kelvin lewis – Rush The Court

RTC Conference Primers: #9 – Conference USA

Brian Goodman — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:01:57 +0000

Steve Coulter of the DU Clarion is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.

Predicted Order of Finish

Memphis (15-1) UTEP (14-2) UAB (12-4) Marshall (10-6) Southern Mississippi (9-7) Houston (8-8) Tulsa (8-8) East Carolina (6-10) Southern Methodist (6-10) Central Florida (5-11) Tulane (2-14) Rice (1-15)

All-Conference First Team

G: Justin Hurtt, Tulsa, Sr. G: Randy Culpepper, UTEP, Sr. (Preseason Player of the Year) F: Wesley Witherspoon, Memphis, Jr. F: Gary Flowers, Southern Mississippi F/C: Will Coleman, Memphis, Sr.

All-Conference Second Team

G: Brock Young, East Carolina, Sr. G: Joe Jackson, Memphis, Fr. G/F: Will Barton, Memphis, Fr. F: Jeremy Williams, UTEP, Jr. F/C: Papa Dia, SMU, Sr.

Memphis has a talented stable of young talent, including the recently-cleared Will Barton. (bouncemag.com)

Impact Newcomers

First Round Game Analysis: Friday Evening

rtmsf — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:55:24 +0000

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 evening games.

7:10 pm – #8 Gonzaga vs. #9 Florida State (Buffalo pod)

This is a very tough game to call, so let’s start with what we know [...]

RTC Bracket Prep: Midwest Region

jstevrtc — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:55:33 +0000

This is the fourth 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.

Edward Jones Dome Hosts the Midwest Regional

Region: Midwest

Favorite: Kansas, #1-seed, 32-2. The overall #1 seed. The experts say there are no dominant teams this year, but for our money this year’s Jayhawks are just as dominant as North Carolina [...]

Checking in on… Conference USA

jstevrtc — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:42:17 +0000

James Vickers is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.

In what has been a crazy year defined by change for Conference USA, this past week in Conference USA basketball was no different. A streak ended, there is a new outright conference leader for the first time in four years, and there is a freshman who doesn’t go to Memphis that is grabbing national headlines. Marshall showed its conference-mates that they are a legitimate contender, even if they did go 0-2 for the week. Was losing a game addition by subtraction for Memphis? The Tigers had a streak [...]

Checking in on… Conference USA

rtmsf — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:39:20 +0000

Change

Bob Dylan wrote a famous song, “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” One could make a valid argument that this could be the theme song for the Conference USA Men’s 2009-10 basketball season. For the first time since conference realignment and the 2005-06 season, a new preseason champion was selected (Tulsa), the conference tournament will not be held in Memphis (again, Tulsa) and the de facto commissioner of the league is no longer with us (John Calipari).

How will this “change” translate for the rest of the league? In speaking with many of the [...]

ATB: A Strange Sense of Distant Familiarity Fell Over UCLA…

rtmsf — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:29:31 +0000

Word of the Day. Exposure. What we’re starting to see throughout this week of holiday hoops as good teams play other good teams is which teams are better than we all thought and which teams aren’t. Like last night with Kentucky, some teams such as UCLA and Oklahoma are being exposed as works-in-progress with a lot of problems who are a long, long way from making any noise in March. Others, such as Minnesota and Marquette, might be better than anyone thought they were and could be extremely underrated at this point in the season. This [...]

RTC 2009-10 Impact Players – Wrap-Up

rtmsf — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:02:32 +0000

Over the course of the last ten weeks we’ve broken down sixty players from around the country whom we expect will have the biggest impact on college basketball this season. We performed this exercise geographically, choosing five high-major and one mid-major player from each of the somewhat arbitrary ten regions of the country. If you’d like to read through the individual regions (and we highly encourage that), you can check all ten here.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to read through all of the previous posts, we’ll summarize here for you by [...]

Cooler Than You: Some Of The Best Of College Basketball

jstevrtc — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:00:12 +0000

Just about anyone can name the best teams in college basketball, and, as far as individual players, if you’re reading this site you can most likely reel off three or four of your own personal All-America teams. But what about those individuals who specifically excel at a few of the more exciting aspects of the game? There are certain plays that make everyone come out of their seats: a massive and powerful dunk that liberates some poor defender of his pride; a ridiculously long three-pointer, especially at crunch time; and a blocked shot where the ball goes into orbit. And [...]

2009-10 Conference Primers: #8 – Conference USA

rtmsf — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:49:18 +0000

RTC is seeking a 2009-10 correspondent for Conference USA. If you’re interested, please email us at rushthecourt@yahoo.com

Predicted Order of Finish:

Tulsa (13-3) UTEP (12-4) Memphis (12-4) Houston (11-5) Marshall (9-7) Southern Miss (8-8) Tulane (8-8) UAB (6-10) Rice (6-10) Central Florida (6-10) East Carolina (3-13) SMU (1-15)

All-Conference Team:

Aubrey Coleman (G), Houston Arnett Moultrie (F/C), UTEP Jerome Jordan (C), Tulsa Ben Uzoh (G), Tulsa Randy Culpepper (G), UTEP

Impact Newcomer. Will Coleman (F), Memphis

6th Man. Kelvin Lewis (G), Houston (not a true “6th man” but could easily be on the first team)

What You Need To Know. Everyone knows about Memphis’ off-season. First and foremost, it’s important [...]

RTC 2009-10 Impact Players: Deep South

zhayes9 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:44:36 +0000

Ed. Note: the previous posts in this series (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Atlantic South) are located here.

It’s time for the fourth installment of our RTC 2009-10 Impact Players series, the group of states bordering the Gulf of Mexico known as the Deep South region. Each week we’ll pick a geographic area of the country and break down the five players who we feel will have the most impact on their teams (and by the transitive property, college basketball) this season. Our criteria is once again subjective – there are so many good players in every [...]

Conference USA Wrapup & Tourney Preview

rtmsf — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:31:08 +0000

Memphis passed its last regular season road test and now only has a few games to go to return to the “promised land” that they’ve never really left.

While the Tigers’ dominance over the rest of CUSA is nearly unparalleled in the history of modern college basketball, it doesn’t mean that every other team is chopped liver. Basically anything can happen in a tournament setting and the Tigers have endured a few close calls this year.

So here are the teams as they are seeded and some pertinent info:

#1: Memphis Tigers

Allen R of Houston Basketball Junkies is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.

Memphis: 15-3 (5-0) Houston: 12-5 (3-1) UCF: 13-6 (3-2) UAB: 13-7 (3-2) Tulsa: 13-7 (3-2) Southern Miss: 12-6 (2-2) Tulane: 8-10 (2-2) UTEP: 11-8 (2-3) East Carolina: 10-8 (2-3) Marshall: 9-10 (2-3) SMU: 6-11 (1-4) Rice: 6-13 (1-4)

There wasn’t any lack of excitement this week and in some cases that excitement was also coupled with a bit of controversy.

In fact the Houston basketball program tested the adage that “any publicity is good publicity” during this past weekend when they played Arizona. However there were other storylines from the past week of action, albeit a bit [...]

Checking in on… Conference USA

rtmsf — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:35 +0000

Allen R of Houston Basketball Junkies is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.

Memphis: 14-3 (4-0) Houston: 11-4 (2-1) Southern Miss: 11-5 (2-1) Tulsa: 12-6 (2-1) UTEP: 11-6 (2-1) UCF: 11-6 (1-2) UAB: 10-7 (1-2) East Carolina: 9-7 (1-2) Marshall: 8-9 (1-2) Tulane: 7-9 (1-2) SMU: 6-9 (1-2) Rice: 6-11 (1-2)

This week in Conference USA basketball was full of the various surprises and dramatics that make college basketball season something special. However when the dust settled this week, the same team was still the proverbial ‘King of the Castle’ and still nobody else from the pack has distinguished themselves.

So here’s what happened in this week of CUSA basketball: 1.) Down [...]

Checking in on… Conference USA

rtmsf — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:41:35 +0000

Allen R. of Houston Basketball Junkies is the RTC correspondent for Conference USA.

CUSA Basketball Standings:

Memphis 12-3 (2-0) Houston 10-3 (1-0) Tulsa 10-5 (1-0) UTEP 10-5 (1-0) East Carolina 9-6 (1-1) Marshall 8-7 (1-1) Tulane 7-8 (1-1) UCF 10-5 (0-1) Southern Miss 9-5 (0-1) UAB 9-6 (0-1) SMU 5-8 (0-1) Rice 5-10 (0-1)

Now that the proverbial dark cloud of non-conference play has passed, there’s the excitement of Conference USA basketball. Everyone is now 0-0 and has their chances (some larger than others) to make a statement in the second half of the season. As this week started it didn’t matter if you were Memphis or SMU, a new season [...]