F4s and no titles, this could be even more egregious than the Illinois selection at #6. 
• #25 USC – there is literally nobody in the Pac-10 who would agree with this. 
• #34 California – Stanford will be pleased to know that their rival school with a title and runner-up is below the Cardinal.
• #38 Maryland – one spot behind Wake Forest and its sole F4 appearance.  Hilarious. 
• #49 Arizona – we understand why Arizona is so low (same with UConn), but good grief…
• #54 Connecticut – Calhoun and Olson are those programs, historically speaking, but we have trouble seeing a two-title team this low.
• #64 Florida – speaking of two titles…
• #77 Northwestern – yes the same NW who has never been to the NCAA Tournament.  Not once. 
• #149 Rutgers – not a head scratcher, but this is the lowest BCS program on the list. 

Turns out we’re not the only ones sitting around and wondering just what happened here. 

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.

#30- Where Get Out Of My Paint Happens

Well, things continue to improve in Lawrence.

In yet another showing of extremely poor judgment by Kansas players, news just hit the wires that backup guard Brady Morningstar (7/3/3 assts in 30 mpg last year) was arrested for DWI last night, and has been suspended for the first semester as a result.  According to reports, Morningstar was arrested and booked at 3:42 am at the Douglas (KS) County Jail, and released on a $250 bond at 6:01 am the same morning.  Can you imagine Bill Self waking up to that call?  Self, to his credit, immediately suspended Morningstar for the remainder of the semester.  From the Lawrence Journal World & News:

“We are aware of the situation,” Self said. “We are also still fact finding. Regardless of the details that concern the reason for him being stopped, he broke team rules that have been much more stringent since last week. Brady was in serious violation of curfew. Because of that and his extremely poor judgment last night, I have decided to suspend him for the first semester from all competition and travel. Brady will remain a member of our team and will participate in all other team functions. We will support him through this, but needless to say I am very disappointed in the sequence of events that took place last night.”

There’s no word yet whether Morningstar updated his Facebook status page while he was being arrested, but we’re sure those details are coming soon.

Seriously, though, Bill Self must be pulling his hair out right now.  The Lawrence police just announced yesterday that they were looking into filing disorderly conduct charges based on last week’s fights between his team and the football Jayhawks, and now one of his key backups is allegedly driving drunk on the interstate in the middle of the night.  Self says that rules are more stringent in the KU program as a result of those fights, but clearly more needs to be done to sent a message.  Maybe this incident will get the attention of his team?

He’s 66, he goes by Uncle Charlie, and he is the envy of most Kentucky fans all over the world on this day.

Uncle Charlie holds court at the front of line.

Why is that, you may ask?  Because he is at the front of a line consisting of 311 tents and tarps that comprises the queue that has formed in front of Lexington’s Memorial Coliseum, the UK basketball team’s practice venue.  The line exists because on Saturday morning the University will give out tickets to Kentucky’s version of Midnight Madness, which as we all know is the day that schools are allowed to start having official, full-staffed practices.  The line of tents snakes around the Coliseum and up approximately two city blocks — on both sides, mind you — and that tent-count of 311 was as of Thursday evening.  I heard one estimate that it could more than double by Friday night.  The local news is reporting that this will be the longest line-up in the history of any Kentucky basketball ticket distribution.

Cornhole players at the front of the line

No, that’s correct, you read that right…this is all for the first practice of the season.  Not a game.  People were allowed to start camping out at 8am on Wednesday, September 30th for the Saturday, October 3rd ticket distribution.  That’s three and half days of sleeping  on the ground for the privilege of attending…a practice.

“Let me tell you something, there is absolutely nowhere I’d rather be than this place,” confirms Uncle Charlie, who quotes stats from legendary Kentucky players like “Wah Wah” Jones and Cotton Nash with the quickness and accuracy of someone talking about his own children’s athletic talents.  “Look at this, there’s no actin’ up, no bad stuff happening, no police having to tend to this.  This is just a bunch of people — young people, old people like me — who love Kentucky basketball.” 

A few months ago, we were writing about how the Big Blue Nation was, to say the least, crestfallen about themselves and their situation.  Kentucky fans were enduring a season with what they perceived to be an underachieving bunch, a listless group of players who seemed out-of-synch under the leadership of former coach Billy Gillispie, a man who Kentucky supporters (and evidently University bigwigs) felt was not only a reluctant front-man for the Kentucky program from a public-relations standpoint both locally and nationally — but also a coach who looked a little in over his head at this level.  Of course, UK would end up in the NIT, a simply unacceptable result in the eyes of the Big Blue Nation; Gillispie was soon gone (but not, um, forgotten), and John Calipari hired.  Now, there’s a line of tents well over a mile long.

“We don’t talk about the past couple of years that much any more; not because we’re ashamed, but because — well just look at this,” notes Bruce, a 35-year-old firefighter who drove 180 miles from Owensboro, Kentucky to camp out here for tickets.  “The campers would have still been here no matter who the coach was or who was on our roster.  The line might not have been as long, and the mood might not have been as good around here.  But with Coach Cal and this freshman class, and guys like (sophomore guard) Darius Miller and (junior forward/center) Patrick Patterson coming back, I’d rather talk about the future.”

Patrick Patterson takes care of a young fan

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Every year around the few weeks prior to formal practice you start to see these types of reports of players getting injured during workouts.  Proper recovery in between workouts and practices is crucial to avoid injuries. To help you recover from intense workouts, you may take NativePath food supplements.

You hate to see it, but at least in most of these situations, the player knows that the year is lost and can start thinking about a full year of recovery rather than trying to rush it.  Case in point:

Notre Dame Loses Scott Martin

Bad news out of South Bend today – Scott Martin, a 6-8, 219 lb. junior guard who was expected to start for the Irish in 2009-10, will miss the entire season due to a torn ACL in his left knee.  Before transferring to Notre Dame, Martin averaged 8.5 points in his freshman year at Purdue, where he played 21.9 minutes per game.  Those numbers would have been helpful for Mike Brey’s team this year, as Martin seems to be in the same build as Ryan Ayers, a 6-7, 210 lb. guard who scored 11.1 ppg in 2008-09, his senior season.  The injury occurred during preseason workouts yesterday, and an MRI earlier today confirmed the ACL tear.

It remains to be seen who will fill in now that Martin’s Fighting Irish debut will be delayed another year. Besides Luke Harangody, no one on the team grabbed five rebounds a game last year, and now Brey will be forced to fill in with a smaller player (6-3 Ben Hansbrough, also in his first year after a transfer from Mississippi St.) or someone with little to no experience. While none of the incoming freshmen at Notre Dame garnered more than three stars from Rivals.com and Scout.com, they may see the floor more than expected. The Irish were already entering the season with questions as to how they would replace Kyle McAlarney, who was second on the team in scoring (15.0 ppg) and first in offensive efficiency. Undoubtedly, Mike Brey expected Scott Martin to help answer some of those questions.

Emmanuel Negedu Medical Update

This Kansas thing just gets uglier.  A report yesterday from the Lawrence Journal World & News associates two other criminal matters with the fights between KU football and basketball players on Sept. 22 and 23.  Officials were quick to say that these crimes do not involve Jayhawk athletes, but from a public relations standpoint, the company you keep can be just as revealing as your own behavior (FB updates for all the world to read).  It’s not fair, but it’s real.  Footage released yesterday showed what appears to be a large crowd of people standing around outside the now-infamous Jayhawker Towers watching something go down (see full video report here), but the angle and quality of the video is not good enough to pick out particular parties who were involved. 

What we do know is that the mother of Mario Chalmers’ child, Andrea Johnson, was cited over the summer for battery in another dispute at the Towers, and she apparently was also somehow mixed up in the mess at KU last week along with another woman who may or may not be the flash point for all of this machismo.  According to court records, Guy Lipscomb, a Lawrence resident who is not a KU student, threatened to shoot Johnson and that woman in the parking lot outside the Towers shortly after the first Sept. 22 melee (pictured above).   

Now, we don’t know about how heated your arguments get with people, but we think it’s safe to say that, as a general rule, if you’re pissing someone off enough for them to seriously threaten to SHOOT you, then there’s probably a decent reason (or two) why that person is angry with you.  Clearly, RTC doesn’t condone assault or battery of any kind, and the police did their sworn and rightful duty to take Lipscomb off the street and away from a potentially deadly situation.  But what’s going on with these two women to make everyone so flippin’ mad? 

We say it again.  Despite what Mark Mangino does, Bill Self has to get in front of this situation.  The more things come out like this, the worse his program and players look in terms of public relations and perception.  And perception impacts recruiting.  He needs to impose sanctions on the involved parties and do so immediately.  And if he cannot figure out exactly who was involved (or the players won’t talk), then he needs to punish the entire team until they do.  This would send a loud and clear directive that he will not tolerate behavior that results in people threatening to shoot each other on his campus.  And remember, despite what anyone else says, KU is Bill Self’s campus.  He’s the national title coach at one of the biggest basketball schools in the country.  His actions and words are the most important on that campus, and his paycheck reflects that reality. 

There’s not a single program in the entire 16-team Big East in as strong a shape as the Villanova Wildcats.

Even in a league loaded with top-ranked mainstays like Louisville, Connecticut, Georgetown and Pittsburgh, it’s Villanova in the best position to dominate the pre-eminent college hoops conference in the land for the foreseeable future. Their coach, Jay Wright, is the ideal face of a dominant program, a terrific leader and communicator who has done a phenomenal job recruiting since arriving at Villanova, from assembling the guard-oriented Foye-Ray-Lowry-Nardi foursome to the 2009-10 class of top-50 quartet Mouphtaou Yarou, Maalik Wayns, Dominic Cheek and Isaiah Armwood. They play in the strong media market Philadelphia and at the NBA-fitting Wachovia Center. Last season, the Wildcats won 30 games and reached their first Final Four since 1985.

Wright has built such a program that another Final Four remains a viable expectation for Villanova fans heading into 2009-10. Along with the star-studded recruiting class, Wright returns potential All-American guard Scottie Reynolds to team up with junior Corey Fisher for a tremendous backcourt, a strength that’s par the usual since Wright took the helm in Philly. Duke transfer Taylor King and sharpshooter Corey Stokes can certainly stretch the floor and hit big outside shots this season. Losing senior leader and double-double forward Dante Cunningham, along with glue guy Dwayne Anderson, stings, but Reggie Redding and Antonio Pena are experienced cogs. Most importantly, the #2 recruiting class in the nation (behind Kentucky) should provide a huge boost immediately for a squad that will likely be named the Preseason Big East favorites.

How does the schedule look for the Wildcats? Let’s take a peek:

Non-Conference Schedule Rank: 5. Incredibly, Villanova only has five true home games in the non-conference slate. Two of their road games are in the city of Philadelphia with back-to-back short trips to St. Joseph’s and Temple scheduled. Their other three Philly foes- La Salle, Drexel and Penn– will face the Wildcats at their on-campus arena. There’s some potential for difficult games on Jay Wright’s schedule, but no truly elite opponents in November and December. Villanova will travel to DC to take on ACC contender Maryland at the Verizon Center in what should be their most challenging test. A trip to Puerto Rico in November could pit the Wildcats against either Dayton or Georgia Tech in the second round and either Mississippi or Kansas State in the final. The second round could be trickier than the final as Dayton and Georgia Tech are borderline top-25 teams with talented frontline players Chris Wright (Dayton) and Derrick Favors (Georgia Tech) that should be hard to handle for an inexperienced frontline.

Cupcake City: While no single challenger blows you away, the only true “cupcake” on the non-conference schedule is the first contest of the year against Farleigh Dickinson. The other home games shouldn’t prove too much of a test- Penn, La Salle, Drexel, Delaware and a neutral site game vs. Fordham. The Wildcats also face George Mason in the first round in Puerto Rico. None of those CAA/Atlantic 10-type teams will prove huge tests for Wright’s squad, but credit the Villanova coach for going light on the lightweights.

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