alex ruoff – Rush The Court

Midwest Region Game-By-Game Previews – 1st Round

zhayes9 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:58:05 +0000

MIDWEST REGION PREVIEW (by Zach Hayes)

#1 Louisville vs. #16 Morehead State

For Louisville to win: It’s pretty simple for Louisville in this 1-16 matchup: do exactly what has gotten you to the point of receiving the #1 overall seed in the tournament. They shouldn’t have much problem playing their usual lockdown defense, employing their frantic press and letting the pure athletic ability of guys like Earl Clark and Terrence Williams completely overwhelm the star-struck Eagles.

For Morehead State to win: The triumphant [...]

NCAA Preview: West Virginia Mountaineers

rtmsf — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:20:04 +0000

West Virginia (#6, Midwest, Minneapolis Pod) vs. Dayton (#11) Fri. 3/20 @ 3:00 PM Vegas Line: West Virginia, -8.5

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv). If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile Location: Morgantown, West Virginia Conference: Big East, at large Coach: Bob Huggins, 47-21 08-09 Record: 24-11, 10-8 Last 12 Games: 8-4 Best Win: 74-60, Pittsburgh, 3/12/2009 Worst Loss: 65-61, Cincinnati, 2/26/2009 Off. Efficiency Rating: 115.3, 15th Def. Efficiency Rating: 88.0, [...]

QnD Midwest Region Analysis

zhayes9 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:08:15 +0000

MIDWEST REGION PREVIEW (by Zach Hayes)

Favorite Louisville, #1 Overall Seed, 28-5 (16-2), Big East Regular Season and Conference Champions

Should They Falter Wake Forest, #4 Seed, 24-6 (11-5). Even more than Michigan State in the Regional Final, Wake could present the biggest match-up problem for Louisville.

Grossly Overseeded Utah, #5 Seed, 24-9 (12-4). Utah tied for the Mountain West regular season title and tournament (carried by great computer numbers), but how can anyone say this team should have a higher seed than UCLA, Clemson, or West Virginia?

Grossly Underseeded None. With the exception of Utah, the committee [...]

ATB: Mike Singletary Redefines “The Zone” Tonight

rtmsf — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:15:37 +0000

Redefining The Zone. Texas Tech 88, Texas A&M 83. Mike Singletary set a new career-high tonight in Texas Tech’s first round Big 12 Tournament game against Texas A&M… in the last ten minutes of the game. That’s right, Singletary caught lightning in his shooting hand, as he exploded for 29 straight points (9-10 FG; 8-10 FT) in the last quarter of the game (previous career high: 25) as he brought his team back from a 21-pt second half deficit. His performance was the second-longest such conflagration of consecutive points, ranking only behind (you know this one, [...]

Big East Wrapup & Tourney Preview

rtmsf — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:18:27 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference. He will be live-blogging all the action from his executive suite at MSG this week.

Schedule:

Tuesday, March 10th / First Round – Game 1: #9 Cincinnati vs. #16 DePaul – Game 2: #12 Georgetown vs. #13 St. John’s – Game 3: #10 Notre Dame vs. #15 Rutgers – Game 4: #11 Seton Hall vs. #14 South Florida

Wednesday, March 11th / Second Round – Game 5: Game 1 Winner vs. #8 Providence – Game 6: Game 2 Winner vs. #5 Marquette – Game 7: Game 3 Winner [...]

Mr. March Headed to the NIT

nvr1983 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:08:56 +0000

We may have just seen Stephen Curry‘s last meaningful college basketball game. That may shock those of you who don’t follow college basketball religiously, but when the rest of the nation joins us in our college basketball obsession on next Sunday at 6 PM don’t expect to see Davidson among the teams selected on the CBS Selection Show. Sure we may get a cut-in to see Bob McKillop and the Wildcats sitting in a conference room with forlorn looks on their faces, but they just lost their shot at making another miraculous run when they lost to the [...]

Boom Goes the Dynamite: 03.07.09

nvr1983 — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 16:32:21 +0000

We’re back for the final weekend of regular season Boom Goes the Dynamite for this college basketball season. The highlights of the weekend are obviously the two top 10 match-ups (in Pittsburgh on Saturday and in Chapel Hill on Sunday). We would love to provide you with another RTC Live from those site, but apparently we’re not big enough for them yet. (The onus is on you to spread the word.)

In any event, we’re going to make lemonade out of those lemons so we’ll be providing coverage from our bi-coastal offices covering all the [...]

Boom Goes the Dynamite: 03.01.09 Edition

nvr1983 — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:09:55 +0000

Well it’s finally here. The month of March is upon us. Here at RTC, we’ll be coming up with a ridiculous number of posts (I’m not sure how we will be able to do it with our other “lives”) so be sure to check back throughout the month as we will have posts for conference recaps, our unique bubble watch, frequent bracket updates by our resident bracketologist Zach, our favorite NCAA tournament memories, and the most comprehensive NCAA tournament preview anywhere. Ever.

11:00 AM: Just to set the table for today (and before I run out to [...]

Checking in on the… Big East

rtmsf — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:06:08 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

Until Tuesday night, it was a relatively uneventful week in the Big East. The teams that should have won got the Ws, while the teams that were supposed to lose generally lost. That is, until Providence knocked off Pitt in front of packed house at the Dunk (for the record, Friar fans had one of the best ‘rushings of the court‘ that I have seen in a long time – they absolutely swallowed up the three Friar players in the center [...]

Checking in on the… Big East

rtmsf — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:12:16 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

Player of the year.

How do you define it. Who put up the best stats? Who is the best player on the best team? The most valuable player? Maybe the guy that, if you were to have a draft involving every player in the league, you would pick first?

My criterion is simple – who is the best player? Easy enough, right?

As of now, there are only four players that should be considered for the award, and [...]

Checking in on the… Big East

nvr1983 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:50:52 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

It is time to stop talking about the Big East as the best conference in college hoops. In the current installment of Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology, the Big East is getting seven teams in. That’s one fewer than the ACC and one more than the Pac-10. In fact, if we are talking in terms of percentage of league members to get a bid, the Big East slides all the way down to fourth as the Big Televen sends five teams.

Of [...]

Checking in on the… Big East

rtmsf — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:48:28 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

Remember all that talk about the Big East getting nine, maybe ten, teams into the dance? It seems like a long time ago now, as it is a legitimate possibility the league only gets seven teams in. The three teams in danger of missing out are Georgetown, Notre Dame and Providence.

The Irish are in the worst position right now. They are currently sitting at 12-8 and 3-6 in the Big East, but they are just 2-7 against the RPI’s top 50. Their [...]

Set Your Tivos: 02.04.09

nvr1983 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:16:15 +0000

After last night’s relatively weak slate of games, we’re back to normal tonight with a great set of games.

Game of the Day #3 Duke at #10 Clemson at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: Our second top 10 match-up of the week. Once again the road team is the higher ranked team, but I feel like this time they are also the favorites coming in to the game. All of you know about Duke by now thanks to their frequent appearances on national TV so I will keep it brief. Kyle Singler and Gerald Henderson have emerged as their [...]

Boom Goes the Dynamite: 01.25.09

nvr1983 — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:08:03 +0000

Today is going to be a little different than our typical Boom Goes the Dynamite posts based on the fact that rtmsf is on vacation and I will be in-and-out of the house throughout the day. It looks like there are only 3 games worth focusing on today (Louisville at Syracuse, Michigan State at Ohio State, and Pittsburgh at West Virginia) and given our situation, that is what I will be doing.

Noon: Thanks to ESPN’s greediness (putting it on Full Court) and the non-functional ESPN360 log-in system, I’ll be bringing you the Louisville-Syracuse game via GameCast. If any [...]

Set Your Tivos: 01.20.09-01.22.09

nvr1983 — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:21:42 +0000

In light of the weak set of games this week, we’re bringing you a midweek (Tuesday-Thursday) Set Your Tivos before the weekend edition (Friday night’s games are awful so go out and do something that night).

Tuesday (01.20.09) – Ohio State at #24 Illinois, 7 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: Illinois has been one of the most surprising teams in the first half of the college basketball season. Bruce Weber‘s team came into the season without a single vote in either major poll and now they sit in the top 25. Although they are only 3-2 in the Big Ten [...]