(* for those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Mackey, click here for his personal saga….)

The Indianapolis Star reported tonight that former Hoosier standout Eric Gordon spent time living off-campus during last year’s tumultuous season  in large part because of the drug use that was occurring among members of his team.  He declined to name names of the users, but he did say the following:

Gordon didn’t say which players used drugs, but he said D.J. White and two others still on the team were among those who did not. Attempts to reach White and several other former players were not successful.  Gordon said Sampson “tried to stop it,” but the coach “was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything.”  Gordon said he spent considerable time with a family friend in Bloomington because the atmosphere around some players was so bad he didn’t feel comfortable on campus.  “Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even a real basketball team because of all the turmoil that went on,” said Gordon, now a starting guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. “I was just thinking about that the other day. It was so crazy that all that stuff threw off a good season and made it a waste, basically.  “It was really tough for us to be around each other all the time off the court because we were so separate.”

photo credit: cartoonstock.com

If true, this confirms one of the oft-repeated rumors in Bloomington as to the seedy underbelly that led to the demise of Kelvin Sampson possibly even moreso than his ridiculous phone call scandal.  Certainly if Sampson had knowledge of certain players using drugs and he “tried to stop it” but ultimately turned a blind eye to the matter, then Indiana administrators – no dummies, them – would have caught wind of this problem and looked for any way possible to get rid of him.  This also explains the mass exodus that took place both prior to and upon Tom Crean’s arrival in Bloomington.

data source: statsheet.com

We do have one question for Eric Gordon, though, and this in no way should be taken to suggest that we think HE was involved in any illegal activities.  But, it’s a little hypocritical to throw a bunch of your teammates under the bus for a failed season when your own numbers dropped significantly in the last two months of the season, isn’t it (see above fg%)?  Perhaps he’d argue that his mind wasn’t into it anymore because his teammates were more concerned with snorting blow than beating Izzo, but we think, as the best player on the team, he should have taken some responsibility and looked into the mirror with the rest of the clowns to explain IU’s miserable finish in 2007-08 (8-6 after beginning 17-1) .

Update:  We wanted to address a post by the Indiana blog Cannot Falter, which accuses us of shooting ourselves Plaxico Burress-style by failing to mention that Gordon was suffering through an injury to his non-shooting wrist through the second half of the 2007-08 season.  They’re right in that we should have mentioned it as a contributing factor, and for that omission, we apologize.  They’re wrong in that we still don’t believe that was the sole reason for his precipitous decline in play, ESPECIALLY after Kelvin Sampson was fired (the wrist injury was on Jan. 29; IU’s first game w/o Sampson was on Feb. 23).  Not only did Gordon’s FG% drop to a disastrous 32 percent over his last seven games post-Sampson, but he also committed 4.2 turnovers per game in that span (from 46.6% and 3.4 tos).  Was that all due to his wrist injury?  Or did he quit playing and lose focus along with the rest of his drug-addled teammates in those games after his coach was let go?  You tell us.

Here it is, through Monday night’s games…

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Big East/SEC Invitational. This is so ridiculous.  Tonight was the opening night of yet another conference challenge series invitational that theoretically is a great idea, but is executed all wrong by the powers-that-be.  Why don’t the Pac-10, Big 12, SEC and Big East realize that interest will be much greater in these things if they’re made into week-long EVENTS, similar to the way the ACC and Big 10 do it, and they let ESPN carry all the games throughout the week.  The Pac-10/Big 12 Hardwood Series is bad enough, considering nobody even knows about it; but this Big East/SEC thing is an abomination.  It only involves four teams from each conference, and somehow a team like South Florida gets invited.  South Florida… most people don’t even realize that USF is IN the Big East or even carries a basketball program!  Furthermore, they’ve decided to have doubleheaders in semi-neutral venues, which only serves to confuse people and create situations where half the stands are empty, even though two top 25 teams are playing (see: UT-Marquette tonight in Nashville).  How cool would it be to have three legitimate made-for-tv challenges between all the power conferences in the first three weeks of December, leading into Bowl Week?  Make this happen.  FYI – the much-maligned SEC went 2-0 tonight, but who wouldn’t beat South Florida?

• Tennessee 80, Marquette 62. The score was Marquette by 2 with just over ten minutes remaining.  Then Tennessee and, more precisely, Mr. Headband as Yarmulke Wayne Chism, took over the game.  The Vols scored on eleven of their next twelve possessions, and Chism was involved in seven of them.  Game pretty much over.  Chism, incidentally, set a new career-high with 26 pts and 11 rebounds, and it was clear that in the second half he was feeling it.  The Vols didn’t get a huge amount of production from anyone else, though, (Tyler Smith had 14/3; Bobby Maze 10/6 assts) but their long arms and athletic defense did force Marquette into its worst shooting performance of the season (38%).  Wesley Matthews continued to show his value, as he dropped 30 (15 from the line) on a myriad of drives and scoop shots in the lane.  Matthews is #2 in the nation in FT attempts (97), behind only Blake Griffin, which shows just how frequently he gets into the paint and absorbs contact.
• Vanderbilt 71, South Florida 52. We’re not going to spend too much time on this turd of game, but one interesting aspect of it was that the much-ballyhooed Mike Mercer (transfer from Georgia) and Gus Gilchrist (transfer from Maryland, sorta) made their tv debuts.  Mercer had 10/3 assts, while Gilchrist added 12/8 off the bench.  Anyone expecting these two players to turn USF into a Big East contender should have their heads examined.  AJ Ogilvy and Jermaine Beal had twenty each for the Commodores.

This Sweaty Vol Fan Was Outworking Wayne Chism Tonight

It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp.

• LMU’s Bill Bayno is taking a leave of absence due to a “serious medical condition” related to coaching-related stress.  Maybe the 0-10 record with a trip scheduled to Pauley on Wednesday had something to do with it.
• Mississippi State’s Rick Stansbury was hospitalized yesterday with migraines and flu-like symptoms, although further tests were being done.
• Mike Davis lost half of his team today, as former Hoosier Armon Bassett decided to transfer (whereabouts unknown), and three other players were found academically ineligible for the spring semester.   UAB is now down to six scholarship players.
• RIP, Pete Newell.

Scores that Have Us Wishing For Saturday.

• Clemson 76, North Florida 36. In the past seven years, Clemson has had starts of 10-0, 17-0, 11-0, 9-0, and now in 2008-09, 11-0 again.  In those other four unbeaten starts, the final result was two NITs, one NCAA first round loss, and one losing record.  Woo.  Hoo.
• Texas 88, Texas Southern 72. We’ve said it before, but if Dexter Pittman (19/5) gets going, Texas is a whole different animal.  One troubling aspect of tonight’s game is they allowed 0-9 TSU to shoot 58% against them – Rick Barnes cannot be happy about that.

On Tap Wednesday (all times EST). Nothing like a Duke v. UNC-Asheville game (w/o Kenny George) to keep us warm at night.  We’re actually very intrigued with how Syracuse responds 48 hrs after losing at home, whether Pitt will dominate a good Siena team, and if St. Mary’s can go into Mac Court and beat a young Oregon team.

• NC State (-9.5) v. East Carolina – 7pm
• Syracuse (-25) v. Canisius (ESPNU) – 7pm
• Duke v. UNC-Asheville (ESPN2) – 7:30pm
• LSU v. Nicholls St. (ESPN FC & 360) – 8pm
• Memphis (-22) v. Arkansas-Little Rock – 8pm
• Arkansas (-6.5) v. Austin Peay (ESPN FC & 360) – 8pm
• Ohio St. v. Jacksonville (ESPNU) – 9pm
• Pittsburgh (-18.5) v. Siena (ESPN2) – 9:30pm
• St. Mary’s (-2.5) @ Oregon – 10pm
• UNLV (-10) v. Santa Clara – 10:30pm
• UCLA (-30.5) v. Loyola Marymount – 11pm

John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC.  His columns appear on Tuesdays throughout the season. 

It seems like we’re still feeling things out, getting our bearings, and getting to know some teams in this college basketball season, but believe it or not we are one-third through the 2008-09 campaign.  Pretty soon it’ll be the Christmas-time tournaments and then conference play, at which point the season seems to accelerate until we get to those beautiful, life-affirming days of the conference tournaments, Championship Week, and the NCAA Tournament.  I was browsing through some of the pre-season columns here on RTC and came across this one that talked about how the fair, wonderful, and beautiful people in Las Vegas saw the season shaping up.  Specifically, there’s a pretty sweet table listing every Division One squad with even the most remote chance of winning the 2009 title, and the money line they were offering for each team.

The Lemmings Survey the Cliff

(Note:  My sentiments above regarding the gambling gods in Las Vegas have nothing to do with the fact that the yearly RTC Vegas field trip is coming up in March.  I think those things are true, no matter what.  Wonderful, good-looking people they are, all of them.  Every one.  God bless them.  Seriously…)

Now, in case you don’t know how a money line works, here’s the deal.  Let’s say you go to a casino in Las Vegas and look up at the big board at the sportsbook and you see something that says North Carolina +300.  This means that if you think UNC will win the title in 2009, you walk up to the incredibly nice man at the front of the sportsbook and tell him you want to make that bet.  +300 means that if you bet $100 and UNC wins, the man will give you back $400, meaning the $300 offered in the money line, and your $100 bet (minus a small commission).  Often, you’ll see a negative number next to a team, like (and I’m just throwing this name out) Fordham –200.  This means that if you bet $200 to win (money lines can be applied to single games, conference titles, national championships, whatever) on Fordham, and Fordham wins, the nice man will hand you back $300 – the $200 you bet, and the $100 offered on that money line.  A positive number means that’s how much you’ll win if you bet $100.  A negative number means that’s what you have to bet in order to WIN $100.  And of course you can bet as much as you want up to the maximum, i.e. with UNC above, you can bet $10 and win $30, or you can bet $500 and win $1500.

The original article covered pretty much everything noteworthy about the accompanying preseason table, but a couple of other items stood out to me.  First of all, the very top.  Everyone knew how great UNC was going to be, but here’s Vegas, telling us that they’re willing to give us FOUR TIMES our money if we have the so-called guts to put some cash down on what might end up being one of the all-time great college teams.  Yeah, that sound you’re hearing right now?  That’s me kicking myself.  And without recapping the whole original article – who wouldn’t take a shot on Louisville and Connecticut (+1200 and 1400?!?)?  I also literally get dizzy and have to sit down when I see Pitt (+2000), Oklahoma (+3500), Gonzaga (+4000!!), and a pretty doggone hot and versatile Wake Forest team (offered at an abominable +8000).  Hey, Cincinnati readers, you looking for Xavier?  They’re not even listed.  You’d have to have your bet cheapened by taking the entire field at +1200.

But of course this is all with benefit of hindsight.  I had this information in the preseason just like everyone else and I just sat on it.  So the question becomes, where are we now?  What is Vegas offering?  Is there any value comparable to what we could have had in the preseason?  Well, wonder no more, my friends.  Here’s the latest:

source: thegreek.com

Vegas is still willing to almost triple your money with a bet on UNC, offering +175, claiming there’s a 36.4% chance that they’ll be raising the trophy in early April.  It looks like they’ve woke up to Gonzaga and Tennessee as well, despite recent losses, but certainly not enough to put anyone off such a wager.  But look at Louisville – true, they have a couple of things to iron out but that loss to Western Kentucky is far enough back in the rearview mirror, and since his days at Providence Rick Pitino has been the best in the business as far as 1) “learning” about his team from losses, and 2) getting his teams, and specifically the defense they play, to peak in March.  Are you telling me that if one of your friends came up to you right now and said, “Give me $10 right now.  If Louisville wins the title, I’ll hand you back $150,” you wouldn’t take that bet? 

Obviously the story here is that, because of the sheer dominance of North Carolina and the way they’ve just eclipsed the entire college basketball landscape, most of the tremendous value that was on the board back in November is still there even a third of the way into the season.  For some teams it’s come back a little (UConn, Oklahoma) but it’s still pretty inviting.  For other squads you can get even better deals than back in November (Louisville, Texas, Kansas, Pitt), and you have the Tar Heels to thank for that.  I mean, come on — they still don’t even bother to list #7 Xavier.  Vegas is telling us here that any bet against UNC is basically a sucker bet.  They might be right.  But they’re certainly willing to reward you like crazy if you feel adventurous enough to bet against the Tar Heels, should they falter. 

Upset of the Night. Cleveland St. 72, Syracuse 69. Cuse has been playing with fire at the Carrier Dome this season, needing comebacks to win against Richmond, Virginia and Cornell, and it appeared they were on track for another comeback, heading to OT after Arinze Onuaku’s putback of Andy Rautins’ missed three that tied the game with 2.2 seconds remaining in regulation.  Cleveland St.’s Cedric Jackson had other thoughts, as in… one sidestep dribble and a 60-foot heave at the rim that went glass and actually dropped for the three-point win – it was his first three of the night to fall (of five attempts).  CSU has now won their last three trips to the Carrier Dome (notably, their previous two were in the 1986 NCAA Tournament when they upset Indiana and St. Joe’s), and don’t sleep on the Vikings – this is a quality team that could win the Horizon and become a nightmare matchup for some unsuspecting power conference foe in the first round of the NCAAs.  J’Nathan Bullock laid an egg in the first half (zero pts), but stepped up for 18 in the second to lead the Vikings.  Jonny Flynn had 16/4/5 assts, but at least one Cuse blog thinks he sleptwalked through most of the game.

What Else You Weren’t Watching Tonight.

• Connecticut 91, Stony Brook 57. Stanley Robinson came off the bench for 7/5 in sixteen solid minutes in his first game back after spending the last five months laboring in a sheet metal and recycling company.  If he can give UConn what he gave the Huskies last year (10/7), then they could be phenomenal.
• Cincinnati 74, Charleston Southern 55. Mike Williams came off the bench to give 10/11 in a comeback win for the Bearcats.
• Northwestern 77, UMKC 62. The boys from Evanston keep winning games, now 7-1.
• Ole Miss 85, Alabama St. 81. David Huertas had 25/6/4 assts in the come-from-behind win for the Rebs.
• Texas A&M 67, Florida A&M 57. Chinemelu Elonu dropped 17/14/6 blks on the Rattlers.
• USC 91, Pepperdine 77. Taj Gibson dropped a career-high 25/11 as the Trojans shot a scorching 59% from the field.

On Tap Tuesday (all times EST). The SEC/Big East Invitational gets going in Nashville, but not much else.

• Vanderbilt v. South Florida (ESPN2) – 7pm
• Texas v. Texas Southern (ESPN FC & 360) – 8pm
• Tennessee v. Marquette (ESPN) – 9:30pm

Imagine that during your senior year of high school, you manage to scrape and claw your way onto the varsity basketball team.  You sit the bench, but you’re the first number called by the coach in most games, and you provide leadership, hustle and smarts in the twenty games you see action for your 26-2 conference championship team.  But a D1 collegiate prospect you’re assuredly not – your 3.4 ppg and 2.5 apg averages don’t even rise to the level of your GPA (4.3).  So you send your college applications out like everyone else in the Class of 2008, and the year of varsity hoops is but one of your many extracurriculars that you hope will give you an edge in the process.  Good fortune intervenes as you are accepted into your dream school, and before you know it, you’re not only on the varsity of a national powerhouse team coming off of three straight Final Four trips, but sitting on the bench in uniform alongside several HS all-americans and actually seeing a minute-plus of playing time in a real game against a Big East opponent (he missed his only three, by the way). 

John Wooden with great-grandson Tyler Trapani

Preposterous?  Nah.  Meet Tyler Trapani, UCLA’s walk-on seventeenth man, who also happens to be the great-grandson of a rather illustrious presence around Westwood – John Wooden.   Normally, we’d be up in arms over this clear case of nepotism, but actually, we don’t have any problem with this story.  As Ben Howland said in a recent AP report, he’s just acting as a caretaker for Coach Wooden’s program, and it’s not as if Trapani’s presence on the team otherwise injures any current Bruin’s standing (apparently, for most games he sits in the stands in street clothing). 

photo credit: Christian Petersen/Getty Images

As part of the Wooden Classic festivities against Depaul on Saturday, the elder Bruin coach was there when Trapani (#4) played for ninety glorious seconds.  Given that the current walk-on Bruin once as a child told his great-gramps that he already knew how to shoot the ball when “Papa” was trying to correct his form, what was the WoW’s take on his 6’0, 185-lb. scion’s all-around game? 

He’s a little heavy-footed, but he works hard for a young fellow just starting college.  He doesn’t have the quickness for changing direction that I always like to have.

Translation: I was too busy recruiting players like Lew Alcindor, Sidney Wicks, Walt Hazzard, Bill Walton, Marques Johnson, et al., than to go after slow-as-molasses chumps like you.  Still love ya, though, kid. 

Source: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/

Monday
– Stony Brook at #2 UConn at 7 PM on ESPN Full Court, ESPN360.com, and the Big East Network: The only way this game stays within 20 is if the Huskies actually have to take final exams. Nothing to see here unless you know one of the Huskies benchwarmers and want to see him get some PT.

– Cleveland State at #11 Syracuse at 7 PM on Time Warner-New York: Should be another snoozefest, but you might want to check the Orangemen out to see how they are adjusting to life without Eric Devendorf (or not). If Time Warner-New York is on their game, they will run a feature on the 1985-86 Cleveland State team that upset Indiana in the NCAA tournament that was documented in John Feinstein’s classic “Season on the Brink” (great winter break reading for the erudite RTC fan).

Tuesday
– South Florida vs. Vanderbilt at 7 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: This game is officially at a “neutral” location, but the game is being played in Nashville. Even Coach K would be embarrassed to call that a neutral site. The Commodores could use a win here as they have been disappointing so far while the Bulls have been surprisingly competitive. However, since Vanderbilt plays in the SEC and USF plays in the Big East the reverse will be true during league play.

– #23 Marquette vs. #19 Tennessee at 9:30 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: The game of the week (before Saturday). Another “neutral” site game in Nashville. The Volunteers will be looking to bounce back from their loss to Dionte Christmas Temple. The loss dropped them 11 spots from a #8 ranking. They can make a case for a top 10 ranking again if they can beat Marquette. Meanwhile, the Golden Eagles have been playing well (7-1) and come into the game with a top 25 ranking. Unfortunately, that only makes them the 8th highest ranked team in the Big East. I know it’s early and sounds ridiculous for a top 25 team, but Marquette could use a win here to start building a case for a NCAA tournament bid in case they fall back a little in the Big East because I still have a hard time believing the Selection Committee will give the Big East 10 bids.

Wednesday
– Cram for your last finals or go through the games you missed while studying for those finals/writing that term paper because this is a weak set of games.

Thursday
– Mississippi State at Cincinnati at 6:30 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: The Bearcats (6-2) are off to a respectable start–losses to FSU and Xavier–by almost any league’s standards except for the Big East where they will struggle to stay out of the bottom third of the conference. The Bulldogs (7-3) are also off to decent start, but may be without coach Rick Stansbury who was admitted to a local hospital for new-onset migraines (the administration expects him to be able to coach that night). The Bearcats will have their handful trying to score inside with “The Human Eraser” Jarvis Varnado who comes into the game with a 6.2 blocks per game average.

– Evansville at #1 UNC at 7 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: I’m expecting the line for this game to be UNC by 20, but don’t sleep on Evansville. They come into the game with a 7-1 record including a 32-point win over a Western Kentucky team that handled preseason Final Four favorite Louisville its only loss. The Tar Heels may also be a little off their game if they start buying into the hype (we aren’t) or if they continue to have late-night trysts with America’s sideline princess.

– Mississippi at #9 Louisville at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: The Rebels shouldn’t really present a challenge Louisville, but I haven’t bought into Rick Pitino’s Cardinals yet. In their only game that could be considered moderately challenging, they fell apart losing to Western Kentucky. If Pitino hopes to contend for a national title this year, his team needs to be able to put away teams like Mississippi early. We’ll also be watching to see Samardo Samuels, who is playing like the best freshman in the country right now.

Friday
– Get some sleep or go get some sun because you’re going to be glued to your couch all day tomorrow.

A10 Weekend. The A10 used three televised games on Saturday to announce its presence to America, knocking off an SEC, Big East and Big 12 team in the process (two of which were effectively road games).  With the relative weakness of the Pac-10 and SEC this year, the A10 could make a run at a legitimate four NCAA bids this season.  Today’s results could go a long way in the Tourney Committee’s minds toward that end.   Great weekend for the Atlantic 10.

• Temple 88, Tennessee 72. Every outlet in America is making the “Merry Christmas” joke, so we’ll refrain here, but suffice it to say that Temple’s Dionte Christmas stole Bruce Pearl’s cookies and blew up his sled with an explosive game where it seemed as if every shot he threw at the rim was flushing straight through.  More importantly, Temple exposed Tennessee’s defense for what it is – simply not good enough to sustain any kind of legitimate run in March.  The Owls shot a blistering 55%, led by Xmas’ 35 on seven threes, and it often appeared as if the Vol players had little interest in covering him.  The roof nearly came off the place when he hit three trifectas in a row during a personal 1:30 run to blow open the game.  Temple, who had not defeated a top 10 team since John Chaney was still on campus, celebrated with a spirited RTC, to which, we say – deserved.

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Obsessed With Sports will be providing coverage for RTC throughout the season.

Welcome to the Week Two edition of Behind the Lines. On a weekly basis, we will cover the betting lines that stand out from the week that was in college basketball. In general I will stick to the relevant games that the majority of people can relate to. However, if there is an obscure team that scores a big upset or a powerhouse that can cover the spread against a cup cake then you will certainly see it here as well.

As far as format you will see below the day then a heading describing the game to follow. After that this match-up is listed with the point spread and then the final score. Lastly, we have the team who covered and by how much.

Friday 12/5

Perfect line of the night:

Arizona +4 at Texas A&M
Arizona 66, Texas A&M 67
Arizona covers: by 3

Behind the Line: ‘Zona has covered four games in a row. Their two losses this season were still close games with this A&M team and UAB.

Read the rest of this entry »

John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Ben Woodside.

Most likely you’ve never heard of this gentleman (or maybe even the Bison of North Dakota State University) unless you live in North Dakota or follow Summit Conference basketball. And I’ll be honest with you — until about an hour ago, neither had I. But when the overnight interns here at the RTC Eastern Seaboard Complex noticed and alerted me that on Friday night our boy dropped 60 points on Stephen F. Austin in a game in Drake University’s Hy-Vee Classic – yeah, that’s right, I went Hy-Vee on you! — well, I simply had to investigate this.

Taking Him to the Woodside

Sticking with honesty, I’ll tell you that I obviously didn’t see this game, and while I was getting down to the bottom of this, I was thinking of possible headlines for an article, like “Woodside Takes SFA Behind the Woodshed,” or “Lumberjacks Can’t Chop Down Woodside,” or something like that. But those prospects were ruined by the fact that SFA actually defeated Woodside’s NDSU team 112-111 in three overtimes. The game was tied 78-78 at the half, and in one of the more interesting-looking linescores you’ll see, NDSU scored 11 points in each of the three overtimes. SFA also scored 11 in the first two…but 12 in the 3^rd OT.

Whenever I hear that a player has put up a huge individual number like that, I always wonder who got embarrassed in their attempts to play defense on this guy. In this case, the answer is…half of the time, nobody. Literally. Woodside, a 5’11’’ 185-pound senior, took a page from the Tyler Hansbrough success manual and got half of his points by converting numerous opportunities at the free throw line, shooting an impressive 30 for 35. You’d also think that a 5’11’’ guy would need some serious 3’s to hang 60 big ones on somebody. Wrong again. Woodside was 14 for 32 from the field, only shooting 2 of 6 from three-point range, so he’s obviously got some creativity in his game. More evidence to this fact is that Woodside has evidently been a consistently prolific scorer for NDSU in all four of his on-court seasons there (he redshirted his first year), averaging 17.5 as a freshman, 16.4 as a sophomore, and 20.7 as a junior. Before this year began he had a streak of 85 consecutive starts, which certainly looks like it’s still intact. It’s also worth noting that he’s averaged over 5 assists each year, and tacked on 8 assists (and 8 rebounds, nearly a trip-dub) in the game earlier tonight against SFA, making him responsible for at least 76 of the Bison’s 111 points.

I’m sure he probably would have rather had the victory for his team, but any time a guy elevates his PPG from 20.7 to 26.2 in a near mid-season game, props are warranted. So kudos to you, Ben. We’ll be checking in on you periodically for the rest of the year.