- Exhibition Fever: Catch it! This part of the season ramps up the scrimmages that aren’t secret and that make money for the athletic department. Exhibition results aren’t meant to be true measures of a team’s effectiveness but usually fans can glean one or two interesting items from the results. On Tuesday Auburn beat Paine College, 86-60. Sophomore guard Chris Denson’s team-high 21 points was complemented by junior center Rob Chubb’s 14 points and 8 rebounds. Head coach Tony Barbee expressed his pleasure with the exhibition results post-game: “I like that we outrebounded them by 17. I was proud that we had a 2-to-1 assist to turnover ratio. Those are goals of ours for every game.” Now every TV commentator has their Auburn Keys of the Game written for them. Thanks, coach!
- Yesterday Billy Donovan scored 13 points in a losing effort against Billy Donovan. No, they have not made a cloning breakthrough at the University of Florida; Coach Donovan’s son Billy plays for Division III Catholic University. As the exhibition opponent, the younger Billy’s team was drummed to the score of 114-57 at the O’Connell Center Thursday evening. The Cardinals were overwhelmed by the Gators’ relentless press (50 points off 23 turnovers) and long-range shooting (20-40 three-pointers). Freshman guard Bradley Beal scored 20 points and redshirt junior guard Mike Rosario scored 18 in their first exhibition game as Gators.
- A little further north, Division II Kentucky Wesleyan College suffered a similar but less-intense three-point storm from South Carolina. In Wednesday night’s exhibition game, the Gamecocks made it rain with 10-of-19 three-point shooting and thundered to a 69-59 victory. Freshman forward Anthony Gill led all scorers with 14 points. Sophomore forward Damontre Harris tallied five blocks helping USC’s zone bother KWC’s shooting. Gamecocks coach Darrin Horn focused on the surprising positives after the game: “I think our guys are confident in each other. And that’s why you see 14 assists on 23 buckets the first time out.”
- Tennessee’s Jordan McRae is a key component for his already-limited team. If McRae can contribute at both ends of the floor, the Volunteers will have a successful and entertaining transition into the Cuonzo Martin era. During yesterday’s 73-52 victory over Carson-Newman College, McRae led all scorers with 17 points and added three blocks and two steals. Former Marquette player Jeronne Maymon pulled down 15 rebounds with ten points. Renaldo “Swiperboy” Woolridge had four points, two assists and two blocks in just 18 minutes of play. We wonder if he’ll play better once his official Swiperboy shoes are on store shelves across Knoxville.
- With the loss of Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie to the NBA, one would expect Georgia coach Mark Fox’s biggest worry would be replacing those two forwards. Thompkins and Leslie provided roughly 43% of the Bulldog’s points, 47% of all offensive rebounds and 40% of all defensive rebounds last season. Instead of finding the next Trey and Travis, the current crop of Bulldogs are focusing on using the frontcourt players they have: Junior John Florveus and freshmen John Cannon and Nemanja Djurisic. Fox said in a Wednesday interview session, “they all have different traits that you like. But none of them are complete yet, and they just have so much to learn and experience as they start to get their feet wet.” While we don’t expect any of Georgia’s frontcourt players to contribute heavily in offensive sets, they will need to approximate Leslie’s and Thompkins’ rebounding productivity to regain their 32nd-best national rebounding margin ranking from the end of the 2010-11 season.