This fall I’ve had the pleasure to travel around a little and attend several college basketball games as a media member, but as I walked by the loading docks and into the back of the Cintas Center on Sunday night, I felt it as soon as I got inside.  I’ve attended Xavier basketball games on a media credential in the past, but this time, the buzz, the sounds, the aura…

This was different.

I had expected a different experience, because this was my first Crosstown Shootout.  But this was beyond expectation.  I made a quick detour through the media room and, without being asked, one of the very helpful Xavier Sports Info workers showed me to my seat.  I was positioned just around the corner from the Cincinnati bench, a short bounce pass away from UC head coach Mick Cronin, himself.  If you’re familiar with the Cintas Center setup, you’ve probably already realized — I was right in front of the Xavier student section. 

Total.  Freaking.  Mayhem.

Now, that period-after-every-word emphasis thing you see above is an overused tool by everyone ranging from amateur tweeters (myself included) to professional sportswriters (myself not included), and it’s losing a little luster.  I use it here because…well, if I had to use it once in my life to get a point across, this is when I would choose to use it.  As I said, I’ve been to a number of games in this part of the country this season.  The only way I can think to describe this particular student section on this night is…”beautifully ridiculous.”  I turned around, saw their painted faces and myriad noise-producing implements, heard the unbelievable roar that flowed from them, and I honestly thought I’d see Mel Gibson as William Wallace riding around in front of them on a horse.  They were both exhilarating and horrifying.  And I mean that in the best way possible.  I didn’t grow up in Cincinnati, I didn’t go to either one of these schools, and I brought no allegiance with me for either program to this game.  I was there as an observer.  But they numbered in the hundreds and sounded like thousands.  They were already putting in a legendary performance — and the game hadn’t even tipped off.

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Patrick Marshall of White and Blue Review is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference.

Current Records and My Standings (Last Week’s Rank)

1. Missouri St. (9-0) (1)
2. Wichita St. (9-1) (2)
3. Northern Iowa (7-1) (5)
4. Illinois St. (7-1) (3)
5. Southern Illinois (5-2) (8)
6. Bradley (5-3) (4)
7. Indiana St. (6-3) (6)
8. Evansville (4-3) (7)
9. Drake (5-5) (10)
10. Creighton (3-5) (9)

STORIES OF THE WEEK

• Missouri St. wins two more games.  The Bears are continuing to win, much to the chagrin of my pre-season rankings. I thought they would have at least 3 losses by now. Home court advantage was probably a help to their early success, but they also have two wins on the road and are in the middle of a three-game road trip. It would be pretty amazing if they finish the non-conference season undefeated by getting road wins at St. Louis and Arkansas, both very winnable games.
• Creighton loses on the road again.  Creighton is now 0-5 on the road this season and could finish 2009 with a losing record which would be the first time in a long time. This week it was to George Mason as they led most of the game and collapsed in the last few minutes of the game, helped by a technical foul on coach Dana Altman with 18 seconds left in the game with Creighton up by two.  Creighton lost the game, 75-72.
• Shockers looking pretty good.  Other than the loss to Pittsburgh in the CBE Classic, Wichita State  is playing some good basketball lately and have gained a lot of confidence with a couple road wins at UMKC and Cleveland State as well as some guarantee games at Koch Arena.  They will be a force come conference play.
• UNI sweeps Iowa teams.  For the first time since 2006-07 season, UNI beat both Iowa and Iowa St. in the annual matchup between the Iowa schools. The Panthers are on a roll as of late and creating quite the resume’ with wins over Iowa, Iowa St., Boston College, and Siena.
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Mark Bryant, Coordinator of New Media for the Big South Conference and writer of Big South SHOUT, is an RTC correspondent.

Updated Standings (Conference/Overall):

1. Coastal Carolina  (2-0/7-2)
2. Radford  (2-0/4-3)
3. UNC Asheville  (1-0/1-6)
4. VMI  (1-1/4-4)
5. High Point  (1-1/4-4)
6. Winthrop  (1-1/3-4)
7. Liberty  (1-1/4-6)
8. Gardner-Webb  (0-1/3-3)
9. Charleston Southern  (0-2/4-4)
10. Presbyterian College  (0-2/2-7)

Top Storylines:

Joseph Harris, Double-Double Machine —  Coastal Carolina’s Joseph Harris graduated last year (Biology), but still had a year of eligibility in his pocket from a medical redshirt season.  He almost took that off to grad school at UAB, but changed his mind to play one more year for Coach Cliff Ellis and the Chanticleers, who must be very grateful by now.  In the season’s first four weeks, Harris earned Big South Player of the Week honors three times.  You read that right–three PoW awards in just one month…not too shabby, huh?  Harris is the league’s top active scorer and rebounder, with more than 1,000 points and 900 rebounds.  He holds the #3 career spot in rebounding (919) and stands an excellent chance of taking the top position from Arizona Reid (1013) early in 2010.  Harris would join Reid as the only players in Big South history to surpass both the 1,000 point and 1,000 rebound plateaus.  Harris currently leads the conference in 20+ point games (six) and 10+ rebound games (seven) this season, just one game ahead of Preseason Player of the Year Art Parakhouski on both counts.

Home Court (Dis)Advantage? — The first weekend of Big South Conference games favored the travelers more than the hosts.  Of the nine games played, the road team won six.  Of those six, four wins belonged to Radford and Coastal Carolina, who each pulled down a pair of road victories.  RU, in fact, has run its Big South road victory streak to eleven games now, the longest such run since Winthrop reached 11 from Jan. ’05 to Jan. ’06.

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Michael Hurley is the RTC correspondent for the Patriot League and America East Conference.

Current Standings (with overall record):

1. Army  6-2
2. Lafayette  5-5
3. Bucknell  4-6
4. Navy  4-6
5. Lehigh  3-5
6. Holy Cross  2-8
7. American  1-8
8. Colgate  0-8

Hottest Team: Army (3-1 on the week)

W 64-48 vs. Yale, W 64-58 vs. Bryant, L 74-67 at Buffalo, W 61-40 at Farleigh Dickinson

Coach Zach Spiker has these Black Knights playing better than expected.  No one can say they have had a tough schedule so far, but you play the games in front of you and Army is the only Patriot League team with a winning record at this point.

Stud Player: Chris Harris G- Sr., Navy, 22.0 PPG in 34 MPG.

Harris got many accolades for his recent performances, including Patriot League Player of the Week, ECAC Division I Player of the Week, and Mid Majority Player of the Week.  Harris is one of only nine players nationally with at least two 30-point games so far this year.  He also hit this game winner:

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Ryan Dunn is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic Sun Conference.

Current Standings:

1. Belmont (7-2, 2-0)
2. Campbell (5-2, 1-0)
3. East Tennessee State (5-5, 1-0)
4. USC Upstate (1-6, 1-0)
5. Kennesaw State (4-4, 1-1)
6. Lipscomb (3-5, 1-1)
7. Jacksonville (0-5, 0-0)
8. Florida Gulf Coast (0-6, 0-0)
9. Stetson (2-5, 0-1)
10. Mercer (4-5, 0-2)
11. North Florida (1-5, 0-2)

League Nuggets:

Conference play is underway in the Atlantic Sun and so far the pre-conference trends have continued through the first weeks of the conference season.  Lipscomb and Mercer still cannot defend anyone.  Campbell continues to win games but still has the toughest part of their schedule upcoming.  Jonathan Rodriguez has broken even more records since our last Atlantic Sun look in.  He now has the most career double-doubles in league history with 43 and has also moved into second place on the school’s all-time scoring list.  Speaking of records, Mercer’s James Florence continues to shatter league and school records as well.

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Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net and Travis Mason-Bushman of Vandal Nation are the RTC correspondents for the Western Athletic Conference.

CURRENT STANDINGS:

1. Louisiana Tech (7-2)
2. Idaho (5-3)
3. Boise State (5-3)
4. Utah State (4-3)
5. San Jose State (4-4)
6. Fresno State (4-4)
7. Hawai’i (4-4)
8. Nevada (3-4)
9. New Mexico State (2-5)

Mediocrity continues for the WAC as the league came up largely empty against the toughest competition they faced this week and they now stand 38-32 in non-conference play.  Last week we talked about eight games and eight chances earn RPI boosting victories for the league.  The end result of those eight games was a 2-6 record.  Boise State lost to Illinois, New Mexico State was thumped by New Mexico, St. Mary’s snapped Utah State’s 37-game home winning streak, Pacific was snakebitten at Pacific, Idaho rocked then No. 25 Portland but got crushed on the road by Washington State, Louisiana Tech lost at Arizona and Fresno State knocked off San Diego.

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Joe Dzuback of Villanova By The Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Standings (as of 12/9/09):

1. Richmond (8-1)
2. Charlotte (7-1)
3. George Washington (6-1)
4. Rhode Island (6-1)
5. Temple (7-2)
6. Duquesne (6-2)
7. Dayton (6-2)
8. La Salle (5-2)
9. Xavier (5-3)
10. St. Louis (5-3)
11. St. Bonaventure (4-3)
12. Massachusetts (4-5)
13. Saint Joseph’s (3-4)
14. Fordham (2-5)

Changes.   Change is in the air throughout the Atlantic 10 Conference very early this season.  Xavier, Dayton and Temple have all hit early road bumps in their out of conference (OOC) schedules — each has already logged a second loss.  Charlotte, Rhode Island and Richmond on the other hand, have been strong coming out of the gate, Richmond’s early season loss to William & Mary notwithstanding.  La Salle has had the strongest start in several seasons.  St. Bonaventure logged a couple of strong outings…before their rendezvous with Mississippi State.  And Fordham departed from long precedent by “releasing” 7th year head coach Dereck Whittenburg five games into their season. For Saint Joseph’s and Massachusetts however, change has not been a good thing.  Coach Phil Martelli may have finally found his guards, and Coach Derek Kellogg may have his athletic wings, but they are all very, very young.

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Iowa head coach Todd Lickliter underwent placement of a stent to one of his carotid arteries on Saturday at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, according to reports from ESPN and from The Hawk Eye.  Lickliter had evidently complained of severe headaches while coaching his Hawkeyes in the CBE Classic in late November, and upon evaluation and testing on Friday, a tear in one of his carotid arteries was found.  This led to the decision to access the carotid and place a stent, a small semi-rigid mesh-like tube, into the artery to keep it open and intact.  He was released on Tuesday and was told to chill for a week before resuming his coaching duties (probably not in those terms).  As if that matters, considering the rest of the above paragraph.

Most folks have heard of “stents” when talking of heart disease, like when a doctor puts a stent in one of the arteries that suppies blood to the heart, so that the blood will keep flowing through it and you won’t have a heart attack.  Yeah, I’m talking to you, there — the guy dipping potato chips in lard.  Same concept here.  The carotid arteries (you have one on each side of your neck, and you probably knew that) help supply blood to a little organ we here at RTC like to call, “the brain,” which we learned in 8th-grade health class as having a great deal of  import.  Putting a stent in one of them makes sure that blood keeps flowing through that vessel like John Wall through your 2-3 zone, so that you don’t have a “brain attack.”  Also known as… a stroke.

From the information available in the various reports about this (including the two above), and after talking with the guys over at Rush The Court’s Vascular Surgery wing — fun group, by the way! — it doesn’t sound like this was a matter of actual flow through the carotid that got repaired, but rather an issue of a tearing of the artery wall itself.  If this is the case, what happens is — because your artery walls have many layers in them, like reinforced garden hose — one of the layers begins to weaken and bulge, which can not only disrupt blood flow to the brain (badness!), but can also result in further tearing (extreme freakin’ badness).  If it was a matter of true lack of flow through a clogged carotid artery, most likely Lickliter would have had something called a carotid endarterectomy.  This involves not only a year of medical school just to learn how to say that word, but also involves cutting open the neck from the outside, cutting the artery from the outside, and pulling out, as I believe Bill Walton once said, “a big tub of goo” from the artery so blood can flow all smooth-like. 

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Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is the RTC correspondent for the MAAC and NEC conferences, covers all levels of basketball in the New York City area, and is at Madison Square Garden for the Jimmy V Classic.

NEW YORK CITY – Think of the University of Connecticut and the images of excellence, outstanding coaching and regular post-season appearances come to mind.  For the men, women and cheerleaders.  The UConn Spirit program website proclaims the program purpose and mission statement with the headline “University Spirit, Pride, Tradition.”

The program is under the auspices of new coach Sarah Mickels.  A 2006 graduate of the University of Tennessee, Sarah was on the dance team and has 20 years of experience in dance.  In addition, she is an accomplished veteran in coaching, with experience at the youth, high school and collegiate levels.  And, as she indicates with a smile, any possible UT-UConn matchup in women’s basketball would be quite interesting from an emotional allegiance standpoint.

Even the loss to Duke doesn't dampen their enthusiasm.

One of the major changes in the program was combining the cheer group.  In the past there were two groups.  One cheered the men’s team, the other cheered the women.  Now the squad is one 24-person unit.  “I think it’s great (the change),” said senior co-captain Heather Heimann.  “I love it.  It gives us a chance to work with everyone, meet new people and teach the younger cheerleaders in the program.”  A native of New Rochelle, New York, Heather is a marketing major who cheered four years in high school. She has an extensive background in gymnastics which is vital to make it on the college level.  You don’t simply go out on the floor during time-outs and automatically do back flips the length of three quarters of the court.

At UConn, besides the mandatory two-to-three-hour practices several days per week, cheerleaders have specific academic requirements.  “We must maintain a 2.5 GPA,” Heather said.  “We have grade sheets filled by our professors and submitted (to the coach).”  In preparation for travel to New York for Wednesday’s Big East-SEC matchup with Kentucky, Samantha Strumbolo, another senior co-captain, echoed the academic emphasis noting,  “I’m glad we have the late class because we won’t miss class before heading to New York.”

Overall, the squad change was for the better.  Last year Heather cheered for the women but attended the men’s game as more of a fan.  Now she has the opportunity to be on the floor and cheer both programs.  Football is also part of the cheerleading experience.  For Heather a major highlight was the recent Husky win at Notre dame in overtime.  “Cheering in front of 80,000 fans at Notre Dame Stadium was great,” she said.  “Winning in overtime was unbelievable.”  It’s just a few weeks between the storied Notre Dame Stadium to “the world’s most famous arena,” at Madison Square Garden  — an exciting agenda on the cheer schedule.

For their part, the UConn cheerleaders and the Husky provide their own excitement and keep the crowd involved.  “One of the big changes this year allows us to go into the stands and get the fans really involved.  It is a whole new tradition.”

In the UConn cheer program, a tradition that has not been altered is one of representing the school in a classy and entertaining manner.  Excellence —  the expectation, not just an objective.  The same as it is for the programs for which they cheer.

Paul Jordan of Wildcat Blue Blog is the RTC correspondent for the Southeastern Conference.

EAST

1. Kentucky  8-0
2. Florida  8-0
3. Tennessee  6-1
4. Vanderbilt  6-1
5. South Carolina  6-2
6. Georgia  4-3

WEST

1. Mississippi  7-1
2. Alabama  6-2
3. Mississippi State  5-2
4. LSU  4-2
5. Auburn  5-4
6. Arkansas  4-5

Anyone doubting the SEC’s resurgence this season had to be pouring themselves a big glass of “hater-ade” after taking a look at the weekly Top 25 polls.  The SEC, which sent only three teams to the NCAA Tourney last season now has three teams perched in the Top 10 and four teams are among the Top 25 in the nation.

Kentucky used a win over North Carolina to leapfrog Purdue into the #4 spot in the AP Top 25 and now have that spot in both polls.  Tennessee only had one game last week, but moved to #9 in both polls due to other teams’ misfortunes, and the resurgent Florida Gators now occupy the #10 spot in the AP Top 25 and the 11th spot in the ESPN/USA Today Poll.  Mississippi debuted in the AP Poll at #25 and fell just outside the top 25 at #29 in the ESPN/USA Today poll.  In contrast to that, Vanderbilt was #24th in the ESPN poll and #28 in the AP Poll.

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