No matter whether you feel the First Round of the NCAA Tournament is legitimate or not (and we know at least one person writing Amicus briefs to the Supreme Court on this very issue), it all gets under way at 6:40 PM tonight. From 68 to 16 in the next six days… let’s analyze the first two games this evening.

#16 Western Kentucky vs. #16 Mississippi Valley State — South Region First Round (at Dayton, OH) — 6:40 pm ET on truTV.

It's Still the Big Dance to Big Red

It is hard to believe that the NCAA Tournament officially tips off tonight — it seems like the 24 hours of college basketball marathon on ESPN was just last week — as Western Kentucky will do battle against Mississippi Valley State in the First Round. Things looked bleak for both squads midway through the year as MVSU entered conference play with a 1-11 record, while Western Kentucky stood at 5-14 just six games into league play. In fairness to the Delta Devils, however, they did play one of the most difficult non-conference schedules in the nation with virtually all of their contests being so-called “guarantee games.” As for the Hilltoppers, they fired Ken McDonald halfway through the season, and have looked like an entirely different team since. Mississippi Valley is 20-1 since SWAC play began, while Western Kentucky is 10-7 since Ray Harper took over the helm in Bowling Green. Hailing from the weakest conference in America, the Delta Devils will enter the game as slight underdogs, even though they have a much more impressive overall record than their opponent. Western Kentucky is led by freshman Derrick Gordon (11.8 PPG, 6.7 RPG), but junior transfer Teeng Akol — formerly of Oklahoma State — has provided the Hilltoppers with a formidable presence in the frontcourt as of late; Akol scored a career high 23 points in the Sun Belt championship game. Meanwhile for MVSU, it has a balanced approach as five players on the squad average nine points or better. Terrence Joyner is their sharpshooter as he connects on just over two triples a game, while Paul Crosby (13.3 PPG, 7.4 RBG) mans the paint. Despite Sean Woods‘ team losing only one game since the New Year, Western Kentucky is the more talented team and is playing with a real chip on its shoulder.

The RTC Certified Pick: Western Kentucky

#14 BYU vs. #14 Iona — West Region First Round (at Dayton, OH) — 9:10 pm ET on truTV. Read the rest of this entry »

For our complete list of 2011-12 conference primers working backward from #31 to #1, click here.   

Reader’s Take I

Top Storylines

• Southern & Grambling APR Victims.  When the NCAA released its annual Academic Progress Rate report in May, the SWAC contained two of the five basketball programs facing a postseason ban in 2011-12 as a result of consistently poor scores over several years.  While this news shouldn’t surprise anyone who has followed the APR since it was implemented several years ago, the teeth of the rule is finally taking hold on individual institutions.  Southern and Grambling probably were not going to be in a competitive position to make the NCAA Tournament this season anyway, but this is something that each school must take seriously in order to secure their D-I existence.  The two institutions submitted APR improvement plans to the NCAA over the summer, and with good reason — without a considerable short-term jump in scores,  the next penalty is restricted membership in Division I.
• Will the APR Eliminate HBCUs in Division I?  Southern and Grambling’s APR predicament highlights a harrowing situation among the two Division I basketball leagues comprising historically black colleges and universities.  With the APR cut line increasing from 925 to 930 as of next year, and a corresponding postseason penalty for programs failing to make that cut in the future, the SWAC  and MEAC could face an untenable situation where every one of its members is ineligible for postseason play, and ultimately on restricted status.  If the 930 threshold had been in effect last year, for example, only one school — the SWAC’s Alcorn State, with its 4-24 overall record and 944 APR score — would have been eligible for the NCAA Tournament.  The APR has been shown to correlate strongly with African-American enrollment, and at the low-budget HBCUs that comprise the SWAC and the MEAC, this development presents tremendous cause for concern.  Whether this is purposeful or not, we’ll leave for you to decide.

After the news broke about the arrest of Binghamton guard Emanuel Mayben, we assumed that the program might make a few changes in its recruiting. We had no idea that they would decide to blow up the entire program by releasing 5 more players from the team today including the “should have been” conference POY D.J. Rivera. The university has not released information on why these players (Rivera, Malik Alvin, Corey Chandler, Paul Crosby, and David Fine) were released and we probably won’t be getting an answer in the near future at least from those remaining at Binghamton as Associate Director of Athletics for Communications John Hartrick stated that coach Kevin Broadus, other members of the staff, and players would not be available for further comment on the situation.

In a statement to the Binghamton’s Press & Sun-Bulletin, Hartrick stated that the 5 players were released because “they are not toeing the line. Their attitude and behavior … is not what we expect from our student-athletes.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it sure seems like a program run amok and Hartrick had 2 choices: fire the players or fire the coach. And unlike professional sports where it is much more expensive (and hence unfeasible) to get rid of the players, in college it is more difficult to get rid of the coach. I’m not saying that these 7 players (the 5 today, Mayben, and Miladin Kovacevic) are completely blame-free (particularly Mayben, Kovacevic, and Alvin who all have charges against them), but when half of your players get thrown off the team it usually isn’t a problem just with those players. Instead, it speaks to a larger issue with the program. However, Binghamton just inked a Broadus to a contract extension through the 2013-14 season, which likely would have cost at least $500,000 to buy out given the fact that Broadus was making $205,000 annually on his previous contract as a brand-new head coach. Because of what likely would have been a large buyout, it was easier just to get rid of the “bad apples”.

The question now is two-fold:

1. What’s next for the Binghamton basketball program? Hint: It’s not a return trip to the NCAA tournament. More likely with just 10 scholarship players (only 1 guard, no point guards, and nobody under 6’5″ according to Pete Thamel–and they don’t have a Magic Johnson-style PG at Binghamton) this team will struggle to stay above .500 even in the very mediocre America East. However, for those of you who think this may be a death knell for the Bearcat basketball program, remember how quickly Baylor recovered from a much worse situation in a much more competitive league.
2. What happens to the 5 players who were released today? I’m not sure about how the NCAA will handle a situation like this, but all of the players should have some eligibility left so let’s handle each player going in descending order of ability:

• D.J. Rivera: The man who should have been the America East POY last year if the league’s coaches hadn’t decided to make a statement against how Broadus was running the program, which looks quite prescient now even if it was an idiotic way to make that statement. Rivera, who was our Mid-Major Impact Player for the Northeast, averaged 20 PPG and 6.5 RPG last year as junior making him one of the top mid-major players in the country. As much as programs would normally try to avoid players from situation like this, programs are probably already trying to contact Rivera for his services. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up at a BCS conference school.
• Malik Alvin: 11.5 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 3.7 APG, and an attempt to practice safe sex that will be attached to his name forever. While Alvin won’t draw the BCS schools like Rivera will, some mid-major will snatch him up quickly and direct him to the nearest student health service center to help him stock up as soon as he arrives on campus.
• Corey Chandler: A transfer from Rutgers, Chandler was an all-state player in New Jersey and put up decent numbers at Rutgers, but never really developed into the star that Rutgers fans expected before he was dismissed from the team in August (notice a pattern here). The guess here is that with those kind of numbers in the Big East and two more years of eligibility left someone will take him. Does anybody know who Binghamton West is?
• Paul Crosby: A former all-state player in Michigan, Crosby was academically ineligible at Toledo, but was expected to contribute this year for the Bearcats. Honestly, I’m not sure what his next move is as programs will be intrigued by his size (6’8″, 235 lbs), but character issues (first grades and now behavior) and his mediocre overall rating will limit his options.
• David Fine: Averaging 0.9 PPG as a junior in limited time will likely mean that Fine will have to try to walk-on somewhere or call it a career because I can’t see a program offering him a scholarship for 1 year with his/Binghamton’s baggage.

We doubt that we will hear anything from Binghamton’s athletic department any time soon, but it will be interesting to hear what these 5 released players will say about the situation so keep your eyes open for crazy Twitter feeds or Facebook status updates from these 5 players.