BracketBusters will get a whole post to itself a little later, but there’s enough good stuff happening today elsewhere in college basketball to keep us busy. We’ve already had some important results today in terms of bubble-ology (you gotta finish strong, Virginia Tech), and there’s even been a slew of Twitter chatter about who would be the best Commissioner of College Basketball — we prefer “Czar of Hoops” — if such a position existed. Peter Gabriel once said that all art is based on theft, so we took that idea and created a Twitter poll about it, for which we’ll be taking votes up through this evening.

• Hardy Shows Guts, MSG Goes Nuts. Some time around the middle of the second half of what turned out to be a 60-59 St. John’s win over Pittsburgh, thanks to a closing-moments layin by Dwight Hardy, we tweeted out a quick poll to see how many of our faithful followers thought St. John’s would get into the Dance. We figured everyone would vote them in…and that’s exactly what happened after about a hundred votes. NOBODY voted them out, which really didn’t surprise us. Then the game ended, and we canceled the poll. It was all but a foregone conclusion before that game, given their collection of signature wins, but it’s final, now. The only question is what seed they’ll get. With a deep run in the Big East Tournament, could the Johnnies play themselves up to a four seed? A three? What say you, friends?
• No Higgins Jokes, Please. Another question from that game: Hardy looked like a tightrope walker as he tried to stay in-bounds along the baseline while making his move that led to the game-winning layup. Did he step out? When we rewound the DVR, it looked like his toes stayed in, but his heels were definitely over the line. The way his foot moves, though, it appears that he pivoted on his toes and his heels were hovering above the line (so to speak), but we admit that it’s not the best angle. The referee, you’ll notice, is looking right at Hardy’s feet. Nobody in America had a better view. We’ll go with his (non-)call until we see a better angle. A couple of people mentioned that Hardy hooked his defender to get free for the shot, but you can’t expect to get that call that late and on the road.
• Get On Your (Combat) Boots. The Big East Tournament is going to be a total war to the point that all we need to make it better is Dale Dye coordinating student section cheers in his dress blues. Or maybe ESPN could have him do the pre-game teasers. We say this because West Virginia got hot in the second half and just cooked likely-two-seed and possible-one-seed Notre Dame, 72-58. It obviously improves WVU’s Tournament resume’, not that there was much doubt about their chances. Truck Bryant and his previously broken fifth metatarsal hit four threes and 10 of his 12 free throws en route to a 24-point day.
• We Told You So. For anyone complaining that Texas should have been the #1 team in the polls back on Monday, Nebraska says “Hi.” Two of our guys voted for the Longhorns for the RTC Top 25 (which Ohio State sat atop when our mainframe finished tabulating all the data) and there’s no question an excellent case could have been made, but the Huskers took care of that moments ago. Nebraska tried to give it away by missing free throws and fouling three-point shooters — twice — in the last three minutes of the game, losing their double-digit lead over a span of about ninety seconds. But, they held on, 70-67, to deal Texas their first Big 12 loss. So far today, we’ve seen losses by #4 Pitt, #7 Notre Dame, and now #2 Texas. Nobody is safe this year, people. There’s no single team that even approaches what everyone thought of Kansas last year, and we know how it all worked out for them. What a post-season we have in store.
• We Want To Hear From You. That especially applies today, because we’re not kidding about that Twitter poll. Who would get your vote for the position of Commissioner of College Basketball? Hit us up on Twitter, and let us know. We’ll announce the results later today on the feed. As of right now, your leaders are Jay Bilas, and…Bob Knight.

Past Imperfect is a series focusing on the history of the game. Every Thursday, RTC contributor JL Weill (@AgonicaBoss | Email) highlights some piece of historical arcana that may (or may not) be relevant to today’s college basketball landscape. This week: the swift rise and fall of Cleveland State’s Kevin Mackey.

The question is deceptively simple: how much is too much too fast? For Kevin Mackey, the answers to these and other questions came too late – years and years too late – to save him, and his program, from himself. For the coach of the outlaws, the misfits, the ones no one wanted, the coach with all the answers to basketball questions, there were no answers to the questions about life, about how to handle it all after you’ve tasted the big time, after you’re somebody.

Indiana had no answers for Mackey and his boys that night, that’s for sure. But that was by design. Mackey knew from experience that no one who’s anyone answers the polite knock at the door. They either don’t hear you or act like they don’t. They’ll look out the window and see you standing there with your hair all wrong and your clothes all wrong and your everything all wrong, and they’ll just shut the shades and stay quiet. Don’t let him in. He’s trouble.

So that’s why you don’t knock politely on the door. You kick the door down and tell them, show them, that what matters isn’t your hair or your clothes or anything you can see but that you are capable of kicking the door down. That’s what they pay attention to.

Kevin Mackey had been kicking doors down for a long time before he got noticed. First as a high school coach back in Boston, where he kicked to the tune of three straight championship seasons at Don Bosco. Then, level mastered, he moved on to Boston College, where scouring the dark corners of the Northeast for hidden gems he helped Tom Davis and then Gary Williams rattle some folks, too. B.C. is where Mackey showed he could bring in the kids no one else could, the Michael Adamses and John Bagleys.

Boston College can be a tough place to get noticed. Despite being a cradle of future winning coaches, it was always a place you had to scrap and claw and kick to get noticed. That was just fine for a guy like Mackey. The harder, the better. And every year they took another step. Had to overcome Rick Kuhn and Henry Hill and all that point shaving business and just kept fighting for everything they got. And because they fought a lot, they got a lot. Like a Big East regular-season title in ’81. Like the NCAA Sweet 16 the same year. With Mackey still bringing in the tough kids, the kids with nothing to lose, and Dr. Tom still coaching them, the Chestnut Hill gang almost made it all the way to the Final Four in ‘82, shocking Depaul and Kansas State and nearly taking out Houston. Williams came in and, with Mackey, kept the whole thing going forward. B.C. finished first in the Big East again. Only a man as big as Ralph Sampson could end the run, which Virginia did in the second round of the ’83 NCAA tournament.

Having been passed over for the B.C. job, now it was time for Mackey to knock down his own doors. He knew what he wanted to do, now he just needed a where to do it. How about Cleveland? Another place you have to make a lot of noise to get noticed. When Mackey took over the Cleveland State basketball program, it had never before won 20 games in a season. Came close a few times, but this just wasn’t the place you go to win 20 games in a season. Mackey the coach knew this, but he also knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to run, and trap, and kick those barriers to the big time down. And he knew how’d he’d get there – the same way he’d gotten this far: by getting the guys with nothing to lose, making them believe they could kick through a wall and then letting them loose on all the walls of the world. So that’s exactly what Mackey did. He brought in kids who had less than nothing to lose.

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Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC contributor. In this weekly piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball. This week, Jesse jumps on the St. John’s bandwagon, reminisces about his UNC vs Duke days, and wishes Ohio State hadn’t lost.

The Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…..this tweet from North Carolina freshman Kendall Marshall this past Tuesday, just two days after tearing apart Florida State’s defense: “Just got turned down for Valentine’s Day. Confidence is low right now lololol.” As a buddy of mine phrased it, come on Chapel Hill – 16 assists doesn’t cut it for the ladies?

I LOVED…..the biggest shot of the weekend coming from college basketball’s version of Carrot Top. Wisconsin’s Mike Bruesewitz splashed a monster three from the top of the key with the shot clock running down to seal Ohio State’s first loss of the season. It’s hard to miss his fire-colored curles on a telecast, and even harder when he’s front-and-center in the game’s biggest moment. A few more of those shots and Bruesewitz will have a cult-like following from the fad hair lovers in America.

I LOVED…..a good ‘ol fashioned Duke-UNC throwdown. I was around the rivalry for four years during college, and I’ll never for one second believe that there’s a better annual game than the regular-season matchup at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Like no other rivalry, records seem to go out the window and emotions reach some sort of twisted, chaotic climax. This year we even had the UNC chancellor hatin’ on the campers of Krzyzewskiville — via Twitter no less. Alas, we now have to wait 51 more weeks for the next edition at Cameron.

Take Heart, Kendall. Your Rising APG and the Love of the UNC Nation Will Keep You Warm

I LOVED…..St. John’s continuing its resurgence under Steve Lavin. There’s something extremely cool about reviving a program that has such an amazing history and plays in MSG, the Mecca of basketball stadiums. New York City is so connected with our game’s history that it’s fun to see an energetic coach put some excitement back into the program. Let’s hope this isn’t a one-season deal.

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Past Imperfect is a series focusing on the history of the game. Every Thursday, RTC contributor JL Weill (@AgonicaBoss | Email) highlights some piece of historical arcana that may (or may not) be relevant to today’s college basketball landscape. This week: the boy wonder Damon Bailey.

It doesn’t seem odd to us these days to see kids touched by the grace of the basketball Gods at 14 and 15 years old, kids deemed saviors by followers of the game and coaches, too. Oh, sure, we act aghast that a coach would offer a scholarship to a 14-year-old, then we applaud and massively reward coaches who reel in the top talent, the very kids who have generally been courted since they were in junior high. But years ago, this still seemed something beyond the game. In an era where going pro early meant leaving as a junior, identifying and — more so — publicizing the exploits of a pre-high school-age player came across as crass, perhaps even unethical. My how times change.

Ignoring for the moment a decade in which high school kids were handed the keys to the NBA castle, we have become so inured to the phenomenon of the phenom, so accustomed to the custom of the precocious freshman, we no longer think it all that strange that kids are being identified and categorized and ranked and evaluated at an early age. It seems, well, normal. And why shouldn’t it? Last season, two freshmen were named first-team All-America, and this season many feel another freshman, Jared Sullinger, could be Player of the Year. That’s not a problem. That’s just the way it is.

Two decades ago, freshmen were certainly scrutinized, and plenty saw of minutes. The Fab Five entered college in the fall of 1991 and changed the way freshmen were regarded forever. But even then, in the pre-dawn of the age of the freshman, tapping a kid as a star before he has even settled on a high school seemed somehow too much. And then there was Damon Bailey.

*      *      *

The story came straight out of the big screen: Once upon a time in Indiana, a blond-haired kid with a square jaw and a jump shot is called one of the best basketball players in America. He outmuscles bigger players and out-quicks smaller ones. He can pass, he can score. He is tough-nosed and plays aggressive face-up defense and knows how to win. In fact, his team is undefeated two years in a row. A legendary college coach comes to watch him work. Of course, the star of this story has never played a minute of high school basketball. This is because he is still in the eighth grade.

The classic basketball film Hoosiers came out in 1986. A year later, Damon Bailey echoed the ethos of that iconic movie when he arrived on the basketball scene with a flourish, thanks to a writer and a Hall of Fame coach. That Bailey had little in particular to do with his fame is a story in and of itself – a script within a script.

This script shows Indiana University head coach Bob Knight – by that time a three time national champion and the physical embodiment of Hoosier basketball – coming to see this 14-year-old kid play, standing at the door with his arms folded as commotion abounds due to his very presence. Afterwards, Knight, in a bit of Knightian hyperbole, states to his coaches that the kid is better than the guards Indiana has at the time. Then the writer reports it, and the legend begins.

Damon Bailey had fame thrust on him when his name was part of a bestselling book.

In an era before the Internet, before fans could see clips of high school stars  — heck, junior high stars – dunking and juking and sweet shooting past and over outclassed opponents, it took a lot to get noticed by the national sports media. Yes, there were Five-Star Camps and recruit ranking services and nationally recognized recruiting analysts. It’s big-time basketball, so of course there was. But it wasn’t quite yet the sport unto itself it is now, and, more importantly, it wasn’t something readily accessible to the general college basketball fan, save possibly a back-page mention in a Street & Smith’s or Blue Ribbon preseason magazine.

But Damon Bailey got noticed. That’s what Bobby Knight coming to your junior high game can do for you. It’s also because Bailey’s presence (and Knight’s) was featured prominently in John Feinstein’s bestselling yearlong excursion into an Indiana Hoosiers season, A Season on the Brink. That’s where the story of Knight’s visit to the tiny gym in Shawswick first came to light.

And it’s also because Bailey was very, very good at basketball. But if the story of Damon Bailey was just making itself known to fans of the college game outside Indiana, the legend of Damon Bailey was already well under way in Hoosier-land.

*      *      *

Bedford, Indiana, is not a big place. Just 14,000 people or so. It’s the kind of place where being a good basketball player is a big deal. And it’s the kind of place where being a basketball legend is the biggest deal there can be. Damon Bailey was as big a deal as Bedford had ever produced. In November of 1986, no less than Sports Illustrated tabbed Bailey the country’s best ninth-grade hoopster. Add this to the praise afforded him by Coach Knight, and you can imagine that it would be tough for any kid to live up to that kind of hype. And it was, and it is. But that’s what Bailey did, beginning right away as a high school freshman.

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The Lede.  Only a couple of good games were on tonight’s docket, but the bigger story of this evening is that in just a few minutes from the time of this writing, we pass over into the month of February.  You remember that one, right?  It comes immediately prior to March, otherwise known as the month we all salivate over the rest of the year.  You don’t need us to tell you why the year’s shortest month is so important, but suffice it to say that there’s no longer any time for excuses.   We’ve played two months of a non-conference season and another month of action within the family — it’s time to show what you’ve got this season, or simply play out the string.  Shall we?

Things Are Fun For Texas Right Now (AP/J. Eilts)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Those Longhorns Are Kinda Good.  Is it possible that this year’s Texas team is every bit as surprising in a good way as last year’s #1-turned-first round loser was in a bad way?  Rick Barnes’ Longhorns are sure playing like it, and what’s remarkable about their current streak is that they’re simply dominating the Big 12 right now.  Nobody they’ve played in conference action has yet been able to find a weakness in the sticky man-to-man defense to where they can get open looks to score.  And we mean… nobody — after tonight’s 69-49 win over rival Texas A&M (and the game wasn’t that close), Texas has defeated seven Big 12 opponents by an average of 18.7 points while holding its opponents to a paltry 53.4 PPG.  As exhibited by the Aggies in tonight’s 24% shooting first half (and 31% for the game), the looks simply are not available from anywhere on the court — so long as UT can merely hit 40% of its own shots, they’re going to be in position to win every game they play the rest of the season.  Given the way the Horns are locking up teams defensively and with their two toughest road trips already behind them (@ TAMU, @ Kansas), they have an excellent shot at running the table in the Big 12 at 16-0.  Their toughest two remaining games are at Nebraska and Colorado, both of whom have shown promise interspersed with difficulties.  It amazes us to think about gunner Jordan Hamilton as a defensive stopper, but he appears to have bought into the ethos and completely shut down TAMU’s Khris Middleton tonight (0 pts on 0-9 FG).  We’ve noticed the emergence of a definite swagger creeping into the UT players in much the same way that some other great defensive teams of the past have (we’re thinking of 2002-03 Kentucky, as one comparison) — they dare you to score on them, and most of the time, you cannot.  It seems that the only way to legitimately have a shot to break down the Longhorn defense is off the bounce of an elite guard — someone like Ashton Gibbs (24 pts vs. Texas) or Kemba Walker (22 pts) who has the ability to get shots off under duress and in transition.  Otherwise, good luck finding those points — Texas A&M, with more shots blocked tonight (9) than assists (7) will attest to that.

RTC Live.  Rob Dauster covered tonight’s game in Washington, DC, and submitted this report.

Georgetown 62, Louisville 59.  Louisville may not have a star, as Rick Pitino has had a penchant for saying this season, but one this that is becoming clear is that Peyton Siva might be the most important player on the team. What Louisville likes to do if they cannot get an open look early in the shot clock is to run a high ball-screen with Siva. The Cardinals spread the floor with shooters and look to either get Siva in a one-on-one situation with a big man at the top of the key or hit Terrence Jennings on a roll to the rim with a defender on his back. It worked against UConn and West Virginia, particularly down the stretch, but Georgetown’s Julian Vaughn is terrific at defending the play. Siva is quick, but on just one occasion was he able to score off of it in the second half, drawing a foul on Vaughn with less a minute left.  With Georgetown’s resurgence in the Big East now at five straight wins, you are going to hear a lot about Chris Wright and Austin Freeman returning to form. And, yes, they deserve credit for their great play. Wright was terrific tonight just 48 hours after Freeman carried the Hoyas to a win over Villanova. But what no one is going to be talking about is the switch that John Thompson, III, made in the starting lineup. Nate Lubick has been starting for the Hoyas over Hollis Thompson. This gives Georgetown more size to start the game while allowing them an offensive sparkplug off the bench when Thompson enters. Ohio State does something similar with Dallas Lauderdale and Aaron Craft, and it appears to be working for both teams.

Tweet of the Night.  Fake Gimel is back with a timely rip on Bob Knight as commentator.  Is it too much to ask for one of the greatest coaches ever to do a little homework on the teams he’s calling?

1. It is still a few days before Christmas, but quite a few coaches got early Christmas presents in the form of players making long-awaited debuts. The most notable of these debuts was that of Josh Selby, who more than lived up to the hype as he was the best player on the court in Lawrence on Saturday and hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 26 seconds left to propel Kansas to a hard-fought victory over USC. While Selby justifiably received the majority of the hype he wasn’t the only notable player making a debut as Jio Fontan was making his debut for the Trojans. Unfortunately for the Trojans Fontan did not has as auspicious of a debut as he stepped on the sideline after catching an inbounds pass following Selby’s 3, which eventually led to the Jayhawks hanging on for a victory. The other notable debut over the weekend was that of Renardo Sidney, who managed to score 12 points in a losing effort for Mississippi State against Virginia Tech.
2. Tonight Duke will play Elon in a game that probably doesn’t mean much to the average college basketball fan, but it will hold a special meaning for Coach K as he will going for win #879, which would tie Dean Smith for 2nd all-time win list. Everyone can appreciate the meaning as how it relates to the Duke-UNC rivalry, but it will also mean something for Krzyzewski on a more personal level after he spent more than a decade trying to emulate Smith to make Duke into a program comparable to UNC.
3. While we are on the topic of Coach K, The Fayetteville Observer has an excellent 3-part series on him analyzing him from all points of view. It is definitely worth your time even if we will all be getting bombarded with about a million pieces on him as he approaches Bob Knight‘s all-time wins record.
4. Earlier this season Len Elmore chimed in saying that he thought that Bruce Pearl should be fired and now Jay Bilas has voiced his opinion and he agrees with the Elmore’s take (Insider only, sorry). So now we know where ESPN’s basketball/legal department stands on Bruce Pearl. We can only hope that someone brings this up when Pearl is being interviewed by Elmore and/or Bilas, but we doubt that the executives at ESPN will let that happen. One more thing about the Bilas column: This is the first time we have ever seen the term “Chillax” on a major website.
5. We are a men’s college basketball site, but we would be remiss if we did not congratulate the UConn women for their 88th consecutive victory tying the record set by John Wooden‘s UCLA team. The Huskies will be going for #89 on Tuesday night at home against FSU.

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC contributor.  In this piece he’ll spend each week reviewing the five things he loved and hated about the previous week of college basketball.

The Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED..…that the Big Ten announced Sunday it’s not looking to expand in the near future. This recent movement between conferences has been fine and dandy, but I’m all for reeling things in a little bit now rather than continuing to strengthen/expand the big boys. We like conferences in college basketball for a reason – their identities. Teams in the ACC get up and down, the Big East is super physical… etc. Let’s keep expansion under control and preserve that uniqueness.

Twelve is Apparently Enough

I LOVED…..a coach with no filter. Yes, Bruce Pearl, we’re talking about you. You were always one to let fly with a zinger once you got to UT. You spilled the beans about the rules you broke recently, and when given the chance, you had no problem lining up a zinger at a former UT employee.

“I’ve made mistakes, I clearly did, but what I was hoping for was that some other dumb%#& would get on the front page and take me off the hook,” Pearl said. “I miss Lane Kiffin.”

Thank heavens you’re still around Bruce, because we’d miss you.

I LOVED…..legacies getting into the act. On one hand we had Michael Jordan’s son, Marcus, making noise with his 18 points in a Central Florida upset over the freefalling Florida Gators. That sure beats making the headlines because you refuse to wear anything but Daddy’s shoes.

Then there’s Tyler Summit at Tennessee. The son of legendary UT women’s coach Pat Summit, baby-faced Tyler stepped onto the court — named after mom — during garbage time and promptly nailed a three. Sure he dipped his knees all the way and hoisted it up like he was ten years old (a distinct possibility), but you can’t argue with results.

I LOVED…..watching the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, and all interconference challenges for that matter. It’s great for a number of reasons. One, it gives us monster matchups like Duke-Michigan State, and is great for the fans. Two, it tests teams early on and makes them play in hostile environments, even if their coach would prefer otherwise (yes, Coach K, we’re talking about you and your affinity for neutral court non-conference games). And three, it gives us a decent way to peg different conferences early in the year – like how the ACC is down again.

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The Lede.  Big Ten Goes Back-to-Back.  Maybe the plan is for the Big Ten to win eight more ACC/Big Ten Challenges in a row so as to tie up the all-time record (now 10-2 ACC), but thanks to a strong Tuesday performance where the league went 4-1 against the ACC, the Big Ten did just enough tonight (2-3) to once again crow about basketball dominance for the next 363 days.  Well, sorta.  As much as we enjoy the concept behind these conference challenges (and this one is clearly the best one), they don’t truly mean much in terms of assessing the relative strength of the conferences.  As we mentioned last night, the Big Ten is much stronger than the ACC in its top half, and that’s the half that truly matters when discussing this game we call college basketball.  We’re not sure if anyone outside of Iowa City or Winston-Salem cares much if Wake Forest is marginally better than Iowa, but most of the nation cares whether Duke is better than Michigan State  (they are) or Virginia Tech is better than Purdue (they’re not).  If we were ranking the top ten teams by combining both leagues, it would go something like this:  1) Duke; 2) Ohio State; 3) Michigan State; 4) Illinois; 5) Minnesota; 6) Purdue; 7) Wisconsin; 8) Virginia Tech; 9) Northwestern; 10) Maryland/FSU (?).  At the level where the checks are signed, the Big Ten is by far the better league and we’ll stand by that assertion throughout the season.

Irving's Skills Belie His Youth (credit: Herald-Sun)

Your Watercooler Moment.  Just How Good Is Kyrie Irving? A common refrain during and after tonight’s Duke victory over Michigan State, 84-79, was that Blue Devil point guard Kyrie Irving was not only the best player on the floor — with 31 pts, 6 rebs, 4 assts, 2 stls and 2 blks — but he might just be the freshman who should have been chosen as preseason first-team All-American and NPOY candidate (instead of the popular pick eight miles down the road, Harrison Barnes).  It’s hard to argue with that assessment right now.  In two games matched up against elite senior All-America point guards (Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen and Michigan State’s Kalin Lucas), Irving has out-everythinged his more experienced peers.  During parts of the game tonight, he simply made his defenders look like they were standing in quicksand as he hesitated and stepped-through the lane for numerous clever finishes.  When the MSU defense laid off of him, he calmly sank a couple of threes.  When they double-teamed him, he consistently made the right pass to the open man.  And this isn’t just one game, either.  On the season, he’s averaging 17/4/6 assts , carries a 2.5:1 assist/turnover ratio and he’s in the spectacular 50/40/80+ zone as a matter of shooting percentages (52%/44%/88%).  Oh, and he appears to be the best player on the #1 team in America — there’s that too.  It’s early, and there’s a point guard named Kemba and a couple of other freshmen named Terrence and Jared who we think are playing just as well or better as the Dookie getting all the love tonight, but without question Irving makes Duke a fantastically dangerous team in ways that they never were with Jon Scheyer running things last year.  If the Devils can figure out the big man situation and defend a little better (allowing 49%/53% against MSU is a little disconcerting), they have a chance to become an epic team (but not good enough to run the table, see below).

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Highlighters and Headsets is an occasional look at the coverage of college basketball – from television to print (they still make paper?), blogs to bracket busters, and Gus Johnson to Gameday – written by RTC contributor Steve Moore. He welcomes your comments, column ideas and Dickie (V) jokes at smoore71@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter @smoore1117.

Taking a Look at College Gameday

ESPN has yet to start this season’s edition of Gameday for basketball, but for me, it seems interesting to discuss just how uninteresting the hoops edition has turned out to be.  Each Saturday in the fall, I make it a point to watch some or all of the football version of Gameday. Why? It’s not any sort of college football obsession – heck, my alma mater cut its football program 13 years ago, and the closest I come to rooting interest is hating on Penn State.

Hoops Gameday Needs to Broaden Its Horizons

It’s not the insightful “analysis” of Lee Corso or Kirk Herbstreit, and it’s not even to look at Erin Andrews (although that’s not a bad way to start your weekend). Sure, there’s the occasional funny feature, or heartfelt story about a player or program you never knew existed. But that’s not really it, either.  To be honest, the main reason I watch is because I like to feel like I’m a part of the “event” that is a college football Saturday. The signs, the cheerleaders, the massive sea of fans behind the stage. Just the feel of it all makes me, at least for one fleeting instant, wish I had a big-time program to root for. Heck, I’d even take a 1-AA team (and no, NCAA, I’m not calling it FCS – so take that).

My point is that college football Saturdays are an event, whether you’re in Tuscaloosa or Towson. College basketball doesn’t have that “big day” of action, and there’s nothing the sport can do about that. Yet one of the main reasons we all love college basketball is the atmosphere that surrounds a big game, inside and outside of the gym. And there is plenty ESPN could do to improve on that aspect.

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Highlighters & Headsets is an occasional look at the coverage of college basketball – from television to print (they still make paper?), blogs to bracket busters, and Gus Johnson to Gameday – written by RTC contributor Steve Moore. He welcomes your comments, column ideas and Dickie (V) jokes at smoore71@gmail.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @smoore1117.

Hoops Marathon Tests ESPN’s Bench Depth

ESPN catches a lot of flak from a lot of people – much of it deserved. But as almost any college basketball fan will tell you, the College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon is one of the best things on the ESPN calendar. It’s unique and quirky, without being overly gimmicky. We get to see teams and players we won’t see again all season, and have an excuse to stay up until all hours of the night.  For me (and I hope at least a few others, or else no one will be reading this), part of the allure is also keeping an eye (and ear) on how ESPN performs during its annual test of endurance and depth.

The WWL Nailed This Event

Personally, I think this is the kind of thing that proves why ESPN is the gold standard. Its resources (read: dollar bills, y’all) are endless, and, for the most part, its announcing crews are professional and entertaining. Unlike some people here at RTC, I couldn’t make it through the entire 24 hours without the help of Red Bull, Four Loko or some other delicious energy beverage. But I did catch enough to put together a quick rundown of the ups and downs of ESPN’s effort on what was, overall, an incredible day for hoops fans everywhere.

THE PERFECT ATTITUDE

Nearly all of ESPN’s announcing teams on Tuesday – and the general attitude of the network’s promotion – seemed to understand the event. By that, I mean the network seemed to understand that the whole concept of playing basketball at 2, 4 and 6 a.m. is a little strange, and it’s OK to increase the off-beat goofiness and drop the life-or-death mindset that is more appropriate during Championship Week or UNC-Duke.

As the hours got later, the announcers seemed to adapt with the late-night viewers watching at home. Sean McDonough and Bill Raftery (Memphis-Miami, midnight) always sound like they’re sitting at the bar talking about the game, but Carter Blackburn/Mark Gottfried (St. Mary’s-St. John’s, 2 a.m.) and Todd Harris/Mark Adams (Hawaii/Central Michigan, 4 a.m.) lightened the mood and didn’t take themselves too seriously. We got much less in the way of X’s and O’s, and more basic information about teams and players we may not know too well.

The prize, however, goes to the duo of Rob Stone and Jay Williams, who called two games in two different states, 12 hours apart (Monmouth-Stony Brook, 6 a.m., and Villanova/Marist, 5:30 p.m.). Stone’s lighthearted style, and the fact that he’s not a college hoops specialist, just seemed to work well with a ridiculous 6 a.m. tip in a high school-sized gym at Monmouth. Part of the allure of the 6 a.m. game is wondering what the atmosphere is like and whether the players and coaches are into it. The duo kept me interested, and also seemed completely on board with their early wakeup call. It would have been easy to tell if the pair felt like it was forced into the ridiculous assignment. Stone and Williams seemed to embrace the absurdity of it all, and even filmed their trek from Monmouth to Villanova. The clip of Stone rocking out to Journey was one of the day’s highlights.

Jason Williams Has Really Improved Over the Years

In fact, I would even suggest a few more of these quirky announcing journeys during the marathon. Maybe let McDonough and Raftery start and finish the event, or send Dickie V to Monmouth or one of the smaller schools. God knows he sees the ACC enough.

GREAT NEW VOICES, AND GRATING FAMILIAR FACES

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