Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

College basketball gave us plenty of memorable moments and stories in 2012. After sorting through the main headlines, we’ve come up with the 10 most consequential items and, for the sake of maintaining publishing sequence symmetry, releasing two per-day over the next five days to lead into the New Year. It was an excellent year for the sport, though I can’t promise you won’t regret reliving at least one or two of the choices. In any case, here’s to summing up a great year and to hoping that 2013 is better than the 365 days that preceded it.

I could rattle off the statistical highlights, or harp on the timeless value of Boeheim’s trademark zone defense, his ability to lure NBA talent to a (let’s be kind) rural locale and chilly climate. But I’d much rather share with you a short exchange that illustrates what makes Boeheim one of the sport’s all-time greats. Moments after his team lost an uncharacteristic non-conference game at Madison Square Garden, esteemed ESPN writer Dana O’Neil asked Boeheim about the deliberate and calculated offensive performance of Temple guard Khalif Wyatt, who scored 33 points in the upset. Boeheim turned towards O’Neill, paused and offered this retort: “That’s how he always plays. I didn’t notice anything.” O’Neil didn’t back down, and Boeheim brushed off her ensuing inquiries with a firm dissatisfaction.

Read the rest of this entry »

And away we go, headfirst into another season heralded by our 2012-13 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured here what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back the goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head. The entire series from #30 to this point can be viewed here. Enjoy!

#2 – Where Greatness Personified Happens

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12 seasons.

1. If you remember the name Pete Lisicky, a Penn State guard during the mid-90s, you’re probably either a Big Ten fan or some kind of stat nerd savant for college basketball.  Expect to hear his name a lot this weekend, as Ohio State’s Jon Diebler is set to break his Big Ten record for threes made (332) in a career.  Diebler currently sits one behind Lisicky, who spent the last eleven years draining treys in Europe before coming back to work in mutual funds in Arizona, for the record.  OSU plays Purdue on Saturday, so place your bets now on the times of the game when Diebler will both tie and pass the mark — he’s only made fewer than two treys in a game five times this year.
2. Temple forward Michael Eric will miss the rest of the season with a fractured patella.  He suffered the injury earlier this week during practice when he ran into another player, but is expected to make a full recovery.  The 6’11 big man was averaging 7/6 in twenty minutes per game, but the Owls didn’t seem to miss him last night against Richmond, blowing out the Spiders, 73-53.
3. This story from the Baltimore Sun revisits the “Jewish Jordan,” Tamir Goodman.  Goodman was a one-time Maryland recruit who never realistically could have lived up to the hype he received coming out of high school.  He played for a bit at Towson before heading overseas until injuries forced him to retire at the age of 28.  It’s a good read about a guy who is using his life lessons in a positive way.
4. Of the various Billy Gillispie rumors that have floated around the past couple of seasons — Texas Tech, Houston, etc. — this one where he would take over for Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel seems the best fit.  OU is a top-tier basketball program when it wants to be but will never be confused with football in Norman, and with Gillispie’s pipeline into the fertile Texas recruiting landscape, this would appear to be a home run situation for both sides.  The question, of course, is whether the administration will give Capel another year to turn things around there.
5. This is so amazing that we’re not sure whether to be scared of these two or ready to send them campaign contributions.  Henry Sims, a junior center at Georgetown, has decided to run for student body VP, and his campaign ad (along with presidential candidate, Jed Felman), is comedic gold.  Who shares a salad, and what’s going on with the Oprah joke?  Just bizarre, but hilarious.

1. Did you hear that there was an earthquake at the Maui Invitational last night?  RTC Live was there covering the Kentucky-Washington game and thought something was a little off when the desk in front of the correspondent and the basket supports from the ceiling began shaking back and forth.  Read this at the 6:36 mark.  The amazing thing is that the game and that moment in particular (when UW’s Venoy Overton elbowed a Kentucky player and received a technical foul) were so intense that few fans and actual participants even noticed the 4.6 temblor.  As John Calipari responded when asked about it: “there was an earthquake?”  Thankfully there was no damage to life or property anywhere, and it won’t go down as another Atlanta/SEC Tournament or thankfully an 1989 World Series pre-game, but it was a bizarre moment nevertheless.
2. This isn’t D1, but we feel obliged to talk about it for a moment.  A D3 game between Skidmore and Southern Vermont on Tuesday night went a division-record seven overtimes before Skidmore finally pulled it out, 128-123.  The game that ended in regulation tied at 59-all matched the D1 and D2 marks with the seven extra periods, with a 1981 contest between Cincinnati and Bradley acting as the longest such game at that level.  In an unbelievable exhibition of stamina, USV’s Lance Spratling played in all 75 minutes of the game, which means that henceforth whenever someone does something that requires a will beyond the normal call of duty, we shall say that person Spratlinged the mess out of it.  Interestingly, only 142 folks showed up to watch this game, 24 fewer than the new record number of rebounds for any level of NCAA basketball (166).
3. While we’re on the subject of records, Kansas last night expectedly broke its record of 62 consecutive home victories at Allen Fieldhouse with a convincing 82-41 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.  The Jayhawks haven’t lost at home since February 2007, but they’ll likely have to go another four years to approach the all-time D1 record of 129 in a row, set by Kentucky back in the 1940s and 50s.
4. More records last night.  Coach K as you know (and discussed further here) got his 800th career victory at Duke last night against Kansas State, but Texas coach Rick Barnes also hit a milestone with the 500th victory of his career in a win against Sam Houston State.  He has a long way to go to catch the likes of Calhoun, K, Knight, Boeheim, etc., but given that he’s only 56 years old and he’s easily averaging 25 wins per year, Barnes could eventually work himself into that echelon of elites before he decides to retire.
5. Sigh… We’ll just let this one speak for itself.  This is a screenshot of Bruce Pearl’s wife’s (Brandy) Facebook page.  And we wonder why people are so self-absorbed and completely devoid of empathy?  Well, here’s Exhibit #127 in the prosecution’s case, Your Honor.