11.09.07

Story of the Night. 93 Games. 186 teams. Thank God college hoops is back, baby. We’re a little late, but this is why we care. We got to watch pieces of six games tonight, and while the games looked like Nov. 9, meaning sloppy, it was soooo refreshing to see and hear the sneakers squeaking on the hardwood again.

Things We Saw. Kansas is so loaded we can’t understand how they lose to anyone. Darnell Jackson (21/4/4 stls) off the bench, Sherron Collins (22/6 asts/4 stls), and so much more. UL-Monroe isn’t that bad either, but they were really never in the game (Kansas 107, UL-Monroe 78). In Florida, the Gators are (as expected) extremely young but talented – their freshmen scored 46 of their 75 pts and Nick Calathes looked great, leading the team with 21 pts. They were never threatened with an L by North Dakota St., but they could never really put them away either. That will likely come with experience (Florida 75, North Dakota St. 65). Staying in the SEC, Tennessee took a while to get going against Temple, and they didn’t shoot well from 3 (27%), but they still won comfortably. We still have trouble distinguishing between the 47 Smiths they have on the team (all of them are about 6’5 and wear headbands), but they combined for 38/9/6, while Lofton was otherwise limited (10 pts) (Tennessee 80, Temple 63). One question – will Temple ever be relevant again? The best game of the night that was televised was actually the Ohio-NMSU game. New Mexico St. played without stud freshman Herb Pope, but it was evened out because Ohio’s star forward Leon Williams spent most of the night on the bench in foul trouble anyway. The rest of the Ohio starters picked up for Williams, though (64/25/11), despite NMSU clearly having the more athletic team. Martin Iti (7’0, 240) has an NBA body, but why isn’t he more productive (8/9) (Ohio 80, New Mexico St. 72)?

Score of the Night. Stanford 111, the Tommy Amakers 56. None of the Stanford starters played more than 17 mins, and keep in mind they were w/o Brook Lopez in this game as well. The halftime score was 63-28. Good grief, man! Way to inspire confidence in your first game at Harvard, TA.

Upset Alert. UNC-Greensboro 83, Georgia Tech 74. Who said this yesterday – “upset alert if Ga Tech doesn’t come ready to play…” :-) It appears that mid-major all-american Kyle Hines absolutely shredded the Jackets’ front line (25/9/2 blks on 10-12 shooting). You never know what you’re going to get with Ga Tech, but UNCG is a team to watch as a potential at-large out of the SoCon next spring if they get a couple more of these. Belmont 86, Cincinnati 75. This really isn’t an upset, but Cincy was a 9-pt favorite at home. Wait… who said this yesterday also – “upset alert again – UC was horrid last year. Have they improved?” Now that we’re 2-0 this season on upset alerts, we’re quitting. Great BCS win for Belmont, who we perhaps foolishly did not pick to win the A-Sun again this year (gulp… we didn’t pick Gardner-Webb either). Belmont had 19 layups, 12 threes and 10 FTs, which amounted to 84 of their 86 points – now that’s efficiency. Wow. Other upsets: Tulane 77, Auburn 62 – maybe not the result, but the margin.

Line of the Night. There is no question about this one. Michael Beasley (Kansas St.) (34/24/4 assts/4 blks). 24 rebounds sets a new Big 12 conference record. Just sick numbers for a first game. Kansas St. 94, Sacramento St. 63.

Freshmen. Aside from Beasley at K-State, Kevin Love at UCLA also had an impressive debut (22/13) in a Bruin whomping (UCLA 69, Portland St. 48). The Duke trio of freshmen Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Taylor King combined for 51/14 in a complete and utter destruction of NC Central (Duke 121, NC Central 56). The Devils even pulled out some zone defense, they say.

In Memoriam. Wake Forest honored Skip Prosser by hanging a banner in their arena recognizing his contributions to the school and athletic program. The Deacons played hard and honored his legacy by winning easily (Wake Forest 85, Fairfield 60).

Nov. Bracketbuster. George Mason already helped their at-large profile with tonight’s win over Vermont, one of the better teams in the America East this year. GMU’s Will Thomas (yes, he’s still around) blew up for 16/17, overcoming the Patriots’ abysmal 1-17 from the three point line (George Mason 60, Vermont 53).

Joey Dorsey Award. We like him, but tonight’s award goes to Chris Lofton (Tennessee), for shooting 1-8 (0-5 from three) from the field and only scoring 10 pts. With a stroke like that, we expect nearly all of them to go in.

On Tap Today (all times EST). Another pretty big day with 63 games, although not much on tv because of college football. Here are some of the games to keep an eye for along the bottom line while you watch pigskin.

• Yale (NL) v. Sacred Heart 1pm – presumptive favorites from the Ivy and NEC play.
  
• Texas Tech (-19.5) v. UC Riverside (ESPN FC) 2pm – we have no idea why this is FC worthy.
• Minnesota (NL) v. Army 3pm – Tubby’s debut will probably go a little better than Billy G’s last game.
• USC (NL) v. Mercer 4pm – we cannot wait to see the OJ highlights from this one.
• Bucknell (NL) v. Albany 7pm – a game that could affect seedings (#14 or #15) next March.
• Oregon (-26) v. Pepperdine (ESPN FC) 7:30pm – how will the Ducks look w/o Aaron Brooks?
• Vanderbilt (-12) v. Austin Peay 8pm – beating the dead horse here, but this is the kind of game we wish FC would have instead.
• Marquette (NL) v. IUPUI (ESPN FC) 8:30pm – we’re not completely sold on MU – this could be an interesting game.
• Pacific v. W. Michigan (-4.5) 9:30pm – if Pacific is back this year, they need to win this game.
  

11.07.07

Upset of the Year? We had a lot to say already on the UK upset at the hands of Rick Scruggs’ Gardner-Webb squad, but we didn’t really discuss the numbers behind an upset of this magnitude. Obviously, not much went well for the Cats – they shot a tepid 36% while allowing 53% (god only knows the last time an opponent shot that well at Rupp Arena) and they were outrebounded by eight. The dearth of any noticeable inside game aside from Patrick Patterson (12/12) is obvious – one night after Mark Coury pulled a double-double, he followed it up with 2/4. The two “stars” of this team, Ramel Bradley and Joe Crawford, combined for 6-21 shooting and it appears at first blush that UK will only go as far as the offense of these two (+ PP) will take them. Which means… probably not very far. The one other bright spot for the Cats was freshman Alex Legion, who came off the bench for 13 pts. Gardner-Webb has a lot to be proud of, and they can ride a win like this to far greater heights than expected in the Atlantic Sun. With four starters in double figures, great shot selection and patience with the ball, they very well may be a team to watch this season in that league.

Connecticut 69, Morgan St. 65. Before the Gardner-Webb upset, we were all set to discuss how overrated UConn was again this year, and how excited we were to see read about the big intra-sectional matchup tomorrow night between the Huskies and Holy Cross. Oh wait, Jim Calhoun don’t play like that. No offense to Todd Bozeman’s Morgan St. squad, but we’ll just have to settle for UConn being overrated. What’s not to like? Well, for starters, the Huskies are having trouble shooting the ball again, going a mere 3-15 from behind the arc. And while the nation’s #1 defensive fg% team last year held MSU to 35% shooting, they might want to concentrate a little more on stopping the long shots (11-22 from downtown). Jeff Adrien (12/10/7 blks) and Jerome Dyson (20/2) carried the Huskies, but 7’3 Hasheem Thabeet (3/6/2 blks) continues to underwhelm us. It seems as if UConn has a long way to go if they want to get back to the NCAA Tournament this year.

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Other Games: Buffalo 89, Ohio Valley 82. What is Ohio Valley and why is it playing in this tournament?

On Tap Tonight (all times EST). The Storrs Regional continues and the Norman Regional gets started.

• Denver (NL) v. East Central Oklahoma 5:30pm – gotta love multi-directional D2 teams.
• Oklahoma (-16) v. San Francisco (ESPNU) 8pm – interested to see how Blake Griffin starts his career at OU.
• Connecticut (-17) v. Buffalo (ESPNU) 9pm – this is the only time all season Buffalo will have a winning record – enjoy it, Bulls.

Absolute shocker from Lexington tonight: Gardner-Webb 84, Kentucky 68.

Is it safe to say that Billy Gillispie’s honeymoon at Kentucky is already over? Before we can even start talking about what happened there tonight (since we didn’t see it! thanks again, ESPNU), we should give a little historical perspective.

Consider that UK was a 25.5 point favorite and lost by 16 points for a spread difference of 41.5 pts. We know that Stanford was a 39 point underdog vs. USC in football when the Cardinal won 24-23 this year, but at least those teams are in the same conference, right? Honestly, we can’t remember another spread reversal quite so large in basketball.

Then consider that Gardner-Webb (9-21 in 06-07) was by all objective measures one of the worst teams in America last year (#279 Pomeroy; #265 RPI; #300 Sagarin), and was picked to finish near-last in the Atlantic Sun among its NCAA-eligible teams. The Bulldogs from Boiling Springs, NC, lost to UNC by 53, Georgia by 29, Wisconsin by 58 and Wake Forest by 32 pts last season, and its entire conference was 0-34 as a whole against BCS teams in 06-07.

Coach Gillispie Has Bigger Problems Now than His Sordid Past

How could this have possibly happened?

Folks, Gardner-Webb never trailed.

Gardner-Webb scored the game’s first 14 points, led by as much as 16 and took a 38-27 lead at intermission. The Runnin’ (and thinkin’) Bulldogs played with one purpose and repeatedly got good scoring opportunities. Backdoor cuts nullified UK’s pressure defense. Plain scrappiness netted other scoreboard rewards. At times, the Cats looked like the same disjointed team that so frustrated former coach Tubby Smith and the fans in recent seasons.

Gardner-Webb took immediate charge of the game. Grayson Flittner, a 6-foot native of Sharpsville, Ind., who walked on the Gardner-Webb team because his girlfriend played on the women’s team, scored 22 points. He hit a pair of three-pointers in the 14-0 run. Thomas Sanders, who was home schooled until college and came to Gardner-Webb through an “Availables Game” designated for unsigned junior college players, added 21 points and 10 rebounds. Kentucky responded with too many solo flights of fancy. None were more ugly than Joe Crawford’s leaning, one-hand flip shot [airball] that evoked thoughts of a YMCA pickup game.

(Sidenote: Grayson Flittner – isn’t he the Professor from And1?)

All that gladhanding and backslapping that Coach Gillispie has been getting in the Bluegrass State for the past seven months is over – the good-time wagon has lost a wheel and the pioneers are pissed. As far as we can tell, the much-maligned Tubby Smith’s worst loss in ten seasons at the helm of UK was to Western Kentucky at home in 2001-02, and WKU made the NCAAs as a #14 seed that year. What must ole Ten-loss Tubby be thinking right now? Obviously, G-W is far beneath WKU in historical status considering they just joined D1 in 2000. This is probably UK’s worst loss in almost twenty years, dating back to a 1989 home loss against SW Louisiana in the old UKIT during Rick Pitino’s first year at the helm – of course, he was playing with essentially a bunch of walk-ons, some chewing gum and silly putty that year, so that loss was none too surprising.

After the game, Gillispie had this to say:

You can’t just show up on the court and think you’re going to beat somebody because you wear a certain jersey. We didn’t play like a hunter tonight.

Well, Coach, UK fans were already booing tonight, and with good reason. You’re going to have to figure out how to become Daniel Boone in a hurry, or things could get very ugly for you there.

For a tough-love assessment of this upset from a fan’s perspective, A Sea of Blue gives it to Gillispie for his lack of um, coaching logic in this game.

Predicted Order of Finish:

North

1. East Tennessee St. (20-7) (13-3)
2. Belmont (19-12) (12-4)
3. Lipscomb (15-15) (10-6)
4. Campbell (13-16) (7-9)
5. Gardner-Webb (10-18) (6-10)
6. South Carolina – Upstate (6-21) (4-12)

South

1. Jacksonville (17-10) (11-5)
2. Mercer (17-12) (10-6)
3. Kennesaw St. (14-14) (10-6)
4. Stetson (13-15) (8-8)
5. Florida Gulf Coast (5-23) (3-13)
6. North Florida (3-24) (2-14)

WYN2K. The Atlantic Sun has been an up and down league over the past decade. It spent much of the late 90s and early 2000s as a league hovering at the top of the low-majors (#19-#23 ranked conference most years). But the last two seasons it has fallen hard, finishing as one of the bottom four conferences in the computer rankings both years. Its OOC record (70-174, .287) the last three years is standard for a league at this level. Still, the NCAA typically shows some love to the conference champion, having given the A-Sun only five #16 seeds in 64/65-team era (and two of those were when the league received multiple bids) and peaking with a #11 seed in 2001 (Georgia St. defeated #5 Wisconsin in the first round). The league has earned a #14 or #15 seed each of the last six years, and we see no reason for this to end.

Predicted Champion. East Tennessee St. (#15 Seed NCAA). We see Murray Bartow’s ETSU squad (16-2 last season in the A-Sun) as the team to beat here. They return league POY Courtney Pigram and bring in former juco D2 POY Kevin Tiggs, a combo guard from whom big things are expected immediately. As a program, ETSU is no stranger to the NCAA Tournament, having made the Dance two of the last five years (as a member of the Southern Conference) and seven times overall.

Others Considered. The A-Sun North division is clearly the class of the league, containing two-time defending tourney champion Belmont and rising Lipscomb. Belmont is a system program predicated on efficient ball movement (#21 nationally in eFG%) and tight defense (#5 nationally in eFG% defense), but the loss of their two best post men (Boomer Herndon and Andrew Preston) makes it difficult for us to pick them again. Lipscomb is another intriguing choice if for no other reason than they’re hosting the conference tourney this year – oh, and they’re 24-2 at home during the last two seasons. Jacksonville engineered one of the all-time greatest turnarounds last year, going from one win in 2006 to fifteen in 2007, and while they won eight of their last eleven regular season games, we’re not ready to push them past the more experienced teams just yet.

Games to Watch. There’s likely only one A-Sun game probably worth watching this year.

• Atlantic Sun Championship Game (03.08.08).

RPI Booster Games. The A-Sun has thirty games against BCS opponents scheduled this year, and hopefully it can perform a little better than last year when it was 0-34. There are some opportunities against lower-tier BCS teams, however, in the following list of games:

• Belmont @ Cincinnati (11.09.07)
• ETSU @ Georgia (12.21.07)
  
• Lipscomb @ Vanderbilt (12.08.07)
• Campbell @ South Carolina (11.28.08)
• Jacksonville @ Florida (12.03.07)
• Alabama @ Mercer (11.13.07)
• Kennesaw St. @ Auburn (11.13.07)

Odds of Multiple NCAA Bids. <5%. It’s extremely unlikely that this is a two-bid league, but if any team was going to make it so, it would be ETSU. It would require domination of the league as well as a scintillating non-conference record before they lose in the conference tourney – we don’t see that happening.

Neat-o Stat. We have a couple for the A-Sun. First, North Florida last season enjoyed the dubious distinction of having the least efficent offense in the nation, scoring a mere 79.6 pts per 100 possessions. Secondly, Florida Gulf Coast (one of four transitional schools making the jump to D1 in the A-Sun) is the youngest D1 university in America, having opened its doors to students in 1997.

64/65-Team Era. In 26 appearances, the Atlantic Sun is 3-23 (.115) over the era, scoring the #11 over #6 upset mentioned above, #12 College of Charleston defeating #5 Maryland in 1997, and #14 Arkansas-Little Rock defeating #3 Notre Dame (Digger!) in 1986. That UALR team then took NC State to double OT in the next round before succumbing – that is the closest the league has gotten to the Sweet 16 in its history.

Final Thought. Belmont has gotten destroyed by Georgetown (80-55) and UCLA (78-44) in the last two years in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. It doesn’t appear that their style of play is conducive to pulling off an upset against a bigger, more athletic team. The league would have a much better chance at the first round upset if an uptempo, athletic team like ETSU earns the automatic bid.