John Templon is the RTC correspondent for the Horizon League.

Current Standings:

1. Butler (3-0)
2. Detroit (3-1)
3. Loyola (3-1)
4. Wright State (3-1)
5. Green Bay (4-2)
6. Milwaukee (4-2)
7. Youngstown State (3-2)
8. Cleveland State (3-3)
9. UIC (1-2)
10. Valparaiso (1-2)

Top Storylines:

• Horizon League regular season:  the regular season for the Horizon League kicks off on the first weekend of December.
• Close calls, not breakthroughs:  no Horizon League team — besides Butler — has managed to knock off a power conference team.  The Bulldogs’ only power conference victory was over Northwestern and even Butler has a loss to Minnesota on Thanksgiving.
• Youth will be served:  there are a lot of young Horizon League teams leading to a variety of results thus far.

Read the rest of this entry »

Each week RTC will posit a That’s Debatable question or topic that is relevant to the world of college basketball.  Sometimes whimsical, sometimes serious, we’ll post the thoughts of our core editing crew (in 200 words or less), but we’ll also be expanding to include our contributors and correspondents as appropriate throughout the season.  We also invite you, the readers, to join us as we mull over some of the questions facing the game today.  Feel free to send us your takes and/or leave them in the comments below.

This Week’s Topic: Thanksgiving week is upon us, and families everywhere around the country will come together to give thanks for the numerous people and things important to them.  What will some of the nation’s top college basketball coaches give thanks for during this week of reflection and thought?

nvr1983 – editor/contributor, RTC

One of the people who should be thankful this Thanksgiving is Thad Matta. When last season ended two of his players were contemplating leaving school early to go to the NBA: B.J. Mullens and Evan Turner. While Mullens was the more highly rated recruit, he hadn’t quite lived up to those expectations. Although Turner was no slouch in high school (he was a 4-star recruit), he didn’t come to Columbus with the same expectations. By the end of last season, both players we predicted to be mid- to late-first round picks. As you all know Mullens decided to leave school early and ended up being selected #24 overall by the Mavericks before being traded to the Thunder where he is averaging 3 PPG and 1 RPG in 15.8 MPG. Turner decided to stay in Columbus for at least one more season and is the early favorite for National Player of the Year after starting the season averaging 21.8 PPG (on 59% FG), 14.8 RPG, 6 APG, and 1.8 SPG for the Buckeyes. If Mullens had stayed and Turner had left OSU wouldn’t be a top 25 team, but because the roles were reversed they could be a top 10 team.

rtmsf – editor/contributor, RTC

While many coaches across the land will give thanks this week for a top recruit or a big win or still having a paying job, BYU coach Dave Rose will be thankful that he’s still around to coach his team.  You see, on June 17 of last summer, Rose was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and as far as pancreatic cancers go, his wasn’t the worst kind, but seeing those two words together (“pancreatic” and “cancer”) is never a good thing.  He had emergency surgery the very next day to remove part of his spleen and pancreas, and after a quick recovery, he now sits as the head coach of a strong 3-0 team with aspirations to win the Mountain West and make some noise in this year’s NCAA Tournament.  Oh, and did I mention that all tests show that he is completely cancer-free?  BYU feels so highly about Rose that the school gave him a 5-year extension through the 2014 season, showing their faith in both his coaching acumen as well as his health.  There’s no greater gift than the one of life, and Rose is undoubtedly living each day as if it were his last — now that’s something to be thankful for!

Read the rest of this entry »

Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is an occasional contributor and the RTC correspondent for the NEC and MAAC conferences.

NEW YORK CITY –  A final look back on Coaches vs. Cancer from a tempo free perspective.  The first semifinal was a blowout with Syracuse dominating California 95-73. The other semifinal, North Carolina vs. Ohio State, was a rout for the Tar Heels.  Down the stretch, Ohio State, which shot a putrid 1 of 10 beyond the arc in the first half, suddenly found the range. It was a one possession game with under twenty seconds to play. The Buckeyes never drew even and Carolina prevailed 77-73. The offensive efficiency tale of two halves:

North Carolina had a more even distribution with a 103 offensive efficiency and a 101 mark for the game. The strong second half showing by the Buckeyes was largely due to the Buckeyes’ shooting 17 of 30 (57%) for the final twenty minutes, including 5 of 11 from three.

Beware of the turnover. Tempo-free advocates and  coaches agree, twenty percent or one-fifth of your possessions resulting in a turnover is not conducive to offensive efficiency, or winning. In the first semifinal, California had a TO rate of 19% (15 turnovers on 81 possessions). Not a bad showing, but upon further review, Syracuse had 10 steals and scored 19 points off Cal turnovers, which is indeed damaging. The problem is that not all turnovers are created equal. If you throw a pass out of bounds, the ball is dead and you can organize your defense.  However, if the ball is stolen at midcourt your opponent has a great transition opportunity which often leads to a score.

Read the rest of this entry »

After last week when we really kicked off the season, our list of games this week is a little weak to be quite blunt primarily because of the Thanksgiving holiday break. Don’t worry though. It’s not all football games and turkey. There are some interesting games this week that are worth following even if you are travelling (or like some of us here) working during the week. Today we only have one game worth Tivo-ing, but it is one of the more intriguing games so far this season.

Cornell at #9 Syracuse at 7 PM on ESPN360.com: We mentioned this game in our post naming Syracuse as our Team of the Week. Everybody has been praising the Orange (and for good reason), but those who follow college basketball closely know that they could very easily lose to the Big Red, which is something I am sure that Jim Boeheim has stressed to his players since the morning after their huge win over UNC. After their wins over Caland UNC this past week everybody knows about the Orange. They have one of the best frontcourts in the nation with Wesley Johnson, Rick Jackson, Kris Joseph, and Arinze Onuaku complimented by some outstanding perimeter play (so far) from Scoop Jardine, Andy Rautins, and Brandon Triche. The country isn’t quite as familiar with Cornell who have already notched impressive road wins at Alabama and UMass before falling by 10 at home against Seton Hall. The Big Red are led by Ryan Wittman (17 PPG and 4 APG)–one of the nation’s top  players that the casual fan doesn’t know about–who is complimented by fellow seniors Louis Dale (13.7 PPG and 3.7 APG)  and Jeff Foote(11.0 PPG and 8.7 RPG). If the Orange need any motivation to get up for this game, Boeheim will just have to remind them of last year when they barely outlasted Wittman and his game-high 33 points  before pulling away late. We expect the Orange to win this one since they are the more talented team and are playing at home, but don’t be surprised to see Cornell hanging around as I’m sure their players have been looking forward to this game for quite some time as it is the second biggest game on their schedule trailing only their trip to Allen Fieldhouse on January 6th to take on preseason #1 Kansas. While I think that motivation will aid the Big Red, it probably won’t be enough to make up for their massive disadvantage inside where they won’t have an answer for the Orange big men and Johnson in particular.

Now that every team has a handful of games under its belt, we feel a little more justified in moving teams around based on what we’ve seen and read so far.  With that in mind, here’s this week’s RTC Top 25.  Analysis to follow after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

We will readily admit that we crushed the Orange for their embarrassing exhibition game loss to Le Moyne three weeks ago and even left them out of our Top 25 after that loss, but we can admit when we were wrong even if we are pretty sure most Syracuse fans felt the same way that we did at the time. We figured that Jim Boeheim was in for a long year waiting for next year’s much hyped recruiting class to come to upstate New York. After the Le Moyne loss, the Orange rolled off big wins at home against Albany (by 32) and Robert Morris (by 40), but those two programs were hardly in the same category as the three teams that would be travelling to Madison Square Garden for the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic (UNC, Ohio State, and Cal) and we expected the Orange to have a difficult time competing with those teams even if we never really considered any of those teams that great (you will notice that my co-editors were a bit behind me on the Tar Heels being overrated if you look at that last poll).

The Orange opened up against Cal, a team we had already covered live twice this season (against Murray State and against Detroit), and destroyed the more highly touted Bears. After falling behind 5-0 to start the game, the Orange took the lead with 17:08 left in the first half and dominated Cal from that point forward with their frontcourt outscoring Cal’s 54-22. The Bears highly regarded backcourt struggled against the zone and shot just 30% as a team from beyond the arc only managing to outscore the Syracuse guards by 10 (51-41). The fact that the Orange dominated on the inside was no surprise to us. They have one of the best frontcourts (Wesley Johnson, Rick Jackson, and Arinze Onuaku) in the country and Cal’s frontcourt is lackluster to put it kindly. The real surprise was the play of their guards and redshirt sophomore Scoop Jardine (22 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists) in particular.

We figured the next hurdle — defending national champion UNC — would be a much higher hurdle and it was. For a half. The first half of the game was as good as any we have seen this season with the teams trading quick runs and both teams making big shots. The Orange opened the game with an 8-0 run that had us questioning whether Roy Williams was trying to channel Phil Jackson by not taking a timeout and letting his team work things out on their own. The Tar Heels responded with a quick run of their own and took the lead at 12-11 with 15:06 left in the first half. The Orange briefly took a 9-point lead at 31-22 before the Tar Heels rallied again to tie it up before taking a 39-37 lead into the intermission. Then the Orange exploded opening up the 2nd half on an insane 22-1 run that left us speechless and led Williams to comment after the game that Syracuse “beat the dickens out of us”. Andy Rautins was the star of the game with an Andrei Kirilenko-like line of 11 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, and 7 steals (minus all the whining) and Wesley Johnson added a 25 points and 8 rebounds against one of the best frontcourts in the country. The Orange’s performance left us wondering if this year’s version might be better than last year’s version even without Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf, and Paul Harris. And for those of you who are wondering, the Orange will be in this week’s yet unreleased RTC Top 25, which should be out some time on Monday. The Orange need to be careful not to let the honor of being RTC’s inaugural Team of the Week get to their heads though because their next game is at home against a very good Cornell team that much of the country doesn’t know about, but has already won on the road at Alabama and UMass.

Coaches vs. Cancer.

Addition by Subtraction? Syracuse 87, North Carolina 71.  We all knew that Roy Williams’ Carolina team was likely to take a bit of a step back this season after losing four players (Hansbrough, Ellington, Lawson, Green) to the NBA Draft, and we expected the same from Syracuse after losing the core (Flynn, Harris, Devendorf) of its Sweet Sixteen squad.  But is it possible that Syracuse, with the addition of multi-dimensional forward Wesley Johnson and the natural progression of players such as Andy Rautins, Arinze Onuaku, Rick Jackson and Scoop Jardine, are actually better than they were in 2008-09?  Forget the loss to Le Moyne in the preseason — when the games have actually counted, they’ve mauled every opponent they’ve faced by an average of 27.5 pts.  Albany and Robert Morris, sure — but highly-ranked California by 22 and North Carolina by 16?  Not so much.  As Roy Williams put it after the game, Syracuse “beat the dickens out of us,” and he wasn’t exaggerating.  The Orange broke out of a 39-37 deficit at halftime with a ridiculous 22-1 run that had Carolina looking as befuddled as they’ve been in what seems like a long time (don’t let anyone tell you that it’s actually been that long, though – the 2008 Final Four game against Kansas looked similar for long stretches).  The key to that stretch of play was that North Carolina all of a sudden looked much like the young, inexperienced team that they are.  Williams made sure to stress that youth isn’t an excuse, but during the blitzkrieg by SU it was clear that many of the Heels were uncertain how to stem the tide, incapable at this point in their development of settling their nerves with several bad decisions on both ends of the court.  At the end of the night, it was obvious that the better team (with the best player, Johnson) won the game.  We have to be careful to crown anyone with anything this early in the season, but there’s no doubt that Syracuse is much further along than UNC, and we found ourselves wondering (along with Ray Floriani) if this year’s version of the Orange might actually be better off with the talented trio of Flynn, Harris and Devendorf out of the picture.  Sometimes those players, particularly Harris and Devendorf, could cause more problems than they solved for Jim Boeheim.  Is it possible that the group he has now — last year’s backups  + Johnson (transfer) and Jardine (redshirt) — have better team chemistry and trust for each other, resulting in wonderfully efficient execution on both ends?  Boeheim would never admit to it, but there could be something to this.

Can We Send Cal Home 0-3? Ohio State 76, California 70. Memo to Pac-10 teams.  Don’t bother sending your schools back east unless they plan on actually showing up for the games.  For the second consecutive night, Mike Montgomery’s California team got completely outclassed by a bigger, more athletic foe that simply imposed its will on the Bears in the first half, rendering the second stanza as (mostly) garbage time.  Ohio State was much better tonight than they were last night, hitting five threes in the first half over the much shorter Bears, and generally controlling the game from start to finish.  Dallas Lauderdale in particular tortured the Cal interior players, getting credited for seven blocks and generally intimidating any Cal player of consequence who entered his lane.  Evan Turner was masterful as usual, notching another near-triple double of 26/14/6 assts on 9-14 FG.  More importantly for Thad Matta, Turner cut down his turnover total to a more reasonable (yet high) four, quite a few less than his ten last evening against UNC.  Jerome Randle was once again the only bright spot for Cal, as he dropped 26/3 assts in what was clearly a frustrating couple of games for the competitive guard.  The loss of Theo Robertson for these last two games with a stress reaction was undoubtedly a tough blow, but we’re not convinced that Cal would have beaten either Syracuse or Ohio State even with Jason Kidd back on campus.  Their problems with the interior players are just too damning, and there doesn’t appear to be any easy solution.  So what have we learned from this?  First, if Cal is indeed the best team in the Pac-10, then there won’t be a single Pac-10 team beyond the second round in March (again), and secondly, if there’s a better player than Ohio State’s Evan Turner (22/15/6 assts), he’d better start putting up some ridiculous games soon or the NPOY race will be over before it gets started.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, we’re back at MSG and ready to give the grand old dame one more chance with their wireless internet before we completely write off this joint.  As of now, things appear to be working, but there’s hardly anyone in the arena or on the network yet, so that all could change very quickly.  If things stay ok close to tipoff in about 25 minutes, we’ll give it another shot.  California vs. Ohio State is the first game — the consolation game — and it should be a pretty good matchup.  Neither team has great size, but we’re interested to see if the momentum OSU had in the last four minutes of its game yesterday against North Carolina can continue tonight.  In the marquee matchup at 7:30 pm, we don’t need to tell you that Boehim vs. Roy is going to be special.  It’ll be their first meeting with the 2003 National Championship game, and Roy said last night at the press conference that he remembered every detail of that loss.  With the athletes and talent on both sides, that should be an epic early season matchup.  Check back in a few…

Read the rest of this entry »

Coaches vs. Cancer.

• Carolina Hangs On.  North Carolina 77, Ohio State 73.  The marquee matchup of the evening featured Roy’s defending national champs taking on Ohio State and early NPOY candidate Evan Turner in Madison Square Garden.  RTC Live was a bust due to MSG’s terrible internet connectivity, but we were still able to witness the game and what we saw was a team in North Carolina that could look utterly brilliant on one possession and really disjointed on the next.  The good news for the Heels is that their defense and length, particularly inside, made the Buckeye look worse — as in, totally incompetent — for the majority of the game.  Up until four minutes remaining, the game had settled into the comfortable 12-18 point lead range for Carolina.  Every time that OSU threatened, UNC would get a key steal or three to stem the tide (Will Graves, with his 14/5, was particulary effective with this).  Then OSU seemed to instantaneously find its mojo: the threes that had bricked and caromed off the rim and glass all night long suddenly starting finding their mark.  Lighty with a three, Buford with another, Lighty again and Diebler once more along with some forays to the rim by Evan Turner, and the comfort zone that Carolina had shrunk to a very uncomfortable two points with fifteen seconds remaining.  The general sense in the building, echoed by both coaches after the game, was that if Ohio State had just been able to find the mark a little better in the first half (29% FG, 10% 3FG, 50% FT), they’d have been right there all along.  Problem is that we’re not buying it.  In our view, the Buckeyes only started playing well and hitting shots when the pressure was essentially off and Carolina’s defense relaxed.  Say what you want about Roy Williams’ penchant  for offense, but this Carolina team has the potential to be devastating defensively, whereas on offense they might be a little more suspect (Graves & Ginyard are nice players, but let’s not kid ourselves here).  OSU was clearly hurt by turnovers and Turner(over) was the worst offender by far with a triple-double the wrong way — 23/11/10 TOs, but if UNC realizes that its strength may actually lay on the end where they don’t have the basketball, this UNC team could in fact be very dangerous as a Final Four team come March.
• Cal Exposed by Syracuse Size.   Syracuse 95, California 73.  The interesting contrast in styles simply exposed Cal for what they are — a nice team that’s reliant on great guardplay to win games.  We mentioned this during the live-blog briefly, but Cal’s guards accounted for 51 of the team’s 73 points, and the disparity was even worse than that prior to garbage time.  Contrastingly, Syracuse’s bigs scored 54 of the Orange’s 95 points, which means that the guards chipped in 41, resulting in a balanced distribution of points that most good teams have.  Cal just isn’t going to be able to battle teams with athletic post players like Rick Jackson  (8/6) and Wesley Johnson (17/11).  We noticed in the first half that the Cal guards, particularly Randle, seemed way too willing to step out another 2-4 feet behind the three-point line to fire away, and this is a good example of what the long Syracuse zone does to players.  It makes them think that they have an easy open shot, but the truth is that the shot the player is getting is just a smidge farther outside his normal range, and you end up with bricks all over the joint.  Case in point: Cal ended the night at 30% from deep (6-20), and 5 of those came from Randle (25/4/4 assts).  Patrick Christopher continues to struggle when the lights are on, as he went 6-20 from the field (0-7 from deep) and only finished with 12 points.  We’d like to be able to say that Cal will improve, but with a team of seniors, it’s probable that they’re as good as they’re going to get this year.  Syracuse, on the other hand, could be scary good if they continue to get strong and efficient play from Johnson and Jackson inside as well as Andy Rautins (8/4) and Scoop Jardine (22/6/6 assts) on the perimeter.  It’ll be very intriguing to see how North Carolina handles the Syracuse zone tomorrow night, as the Orange will be able to throw more size at the UNC players than what Ohio State was able to do tonight.

Puerto Rico Tipoff.

• Nova dodges upset bid. #6 Villanova 69, George Mason 68. The game of the day didn’t take place blocks from Times Square Thursday. Instead, Puerto Rico was home to another top-ten team dodging the proverbial upset bullet, this time from the fighting George Mason Patriots coached by Jim Larranaga. And it was touted freshman Isiah Armwood who will forever live in Nova lore (okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration) with his stunning three-pointer to give the Wildcats a lead with 13 seconds to go on his only shot attempt of the contest. Coach Jay Wright even admitted after the game that Armwood was the last option on the floor to take that shot as the 6’7 freshman isn’t exactly renowned for his outside touch. Villanova never led until the second half and actually trailed by four in the final minute before a clutch Maalik Wayns three (another frosh) and a hair-pulling Mason turnover, along with missed FTs, opened the door for a miracle. Corey Fisher (1-12 FG but 14-18 FT) and Scottie Reynolds (8 turnovers) both looked shaky. Regardless, it’s a good opportunity for Jay Wright to show his team they can be beaten on any night while notching one in the win column. Villanova will be tested again today against a really good Dayton team. Worth noting: freshman Mouphtaou Yarou will miss the tournament with a viral infection leaving Wright thin up front.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to RTC Live, and tonight is arguably the best night of the new season thus far.  Tuesday was pretty good with Michigan State – Gonzaga and Kansas – Memphis, but tonight we’ll be privileged to bring you four top 25 teams, all of whom have serious Final Four aspirations this season.  Plus, it’s the Garden!  The self-proclaimed “Mecca of College Basketball,” site of countless amazing games over the years.  In the first tilt, California will travel the 3000 miles to face Syracuse in an interesting contrast of strengths and weaknesses for each team.  If Jerome Randle and Patrick Christopher dial in from long range, it could be a long night for the Orange; alternatively, if the Cuse defense is harassing them into rushed shots, then Cal could quickly get exposed as a one-dimensional team again.  In the nightcap, we’ll have Evan Turner’s multi-dimensional skill set taking on North Carolina, a team that hasn’t looked great so far this season, but we know has talent at every position across the lineup.  How will OSU counter all of the Heels’ size and what does Roy Williams plan on doing to slow Turner (19/17/7 assts) down?  It should be a great night in New York City and we hope to see you around over the course of the evening.

Read the rest of this entry »