We’re Back.  These After the Buzzers dropped off a little bit over the long holiday weekend, and for that we apologize.  Still, we’re working through some ideas as to how we want to set them up, so if you have any suggestions for improvement or additions/deletions, we’re all ears.  So long as it doesn’t take us all night to do and it sounds reasonably interesting, we’ll consider it.  Hit us up in the comments.

The Minnesota Defense Wasn't Tight Tonight (MST/R. Tsong-Taatarii)

Your Watercooler Moment.  ACC 1, Big Ten 0.  Don’t be fooled by the fact that Minnesota was without defensive stalwart Al Nolen tonight — the Gophers still came into this home game as a fifteen-point Vegas favorite, and Tony Bennett’s Virginia team hadn’t exactly shown any signs of breaking through after a 1-2 trip to Maui last week.  A 39-18 second-half run by the Wahoos fueled by 77% three-point shooting  (10-13) erased a ten-point halftime deficit and had Tubby Smith fuming after the game about his team’s shoddy defense.  So what is the teachable moment here?  Perhaps that Minny wasn’t quite as good as their 6-0 record with wins over a UNC team in disarray and a West Virginia team still finding itself would have led us to believe?  Or that ACC teams just find ways to win these ACC/Big Ten Challenge games year after dastardly year?  Well, that’s certainly true, and the Big Ten now finds itself in a serious hole going into Day Two of the event considering that this game was a supposed lock for the midwestern league.  In looking at the remaining ten games, Ohio State on the road (@ FSU) and Illinois/Northwestern at home (vs. UNC and Georgia Tech, respectively) become must-wins, with the hope that Iowa and/or Michigan can break through versus Wake Forest or Clemson on the road.  If we were laying odds at this point as to which league will win this challenge, we’d go heavily on the ACC — that’s how important the Minnesota loss tonight at home was.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Jacob Pullen’s 241st Trey.  With Pullen’s second three of the evening tonight in an easy win against D2 Emporia State, Pullen became the all-time leader in made threes at the school.  He already has 1,618 points in his career and is well on his way to becoming the all-time leading scorer at the school (he needs to average 17.8 PPG the rest of the way, assuming 28 more games).  Here’s the question, though — is Pullen the greatest player in program history?  The greatest guard?  Mitch Richmond and Rolando Blackman were awfully good players at K-State, but Pullen could eclipse both of them with a first-team all-American type of a season and a deep Tournament run.
• LaceDarius Dunn’s Return.  In two games back from suspension against admittedly weak competition, LD has averaged 22 PPG, 5 RPG, 4 APG, and 4 SPG while shooting 10-19 from deep.  We know that Dunn can bomb away, but only seven of his shots have been from within the circle; he may want to mix it up a little more as we get into the heart of the season.
• Blake Hoffarber’s Jumper.  He shoots them in volume like JJ Redick once did down on Tobacco Road, but every time he puts one up, we think it’s going in.  He’s been somewhat “off” so far this year, but after a 5-11 performance tonight, he’s still at 38.7% on the season.  Of course, this is down from last year’s nearly-automatic 46.7% from deep, but we figure he’ll catch fire soon enough.
• 8-0 Before December.  There are only thirty D1 teams remaining with a flawless record, but did you know that Cleveland State has already racked up eight wins before November is out?  The Vikings have mostly feasted on a steady diet of mid-level teams, but with a win already against Iona (who beat Richmond), CSU may be looking at a strong season in the Horizon League.
• Wichita State’s Balance.  One of the most effective shooting teams that you’ll find, Gregg Marshall’s Shockers utilize a cadre of ten players who average between 14-25 minutes per game, nine of whom tally at least four points per contest.  Even though WSU came out of Maui with a 2-1 record, it was the Shockers who arguably played tournament champion UConn the toughest among their three wins.

… and Misses.

• Those Ridiculous-Looking McDonald’s Stairs at The Barn.  Minnesota’s Williams Arena is a grand old barn, the fourth oldest building currently in use in Division 1 basketball.  And we certainly understand that sponsorships will happen and must happen, even at grand old barns.  But those McDonald’s stairs in the camera view on each side of the scoring table look ridiculous and are embarrassing for a program of this stature.  Maybe it would be ok if the “M”  used was the same configuration as the Gophers’ “M,” but it’s not.  Please, please get rid of this travesty.
• USC Basketball.  With four losses to the likes of Rider, Bradley, Nebraska and TCU already under its belt, Kevin O’Neill’s team is already in serious trouble this season.  The Trojans have games coming against #20 Texas, #4 Kansas and #15 Tennessee in the next three weeks, and even with Jio Fontan returning on Dec. 18 for the KU game, we’re not sure that this dysfunctional unit will recover.

Tweet of the Night.  Yeah, this is more or less what we thought too when told that TCU was becoming the seventeenth Big East basketball school.

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After a few weeks of huge commitments this week was a little more quiet as it seems like most of the big pieces have committed with the exception of Quincy Miller, LeBryan Nash, and Adonis Thomas, but don’t forget that none of the currently committed players have done more than verbally commit and we all know how fickle teenagers can be so we could see some minds change between now and Signing Day. Having said that there were a few notable commitments this week and other news worth following.

• Tony Wroten Jr., a top 30 recruit according to some recruiting services, but a top 5 player in his mind and a world-class Twitter provocateur, announced that he was going to commit to Washington and we have the fourteen minute and forty-six second YouTube clip to prove. Tony, if you think a YouTube video makes you big-time, Adonis Thomas would like to have a word with you. On the bright side for Husky fans it looks like Tony is working on getting a qualifying SAT score.
• After losing what seemed to be his entire roster after arriving at Oregon, Dana Altman is finally starting to add players to his roster as he secured a commitment from Jabari Brown, a top 25 player in this year’s class. Brown’s all-around game should help fill the Oregon’s holes all-around the floor.
• Steve Lavin has already had what most would consider a successful recruiting season at St. John’s, but he isn’t resting as he is embarking on a nationwide tour going door-to-door trying to find recruits.
• Georgetown got a commitment from Mikael Hopkins, a 6’9″ forward out of the famed DeMatha Catholic program. Interestingly Hopkins cited Georgetown’s “tradition of getting big men to the [NBA]”, which must be a reference to the mid-to-late ’80s and early ’90s as we don’t think he was referring to Roy Hibbert.
• LSU picked up a surprise commitment from Johnny O’Bryant, one of the top inside players in this year’s class.
• Gonzaga picked up a commitment from Kevin Pangos, a talented point guard out of Canada who was named the top point guard at the FIBA U-17 World Championships this summer and was mentioned in a piece by Luke Winn earlier this year about the growth of Canadian basketball.
  

  The next great Canadian point guard?

• Jabarie Hinds, a point guard from Mount Vernon HS (Ben Gordon‘s old high school), appears to have moved UConn to the top of his list and expects Kemba Walker to enter the NBA Draft after this season. Hinds seems to be sticking with the Huskies even after UConn’s on-going issues with the NCAA.

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1. Jim Calhoun has to appreciate the support shown by many of his former players as the cloud of an NCAA investigation looms over Storrs, support that was evident on Saturday as many of his UConn family showed up to play in a benefit game for the Jim and Pat Calhoun Cardiology Center.  Heck, we’d pay $20 to watch Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor, Caron Butler and Rudy Gay in an alumni game, especially for a good cause.  The word “family” above is not used lightly, as Butler can attest to in speaking about his coach: “I’ll just sum it up like this.  He’s the closest thing to a father that I’ve ever had.”
2. It just won’t go away.  Karen Sypher says her trial was unfair because Louisville is a small enough town to feel the influence of Louisville coach Rick Pitino.  “I know now there is no justice system,” she told the AP.  And she also says that there was evidence in her favor that her defense attorney didn’t use, and that it will come out later.  Sypher will be sentenced on October 27th.  We’re fine with Pitino facing no disciplinary action from U of L, since this is a family matter more than anything else, but we’re still evaluating AD Tom Jurich’s statement calling his coach a “grand ambassador” of the program…
3. SI’s Luke Winn gave us stat nerds the warm-and-fuzzies when he broke out some serious numbers to predict some possible breakout players in the sophomore class for 2010-11 (a taste — Nebraska’s Christian Standhardinger makes the list).  His 2008 version yielded eerily accurate results to the point where we have our current crop of RTC interns investigating if there are some prop bets in Vegas on this topic.  And Luke, if you’re reading…yes, we’ll give you a cut.
4. Seton Hall announced on Friday that Ole Miss guard Eniel Polynice will be joining the Pirates as a transfer student next season.  Polynice will not have to sit out the typical year for transfers, taking advantage of an NCAA rule that allows early graduates to play their fourth season of eligibility elsewhere if their current school doesn’t offer postgraduate work in their field of study.  Polynice, a communications major who graduated in the spring from Ole Miss, sat out the 2008-09 season as a redshirt student.  He is a very nice late summer pickup for new Hall head coach Kevin Willard, who will need some experienced players to keep uber-gunner Jeremy Hazell under control and tutor a deep incoming class of freshmen.
5. If we were the president of Florida International University (and just to be clear, we’re not), we’d immediately call head coach Isiah Thomas into our office for a sitdown about a little something called focus.  Coming off a 7-25 season that finished on the high note of nine straight losses, you would think that if Thomas were fully committed to his current job, he wouldn’t be taking on part-time work as a paid consultant for the NBA team he helped destroy, the New York Knicks   The Miami media, to put it lightly, is not amused.

Laura Hathaway of the Clarion is the RTC correspondent for the Sun Belt Conference.

Current Standings

East Division (conf/overall/streak)

1. Troy                                    (12-5/17-11/W4)
2. Middle Tennessee               (12-5/18-12/W2)
3. Western Kentucky             (11-6/18-12/W5)
4. Florida Atlantic                  (10-7/14-14/L2)
5. South Alabama                     (8-10/16-14/W1)
6. Florida International          (4-13/7-23/L7)

West Division (conf/overall/streak)

1. North Texas                          (12-5/20-8/W7)
2. Arkansas State                     (11-6/16-12/W1)
3. Louisiana-Lafayette              (10-7/13-15/L1)
4. Denver                                   (9-8/16-12/L1)
5. Louisiana-Monroe                  (6-11/11-17/L3)
6. New Orleans                          (3-14/8-20/L2)
7. Arkansas-Little Rock             (3-14/7-21/L6)

News and notes

Western Kentucky’s A.J. Slaughter was named conference player of the week. He has now received this honor three times this season and also was picked as the preseason player of the year. In his senior year, Slaughter has shown why he was picked as such,as he had four straight 20-plus point performances in the last few weeks. Western Kentucky will be a force in the conference tournament as always. Despite their third-place conference record in the SBC East, their overall record is the second best in the SBC and they play much harder teams during non-conference play.

The Sun Belt Conference tournament is fast approaching at with one more night of conference play and several games that shouldn’t make too much of a difference. The standings probably won’t change at all either except for Troy and Middle Tennessee. If Middle Tennessee beats Florida Atlantic and Troy loses to Arkansas State, then the seed positions for the conference tournament might change a bit. The Troy versus Arkansas State game will be a good matchup and an important final regular season game.

Some easy wins will be for Western Kentucky against Florida International and Denver, on their home court, versus Louisiana-Lafayette. Denver has struggled on the road this season, losing nearly every game away from home so it will be a positive note for them to end regular season play at home with a win. Unfortunately, the Pioneers will have to take the road again for the conference tournament in Arkansas. This will be a huge factor in their performance. It is a shame for senior and star Nate Rohnert that the team plays so poorly on the road, because in reality they are better than many of the SBC teams. It’s a mystery as to why they can’t perform on the road. One that will have to be answered next season perhaps.

You can pretty much forget about New Orleans, Arkansas-Little Rock, Florida International and Louisiana-Monroe now. If any of these teams survive the first round of the conference tournament, I would be surprised. A good matchup though for a season closer will be the New Orleans versus UALR game, since the teams have almost exact records.

For the conference championship I’d like to see a match-up between West Division leader North Texas and East Division Western Kentucky. These two teams have the best overall records and a game against each other would be fun to see in the tournament. The Mean Green did it. They pulled off leading the West Division again. Early in the season, they had the lead, lost it and now have it back. Something changed in the last half of the season and North Texas pulled it together and took the top spot just in time. For awhile, I wasn’t sure if Denver or Arkansas State who would clinch that spot instead.

It will be interesting to see which team (if any) can beat Western Kentucky and prevent them from going to the NCAA Tournament again as the SBC representative.

Upcoming games

All games are on Saturday, Feb. 27

• North Texas v. Louisiana-Monroe              1 p.m.
• Middle Tennessee v. Florida Atlantic          6 p.m.
• Louisiana Lafayette v. Denver                     6 p.m.
• New Orleans v. Arkansas-Little Rock           7 p.m.
• Western Kentucky v. FIU     7 p.m.
• Troy v. Arkansas State                                  7:05 p.m.

Wednesday, March 6 through Friday, March 9

• Sun Belt Conference Championships in Hot Springs, Ark.

1. Want to know what’s wrong with UNC this year?  One ACC coach laid out all of the dirty laundry about Roy Williams’ team in an interview with the Washington Post.  Since the coach was speaking as someone who had faced Carolina once already this season, and the article came out Saturday morning, this means that it was one of the following four: Seth Greenberg (Virginia Tech), Paul Hewitt (Georgia Tech), Oliver Purnell (Clemson), Sidney Lowe (NC State) or Dino Gaudio (Wake Forest).  Lowe lost to the Heels in their only game and Gaudio still seems too new to make those kinds of statements about that program, even anonymously.  That leaves Greenberg, Hewitt and Purnell, and our money is on Greenberg.  For some reason it just sounds like him (and the WaPo probably has a closer relationship with him than the others).
2. Florida State announced on Sunday that they will be vacating wins from ten sports that involved 61 athletes accused of academic misconduct during the 2006-07 academic year.  Most of the news will focus on football coach Bobby Bowden losing 12 wins from his career total, but of interest to us is that the basketball program will lose all 22 of its wins from that year as well — one from the ACC Tourney, and two from the NIT.
3. Based on everything that Isiah Thomas says here about his lack of interest in the LA Clippers job, we fully expect him to see him stalking the sidelines (and the interns!) at the Staples Center next season.
4. NCAA 96: a voice of reason on expansion of the NCAA Tournament from an unlikely source, the Commissioner of the Big Ten, Jim Delaney.  The key takeaway from his discussion with TSN is ‘let’s learn more about this.’  Exactly.  The more time spent talking to stakeholders as well as THE FANS is simple but seemingly missing from this idea — it helps to remove avarice from the equation and gives reasoned consideration to the premise that just because an idea will be profitable makes it a good thing.
5. Pat Forde writes that if the COY award were handed out today, there would be no doubt who should win it — Jim Boeheim.  He won’t get any argument from us.  Syracuse received 83 votes in the preseason AP Poll (good for 31st) and 111 votes in the ESPN/Coaches Poll (25th).  The Orange are now 23-1, leading the Big East Conference, and could potentially be Boeheim’s best team ever.  That’s right.  Look through this list and find a better team.  It’s hard to do.

Laura Hathaway of the Clarion is the RTC correspondent for the Sun Belt Conference.

Current Standings

East Division

1. South Alabama (7-2)
2. Troy (5-3)
3. Florida Atlantic (4-3)
4. Western Kentucky (4-3)
5. Middle Tennessee (3-5)
6. Florida International (3-8)

West Division

1. Denver (6-2)
2. New Orleans (5-2)
3. North Texas (5-3)
4. Arkansas-Little Rock (4-5)
5. Arkansas State (3-4)
6. Louisiana-Monroe (3-5)
7. Louisiana-Lafayette (2-4)

News and Notes

• Small Changes…  Still no conference games have been played in the SBC but over the past two weeks there have been subtle changes in the standings. Arkansas-Little Rock jumped from last place with one win to being ranked fourth in the West division of the conference. Denver also took its place at the top of the Western division rankings as they barely scraped past South Dakota State and Cal State Northridge. Changes in the East division were also minimal with Troy keeping its spot near the top and Florida International falling further and further behind.
• Team of the last couple weeks…  This honor definitely goes to South Alabama, who currently has a four-game win streak and is slowly but surely extending their lead over the conference competitors. If they keep winning, the rest of the league doesn’t stand a chance of catching them. It shouldn’t be too hard for them to beat their first conference opponent UALR and then tack on two more wins against the Florida SBC teams.
• Player of the last couple weeks…  Denver captain Nate Rohnert was named Sun Belt Conference player of the week, an honor he earned by scoring a career-high 32 points against Wyoming. The score of the game was 80-77 meaning Rohnert scored nearly half of the Pioneer points in the game. Who knows what they would do without him? Rohnert also currently leads the Sun Belt in points per game at 19.2 and is second in assists. As the only senior on the DU team, Rohnert has learned how to take responsibility and lead. Rohnert’s hard work and dedication to the Pioneers is finally starting to pay off as they took the lead of their division and rank second overall in the SBC.

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1. Want some John Wall hype beyond what you got here on Wed. night?  Try this, or this, or this, or this.  Is that enough gushing for you?  Put simply, Wall is the most talented player in America.  But if you’re here, you already knew that.
2. Well, Mike DeCourcy got half of it right (Graeter’s ice cream: right; the Cincinnati chili: wrong).
3. Fanhouse checks in with Isiah Thomas at FIU after the initial blast of media attention withered away.  In case you missed it, FIU is now 3-8 with wins over Florida Memorial, NC Central and Florida A&M.  The last one was at least an away game.  It’s clear that FIU has a long, long way to go toward competitiveness, but it also appears that they are improving under Thomas.
4. Here’s Luke Winn’s weekly power rankings.  Always a good read with numerous I did not know thats.
5. Good news: Iowa’s Todd Lickliter is expected to be back coaching next week with no long-term negative effects from his surgery for a torn carotid artery over the weekend.

Laura Hathaway of the Clarion is the RTC correspondent for the Sun Belt Conference.

Current Standings:

East Division

1. South Alabama (5-2)
2. Troy (3-2)
3. Middle Tennessee (3-3)
4. Western Kentucky (2-2)
5. Florida Atlantic (2-3)
6. Florida International (2-5)

West Division

1. North Texas (3-1)
2. Denver (3-1)
3. Arkansas State (3-1)
4. New Orleans (3-1)
5. University of Louisiana-Monroe (3-3)
6. Louisiana-Lafayette (1-2)
7. University of Arkansas-Little Rock (1-4)

Conference play has not started in the Sun Belt and most teams have played around five games.  Heading into the second full weekend of match-ups, no teams in the conference are undefeated.  Nine of the 13 teams in the conference, however, have a winning percentage of .500 or better.

Western Kentucky lost by one point (63-64) on Tuesday night to Indiana State in a close game.  South Alabama is off to a great start in their season with the best record (5-2) among the Sun Belt’s members.  Their two loses come from Tulsa and Rice University.  Both Denver and North Texas had decisive wins earlier this week against Wyoming and Jackson State, respectively, advancing their win percentages to .750.

It is too soon to tell what teams will lead the conference since four western division teams are tied with 3-1 records. Things will obviously become clearer once conference play begins in the next two weeks.

This week’s conference player of the week is University of New Orleans senior guard Billy Humphrey.  Humphrey averaged 24.5 points and shot 94% from the free throw line to help the Privateers pick up wins against Southern-New Orleans and Texas State last week.

Team Summaries:

Arkansas State.  Arkansas State has started off well this season, winning both their exhibition games and the first three match-ups of the season.  They defeated MacMurray College, Southeast Missouri State, and Texas-El Paso.  None of the games had close scores as Arkansas scored at least 20 points more than each opponent.  The early season is shaping up to be a good one for the Red Wolves.  Last season, the team appeared to be on its way to the best season in three years but things fell apart midway through the season.  They started off at 5-4 in the conference and 13-7 overall but then lost nine consecutive conference games and 10 overall.  They finished the year second to last in the SBC. They will have some tough games ahead, but anything will be an improvement from how they wrapped up last season.

Arkansas-Little Rock.  The Trojans currently have the worst record in the SBC, and have lost to Ole Miss, Tulsa, Creighton, and Louisiana Tech.  Their only win this season comes from a game against St. Gregory’s where they outscored them 100-56.  Their other losses have not been close; they have a losing margin of around 20 points. Despite the slow start to the season, last year UALR was the powerhouse of the SBC’s West Division.  They had the best regular season record for two consecutive years, but have yet to win a conference title.

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1. The holidays are approaching and lucky for us, Karen Sypher truly is the gift that keeps on giving.  Ms. Sypher was charged today by a Louisville grand jury with the federal crime of retaliation against a witness for accusing Rick Pitino of raping her.  In plain english, this means that the grand jury found no reason to believe her claim that Pitino raped her (same as the police).  Yep, just tack that one onto all the others — extortion, perjury, etc. — if she keeps it up, she might just end up doing some serious time over all this nonsense.
2. The SI guys (Seth Davis, Grant Wahl and Luke Winn) give us their preseason selections for various categories in bite-sized form, but isn’t it a week late for this, fellas?  (ed. note – ok, got it — it was for the magazine)
3. This is a nice piece by Alexander Wolff on the precocious career of Josh Pastner at Memphis.  Gary Parrish also has something to say about this year’s scrappy Memphis team.  We’re a little late to Pastner’s bandwagon, but after what we saw last night in terms of strategy, energy and fight, this guy is going to be around for a very long time.
4. This was an interesting study done by professors at Indiana (where else?) that looks at the incidence of fouls called on college basketball teams over the course of a season.  The findings were compelling, but commonsensical: a) aggressive teams are rewarded by physical play by officials’ (unconscious?) tendencies to “keep it even” in terms of foul calls over the course of a game; b) home court advantage is a clear predictor of foul differential (+7%); and c) the greater the foul differential, the more likely it is that the next foul will be called on the team with fewer fouls.  We haven’t vetted the data or methodology but most everything sounds reasonable at first blush.  The smart coaches have known this for years, and even the not-so-bright ones know that teams that clutch, hold and grab on every possession can’t get called for everything.  The only possibly confounding factor not accounted for would be if the teams that are behind in the game get more aggressive through the course of play, which explains why there’s a greater likelihood of the team with fewer fouls getting whistled more often in this situations.  Interesting study.
5. Former FIU star and RTC Impact Player Freddy Asprilla has committed to Kansas State as a juco — another great get for Frank Martin, who is putting together a nice program there in the Little Apple.

1. Minnesota freshman Royce White might be looking to plead out of his legal problems arising out of an incident with a security guard at the Mall of America.  What this means for his future with Tubby Smith’s team?  Status unclear.
2. These comments were never going to end well for Mississippi State junior forward Kodi Augustus.  The repentant player will miss Thursday’s game against SE Louisiana and Saturday’s game against Bethune-Cookman.  Surely MSU will be ok.
3. Purdue’s incumbent point guard, Lewis Jackson, who was already suspended for a variety of reasons, injured his foot last week and had surgery to repair the problem today.  He’s officially listed as out indefinitely but Boiled Sports believes it will be for a month or more.
4. Your Big West Championship is moving across Anaheim from the Convention Center to the Honda Center.  Get your tickets now.
5. Isiah Thomas got his first collegiate win at FIU last night.  Yes, it was against NAIA school Florida Memorial, and yes it was only by six points (88-82), but a win is a win, and as Isiah said afterwards, “you start wondering if you’re ever going to win a game. I told the guys at halftime, ‘I don’t care how we win. I just want to win the game, go home, rub my dog, wake up in the morning and see the sun.”  Mmm-hmmmmmm.