st mary’s – Rush The Court

What’s Trending: Conference Tournament Weekend

Matt Eisenberg — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 15:01:40 +0000

What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.

This is March.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 15, 2019

The second week of conference tournaments began with many questions, the biggest of which focused on a certain 6’7″, 285-pound freshman in Durham, North Carolina. For the past few weeks, questions about Zion Williamson and whether he would — or should — return to play for Duke have been thrown around by nearly everyone. It took the superstar forward all of two minutes of game time to show everyone [...]

Seven O26 Players You Should Know Before March

Tommy Lemoine — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 18:21:00 +0000

Every NCAA Tournament there is at least one unknown player from a little-known school who captures the nation’s attention. Sometimes for a half, sometimes for a game, sometimes for a magical run to the second weekend. Here are some of the likeliest O26 candidates to reach the Dance and put on a show next month.

Don’t know much about Chandler Hutchison? You might come March. (Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman via AP)

Jaylen Adams – St. Bonaventure. Adams was named to the Preseason Wooden Award Top 50 for the second straight season, which made his early absence extra disappointing. Luckily, Adams made [...]

The Extremely Tough Road Mids Face in Earning #1 Seeds

Shane McNichol — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 15:01:55 +0000

A quick glance at the top of the college basketball rankings reveals that blue-bloods roam the landscape. Duke, North Carolina, Indiana, UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky and defending champion Villanova all currently inhabit the top 10. For a mid-major school, the path to a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament is fraught with so many hurdles that it may seem all impossible. This is certainly not a new development, of course, as 37 of the last 40 top seeds in the Big Dance came from a power conference — the exceptions were Wichita State (2014), Gonzaga (2013) and Memphis (2008). Those three teams from the Missouri Valley Conference, [...]

It’s a Make or Break Week for the Pac-12

RJ Abeytia — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 21:45:28 +0000

After a sizzling opening weekend followed by some Feast Week struggles, the Pac-12 finds itself facing a potential do or die week in terms of its national perception. Three teams will be front and center this week under the bright lights of ESPN and CBS, and after 71 games and even with all of December left, chances are it will be this week’s main events that set the tone for the Pac-12 come March. Part of the concentration on these games stems from factors out of the league’s control. Oregon’s injury issues have left it a shell of the team most expected [...]

2016-17 RTC Top 25: Preseason Edition

Walker Carey — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 15:31:09 +0000

And so it begins — that wonderful time of year when we again hear familiar voices on the television and our favorite teams playing college basketball games that count. It is a beautiful time, indeed. With a sizable slate of games commencing this evening, we officially unveil the RTC 2016-17 Preseason Top 25. This poll will hold for about the next 10 days or so, but you can expect our weekly regular season poll to come out every Monday morning starting on November 21. Along with the RTC25 rankings will be the usual quick and dirty analysis that dives a bit more deeply [...]

St. Mary’s: The Best Team No One Knows About

William Ezekowitz — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 17:12:52 +0000

The Saint Mary’s Gaels have risen from seemingly nowhere to become one of the best teams in the country. Quite likely, they are the best team that you know nothing about. But you may be forgiven for your ignorance, because the revolution has rarely been televised. In the seventeen games the Gaels have played, they have appeared on national television (if you call ESPNU national television) just twice: once in November when they beat Stanford by 17, and then again on New Year’s Eve, when they beat BYU by 11. Now, here they are, poised to soundly defeat Gonzaga (that’s right, soundly) [...]

RTC Weekly Primer: SEC Squishy Middle, Love for Big 12, Coach 1K, More…

Henry Bushnell — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 22:21:27 +0000

Okay, okay, we get it… the Big 12 is awesome. I’ve made that pretty clear in past columns, and you probably don’t need me to tell you something so obvious. Monday night offered up yet another prominent example, when a “Kansas is back to its dominant self” narrative in the first half against Oklahoma turned into one of the best games of conference play this season. But rather than raving about it, let’s think big picture: What do we make of the Big 12 race? A few teams will definitely be involved. One is Kansas, of course, which hasn’t missed out on at least [...]

Checking In On… the WCC

Michael Vernetti — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 18:01:17 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the Rush the Court’s correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Looking Back

Maybe finals were unusually hard this year, causing a build-up of aggression within WCC members. Maybe the conference is ready to establish itself alongside the Mountain West as one of the best outside the Power Five. Whatever the motivation, conference schools celebrated their first post-finals games with a handful of memorable efforts on Saturday.

Kyle Wiltjer has fit right in with a talented Gonzaga squad. (AP)

Gonzaga toyed with UCLA as if the Bruins were a middling WCC opponent, leading wire-to-wire in an 87-74 romp at Pauley Pavilion. Saint [...]

O26 Weekly Awards: SMC, D.J. Balentine, Kyle Smith, Incarnate Word…

Tommy Lemoine — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 16:31:02 +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

Saint Mary’s. It’s a full month into the season and we still didn’t know much about the Gaels before last weekend. They were transfer-laden, proficient on offense and led by Brad Waldow (21.1 PPG, 10.1 RPG) down low – that much we understood – but Randy Bennett’s club had yet to play a road contest (or even leave Moraga) through its first six games. And aside from a pair of solid wins [...]

Pac-12 M5: 02.19.14 Edition

Connor Pelton (@ConnorPelton28) — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 16:01:22 +0000

So, late on Monday night I am navigating my way through the college basketball hub on ESPN.com, and I find this piece with different writers making predictions for the rest of the season that will either make them look smart or stupid. About a quarter of the way down the page is the headline “Take notice of the champs… and Oregon State“. John Gasaway’s “prediction that will make him look stupid” is centered around the Beavers upsetting UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament championship, giving the program its first trip to the Big Dance since 1990. Stupid or not, a prediction is [...]

Morning Five: 12.26.13 Edition

nvr1983 — Thu, 26 Dec 2013 13:00:53 +0000

We hope all of you had an enjoyable Christmas holiday yesterday. Fortunately for college basketball programs across the country it was an uneventful day as the only news that happens for programs on holidays and it appears that players (and coaches) across the nation were on their best behavior yesterday. Today should be more of the same and in fact should be even quieter with no games scheduled today, but that will change later in the week (more on that later). The only real college basketball action happening yesterday was in Hawaii where the Diamond Head Classic finished up. The big [...]

Vegas Odds to Win It All: Season Opener Edition

rtmsf — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 18:01:07 +0000

It’s opening week and we’ve already gotten a taste of what’s to come through the first weekend of college basketball. As we head into the start of the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon tonight, culminating in tomorrow night’s top-five double-header at the Champions Classic, it’s time to take a look at how oddsmakers view the upcoming season. As we mentioned last week upon the release of the RTC Preseason Top 25, there appears to be a consensus top five (Kentucky, Michigan State, Louisville, Duke and Kansas), followed by a second-tier group of six more teams (Arizona, Florida, Ohio State, Syracuse, [...]

ACC M5: 10.24.13 Edition

mpatton — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 13:40:24 +0000

Run the Floor: Michael Rogner brings a fresh look at the NCAA punishments for Miami by comparing the school’s case and response directly with that of Saint Mary’s. As you might expect, the violations are not comparable in the least. The punishments? I’ll let Rogner’s piece speak for itself. For a little more context that likely led to these discrepancies, we have you covered. Not a great look for the NCAA. Daily Orange: The bigger TV money apparently wasn’t everything. Syracuse has already reportedly exceeded the basketball tickets sold last year (or any year in the past two decades, for that matter). Football and [...]

Morning Five: 10.15.13 Edition

rtmsf — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 12:01:46 +0000

It’s October 15, the traditional date of Midnight Madness, and although nobody to our knowledge is honoring Lefty Driesell by meeting at the campus track and running a six-minute mile illuminated by car headlights at each turn, the feeling is still pretty much the same — college basketball is nearby. This Friday night will feature the annual ESPNU Midnight Madness coverage of a number of prominent schools holding their celebrations, and a mere 21 days later we’ll jump right into the opening games of the season. Despite all that, the unknown is still more interesting than the known to many [...]

Rushed Reactions: #6 Memphis 54, #11 Saint Mary’s 52

Will Tucker — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:28:39 +0000

Will Tucker is a RTC correspondent. Will is covering the Auburn Hills pod of the Midwest Region. You can also find him on Twitter @blrdswag.

Three Key Takeaways.

Memphis is always a threat to get out and run. Even against the fifth-most efficient offense in the country, the Tigers found ways to capitalize on missed shots by getting out in transition and exploiting their athleticism. Outlet passes to a streaking Joe Jackson on blocks and defensive boards routinely led to points, as the shifty point guard would set up easy baskets for Tarik Black, D.J. Stephens and others. That advantage became less [...]