southern miss – Rush The Court

O26 Weekly Awards: BYU, Derrick Marks, Bruiser Flint & Southern Miss…

Tommy Lemoine — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 15:31:22 +0000

Throughout the season, the Other 26 microsite will run down our weekly superlatives, including team, player, coach and whatever else strikes our fancy in that week’s edition.

O26 Team of the Week

BYU pulled off a stunner in Spokane. (Young Kwak / AP)

BYU. Want to know how to get back in the NCAA Tournament discussion? Beat the third-ranked team in the country on its own floor. Snap its nation-leading 41-game home winning streak. Ruin its chance for a No. 1 seed. That might do it. Not only was BYU’s 73-70 victory over Gonzaga on Saturday one of the biggest victories [...]

A Column of Enchantment: On Charter Planes, Losers & Bill Self Crazy Like a Walrus

Joseph Nardone — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:01:28 +0000

This past week was a good one in the world of college basketball. We had things ranging from last second shot attempts to schools imposing some “stiff” penalties on their own beings to finding out that the NCAA is incapable of properly booking flights. All in all, really, just some good ole fun courtesy of some unpaid labor doing terrific things and people who keep the unpaid labor from being paid being about as smart as a bag of rocks. Good times.

Obligatory. (USA Today Images)

Those types of things are not trends, however. Rather, they are themes that seem [...]

Morning Five: 01.22.15 Edition

nvr1983 — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:15:10 +0000

In hopes of lessening potential NCAA penalties from an investigation into what happened during the Donnie Tyndall era, Southern Mississippi has decided to self-impose a postseason ban for this season. As you may remember from a few months ago, the allegations around the program reportedly involve how tuition and other expenses were paid for recruits who signed with the school, but were not yet eligible for scholarships. While the school says “this self-imposed penalty was painful” in reality the team is 5-11 this season under new coach Doc Sadler having lost eight straight including their first five in Conference USA [...]

NIT Quarterfinal Preview: How Three O26 Schools Can Reach Madison Square Garden

Tommy Lemoine — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 21:01:45 +0000

With Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech and Belmont all playing in the NIT Quarterfinals tonight and tomorrow, let’s examine what it will take for each O26 hopeful to reach the Big Apple next week.

Southern Miss

Southern Miss will give Minnesota all it can handle in The Barn tonight. (RYAN MOORE — AP)

Opponent: Minnesota TV: 9:00 PM ET, ESPN, Tuesday (Minneapolis, MN) How they got here: The Golden Eagles hosted Toledo in the First Round, handling the Rockets 66-59, before knocking off Missouri on the road by eight. In the two victories, they outrebounded their opponents by nine boards on the offensive glass. Why they win: Southern [...]

O26 Resume Review: Atlantic 10, Conference USA, BYU & Green Bay…

Adam Stillman — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:31:22 +0000

We’re just a few days from Selection Sunday. Let’s take stock of how the O26 conference teams and their resumes stack up in the final days before that fateful day.

Atlantic 10

Locks: Saint Louis, VCU, Massachusetts, George Washington Work to do: Dayton, Saint Joseph’s

The Atlantic 10 seems looks to be a safe bet for five bids to the NCAA Tournament, with six being a very real possibility. And this is coming a year after the league lost Butler, Temple, Xavier and Charlotte to realignment. It’s been a banner season for the A-10. But is there a Final Four threat in the bunch? [...]

Conference Tournament Primer: Conference USA

Adam Stillman — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:31:38 +0000

Championship Fortnight continues with another conference tourney tipping off today, so what better way to get you through the next week of games than to break down each of the Other 26′s postseason events. Today, Conference USA gets started.

Dates: March 11-15 Site: Haskins Center (El Paso, Texas)

What to expect: Four teams tied for first during the regular season at 13-3 — Louisiana Tech, Tulsa, Middle Tennessee, and Southern Miss — and they’ll be seeded in that order here. Without much of a chance for at-large bids, the C-USA tourney should be a dogfight between those top four. Semifinal Friday should be a [...]

O26 Weekly Awards: New Mexico, Jeremy Ingram, Donnie Tyndall & ECU…

Tommy Lemoine — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 22:01:40 +0000

Think about it, folks: this time next week, it will be March. Let that sink in for a minute… Now let’s take a step back and give some recognition to several of last week’s top performers and performances.

O26 Team of the Week

The Lobos made it loud and clear that they’re legitimate. (Stephen R. Sylvanie/USA TODAY Sports)

New Mexico. If the Lobos made one thing abundantly clear last week, it’s this: They are every bit the team we thought they were back in the preseason (they are who we thought they were!). While San Diego State has captured the lofty [...]

O26 Game of the Week: SDSU at The Pit, Gonzaga-BYU, Others…

Tommy Lemoine — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 22:31:30 +0000

Each week the O26 microsite will run down the biggest upcoming game of the week as well as a handful of others to keep an eye on.

San Diego State (22-2) at New Mexico (19-5) – 10:00 PM ET, ESPN2, Saturday

This game — this week — is a huge one for New Mexico. If it can avenge an early loss to UNLV tonight in Las Vegas, Craig Neal’s team will return home on Saturday with a chance to pull even with San Diego State atop the Mountain West standings and solidify itself as an NCAA Tournament lock. Up to this point, the only major [...]

O26 Resume Review: Bubble Watch Edition

Adam Stillman — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 22:01:39 +0000

We are less than a month from Selection Sunday. The bubble picture is as unsettled as ever. So what better time to do a complete O26 resume review? Instead of reviewing teams that helped and hurt their profiles this past week, however, let’s take a look at all the legitimate at-large candidates among the O26 conferences.

Atlantic 10

Locks: Saint Louis Should be in: Massachusetts, VCU Work to do: George Washington, Richmond, Saint Joseph’s, Dayton

There is no way SLU (23-2) misses at this point. The Billikens are ranked in the top 10 for the first time since 1964, boast a #11 RPI and hold [...]

O26 Resume Review: St. Joe’s, Dayton, BYU, Southern Miss & Boise State…

Adam Stillman — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:31:10 +0000

There wasn’t a whole lot of movement in the O26 bubble picture this past week. We’ve seen teams projected safely in the field continue to cement that status — Wichita State, San Diego State, Saint Louis, etc. — and another couple squads with a gaudy records but subpar SOS and RPI numbers take themselves completely out of the at-large discussion — Harvard and Green Bay. While there weren’t many teams that picked up resume-making wins last week — most tread water or broke a little above even — we also didn’t see all that many teams exacerbate things with horrible [...]

O26 Storylines: Boise State, Indiana State and Southern Miss…

Adam Stillman — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 20:31:35 +0000

I’m beginning to think nobody wants a bid to the NCAA Tournament. At least not any of the O26 teams that are considered on the bubble. A couple more teams seemingly withdrew their names from consideration this past week, and that’s the laser focus of this week’s O26 Storylines post. While Wichita State’s ongoing quest for perfection is a no-brainer for storyline of the week, we already wrote about the Shockers here and here. And even though Sacramento State delivered maybe the most improbable finish of the season, it really doesn’t have any meaningful ramifications.

Are Boise State’s at-large NCAA Tournament [...]

RTC Big East Microsite Week in Review

Dan Lyons — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 00:45:44 +0000

The 2013-14 college basketball season is off and running, and it was a really interesting week for the Big East conference, which saw a number of teams compete in big non-conference games. Only half of the teams in the league remain unscathed, so there may be some shuffling in our power rankings this week.

Few players in the entire nation have had the start that Doug McDemott has this season.

Week One Power Rankings

10.) DePaul (2-1), Last Week (10): The Blue Demons very nearly knocked off a Southern Miss team that many expect to be among the top squads [...]

Evaluating AAC Non-Conference Schedules: The Bad and the Ugly…

CD Bradley — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 14:45:54 +0000

We looked at the best of the AAC non-conference schedules in Part I, after explaining a bit of what makes for a good non-conference schedule. This season, there’s quite a bit more bad than good, which could drag down the collective RPIs of AAC members and ultimately lead to lower NCAA Tournament seeds come March.

Larry Brown’s SMU Mustangs, a popular sleeper pick, have a lot riding on a trip to Virginia.

The Bad

Cincinnati: The Bearcats return the favor of a visit last season from MW favorite New Mexico with a road trip of their own to The [...]

ATB: More Uncertainty Atop the Big Ten, a Mini-Brawl at Purcell Pavilion and DJ Cooper’s Immense Achievement…

Chris Johnson — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:01:12 +0000

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

Tonight’s Lede. Conference Tournaments, Y’all. The first conference tournament of 2013 slipped under the radar. If you missed it – and no one’s scolding you for passing on the opening round of the Big South Tournament – you can be forgiven. The smallest minnows of the mid-major world are long conditioned to early-round negligence in their conference tournaments. Just promise me one thing: When the mid-major tourney bombardment begins in earnest tomorrow, for the rest of the week and leading up until the Power Six tourneys, you will at least [...]

Does the Xavier Loss Reveal the Arc of Memphis’ Season?

Will Tucker — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:03:00 +0000

Will Tucker is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after last night’s game between Memphis and Xavier in Cincinnati.

Xavier outlasted Memphis, 64-62, in a game that exposed systemic weaknesses in Josh Pastner’s team fewer than three weeks from Selection Sunday. The Tigers entered the Cintas Center tied for the nation’s longest winning streak and boasting top-20 rankings in both the national polls and RPI. Their visit to Cincinnati represented the first of three consecutive road trips against potential RPI top-100 opponents, opportunities to combat the perennial whispers of “paper tiger” that pepper discussion of their Conference USA record. It [...]