dante cunningham – Rush The Court

RTC Live: Villanova @ Maryland

nvr1983 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:00:52 +0000

We are back tonight courtside for what might be one of the best early season games of the year with #3 Villanova travelling down to Washington, DC to take on Maryland. Coming into the season, a lot of people expected this to be a huge game, but some of the hype died down after the Terrapins lost back-to-back games in Maui against Cincinnati and Wisconsin. At the time we were down on the Terrapins, but we are willing to forgive them a little for what might have been a little jet-lag (yes, we know the other teams [...]

Set Your Tivo: 11.16.09

nvr1983 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:14:51 +0000

After a relatively slow opening week things begin to start picking up this week so I’ll be going back to the daily version of SYT to avoid writing a 5,000 word post. RTC will be doing our “world famous” RTC Live from multiple major games this week so it’s definitely worth checking out. That feature has become so popular that our correspondent at the Davidson–Butler game noticed that another writer in the row in front of him on Saturday was following the simultaneous Creighton-Dayton game on RTC Live. Anyways, there are two games on the slate [...]

2009-10 Conference Primers: #3 – Big East

rtmsf — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:43:28 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

Predicted order of finish:

Villanova West Virginia UConn Cincinnati Louisville Georgetown Syracuse Seton Hall Pittsburgh Notre Dame Marquette South Florida Rutgers Providence St. John’s DePaul

Preseason Awards.

Player of the Year. Luke Harangody, Notre Dame Newcomer of the Year. Lance Stephenson, Cincinnati Breakout Player of the Year. Kemba Walker, UConn

All-Conference First Team.

Kemba Walker, UConn Scottie Reynolds, Villanova Devin Ebanks, West Virginia Greg Monroe, Georgetown Luke Harangody, Notre Dame

All-Conference Second Team.

Jerome Dyson, UConn Deonta Vaughn, Cincinnati Da’Sean Butler, West Virginia Wesley Johnson, Syracuse Lazar Hayward, Marquette

All-Conference Third Team.

Lance Stephenson, Cincinnati Corey Fisher, Villanova Jeremy Hazell, Seton Hall Stanley Robinson, UConn Samardo Samuels, Louisville

All-Rookie Team.

Lance Stephenson, Cincinnati Peyton Siva, Louisville Maalik Wayns, Villanova Dante Taylor, Pitt Mouphtaou Yarou, Villanova

What you need [...]

RTC Final Four Preview

rtmsf — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:21:04 +0000

We’re here. After five months of winnowing down 341 college basketball teams, we’ve got four teams left standing – UNC, UConn, Michigan St. and Villanoa. None of the four are surprises (although Villanova probably didn’t expect to be here) but all four are worthy candidates for the crown of 2009 National Champion. Let’s break down both games for you, and keep in mind that we’ll be running our usual Boom Goes the Dynamite starting about a half-hour before tip at 5:30pm EDT. See you then…

Dave Zeitlin and John Stevens contributed to this report.

Michigan [...]

Why Villanova Will Win…

nvr1983 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:11:51 +0000

As part of our ongoing attempt to bring you the best college basketball coverage anywhere, we enlisted the editors from the finest team-specific blogs we could find to write posts explaining why their team will win tomorrow.

Our first submission is brought to you by Pete of LetsGoNova.com.

Make no mistake about it: Villanova is the underdog tomorrow. North Carolina is favored by 7.5 points in Vegas and by 4 points by KenPom (with a 66 percent chance of victory).

More intuitively, common sense tells us the Tarheels are the superior team. North Carolina features five [...]

Villanova and Pittsburgh put the madness back in March Madness

nvr1983 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:44:17 +0000

After nearly 10 days of college basketball critics bemoaning the lack of excitement in this year’s edition of March Madness, two of the Big East’s best teams answered all of those critics by submitting an all-time classic. After one of the strangest 10 seconds you will ever see, Scottie Reynolds made an end-to-end run that might replace the Danny Ainge and Tyus Edney versions on NCAA Tournament highlight reels from now on as this was on a much bigger stage with a trip to the Final 4 on the line. Even with Reynolds miracle, Pittsburgh still had its [...]

NCAA Sweet Sixteen: East Region Preview

rtmsf — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:55:04 +0000

The East Region: A Look Back, A Look Ahead (By Dave Zeitlin and Steve Moore)

A look back: Here are some of the bests and worsts of the first two rounds of the East Region – as well as some other haphazard notes …

Most impressive team remaining: Villanova. The Wildcats’ dismantling of UCLA was a sight to behold.

Shakiest team remaining: Pittsburgh. I sat next to a diehard Pitt fan at a sports bar Friday. I knew it was a bad sign when he turned to me disgusted midway through the second half and said, “Just root for [...]

NCAA preview: Villanova Wildcats

rtmsf — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:07:52 +0000

Villanova (#3, East, Philadelphia pod)

vs. American (#14) Mar. 19 @ 7:20pm

Vegas Line: -17

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv). If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile

Location: Villanova, Pa. Conference: Big East, at-large Coach: Jay Wright, 8th season (174-90) 08-09 Record: 26-7 overall, 13-5 conference Last 12 Games: 9-3 Best Win: 67-57, Pittsburgh, Jan. 28 Worst Loss: 67-58, Texas, Dec. 9 Off. Efficiency Rating: 114.0; 26 Def. Efficiency Rating: 91.2; 25

Nuts n Bolts

Star Player(s): [...]

Big East: Blair = Thabeet?

nvr1983 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:13:01 +0000

Here at RTC headquarters, we are big fans of fundamentals and appreciate things that the casual fans doesn’t care about (like defense). Having said that, we were shocked when we received an e-mail from the Big East informing us of their men’s basketball awards. Before I go on my rant, let me start by saying that I agree with Greg Monroe of Georgetown winning “Rookie of the Year” and Jay Wright of Villanova winning “Coach of the Year”. Fans of other Big East teams might criticize Monroe for not leading his team to a better performance this year [...]

Big East Wrapup & Tourney Preview

rtmsf — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:18:27 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference. He will be live-blogging all the action from his executive suite at MSG this week.

Schedule:

Tuesday, March 10th / First Round – Game 1: #9 Cincinnati vs. #16 DePaul – Game 2: #12 Georgetown vs. #13 St. John’s – Game 3: #10 Notre Dame vs. #15 Rutgers – Game 4: #11 Seton Hall vs. #14 South Florida

Wednesday, March 11th / Second Round – Game 5: Game 1 Winner vs. #8 Providence – Game 6: Game 2 Winner vs. #5 Marquette – Game 7: Game 3 Winner [...]

ATB: Notre Dame is a Little Overdone. Let’s Not Discuss Them Again.

rtmsf — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:01:45 +0000

It’s OV-UH. Villanova 77, Notre Dame 60. Unless Mike Brey’s Irish win four games in four days to get to the Big East finals, we don’t want to hear another word about this team’s NCAA Tournament chances. Sorry, but when you’re playing for your postseason life in an arena when you’ve won something like 48 of your last 50 games and you get ripped a new one in the second half by a team that has much less on the line, you’ve lost your standing to make your case. Villanova’s defense held the Irish to 39% [...]

Boom Goes the Dynamite: 02.22.09 Edition

rtmsf — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:03:26 +0000

1:00pm. Welcome back to another day of BGTD. There are only 2o games today, but there are five of particular interest that we’ll be tracking. Villanova @ Syracuse and Illinois @ Ohio St. at 1pm, Wisconsin at Michigan St. @ 3pm, Wake Forest @ Duke at 7:45pm, and Arizona at Arizona St. at 10pm. Pretty strong day. Let’s get it started in upstate NY…

1:02pm. Before we get going, we want to touch on this story from the LA Times yesterday that UCLA has stopped recruiting local 6’11 prep star Renardo Sidney even though by [...]

Checking in on the… Big East

nvr1983 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:50:52 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

It is time to stop talking about the Big East as the best conference in college hoops. In the current installment of Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology, the Big East is getting seven teams in. That’s one fewer than the ACC and one more than the Pac-10. In fact, if we are talking in terms of percentage of league members to get a bid, the Big East slides all the way down to fourth as the Big Televen sends five teams.

Of [...]

Set Your Tivos: 02.07.09

nvr1983 — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:59:43 +0000

I’m not sure why everyone complains about February. Sure the NFL season is over, but at least we don’t need to hear about steroids, holdouts, and whether or not both feet were in bounds. There isn’t a blockbuster “Game of the Year” match-up today, but there are several solid games for the hoops aficionado. So just settle into your favorite spot on the couch and dig in. In the spirit of promoting healthy habits, we suggest that you try to have some vegetables today so use some ketchup on your food today.

#20 Syracuse at #16 Villanova at Noon [...]

Checking in on the… Big East

rtmsf — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:48:28 +0000

Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is the RTC correspondent for the Big East Conference.

Remember all that talk about the Big East getting nine, maybe ten, teams into the dance? It seems like a long time ago now, as it is a legitimate possibility the league only gets seven teams in. The three teams in danger of missing out are Georgetown, Notre Dame and Providence.

The Irish are in the worst position right now. They are currently sitting at 12-8 and 3-6 in the Big East, but they are just 2-7 against the RPI’s top 50. Their [...]