Sunday, March 21 (all CBS)
12:10pm - Syracuse vs. Gonzaga
2:20pm - Ohio State vs Georgia Tech
2:30pm - Maryland vs Michigan State
2:40pm - West Virginia vs Missouri
2:50pm - Wisconsin vs Cornell
4:50pm - Pittsburgh vs Xavier
5:00pm - Purdue vs Texas A&M
5:15pm - Duke vs California
Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit is spending the week as the RTC correspondent at the Big East Tournament. In addition to live-blogging select games throughout the tournament, he will post a nightly diary with his thoughts on each day’s action. Here is his submission on the First Round games.
South Florida 58, DePaul 49
South Florida looked really good in the first half. In the second half, a scrappy DePaul team started hitting some shots and made it somewhat exciting. But in the first half, USF looked absolutely dominant. They got just about whatever they wanted offensively, they hit the offensive glass, they scored in transition, and they held DePaul to merely 15 points.
Jarrid Famous could be a very good player one day. Great frame, good size and athleticism, but he needs a post game. I like his aggressiveness as well; he had seven offensive rebounds.
In one of the stranger stats I’ve ever seen, South Florida scored 58 points. 50 of them came in the paint, and six at the foul line, meaning that the Bulls got just one basket outside of the paint.
The most entertaining part of this game was actually the battle of the bands in an empty gym before tipoff. In my opinion, USF clinched it with a stirring rendition of “You Can Call Me Al”.
Where to start about the Huskies? They turned it over 20 times; they went 6-18 from the foul line; they clearly had no interest in playing this game; Jerome Dyson packed it in three games ago, as he finished with four points and nine turnovers this afternoon. All around, it was ugly.
St. John’s is going to be a good team next year given they learn how to hold onto a lead. They will have ten seniors on their team, and the only rotation player they are losing is Anthony Mason, Jr. I’ve already got them slotted as my sleeper pick. They have size, they have athleticism, they have a stud in DJ Kennedy, and they have a couple experienced PGs.
Will UConn accept an NIT bid? Did Jim Calhoun just coach his last game in Storrs? Is Kemba Walker going pro? All questions you should keep in mind over the next month. Another thing to think about with the Huskies – they have not won a Big East Tournament game since the 2005 first round against Georgetown. Jerome Dyson is 0-4 in the Big East Tournamen and 0-1 in the NCAA Tournament. The only year he was on the team and the Huskies had any postseason success was last year’s Final Four run, while he was injured.
Even though ESPN likes to hype up its Bracketbuster day the fact is that the last few weeks of the season act like an elimination tournament with teams moving in and out of the NCAA Tournament while other teams move up and down on a daily basis. While each and every game could theoretically have an impact on the Bubble and NCAA seeding there are a few games that matter more than the others which we will feature over the next two weeks leading up to the conference tournaments. We will feature these in two posts per week. The first will be a post released on Sunday night for games from Monday through Thursday and the second will be a post released on Thursday night for games from Friday through Sunday.
Fifth #8 West Virginia at UConn at 7 PM on ESPN on Monday – The Mountaineers will need a miracle to get a #1 seed, but this is a “must-win” if UConn wants to get into the NCAA Tournament. After this game the Huskies do not have another opponent that would impress the Selection Committee until they begin the Big East Tournament. Despite the fact that their “ceiling” is probably a #2 seed this game is also very important for the Mountaineers who need to be careful here because they finish with a tricky stretch with this game being following by games at home against Cincinnati and Georgetown then a trip to Villanova before the Big East Tournament. If the Mountaineers do not finish strong (at least 2-2) they could be looking at a #4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Ebanks is the X-factor for West Virginia
Fourth #22 Texas A&M at #24 Baylor at 9 PM on ESPNU on Wednesday – This is one game that does not feature a bubble team since both of these teams are in the NCAA Tournament, but this game does have big seeding implications. Right now these teams are competing for the #3 spot in the Big 12 behind Kansas and Kansas State. Both of these teams could fall anywhere from a #5 seed to a #8 seed and the difference for both could well be this game. Texas A&M has been playing well lately with only one loss this month (by 5 to Kansas). Up until Saturday when they lost in Stillwater, Baylor had not lost since they traveled to College Station. Now the Bears welcome the Aggies to Waco hoping to return the favor as inhospitable hosts. Both teams have favorable schedules down the stretch (read: no Kansas or Kansas State) so the winner of this has the inside track along with Texas for that coveted #3 seed in the Big 12 Tournament to avoid Kansas in the semifinals and get a higher seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Third Oklahoma State at #21 Texas at 9 PM on ESPN2 on Wednesday – The Cowboys picked up a big win on Saturday against Baylor, which should put them on the inside of the Bubble, but they are entering a difficult 3-game stretch: at Texas, home against Kansas, and at Texas A&M. Winning 2 of 3 should ensure that the Cowboys get in to the NCAA Tournament, but if they lose all 3 games (not an unreasonable proposition) they will be sweating it out on Selection Sunday. As for the Longhorns, we are not sure what to say about them at this point. Outside of UNC there has not been a more disappointing team in the nation–the Tar Heels have a safe lead in this category–yet we know that they are the one underachieving team that nobody wants to see in the pod when the brackets come out. Right now people have them in the #5-6 range, but they have a 4 very winnable games to finish the regular season (at Texas A&M and Baylor will be challenging as both teams took the Longhorns to OT in Austin earlier this year, but the Longhorns should expect to win those games). If they can get their act together, this team could get back to a #3-4 seed given their 3 wins (and counting) against the RPI top 25. If they don’t they could slip down to the #8-9 range, which could make for a very interesting 2nd round match-up in the NCAA Tournament for a #1 seed.
Happy Presidents’ Day, everyone. Hope you’re getting to enjoy a nice extended weekend.
Is Savannah State’s Horace Broadnax the best coaching value in college basketball? We’re still discussing its validity, but we certainly find interesting the analysis by Scott Britton and Darren Heitner at Sports Agent Blog regarding the achievements of the former Hoya as coach of SSU. You have to admit — all things considered, $25,131 per win isn’t a bad deal, at all, especially when you go from 0-28 in the ‘04-’05 season to 15-13 four years later, and your basketball budget is the next-to-lowest in D1.
John Calipari states, “There’s no such thing as a 50-50 ball with him. He’s as valuable to our team right now as anyone.” Is he talking about John Wall? DeMarcus Cousins? Patrick Patterson? Nope. Try DeAndre Liggins, the sophomore guard who didn’t play for the first nine games of the season as he spent time in Calipari’s doghouse, but now humbly realizes that floor burn scars on the knees from diving after loose balls + embracing defensive stopper role = increased minutes, and increased trust from his coach.
On Friday, the Western Athletic Conference reprimanded Idaho head coach Don Verlin after he criticized officials after a 67-66 loss to Nevada on Wednesday. Verlin will be suspended for any further violations of this kind, according to conference brass. After the loss last week, Verlin voiced his displeasure with the officiating, and also added that WAC zebras should realize that Idaho is “…a contender, not a doormat.” We’ll have to check our rule book, Coach V, but we don’t recall anything about the rules changing based on where you are in the standings…
Ever think that Penn/Cornell would be right up there with Rutgers/Georgetown and Louisville/Syracuse in the Monday morning water-cooler discussion of big weekend upsets in college hoops? Yeah, we didn’t either. We’ve been digging all of the Ivy League love this season, and it’s not slowing down yet. After the stunner on Friday, Cornell bounced back to hand Princeton their first conference loss of the year on Saturday, and in doing so regained the Ivy League lead. They’re not a shoe-in for the Big Dance, though; the three teams atop the standings still have a round of games against each other, starting this Friday with a very important Cornell road trip to Harvard.
Welcome back, everyone! Boom Goes the Dynamite returns for the fourth weekend of the year with a blockbuster Saturday of games that are so good that we’re getting them up today as a reminder to join us tomorrow afternoon. With noon-to-night coverage and the fact that most of the country is completely frozen over again, we expect that you’ll be right there with us on the couch, eating a bunch of bad food and breaking down zone offenses. We hope to see you then!
Here are the games we plan on keeping an eye on…
12 PM: La Salle at #15 Temple on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
12 PM: Marquette at #19 Connecticut on Big East Network HD and ESPN Full Court
12 PM: Louisville at #9 West Virginia on ESPN and ESPN360.com
1 PM: #7 Duke at #11 Georgetown on CBS – RTC Live
2 PM: #4 Syracuse at DePaul on Big East Network and ESPN Full Court
2 PM: Indiana at Illinois on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
3 PM: FSU at Boston College on Raycom and ESPN Full Court
3 PM: #25 Northern Iowa at Missouri State
4 PM: Baylor at #6 Texas on Big 12 Network and ESPN Full Court
4 PM: #23 Vanderbilt at #1 Kentucky on ESPN and ESPN360.com A 4 PM: Arkansas at #20 Mississippi on SEC Network and ESPN Full Court
6 PM: Notre Dame at Rutgers on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
6 PM: New Mexico at TCU on CBS College Sports
7 PM: #2 Kansas at #13 Kansas State on ESPN and ESPN360.com
7 PM: Georgia at South Carolina on Fox Sports (regional) and ESPN Full Court
7 PM: Northwestern at #5 Michigan State on Big Ten Network
8 PM: Providence at Cincinnati on ESPN U
9 PM: Utah at #10 BYU on Mountain Network
9:30 PM: #8 Gonzaga at San Francisco on Fox Sports (regional)- RTC Live
We will be dividing the day into three shifts with nvr1983 starting things off then rtmsf will handle the afternoon games before John Stevens takes you into the night with late night coverage of all the day’s big games.
10:50 AM: Apparently ESPN forgot to pay the electricity bill as the lights just went out on Jason Williams. (As a college basketball fan, I refuse to call him Jay. Jason Williams was a great player. Jay Williams crashed his motorcycle.)
11:00 AM: Dear College Students of America, This is how you show up for a College GameDay. I don’t want to call anybody out, but the Kansas State fans are crushing what I saw when I went to GameDay at UNC last year. To be fair, a game against in-state rival Kansas is much, much more important than a disappointing Miami team. This seems more like a College Football GameDay and that’s what we need for the basketball version too. Right now the pressure is on Illinois, Kentucky, Washington, Syracuse, and Duke to match this atmosphere when GameDay comes to town later this year.
11:10 AM: Does anybody have a link to where we can buy one of those Frank Martin t-shirts?
11:15 AM: According to the Kansas State website, the previous record for College Basketball GameDay attendance was 6,700 at Clemson last year before they played Duke. I haven’t heard an official number for today. Bramlage Coliseum holds 12,528 and I would think they are well over half full.
11:20 AM: Is Coach K advocating for abolishing the requirement for players to spend one year in college or wanting them to stay in school for more than one semester, which is all they really have to do to be eligible to play in their freshman year? It sounds more like the former. Jay Bilas is right that this issue is more a NBA/business issue.
11:22 AM: If you’re wondering who Hubert Davis and Digger Phelps are going to pick to win the Kansas-Kansas State game, their clothes might be a pretty good clue. Hubert is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie. Digger is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie and he he has a purple highlighter. . .
Once again we find ourselves with another stacked weekend of college basketball. 142 games in Division I today, and quite a number of those are somewhere on the tube. It’s getting interesting. Some of the big names are starting to come back to the pack a little, and some teams we’d all forgotten about are starting to put some wins together. We’ll be here all day, watching it, commenting on it, enjoying it. We’d like to know what you’re watching and what you think of it all, too, which is why we’re back with another version of BGTD today. We’ll start off checking out Michigan State vs Minnesota and Villanova vs St. John’s, and head for points south and west after that. We’ve even got a man on the ground for RTC Live at the latter game, there, as well as a few more spots today. By all means, join us for a bit. We’ll kick it off in about 10-15 minutes!
12:11 PM ET: Greetings from us to you on this big hoops day. JStev here, starting it off with you. My goodness, Villanova sure has wasted no time in jumping on the Johnnies. Up by seven early and they’ve already forced SJU into five turnovers. We’re just now at the under-16 TVTO. Over on the Big East Network we have Georgetown/Rutgers, with the Hoyas trying to avoid a letdown after their impressive performance at Pittsburgh a few nights ago. Against Rutgers at home that should be no problem, and I’m thinking G’town will have quite a jump in the polls, come Monday. Hoyas up by three early, and Rutgers is already standing straight up in their zone. Minnesota has also shown up early and taken a quick nine-point lead against Michigan State…and ladies and gentlemen, say hello to MR. GUS JOHNSON on the call on CBS. I’ve found my primary game.
12:28: Gus Johnson could comment on the progress of a slug slithering along a rain gutter and, if you heard it, it’d be the most exciting thing you did that day. We’ve said that — or something similar — about a gazillion times on this site and it’s always the truth. He’s showing you why in this game, even this early. Minnesota’s kept their lead in this one despite a little comeback from MSU. Still up seven under seven minutes to play. Dwight Hardy has come out on fire, hitting 5-6 against the Hoyas, and the Johnnies have looked like a different team in the last ten minutes. They’re up by TEN on ‘Nova, now! It’s physical, and if St. John’s wants to have a shot at pulling this off, they better be ready to grind it out against Villanova. They’re glad to bang it out with anyone.
12:46: Great point by Doris Burke as they go to commercial in the ‘Nova/SJU game. When it comes to pulling an upset, you can’t expect to play on an equal footing in ANY aspect of the game. You have to OUT-do your opponent in EVERY aspect of the game. You can’t just hustle as much as them, you have to OUThustle them, etc. That seems like an obvious point, but I bet coaches out there have a harder time getting that across to their teams than you might think. Oh, and Scottie Reynolds just hit a running bank shot off glass that was so gorgeous it almost brought tears. It’ll bring him millions of bucks. Soon.
Ken Pomeroy does what he does and concludes that, when you break down games by minutes 1-40, it’s the first minute of the game where offenses are the least aggressive. Somewhere, some coach will read this and try to put his energizer bunny reserve in for the first couple of minutes of the game. Guaranteed.
Rutgers transfer Greg Echinique will re-surface at Creighton, which was one of his finalists coming out of high school. Big, big get for the mid-major power in Omaha.
In the wake of Jerry Wainwright’s firing at DePaul, the Big East hot seat formally shifts to Rutgers University and the Scarlet Knights’ head man, Fred Hill. Hill is in his fourth year at the school, and he is noted for his fiery personality and the occasional ability to get a hotshot recruit to stay close to home (see: Mike Rosario from Jersey City). He isn’t particularly known for winning, however, as his RU teams have gone 41-66 (.383) overall and a horrid 8-47 (.145) in the very difficult Big East Conference over that period. With recent news that injured forward Gregory Echinique will transfer to another school next year, and rumors that Rosario may not be far behind, former Hill player JR Inman (2005-09), now playing in Japan, took it upon himself to pile on Hill’s misfortune. In a big, big way.
Inman (seated, left) and Hill During More Pleasant Times
Initially we had concerns as to the authenticity of this information allegedly posted to Inman’s Facebook page today, but NJ.com believes it to be authentic, and it’s too alternatingly bizarre and hilarious for us not to excerpt it even if Inman didn’t actually pen it. If you want to read the whole thing, as of now you have two options. You can go here (which requires free registration), or you can read it on the Seton Hall message boards. The message is sometimes grammatically painful, other times amusing, and a few times downright mean, but one thing can be inferred without logical modeling — Inman, who feels that the reason he’s playing in Japan rather than for the Knicks, is no fan of Fred Hill.
On Hill in general:
What you guys don’t know is just how much of a scum bag this guy really is and guess who’s about to air his punk ass out. Me.3 years ago Fred Hill stole the Head Coaching Job from the Coach who recruited me to Rutgers Gary Waters. Since then the program has been in complete turmoil. Among many excuses Hill has been using to justify his lack of success, the biggest one was “Jr Inman”
The best line we’ve heard in some time, about anything, anywhere:
I feel bad for my fellow teammates that are still thier cause it is about to get really ugly.I don’t want to put all of Fred’s buisness out thier. I’m sure youll read about it in the Newspapers within the next couple of weeks but I just want the public to know one thing. “It took 3 years for Fred Hill to cook his steak of turmoil but the check for the dinner is coming due”
And how he feels that Hill ruined his career:
I wish Fred would call my cellphone talkin [redacted]. If I was 30 years older, 10 inches shorter and a [redacted], I would go to the rac right now and punch Fred Right in his face. [...] Initially I wanted to take Fred to court and sue for defamation of charecter. My senior year in college I took an employment in law class and we learned about that. During class I would sit there mesmorized realizing that everything we learned in class I have experienced first hand thanks to your boy Freddy. My close friends know how much I dreaded coming from practice because of Fred Hill. He literally turned me into a psycopathic disfunctional human being for my entire senior season.
Wow. We haven’t seen a player throw his ex-coach under the bus like this since… ever?
Injured center Gregory Echinique announced that he is transferring from the Rutgers program, and one possible destination for the talented big man from Venezuela is Tom Crean’s Indiana program.
From last week, CBS/FSN announcer Tim Brando apparently (allegedly?) got into a bizarre email exchange with a Kentucky fan over his comments regarding DeMarcus Cousins’ elbow in the UK-Louisville game. It doesn’t seem real, but whoever wrote it trashes the SEC and the “limited knowledge” of Kentucky fans outside of their own team.
Midnight Madness on October 1 as well as a shortened regular season could come to fruition if the NCAA Board of Directors proposals are approved this week in Atlanta. Another key proposal is the elimination of the hire-the-AAU-coach loophole to get a top prospect to attend your school, which is a fantastic piece of legislation if you ask us.
BONUS: Late-breaking news but DePaul’s Jerry Wainwrightwill be removed as head coach today, according to Andy Katz. Wainwright seems like a good guy, and he’s had coaching success at the mid-major level, but he could never get it going there in Chicago.
RTC contributor and bracketologist Zach Hayes will deliver ten permeating thoughts every Tuesday as the season progresses.
1. More than the countless Big East tournament runs at the Garden, or the contention for conference regular season titles on a yearly basis, or reaching upper-echelon status in college basketball playing with no flashy All-American recruits, Jamie Dixon is proving his worth as a coach this year more than ever. Few teams lost as much talent, leadership, and production as senior point guard Levance Fields, dominating big man DeJuan Blair and outside threat Sam Young. The departure of these three mainstays plus two projected starters for 2009-10, Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown, beginning the year MIA prompted many preseason prognosticators (including myself) to deem Pittsburgh a non-contender in the rugged Big East. My mistake, Jamie. The Panthers just finished one of their most difficult Big East road stretches of the year with two statement victories at previously undefeatedSyracuse and at fringe-ranked Cincinnati. Sophomore Ashton Gibbs is taking his experience from playing under Dixon at the U19 Games to good use, running the Pitt offense with superb efficiency, shooting the ball lights out from deep and breaking the all-time Pitt record for consecutive free throws made in the process. Brown has his academics in order and used his athleticism to make a few back-breaking baskets against Cincy last night. Dixon provides stellar defense and outside shooting. It remains to be seen whether Pitt can stay at the top of the Big East with less talent than the other squads, but we do know that Dixon’s team will play smarter and tougher than any opponent. And that always gives them a fighting chance.
2. The most significant win this New Year’s week had to be Purdue running away fromWest Virginia to remain unblemished and surpass the Mountaineers as a projected #1 seed at this stage of the season. Purdue and coach Matt Painter have constructed their program unlike many of their other counterparts atop the rankings on a weekly basis. There’s no Xavier Henry, Avery Bradley, Devin Ebanks or John Wall walking through the doors of Mackey Arena to play for the Boilers for one or two years; instead, their 2009-10 highly ranked squad features a group of players that have been together for three straight seasons, such a rarity in the age of one-and-done players and the glorification of NBA riches. This specific group of players- Robbie Hummel, Chris Kramer, JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore, Keaton Grant- have practiced and played together for three straight years now, stepping up the ladder slowly but surely in the college hoops landscape. They took the Big Ten by surprise in 2007-08 before falling in the second round to Xavier and climbed up another step by reaching the Sweet 16 a season ago. This year they hope to reach the top and cut down the nets in nearby Indianapolis with a group of kids that have been through the ups and downs of a college basketball season together more than once- a group of lightly-recruited but tough-minded individuals that will utilize defensive intensity and offensive efficiency to reach the ultimate goal Hummel, Johnson, Moore and others been striving for since arriving in West Lafayette.
3. Think about this for a second: Despite losing three four-year starters that all played 30+ MPG and notched 10+ PPG, Marquette coach Buzz Williams would probably tell you that his Golden Eagles should be staring at a 12-2 (2-0) record with wins over top-ten Villanova and West Virginia and another top-25 team in Florida State. Typical of young, inexperienced squads, Marquette has simply been unable to close games this season against stellar competition. If Darius Johnson-Odom and Jimmy Butler don’t miss two front ends of 1-and-1 opportunities, Da’Sean Butler’s game-winning shot never happens and Marquette has the second most impressive road win in the country this season (just behind Pitt stunning Syracuse). Up two Saturday against Villanova, Johnson-Odom again stepped to the line up two points and 2:35 left on the clock. Both of those attempts bricked, and, couple that with a bunny missed by Butler at the buzzer, the Golden Eagles again fell just short. Rewind back to November in the Old Spice Classic where Marquette held a 30-18 lead at half against FSU and a 10-point cushion midway through the second half, but squandered the lead. I haven’t even included the NC State game where Marquette lead by 11 at the intermission. Closing out games has been a devastating problem for Buzz Williams’ squad this season, and these close losses could very well cost Marquette a spot in the field come March if they’re sitting on the bubble.
Jimmer Fredette Eviscerates Arizona. BYU 99, Arizona 69. It was a Jimmer Fredette kind of night in the desert tonight, as he torched the home team Arizona Wildcats for 49 points from everywhere on the court, setting a new BYU player and McKale Center record in the process. Fredette said afterward that he “had a good stroke,” and that’s the understatement of the decade, as he hit 16-23 shots (along with seven boards and nine assists), including 9-13 from three and 8-9 from the line to end up with the record in 36 minutes of play. More importantly, BYU served notice to the national media (ahem…) that the Cougars deserve consideration for the top 25 as they now sit at 13-1 with the sole loss at rival Utah State nearly a month ago. Arizona had been skating by with recent home wins thanks to Nic Wise’s heroics last week, but BYU left no doubt tonight as to who the superior team in this game was. A fifteen-point lead only continued to grow after the half as Fredette’s jumpers rained from everywhere on the court. What’s even more interesting is that BYU continues to play well and win games while getting almost nothing from their other “star” Jonathan Tavernari, who had two points and five rebounds tonight in 22 minutes of action. His numbers this season (9/5) are way down versus last year (16/7), which might explain why Fredette is feeling the need to pick up the slack (82 pts the last two games). If Dave Rose can get his other star player’s confidence back, BYU will absolutely be a team to watch coming out of the Mountain West this season.
32? Try 49!! (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)
RTC Live. North Carolina 81, Rutgers 67. Would you believe that with 2:11 to go in this game in Chapel Hill tonight that the score was 71-67 with the home team barely hanging on? Luckily for UNC fans, Dexter Strickland’s three from the corner with 2:01 remaining gave the Heels just enough breathing room to salt the game away, and Carolina hit FTs for the last ten points of the game and the final margin. Still, Roy Williams was hopping mad afterward, unhappy with just about everything about this game, not least of which was what he felt was poor decision-making throughout… including the decision to shoot the game-clinching three by Strickland mentioned above: “I hated the shot, but it went in and talent took over above coaching and intelligence,” Williams said. Sixteen turnovers (including seven by the PG duo of Strickland and Larry Drew II) undoubtedly contributed to Williams’ ire, as many times those TOs could have extended a lead in the first half but instead led to a fast-break bucket by Rutgers. Mike Rosario led the Scarlet Knights with 22/3 assts on 10-21 shooting, but it was his 1-9 from deep that really hurt their comeback attempts (the whole team was miserable from outside, going 3-23 from three). Despite Strickland’s career-high night in points and assists (18/4), our third on-site viewing of Carolina this year revealed many of the same problems that we saw a month ago. Point guard play isn’t consistent and as such, the fortunes of this year’s Carolina team will largely depend on just how dominant the big men can be inside and on the boards. Against most teams, they’re good enough to rely on that aspect of their team; but the ACC is a different animal, and early games against Clemson, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest will test their mettle.
Hello everyone, we’re back from the holiday break and heading into New Years week with a pretty good match-up in Chapel Hill, NC, tonight between Rutgers and UNC. This game will be simulcast on ESPN2 tonight, but we hope that you’ll join us for an interactive experience like no other while you’re watching the game on television. The Heels come into tonight’s game sitting at 9-3, a record that makes UNC seem worse than they are considering that the three losses were to #2 Texas, #3 Kentucky and #5 Syracuse (two of which were road games). Roy Williams is working through a number of new faces in his lineup but there’s clearly a bevy of talent at his disposal and we fully expect his team to be at or near the top of the ACC standings by March. As for the visiting Rutgers Scarlet Knights, Fred Hill’s team comes in at 9-2 but even he will admit that their schedule has been less than impressive thus far (#346 according to KenPom). Things aren’t looking up with the recent news that sophomore forward Gregory Echinique (13/8) will miss the remainder of the season with an eye problem, but the one player Hill has at his disposal who is capable of dropping thirty on any defense in America is Mike Rosario. The 6′3 sophomore guard had a great summer overseas, and he comes into this game averaging 18/5 while shooting 38% from deep. Given UNC’s lackluster three-point defense this season (34%), Rosario is definitely someone to watch tonight. We hope you join us for another exciting edition of RTC Live, this time from one of the great venues in all of college sports, the Dean Dome in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Iowa starting point guard Anthony Tucker was charged with public intoxication on the night of his team’s win over Drake, 71-67, and he will be suspended from the team immediately. This is his second such charge, as he pleaded guilty to the same charge one year ago in Iowa City.
According to Jim Calhoun, he and UConn are very close to signing a five-year extension to his current contract that will keep the acerbic coach in Storrs into his seventies. Reportedly, Ken Kreyeske was his top negotiator in the discussions.
Ohio State’s Evan Turner is on the record stating that his return will be on January 9 against Minnesota, a full four weeks ahead of initial projections. Let’s hope he’s right, because the more Turner plays, the better for college basketball. But let’s also make sure that he’s healthy, and we’re sure Thad Matta will have a say-so in that respect.
This is a great story. The NCAA granted Mike Gerrity’s waiver on Friday, making him eligible at USC immediately. So what does he do? Only drop 12/10 assts in the Trojans’ unreal (in margin) upset of top-ten Tennessee on Saturday evening, his first game in two years!
Rutgers lost big man Gregory Echinique to eye surgery over the weekend, but he is expected to make a full recovery. He was averaging 13/8 in seven games for Fred Hill’s Scarlet Knights.
The news that the Big Ten was looking to expand from 11 teams (yeah I know 11 > 10) to 12 teams (yeah I know there is already a Big 12) set the college sports world abuzz with speculation about who the 12th team would be. And that set off a chain reaction of questions about who would fill in the spot in the conference that the Big Ten’s 12th member would leave vacant and so on. We will leave the latter for another post if and when the Big Ten finally commits to expansion and selects a school. Right now the schools I have heard mentioned most often are Cincinnati, Connecticut, Iowa State, Louisville, Missouri, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Syracuse, Texas,and West Virginia. I’ll go ahead and make this simple for everybody. Despite what Mike DeCourcy says Texas is not going to the Big Ten. The prospect of Texas leaving the Big 12 is too disastrous for the Big 12 officials to let happen. He can argue about TV revenues and how Texas is a much bigger TV draw than any of its Big 12 competitors, but he is missing a key element here. Unfortunately for Mike, geography destroys his grand scheme of having the Longhorns leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten. As the graphic clearly illustrates, Austin, Texas, is very far away from the members of the Big Ten. In fact the closest school would be Illinois, which is just a short 1,032 mile trip away from Austin (or 3 Mike DeCourcy Sporting News glamour shots).
That’s a lot of gas money even in a Civic.
While I understand a college team expects to have its fans outnumbered in road games, I can’t imagine that they would want to have a scenario where none of their students could go to a road game and none of the opposing team’s fans could watch games in Austin. So in my mind that pretty clearly eliminates Texas from consideration in the Big Ten. You can use this same argument when Mike suggests that UCLA join the Big East after the Big Ten poaches one of their programs for this round of expansion.
Samhan I Am. St. Mary’s 101, Portland State 80. Had St. Mary’s not lost to Vanderbilt by two points during Thanksgiving weekend, we’d probably be listing the Gaels as a ranked team and the name of Omar Samhan might be getting a little more publicity at this point. With tonight’s 61% shooting evening leading to another blowout win, St. Mary’s is currently 8-1 with solid road wins at Utah State and Oregon, and even though fellow WCCers San Diego and Portland were getting the early-season hype, it might be SMC as the team most likely to challenge Gonzaga as tops in the league again this year. The big reason is that Gonzaga has nobody like Omar Samhan, the 6′11 senior who dropped 31/17 tonight and is averaging 21/12/2 blks on 61% shooting for the year — his efficiency rating of 24.2 puts him in the neighborhood of some other players you may have heard of… namely Evan Turner, Luke Harangody, Aubrey Coleman, Quincy Pondexter and Manny Harris. Freshman guard Matthew Dellavedova is another player to watch on this team, as he’s averaging 14/3/4 assts and has a healthy 2:1 A/TO ratio. Don’t be alarmed with what we’re about to say, but those are actually better numbers than what Patty Mills put up as a rookie at St. Mary’s in 2008. The Gaels are definitely a team to watch as we head into the WCC this year.
Best Player You Don't Know (photo: Tod Fiemer)
Floriani Live. Rutgers 80, Rider 70 (OT). Ryan Thompson did not disappoint the nine or so NBA scouts in attendance. The Rider senior scored a game high 26 points while pulling down 8 rebounds. Rutgers adjusted and did a good job defending Thompson in the stretch and OT. “They (Rutgers) face guarded and denied him,” said Rider coach Tommy Dempsey. “Anytime he had the ball they had trouble staying in front of him.” Thompson shot 9 of 19 but forced only two of them and stayed within the framework of the offense. Another significant note for Rutgers: Mike Rosario scored 18 but was 5-17 from the floor. James Beatty, a junior guard, stepped up leading Rutgers with 21 points. Beatty was 6 of 8 beyond the arc and played some nice defense on Thompson in the stretch. “We recruited Beatty as a point but we knew he had several games in junior college where he knocked down about five treys. Tonight he had the looks, buried them and needs to do that.” Especially when Big East play starts for Rutgers just after the New Year.
Rutgers inside force Gregory Echinique will miss approximately a month due to eye surgery to correct a pre-existing condition recently. Which begs the question – if it was pre-existing, why not have the surgery during the offseason? Did it become aggravated? The 6′9 forward is averaging 13/8/2 blks on the season, and the Scarlet Knights will undoubtedly miss his presence in upcoming games against beefy frontlines at North Carolina, Cincinnati and West Virginia.
This is rich. Binghamton continues to pay coaching disaster Kevin Broadus his full $230k yearly salary while interim coach Mark Macon draws one-quarter as much money for, you know, actually coaching the remaining players on the team. At least Macon is getting a raise, although the amount of the increase was not disclosed by the university. As for Broadus, the “job” he’s earning six-figures for right now is to assist SUNY with their investigation into the Binghamton athletic department. What does that mean exactly? Get coffee? Make copies? Do both at the same time?
Luke Winn probably knocked this article about the first Irianian player in D1 basketball out in fifteen minutes while surfing his blackberry iPhone and eating a bran muffin, which should probably tell you something about the talent he has for research and writing. It would take us three straight weeks just to pen the first paragraph.
Memphisfiled an appeal against the NCAA’s decision to vacate its 2008 season based on the Derrick Rose SAT scandal, even with the distinct possibility that the school could face a harsher punishment than currently imposed if they did so. We’re not really keen on the NCAA Committee on Infractions using this heavyhanded method of leverage to try to force schools to swallow their initial decision just because they said so. Memphis correctly argued that this creates a “chilling effect” for schools that wish to use their legal right to appeal, and even cited language from a 2001 case against UNLV to that effect. We’re starting to wonder if someone at the NCAA lost a lot of money on Memphis that season, because this is taking the appearance of vindictiveness.
Jumping back to Tuesday’s discussion on Expansion 96, Andy Katzweighed in yesterday on his blog. He noted that recently deceased NCAA President Myles Brand was steadfastly opposed to expansion along with several of the other traditionalists, and we’re wondering if the power vacuum in Brand’s absence hasn’t created a bit of a money grab among some of the dissenters within the NCAA heirarchy. Let’s hope tradition wins out, or at worst, the option that Katz describes (four play-in games, pushing the Tourney up to 68 teams) is the preferred result if things must change.
This week’s selection for RTC Team of the Week was not as easy as last week’s as you will see when you look at our honorable mentions, which we didn’t even bother to do last week when we selected Syracuse as our inaugural team of the week. We had several potential choices, but when it was time to pick a team there was one school that stood above the rest – the #1 team in the country and the defending national champions (in football), the Florida Gators.
Coming into the season, we were not that high on Billy Donovan’s crew, who had failed to make the NCAA tournament in consecutive years after winning back-to-back titles. To further compound matters, they had lost heralded recruit Jai Lucas and their best player last year, Nick Calathes, decided to forgo his senior year to go play in Greece, which is a decision that still has us scratching our heads. After opening the season with three wins against Stetson, Georgia Southern, and Troy that could only be described as big in margin if not significance, the Gators had a significantly more difficult schedule with their annual rivalry game against Florida State and then headed to Atlantic City for the Legends Classic where they would open against #2 Michigan State.
We’re as surprised as you are Billy
The Gators traded baskets early with the Seminoles and were tied at 10 with 12:30 left in the 1st half before going on a 31-9 run that stretched into the 2nd half giving them a 41-19 lead. The Seminoles, who are still trying to find their identity without Toney Douglas, cut the lead to 5 at 43-38 with 12 minutes left. The Gators managed to stretch out the final margin to 16 behind a balanced scoring attack with 13 points apiece from Kenny Boynton, Erving Walker, and Alex Tyus. That win certainly boosted our respect for the Gators, but it was against a FSU team that didn’t have Douglas and it certainly wasn’t Tom Izzo’s Spartans that they would be facing in Atlantic City.
It was an odd weekend of basketball. The games weren’t all that interesting — at least when compared to Friday night, for example — but there was plenty to talk about when scores started rolling in. Mainly, it was a weekend that had few storylines other than Pac-10/SEC incompetence and prep work for all of the holiday tournaments that start this week.
Pac-10 Nightmare Saturday.
Loyola Marymount 67, USC 59. Will this ultimately be the worst BCS team loss of the entire season? LMU won a total of three games last season, and while the Lions are undoubtedly better, there is absolutely no excuse for them to beat a Pac-10 team on their homecourt. Ever. We understand that Kevin O’Neill has virtually no depth at his disposal, but come on…
Sacramento State 65, Oregon State 63. Regression to the mean on OSU this year? All the great work Craig Robinson put in to make a horrid team competitive seems to have gone by the wayside this year, as the Beavers laid another stinker against a team they should easily handle at home. Down 22 at the half, OSU rallied back behind Seth Tarver’s 14/10, but it was too little too late. The Pac-10 RPI continues to sink.
Portland 88, Oregon 81. This is actually the one loss that should have been expected, as Portland is likely to be the better team this year. Nik Raivio had 24/8 and his frontcourt mate had 17/8 as they shredded the Duck defense for 53% from the field and 58% from deep. This will end up being a win that Portland will look favorably upon later this season.
More Upsets This Weekend.
VCU 82, #17 Oklahoma 69. This seemed like a trap game when reviewing schedules, and it turned out to be one. Willie Warren had a disastrous game, shooting only 3-14 (0-8 from three) and committing six turnovers in the outing. Freshmen Tiny Gallon and Tommy Mason-Griffin combined for 25/18/6 assts, but VCU’s stars Larry Sanders (17/4/3 blks) and Jay Gavin (20/5/3 assts) outperformed them in Jeff Capel’s return trip to his old coaching haunt.
Temple 71, Siena 67. The Saints found themselves on the wrong end of a 13-0 second half run by Temple that gave up their hard-earned halftime lead. Juan Fernandez led the Owls with 20/3 assts, but it was Siena’s poor three-point shooting (1-9) that ultimately doomed them in this game. Alex Franklin had 22/6 and Ryan Rossiter had 8/11, but Siena will need to play better in coming weeks to make a push for an at-large should they not win the MAAC Tournament.
Vermont 77, Rutgers 71. Vermont should be proud to have gone into a Big East arena of a team that some expect to make waves this season and get a big win. Marqus Blakely did everything — 17/9/2 assts/4 stls/5 blks — as UVM gutted out a hard-fought victory in Piscataway.
Kansas State 83, #21 Dayton 75. Really not much of an upset, but a good team was going to leave Puerto Rico 1-2, and Dayton is the unlucky recipient. Jacob Pullen had 26/5/4 assts for K-State, while Dayton’s Chris Wright came through with 15/10 on the other side.
It’s Feast week and RTC Live will once again be covering games from coast to coast. This week is tournament-heavy, as we’ll have correspondents in Kansas City for the CBE Classic, Anaheim for the 76 Classic, New York for the Preseason NIT, Atlantic City for the Legends Classic, and Orlando for the Old Spice Classic. We’re not crazy enough to cover every game at these venues, but we will try to get ourselves to the best games for your live-blogging enjoyment. We may add a couple more games during the week, so check back periodically.
Wichita State vs. Pittsburgh (in Kansas City, MO) – 7:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – the undercard in terms of the evening, but probably the much better game. Pitt is trying to figure out how to move past the DeJuan Blair/Sam Young era without taking too many losses, and this will be a quasi-home game for the Shockers.
#3 Texas vs. Iowa (in Kansas City, MO) – 9:45 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – Iowa has already taken losses at the hands of Texas-San Antonio and Duquesne, so this could get extremely ugly for Todd Lickliter’s team in dealing with Texas’ hordes of young talent.
Tuesday November 24
CBE Classic Finals (in Kansas City, MO) - 10 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – we’d expect this one to match up Texas and Pitt, but it wouldn’t shock (heh) us if Wichita State ended up there instead of the Panthers. Either way it’s an opportunity to get another look at Rick Barnes’ outstanding freshmen corps of Jordan Hamilton, J’Covan Brown and Avery Bradley.
Wednesday November 25
#13 Connecticut vs. LSU (in New York, NY) – 7 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – the Huskies will have a home crowd as they return to NYC to take on a depleted LSU team that was the SEC champion last year. This doesn’t mean that UConn should sleep on the Tigers — Tasmin Mitchell and Bo Spencer are a formidable duo, and Trent Johnson knows how to coach.
#8 Duke vs. Arizona State (in New York, NY) – 9:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – Herb Sendek gets another look at Coach K in the nightcap, which would have been a spectacular game last season. Former Dookie Eric Boateng is averaging 12/8 for the Sun Devils, who come into this game scorching hot.
Thursday November 26
#24 Minnesota vs. #11 Butler (in Anaheim, CA) – 8:30 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – Butler continues its difficult nonconference schedule with an opportunity to play three ranked teams in three days at the 76 Classic, starting with Tubby Smith’s Gophers.
Portland vs. UCLA (in Anaheim, CA) - 10:45 pm ET (also on ESPN2) – UCLA bounced back from its loss to Fullerton with a win over Bakersfield, but Portland will be in a class above those teams. Howland’s team better be able to improve upon it’s 21.4% from three percentage if they hope to come out of the 76 Classic with a winning record.
Friday November 27
Preseason NIT Consolation & Finals (in New York, NY) – 2:30 pm & 5 pm (also on ESPN2/ESPN) – if everything goes according to plan here, we’ll have an undercard game of Arizona State vs. LSU followed by a blockbuster of #9 Duke vs. #12 Connecticut. You could spend your “Black Friday” afternoon fighting crowds in the stores, or you could watch some great early-season basketball with us — your choice.
76 Classic Semifinals (in Anaheim, CA) – 2:30 pm & 9:30 pm (also on ESPN/ESPNU) – we would expect to see two phenomenal games involving #8 West Virginia vs. #22 Clemson and UCLA vs. #11 Butler, but other teams such as Long Beach State, Texas A&M, Portland and Minnesota may have other ideas.
Saturday November 28
Legends Classic Consolation & Finals (in Atlantic City, NJ) - 5:30 pm & 8 pm (also on HDNet) – we’d expect to see an undercard of Florida vs. UMass in a run-n-gun showdown, followed by the finals featuring loaded #2 Michigan State vs. Rutgers in an upset bid in its home state.
Sunday November 29
Old Spice Classic Consolation & Finals (in Orlando, FL) – 5 pm & 7:30 pm (also on ESPNU/ESPN2) – there’s no telling who these teams will be at this point, but our best guess results in Creighton vs. Baylor as the consolation game and Florida State vs. #15 Michigan in the title tilt.
76 Classic Consolation & Finals (in Anaheim, CA) – 5pm & 10 pm (also on ESPN2) – again, this is a very difficult tournament to project, but if things go according to favorites, then we’ll see #24 Minnesota vs. #22 Clemson for third place and #8 West Virginia vs. #11 Butler in a slugfest for the 76 Classic title.
As I write this, the North Carolina men’s basketball team just finished off their second win of the 2009-10 season against North Carolina Central. The University of Kentucky squad will play their first game this Friday, November 13th against Morehead State. That means that as of right now, the UNC program has amassed 1,986 wins in its incredible history. UK will start this season with 1,988. From this, it looks like in the Race For 2,000, we have a real barnburner on our hands.
Well, if you’re a Tar Heel supporter and you’re reading this, I have some bad news. We don’t. To Wildcat fans: you can fire up the sewing machines and start creating that banner. Call the silkscreeners and start cranking out T-shirts. I’m calling it.
The wins have occurred over time in such a way that both programs will get to the 2,000-win mark early in this season’s schedule, and we know the early part of any season is a time of the year when many teams load their schedule with a fair number of cupcakes and a few big non-conference names thrown in there for RPI/strength-of-schedule boosting. UNC and UK have both done this for this season, and this is nothing new for anyone. This season started with UK leading the race with 1,988 wins to UNC’s 1,984. UNC’s early start this week pulls them to within two wins. So let’s see how the rest of their schedules look up until December 5th, when Kentucky and North Carolina meet up for a monumental clash at Rupp Arena:
North Carolina: Valparaiso, Ohio State (in NYC), California OR Syracuse (in NYC), Gardner-Webb, Nevada, Michigan State.
Kentucky: Morehead State, Miami (OH), Sam Houston State, Rider, Cleveland State, Stanford OR Virginia, UNC-Asheville.
For the sake of argument, let’s say both teams start the season perfectly up to this point. That’s no guarantee; UNC-Ohio State, UNC-California/Syracuse, or even UNC-Nevada could be interesting. Kentucky has it a little easier up to here, so we’re actually helping the Tar Heels by assuming a perfect start to the season. But let’s say it happens — this would put the race at UK with 1,995 and UNC with 1,992 going into the head-to-head matchup.
Over the course of the last ten weeks we’ve broken down sixty players from around the country whom we expect will have the biggest impact on college basketball this season. We performed this exercise geographically, choosing five high-major and one mid-major player from each of the somewhat arbitrary ten regions of the country. If you’d like to read through the individual regions (and we highly encourage that), you can check all ten here.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to read through all of the previous posts, we’ll summarize here for you by rating the strongest to the weakest regions.
(ed. note: we started this so long ago that Binghamton still had a promising basketball program, and DJ Rivera still had a place to play)
1. Lower Midwest Region (OH, IN, IL, IA, NE, KS)
Overview. This seemed pretty clear just at a first glance. Aldrich, Collins and Harangody are three of the 1st team AAs on the RTC preseason list, and Brackins and Turner are on the 2d team. This group has unbelievable scoring ability, size and experience. The only weak link is the mid-major inclusion of Eldridge, who is a fine player, but not in the class of the rest of these superstars. The nation’s heartland is the epicenter of college basketball talent this year.
Best Players Left Out. Where to start? The depth in this region is incredible. Gordon Hayward and Matt Howard at Butler, Robbie Hummell and E’Twaun Moore at Purdue, even Lance Stephenson at Cincinnati. The #6-10 players in this region would probably be better than all but a few of the other regions.
2. Mid-South Region (KY, TN, MO, AR, OK)
Overview. It was a very close call between this region and the South Atlantic, but we felt that the guard play of Warren and Wall with Anderson on the wing would compensate for what this team gives up in size. And it doesn’t give up much, considering Patterson, Smith and Jordan are all exceptional inside. Tough call, but Wall is the likely #1 pick, so he’s the x-factor.
Best Players Left Out. Plenty of raw size here, including Samardo Samuels at Louisville, Michael Washington at Arkansas and DeMarcus Cousins at Kentucky. Throw in the skilled size of AJ Ogilvy at Vanderbilt and Wayne Chism at Tennessee and this area will punish you on the interior.
3. South Atlantic Region (DC, VA, NC, SC, GA)
Overview. This is the third region that’s chock full of NBA talent – each of the rest below have smatterings of it, but not nearly as much. Aminu, Booker and Singler all define skilled versatility, while Monroe could end up the best big in the entire country if he wants it enough. Sanders is a little undersized but relentless as well.
Best Players Left Out. Ed Davis at UNC was a lighting rod topic, as some felt that he’d be an all-american this year with his length and skill set. Derrick Favors and Gani Lawal are two others. A good argument could be made that this region had the best players left out, but it sorta depends on how this year plays out due to their relative youth and inexperience.
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2010 conference tournaments | Tagged: anthony mason jr, big east tournament, bobby gonzalez, cincinnati, connecticut, depaul, herb pope, jamine peterson, jarrid famous, jerome dyson, jim calhoun, kemba walker, lance stephenson, mike rosario, providence, rutgers, seton hall, south florida, st johns | 
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