Nick Fasulo is an RTC correspondent who writes the column College Basketball By the Tweets, a look at the world of college hoops through the prism of everyone’s favorite social media platform. You can find him on Twitter @nickfasuloSBN.

We are now one month in to the college basketball season. What does that mean? It’s probably fair to start making definitive “this team is good, this team is bad” statements… only more eloquently. This week, Twitter was rife with negativity, as the reality of some team’s deficiencies were confirmed in week four.

Texas is Bad, Jaded

Take Texas for example. Sure, the absence of Myck Kybongo is killing this team, but offensively the Longhorns are an absolute mess, and simply plopping an above-average sophomore point guard into the rotation isn’t going to just fix everything. It’s even put the Worldwide Leader in a tenuous situation!

Texas is holding opponents to the lowest FG% in the nation. Georgetown scored 37 pts in their win Friday against Tennessee #nothinghastogive

— Longhorn Network (@LonghornNetwork) December 4, 2012

I can’t imagine people are rushing to get Texas #longhorn network. This hoops team is not great and not fun to watch. #NCAA

— Wally Szczerbiak (@wallyball) December 5, 2012

Texas has 11 turnovers in 13 minutes. They also wish this game was on the Longhorn Network so no one could see it.

— Greg Giombarrese (@ggiombarrese) December 5, 2012

UCLA is Bad Too, And Texas Is Still Bad!

Following that drubbing against Georgetown, the Longhorns were unfortunately back on national television. They could not hide, playing against an equally disappointing UCLA team in Reliant Stadium. Two high-level programs failing miserably to meet preseason expectations makes for an empty football stadium.

Buy a ticket,get the entire section at Reliant!

— Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) December 8, 2012

Still sitting here with hundreds of others (dead serious) at Reliant, awaiting tipoff between Texas-UCLA

— Jason King (@JasonKingESPN) December 8, 2012

How bad is Texas? They’ve missed three wide-open layups. How bad is UCLA? They trail Texas by one.

— Jeff Eisenberg (@JeffEisenberg) December 8, 2012

Honestly, I don’t know what’s more embarrassing, a moist basketball court on an aircraft carrier, or crickets.

Read the rest of this entry »

Who Won the Week? is a regular column that will outline and discuss three winners and losers from the previous week. The author of this column is Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker), an Oregon-based sportswriter best known for his willingness to drive (or bike!) anywhere to watch a basketball game.

WINNER: Chicago State

The Cougars found themselves a home. Amid the constant turmoil found during this extended period of conference realignment, Chicago State has managed to go from the schedule conglomerate of the Great West to an actual conference in the WAC. (Let’s ignore the fact that the WAC would lose its automatic bid if the historically black university didn’t join its ranks.) Granted, the Cougars are 0-8 in Division I play this season, but their campus lies atop a recruiting hotbed, and they could easily snag many a player who falls through others’ cracks, especially now that they offer the same chance at an automatic NCAA Tournament bid that about 250 other schools promise every season. This move makes sense for both parties, but it should help save Chicago State from the fate of Winston-Salem State, another HBCU that tried to make the move to Division I but failed before retreating back to Division II.

(Related winners: The WAC. Related losers: None.)

LOSER: Florida State

Hamilton Hasn’t Been Smiling Much This Season (Photo Credit: Glenn Beil / Democrat).

The Seminoles have had an extended run of success in the Atlantic Coast Conference, one unseen for that program since the Hugh Durham era in Tallahassee, but that’s threatening to fall apart in Leonard Hamilton’s 11th season roaming the Florida State sidelines. FSU is currently riding a three-game losing streak, and last week’s losses to Mercer and Florida were both ugly in their own ways. Falling 61-56 to a team from the Atlantic Sun is ignominious in its own right, but especially so for a team riding a school-record four-year NCAA Tournament streak. Having only one player score more than seven points in the process is even worse. But the Seminoles actually managed to one-up that loss with an embarrassing 72-47 loss to rival Florida, this time where no Florida State player scored more than 10 points. Michael Snaer, the scoring guard who helped lead the team to three wins in the last two years in the NCAA Tournament, scored 17 points between the two games on 5-of-17 shooting while having five assists and seven turnovers. This is foreboding for a team many picked to finish in the top half of an ACC that has often looked lackluster during the start of the season.

(Related winners: Florida; Mercer, but more so had the Bears not gotten shelled by Denver later in the week. Related losers: The ACC, Snaer.)

WINNER: Greg Gantt

Read the rest of this entry »

1. West Virginia students chanted “Not our rivals” near the end of the Mountaineers’ 69-59 win over Marshall Wednesday night. Bob Huggins agreed after the game, and forward Deniz Kilicli took it a step further. “This happens all the time,” He said. “(Marshall’s) talking all the time. I like it. I just laugh at them.” He added, “We are West Virginia, and we are the state’s team. We prove it over and over again. We are the ones playing big time schools; we have high recruits. We can’t get into all that pushing and shoving and talking trash.” I’m not sure what’s more amusing, that Kilicli didn’t consider that trash talk, that he felt the need to remind people West Virginia basketball is superior to Marshall, or he had the gall to make those statements after the season his team has had so far. In case he has forgotten, the Mountaineers were embarrassed by Gonzaga last month. They then lost back-to-back games against Davidson and Oklahoma. They beat Marshall by 10 points, a team that has lost to Hofstra and South Dakota State already this season. Kilicli is right, West Virginia does play big-time schools. But they sure aren’t playing like one.
2. Sometimes when a player his hot, there isn’t much a defense can do about it. On Tuesday against Oklahoma, Arkansas forward Marshawn Powell had 33 points, going 4-6 from three-point range in the Razorbacks’ 81-78 win. Sooners head coach Lon Kruger wasn’t happy at all with his team’s defensive performance after Arkansas shot 52.6% from the floor. Without watching the game, it’s hard to say how many of Arkansas’ nine three-pointers were contested or just the product of a hot night, but the Sooners also gave up 34 points in the paint. That’s not a good combination, regardless of whether it’s the product of a little luck or not.
3. Could Texas be playing in one of four simultaneous games in Cowboys Stadium next year? Michigan State Athletic Director Mark Hollis, the same guy who came up with the idea to play on aircraft carriers, has come up with another idea to have four games at once on the gigantic floor of Cowboys Stadium next season like an AAU Tournament of sorts. The idea is far from finalized and only Michigan State is confirmed to be playing if it goes through, but the Longhorns aren’t far from Dallas and have played multiple times in Cowboys Stadium. Whether you think this is a terrible idea or not (I’m somewhere in the middle right now), it’s guaranteed to have great ratings, meaning it’s probably going to happen.
4. Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber was pleased with the production he got out of senior guard Martavious Irving in the Wildcats’ 72-53 win over South Carolina Upstate on Sunday. “We settled down with a great run as we finished the half, led by (Irving),” Weber told the Topeka Capital-Journal. Injuries nagged much of the rotation Sunday and the bench, led by Irving, picked up the slack. Irving played 20 minutes, which is more than he’s accustomed to. He had four assists and zero turnovers in the win, and the Wildcats are 6-1 as they head to Washington, DC to play George Washington on Saturday afternoon.
5. Whether it’s been Thomas Robinson, Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant, or Michael Beasley, there is usually a Big 12 player in the discussion for National Player of the Year.  That doesn’t look to be the case this season, although ESPN’s Jason King at least listed Kansas center Jeff Withey as “on the cusp” of Player of the Year candidates, along with nine others. And while it looks to be Mason Plumlee or Cody Zeller’s award to lose right now, Withey’s defense has been better than any other player in the country. He’s leading the country in blocks and blocks per foul and is keeping the Jayhawks near the top 10 while they figure out their guard situation.

1. The news that have the Twitterverse buzzing yesterday was the news that next season might start out with four games being played simultaneously at Cowboys Stadium. The idea, which is being proposed by Mark Hollis (the man who brought us the Carrier Classic and the game at Ramstein Air Base in Germany), is on the surface ridiculous, but when you dig a little deeper. . . it is even more ridiculous. Look, we appreciate the fact that Hollis is trying to come up with a way to promote college basketball, but at some point gimmicks stop being cute and start becoming ridiculous. There have already been a number of writers who have went into detail about why this would be a logistical nightmare (dealing with whistles, shot clocks, etc from the other three games) so we won’t go into too much detail other than saying somebody needs to put a stop to this madness. As we noted on Twitter yesterday we don’t need gimmicks to market college basketball we just need a quality product on the floor.
2. Most programs tend to maintain a similar style of play, but as Corey Schmidt as Basketball Prospectus notes that is not always the case. Earlier in the week he pointed out a handful of teams that were playing at a significantly faster pace than last year and yesterday he released his list of teams playing at a significantly slower pace than last year. Most of them can be explained by a change in coaches, but there are several teams that have managed this transformation while keeping the same coach. It will be interesting to see if these trends will continue once conference play starts.
3. It appears that Clemson does not have a three strikes policy for Milton Jennings as they have reportedly decided to bring their troubled senior forward back after a two-game suspension following an arrest for marijuana possession. Jennings is expected to be back for the team’s game against Arizona on Saturday. We appreciate the thought of trying to help a young adult out by keeping him in the program and (hopefully) on track to get a college degree, but the timing of this seems a little too convenient for a repeat offender.
4. We have mentioned the pending death of the Big East for a while now and if you were not convinced perhaps the reports on their upcoming TV football contract may change your mind. According to reports the Big East is looking at a deal near $60-80 million per season, which might sound like a decent amount of money until you consider they were expecting well over $100 million per season going into negotiations and the Pac-12 has a $250 million per season deal. If the new TV deal is around the reported range then the schools would be looking at shares around $4-5 million per season compared to over $20 million per season for Pac-12 schools.
5. As much as we hate to say it college football and the revenue it brings in through its TV contracts is really what drives realignment (see the above point). This point is further driven home by data from recently released figures from the federal government looking at the revenue of the various athletic departments and the share that comes from football. The figures also demonstrate the large gap between the haves and have-nots. We still have a hard time getting behind schools who say they cannot afford to give players a stipend, but when you see such a large gap between schools that are still in BCS conferences you start to understand why there is so much dissension about finances at the NCAA level.

1. The biggest splash this week in the SEC again came from the defending champion Kentucky Wildcats and its scheduling choices. First, some group of stuffy faculty members chastised John Calipari’s decision to move toward more neutral site games. So what does Calipari do? He announced that UK has added Baylor to its schedule in a Rupp Arena game in 2012-13, but the Cats will travel to play the Bears in Cowboys Stadium in 2013-14. Now that’s an “experience.” But it’s not about playing Baylor. This move, as is seemingly everything Calipari does, is a strategic move to advance his program. First, four members of the 2013 high school class play in Texas, and all four are considering Kentucky. This is in part a recruiting move to gain an edge on his competitors. But first and foremost, Cowboys Stadium just happens to also be the host site for the 2014 Final Four. Calipari wants a practice run in the venue where his Cats hope to cut down the nets again in two years. That’s what scheduling huge neutral site games are all about — giving his squad a simulation of the biggest stage possible to prepare them for when the time comes.
2. While Kentucky is adding Baylor to its schedule, another SEC school is calling off its match-up with the Bears. Mississippi State and Baylor have agreed to cancel the two remaining games on their contract. New Bulldogs coach Rick Ray realizes he has a rebuilding year ahead of him. “We play in the toughest tournament known to mankind out at Maui and then we come back from that and our next game is Baylor,” Ray said. “We open up our season at Troy. Our schedule — if I had my say so, we wouldn’t have that type of a schedule. So, that’s a concern.” Mississippi State was set to host Baylor this season in Starkville, but would have been required to travel to Waco in 2013 to return the favor. The decision to cancel was mutual.
3. Yahoo Sports published a list of the top newcomers gracing the SEC with their presence next season, and a couple of Kentucky Wildcats were joined by a new member of the Missouri Tigers at the top of the list. Shouldn’t all of Missouri’s team be up for inclusion? Regardless, senior center Alex Oriakhi, a transfer from Connecticut, joins Kentucky freshmen Alex Poythress and Nerlens Noel as the players most likely to make an impact next season. From the article: “Noel is a defensive difference-maker. While he lacks bulk, he is athletic and already has advanced shot-blocking skills. His offense is raw, but his defense and rebounding make up for that.” Hey, that sounds familiar. Here’s what the site said last year at this time about Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis: “His shot-blocking and rebounding ability make him a game-changer defensively. His offensive skill set is good and continues to improve.” Not a bad person to be compared to at this stage in his career.
4. Arkansas added juco forward Coty Clarke to its roster earlier this week. Clarke averaged 14.5 points and 13.0 rebounds per game with Birmingham (AL) Lawson State Community College last season. Razorbacks coach Mike Anderson is excited about the addition. “Coty is excited about being a Razorback and that excites me,” Anderson said. “He is an athletic forward who can impact on both ends of the floor, offensively and defensively. Coty has a blue collar mentality which is needed on this team. He is an excellent fit for the ‘Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball.’” Depth is an important issue for this year’s Arkansas team, as injuries impacted how far Anderson could go down the bench last year.
5. Our very own Rush the Court profiled a couple of former SEC players in our NBA Draft Profiles. Vanderbilt senior Festus Ezeli is viewed as a late first round pick in the mold of current Houston Rockets center Samuel Dalembert. RTC compared him to the big man, saying, “Ezeli has a similar skill set as a defense-first center with ideal size who can protect the rim. Dalembert, though, transitioned from a raw prospect to a 10-year NBA veteran who has averaged 8.0 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks in a strong career thanks to the ability to adapt to the speed of the NBA game.” Kentucky senior Darius Miller is hoping to get picked up in the second round and RTC says he has at least has the look of an NBA player. “While his three-point percentage dropped from the blistering 44.3% he shot as a junior to a merely good 37.6% as a senior, he’s shown NBA range and a willingness to step into the right shot when needed. Throw in the fact that at 6’8” and 235 pounds he’s got the frame to handle the big boys at the next level, and Miller looks the part of an NBA wing.” Good luck to both of the seniors as well as the rest of the SEC athletes hoping to be selected.

1. It wouldn’t be the Morning Five without a John Calipari mention, as the sport’s biggest newsmaker spins the media like a top with his almost-daily appearances, interviews, and social media missives. Yesterday on his website the Kentucky head coach wrote that his new scheduling strategy — pushing for more neutral site appearances against marquee opponents — will result in a one-year hiatus in the Kentucky-North Carolina series, but the home-and-home battle between two of the best programs in the country will return in 2013-14. The purpose of this move according to Calipari is to alternate years where the Wildcats will have to travel to Chapel Hill and Louisville, meaning that UK will play at least one tough non-conference road game each year. The Wildcats have also picked up a home/neutral series with Baylor starting next season that will allow them to play in Cowboys Stadium in 2013-14, the site of that year’s Final Four. Perhaps most interestingly, though, is that Calipari says that he’s in negotiations with Duke to begin an annual rotating neutral site game that he says would be on the same weekend each year and become “THE GAME” to watch. We certainly can’t argue with that.
2.  What we can argue with was a curious comment that Calipari made in his post explaining why he’s so gung ho on scheduling future neutral site games in football stadiums: “I’m convinced we would have won the title two seasons ago if we would have played in a dome during the regular season. Our guys weren’t prepared for it.” At first blush, this sounds reasonable on its face. But closer examination suggests that the head coach is tailoring the facts of his argument to justify what he wants. First of all, the Wildcats lost to West Virginia in the Elite Eight in Syracuse in 2010, which means of course that they had to win a Sweet Sixteen game in the Carrier Dome two days prior — on the same floor, in the same dome, only against a different team (Cornell). Did John Wall and company forget what they’d learned about playing in a dome environment just 48 hours before the loss to WVU? Next, the 2012 team that just won the national championship in the Superdome didn’t play in a dome environment at all in this year’s regular season or in the SEC Tournament. Still, without that ‘necessary’ experience, the Wildcats successively rolled through Indiana, Baylor, Louisville and Kansas to win it all. All in domes. If Calipari wants to play the lack of experience card to forgive the failure of the 2010 Wildcats, he probably should be looking at the ridiculously soft schedule that his Wildcats ran through on its way to a 35-3 record that year. When both teams matched up in the Elite Eight, the Mountaineers were by far the best team UK had faced all season. Kentucky’s lack of experience in playing good teams was the problem; it wasn’t that they hadn’t played in a dome. [Ed. Note: It is unclear which team Calipari was referring to, but the 2010 team was a far superior team if he was talking about winning a national championship.]
3. From a coach spewing nonsense to players doing likewise… Deadspin published a really interesting piece on Thursday examining in great detail documents from the cottage industry of companies who are tasked with monitoring college athletes’ social networking accounts. The article describes how it works: First, the schools get access to each player’s account through a special tracking mechanism that scans their pages regularly. Then, “once the computers gather all that data, the firms’ software searches it for trigger words and reports back to coaches and athletic department functionaries. This happens in near real-time.” It wouldn’t be Deadspin-worthy unless the examples were equal parts hilarious and horrifying, so we’d just suggest you set aside a few minutes of your time and get over there to poke around. Of particular interest is one company’s documentation and definition of many of the most common trigger words and phrases that could get players in trouble. Let’s just end this by saying that if you’re over 30 years old, you’re probably going to learn a few new slang words or acronyms to test on your buddies during the long weekend.
4. More conference realignment! And it doesn’t involve yet another rumor about Florida State, Clemson or Miami. No, UT-Arlington, a Southland school who is (we’re not kidding) joining the WAC on July 1, will spend one year in that league before movin’ on up to the Sun Belt, effective next summer. You read that correctly — in a span of 366 days (from June 30, 2012 to July 1, 2013), UT-Arlington will be a member of three different conferences. At the mid-major level, it’s just short of impossible to keep up with who is heading where, but we think that the Sun Belt will also pick up Georgia State and Texas State to replace the losses of FIU, Denver, and North Texas to the WAC and Conference USA. Whether the WAC survives all of this re-shuffling remains to be seen.
5. A couple of head coaching positions at the mid-major level were filled on Thursday, with Rider and Binghamton inextricably connected through the transition. Binghamton hired Rider head coach Tommy Dempsey to take over for Mark Macon, a former star player at Temple who was unable to dig out of the morass left by his predecessor, Kevin Broadus. Rider acted quickly to fill the vacuum, promoting assistant coach Kevin Baggett to the helm for purposes of continuity. Rider has averaged 18.5 wins per season in the six years that Baggett was an assistant for Dempsey, so it makes sense that the administration wants to keep the momentum moving forward.

The 2013 NCAA Tournament will be a milestone, marking the 75^th all-time ‘Big Dance’ since Oregon won the first one in 1939. A lot has changed over the years, and it’s much harder to win the Tournament in its current 68-team format than it was for the Ducks in a total field of just eight schools then. In “a concerted effort to include cities with a rich history to help mark the milestone,” according to the new VP of NCAA Championships, Mark Lewis, the committee selected Washington, D.C. as the final host of the 2013 Regionals. The nation’s capital joins previously selected Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Arlington, Texas, as the four regional locations, with Atlanta hosting next year’s Final Four. The Verizon Center in DC has played host to several classic tournament games in recent history, and the NCAA hopes to recreate that magic next year.

George Mason Provided Fireworks in Washington, D.C. in 2006 (Washington Post)

“In the end, we think celebrating 75 years of one of the country’s favorite sporting events in our nation’s capital and a great basketball city is fitting,” said Lewis, whose committee’s decision came down to Syracuse, Brooklyn, Madison Square Garden (Manhattan), and the District of Columbia. It would have seemed fitting for MSG, the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” to have won on this criteria of rich history, but the arena faced scheduling conflicts with its priority tenants, the Knicks (NBA) and Rangers (NHL). The Verizon Center, while not nearly as historic a venue, is a more frequently-used arena for college games, serving as the primary home court for Georgetown and hosting a number of other games such as the BB&T Classic. The Hoyas will be the official host of this site and as such will be unable to play in that venue during next season’s Tourney.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Keep moving along. Nothing to see here. That was the stance of ACC commissioner John Swofford on Wednesday in reference to the earth-rumblings regarding Florida State’s rather public dalliance with the Big 12. Taking part in the ACC spring meetings in Amelia Island, Florida, this week, Swofford said that he had spoken with FSU president Eric Barron there and had enjoyed several “positive” conversations which clearly leads him to believe that the Tallahassee school is sticking around. Public statements from officials in positions of power are virtually meaningless these days — especially when it comes to this topic — but we really don’t see Florida State leaving the ACC for a few million dollars when they’d be ceding so much of their existing power to Texas as a result.
2. Better late than never, but the NCAA announced yesterday that Washington, DC, would become the site of the 2013 East Regional during next year’s NCAA Tournament. Usually the regionals are well settled at this point in time, but reports suggest that the NCAA ran into contractual issues trying to lock up Madison Square Garden (or another NYC-area site) for next year’s tournament. The Verizon Center in downtown DC has served as an NCAA Tournament site several times in the previous decade, and its convenient location built on top of a Metro station makes getting to and from the venue a snap. The other three regional sites in 2013, which have been settled for some time now, are the Staples Center in Los Angeles (West), Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas (South), and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis (Midwest). Where are you headed?
3. How much is an elite college basketball head coach worth? USA Today reported on Wednesday that Duke legend Mike Krzyzewski was paid $7.2 million by the university for his work in the calendar year 2010. According to their research, Coach K’s total compensation that year represents the second-highest total by a head coach (basketball or football) since the publication started tracking the figures in 2006 (Rick Pitino earned $8.9 million in 2010-11). K’s total in 2010, where he no doubt met a number of incentives for winning the national championship, blew his $2.0 million base salary up to nearly four times that amount. When you add in Krzyzewski’s corporate sponsorships to that total, you begin to see that the Duke head coach is competitive with some of the sport’s best-paid athletes in terms of compensation.
4. While on the subject of Krzyzewski, he announced earlier this week that this summer’s Olympic Games in London would be his last as the head coach of Team USA. There’s no question that Coach K has accomplished a couple of important things as the CEO of the men’s national team. First and foremost, he used his otherworldly player management and motivational skills to encourage (at the time) very young players like LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul to play together and win a gold medal as a selfless unit (both in the Beijing Olympics and the 2010 World Championships). This was no easy task, as the 2008 Redeem Team earned its name after the disastrous bronze medal performance in Athens from the 2004 team. The second thing he was able to do was to satisfy his appetite for coaching the very best players in the world, something that he had flirted with a couple of times previously. This allowed him to stay in his rightful place in college basketball at Duke where he belongs, rather than moving to the NBA for a certainly less-fulfilling experience. Gregg Doyel writes that Coach K was able to do something that not even NCAA/NBA champion Larry Brown could do — keep world-class professional athletes hungry and motivated — and he questions whether the next guy is likely to do the same in 2016.
5. Former Syracuse assistant coach Bernie Fine’s wife, Laurie Fine, announced at a press conference on Wednesday that she will sue ESPN for libel based on the organization’s reporting that (she claims) made her appear as a monster who allowed her husband to molest children. Fine said during the presser that her life has been “ruined” by these allegations to the point where she can no longer go out in public anywhere in central New York. ESPN came out with a response immediately afterward stating that they stand by their reporting. One of the interesting questions that will help define the course of this claim is whether Fine is considered a “public” personality as the wife of the former SU assistant coach. Public figures face a much more difficult threshold to prove libelous claims against them, whereas private figures stand a much better chance. We won’t speculate on how this case might turn out, but the validity of her entire claim may turn on that argument.

Now it’s getting serious.  College basketball teams across the country now fall into one of four camps: bored, because they know their NCAA bid is secure; resigned, because they’ve known for a long time that they’re out; relieved, because they think they’ve played their way in; and downright antsy, because they’ve still got work to do.  That last group are the most interesting ones at this time of year, and there are plenty of them out there.  We’ll be keeping an eye on all of those games and, of course, commenting on any game we can find on the tube in today’s three-man weave version of BGTD.  We hope to hear from you while we’re at it.  Here are the games on which we’ll definitely be keeping tabs, though we’ll probably find more throughout the day:

• 12 PM – Notre Dame @ #13 Georgetown on CBS (regional) – RTC Live
• 12 PM – #2 Kentucky @ #17 Tennessee on CBS (regional)
• 12 PM – Michigan @ #9 Ohio State on ESPN
• 12 PM – Northeastern @ George Mason on ESPN2
• 2 PM – North Carolina @ Wake Forest on CBS
• 2 PM – #21 Texas @ #23 Texas A&M on ESPN
• 2 PM – Mississippi @ Arkansas on ESPN2
• 4 PM – #1 Kansas @ Oklahoma State on CBS
• 4 PM – Florida @ Georgia on SEC Network
• 6 PM – Mississippi State @ South Carolina on ESPN
• 8 PM – Illinois State @ #22 Northern Iowa on ESPN2
• 8 PM – Missouri @ #6 Kansas State on ESPN-U
• 8 PM – Southern Miss @ Memphis on CBS College Sports
• 9 PM – #8 Villanova @ #4 Syracuse on ESPN

We will start with our coverage at 11 AM. Feel free to drop by throughout the day and ask questions/comment on anything that is happening in the world of college basketball.

11:05: Well it certainly is very orange in Syracuse. And Bob Knight with the first shot of the day mocking fans who would pay $750 to watch this game. Nice. Evan Turner just signed a “Evan Turner” home-made trophy being held by some kid wearing a home-made “Villain” t-shirt.

11:06: Knight just admitted he is rooting for Steve Alford and New Mexico tonight. Not a surprise, but still amusing. I’m sure the BYU players will have something to say to the media after the game.

11:10: We would love to interview the fan who sits in that seat or the row of seats that Erin Andrews just featured. The almost looks like Final Four type seating or what we saw earlier this year for the game at the new Cowboys stadium.

11:17: Hubert Davis calling out the Mountain West and BYU. Can we get Shawn Bradley on the phone to mock UNC? Jay Bilas comes to BYU’s defense by comparing them to and crushing Virginia Tech. He’s not going to be a popular guy the next time he visits Blacksburg. Digger makes the best point of the entire discussion by saying that the reason we are talking up the mid-majors is because the PAC-10 is awful this year.

11:20: “This is the weakest at-large field ever. The weakest at-large field ever.” – Jay Bilas. He should be fun on Selection Sunday.

11:21: Does Digger have a yellow highlighter today? Is this the first time he has went with the traditional yellow for his highlighter?

11:35: Nice feature about Hank Gathers. I still remember hearing about it the day it happened on SportsCenter the night it happened. Still jarring to see the video. Nice shout-out to RTC fan Jeff Fryer. It’s too bad they ran into the buzzsaw that was the 1990 UNLV team. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that “30 for 30” documentary.

11:45: I love seeing the replay of the Scottie Reynolds shot. Not because I root for Villanova, but because it is the craziest basketball moment I have ever seen in person. Just the ecstasy of the Villanova fans that followed their utter despair after they had almost blown the game moments before.

Read the rest of this entry »

Power Rankings

1. Kansas (10-0) – The Jayhawks hold the top spot because they played a bad game against Michigan but still won by double digits.  This team is going to be scary once they start playing their best basketball.
2. Texas (10-0) – The Longhorns are very close to grabbing the number one spot away from Kansas. A win over Michigan State tonight will probably push them to the top.
3. Kansas State (11-1) – It looks like KSU will end their non-conference season at 13-1 if they can take care of Cleveland State and South Dakota. Frank Martin and the Wildcats could be looking at a possible top three seed in the NCAA tournament if they finish third in the conference.
4. Texas A&M (9-2) – The Aggies have a huge game against Washington tonight. This could be a big statement game for TAMU, which has fallen outside the Coaches Poll Top 25.
5. Oklahoma State (10-1) – The Cowboys had a very close call with Stanford, and then took care of La Salle last week. This is probably the hardest team to rank right now because their non-conference schedule is not very tough.
6. Texas Tech (9-1) – Losing to the Wichita State Shockers on the road is not necessarily a bad loss, but it makes it harder for the Red Raiders to make the NCAA tournament if they don’t finish in the top six of the conference.
7. Baylor (9-1) – The Bears are on a long break, but when they resume play against a pair of SEC opponents (Arkansas and South Carolina) is when we’ll really know if Baylor is for real.
8. Iowa State (8-3) – Marquis Gilstrap had a huge game against Bradley, scoring 25 points. If he can elevate his play during the conference season then the Cyclones could surprise a lot of people this year.
9. Missouri (7-3) – Last week’s good news is that Mizzou didn’t let Arkansas-Pine Bluff register their first win of the season. The Tigers will have to prove their worth Wednesday in St. Louis when they face Illinois.
10. Oklahoma (8-4) – I was starting to believe that the Sooners had turned it around, but then they laid a huge egg at home against UTEP. The problem with OU right now is their depth. For instance, in their loss last night, Jeff Capel got just two points from his bench players.
11. Nebraska (8-2) – The Cornhuskers play Tulsa on a neutral court, and I really don’t see NU coming out with a victory in this game. The good news for Big Red is that they get a lot of production from a lot of different players; their leading scorer Ryan Anderson is averaging just 11 PPG.
12. Colorado (6-4) – It looks like it will be another long year in Boulder. Cory Higgins is an NBA prospect, but that’s about the only good thing to say about this team.

Team of the Week: Texas Longhorns – Defeating North Carolina at Cowboys Stadium was a tremendous accomplishment for Rick Barnes and the Longhorns. Dexter Pittman snagged twelve Offensive boards in the victory, which may be the most impressive stat for the whole game.

Player of the Week – Damion James (F), Texas- James scored 25 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in the weekend win over UNC. He is now averaging a double-double. One thing he does need to work on his is FG percentage, as he was just 8-22 from the field against the Tar Heels.

Top Stories

• Missouri to the Big Ten? – PTI was talking about the potential move last week, and apparently Missouri wants to join the other midwestern BCS conference. The move makes sense geographically, and the Big Ten has been looking for a twelfth member for a few years. The likely scenario is that Missouri would move to the Big Ten,  and then the Big 12 would pick up TCU to compensate. Obviously this is all speculation, but it would be quite interesting if the move went through.
• Texas’ Big Day – Dexter Pittman and Damion James both had a tremendous day against UNC, which helped the Longhorns put up triple digits on one of the nation’s best teams. I think UT answered a lot of questions about how good their team is, and I think the Horns showed that they are a final four caliber team.

This Week’s Predictions (* indicates “Game to Watch”, # indicates “Upset Watch”)

• Kansas – California 12/22 (W)* – This is not an easy matchup for Kansas because the Golden Bears can get hot and put up a lot of points in a hurry. However, the game is in Lawrence, and that’s spells a win for the Jayhawks.
• Texas – Michigan State 12/22 (W)* – Another big test for the Longhorns, but if they play as well as they did against North Carolina, they should be able to take the Spartans. I think this one will be closer than the UNC game, but in the end Texas’ frontcourt will prove to be too much for the smaller, more perimeter-oriented Michigan State team.
• Kansas State is on an off week.
• Texas A&M – at Washington 12/22 (L)* – The Huskies want revenge against this conference after their loss to Texas Tech. I think A&M has enough talent to upset Washington on the road, but Quincy Pondexter and Isaiah Thomas will prove to be too much for the Aggies.
• Texas Tech – Stanford 12/22 (W) – Oklahoma State took care of Stanford, even though they almost faltered at the end of the game. I think Texas Tech plays better “team basketball” than OSU, and they will overpower Stanford.
• Oklahoma State is on an off week.
• Baylor is on an off week.
• Iowa State – North Dakota 12/22 (W) – This will be an easy win for the Cyclones, before they take a long break until their January 3^rd contest against Houston.
• Missouri – vs. Illinois 12/23 (L)*,  Austin Peay 12/27 (W) – I don’t see Mizzou beating the Illini in St. Louis. It is a big game for both teams that need another win over a power conference team, but I just think that Illinois has a more talented roster and will beat MU pretty easily.
• Nebraska – vs. Tulsa 12/22 (L) – Jerome Jordan was too much for Oklahoma State, and I think he will also dominate this game against the Cornhuskers. Tulsa is a possible top nine seed in the NCAA tournament, and Nebraska is a possible NIT team.
• Colorado – Cal State Northridge 12/22 (W) – Cory Higgins and the Buffaloes need to get some momentum before they start the conference season.