- Happy Turkey Day. What better way to escape the more unsavory members of your extended family and digest a few grams of sodium than by parking it in front of the tube for 10 or so hours of college hoops? The Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas has you covered, and Run The Floor compiled a very thorough primer to the event. Top-seeded Louisville takes the floor in the evening against a very prolific Northern Iowa offense that averages 1.25 points per possession and shoots 51.5% from the field, ranking them at the top of the field in both categories. Although the Panthers are 3-0, they’ve played dubious defense against a very weak schedule, spotting 81 points on 45% shooting at home to a 1-3 Toledo team that averages 62 PPG. It will be an interesting opportunity to determine if Louisville can generate enough offense outside of its transition game to overcome the most highly efficient shooting team they’ve encountered. It could also give fans some idea of what to expect in a future Louisville-Missouri or Louisville-Duke match-up later in the weekend.
- This is subject to change, with several of the national leaders playing after the M5 was filed last night, but Nick Coffey at Louisville blog The Cardinal Connect points out that Peyton Siva is quietly leading the nation in assists per game. Siva’s nine dimes per contest is likely to taper as the Cardinals’ competition steps up, although it’s plausible he could continue producing at that level after he sustained a 6.0 APG through the last postseason against elite competition. It’s interesting to note that four of the nation’s top 10 assist leaders come from the Big East, with Anthony Collins (#4, 8.2 APG), Michael Carter-Williams (#8, 7.5 APG), and Tray Woodall (#10, 7.0 APG) all joining the Cardinals’ point guard (according to StatSheet.com).
- Despite ultimately falling to Indiana in overtime of the Legends Classic championship game on Tuesday night, Georgetown’s performance in the Barclay Center this week earned them the adoration of pundits and almost assuredly a spot in the upcoming Top 25 polls. Hoya fans who had scoffed at the Shabazz-centric national coverage of Georgetown’s upset of UCLA in Brooklyn on Monday night were no doubt assuaged by the rave reviews of Otto Porter and company that circulated among major media outlets yesterday morning. Luke Winn wrote for SI.com that Georgetown had “established itself as a top 20 team,” and called Porter a legitimate first-team All-America candidate who had, on consecutive nights, “outplayed the presumptive No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA Draft (UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad) and the preseason favorite for the Wooden and Naismith awards ([Tyler] Zeller).” Despite the media praise heaped on Porter following the two complete games he put together in Brooklyn, he was puzzlingly left absent from the All-Tournament Team. Adam Zagoria yesterday pointed out the injustice that Georgia’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, whose squad went 0-2 in New York, earned tournament recognition in his stead.
- Villanova’s blowout home loss to Columbia on Tuesday agitated a fan base already made anxious by Big East instability and the increasingly obvious importance of football to college athletics. Yesterday, Nova blog VU Hoops posted a history of Villanova athletics, and posed the question of whether the program that Rollie Massimino built can survive within a crumbling conference, without a major football program, and in an era when the national relevance of college hoops is dwindling. Author Brian Ewart presented a bleak outlook: “If that [Big East television] revenue source comes tumbling back to earth due to realignment and the basketball program continues to struggle, will the Wildcats be able to compete at a level that can earn 19 or more nationally-televised games as they have in the past?… Another disappointing season and Jay Wright will be worried about his employment status, but the Wildcats may not have the big time basketball brand or TV-money resources to find a big-time replacement.”
- Filed under the truly bizarre and slightly horrifying is the promotional holiday video for Providence athletics, which comes to us courtesy of Friarblog:
At first glance, it’s a totally innocuous pitch to sell season tickets. A contemplative Ed Cooley is interrupted from humming Christmas tunes at his desk by a miniaturized Cooley, decked out in Santa gear, who somehow wordlessly reminds him to peer at some hockey highlights through the lens of a paranormal tree ornament. All well and good, nothing to see here. Upon closer examination, some sinister implications bubble to the surface. For example: Is mini-Cooley housed cozily in a snow globe, or is it more of a millennia-old spiritual prison constructed to keep humanity safe from his prehistoric bloodlust, a la The Keep? Cooley is initially dressed in run-of-the-mill coach garb, but when his psychedelic hockey highlight montage subsides, he grins suggestively at us, draped in the Santa outfit of his thimble-sized doppelgänger. What happened to Big-Cooley? Has some interloper summoned his malevolent double, thereby imprisoning Big-Cooley in the snow globe in his place? Can Bryce Cotton save the day? Can Evil-Cooley do something to speed up Vincent Council’s rehab?
Will Tucker (124 Posts)Kentucky native living and working in Washington, D.C. Fan of tacos, maps, and the 30-second shot clock. Not a fan of comments sections, bad sportswriting.