- Since you’re going to be up all night with us anyway, we thought we’d get a head start with today’s M5 to give you a little bit of reading material before we get started. As you undoubtedly already know, John Stevens will be BGTDing the entire event from start to finish, but there are a couple of other nuggets we want to throw your way as well. We will also have a couple of RTC Live events during the day, starting at 2 am ET with St. John’s visiting St. Mary’s in a battle of Catholic schools with a little something to prove this year (SMC – that they’re not going away; SJU – that they’re back). Later at Noon ET, we’ll be in Tulsa for the crosstown rivalry game between the Golden Hurricane and Oral Roberts. So keep an eye out for those good ones.
- Let’s talk some matchups. Mike DeCourcy took some time yesterday to rank-order the ESPN games from #1 to #12, and although we don’t have any beef with the top three, that St. Mary’s-St. John’s game should be higher. Come on… the return of Steve Lavin on the sidelines, the burden of expectations, a packed bandbox of a gymnasium… that’s a top four game. Our own Zach Hayes also put together a list of some things each team in selected games needs to do to win in his Ball Reversal post that went up on Monday.
- We don’t talk much around here about Division II basketball, but this score caught our attention: West Liberty 154, Lock Haven 48. The West Virginia-based Hilltoppers put nine players into double figures and shot 68% for the game (including hitting 21 treys). Still, they fell short of the all-time D2 record margin of victory of 118 points set by Mississippi College nearly forty years ago. As an interesting piece of historical errata, LIU holds the DI record with a 117-point victory over Medgar Evers (presumably more than just him) in 1997, while Purdue holds the record between current Division I teams with a 112-6 win over Indiana State in 1911. Yes, you read that correctly.
- There was quite a bit written about Opening Weekend, including Seth Davis’ Hoop Thoughts where he discusses how impressive Illinois has looked so far this young season, and Gary Parrish’s Monday Look Back, where he belabors the fact that there really were very few (if any) great games last weekend. That’s what tonight’s for, right?
- This column by Ray Holloman at Fanhouse has more than you’d ever want to know about Stetson basketball and its relevance to Coach K/Duke and Jeff Bzdelik/Wake Forest, both of whom dropped a game to the Hatters early in their ACC careers. If you’re lost, it’s because you should be. While we’re making absurd comparisons, both Krzyzewski and Bzdelik drink water AND brush their teeth with the wet substance. We’ll have a story up on this tomorrow.