The countdown clock is under 12 hours, and we’re all absolutely dripping with giddiness for real games in the next month…
Memphis Responds to the NCAA. This didn’t get a lot of pub because it was released during college football Saturday last weekend, but Memphis sent its response to the NCAA regarding the Derrick Rose scandal. Their argument is based on how the NCAA used the legal doctrine of “strict liability” to effectively punish the Tiger program without direct evidence as to their culpability. In plain English, the NCAA is saying that Memphis is responsible for sanctions due to playing the ineligible player (Rose), whether they knew about his ineligibility or not. The brief is strongly argued by Memphis. They point out that strict liability as a governing doctrine seems to have only been used one time before, and in a different context (Kelvin Sampson at Indiana in 2008). Furthermore, they show that at least four other schools have had similar situations as the one Memphis faced, and in none of those four situations did the NCAA retroactively vacate the entire season as it did to Memphis. We have to believe that Corey Maggette’s name found its way somewhere in that appeal. So what will all of this mean? Probably not much. The NCAA isn’t a court of law, and they can pretty much make up their rules of enforcement as they go along (within reason). We have to wonder, though, if this wasn’t a punishment based on who the coach/player involved were versus a more objective analysis of the facts in light of previous similar situations. Stay tuned – the NCAA has thirty days to respond.
Why: Because you’re just as nutty as we are to spend an entire Friday night watching glorified practice sessions
If you’re a frequent visitor here at RTC you’ve probably seen what we do on weekends during the season, meaning our live-blogging during TV game broadcasts that we call Boom Goes The Dynamite (and if you’re the one person who still doesn’t understand that reference, get yourself over to here). We do this because not only do we love watching college basketball until our faces are numb, but we dig the comments of people who are sitting there on their couches watching right along with us and the in-game discussion it generates. In my view, it’s one of the best things we do here. As you probably know, even though it starts at 6pm in some places and most places don’t have the midnight start time any more, Midnight Madness is this Friday night; our beloved countdown clock up in the right hand corner of the screen will hit all-zeroes, and many schools will be having some sort of event to celebrate the first official practice of the new college basketball season. ESPN and ESPN-U are sending analysts to nine different schools (specifically Connecticut, Georgetown, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke, Washington, Michigan State and North Dakota State) and will be showing some of the festivities at those venues from 9pm to 1am ET on ESPN-U. ESPN will be simulcasting right along with them from 11:30pm to midnight. By the way, Bill Raftery’s going to be one of the guys at Georgetown, which means we get an early dose of “Onions!!” and “A little lingerie!!” And I say thank God for it.
Our first Boom Goes The Dynamite of the year will take place this Friday night during the Midnight Madness coverage. I’m John Stevens, one of the editors here at RTC, and with some behind-the-scenes help from one or two of my RTC compatriots, I’ll be live-blogging during the ESPN-U broadcast, starting around 8:45pm ET and going all the way through 1am. We’ll be putting up our own thoughts on what we’re seeing and of course your comments as well, but we’ll also be putting up video footage as available, tweets from people who are at the Madnesses watching live, takes from discussion forums, and so on. So if you’re at home watching the broadcast, tune us in as well and get ready to hit the refresh button like a meth-addicted rat in a science experiment. We’ll be waiting.
Like the first trickles of a flash flood, the verbal barrage about our beloved sport really started picking up this week. There’s a lot more previewing, interviewing, writing, talking and salivating going on around the college hoops blogosphere. Let’s take a look at some of the items that are catching our interest…
Dissecting Duke’s Recruiting. Gary Parrish wrote an interesting article last week about Duke’s recruiting over the past five seasons and we had to comment on it because it fairly accurately depicts what the substantive problem with Duke has been in the postseason (i.e., away from CIS). We’re on record as saying that Duke hasn’t had a true game-changing stud since Luol Deng graced the gothic campus with his presence for one season in 2003-04. This is not to say that Duke has been without very good players during that time. Shelden Williams, JJ Redick and Gerald Henderson all come to mind as great collegians. But none of those players, and certainly none of the laundry list that Parrish mentions as some of K’s other ‘top’ recruits (McBob, Singler, etc.), are the kinds of elite NBA-level talent that gets teams through the regionals and into the Final Four. There are of course notable exceptions (George Mason in 2006 is the most obvious), but this is Duke, and Duke is always taking a team’s best shot. They’re going to be very well coached, but Coach K and his staff know that well-coached moderate talent will lose out to elite talent more often than not. This is why when Parrish says that Duke needs to secure commitments from Harrison Barnes and Kyrie Irving in order to compete with UNC, Kansas and now Kentucky on the national stage again, he’s right. The Jon Scheyers of the world are great to have on your team, and will win you a lot of games over four years; but they’re not the players who can carry a team through rough spots en route to the Final Four. If you don’t believe us, check out who was the MOP of the 2004 Atlanta Regional, leading the team in scoring in both regional games and literally saving the team on more than one occasion with clutch buckets (hint: it wasn’t the more celebrated upperclassmen). Box scores here and here. If Duke is serious about getting back to the big stage again before Coach K retires, he needs players like Barnes and Irving to get it done. Fundamentally, Duke fans probably realize this, which is why each of these visits makes for tense moments in Durham.
Midnight Madness. So we’re only eight days away from the start of basketball practice, and thankfully the NCAA closed the loophole that meant we were having these things all month of October, like last year. But ESPNU will be back with coverage from 9pm to 1am EDT next Friday, with a simulcast from 8:30-9pm EST on ESPN. There will be coverage from nine schools this year, including Kansas’ Late Night in the Phog, Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness, UNC’s Late Night With Roy, and several others (Michigan St., Duke, Washington, Georgetown, UConn and North Dakota St.). RTC will hopefully provide live coverage in some fashion, but we’re still working out what that will be. Make sure to check back early next week for more details.
He’s 66, he goes by Uncle Charlie, and he is the envy of most Kentucky fans all over the world on this day.
Uncle Charlie holds court at the front of line.
Why is that, you may ask? Because he is at the front of a line consisting of 311 tents and tarps that comprises the queue that has formed in front of Lexington’s Memorial Coliseum, the UK basketball team’s practice venue. The line exists because on Saturday morning the University will give out tickets to Kentucky’s version of Midnight Madness, which as we all know is the day that schools are allowed to start having official, full-staffed practices. The line of tents snakes around the Coliseum and up approximately two city blocks — on both sides, mind you — and that tent-count of 311 was as of Thursday evening. I heard one estimate that it could more than double by Friday night. The local news is reporting that this will be the longest line-up in the history of any Kentucky basketball ticket distribution.
Cornhole players at the front of the line
No, that’s correct, you read that right…this is all for the first practice of the season. Not a game. People were allowed to start camping out at 8am on Wednesday, September 30th for the Saturday, October 3rd ticket distribution. That’s three and half days of sleeping on the ground for the privilege of attending…a practice.
“Let me tell you something, there is absolutely nowhere I’d rather be than this place,” confirms Uncle Charlie, who quotes stats from legendary Kentucky players like “Wah Wah” Jones and Cotton Nash with the quickness and accuracy of someone talking about his own children’s athletic talents. “Look at this, there’s no actin’ up, no bad stuff happening, no police having to tend to this. This is just a bunch of people — young people, old people like me — who love Kentucky basketball.”
A few months ago, we were writing about how the Big Blue Nation was, to say the least, crestfallen about themselves and their situation. Kentucky fans were enduring a season with what they perceived to be an underachieving bunch, a listless group of players who seemed out-of-synch under the leadership of former coach Billy Gillispie, a man who Kentucky supporters (and evidently University bigwigs) felt was not only a reluctant front-man for the Kentucky program from a public-relations standpoint both locally and nationally — but also a coach who looked a little in over his head at this level. Of course, UK would end up in the NIT, a simply unacceptable result in the eyes of the Big Blue Nation; Gillispie was soon gone (but not, um, forgotten), and John Calipari hired. Now, there’s a line of tents well over a mile long.
“We don’t talk about the past couple of years that much any more; not because we’re ashamed, but because — well just look at this,” notes Bruce, a 35-year-old firefighter who drove 180 miles from Owensboro, Kentucky to camp out here for tickets. “The campers would have still been here no matter who the coach was or who was on our roster. The line might not have been as long, and the mood might not have been as good around here. But with Coach Cal and this freshman class, and guys like (sophomore guard) Darius Miller and (junior forward/center) Patrick Patterson coming back, I’d rather talk about the future.”
Credit: Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
There is some good news for the residents of Detroit. [Ice hockey is not a sport so don’t even bother telling us about the Red Wings.] In a brilliant PR move, the University of Detroit has decided to make tickets for their New Year’s Day game against Youngstown State free. If you’re in the Detroit area on New Year’s Day, we want to tell you how sorry we are recommend you check out the “Free for All” at Calihan Hall (1:05 PM tip). In addition to the free tickets, spectators also get free non-alcoholic Bloody Marys and complimentary aspirin or ibuprofen for the hangover from some more potent drinks the night before. To be honest, this isn’t the most attractive match-up on paper (3-8 Youngstown State at 4-7 University of Detroit), but we believe that it is important to reiterate that it is FREE. According to our rudimentary math skills, it’s pretty hard to beat that value proposition (at least in ratio form).
While the University of Detroit is probably most well-known as the only successful stint of Dick Vitale’s coaching career (78-30 with a 21-game win streak that ESPN uses to justify his role as the most well-known promoter of our beloved sport), the Titans have been perennial contenders for the Horizon League title and had 4 consecutive 20-win seasons between 1997-98 and 2000-01. The Titans program also produced NBA stars Dave DeBusschere and Spencer Haywood.
Credit: http://www.cineastentreff.de
While I hope that the Detroit basketball program reaps some rewards from this PR move, I am more intrigued by the idea of a grassroots campaign to get people into college basketball at a level that is more pure than what ESPN and CBS feed down our throats from Midnight Madness until One Shining Moment. If more colleges try this model, they can start to pull in families and get a younger generation of fans who actually root for their local team rather than just what they see on SportsCenter or what some rapper is wearing on BET. If they do that, college basketball can start to fight its way back into the national conscience, which is a place we all know it belongs.
Billy Donovan got a huge pickup with Kenny Boynton’s commitment today.
Andy Katz gives a fantastic analysis of the Arizona mess on his blog – looks like Mike Dunlap made a stupid mistake in not accepting the head coaching job. Oh, and former recruit Abdul Gaddy is going to Washington.
For the third consecutive weekend we have Midnight Madness celebrations going on around the nation, and frankly, we’re tired of it. Will the NCAA please dictate that all MMs need to occur on the same weekend, or better yet, the same night?!!? This is getting ridiculous.
Anyway, here are the remaining laggards. As always, we’ll try to have some photos/video up later on this post…
Villanova – Hoops Mania (who will be the special musical guest this year? update: it was T-Pain, BizZ and Lupe Fiasco – not to sound old and out of touch, but who?)
Here’s some pics from Florida’s Dancing with the Stars knockoff, featuring some next-gen Erin Andrews knockoffs and Nick Calathes in some kind of ridonkulous afro wig… (photo credits: GatorCountry.com)
The Vanillanova kids looked like they were having a good time last night (btw, it’s sad that we’re scooping not 1, not 2, but 3 VU sports blogs and their student newspaper on coverage of this event…) (photo credit: Villanova Athletics) ed note: the photo we took directly from the VU Athletics site was from 2007 – we guess everyone at Nova was a little slow after the festivities of Fri. night
Last but not least, Late Night With Roy… (photo credits: NewsObserver.com)
Ok, we’ve got some information flowing in tonight this weekend…
The production values on these things are unbelievable, considering they’re still just glorified practices… from Georgetown…
How about Tom Crean’s first Hoosier Hysteria (Indiana)…
It looked like a great time at the Kennel (Gonzaga) on Friday night…
From Michigan State – a nasty 360-degree left dunk from Durrell Summers…
The original venue of Midnight Madness (Maryland)…
Here’s some K-State footage… what happened to that Beasley kid?
How about a little George Mason love with Michael Jackson in the background…
Dunk you very much at UConn…
Some Mackey Madness at Purdue…
Here’s an excerpt from Corey Johns, our America East correspondent, at UMBC Sports Blog with a description of their festivities on Fri. night.
Then came the dunk contest. Freshmen Brett Burrier (6-6), Jake Wasco (6-9) and Chauncey Gilliam (6-2) and junior Matt Spadafora (6-4) all took the floor for the contest. The first round Spadafora was the only one to
make both dunks sending him automatically to the finals, and the next guy was up to fan vote, and they choose Chauncey Gilliam.The finals were set and Spadafora hit is first one sending the crowd in an uproar thinking he won it right there, but Gilliam made and even more impressive shot making the crowd even crazier. With the second shot at a dunk Spadafora barely missed hitting the back of the rim and shooting the ball back out. Gilliam went on the court with the contest on the line. He ran up did a 360 hook tomahawk dunk for the win and a floor storming performance as some fans and both the men’s and women’s team’s picked him up and carried him around as he celebrated.
Josh over at Big Ten Geeks, RTC’s Big 10 correspondents, was kind enough to allow us access to some live-blogging he did last night while watching the BTN coverage…
Live-Blogging Midnight Madness in the Big Ten
Josh here, from Big Ten Geeks, blogging the Midnight Madness festivities from…my living room. But hey, I have the Big Ten Network in HD, and if you’re not one of the 12 or so households that receive the network – no fear! – I’ll be here to give you the rundown. Looks like we have Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana, Minnesota, and Michigan State on tap.
…Jim Jackson just compared Wisconsin to the New England Patriots. I hope Marcus Landry has strong knees.
…Lots of dancing at the Night of the Grateful Red. Each of the players has a silly dance routine with a cute co-ed (dance team members? Does Wisconsin have a dance team? Does Bo Ryan coach that too?). Some are…better than others. Jared Berggren gave a rythmically-challenged dance to Vanilla Ice.
…Man, Wisconsin has a lot of tall white guys. Bo certainly has a type.
…Wisconsin fans hope Jason Bohannon has a better outside shot this season than pop-and-lock.
…Am I alone for thinking Bo Ryan bears a striking resemblance to Jon Voight? Everytime I see him, Coach Kilmer’s voice pops in my head.
…Yes, Bo danced again this year, but it wasn’t as good as last year’s Soulja Boy routine. But how can you top that?
…The festivities are tipping off in Mackey Arena. Purdue has a Mission Impossible theme going.
…Chris Kramer – not a dunker.
…BTN cuts away from the dunk competition as super-athlete Lewis Jackson starts his routine. That’s just bad scouting.
…Hey, Kramer threw one down, and it appears he’s worked his way into the finals. Well, hey, Purdue figures to rely on outside shooting anyways.
…JaJuan Johnson takes home the crown. No LewJack highlights to be seen. Color me disappointed.
…Coach Tom Crean figures that IU will shoot a lot of 3s this season. The talent certainly seems to be on the perimeter.
…Flipping over to ESPNU. It’s ex-Big Ten coach Bill Self with a blue microphone. He looks like he’s lost some weight.
…Scrimmage at Purdue. A lot of defense being played for a scrimmage. The Boilers will be tough to score on this season.
…Wild prediction time: LewJack will supplant Chris Kramer as the starting PG by the end of the season. He looks good out there.
…A lot of growing pains at Indiana. The fans are still figuring out how to cheer their coach. Right now, they’re adapting the classical two-syllable chant (“Mich-ael Jor-dan” clap clap clapclapclap) to an elongated “To-om Cre-ean.” Err, needs some work. A modest proposal: why not go with the two-syllable “TomCrean!” clapclap, or the “U-S-A! U-S-A” three syllable cheer (“Coach Tom Crean! Coach Tom Crean!”)?
..Out to the Barn now. You really have to like what Tubby’s done in a short time at Minnesota. I’m sure Billy Gillispie is a great coach, but I can’t help but feel that Kentucky chased away a good one.
…Announcers are debating whether or not Blake Hoffarber should come off the bench. Please – no! The Hoff needs minutes! It would be a mistake to relegate the best returning scorer to anything less than significant minutes.
…Why is Minnesota showing old footage of Flip Saunders runing some globetrotter-type drills?
…Every time I flip over to ESPNU to check out non-Big Ten festivities, I just get Andy Katz arguing with Adrian Branch in a studio. Madness!
…Cut to the Breslin Center, which is having a flashback night to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the 1979 championship season. Izzo hints that we might see some crazy 70s hair, mustaches, and short shorts. Hopefully Goran Suton does not partake in that last one.
…Minnesota scrimmage time! The Hoff is on the bench and…Tubby calls a timeout? He can’t help himself, he’s always got to be coaching.
…IU scrimmage time! Yeah, the Hoosiers will be short this season. Either Tom Crean is mic’ed up, or he’s just really loud. Chastising players for a lot of bad shots.
Well, that does it for the BTN’s Midnight Madness coverage. Fun night for the fans, and it means that the season is just around the corner.
From Greg Miller at S. Illinois –
Even though they’re coming off their first non-NCAA Tournament season since 2001, the 2008-09 Salukis had a good crowd on hand at the SIU Arena for this year’s version of Maroon Madness (despite it being a high school football Friday night). It was the first chance to really get a look at a big group of newcomers that have been highly touted as the best recruiting class in SIU history. From my perspective, a lot of them showed some serious potential. Kevin Dillard (2008 Illinois Mr. Basketball) didn’t score much, but his ball-handling skills show he will be able to help Bryan Mullins out a lot at the point this season. Ryan Hare is an explosive wing out of Chicago who can get the rim quick. Torres Roundtree put on a well-rounded display. He threw down an alley-oop from Mullins, drove hard to the rack for an easy lay-up and also did a good job running the break and finding the open man at the other end. He will be a welcome addition to the backcourt. Didn’t see a lot from fellow McCluer North alum Anthony Booker. But size alone, he is a monster. A legit 6’8 that will definately be able to bang in the Valley. Justin Bocot was a pleasant surprise. After sitting out last year with academic problems, Bocot is back and has some serious offensive game. He showed the ability to get the rim and knock down the long three (depsite having a knuckleball shot). All in all, it was a showcase for the freshman. And they showcased some skills. The one thing that remains to be seen is if these young ‘Dawgs can play that Chris Lowery-defense that has made SIU famous. Here is a link to some interviews from SIU Media Day and highlights from tonight’s Maroon Madness.
It’s been 193 days and nights since the Kansas Jayhawks walked off the floor with a national championship trophy held high above their heads. In the interim, we’ve debated draft stock, analyzed the new three-point line and otherwise provided the daily filler that keeps and justifies your rapt attention on this site (ahem). But now it’s time to get back to business. It’s time to start traveling on the long road to the Final Four in Detroit. It’s time to start listening for the squeaks of sparkling new Nikes on the hardwood, coaches making excuses as to why their players just aren’t ‘getting it,’ and various media idiots luminaries blather on about the strengths and weaknesses of the AASAA offense (present company excluded, of course). As of tonight, each of the nation’s 343 teams has a dream – a dream of one kind or another – whether it’s simply advancing a round or two in their conference tournament, making the Big Dance for the first time, or actually cutting down the nets at the national championship.
So let’s get it rolling tonight, with the inappropriately named Midnight Madness celebrations (who actually celebrates at Midnight anymore?), and the warm blanket security that college hoops is, once again, on the horizon.
We’ll be bringing you coverage of some of the celebrations tonight, as we get information from them around the country. ESPNU and the Big Ten Network are providing television coverage (although we don’t get either channel). If anyone goes, send us in some photos and/or videos!
Here’s a partial list of some of the most notable events.
