Ray Floriani is the RTC correspondent for the MAAC and NEC conferences.

Reader’s Take

Looking Back

There is still over half a conference season to play. But, on Saturday on Staten Island, a very important and interesting matchup is on tap: Long Island Brooklyn versus Wagner. The two met in Brooklyn in December with the Blackbirds earning a narrow 78-73 victory. Since then, Jim Ferry’s club has captured nine of 11 and is unblemished in NEC play. Meanwhile, Wagner has won nine of its last 10. Included are victories at Pitt and the championship of the Cable Car Classic. The only setback for Danny Hurley’s group was a one-point loss to a good Lehigh team in early December. Yes, an enticing meeting and somehow we get the feeling it just might not be  the last between these teams this season.

NEC Co-Players of the Week

• Julian Boyd, LIU, 6’7″, Jr., F: Boyd hit his 1,000^th career point and led the way with 21 points average per game as the Blackbirds swept their two NEC games to move into sole possession of first place. Boyd highlighted the week, scoring 28 points adding eight rebounds in the win over Monmouth.
• Shane Gibson, Sacred Heart, 6’2″, Jr., G: The NEC’s leading scorer, Gibson averaged 27.5 points per game for the week. In a win at St. Francis (PA), Gibson scored 26 points but showed his versatility with five steals and five rebounds. Gibson also had seven 3’s and 29 points against Robert Morris.

Julian Boyd Will Be A Key Player In LIU's Big Tilt Against Wagner

NEC Rookie-of-the-Week

Jalen Cannon, St. Francis (NY), 6’6″, Fr., F: Averaged 11.5 points and 12 rebounds as the Terriers swept their NEC opposition. St. Francis has won four of five since Cannon was inserted into the starting lineup.

Standings

Team, MAAC record, overall record:

Power Rankings

1. LIU Brooklyn – Earned a sweep over FDU and Monmouth. Blackbirds have won 16 consecutive conference games dating back to last season and have captured 22 of their last 23 in the NEC. Julian Boyd had an outstanding week earning Co-Player of the Week honors. C.J. Garner, a junior guard, set career highs with nine rebounds against FDU and eight assists versus Monmouth. Read the rest of this entry »

Eric Moyer is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic Sun Conference and the Southern Conference. You can find him on Twitter @EricDMoyer.

Reader’s Take

Looking Back

• 1,200 Wins. ETSU needed a second-half rally to earn the 1200^th win in program history. Sitting on 1,199 wins, the Bucs faced UNF for the first time since being eliminated by the Ospreys in the semifinals of the 2011 A-Sun Championship. UNF jumped out to a 15-point first-half advantage and held ETSU to 31% shooting. Adam Sollazzo scored 19 of his 21 points in the second half and hit the game-winning free throw with 2.4 seconds remaining
• Dramatic Finishes. Monday featured three dramatic finishes. In addition to ETSU’s second-half comeback at UNF, a pair of A-Sun contests needed overtime to determine a winner. Jacksonville scored its first win of the conference season after withstanding a tying by USC Upstate at the end of regulation and beat the Spartans in the extra session. The second overtime thriller featured a game-winning three-pointer by Lipscomb’s Damarius Smith in the waning seconds lifting the Bison past Stetson and into a fourth-place tie in the A-Sun race.
• Coaching Battle. After 16 years seated next to each other on the Belmont bench, Rick Byrd and Casey Alexander met as opponents when Byrd’s Belmont welcomed Alexander’s Stetson Hatters to the Curb Event Center. The Hatters showed they have quickly picked up the trademark Belmont offense hitting 15 3-pointers, the most ever by an opponent in Curb Event Center history. The Bruins, who trailed 31-29 at halftime, dispatched the Hatters with a 55-point second half, winning 84-71.

Kerron Johnson (ball) Leads A Talented Belmont Attack

Power Rankings

1. Belmont (13-6, Previous Ranking: 1): Despite a surprising home stumble against rival Lipscomb, the Bruins remain atop the Power Rankings after handling FGCU and Stetson. In the 95-53 win against FGCU, the Bruins hit 14 3-pointers and recorded 27 assists on 35 baskets. In wins against the Hatters and Eagles, the Bruins shot a combined 54.5 percent from the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

Kraig Williams is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after the Arizona-Utah game on Thursday night.

Much like the rest of the Pac-12, the Arizona Wildcats are an enigma in college basketball this season. The Wildcats sit at 13-6 and 4-2 in conference play after blowing by Utah, 77-51, Thursday night.  After leading by just five at halftime, Arizona blasted past an undermanned Utah squad in the second half even without Solomon Hill who was ejected from the game for a flagrant-two foul for an apparent blow to the back of Cedric Martin’s head. Beating overmatched teams has been Arizona’s M.O. all year. In terms of RPI (an admittedly flawed statistic, but one the NCAA selection committee uses), the Wildcats have fallen to the best five teams they have played (Gonzaga, San Diego State, Florida, Oregon and Mississippi State). Against the rest of their schedule, they are 13-1 with the one outlier being a road loss to UCLA. Looking at their NCAA selection sheet shows an average RPI win of #180 and an average loss of #52. The Wildcats beat who they are supposed to and not much else this season.

Arizona Easily Handled Utah On Thursday Night

The problem, of course, is this gives Arizona a resume of a plucky mid-major out of a conference like the WAC, not a perennial Pac-12 powerhouse. The Wildcats’ best win thus far is either at New Mexico State, or in the McKale Center against Duquesne, neither of which will jump off the page at you. That, combined with losing to Oregon and needing overtime to take down Oregon State last week at home, was enough to knock them out of Andy Glockner’s mock bracket this week, placing them precariously on the bubble. That same bracket features a myriad of mediocre bubble squads like Minnesota and Marshall making the cut.

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Bad news out of Chapel Hill: North Carolina starting shooting guard, back-up point guard, and designated defensive stopper Dexter Strickland tore his ACL in last night’s game against Virginia Tech. Things looked pretty bad when Strickland landed funny and fell to the ground, grabbing his knee and yelling in pain. Confirmation came late today that he had torn the ligament and will be out for the season.

Dexter Strickland Is Out For The Year With A Torn ACL

Fortunately for Roy Williams, the Tar Heels are stocked with skilled shooting guards and Reggie Bullock and P.J. Hairston are more than capable of effectively filling Strickland’s shoes. The trickier questions are how badly the Tar Heels will miss Strickland on defense and who will spell Marshall as back-up lead guard? In terms of defense, the Tar Heels might actually be pleasantly surprised: Bullock, as well as being offensively capable, has been a skilled and stalwart defender. The defensive box scores compiled by Adrian Atkinson at Tobacco Road Blues demonstrate that Bullock has been really great on that end. This development, coupled with what appears to be genuinely improved defense by Marshall bodes well for North Carolina’s perimeter protection.

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Big 12 Alley-Oops and Airballs is a weekly article examining what’s hot and what’s not in Big 12 basketball.

A lot can change in ten weeks of basketball. Pundits who wrote off Missouri after the loss of forward Laurence Bowers are eating their crow. Texas A&M has gone from Big 12 championship contender to a conference bottom dweller, playing with the offensive ability of my 1998 YMCA team. And at the same time, many things haven’t changed. Kansas is still unstoppable at Allen Fieldhouse, Frank Martin is still fiery, and J’Covan Brown continues to score almost all of his team’s points. Hard to believe, but Selection Sunday is only seven weeks away.

Will the Tigers be Celebrating in Waco This Weekend? (Photo by Chris Lee / clee@post-dispatch.com)

Alley-Oops

• A Fear of Phog’s: Monday night’s marquee matchup of Baylor at Kansas proved that no matter how the Jayhawks roster is shaped up, they will always be the favorite when playing in front of the raucous crowd of Allen Fieldhouse. The previously undefeated Baylor Bears were the latest team to learn this, as they fell 92-74 in front of a revved-up group of Jayhawk faithful. Kansas has not lost since the Davidson debacle in Kansas City, and looks to continue its eight-game winning streak this weekend in Austin.
• Top 7 Heaven: Yes, I’m biased, but I truly believe the Big 12 is getting overlooked in the “best conference” discussion. The Big 12 has the most schools in the Top 10. In fact, they have three schools in the Top 7, with Missouri, Baylor and Kansas. All three teams have players on the Wooden Award finalists list (Marcus Denmon of Missouri, Perry Jones of Baylor, and Thomas Robinson from Kansas), and all appear to have the necessary utensils for a deep tournament run come March.
• National Love: On Monday, A&M and Missouri squared off on ESPN in the late afternoon. Later that night, Kansas hosted Baylor in a highly anticipated matchup, one that had college basketball pundits examining it all weekend. Every source of media you go to, you’ll see the college basketball experts writing about Kansas, Missouri and Baylor. This weekend is another highly anticipated ESPN matchup, when #5 Missouri visits #3 Baylor. Heck, even A&M is getting love on ESPN, being mentioned as the 2011-12’s biggest disappointment. Too soon?

Airballs

• Oklahoma State: While some folks are still saying it is not time to write off the Oklahoma State Cowboys, I’m going to go ahead and do so, especially after Saturday’s embarrassing 106-65 loss to Baylor. I don’t see the Cowboys finishing .500 in conference play.
• Texas’ Postseason Streak: The Texas Longhorns, who haven’t been left out of the field of 64 65 68 since the 1997-98 season, are in jeopardy of not dancing. While I’m ready to give up on the Pokes from Stillwater, I think Texas still has an opportunity and the ability to continue their dance marathon. However, they will need to learn to not rely on J’Covan Brown so heavily, and if Myck Kabongo and the other burnt orange youngsters are going to mature their game this season, now is the time to do so.

Voices of the Big East is an ongoing feature intended to capture the essence of the conference through the words of those involved and those impacted. This will come in the form of quotes, tweets, videos and anything else we feel like sticking in here. It’s perfect for you multitasking short attention-spanners. If you find something you think is a candidate for this feature send it to us and we might even give you credit!

Coaches Calling

The Big East holds a weekly conference call that typically includes a handful of coaches at different intervals.  The Big East has long been a coaches league and this year is no slouch, providing a great variety of personalities in addition to typical depth in coaching acumen.

“I don’t think we have an identity since we’ve had so many lineups. We just have to survive and win.”

 “We don’t have eight or nine Allen Iversons. We need the practice.”

-Louisville Coach Rick Pitino (Who conjured up a reference from Monday’s RTC Big East Morning Five which we shamelessly appreciate….man).

Had to do it…

“We have to rest and get back on the plane, but the plane’s been good to us lately.”

Read the rest of this entry »

After earning a spot in Frank Martin‘s starting five earlier this month, Jordan Henriquez learned Thursday that his coach has indefinitely suspended him. The situation does not seem all that serious, especially since Martin used the mysterious “conduct detrimental to the team” excuse to suspend his 7’0” junior center. Martin said Henriquez, who will not practice during the suspension, has “lost sense of what’s expected of him on a daily basis.” In his past two outings, Henriquez scored a total of three points in 16 minutes against Oklahoma and Texas. Before that, though, Henriquez actually looked like a breakout candidate. He dominated his team’s win over Missouri on the defensive end and scored 12 points in a loss to Baylor last week. No longer did Henriquez look like a project. He looked like an elite big man in the making.

Frank Martin Wants Jordan Henriquez To Take Some Time Off (Credit: Jeff Moffett/Icon SMI)

Something must have changed with Henriquez’s approach. And it happened rather quickly. But judging by Martin’s encouraging language, don’t expect him to sit out for too long. It doesn’t sound like Henriquez broke any laws or even violated any rules off-the-court. Perhaps a few games off will get his head right.

Martin needs his center back as soon as possible. Henriquez is not a star, but he is Kansas State’s best shot-blocker and the only player capable of controlling a game defensively in the paint. Fortunately, Martin has assembled a deep team this season with a lot of bodies, especially at forward. Still, Nino Williams, another reserve forward, is also hurt, which means Martin may need to use freshman Adrian Diaz in his rotation more. Diaz, another seven-footer out of Florida, played eight minutes and scored two points against Texas.

Vanderbilt started out the season with the highest expectations in program history, but a disappointing 6-4 start including losses to Cleveland State and Indiana State labeled the Commodores as underachievers not able to overcome their defensive liabilities. Center Festus Ezeli returned, but doubts of Vanderbilt’s potential remained. Even an eight game winning streak hasn’t won over the Commodores’ critics, but a 69-59 win in Tuscaloosa was good enough to convince me. Vanderbilt still has a lot to prove because of a lack of recent NCAA Tournament success, but its defense against Alabama displayed just how high the ceiling is this year.

Vanderbilt is a completely different team mid-way into the season

The Commodores’ defense was the key to their win on Thursday night. Kevin Stallings’ club held Alabama to 32.9% shooting by putting the Crimson Tide’s stars on lockdown. Leading scorer Tony Mitchell, coming into the game averaging 13.7 points per game, scored zero points on 0-8 shooting. Alabama forward JaMychal Green managed only six points. Ezeli’s impact on the Commodores’ interior defense was on full display, as was the potential of Vanderbilt’s defense when the center is on the court.

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Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at @mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Take

Looking Back

Contenders and Pretenders: The first Ivy League back-to-back weekend is in the books, though for only half of the league’s teams. In true 14-game tournament fashion, it took just one weekend for the Ivy title race to change pretty drastically. With a road sweep of Cornell and Columbia, Pennsylvania immediately vaulted into the number one contender spot behind Harvard. The New York trip will be the second-toughest in the Ivies this season (the Princeton/Philadelphia swing will be slightly more treacherous), so escaping it with a 2-0 mark puts the Quakers in great shape to hang around the title race deep into the season.

Zack Rosen And The Quakers Hope They Have All Their Kinks Ironed Out So They Can Make A Run At Harvard.

The weekend wasn’t as kind to Columbia, which had two separate comeback bids fall short against Pennsylvania and Princeton, losing both games by a combined six points. The Lions had entered Ivy play at 9-1 in their last ten games, but all it takes is one rough back-to-back to see title hopes get dashed. Columbia still has a chance at a postseason berth in one of the 16-team events, but will likely need to close with eight or nine wins in its final 12 games – a slate that includes two meetings with Harvard.

The Tigers and Big Red emerged from the weekend alive, but endangered.Princeton is in better shape than Cornell, as road splits are excusable, while home splits can be deadly. The Tigers face the daunting task of playing their first five games on the road, which also means seven of the final nine at home, so Princeton can fall a little behind early and still maintain a realistic hope to catch the leaders down the stretch. Cornell doesn’t have that luxury. The Big Red must sweep travel partner Columbia over the next two weeks to stay in the race and set the table for a battle with preseason favorite Harvard at Lavietes Pavilion.

Yale survived a surprising scare at home against lowly Brown, trailing by seven at the half and six with just over three minutes to go before closing the game on a 13-3 run. The Bulldogs look to complete the sweep this weekend to remain perfect heading into their meeting with Harvard on January 27. Read the rest of this entry »

I. Renko is an RTC columnist. He will kick off each weekend during the season with his analysis of the 26 other non-power conferences. Follow him on twitter @IRenkoHoops.

TO26 is back after a one-week hiatus, and do we have a doozy of a column for you.  Today we take a look at the race for the top in every single non-power conference.  We categorize each conference based on the number of contenders who have emerged after the first 2-3 weeks of conference play.  Which conference looks like a fight between five legitimate contenders?  Which conferences seem to be just one team’s to lose?

In our breakdown, we focus not just on the top of the W-L standings, but dig into the team’s non-conference performances, their specific results and their remaining schedules to get to a true picture of which teams are likeliest to take home a regular season crown.   (Note that for our purposes, we have ignored the two-division setup in some conferences.)

But first, the updated Top 15.

Now on to our conference reviews …

Five Team Battle Royale

CAA — After a brutal 2-4 start to their season, preseason favorite Drexel (5-2) has turned things around, winning 11 of their last 12.  That includes a home sweep of perennial contenders and recent Cinderellas George Mason (6-1) and VCU (5-2).  Georgia State (5-2) is the conference’s biggest surprise.  After being picked to finish 11th in the preseason poll and starting the year 0-3, the Panthers reeled off 11 straight, including wins over Drexel and VCU, before losing narrowly at George Mason.  After a loss at Northeastern on Wednesday, skeptics may wonder whether they might start to fade, but for now, they should be taken seriously.  Old Dominion (6-1) rounds out the top 5 here, as the Monarchs are tied for first at the moment, but they’ve faced a lighter schedule than the other teams in this group.

Four Team Scrambles

• Read the rest of this entry »