After a relatively quiet week on the college hoops hardwoods, here’s this week’s RTC25. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Quick N’ Dirty Analysis.

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The RTC Podcast is back in action this week with sharpened pencils ready to tackle the key questions surrounding the first month of the season. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosts, Bennet Hayes joins (@hoopstraveler), and the banter is fast and furious. Ranging in topics from Bo Ryan, court rushing, best teams, biggest disappointments, and all the way back to Ryan again, the guys are juiced and ready to tackle their exams. Who gets a passing grade?

Remember to add us to your iTunes lineup so the pod will automatically upload each week. The entire lineup of topics is below. Happy Holidays, everyone!

• 0:00-9:30 – Bo Ryan Retirement
• 9:30-13:21 – What we learned the last few weeks
• 13:21-16:28 –  Best team in the Big 12
• 16:28-20:41 – Best team in the Big Ten
• 20:41-24:24 – Biggest surprise of the season
• 24:24-26:04 – Player of the Year
• 26:04-27:48 – Best conference?
• 27:48-30:59 – Biggest disappointment of the season
• 30:59-33:47 – Impact of new rules
• 33:47-45:18 – Court Rushing Rules/wrap

Kenny Ocker (@kennyocker) is a national columnist.

That bench. Those big upset wins over major conference teams. That bench.

Monmouth has had a surprising start to the 2015-16 season, beating UCLA in overtime at Pauley Pavilion (where even top-ranked Kentucky fell last night), and then Notre Dame and USC on a neutral court in Orlando during a Thanksgiving week tournament. And the Hawks have had a ton of fun doing it, with their bench becoming nationally known for their hilarious and diverse set of celebrations. We talked with fifth-year coach King Rice about where his program’s been, where it’s going and (on accident) where he plans to retire to when he hangs up the whistle.

Where did this season-opening run come from?

We’ve been going after this for a while. This is my fifth year as the head coach. Every year, we’ve played high majors. My first three years, the average margin of loss was 36 points. We played three or four of them a year, and everybody told me, “King, you’re crazy for playing schedules like this. What are you doing? What are you doing?” I just thought it was the right thing to do. Last year, our average margin of loss was nine points, and last year we played West Virginia, we played Maryland, we played SMU and Rutgers, so I felt like we were getting closer.

But to have this much success this early, no one could have imagined that. But we do have an older team now, most of our guys are juniors, and we’ve been in those situations for three years – and now it’s time for us to have a chance in those games.

You have that experience, yet you only have one senior…

I don’t want you to tell anybody that, because I don’t know if people understand. We’ve been building this program – this is our fifth year – and when we first started, we didn’t have a lot of success. My athletic director, Dr. Marilyn McNeil, believed in what she was seeing and what we were doing. And now it’s time for us to have some success, and the program is set up for us to be in a good place, because we do only have one senior. And then the following year, we’re going to lose five or six guys, but the guys that are in the program that will still be in the program are getting valuable minutes right now. So we truly feel like we’ve set it up the right way so we won’t be a one-hit wonder.

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The school-managed exempt tournament is going extinct. The proliferation of corporate-owned events, including those put on by ESPN, have made sure of that. But out on the Last Frontier, the last holdout is conducting its last event on its own: The Great Alaska Shootout, organized and hosted by the University of Alaska-Anchorage, goes until Saturday, with its champion being the final team to win the tournament before Basketball Travelers takes over as managers next season.

The Great Alaska Shootout Produced One of the Best Moments for Bob Huggins at Cincinnati, in 1998. (AP)

The 50-plus-year-old tradition of exempt tournaments started when schools off the U.S. mainland needed to have an incentive before teams would schedule visits, and for a long time it stayed on an island floating off the coast of the NCAA landscape. But when eccentric Louisianan Bob Rachal took over the UAA men’s basketball program during its inaugural year in the NCAA’s Division II in 1977-78 – donning a tuxedo and top hat in his first game on the sidelines – he found that metaphorical island and used it to his advantage.

“He wanted something that could make a splash, something that could get the program on the map, so he dug around in the NCAA bylaws and he found out that you could host basically free games held under the exemption for any teams playing in Alaska or Hawaii at that point,” Seawolves sports information director Nate Sagan said. Well, not quite free, but close enough: A tournament of up to four games could count as one game against the NCAA’s limit of contests per season.

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As we head into what is certain to be a very happy holiday weekend, the guys wanted to get a Feast Week podcast in the books before things got too crazy. Little did they know that the great state of Nebraska would leave its indelible footprint on this week’s RTC Podcast. Spreading holiday cheer from Lincoln to North Platte! Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosts and Bennet Hayes (@hoopstraveler) once again joins, as the group goes through some of their early season tournament takes and looks ahead to the rest of the week. Oh, and this.

Five-oh Makes an Appearance on This Week’s RTC Podcast!

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!

• 0:00-8:27 – Champions Classic Review
• 8:27-15:17 – True Home Games vs. Neutral Sites
• 15:07-21:14 – Early Season Takeaways
• 21:14-25:51 – Battle 4 Atlantis
• 25:51-30:21 – Other Early Tournaments/Randy Gets Arrested
• 30:21-35:57 – Player of the Year Discussion
• 35:57-39:17 What We Are Thankful For/Wrap

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

Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2015-16 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Friday, November 13. We’ve captured what we believe were the 30 most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#1 – Where Ring Number Five Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 preseasons.

Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2015-16 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Friday, November 13. We’ve captured what we believe were the 30 most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#2 – Where March Magic Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 preseasons.

Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2015-16 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Friday, November 13. We’ve captured what we believe were the 30 most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#3 – Where Dream Seasons Happen.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 preseasons.

Last year’s College Basketball Survivor game was a wonderful success. Over 240 competitors began the game in mid-November and after 16 weeks of the regular season, we were left with only three players. When Brian Joyce (@bjoyce_hoops) won with his selection of Iowa State on the final week of the season, he became the proud recipient of the title First Annual RTC #cbbsurvivor. Let’s do it again.

The form that you will need for Week One is located here, and the rules are below:

Try Finding a Non-NFL Survivor Pool Image

Pick two teams that you think will go unbeaten during the first week-plus of the regular season (Friday Nov. 13 – Sunday Nov. 22). The deadline for entries in Week One is 3:00 PM ET on Friday. You cannot choose teams that you have already chosen in previous weeks, and it is your responsibility to know which teams you’ve already used. Your pool of available teams are the 65 schools from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC.

• UNBEATEN WEEK. If both your teams go unbeaten, you advance to next week (note: both teams MUST play at least one game).
• SPLIT WEEK. If your teams split (one goes unbeaten; one loses), you use a strike and advance to next week.
• ELIMINATION WEEK. If both your teams lose a game (or more than one game), you are eliminated.

If you attempt to use the same team twice in a season, or you choose a team that doesn’t play that week, or you miss a weekly deadline, you are eliminated.

You’re allowed three strikes during the season. A fourth strike eliminates you.

One entry per person, please. Deadline for Week One is 3:00 PM ET Friday 11/13. No exceptions!

The last #cbbsurvivor standing will win two tickets to the 2015 NCAA regional of his choice. Second and third place will receive RTC t-shirts. Good luck!