Because of the NCAA’s refusal to give us a media credential (or discuss the issue and our side of the case), we were forced to go to today’s open practice to get an up-close look at the teams. As an aside, if anybody has extra tickets for the games in Boston for the Sweet 16 or the Elite 8 (in case your team gets cheated by the refs), send me an e-mail at rushthecourt@gmail.com and I might be able to take them off your hands.
The guys who don't want me covering the game
Let’s get one thing out of the way. The East Region open practice might have been the most boring 5 hours of my life (not counting lectures). There’s a reason the NCAA makes this event free (outside of the fact that they more than make up for it through the $8 programs, $5 Cokes, and $23 baseball caps). The crowd was 95% white males in their mid-30s or above along with a handful of kids chasing autographs from players who they were looking up during the practices checking to see which ones had the best stats. My favorites were the old guys sitting behind me who kept on commenting on how good Gary McGhee and Brian Zoubek were (the tallest guys on the court) and what outstanding pros they were going to be. Anyways, here are my thoughts and pictures (some pictures are from my iPhone because I forgot to charge my digital camera) from each team’s “practice”.
There were no Fast Breaks this weekend as I was in Atlanta all weekend and returned only to find a ridiculous amount of work still left to do in the real world. But all that means is that the limits of the phrase “link dump” will be put to the test today. I am even skipping out on last minute studying for a history midterm to bring you more links…because that is just the kind of guy I am.
Umm…word of advice for Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart. It is important to put on a confident front when your team is on the brink of the tournament…yes that includes not prematurely saying you would accept an NIT bid.
Despite all the hype that you hear about Stephen Curry potentially breaking “Pistol” Pete Maravich’s career scoring record next year, Ari Kramer from Bleacher Report wants you to wait a minute before you start comparing Curry to Maravich
1:00pm. Welcome back to another day of BGTD. There are only 2o games today, but there are five of particular interest that we’ll be tracking. Villanova @ Syracuse and Illinois @ Ohio St. at 1pm, Wisconsin at Michigan St. @ 3pm, Wake Forest @ Duke at 7:45pm, and Arizona at Arizona St. at 10pm. Pretty strong day. Let’s get it started in upstate NY…
1:02pm. Before we get going, we want to touch on this story from the LA Times yesterday that UCLA has stopped recruiting local 6′11 prep star Renardo Sidney even though by mid-last week the Bruins were still considered the front-runner. Certainly UCLA could use a big man with guard skills such as those that Sidney has, so what gives? Color us jaded, but all we could think of when we heard that UCLA so abruptly dropped Sidney was this story written by Gregg Doyel about a Pac-10 recruit who was charging $10k per on-campus visit a few years ago. Did Sidney finally give UCLA his price? Was there a package deal that Ben Howland wasn’t willing to stomach? Not surprisingly, USC (of OJ Mayo, Daniel Hackett and Reggie Bush) is now considered the leader. Let’s see what happens later today when Sidney announces his college choice at 4pm PDT.
1:13pm. Villanova looks fantastic thus far, with seven scores in eight possessions, including three threes from Dwayne Anderson. If you’re still reflecting on yesterda’s wild Saturday, here’s Andy Katz’s article focusing on how quickly things can change.
1:23pm. Nova is getting whatever it wants offensively, and the Syracuse crowd still looks asleep (the players aren’t much better). Uh-oh alert – Clemson is already down double-figures at Georgia Tech – remember the Tigers lost a road game last weekend at bottom-feeder Virginia.
1:45pm. Cuse is coming back here just before the half, now down 2, behind Devendorf, Rautins and Flynn. Clemson is also back in the game, after getting down by as much as 15 to Ga Tech. Illinois appears like they’ll hit their total from the Illini’s last game vs. OSU in the first half (up 26-24 with 2:30 left).
2:00pm. Nova goes into the half with a six-pt lead, 46-40. Neither one of these teams is playing much defense – both sides are shooting 55% from the field. The key difference is that Villanova has been able to get to the line eight more times than the home team. Clemson fought back to tie things up at Georgia Tech, and Xavier is ripping GW 36-20 at halftime.
2:05pm. Seth Davis just got on board the RTC train with the Duke Swoon at halftime of the Syracuse-Nova game, predicting that the Devils will be the highest ranked team to lose early next month. Not sure if Duke will lose tonight, but there are two things in Wake’s favor… 1) Duke will play man-to-man, which helps Wake penetrate to the rim; and 2) Wake has shown this year a propensity to take ranked teams seriously, home or away. The Deacs get into trouble when they’re playing teams they don’t respect.
Billy Donovan got a huge pickup with Kenny Boynton’s commitment today.
Andy Katz gives a fantastic analysis of the Arizona mess on his blog – looks like Mike Dunlap made a stupid mistake in not accepting the head coaching job. Oh, and former recruit Abdul Gaddy is going to Washington.
Let’s see if we can get through some of the news piling up…
CHN averages the rankings from the three preview magazines that are already out (Athlon, Lindy’s and TSN/S&S). UNC still #1. CHN gives us the mid-majors to keep an eye on this season as possible NCAA Cinderellas. And here’s your EA Sports NCAA Basketball 09 Top 25 (now partnered with Blue Ribbon). We know you were waiting for it.
Hahahahaha, so it appears the ACC is cooking the books Wachovia-style in an attempt to act like it has more televised games this year than it actually has.
North Dakota Fighting Maize? According to the North Dakota state legislature, the Fighting Sioux are out.
Syracuse had best hope that Jonny Flynn doesn’t get hurt this season, as the Orange’s backup PG Scoop Jardine is redshirting.
Nevada starting guard Brandon Fields and two freshmen were charged with petty larceny last week, and suspended indefinitely. Brilliance. Oh, and Fields was all-academic WAC, proving that good grades doesn’t necessarily mean you have a brain.
Katz hints on our issue with UConn as a F4 threat (zero postseason wins since 2006) in this story about Stanley Robinson. He also provides us with a nice update of open questions as we head into the first week of practices.
Yep, this is going to get old real, real fast. Tyler Hansbrough, the symbol of all things good and merciful.
Dan Hanner over at YABB throws us some love (thanks, Dan!), and does a breakdown of the preseason tournaments by school participation – cool concept.
Truly, the most Epic Post of all-time. Maybe the author wants to be an RTC correspondent??? Our fave blurbs were Florida and Colgate, fyi.
There’s a lot of news out there today… which only means one thing…
Goodman continues on his crusade to expose the underbelly of the game with today’s lead – the father of UK’s new hotshot recruit, Daniel Orton, was paid three times over the summer to give talks at Billy Gillispie’s camp. This is completely legal, by the way. Discuss.
Too many preseason/holiday tourneys? ESPN announced today that the Diamond Head Classic will begin in 2009 at the University of Hawaii. It will finish up on Christmas Day, which will provide a nice collegiate alternative to the annual Shaq-Kobe matchup in the NBA.
Please read this, “conference fans.” It’s even truer in basketball.
Is it sad or compelling that this endorsement could tip North Carolina to Obama in three weeks?
Ok, great. Players are graduating more than they used to. But is that because they’re committed to the degree program or schools are making it easier to get that degree?
WAC coaches pick Nevada to win their conference, while Big South coaches/media picked Winthrop to win it again.
NBCSports picks AJ Price, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Tyler Hansbrough and Luke Harongody as its all-americans. We’re just not feeling Price, sorry UConn fans.
Parrish thinks that this year’s Florida squad will be quite a bit better than last year’s, and we can’t say that we really disagree with that.
Andy Katz assures us that KU’s 2008 national title is safe in light of the re-opening case of Darrell Arthur’s HS transcripts. You know, because we were worried, or something.
He also gives his preseason view of 37 teams that he thinks can make a run next March.
Hey, we’ve always been Stacy Dales fans, BC! Even when she was married to someone named Schulman. Looks like we may not be able to root out Psycho T for her attention, though.
For the second time since last spring’s Mario Miracle, the NABC has put out a statement that squarely fixes its crosshairs on Kentucky’s second-year coach, Billy Gillispie. Certainly you remember the June directive the NABC made to stop recruiting junior high players in the wake of the media firestorm over Gillispie’s recruiting of 8th grader Michael Avery. We wrote at the time:
Luckily, this may be a situation where coaches were doing it because they felt they needed to avoid a competitive disadvantage. Now that the NABC has effectively disavowed this as a strategy (although it is still legal), coaches [including Gillispie] appear to be supportive of the line-drawing.
(Ed Note: apparently another Billy, as in Billy Donovan, didn’t get that memo from the NABC.)Andy Katz now reports on his blog today that the NABC put forth a new statement yesterday that admonishes coaches for using their early autumn ’skill development’ time (2 hours/week) prior to full practices for recruiting purposes. More specifically, they don’t want schools to bump up their Midnight Madness festivities to a preceding weekend so as to take advantage of a more favorable recruiting scenario (i.e., big football game on campus, local stripper convention, the fact that nobody else is having Midnight Madness that weekend). Why is this important now? Because Kentucky and Illinois (with its gimmicky outdoor practice) are planning on having their Midnight Madnesses a week prior to the ‘official’ start of practice. The NABC statement (via Katz):
The NABC board of directors said that “skill development events should not be open to the public.” The NABC said the initial intent was for coaches to assist their players in skill development and create stronger relationships. But by “making such skill development sessions public events, they appear to be geared more for recruiting than skill development sessions.”
Coach Gillispie, godlovehim, just cannot resist pushing the envelope when it comes to the NCAA rulebook. We’re not saying that he’s breaking any rules – hell, we’re not even saying that he’s bending them – but like any fastidious attorney, he manages to consistently find the gray nether-regions where legislative intent meets bright-line rule, and he forces those in charge to make decisions.
Bring It On, NABC! (photo credit: AP/Ed Reinke)
Our take on these early Midnight Madness celebrations is such: we tend to like orderliness when it comes to college hoops, as in… we’d like to know with assurance when Opening Night will be or when the Final Four will be. So we’re 100% in agreement with the NABC on this one – can’t we just all agree to have Midnight Madness on the same night, and preferably, AT MIDNIGHT? If the NCAA has to mandate this, so be it – add another page to the 17-lb rulebook.
Update (10/1): Jeff Goodman weighs in with this background information about the NABC:
Word is that there were numerous coaches on a conference call who were less than thrilled with Gillispie’s decision. They feel that the NCAA allows the coaches the two hours per week for skill development and Gillispie is taking advantage of the rule. It was the unanimous decision of the Board that skill development events should not be open to the public.
Are the leaves changing colors in your town? We’re less than three weeks until Midnight Madness…
Santa Clara center John Bryant, the WCC’s leading returner in rebounds and blocks (and second in scoring), was literallystabbed in the back this weekend. He is expected to make a full recovery.
Andy Katz takes a look at three teams he expects are ready to rise again this season – Ohio St., Nevada, Wake Forest.
The NYT reports that Tommy Amaker is continuing to make friends at Harvard.
Pitt’s Jamie Dixon proves that unproven commodities who are bright and work hard can be just as (if not more) successful than the old retreads. Why does that sound strangely familiar? Another one of those unknown coaches, Wright St.’s Brad Brownell, was profiled by HoopWise as well.
UCLA’s stalwart Darren Collison says he’s back in Westwood to win that elusive national title.
Jeff Goodman puts a gun to the head of two top recruiting gurus and forces them to predict where the 2009 Top 10 prospects will end up. If true, Memphis will be scary good in 2010.
Siena is seeking to become the new Gonzaga, er, Davidson.
O.J. Mayo worked out with the Miami Heat on Saturday and according to Chad Ford looked very good in dominating Tyrone Brazelton. Apparently, Mayo has become good friends with Dwayne Wade and combined with this workout it increases the possibility that Miami may select Mayo #2 overall, which would mean that the prior unaninimous #1 pick Michael Beasley may fall all the way to Minnesota at #3. Even Kevin McHale can’t screw that up, can he?
Maybe UCLA won’t suck next year. Josh Shipp has decided to return to UCLA for his senior year. Perhaps NBA scouts viewed tapes of his late-season play.
CNNSI.com with a piece on Oregon State’s Craig Robinson (you may have heard of his brother-in-law Barack something) that uses a change metaphor (real original)
In related news, Brown hired Jesse Agel to replace the departed Robinson as head coach.
Cal State Fullerton signed Bob Burton to a 5-year extension thanks to its first NCAA bid in 30 years.
Duquesne lands Morakinyo Williams, a transfer from Kentucky, who (say it with me) “wanted a chance to play more minutes and make a bigger impact”. Williams played 29 minutes last year (that’s a total not per game) and averaged 0.8 PPG and 1.0 RPG (read: impact player)
Bruce Pearl booted UT guard Ramar Smith and forward Duke Crews off the team, reportedly for failing drug tests.
New Hoosier head man Tom Crean refused to allow Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis back onto the team, while kicking DeAndre Thomas off the squad as well. This all occurred one day after the bizarre transfer of Eli Holman, leaving Indiana with only seven scholarship players for 2008-09.
Missisippi State’s Ben Hansbrough (little bro of Psycho-T) will transfer to Notre Dame next year, ostensibly because he didn’t like the MSU offense.
Speaking of impact transfers, Georgetown’s Vernon Macklin will end up at Florida.
Ohio State’s Kosta Koufos is one-and-done – he signed with an agent.
Coaching News – Bob Huggins got a raise ($1.5M) and an 11-year extension at WVU – guess he impressed them this year, eh? Their former coach, John Beilein, made the first payment on the $1.5M he owes WVU for breaking his contract last year when he left for Michigan. In a similar vein, former Ohio St. coach Jim O’Brien was paid $2.74M in back pay for being fired by the university even though he admitted to cheating. And Wazzu’s Tony Bennett got an extension through 2015 and a $200K raise, totaling his annual compensation to $1M per year (but no increase in his buyout clause).
Next year’s Thanksgiving-week Old Spice Classic will include Tennessee, Michigan St., Gonzaga, Maryland, Georgetown, Oklahoma St., Siena and Wichita St. In other words, loaded.
I provided my instant (revised) analysis very early this morning and rtmsf will be providing his a little later today. I thought I would provide you with some of the thoughts of various other sportswriters.
-At the Alamo, this was one to remember: Bob Ryan, who most of you may know from his frequent appearances on ESPN, offers his thoughts on the game and the Kansas team, which may get lost in all the talk about missed FTs and Chalmers huge shot.
-The Shot Heard ‘Round the World: RTC’s most well-known fan (and SI writer/CBS college basketball studio analyst) Seth Davis provides a short Q&A in between the game and his early-morning wakeup call to be on Mike & Mike.
-Chalmers’s Effort on Both Ends Keys Jayhawks’ Win: Camille Powell credits Mario Chalmers’s play on both ends for the title, which most writers missed because everybody has focused so much on his 3 with 2.1 secs left.
-Plenty of Twists, One Final Turn: John Feinstein, author of the famous “Season on the Brink”, offers his perspective on the title game.
-A Dominant Half by Rose Falls Short by One Shot: Thayer Evans breaks down Derrick Rose’s performance that was one shot (either Chalmers’s 3 or a made FT by either Rose or Chris Douglas-Roberts) away from being named MOP.
- Rock Chalk, Champions: Grant Wahl offers his extensive analysis of the Jayhawks victory. This is probably the most thorough piece we have seen on the championship game so far.
- What is the Best Shot in NCAA Tournament History?: SI’s Andy Gray offers his take on the top 5 shots in NCAA tournament history. We’d be interested to hear where you think Chalmers’s shot ranks.
- NCAA Championship Grades: It seems fitting to end our link post with title game grades (courtesy of Bill Trocchi) for the student-athletes.
Normally, I wouldn’t make a separate post for a single link to a story from another site (especially one at ESPN, which doesn’t need any more hype), but I figured you might be busy watching games and may not notice this. Apparently, Andy Katz has been busy covering the rest of the college basketball world as he spoke with Lute Olson about his sabaticcal along with several other issues.
For those who don’t care to read the rather long article, here’s a quick summary:
- Took the season off to deal with stress relating to a divorce from his second wife (his first wife died of 47 years died of cancer in 2001).
- Olson will be the head coach next year and intends to fulfill the rest of his contract through 2011 and did not mention any plans of stopping after that.
- Arizona is going back on its previous oral commitment to name interim coach Kevin O’Neill as Olson’s eventual successor. O’Neill hasn’t decided what he is doing next year although he still has one year left on his contract as Lute’s assistant.
- The Wildcats will go back to their roots as a running team instead of the half-court offense that O’Neill installed this year.
- According to the article, it seems like Jerryd Bayless is seriously considering leaving while Chase Buddinger is probably returning.
- Lute is healthy contrary to previous reports, but had to stay quiet on the issue during his leave because of Arizona laws.
- He thinks they can contend for the 2009 national title.
I’ll avoid commenting on Lute’s personal life and health other than to say that he is in a lot better shape (based on what the article says) than most guys his age I have seen.
The more interesting thing is how the Arizona athletic department is basically going back on their word. I can understand wanting to go with Olson because he is a legend particularly in that area of the country. I just don’t understand why they would give O’Neill a commitment back in December. Even though the Wildcats were playing well at the point of the verbal commitment, the AD should know enough to realize that a coach’s performance isn’t judged in December.
The other thing I found interesting is that Olson expects to contend for the 2009 title. I guess I wouldn’t expect him to say that he doesn’t expect to contend, but going from a bubble team to champion is a stretch. It all depends on whether Bayless and Buddinger return. Going to a wide-open offense would definitely utilize their talents more than a half-court offense. I know everybody is really high on Bayless, but personally I like Buddinger’s game more and I think he will end up being a very good pro. If both come back and they add their excellent recruiting class, they will be a darkhorse contender as they lost a lot of very close games. In either case, it’s good to have Lute (and hopefully Arizona) back, but I hope that O’Neill gets a good job because this smells a lot like what Miami and Pat Riley did to Stan Van Gundy although Olson had a much better reason for taking time off.
We got a cool link in the inbox today from Josh Centor, the Coordinator for New Media Communications at the NCAA. He is live-blogging the proceedings of the NCAA’s annual Mock Bracketology event where sportswriters and other college basketball media are invited to Indianapolis to go through the grueling process of selecting 65 teams. This way, the idea goes, the media will actually know what to blather on about when it comes time later this month to discuss bubble teams, strength of schedule ratings and stock-up/stock-down trends.
We wonder, though, whether Josh recognizes the profound irony of his position as HBIC (Head Blogger In-Charge) for the NCAA. But that’s another discussion for another time.
So yesterday the slovenly crew of sportswriters were invited, including such luminaries as Steve Wieberg (USA Today) and Mike DeCourcy (Sporting News). After twelve hours of debate, several gallons of coffee, and untold levels of stink, the group came up with this bracket (you’ll have to click once here and once on the page that opens to make it large enough to view):
We don’t have time to break down the bracket at the moment, but the commenters on Josh’s page do a pretty good job.
Today’s group are the less slovenly but more bombastic television media, including the standards Joe Lunardi, Andy Katz and Jerry Palm; but also including guys like Steve Lappas and Tom Brennan. It’s a travesty that Ken Pomeroy isn’t invited to this thing, by the way.
Maybe if we get some more time, we’ll do a quick and dirty comparison of how the two brackets turned out. Our money’s on the sportswriters over the television guys.
Tough week at Pepperdine. First, their top returning player Kingsley Costain was dismissed from the school; now they don’t have anywhere to practice due to the insane fires in Malibu.
Now that Maryland has instituted a new alcohol awareness program, what’s the over/under on some Terp like James Gist getting a DWI? Or maybe it’ll be our favorite tool, Gus Gilchrist? He committed to the Terps over the weekend and will play next season.
Maybe Purdue’s Gordon Watt should transfer to Maryland now – he was kicked out of Purdue for a DWI last week.
In a nice gesture, the ACC renamed its Scholar-Athlete award in honor of Skip Prosser.
BYU extended head coach Dave Rose’s contract through 2011.
Beginning next year, the Preseason NIT will guarantee each participant four games at on-campus sites, even for those teams that lose in the first two rounds.
We hadn’t seen this yet, but ESPN announced its College Gameday sites a week or two ago. We cannot wait until Jan. 26 – Creighton at S. Illinois.
Thankfully, Myles Brand says there will be no expansion of the NCAA Tournament anytime soon.
Raymond Felton didn’t help Roy after all – Iman Shumpert chose Georgia Tech over UNC and Marquette.
Andy Katz has a really interesting article about Kevin Love asking the Wizard of Westwood (who turned 97 Sunday) for advice. We like this kid already.
Thad Matta is hobbling around after back surgery this summer.
More Preseason Chatter -
ACC Media Days – the Research Triangle schools came in 1 (UNC), 2 (Duke), 3 (NC State) in the preseason conference poll.
Katz explains why Calipari opted to stay in Memphis over taking the NC State job two years ago.
DeCourcy gives USC some love for tough scheduling (even though they’re going to lose all those games), while he rates crosstown rival UCLA #1 in his poll.
STF gets us up to speed on what the mid-major conferences are bringing to the table this year.
SEC Hoops:TGTBTD chooses Jamont Gordon over Chris Lofton for SEC POY. Interesting…
Final thought – believe it or not, the Colorado Lady Buffaloes actually have a Brittany Spears and a Whitney Houston on their squad this season. Coke dealers in Boulder are already calculating their profits.
An absolute ton of newsworthy stuff to catch up on from the weekend…
2008 #1 player Greg Monroe committed to Georgetown after his visit there this weekend. It couldn’t have had anything to do with that now-ubiquitous Jerry Rice dance, could it? “Hoops” Weiss has the definitive take on how Monroe will impact the Hoyas. Above the Rim writes that Duke (who was hot-n-heavy for Monroe) isn’t used to losing out on these guys.
Lots of Midnight Madness and practice coverage from the weekend…
Huggins taking over the reins at his alma mater. (there’s an amusing wmv file floating around where Huggins is giving a speech to some WVU booster club - it’s longwinded and rambling, but the DerMarr Johnson payoff is funny)
A general roundup of MM from Lexington to Lawrence.
Sad news that former Georgia star and current surgeon Alec Kessler died of a heart attack last weekend.
Injuries, suspensions and dismissals:
Gonzaga’s Josh Heytvelt was reinstated on Friday but will miss the first week of practice due to shroom farming foot pain.
Louisville’s Juan Palacios injured his ankle and may have to redshirt his senior season.
Brandon Rush reports that he’s on target for his Dec. 1 return to Kansas.
Georgia suspended three players for not attending classes, including top two scorers Takais Brown (9 games) and Mike Mercer (15 games). Seriously, fellas? SEC Hoops:TGTBTD has the take on how this will affect the Bulldogs.
Northwestern’s best player Kevin Coble is taking a leave of absence to be with his sick mother.
Ball St. coach Billy Taylor booted two more players off the team, making a total of six since he was hired in August.
More Preseason goodies:
Gary Parrish and Ben Howland converse about whether the Pac-10 will have the most first round picks ever this year.
Pitino bitches about the difficulty of the unbalanced league schedule Louisville is being forced to play.
MMAS continues its comprehensive review with its non-BCS top 25.
Seth Davis asks us 20 questions, then he answers them.
Midnight Madness went off at several venues around the country tonight, and as a result the message boards and blogs have been buzzing all night long with news about how players looked and speculation on what to expect this season. Since ESPN was typically worthlessno help whatsoever in letting us see how some of these teams looked, we decided to try to piece together some fan commentary and photos (and in a couple cases, video footage) of opening night impressions.
We start with Indiana, where expectations are sky high with the unveiling of uber-frosh Eric Gordon in a Hoosier uniform. From The Hoosier Scoop blog:
Kelvin Sampson walked out to the middle of the court, microphone in hand. It took a minute, at least, for him to actually be able to say anything. The fans kept chanting his name.
Sampson is thanking the fans for being here, and telling them how excited they are to start a new season.
He’s called Holman out to the middle of the court, and has congratulated him on being eligible. Crowd loves that.
Now DeAndre Thomas has been called out to mid-court. Sampson is discussing his weight, opening with the line “I don’t want to make a big deal of his weight . . .” I think it’s already become a big deal, with 14,000 people watching. Thomas has gone from 356 to 299.
Now Sampson is talking football, saying that he’s looking forward to watching the Hoosiers beat the Spartans tomorrow. And he’s saying “Why not a BCS bowl?”
What will happen when Gordon faces a little adversity? When his shot doesn’t fall, or he’s fouled four times in a row by a team trying rattle him?
Well, Gordon missed his first dunk attempt during this drill — which is nothing more than the guys running up and down dunking. But then he came back with a behind-the-head slam that was so utterly resounding I only hope somebody got it on video.
After the dunk practice, Indiana ran a transition drills, with three players breaking down the court against two defenders and then, following a possession, those two defenders breaking the other way again one player. Sampson has stated that this team will score more in transition, and here’s early proof.
Oh, and the passes made by Eric Gordon in this video sequence are pretty sick.
What about Billy G. over at Kentucky? 23,000+ filled Rupp Arena to greet the new coach and rooks Patrick Patterson and Alex Legion. Gary Parrish has the take:
We’re Diggin the New Nike Warmups, Mr. Meeks
And then the curtains dropped.
And right there behind them, there he was, the person who made this always wild atmosphere even wilder than normal. Standing and waving and flashing that big old goofy smile, Billy Gillispie received an ovation fit for, well, fit for the new basketball coach at Kentucky. And when the chant died down and the clapping finally ceased, this Texas man who was an assistant at Illinois just six years ago was handed the microphone and asked for his first impressions.
“I can’t talk,” Gillispie said.
Ahhh, (Wild)cat got your tongue, Billy?
But in all seriousness, it’s difficult to blame Gillispie for being totally overwhelmed. Because regardless of all the games he’s won and lost in his still relatively young career (featuring stops at UTEP and Texas A&M), there’s nothing in Gillispie’s 47 years on this planet that happened before Friday night that could’ve possibly prepared him for what it’s like to stand in the middle of Rupp Arena and give other humans goosebumps.
No, I’m not exaggerating.
Over in Lawrence, RTC’s preseason #1 Kansas Jayhawks put on a show in the Phog.
Sherron Collins led all scorers with 13 points coming on 6-of-13 shooting. He hit only one of his six three-point attempts, but that’s no big deal because, well, no one ever looks all that sharp in Late Night scrimmages.
More important on Collins is that he looks like he did in mid-season as a freshman. He drove to the basket in a smart manner, only recorded one of the game’s 14 turnovers and looked noticeably lighter and bouncier.
He put on a display of mid-air acrobatics before the game in layup lines. When asked after the game if he could have done all that a year ago, his answer, with a smile, was simple: “Absolutely not.”
He was also a pretty good dancer, to boot.
Jeremy Case led the Red team with 12 points on 5-for-5 shooting, including a pair of threes. Now, of course, nothing concrete in terms of Bill Self’s rotation can come from tonight’s scrimmage, but Case looked at ease on the Fieldhouse floor. That, too, could be because he’s entering his fifth season as a Jayhawk.
Case said he’s playing right now with no pressure on him, which could do nothing but help his basketball endeavors. It’ll be interesting to see how having his degree out of the way already helps Case as he tries to work himself into the rotation. He could be this year’s feel-good story, I would predict if solely based on what we saw tonight.
Elswewhere… Sasha Kaun had a workmanlike nine points and six rebounds for the Red team, though should probably stay away from wearing top hats, which he donned as a backup dancer during Russell Robinson’s ‘New York, New York’ performance. With his fledgling afro, it wasn’t the greatest of looks…Darrell Arthur was third on the red squad with eight points, while Mario Chalmers paced the offense up and down the floor repeatedly, notching five points, five assists and two steasl in 15 minutes on the floor…Conner Teahan, Brady Morningstar and Darnell Jackson each had six points for the Blue team. Jackson also registered six rebounds, three assists and three steals, giving him the most balanced line of any Jayhawk on the night.
An enterprising and informative Memphis Tiger fan had this to say about his Blogpoll #1 squad:
Rose: Looked confident running the team. You can just tell that this kid has “it.” He showed freakish athleticism on his one dunk in the dunk contest. He is very fast and seems to play under control. He probably will get lost during the season as most freshman do, but once he figures it out. Dorsey: Just a physical freak. He dunked anything he could get his hands on. Douglas-Roberts: CDR always looks uncoordinated, then he just puts the ball in the basket. His upper body looked bigger. He had a sweet stroke on one three pointer. If he improves from behind the line, how do you defend him. Anderson: Didn’t really notice Antonio much, but he always does the dirty work that doesn’t get noticed anyway. Dozier: Definitely looked bigger. Rob showed some fire when dunking the ball, which seemed to be lacking last year. Maybe going up against Taggart every day will turn Dozier’s potential into improved stats. Kemp: Willie looked good. He shot the ball well from behind the line. I think he will do well backing up Rose at the point this year. Probably will play some two guard with the way he can shoot. Mack: I think Doneal hit 12 or 13 three pointers in the three point contest. His shot looked really good. I liked how he dunked the ball during the scrimmage. He has the hops to turn drives into highlight dunks. It is incredible the amount of talent on this roster. No offense to guys on past teams, but it amazes me that we used to start guys like Chad Allen and Michael Brittain in the post.
JTIII and friends had a roaring time in McDonough Gym on the campus of Georgetown, as one fan who got a coveted seat (only 2000 available) reports:
I think it was well received by the recruits, at least the couple I was sitting upstairs with. They were into it and yelling along. I thought the crowd inside was great, loud and much better behaved than last year and Athletics did a great job getting folks in the gym. Some quick hits:
Step team’s routine was 5 minutes too long and way longer than any other performance (wife-beaters, really?). Dance team … well, I’m gonna leave it at that. Groove Theory awesome as usual. Two new male cheerleaders, so now a total of three. Cheerleaders still look as though they are in Junior High. A lot of Soulja Boy, and extended dancing this year (more dancing then anything else): each of the players as they were introduced; men’s vs women’s team; and both teams with AKD’s little brother.
Coach’s dance moves were old school smooth. The appearance of Jeff Green’s mom and dad was great (the unveiled his jersey). The seniors unveiled the 2007 Final Four banner … in fact, they now have new Final Four banners along with a Championship banner on the opposite wall of the jerseys (main entrance side).
Lay-up line turned dunkfest (Tyler Crawford is gonna be a beast this year, you already see the aggressiveness … him, Wallace and Sapp had some solid dunks). A nasty scoop behind the back dunk by Ewing Jr was best dunk of the night. Coach said they probably dance better, so he stopped the drill and they started dancing again: both teams together; both teams vs the crowd; and Ewing Jr. tutoring Mr. Rice for the Soulja Boy.
They did the five man weave full-court drill as well. But it seemed that the program was running long and the team seemed to tucker out a bit towards the end. Gotta say, it was a shame not to see the women’s team get a little bit of time to run drills (they basically sat around and watched the men, was kinda awkward). I know ESPNU was covering the men’s team but some time would have been nice.
Overall I thought the event inside the gym was great and the teams represented Georgetown in a great light for the recruits (recruits busted up at some of the dancing on the women’s team and a few of the guys as well).
We have to go to Yahoo for a report on USC and OJ Mayo:
Southern California has got Mayo, as in O.J. Mayo, and the Trojans showed off their star recruit when he and the rest of the team scrimmaged for fans Friday night.
The Midnight Madness session kicked off the start of practice for the Trojans, who open the season Nov. 10, at home against Mercer.
Introduced next-to-last, Mayo jogged onto the court with the index and middle fingers on both hands signaling the Trojans’ V-for-victory sign. He wore a No. 32 jersey in tribute to his favorite player, Magic Johnson.
Mayo teamed with a female fan in a 2-ball game, with each of them trying to make as many shots as possible in 60 seconds. He tossed up an air ball on his first attempt and smiled as he chased after the ball.
Mayo made four of nine shots, mostly from the perimeter, capped by a miss on a half-court attempt.
Late Night with Roy in Chapel Hill was another exercise in weirdness, but the Heels fans were generally pleased with what they saw, as a fan reports:
I was very pleased with Graves. I believe that we did not look quite as explosive as last year. I will kind of run down the players for you. I will put them in order as to the way that I thought that each player played with an emphasis on expectations.
1. Tywon A+ I thought that he looked a little winded/slow to start, then he settled down, and he was slap awesome!!!! I think this will be his last year.
2. Tyler A+ His usual self!
3. Graves A+ I was very pleasantly surprised. I will preface the rest of my reports to say that I was in the nose bleed section, and much of my view was heavily obstructed by everyone leaving. It seemed that halfway through the scrimmage, half of the audience was gone. It seemed that 1/4 left at the beginning of the scrimmage, and they just kept filing out one by one. I was most surprised at his intensity and tenacity on the defensive effort that he put out there. Then he was equally effective on the offensive side of the ball. Some one needs to tell him that he is not McCants. He even guarded Bobby pretty well.
4. Danny A I will bet that we play a lot of small ball this year. Danny did very well rebounding, and he played under control. His shot was also falling.
5. Marcus A Great job did very well.
6. Bobby A steady, ran the team, knocked down a few shots.
7. Wayne B It was very obvious, he is intent at taking it to the rim, but not great at it yet, and probably to the detriment to his shot. I don’t think he hit any jumpers. I was pretty disappointed with him. I would say that he def. looked like a 4 year player. I hope that his shot returns. His will to drive might well pay off if he can get his shot back on.
8. Alex B about what I expected. I think that he was trying to tear the rims off. He will be a defensive force!! He bobbled the ball some on offense.
9. Deon B- He was kind of transparent in that I did not notice him do very much, except one steal and ran the break. Other than that, I am not sure he was even on the court. He ties with Wayne as the two biggest disappointments of the night.
Over all, I think that we will have a slightly worse regular season, but may actually make it to the final four, because we should have last year. I think that we will def. play small ball a lot. From what I could tell tonight, Deon and Alex were not ready. Of course it was pick up style, and one bad game does not a season make, unless it is in March.
We conclude with Illinois for two reasons – 1) we really wanted to show this pic of Jeffrey Jordan wearing his dad’s jersey rising for a monster flush; and 2) it was kinda neat that everyone in the crowd wore pink as a show of solidarity to fight cancer. Two Illini fans gives their takes on Weber’s squad:
1. shaun pruitt is GOOD. i mean GOOD. ive always been hard on the guy but he brought the ball down the court once and was doing all this ball handling and i thought it was one of our guards at first til he stood up, i was like, what the heck! looks much more mobile and better handles.
2. jeff jordan jumps OUT OF THE GYM. hes short, but good lord can he jump. he did a 360 in warm ups.
3. as someone mentioned in another thread, carlwell wearing jamars jersey was good to see. i think in the end, believe it or not, jamar will be a better person from all this.
4. besides the outside threat, we could be a very solid team. alexander and davis are both very very athletic and seem to have decent shots. mccamey has mad ball handling skills and i thought holdren looked very well too.
5 things i noticed:
1) Mike Davis is a freak of an athlete. He can jump high and far and in control.
2) I agree with Quadcities that Jeffrey Jordan inherited his father’s ability to jump.
3) I also agree with Quadcities that McCamey had some really really impressive ball handling skills
4) Rodney Alexander looks very fluid, smooth, and an overall great package
5) This team is going to be better and more athletic than last years team. I really believe that.
If you seek even more info, Andy Katz gave this report on several other places, including Texas A&M and Washington St. Also, CSTV live blogged several events tonight, although the depth of detail is a little lacking. We guess they get ESPNU on their package.
We’re so far behind in news that this is a must-post…
Huckleberry HoundRoy Williams and the entire 1966 Texas Western squad were the collegiate candidates inducted into the Basketball HOF on Friday. No beef with the Glory Road fellas (although UK and Rupp’s ex post facto vilification is a story that still needs correcting), but has RW accomplished enough yet (five F4s, one title) to warrant inclusion? Seems as if the committee jumped a little early on that one.
Come see the new inclusions in your town this fall, as the HOF is making a 30-city tour around the country over the next year. The spokesperson of the tour is the Human Highlight Film himself.
Stability in the Northeast – BC’s Al Skinner and Holy Cross’s Ralph Willard both had their contracts extended through 2013.
Calipari mobilizes the entire city of Memphis to watch his players, who apparently cannot be trusted out on their own without inciting a freakin’ riot. We knew before it even came out that The Mouth of the South, Joey Dorsey, would somehow be involved in this. Make it rain, Joey.
Not to be outdone, Mike Davis’s transfers at UAB decided to party without him, and all five were arrested on various charges. The most disturbing in our eyes? Walter Sharpe’s outstanding warrant for his arrest on a prior marijuana charge. Not only did he already have a prior, but he didn’t even show up for the hearing? And Davis didn’t know about this?? Now we know why IU fans wanted him gone.
Oh, and former Terp star and NCAA Champion Lonny Baxterhas an unhealthy interest in firearms likes guns.
From a while back, ESPN believes that nearly a third of D1 teams are eligible to become Bracket Busters. (h/t to Awful Announcing)
Louisville’s new arena (due in 2010) is already bidding for future NCAA Tournament games. Possible beneficiaries: Kentucky, Indiana, Cincinnati, Xavier.
Rivals weighs in with Alabama, Villanova, Illinois and others’ Labor Day weekend trips. (takeaways: Bama will struggle w/o Steele and Scottie Reynolds was on fire)
Andy Katz also contributes with reports (here and here) of his trip to Mexico with OJ Mayo and USC. (takeaway: OJ is the real deal)
Goodman also has some summer excursion thoughts on Oklahoma, Duquesne, USC and Arkansas here; and Villanova, Marquette and James Madison here.
Apparently Ohio St.’s Kosta Koufos was offered but did not take a Christian Drejer deal in Greece last week.
Blue Ribbon’s preseason All-Americans are out – Drew Neitzel, Chris Lofton, Roy Hibbert, Tyler Hansbrough and Dominic James. We’re lukewarm on Neitzel as a first-teamer.
Some random morsels on Michael Vick Day in America:
And now on to the next great great political debate, Swift Boat style. Did Obama play ball at Occidental or not? There appears to be some dispute on this story, with a blogger at the Fanhouse refuting the original story we linked to from last week, while someone else dug up an old Washington Post quote from his coach talking about his game. This is so much more interesting than whether W showed up for air guard duty!
Aggiesports.com reports with an in-depth article on Billy G’s first 100 days in Lexington.
Quick, what Big East team has the most wins in the Big East Tournament during the 2000s? If you said Pittsburgh (15 wins, largely due to five runner-up finishes) give yourself a Dave Gavitt doll.
Andy Katz exonerated Roy Williams from the accusation that he was still recruiting Wake Forest commit 6′11 PF Ty Walker after the death of Skip Prosser several weeks ago. There was apparently some misunderstanding over a letter of condolences sent by Williams to Walker regarding the incident (from Katz’s blog – subscriber only).
A small newspaper article in Missouri confirms what we’ve always known as true about the upcoming college football season (which, admittedly, we enjoy very much despite its fundamental flaws):
But that’s what we’re asked to do year after year during college football season, as the “best regular season” leads way to the “worst postseason” of any sport. Sure, the bowl games are great for TV viewing on New Year’s Day, but most of them are meaningless and the game we’re supposed to care the most about happened during the second week of January last season.
RTC Live is a regular
feature where we provide courtside access to you, the fans, through
interactive liveblogging and an ability to get questions in front of
players, coaches and other media (yes, even Andy Katz). We've visited the
following venues this season:
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2009 ncaa tournament | Tagged: 2009 ncaa tournament, andy katz, army, barack obama, bill raftery, bob ryan, bobby knight, brad redford, brian zoubek, chris carawell, chris collins, coach k, dejuan blair, duke, gary mcghee, gerald henderson, greg paulus, jamie dixon, jay wright, jermaine dixon, john feinstein, levance fields, nate james, olek czyz, pittsburgh, sam young, scottie reynolds, sean miller, steve wojciechowski, unc, verne lundquist, villanova, xavier | 
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Posted by nvr1983
Andy Katz now reports on his blog today that the NABC put forth a new statement yesterday that admonishes coaches for using their early autumn ’skill development’ time (2 hours/week) prior to full practices for recruiting purposes. More specifically, they don’t want schools to bump up their Midnight Madness festivities to a preceding weekend so as to take advantage of a more favorable recruiting scenario (i.e., big football game on campus, local stripper convention, the fact that nobody else is having Midnight Madness that weekend). Why is this important now? Because 
