Game #11.  RTC Live makes its inaugural trip (a recurring theme this season) to Murray State’s CFSB Center tonight.

After last season’s 54-52 heartbreaking loss to eventual national runner-up Butler, host Murray State will have a bad taste in their mouth as they return to the court tonight, looking to kick off the 2010-11 season right. Standing in their way will be last season’s Atlantic Sun Champion, East Tennesse State, who travels to the CFSB Center with a chip of their own. ETSU, who fell to John Calipari and the University of Kentucky 88-65 on Nov. 12, will look to overcome the early setback behind the play of junior forward Isiah Brown whose 25 points and 14 points led the Bucs. Murray State will enter the contest with an Isaiah of their own, boasting sophomore guard Isaiah Canaan, whose 18 points led the Racers over Freed-Hardeman in their only exhibition game. All in all, it should be a good one as two 2010 NCAA teams square off. The game starts at 7:30 C.S.T. so we’ll get things kicked off from Murray 15 minures early. We hope you’ll join us.

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Game #12.  RTC Live is back in one of our favorite venues at our favorite times — McKeon Pavilion on the campus of St. Mary’s College at 2 am ET.

We hope you have your pot of coffee ready and a case of Red Bulls in the fridge tonight, because even though this game will take place at the relatively late time of 11 pm local time, the rowdy St. Mary’s students and fans will have you thinking they just came in from a weekend rager.  RTC Live returns to one of the more fun venues on the west coast, the tiny, dark, loud gymnasium of McKeon Pavilion on the campus of St. Mary’s College.  You might think that losses of 6’11 Omar Samhan and 6’11 Ben Allen from last year’s Sweet Sixteen team means that the Gaels are due for a dropoff; you’d think wrong.  Randy Bennett continues to find diamonds in the rough such as freshman guard Stephen Holt, a player who stepped right into the bright lights of college basketball with a nine-steal performance against the College of Idaho over the weekend.  The Gaels will have their hands full tonight, though, with a St. John’s team that returns all five starters from an NIT squad a year ago.  The biggest storyline involving the Red Storm, however, does not surround its players as much as the formal debut of former UCLA head coach and ESPN commentator Steve Lavin as the Man Anointed Next Louie (Carnesecca).  Lavin frequently called WCC games for ESPN over the past half-decade, so his return to his native Bay Area tonight will undoubtedly be fraught with excitement and familiarity.  Let’s tip off the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon west-coast style tonight with a great one.  Hope to see you there…

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PUT. THAT COFFEE. DOWN.

For the third year in a row, ESPN is bringing us what we consider one of the great television events on the sports television calendar, the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon. That means that for the third year in a row, I’ll be live-blogging the whole thing from start to finish — and this year, we’re climbing this hoops blogger’s Everest without supplemental oxygen. That is to say…I’m going caffeine-free. More importantly, here is the schedule of games for this year’s marathon (all times Eastern):

• 12:00 midnight — Miami (FL) at Memphis (ESPN)
• 2:00 am — St. John’s at St. Mary’s (ESPN)
• 4:00 am — Central Michigan at Hawaii (ESPN)
• 6:00 am — Stony Brook at Monmouth (ESPN)
• 8:00 am — Robert Morris at Kent State (ESPN)
• 10:00 am — Northeastern at Southern Illinois (ESPN)
• 12 noon — Oral Roberts at Tulsa (ESPN)
• 2:00 pm — La Salle at Baylor (ESPN)
• 4:00 pm — Virginia Tech at Kansas State (ESPN)
• 5:30 pm — Marist at Villanova (ESPNU)
• 6:00 pm — Ohio State at Florida (ESPN)
• 7:30 pm — Miami (OH) at Duke (ESPNU)
• 8:00 pm — Butler at Louisville (ESPN)
• 9:30 pm — Belmont at Tennessee (ESPNU)
• 10:00 pm — South Carolina at Michigan State (ESPN)
• 11:00 pm — San Diego State at Gonzaga (ESPN2)
• 11:30 pm — Pacific at UCLA (ESPNU)

The first attempt at this resulted in some hallucinations and arrhythmias as the hour got late (I had been up for 16 hours before starting the live blog) and I required a few caffeine-laden beverages. Last year, we had a technical glitch that kept us on our toes, but the live blog survived. This time, to raise the standard yet again, I’ll be sans caffeine. I know that without a webcam (we’re not that kind of site) you have no reason to believe that I’m not pounding sodas and cappuccinos and Five Hour Energy drinks by the blender-full. Since I believe RTC is the only site that’s done this all three years, well…you’ll just have to trust me. After two years, I think our relationship is in that kind of place. I hope you’ll join us right here (the live blog will continue in this post) a few minutes before midnight. Now, for my pre-live-blog meal. How’s a little turkey and wine sound?

11:47 PM Monday — Here we go. The high-def at the RTC Southern Compound is rockin’. We’ve checked the router and the internet connection to the building (which bit us in zee buttocks last year), and it appears solid. The football game is all but over (as it has been since halftime). Let’s go.

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***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Monday begins an exciting week of hoops featuring a marathon of games and many big matchups later in the week. Rankings as per the latest RTC Top 25. All times eastern.

Wofford @ Clemson – 7 pm (no TV, live stream on www.clemsontigers.com) (***)

After a loss to Minnesota on Friday, Wofford gets another crack at a road win against a major conference team. The Gophers were able to hold Terrier star Noah Dahlman in check, limiting him to 15 points. Clemson must do the same as they’re not as talented as Minnesota. The Tigers, under the direction of first year coach Brad Brownell, are coming off an 87-64 victory over Western Carolina in their season opener also on Friday. Clemson is going to pose a significant problem for Wofford in the frontcourt. Wofford has only three players 6’8 or taller on its roster and none of them played against Minnesota. By contrast, Clemson has four guys at least that height. All contributed on Friday, led by Devin Booker’s 16/7. Brownell’s big men scored 52% of their points, while Minnesota’s front line scored 70% (48 of 69) of their points against Wofford including 43 out of 48 in the paint or from the foul line. The Terriers did a nice job limiting Blake Hoffarber and Al Nolen to a combined ten points but they got absolutely destroyed up front, including on the boards (41-29 in favor of Minnesota). Coach Mike Young needs a big performance out of his junkyard dog player Tim Johnson (10/13 vs. Minnesota) if the Terriers hope to get this win. The problem for Wofford is Johnson shot 37% from the line last year so if he’s fouled it’s essentially a turnover most of the time. A solid performance out of the Clemson backcourt, led by Demontez Stitt, will only make it much more difficult for Wofford to win. The Tigers lead the all-time series (50-16) between these upstate South Carolina rivals. For Young’s team to win, he’ll need to come up with some clever defensive strategies to counter the serious height disadvantage his team faces. While it’s possible he can do that, it is unlikely Wofford can win the game given the matchups. Ken Pomeroy gives Clemson an 88% chance to win and that’s about how we see it as well.

Miami (FL) @ #20 Memphis – 12 am on ESPN (***)

Josh Pastner is a Man Down But Will Be Ready Regardless

Josh Pastner’s heralded recruiting class lost a piece on Saturday as Jelan Kendrick was kicked off the team by Pastner and his staff. While it’s certainly unfortunate for the Tigers, Memphis fans know they still have a terrific class coming in led by Will Barton and company. Barton has received all the headlines it seems but it was his brother, Antonio Barton, who stepped up in his collegiate debut and led Memphis in a romp over Centenary on Friday. Antonio had 17 points, four assists and five steals in only 23 minutes of action. Chris Crawford also had a big game, hitting every shot he took from the floor for 16 points. Memphis shot 55% overall, including 52% from behind the arc in totaling 104 points. Even more encouraging were 25 assists on 33 made field goals. The bad news? The competition gets much tougher tonight as Frank Haith’s Miami Hurricanes visit FedEx Forum in the first game of ESPN’s 24 Hours of Hoops marathon. Miami finished last in the ACC last year but made a nice run in the conference tournament. They have one of the better backcourt tandems in the conference in Durand Scott and Malcolm Grant, who combined for 43 points and ten assists in an opening win over Jacksonville on Friday. Grant has been around, giving a verbal to Seton Hall back in 2005 then reneging and signing with Villanova. Eventually he transferred to Miami where he seems to have found a home. It’ll be interesting to see these two go up against the deep and talented (but young) Memphis backcourt. Miami has some talent up front, too. Adrian Thomas, Reggie Johnson and Julian Gamble return for Haith. Johnson is an absolute brute in the paint. Standing 6’10 and checking in at 300 pounds, he somehow has the endurance to play a number of minutes (24 against Jacksonville) and still put up good numbers. These three combined for 35 points the other night and will be tough for Memphis to handle. That job falls to Will Coleman, Angel Garcia and freshman Tarik Black. We expect this to be a fairly high scoring game as both teams shot over 50% in their openers. Vegas pegs the Tigers as five and a half point favorites at home which seems a tad low given Memphis’ ranking and expectations. We do expect Miami to be in this game but Memphis is at home and should be able to take care of business.

St. John’s @ St. Mary’s – 2 am on ESPN (****)

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Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist at Rush the Court.

Even though nearly every team has at least one game under their belt this season, Tuesday’s 24-hour hoops marathon is the unofficial day college basketball gets underway. ESPN did a fantastic job scheduling games that are meaningful, including a battle of top ten teams in Gainesville, reigning national runner-up Butler helping to open Louisville’s new arena and a matchup of two of the West’s best. In order for these teams to pick up resume-building wins at this early stage, here is one facet of the game they absolutely must control to give themselves the best chance at victory:

How Malcolm Grant shoots from 3 could make a difference vs. Memphis

Miami at Memphis (12 AM ET)

How Memphis wins: Win the turnover battle. The Canes ranked a paltry 206^th in the nation in turnover percentage a year ago and ranked just 195^th in the country in forcing turnovers at the other end. Although departed senior Dwayne Collins was the biggest offender, starting guards Durand Scott and Malcolm Grant had a major hand in piling up the giveaways. If the Tigers unleash their speedy new backcourt, led by freshmen Joe Jackson, Will Barton and Chris Crawford, turning Miami over and taking care of the basketball on their end should lead to a sufficient number of possessions to take advantage of a Canes defense that was equally mediocre in 2010-11.

How Miami wins: Control the offensive glass. Memphis struggled mightily preventing their opponents from gathering offensive rebounds last season, ranking 305^th in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage surrendered. The Tigers allowed opponents to snatch a second chance opportunity on 36.4% of their possessions compared to the Division I average of 32.7%. Trotting out 6’11 Angel Garcia for more than 12 games this season should aid the cause, but if the Hurricanes can use their glut inside (most notably 6’10 behemoth Reggie Johnson who collected eight boards in Miami’s opening win over Jacksonville) for extra kick-out threes to Malcolm Grant (41% last year), Frank Haith’s squad may have the firepower to upset a Memphis team still trying to figure out rotations.

St. John’s at St. Mary’s (2 AM ET)

How St. John’s wins: Feed the big fellas. Remember Omar Samhan? The fun-loving, quotable, double-double machine that crept into the lexicon of every college basketball fan last March? Samhan and his 21/11 average graduated as a senior last year, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the Gaels frontcourt. Samhan was as important to his squad as any player in the nation, playing over 80% his teams’ minutes and placing  in the top 60 in the nation in numbers of possessions used, percentage of shots taken, offensive and defensive rebounding percentage and block percentage. The Gaels will try to plug the gap in the middle with Rob Jones, Clint Steindl, Kenton Walker and Mitchell Young, but a Big East-level talented bunch like the Johnnies should feed the paint over and over again. Justin Brownlee, Justin Burrell, Sean Evans and freshman Dwayne Polee all stand over 6’7 and leading scorer D.J. Kennedy is 6’6. It’s not like the Gaels were that proficient in defending two-point buckets with Samhan, anyway, ranking 116^th in the country.

How St. Mary’s wins: Stick with your bread and butter: three-point shooting. St. John’s might be returning nearly all of their scoring from a year ago, but they also return the same core that allowed opponents to sink 36% of their threes, ranking 264^th in the nation. This is splendid news for Randy Bennett and a Gaels team that averaged a stellar 41% from the same range a year ago and returns their two most accurate gunners — Mickey McConnell (51%, not a typo) and Matthew Dellavedova (40%). While St. John’s did a respectable job at guarding the paint in 2010-11, their perimeter defense is suspect.

Virginia Tech at Kansas State (4 PM ET)

How Virginia Tech wins: Let Malcolm Delaney draw fouls. Few players in the nation were as proficient as Delaney at finding the charity stripe last season. The all-ACC candidate ranked 32^nd in the nation in fouls drawn per 40 minutes and in the last two seasons his free throw percentages are 87% and 84%. Delaney gets to the line plenty and takes advantages of those opportunities. His opponent on Tuesday, Kansas State, followed Delaney’s lead by getting to the line fewer than only three teams last season, but they also ranked near the dregs of Division I at allowing opponent free throw opportunities. This plays right into the hands of Delaney, especially when one considers the player that fouled with the lowest frequency is departed senior guard Denis Clemente. If Seth Greenberg can isolate Delaney 1-on-1 with Pullen, Tech may coax Kansas State’s All-American guard into foul trouble and leave Manhattan with a stunning victory in the process.

How Kansas State wins: Utilize their superior frontcourt depth. The story of this game isn’t necessarily the Delaney-Pullen duel in the backcourt, but how Virginia Tech can manage to keep this game competitive in a tough road environment with so little depth among the trees. Without J.T. Thompson or Allan Chaney to man the paint, it’s up to 6’8 Victor Davilla, 6’7 freshman Jarell Eddie and 6’6 wing Terrell Bell to contain the Wildcats assembly line of big men. Kansas State, meanwhile, can rotate Curtis Kelly, Jamar Samuels, Freddy Asprilla and Wally Judge in a fearsome foursome against the over-matched, outsized and likely fatigued Tech big men. Dominate the paint and Pullen may not even have to contribute too much scoring-wise. What could help Tech is Curtis Kelly’s appearance in Frank Martin’s doghouse at the end of the bench last Friday. We’ll see if the UConn transfer suits up for this one.

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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)

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1. Have you heard a little something about a 24-hour hoops extravaganza that might be starting at Midnight ET tonight over on ESPN?  Yeah, us too.  Well, for the third year in a row (as in, 1… 2… 3…), our very own John Stevens will be Boom Goes the Dynamiting (that’s a form of live-blogging for the newbies) the proceedings from reasonable start to ridiculous finish.  Just as he did in 2009.  Just as he did in 2008.  Now we’ve caught wind that there are some other bloggers out there who have a half a mind to try to replicate what John has already perfected in years past.  Good for them.  The standard has been set exceptionally high, so we’re interested to see how they stack up.
2. The biggest non-game related news of the weekend came out of the Memphis camp, as the Tigers’ Jelan Kendrick was dismissed from the program.  Dan Wolken has been all over this story with reports of Kendrick’s antics releasing at seemingly an hourly basis.  As he put it, there was no single incident that led to  dissolution of the hoops marriage, but there were a series of insubordinate acts, clashes with teammates, outright lies and other distractions that finally reached a breaking point for the coaching staff.  6’7 burger boys don’t grow on trees, though, and we fully expect that Kendrick has already received a dozen offers from other schools around the nation, attitude be damned.  One note pointed out by Wolken in last night’s tweets — Memphis is unlikely to release Kendrick to another CUSA school (read: Tim Floyd’s UTEP), but we’re guessing there are several SEC and Big 12 schools willing to at least take a look.
3. You just never know when you  might be in danger of an injury, as new UConn assistant coach Kevin Ollie learned last week when an elastic band he was using for stretching purposes snapped back and hit him in the eye.  The eye started filling with blood and he subsequently was ordered by his doctor to bed rest, causing him to miss the Huskies’ season opener against Stony Brook on Friday night.  UConn travels to Maui next weekend, but Ollie may have to miss that trip as well due to the possibility of stressing the injury through changes in air pressure.  Ollie, one of our favorite Huskies of all-time, has certainly had a crazy start to his coaching career, so we wish him a speedy and successful recovery.
4. You may have noticed that preseason Big-12 first teamer Curtis Kelly was held out of K-State’s first game on Friday night against James Madison and the Wildcats’ front line struggled as a result (2/5 from Wally Judge and Freddy Asprilla).  Jeff Goodman reported that KSU head coach Frank Martin is unhappy with the leadership (or lack thereof) that Kelly has shown over the last two weeks in practice, so he probably won’t play in Tuesday night’s game against a much more talented Virginia Tech team either.
5. Section 103B, Row 2, Seat 1.  That was the location of a certain Wizard of Westwood for the last three-and-a-half decades at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion when he called upon his old school to watch a game, a frequent occurrence up until the last year of his life.  That seat was kept empty in honor of  John Wooden for Friday night’s game when the Bruins easily defeated Cal State Northridge, 83-50.  Frankly, UCLA brass should bronze over that chair and  keep it vacant for as long as the building is standing.

In case you’re just catching up with us after a football weekend, we covered Friday night’s games — the real Opening Night — in a special ATB that evening, while RTC contributor Zach Hayes put together an Opening Night edition of his 10 Scribbles series to share some of his initial thoughts on most teams’ first games of the year.

Your Watercooler Moment.  This is something we don’t see much and it may be a long time before we see something like it again, so Butler’s banner unfurling from Saturday night was this weekend’s best moment.  Jump ahead to the 2:20 mark if you’re the impatient type (a shorter alternate version is also available).

Quick Hits…

• Emmanuel Negedu.  Hey, if you can literally come back from the dead and contribute 8 points, 6 rebounds, a steal and a block in your first game as a New Mexico Lobo merely a year after you were resuscitated, you deserve all kinds of props.  Can’t root for this guy enough.
• Chris Singleton. Quite possibly the best defensive player in the country, Singleton pulled off a very difficult triple double by going for 22/11/10 stls on Sunday against UNC-Greensboro.  Oh, he also added four blocks just for show.
• Illinois Backcourt. Bruce Weber’s backcourt of Demetri McCamey, DJ Richardson and Brandon Paul off the bench was outstanding on Saturday against Southern Illinois.  The three combined for 43 points and 16 assists in that game, and in three games this season all of them are shooting over 50% from the field and 40% from deep.  With the solid play inside of the two Mikes (Davis and Tisdale), the Illini look very strong right now.
• Kyrie Irving.  As good as advertised, with 17/4/9 assts to prove it against Princeton on Sunday.  Everything seemed completely natural and smooth with very little wasted motion.
• Matthew Bryan-Amaning.  MBA’s been getting a lot of hype all offseason, but we weren’t completely sold due to his inconsistency over the last three years.  After a 28/13 performance against McNeese State on Saturday, we might be coming around.  As a side note, the Huskies had an inconceivable 67 rebounds in that game.
• Matt Howard’s Foul Trouble.  Sure, we know the game was against Marian College, but the fact that Howard failed to commit a single foul in 23 minutes of action is encouraging.  Without Gordon Hayward around, Brad Stevens must have his star big man on the floor most of the time this season, so committing nearly four fouls a game again isn’t going to work.
• DJ Cooper.  Keep an eye on Ohio University again this year — the MAC champions who took out Georgetown in last year’s first round NCAA game return MAC POY candidate Cooper, who debuted the 2010-11 season with a strong 25/5/7 assts/3 stls evening.
• James Rahon.  SDSU’s transfer guard from Santa Clara hit three straight threes in the mid-second half to give the Aztecs breathing room to win a true road game in front of a packed arena in Long Beach.  If the Aztecs can get solid guard play to match their dominant post play, Steve Fisher could have a MWC juggernaut on his hands.
• Jeremy Hazell.  Seton Hall might be able to put together a surprisingly good season if it can continue to get the types of games it got from Hazell today.  28 points on 8-11 FG and 8-8 from the line is extremely efficient, something that Hazell hasn’t always done well.

… and Misses

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Game #10.  RTC Live is pleased to make our first trip into the hallowed halls of Cameron Indoor Stadium on the campus of Duke University this afternoon.

The Duke home opener is always a special day in Durham, but today’s game commands even more attention than usual. An extra banner hangs from the ceiling of Cameron Indoor Stadium, and this team enters with pressure its predecessor didn’t have: expectations of another national title. Questions do exist for Mike Krzyzewski’s team, though. Can Kyle Singler improve, or was last year his ceiling? How do Duke’s young guards fill in for Jon Scheyer? Will Seth Curry live up to the hype? How much playing time will Coach K give freshman Kyrie Irving? And was Brian Zoubek one of the most underrated players in college basketball in 2009-10? The preseason #1 Duke Blue Devils will have their first opportunity to answer those questions against the unranked Princeton Tigers. Princeton enters today’s game after an overtime win against Rutgers to open the season on Friday. The Tigers’ first win against a major conference opponent since 2004 was largely the work of senior Dan Mavraides, who had 26 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists in 41 minutes of play. Princeton’s 6’11 center, Brendan Connolly, added 7 points, 11 rebounds and 5 assists, and needs to replicate that performance if the Tigers hope to keep Duke’s big men in check. If you can’t be in Cameron for the game, join up here and let RTC Live be there for you.

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Game #9. We’re back in north Jersey to visit our friends at Seton Hall who need to put together a home win after a tough loss at Temple on Friday night.

Coming off of the best season in school history, Cornell rolled into Albany Friday night and knocked off the University of Albany 65-61 to open their 2011 campaign. The Big Red graduated three All-Ivy players, the squad’s fourth starter and lost Head Coach Steve Donahue (gone to Boston College coach the Eagles). Going into their opener against the Great Danes, career assistant-come-head-coach Bill Courtney also learned the lone returning starter from the 2010 team, junior guard Chris Wroblewski, would be DNP with a sprained ankle. Bad perhaps, but not hopeless, seniors Max Groebe and Aaron Osgood stepped up to lead Cornell to the win. Next stop on the the Big Red road tour is the Rock in Newark, New Jersey, home of the Pirates of Seton Hall University. The Hall, like Cornell, sports a new head coach, Kevin Willard, who also debuted on the road Friday night. Seton Hall traveled to Philadelphia for a game with #22 ranked Temple. But the City of Brotherly Love showed SHU no love at all as the Owls sent the Pirates packing 62-56. Led by Herb Pope, Jeff Robinson, Jeremy Hazell and junior guard Jordan Theodore, the Hall will try to get on the winning track as Cornell tries to run their streak to two. Join RTC Live at the Rock Sunday at noon, as Seton Hall hosts Cornell.

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