Kansas hasn’t had much luck in the Champions Classic. Since the event began in 2011, the Jayhawks have won just once in four tries — a 94-83 victory against Duke at the United Center in 2013. This year, Bill Self‘s squad returns to Chicago looking for redemption after last season’s embarrassing 72-40 defeat to Kentucky. Kansas isn’t looking to fall so hard again. “We have no plans of having anything like that happen again,” junior Landen Lucas recently said. “That was not something that is OK with us. For the people that were here last year, that is not acceptable, no matter how early in the season it is.”

The last time Kansas won in the Champions Classic, Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker were on the floor. (Getty Images)

To avoid another loss, the Jayhawks will look to take advantage of a depleted Michigan State frontcourt. For the second straight game, the Spartans will be without 6’9″ forward Gavin Schilling, who will miss the contest with turf toe. Schilling is one of only three players that size on Tom Izzo‘s roster so Kansas should have plenty of opportunities to challenge the Spartans inside with senior forward Perry Ellis. Although Ellis made only 47 percent of his two-point field goals last season, his ability to draw fouls (5.1 per 40 minutes a year ago) makes him a dangerous matchup against an already thin frontline. Kansas, meanwhile, has one of the deepest groups of big men in the country. Ellis is flanked by a talented corps of bigs that includes Carlton Bragg, Jamari Traylor, Landen Lucas and Hunter Mickelson. The burden will be on Michigan State’s Matt Costello and Deyonta Davis to defend the Jayhawks’ plethora of post options without fouling them. Limited minutes for either could expose that thin Spartans’ front line. Read the rest of this entry »

The college basketball season may only be a few days old but that doesn’t mean we have to wait long for a matchup of true heavyweights. Unlike its gridiron counterpart, teams don’t risk a shot at a national championship with an early-season loss, which is why fans will be treated to a clash of the titans when Kentucky battles Duke in Chicago at the Champions Classic. It’s a matchup of schools — wearing the same jerseys but with many different faces — that appeared destined to play each other for last year’s national title, a fate that was ultimately derailed by the undefeated Wildcats’ stunning loss to Wisconsin in the national semifinals. In the absence of Calipari’s crew on the floor during championship Monday in Indianapolis, the Blue Devils captured a crown that for so many months appeared Kentucky’s to lose. The Wildcats will get a shot at some measure of redemption tonight, despite the fact that this game will include only a few of the players who participated in last year’s Final Four.

Kentucky will have to control Duke’s Grayson Allen, who is off to a hot start. (Getty)

Let’s take a quick look at three keys to Kentucky’s chances of earning a mid-November win that will ultimately look very good come March:

1. Control Grayson Allen. The bouncy sophomore guard enjoyed his coming-out party at last season’s Final Four, making the all-tournament team after being little more than a bit player for most of the season. Now, acting as one of the new leaders of Mike Krzyzewski‘s squad, Allen has started the season with a bang, averaging 27 points per game in wins over Siena and Bryant. Clearly the confidence that he gained last April has carried over to this season. Kentucky will have to neutralize his slashing and shooting game — the Wildcats can use a combination of athletic players, including Jamal Murray, Derek Willis, and Alex Poythress to slow him down. With many of the other Blue Devils still learning their offensive roles, Duke could be in for a long night if Kentucky can limit his production. Read the rest of this entry »

There was absolutely nothing noteworthy about Cal’s 85-67 thrashing of UC Santa Barbara last night in Berkeley, but if the Golden Bears are going to be the contender that they have been advertised as this preseason, that is without question a very good thing.

Cal Rolled to Its Second Win of the Season Versus UCSB Last Night

Cal didn’t play all that well against the Gauchos. Freshmen Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb battled foul trouble all night long, and head coach Cuonzo Martin mentioned afterward that his offense looked stagnant in settling for too many three-pointers (the Bears finished just 6-of-22 from downtown). But UC Santa Barbara is not your typical cupcake either, as the Gauchos were picked by some pundits to win the Big West this season — the type of opponent where a loss would hurt far more than a win helps. But instead of letting UCSB keep the score close and build confidence as the game wore on, Cal instead trampled them from the start with its vastly superior size and athleticism. This fact is easily illustrated in that the Bears’ margin of victory (18) was nearly identical to the difference in made free throws between the the two teams (17). The game was clearly over by midway through the second half, but the final score appeared closer than it actually was after Martin emptied his bench in the final minutes.

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I’ve mentioned this many times before to the point of nausea, but I am about to do so again. The St. John’s Red Storm are my favorite team. Not only in college basketball. In all of sports. There’s a few reasons why — mostly Bootsy to blame — yet it is the reality of my life. So few people roaming this planet were as excited as I was when their season was about to open on Friday night against Wagner.

Sometimes sports just takes a backseat to news around the world. Friday was one of those instances. (AP)

Before the game, however, some really horrific news broke. Everyone knows the story by now. At the time, though, the events unfolding in France were simply mind-boggling. Like many other people, I struggled with trying to separate my emotions from attempting to enjoy the basketball games. Some people, ones smarter than I at least, decided to not venture on Twitter or discuss the matter at all. It was their right. So, too, were those who tried to find comfort in the sports being played. To each their own, really. There’s definitely no right or wrong way to handle tragedy.

Judging others who decided to continue to watch basketball and — how dare they — comment on it, are infuriating. Parts of me get it. We’re all a little bit selfish. We need to make things about us. When something as tragic as the terror that was taking place in France is happening far from home, people have to localize their outrage. Still, the anger was misplaced, misguided and mostly founded out of ignorance. Some people HAD to tweet about the basketball games because it was their jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s always premature to form ironclad opinions based on a team’s first two games of the regular season, especially when the team in question is as young as Duke‘s 2015-16 squad. Throw in the fact that the competition the Blue Devils faced over the weekend was far from stellar, and we still have most of the same questions about Mike Krzyzewski’s current edition that we had before the season began. Nevertheless, here are some observations from Duke’s two home wins over the weekend, a 92-74 victory over Siena on Friday and a 113-75 demolition of Bryant on Saturday night.

Grayson Allen has picked up right where he left off in the 2015 Final Four, averaging 27 points in Duke’s opening two games. (Streeter Lecka, Getty Images)

There were two major questions for Duke coming into this season. First, could this year’s highly-touted freshmen class approach the spectacular success achieved by last year’s rookies? And secondly, were Duke’s four returnees capable of elevating their games after mostly exclusive use in the past as role players? To the first question, the newcomers played much better collectively against Bryant than they did in Friday’s opener. Krzyzewski spoke about the differences in their performances between the two games:

“I didn’t think they talked well last night. Part of that, I think it’s your first game at Duke, your first real game. For Brandon [Ingram], it’s his first start. I reminded them that it’s Grayson [Allen]’s first start last night too. It was Marshall [Plumlee]’s first start in two years. We have a lot of young guys. Grayson and Marshall [Plumlee] weren’t into themselves last night, they were trying to help everybody. When you’re young, sometimes your thoughts are just with you instead of talking. Tonight, they talked well. They were consumed with Duke. We saw that they played better. That’s just a learning process that they have to go through.”

Individually, Brandon Ingram scored 15 and 21 points, respectively, in the two games, and exhibited much better shot selection in his second college start on the way to making 4-of-6 threes (he was just 1-of-9 from deep in the opener). He also used his length well to act as a disruptive defensive force, with a combined four steals and three blocks over the two outings. Ingram was also often employed by Krzyzewski as a ball-handler from the top of the arc, a set that will make him even more of a match-up problem for most collegiate forwards. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it certainly was an interesting opening weekend of college basketball. A number of upsets from coast to coast came across the news wires on Friday night, and a handful of others followed in the ensuing days. In this, the first RTC Podcast of the regular season, host Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) and Bennet Hayes (@hoopstraveler) run down their thoughts on all the upsets, look ahead to tonight’s Champions Classic battles and revisit their preseason Final Four picks. It’s a quick-hit, podblast version of the show, but it’ll keep you busy for 20 minutes as you wait on tonight’s games to begin. Make sure to add us to your iTunes subscription list so it will automatically download to your listening device each week. The full rundown is below!

• 0:00-8:54 – Virginia & Other Opening Weekend Upsets
• 8:54-13:26 – Final Four/Championship Picks
• 13:26-19:23 – Champions Classic Look Ahead

Some played in all the postseason All-Star games as high school seniors while others were a little bit further under the radar, but several Big Ten freshmen shined on the floor during their introductions to college basketball. Here are a few of the league’s “diaper dandies” who made head turns during the first weekend of action.

Deyonta Davis blocked five shots in his first game for Michigan State against Florida Atlantic. (Mlive.com)

• Deyonta Davis and Matt McQuaid, Michigan State: Davis gets lost in the Big Ten shuffle somewhat because of the holy trinity of bigs (Diamond Stone, Caleb Swanigan, and Thomas Bryant) that enter the league this season. All he did in his first game was throw up a 13-point, 11-rebound, five-block showing in which he proved that he too could become a monster down the line. If Davis adds 10 to 15 pounds of muscle during this season or next summer, he will turn into an abject terror. McQuaid, the other Spartans’ freshman to shine over the weekend, is known for his shooting ability but looks like he could become a secondary ball handler off of the bench. He dished out three assists while displaying a poise and court sense that few newcomers readily possess.

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It started before the ball had even been tipped last night at the Smith Center in Washington, DC. George Washington students rang out in chants proclaiming their opponent, Virginia, as “overrated.” It’s always weird when fans look to minimize an opponent rather than build them up to make their team look as strong as possible in victory, but that’s a discussion for another time. And certainly the Colonials’ coaches and players didn’t see it that way.

George Washington Students RTC After Their Team’s 73-68 Win over Virginia Monday night.

During the postgame press conference, senior Patricio Garino made it clear that, even though he believes that his team is on the level of a national power like Virginia, he has all of the respect in the world for the Cavaliers. The Colonials certainly looked it in their huge 73-68 victory, a win that already puts Mike Lonergan‘s squad in great position to earn an NCAA Tournament berth next March. Garino, a lanky 6’6″ forward who was successful in playing the four against the Cavaliers’ larger defenders, scored 18 points on the night. Junior Tyler Cavanaugh , also with 18 points, got the chance to prove he could play with the ACC’s elite after transferring out of the conference (Wake Forest) in July 2014. Read the rest of this entry »

On paper, Ohio State came into this season with one of the youngest and most intriguing rosters in the Big Ten. On one hand, the Buckeyes have a great coach in Thad Matta and plenty of talent on the team; on the other hand, they have one upperclassmen who has played significant minutes and plenty of questions about how all the new pieces will mesh together. On Sunday afternoon Ohio State won its lid lifter in disposing of Mount St. Marys by a score of 76-54. They held the Mountaineers to 33.3 percent shooting from the floor and won the battle of the boards by a hefty 50-22 margin. Turnovers and defensive lapses, however, show that while parts of this win were impressive, Matta’s team still has a lot of work to do.

Jae’Sean Tate led Ohio State with 21 points in their season-opening win over Mt. St. Mary’s. (Dispatch Photo by Barbara J. Perenic)

Trotting out a lineup no player shorter than 6’4″, this game was a physical mismatch. As a result, the Buckeyes shot 22-for-38 in the paint and snagged 44.8 percent of the available offensive rebounds. Junior Marc Loving and freshman Daniel Giddens were the ringleaders here, combining for nine offensive caroms by themselves. Offensively, Jae’sean Tate scored a game-high 21 points in a much more diverse way than he did a year ago, and Keita Bates-Diop notched a double-double with ten points and ten rebounds. Despite not scoring with great frequency, the latter showed enough versatility to do a little bit of everything down the line. Lastly, JaQuan Lyle was able to seemingly get into the lane at will. At 6’5″ and 230 pounds, he will be a physical nightmare for opposing point guards.

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It’s been a fun opening weekend, not necessarily because there have been any great games, but just because there have been actual games. But today the season kicks into high gear as the ESPN Hoops Marathon gets underway this evening, early season exempt tournaments tip off later this week, and, if you’re anything like us, you probably won’t dig out from under the pile of college hoops that are about to smother us until the student-athletes take a breather for finals next month. Not that anybody’s complaining. Of the five or so very good games today, Ken Pomeroy’s FanMatch calls the tilt in Eugene between Baylor and Oregon the best of the night; and after watching what both of these teams did to their opponents in their openers, you can see why. In order to prepare for this battle of Top 25 teams, Big 12 microsite writer Brian Goodman and Pac-12 microsite writerAndrew Murawa list their keys to this game.

For Oregon

Five-star freshman Tyler Dorsey faces his first major challenge as the Ducks host Baylor tonight. (Samuel Marshall/Daily Emerald)

• Poise. Knight Arena is going to be electric tonight and not just because of the expected barrage of neon on both of these teams’ uniforms. The floor is going to be loaded with elite athletes ready to show off what they can do on national television. Oregon senior point guard Dylan Ennis will be watching from the bench with a foot injury, so the Ducks will have to rely on sophomore Casey Benson and freshman Tyler Dorsey to handle that position. The two youngsters will need to play under control and not let the moment get too big for them, especially early in the game. But the fact that there are no fewer than five different players on this team who can handle the rock and initiate the offense means that head coach Dana Altman has several options in the case of a disaster.

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