Rush The Court

Backdoor Cuts is a weekly college basketball discussion between RTC correspondents Dave Zeitlin, Steve Moore and Mike Walsh that occasionally touches on relevant subjects. This week the guys debate the teams they will choose to hate during the NCAA Tournament this year.

DAVE ZEITLIN: We’ve written a lot of words throughout this college basketball season, and let’s be honest: most of them haven’t been very good. But there was at least one column I hold a particular affinity for — our mid-December piece where we all picked different teams to support. Our reasoning was simple enough. Knowing full well our mid-major alma maters weren’t going anywhere this year (although Steve’s Boston U. team made a cute little tournament run), we each decided to throw our allegiances behind a likable team with a more realistic chance of going dancing. After not-so-careful consideration, I chose Maryland, Mike chose Ohio State and Steve chose Temple.

Which brings us to today. As the greatest sporting event in the world is set to tip off, we don’t even need to worry about brackets or silly office pools. Those are for idiots who only root for teams like Penn and St. Joe’s. We’ve got our squads, all of whom are playing great basketball at the right time. And even though I really like Ohio State and Temple (especially the Buckeyes’ Evan Turner and his love for Lady Gaga) I’m up for a friendly wager that involves Maryland crab cakes, Philly cheesesteaks and whatever people eat in Ohio. Let’s do this thing, Terps.

But I also say we expand on this idea. In addition to our new teams to root for, I say we all pick new teams to root AGAINST. And it can’t be Duke. Hating Duke is kind of like Madonna: It’s old and it’s been done way too much. But since it obviously shouldn’t be one of the little guys (how can we hate on our own people?), that narrows the choices. I’ll save Kentucky for Steve, since he likes Calipari about as much as those little buggers you get around your eyes when you wake up. And I have a feeling Mike will pick Oklahoma State because he just can’t get over 2004 (sorry, Mike, had to do it again). So after eliminating those schools, as well as the University of Phoenix Online, I’m deciding to go with … Kansas. Why? Well, what better team to root against than the team everyone will pick to win it all? Also, I’ve actually picked the Jayhawks many years, but they’ve usually let me down. Finally, my oldest friend is a dieahard Kansas fan and he doesn’t even know what “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” means while screaming it over and over again. I mean, come on! Are you allowed to just put any two nouns in front of your team nickname and have it be a saying? Next year at the Palestra, I’m going to start a “Textbook Ruler Quakers” chant and hope it catches on. But I digress. Um, which teams are you guys choosing?

Ok, so team to love? Team to hate? What else should we root for in our forget-office-pools-because-we-devised-our-own-system-and-no-one-else-can-play bracket?

MIKE WALSH: What are we, mayors? The food thing is just as old and played out as hating Duke and Madonna. What do you guys say we raise the stakes? Maybe the losers have to write their next column naked … we’re talking fourth base here (as if people didn’t think our infatuation with college hoops wasn’t weird enough). Or better yet, maybe the losers have to shave their dogs. Or maybe the losers have to get their wife or fiance pregna … on second though, food works. Yeah, food is fine.

Then what should I get when I win? While I’ve never actually been to Ohio, I hear they fancy themselves quite the chili connoisseurs. So when my Buckeyes are still hitting the hardwood long after Maryland and Temple have hung up their hightops, you guys can get me a big ‘ol bowl of Cincinnati-style chili. Just put it in an envelope and send it my way, I’m sure it will travel just fine.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 32 of the first round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds.  Here are the Friday afternoon games.

12:15 pm – #2 West Virginia vs. #15 Morgan State  (Buffalo pod)

West Virginia enters the NCAA Tournament as one of the hottest teams in the nation. They squeaked out an enormous road win at Villanova to end the regular season then swept through Cincinnati, Notre Dame and Georgetown en route to a Big East championship riding the heroics of Da’Sean Butler. The Mountaineers are an extremely gifted rebounding team; in fact, sometimes their best offense comes after a missed shot. They feature multiple weapons that can step out and shoot a mid-range jumper or three from Wellington Smith to Kevin Jones to the all-around dynamo Butler. Also, few teams can match West Virginia’s intensity in the halfcourt defensively. Morgan State head coach Todd Bozeman will need a gigantic scoring output from their own star, Baltimore native Reggie Holmes. Holmes scored 25 or more points fifteen times this season, averaging 21.3 PPG and ranking in the top-50 in percentage of shots taken. The Bears also feature a rugged forward named Kevin Thompson who comes in at fifth in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage. In fact, Morgan State ranks 11th in the country as a team in that very category. Unfortunately for the underdogs, West Virginia is never outworked on the glass, not with Jones, Devin Ebanks and Bob Huggins prominently involved.

The Skinny: This one shouldn’t be close from the tip. Morgan State dominated the MEAC all season, but West Virginia is flying high at this point. Expect the Mountaineers to dominate by 25-30 points.

12:25 pm – #6 Xavier vs. #11 Minnesota  (Milwaukee pod)

The answer to which team will win this game depends entirely on which Gopher team shows up to play in Milwaukee.  Will it be the defensive juggernaut that held Purdue to 11 first  half points last Saturday, or will it be the team that got obliterated by Ohio State 52-29 in the second half on Sunday?  Tubby Smith’s team has been schizophrenic like that all year, following up strong wins with disastrous performances (two losses to Michigan?  really?), which probably explains why they were a bubble team up until Sunday evening.  Xavier comes into this one with the stronger resume, but it’s difficult to say if the Musketeers are the better team.  When he plays under control, XU’s Jordan Crawford is a talent, and his supporting case of Jason Love on the interior and Terrell Holloway running the show makes for nice balance throughout the Xavier lineup.  The question we have is who will win the defensive battle, though.  Xavier defends the three really well, while Minnesota behind Blake Hoffarber and Lawrence Westbrook both shoot it equally as well.  This game is essentially a tossup (Vegas agrees, setting Minny as a one-point favorite), and we really liked the first seven halves of basketball that the Gophers put up in Indianapolis on a neutral floor last week, so we’re going with the extremely mild 6/11 upset here, in a close game that comes down to the last possession. 

The Skinny: Despite the seedings, this is a tossup game and we like the Gophers to win it on the last possession. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Each day this week during the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

East Region Notes (Ryan Restivo of SienaSaintsBlog)

• #8 Texas was once the top team in the nation, but now they are reeling. However, a team trending even worse might be their opponent: #9 Wake Forest. Demon Deacon Head Coach Dino Gaudio said Al-Farouq Aminu had an x-ray done on his hand and appears to be ready to play on Thursday. Meanwhile, Texas, who comes in having lost seven of their last nine games to teams in the NCAA Tournament, said he is trying to deflect questions that the Longhorns are done this year. “There are people saying Texas is done,” Texas coach Rick Barnes told the Dallas Morning News. “I don’t think our guys have felt like that at any point.” Meanwhile Wake Forest’s last road win against an NCAA Tournament team was their December 5 win over Gonzaga, 77-75.
• #5 Temple against #12 Cornell will be the game to watch on Friday to start. The subplot of course is that Cornell head coach Steve Donahue spent ten years as an assistant under Temple head coach Fran Dunphy, who crossed town from Penn to Temple in 2006.  Donahue said he purposely does not schedule Dunphy’s Owls for a reason.  “See, we would never play each other in a regular season game because it would be torture. In this profession, you want your friends to advance,” Donahue told the Ithaca Journal. “The NCAA tournament is the pinnacle of what you do, so both of us will have to get over that.”  Dunphy reflected similar sentiments to the Philadelphia Daily News.  “If you had said to me who do you not want to play? Cornell,” Dunphy said about the matchup. “We’re good friends and there is a no-win situation in that.”
• #11 Washington, the Pac-10 Tournament champion, had to play to get into the field of 65. Their opponent, #6 Marquette, is not happy about traveling to San Jose to play the Seattle school.  “They going to fly, or drive?” Marquette coach Buzz Williams asked the AP of the Huskies’ trip to the neutral site. “I think anytime you play on the West Coast against a team from the Pac-10, you are the underdog.”
• #3 New Mexico, the regular season champion of the Mountain West Conference, will have their hands full with #14 Montana’s Anthony Johnson who scored 34 of his 42 points in the second half to clinch their Big Sky championship and NCAA Tournament bid. When asked about his ability, Lobos head coach Steve Alford told the AP, “We know he’s extremely talented … a potent scorer.” The Lobos will be playing to try to reach their first Sweet 16 in school history.
• #7 Clemson taking on #10 Missouri will be an interesting matchup, guaranteeing an up-tempo pressuring style that Clemson coach Oliver Purnell favors. Missouri coach Mike Anderson told The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, “It won’t be one of those, walk it up and pass it about 20 times or five times. It’s going to be end-to-end. (It’s going to be) some athletic kids hopefully making some athletic plays.”
• #2 West Virginia will tip off the NCAA Tournament against #15 Morgan State on Thursday. Coach Bob Huggins did not mince words when asked on whether or not West Virginia should be a top seed.  “I thought statistically we were a 1,” Huggins said Sunday to the AP. “The disappointing thing is that when they stand up there and say, ‘Let’s look at the full body of work,’ and if you look at the full body of work, we were probably a 1.”  The Mountaineers probably have a case for a #1 seed and will look to come out and show it to start the Tournament.

West Region Notes (Andrew Murawa)

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the second of our four quick-and-dirty region breakdowns. This will serve to help the quick triggers who like to fill out their brackets first thing on Monday morning. For the rest of you, we’ll be providing more detailed game-by-game analysis throughout the rest of the week.

Region: East

Favorite: Kentucky, #1 seed, 32-2.  No surprise here, as UK is considered one of the top two national title favorites along with Kansas.  The Cats have one of the most talented starting lineups in the country, but have made a living this year sneaking past teams in the last few minutes.  The team that thinks they can beat Kentucky will have to find a way to deal with a strong inside tandem of DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson in addition to the playmaking abilities of John Wall.  Can anyone in this region bring that kind of defense?

Should They Falter: West Virginia, #2 seed, 27-6.  WVU comes into the NCAA Tournament with momentum, having won six in a row against top-drawer competition in the Big East.  They rebound with almost as much ferocity as the Cats, while coming in much more battle-tested in terms of schedule.  As an added bonus, they may have the most dynamic player in the bracket with Da’Sean Butler whom no less an authority than Evan Turner predicted would hit the game-winning shot in the Big East Tournament final.

Grossly Overseeded: Marquette, #6 seed, 22-11.  The Golden Eagles have won seemingly every close game they’ve played this year, but they’re probably not as good as you’d expect an 11-7 Big East team to be.  They were 2-6 against the RPI top 25, and most simulations (including Vegas) we’ve seen so far have MU as a relative tossup against #11 Washington in the first round.

Grossly Underseeded: Temple, #5 seed, 29-5.  Temple should have been a protected seed.  The Owls were 6-3 against the RPI top 50 and their defense is stickier then day-old sweat.  In a very competitive A10 this year, they outlasted several other NCAA-quality teams to win the regular season title and won the conference tournament as well.

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper (#12 seed or lower): Cornell, #12 seed, 27-4.  Jay Bilas’ nuttiness aside, Cornell is an excellent team that could grind it out with #5 Temple and #4 Wisconsin long enough to steal a couple of wins here.  The Big Red arguably have more offensive options at the end of the game than either of those two higher-seeded teams.  The trick will be to ensure that the game is close in the last five minutes.

Final Four Sleeper (#4 seed or lower): Wisconsin, #4 seed, 23-8.  Should Cornell not make a run, Wisconsin might be the team to get past Kentucky and Villanova to crash the Final Four.  With Jon Leuer back in the fold healthy, the Badgers have the inside/outside play along with Trevon Hughes to go along with their typically unbending defense to push the two sets of Wildcats to the brink.

Read the rest of this entry »

From today until Selection Sunday, keep checking Rush the Court for updates on who’s in, who’s out and seeding.

UPDATES ALL DAY TODAY. FINAL BRACKET REVEALED JUST BEFORE 6 PM ET.

(Note: each of the four teams in one seed grouping is listed in pecking order in terms of who is closer to moving up a seed line. This is used to determine game location and matchups similar to Joe Lunardi’s S-Curve listing).

Also: play the NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday challenge at NCAA.com to be your own Bracketologist.

Italics indicates conference leaders/champions.

Last update: 03/14, 3:50 PM ET.

#1 Seeds: Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, West Virginia

#2 Seeds: Duke, Ohio State, Kansas State, Georgetown

#3 Seeds: New Mexico, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Purdue

#4 Seeds: Baylor, Wisconsin, Temple, Tennessee

#5 Seeds: Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, Michigan State, BYU

#6 Seeds: Maryland, Butler, Richmond, Xavier

#7 Seeds: Gonzaga, Northern Iowa, Texas, UNLV

#8 Seeds: Notre Dame, Marquette, Clemson, Oklahoma State

#9 Seeds: Florida State, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Missouri

#10 Seeds: UTEP, Old Dominion, Saint Mary’s, San Diego State

#11 Seeds: Wake Forest, Washington, California, Siena

#12 Seeds: Utah State, Minnesota, Cornell, Illinois

#13 Seeds: Murray State, New Mexico State, Oakland, Houston

#14 Seeds: Wofford, Sam Houston State, Ohio, Montana

#15 Seeds: Morgan State, UC-Santa Barbara, North Texas, Vermont

#16 Seeds: Robert Morris, East Tennessee State, Lehigh, Winthrop, Arkansas-Pine Bluff

Last Four In: California, Utah State, Minnesota, Illinois

Last Four Out: Mississippi State, Florida, Virginia Tech, Seton Hall

Bids per conference: Big East (8), Big 12 (7), Big Ten (6), ACC (5), Mountain West (4), SEC (3), Atlantic 10 (3), Pac-10 (2), West Coast (2), WAC (2), C-USA (2).

As we move through the next eight days when automatic bids will be handed out on a regular basis, we’re going to break down the teams for you so that you can start thinking about your bracket ahead of time.  The pearls of wisdom are meant to help you better understand what these teams are good at and how to make fair comparisons between them — all too often, the capsules you see have a lot of information in them, but very little of it is actually helpful.  If you have additional ideas, leave them in the comments.  For the good/bad matchups, we’re not necessarily saying that Team X will win; we’re simply pointing out that in an ideal situation, some of that team’s strengths will be more likely to manifest against those particular opponents — so save the emails.  As of Sunday morning, there have been four auto-bids handed out.  Here are those primers.

#1. Cornell Big Red (27-4, 13-1 Ivy) – automatic qualifier

NCAA Seed Range: #11-#13

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom:

1. Cornell is the nation’s top three-point shooting team, hitting 43.4% of their attempts from deep and scoring nearly 39% of their total points from outside the arc.  The Big Red hit twenty in their bid-clinching game against Brown on Friday night.  They have five players who have made 30+ this year; you simply cannot leave these guys open.
2. In their five games against BCS teams this year, Cornell was 2-3.  The wins were against Alabama in Tuscaloosa and St. John’s in NYC. Digging deeper, though, we find that two of the three losses were to #1 seeds Syracuse (by 15) and Kansas (by 6).  In those losses, Brandon Triche and Sherron Collins tore them up, exposing a vulnerability to athletic, scoring point guards who attack the basket.
3. The core trio of Jeff Foote, Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale will not get rattled — they’re all seniors playing in their third straight NCAA Tournament.  They have proven they can score with anyone; the problem will be if they are matched up against a team that is equally offensive minded, as the Cornell defense has trouble getting stops.

Good Matchups: Wisconsin; Gonzaga

Bad Matchups: Baylor, Georgetown

#2. Winthrop Eagles (19-13, 12-6 Big South) – automatic qualifier

NCAA Seed Range: #16

Read the rest of this entry »

Big Red Freshness Lasts Right Through It. Cornell 95, Brown 76.  It probably took a little longer than the nervous Big Red faithful hoped to put away the pesky Brown Bears tonight, but in the end, it was simply a formality because Cornell players were so narrowly focused on winning their third straight Ivy League title and NCAA bid that there was no way they were going to lose this game tonight.  How focused were they?  Try a season-best 57% shooting and an utterly ridonkulous 20-30 from deep tonight.  At one point during the conflagration of shot-making by the Big Red, they hit eight treys in a row en route to an 11-13 first half.  But it was the second half where Cornell exhibited its dominance, using a 14-4 run early to take control of the game and ensure another title coming to Ithaca this season.  All five starters reached double figures, but it was lesser-known forward Jon Jaques who took the scoring honors with 20/7 tonight (including six threes).  In all, four players had four or more threes, which we figure has to be some kind of a record for versatile and voluminous shooting!  Cornell will now wait to see where their NCAA seed lies, but the smart money is on a #12 seed when the brackets are released.  Anyone up for a #12/#5 upset this year?

RTC Live.

• Wichita State 73, Missouri State 63.  On Quarterfinal Friday in St. Louis, top seed Northern Iowa defeated Drake, Bradley upset Creighton and Illinois State won the nightcap. And in the game you followed here on RTC Live, Wichita State held off Missouri State, 73-63. A close, hard-fought and well-played game, the Shockers were paced by Garrett Stutz, whose play in the paint helped them overcome hot outside shooting of the Bears. Stutz finished with 19 points and 6 rebounds, and converted on back-to-back possessions during a key stretch of the second half to help them pull away. The Shockers advance to play the Redbirds of Illinois State tomorrow afternoon here in St. Louis.

Conference Tourneys.  Eight conference tourneys tonight, and a ridiculous thirteen tomorrow.  Let’s see what was interesting…

• Ohio Valley.  The top two teams — Murray State and Morehead State — both advanced tonight to the finals on Saturday.  Murray has put together a phenomenal 29-win season, so it’d be a shame to see them miss out on the NCAAs, but Morehead is the only OVC team to have beaten the Racers this year.  It was Morehead tonight, though, not Murray, who had the comfortable win in the semis.  Should be a great one on Saturday for the auto-bid.
• Atlantic Sun.  #6 seed Mercer continues to use its home court advantage to knock off higher-seeded teams with tonight’s victory over #2 Jacksonville.  #5 East Tennessee State was able to get by #8 Kennesaw State whom had knocked off top seed Belmont last night.  So it’ll be Mercer vs. ETSU for the automatic bid.  The Bucs will be playing in their third A-Sun title game in four years, and will be looking to win back-t0-back NCAA bids despite having not finished first in the regular season in either of the last two years.
• Horizon.  In the Horizon second round tonight, #7 Detroit continues to turn heads with another upset win behind Eli Holman’s dub-dub (16/11), while #4 Milwaukee earned the pleasure of facing #1 Butler in the semifinals on Saturday by defeating #5 Cleveland State.  The Titans will play #2 Wright State in the other semifinal — neither of the top two seeds have played yet in this tournament, while Detroit has already played two games and Milwaukee one.

Read the rest of this entry »

Unless half of the Cornell basketball team (the starting half) suffers serious food poisoning or takes a sudden interest in the illicit pleasures of Federal Hill in Providence, we should have our first 2010 NCAA Tournament bid secured at around 9 pm eastern tonight.  With the Big Red’s twelfth Ivy League victory likely this evening, Steve Donahue’s team will have clinched their third straight regular season title (and NCAA bid).

In filling the vacuum left by the Penn and Princeton boondoggles, it’s been a phenomenal run for the men from Ithaca as Cornell has won 36 Ivy games over the past three seasons.  Their Ivy scoring margin of +15.6 this year is the best seen in the league since the great Quaker teams at the turn of the millennium, with eight of Cornell’s eleven wins this year virtually in the books by the first timeout.  We’d love to build up some drama about tonight’s game at Brown, but Cornell has defeated the Bears by a 22-point average margin of victory in the last five games between the two teams; given that this is Donahue’s best team of his career, we doubt that tonight’s the night for the 12-19 (5-7) Rhodies to shock the world (ed. note: the previous game this year was closer than the 14-point margin indicates, but we expect Cornell to come strong tonight with their NCAA bid on the line).

The one thing Cornell has so far failed to do in their three-year reign of Ivy dominance is to win a game against an RPI top-50 opponent (0-8), which squares with their 0-2 record in the NCAA Tournament (Ls to Missouri and Stanford).  But they’re getting closer, as a closely-contested January game against #1 Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse showed.  The core group of seniors — guard Louis Dale, forward Ryan Wittman, and center Jeff Foote — have been playing together for so long (and so well) that they know what each other is going to do before they’ve even thought of it yet.  In an era of elite teams led by young players not far removed from the Prom and Selective Service sign-ups, the opportunity is ripe for the Big Red to catch an overconfident, sloppy team in the first round of the Dance this year.

In Zach Hayes’ latest RTC Bracketology, he has Cornell as a #13 seed playing #4 seed Temple, while Joe Lunardi has the Big Red as a #12 seed playing #5 Georgetown.  While neither of those particular teams fit the criteria as a young, undisciplined team, there are others in that seed range who do (Tennessee in particular comes to mind).  With a little luck in the draw this year, the Ivy League champion could be on the cusp of more than just its third straight trip to the NCAAs but also its first-ever win in Tournament history.

Backdoor Cuts is a weekly college basketball discussion between RTC correspondents Dave Zeitlin, Steve Moore and Mike Walsh that occasionally touches on relevant subjects. This week the guys jump the shark with a discussion about college hoops with an Olympic flavor.

MIKE WALSH: I don’t know about you guys, but the Olympics have monopolized the TV in my house since the opening ceremonies. And don’t get me wrong, I love the Olympics – the grandeur, the goosebumps, the medals – but they’ve seriously cut into my college basketball viewing these days. Take tonight, for example. I’m sitting here watching Olympic ice dancing with my wife, and I suddenly became inspired … to not watch ice dancing anymore.

I’ve got to get some hoops back in my life. With Selection Sunday just out of reach it still seems a little early to argue about who’s in and who’s out of the Big Dance (don’t tell ESPN … Doug Gottleib’s kids gotta eat). St. Joe’s is struggling to find 10 wins, Penn is struggling to find the basket, and Boston U. is struggling to pretend that anyone cares about college hoops when there’s hockey on. So what if we combine the two? What if we add a little Olympic flair to college hoops and hand out pre-March Madness medals?

I even borrowed an outfit from Johnny Weir just to get into the spirit. So wedgies be damned, we’re off to the first ever college basketball medal ceremony!

Men’s downhill: And the gold medal goes to … UNC! Get it? It’s because they won the national championship just last year and now they stink. They’re not even going to make the it to the Dance. Roy Williams has publicly questioned his team’s effort. It’s ridiculous. It’s like Canadians not being able to make ice. Oh wait … that happened too? Well, that’s unfortunate. But fear not Tar Heel Nation, it’s only a matter of time (and a few more blue chippers) until your boys are once again soaring above everyone else like Shaun White.

Curling: I’m not really sure why, but screaming like a maniac seems to be an integral part of curling. That being said, who better to win the gold than Kansas State’s own Frank Martin? If this guy was screaming, “HARD!” at the top of his lungs at me, well, I’d probably pee my pants, but you better believe I’d be sweeping that ice like a bastard too. The silver medal would be awarded to Drexel head coach Bruiser Flint, mostly because the man’s mouth goes like an outboard motor. Arizona’s Sean Miller rounds out this ear piercing podium.

Skating on thin ice:  This isn’t exactly one you want to be on the podium for. For their poor sportsmanship the students at West Virginia barely edged out the student section at Mississippi State for the gold, if only because someone actually hit an assistant coach with their flying projectiles at WVU. The Mountaineers’ fans thought maybe they should get extra rowdy for the big game against rival Pittsburgh, but guess what kids, there’s a big difference between rowdy and reckless. Maybe they’ll cover that in class next semester? As for Mississippi State, they thought they were getting hosed by the refs and the bottles started flying. News flash: bad refs are as much a part of college basketball as jump shots and lay-up lines. Those kids are as big a sore loser as Evgeni Plushenko, and they probably have the matching mullets, too.

What do you guys think? Who would you don with a Rush the Court gold medal? I’ll give you a push like a speed skating relay team, but I’ve got to get back to rooting against the Canadians.

DAVE ZEITLIN: I’ll be honest. Aside from the joy that is afternoon curling, I haven’t gotten too into the Olympics. Perhaps it’s because I can’t relate to any of the sports. I tried skiing for the first time last weekend, and other than the fact I couldn’t stop, let alone carry my skis and boots at the same time, it went really well. And if you want to understand how graceful an ice skater I am, picture a drunk moose walking on a balance beam.

Herb Magee goes for his 903rd win as a college basketball coach tonight as he and his Philadelphia University Rams host Goldey-Beacom College.  A win this evening, if it happens, will put Magee at the top of the all-time NCAA wins list for a men’s basketball coach.  Magee tied Bobby Knight on that list this past Saturday by achieving his 902nd win in a buzzer-beater against Post University.

It’s easy to tilt our heads, offer a short patronizing applause, and then forget about men like Magee, or like Don Meyer, the all-time wins leader for a men’s college coach (many of his wins came at Lipscomb when they were a member of the NAIA) who announced that he’d be retiring at the end of this season, because they don’t coach at the so-called “elite” level.  But these men don’t need our patronization.  They don’t coach basketball because it’s cute, because it’s easy — yeah, you try it — or because they want attention.  Magee (and certainly Meyer) could have had all the attention he wanted, given the number of offers he’s had for higher profile jobs.  These are men who coach basketball and stay at the Division II level or lower because this is where they feel they can best be both coaches and educators.  It’s where they feel they can do the most good for their student/athletes when teaching them about existence both on and off the basketball floor, and/or because they know that the brighter spotlight inherent in the higher-profile jobs also comes with innumerable extra headaches that might compromise what they’re really out to achieve.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Harvard students changed from white shirts to black shirts at halftime.

Too bad for the Crimson faithful the ploy didn’t transfer to the hardwood.

Cornell maintained a nine-point halftime lead into a nine-point road victory at a raucous Lavietes Pavilion Friday night to hold a lead atop the all-important Ivy League regular season standings and firmly re-establish their status as the top team in the conference. Despite a remarkable 32 of 34 from the line and 48% shooting from the Crimson, Cornell used trademark three-point shooting, strong rebounding and timely scoring from Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale to eek out a victory in quite possibly the most challenging game on their Ivy slate.

The matchup was billed as a duel between the two best players in the conference- Wittman and Harvard’s point man Jeremy Lin. Lin was his usual stellar self- 24 points, 7-12 FG and 10-11 FT- but it was Wittman who stole the show with an array of clutch NBA-distance treys that stymied multiple Crimson rallies. The most importance sequence of the game came near the midway point of the second half when Harvard cut a 17-point Cornell lead to five until Wittman and Dale answered the call one more time with consecutive dagger threes that killed any remaining Harvard hope.

Cornell coach Steve Donahue remarked after the game how terrific the atmosphere was in Cambridge tonight. One could sense the urgency in the air from both sides with the Ivy League not fielding a year-end conference tournament to decide the league’s auto berth. This puts a giant magnifying glass on the regular season results and the players, coaches, fans and students all realized tonight just how crucial of a contest this happened to be.

Donahue made sure to commend a young Harvard team on their effort. Lin is their leader and anchor, but the Crimson rely on three freshman- Kyle Casey, Christian Webster and Brandyn Curry- for a good chunk of their production. Donahue correctly pointed out how vital Cornell’s experience was tonight in terms of both poise and confidence. He singled out Wittman as someone that played with a toughness and confidence unmatched by any other player on the floor for both sides.

Wittman admitted after the game there was a “lack of urgency” before the stunning upset at Penn last Friday. He said the Big Red absolutely has to bring it every night in the Ivy League and Dale remarked that it feels good to get an opposing team’s best shot every time during league play, similar to Gonzaga in the WCC or Butler in the Horizon. Dale also singled out the importance of getting out to a lead so fighting back on the road was not a necessity.

On the losing end, Harvard coach Tommy Amaker was proud of his team for their commendable effort but the Crimson just could not contain Wittman and Dale to pick up the stops in clutch situations. He was straight to the point in his assessment: Cornell just did things better. Lin also made sure to say this was the best atmosphere he’s seen at a home game in his four years as a member of the Crimson.

Too bad the home team could not deliver for the white-then-black-clad fans screeching, whistling, blowing horns and stomping their feet for 40 solid minutes Friday night.  Then again, this was Cornell. They are on a mission to reach the NCAA Tournament as the class of this league. And it does not appear anyone will stop them from achieving that very goal, at least on this night.

- Zach Hayes

RTC Live is back for a rare Friday night edition. Normally we “take the night off” given the relatively light slate, but tonight is a special occasion. Tonight the unofficial playoff for the Ivy League title and first official NCAA tournament bid commences when Cornell travels to Cambridge, MA to take on Harvard.

When these two teams met on January 30th, it was one of the most highly anticipated Ivy League match-ups in years. Cornell came in 17-3 having won 15 of 16 with its only losses coming against Seton Hall (10 points) and on the road against a pair of top-5 foes in Syracuse(15 points) and Kansas (5 points). Harvard came in 14-3 having won 7 straight with its only losses coming on the road against Army (3 points), UConn(6 points), and Georgetown (16 points). Many were expecting one of best games of the season featuring a match-up of Ivy League Player of the Year favorites Ryan Wittman and Jeremy Lin. Wittman and the Big Red lived up to their billing, but Lin and the Crimson apparently forgot to bring their game with them to Ithaca as they were embarrassed 86-50 while Lin managed to outscore Wittman (19-11), but committed a season-high 8 turnovers (of the team’s 25) with only 1 assist. With Wittman having a relatively quiet game the Big Red were led by seven-foot senior center Jeff Foote, who had 16 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 blocks. Following the blowout, it appeared as if the two teams were headed in opposite directions as the Crimson lost their next game to a surprisingly good Princeton team before bouncing back with 3 straight wins. The Big Red appeared poised to run the table in the Ivy League before stumbling in a shocking loss at Penn before bouncing back to win a hard-fought game at Princeton the following night. All this left the Ivy League with 3 teams sitting near the top of the conference: Cornell at 7-1, Princeton at 6-1, and Harvard at 6-2. The game is being billed as the biggest in the history of Harvard basketball (please, no snickering) and the athletic department is going to try to use a “Fade to Black” theme where the fans wear white shirts in the first half then taking them off to reveal black shirts in the second half [Ed. Note: Another benefit is layering for the New England winter night.] while the audio system will play Jay Z’s “Run This Town” and AC/DC’s “Back in Black” before the start of the 2nd half when the fans will reveal their black shirts in an attempt to throw off the Big Red (who happened to almost win at Kansas, which we think would be slightly more daunting than the visual “hallucination” of having the fans in the stands change their shirts from white to black at halftime).

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Presidents’ Day, everyone.  Hope you’re getting to enjoy a nice extended weekend.

1. Is Savannah State’s Horace Broadnax the best coaching value in college basketball?  We’re still discussing its validity, but we certainly find interesting the analysis by Scott Britton and Darren Heitner at Sports Agent Blog regarding the achievements of the former Hoya as coach of SSU.  You have to admit — all things considered, $25,131 per win isn’t a bad deal, at all, especially when you go from 0-28 in the ‘04-’05 season to 15-13 four years later, and your basketball budget is the next-to-lowest in D1.
2. There have been rumblings from Notre Dame all season, but Luke Harangody’s right knee bone bruise that he sustained  in a loss against Seton Hall on Thursday isn’t helping the causes of the Irish or Mike Brey.  ‘Gody is likely out for Wednesday’s game at Freedom Hall against a suddenly more intriguing Louisville squad fresh off their win at Syracuse.  That he was bench-ridden in South Bend on Sunday night evidently gave St. John’s some chutzpah, as the Johnnies went into the Joyce and stole their first conference road win of the season with a 69-68 victory.
3. John Calipari states, “There’s no such thing as a 50-50 ball with him.  He’s as valuable to our team right now as anyone.”  Is he talking about John Wall?  DeMarcus Cousins?  Patrick Patterson?  Nope.  Try DeAndre Liggins, the sophomore guard who didn’t play for the first nine games of the season as he spent time in Calipari’s doghouse, but now humbly realizes that floor burn scars on the knees from diving after loose balls + embracing defensive stopper role = increased minutes, and increased trust from his coach.
4. On Friday, the Western Athletic Conference reprimanded Idaho head coach Don Verlin after he criticized officials after a 67-66 loss to Nevada on Wednesday.  Verlin will be suspended for any further violations of this kind, according to conference brass.  After the loss last week, Verlin voiced his displeasure with the officiating, and also added that WAC zebras should realize that Idaho is “…a contender, not a doormat.”  We’ll have to check our rule book, Coach V, but we don’t recall anything about the rules changing based on where you are in the standings…
5. Ever think that Penn/Cornell would be right up there with Rutgers/Georgetown and Louisville/Syracuse in the Monday morning water-cooler discussion of big weekend upsets in college hoops?  Yeah, we didn’t either.  We’ve been digging all of the Ivy League love this season, and it’s not slowing down yet.  After the stunner on Friday, Cornell bounced back to hand Princeton their first conference loss of the year on Saturday, and in doing so regained the Ivy League lead.  They’re not a shoe-in for the Big Dance, though; the three teams atop the standings still have a round of games against each other, starting this Friday with a very important Cornell road trip to Harvard.

What Happened Tonight?  On a random Friday night in February when most people were watching the opening of the Winter Olympics and the epic fail of the cauldron-lighting, we very well may have had the wildest evening of the year in the 2009-10 college basketball season.  Normally, there’s no reason to even recap games from Friday nights throughout the year, but tonight we wouldn’t be doing our job if we weren’t here.  Could both the Game of the Year and the Upset of the Year have been tonight?  If you missed it, we’ll try to do our best to get you caught up…

Game of the Year? #23 Pittsburgh 98, #4 West Virginia 95 (3OT). In a game that was reminiscent of the six-overtime epic from last year’s Big East Tournament, Pitt made a miraculous comeback to beat #4 West Virginia in triple-overtime, 98-95.  Thanks to three consecutive missed free throws by WVU on 1-and-1 opportunities, Pitt was able to cut the lead in regulation to three with 30 seconds left.  Nasir Robinson stole West Virginia’s pass, and after a missed out-of-bounds call by the referees, Ashton Gibbs sent the crowd into a frenzy with a three-pointer.  The Panthers carried their momentum to a five-point lead in the first overtime, and had a chance to ice the game with seven seconds left.  Gibbs then went to the free-throw line with the Panthers up by two, but missed the second free throw attempt and West Virginia’s Darryl Bryant took the ball and made a clutch three-pointer with three seconds left to force a second overtime.  WVU was forced to make another comeback when they were down by three points with 20 seconds left when Gary McGhee fouled Da’Sean Butler on a three point attempt.  After Butler made all three free throws, the fans at the Peterson Events Center became witness to a third overtime.  West Virginia had a one-point lead with less than a minute to go when Pitt’s Gilbert Brown sank a pair of free throws.  After two missed shots by WVU, the Panthers escaped with a three-point win.  With the victory, Pitt moved to a tie with the Mountaineers for third place in the Big East.  There was no RTC for the student section tonight, but with their third consecutive win, Pitt may have moved up to an overall four seed tonight.  As for the Mountaineers, they need to work on their free throw shooting before they meet Georgetown and Villanova at season’s end.  If you missed the game and highlights, we suggest you go here to watch the last six minutes of regulation plus the OTs.

Two Conference Unbeatens Go Down…

• Pennsylvania 79, #22 Cornell 64.  In his recap of this game, ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb called this the upset of the year in college basketball.  His reasons: Cornell has all five starters back (including four seniors) from last year and are the two-time defending Ivy league champions; they were undefeated in conference play up until tonight and had beaten all of their Ivy opponents by an average of 25 points.  Penn, on the other hand, had their coach fired earlier this year and had only won four games all year.  KenPom ranks Penn 308th… out of 347 D1 teams.  Mr. Gottlieb makes a good case.  After Penn took a single-point lead into halftime, sure, a few eyebrows were raised.  It was the 15-0 Quaker run to start the second half that turned heads.  After that run, the closest the Big Red got was five.  That tends to happen when you play the kind of defense that allows your opponent to shoot 56.3% from the field, including 52.4% from behind the three-point arc.  Jack Eggleston and Zack Rosen had the nights of their lives, shooting a combined 14-24 and 7-10 from three-point range, posting 24 and 22 points, respectively.  A couple of weeks ago Cornell was the feel-good story of the year, enjoying that shiny new ranking and the head-tilted awwwws of the college hoops world, as well as an assumed Ivy League title and NCAA Tournament bid.  Now, it’s all in danger.  The ranking’s gone, come Monday.  Their tournament lives will be determined by their next two games, both on the road — tomorrow at now-first-place Princeton and next Friday at Harvard, the latter rather pissed and looking to avenge the 36-point pasting they took from the Big Red on January 30th.  That one could very well determine the whole thing.  The Pennsylvania supporters pulled an admirable RTC after this one, and we could hardly blame them.  Man, we’re going to have to all chip in for (Back Door Cuts contributor) Dave Zeitlin’s electro-shock therapy as a result of this, aren’t we?

Read the rest of this entry »

Pardon the baseball reference, but we know that if a guy’s throwing a no-hitter you’re not supposed to talk to him about it.  In fact, you’re supposed to just stay away from him, let him sit in the dugout alone, and act like nothing special is happening.  We don’t go for such superstitions around here, so let’s check out the teams that are currently undefeated in their conferences, and who has the best chance to actually pull off a perfect conference campaign.

Last season, there were only two teams that streaked through their conference schedules without a blemish — Memphis went 16-0 in the CUSA, and Gonzaga tallied a perfect 14-0 in the WCC.  Memphis kept it going three games into this conference season, but back on January 20th UTEP showed the Tigers that they were having none of that, and snapped Memphis’ conference winning streak at 64 games.  The Zags stumbled ten days later at San Francisco after winning their first six WCC games this season.

Right now (before Thursday night’s games), there are no less than eight teams with perfect conference records.  We list them here along with the next time they’ll put it on the line, and our prediction as to when they’ll drop their first conference game — if at all:

Read the rest of this entry »

RTC contributor and official bracketologist Zach Hayes will update the bubble scene every week until Madness ensues.

It’s been almost two weeks since our last Bubble Watch, so let’s get right to it…

Atlantic 10

(With an incredible six bids if the season ended today and the realistic potential for five come Selection Sunday, I figured it was time the Atlantic 10 earned their own section).

Locks: Temple.

Rhode Island (15 RPI, 73 SOS)- The Rams don’t have a bad loss on their schedule and picked up an enormous split on the Xavier/Dayton trip in late January. Their best non-conference wins against Oklahoma State and Northeastern don’t necessarily stand out, but a top-15 RPI and 19-3 overall record means it would take an epic collapse if the Rams aren’t dancing for the first time under Jim Baron. Seed range: 7-9.

Xavier (26 RPI, 19 SOS)- Xavier’s resume isn’t quite as impressive as those numbers might indicate. Their three best wins all came at home against bubble team Cincinnati and Atlantic-10 foes Dayton and Rhode Island. Emerging victorious in one of their nail-biting losses at Butler and at Wake Forest would have been enormous for their NCAA chances. A win at Florida this Saturday provides another opportunity. Seed range: 8-9.

Richmond (31 RPI, 66 SOS)- The blowout win over Temple last Saturday pushed the Spiders from bubble team to comfortably in. They picked up quality non-conference wins over Missouri, Old Dominion and Florida while a win tonight at Rhode Island would make it awfully difficult to deny them a bid. Seed range: 8-9.

Dayton (#34 RPI, #39 SOS)- The Flyers needed to beat Xavier at home and did the job. Remember, their only three out of conference losses were against top-20 teams. The St. Joe’s loss stands out as ugly but the next four games are all winnable before a clash at Temple on February 24. Seed range: 10-12.

Charlotte (#45 RPI, #151 SOS)- The 49ers still have work to do even on their perch atop the Atlantic 10 standings. They were annihilated in most of their non-conference games against NCAA teams (exception being a destruction of shorthanded Louisville) but they have picked up A-10 wins over Temple at home and by 12 at Richmond. The key stretch could be 4 of 6 at home to end the year with Xavier and Richmond in that mix. Charlotte appears to be in a pretty good position overall. Seed range: 9-10.

ACC

Locks: Duke.

Wake Forest (#16 RPI, #23 SOS)- Wake is inching closer and closer to lock status. Their computer numbers are terrific and they have enviable wins at Gonzaga and against both Richmond and Xavier in overtime. Taking care of business Saturday at home against Georgia Tech would do the trick. Seed range: 5-7.

Georgia Tech (#24 RPI, #13 SOS)- The Yellow Jackets are comfortably in the field with their five wins against the RPI top 50. But they do finish with four of seven on the road including difficult visits to Wake Forest, Maryland and Clemson. A mediocre ACC record might hurt their seed. Seed range: 5-7.

Florida State (#37 RPI, #51 SOS)- After their game tonight in Littlejohn Coliseum against Clemson, the Seminoles end with a schedule that is very friendly. Their road games are all against likely NIT teams Virginia, North Carolina and Miami. Their only RPI top-25 wins have come against Georgia Tech, though, so some resume enhancement is necessary for Florida State to feel 100% comfortable. Seed range: 7-9.

Clemson (#43 RPI, #37 SOS)- At 4-5 in the ACC, Clemson needs to start winning games or their projected seed will keep plummeting. Their only notable non-conference win came against Butler on a neutral floor and their best ACC win was at home against Maryland. They could go 3-0 in this homestand against Florida State, Miami and Virginia to ease the minds of panicking Tiger fans. Seed range: 10-11.

Maryland (#44 RPI, #32 RPI)- A win Saturday at Duke would go a long way towards an ACC regular season title and lock status for the tournament, but that’s a bit much to demand. The sweep of Florida State only slightly makes up for a lack of quality non-conference wins. Still, just getting to 10-6 in the ACC should be enough for a bid. Seed range: 8-9.

Virginia Tech (#63 RPI, #235 SOS)- Their non-conference schedule is an absolute joke and the committee strongly factors that facet of a team’s portfolio. This means Tech needs to compile more and more ACC wins. They’ve done a nice job so far and qualified for my last bracket on the heels of their 5-3 conference mark. Avoiding a slip-up at NC State tonight is vital for their hopes. Seed range: 12-13.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. You probably already knew that Michigan State star Kalin Lucas sprained his ankle in the game against Wisconsin on Tuesday evening, but yesterday MSU officials confirmed the important news that there was no broken bone in his foot.  As of now, he’s listed as day to day but he’ll be re-evaluated after treatment today to determine if he might be back for Saturday’s game against Illinois.
2. Minnesota forward Royce White has officially retired from basketball as he formally withdrew from the Minnesota program on Wednesday.  You’ll certainly recall White’s bizarre YouTube announcement that he was quitting basketball in mid-December, and it was clear that not all was right with the budding impresario.  A tough week gets tougher for Tubby smith, who lost Al Nolen to academic problems on Tuesday.
3. This is an internal link, but we want to make sure everyone sees it who comes here.  Have you wondered who some of the teams are that would be invited to the NCAA Tournament if they stupidly expand it to 96 teams?  Check out our analysis for the answer to that.  If you’re not as appalled as we are that the likes of Alabama and Boston College would be part of the field, then you’re a better person than us.
4. Impressive.  The February 27 Gameday matchup between #2 Syracuse and #3 Villanova has already sold out the Carrier Dome (34,616), and it will set a new record (breaking SU’s own 2006 makr) for the largest crowd to ever see a college basketball game in an on-campus arena.
5. Mike DeCourcy thinks that the three most likely teams to run the conference table will be the MEAC’s Morgan State, the Horizon’s Butler, and the MAAC’s Siena.  Cornell in the Ivy is another obvious choice, but they do have to visit Harvard, and of course #1 Kansas has a tough road game coming up at Texas on Monday night.

Welcome back, everyone!  Boom Goes the Dynamite returns for the fourth weekend of the year with a blockbuster Saturday of games that are so good that we’re getting them up today as a reminder to join us tomorrow afternoon.  With noon-to-night coverage and the fact that most of the country is completely frozen over again, we expect that you’ll be right there with us on the couch, eating a bunch of bad food and breaking down zone offenses.  We hope to see you then!

Here are the games we plan on keeping an eye on…

12 PM: La Salle at #15 Temple on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
12 PM: Marquette at #19 Connecticut on Big East Network HD and ESPN Full Court
12 PM: Louisville at #9 West Virginia on ESPN and ESPN360.com
1 PM: #7 Duke at #11 Georgetown on CBS – RTC Live
2 PM: #4 Syracuse at DePaul on Big East Network and ESPN Full Court
2 PM: Indiana at Illinois on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
3 PM: FSU at Boston College on Raycom and ESPN Full Court
3 PM: #25 Northern Iowa at Missouri State
4 PM: Baylor at #6 Texas on Big 12 Network and ESPN Full Court
4 PM: #23 Vanderbilt at #1 Kentucky on ESPN and ESPN360.com A
4 PM: Arkansas at #20 Mississippi on SEC Network and ESPN Full Court
6 PM: Notre Dame at Rutgers on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
6 PM: New Mexico at TCU on CBS College Sports
7 PM: #2 Kansas at #13 Kansas State on ESPN and ESPN360.com
7 PM: Georgia at South Carolina on Fox Sports (regional) and ESPN Full Court
7 PM: Northwestern at #5 Michigan State on Big Ten Network
8 PM: Providence at Cincinnati on ESPN U
9 PM: Utah at #10 BYU on Mountain Network
9:30 PM: #8 Gonzaga at San Francisco on Fox Sports (regional)- RTC Live

We will be dividing the day into three shifts with nvr1983 starting things off then rtmsf will handle the afternoon games before John Stevens takes you into the night with late night coverage of all the day’s big games.

10:50 AM: Apparently ESPN forgot to pay the electricity bill as the lights just went out on Jason Williams. (As a college basketball fan, I refuse to call him Jay. Jason Williams was a great player. Jay Williams crashed his motorcycle.)

11:00 AM: Dear College Students of America, This is how you show up for a College GameDay. I don’t want to call anybody out, but the Kansas State fans are crushing what I saw when I went to GameDay at UNC last year. To be fair, a game against in-state rival Kansas is much, much more important than a disappointing Miami team. This seems more like a College Football GameDay and that’s what we need for the basketball version too. Right now the pressure is on Illinois, Kentucky, Washington, Syracuse, and Duke to match this atmosphere when GameDay comes to town later this year.

11:10 AM: Does anybody have a link to where we can buy one of those Frank Martin t-shirts?

11:15 AM: According to the Kansas State website, the previous record for College Basketball GameDay attendance was 6,700 at Clemson last year before they played Duke. I haven’t heard an official number for today. Bramlage Coliseum holds 12,528 and I would think they are well over half full.

11:20 AM: Is Coach K advocating for abolishing the requirement for players to spend one year in college or wanting them to stay in school for more than one semester, which is all they really have to do to be eligible to play in their freshman year? It sounds more like the former. Jay Bilas is right that this issue is more a NBA/business issue.

11:22 AM: If you’re wondering who Hubert Davis and Digger Phelps are going to pick to win the Kansas-Kansas State game, their clothes might be a pretty good clue. Hubert is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie. Digger is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie and he he has a purple highlighter. . .

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Today’s completely unsubstantiated rumor is that Kansas will be busing students the 85 miles over to Manhattan, Kansas, for ESPN Gameday on Saturday morning (as K-State tries to set a new record for Gameday attendance).  If there’s any truth whatsoever to this, we fear a little for the lives of those young Jayhawks.
2. Did Kentucky’s DeMarcus Cousins “cold-cock” a South Carolina student as they were RTCing after the Gamecocks’ big win over Kentucky the other night?  Video evidence is inconclusive, but at least one radio broadcaster and a student say they witnessed it.  For whatever that’s worth.
3. Gary Parrish reminds us that in the volatile world of college basketball polling, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the polls around this time of year because they offer a window into the teams that will be left standing in early April.  This is an accurate point to a certain extent, but it’s more fun to take the reverse view and think about which teams in the Top Ten will flame out early in March (best guesses: WVU, Duke, Michigan State).
4. You may have heard a little about this upcoming Harvard-Cornell game on Saturday night, but did you think an Ivy League battle would ever escalate to a Twitter cage match between the New York Times’ Pete Thamel and SI.com’s Pablo Torres?  Apparently Thamel tweeted Torres out for his soft handling of Harvard’s program in his recent piece on Wooden Award candidate Jeremy Lin, and Torres responded by accusing Thamel of similar kid-glove treatment on one of his pieces about Syracuse’s Wes Johnson.  Must be the full moon….
5. Finally, UNC-Wilmington fired their head coach last night.  Benny Moss, with a record of 41-74 in four years at the school, was coming off a 39-point pasting at the hands of Hofstra on Wednesday night, and his teams were making a habit of regularly getting run out of the gym.  Moss is the fifth head coach to lose his job during the season this year, further validating a troubling trend (even at the mid-major level) of ADs impatiently cutting their losses in the middle of the season.

Last week, RTC spoke with Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated and CBS to talk about a variety of topics on college basketball and a new promotion for Coke Zero. This is not the first time we have spoken with Seth as we interviewed him last March for the launch of his book “When March Went Mad” about the 1979 championship game between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Before the interview officially began, Seth expressed his displeasure about not getting linked every day in the Morning Five. We would give you the transcript of that discussion, but Chinese government regulations prohibit us from doing so.

Ed. Note: This interview took place last week, but due to some transcribing issues we are just putting it up now.

RTC: I guess we will start with your alma mater. Duke is looking strong again this year, but is different than they usually look as they are not relying on the outside shooting as much as a complete game. A lot of people have been talking up Duke. Do you think this is the year they can make it back to the Final Four?