The George Washington non-conference revenge tour continued last night with the Colonials’ 72-64 victory over Seton Hall, as defeats to the Pirates along with Virginia and Penn State in the 2014-15 season still linger in head coach Mike Lonergan’s mind. “Last year we played Penn State, Seton Hall, Rutgers, and Virginia all on the road, and I told the guys before the game, you know, we’ve got a chance to get them all back.” After being picked to finished fourth in the Atlantic 10 in the preseason, Lonergan’s club has stormed out of the gates. George Washington now sits at a healthy 7-1 with wins over power conference teams such as Tennessee and Seton Hall along with a major resume-building upset over Virginia.

Joe McDonald picked up George Washington’s offense against Seton Hall. (GW Athletics/Mitchell Layton)

Although the Colonials put two players, Patricio Garino and Kevin Larsen, on the preseason all-Atlantic 10 second team, it’s been a balanced offensive attack that has driven their success. Coming into Wednesday’s contest, three players were averaging double figures — Garino, Larsen, and Wake Forest transfer Tyler Cavanaugh. Garino is a lanky swingman who has shown an improved three-point shot, while Larsen is a bruising big man who does most of his work in the paint. Cavanaugh, though, is the team’s most versatile scoring option. At 6’9″, he spends most of his time operating down low with Larsen, but after connecting on two of his four three-point attempts against the Pirates, the junior is now also shooting 35 percent from behind the arc. His ability to space the floor is an important component of an offense that often operates late in the shot clock (GW ranks 280th in offensive possession length, according to KenPom) when isolations become routine.

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After two days worth of games, the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge is deadlocked at four games apiece with six games left tonight. Michigan, Purdue, and Northwestern picked up wins for the Big Ten last night, while North Carolina, Virginia, and Miami notched wins for the ACC. To prepare for the final night of play, the ACC and Big Ten microsites are once again here to defend the leagues they cover. Brendan Brody (Big Ten) and Matt Patton (ACC) make the case for each team in their respective leagues for all six contests that will take place tonight on the ESPN family of networks.

Penn State at Boston College (7:15 PM, ESPNU)

• Matt: The Eagles are coming off a disastrous trip to California which they ended getting pummeled by Santa Clara. How the team responds is the x-factor. On paper this looks like a fairly even matchup, which should give the advantage to the home team. Additionally, Jim Christian’s team has the pieces to be a better offensive team than they’ve shown thus far.Expect Christian to throw a few different defensive looks at Brandon Taylor to try to keep him uncomfortable, but the Eagles will win or lose this on the offensive end. Boston College has to make shots, and will need a strong performance out of freshman Jerome Robinson and transfer Eli Carter.
• Brendan: When they’ve won, Penn State has only given up 56.7 ppg. When they’ve lost, it’s because they’ve given up an obscene amount of three-pointers. Boston College has some shooters, but their two leaders in three-point attempts (Carter, and AJ Turner) are both shooting below 30 percent from deep. Look for the Nittany Lions to make sure they guard on the perimeter, and look for them to squeak out a close win in a low scoring game.

Wisconsin at Syracuse (7:15 PM, ESPN2)

Jim Boeheim Will Stay in New York For Another Game Tonight (US Presswire)

• Brendan: Syracuse has been one of the biggest surprises nationally after starting the season 6-0. Wisconsin has struggled to a 4-3 mark, but have showed some flashes of getting things together despite playing a tough schedule. The key aspect that they can exploit in this game is in getting extra possessions on the glass. They rebound 41.0 percent of their misses, while the Orange struggle to close out possessions by snagging a defensive rebound (308th nationally in defensive rebounding rate). Look for the Badgers to take advantage of these extra possessions to get the road win here.
• Matt: Raise your hand if through six games you thought Trevor Cooney would be the least efficient Orange player. Syracuse has totally reinvented itself, and it hasn’t needed Dajuan Coleman to do so. Michael Gbinije has been outstanding running the offense (with Cooney’s help). If the Orange can keep their starting five on the floor most of the game, they’ll be in good shape. Neither team will be interested in running the floor, so that’s an achievable goal. Tyler Roberson and Tyler Lydon can’t let Wisconsin’s ball movement hurt the Orange inside, though the Badgers have not had a banner year offensively to date.

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Another year of college basketball must mean another mixed start to the season for Iowa. After thumping Marquette on November 19 and moving to 3-0, the Hawkeyes lost two of their next three games during Feast Week and walk into their Big Ten/ACC Challenge tonight sitting at 4-2. But things aren’t all bad for Frank McCaffery as their two losses are to Dayton and Notre Dame, a pair of likely NCAA Tournament teams next March. Furthermore, Iowa is currently performing well both on the offensive and defensive ends, ranking #19 and #29 in efficiency on KenPom, respectively. The high offensive rating on offense is especially notable after consecutive years of losing All-Big Ten players like Roy Devyn Marble and Aaron White. In this post, I’ll take a deep look at the Hawkeyes’ offense and see how they’re living up to the two previous seasons.

Iowa seniors (from left) Jared Uthoff, Adam Woodbury and Mike Gesell have sustained the offense to its highly efficient level of performance. (AP)

Last season, McCaffrey had the challenge of replacing Marble, a career 1,000 point scorer, and did so effectively thanks to the emergence of White. This year, the Hawkeyes are once again replacing their leading scorer now that White graduated with Jarrod Uthoff as the presumptive next star. Thus far, the senior wing has stepped up to the challenge and leads the team in scoring with 18.2 PPG, but he hasn’t done it alone. Iowa has seven players getting a majority of the minutes and all have averaged over six PPG: Uthoff, Peter Jok (12.0 PPG), Adam Woodbury (9.7 PPG), Mike Gesell (8.8 PPG), Anthony Clemmons (7.5 PPG), Brady Ellingson (6.8 PPG), and Dom Uhl (6.3 PPG). When compared to the two previous seasons, these Hawkeyes are certainly more balanced. But does deeper mean a more productive offense? The table below compares the performances in the first six games from each of the last three seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Going into the season, Cincinnati wasn’t getting a whole lot of respect. Despite being picked to finish third in the American by the league’s coaches, Mick Cronin thought his team was better than that. Fast forward a month and the Bearcats are out to a blazing hot 7-0 start, including two solid wins against Nebraska and George Washington in last week’s Barclays Center Classic. Led by a new-look offense, Cincinnati takes on a tough Butler team tonight at home. Let’s take a quick look at what has made Cincinnati look more like a contender than a sleeper through the first two-plus weeks of the young season.

A lot of pundits felt Cincinnati would stagnate this season but Mick Cronin has his squad pointing up so far. (Richard Messina / Hartford Courant)

Elite Defense

Defense is a staple of Cronin’s Cincinnati teams. The Bearcats have had a top 50 defense in each of the last six seasons, and Cincinnati is off to its best defensive start under Cronin ever, ranking third nationally and allowing more than 70 points only once thus far (Western Carolina). Let’s take a look at the team’s most recent performance in a 61-56 victory over George Washington. Two statistics stand out — the Colonials’ three-point and two-point field goal percentages. The Bearcats held GW to a miserable 29 percent shooting on two-point attempts, and it was only by virtue of 50 percent shooting beyond the arc that the Colonials stayed in the game. This shows that Cincinnati will muck things up inside the paint in an effort to prevent any easy baskets, even if by doing so the Bearcats give up some open threes in the process. Read the rest of this entry »

LSU entered the season with a palpable buzz surrounding the addition of rising superstar Ben Simmons, ESPN poster child and the top high school recruit in the country. Despite an air of sunny optimism in the program this preseason, fans in Baton Rouge have seen this show play out before. Johnny Jones has a deep roster with as much talent as all but a few teams around the country, but skeptics only need to point out that a team with two eventual NBA big men disappointed its way to a 22-11 overall mark and an opening round loss to NC State in last year’s NCAA Tournament.

Johnny Jones has not gotten the most out of his LSU squad this season. (nola.com)

At least those Tigers beat the College of Charleston. After three straight losses to middling programs this November, it is painfully clear that the Tigers need more than the return of injured guard Keith Hornsby and the eligibility of Arizona transfer Craig Victor to turn this ship around. Despite the facilitation gifts of Simmons, LSU has been plagued by a stagnant offense. In this edition of Freeze Frame, we take a deeper look at exactly what is causing their offensive woes.

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1. After a long, long wait, freshman Cheick Diallo finally made his debut for Kansas as the Jayhawks rolled to a 94-61 win over Loyola (MD). It took Diallo a few minutes to get comfortable on the floor, but as we predicted yesterday, he looked every bit like the rim protector and finisher the Jayhawks desperately need, finishing with 13 points, six rebounds and four blocks in 16 minutes of action. He also committed four fouls, showing that he’s far from a finished product, but he was otherwise fantastic. What stuck out most about him was how increasingly confident he appeared with every successive trip down the floor. By the end of the night, he was hyping up the crowd, hitting pull-up jumpers and showing off on coast-to-coast dunks. Yes, Loyola was picked to finish in the bottom half of the Patriot League this season, but Diallo clearly showed what the fuss was all about. He’ll have his growing pains, batching him progress with Kansas (and vice versa) this season is going to be a lot of fun.
2. Texas avoided another early loss last night, needing overtime to beat UT-Arlington, but the Longhorns showed that Diallo isn’t the only uber-athlete in the Big 12. Freshman Kerwin Roach provided the biggest highlight of the evening, as he’s now the clubhouse leader for dunk of the year with this posterization of Mavericks’ guard Jorge Bilbao. (Prayers.). While Shaka Smart certainly enjoyed the play, he is more concerned with his team’s lack of focus on the glass, as the Longhorns were outhustled 49-35 in that department.
3. Monte’ Morris continued his personal showcase in Iowa State‘s 84-54 romp over North Dakota State, going for 18 points, five rebounds and six assists against the Bison. There was a scary moment in the first half as Georges Niang went down holding his right knee. He had to be helped off the court, but fortunately, he returned to the game after being diagnosed with just a contusion. Niang went on to reassure the Cyclone faithful by kickstarting a 9-0 Iowa State run that put Iowa State ahead at halftime. Iowa State has one more tune-up against Buffalo before they square off with in-state rival Iowa next Thursday.
4. Perhaps taking a page from Kansas’ playbook, Oklahoma State is rolling with a two-point guard lineup for now as Phil Forte continues to recover from an elbow injury and Tavarius Shine nurses a right shoulder bug. Sophomore Tyree Griffin and freshman Jawun Evans combined for 14 assists in last Friday’s win over Long Beach State, but they’ll face a big test tonight when 4-2 Tulsa comes to town. The Cowboys’ small lineup is made smaller with 6’2″ Jeff Newberry playing out on the wing, but the Pokes seem to be holding things together as they slowly get back to full strength.
5. Texas Tech‘s frontcourt took a hit when it was announced on Tuesday that sophomore Isaiah Manderson had the team to continue his basketball career elsewhere. Manderson was a cog in the Red Raiders’ interior last season, playing in all 31 regular season games, contributing 4.4 points and 2.7 rebounds per game. His role figured to increase this season after he played well during Tech’s Canadian tour over the summer, but it wasn’t meant to be. A 6’10”, 255-pound center, Manderson played his high school ball in Florida and had offers from four SEC schools, so it will be interesting to see if he resurfaces in that conference.

1. I’ve grown numb to feelings of empathy for John Groce and Illinois. No man or program who has undergone so much bad fortune in such a short period of time can be innocent of prior wrongdoing. The Basketball Gods have proven angry with the Illini and they’ve recently claimed yet another soul with the likely season-ending injury of Mike Thorne. The graduate senior tore his meniscus in the Iowa State game on Saturday and subsequent surgery has left him out of the lineup indefinitely. Look for Leron Black and maybe even Malcolm Hill to fill in for his time spent at the four, while Michael Finke and Maverick Morgan try to replace his big shoes at center.
2. Scoring is up this season, which was the goal of this year’s rule changes designed to create a more free-flowing game. But not everyone is happy with these changes. After Michigan State’s Sunday night victory against Providence at the Wooden Classic — a game in which the two main stars, Denzel Valentine and Kris Dunn — ran into early foul trouble, Tom Izzo criticized both the officiating and the new rules. It’s not a total surprise that Izzo would react unfavorably to this shift since his style of play isn’t frenetic, but Sparty seems to be adjusting just fine with a 7-0 record and a #3 ranking in the latest AP Poll.
3. Speaking of the Spartans, Denzel Valentine has erupted onto the national stage with his incredible early performances against Kansas and Providence. Through a couple weeks, he has jumped out in front as the early favorite for National Player of the Year by averaging 19.9 PPG, 8.6 APG, and 8.9 RPG. Yahoo Sports‘ Jeff Eisenberg writes about how the Lansing native has gone from begging Izzo for a scholarship to a legitimate NPOY candidate. The way it’s looking now, Valentine will join a couple of other famous Michigan natives in Mateen Cleaves and Draymond Green who also rose to national prominence under Izzo’s tutelage.
4. We’re in the midst of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge this week and the leagues are deadlocked at 4-4 with six games remaining. One of the nicer Big Ten wins last night was Michigan notching a 66-59 victory at NC State. The road victory represents a potential resume-enhancing win, but an ankle injury suffered by guard Derrick Walton may be the most lasting outcome from the game. If the junior needs to miss any significant time, it could spell trouble for the Wolverines as Spike Albrecht, the backup point guard, is coming off a hip injury of his own and is not thought to be fully healthy (although he did play some minutes last night).
5. Finally, Purdue had the most impressive win of the night when it went into the Pete and defeated Pittsburgh by 13 points. The star of the evening was senior center A.J. Hammons, who recorded a double-double (24 points and 12 rebounds) and came up with several key buckets in the second half to help the Boilermakers close out a tight game. The big man has been coming off the bench since he missed the first few games this year because of an off-court issue. It’s no guarantee that Matt Painter will give him a starting spot back — his replacement Isaac Haas has been outstanding — but it also doesn’t much matter because he will get the bulk of the available minutes. Hammons is so integral to the success of this team that whether he’s technically starting is irrelevant.

After reeling off four straight wins to begin the 2015-16 season, California endured its first setbacks of the season in last week’s Las Vegas Classic. First came a 14-point loss to San Diego State, which had fallen at home to Arkansas-Little Rock the previous week. (To be fair, Little Rock is currently 5-0, and has also taken down Tulsa on the road.) The day after beating the Bears, the Aztecs were unceremoniously thumped by West Virginia. In its second game in Vegas, Cal lost by four points to Richmond, which already has a win at Wake Forest and returns four starters from last season: one of whom, senior forward Terry Allen, went off for 34 points and 13 rebounds against the Bears. All of which is to say, through a rather convoluted lede, that the non-conference portion of the season is in full swing. Crazy stuff happens as teams begin to take shape. There’s no need for Cal fans to panic after watching their team’s perfect 4-0 record dwindle to a more pedestrian 4-2 in the face of tougher competition.

Sam Singer (#2) might not be one of the more heralded players on Cal’s squad, but he is one of the most important. (Cal Athletics)

Take that game against Richmond. The Bears’ two standout freshmen, Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb, led the team in points (27) and rebounds (seven), respectively, continuing their strong starts to the season. They are the two gemstones that head coach Cuonzo Martin has embedded into the program he’s building in Berkeley — one that seems poised to become a West Coast powerhouse for years to come. The new blood blends well with the core that Mike Montgomery, Martin’s predecessor, assembled before retiring at the close of the 2013-14 season. In addition to being one of the best minds in the game, ‘Monty’, as he’s commonly known, brought in the likes of Tyrone Wallace, Jabari Bird and Jordan Mathews, all of whom start for Cal this season. Read the rest of this entry »

For mid-major conferences (and make no bones about it, that’s exactly what the Mountain West is whether you like that term or not), the non-conference schedule is when rivals get together, lock arms and march in unison against all comers. San Diego State fans may hate UNLV (and vice versa) from January to March, but at this time of the year, Aztecs are rooting for Rebels (and Lobos and Broncos and Rams and the like) to maximize the overall strength of the conference. It’s sort of like Thanksgiving dinner in a dysfunctional family. Early on, everybody’s working together to make a great dinner. The turkey’s in the oven; the pumpkin pie is cooling on the windowsill; Aunt Bertha’s working on the mashed potatoes; Uncle Fred’s passing out liquid cheer by the pint-full; the kids are playing quietly on the floor. Good times. That’s the non-conference slate. Everybody is still on speaking terms. Hours later, people have eaten too much; perhaps a little too much of that cheer got consumed. The kids are screaming at high pitch. An argument has started over, well, nobody really remembers what. Past grievances begin to be aired. That’s the conference schedule. Everybody hates each other again and even if they can’t remember exactly why, surely somewhere there’s a good reason.

But so far, in the early stages of this Mountain West season, that kitchen seems filled with a few too many cooks who don’t exactly have their eyes on the dish. There’s some smoke coming out of the oven. The gravy’s boiled over. One of those bratty kids knocked the pie off the window sill and the dog got up on the counter and into the mashed potatoes. It’s all going to hell and dinner hasn’t even been served yet. To turn this metaphor back into basketball, here we are three weeks into the season and these are the five best non-conference wins among the 11 Mountain West conference teams (with current KenPom rankings of the opponents in parentheses).

• UNLV by three over Indiana (#25)
• Colorado State by six at Northern Iowa (#45)
• San Diego State by 14 over California (#52)
• UNLV by two over Cal Poly (#99)
• Boise State by seven over UC Irvine (#112)

That’s it. We’ve got to include some wins over two Big West teams as ingredients for our big feast. As the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (to completely mix metaphors), and you can’t make multiple NCAA Tournament bids out of a conference that looks poised to leave non-conference play without many great wins. That said, there are still some chances out there. Boise will get a home crack at Oregon next weekend. San Diego State won at Kansas a couple years back and will host the Jayhawks this season. UNLV still has Oregon, Wichita State, Arizona State and Arizona on their schedule. New Mexico travels to Purdue this weekend followed by Northern Iowa at home next weekend. And there are other chances. But to make a long story short, the margin for error with this conference is already getting awfully thin.

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After one day of competition, the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge is tied at one game a piece, with 12 more matchups to come tonight and tomorrow (schedule below). Wake Forest tipped things off Monday night by using a furious late rally to top Rutgers, 69-68, while Minnesota held off Clemson, 89-83, in the evening’s nightcap behind a strong performance by freshman Jordan Murphy. Both of those games were played at Big Ten venues, but the ACC will have the home court edge tonight by hosting four games. To prepare for this evening’s action, the ACC and Big Ten microsites are once again here to defend the schools they cover. Patrick Engel (Big Ten) and Brad Jenkins (ACC) make the case for each team in their respective leagues for all six contests that will take place tonight on the ESPN family of networks.

Michigan at N.C. State (7:00 PM ET, ESPN2)

• Patrick: We’ve seen Michigan at both its best and its worst so far this season. As I detailed on Monday, it’s becoming clear that the Wolverines have plenty of shooters but are going to once again struggle in the paint. NC State isn’t great at either defending the three (35.7%) or shooting it (32.4%), but the Wolfpack are one of the biggest teams in the country (ninth in height). Michigan has to find space against NC State on the perimeter without getting beat in the paint or on the glass to earn a win here.
• Brad: The obvious advantage here for the Wolfpack is in the paint. N.C. State should control the boards, and it will need to because Michigan is bound to hit more threes than Mark Gottfried’s team. As long as he can stay relatively fresh, Anthony Barber (39.2 MPG) should win the point guard matchup with Derrick Walton. The Wolfpack aren’t deep and must avoid foul trouble, but they can’t shy away from being physical in defending the offensively-potent Michigan wings.

Northwestern at Virginia Tech (7:00 PM ET, ESPNU)

• Brad: There’s no way to sugarcoat Virginia Tech’s opening home loss to a SWAC team (Alabama State), but Buzz Williams’ guys have shown some recent signs of improvement. Iowa State beat them handily in the semifinals of the Emerald Coast Classic last week, but the Hokies bounced back to beat a decent UAB squad in overtime the next night. If Virginia Tech is to win this game, it probably will have to do so by living at the foul line.
• Patrick: The Wildcats have survived without Vic Law so far. They’re not elite in any one area, but they also don’t have a singular glaring weakness. They’ve been a perimeter-oriented team to this point, but Alex Olah’s ability to get to the free throw line will challenge a Virginia Tech team that rarely lets its opponents get there. Northwestern has a good chance of winning this game on the road if it can earn charity stripe opportunities while keeping the free throw-minded Hokies (nation-leading 60.9% free throw rate, per KenPom) away from the line.

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