RTC Live is privileged to announce the following schedule of games for the upcoming week of November 9-15.  We encourage you to join us in an interactive format to read about the sights and sounds of the games we’re covering, contribute your analysis and put forth questions that we will vet and then take into the media interview room with us afterwards.  It’s always a great time, and we look forward to having you along for the ride this season.  We have six solid games scheduled this week all over the country, and this is only the beginning.

Monday November 9

• Murray State @ California – 11 pm ET (also on ESPNU) – part of the 2kSports Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament; Murray could give Cal trouble, as the Racers are the favorite in the OVC this year.

Wednesday November 11

• Detroit @ California – 11pm ET (also on ESPNU) – part of the 2kSports Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament; we’ll welcome back Eli Holmam/Xavier Keeling from transfer purgatory.

Friday November 13

• Oral Roberts @ Wake Forest – 7pm ET – one of the best teams in the Summit visits a young Deacon team trying to get past losing two NBA picks (Jeff Teague and James Johnson).

Saturday November 14

• Creighton @ Dayton – 1pm ET – battle of two high-mids looking for an RPI boost in an always-difficult environment at Dayton Arena.
• Davidson @ Butler – 3pm ET – the most recent middie media darling vs. the next one at Hinkle; it’s always a fun time there. 

Sunday November 15

• FIU @ Tulsa – 3pm ET – we’ll see Isiah’s team up close and personal as FIU takes on possibly the top team and player (Jerome Jordan) in CUSA this year.

Nope, we won’t actually be in D-town tonight, but we’ll be watching in all its low-def glory in our mom’s den and inviting you, the doting public, to join us with even keener insights and commentary than we can possibly provide.  If you’re really witty, we may even invite you to sit courtside at next year’s liveblog (which the NCAA will surely credential to us by then).

Rush the Court is pleased to have our East Region correspondent Dave Zeitlin courtside at the NCAA East Region in Philadelphia for Thursday and Saturday’s games.  He will be live-blogging the first game of the day (#6 UCLA at #3 Villanova) to kick off the 2nd round. And yes we did mean to say “at”. We don’t consider it a “neutral site” game when one team (UCLA) has to travel ~2700 miles to the game and the other team (Villanova) has to travel 12 miles from its campus to get to the arena. Dave will be starting around 12:45 PM (tip is at 1:05 PM) so be sure to check it out. We will also be doing our world famous Boom Goes the Dynamite, but due to the scheduling (this is the only game until 3:20 PM) we’ll be letting Dave handle this unless he has some technical difficulties. After that, we’ll be taking care of the rest of the day at BGtD.

Rush the Court is pleased to have our East Region correspondent Dave Zeitlin onsite at the NCAA East Region in Philadelphia for Thursday and Saturday’s games.  He will be live-blogging the first game of the afternoon, #8 BYU vs. #9 Texas A&M, to kick off what will be another phenomenal tournament weekend.  Depending on the matchups, Dave will be back here on Saturday live-blogging one of the two second round games as well.  Please stop by and leave your comments and follow along if you happen to be stuck at work on one of the two greatest sports days of the year!

3/14 Update:  The Championship Game between Duquesne and Temple begins tonight at 6pm EDT.  See you there!

3/13 Update: Tonight CCT will be live-blogging the semifinals, with Xavier-Temple the early game at 6:30 pm and Dayton-Duquesne in the nightcap.  Enjoy!

3/12 Update:  The quarterfinal round promises to have several good games.  Here is today’s liveblog, courtesy again of our friends at College Chalktalk.

RTC Live is pleased to announce that we have partnered with our Atlantic 10 correspondent, College Chalktalk, to provide simul-blogging live from courtside of the A10 Tournament in Atlantic City, NJ, this week.

The Tournament began this afternoon with two good games where St. Louis and St. Joseph’s advanced to the quarterfinal round, and it will continue tonight as UMass will battle Duquesne and St. Bonaventure will play Richmond.   CCT, the authoritative voice on Atlantic 10 basketball, will be simul-blogging the UMass-Duquesne game, and we invite you to join their coverage here on the site tonight and throughout the rest of the week.

3/14 Update.  Crazy night in Reno last night – here’s our wrapup on the semis, and whatever you do, don’t offer the mascot $100 to attack the other mascot.  Stay safe out there, Nevadans!  Should be a great environment there tonight.

3/13 Update: here’s the live-blog for tonight’s WAC semifinal between Utah St. and New Mexico St., with the second semifinal between Louisiana Tech and the homestanding Nevada following it.

Hello WAC fans, and welcome to RTC Live’s ongoing coverage of the WAC Tournament from Reno, Nevada.  We have been fortunate to partner with Travis Mason-Bushman from Vandal Nation, who will be live-blogging and reporting from the Lawlor Events Center throughout the weekend.  The Tournament began last night with a single opening round game (Fresno St. defeated Hawaii), but the quarterfinals will begin in earnest on Thursday afternoon.  For additional information on this tournament, be sure to check out the comprehensive WAC Tournament preview put together by our regular WAC correspondents, Kevin McCarthy and Sam Wasson.

Travis will be live-blogging select games throughout the weekend, starting tomorrow with the quarterfinal matchup between #1 seed Utah St. and #9 seed Fresno St.   This has the potential to be an atypical high/low seed game, as Fresno took the slumping Aggies to overtime in a regular season meeting.  If you’re new to the site, the live-blog box will show immediately below this paragraph, and Travis will be taking comments and questions throughout the game.  Particularly insightful questions will be chosen for him to take into the media press conference and/or locker rooms afterwards.  Enjoy the WAC Tournament, and check back here daily to see which games we’ll be live-blogging next.

And be sure to check out the Idaho vs. Louisiana Tech game tonight, live-blogged below.

A couple of newsworthy notes before we get started with tonight’s Dance Card.

• First, John Calipari must be bottling angelfairydust down there in Memphis, as John Wall, the nation’s #1 ranked recruit, now lists Coach Cal’s Tigers as his likeliest destination for the 2009-10 season.  This news comes on the heels of DeMarcus Cousins’ verbal commitment to Memphis within the last week.
• From 850 the Buzz, apparently the usage of the word “unanimous” is a little ambiguous at the ACC offices in Greensboro these days, depending on who the player is they’re trying to promote (FSU’s Toney Douglas vs. UNC’s Tyler Hansbrough).

Now… on to the three dance tickets punched tonight.

# 10 – North Dakota St. (26-6, 16-2).  NDSU is going to get a lot of national attention in the next week by virtue of the fact that this was their first eligible year in D1, and several players including star guard Ben Woodside redshirted their freshmen seasons to have the shot at the NCAAs they’re enjoying tonight, but remember that our very own John Stevens was all over this story before anybody – way back in mid-December when Woodside ripped the nets apart for 60 big ones.  Tonight it looked as if their long-sought-after dream was dead, as the Summit League regular season champs found themselves down ten points with nine minutes remaining in the title game.  Slow and steady, the Bison worked itself back into the game, and after Oakland’s Keith Benson tied the game with a dunk with 0:12 remaining, the ball was put into Woodside’s hands and the rest is history, 66-64.

Projected Seed: #13

Something to Remember:  NDSU has the fifth most efficient offense in the country, and it’s predicated on great shooting and ballhandling.  The Bison are #5 in three-point shooting at 41% and they are #11 in fewest turnovers per game.  Whichever #4 or #5 seed gets this team had best bring their defense.

#11 – Cleveland St. (25-10, 12-6).  Bubble teams all over America were cursing Gary Waters’ Cleveland St. Vikings tonight, as their Horizon League automatic bid earned over at-large lock Butler took one of the 34 available spots away from some hopeful team.  Was it Creighton?  Florida?  St. Mary’s?  We’ll never know for sure, but CSU held Butler stars Matt Howard and Gordon Hayward to a combined 21/12, and in so doing was able to make just enough plays on the defensive end down the stretch to get the upset win over Butler, 57-54 in their house.  RTC Live had the liveblog coverage here, but if you were lucky enough to see the television coverage, you saw a team in Cleveland St. that wanted this game just a smidge more than their HL counterparts.  The Vikings’ NCAA bid is their first since 1986.

Projected Seed: #14

STR: Cleveland St. played Kansas St. and West Virginia tough in losses earlier this year, and of course they beat Syracuse on the ridiculous 75-footer, so this is a team that won’t be intimidated as an underdog in the first round of the NCAAs.

#12 – Western Kentucky (24-8, 15-3).  WKU started this Sun Belt title game on an 11-0 run, but South Alabama wasn’t going to just give the Hilltoppers the game so easily, as the Jags fought back to tie and even briefly take the lead in this one for a period in the mid-second half.  But WKU, led by AJ Slaughter’s 18 pts and Stephffon Pettigrew’s 15/7, was not going to be denied, and Ken McDonald should be commended for the excellent job he’s done with a team that lost its star backcourt of Courtney Lee and Tyrone Brazelton (not to mention head coach Darrin Horn).  Western Kentucky earned its 21st trip to the NCAA Tournament and its second in a row tonight.

Projected Seed: #11

STR: This is an unpredictable team.  Although they finished the season winning eleven of their last twelve games, earlier in the season the Toppers lost by 28 to Murray St., 32 to Evansville and 28 to Mississippi St.  They also defeated Louisville by 12.  This is probably why WKU ranks #265 in Pomeroy’s consistency statistic.

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QnD Conf Tourney Updates.

Big East.  Did you hear that the sixteen-team Big East Tourney started today?  Georgetown and Cincinnati must not have gotten that memo, because neither team showed up for its own funeral, losing first-round games to the dregs – St. John’s and Depaul, respectively.  Yes, Depaul, the same team that was 0-18 in the regular season.  At least Seton Hall managed to beat S. Florida and Notre Dame kept its disappointing season alive for another day.

Big Sky. In the semis, #2 seed Portland St. advanced, but #6 Montana St. knocked out #1 Weber St with the upset, including one of the greatest open-court facial dunks of the year (if anyone can get a link up, let us know…).

MAC. The MAC first round was today, and there were no major upsets.  CMU, Kent, Ohio and Akron all advanced.

MEAC. The MEAC also began today, and the two higher seeds Hampton and FAMU advanced.

WAC. Another opening round, where Fresno St. “upset” the higher seeded Hawaii.

For Tomorrow’s Viewing Pleasure. We’re starting to get serious now.  The Big Sky and NEC hold its title games Wednesday, and the A10, Big 12, Big West, CUSA, Mountain West, Pac-10 and SWAC get it started.  We’re rapidly approaching bracket nirvana.

Hello Horizon League fans, and welcome to RTC Live’s coverage of the Horizon League Tournament Finals from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Our correspondent, Damon Lewis from the Horizon League Network, will be live-blogging and reporting from Hinkle Fieldhouse Tuesday night for the title game between Butler and Cleveland St.  Feel free to stop by and leave your questions and comments for him as Butler goes for its second straight HL title.

We’re back for the final weekend of regular season Boom Goes the Dynamite for this college basketball season. The highlights of the weekend are obviously the two top 10 match-ups (in Pittsburgh on Saturday and in Chapel Hill on Sunday). We would love to provide you with another RTC Live from those site, but apparently we’re not big enough for them yet. (The onus is on you to spread the word.)

In any event, we’re going to make lemonade out of those lemons so we’ll be providing coverage from our bi-coastal offices covering all the action. Today is loaded with 15 of the top 25 playing with the other 10 playing on Sunday. We will be trying out best to provide you with wall-to-wall coverage of the top teams in action as well as RTC Live from several different locations:

• Colonial Athletic Association at 2:30 PM EST for Hofstra–Loyola Marymount with Ryan Kish courtside
• Missouri Valley Conference at 5 PM EST for Creighton–Illinois State with Patrick Marshall
• West Coast Conference at 9 PM EST for Santa Clara–San Diego with Mike Vernetti courtside

In addition to our on-site correspondents we will be focusing in on a few key games for the majority of the day while also channel surfing over to the other games when the situation merits it. Here are the primary games that we will be covering today:

• #1 UConn at #4 Pittsburgh at Noon on CBS
• Michigan at Minnesota at Noon on ESPN and ESPN360.com
• #25 Syracuse at #15 Marquette at 2 PM on ESPN360.com
• #12 Missouri at Texas A&M at 2 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
• California at #21 Arizona State at 2 PM on CBS
• Oklahoma State at #5 Oklahoma at 3:30 PM on ABC
• Texas at #9 Kansas at 4 PM on CBS
• Washington State at #13 Washington at 5:30 PM on CBS
• Wright State at #22 Butler at 7 PM on ESPNU
• #6 Louisville at West Virginia at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com

As you can tell it’s a pretty ambitious schedule so we are asking you, our loyal legion of RTC followers, to help alert all of us if something interesting is happening. You can contribute by leaving a message in the comment section so we all can follow it.

One piece of RTC breaking news, UNC point guard Ty Lawson injured his left big toe yesterday in practice.

11:30 PM: ESPN GameDay is live from Morgantown, WV and they’re doing their own version of Make Your Case. I feel a little bit like Bill Simmons after ESPN stole his Mount Rushmore, but they aren’t paying me a million dollars a year.

11:45 PM: A couple pieces of NCAA tournament news to wrap-up before we focus on our TV for the next 12 hours: Cornell became the first team to officially get into the tournament last night by winning the Ivy League title and 3 others will join them when the Atlantic Sun, Big South, and Ohio Valley have their championship games today.

Read the rest of this entry »

RTC Aftermath will come to you each night where our correspondents are at the conference tournament games as a part of RTC Live. Michael Vernetti is in Las Vegas all weekend covering the WCC Tournament for RTC.

San Diego, riding strong performances from its front court tandem of Gyno Pomare (18 points) and Roberto Mafra (14 points) toppled Loyola 62-56 to move into tomorrow’s quarterfinal game with Santa Clara. Mafra, notching his career high, and Pomare teamed up to overshadow a strong performance by Loyola freshman Kevin Young, who scored a career-high 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds.  RTC Live was there covering this game.

In tonight’s second game, Pepperdine prevailed 93-85 over San Francisco in a freewheeling affair featuring strong performances by Dior Lowhorn of USF (32 points) and Mike Hornbuckle (25 points) of Pepperdine. The Waves advance to play Portland on Saturday night following the conclusion of the San Diego-Santa Clara game beginning at 6 p.m.

RTC Live will be covering the San Diego vs. Santa Clara game at 6pm Saturday evening.  Stop by and leave your questions and comments.