We continue unveiling our team-by-team breakdowns, in roughly the reverse order of where we expect these teams to finish in the conference standings.

Washington Huskies

Strengths.  Washington only has two seniors on its roster, but the pair will be the key to this team’s success. In the backcourt is C.J. Wilcox, who is arguably the top senior in the Pac-12. His pure stroke is enough alone to keep the Huskies in games this season, and he will be looking to top his 16.8 points per game average from last year. Wilcox is as versatile as ever, according to head coach Lorenzo Romar, and as he goes, so does Washington. The other senior is center Perris Blackwell, a one-year fix who spent his last three years at San Francisco. Blackwell provides a much-needed offensive presence and has enough talent to prevent opponents from overplaying the Husky guards like they did last year.

Wilcox Will Be The Key To Washington’s Success In 2013-14 (Credit: Dean Rutz)

Weaknesses. Matching six veterans and five newcomers expected to play immediately will be a challenge. Chemistry is a huge question, and if the Huskies don’t mesh quickly, opponents like Indiana, Connecticut and San Diego State will eat them alive. Wilcox needs to be a floor general and will have to bail out his teammates at times, which could be an uncomfortable spot for the senior.

Non-Conference Tests. Washington’s last three games before taking a break for Thanksgiving will give us a sense of just how improved the Huskies are. They’ll face Indiana and either Connecticut or Boston College on back-to-back nights in New York City before making the cross-country trip home to take on a Montana team that should win the Big Sky. Two of Washington’s first three games in the month of December will be played on the road against an elite mid-major (San Diego State), and one low mid-major (Tulane). Finally, following the road trip to New Orleans will be a visit from UConn, which could be the second Husky-on-Husky match-up in one month.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. This time of year is always preview heavy (we’ll start rolling out our own previews later today), and Athlon Sports breaks down Oregon in this piece. As they point out in the opening, Dana Altman and the Ducks are faced with another quick rebuilding effort, piecing together a roster full of experienced transfers that will keep the Ducks in the top third of the league despite losing key players like E.J. Singler and Arsalan Kazemi. The top priority this October will be finding a player in the post who can make up for the loss of Kazemi’s rebounding ability, and the guy that will get the first crack at it is sophomore Ben Carter. Oregon will take the court on October 27 against Northwest Christian to open its exhibition season and will face Georgetown on November 8 at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, to start regular season play.
2. Up the road in Corvallis, there are not a lot of preseason previews being published on Craig Robinson‘s Oregon State team, but the omnipotent presidential connection talk still hovers around the program. Robinson embraces it, though, enjoying the publicity that it brings to the school. “The one thing I know is that everybody knows the president’s brother-in-law works for Oregon State University,” said Robinson. “That’s great for a college.” It certainly doesn’t hurt recruiting, but the Beavers head coach will need to start showing better results on the court if he wants to stick around much longer in Corvallis.
3. California Golden Blogs has spent the last week previewing each facet of the 2013-14 Golden Bears, and this piece takes a look at the group of guards in Berkeley. Senior Justin Cobbs and sophomore Tyrone Wallace are slated to lead Cal at the one and two positions, not a bad combination with Cobbs’ outside shooting and Wallace’s perimeter defense. Click here to view the preview of Cal’s inexperienced post players, and click here to see the outlook on the wings. California opens its regular season on November 8 against Coppin State.
4. Shhhh. It’s that time of year for secret scrimmages, and one of the better ones this October (as far as we know), featured San Diego State at Stanford on Sunday. We will probably never know a result of the meeting, but if it does come out, know that senior Xavier Thames and sophomore Winston Shepard were questionable for San Diego State in that game. In the regular season, the Aztecs will host Arizona and Washington at Viejas Arena, with the possibility of a meeting with Arizona State in Fullerton.
5. We close with a fun video from Oregon, made by the Pit Crew student section and starring Dominic Artis and Damyean Dotson. If you are unfamiliar with the Vine Dunk Cam videos, take a few minutes, check out this one, and this one, and have a good chuckle. Oh, the things we resort to in the offseason.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to discussing the recruitments of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Note: Scout.com used for all player rankings.

Jayhawks Sign First Recruit For 2014

Last Tuesday, Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks landed five-star small forward Kelly Oubre from Houston, Texas. Oubre is currently the fourth-ranked small forward in the class and 11th overall and is the first player to make a commitment to the Jayhawks in the class of 2014.  The commitment took place after a whirlwind tour that first saw Oubre visit Lawrence for KU’s version of Midnight Madness, “Late Night in the Phog,” on October 4.  As soon as this event ended Oubre took a weekend trip to Colorado Springs to participate in the USA Developmental Camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center before returning back to school. After getting back, Oubre cancelled his upcoming official visit to Kentucky and on October 8 announced his intention to play for Kansas.

Kelly Oubre is Kansas’ Heir Apparent on the Wing

Oubre is a 6’6” athletic wing who is known for his outside shooting ability. Last year he led his Fort Bend Bush High School to the Texas State Championship where they ran into current Kentucky freshmen Andrew and Aaron Harrison. After averaging 22.7 points per game as a junior, Oubre made the decision to transfer to Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada. This past spring and summer Oubre shot up the national rankings with his play in the camps and on the AAU circuit. He joined two other five-star wings in Justin Jackson (#8 – Scout 2014) and Justise Winslow (#9 – Scout 2014) on the Houston Hoops AAU team which also played in the Nike EYBL. Oubre averaged 15.7 points and 6.5 rebounds per game while shooting 31.5% from the three-point line.

Kansas gets a small forward who is known for his effortless left-handed stroke. He prefers to launch threes from just below the foul line extended and can shoot out to NBA range. Oubre has the athleticism and skill to get to the basket and finish in the paint, but he prefers to rely on his shooting touch to get baskets. Sometimes this can get him into trouble when he continues to launch from deep when his shot is off. While this situation occurred several times during AAU play, Oubre turned in one of the top performances at the USA camp. Right now Kansas is also heavily involved with five-star power forward Cliff Alexander (#5 – Scout 2014) and five-star center Myles Turner (#2 – Scout 2014). Alexander joined Oubre in Lawrence for “Late Night” while Turner traveled to Colorado Springs for the USA Camp. The Jayhawks are also one of three finalists for the package duo of Jahlil Okafor (#1 – Scout 2014) and Tyus Jones (#4 – Scout 2014), both top five players nationally. Oubre got the ball rolling for the Jayhawks. Who’s next? Read the rest of this entry »

Bennet Hayes (@HoopsTraveler) is an RTC national columnist.

The tumult of conference realignment has hit few conferences harder than it has the Mountain West and Atlantic 10, but as we prepare to set sail on the 2013-14 season, both leagues again loom as the best college basketball has to offer outside the now “power seven” conferences. We touched on each league a little bit in yesterday’s Morning Five, but storylines abound in two leagues that have generated plenty of national buzz in recent years. Both are expected to maintain holds in the upper echelon of the mid-major hierarchy, but offseason membership changes have left things less certain than usual, especially in the A-10. The constant churn of programs jumping from conference to conference has left leagues in varying states of disarray, and 2013-14 finds both the Mountain West and Atlantic 10 at a crossroads. The challenges are different in each situation, but with the relatively uncertain future of today’s college basketball’s climate, another strong season in comparison with the high-majors would go a long ways towards stabilizing each of these traditionally strong conferences.

Kendall Williams And New Mexico Are Just One Of Many Teams With High Hopes In The Mountain West

This season’s iteration of the Mountain West is bigger, but is it better? The preseason poll released Tuesday offered confirmation of the general consensus surrounding newcomers Utah State and San Jose State: Stew Morrill and the Aggies should be a factor in the top half of the conference, while the Spartans, despite their eye-catching new floor, are likely to be MW doormats. But even if Utah State matches or exceeds expectations in their conference debut, the conference as a whole will struggle to replicate the success of 2012-13 – those good old days when the MW was number one in conference RPI (no typo). The trio at the top of this year’s preseason poll all have a chance at replicating, or even improving upon, their successful campaigns of a year ago.

The return of preseason MW POY Kendall Williams and first teamer Alex Kirk has left New Mexico as the conference’s presumptive favorite: the Lobos earned all but one of 24 first place votes. A talented but overhauled UNLV squad scooped up that final first place vote, while Boise State’s return of nearly every key contributor earned the Broncos enough acclaim to tie for second with the Rebels in the poll. The Morning Five highlighted another talented San Diego State roster that sits behind those three teams in the eyes of the media, and let’s face it — it’s probably time we start giving Steve Fisher the benefit of the doubt – the Aztecs are an annual factor out west. But behind the Aztecs and Aggies (Utah State was picked to finish fifth) lies much of the intrigue in this year’s MW. A season ago, the four non-Tournament teams (Air Force, Wyoming, Fresno State and Nevada) were all extremely competitive, especially on their home floors. Their strength was a big reason for that heady conference RPI. This year’s bottom half again appears feisty, with a couple of teams – Nevada (#9) and Fresno State (#8) appearing especially undervalued in the preseason evaluations. Nobody – inside our outside the league — is expecting the MW to finish atop the conference RPI again this season. But another solid campaign, on the heels of that banner season of a year ago, would be awfully sound validation of a league unprepared to leave the national consciousness anytime soon.

Read the rest of this entry »

October is here, and that means we are just weeks away from real, live basketball games. In order to prepare you for the first two months of the season, we’re going to break down all 12 non-conference slates over the next couple of weeks. Up first; the Washington schools.

Teams are listed in order of which they will be played. Last season’s RPI in parenthesis. Potential opponents (one round in advance) are italicized. All times listed are Pacific.

Washington

Lorenzo Romar’s Program Is on Shaky Ground Right Now (Geoffrey McAllister, AP)

Cream of the Crop: vs Indiana (8), @ San Diego State (30)

Washington has a pair of marquee opponents on its non-conference slate this season. The Huskies will face Indiana in New York City on November 21, in a game to be televised by ESPN2 at 6:00 PM. The Hoosiers finished 2012-13 with a 29-7 record and lost to Syracuse in the Sweet Sixteen. Replacing their two leading scorers (and lottery picks) from last year will be of top importance heading into the season, and Washington will be IU’s first test. Equally as tough will be the trip to Viejas Arena to open the month of December. Senior guard Chase Tapley, and of course, the raucous student section known as The Show, will be waiting for the Dawgs. The game will be televised by CBS Sports Network at 12:05 PM on December 8.

Solid Names: UC Irvine (126), vs Boston College (113), Montana (74), Long Beach State (115), @ Tulane (178), Connecticut (49)

Connecticut headlines the second tier, and Washington could actually face the other Huskies twice this season, depending on how the 2KSports Classic shakes out. The scheduled match-up will be the final game before Christmas break, tipping off at 12:30 PM on ESPNU. When the two teams met last season in Hartford, freshman Omar Calhoun picked apart UW in UConn’s eight-point win. Now that Lorenzo Romar and company will get them in front of their own Dawg Pound, it says here that Washington gets a big revenge victory heading into the holiday. Northwest rival Montana could present a challenge. The Huskies always seem to drop a head-scratching home game or two (South Dakota State two years back, Albany and Nevada last season), and the Grizzlies are a likely candidate to continue the tradition. Seniors Mathias Ward and Kareem Jamar, both who averaged over 14 PPG last season, will lead a balanced Montana attack on the offensive end of the floor.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. It didn’t take long for Appalachian State to turn the tables after the media began to attack the school for not releasing Devontae Graham from his National Letter of Intent. Graham, who recently shot up the recruiting rankings, was a lightly regarded recruit when he signed with Appalachian State and now is at Brewster Academy. Now that Graham is more highly regarded he is looking to be released from the Letter of Intent to look at more high-profile schools. After receiving a great deal of media criticism for not complying with Gardner’s wishes the school issued a release accusing North Carolina State of tampering. On the surface we might question the accusation, but when you consider that Graham played with Mark Gottfried’s son the accusation becomes a little more interesting. Oh, and the two schools play each other on November 8. That should be a fun post-game handshake.
2. It seems like we are writing more about “pay-For-play” than any other topic these days, but it seems like that is the major topic that everybody seems to be focused in on. Two of the better takes on the issue over the weekend came from Michael Rosenberg, who says “Pay-for-play is not the issue”, and Gary Walters (Princeton AD and former member of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee), who says the debate over stipends obscures the bigger issues within sports. Most of the analysis that we have linked to and provided has focused on the pure economics of the issue, but if you want to read nuanced takes on the philosophical dilemmas surrounding the NCAA these are a great place to start.
3. As we mentioned last week, Sports Illustrated‘s Andy Glockner was making his way through the top 20 current college programs. On Friday, Glockner concluded with his top five programs. The five programs (in order)–Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, and Michigan State–should not come as any surprise and we don’t have any issue with the order either although we can understand how some people may have issues with Kentucky and North Carolina given their inconsistency lately. It was an issue that we dealt with back in 2009 when we complied our Team of the 2000s rankings and was the primary source of debate at the time. Looking back on our rankings and what Glockner came out with it is interesting to see how much some programs moved up (Kentucky didn’t even make honorable mention–hello, Billy Gillispie) while others have fallen off considerably (particularly Maryland), but for the most part the order has remained relatively constant.
4. One of the things we love about rankings is the methodology used to create them. We already discussed Andy Glockner’s college basketball program rankings and as we said we don’t particularly have any major issues with his rankings, but we do with the National College Scouting Association “Power Rankings”. The NCSA, which as far as we can tell is a recruiting agency, put together a ranking list of the top college programs by averaging their US News & World Report ranking, Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup ranking, and graduation rate. Their selection of Duke is not particularly notable (although it led one assistant coach at Duke to proudly announce it), but the methodology seems deeply flawed. Aside from our issues with the US News & World Report rankings, which mirror most of what you have read about those rankings over the past decade, the use of graduation rates, which can be played with, and comparing Division I programs to Division III programs in terms of athletic performance seems debatable at best. The equal weighting of the different rankings creates some interesting outcomes particularly when Florida comes in at 240th in graduation rates bringing them down the 82nd overall despite coming in 2nd in the Directors’ Cup rankings. And then there is Colorado School of Mines coming in 39th overall despite a fairly unimpressive US News & World Report ranking and a mediocre graduation rate thanks to a 10th place showing in the Division II Directors’ Cup.
5. Over the past few years we have witnessed many cases of devastating diseases taking away many coaches and their family members. Still the news that Mark Fisher, the son of San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating progressive neurodegenerative disease more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. According to reports, those within the program have known about Fisher’s condition for over two years, but possibly with the progression he has had his role reassigned from being assistant coach to assistant to the head coach while several other members of the staff shift up a spot to fill his void. Neither the school nor other members of the team provided much more detail on Fisher’s condition or what prompted the announcement/change so as always in these situations we will simply wish Fisher and his family the best as they deal with this condition.

Bennet Hayes is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @HoopsTraveler. Periodically throughout the preseason, RTC will take an in-depth look at the schedules of some of the more prominent teams in college basketball.

Sean Miller’s fifth season in Tuscon could easily turn out to be his best. Despite the graduation of key seniors Solomon Hill (a first round pick in the 2013 NBA Draft), Mark Lyons, and Kevin Parrom – in addition to the surprising departure of freshman Grant Jerrett to the professional ranks, Miller has assembled the most talented roster that Arizona has seen in quite some time. A solid Pac-12 conference and challenging non-conference schedule will challenge the Cats’, but a nice blend of returnees and newcomers should give the man at the helm ample leeway to steer this storied program deep into March.

Nick Johnson will be asked to do more — both on and off the court — for this young but talented Wildcat team

• Team Outlook: This will be a new-look Arizona team, as last year’s squad was built around departed seniors Lyons and Hill. Some familiar faces will be back and poised to fill leadership roles this time around, with junior Nick Johnson (11.5 PPG, 3.2 APG, 1.9 SPG) most prominent among them. The athletic two-guard shot the ball better from three-point range as a sophomore (39% after 32% as a freshman), and should also serve as the Cats’ best perimeter defender in 2013-14. Sophomores Kaleb Tarczewski (6.6 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 22.2 MPG) and Brandon Ashley (7.5 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 20.5 MPG) return to anchor the frontcourt, with each likely seeing a slight minutes increase, despite the arrival of a duo of freshman studs in the same frontcourt. Both Aaron Gordon and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson were McDonald’s All-Americans last spring, and immense immediate contributions from both freshmen would surprise no one. Gordon especially shapes up as a good candidate for a jump to the NBA after a season of stardom in Tuscon, as he is currently projected as a Top-20 pick in the 2014 draft on NBADraft.net. Gordon’s production will be one of the keys to this Wildcat season, but he may not be Sean Miller’s most important player. Duquesne transfer T.J. McConnell (11.4 PPG, 5.5 APG, 2.8 SPG in 2011-12) will be filling Lyons’ shoes and running the show in Tucson this season. McConnell was an efficient lead guard in the Atlantic-10 and should quickly acclimate to the Pac-12, but the absence of proven ball-handlers elsewhere on the roster means his transition has to be a smooth one for Arizona to be successful. He will be a welcomed change-of-pace for teammates used to the shoot-first Lyons dominating the ball, and his steal % of 4.7 (12^th best in the nation in 2012) is ample indication of a dedication to both ends. The talented youngsters around him will keep expectations low for McConnell individually, but don’t be shocked if he emerges as the leader of this club. Read the rest of this entry »

Bennet Hayes is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @HoopsTraveler. Periodically throughout the preseason, RTC will take an in-depth look at the schedules of some of the more prominent teams in college basketball.

We have seen rapid and successful overhauls in Lawrence before, but perhaps never on this scale. Kansas is short five starters from a year ago, and in their wake arrives a decorated freshman class headed by a once-in-a-generation talent. Commitments from top-50 recruits Joel Embiid, Wayne Selden, and Conner Francamp had Jayhawk fans believing a quick rebuild was possible, but it was the May signing of Andrew Wiggins, the top player in the high school class of 2013, that has turned hope into belief. Another Big 12 championship and a return to the Sweet 16 would no longer constitute a brilliant coaching job by Bill Self, a man who has crafted many of them. Wiggins’ presence on campus has not only turned those achievements into mere expectations, but also transports hope to Lawrence that the ultimate prize – a National Title – is again a realistic possibility.

Could Perry Ellis Emerge As The Most Valuable Jayhawk Not Named Andrew Wiggins This Season?

• Team Outlook: Wiggins’ talent and projected impact has been well-documented, but even if he becomes the star he is expected to be, the Jayhawks will still need to develop the supporting cast around him. Perry Ellis (5.8 PPG, 3.9 RPG) is the one returnee that will almost definitely be a key part of that equation, but Nadiir Tharpe (5.5 PPG, 3.1 APG) and Jamari Traylor (2.1 PPG, 2.1 RPG) should also see minutes. We have seen Jayhawk role players emerge into key contributors after an offseason before, but no matter what happens with that trio, Bill Self will surely be relying on newcomers not named Wiggins to carry the load. Prime among them are freshmen Wayne Selden and Joel Embiid, who are expected to take over starting duties at shooting guard and center, respectively. Like Wiggins, both are projected as top-ten picks in next year’s NBA draft, so it’s a distinct possibility that this could be their lone rodeo in Lawrence. That being said, both need to add significant polish to their games, and despite the top-ten ranking recruiting gurus bestowed upon him, Embiid even drags the “project” title with him to Kansas. Freshmen guards Conner Frankamp and Brannen Greene are also consensus Top-100 recruits, and both will have the opportunity to compete with Tharpe and Selden for minutes in the Kansas backcourt. Rounding out the frontcourt rotation is Memphis transfer Tarik Black (8.1 PPG, 4.8 RPG) and redshirt freshman Landen Lucas. Black’s addition was another significant coup for Self this offseason, as he provides the Jayhawks with a player who has actually been through it all before at the college level. Black, like nearly every Jayhawk outside of Wiggins, could end up as a thirty-minute a game starter, a marginalized bit player, or nearly anything in between. There is tons of talent in Lawrence and a superstar to headline the show, but much of the onus for the destination of this Jayhawk campaign rests on Bill Self and how he fits all the pieces together – something Jayhawk fans should feel pretty good about. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Tonight’s Lede. Florida Gulf Coast Does It Again. Outside of the weak frontrunner status placed upon Louisville after a dominant Big East Tournament run, there wasn’t a whole lot college basketball fans could agree on heading into the NCAA Tournament. Common ground could be found on one particular item: there were going to be upsets. Lots of them. The “no dominant team” theme is a tired headline, but it bears repeating on a night like this, when a No. 15 seed punched its ticket to the Sweet 16 for the first time in Tournament history. We’re down to 16 teams now, but even in a year when chalky, seed-predictable, docile bracket proceedings were far from the main expectation, I don’t think anybody saw this coming…

Your watercooler moment. A Story Everyone Can Get Behind: FCGU.

Nothing more strongly embodies the spirit of March Madness than high-seeded underdogs. Last season’s edition gave us Norfolk State and Lehigh – on the same day, no less – reveling in the national spotlight, 15-seed brothers-in-arms taking the college hoops world by storm. CJ McCollum was the best and most entertaining star nobody had heard of. Kyle O’Quinn was a wide-grinned big man with NBA aspirations. Fast track one year later, and this season’s captivating March underdog story is nothing like anything we’ve ever seen before. Florida Gulf Coast doesn’t have one leading protagonist (besides maybe its head coach, Andy Enfield, who – for reasons basketball-related and not – is something of a hero for every man not partial to Georgetown or San Diego State) or even a specific stylistic strength to explain its remarkable run into the second weekend. The best way to describe it is a cocky but measured confidence, a newfound flamboyance, a heightened sense of what it means to own the spotlight. And all of it comes together to produce the most thrilling on-court product of recent memory. There are dunks and heel-clicks and impossibly hilarious bird-imitating dances and, of course, dunk city. The Florida Gulf Coast Eagles have stolen the show and I don’t see them giving it back any time soon. Until they meet Florida in this week’s Sweet 16 showdown – and seriously, if they win that game, I give up – stories will be written, lives will be unearthed, and the nation will come to embrace college basketball’s most unlikely March heroes.

Sunday’s Quick Hits…

• As Expected, The Big Ten is Dominating. All season the Big Ten was drowned in plaudits and glowing recommendations for its upper-tier strength and top-to-bottom quality. The Big Ten was good, and everybody kind of agreed the league was miles ahead of the rest. Now the NCAA Tournament is confirming our suspicions: after Indiana and Ohio State moved past Temple and Iowa State, respectively, Sunday, the Big Ten is 10-3 in tourney competition and can lay claim to one-fourth of the Sweet 16 field. The Hoosiers, Buckeyes, Michigan State and Michigan hovered near the top of the polls all season, and were just as impressive when gauged on per-possession efficiency metrics (as of Sunday, none ranked lower than eighth in Ken Pomeroy’s metrics). To see that play out on the sport’s biggest stage is, for someone who analyzes the game year-round like me, and for fans who have feted their league’s dominance from Midnight madness to March madness, reassuring.
• The West is Kind of Insane. In a bracket littered with uncertainty and parity, the West region exists in its own province of unpredictability. Ohio State is the only team that has lived up to its seed thus far, and faces as wide-open a path to the Final Four as contender left in the field. The top half of the region will pit Wichita State and – following Sunday’s nail-biting win over Ole Miss – La Salle, who needs just two more wins to go from First Four to Final Four, VCU style, and bring even more wackiness to the field’s weirdest quartile. The Explorers haven’t gotten this far in the Tournament since 1955, but if their stable of talented guards – Ramon Galloway, Tyreek Duren and Tyrone Garland, who skied in the lane with 2.5 seconds left to ice the game with a deft right-handed finish – stay hot, the Final Four is well within their grasps.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brian Otskey (@botskey) is in Philadelphia for tonight’s Third Round NCAA Tournament games and filed this report after Florida Gulf Coast’s victory over San Diego State.

Three key takeaways:

The First #15 Seed to Ever Reach the Sweet Sixteen: Florida Gulf Coast

1. History. For the first time in the 75-year history of the NCAA Tournament, a No. 15 seed has advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. Florida Gulf Coast, a little-known school from Fort Meyers, has advanced to play the Florida Gators in Arlington later this week. This team absolutely dismantled two very good teams on its way, Georgetown and San Diego State. Regardless of what happens against the Gators, this will go down as one of, if not the most improbable runs in the history of the NCAA Tournament.
2. Florida Gulf Coast played its style and never let up. Head coach Andy Enfield said after the Georgetown game that he told his team to play “FGCU basketball.” That’s exactly what it did tonight. The Eagles pushed the pace and showed no fear in taking it right to San Diego State. Florida Gulf Coast forced 17 turnovers and turned them into 22 points, a key to any team that prefers an up-tempo style. This game quickly snowballed out of control for San Diego State and the Eagles never gave it a chance to recover or make a run at them late in the game. It was total FGCU dominance down the stretch.
3. You can’t fault San Diego State. The Aztecs were in this game for most of it but simply ran into a buzz saw with nothing to lose over the final 10 minutes of the game. Steve Fisher’s club put up 71 points but just was overwhelmed by the Eagles.  Florida Gulf Coast went on a 17-0 run in the second half that sealed it, fueled by the energy of this crowd and their own incredible confidence. It was a dominating second half, one in which San Diego State had no chance after

Star of the Game:  Brett Comer, Florida Gulf Coast. Austin Rivers’ former high school teammate is making quite the name for himself. Comer electrified the Philadelphia crowd once again by pushing the pace and making some incredible passes along the way. Comer controlled the tempo of the game and recorded 14 assists to just three turnovers. How this kid slipped through the recruiting cracks is anyone’s guess. Given the way he played in these two games, Comer would have a spot on almost any major conference team.

Read the rest of this entry »