Game #68.  RTC Live will be on hand tonight for Jimmer Fredette’s homecoming to Glens Falls, New York, in front of a packed house. 

Hometown hero Jimmer Fredette returns to the 518 area code in upstate New York to lead the BYU Cougars against the Vermont Catamounts in a neutral-site contest. Fredette led BYU to the second round of the NCAA tournament last March, and no doubt looks to capture a Mountain West conference title and another berth in the Big Dance this season. After amassing over 2,400 points in his high school career, Fredette is currently averaging 22.3 points per game and will no doubt strive to put on a show tonight in his hometown, back in the place where it all started. BYU has remained perfect thus far in its 2010-11 campaign, going undefeated in its first eight games. On the other bench, Vermont will no doubt look to rain on Fredette’s homecoming parade with an upset victory. To date, Vermont has amassed a 6-1 record heading into America East conference play. Vermont recently defeated area mid-major Siena, 80-76, back on November 13, and looks to be the frontrunner once league play begins.

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Kellen Carpenter is an RTC contributor.

While theoretically, the intricacies of basketball should provide for a near-infinite array of offensive and defensive strategies, we instead see a surprisingly few varieties of essential approaches. On the defensive end, simple man-to-man defense is the primary defense of the vast majority of college basketball teams. Other types of defense are less common, but the clear runner-up in terms of defensive schemes is 2-3 zone defense, which is usually what TV and radio people mean when they say “zone defense.” More specifically, when radio and television people refer to “the zone” they probably mean the version of it that is run by Jim Boeheim in Syracuse, and with good reason.

Hands Up in the Syracuse Zone (P-S/D. Nett)

It takes only the mildest interest in college basketball to know that Syracuse under Jim Boeheim has been a perennial contender for the national championship. Year in and year out, the young men in orange appear ready to take all comers each and every March. And aside from the constants of Boeheim himself and a steady flow of NBA-caliber talent, the other constant is the zone. Boehim isn’t just an accomplished practitioner of the zone, but a certified guru. His mastery of this defensive system and ability to impart that system to others has made him a coach in demand. When Mike Kryzewski needed a coach to teach the US Olympic team about the zone, Boeheim was the natural choice. The curmudgeonly coach, Syracuse, and the zone have merged into a monolithic juggernaut that seem destined to befuddle under-prepared offenses come tournament time. As such, the question of how to execute zone defense effectively isn’t as interesting to most teams as how to overcome it.

Now, on the topic of attacking a zone, I don’t have the benefit of the advice of smart scouts, assistant coaches, and the strategic gurus who are working hard to win their respective teams’ games. Instead, I get the second-hand advice of guys who are on television and radio, ex-coaches and ex-players, and the most pernicious and dangerous of strategic advisers, basketball writers. These folks tend to repeat, in unison, some familiar refrains. It’s almost inevitable that when I hear or read someone talk about the zone, they mention the same weaknesses: vulnerabilities to perimeter scoring and offenses that run through the high post. It’s what they seem to say almost every single time, and that’s fine. These approaches make sense when you watch the ball move against the zone: the ball is passed into a player at the high post, sucking in defenders from the perimeter or near the goal, and opening up either a three-pointer from the corner or a quick pass to a baseline-cutter making a move to the basket. So, a solid piece of conventional wisdom, right?

Well, maybe not. The mind is a funny thing, prone to remember triumphs more clearly than failures and generally to overestimate probabilities and degrees of success. Fortunately, even if our subjective memory and evaluation of past events isn’t reliable, we always have the box scores to turn to, and to those we shall turn. If the advice of the pundits and analysts is accurate, teams that run the zone defense should expect to have their opponents make three-point shots against them at a pretty good clip.

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Game #67.  It’s our maiden voyage of the season to one of the better venues on the west coast, Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, as SDSU comes to town.

So far it’s been a dream season for Steve Fisher’s San Diego State Aztecs, sitting at 8-0 and on the cusp of the top ten after impressive wins over Gonzaga, St. Mary’s and Wichita State.  Three tough games to be sure, but SDSU would like to get a statement win over a power conference team to go along with that group.  Tonight’s game at California will provide such an opportunity.  A packed house is expected for the game, and the homestanding Bears will have to find a way to keep the crowd engaged when the three best players on the floor — Kawhi Leonard, Billy White and Malcolm Thomas — all play for the visiting team.  The truth is that with a completely revamped lineup from last year’s Pac-10 regular season champions, you never quite know what you’re going to get with Cal.  They’ve crushed New Mexico and defeated Temple, but lost to Notre Dame (in the infamous five-point half game) and Boston College convincingly.  We have a feeling that with an undefeated highly ranked team coming to town, the Bears will be ready for a fight.  Join us for what should be a great one tonight in Beserkeley. 

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Game #66.  RTC Live is back in Chestnut Hill for what has become a very interesting matchup as the early season has worn on.

This year’s edition of New England’s finest hoops rivalry gets underway tonight at 7 PM ET when Providence travels north to face Boston College at Conte Forum. While both teams were considered long shots to make the NCAA Tournament before the season, the Friars (9-1) and Eagles (6-2) are off to surprising starts. Providence’s #99 ranking in defensive efficiency is a dramatic improvement from last year’s squad and the Friars have early wins against Wyoming, Northeastern and in-state foe Rhode Island to show for it. The versatile duo of Marshon Brooks (21.4 PPG) and emerging star Vincent Council (17.1 PPG) lead the scoring attack in a crucial season for Keno Davis. Despite a shocking loss to Yale, Boston College has rebounded to beat both Texas A&M and California on a neutral floor and defeated Indiana in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Junior Reggie Jackson (18.8 PPG, 4.5 RPG) is one of the most gifted and exciting players in the ACC while first-year coach Steve Donahue also has senior cogs Joe Trapani and Corey Raji at his disposal. Join me tonight from Conte Forum for RTC Live to see if Providence can notch their first quality win of the campaign or if the Eagles protect their home turf and continue to build their own NCAA Tournament resume.

Ed. Note: We had some technical difficulties at Conte Forum tonight. We will have a full write-up tomorrow.

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We’re starting to get a little concerned in the focus and alacrity with which the powers-that-be seem to be listening to us.  And when we say us, we mean all of us — the traditional media who have been pushed, challenged and inspired by the alt-media, and the alt-media who in turn has raised its professionalism and quality to compete and bolster the establishment.  We pushed back in a historic way with NCAA Tournament expansion, and the result was a tolerable, if not ideal, one.  We’ve asked for greater scrutiny and accountability from the NCAA in how it polices its programs, and although we’re a long way from finished, the organization has gotten better.  And most recently, we’ve begged for a true tipoff event that will fire people up and remind them that college basketball has returned in the midst of a crowded fall sports landscape. 

The Champions Classic Will Have a F4 Feel To It

Today’s announcement of the creation of the Champions Classic, a new marquee season tipoff event that will feature, quite literally, four of the best programs in the sport playing each other over the next three seasons at different venues, is a great first step toward accomplishing that goal.  ESPN of course will carry the event (probably as the marquee event of the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon), and we’re already salivating at the matchups between some of roundball’s most regal programs.  Here’s the schedule — try to contain yourself — we have to get through this season first:

Year 1 – Nov. 15, 2011 (Madison Square Garden, NYC)

• Duke vs. Michigan State
• Kentucky vs. Kansas

Year 2- Nov. 13, 2012 (Georgia Dome, Atlanta)

• Duke vs. Kentucky
• Michigan State vs. Kansas

Year 3 – Nov. 12, 2013 (United Center, Chicago)

• Kentucky vs. Michigan State
• Duke vs. Kansas

Um, wow.  It’s taking every ounce of willpower that we have around here to resist the urge to already start breaking down these games.  These are Final Four-caliber matchups at truly neutral sites, and there’s no reason to believe that as long as K, Calipari, Izzo and Self are around that any one of these programs will have much of a  “down” year.  We also love that the venue rotates between different host cities, which again gives it the feel of a major event.  There are enough top-drawer programs involved that will sell out no matter where it’s held in a given year.  Hopefully after this three-year rotation, the organizers will keep moving it around, careful to avoid any blatant home bias (i.e., holding it in Kansas City or Louisville). 

According to the release article, all four representative coaches were immediately on board with this idea, and it makes us wonder if the organizers were four-for-four in their solicitations for this event.  There’s one notable name missing, of course, and that’s North Carolina.  We wonder if the Heels ever got the call, or whether Duke was #1A and Carolina was #1B in terms of fielding an ACC team in the Classic.  Of course it wouldn’t make sense to have both because they wouldn’t play each other and it would mess up the rotation, but presumably the organizers could have considered slotting one or the other into the event in different years.  We like it better this way, though.  It provides consistency over the three years and we can already start slobbering on our keyboards about future matchups.  Furthermore, even though the NCAA needs to clean up the trickling-out problem of the start of the season, the Champions Classic will go a country mile in slapping America across the forehead that college hoops is back, baby, and you should pay attention.  Great decision. 

Game #65.  RTC Live heads to an old familiar in the form of Louisville’s Freedom Hall, but the Cardinals of Rick Pitino won’t actually be there. 

Our next stop is at Freedom Hall on Wednesday night as Notre Dame (8-0) makes the trip to the Bluegrass for one heck of a road test against Kentucky (5-2). True, Freedom Hall isn’t Kentucky’s home court (nor is it Louisville’s, now), so one could say that that techincally makes this a neutral site game. Don’t kid yourself. They’ve actually turned the Freedom Hall floor blue and painted Kentucky’s logo at center court, and Louisville is loaded with UK supporters, too, so there’s nothing neutral about this. The Irish are playing excellent basketball and a win here would be a superb resume-builder come March, but Kentucky’s still stinging from the loss at North Carolina and could use a win against a ranked team to boost its confidence after dropping two of their last three and taking a hit in the polls; could a loss here send the team with the nation’s best recruiting class out of the Top 25? And they say early December basketball doesn’t mean anything. We disagree. The live blog window opens at 9:15 pm ET for this SEC/Big East Invitational contest. Read the rest of this entry »

***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Two clashes featuring SEC East schools headline tonight’s slate, plus we have a couple interesting west coast games later tonight. All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

#24 Vanderbilt @ #15 Missouri – 9 pm on ESPNU (****)

Vandy's Festus Ezeli is Playing Great This Year

Vanderbilt has flown under the radar for the most part but they’ve now been recognized and cracked our RTC Top 25 this week. Kevin Stallings seems to produce a solid program every year in Nashville, winning at least 20 games in five of the past seven seasons. Vandy is 7-1, their only loss coming by three to West Virginia in Puerto Rico. The Commodores knocked off North Carolina to finish third in that tournament, the first win in a five-game winning streak since the WVU game. Vanderbilt is a solid defensive club that also likes to play at a quick pace, something they’ll see a lot of from their opponent tonight. Missouri loves the pressure defense and fast pace, ranking #14 in tempo. Mizzou is a prolific offensive team because of all the extra possessions they create, averaging 85 PPG on 48% shooting. The Tigers love to force turnovers (#8 in defensive turnover percentage) and should get quite a few against a Vanderbilt team ranked #226 in turnover percentage, but defense has been a struggle for them. Missouri is ranked in the 200’s in effective field goal percentage against, three and two point defense as well as opponents free throws per field goals meaning they foul a lot. Mike Anderson’s team also gives the ball away an average of 15 times per contest, less than they force but still a cause for concern. Aside from the great game against Georgetown last week, Missouri hasn’t been tested by a strong opponent. They were down early against the Hoyas and it was interesting to look at the box score and see the minutes break down for the Mizzou players. Anderson stuck with his starters, playing them for 202 of the 225 (90%) available minutes in the game. While it’s inconclusive, that may have resulted in lots of tired legs towards the end of regulation and certainly in the overtime session. Michael Dixon and Marcus Denmon anchor the Tiger back court. Dixon takes great care of the ball, averaging 2.56 assists for every turnover, and will match up against Brad Tinsley (9/5/5), also a good distributor. Denmon is Anderson’s biggest three point threat, hitting 56% of his treys this season. Denmon against Vanderbilt’s John Jenkins will be a great matchup to watch. Jenkins, one of the best three point shooters in the nation last season at 48%, struggled early but has hit 14-29 (48%) over his last four games, right on his number from last year. Overall he’s still at 38% but leads the team in scoring at 19 PPG. Jenkins struggled in Vandy’s last game against Belmont but expect him to be fired up and ready to go against a guy like Denmon. The Commodores need a good outing from Jenkins to be able to win but they also have a secondary deep threat in Jeffery Taylor, something Missouri doesn’t have at this time with their other shooters struggling a bit. As a team, Vanderbilt attempts an average of 21 three’s a game. Another great matchup will occur in the paint between Mizzou’s Ricardo Ratliffe and Vandy’s Festus Ezeli. Ezeli has three inches and 15 pounds on Ratliffe but the Missouri forward is more athletic and can move the Nigerian center around. Ezeli averages 13/8 on 67% FG while blocking two shots a game. Ratliffe will have his hands full but should be able to draw fouls with his superior athleticism. With Ezeli in the fold, Vanderbilt has a rebounding advantage and they do a great job keeping their opponents off the offensive boards. That’ll be important against a Missouri team that’s always looking for extra shots and possessions. Should this game come down to free throws, advantage Vandy. The Commodores shoot 76% from the line as a team led by Jenkins’ 91%. Vanderbilt can definitely win this game but it’ll be tough in the raucous environment of Mizzou Arena. While this game probably won’t be as good as the Mizzou/Georgetown game, expect a great one in Columbia this evening.

SEC/Big East Invitational: #21 Kentucky vs. #22 Notre Dame (in Louisville, KY) – 9:30 pm on ESPN (****)

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Game #64.  RTC Live is proud to enter the hallowed halls of the Palestra for the first time as Big 5 rival Villanova makes a visit.

There’s no denying Penn is much improved this year after three difficult seasons, but beating Villanova in tonight’s Big 5 matchup at the Palestra will be a tall task for Jerome Allen and his Ivy League crew. Led by the dynamic guard trio of Corey Fisher, Corey Stokes and Maalik Wayns, Villanova (6-1) figure to be one of the top teams in the nation throughout the 2010-11 campaign. The Wildcats, however, are currently dealing with an internal issue as freshman Jayvaughn Pinkston was suspended for the entire season earlier this week for a campus fight. The Quakers, meanwhile, are above .500 at 4-3 but are coming off wins against less-than-stellar opponents UMBC and Army. Penn has not beaten Villanova since the 2002-03 season.

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If you haven’t heard, this year’s Duke team is pretty darn good.  The defending national champions are loaded with talent on every area of the court and they’ve looked mighty impressive in the pre-conference slate against an impressive cast of characters — #5 Kansas State, #6 Michigan State, Marquette and defending runner-up, Butler.  As great teams are expected to do, they’ve  handled the contenders and destroyed the pretenders on their way to an 8-0 record. According to Ken Pomeroy’s latest figures, the Blue Devils have the most efficient offense in the nation and the fifth-most efficient defense — their efficiency margin of 36.8 points per 100 possessions is the best around, and they’ve been doing it against a schedule that rates in the top 25 through the first month of the season.  On most nights, the talented combination of playmakers featuring the versatile trio of Kyrie Irving, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler will be enough to secure another win for Coach K’s team; on the rare night when the offense sputters, the Blue Devil defense will keep the game close until the last few possessions, and Duke will have arguably the best point guard in the game handling the rock in crunch time. What’s not to like?

One of the Few Things Coach K Hasn't Done is Go Unbeaten

With the usually-reliable ACC looking like a mangled mess of mediocrity outside of Durham this year, some of the early-season buzz has already noted that Duke has gotten through the toughest part of its 2010-11 regular season schedule.  Liberally allowing for many of those good-not-great teams (i.e., Virginia Tech, UNC, Maryland, BC, etc.) to put it together and make the NCAA Tournament this year, Duke will have at most between 6-10 remaining games against quality competition the rest of the way, making for an interesting barstool debate over whether the Devils can run the table this season.  The argument goes as such:

1. The remaining nonconference schedule is manageable.  Even considering the ACC as down (see #2), there are seven more non-conference games on the slate.  The next four — Bradley, St. Louis, Elon, UNC-Greensboro — are home or quasi-home games that Duke should have no trouble with.  Two others — UAB and Temple — are also home games that they typically win, although they’ll need to perform well against the Owls.  The last — a roadie to play St. John’s in another familiar environment, Madison Square Garden — is interesting on its face but will ultimately depend on how much Steve Lavin’s team progresses over the next two months.
2. The ACC is down, way down.  In a typical year the best team in the ACC can expect to be put through the ringer with trips to Maryland, UNC, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, NC State, Florida State, etc., pending.  Duke has all of those road games on the schedule, but already half of those teams have lost home games this year, and all of them will eventually.  The essential point is that if you’re not good enough to generally protect your home court against the likes of Stetson, Virginia or even Florida, you’re not likely to do so against Duke, an outfit that prides itself on road conference wins.
3. Duke is not a team that is prone to many letdowns.  There are some schools that for whatever reason do not seem to take the regular season as seriously as they do the postseason.  Michigan State comes to mind immediately, but there are others.  Coach K has never been one of those coaches — in fact, a common critique through the mid-late 2000s was that he wore his teams down by overworking them during the regular season so that they had nothing left in the tank for the NCAAs.  Still, the Devils more than any other team and regardless of personnel tend to come strong all year long.  It’s difficult to catch them snoozing, one of the key recipes for a team to pull a major upset. Read the rest of this entry »

1. In the wake of last night’s Jimmy V Classic where Kansas beat Memphis, two different national writers came up with dramatically different takes as to how KU will handle the addition of Rivals’ #1 recruit Josh Selby later this month.  Jason King believes that the conventional wisdom — that adding a star player to an already talented group — will make Kansas into a great team; while Jeff Goodman takes the contrary position that Selby may upset the fragile chemistry of a team that Bill Self has playing great already — especially guard Tyshawn Taylor, the player most likely to be impacted by Selby’s court time.  Regardless, everyone will be watching in ten days when USC visits Allen Fieldhouse for the ginormous debut of the player who could make or break Kansas’ season.
2. Speaking of ineligible players, need an update on the Enes Kanter eligibility case (and we know you do)?  Matt Jones of KSR interviews The Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy in this video clip that discusses the various possibilities surrounding the big Turk’s situation, especially as it relates to the argument that Auburn successfully made to get quarterback Cam Newton eligible.  There’s still not timetable on this situation, but news could come literally any day now.
3. Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress takes a look at the six freshmen who NBA scouts have been the most impressed with in the early going this season.  It should come as utterly no surprise that Duke’s Kyrie Irving, Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger and Kentucky’s Terrence Jones have been popping the most eyeballs in the early going.  One notable name not on the list: none other than preseason AP All-American, Harrison Barnes.
4. While on the subject of elite freshmen, Luke Winn writes about his concept of Freshmen Who Fit, basically asserting that part of the reason for frosh who succeed has as much to do with talent as it does to finding the right situation.  True in most aspects of life, it’s a poignant yet simple concept that still most people tend to overlook.  He suggests that Tennessee’s Tobias Harris is the best example of this, and adds four other names to the list.  Worth a read.
5. Arizona is getting some early-season love from the hoopsnoscenti for its play so far this season, sitting at 7-1 with its only loss to Kansas and boasting one of the best power forwards in the nation, Derrick Williams.  In this video clip promoted through Pac-10 Digital, Sean Miller talks about what he expects from his team this season and how he’s going about  rebuilding a program in the desert.  Within a couple years, we believe that Arizona will once again be the dominant force in the Pac-10.