Jonathan Reed of Big Sky Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big Sky conference. You can find him on Twitter at @bigskybball.

Reader’s Take

 

The Past Couple Weeks:

• Weber State and Montana tied again – These are the two teams that have been at the top of the conference from the beginning, so it is not surprise that they are both at the top of the conference now. As of this writing, they both stand at 8-1, and don’t appear to have any serious contenders. This will be one of the best conference races in the country.

• Idaho State becomes a conference tournament contender – All along this season, Idaho State was seen as a team that would probably finish last in the Big Sky, and nothing through the first two months of the year changed that perception. However, they have all of sudden won three straight games, including handing Weber State their only loss. They are brimming with confidence, and a team that nobody else wants to face, which would have been shocking to say one month ago.
• Former NAU coach Mike Adras under fire – In December, long-time Northern Arizona head coach Mike Adras abruptly resigned, and there was not a lot said about it officially. There were rumors that he may not have treated his players the best, but I never expected what was put out in the AZ Daily Sun last week. He is accused of breaking multiple NCAA rules, including making his practices too long, and making his players lie about it. Suffice to say, the NAU program is reeling a bit right now.

Power Rankings:

1. Weber State (16-4, 8-1) – I gave a lot of thought to putting Montana first, but it was not long ago that Weber State soundly beat them. Damian Lillard is still leading the country in scoring, but his lead is growing more tenuous. They are still battling injury problems, as starting forward Frank Otis is out for the year. It is a bit easy to nitpick, but they are still 8-1 and the favorite. Read the rest of this entry »

Ray Floriani is the RTC correspondent for the MAAC and NEC conferences.

Reader’s Take

 

Opening Tip

The general consensus is that LIU Brooklyn and Wagner are the top two teams in the conference. With less than a month remaining in the regular season, however, there are five programs with a legitimate shot at the top. Keep an eye on LIU vs. St. Francis (NY) at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. It is a St. Francis “home” game and it gives the Terriers another opportunity to achieve a statement victory.

Standings

Team, MAAC record, overall record:

LIU	10-1, 16-7
Wagner	9-2, 18-4
St. Francis (NY)	9-2, 12-10
Robert Morris	7-4, 16-8
Central Connecticut St.	7-4, 10-11
Quinnipiac	5-6, 12-10
Monmouth	5-6, 7-17
Sacred Heart	4-7, 10-14
Mount St. Mary’s	4-7, 6-16
St. Francis (PA)	4-7, 5-17
Fairleigh Dickinson	1-10, 2-20
Bryant	1-10, 2-21

 

NEC Player of the Week:

Shane Gibson, Sacred Heart, 6’2″, Jr., G – Averaged 30.5 points per game last week to increase his NEC scoring average to 21.6 points per game. Gibson shot 51% from the field and added 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals for the Pioneers in their two games. Gibson ranks fourth nationally in scoring and is averaging 26.1 points in NEC action.

NEC Rookie of the Week:

Ousmane Drame, Quinnipiac, 6’9″, Fr., F – Averaged 8.5 points, and12 rebounds for the week. Drame posted career-highs with 13 points and 15 rebounds in a comeback overtime win over Mount St. Mary’s.

Team Overviews

1. LIU Brooklyn – On the conference’s “Western” swing, the Blackbirds lost at Robert Morris and defeated St. Francis (PA). Before that loss to Robert Morris, LIU had won 18 (21 including the tournament) straight NEC games dating back to last season. Julian Boyd scored 25 points and  added 12 rebounds against the Colonials. Jamal Olasewere enjoyed his seventh double-double of the season with a 26-point, 10-rebound outing at St. Francis. Jason Brickman added 12 assists. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend the longest losing streak in NCAA Division I history finally — mercifully — came to an end. The Towson Tigers defeated conference foe UNC Wilmington by a score of 66-61, ending a 13-month winless streak of 41 games for the school. Often we as media get caught up in the esoteric and mundane, focusing on the statistic and accompanying storyline rather than the fact that there are actually people involved in a story such as this one.

Certainly a major burden/albatross has been relieved from the backs of head coach Pat Skerry (responsible for 22 of those losses) and his players — they are now free to move on with their season with the goal of building for the future (the Tigers lost to Hofstra, 74-49 on Wednesday night). But there’s also an element of relief for students, alumni, and fans no doubt fatigued with seeing the (negative) publicity rained on the school as a result of this losing streak. If you ask the question, why does this matter, take a look at the prose of one of Towson’s oldest living alumni, QD Thompson, in a Letter to the Editor posted on Sunday in the school’s newspaper.

Speaking as a 90-year-old Towson Tiger, and with tears in my eyes after reading a long summary of the Towson Tiger men’s basketball team’s recent victory (66-61) over UNC-Wilmington that broke the Tigers’ 41-game losing streak, I just wanted to say hallelujah and congratulations to Coach Pat Skerry, his staff and players, whose warm victory blood I am sure is still bubbling in their vessels. It reminds me of my days at the Towson State Teachers College in the late ‘30s, when I was a sophomore. One day, I was speaking with the Director of Athletics Dr. Donald I. Minnegan, who was also my coach and mentor, and he heard me say, “But, Doc, I can’t do that.” And with that, he clamped his hand over my mouth and screamed out, “Thompson, don’t ever let me hear you say, ‘I can’t’ again, because there is always a way to accomplish anything.”  I soon learned that Doc was absolutely right. Attention Coach Skerry, I pass this little story along to you and suggest you place it in your pipe and smoke it.

According to the Towson sports information staff, Thompson played basketball for the school in the late 1930s/early 1940s (Class of 1942) and clearly still has a very strong emotional connection to the university located just north of Baltimore, Maryland. This once again shows that the bond between alumni and their schools (and by proxy, their school’s teams) is exceptionally strong. Professional teams are represented by an amalgam of logo, colors and personnel both past and present, but with few exceptions does physical location actually mean anything — Lambeau, Fenway, Yankee, and a few others — but mostly not. Universities, on the other hand, have all of those things too, but more importantly, the essence underlying the connection is one of place. Location matters, and that’s the primary advantage that college sports has over the pros.

Welcome to Through the Lens, an RTC photo tour through the game of college basketball.

This week’s topic: Messaging.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. We suppose that we should recognize that there’s a football game going on this weekend in Indianapolis that involves a couple of well-known quarterbacks. It should come as no surprise that Las Vegas sports gambling establishments are offering all kinds of ridiculous prop bets on the Sunday evening Super Bowl, but as The Dagger’s Ryan Greene writes in this piece, there are an interesting array of crossover props available that institute both this weekend’s college basketball action as well as the NFL championship. That’s right, if you are inclined to pick between Northwestern star John Shurna’s combined points and rebounds vs. Tom Brady’s number of completions or any number of other crazy wagers, Vegas invites you to come on down and give them some of your money.
2. It’s not every day that you’ll read an article that compares the New York Times and Deadspin in the same sentence, but this piece by Dave Pickle at the NCAA does exactly such a thing. Feeling a need to respond to an onslaught of negative reporting from the Times’ Joe Nocera, the NCAA is fighting back using its own media platform. We read the original pieces that Nocera wrote regarding Connecticut’s Ryan Boatright, but he’s moved well beyond that criticism into other areas including the right to privacy and other associated injustices that he accuses the NCAA of perpetrating. The organization has responded in kind by accusing Nocera of an inherent conflict-of-interest (his fiancee’ is the communications director for a law firm suing the NCAA on the “likeness” issue) and bringing up a prior rebuke for calling Tea Party members “terrorists.” We certainly appreciate the interest that Nocera has taken in the inner workings of the NCAA, but we’d prefer if there were more news organizations asking similar questions on multiple fronts so that the one-man crusade aspect of this would disappear.
3. A bit of recruiting news beyond Nerlens Noel on Thursday — the Jordan Brand Classic rosters were announced for the April 14 game in Charlotte, and seven of the top 10 players according to Rivals will be on the rosters. Noel himself will not be there because he did not reclassify to the Class of 2012 in time for consideration, but somehow we don’t think that will affect his hyper-recruitment in the next couple of months. The West team will be comprised of consensus #1 player Shabazz Muhammad (undecided) along with “forward Brandon Ashley (Arizona), center Isaiah Austin (Baylor), forward Anthony Bennett (undecided), wing Archie Goodwin (Kentucky), wing Danuel House (Houston), wing Grant Jerrett (Arizona), guard Marcus Paige (North Carolina), wing Alex Poythress (Kentucky) and guard Rasheed Sulaimon (Duke).” The East team will consist of UCLA recruit Kyle Anderson, “guard Kris Dunn (Providence), wing Jerami Grant (Syracuse), guard Garry Harris (Michigan State), forward Brice Johnson (North Carolina), wing Ricardo Ledo (Providence), center Tony Parker (undecided), guard Rodney Purvis (N.C. State), center Kaleb Tarczewski (Arizona) and wing J.P. Tokoto (North Carolina).”
4. This story doesn’t involve Division I basketball, but it’s scary enough to be newsworthy. A charter bus from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, carrying the men’s and women’s basketball teams (the ‘Roos) caught fire during the trip to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Thursday forcing both teams to evacuate the bus to get to safety. One athlete was provided medical treatment for smoke inhalation, but the remainder of the traveling party was able to transfer to another bus and move on to its road trip to Colorado. Still, a harrowing situation that luckily didn’t involve anything more serious than that.
5. It’s Friday, which means that Luke Winn‘s latest and greatest Power Rankings came out yesterday. In this week’s column, you’ll learn which of the elite teams in America has the most balanced offense (hint: it’s not a school near Lake Oneida), Ricardo “Right Hook” Ratliffe’s offensive tendencies, a titillating teaser for more defensive charting on Syraucse, and even a reference to St. Mary’s guard Matthew Dellavedova’s mouthguard. Read it. In case that doesn’t provide you enough hoops analysis for one morning, Seth Davis also released a new Mailbag, which features an analysis of all the unbeaten conference teams’ chances for an at-large bid. Compelling stuff, as always.

Kenny Ocker is an RTC correspondent.

True star players often have a way of making it obvious how good they are and how prodigious their talents are. Jared Cunningham is one of those players, and he has the market cornered in the Pac-12 this season. The Oregon State junior guard’s game against rival Oregon last Sunday clearly illustrated how Cunningham’s ability exceeds that of any other player in the conference. Despite shooting 1-for-7 in the first half against the Ducks and scoring just three points, Cunningham went off in the second half and scored 24 points and — offensively, defensively and emotionally — led the Beavers to a come-from-behind, 76-71, road victory in a game that their rivals could ill afford to lose.

“I felt more vocal. I was trying to get Ahmad (Starks) going,” Cunningham said of his fellow guard, who also had just three points in the first half, but finished with 15. “I talked to him at halftime and just told him to play hard and get his shot going.” Oregon State — especially Cunningham and Starks — took advantage of Oregon’s porous perimeter defense in the second half, but the 6’4” shooting guard from Oakland led the way, shooting 5-for-7 from the field in the second half, demonstrating that he was far and away the best player on the court and likely the best player in the conference.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vernetti is the WCC correspondent for RTC.

Reader’s Take 

 

Looking Back

Saint Mary’s was in the spotlight last week and the Gaels did not shirk from the attention. First came a businesslike, 71-64, win over Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, then an epochal, 80-66, romp over BYU in Provo that seemed to unhinge everyone connected with BYU basketball. It wasn’t only the 22,000-plus rabid fans in the Marriott Center, it wasn’t only normally low-key BYU coach Dave Rose losing his cool, it wasn’t just Noah Hartsock earning a flagrant foul with a blatant forearm shiver to the neck of Gaels’ forward Rob Jones. It was almost a fan riot, an atmosphere so riddled with boos, objects thrown on the floor and technical fouls that ESPNU announcers Dave Flemming and Sean Farnham repeatedly warned about the need for officials to gain control.

Fat chance, as the officiating crew of Frank Harvey, James Giron and Glen Mayberry seemed incapable of providing the right answer to a surly crowd – calling the game tight on both sides and leaving it up to BYU officials to calm the masses. Instead, the crew seemed to come to a collective decision that ignoring repeated fouls by BYU players and cracking down on Saint Mary’s would do the job. This theory came to a head about halfway through the second half with a technical foul called on the Saint Mary’s bench for allegedly standing up and/or crowding the floor – it was never made clear. The spuriousness of that call was caught by a BYU fan who happened to be shooting video of the BYU and Saint Mary’s benches at the time the technical was called.

Check it out:

Everyone on the Saint Mary’s bench is seated at the moment the technical is called. Even if they were all jumping up and down, one wonders how the ref would know since he made the call with his back to the bench and from the opposite end of the court. It seems bizarre and indicative of the desperate measures the refs applied to deal with a bad situation. No one from BYU stepped forward to calm things down, no one addressed the crowd, no one made any placating gestures (except for a routine announcement from the public address announcer after the fans were warned for their first barrage of object-throwing). All in all a big black eye for BYU’s first year in the WCC and a testament to the cool of Randy Bennett’s Gaels, who didn’t panic under relentless pressure from BYU and the crowd.

Power Rankings

1.  Saint Mary’s (21-2, 10-0) spent another week at the top of the league standings and another week moving up in both major rankings – to #16 in the ESPN/Coaches Poll and to #18 in the AP poll. To top it all off, ESPN announced that Saint Mary’s would travel to Murray, Kentucky, on February 18 to play currently undefeated Murray State in the premiere contest of ESPN’s Bracket Buster event. Never mind that neither Saint Mary’s nor Murray State – ranked in the top 10 by both polls – needs the game to break into the NCAA Tournament brackets, it still will be a closely-watched contest with obvious benefits for whichever team wins.

2.  Gonzaga (17-3, 7-1) bided its time last week, topping Portland,74-62, in Portland in its only contest. The Zags saved their energy for their showdown with BYU tonight in Provo, a game with huge importance for both teams. The Zags are two games behind Saint Mary’s at present, although only one behind in the loss column. A loss to equally-desperate BYU would put them two back in the loss column with Saint Mary’s coming to Spokane on February 9.

3.  BYU (18-6, 6-3) and Loyola Marymount (13-9, 6-3) (tie): Tonight’s contest with Gonzaga might be BYU’s last chance to salvage its season, as a defeat would drop the Cougars four games back from Saint Mary’s and three behind Gonzaga. Not only how it plays but how its team, coaches, and fans, behave will be under scrutiny for BYU, as a repeat of last week’s meltdown against Saint Mary’s could have dire repercussions for the school’s reputation and self-respect. Loyola split last week, following up the Saint Mary’s loss with a throat-tightening, 62-59, win over Portland that wasn’t decided until the final minutes. The win was important to keep LMU close to the conference leaders and to prove they could win a league game at home. Before dispatching the young Pilots, LMU was 5-0 on the road and 0-3 at home.

5.  San Francisco (15-9, 5-5) began to look more and more like last year’s team (well, it IS last year’s team), as it appears to be peaking at the same time. By beating Santa Clara on the road and San Diego at home, the Dons evened their conference record and began looking ahead to see how far they can advance in the standings. It’s crowded at the top, and it won’t be easy to move into fourth place and earn a first-round bye in the conference tournament. The Dons, with a tough challenge in Los Angeles against LMU on Saturday, seem ready to take it on.

6.  San Diego (8-13, 3-6) showed some signs of life in its, 65-56, home win over Pepperdine – its third win in five games – but then regressed in an, 84-70, road loss to San Francisco. It was enough to keep the Toreros out of the depths of the conference’s lower half.

7.  Portland (5-17, 2-7) is in seventh place only because it has fewer losses than Pepperdine, but the Pilots were more than competitive against LMU and their 74-62 loss to Gonzaga wasn’t as lopsided as the score indicates. Eric Reveno’s achingly young troops scare everybody they play but Portland hasn’t figured out how to beat most teams. Yet.

8.  Pepperdine (8-13, 2-8) recovered from the loss at San Diego to topple hapless Santa Clara, 74-62, at home. The Waves continue the PCH Cup series with LMU tonight, then hitch up their shorts for the invading Gonzaga Bulldogs on Saturday – it may get ugly.

9.  Santa Clara (8-13, 0-8) continued its nosedive with losses to San Francisco and Pepperdine, and face Portland at home tonight before going on the road to face San Diego. Most observers feel the Broncos will pull out of this swoon some time, but the clock is ticking on the 2012 season.

Looking Ahead

• You don’t have to look far for this week’s drama, as Gonzaga vs. BYU in Provo (ESPN2, 8:00 PM Pacific) tonight should have all you want. BYU is barely hanging on in the WCC race and Gonzaga can’t afford to fall further behind Saint Mary’s, which has only tonight’s home game against San Diego.
• A week from tonight comes the battle between Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga in Spokane, which should be as riveting as the Gaels’ assault on BYU. The Gaels throttled Gonzaga, 83-62, on January 12, and the Zags have not forgotten.

1. Very sad news in the college basketball community came on Wednesday as former Missouri State, St. Louis, and UNLV head coach Charlie Spoonhour passed away from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 72. You may recall that two years ago Spoonhour underwent a lung transplant at Duke University, with a nice assist from his friends in the coaching fraternity, Bob Huggins and Mike Krzyzewski. The “Spoon” is best known as a coach for building consistently good programs at MSU and SLU that regularly made the NCAA Tournament (eight trips and 373 wins at three schools), but his lasting legacy will be the wisecracking and affable personality that he regularly brought to bear in his press conferences and interviews. The Dagger compiled a greatest hits list of some of his better quips dating back to the ’80s, and we highly suggest you get over there to enjoy them all. RIP, Spoon, you will be missed.
2. One of the notable aspects of the 2011-12 season is that the NPOY race has been slow to develop a clear favorite as it has at the same point of the season in other years. In just the last five seasons, for example, players such as Tyler Hansbrough, Evan Turner and Kevin Durant were well ahead of their counterparts in early February and stayed at the top of the list through March. This ESPN.com straw poll of NPOY candidates suggests that Kansas forward Thomas Robinson may be putting some distance between himself and the other top contenders — Creighton’s Doug McDermott, Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger, Kentucky’s Anthony Davis, West Virginia’s Kevin Jones — so it’ll be interesting to see how KU’s February road games impact what appears to be the presumptive favorite with six weeks remaining in the season.
3. It may have been National Signing Day in football on Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t significant news from the college basketball recruiting front as well. In fact, there was some huge news on Wednesday as Class of 2013 center Nerlens Noel from the Tilton School (NH) has decided to reclassify to his original high school Class of 2012, effectively making him eligible to play college basketball next season. The 6’10” shot-blocking extraordinaire is considered one of the top two or three prospects in either class, and his reclassification will open up a floodgate of additional interest given that there are only a handful of top prospects left on the board for next season. His list includes several Big East schools, including Georgetown, Syracuse, Connecticut and Providence, in addition to SEC powers Kentucky and Florida, along with North Carolina. It will be very interesting to watch this recruitment over the next few months.
4. From a high school recruit to a collegiate one, former Arizona forward Sidiki Johnson has decided to transfer to Providence where he will be eligible to play in the second semester of the 2012-13 season. The former top 100 recruit in the Class of 2011 only played a grand total of seven minutes in Tucson this year, scoring a single point and grabbing three rebounds. The Harlem (NY) native clearly thinks he’ll fit in better in the Big East, and his inclusion to the Friars’ already-loaded 2012 haul of recruits (top 10 by all indications) will give Ed Cooley the talent he needs to compete in the deep conference.
5. Expect an official announcement on this Thursday, but Syracuse.com reported last night that Orange center Fab Melo has been reinstated and will be available to suit up for the team during Saturday’s game vs. St. John’s. During his two-week absence from the lineup as starting center, Syracuse went 2-1, losing its first game of the season at Notre Dame, but bouncing back to win at Cincinnati and at home against West Virginia (in a controversial call involving Melo’s backup, Baye Keita). We’re not sure Jim Boeheim’s team would have beaten the Irish on that night even with Melo in the lineup, but they’re clearly a better defensive team with him patrolling the lane and anchoring their zone. We’re glad to see that whatever academic issue he had has now been resolved.

Michael Litos is the RTC correspondent for the CAA. You can also find his musings online at caahoops.com or on Twitter @caahoops.

Reader’s Take

 

The Week That Was

• Do You Hear What I Hear?: The world knows of the streak ending— Towson’s 66-61 victory over UNCW broke a record 41-game losing streak — but Pat Skerry is still not relaxing. We’ve discussed that Skerry has been unyielding despite the losses, and he continues to press forward. Skerry noted that he gave his kids Sunday off, but that he “took the jackhammer to them” in Monday’s practice. That is exactly the kind of unrelenting quest for excellence that lured Athletic Director Mike Waddell to hire Skerry. With Towson opening a new 5,000-seat arena next season, you can see that win #1 will be followed with many more.
• Here Comes Santa Claus: Three CAA teams were chosen for televised games in ESPN’s “Bracketbusters” event. VCU will host Northern Iowa on ESPN2 at 7 PM on Friday, Feb. 17, Drexel will visit Cleveland State on ESPNU at 11 AM on Sat., Feb. 18 and Old Dominion will travel to Missouri State on ESPNU at 5 PM on Feb. 18. Interestingly, the CAA leader, George Mason, play the sixth place team in the Southland Conference, Lamar. The CAA has had five teams chosen for televised games in four of the last six years, which is the most of any participating conference. CAA teams were 4-1 in televised games in 2010-11 and are 16-10 in TV games over the last seven years.
  

  Pat Skerry And Towson Earned Its First Victory In A Very Long Time Last Week (AP)

• Winter Wonderland: It isn’t just Towson on a winning streak. The top four teams in the CAA standings went 3-0 last week and continued impressive winning streaks. In their past five games, those squads are a total of 19-1, with the only loss being Old Dominion at VCU. Drexel has won nine in a row and 15 of its last 16 overall as well as 13 in a row at home. VCU is on a seven-game win streak and has captured 15 of its last 17, while George Mason has claimed six straight games and 11 of its last 12. Drexel’s streak is tied for the 8th-longest in the nation currently, while VCU’s is the 12th-longest and Mason’s is tied for 14th. Old Dominion has also won three in a row and seven of its last eight. The CAA is the only conference in the nation to have three teams with current winning streaks of six or more games.
• The Little Drummer Boy: William & Mary’s Quinn McDowell was named one of 10 finalists for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, which honors student-athletes who excel on and off the court. Tony Shaver called McDowell the best leader he’s ever coached. Honorees must have noteworthy accomplishments in community, classroom, character and competition. Other finalists include Ohio State’s William Buford, Pitt’s Aston Gibbs, Michigan State’s Draymond Green, Belmont’s Mick Hedgepeth, Purdue’s Robbie Hummel, Butler’s Ronald Nored, Michigan’s Zack Novak, Penn’s Zack Rosen and North Carolina’s Tyler Zeller.

Power Rankings

1. Drexel (9-2, 17-5):The Dragons are simply beating up teams. The streak is now nine straight and 15-1 over the past 16 games. The expected stat resides on defense: only two CAA teams have come within 12 points of Drexel in the run, and the Dragons have held its past 11 opponents to just 49.7 ppg. All have scored less than 60 points. The unexpected stat: Drexel is shooting 48.9% from the floor and 43.9% from three over the past four games. Frantz Massenat may not be the player of the year, but he is certain the most valuable player. He averaged 14.3 PPG and 5.7 APG last week and tops the CAA in three point FG% (47.5%). Massenat is averaging a team-high 12.5 PPG and 4.1 APG for the season. Read the rest of this entry »

And with Act VI: Big Ten, we conclude the roll-out of our six power conference microsites.

It’s been a long time coming, but let us introduce you to Joey Nowak (@joeynowak) and Deepak Jayanti (@10thyearseniors), your Big Ten microsite writers. These two (and hopefully another writer soon) will bring you a daily fix of Big Ten news, notes, analysis and commentary just as we already do on each of the other five power conference microsites. Given that there are more living alumni of these 12 schools than any other league in America, we’re excited to finally have a focused area at RTC for those people as well. Thanks for stopping by. We hope you’ll check back with us early and often.

As noted above and as prolific as these guys are certain to be, we are still seeking a third Big Ten microsite writer to assist them for the rest of the season. Send your inquiry to rushthecourt@yahoo.com with a writing sample if you think you are the right person to assist us.