Sad news from Memphis last night as it was reported that former Tigers coach Dana Kirk, died from a heart attack at 74 years old. Kirk was essentially the architect of Memphis (State) basketball in the 1980s, as he turned a hoops backwater into a program that consistently recruited top players (mostly local), won 158 games, and made regular trips to the NCAA Tournament. Kirk coached the Tigers to the 1985 Final Four behind star forward Keith Lee, but he was dismissed by the school in 1986 and was later imprisoned a few months for federal tax evasion. His legacy was further tarnished by numerous NCAA violations on his watch, which led to his F4 appearance getting vacated and the school serving a probation in the late 80s. But make no mistake, Memphis probably wouldn’t have become the elite job it has become today without Kirk’s groundbreaking work there. RIP.
Wow, Nolan Richardsonwith an Isiah Thomas moment… his target, however, wasn’t Larry Bird but rather John Wooden and Bob Knight. Talking about some of the forgotten great black coaches in history, he said, “No matter how well they did the white power structure in college basketball mostly ignored them. If [John] McLendon had been white, he’d have been a star in the coaching world. If all the great coaches in basketball history like Knight or [John] Wooden had been black, they’d be nobodies.”
In case you missed it on Saturday, Oklahoma’s Willie Warren did not travel with his team to take part in the shellacking in Stillwater (OU lost by 21). He has the dreaded mononucleosis, which means officially that he’s out ‘indefinitely,’ but it could also mean that he’s shutting it down for the rest of the Sooners’ miserable season. OU has games left against Kansas, K-State, Texas, Baylor and Texas A&M in the next three weeks.
We really have to get an invite to this thing one year. Seth Davisgives his report from the annual NCAA Media Mock Bracket, which he was supposed to attend but couldn’t (weather). He breaks down the bracket that the media came up with, pointing out the obvious and subtle errors in their version. Honestly, we’re pretty surprised that the media bracket doesn’t do a better job with this each year — there’s very little pressure to ‘get it right,’ and these people are the ones who eat, sleep and breathe this stuff.
Gary Parrish’s take on why John Calipari should at least listen in case the Nets come to him with an offer is the most compelling we’ve seen on the matter. The next Phil Jackson will be the coach who gets to tell Lebron James when to pass the ball from time to time, and whoever that person is will ultimately become a legend because of it.
Rush The Court Central Command RTC Towers 28 January 2010
Even Duke RTCs Occasionally
Hey. How you doin’ out there? Good, good to hear. You know, it doesn’t seem that long ago (even though it was) that all of us here at RTC were college students. God, those were some sweet times. Lining up for tickets, going to every home game and as many road games as we could, turning a two-hour game into a whole-day event, making signs, coming up with catcalls for our opponents…ah, such wonderful years. The game was ours back then, and we’ve since turned it over to you. And we love what you’ve done with it. Fantastic job, really. It’s a great time to be a fan of the game, especially if you’re a student. Strong work.
One thing we’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks or so, though, is an increase in the number of court rushes, or “RTCs,” after wins. Oh yeah, we know how fun it is. We’ve got a few of those under our belts. But it’s that increase that we wanted to talk to you about. That’s why we’re writing. We want to talk about how it’s being overdone, and not just by a little. All the guys here at RTC, after fourfive a number of years as undergrads, we only had maybe one or two apiece. It should be that rare. Hey, calm down, we’re not trying to ruin your good time. When it’s time to rush, we want you out there. But it’s kind of like when you’re going out at night — we want you to have standards. And, like so many times AFTER going out at night, we definitely don’t want you to wake up the next day, have the memory come flooding back to you, and have that “Oh, God…what have I done?!?” moment. You know, like when you realize someone’s over there, so you roll over, turn off the camera, and…well, never mind. That’s a story for another post. Anyway, let’s get back to how this court-rushing exuberance has gotten out of hand.
Good court coverage. Extra points for usage of blimp.
You know how hard it is for us in particular to say that. But people are talking. Gregg Doyel is talking about you. Seth Davis is talking about you. Other bloggers are talking about you. Every commentator on TV is talking about you. And if you were involved in one of the recent RTCs that was obviously uncalled for, then your families, friends, and neighbors are talking about you. None of it’s flattering. You don’t want that, do you? People are definitely e-mailing and tweeting and commenting, asking us about it because of what we call ourselves around here. Again, we don’t want to spoil the fun. We know that RTCing will always exist. There’s no more chance of it going away than there is of crowds actually taking Bob Knight’s advice and chanting “Great Job!” after victories over rival teams (though we despise the “overrated” chant). It’s just not realistic to think it will ever stop. But like we said — this is all about having standards.
Once-Proud Indiana RTCs Against Unranked Minnesota?
In fact, the last one was so ugly that nobody bothered to put a video of it onto YouTube. We can only surmise that the guilt and shame of a school with five national titles RTCing against an unranked Minnesota team was too much to bear.
The RTC That Wasn’t. #9 Kansas State 71, #1 Texas 62. We know that there was an RTC tonight in Manhattan, Kansas, right? We had to have missed it while concentrating on Bob Knight’s screeds about how to cheer correctly. After all, Kansas State had only beaten a #1 team twice before tonight in its long and not-so-illustrious modern history, and the last of those wins was nearly sixteen years ago. Still, the K-State students showed an amazing amount of self-control in choosing to not rush the court tonight, and given how relatively quiet they were during the last five minutes of a game against the nation’s #1 team, we’re starting to wonder if they realized that was even an option. Ok, giving them the benefit of the doubt — they’re saving it for January 30th, right? As for the game itself, Texas was coming off an OT-win over its rival Texas A&M on Saturday night (see below writeup), and they appeared emotionally drained throughout the first half. The Horns shot 10-33 in the first half and committed eleven turnovers, often appearing that they weren’t sure who was in charge out there (a point made by Mike DeCourcy after the A&M win) as they found themselves in a 10-point hole at the half. The Horns made their run to tie the game and briefly take the lead in the second behind Justin Mason and Clint Chapman off the bench, but K-State was able to use an 11-1 run late to finish off the nation’s #1 team. What’s amazing about this win is that Jacob Pullen was terrible offensively (2-15 FG, 0-6 3FG) and the team couldn’t hit a three from anywhere (1-12), but Jamar Samuels (20/12) came off the bench to more than pick up the slack and Texas’ Damion James didn’t have his Superman cape on tonight. The Wildcats also got 17/8 from Curtis Kelly, and Frank Martin’s group served notice tonight that the race to the Big 12 title may be more than a two-horse race this season. The Longhorn offense has looked shaky the last two games, and we’re starting to wonder if teams have figured out that the key to beating this team is to deny the hell out of their interior players and defend the guards on the drive. UT travels to UConn next, while K-State will try to avoid the letdown game with a home date against Oklahoma State.
As if we weren’t already immature enough here at RTC, this season we figured we’d regress further into our childhood years and come up with a Christmas list, each participant naming one or two things we’d like for ourselves and/or the game of college basketball. As you can see, the answers ranged from the practical to the impossible, the civil to the…well, hostile. Above all, we hope that you, our faithful readers, will have a happy, healthy, hoop-filled holiday season. Enjoy the list, and thanks for being here.
Zeitlin totally owns this tie. No need to get it for him.
rtmsf, RTC founder/editor/contributor:
All I want for Christmas this year is for a titanium-based super extra force field with double-secret password protection to be built on, around, above and under the current NCAA Tournament format. Seriously, I want this thing to be more hermetically sealed than Tiger Woods’ brand-new Swiss bank accounts or Jerry Jones’ new face. Please, Santa, no matter what the rest of these guys ask for — the new rear spoiler for nvr1983, a clue with the ladies for Stevens, that ridiculous jumpsuit for Hayes, and whatever Penn nonsense Zeitlin wants this year — just throw away their lists. Please. The single most important thing you’ll find on anyone’s list this year is mine (ok, I say that every year, but I mean it this time). The possibility that some television money-men and NCAA decisionmakers long on greed but short on perspective and common sense support the idea of expanding the single most exciting and grand spectacle in all of sports to 96 teams should appall your jolly sensibilities. If you can make this happen, Santa, I promise to be good all year round; I’ll even send in that cash pledge this year I keep promising to do but never do, I swear. Thanks.
–Signed, 65 is Enough.
Hands OFF.
nvr1983, RTC editor/contributor:
The NCAA finally gets a sense of reality and actually go after some big name programs instead of focusing on the relatively little guys. Sure, Memphis and Renardo Sidney were involved in some shady dealings, but was it any worse than what USC has done over the past decade?
Have ESPN get ESPNU on every major cable provider or at least put those games on ESPN360.com
Go back to 64 teams. Forget this talk about 96 teams. I don’t even want the 65th team. The play-in game has been a joke for years and everybody knows it. It cheapens the tournament by making the official start of the tournament a game that even die-hard fans don’t care about.
Someone needs to fix this one-and-done rule. I love watching these guys—Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, and John Wall—play, but I know that I will never get to see them mature in the college setting. Either make them stay 4 years or let them enter the draft right out of high school.
Fire the guy running the clock at Hinkle. Somebody has to get some coal this Christmas…
Here's your 1.3 seconds.
John Stevens, RTC editor/contributor:
I can’t lie, there are some things I want for the other guys. Heck, this is the giving season, right? I’d like nvr to remember how to sleep, since he rarely gets to. I think it’d be nice if rtmsf’s, er, “rash” finally cleared up. And yeah, there are some things I’d like for myself. Michelle Beadle’s phone number. Fran Fraschilla’s tweeting abilities. But those are things I’d rather earn of my own efforts. As far as gifts that revolve around college hoops, there’s just no way I can limit it to one thing. Yes, I’m that selfish. But I think I want things that everyone wants, so I’m willing to share. I’d like Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery to be the implied #1 announcing crew for any weekend CBS game, even though I still love and respect Enberg, Lundquist, Elmore, Bilas, et al. I’d like fewer TV timeouts. I’d like the NCAA Tournament to be freaking left alone. But most of all, what I want is for the rest of the season to be free of major injuries. The Evan Turner fall was scary and he’s lucky it wasn’t worse than just a couple of fractured transverse processes. After Derrick Roland broke his leg last night I went outside and sat in my car for half an hour just to avoid the television. That’s gotta be it for the gruesome injuries. I don’t want to watch Kansas or Kentucky or Duke or Texas or anyone come tournament time and think, “That’s not the same team, compared to when they had (x).” It’s been too fun of a season so far to have some team’s chances ruined by a misstep or a freak accident.
"Rise and FIRE...." "ONIONS, Mr. Johnson!!" It has to happen.
Zach Hayes, RTC Bracketologist-in-Residence:
This one might cause some controversy, but I’d ask Santa for some duct tape for Dick Vitale. Watching the Texas-UNC game on Saturday sent me over the edge. His shameless self-promotion and constant hyperbole is incredibly irritating and the man fails to make one cogent basketball point from an analytical perspective the entire telecast. His quirks and habits get extremely tiresome by December. While others like Bill Raftery have their fun, they bring to the broadcast a true sense of the intricacies of basketball to further my understanding of the sport. Jay Bilas is constantly providing enlightening analysis and former coaches like Bob Knight and Steve Lavin are tremendous. Yet ESPN keeps giving us Dick Vitale in the biggest games so he can yell things like “I’ll tell you, Ed Davis has talent!” and “go onto dickvitale.com for my freshman of the year, coach of the year, fans of the year…” It’s enough. Santa, send me some duct tape so I never have to hear that old man screaming again.
We'll go ahead and cancel that interview request...
Dave Zeitlin, RTC Ivy League Correspondent and feature writer for Backdoor Cuts:
What I really want for the holidays is for Penn to beat Duke on New Year’s Eve. But since the odds of that happening are about as slim as Isiah Thomas doing one good thing in his life, I have another wish. I want big-conference coaches to stop whining about tournament expansion. I mean, really? Everyone knows college football is a joke because of the BCS, but let’s not turn college basketball into a joke on the other end of the spectrum by completely diluting the regular season. Yes, I like the idea of more mid-major teams getting berths, which would be a side benefit to tournament expansion. But here’s a better solution for that: limit the number of berths for big-conference teams. How about you have to have a .500 record in the conference and finish in the top half of your league to be eligible? I’m tired of the sense of entitlement some of these coaches have. You have a whole season AND a conference tournament to be one of the 65 teams to make the Big Dance — that should be enough. Most of these guys should take a lesson from Bill Carmody, who in nine seasons at Northwestern has never guided the Wildcats to the NCAA touranament. Still, he is against expansion, saying it would make every game a little less meaningful. Merry Christmas, Bill. I like you even though you coached at Princeton.
Mr. Zeitlin declines. But gives credit where it's due.
Jason Prziborowski is the RTC correspondent for the Big Ten Conference.
Standings
Purdue 10-0
Michigan State 9-2
Ohio State 9-2
Wisconsin 8-2
Northwestern 9-1
Illinois 8-3
Minnesota 8-3
Penn State 8-4
Michigan 5-5
Indiana 5-5
Iowa 4-7
Three Things Last Week
Evan Turner looks like he might be back early – a full four weeks ahead of schedule, which will help Ohio State as well as the Big Ten.
The Big Ten has speculated on adding another team to its ranks, adding further confusion as to how it will be able to call itself the Big Ten. Apparently if you spell out Ten you can add as many teams to the conference as you want.
Three Big Ten teams are in the top 25: #4 Purdue, #9 Michigan State, and #17 Ohio State.
Top Storyline
The Big 10 is busy off the court.
Bobby Knight singles out John Calipari to show the dismal state of the NCAA when it comes to academics.
Minnesota’s Royce White decides to give it up and leaves Minnesota and college basketball after his mounting legal troubles caused him, his family, and the school undue stress.
Not to be outdone, Iowa’s Anthony Tucker drops 17 on Drake, gets drunk in public, and is then suspended indefinitely by Iowa.
Coming Up
December 22nd – Michigan State @ Texas, 7:00 PM ET, ESPN2 – As far as I am concerned, this is the biggest matchup for a Big Ten team this year. One could argue that the MSU vs. UNC game earlier in the season was bigger, but after Texas’ thrashing of UNC the other day, I would say that this is a biggest test for Tom Izzo and company. They are going to have to come to play down in Austin if they want to stay in this one.
December 23rd – Illinois @ Missouri, 9:30 ET, ESPN2 – This is a classic Bi-State rivalry, as the 29th Annual Busch Braggin’ Rights game happens in St. Louis at the Scottrade Center. This game could be close, or it could be a blowout. If you play the who played who and what happened game, you will find that there could be 17 points separating these two teams, with Illinois having the advantage. That’s the difference in what happened when both teams played Vanderbilt earlier in the year. The other stat that could prove interesting is 6-0. That’s Missouri’s record at home this year. Too bad this game is being played in neutral territory. Watch the game to see if the Vanderbilt proves as an accurate guide.
Breaking It Down
Purdue first to Ten in the Big Ten. Robbie Hummel had a 19/9 game and Purdue’s top three scorers were good for 47 of the 69 points that the Boilermakers put on the board against Ball State. Purdue will blow out both SIUE and Iowa, but I can’t wait to see what they do against West Virginia in West Lafayette. To move up in the rankings, though, they will need some help from Michigan State against Texas or Louisville to knock off Kentucky.
Michigan State has one more blowout before Texas. Admittedly, I had never heard of IPFW and Oakland, but they definitely found out how dominant MSU can be, even on off nights. MSU hasn’t lost to Texas in three years, and hopefully they can make it four. Time will only tell how both of their inside games match up.
Ohio State could be saved by the Christmas bell. The Buckeyes have done an admirable job in EvanTurner’s absence, but if his recovery is going to be as speedy as he announced this week, they won’t have to keep it up for much longer. They just have to get past Wisconsin and Michigan on the road, and Indiana at home before Turner is back. If they can do it, it’s anyone’s game in the Big Ten.
Northwestern is the best basketball nerd school in the nation. Two great things about last weekend’s Stanford game for the Wildcats. First, they beat probably the only school that can compete with them on the hardwood and in the classroom. The second is that JohnShurna is back. He had a 22/8 game against Stanford, so I hope I don’t jinx him. Stanford actually shot better from the field and from 3-pt territory, but the Wildcats dominated from the free throw line. Northwestern is going to have to find a bench though, as five points from the reserves isn’t going to cut it in the Big Ten.
Wisconsin gives opponents a nice Madison Tour, they might not come back. It’s no secret that Wisconsin does ok in the Kohl Center, but their game against Cal Poly gave the southern California team a Wisconsin blizzard. The Badgers were up by 52 points at one time in this game, and dominated in every area. That type of performance will be repeated in the next two games, but after that OSU will be sure to give Wisconsin a run for its money.
Illinois gets cocky, loses to Georgia. Illinois had a good run, and maybe this game is just a hiccup on its way to another four-game win streak. Actually, if you look at earlier in the season, they reeled off four straight, only to lose two straight followed by another four wins. Let’s hope they don’t need two losses to learn their lesson. Let’s see if Demetri McCamey can repeat his 21/5 performance against Mizzou.
Will Minnesota’s distractions end anytime soon? I already mentioned what hopes to be end of the Royce White era, but is this theme going to repeat itself throughout the year, or will the Gophers make all of their news on the court for the rest of the year? The good news is that Minnesota is torching outmatched opponents on the court, but once conference starts, it could be a different story. Blake Hoffarber set a school record by hitting eight shots from long range in their last game, so that is definitely a bright spot when someone goes off for 26 points after only averaging 10.5 on the year. Look for another three wins for Minnesota before colliding with Purdue on January 5th.
Michigan doesn’t get embarrassed by Kansas. Ok, so the good news is that Michigan managed to stay in the game against Kansas. The bad news is that they let a great opportunity to beat Kansas slip away. My main question with Michigan is when will they figure out that they aren’t a very good three-point shooting team? They shot an ice cold 17.9% against the Jayhawks, and on 28 attempts nonetheless. They are now 28.4% on the year on 257 attempts. Kansas in contrast is shooting 43% from long range. Michigan needs to take it to the basket and leave the threes for someone else.
Penn State hits the Century Mark. Who knew that the Nittany Lions hadn’t hit 100 in a game since a game against Virginia Military Institute three years ago. Penn State was lights out against Gardner-Webb, led by Talor Battle’s 21. Penn State most remarkably shot 87.5% from the free throw line, which I can’t say I have seen much this year in the Big Ten. The bad news is that Penn State has eight days off before traveling up to Minnesota to take on the Gophers.
Indianahas definitely found the guy to build the program around. Maurice Creek is his name, and lighting it up from three and leading the team last game in rebounds with seven is his game. He followed up his 31-point performance against Kentucky with 29 against North Carolina Central. Want to be amazed by more stats from Creek? Ok, so he is shooting 44.3% from three, 53.3% from two (as a guard), and a respectable 4.1 boards per game. IU should get a couple more wins before battling Michigan at Assembly Hall for a New Year’s Eve special.
Iowa is not the worst in state, just the Big Ten. Iowa just got worse after suspending their second leading scorer in Anthony Tucker after beating Drake by four. Guess December just isn’t Anthony’s month, as he pulled the same move last year as well. The bad news for Iowa is that they will have to venture outside the state, and the competition is much better. It will be a long year for the Hawkeyes.
Welcome back! Another weekend means another edition of everyone’s favorite college basketball live blog. Assuming they all actually happen (there was, like, a huge snowstorm, you see), there are actually some pretty darn good games happening today (Michigan at Kansas, anyone? Maybe a little Xavier at Butler?), and since we know you’ll be watching, and we know we’ll be watching…why not watch with us? We’ll be commenting all day, but we want to know what your thoughts are on the games as they’re being played. So keep checking this space and hitting that refresh button, and let’s have your comments as well. It’ll start at noon and go all day long, so I suggest you grab some hot chocolate (or your beverage of choice), turn on your favorite game, and join us. Keep checking back every few minutes!
12:03 pm: So here we go. Starting off with Michigan at Kansas on ESPN as our principle (and as of right now, only noteworthy) game. This is a good but perplexing Michigan team. Their four losses are Marquette, Alabama, Boston College, and at Utah. Michigan was a tournament team last year and returned those two stars in Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims, which would make me think they should have at least won a couple of those. BC is tough, but Michigan has to defend the home floor against a team like that if they want to be taken seriously. Quite a tall order they’ve got today. As I type this, Michigan’s last three shots have been threes, none of which went down. Meanwhile, Kansas has been getting the ball inside every trip down.
Wisconsin: First RTC of the Season? If anyone knows of another one, let us know. But this is the first one we’ve seen this year. But c’mon Musberger, get it right! RUSH. THE. COURT. (Ed. note – apparently UNLV fans RTC’d on Saturday after defeating Louisville, which is about as unjustified of an RTC as we’ve ever heard of… goodness gracious, folks, it’s Vegas. And beating an overrated Louisville team excites you?)
Story of the Night. Big Ten Finally Gets Monkey Off Its Back. It didn’t turn out the way we thought it would tonight, but it did end up as a 6-5 victory for the Big Ten schools over their ACC counterparts. Two unexpected events conspired to make this possible — Illinois’ inspirational comeback win at Clemson after being down by as many as 23 points in the second half, and Wisconsin’s home victory over Duke in the type of game the Blue Devils always seem to win (because, well, they do — Duke was 10-0 in the ACC/B10 Challenge prior to tonight). These two surprises combined with Ohio State’s expected win over Florida State at the end of the evening resulted in three straight victories at the end of the Challenge to put the midwesterners on top for the first time EVER. So what does that mean? Does it prove once and for all that the Big Ten is better than the ACC this year? Well, not at all. In fact, if anything, this year’s Challenge has shown us that the middle of the ACC might be a tad bit stronger than we thought it was (Wake, Miami, BC, Clemson). Now… about our predictions for tonight. Regression to the mean is the lesson here. After a perfect 6-0 start over the first two evenings of play, it all crashed and burned with a 1-4 record tonight. But yeah, at least we called it, baby! That’s all that matters! 6-5 Big Ten over the ACC, just like we said!*
*note – our Caribbean friends disagree with this assessment.
Game of the Night #1.Wisconsin 73, #5 Duke 69. Duke took its first ever loss in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge tonight for two reasons as we saw them. First, their big men other than Kyle Singler (28/6/3 assts) were virtually nonexistent. Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek and the Plumlee brothers combined for just six points and fourteen rebounds. Compare that with 16/27 against UConn last week, and you’ll see that almost all of the scoring burden fell onto the Duke backcourt + Singler. Second, Wisconsin’s Trevon Hughes was spectacular tonight. The senior guard shredded the Duke defense for a career-high 26 pts, using an assortment of drives to the basket to go along with a solid outside stroke (4-7 threes). After taking an 11-pt lead with five minutes to go, though, Duke guard Andre Dawkins nearly brought the Devils back all by himself, hitting three straight triples to cut the lead down to 2 with two minutes left. It appeared that this was going to be one of those epic Duke comeback wins, but UW ran clock down the stretch (surprise) and when Singler missed a wild layup attempt off the bottom of the backboard with under thirty seconds left, it was clear the Badgers were going to take the win tonight. One odd situation occurred in the very last few plays, when color commentator Bob Knight seemed to lose his mind for a moment as he stated that Wisconsin was “for sure” at worst going to overtime after only going up two with 4.9 seconds left (he clearly thought they were up three), and then contemplated whether Trevon Hughes should intentionally miss his second FT (again, thinking up three). What’s that phrase coaches like to use? Time and score? Can you imagine if one of Knight’s players had made a similar mistake at such a key juncture? Maybe now we know why Texas Tech wasn’t nearly as good as Knight’s Indiana teams — he wasn’t paying attention!
Game of the Night #2. Illinois 76, #19 Clemson 74. What can you say about Bruce Weber’s young backcourt of Brandon Paul and DJ Richardson tonight other than we’re extremely impressed. There is absolutely no way that Clemson should have lost this game. The Tigers ran out to a 20-pt halftime lead, pushed it up to 23 early in the second half, and had Littlejohn rocking. But Weber’s kids dug deep, showed the kind of composure that belies their age, and dropped a combined five threes in the next ten minutes of a 35-10 run that got the Illini back into the game and ultimately allowed them an opportunity to steal this one away from Clemson and the ACC. The Clemson players suggested that they relaxed after getting such a big lead, and from our viewpoint, there’s probably something to that. It certainly appeared that Illinois was the team with the drive and moxie throughout most of the second half, and when it came down to Demontez Stitt’s driving layup attempt at the buzzer, we just had a feeling that it wasn’t going down. It didn’t, and Illinois has a rallying cry for the rest of this season no matter how badly they’re playing. Mike Davis had 22/9 for the Illini, but as mentioned above, it was the youthful backcourt of Paul and Richardson (34/8/5 assts) that made tonight happen.
Game of the Night #3.#21 UNLV 74, Arizona 72 (2OT). The Runnin’ Rebels justified their shiny new Top 25 ranking by taking to the road for the first time this season, heading down to Arizona, and knocking off the Wildcats in double-overtime. Despite poor overall shooting from both teams (UNLV 39.7%, UA 36.5%; both teams less than 20% from three!) this one was neck-and-neck from the tip, as neither team ever led by more than six points the whole way. Arizona got up three in the second OT but UNLV’s Derrick Jasper (12/7/5/3 stls) hit one from deep to tie it at 70, and the Wildcats never led after that. Tre’Von Willis continued to carve his name out on the national scene with 25/4 for the Rebs, and Arizona got a huge game from freshman forward Derrick Williams with 28/5 on 10-15 shooting. This kind of win in such a difficult and hostile setting can only help Lon Kruger’s club, which has a few easy ones coming up except for a home game against Kansas State thrown in there on 12/12. If they can get by those Wildcats, there’s a very good chance UNLV will be 12-0 going into a pair of tough road games in early January at BYU and at (currently undefeated) New Mexico.
Just two weeks after turning downIndiana University‘s invitation to appear at his induction into the school’s Hall of Fame Bob Knight has announced that he will return to the Hoosier State for a fundraiser benefiting the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, which is different than Indiana University’s Hall of Fame. Knight will be the featured speaker at the event, which will take place on December 17th. While he hasn’t commented on upcoming ceremony, he has noted that he did not take part in Indiana University’s ceremony because he did not want to detract from the other inductees (a fair point given all the coverage leading up to his decision not to go to the ceremony). Although we are not typically fans of these types of dinners unless Michael Jordan is going to take the stage, this is an event we would love to be at just to hear what Knight will say. We suspect that he will find a way to be calm and respectful, but given his history of entertaining press conferences we wouldn’t be shocked if he gave a pretty entertaining talk. For those of you in the Indianapolis area, tickets go on sale to the public on November 30th for $30 (kids under 12) or $50 (for all others) with a table of 8 going for $400.
In getting all the preview stuff together, we lost a little track of the news other than the endless suspensions and injuries…
NCAA Not Backing Down on Renardo Sidney. If the information that Gary Parrish wrote in his “Three Storylines” articles is true, then Mississippi State’s Renardo Sidney may not play this season at all. According to the Sidney family attorney, the NCAA requested additional evidence beyond what the Sidneys gave them two weeks ago — specifically, “records that identify the sources of each [bank] deposit, cellular phone records for every family member since Jan. 1, 2006, records to indicate where every payroll check was deposited, etc.” To an untrained ear, that sounds like the NCAA isn’t buying what the Sidneys are selling. The evidence that the Sidneys previously provided — bank statements and the like — don’t mean a whole lot unless they can show the funds in those accounts are not a product of financial tomfoolery. So, what now for the Sidneys? MSU’s first game is against Rider on Friday night, so their only recourse might be to take things to court, but the NCAA could probably motion up/down/sideways until March to keep Sidney off the floor if it wanted to make a point. Even if Sidney sought injunctive relief in the interim, MSU is unlikely to play Sidney until he’s eligible by NCAA standards. Well, Jarvis Varnado and John Riek still makes for a nasty frontcourt, right?
Arkansas Suspensions. Courney Fortson and Stefan Welshwere indefinitely suspended by John Pelphrey today for their roles in various discipinary actions over the offseason. Additionally, reserve Marcus Britt will miss six games, freshman Glenn Bryant will miss two games, and walk-on Nick Mason will miss the fall semester. The latter three players were at a fraternity party last month where a student alleged several players raped her. The local prosecutor (who is related to Arkansas brass) said there wasn’t enough evidence to move forward, but the case has now been brought to a special prosecutor for further review.
Vegas Watch Mammoth Preview. It was finished over the weekend, so here’s the link to the entire thing in one place. The analysis we performed here reflects VW’s vision as to how to project the 2009-10 teams in a quantifiable manner, and we think he’s done a pretty damn good job at developing a formula that properly takes into account returnees plus incoming recruits. Keep an eye on things over there this week as he rolls out a list of the final projected ratings among the BCS conferences (and a few others) sliced and diced in various ways.
When we brought you the news that Indiana intended to bring back Bob Knight to induct him into their Hall of Fame on November 6th we told you it probably would not turn out well. Still some boosters hoped that it might be possible to essentially buy his “forgiveness” to the tune of $75k. To the surprise of no one with the exception of that booster the ploy did not work. Knight said, “In all the years I coached at Indiana and elsewhere, I never accepted a thing from alumni and I don’t intend to start now. This issue is with the university, not with the alumni.” Now we are 9 days away from the ceremony. The ball is in your court Indiana. . .
