11.06.07

Well, we already covered the Ohio St. debacle. More CvC tonight…

Kentucky 67, Central Arkansas 40. Billy Gillispie debuted at Kentucky with the third highest victory total (27) for a coach’s first game in UK history (Rupp; Smith), while holding C. Arkansas to 20% shooting for the game, the lowest total against a UK team in 12 yrs. The Cats were paced by sometime-malcontent Joe Crawford, who was benched for the first 13 mins of the game before coming in to score 20 pts. Who is Mark Coury? The UK walk-on soph had a double-double (13/10), while Patrick Patterson, who looked great in the two exhibition games, got himself into early foul trouble and finished with four pts. Unless Patterson dominates and Carter gets healthy, inside play could be a season-long bugaboo for the Cats. For the definitive take on tonight’s action, check A Sea of Blue.

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Memphis 80, Richmond 63. After a performance last night against Maine last night that may have set the game’s evolution back a generation or so, Richmond decided to bring its game tonight. Or at least its zone defense, which seriously confounded the Tigers until a 14-2 run with 13 mins to go in the game finally put the Spiders away. Seriously, UM was only up one point at halftime, and by all accounts, looked confused. Once again, Derrick Rose was the story, with a line of 21/5 but only one assist. CDR also contributed 19/9 (on 5-14 shooting, though). Could zone be an achilles heel of the Calipari’s AASAA offense? Also, for the second consecutive night, someone went off on the Tigers, as David Gonzalvez blew up for 25 in a losing effort.

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Other Games: Gardner-Webb 69, Alabama A&M 55. So our SWAC predicted champion got beat, but how about our A&M boy Mickell Gladness? Nearly a trip-dub tonight, with 8/10/7 blks. G-W advances to play Kentucky tomorrow night.

On Tap Tonight. The Lexington Regional continues and the Storrs Regional gets started (aka the Regional that Holy Cross Can’t Play In).

• #15 Kentucky (-25.5) v. Gardner-Webb (ESPNU) – We heart Mark Coury.
  
• Connecticut (-26) v. Morgan St. (ESPNU) – Calhoun and Bozeman in a game of who is shadiest.
• Ohio Valley (NL) v. Buffalo – Could you have handpicked two crappier teams, Calhoun?

Welcome to After the Buzzer. We’re sorta envisioning this to be a one-stop recap of notable information from each night’s games. Think Daily Dime meets Doug Gottlieb (w/o the credit card fraud conviction). Or something like that. Now, we’re not promising we can do this every single night of the season – a weekly Friday’s Ivies would put everyone to sleep, including especially us. But we’ll do our best to get you some college hoops insights for your morning bourbon coffee. Except for this morning, because it’s already the afternoon. Details, details. If there’s anything you guys want to see as a regular feature, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com and we’ll unabashedly claim the idea as our own think about adding it.

11.05.07

The 07-08 season got underway at the Memphis Regional last night for the CvC first round games.

· Richmond 44, Maine 42. Remember when the Richmond Spiders were good with Dick Tarrant on the sidelines beating the likes of Syracuse and Indiana? No longer. 100 Memphins (?) showed up early to watch a high school game break out.

· Memphis 102, UT-Martin 71. The nightcap that nobody outside of the Pyramid saw (thanks ESPNU) showed just how explosive the #1 blogpoll Tigers can be. Joey Dorsey didn’t play, but no matter. Chris Douglas-Roberts led the way with 28/8, but reviews were sparkling for the debut of superfrosh Derrick Rose (17/6/5), fueling message board chatter about the number of trip-dubs Rose will have this year. Possible Memphis concerns – 1) they let UTM’s Lester Hudson drop 35 on them (do they play D?); and, 2) 58.6% from the line (17-29).

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On Tap Tonight. The Memphis Regional continues and the Lexington Regional of the CvC gets started.

• #1 Memphis (-29) v. Richmond (ESPNU) – maybe the Fedex will open up the concessions?
• # 15 Kentucky (-27.5) v. Central Arkansas (ESPNU) – Gillispie’s debut at Rupp
• Gardner-Webb (-3.5) v. Alabama A&M – keep an eye on A&M’s Mickell Gladness

The official start of the 2007-08 regular season isn’t until Friday, but the NCAA exempted the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament, which is starting tonight in Memphis and will run throughout the week at several other sites (Storrs, Lexington, Norman) before holding the championship rounds at MSG next week. ESPN and Comcast have ensured that we won’t be able to see any of this week’s games in our local viewing area – thanks, guys! But jeez, this seems really early – we just changed our clocks for chrissakes. Mike DeCourcy has the best take on the matter:

Once again, instead of the triumphant introduction to the season we have in such sports as NFL football and Major League Baseball, college basketball just sort of stumbles in and grabs a seat in the corner.

With college football and the NFL in full swing, it’ll take until Thanksgiving for anyone to notice that we’re already playing games, but that’s ok. It gives us a chance to bone up on early hits and misses (ahem, Michigan St.) while nobody’s watching.

Here’s the CvC bracket:

A few comments:

• Quick Rant. Why the hell aren’t ESPNU games part of the Full Court Package? That makes completely no sense to us as it seems a natural fit. And yes we’re extremely annoyed that Comcast will not offer ESPNU in our area.
• Predictions. Memphis will roll through its regional, keeping the nation’s longest homecourt winning streak (32) alive. Kentucky will bomb Central Arkansas but struggle with Alabama A&M and shotblocker extraordinaire Mickell Gladness in the second round. UConn will get a game from Todd Bozeman’s Morgan St. squad before faltering, then destroy Buffalo in round two. Our possible upset alert is USF over Oklahoma. The Dons probably don’t have enough to pull it off, but we expect a close game there. Still, we expect Jeff Capel’s OU team to represent the Norman region at MSG next week.
• Quick Fact. Kentucky is 0-2 in this event, with both losses coming in 2000 (UCLA, St. John’s) when it was a four-team tourney. Grab the ball, Tayshaun! That record will change this time around.