Ray Floriani is the RTC correspondent for the MAAC.
Top Storylines
The Redshirts:We are not talking about individual players but a program. In the latter part of the summer, Loyola announced its intention to exit the MAAC for the Patriot League. The Greyhounds captured the postseason title this past March. Coach Jimmy Patsos has another very strong group on hand. The interesting thing is how will the last run through the MAAC affect Loyola’s play. The guess here is not too much. Caution is needed however as the MAAC contingents would love nothing to upset the Greyhounds as a ‘going away present.’
How Will Jimmy Patsos Handle the Last Go-Round the MAAC? (AP)
Master Builder:When Canisius hired Jim Baron last spring they not only got a veteran coach with a proven track record, but the Buffalo-based school hired a coach who rebuilt situations at three different schools. First was St. Francis (PA). Next, his alma mater, St. Bonaventure, and most recently, Rhode Island. Baron brought St. Francis and St. Bonaventure to the NCAA Tournament in his careers there. He also had a few NITs under his tutelage but couldn’t get on the board during Selection Sunday while at URI. Make no mistake, though, Baron knows Canisius’ status and what needs to be done to succeed there. Word here says he goes ‘four for four’ in reclamation projects.
Must-See: A few of the notable matchups in the MAAC include…. On January 27, Iona hosts Loyola and visits the Greyhounds on March 1. The latter game could decide the regular season champion and have a strong bearing on final conference seeds for the postseason tournament. A few other notable games:
November 11 – Manhattan at Louisville – Steve Masiello ducks no one and heads south to face a powerful Louisville team and his former boss (mentor), Rick Pitino.
November 22 – Marist vs. West Virginia in the MAAC sponsored Old Spice Classic in Orlando. The field also includes the likes of Clemson, Davidson, Gonzaga, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt.
January 6 – Iona hosts Manhattan, and more than rivalry bragging rights are at stake.
January 25 – Loyola visits Manhattan, another huge midseason contest.
Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.
The interminable offseason breeds countless hours of boredom and frustration. With seven months separating the net-cutting ceremony that signals the end of every college hoops campaign and the opening tip that begins it, perusing the internet and conjuring up ideas to write about on a daily basis becomes an exercise in creative determination. This is not the NBA, where free agency bridges the gap between the Finals and training camp. The college basketball season has a definitive start and end. Though that line is beginning to blur with amplified recruiting coverage and limited summer practices, when the field of 68 is finally whittled down to one, and the soft tunes of One Shining Moment set off an emotional carousel unlike any other in American sports – from utter despair and devastation for the losing fan base to extreme delight and exultation for the national champion – the hardwood action that has so thoroughly captivated fans across the nation over the previous five months with nonstop intrigue and resume-building/crashing drama grinds to a screeching halt. It’s why the National Championship game always feels like a foreboding culmination, like the end of an enchanting joyride that closes with equal parts satisfaction and disappointment. The warped sense of reality defined by conference races, argumentative bubble talk and AP Poll hand-wringing is swept away without but a single warning to prepare for the lull. Amidst all the joy of a championship celebration and the highly-anticipated lead up to the Final Four, there stands the harsh reality of a painfully long college hoops drought. We college hoops scribes have grown to accept this dichotomy as one negative in an overwhelmingly enjoyable state of affairs. Because no matter how much we dread the dry offseason, the gloomy days spent panging for loaded campus gyms, and buzzer beaters, and visible fan passion, the torture is justified by the sweet end.
Three shipside games will christen a new college hoops season (Photo credit: Getty Images).
The journey to that end begins tonight, and not a moment too soon. We here at RTC have a date with college hoops, one that’s seven months overdue. She cannot evade us, nor the rest of the hoops viewing public, any longer, because tonight the lovefest commences. If you are a first-time viewer of the sport, consider this a warning: What you are about to see may distort your expectations. Over the next three days, teams will eschew traditional playing grounds to meet on aircraft carriers and foreign military bases. It is a patriotic inauguration of the sport we love, but it is not – however delighted you may be by the gorgeous vistas and military backdrops adorning the proceedings – the norm. It won’t be long before geeked-up student sections and campus hysteria inhabits your nightly viewing experience. And for that, we are thankful. Ecstatic. Tantalized. However you wish to describe it or appreciate it, the message is the same: the wait is over.
Brian Otskey is a contributor for Rush the Court. Let him know what you think at @botskey on Twitter.
The final part of our countdown is the best of the best. Here are your top 17 games of the 2012-13 college basketball season. Check out the previous editions of 68 Must-See Games here: #68-52, #51-35, and #34-18. (h/t to Zach Hayes for his assistance in building this list.)
17. November 27: North Carolina at Indiana (9:30 PM, ESPN) – An ACC/Big Ten Challenge tilt is the nightcap to game #18 on our list from Part Three of the countdown. Indiana’s non-conference schedule is incredibly weak for the top-ranked team in the nation but this game gives us an opportunity to see the Hoosiers against quality competition. James Michael McAdoo is the player mentioned by many observers to be the man at UNC this year. Going up against Christian Watford and Cody Zeller will give him a big time test early in the season.
Cody Zeller Gets a Shot at His Brother’s Old Team (Photo Credit: Reuters).
16. February 24: Michigan State at Ohio State (TBA) – There’s a lot of Big Ten flavor to our list and the reason is simple: It should be the best conference in college basketball this year. These two teams meet twice this season but this game in late February is in the middle of a brutal closing stretch for Michigan State. The Spartans have games against Michigan (twice), Indiana and Wisconsin sandwiched around this meeting in Columbus. It’s no picnic for Ohio State around that time either so a win here would be massive for either team.
They also meet: January 19 in East Lansing.
15. December 15: Louisville at Memphis (2:30 PM, FSN) – This former Conference USA rivalry will be transitioning back to a conference battle in the Big East next season (as long as Louisville sticks around, never a given in today’s climate) but they will still meet in Memphis this season. Little has been said about Memphis but the Tigers will be very good. Joe Jackson can match Peyton Siva while Memphis’ frontcourt of Adonis Thomas and Tarik Black is talented and good enough to play with Louisville’s loaded front line. This game could be higher on the list because of all the great individual match-ups involved.
And so it begins. The time of year where we hear familiar voices on the television, faces on the floor, and our teams finally playing games that count in the standings. It is a beautiful time, indeed. With the games commencing in mere hours, we officially unveil RTC’s Preseason Top 25. In the future, you can expect our poll to come out every Monday morning. Along with the rankings will be the usual quick ‘n dirty analysis that takes a deeper dive into how the teams shake out #1-#25. To see how we did last year, check out our 2011-12 preseason poll—some right on the money (North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio State), and others not so much (Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M). The QnD after the jump…
And away we go, headfirst into another season heralded by our 2012-13 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured here what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back the goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head. The entire series from #30 to this point can be viewed here. Enjoy!
#1 – Where Calipari Gets It (One and) Done Happens
We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10,2010-11, and 2011-12 seasons.
Joe Dzuback of Villanova by the Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the A-10 Conference. You can follow him on Twitter at @vbtnblog
Top Storylines
The Best Basketball (Only) Conference in the NCAA? You Bet– With the departure of Temple (to the Big East) and Charlotte (to CUSA), A-10 fans knew the conference would not “make due” with a 12-team configuration. The question was which candidates would match best with the conference profile and mission and not in the chase for football money? The A-10 could afford to focus on candidates with high quality basketball programs, thereby offering regional rivalries to the Midwestern and Washington D.C. metro area members. Virginia Commonwealth and Butler were the logical choices as both have had recent Final Four appearances, are high quality programs, and boast two of the hottest young coaching names in Division I. Both schools accepted and the existing circumstances of member departures and arrivals means that the A-10, with 16 members and an 18-game conference slate, will have a superconference look and feel this season.
Veteran St. Joseph’s Coach Phil Martelli Has Garnered Plenty Of Media Attention Over The Years. Now Thanks To A New TV Deal, The Entire Atlantic-10 is Going to Get a Dose Of Camera Time (AP)
The New TV Deal – The conference announced an eight-year partnership with ESPN, the CBS Sports Network and the NBC Sports Network, worth an estimated $40 million dollars ($5 million per year) to run from 2013-14 through 2021-22. The three media outlets will televise 64 regular season men’s games (CBS and NBC Sports Network will televise 25 apiece and the ESPN outlets will televise 14). These three outlets will divvy the responsibilities for the conference tournament with NBC televising the men’s (and women’s) quarterfinals, CBS televising the men’s (and women’s) semifinal games, and ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU televising the men’s championship game. Though financial details were not disclosed, the conference’s 14 members are expected to collect about $400,000 apiece each season.
Brooklyn, Here We Come – A quiet affirmation that the move to lock up the Barclays Center in Brooklyn came with Hurricane Sandy. The superstorm swamped Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Boardwalk Hall, previous site of the conference’s championship tournament. The Barclays Center has garnered positive reviews for its architecture, facilities and amenities. The brand-new facility will work out the kinks with a number of invitational tournaments (Barclays Center Classic, Coaches vs. Cancer, Legends Classic, Brooklyn Hoops Winter Festival and Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational) and be ready to host the conference tournament next March.
Reader’s Take I
Predicted Order of Finish
Signs that the A-10 is in for a wild ride this season are everywhere. CBS Sports’ five basketball experts (Jeff Goodman, Doug Gottlieb, Gary Parrish, Matt Norlander and Jeff Borzello) tabbed four different schools (Butler, Massachusetts, Saint Louis and Virginia Commonwealth) to take the regular season crown. The A-10 coaches named a fifth school – Saint Joseph’s – at the conference’s Media Day earlier this month. Note that nobody in that group is named Temple or Xavier – the two schools which have passed the regular season crown back-and-forth for the last five seasons.
Christopher Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.
The most recent wave of conference realignment was set off by a desperate scrambling of high-major powers to elevate their statures in a changing (re: dying) BCS landscape. Inevitably, the movement shook the college hoops world, and while most of the changes either weakened conferences, ended rivalries, or both, some leagues were made better off from the frenzied switches. The biggest victim, so it has been said, was the Big East, whose long and fruitful marriage with Pittsburgh and Syracuse will cease to exist after this season. The main beneficiary was the A-10, with newcomers Butler and VCU entering the fold this season. There were plenty of other less heralded moves – from Northern Kentucky’s jaunt to the Atlantic Sun to Texas-San Antonio’s voyage to the crumbling WAC – but I’m singling out four schools who harbor bright short-term outlooks in their new stomping grounds. New environments typically guarantee unpredictability. For these four teams, there’s nothing unpredictable about their ability to compete at the top of their new leagues upon arrival.
VCU(Leaving: CAA — Joining: Atlantic 10)
Every college hoops coaching candidate hot list starts with two names: Butler’s Brad Stevens and VCU’s Shaka Smart. They are the pipe dream of any athletic director’s wildest coaching replacement desires, and both have spurned the power conference ranks on multiple occasions. We’ll get to Stevens’ squad a little bit later (Spoiler!), but there’s no question Smart’s team, which returns basically everyone of note besides guard Bradford Burgess, is poised to make a statement in its new home. Forget the fact that the A-10 will feature its strongest competitive lineup in years. Forget that VCU is entering a league where every game will require intense focus and execution just to avoid an upset. What Smart has built during his tenure – a consistent outfit with the stability to compete at the sport’s highest level on a yearly basis – is not going away, nor will it be swayed by one of the nation’s best collections of inter-conference strength.
Better all-around competition won’t phase VCU as it makes its move to the A-10 (Photo credit: Getty Images)
VCU is not, as many speculated two seasons ago, a one-year Cinderella. The Rams are a mid-major in name only; they are as talented and as deep as most high-major ensembles in any conference. Now that I think of it, VCU is a perfect microcosm for the A-10: technically excluded from the Power Six denomination, but ripe with Tournament-bound teams and stars. Navigating that landscape will be a stark change of pace, even for a program conditioned to creating “havoc” in 40-minute samples, but VCU is no stranger to top-end competition. Last season’s Tournament run didn’t quite live up to the previous year’s Final Four appearance, but it’s worth remembering the Rams very nearly took out preseason AP No. 1 Indiana in the Third Rund. VCU is ready to join a league that offers formidable tests on a nightly basis. This season will reflect as much.
With the season tipping off tomorrow, there’s no better time to roll out our preseason superlatives and All-America teams: National Player of the Year, National Freshman of the Year, and First, Second, and Third All-America teams. More than anything, our preseason All-America teams are here to foster discussion. Our crack panel of 10 national columnists provided ballots over the last week or so, and this is where we ended up.
Preseason National Player of the Year—Cody Zeller, Indiana
Preseason National Freshman of the Year—Shabazz Muhammad, UCLA
First Team All-America
Cody Zeller, Indiana (unanimous)—The day Cody Zeller committed to play basketball for Tom Crean at Indiana was the day Hoosier basketball would officially begin its climb back to national relevancy and prominence. The first three years weren’t easy for Crean, who compiled a dismal 28-66 combined record during those seasons, but Zeller was his key recruit that led Indiana to a 27-9 record last year and a trip to the Sweet Sixteen. Named Mr. Basketball for the state of Indiana as a senior at Washington High School, Zeller was destined for big things right from the get-go. His ability to run the floor like a 6’5″ athletic forward—despite standing at 7’0″ — and sound post-game with a smooth jumper — is a joy for purists of the game to watch. Now, in his sophomore year, he has the Hoosiers eyeing a National Championship.
Zeller is Everyone’s Cover Boy, and With Good Reason… IU is Back
Doug McDermott, Creighton (unanimous)—The ability to score from virtually anywhere on the court—whether it is from in the post of either shoulder, or beyond the three-point line—McDermott is perhaps the most talented and feared offensive player in the country. Shooting better than 60% from the field and a ridiculous 48.6% from three, McDermott is poised to put up video game offensive numbers in the Missouri Valley. There may not be a more efficient offensive player in the game—averaging nearly 23 PPG on fewer than 15 shots is impressive.
If Zeller Falters, McDermott Could Take the NPOY Crown
Factoid: Similar to fellow preseason First Team All-American C.J. McCollum who is notorious for being lightly recruited out of high school, McDermott didn’t exactly have a laundry list of schools knocking on the basketball office door at Ames High School. In fact, his own father wouldn’t even offer him a scholarship to play at Iowa State. And now, well, he just may be the best player in college basketball.
Brian Otskey is a contributor for Rush the Court. Let him know what you think at @botskey on Twitter.
Part Three of the countdown includes conference rivalries and some intriguing non-conference matchups. Check out the previous editions of 68 Must-See Games here: #68-52, #51-35. (h/t to Zach Hayes for his assistance in building this list.)
34. February 23: Missouri at Kentucky (9:00 PM, ESPN) – Both teams have a roster full of newcomers but expect each to be on top of their games come late February when this game is played.Now a member of the SEC, Missouri will immediately be one of the favorites to win the regular season championship. Of course, it will have to get by Kentucky to do that. Winning at Rupp Arena has never been accomplished by any opponent in the John Calipari era. Missouri just might have to do that in order to bring the SEC crown to Columbia.
33. January 19: Kansas at Texas (2:00 PM, CBS) – The second of a tough three game Big 12 stretch for Kansas comes in Austin where the young Longhorns will try to knock off the old guard of the conference. Despite their personnel losses, the national runner-up will be ready to go again this year. That’s the Bill Self way. A tough early season road test is ideal for a team like Kansas to see how well the returning players have progressed and meshed with the talented newcomers.
They also meet: February 16 in Lawrence.
Jeff Withey & Myck Kabongo Will Do Battle for Big 12 Supremacy (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
32. December 29: UNLV at North Carolina (2:00 PM, ESPN2) – The Rebels knocked off top-ranked North Carolina very early last season in Vegas, setting the stage for a 26-win season and elevating the program’s status. To get back to the glory days of the Jerry Tarkanian era, however, UNLV has to advance deep into the NCAA Tournament, something it did not do last season. To be in a better position to do that, your seed has to be pretty good. If UNLV wants a top three seed in the Big Dance, it has to win games like these on the road against good teams.
31. January 26: North Carolina at NC State (7:00 PM, ESPN) – A big home game for NC State comes six games into the ACC season, a time when the title race will start to take shape. If NC State is to win the ACC for the first time since 1989 as the coaches have projected, it has to do well against Duke, Florida State and North Carolina, all of whom NC State plays twice. When one of those teams comes to your building, you have to take care of business.
And away we go, headfirst into another season heralded by our 2012-13 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured here what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back the goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head. The entire series from #30 to this point can be viewed here. Enjoy!
#2 – Where Greatness Personified Happens
We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10,2010-11, and 2011-12 seasons.
Ray Floriani is the RTC correspondent for the MAAC.
