It’s nothing new that athletes love to talk.  Mostly about themselves, but sometimes about completely unrelated things too.  Such as… girlfriends, coaches, other players, fans, referees, or anything that tangentially relates back to themselves.  This is part of the reason that social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have had to become so regulated by coaches and universities — players don’t always have the ability to filter their thoughts from their mouths (but honestly, who does?).  Two incidents in college hoops this week help to crystallize this point. 

Smith Has Some Lessons Still to Learn (UCLA D-B)

First, UCLA center and freshman behemoth Josh Smith lashed out after Sunday night’s loss to USC where he was clearly frustrated by his 22-minute, five-foul performance.  In the postgame comments, he blamed much of his 8-point, 3-rebound night on the zebras:

The refs, honestly, were terrible.  They were giving me B.S. answers [about fouls]. They were telling me this, this, this.  Hopefully, they can watch tape and correct themselves.

He also left the Galen Center on Sunday night hoisting a one-finger salute to a USC fan who had obviously irritated him.  All in all, not the greatest debut for the rookie in his first rivalry game of the series.  Predictably by Tuesday, Smith had been reeled in by UCLA staff and forced to apologize (after all, he’ll see those Pac-10 referees again), with head coach Ben Howland acting the role of disappointed parent:

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He’s mo-bile, probably not very a-gile, but definitely not fra-gile. Dick Vitale, one of the best friends the game of college basketball has, signed a contract extension with ESPN today that will keep him telling us about PTPers and diaper dandies through the 2014-2015 season. That’s right — at least an Olympiad more of Dickie V.

We needle Vitale on here quite a bit. But we wouldn’t have been disappointed if ESPN had locked him up for forty more years as opposed to four. Not becuase we like ribbing him, but because you gotta love the guy.

In Celebration of His Contract Extension, We Won't Call That Clearing Left Arm.

The first time I “met” Dick Vitale I was a sophomore in college. I won’t tell you where or when (heh heh) this was, but there were no college basketball blogs then. A couple of friends and I had attended a Vitale-called game at our beloved institution of higher beer consumption hitting on girls learning, and we stayed around for the head coach’s live post game radio show. When it was over, my buddies and I saw Vitale, who had just completed his post-game duties for ESPN, walking up the stands with an undeniably imposing security guard in front of him. We figured we wouldn’t get too many chances like this in later life, so, like star-struck fanboys, we speed-walked (okay, ran) up the bleachers towards him, calling him “Dickie V!” as if we’d known him for most of our lives.

The school had given out those cardboard cutouts of Vitale’s smiling face on a stick (actual size), similar to the ones they use on Pardon the Interruption. We still had ours and brandished them as we approached him. The security guard turned, put out a halting hand, and told us, “No, gentlemen. Thanks, but Mr.Vitale is finished working for the night.”

Actually, he only got out half of “finished” before Vitale, in long coat and gloves and obviously wanting to get back to his hotel and rest, turned around, removed his gloves, and shook our hands. With his usual enthusiasm and only slightly reduced volume, he asked us, “Hey, what’d you fellas think of that game? Man, that press took care of [the opponent] tonight, they had no answer! I mean, it was like there were ten of ’em out there!…” We didn’t even have time to answer. If he was just assuming “Dickie V-mode” and performing for us, he was doing a pretty convincing job.

One of my friends was from Maryland and loved his Terrapins despite being very far from home. When he could get a word in, he asked Vitale, “Hey, Coach, when’s your next trip to Maryland to see my Turtles?”

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Matt Patton is an RTC contributor.

Everyone has a first memory as a fan.  Mine came in 1997, the day before my seventh birthday.  I’m sure I went to college basketball games before this, but none of them stand out.  I was in first grade, headed to the ACC Tournament championship game.  The game was between N.C. State and North Carolina.  The Wolfpack were the electric underdogs, if you can call a team that runs a modified Princeton offense electric.  They were the eighth seed in a nine-team conference, having put away Georgia Tech, Maryland and top seeded Duke in the process. 

How Cool is This? (photo credit: SI.com)

My most vivid memories from the game were Ramses and Mr. Wuf (the mascots) getting into a fight ending with a one-horned sheep and a victorious wolf; N.C. State losing the game; and my younger brother switching his allegiances to the Tar Heels for the rest of the day much to the chagrin of my parents.   A surprisingly thick head of hair topped Herb Sendek’s head, as he led a team of overachievers to the conference championship game in his first year of coaching.  But the real history was held by the man coaching the Tar Heels.  I’m embarrassed to say this, but until yesterday I never knew that was Dean Smith’s last ACC game.  I had no idea. 

This game, along with dozens of “full-length, classic Tournament and regular season men’s basketball games from all 12 ACC member institutions,” is now available online at the ACC Vault.  You’ve likely seen the NCAA Vault (another must-visit site for any college hoops fan), and the ACC and Raycom Sports have followed suit.  The site features games from 1983 through the present with some really cool features that make the viewing process more user-friendly.  I’ll list some highlights for each school after the jump, but seriously, how cool is this?

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Once again this year we’ve been inundated with requests for our annual release and analysis of ESPN’s Full Court Schedule, which for some reason the WWL makes very difficult to find and use every year.  You’d think that if they want us to pay $104 for this product, they’d make it considerably easier to know exactly what we were buying.  Alas.  Keep in mind that according to ESPN every one of these games is simulcast for free on ESPN3.com (previously ESPN360), so the decision point on whether to spend the hundy probably comes down to whether you enjoy watching games on a 15″ or a 50″ screen.  We didn’t want the length of this post to be a mile long, so we’ve thumbnailed the entire schedule (which we re-organized in a useful way) below.

Note: You’ll have to click the table in the new page to expand it to full size.

Click for Full Schedule

A fully sortable Google Doc that we created containing the same information is also located here.  You can sort the table by your favorite school or conference if you like, a feature that ESPN with its boring .pdf format simply doesn’t provide.

If that’s too much to look at, here are the twenty games that we find the most compelling on the package this year.  There are some legitimately good games on this list, including several matchups where talented mid-majors having something to prove visit a ranked team’s gym (i.e., Morehead State @ Florida; ORU and ODU @ Missouri;  Ohio @ Kansas).  Additionally, some of the conference matchups later in the year could turn out to be important games for the overall standings and in terms of NCAA Selection Committee seeding (i.e., Kentucky @ Georgia; Maryland @ Virginia Tech; UNC @ NC State).

Here are the schools with the most appearances on Full Court this year.  If you enjoy bad Big 12 basketball (Iowa State and Oklahoma), then you’re in luck, but the  package’s comprehensive coverage of the SEC’s Georgia (with probable first-rounders Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie) and Mississippi State (with Renardo Sidney) should be interesting.  Seton Hall is on FC fourteen times, and given the amount of talent the Pirates are bringing back with the level-headed Kevin Willard entering the fray, it might be worth catching several more of their games.  And if you’re not getting enough of Jacob Pullen through the usual channels, the Full Court package will give you eleven more opportunities to fear the beard this season.

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Typically, the announcement of preseason All-Americans is something that we pass over, but when today’s list was announced it caught our eye. It appears that the Associated Press has decided to get with the 21st century and named Harrison Barnes as a 1st team preseason All-American making him the first freshman to receive the honor since the AP began bestowing the honor before the 1986-87 season. Although Barnes was technically the last man on the team with 17 out of 67 possible votes, by far the fewest of any member of the 1st team, it is remarkable that he achieved recognition that players such as Carmelo Anthony, Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, and John Wall never did. Still, Barnes, who like every other freshman, was left off the preseason Wooden Award list will have his work cut out for him trying to match the production of some of the most prolific freshman (many of whom made the final All-American team), but based on what we have heard out of Chapel Hill he might have a chance.

Barnes: The 1st AP Preseason All-American Ever

Here is the rest of the first team with the number of votes out of 67 possible votes that they received from the AP voters:

• Kyle Singler, Duke (65)
• Jacob Pullen, Kansas State (53)
• Jimmer Fredette, BYU (49)
• JaJuan Johnson, Purdue (46)
• Harrison Barnes, UNC (17)

Singler, the top vote-getter, is the lone returning AP preseason 1st team All-American although he was only honorable mention when the end-of-season picks were made last year. It is worth noting that none of the members (John Wall, Evan Turner, DeMarcus Cousins, Wesley Johnson, and Scottie Reynolds) from of last year’s All-American team returned to school and none of them were on the preseason All-American team from a year ago so keep that in mind although we have a feeling we will be seeing a few of this year’s preseason All-Americans on multiple All-American lists at the end of the season.

As we gear up for the upcoming season we will be spending an inordinate amount of time learning about up-and-coming programs and future March Madness heroes. In that vein, ESPN has announced that it will be airing a multi-episode series on the relatively unknown Duke Blue Devils. Perhaps you have heard of them? All kidding aside this is the first time we have heard of Coach K allowing camera crews into Duke’s practices. The “ESPNU All-Access” program will be based on 9 days that ESPN spent with the players and coaches while filming practices, film sessions, and leadership activities (you all surely remember that Coach K is “a leader who happens to coach basketball”) beginning with their Countdown to Crazieness.

He just happens to coach basketball

Perhaps it is a sign of Coach K becoming hip by allowing camera crews to follow him along with the previous insights he offered through his XM radio show and the variety of video content provided by Duke basketball sites about their players. Of course the more cynical fans might point out that Duke is just taking advantage of the media (and ESPN in particular) giving them another avenue to recruit and grow their brand (as if their nationally televised schedule wasn’t enough). In any event, this would appear to draw off of HBO’s wildly popular “Hard Knocks” series that followed a NFL team during their mini-camp and preseason (ESPN also did a similar feature on Alabama, the defending BCS National Champs earlier this year). It’s unclear if they will focus on players on the fringe of being cut from the team or will focus on the team’s more engaging personalities. We are confident in saying that no Duke player will play the role of a Chad Ochocinco and Coach K will not be giving his team a snack speech.

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In a move that illustrates just how in touch the organization is with its fan base and the basketball-loving public in general, MSG Network (the folks responsible for broadcasts of New York Knicks games) has let the most exciting play-by-play announcer working today slip from their grasp. That’s right — they let Gus Johnson get away.

Johnson has been calling Knicks games for 16 years, primarily on radio but acting as a backup for TV broadcasts, and even chipping with some baseball, hockey, and arena football duties as well . A few outlets claimed that MSG Network brass were ticked off at Johnson’s various other projects which caused him to miss the occasional Knicks game — little things like doing college basketball and NFL football games for CBS and boxing for Showtime — and that’s why MSG played hardball, refusing to come to a deal in the end. Later in the day, though, we heard that it might not have been quite so contentious. Still, with Johnson’s popularity, MSG should have done whatever it could have to keep him.

We’re not taking pleasure in a man losing a job, but we’re selfishly hoping that, as soon as this happened, someone from CBS called and immediately gave Johnson a mountain of cash in a big juicy revised contract that increases his college basketball visibility. As many games as Johnson already does — we want more. And don’t lie — you know you’ve been to the Gus Johnson Soundboard. We defy you to go there and not click every one of those buttons before leaving (though a link to “Don’t let the smooth taste fool ya!” is needed). It’s impossible not to. What other announcer has this? Seems like the type of guy you’d want to keep in your organization, but then again, most Knicks fans these days see that orgainzation and the MSG suits as the types who probably would have told that Paraguayan model Larissa Riquelme not to run through the streets of Asuncion naked had Paraguay won the World Cup. Whatever, guys. As long as it benefits college hoops.

Fall is the most appropriately named season. It is called that because the sun is falling below the celestial equator, for you amateur astronomers out there, but poets and writers far better than this one have described so many other reasons throughout time to illustrate why fall is known as the “season of descent”  — the decreasing number of daylight hours, the leaves, the mercury in your thermometer, the amount of filler material on SportsCenter. Of the few things that do indeed rise at this time of year, one of them has become one of surest signs that fall has arrived…

When the Tents Sprout in Lexington for Big Blue Madness Tickets, You Know That Fall Is Here.

True, in the Driesellian sense, nobody has true “Midnight Madness” anymore. And there’s so much more interaction now between coaches and players that happens prior to that circled mid-October day where once none was allowed. It doesn’t matter, because the psychosis to which college basketball aficionados across the nation willingly give in is real, and it arrives tomorrow.

That’s right, tomorrow. A big black “x” in the October 15th square on your wall calendar means that hoopheads are celebrating their own national holiday, which, inasmuch as it isn’t real Midnight Madness, we’ll call the First Official Day of Practice (FODP). Like it or not, the NCAA still calls the shots, and if they say that that particular day is open season for full-squad, you-can-use-a-ball workouts to begin, then celebrate we will, for the season is short but sweet for certain (apologies to Dave and the boys).

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On October 25th, La Salle will have their annual open practice — their version of what used to be known around the nation as Midnight Madness, you could say — for fans, students, and pretty much anyone who would like an early peek at the Explorers. There’s even a reception afterward for La Salle alumni and supporters, according to the announcement of the event. The reception actually sounds cool, since it allows for the chance to interact with the players and coach Dr. John Giannini — and because the one and only Bill Raftery, an alum and a former player at the school, will be speaking at the event and participating in a Q&A.

The Great Raf Has Doctorates From Several Schools In the Field of Awesomeness

We’re not posting this merely to promote the La Salle event in Tom Gola Arena to our Philly readers and Big 5 connoisseurs. It sounds like a fine time, indeed — you’ve got an open practice, the chance to hang with the players and coaches, Raftery, free food and drink — what’s not to like, you know? But the reason we dig this so much is because the event is being put on by a group called “The Friends of Bill Raftery Committee.”

If the real “Friends of Bill Raftery” were to show up, they’d need to clear out a couple of small towns to have this thing. Tom Gola Arena is a great place to see a game, but it seats 4,000. Bill Raftery has millions of friends. Because if you’re a fan of college basketball, you’re a friend of Bill Raftery. We wanted to say that we just love that there’s an organization called “The Friends of Bill Raftery.” We want to join it.

Gus Johnson, doing his best to look like Fifty Cent’s dad in this video clip from Dime Magazine, riffs on numerous items including college basketball in this interview.

You can see the excitement beaming like laser beams from Johnson’s eyes when he mentions the unbelievable near-make by Butler’s Gordon Hayward at last year’s Final Four.  Can you imagine all the CBS suits checking their work-site insurance policies to make sure that massive strokes by on-air talent are covered if Johnson had gotten the call to do that game?  Maybe that’s why they will continue to stick us with the exceptionally pleasant but soporific Jim Nantz as the play-by-play man — they want to keep Johnson around for a few more years to continue analyzing games in numerous sports in his unique and entertaining way.

We can’t really blame them — cost-effectiveness and all that — but man-oh-man, just to hear Gus make the call in one epic championship battle would be well worth the risk.