Mike Lemaire is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after the California-UC Santa Barbara game last night.

Even after talented freshman guard Gary Franklin announced that he was transferring from California to Baylor last January, the Golden Bears were a popular pick to finish atop the Pac-12 standings this season thanks in a large part to their talented backcourt. They just might not have realized just how talented it really was — until last night.

Justin Cobbs Is A Key Piece To California's Conference Title Hopes This Season (Credit: Getty Images)

Playing without senior leader, second-leading scorer, and best on-ball defender Jorge Gutierrez because of food poisoning, it looked like the Golden Bears would be in for a tightly contested game against an experienced and talented UC-Santa Barbara team. Instead, coach Mike Montgomery slid Minnesota transfer Justin Cobbs into the starting lineup for just the fifth time this season and the 6-foot-2 sophomore dominated on both sides of the ball as California coasted past the Gauchos 70-50 in the Pete Newell Classic and showed off backcourt depth that should be the envy of the conference if not the country.

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Arizona did meet Gonzaga earlier today in the Battle in Seattle, but the biggest game of the week takes place tomorrow at Matthew Knight Arena. Oregon came into the season with high expectations for their backcourt, led by highly touted freshmen Bruce Barron and Jabari Brown. However, those two left the program in late-November, leaving Garrett Sim and Johnathan Loyd to pick up the minutes and production. They have done a solid job (13 and 6.8 PPG, respectively), but the biggest boost has come from Minnesota transfer Devoe Joseph. Joseph had to sit for Oregon’s first six games since he transferred mid-way through last season, but in his previous two appearances he’s averaged 15.5 PPG. Joseph has combo-guard ability and can be the difference between a top six finish in the Pac-12. At small forward it has been all about E.J. Singler.  The junior is averaging 13 PPG and quite possibly has the purest stroke on the team, both behind the arc and at the charity stripe.

Senior forward Mike Scott will draw the majority of the attention from Oregon's defense. Scott is averaging 15.3 PPG and 9.1 RPG. (credit: The Sabre)

Virginia will bring their slow-down, methodical offense into Eugene. Mike Scott leads the Hoos in points, while sophomore guard Joe Harris is also producing great numbers. But those were the guys that were SUPPOSED to produce. One of the main reasons that Virginia is off to such a great start is because of Assane Sene and Jontel Evans. Sene, the 7’0” senior center, has got the job done on the boards by averaging 4 RPG. Evans’ best game came in their December 6th meeting with George Mason, where Jontel logged 36 minutes, 11 points, and three assists. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight’s Lede. It’s day two of Finals Week and, although tonight wasn’t as dry to the bone as Monday was, it was still rather light around the college basketball world. Still, a couple dozen games included a handful of ranked teams and even a questionable RTC in a place called Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Let’s jump into it…

Your Watercooler Moment. Belmont Loses to Middle Tennessee — Are Their At-Large Chances Kaput?

MTSU Fans RTC'd After Beating Belmont Tonight (Nashville Tennesseean)

Middle Tennessee State and Belmont tipped it off for the second time already this season — in a scheduling quirk, the two teams als0 played on November 20 at MTSU, a double-overtime Belmont win — but this time, it was the home Blue Raiders who held on for the close victory, 65-62. As we discussed in tonight’s Night Line, Belmont now has three losses in its first nine games, and even though the Nashville school remains every Pomeroy/Sagarin disciple’s mid-major darling (the Bruins are currently #26 in Pomeroy, #31 in Sagarin), it appears increasingly difficult to map out a scenario where the Bruins could earn an at-large NCAA bid should they lose in the Atlantic Sun Tournament next March. The A-Sun’s next best team is Mercer, rated #140 in Pomeroy, and the only other team in the top 100 on Belmont’s schedule is C-USA’s Marshall, which the Bruins will play twice (12/19 at Marshall; 12/29 at Belmont). Obviously, Rick Byrd’s team needs to win both of those — no easy task — and run the table in the Atlantic Sun to even get serious consideration for an at-large. Its non-conference SOS is currently rated #47 by Pomeroy, but it’s unlikely to rise much more than it is now, with each of its remaining four non-conference opponents ranking below that mark. Furthermore, its overall SOS will get progressively destroyed by 18+ games against Atlantic Sun teams during January through March. One of the peculiarities of the NCAA Tournament system is that a really good team like Belmont could find itself the victim of a catch-22 in trying to schedule as well as you can (Duke, Memphis) without actually winning any of the games. Yet, their hands are tied in that they’re unlikely to get many power conference teams to play them anywhere else. We’ll most definitely be rooting for the Bruins to get back to the NCAAs in March, but they’ll certainly have a lot of pressure on them to win that conference tourney again.

Tonight’s Quick Hits...

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1. Once again the dominant story of the day was the fallout from the Cincinnati–Xavier brawl. The most interesting news was the report that the Hamilton County District Attorney was looking into prosecuting players involved in the the fight. We are not really sure where to begin here except for noting that if charges were brought against the players it would be unusual, but not unprecedented (see the Todd Bertuzzi case in hockey). We are sure that some Musketeer fans are going to point out that Joe Deters, who may end up trying the case, is a graduate of Cincinnati and was previously on the school’s Board of Trustees, but we doubt that it will affect the case because we would expect that the two people most likely to be charged with serious crimes are both Bearcats.
2. We thought we had gotten over the all-encompassing conference realignment story, but it turns out we were wrong as San Diego State announced yesterday that it would be moving 14 sports including basketball to the Big West from the Mountain West beginning in the 2013 season. The move is a curious one for a number of reasons including the fact that it is a huge step down in prestige for basketball (from 4th in the conference College RPI ratings down to 24th) and San Diego State is going to be playing its football games in the Big East. As strange as some of the other conference realignment stories have been this one has to be the most clear money grab that we have seen. The coaches can say whatever they want about this being good for recruiting, but that seems to be a pretty weak reason since we have never heard of a recruit who would want to go to the Big West over the Mountain West even if the former may get on ESPN more often with this new television deal.
3. Yesterday, Minnesota forward Trevor Mbakwe pleaded guilty to violating a restraining order when he sent a Facebook message to a former girlfriend. According to Mbakwe’s attorney, he thought the restraining order had expired after one year, but in fact was two years. Mbakwe, who is out for the year after injuring his knee, was sentenced to one day in jail, which he already served, one year of probation, and given a $300 fine. As you may have noticed, we are not exactly the most lenient group in the world when it comes to people breaking laws/rules, but in this case it appears that Mbakwe’s violation was relatively minor, a thought that we expressed at the time that it happened last year.
4. Washington got a bit of good news as a MRI revealed that junior center Aziz N’Diaye did not suffer any significant structural injury to his right knee during Saturday’s game against Duke. N’Diaye is listed as questionable (or in the words of Lorenzo Romar “very questionable”) for the Huskies next game, which is on Friday against UC-Santa Barbara, with what has been described as a sprain. When N’Diaye injured his knee the Washington staff had good reason to be concerned as he tore ligaments in that knee, which made him miss the 2009-10 season. While it is possible that N’Diaye could return on Friday, the team probably doesn’t need his size against a team whose top rebounder is 6’5″ so Romar may just decide to let him rest. We would point out that the Huskies have a relatively easy schedule coming up, but they are in the Pac-12 so they will not play a good team the rest of the season unless they make the NCAA Tournament.
5. Seth Davis chimes in on the Crosstown Shootout brawl and various other college basketball topics in his weekly Hoop Thoughts column. As usual Seth does an excellent job getting information from a coach (in this case Chris Mack) and delves deeper into the ridiculous Tu Holloway–Mark Lyons post-game press conference. He also briefly touches on the dismissal of Reeves Nelson and a variety of other topics, of which there are too many to name. It is definitely worth a read and will make you think a little even if you don’t agree with everything Seth has to say.

1. It was another busy weekend for Pac-12 basketball teams, and replicating previous weeks, it was another weekend piled high with losses and roster turnover. To kick things off with relatively happy news, USC had expected sophomore forward Dewayne Dedmon to miss four to six weeks with a stress fracture. As it turned out, it was closer to four to six days that Dedmon missed, as he returned to action Saturday when the Trojans traveled to Minnesota, losing 55-40. Dedmon showed up to the game with a boot on his right foot, but played anyway, and although he didn’t contribute much worthwhile, for a roster that needs all the warm bodies it can get, his return is welcome.
2. Okay, enough with the marginally good news; on to the carnage. In Arizona, we can officially close the books on Sidiki Johnson’s run as a Wildcat. Career totals: seven minutes, one point, two rebounds. In news that surprises no one, the university announced Sunday that Johnson has left the program and will transfer out. Meanwhile, up in Berkeley on Saturday, California announced the indefinite suspension of sophomore forward Richard Solomon for behavior “contrary to university and athletic department values.” He didn’t travel with the Golden Bears to San Diego on Sunday, as Cal dropped a one-point game to San Diego State.
3. We knew well before the season started that this year’s Utah squad would be bad. On Saturday, a 30-point loss to Fresno State dropped the Utes to 1-6, the worst start in the history of the basketball program. The team’s lone win was a 58-55 squeaker over San Diego Christian, a NAIA team that isn’t even much good at that level. Fresno State had previously lost to teams like Texas-San Antonio, Manhattan and North Dakota State, meaning the Utes didn’t even get blown out by a good team. We’ll continue to keep an eye on this squad and root for them to get a win here and there, but it is an awful shame that for the school’s first year in a major conference, they have to be cursed with the worst team in the history of the school.
4. Okay, enough negatives. There were some positives around the conference this weekend (and yes, this means I won’t even mention Washington’s overtime loss to Nevada or UCLA folding like a tent against Texas). To begin with, Arizona State played its first true road game of the season on Saturday, and came away with a 67-64 win against a Tulsa squad in the middle of an absolutely brutal stretch in their schedule. Still, give credit to the Sun Devils who saw sophomore Keala King notch 18 points, four assists and three steals (nevermind the six turnovers) to lead the team, while junior center Ruslan Pateev scored as many points Saturday as he had in the previous six games combined. ASU was helped by the Golden Hurricane missing six of their nine free throw attempts in the last four minutes, but still, a win is a win. And, just to get ASU fans’ hopes up, the university expects to hear about Jahii Carson’s eligibility on Monday.
5. There were a couple more big wins this weekend, the first one a literal big win, as Washington State crushed Eastern Washington by 26 points behind 20 points and 13 rebounds from senior center Charlie Enquist. WSU has won its last two games by a total of 58 points, holding its two opponents to an effective field goal percentage below 30%. Enquist, who had scored a total of 50 points and grabbed 41 rebounds in his 54 total games prior to this season, had career highs in virtually every category on the stat sheet. A more impressive win for the conference came Sunday afternoon, when Stanford rallied from a 12-point second half deficit to defeat North Carolina State. Josh Owens led the way for the Cardinal (now 8-1 and knocking on the door of the Top 25) with 19 points and seven rebounds, while freshman guard Chasson Randle continued his strong run, scoring 16 points, grabbing six rebounds and playing some smothering defense during the Cardinal’s second half run. Stanford now takes nearly two weeks off as their student-athletes deal with finals.

Duke got a shellacking from a very good Ohio State team who managed to deny the ball to and otherwise nullify the efficient scoring triumvirate of Ryan Kelly, Seth Curry, and Andre Dawkins who combined to score seven points (all Curry’s) before a disgusted Mike Krzyzewski benched the trio. On the other end, the Blue Devils were unable to stop a brutally efficient Buckeye offense that shot 59.3% from the field and included four players scoring over seventeen points. Other Big Ten beat downs were provided by Northwestern who stomped Georgia Tech with John Shurna‘s versatile offensive game and Purdue who simply devastated Miami with good looks at the basket and even better shooting. Maryland had the lead over Illinois for a nice chunk of that game, but Nick Faust’s trigger happy ways (2-11 shooting) continue to hurt the Terrapins as the Illini rallied to win the game.

The ACC Needs To Reassert Itself After Last Night's Disaster (Credit: AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

On a positive note, Virginia got a quality win against Michigan in Blacksburg. The Cavaliers locked down Tim Hardaway Jr., holding him to only five points, while managing to get to the charity stripe at a much greater rate than Michigan. The Wolverines shot better from the field and better from the three-point line than Virginia, but making seventeen free throws while Michigan made only four gave the Wahoos the win. The other ACC silver-lining comes courtesy of Clemson which managed an impressive showing on both the offensive and defensive ends of the floor. Iowa simply had no answer for Andre Young’s five three-pointers and another ridiculous all-round game from Tanner Smith who had only seven points, but managed to get fourteen rebounds and eight assists.

Tonight’s the second night of the Challenge and the ACC has a steep hill to climb. The conference would have to win five of tonight’s six games to outright win. That seems like a tall order, but let’s at least look at the match-ups.

The Heavyweight Match-Up

• #7 Wisconsin at #4 North Carolina at 9:30 PM on ESPN

This is a big one. The former overwhelming #1 takes on a Wisconsin team that’s been nipping at the heels of the nation’s top teams. A win in Chapel Hill would go a long way towards showing that the Badgers belong in the National Championship conversation. A refocused Tar Heel squad hopes to bounce back from their loss to UNLV and show the world that they mean business and that they are ready to take all comers. Much more about the contest here.

The Undercard

• Indiana at North Carolina State at 7:15 PM on ESPN2
• Virginia Tech at Minnesota at 9:15 PM on ESPN2

North Carolina State showed that they weren’t scared of the big boys by taking down Texas, but Indiana is an even tougher match-up. The resurgent Hoosiers have managed to put together a sterling campaign early in the year, including a big win over Butler, and some of the gaudiest shooting percentages in the sport. Indiana is the better team, but the Wolfpack has been battle-tested and has shown flashes of potential that hint at a team that’s on the rise. Indiana should win, but there’s something about the ferocity of this NC State team that makes me think that if Indiana comes out sluggish, they are simply toast.

Meanwhile, in the frigid north, Virginia Tech has good shot at taking down a short-handed Minnesota team. With the injury to Trevor Mbakwe, it’s no longer clear that the Golden Gophers can even be considered the favorites in this game. Playing at home helps, but the Hokies have showed toughness in taking down Oklahoma State and were impressive against Syracuse, even if they didn’t get the win. Erick Green and Dorenzo Hudson are quickly meshing into a lethal back court unit while Dorian Finney-Smith‘s versatility from the forward spot continues to impress. I think Virginia Tech wins this one, but with the injury to Mbakwe and the loss to Dayton, Minnesota has too much to prove to go down quietly.

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SPONSORED: Rush the Court is pleased to bring you a second installment of a one-day fantasy college basketball league courtesy of FanDuel.com. The league, which is completely free to enter, will play TONIGHT involving several high-profile teams — Duke, Ohio State, Michigan, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Maryland, Clemson — and features $150 in prizes. Even better, if you beat our trained monkey that we’ve assigned to make our picks (username: RTCmonkey), you’ll win even more money. Test your college hoops knowledge to win! Seriously, play, it’s fun to track your players as the night wears on. Click here to enter.

1. As expected the news out of Minnesota on the right knee of Trevor Mbakwe was not good. The senior forward, who appeared poised to have an excellent season, is out for year with right ACL tear (here is a Twitpic from Mbakwe late last night). Mbakwe’s injury means that the Gophers will have to search to find a replacement (likely by committee) and will also probably struggle to stay out of the Big Ten cellar. According to reports, the school is seeking a sixth year of eligibility for Mbakwe, who missed one season due to another knee injury and another season after transferring from Miami after being charged with sexual assault. Prior to the injury, Mbakwe was a late first or early second round pick. Now, if he does not get an extra year of eligibility, he may not even get drafted.
2. Last night Billy Donovan picked up his 400th career win as Florida beat Stetson, 96-70. Perhaps, the occasion helped the Gators focus as they played well despite the game being an obvious trap game with a showdown against Syracuse looming on Friday. While the win is a nice milestone it is noteworthy for two other things: most Gator fans probably were not paying attention as they were focusing their attention on their suddenly healthy former football coach and the victory occurred at the home of the Orlando Magic, who nearly took Donovan away from college basketball a little over four years ago.
3. Don’t expect to see more of UCLA malcontent Reeves Nelson much in the next few games after Ben Howland stated that Nelson will not be starting for the Bruins “any time soon.” Howland kept his word last and Nelson continued to do his part to keep himself out of the line-up as he got in early foul trouble to limit his minutes. While we applaud Howland for his current stance on Nelson we get a funny feeling that if UCLA continues to struggle Howland will be more forgiving of his mercurial forward.
4. Seth Davis checks in after his work-related trip to the Bahamas (rough life, right?) where he got to watch Connecticut and Ryan Boatright. After spending some time watching the Huskies and seeing the change that Boatright’s insertion brought about Davis came away impressed with Boatright even if he came away less than impressed with other aspects of the Huskies right now. He also offers up his opinions on all things college basketball in his traditional Larry King-like Hoop Thoughts, which are always a good read.
5. Duke picked up a commitment from class of 2013 shooting guard Matt Jones, a player that many suspected was a Duke lean for quite a while. Jones should give the Blue Devils yet another long-range threat if he remains committed to Duke (at least another year until he can sign). While Duke fans are probably happy to pick up Jones, they are probably more interested in his more highly regarded AAU teammate Julius Randle. Meanwhile, the people over at KSR appear to be handling the decision by Jones well although one reader was upset with Jones for being a “trader.”

SPONSORED: Rush the Court is pleased to bring you a second installment of a one-day fantasy college basketball league courtesy of FanDuel.com. The league, which is completely free to enter, will play on Tuesday night (November 29) involving several high-profile teams — Duke, Ohio State, Michigan, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Maryland, Clemson — and features $150 in prizes. Even better, if you beat our trained monkey that we’ve assigned to make our picks (username: RTCmonkey), you’ll win even more money. Test your college hoops knowledge to win! Click here to enter.

1. This Bernie Fine/Syracuse story deserves more space than what we typically include here so we will keep it simple. Yesterday morning news surfaced of an audio tape recording a conversation between Bobby Davis, Fine’s initial accuser, and Fine’s wife in 2002 in which his Fine’s wife admits to knowing that Fine molested Davis, but there was nothing to do about it, as well as an indication that Fine gave Davis money to pay for student loans that he used as leverage for sexual favors. Fine’s wife also reportedly became sexually involved with Davis when he was older. The tape was turned over to ESPN in 2002, but they did nothing with it including turning it over to authorities at the time, because they could not corroborate the information. Meanwhile, another person, a man from Maine, has come forward claiming to be the third Fine victim, although the man’s father claims that the man never even met Fine and in fact is being charged with sexually abusing a child himself. Late last night, Syracuse decided to fire Fine with a short statement. Jim Boeheim, who had initially defended Fine and accused the alleged victims of chasing money, issued a much less aggressive statement that appears to have been run through a PR agency before being released. We will have more on this subject later when we find the time and can wrap our head around what is becoming an increasingly bizarre case.
2. Black Friday was not a good one for Notre Dame as they lost Tim Abromaitis for the season after he tore his right ACL in practice. Not only did the Irish lose their best player, but they also lost one of their two seniors on the roster (Scott Martin is the other). Abromaitis had only played in two of Notre Dame’s six games this season as the result of a suspension by the NCAA resulting from a misinterpretation of NCAA rules by Notre Dame. While the Fighting Irish lost both games that Abromaitis played it would be foolish to read too much into that. Their four games without Abromaitis (all wins) were against weak competition. Their two games with Abromaitis (both losses) were against solid competition. This injury should move Notre Dame from a potential middle-of-the-pack Big East team to one that will be hanging out near the bottom of the conference standings.
3. Minnesota may similarly devastating news coming their way as Trevor Mbakwe injured his right knee last night during a loss to Dayton in the championship game of the Old Spice Classic. While the extent of the injury will not be known until later today when Mbakwe has an MRI, initial reports from the scene and Mbakwe’s tweet (“Lord please get me through this”) do not appear promising. Mbawke, who came into the game averaging 14.8 PPG and 10 RPG, is the key to the Gophers this season and without him they may struggle to stay out of the Big Ten cellar.
4. Steve Lavin missed Saturday night’s loss to Northeastern for what is being reported as management of his stamina andenergy. So far this season Lavin has missed three of the team’s seven regular season games (the season-opener, which happened more than a month after his surgery, and the last two games). As we said before we are not going to get into the medical stuff that Lavin is going through (PSA test results, post-operative complications, etc), but we will get into the basketball stuff. Right now St. John’s is not a very good team. They are young and missing a lot of what they expected to have on the court this season after the NCAA ruled that many of their incoming freshmen were academically ineligible. Now they have a game at Kentucky coming up on Thursday. Unless Lavin thinks he is going to get his energy and stamina back very quickly he might want to think about taking a longer leave of absence rather than making decisions on a game-by-game basis. For a team this young the change between Lavin and interim coach Mike Dunlap along with the uncertainty of who will be coaching will adversely affect the team’s development. For Lavin’s sake and that of his team, he should make a longer term decision about how he wants this team to be run.
5. President Obama caught his second college basketball of the season as he took some time off from a variety of pressing issues to watch his brother-in-law Craig Robinson coach Oregon State against Towson in a game that the Beavers won easily. Interestingly, the President was not the only well-known person in attendance as Bill Murray was also there rooting for his son Luke Murray, an assistant coach at Towson. We are guessing that President Obama will not get the chance to see many more college basketball games this season with all the other things that he has to attend to, but with the way the Beavers are playing he may have to schedule some time during March to catch them in the NCAA Tournament.

There is a formula for an upset, and it is as old as the three-point line: make your shots from beyond the arc, slow the pace, and play physical, punishing defense. UNLV did two of the three, opting to keep the pace up, but their execution was perfect. Since last season, the flaws of this North Carolina team have been no secret: John Henson and Tyler Zeller get frustrated by strong physical defense, Kendall Marshall is a mediocre on-ball defender, and the UNC defensive system that relies heavily on rotations and recovery is susceptible to three-point shots from the weak-side, particularly after collapsing against a drive. If you are experiencing an odd sense of déjà vu, it is because this is almost exactly the blueprint that Kentucky exploited to beat the Tar Heels in the Elite Eight. It worked then, it worked last night, and there is a good chance that it will work in the future.

Marshall's On-Ball Defense Will Remain A Liability in North Carolina's Defensive Scheme

Specifically the near future. Against Wisconsin on Tuesday, North Carolina will be dealing with one of the nation’s stingiest interior defenses, coupled with elite three-point shooting, and a punishingly controlled tempo. Kentucky’s surplus of talent becomes more apparent each and every game and the Wildcats ability to play tough, muscular defense as well as athletic guard play seems designed to give the Tar Heels fits. North Carolina was going to go into both of these games regardless as the underdog, regardless of who won in Vegas or what the polls said. Both of these match-ups are tough, and weirdly, by losing on Saturday, North Carolina should be able to go into these two games with appropriately readjusted expectations.

This can be a very good thing. The 2005 team’s season-opening loss to Santa Clara had the eventual national champions on the defensive, playing catch-up all year against an Illinois team that nearly went undefeated in the regular season. The 2007 Elite Eight team lost to Gonzaga in November. Last year’s squad lost to Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Illinois, and Texas in a span of a month yet finished the season playing in the Elite Eight while all of these other teams were sitting at home. Roy Williams-coached squads, for a variety of reasons, often lose in the fall. Last night’s loss, or even a series of three straight losses by this time  last week might feel terrible for North Carolina, but it won’t be as meaningful as pundits might say (excepting a series of blowouts). Teams grow and change between November and March, and a loss or three won’t cripple the psyche of this young team. Losses don’t hurt forever especially in November games.

Brian Otskey is the Big East correspondent for RTC and a regular contributor. You can find him @botskey on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

Preseason tournaments continue to roll on with the NIT Season Tip-Off championship as well as semifinal action at the Old Spice and 76 Classic along with the Battle 4 Atlantis. Although we don’t know the championship matchups in those tournaments, be sure to check out the finals at Atlantis on Saturday and the Old Spice and 76 Classic on Sunday for those TBD games.

Minnesota vs. Indiana State (at Orlando, Florida) – 12:00 PM EST on ESPN (**)

Trevor Mbakwe Is a Beast Inside

•  The Golden Gophers escaped an upset-minded DePaul team on Thursday afternoon behind another double-double from Trevor Mbakwe, his fourth in five games. Against an Indiana State team that is better than DePaul, Minnesota must assert itself inside, protect the ball and defend better. Tubby Smith’s team has a huge height advantage over the Sycamores, especially with swingman Rodney Williams standing at 6’7”. The potential is there for Williams to have a huge game given his size and athleticism. Indiana State can rotate taller players in off its bench but Minnesota has more than enough talent in the paint to play well. However, the Gophers can’t afford 17 turnovers and a 1-9 night from three point range again as they did against DePaul.
• The major concern for Greg Lansing has to be rebounding the basketball against a team with lots of strength and size up front. Indiana State was out-rebounded and out-shot by Texas Tech but forced 18 Red Raider turnovers and got to the foul line 31 times. The Sycamores shoot 78% from the stripe and must use that to their advantage against a Minnesota team with an awful defensive free throw rate (#249). With sophomore point guard Jake Odum breaking down the defense and finding open players, that shouldn’t be a big problem given Minnesota’s propensity to foul. Indiana State shoots 37.1% from three point land as a unit with Jordan Printy taking the majority of those shots and converting 38.5% of the time. ISU must make threes because it is not going to have an easy time scoring inside against Minnesota’s size.
• For the Sycamores to pull the upset, we feel they have to play a zone. Going to a zone is risky when your team has trouble rebounding to begin with but it may be their best bet. If Indiana State can pack its defense in the paint and limit the Gophers inside, that’ll force the Minnesota guards to jack up deep shots, something they’re not particularly good at. Playing a zone also minimizes foul trouble, a huge issue with only three major contributors over 6’8” on the Indiana State roster. It sounds simple but this game should come down to whichever team can execute its game plan better: inside scoring for Minnesota and three pointers plus solid interior defense for Indiana State.

#19 Florida State vs. Harvard (at Atlantis Paradise Island, Bahamas) – 4:30 PM EST on Versus (***)

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