Checking in on… the Sun Belt

Posted by jstevrtc on January 23rd, 2010

Laura Hathaway of the Clarion is the RTC correspondent for the Sun Belt Conference.

Current Standings

East Division (conf/overall/streak):

  1. Western Kentucky              (4-2/11-6/L1)
  2. Florida Atlantic                               (5-3/9-10/W2)
  3. South Alabama                     (4-3/12-7/W1)
  4. Troy                                   (4-3/9-9/L2)
  5. Middle Tennessee               (4-3/9-10/W1)
  6. Florida International          (3-6/6-16/L2)

West Division (conf/overall/streak):

  1. Arkansas State                     (6-1/11-7/W4)
  2. Denver                                   (5-3/12-7/L2)
  3. North Texas                          (4-4/11-7/L1)
  4. Louisiana-Lafayette              (3-3/6-11/L1)
  5. Louisiana-Monroe                  (3-5/8-11/W2)
  6. New Orleans                          (2-5/7-11/W1)
  7. Arkansas-Little Rock             (1-7/5-14/L1)

Team Updates:

Western Kentucky. Player of the Week goes to Western Kentucky’s star player Steffphon Pettigrew. Pettigrew led WKU in two of their most recent victories, averaging 18.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. He was 11 for 16 from the field in the Hilltoppers’ win against Florida Atlantic last week. This junior is the second WKU player to be honored as Player of the Week. A.J. Slaughter has received the award twice already this season. Slaughter also has moved up on the list of WKU all-time scoring leaders. He has scored 1,219 points as of Jan. 9 and is 24th on the list. A statistic recently released shows that Western Kentucky is holding opponents to an average of 61.9 PPG in the friendly confines of Diddle Arena.

Florida Atlantic. I’m not buying it that Florida Atlantic will remain second in the East Division standings. At halftime on Thursday night, the Owls were losing to the worst team in the conference, Arkansas-Little Rock, and they barely survived, coming back to win by only three.  However, there is some positive Owls news: if Greg Gantt hits 14 more three-pointers he will break the team’s freshman record, and Raymond Taylor is most likely going to break the freshman and overall school records for assists in a season. Taylor is averaging 6.4 APG. Brett Royster is ranked 18th in the NCAA in blocks with an average of 2.9 BPG.

South Alabama. The Jaguars snagged a big win against Troy on Saturday, winning a nail biter, 69-67. Head coach Ronnie Arrow has become South Alabama’s all-time win leader with 172. Freshman Martino Brock recorded his third double-double this season, and in doing so got a career-high 12 rebounds. Junior Gary Redus continues to miss games because of his right leg injury.

Troy. Senior Yamene Coleman had a fine week last week, recording his fifth double-double and scoring 20 points against South Alabama. Twenty points is the most Coleman has ever scored against a Division I opponent. Point guard Michael Volger is 17 assists away from tying the school’s all-time leader in dime-dishing. Volger is also 21st in the NCAA in assists with 5.6 APG. Brandon Hazzard continues to lead the SBC in scoring at 18.3. Troy avoided a three-game losing streak by beating Western Kentucky on Thursday night, 77-69.

Middle Tennessee. This team had 46 rebounds in one game against Florida Atlantic last week. That is a season high for the Blue Raiders. Senior Montarrio Haddock had his fourth 20-point game after a disappointing loss to Florida International last week. If Middle Tennessee lets games like that one slip through the cracks, the post season isn’t looking likely for them. A high note for the Blue Raiders was Desmond Yates’ 35 points against FAU.  An interesting stat about Middle Tennessee is that as of Jan. 7, they are 23rd in the NCAA for free-throw percentage at 74.8% (BYU leads this category at 78.9%).

Florida International. The Golden Panthers won their third conference game of the season last week, but that might end up as one of their last wins of the season. They do have a shot in Saturday night’s game against Arkansas-Little Rock, which should be a relatively easy home win.

Arkansas State. The Red Wolves are pretty hot right now. They are definitely the team to beat in the West Division. That win against North Texas was big in more ways than one.  Arkansas State scored its highest point total in conference play with 83 points. Freshman Brandon Reed led ASU against the Mean Green, putting up 18. Three other players on the Red Wolves scored in the double digits that game. Against South Alabama later that week, freshman Brandon Peterson swatted his 35th block of the season. Arkansas State is ranked 14th in the NCAA in three-point field goal defense.

Denver. The Pioneers are second in the NCAA in field goal percentage at 51.9%. and 19th in three-point field goal percentage at 40.5%. Now, the bad news. Denver lost their weekend games in Louisiana to ULM and ULL. They just can’t cut it on the road. If Denver can beat South Alabama this Saturday they will extend their 11-game home win streak. Keep an eye on freshman Chase Hallam who had a career-high four three-pointers against ULM. Hallam leads DU by making 47.8% of his three-pointers.

North Texas.  Tristan Thompson did the most in helping the Mean Green get by Troy last week with his 21 points. Senior Eric Tramiel is back in the line-up after suffering a wrist injury and missing four games. During the game against Troy, Tramiel scored 11 points, then added 12 against Arkansas State. Fun fact: North Texas has won at least one game in 11 of the SBC’s 13 venues since the 2006-07 season.

Louisiana-Lafayette. Well, my predictions from two weeks ago about Louisiana-Lafayette losing three of their next five games may be proven wrong. If the Ragin’ Cajuns win either of their next two games, I’ll have to admit that I was way off about this team. And moving up isn’t impossible for the Cajuns. They have maintained that middle spot in the West Division standings all season, while the three teams above them flip-flop around.

Louisiana-Monroe. The Warhawks had a surprising victory over South Alabama last Thursday, 61-58. And then used that momentum for another surprising victory over Denver on Saturday, 64-53. ULM only missed four free throws against Denver, shooting 26-30.  Senior guard Tony Hooper has 198 career-steals, putting him four away from the school record. Brian Spencer holds the record at 202, from 1985-88.

New Orleans. Big news for UNO player Carl Blair, he is second in the NCAA for triple-doubles…with a total of one. Another UNO player with some noteworthy stats is Billy Humphrey who is 33rd in the NCAA in FT% at 88.3%. However, Humphrey was sidelined last week due to a knee injury. The Privateers managed to win without him, defeating UALR, 67-66, in overtime. If they hadn’t been playing the worst team in the conference that might not have been the outcome without Humphrey. UNO lost their 13th straight game in the Louisiana-Lafayette Cajundome on Thursday night.

Arkansas-Little Rock. The Trojans finally won a conference game. Not saying much considering they beat Louisiana-Lafayette who also has a losing record. They unfortunately regained their usual form against FAU, dropping a close one, 77-74, to make it nine losses out of ten games.

Upcoming games

Sat., Jan 23     Middle Tennessee @ WKU 12 p.m.

Sat., Jan 23     South Alabama @ Denver 5 p.m.

Sat., Jan 23     Arkansas State @ Florida Atlantic 6 p.m.

Sat., Jan 23     Troy @ Louisiana-Lafayette 7:15 p.m.

Mon., Jan 25   WKU @ Southern Illinois 7:05 p.m.

Thurs., Jan 28            Denver @ UALR 7 p.m.

Thurs., Jan 28            North Texas @ WKU 7 p.m.

Sat., Jan 30     New Orleans @ WKU 3 p.m.

Sat., Jan 30     North Texas @ Middle Tennessee 7 p.m.

Sat., Jan 30     Denver @ Arkansas State 7:05 p.m.

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Checking in on… the Sun Belt

Posted by jstevrtc on January 11th, 2010

Laura Hathaway of the Clarion is the RTC correspondent for the Sun Belt Conference.

Current Standings

East Division (conf/overall/streak)

  1. Troy                                             (4-1/9-7/W1)
  2. Middle Tennessee                  (3-1/8-8/W1)
  3. Western Kentucky                 (2-1/9-5/L1)
  4. South Alabama                       (3-2/11-6/L2)
  5. Florida Atlantic                      (3-2/7-9/W2)
  6. Florida International            (2-4/5-14/L1)

West Division (conf/overall/streak)

  1. Denver                                          (5-1/12-5/W2)
  2. Arkansas State                           (4-1/9-7/W2)
  3. North Texas                                (3-3/10-6/W1)
  4. Louisiana-Lafayette                (2-2/5-10/W1)
  5. Louisiana-Monroe                   (1-5/6-11/L2)
  6. New Orleans                               (1-5/6-11/L2)
  7. Arkansas-Little Rock             (0-5/4-12/L7)

News and Notes

South Alabama junior Tim Williams was the Sun Belt Conference player of the week, and he deserved it after leading the Jaguars to three road victories and averaging 20.7 points in those games. Williams is the first South Alabama player to win the award since Brandon Davis in the 2008 season.

Denver extended their home win streak to 11 after defeating Western Kentucky Sunday afternoon, 72-67. Nate Rohnert and Rob Lewis led the Pioneers with 23 and 15 points, respectively. Western Kentucky’s star player A.J. Slaughter did indeed perform for the Hilltoppers, scoring 28 points.

Another good conference match-up was Arkansas State’s victory over South Alabama on Saturday, 69-63. Thanks to Arkansas State freshman guard Brandon Reed’s 26 points, the Red Wolves increased their win streak and conference standing.

Troy senior Brandon Hazzard leads the conference in scoring averaging 18.9 PPG, followed by New Orleans’  Billy Humphrey at 18.3 PPG. Third in line is Florida Atlantic freshman Raymond Taylor, averaging 17.2 PPG, who’s  having a fine debut season so far despite FAU’s losing record.

Team Updates

Since conference play started Troy University has surpassed South Alabama and now is leading the East Division. Troy had a big win against Western Division leader University of Denver, but lost its first conference game to Florida Atlantic. Senior Richard Delk set a career high with five steals last week and nabbed a team-best seven boards against Denver.

Middle Tennessee is trying to maintain a winning record and should be able to win at least one game this week against Florida International. Forward Desmond Yates leads the team with an average of 14 PPG but Montarrio Haddock has more solid overall statistics, chalking up 13.6 PPG, 5.9 RPG, and 1.5 APG.

Western Kentucky is having a better season than I think most people expected. Despite their loss to Denver on Sunday, the Hilltoppers should be able to pick it back up for the next couple games against Florida Atlantic and Florida International. With the rebounding prowess of Steffphon Pettigrew and Sergio Kerusch, Western Kentucky is second in the conference in pulling down offensive boards.

After playing all of the Florida teams in the SBC, South Alabama produced a three-game win streak but then lost the next two at home, and it looks like they are better on the road right now.  Two of their last three games have gone into overtime, meaning anything is possible for the Jaguars.

Florida Atlantic did not have a good December, losing five of seven. Let’s hope January will be better for the Owls. So far it’s looking good but they have a long way to go to be anywhere near competetive for a conference championship. This week brings two tough games against Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee.

Florida International cannot win on the road. The Golden Panthers are 2-10 on the road and aren’t done traveling yet. This week they travel to the states of Kentucky and Tennessee to play the same teams as Florida Atlantic. It will be interesting to see which Florida team can get the job done. My bet is on Florida Atlantic (if either).

The University of Denver Pioneers continue to show that they’re not messing around this season. They are leading the conference by one win and should grab a few more on the road this week against the Louisiana teams. It could be interesting, though, because their road record is 1-4, most likely because they have to travel halfway across the U.S. each time they play an away game. Sophomore Brian Stafford and juniors Andrew Hooper and Rob Lewis are all averaging in double-figures.

Arkansas State is second in the conference. Can’t wait to see them in heir rematch against Denver at the end of January, but for now they continue traveling for three more games. Guards Brandon Reed and Daniel Bryant, who each average around 13.5 PPG, carry the Red Wolves right now.

The North Texas Mean Green are stuck right in the middle. Anything can happen for them in the next two months. After defeating New Orleans and Arkansas-Little Rock, the Green were able to move up to the No. 3 position in the West Division standings.

Louisiana-Lafayette is probably going to lose three of their next five games, which will keep them from moving up in the standings anytime soon. Their recent win against North Texas was a close game and could have gone either way.

Not much to say about Louisiana-Monroe, New Orleans and Arkansas-Little Rock. They all have losing records and at this point there is not much they can do to turn around their seasons. New Orleans does have two top players but after that the stats for their team members trail those of other teams. Arkansas-Little Rock has yet to win a conference game and has a seven-game losing streak. Not much hope for them.

Upcoming Important Match-ups

1/16 South Alabama vs. Troy 8:05 p.m.

1/18 Middle Tennessee vs. Western Kentucky 8 p.m.

1/21 Troy vs. Western Kentucky 8 p.m.

1/23 Denver vs. South Alabama 6 p.m.

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