joe lunardi – Rush The Court

Pac-12’s Week 2 Cannibal Routine May Prove Costly

RJ Abeytia — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 23:31:49 +0000

The Pac-12’s Cannibalization hit full swing this week as once again the road proved significantly difficult for even the best teams in the conference. The first week of Pac-12 play saw six of the 10 games finish with margins of 10 points or more. In the second week, only four of 10 games ended with such margins, and two of those included California, which is really only an approximation of a Pac-12 team on most nights this year. Arizona State and Arizona, the conference’s clear upper tier at this point, dropped from sixth and 19th in the RPI, respectively, to [...]

Michigan’s Defense is the Difference Between NCAA and NIT

Tommy Lemoine — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 21:01:45 +0000

It doesn’t take a hoops junkie to recognize that a good, balanced effort on both sides of the ball generally equates to success. And maybe it would be overly simplistic to offer an unbalanced team such advice as “be better on defense.” For this year’s Michigan squad, however, there may not be a more apt prescription. The Wolverines—the Big Ten’s most efficient offensive unit—simply haven’t had a defense to match this season, ranking dead-last in conference play on that end of the court. On nights when they have defended well, the offense has taken a step back. Put simply, the pieces [...]

Big Ten Bracketology Breakdown: January 22 Edition

Eric Clark — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 19:45:39 +0000

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi released his latest Bracketology update on Thursday, tabbing six Big Ten teams in his projected field of 68. Lunardi had projected the Big Ten to snag eight spots back in November – but it’s no secret that the conference has underperformed against fairly lofty preseason expectations. Lunardi is usually spot-on with his predictions, nailing 67 of the 68 teams last season and correctly naming all 68 in 2013. Let’s take a deeper look at each of his relevant projections.

Wisconsin – No. 2 (East)

The Badgers have been pegged as a No. 2 seed for Lunardi’s last three editions of [...]

Big East M5: 02.18.14 Edition

George Hershey — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 13:20:41 +0000

Butler freshman Rene Castro has decided to transfer from the program after being suspended twice and failing to see much time on the court. His roommate on the road, senior Erik Fromm, told Zak Keefer, “It didn’t have anything to do with who he was. Sometimes, things just don’t work out. Rene’s future is bright, and it’s not a bad thing that it’s not with Butler.” Castro was seen as someone who could come in and eventually take the starting spot from Alex Barlow, but it never materialized as he failed to see the court in 13 games this season. This [...]

Big East NCAA Bracket Watch

George Hershey — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 21:31:12 +0000

With a little over five weeks to go until Selection Sunday, most Big East teams have about eight games left before the Big East Tournament to solidify their standing for the NCAA Tournament. Eight teams have somewhat realistic hopes of making it into the 68-team field, but all but two still have plenty of work to do if they want to impress the selection committee. Here we will take a look at each of the 10 teams with a quick snapshot of what they have done, where they are, and what they need to do to hear their name called [...]

Does Cinderella Reside in the Big Apple This Season?

Tommy Lemoine — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 22:31:11 +0000

In Ken Pomeroy’s recently-published conference race simulations, Manhattan wins the MAAC 6,161 times out of 10,000 simulations, which — in an 11-team league— makes it the overwhelming favorite. And for good reason. Despite being picked first in the conference preseason poll, the Jaspers have actually managed to exceed expectations in the first two months, using an aggressive defense and attack-first offense to notch several impressive road victories and an early 4-0 record in league play. So while fellow contenders like Iona, Canisius and Quinnipiac are likely to make the automatic bid far from a guarantee, Manhattan has already shown its [...]

AAC M5: 12.20.13 Edition

Mike Lemaire — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:01:19 +0000

We have yet to write about what will undoubtedly be the biggest story that South Florida is involved in all season, but now seems like as good a time as any. If you are a college basketball fan or just watch a lot of SportsCenter, you probably already know what happened. On Tuesday night South Florida beat Florida Gulf Coast in overtime when officials ruled that the Eagles’ Chase Fieler had possessed the ball before his last-second shot dropped, despite the fact that replays clearly showed Fieler releasing his shot before the red backboard light went on. The NCAA rule book states that once a player “possesses” [...]

Dissecting Joe Lunardi’s First Bracketology: Three Reaches and Three Underrateds

Chris Johnson — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:11:58 +0000

Christopher Johnson is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.

A three-month chasm stands in the way before another new beginning to another college basketball season. The NCAA Tournament won’t take place for another four months on top of that. But even with that distant timetable, the world’s premier bracketologist, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, thought it pertinent to release his early projections for the 2013 Field of 68. From this faraway August vantage point, reasonable cases can be made for most every team’s inclusion. After all, no one has actually played any games; thus we have no hard evidence – beyond [...]

ATB: Jared Cunningham’s Reversal, Wisconsin’s D, and 1,092 Days…

rtmsf — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:01:00 +0000

Tonight’s Lede. Whether you’re a student-athlete feeling the stress of exams or a fan of those players ready to pull your eyelids out with no excitement on the tube this week, the worst is nearly over. On Saturday we’ll have a full slate on the schedule and next week there will be a lot more action around the country in a mad rush before the Christmas holiday weekend. Let’s jump into what little there was going on tonight, secure in the thought that the worst is indeed over…

Dunkdafied. Oregon State’s Jared Cunningham didn’t have the best shooting night, but one [...]

The Other 26: Week 8

KDoyle — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:37:43 +0000

Kevin Doyle is an RTC contributor.

Introduction

With the non-conference portion of many schedules coming to an end, it is time for schools that comprise some of the smaller Other 26 conferences to retreat to their small gyms and compete against teams on their own level. In a sense, for many of these smaller conference teams, the non-conference schedule is a mere preamble for league play. The leagues I am referring to—NEC, America East, MEAC, Patriot, etc.—are all destined for just one bid to the NCAA Tournament. In most years, there are usually about a dozen [...]

Morning Five: Tax Day Edition

rtmsf — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 07:18:30 +0000

Yesterday was the first day of the national spring signing period, and there were a couple of mid-major surprises (Butler Effect or just pater familias?) in addition to everyone else in America signing with John Calipari. Ok, we’re (partially) kidding on the last part, but Cat fans should get used to a revolving door in Lexington for as long as the 1-and-done rule is still in effect. Here are the updated Scout.com class rankings — UNC and Memphis both have three 3-star players coming in next season. Andy Katz introduces us to the 2011 NCAA Tournament Committee chairman, Ohio State AD [...]

Boom Goes The Dynamite: 01.23.10 Edition

jstevrtc — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:54:42 +0000

Once again we find ourselves with another stacked weekend of college basketball. 142 games in Division I today, and quite a number of those are somewhere on the tube. It’s getting interesting. Some of the big names are starting to come back to the pack a little, and some teams we’d all forgotten about are starting to put some wins together. We’ll be here all day, watching it, commenting on it, enjoying it. We’d like to know what you’re watching and what you think of it all, too, which is why we’re back with another version of BGTD [...]

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 [...]

RTC Back to School: 2008-2009 Preview

nvr1983 — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:02:36 +0000

For those of your who haven’t been spending as much time on Rush the Court the past few months as you should (looking at myself in the mirror), we thought we would offer you a quick guide to what we have been working on over the past few months.

General Overview: Some top quality writing/prognosticating to get you in the spirit for the run from today until the early morning hours of April 7th, 2009. – Finally, It’s Here: New RTC feature columnist John Stevens offers his thoughts about the upcoming season. – A Little Preseason Bracketology: RTC co-editor (Do we [...]

NCAA Mock Bracket

rtmsf — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:45:17 +0000

We got a cool link in the inbox today from Josh Centor, the Coordinator for New Media Communications at the NCAA. He is live-blogging the proceedings of the NCAA’s annual Mock Bracketology event where sportswriters and other college basketball media are invited to Indianapolis to go through the grueling process of selecting 65 teams. This way, the idea goes, the media will actually know what to blather on about when it comes time later this month to discuss bubble teams, strength of schedule ratings and stock-up/stock-down trends.

We wonder, though, whether Josh recognizes the profound irony of his position as [...]