* not all games guaranteed to be gooey or delicious

What can we say – after all these many months hoping and waiting for this day, the hugest of days, we’re absolutely thrilled that it has finally, inevitably, encouragingly come to pass.  No, not the election of the first minority president in our nation’s history…  rather, the release of ESPN’s 2008-09 Full Court television schedule!  And it’s bigger and better than ever – that’s some change we can believe in!  There are 579 games on the docket, and at first blush, it appears to us that there are more mid-major games than ever before.  We’ll do some further analytics later, but for now, here is the schedule.

(h/t Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the MVC and Big 12 Conferences).

Ed. note – we cleaned up the chart a little, finding there were some womens’ games mixed in, so after removing those we’re down to 562 games from opening night to finish.

Here are some quick-hit stats – if you’re an SEC/Kentucky fan, it looks like you’re in business this year.

There are also 38 conference tournament games, including portions of the Atlantic Sun, CAA, MAAC, Big Sky, Southland, Big 12, ACC, and SEC Tournaments.

Here are the fifteen most intriguing games we see on the package this season:

1. American @ Pittsburgh  (11.14.08)
2. UT-Martin (Lester Hudson) @ Tennessee  (11.18.08)
3. Nevada @ San Diego  (11.18.08)
4. West Virginia @ Ole Miss  (12.03.08)
5. Texas A&M @ Alabama  (12.13.08)
6. Siena @ Kansas  (01.06.09)
7. Syracuse @ Connecticut  (01.17.09)
8. Louisville @ Syracuse  (01.25.09)
9. Kentucky @ Florda  (01.29.09)
10. Stanford @ UCLA  (01.31.09)
11. Texas A&M @ Oklahoma  (02.04.09)
12. Miami (FL) @ Duke  (02.07.09)
13. Vanderbilt @ Tennessee  (02.14.09)
14. Pittsburgh @ Connecticut  (02.15.09)
15. Pittsburgh @ Louisville (02.28.09

Update: here’s a link to the updated schedule.

Click through for the full schedule: Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s see if we can get through some of the news piling up…

• CHN averages the rankings from the three preview magazines that are already out (Athlon, Lindy’s and TSN/S&S).  UNC still #1.  CHN gives us the mid-majors to keep an eye on this season as possible NCAA Cinderellas.  And here’s your EA Sports NCAA Basketball 09 Top 25 (now partnered with Blue Ribbon).  We know you were waiting for it.
• Hahahahaha, so it appears the ACC is cooking the books Wachovia-style in an attempt to act like it has more televised games this year than it actually has. 
• North Dakota Fighting Maize?  According to the North Dakota state legislature, the Fighting Sioux are out. 
• Syracuse had best hope that Jonny Flynn doesn’t get hurt this season, as the Orange’s backup PG Scoop Jardine is redshirting.
• Nevada starting guard Brandon Fields and two freshmen were charged with petty larceny last week, and suspended indefinitely.  Brilliance.  Oh, and Fields was all-academic WAC, proving that good grades doesn’t necessarily mean you have a brain. 
• Seth Davis asks twenty questions as we get started with the 2008-09 season.  Gary Parrish has 24 things that he can’t wait to see this season, and his Top 26 teams.  Mike DeCourcy offers five things he hopes to see this year.
• Katz hints on our issue with UConn as a F4 threat (zero postseason wins since 2006) in this story about Stanley Robinson.   He also provides us with a nice update of open questions as we head into the first week of practices. 
• Yep, this is going to get old real, real fast.  Tyler Hansbrough, the symbol of all things good and merciful.   
• Dan Hanner over at YABB throws us some love (thanks, Dan!), and does a breakdown of the preseason tournaments by school participation – cool concept. 
• Truly, the most Epic Post of all-time.  Maybe the author wants to be an RTC correspondent???  Our fave blurbs were Florida and Colgate, fyi.
• Being Cinderella (Davidson) can pay dividends.
• This is pretty awesome over at STF – Drake U’u and Da’Veen Dildy are our favorites.  Honorable mention to An’Juan Wildnerness (isn’t that in Alaska?).