Last night in the CBE Classic semifinals, we saw the traditional powers Texas and Pittsburgh impose their will on inferior teams that were hanging around into the second half.  Rick Barnes’ Longhorns looked like a young, undisciplined team that should have been embarrassed with itself in the first half; and a dominating defensive juggernaut during the second stanza when the Horns eviscerated the outmatched Iowa Hawkeyes with and out-of-the-locker-room 17-0 run to put the game away.  In three games, as well as Texas has been playing offensively (all wins by 25+ pts), it’s been their tough-nosed defense that has been masterful.  Teams are shooting 29% from two and 17% from three against the deep, rangy Horns, and it will be up to Pitt coach Jamie Dixon to help his team find the seams in that defense.  Pitt, of course, returns none of its major stars from last year, but Dixon’s teams always compete, and so far this season sophomore Ashton Gibbs (17 PPG) and freshman Travon Woodall (11/4/7 APG) have been playing well.  On paper, the CBE Classic final appears to be a mismatch, but we’re interested to see if Dixon can successfully employ a strategy to slow down the talented Horns.  Join us tonight for another RTC Live from Kansas City.

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Each week RTC will posit a That’s Debatable question or topic that is relevant to the world of college basketball.  Sometimes whimsical, sometimes serious, we’ll post the thoughts of our core editing crew (in 200 words or less), but we’ll also be expanding to include our contributors and correspondents as appropriate throughout the season.  We also invite you, the readers, to join us as we mull over some of the questions facing the game today.  Feel free to send us your takes and/or leave them in the comments below.

This Week’s Topic: Thanksgiving week is upon us, and families everywhere around the country will come together to give thanks for the numerous people and things important to them.  What will some of the nation’s top college basketball coaches give thanks for during this week of reflection and thought?

nvr1983 – editor/contributor, RTC

One of the people who should be thankful this Thanksgiving is Thad Matta. When last season ended two of his players were contemplating leaving school early to go to the NBA: B.J. Mullens and Evan Turner. While Mullens was the more highly rated recruit, he hadn’t quite lived up to those expectations. Although Turner was no slouch in high school (he was a 4-star recruit), he didn’t come to Columbus with the same expectations. By the end of last season, both players we predicted to be mid- to late-first round picks. As you all know Mullens decided to leave school early and ended up being selected #24 overall by the Mavericks before being traded to the Thunder where he is averaging 3 PPG and 1 RPG in 15.8 MPG. Turner decided to stay in Columbus for at least one more season and is the early favorite for National Player of the Year after starting the season averaging 21.8 PPG (on 59% FG), 14.8 RPG, 6 APG, and 1.8 SPG for the Buckeyes. If Mullens had stayed and Turner had left OSU wouldn’t be a top 25 team, but because the roles were reversed they could be a top 10 team.

rtmsf – editor/contributor, RTC

While many coaches across the land will give thanks this week for a top recruit or a big win or still having a paying job, BYU coach Dave Rose will be thankful that he’s still around to coach his team.  You see, on June 17 of last summer, Rose was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and as far as pancreatic cancers go, his wasn’t the worst kind, but seeing those two words together (“pancreatic” and “cancer”) is never a good thing.  He had emergency surgery the very next day to remove part of his spleen and pancreas, and after a quick recovery, he now sits as the head coach of a strong 3-0 team with aspirations to win the Mountain West and make some noise in this year’s NCAA Tournament.  Oh, and did I mention that all tests show that he is completely cancer-free?  BYU feels so highly about Rose that the school gave him a 5-year extension through the 2014 season, showing their faith in both his coaching acumen as well as his health.  There’s no greater gift than the one of life, and Rose is undoubtedly living each day as if it were his last — now that’s something to be thankful for!

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1. South Carolina’s Dominique Archie is out indefinitely after spraining his right knee coming down from a dunk in Sunday night’s game against Miami (FL).  Archie was averaging 14/6 for the Gamecocks, who will definitely miss the athletic forward’s presence in the lineup.  Tough games against Western Kentucky, Clemson and Richmond loom in the next two weeks for South Carolina, and with the loaded SEC East waiting in the new year, the Cocks can’t afford to have Archie out of the lineup for very long.
2. Pac-10 Pile On.  Normally, we’d be inclined to take a contrarian stance when all of the media is ready to pile on someone or something (assuming such a stance is defensible), but there’s really no possible way to defend what the Pac-10 has done to itself so far this season.  Sacramento State, Loyola Marymount and now Montana – really?  Goodman and Decourcy weigh in on what is after two weeks shaping up to be a historically bad conference.
3. Pitino/Calipari.  We read this on the plane home this weekend and it’s now available on CNNSI as well as the print form that we’re forced to read while traveling in a wifi-less aluminum tube at 600 mph.  Grant Wahl breaks down the complex relationship between the two major head coaches in the state of Kentucky, ultimately concluding that for all their differences, they’re actually very much the same.
4. Bob Huggins continues to play the Dick Cheney card when questioned about whether his star Devin Ebanks will be playing anytime soon for West Virginia.  The Mountaineer forward did not play in WVU’s first game last week and Huggins says he does not know if Ebanks will play this week in their game against The Citadel on Tuesday or in the 76 Classic over the weekend.
5. Andy Katz had a long blog post yesterday on the latest in the Renardo Sidney situation at Mississippi State, in addition to a somewhat reasonable defense of the Gazelle Group’s rigged “tournaments.”  The skinny: the NCAA is no hurry to move the Sidney thing along and the MSU people believe that they’re fishing for a violation to hang their hat on; and Katz actually agrees with the idea that GG is using to set up big matchups in key venues (such as Cal vs. Syracuse and UNC vs. Ohio State last week in the CvC).  Sorry, but we cannot go along with this.  Win the games and you get to advance.  Period.  You can manipulate the brackets to get good matchups all you want, but once the games begin, we need to let the teams decide.

Game of the Night.  Purdue 73, Tennessee 72.  This game between two of the best teams in the Big Ten and SEC was a back-and-forth affair that predictably came down to the final possession.  It was that final possession, however, that exhibited why we tend to not believe in Bruce Pearl’s Vols as a true contender while giving Purdue much more credit.  After Purdue’s Kelsey Barlow bricked two FTs that would have given the Boilermakers a three-point lead with 17 seconds remaining, UT’s Bobby Maze dribbled down and found career 32% three-point shooter Wayne Chism at the top of the key… for a three?  Um, guys, all you need is a two!  Penetrate the lane and put it on the rim!  It’s not that Chism couldn’t have made the shot — he was in fact having a great game with 24/6 — but it wasn’t a high-percentage shot, and the Vol players need to know that.  It’s that kind of shoddy decisionmaking (and defense) that we’ve routinely seen out of these Vols that makes us have our doubts.  Purdue gutted out this one behind Robbie Hummel’s 20/7 and E’Twaun Moore’s 22/3/3 assts, and Matt Painter’s team will go home with the trophy from the Paradise Jam this year.

Maui Invitational.

• Gonzaga 76, Colorado 72. The Zags’ heads were clearly still on the mainland tonight as they came out very sluggish and allowed Colorado to build a double-digit lead and shoot 53% from the floor before rallying back to take a late lead and win a first-round Maui tilt against Colorado.  Steven Gray (27/4) and Matt Bouldin (25/4/4 assts) led the way for Gonzaga, while Cory Higgins (19/6) led the charge for the Buffs.
• Wisconsin 65, Arizona 61.  Other than UT-Purdue, this was the next best game of the day, and for a while, it appeared that Sean Miller’s young Arizona team might get a confidence-inspiring win after getting off to a horrific start (down 16-2) in this game.  In a typically ugly fashion, Wisconsin defended all over the place, but Arizona freshman Derrick Williams (25/8) kept making big plays on the interior to keep UA in the game.  Is it possible that Arizona, with all their personnel losses, is one of the best teams in the Pac-10 (answer: yes)?
• #22 Maryland 79, Chaminade 51.  Is something wrong with Greivis Vasquez?  For the fourth straight game this season, the electrifying guard put up only single-figure points (6/5 assts).  Having not seen his games, it’s possible that he is eschewing individual scoring to set up his teammates (such as Sean Mosley, who had 19/8), but we’re intrigued at this point to see what he does against Cincinnati tomorrow.
• Cincinnati 67, #24 Vanderbilt 58.  This is the Cincy team that everyone was talking about leading up to the season, as the tougher Bearcats dominated Vandy on the glass (45-27) and took residence in their jerseys the rest of the time, holding Vandy to a paltry 28% from the field.  In an ugly game, Yancy Gates led the way with 16/10, and hyped super-recruit Lance Stephenson contributed 8/5.

Upset of the Night (aka Pac-10 Loser of the Night).  Montana 68, Oregon 55.  When oh when will the embarrassments for the Pac-10 end?  Sacramento State, Loyola Marymount, Cal State Fullerton… now add Montana to the list.  Look, we know that Montana is a favorite in the Big Sky, but this is Oregon’s McArthur Court, a place that used to be a difficult venue for opposing teams — especially those from mid-major conferences — to play.  The Grizzlies’ star, Anthony Johnson, lived at the line for 20/4/3 assts as the league picked up its twelfth loss of the early season already.  Montana shot 51% while Oregon foundered in the low 30s… at home.  Things may not get better for this league until they start playing each other in January (it doesn’t look so bad because not everyone can lose). 

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Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is an occasional contributor and the RTC correspondent for the NEC and MAAC conferences.

NEW YORK CITY –  A final look back on Coaches vs. Cancer from a tempo free perspective.  The first semifinal was a blowout with Syracuse dominating California 95-73. The other semifinal, North Carolina vs. Ohio State, was a rout for the Tar Heels.  Down the stretch, Ohio State, which shot a putrid 1 of 10 beyond the arc in the first half, suddenly found the range. It was a one possession game with under twenty seconds to play. The Buckeyes never drew even and Carolina prevailed 77-73. The offensive efficiency tale of two halves:

North Carolina had a more even distribution with a 103 offensive efficiency and a 101 mark for the game. The strong second half showing by the Buckeyes was largely due to the Buckeyes’ shooting 17 of 30 (57%) for the final twenty minutes, including 5 of 11 from three.

Beware of the turnover. Tempo-free advocates and  coaches agree, twenty percent or one-fifth of your possessions resulting in a turnover is not conducive to offensive efficiency, or winning. In the first semifinal, California had a TO rate of 19% (15 turnovers on 81 possessions). Not a bad showing, but upon further review, Syracuse had 10 steals and scored 19 points off Cal turnovers, which is indeed damaging. The problem is that not all turnovers are created equal. If you throw a pass out of bounds, the ball is dead and you can organize your defense.  However, if the ball is stolen at midcourt your opponent has a great transition opportunity which often leads to a score.

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After last week when we really kicked off the season, our list of games this week is a little weak to be quite blunt primarily because of the Thanksgiving holiday break. Don’t worry though. It’s not all football games and turkey. There are some interesting games this week that are worth following even if you are travelling (or like some of us here) working during the week. Today we only have one game worth Tivo-ing, but it is one of the more intriguing games so far this season.

Cornell at #9 Syracuse at 7 PM on ESPN360.com: We mentioned this game in our post naming Syracuse as our Team of the Week. Everybody has been praising the Orange (and for good reason), but those who follow college basketball closely know that they could very easily lose to the Big Red, which is something I am sure that Jim Boeheim has stressed to his players since the morning after their huge win over UNC. After their wins over Caland UNC this past week everybody knows about the Orange. They have one of the best frontcourts in the nation with Wesley Johnson, Rick Jackson, Kris Joseph, and Arinze Onuaku complimented by some outstanding perimeter play (so far) from Scoop Jardine, Andy Rautins, and Brandon Triche. The country isn’t quite as familiar with Cornell who have already notched impressive road wins at Alabama and UMass before falling by 10 at home against Seton Hall. The Big Red are led by Ryan Wittman (17 PPG and 4 APG)–one of the nation’s top  players that the casual fan doesn’t know about–who is complimented by fellow seniors Louis Dale (13.7 PPG and 3.7 APG)  and Jeff Foote(11.0 PPG and 8.7 RPG). If the Orange need any motivation to get up for this game, Boeheim will just have to remind them of last year when they barely outlasted Wittman and his game-high 33 points  before pulling away late. We expect the Orange to win this one since they are the more talented team and are playing at home, but don’t be surprised to see Cornell hanging around as I’m sure their players have been looking forward to this game for quite some time as it is the second biggest game on their schedule trailing only their trip to Allen Fieldhouse on January 6th to take on preseason #1 Kansas. While I think that motivation will aid the Big Red, it probably won’t be enough to make up for their massive disadvantage inside where they won’t have an answer for the Orange big men and Johnson in particular.

Now that every team has a handful of games under its belt, we feel a little more justified in moving teams around based on what we’ve seen and read so far.  With that in mind, here’s this week’s RTC Top 25.  Analysis to follow after the jump…

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1. UCLA’s Nikola Dragovic was arrested and subsequently suspended by head coach Ben Howland for felony assault stemming from an incident at a Hollywood concert last month.  This is the second physical-force-related arrest for Dragovic in the past two seasons, as he was also arrested on suspicion of shoving his girlfriend during an argument last year.  He was not prosecuted for that allegation, but we’re starting to have serious reservations about the talented Serb’s anger management.  UCLA is not off to a good start at all this season, including numerous injuries, a loss to Cal State Fullerton, and now an arrest to one of their top returnees all within the first five weeks.
2. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird headlined this year’s inductees to the National Collegiate Hall of Fame, along with several other luminaries of the game, including former Michigan State head coach Jud Heathcote, Oklahoma star Wayman Tisdale, all-time NCAA leading scorer Travis Grant, former UCLA/UAB coach Gene Bartow, USA Basketball leader Bill Wall, and Walter Byers, the first executive director of the NCAA.
3. To that end, here’s a Bird/Magic story you probably don’t already know.  From the KC Star, the two players were invited to compete on a World Invitational Tournament team coached by then-national championship Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall.  Astonishingly, both players were put on the second string by Hall, and shockers, neither of them particularly liked that.  Read about the whole story at the above link.
4. A lot was written after the Syracuse second-half bombardment of North Carolina on Friday night, including here.  Some of the better pieces were from Jeff Goodman, Seth Davis, and Adam Zagoria.
5. In case you missed it, the #1-rated power forward in the class of 2010, Tobias Harris, committed to Tennessee at the end of last week.  The 6’8 player who likes what Tyler Smith has been able to accomplish in Knoxville is the highest-rated player UT has ever signed.  He also considered Maryland, Syracuse, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Louisville and West Virginia.

It was an odd weekend of basketball.  The games weren’t all that interesting — at least when compared to Friday night, for example — but there was plenty to talk about when scores started rolling in.  Mainly, it was a weekend that had few storylines other than Pac-10/SEC incompetence and prep work for all of the holiday tournaments that start this week.

Pac-10 Nightmare Saturday.

• Loyola Marymount 67, USC 59. Will this ultimately be the worst BCS team loss of the entire season?  LMU won a total of three games last season, and while the Lions are undoubtedly better, there is absolutely no excuse for them to beat a Pac-10 team on their homecourt.  Ever.  We understand that Kevin O’Neill has virtually no depth at his disposal, but come on…
• Sacramento State 65, Oregon State 63.  Regression to the mean on OSU this year?  All the great work Craig Robinson put in to make a horrid team competitive seems to have gone by the wayside this year, as the Beavers laid another stinker against a team they should easily handle at home.  Down 22 at the half, OSU rallied back behind Seth Tarver’s 14/10, but it was too little too late.  The Pac-10 RPI continues to sink.
• Portland 88, Oregon 81. This is actually the one loss that should have been expected, as Portland is likely to be the better team this year.  Nik Raivio had 24/8 and his frontcourt mate had 17/8 as they shredded the Duck defense for 53% from the field and 58% from deep.  This will end up being a win that Portland will look favorably upon later this season.

More Upsets This Weekend.

• VCU 82, #17 Oklahoma 69.  This seemed like a trap game when reviewing schedules, and it turned out to be one.  Willie Warren had a disastrous game, shooting only 3-14 (0-8 from three) and committing six turnovers in the outing.  Freshmen Tiny Gallon and Tommy Mason-Griffin combined for 25/18/6 assts, but VCU’s stars Larry Sanders (17/4/3 blks) and Jay Gavin (20/5/3 assts) outperformed them in Jeff Capel’s return trip to his old coaching haunt.
• Temple 71, Siena 67.  The Saints found themselves on the wrong end of a 13-0 second half run by Temple that gave up their hard-earned halftime lead.  Juan Fernandez led the Owls with 20/3 assts, but it was Siena’s poor three-point shooting (1-9) that ultimately doomed them in this game.  Alex Franklin had 22/6 and Ryan Rossiter had 8/11, but Siena will need to play better in coming weeks to make a push for an at-large should they not win the MAAC Tournament.
• Vermont 77, Rutgers 71.  Vermont should be proud to have gone into a Big East arena of a team that some expect to make waves this season and get a big win.  Marqus Blakely did everything — 17/9/2 assts/4 stls/5 blks — as UVM gutted out a hard-fought victory in Piscataway.
• Kansas State 83, #21 Dayton 75.  Really not much of an upset, but a good team was going to leave Puerto Rico 1-2, and Dayton is the unlucky recipient.  Jacob Pullen had 26/5/4 assts for K-State, while Dayton’s Chris Wright came through with 15/10 on the other side.

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For our third week of RTC Lives of the young season, we’ll be back in Missouri for two more neutral-site games at the still-shiny-and-new Sprint Center on the other side of the state, in Kansas City.  The CBE Classic semifinals feature Pittsburgh vs. Wichita State in the early game (tip at 7:30 pm ET) and #3 Texas vs. Iowa in the nightcap (tip at 10 pm ET).  While Texas is the only powerhouse of the four teams playing in the CBE this year, the early game of Pitt-Wichita State could present an interesting situation of a rising mid-major seeking respect against a rebuilding power.  Iowa is the lone dog of the group; but for the Gazelle Group’s insistence on pre-bracketing teams into the semifinal slots, they wouldn’t even be here, as both UT-San Antonio and Duquesne beat the Hawkeyes in the subregionals last week.  If they can stay within thirty point of Rick Barnes’ talented crew, that’ll be a win right there.  Join us for another night of great basketball on the plains!

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