Around The Blogosphere: And So It Begins. . .
Posted by nvr1983 on November 15th, 2010
Even though the season technically started earlier on November 8th we all know that Friday night was the real start of the college basketball season and the Internet is buzzing about weekend’s action. We scoured the Internet to find the best local voices to give you an inside look at what happened in the night’s biggest games. If you’re confused by the rankings, that is because they are from the official RTC Top 25. If you are interested in participating in this feature, e-mail us at rushthecourt@gmail.com.
Friday Night
- #2 Michigan State 96, Eastern Michigan 66: “Season openers generally aren’t going to be works of tremendous beauty, so they might as well be entertaining. And this one was (other than the constant stream of guys going to the free throw line, I guess). This team promises to be as entertaining as any Tom Izzo has coached–and that’s saying something. Becoming a truly efficient operation will take a little longer.” (The Only Colors)
- #3 Ohio State 102, North Carolina A&T 61: “Hype. Rarely do teams, players and coaches ever live up to it. In No. 4 Ohio State’s season opener, the freshman class showed their addition to four returning starters is the perfect recipe to end a 51-year national championship drought in Columbus and, in the process, live up to their enormous hype.” (Eleven Warriors)
- #6 Villanova 68, Bucknell 52: “Villanova fans who hoped for an early blowout were surely disappointed by some poor shooting and sloppy play in the early going. Both teams played to a draw until Villanova took the lead for good with 12:38 remaining in the first half. From that point, their lead would grow to as many as 16 points before the Bison clawed their way back to cut it to 5 points halfway through the second half when Maalik Wayns and Corey Fisher took control.” (VU Hoops)
- #7 Kansas 113, Longwood 75: “Kansas won it’s 60th game in a row in Allen Fieldhouse, and while it was just Longwood, there was a healthy dose of positives to take from the game. First, some roster things to clear up: Josh Selby sat again, and Self said there was no new news on that front. Elijah Johnson also had the night off in street clothes. Self said that he would address the situation after the game, but some shots of him on the bench showed him smiling and laughing, so it can’t be too serious. And Royce Woolridge played, so he is obviously not redshirting.” (Rock Chalk Talk)
- #11 Syracuse 68, Northern Iowa 46: “All in all, it ended up looking a lot more solid at the end than it did in the beginning. The good news is, its early and while Northern Iowa isn’t as good as they were last year, they’re a decent opponent. They’ll get better and this win will look good in a few months. The freshmen can play (when they’re not fouling willy-nilly). The bench is deep. Kris Joseph has that takeover mentality we were hoping for. Rick Jackson looks dependable. All we need to do is work out what’s going on at the guard spots and figure out the pecking order and we’ll be in good shape.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
- #14 Kentucky 88, East Tennessee State 55: “I must say that it is hard to judge teams when they shoot the ball as well as UK did. The old axiom is that good shooting makes up for a bunch of mistakes, and that proved to be the case more often than not tonight. It isn’t that the Wildcats played poorly — to the contrary, as a team they played very well, arguably their best game of the season so far. But that does not mean that they played flawlessly.” (A Sea of Blue)
Terrence Jones: 1st freshman to debut with a double-double since Jules Camara (Credit: Kentucky.com / M. Cornelison)
- #15 Gonzaga 117, Southern 72: “The man who paced the Zags was without a doubt Steven Gray. The senior leader was simply phenomenal tonight. His outside shot resembled his freshman season and he would have easily secured a triple-double if he could have finished out the game. Unofficially, Gray finished with 25 points, 10 assists, seven rebounds, and three steals. That’s about as good as it gets in the college game. Gray has always been a guy that can do everything and tonight was a prime example.” (The Slipper Still Fits)
- #18 Georgetown 62, Old Dominion 59: “Well that wasn’t fun at all. Georgetown survived one of the ugliest basketball games since James Naismith invented it in 1891. Down by eight with less than 10 minutes to go, it looked like Georgetown’s offense wouldn’t score another point. Then, in a flash, Chris Wright and Austin Freeman score 13 points on four shots, and all was forgiven.” (Casual Hoya)
- #24 Temple 62, Seton Hall 56: “Coach Fran Dunphy’s Owls got the 2010 college basketball season off on the right foot after defeating Seton Hall on Friday night. The Owls were able to hold off a late surge by the Pirates to earn their first win of what hopes to be a very long season. Temple struggled a bit in the first half of play, but eventually managed to build up a 10-point lead over Seton Hall. The momentum carried into the second half and was able to hold on through the final buzzer.” (The Owl’s Nest)
Saturday
- Providence 87, Dartmouth 52: “Why Providence Won: Dartmouth simply had an awful offense. In the first half, the Big Green scored slightly more than a half a point per possession. Yeah, usually teams get at least one full point, or maybe .9. Even though they bumped up their offensive rating to a still terrible 81.5 in the second half, they still had a miserable 28% eFG rating for the game. Just downright awful.” (Friar Blog)
- Pacific 66, UTEP 61: “The good news. Tim Floyd warned us of this. He knows that his teams are notorious for making slow starts. Naturally, it will take some time for this team to get accustomed to the new offenses, defenses, and just the overall style of play. The Miners didn’t look bad, and showed a lot of promise. The defense was solid in the first half and just needed to be tightened a little in the second. The offense was running smooth in the first half, and just was running in the second. It happens. We just went cold and unfortunately there isn’t much you can do. Just have to get back to work and get ready for the next game. As coach Floyd said in post game: ‘We’ll get better, We’ll get better’.” (Miner Rush)
Sunday
- #9 Purdue 76, Howard 40: “The Boilers unveiled another Big Ten champs banner and went on to toy with Howard in their season opener.” (Boiled Sports)
- #15 Gonzaga 86, IUPUI 56: “Cupcake time is over. While it’d be nice to have a lengthy discussion about the outcome of today’s Gonzaga-IUPUI game, I can’t help but be completely focused on the next few games for this team. The Zags’ thirty point victory over the Jaguars today was quite enjoyable. We saw some excellent individual performances, we saw some improvements, and we saw Mark Few continuing to tinker with lineups and the overall rotation. Taking a step back and looking at the box score now, there are definitely a few things that jump off the page. Two things that are particularly obvious thus far are Steven Gray and Gonzaga’s team defense.” (The Slipper Still Fits)
- #24 Temple 82, Toledo 49: “With Temple’s dominating 82-49 victory over he Toledo Rockets, the Owls hold a 2-0 record going into their 10-day break before the Old Spice Classic. Temple saw plenty of production coming from almost every player that saw the floor. Five Owls hit double-digits in scoring. We’re taking a look back at Temple’s tremendous play against Toledo on Sunday afternoon.” (The Owl’s Nest)
- Maryland 89, Maine 59: “Wins won’t come much easier than what Maryland got on Sunday against the Maine Black Bears. Cliff Tucker scored 16 in the first half, Jordan Williams notched his third double-double in as many games, and the Terps went on a 23-6 run right before halftime, stretching the lead to 23 and never looking back, ultimately winning 89-59.” (Testudo Times)
- Creighton 74, Northern Arizona 70: “The early season college basketball schedule is ripe with blowouts,
with the occasional competitive made-for-TV matchup sprinkled in for good measure. How many fan bases, Creighton’s included, have overhyped their beloved programs just because they hung a 20-point win on a
directional school from someplace in the southwest or a seemingly fictional school from somewhere in the Louisiana Purchase?” (White and Blue Review)
