Joe Dzuback is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after Wednesday night’s game between Seton Hall and Kent State. On paper the proposed revision to the blocking rule, along with a handful of tweaks to the rules governing legal hand checks and use of the arms by defenders, seemed the best way to reverse the ongoing problem of declining points per game. The Rules Committee reasoned that tolerating more physical contact had given the defender a subtle but impactful bias that contributed to the recent trend of fewer points scored by both teams. By mandating the defender had to be in the defensive position before the ball-handler began his upward motion (as opposed to leaving the ground, as previously enforced), the Rules Committee hoped to give the referees a longer time frame — and therefore a better chance — to make the correct block/charge call. By mandating officials more consistently call hand-check violations, the Rules Committee hoped scorers would have more freedom to create shots and force defenders to work harder to maintain position by moving their feet in front of the ball-handler, rather than using their hands and arms to slow him down.

Seton Hall and coach Kevin Willard, like the rest of college hoops, have had to adjust to the new rules. (Getty)

Depending on the coach, the changes would enhance scoring opportunities and open up the game (e.g., John Calipari — “But we’re all wondering whether they will make the same calls in January, February and March that they make in November and December,” per Jeff Goodman’s October 14 article at ESPN) or throw sand into the overall flow (e.g., Larry Brown — “I think it will be terrible… There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re trying to do the right thing and their intentions are good, but I don’t think this is the solution. This is going to ruin the flow of the game,” per an early November ESPN article by Dana O’Neil) and turn the game into a Parade to the Free Throw Line. More scoring? Sure, but those extra points come at a price – longer games with more interruptions. Read the rest of this entry »

Eli Linton is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after the Oral Roberts vs. Tulsa game on Sunday.

A bigger upset than you might think happened in a relatively obscure part of the mid-major world on Sunday when  Oral Roberts celebrated a 74-68 non-conference road victory on the floor of their cross-town rival, Tulsa. Oral Roberts was able to overcome an abysmal shooting night (38 percent from the field) and the loss of Shawn Glover, their lone senior (fouled out with four minutes left in the game), and they did it by outrebounding the Golden Hurricane by 17 rebounds despite not having a starter over 6′ 7″. Tulsa also did its part by missing 19 free throws and going a horrific 1-of-9 from three-point territory.

Scott Sutton and his squad earned a quality win to start the season. (AP)

It was a sloppy game by both teams — what you might expect for a season opener — but there were also some important takeaways from this game. Both programs found themselves in a similar place before their 49th meeting: They are coached by men who come from Bill Self’s growing coaching tree, and can’t help but bring great expectations with that experience. Both schools have tasted some historical NCAA Tournament success and are looking to end long droughts, and both programs find themselves under a lot of pressure to produce for fan bases that measure success through conference championships and NCAA berths. The two schools are even more connected by the fact that they are mid-major schools from the same city, usually lost in the preseason discussion of potential “Cinderella” teams that are doing their best to keep that dream alive and stay relevant in the never-ending realignment of the power conferences. Each will need to win its conference championship to have any hope of earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament.
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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.

Top Storylines

• Best Ivy Team Ever? Every league preview from this summer and fall seemed to start with the assumption that Harvard would not only cruise to the Ivy title, but that it could very well end up as the best team the league has ever seen. Putting aside the great Penn teams of the 1970s – one of which reached the Final Four and two others which finished third in the final AP poll – it’s extremely tenuous to predict that the Crimson will even end up as the best Ivy team of the 64-team era. The 1998 edition of the Princeton Tigers set that bar, finishing the regular season with just one loss and nabbing a #5 seed before falling to Michigan State in the round of 32. While that’s the best known example, five other Ivy teams spent some time in the national polls, including Princeton’s 1991 squad, which lost by two to Villanova as a #8 seed in the first round. Two Penn teams from the mid-90s cracked the Top 25 and one scored an NCAA win as a #11 seed, while Harvard and Cornell recently rode appearances in the Top 25 to #12 seeds with the latter advancing all the way to the Sweet Sixteen. Given that most pundits have the 2013-14 Crimson as a fringe Top 25 team, it would seem that the hype about Harvard possibly being the best Ivy ever is mostly indicative of how soon most have forgotten the very good Ivy teams of the recent past.
  

  There will be plenty of teams gunning for Harvard this season. (AP)

• Going Digital – Just two years ago, the Ivy League office took a ton of flak as it struggled to farm out its premier basketball properties to television or even specialty streaming channels like ESPN3. Only six Ivy League contests were picked up that season, despite a dramatic race which ended where Princeton defeated the rival Quakers to send Harvard to its first NCAA Tournament in over 65 years. Last season, that number crept to nine broadcasts with the new league television deal with NBC Sports Network, but still the only way to watch Brown defeat Princeton to send Harvard back to the Big Dance was via a grainy web feed. Shortly after the season ended, however, the league announced a massive new infrastructure project to merge all of the web feeds into one Ivy Digital channel and provide professional, multi-camera, high-definition broadcasts of all events for the league’s revenue sports. Now, simply by paying one flat fee (roughly $100 for all sports), fans can watch any Ivy home contest and all league games without having to buy each individual school’s package and could access every game in one place. Add in features like quad view, which can allow viewers to watch four games at once, and the Ivy basketball fan has everything he or she needs to keep live tabs on the league race as it unfolds on Friday and Saturday nights in February and March.
• Stability in an Unstable World – While the Ivy League and its core eight institutions weathered the conference realignment storm without even a joking rumor about possible new arrivals or departures, pardon the players and coaches if they stumble over the new affiliations of some of their non-conference foes this season. The four conferences that the Ivies have played the most over the past two seasons (America East, Patriot, NEC and the Atlantic 10) all underwent varying levels of changes, and that’s before considering the six games the league will play against the American Athletic Conference, which didn’t even exist last season. The result of all the chaos is a composite schedule with a diverse set of non-conference opponents, as Ivy teams will play members of 23 different leagues this season.

Predicted Order of Finish:

1. Harvard (13-1)
2. Penn (9-5)
3. Yale (9-5)
4. Princeton (9-5)
5. Brown (5-9)
6. Columbia (4-10)
7. Cornell (4-10)
8. Dartmouth (4-10)

Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback of Villanova by the Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10. You can find him on Twitter at @vbtn.

Top Storylines

• Conference Realignment, Round Two – When back in March 2012, Temple — followed quickly by Charlotte — announced their intent to leave the conference at the end of the 2012-13 season, Atlantic 10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade had nearly 15 months to deliver their replacements. The former ACC Associate Commissioner took less than eight weeks to ink two stellar programs (VCU and Butler) that could potentially eclipse the departing teams. Through an accident of timing, the conference drew five NCAA bids from its 16 teams, matching their previous bid highs of 1996-97 and 1997-98. The A-10’s second brush with Realignment Fever (Butler and Xavier to the Big East, effective June 30, 2013) handed McGlade a far smaller window to audition replacements. Her second attempt at matchmaking yielded George Mason and Davidson, two solid additions that fall short of her first effort. That headliners Temple, Xavier and Butler (Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye) departed together, with Davidson not due to join until 2014-15, leaves the conference with less name recognition than it has had since the early 1990s.
  

  It has been a whirlwind 18 months for Bernadette McGlade and the Atlantic 10 conference. (AP)

• The “It” Place – Inking a five-year deal with the Barclays Center to host the Atlantic 10 Tournament seemed prudent at the time. The shovels had barely turned the dirt on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and the conference was in the early stages of negotiations for television coverage. McGlade’s gamble paid dividends as the 2013 conference tournament offered the strongest field in a decade in one of the year’s hottest new basketball venues. Couple the exposure from basketball (the Brooklyn Nets, the A-10 Tournament, several in season double- and triple-headers) and music, and suddenly the Barclays Center has become one of the most popular entertainment venues in New York City. For the A-10, the challenge will be to develop comparable gate numbers to those of the venue’s higher profile entertainment offerings.

Predicted Order of Finish

Rankings from the conference coaches’ Media Day Poll are in square brackets to the right of the projected conference record.

1. Virginia Commonwealth (13-3) [#1]
2. Saint Louis (12-4) [#2]
3. La Salle (12-4) [#3]
4. Massachusetts (11-5) [#4]
5. George Washington (10-6) [#10]
6. Richmond (9-7) [#6]
7. George Mason (9-7) [#8]
8. Dayton (7-9) [$7]
9. Rhode Island (7-9) [#9]
10. St. Joseph’s (6-10) [#5]
11. Fordham (4-12) [#11]
12. St. Bonaventure (3-13) [#12]
13. Duquesne (1-15) [#13]

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Mark Selig is the RTC correspondent for the Colonial Athletic Association. You can also find his musings online on Twitter @markrselig.

Reader’s Take

Looking Back

Since the last CAA game — a James Madison championship that its fans waited nearly two decades to see — the league has officially said goodbye to perennial powers George Mason (off to the Atlantic 10) and Old Dominion (now in Conference USA in a football-driven move), and hello to intriguing newcomer College of Charleston (formerly of the Southern Conference). Based on last year’s RPIs, the CAA won’t immediately suffer, but Mason — with a Final Four appearance last decade — is obviously a more high-profile program than Charleston. ODU is too. The swap is just the latest in the CAA’s geographical shift. The league is losing its Virginia members (VCU exited before last season) and seems to be trending south.

New Niagara coach Joe Mihalich is just one of several newcomers to an ever changing CAA. (AP)

The league also said goodbye to Mo Cassara, Hofstra’s hard-luck coach who took the job in tough circumstances (replacing Tim Welsh after a DUI) and was let go in equally difficult ones. His replacement? Longtime Niagara coach Joe Mihalich, who said he’ll have to donate all the purple wardrobe accumulated from 15 years with the Purple Eagles to JMU coach Matt Brady (ironically, Mihalich and Brady both have wives named Mary, and both have three sons, including a set of twins — with the same May 30 birthday!). Brady, meanwhile, parlayed his CAA title into a four-year contract extension, although the talks were a bit drawn out, nearly lingering until his previous contract expired. As for a new coach joining Mihalich in the league, second-year Charleston coach Doug Wojcik becomes every CAA reporter and copy editor’s worst nightmare. Wojcik (I’m already getting the hang of it), is no stranger to the CAA, having played with David Robinson at Navy in the 1980s.

The final goodbye from the CAA was to the city of Richmond — home of the league’s last 24 postseason tournaments. The league offices are still located in Richmond, but the CAA will host its annual playoff in Baltimore this year. Trying to establish Charm City as a sort of hub for CAA hoops, the conference held its media day at the Renaissance Baltimore, a swanky hotel overlooking the Inner Harbor. “Crab Cakes and basketball. That’s what we’re going to do here in Charm City,” Towson coach Pat Skerry, channeling a Wedding Crashers line, said during a lunchtime speech at media day.

Power Rankings

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Here are the game breakdowns for Sunday’s slate. From 24 to 16…

#2 Ohio State vs. #10 Iowa State – West Regional Third Round (Dayton, OH) – 12:15 PM ET on CBS

Deshaun Thomas and Aaron Craft will likely have to be their usual stellar selves to get past Iowa State. (Getty)

Friday night against Notre Dame, Iowa State hit nine threes as they rolled over Notre Dame into the Round of 32. Maybe just as impressively, they turned it over just six times, forced 17 turnovers and limited a good three-point shooting Irish team to just four threes on the night. Let’s just go out on a limb and say that none of those things are likely to happen when they face Ohio State today. But that’s not to insinuate that the Cyclones don’t have a chance. This is a team that can get scoring from all eight of the players in their rotation and guys like Will Clyburn, Melvin Ejim and Georges Niang are all inside/outside threats that are capable of creating matchup problems for their opponents. The problem is, the Buckeyes have shown their ability defensively to deal with versatile offensive teams; Michigan and Indiana are the top two offensive teams in the nation, and the Buckeyes have held each below one point per possession on one occasion earlier in the season. Of course, the thing is, on the other occasion when the Buckeyes faced those teams, they allowed an average of 1.21 points per possession and gave up a total of 21 three-pointers in those two games. In other words, while OSU has the ability to turn off the water for good offensive teams, there are just nights when good offense beats good defense. If Iowa State has it going, they’ve got enough talent to score enough points to beat Ohio State. The problem is, the Buckeyes have been pretty darn efficient offensively themselves of late and the Cyclones, meanwhile, are the third-worst defensive efficiency team remaining in the tournament. Iowa State’s offense has the ability to give Ohio State trouble, but it is just as likely that the Buckeyes will exploit that soft Cyclone defense.

The RTC Certified Pick: Ohio State

#1 Indiana vs. #9 Temple — East Region Third Round (at Dayton, OH) — 2:45 PM ET on CBS.

Fran Dunphy’s squad is known for defense, but lately the Owls have been putting up some major points. (Philly.com)

When you think of Fran Dunphy and Temple, you think of defense and a junkyard dog style of play. Not so much with this group. Since January 19, Temple has been an offensive juggernaut of sorts. The Owls have scored at least 70 points in their last 12 games and 16 of their last 17 games. Even in the one game they didn’t score 70, they fell only one point short of that mark. The point is the Owls can hang with Indiana offensively despite a talent disadvantage. The real question in this game is whether or not Temple can play the defense necessary to knock off the Hoosiers. Indiana is most vulnerable when teams slow the pace and get physical. Temple can surely get physical but we’re not sure the Owls can slow the pace against such a high-octane offense. For Indiana, the defensive key will be containing Khalif Wyatt. Although not a particularly great shooter, the Temple senior does it all. He gets others involved and averages 20.2 PPG with the potential to go for 30+ on any given night as he has done on six occasions this season, including in two of Temple’s last three games. Wyatt gets to the free throw line very well but one of Indiana’s many strengths is keeping opponents off the charity stripe. It’ll be very interesting to see if Wyatt can get to the line with regularity in this game. The Hoosiers have a significant talent advantage in this game but that was also the case with NC State, who Temple beat on Friday. Indiana can’t take this one for granted and must be focused defensively in the half court. Temple won’t turn the ball over often and Wyatt will be searching for contact all game.

The RTC Certified Pick: Indiana 

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Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10. He covered the Atlantic 10 tournament in Brooklyn this week. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Saint Louis completed a stellar Atlantic 10 Tournament campaign with a 62-56 victory over #25 Virginia Commonwealth Sunday afternoon at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Four Thoughts:

1. It’s the defense: The teams combined for 31 turnovers. Virginia Commonwealth used the press to force an unprecedented 18 Billiken miscues – the Rams are now 26-1 when they force 15 or more (Saint Louis is that one). Saint Louis typically forces opponents to lose about 22% of their possessions in conference this season (#2 to VCU). The Rams committed 13 turnovers, 10 in the first half alone. Combined with poor shooting (VCU was 3-of-18 on three point attempts), when the opportunity to overtake Saint Louis appeared in the second half, Shaka Smart’s team could not seal the deal.
2. Virginia Commonwealth and Saint Louis (and Butler, Temple and La Salle) will be tough outs in the NCAA: The teams are stocked with upperclassmen, are defense-oriented and offer very different approaches to the game. “The preparation and playing against teams like St. Louis, Xavier, Butler, La Salle, that really helped us going into this tournament,” said VCU coach Shaka Smart after the championship game. “Our whole strategy is to get the other team rattled,” added Smart. The three games played this weekend offer proof that the tactic works as La Salle, Massachusetts and Saint Louis were pushed to the point of collapse by VCU’s brand of HAVOC.
   

   Saint Louis’ Cody Ellis reacts after cutting a piece of the net after an NCAA college basketball game against Virginia Commonwealth and winning the championships of the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament. (AP)

   Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10. He’s covering the Atlantic 10 tournament in Brooklyn this week. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Virginia Commonwealth eliminated a gutty Saint Joseph’s squad, 82-79. After holding double-digit leads for much of the second half, the Rams withstood an uncharacteristically furious press and scoring blitz from the Hawks. Meanwhile, Chaz Williams led Massachusetts to a 79-74 upset of Temple to close out the quarterfinal round. The two teams, playing within a six-point margin for the entire 40 minutes, evoked memories of the John Calipari vs. John Chaney matches of a decade ago. Without the vitriol.

Four Thoughts After Session Two:

1. Quarterfinal results may have an impact on the NCAA field: La Salle’s loss appears by consensus to put the Explorers in the dreaded Last Four In category, a disappointment for coach John Giannini who promised to “go nuts” watching all of the bubble team games this weekend. Turns out he did not have to leave the Barclays Center to catch one of those bubble games, as Massachusetts eliminated Temple, 79-74, for the second consecutive time in the quarterfinal nightcap. The upset put the Minutemen in Jerry Palm’s play-in list with a #12 seed, slated to play opposite Villanova on Tuesday. If Palm’s scenario holds, the conference will pull an unprecedented six dance cards, as many as the Big 12 and more than the ACC, the Pac-12 and the SEC.
   

   Spike Lee (with phone) made his way south from Madison Square Garden to catch some A-10 action Friday evening. (Staff photo)

2. Spike Lee loves him some Shaka Smart: The five boroughs’ second most famous film director (and most famous basketball fan) abandoned his courtside digs in Manhattan (Madison Square Garden) to catch the Virginia Commonwealth-Saint Joseph’s quarterfinal (see photo – in the green windbreaker) in Jay-Z’s digs in Brooklyn. Unable to get a courtside seat, the filmmaker had first rows just behind the scorer’s table. Maybe he will be back for the semifinals this afternoon. Maybe Jay can score him something courtside for that one. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10. He’s covering the Atlantic 10 tournament in Brooklyn this week. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

The afternoon session saw Saint Louis beat Charlotte by 17 in a game that was in doubt for only the first three minutes. The Billikens used their defense to smother the 49ers, limiting them to 0.77 points per possession, a good sign for their postseason prospects. The second game left La Salle on the bubble as they could not overcome Butler’s shooting and rebounding, 69-58, in a game that was much closer than the score suggests.

Four Questions From Friday’s Afternoon Session:

1. How much gas is left in Butler’s tank? The Bulldogs were in a nip and tuck battle with the a stubborn La Salle squad, but when they pushed the lead out to double digits for the first time at the 32-minute mark, La Salle could get no closer than six (twice) in the game’s last eight minutes. Dr. John Giannini’s game plan did call for the Explorers’ four guards to take turns on Butler’s Rotnei Clarke, however, and Sam Mills, Tyreek Duren, Tyronne Garland and (especially) Ramon Galloway ran the Butler guard all over the floor. They triple-teamed Butler’s lead guard on inbounds plays in an attempt to keep the ball out of his hands. Several of the senior’s three-point attempts were short on the front rim, suggesting he was still recovering from yesterday. But in the game’s last eight minutes Clarke drove the lane through traffic for a contested layup, and hit a decisive three-point attempt four minutes later to snuff another La Salle rally. Clarke scored 14 points to lead the Bulldogs, but four teammates chipped 10 or more points to make the win a team effort. Butler will face Saint Louis in the Noon semifinal Saturday for their third game in three days. Expect Clarke to spend the evening in an ice bath.
   

   La Salle hounded Rotnei Clarke all game long, but a couple key buckets down the stretch by the Butler star proved to be the difference. (AP)

2. Where will Charlotte play next? The 49ers were eliminated by Saint Louis, 72-55, in the day’s opening game and with that defeat Charlotte closes the book on it’s sojourn in the Atlantic 10 Conference. A return to Conference USA, effective for the 2013-14 season, was announced last April, but there may still be life after Brooklyn. The NIT is a distinct possibility, especially if the NIT Selection Committee gives weight to their wins over La Salle, Butler, Xavier and Massachusetts. And if they want to feature a mobile forward, there are few better than Chris Braswell, who, with 20 points and 10 rebounds against the Billikens, recorded his second double-double of the season? Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10. He’s covering the Atlantic 10 tournament in Brooklyn this week. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Fans at the A-10 Tournament evening session were treated to two hard-fought contests where the winning points were scored with less than five seconds remaining. Saint Joseph’s ended Xavier’s Atlantic 10 run, 58-57, in a game that came down to a full court inbounds pass with 1.4 seconds remaining that ricocheted off of Xavier’s backboard. Isaiah Philmore, trailing the play, found the ball in his hands, but despite a good angle could not convert the shot. He collapsed on the court as time expired. In the other game, Massachusetts ended George Washington’s season with a 77-72 decision that was settled at the free throw line with five seconds left on the clock.

Chris Mack and his Xavier squad ended its A-10 season ended with a heartbreaking loss Thursday evening.

Three Thoughts on Thursday Evening’s Session:

1. I Left a Ticket for the Pope: Saint Joseph’s Phil Martelli is always good for a quote or two or three. Xavier could not counter an extremely physical Saint Joseph’s frontcourt as Mack rotated Isaiah Philmore, Jalen Robinson, Brad Redford and Travis Taylor in an attempt to find an answer to Ron Roberts, C.J. Aiken and especially Halil Kanacevic. The 6’9” forward/center had a terrible first half, but finished strong with three buckets, two coming at critical times. A game that saw 10 ties and 14 lead changes, with Xavier’s eight point lead the largest by either, came down to two free throws with under five seconds to play. Langston converted both to give Saint Joseph’s a one-point lead. Xavier’s full court pass to a flashing Taylor sailed high off the backboard right into Philmore’s waiting arms. The forward’s field goal attempt was wide right and fell off the rim, leaving the Joe’s to play another day. Xavier is no doubt bound for a postseason tournament somewhere, just not the NCAA Tournament. Read the rest of this entry »