If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.
Top 25 Games
#1 Duke 71, Maryland 64: “I’m not sure how to view Maryland’s loss to Duke. They played hard. They played well. They never gave up and were in it until the final minute. For a team so inexperienced against supposedly the best team in the country in supposedly the hardest place to play in the country – both lies, but whatever – it’s difficult to be disappointed with a game so close.” (Testudo Times)
#2 Ohio State 67, #23 Minnesota 64: “Minnesota nearly pulled off a miraculous 18-point comeback against #2 Ohio State on Sunday after a furious final eight minutes before falling to the Buckeyes 67-64 in Columbus, coming up just an Austin Hollins three-point attempt short of sending the game to overtime.” (From the Barn, The Daily Gopher, or Eleven Warriors)
#3 Kansas 67, Michigan 60: “The Jayhawk again struggled to put away a team that they had overmatched and as happens when you do that, Michigan gained confidence and they elevated their play down the stretch. In that same time, Kansas looked tight and a little pressured. Overall the Jayhawks shot poorly, turned the ball over and just didn’t look crisp in a game that didn’t have a lot of flow to it period. This one can certainly be used as a learning experience as Kansas will face opponents and games that will have a similar feel in the Big 12.” (Rock Chalk Talk or UM Hoops: Recap, John Beilein Interview, Player Interviews)
#8 Villanova 72, Cincinnati 61: “The Nova Nation watched the second game between two nationally ranked teams in Villanov’s on campus arena today. They got their money’s worth in both of those games.” (Villanova by the Numbers)
#9 Purdue 75, Iowa 52: “Purdue’s opponent looked sloppy, out of control, confused and out-manned in the opening minutes on Keady Court. It’s something Purdue fans have become accustomed to, especially in the last few seasons. But, if I was to tell you that JJ and Smooge would be quiet offensively during that period, you’d probably think Purdue might be leading 18-16 at the half…but that wasn’t the case.” (Boiled Sports)
The big news of the weekend other than all the road “upsets” was the NCAA denying Kentucky‘s appeal on behalf of Enes Kanter. As you can imagine, this set off a huge response online, which we will have much more on later, but we were particularly surprised by one notable college basketball personality — Dick Vitale — calling out the NCAA, saying that if Kanter had gone to Washington, where current NCAA president Mark Emmert previously worked, he would not have been declared ineligible. This led to a pretty interesting back-and-forth online, which Seth Davis will apparently answer with a column on SI with direct quotes from Emmert that will appear sometime this morning. We aren’t surprised that somebody mentioned it, but Vitale was just about the last person in the world that we’d have expected to call out Emmert like that.
Vitale’s ESPN colleague Doug Gottlieb put up a column on Saturday morning asking 10 questions that he wasn’t sure about the answer (ESPN Insider required). The questions themselves — (1) Are UNC/Butler/San Diego State legit?; (2) What’s Purdue‘s ceiling?; (3) Does Kemba Walker have enough support?; (4) Will Tennesee survive without Bruce Pearl?; (5) Will Demetri McCamey come through in big spots?; (6) Can Villanova/Syracuse play defense/shoot?; (7) Will Baylor or Kansas State rebound first? — are pretty good, but Gottlieb’s answers are a bit superficial for my liking so we are interested to what you think the answers are to those questions.
A local columnist poses an interesting question about Pittsburgh, asking how the Panthers have changed from a hard-nosed defensive team into a group of sharpshooters. It should be pointed out that most of Pittsburgh’s reputation for being a tough defensive team that wasn’t able to score much comes from Ben Howland‘s time on the sideline there, and that Jamie Dixon‘s teams, to my knowledge, have been better offensively although not to the level of this season’s team. In any case, don’t expect any 47-32 games out of this Pittsburgh team unless you are talking about halftime scores.
By now you may have heard that Roy Williams has a bit of a point guard problem in Chapel Hill. Ever since Ty Lawson left UNC they have been struggling to find someone who would even be described as serviceable. By now, Tar Heel fans have realized that Larry Drew II is not the answer (at least if they want to get deep in the NCAA Tournament) and although Kendall Marshall shows flashes of brilliance, Roy is hesitant to hand over the keys to him. It looks like help may be on the way in the form of Marcus Paige, a top-five point guard in the class of 2012, who has committed to play at UNC. Paige follows in a fairly strong line of Iowans who have committed to play for Williams either at Kansas or UNC with the most recent being Harrison Barnes. For the sake of Tar Heel fans, we hope that Paige doesn’t struggle in adjusting to the college game as much as Barnes has so far.
Finally, our Morning 5 wouldn’t be complete with a shout out to Roscoe Smith for his ill-advised 75-foot heave with nearly 10 seconds left in the game. Honestly, we are shocked that there aren’t around 100 videos on YouTube documenting the funniest shot we have seen in some time. Fortunately for Smith and UConn they were able to escape, thanks to Kemba Walker doing his thing. We have a pretty poor clip below for those of you who missed it, but consider this a plea from RTC to please upload a decent quality clip of this shot.
The Lede. Despite the constant presence of NFL football, this weekend just felt like the first “real” weekend of college basketball around the country. Conference play was in effect almost everywhere, with the three holdout power conferences (ACC, Big 12, SEC) finally jumping headfirst into the family pool. The takeaway from this weekend’s action is clear — there are no dominant teams. If Duke gets Kyrie Irving back into the fold, we’ll be happy to re-visit this statement, but each of the top three teams were seriously challenged by up-and-comers and a host of other ranked teams took losses against unranked foes. This weekend could have been simply an anomaly; or, it could portend that we’re in for a rather wild ride over the next eight weeks of the regular season. In comparison with last season, the quartet of Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse and Duke stayed near the top of the polls from early January onward — will this year’s group of Duke, Ohio State, Kansas and Syracuse enjoy a similar track? For reasons we can’t yet explain, we don’t think so.
Walker Converted When It Mattered Most Saturday (H-C/P. Raycraft)
Your Watercooler Moment. Everybody’s Vulnerable. Saturday was one of those days where we realized once again (it happens every year) that the margins between teams with a little number beside its name and those without really aren’t that far when you get to conference play. It’s sometimes easy to forget this maxim of college hoops during November and December when teams roll up vastly inferior teams without breaking much of a sweat, but when we get to a day like Saturday where eight ranked teams lose, we’re reminded that the beauty of this sport is in its relative parity among the top 50-75 teams. “On any given night” and all that. Even the most elite teams were not immune — on Sunday the top three teams, all unbeaten, were taken to the wire by schools that on paper didn’t look capable — Duke vs. Maryland, Ohio State vs. Minnesota and Kansas vs. Michigan (you can also include Syracuse vs. Seton Hall on Saturday to bolster the point). The Terps gave Duke all it wanted in Cameron Indoor for 38 minutes; the Gophers had a shot in the air to tie OSU at the buzzer; and, Kansas was forced into OT at Michigan. All of them pulled through to stay unblemished, but our sense after watching these games is that each of these teams is going to suffer a few Ls before March roars into our lives.
Kemba Walker’s Heroics. Saturday’s game between UConn and Texas had a little bit of everything: fantastic athletes, big-time shots, powerful finishes, boneheaded plays and a raucous home crowd in Austin to take it all in. It also had another superb game-winning performance from a guy named Kemba Walker. His crossover leading into a step-back jumper over an excellent defender in Dogus Balbay was NBA-quality in its execution, and even though he had previously missed two shots for every one that he’d made, it didn’t detract from his confidence to take and make the game-winner. UConn’s having a gamer like Walker in the clutch cannot be overstated; the Huskies are not good enough to blow many other quality teams out this season, but if they can hang around until the last five minutes of the game, they have arguably the best player off the bounce in college basketball capable of getting points in many different ways. Walker’s already shown against Wichita State and Michigan State that he can take games over down the stretch, and so long as he doesn’t wear out (34 MPG), Jim Calhoun has at his disposal something that few other teams can boast.
Maryland, But Be Careful With the Terps. We’ve been down this road with Maryland before. They play great against Duke — either beating or nearly taking down the Devils — and everyone jumps on the bandwagon and expects them to push for an ACC title and make a big run into March. And then they turn around and lose to someone like Miami (FL), causing Gary Williams’s head to turn purple and nearly explode. Even though the Terps look great on paper — they defend well and have a beast like Jordan Williams inside to get points and rebounds (23/13 tonight) — we just want to warn you to be careful with this team. They are prone to offensive troubles when Williams is having an off night, and the best team they’ve actually beaten this year is Penn State (with losses to non-slouches Pitt, Illinois, Temple and BC). The Terps have the talent to make a run at second place in the ACC, but we’ve said that many times before only to watch them bob and weave to an 8-8 (or thereabouts) league record. And don’t forget they’re already 0-2 this season.
Well, Hello, Mr. Singler. No team has more offensive weapons than Duke, and luckily for Coach K’s 25-game winning streak, it was Kyle Singler’s turn to step up tonight against Maryland. His 25/10 represents his best performance of the season against quality competition, and with midseason NPOY candidate Nolan Smith cold on this evening (5-18 FG), Duke needed the preseason NPOY candidate to amp up his game. We still have issues with Duke’s complete lack of consistent inside play, but they proved last year that in the college game it’s not necessary to have an elite post man anymore.
… and Misses.
Roscoe Smith. “Oh God, Roscoe…” was the phrase on everyone’s mind, according to teammate Shabazz Napier, when the UConn freshman corralled a Texas miss with 11 seconds to go in regulation and took one dribble before mis-reading the clock and throwing up an 80-footer that finally came out of orbit with 7.5 seconds still remaining on the game clock. The boneheaded play was one of the most hilarious mistakes we’ve ever seen in this game — and we’ve watched a lot of basketball over the years — although it was none too funny for UConn fans who were hopeful that the Huskies would have a chance to win in regulation. We literally had to rewind this play and watch it a dozen times for maximum comedic effect; it’s doubtful we’ll ever see something quite so ridiculous again. Luckily for Smith, UConn won the game in overtime in no small part due to his contributions (13/6).
Game #100. RTC Live hits it century mark this season with a trip to Evanston where the Wildcats are in do-or-die mode.
Sunday’s game features two struggling Big Ten teams that are desperately looking for wins in conference. Indiana is 9-7 (0-3 in the Big Ten) after losing a close game to Minnesota in its last one and Northwestern is 9-4 (0-3) and coming off a blowout loss at in-state rival Illinois on Thursday night. Tom Crean and Bill Carmody both desperately want victories to quiet the choruses that are very loudly questioning their decision-making and tactics. While Northwestern is a slight favorite in the game, the injury status of John Shurna, who is playing on a badly sprained ankle, should even things out and make for a highly entertaining contest. Follow along with the entire game from Welsh-Ryan Arena starting tonight at 6 p.m. central time.
Game #99. Unbeaten Cincinnati gets it toughest test of the season as it travels to take on Villanova on the Main Line this afternoon.
One of the more important early Big East Conference match-ups this week will pit #25 Cincinnati against host #7 Villanova on Sunday at noon. An accidental blockbuster, few fans of either school (or the mainstream media) circled their calendars when this match-up was posted, the game’s significance has snowballed as each team has put together impressive unbeaten streaks. Cincinnati, led by solid nucleus of upperclassmen including junior forward/center Yancy Gates, senior Rashad Bishop, junior wing Dion Dixon, senior forward/center Ibrahima Thomas and redshirt sophomore point guard Cashmere Wright has gone through the first 15 games of their 2011 slate undefeated. If there was a marshmallow or two in their schedule, most likely the reason AP and Coaches Poll voters just moved them into the Top 25, few can argue the way the Bearcats disposed of Dayton (68-34), Oklahoma (66-56) or Xavier (66-46) was in any way soft. Villanova will counter with their own nucleus of veterans, sophomore center Mouphtaou Yarou, sophomore point guard Maalik Wayns, senior forward/center Antonio Pena, senior off guard Corey Fisher and senior wing Corey Stokes. This is the fourth conference game where both teams are ranked. Each team played and won on Thursday night, Cincinnati pummeled Crosstown Shootout rival Xavier by 20 points, 66-46, while Villanova downed the South Florida Bulls in the Sun Dome 83-71. Join RTC Live Sunday at noon, as Cincinnati meets Villanova at the Pavilion on Villanova’s campus.
If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.
Top 25 Games
#4 Syracuse 61, Seton Hall 56: “Syracuse beat Seton Hall 61-56 in a game that was not decided until the 0:16 mark of the second half. Separated by a single point, 20-19 Syracuse, at the half, the Orange spent the first seven minutes of the second half on an 18-9 run that secured them a double digit lead. Though they survived several pushes by the Pirates over the next eight minutes, the Pirates had one last, sustained push that translated into an 11-2 run that cut the Orange lead to two, 55-53 with just over two minutes left. The Orange hung on, outscoring the Pirates 6-3 over the last two minutes, to secure the win.” (Villanova by the Numbers)
Colorado 89, #7 Missouri 76: “I know as an Internet sports fan, I’m supposed to full of remorseless rage when my team loses to a team that, to date, had been its lesser in just about every way. Colorado came into this game having gone just 3-4 versus Top 200 teams and played near-atrocious defense most of the year. But yesterday in Boulder, they dictated the pace, didn’t start fading until about 30-32 minutes had passed (when they intentionally slowed the tempo), and even then had enough trick shots in the bag to keep their distance against a Mizzou team that was finally getting it together. I said in the preview that Colorado tends to jump up and play great against heavyweights a few times a year, but they hadn’t done it to Mizzou in a while. Well … now they’ve done it to Mizzou.” (Rock M Nation)
Georgia 77, #10 Kentucky 70: “I offer no superlatives in this game for Kentucky. None. Kentucky did not play well, and I don’t feel like patting anyone on the back. Georgia deserves significant praise, particularly coach Mark Fox, for executing a perfect game plan against the Wildcats. Georgia was simply outstanding, and I am very impressed by what they did against us.” (A Sea of Blue)
West Virginia 65, #11 Georgetown 59: “This sucks. There is no sugarcoating what happened today in the Verizon Center. The Georgetown Hoyas, as recently as December 29, were a top 10 team in the country. They finished the hardest out-of-conference schedule in the nation at a sparkling 11-1, including road wins at Missouri, Old Dominion, and Memphis. Since conference play began 10 days ago, this team has been an unmitigated disaster.” (Casual Hoya or Glide Hoyas)
Things calmed down in the evening session, but that doesn’t stop us from giving you our observations…
Was It Really Upset Saturday? There’s a longstanding sentiment in our minds that conference losses on the road are rarely, by definition, upsets. Yet today’s string of Ls by Top 25 teams — from #7 Missouri to #24 Central Florida — suggests that this is going to be a wild and wacky conference season this year. None of the “upsets” were earth-shattering; teams like Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma State have talent and the biggest Vegas spread was eight points (UCF favored over Houston). But today’s results illustrate that outside of a select few teams in the top five, the margins between teams ranked in the top 10 versus the top 50 is exceptionally thin. Does this portend week after week of craziness in college basketball? One can always hope, and if today’s results are any indication, then some of this season’s conference races could be ridiculously competitive.
Arizona-Stanford Game Postponed. This game was postponed tonight as a result of the horrific shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and several others in her entourage, and it is absolutely the right call. We get pissed as much as the next person from time to time, but to have the kind of mental imbalance to harbor such unbelievable hatred for someone whom you’ve likely never even met is incomprehensible to us. Tucson needs time to mourn and heal, and although the game is only delayed by 24 hours, tonight was not the night for a community to come together and cheer for its team.
Notre Dame Continues to Impress at Home. The Irish did what so far nobody else in the Big East has been able to do tonight — beat St. John’s. And they did so rather convincingly behind a big 26-point night by Ben Hansbrough. The Irish have beaten three good teams in the Joyce Center — Georgetown, UConn and now the Johnnies. They’ll go on the road next week at Marquette and back against the Johnnies next Sunday. If we were to rank the Big East into tiers as of what we’ve seen through two weeks of action, it would go something like this. 1) Syracuse and Pitt at the top; 2) Villanova, St. John’s and Notre Dame on the next tier; 3) Georgetown, WVU, Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette and UConn on the next tier; and 4) everybody else. The fact that both ND and SJU are on that second tier at this point in the season is surprising, isn’t it?
Gonzaga Will Not Win the WCC This Year. You heard it here first. We caught part of both of these WCC games tonight, and St. Mary’s again looked more impressive in going to Pepperdine and thoroughly thumping the Waves by 25 points than Gonzaga did at home in beating Portland (by 13). Of course, it helps when you have a senior like Mickey McConnell dropping fifteen dimes (three more than the entire PU team) and one of the nation’s best three-point attacks (41%). The Zags are playing better than they were, but as we saw tonight, they have a bit of a tendency to struggle offensively, going through long scoring droughts when Elias Harris (7 points) isn’t able to get it going.
Thank You, Mark Fox! We heard the “overrated” chant from Georgia students near the end of the Kentucky game, but didn’t know about Mark Fox’s retort until Jeff Goodman reported it later. Apparently Fox chastised the students to cut it out, stating that UK is a “damn good team” and that maybe Georgia was in fact “underrated.” This chant has been going on at schools forever, but it’s a major pet peeve of ours because it essentially minimizes the accomplishment that the winning team just achieved (i.e., if the team you beat is in fact overrated, then your win isn’t as impressive). So thank you, Mark Fox, and hopefully his admonishment is just one small step to a point where we can eventually stamp out a truly annoying student chant.
Auburn Reaches an Even New Level of Futility. Really, Auburn? Six points in the first half of your home loss to LSU tonight? We’re not sure whether to be more impressed by the fact that the War Eagles put up a six-point stinker or if it’s that they worked back into it and actually had a chance to win the game. How’d they do it? Try a one (Kenny Gabriel), a two (Scott Chubb) and a three (Gabriel, again), as Auburn bricked its way to an 8% shooting half to cause Auburn fans to boo them heading into the locker room. With the football team playing for the national championship on Monday night, and Tony Barbee’s team finding new ways to look terrible, is there a greater disparity between football and basketball at any other major-conference school in America? We don’t think so.
Down to Six Unbeatens. It was bound to end sooner or later, but Central Florida’s perfect record went kaput this evening in Houston. We can’t say we’re completely surprised. It’s much easier to get jacked up for games against intrastate big-time schools like Florida and Miami than it is to play an 8-6 Houston team in front of a light crowd. But that’s the problem with putting a target on your back, especially if you’re not used to being in that position. This leaves us with six unbeatens. Syracuse and San Diego State both had tough battles on the road but survived today, while Duke, Ohio State, Kansas and Cincinnati all play Sunday.
Some mid-afternoon thoughts on today’s games filling the heart of the day…
Alex Oriakhi hits the boards. Kemba Walker may get all of the post-game hype after his great finish in UConn‘s big road win at Texas, but for our money the player of the game and the one that we think Jim Calhoun will credit most for the win will be Alex Oriakhi. Calhoun has been all over Oriakhi lately for his lack of rebounding (seven straight games with single-digit rebounds including just one rebound in their loss at Pittsburgh). When I spoke with Calhoun after the Huskies’ New Year’s Eve victory over USF all I had to say was “Alex” before he cut me off and went on a rant about Oriakhi’s lack of rebounding. He was quick to note that Alex was working hard, but that he thought he might have been pressing. After speaking with Calhoun I went back to Alex and asked him about it and he essentially told me that he couldn’t really do anything about rebounding because it wasn’t something that he could do anything about, which I disagree with completely, but he seemed like such a nice kid and seemed troubled enough about it that I didn’t want to tell him that he was wrong (especially since my 5’10” frame and lack of a vertical has been a major hindrance in the progress of my basketball career). He followed it up with an even worse game against Notre Dame where he failed to score a point and only had six rebounds. I wasn’t at the game, but I imagine that Calhoun was very critical of him after that game. Fast forward a few days to today against a Texas team that came in to the game ranked 3rd in the nation in rebounds and one that was expected to dominate the Huskies on the inside with Jordan Hamilton, Tristan Thompson, and Gary Johnson. Instead of getting dominated on the inside, Oriakhi turned in by far his best game since Maui and nearly matched the Longhorn trio in rebound total (22 to 21). Even though he struggled from the field going 5 of 16, Oriakhi more than made up for it on the boards and was probably the star of the game even if the rest of the media is going to focus on Kemba’s late game heroics. UConn is still a flawed team as it relies too much on Kemba to do what he did in overtime and it has too many young players who are still working on learning their roles playing around Kemba, but if Oriakhi can play like this on a more consistent basis the Huskies could be a team that nobody wants to play in March with Kemba on the outside and Alex on the inside.
Kemba Walker saves the day. Now that we have talked about Alex Oriakhi, we can get to Kemba Walker who shrugged off a rare off-night (going 8-27 from the field even with his late game heroics including the ridiculous heave to beat the shot clock with a little over 2 minutes left in OT). We have to give the Texas guards some credit for their defense on Kemba throughout the game, but we saw at the end of the game that there really isn’t anybody in college who can guard him. Rick Barnes had Dogus Balbay, who for our money is one of the best defensive guards in the nation, on Walker at the end of the game and Walker just brushed him off to him the game-winner with 5 seconds left in overtime. Walker might lose some of his early lead in the National Player of the Year race if UConn struggles in the Big East and he has plenty of competition particularly from Jared Sullinger and Nolan Smith, but the UConn PR department will probably have plenty of moments like late in today’s game to hype Walker’s candidacy if they choose to do so.
Roscoe Smith’s heave. We aren’t even sure where to begin with Roscoe Smith. Although it doesn’t quite rank up there with Jamelle Horne‘s pair of boneheaded plays from 2 years ago Smith’s 75-foot heave with nearly 10 seconds left in regulation is going to be replayed on blooper shows for years to come. We are going to give Smith a little bit of a pass (a very little bit) as I would imagine that the frantic finish and blocked shot by Alex Oriakhi that led to the ball ending up in Smith’s hands would have made it very difficult for anybody to be aware of how much time was left on the clock especially a 6’8″ freshman forward who is probably never asked to touch the ball late in games (and after this probably won’t for some time). I’m not sure words can do justice to just how bad this heave was and we can’t find any video footage of this shot yet, but when we do we will be sure to put it up.
Georgia knocks off Kentucky. It has already been a rough weekend for Kentucky. First there was the Enes Kanter ruling then there was the football team getting blown out by a Pittsburgh team that was playing without its recently hired head coach who had been fired after getting arrested on charges of domestic violence. Now their basketball team drops the SEC opener at Georgia. Before the fan base goes crazy (and we are guessing that based on the 4,573 fans on CatsPause at the time we wrote this that they are going crazy) we should point out that that the Bulldog team that they lost to could be very good. They have flown under the radar after losing two games at the Old Spice Classic to Notre Dame and Temple (two very good teams) in Trey Thompkins first games back after an early-season ankle injury. Since that time the Bulldogs have reeled off nine straight wins against some admittedly uninspiring opponents in somewhat unconvincing fashion (four games decided by three points or less). We are not sure if Georgia is a top 25 team, but we should have a better idea by January 18th as they play at Vanderbilt and at home against Tennessee during a three-game stretch. If they come out of that stretch with a 2-1 record don’t be surprised if this team is near the top of the SEC East standings by the end of the season.
Game #98. St. Mary’s goes on the road in the WCC where things are always dangerous tonight.
RTC Live is headed to Malibu for its first-ever game at Pepperdine’s Firestone Fieldhouse, as the Waves host red-hot St. Mary’s in a Saturday evening matinee. The Gaels and their head coach, former Pepperdine assistant coach Randy Bennett, roll into Malibu sporting a 13-2 record after handling Loyola Marymount easily, 98-75, in their Thursday night West Coast Conference-opener. Six Gaels scored in double figures, while the team as a whole posted an impressive 70.3 effective field goal percentage. WCC Player of the Week Mickey McConnell led the way with 21 points (on 8/9 shooting, including 3/4 from behind the arc) and eight assists, while Rob Jones added 20 points and nine rebounds and Matthew Dellavedova chipped in another ten points along with nine assists. For Pepperdine (7-11, 1-0), they’ve posted two-straight 20-point victories, including a 75-55 win over San Diego in their first WCC contest. Junior guard Lorne Jackson busted out with a career-high 26 points, just one game after becoming the first Wave since Doug Christie in 1991 to post a 20-point and 10-assist game (Jackson had 23/10 against Seattle). The WCC’s leading scorer, Pepperdine’s junior guard Keion Bell, has missed the Waves’ last two games with an ankle injury, and is still questionable for this game with St. Mary’s, a definite concern for head coach Tom Asbury, as the Waves will need all the help they can get. One area Pepperdine could hope to exploit is SMC’s potential weakness on the defensive glass. Against LMU on Thursday, the Gaels only rebounded 50% of the available defensive rebounds, so if Wave senior forward Mychel Thompson can get to work on the glass (where he has grabbed ten rebounds in each of the last two games and 5.8 per game on the season), perhaps Pepperdine can break SMC’s six-game win streak in this series.
Game #97. The suddenly relevant Johnnies travel to Notre Dame on this evening to try to keep their perfect Big East record intact.
Steve Lavin’s St. John’s squad comes into South Bend with a 3-0 record in the Big East with wins versus West Virginia, Providence, and Georgetown. One month ago, this start could not have been predicted due to the Red Storm dropping early games versus lowly St. Bonaventure and Fordham. Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish squad stands at 2-1 in the Big East with wins versus Georgetown and Connecticut and a loss at undefeated Syracuse. Fighting Irish seniors Tim Abromaitis and Ben Hansbrough will look to lead the offense and offset the loss caused by a hamstring injury to senior forward Carleton Scott. The Red Storm attack will be led by senior guard Dwight Hardy and senior forward Justin Brownlee. If Notre Dame’s thin frontcourt of Abromaitis, Tyrone Nash, and Jack Cooley can effectively guard the post then the Fighting Irish would have to be viewed as favorites in this key early conference matchup.
