Each week RTC will posit a That’s Debatable question or topic that is relevant to the world of college basketball.  Sometimes whimsical, sometimes serious, we’ll post the thoughts from our core editing crew (in 200 words or less), but we’ll also be expanding to include our contributors and correspondents as appropriate throughout the season.  We also invite you, the readers, to join us as we mull over some of the questions facing the game today.  Feel free to send us your takes and/or leave them in the comments below.

This Week’s Topic: It was Upset Weekend in college basketball, as more than half the ranked teams took a loss.  What was your favorite part of the weekend?

nvr1983 – editor/contributor

Without question the best part of the weekend was watching depleted Tennessee “shock the world” on Sunday afternoon against #1 Kansas while most of the country was focused in on the awful NFL wildcard games (ok, the Green Bay-Buzzsaw game was pretty entertaining). Although Tennessee has managed to continue to disgrace itself (first Lane Kiffin’s football players now Bruce Pearl’s carful of idiots) the university can take some pride in Bruce Pearl’s six scholarship players and the handful of walk-ons that did suit up and play. While the upset showed us some of Kansas’s weaknesses that most people saw in their narrow victory at home over Cornell, the game was more important for what it showed us about the Volunteers, which may be an appropriate name for a team using so many walk-ons. Right now there might not be a more difficult to read team in the nation. And isn’t that part of what we love about college sports?

john stevens – editor/contributor

Are you kidding me with this?  My favorite part of the weekend?  Did you not read about how I met Ashley Judd while on my assignment in Lexington for Kentucky/Georgia?  Please.  The woman shook my hand, looked me straight in the eye and spoke to me.  What, you expected me to write something about Tennessee/Kansas?  Get over yourself.  Fine, if you need more of a basketball answer, for me the best part of Upset Weekend was playing the waiting game.  Weekends like the one we just had occur once or maybe twice in a season.  One of the coolest things about it is wondering what the next upset’s going to be as you move through the day.  After a couple of early ones, you start wondering if you might have a true Upset Weekend on your hands, and then it happens.  Teams just start falling, one after the other, in exciting games that often have incredible finishes.  The trend spreads across the country like a virus and, as the upsets get bigger, the phone calls and text messages and tweets from friends and fellow hoop-lovers really start cranking up.  That’s why this version of Upset Weekend was special: it ended with the biggest surprise of them all, with everyone watching.  Hmmm.  I wonder if Ashley enjoyed Upset Weekend…

Read the rest of this entry »

RTC contributor and bracketologist Zach Hayes will deliver ten permeating thoughts every Tuesday as the season progresses.

1. Other than Kansas students, graduates, former players and all former or current residents of Lawrence, was there anyone in this fine country of ours rooting for the #1 Jayhawks to beat a depleted Tennessee team, a group of kids and a stunned head coach that just dealt with the suspension and/or dismissal of four of its regular rotation players? All of the events that occurred in that two-hour window in Knoxville Sunday was a release of pent-up frustration and anxiety from a tumultuous week in which Tennessee was considered a prime threat to upend favorite Kentucky in the SEC one day and counted out as a SEC contender that must scratch and claw the final two months for an NCAA berth the next. Renaldo Woolridge banking in a three, the Vols maintaining their lead with Wayne Chism and J.P. Prince on the bench with four fouls, the coach’s son Steven taking a critical charge, a miracle Skyler McBee (one of three walk-ons playing substantial minutes) leaning trey that iced the game, and coach Bruce Pearl aiding the Volunteer mascot in waving the orange Tennessee flag while the sounds of Rocky Top reverberated throughout Thompson-Boling Arena summed up what college basketball should be about. Bill Self pointed this out after the game, but there are some moments during a season when a team officially becomes a team instead of a group of individuals. Even though Pearl would gladly reset the timer to New Year’s Eve and prevent four scholarship players from getting in that car, sometimes it takes a catastrophic occurrence that truly tests the mettle of a unit for them to band together and accomplish lofty goals. I think it’s fair to say Tennessee became a team Sunday night.

2. As long as Mike Anderson is employing his Forty Minutes of Hell hellacious press on demoralized opponents, especially on a home floor where his team has won 30 consecutive games, Missouri should never be totally counted out of the Big 12 race. Losing DeMarre Carroll, Leo Lyons and Matt Lawrence from an Elite 8 squad isn’t easy to overcome, and certainly the ceiling for the Tigers isn’t nearly as high, but the ultra-talented and quick Mizzou backcourt should have enough firepower to carry them to an NCAA berth. Missouri carried an impressive 12-3 record into their Big 12 opener with #10 Kansas State Saturday, yet their overall resume wasn’t incredibly awe-inspiring with their best wins over Old Dominion, Illinois, Georgia and Oregon and opportunities lost in defeats at the hands of Richmond, Vanderbilt and Oral Roberts. The win Saturday was clearly a statement that Missouri will be a contending force in the Big 12 for that #3 spot behind Texas and Kansas. Anderson looks to have a workable combination with experienced seniors J.T. Tiller and Zaire Taylor (evident by Taylor’s tie-breaking 3 with under a minute to play) making plays in late-game situations, a promising sophomore backcourt duo of Kim English and Marcus Denmon carrying most of the scoring load, and a defensive unit that ranks seventh overall in D efficiency, first in turnovers forced and gives Missouri a fighting chance on any night.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Fordham transfer player Jio Fontan has resurfaced all the way across the country at USC, and he will be eligible to play next season at the semester break.  This is a good pickup for Kevin O’Neill, as Fontan averaged 15/5 assts in a season-plus at Fordham and will be able to move into the PG slot vacated by Mike Gerrity.  Speaking of USC, the self-imposed sanctions on the basketball program may not become official until February, when the school will appear in front of the NCAA Infractions Committee.  Does this mean that, if the Committee imposes much harsher penalties than proposed that this year’s Trojans could actually still play in the postseason?
2. Jerry Tarkanian never wasted an opportunity to take a shot at the NCAA, and his guns were blazing at a speech he gave in Arkansas Monday where he called the NCAA the “crookedest organization in this country.”
3. Charlotte’s Shamarr Bowden, a freshman shooting guard averaging 5.7 PPG in ten minutes per game, will transfer from the school to a destination unknown.  Former Ohio State guard Walter Offutt has transferred to Wright State, and Georgetown forward Nikita Mescheriakov is enrolled at Wake Forest.
4. Mike DeCourcy suggests that the problems at DePaul go well beyond Jerry Wainwright and indicts the administration itself.  His point about firing Wainwright in the middle of the season after an 0-18 Big East slate is a great insight.
5. More aftermath from the Tennessee upset over #1 Kansas on Sunday, including Parrish’s take on Skylar McBee and how he’s living his dream at Tennessee.   As for Kansas, maybe they should have taken more half-court shots during the game.  They seem to be pretty good at making them.

OK, maybe that headline’s a tad unfair, because by just about every account, Jerry Wainwright is a top guy.  Who knows, maybe being a nice guy got him a little more time at DePaul than anyone else would have received.  Either way, Wainwright was let go today as head coach of the Blue Demons.  He took over before the 2005 season and built a 59-80 record while running things there.  In a twist that might make that ol’ Yalie Stephen V. Benet proud, it’s now The Demons and Tracy Webster, the assistant who was promoted to interim head coach for the rest of this season.  The buzz on Wainwright’s departure began in earnest last night, but we should give props to Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy for listing him as numero uno on his list of coaches under pressure in a pre-season article.

Wainwright in better -- yes, better -- days.

Wainwright’s squad had started out 5-1 this season, scoring wins over a decent Detroit team, losing a close one to current darlings Tennessee, and handing 14-1 Northern Iowa their only blemish on the season.  There were a few cupcake wins and a couple of setbacks to a pair of pretty good SEC teams in Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.  These early performances likely served to mitigate the sting left over from last year’s crippling 0-18 conference record, but then came a home loss to American (3-13), a loss at Florida Gulf Coast (5-10), and eventually three convincing losses to Big East powerhouses (at Pittsburgh, Georgetown, at Villanova) to start the conference slate that put the Blue Demons at 7-8, and turned out to be Wainwright’s undoing.  In that last game against Villanova, by the way, Wainwright actually suffered a torn MCL and broken tibia when he was hit by a diving player near the DePaul bench.

Read the rest of this entry »

How did the Upset Weekend impact our poll this week?  Since so many teams lost, there wasn’t all that much relative movement.  Analysis after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

1. #1 Kansas Goes Down.  Given the circumstances involving Bruce Pearl’s team, a lot will be written about this game in the next 24 hours.  Here are some of the better takes we’ve found.  Mike DeCourcy calls the Tennessee win miraculous, Luke Winn points out (correctly) that Cole Aldrich cannot be a forgotten man in the KU offense, and we over here at RTC had a bit of take on that game as well…
2. You don’t see this often, and it was hidden in the Friday night news feeds, but Dartmouth head coach Terry Dunn was fired (“forced to resign”) after his entire team mutinied by signing a document stating they refused to play for him anymore.  The players then took the court on Saturday and were run out of the gym by thirty against Harvard.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. BONUS:  Late-breaking news but DePaul’s Jerry Wainwright will 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.

Upset Weekend.  Let’s get one thing out of the way right away.  It was a great weekend of college basketball, with over 175 games of juicy goodness, starting with Friday evening’s Sunshine State battle of A-Sun foes Jacksonville and Stetson, and ending with tonight’s Civil War game in Eugene between the Ducks and Beavers.  If you didn’t get enough hoops over the last 54 hours, then you probably need your head checked (our appt. is Tuesday morning).  But let’s not get too excited about this weekend just yet.  By our count, there were ten upsets involving ranked teams, and a host of others barely survived.  But this is something we all knew was coming.  It’s called life on the road in conference play (note: we realize, of course, Kansas was on the road in non-conference play), and it’s what makes the next ten weeks so much more fun than the previous ten.  No longer will teams be able to play Holy Names and Penn Central and St. Augustanus to pick up easy Ws.  No, they now have to face conference foes — the family — and like your nutty Grandma at the holiday dinner table, the family can be harsh in its brutal honesty.  If your team has a weakness, the family will find it and exploit it.  If your team has multiple question marks, your days of skating by with superior athletes and a friendly home crowd are over.  If your team has been using smoke and mirrors to get it done this year, well, the seven years of bad luck are about to begin.  This phenomenon happens every single year, and every single year we all get all fluttery and hyperbolic talking about the early upsets, but the fact of the matter is that there are no dominant teams in the 1-and-done era and truthfully the real surprise would be if we didn’t have great weekends of parity like this one.

Hopson Crushed It on Aldrich (credit: Saul Young)

Now, About That Kansas Thing.  #15 Tennessee 76, #1 Kansas 68.  This was going to be one of the tougher games of the season for Kansas regardless of the Tennessee personnel issues, but you can almost imagine Bill Self fretting about his team’s focus when he found out that 40% of the Vol offense would not be available for this game.  There’s no question that Kansas has elite talent, but they’re not robots, and it’s understandable that all the news about the UT players might have led to a bit of a letdown.  Bill Self referred to his team’s lack of aggressiveness as manifested in the worrisome fact that KU’s all-american center Cole Aldrich (7/18/4 blks) only took five shots in 30 minutes despite a considerable size advantage inside.  Repeated post-ups in the halfcourt offense resulted in few touches for Aldrich, as Sherron Collins and Tyshawn Taylor in particular were more interested in chucking threes and calling their own number throughout (20 and 11 shots, respectively).  Tennessee, to its credit in using just six scholarship players and several walk-ons, kept hustling and scrapping for loose balls and hitting big shot after big shot every time it seemed that the superior KU talent was surging.  Skylar McBee’s step-through three from the left side as the shot clock expired and UT up three very late was the stuff of legend (see below), and we doubt the walk-on marksman will be buying his own meals in Knoxville for many a year after he graduates.

In a game where the odds were repeatedly stacked against the Vols — the missing players, the foul trouble of Wayne Chism and JP Prince, the horrid FT shooting (15-29) — Pearl’s team was able to take to heart what has always made the colorful coach such an interesting guy.  He sees himself as an underdog, but his teams only seem to take on that scrappy mentality when they are actually sitting behind the eight-ball.  Tennessee always comes strong when they’re not expected to win — the game at Memphis in 2008, the wins over the national champion Gators in 2006 and 2007 — but it’s the games where they’re considered the heavy favorite that give Pearl’s teams trouble (last year’s two blowout Ls against struggling Kentucky come to mind).  You could very reasonably argue that in the Vols’ two wins this week with six scholarship players (vs. Charlotte and the Jayhawks), they’ve looked better than they did when they went ten deep.  The problem is that the underdog role can only be embraced and milked for so long, and there’s still an entire sixteen-game SEC slate ahead of them.  Today was a tremendous, mood-lifting sort of win for the UT basketball program, but it won’t mean much if the Vols finish at 8-8 in the SEC East.  Still, Bruce Pearl’s charges should be incredibly proud of themselves and by all means should stay away from rental cars and various weaponry after this big win (Pearl didn’t mention that, but he did mention complacency in his postgame speech below).  Final thought: Scotty Hopson (17/4).  Kid looked like a superstar today; his dunk over Aldrich was ridiculous.  Keep it coming, young fella.

RTC Meets Ashley Judd.  RTC editor John Stevens got to meet Kentucky Superfan Ashley Judd after Saturday’s Georgia game, and given that this may be a once-in-a-lifetime event, it deserves its own space.  Here’s John:   

I have to include the fact that I got to meet Kentucky alumna Ashley Judd at this game…and by “meet,” I mean shake her hand, stand beside her with my recorder (one of about 30 total) in her face, ask her a question, and smile dumbly at her like a mental patient who knows it’s almost pill time.  Let me tell you something, folks.  I don’t usually get star-struck (when you’ve sat behind Goodman, Bozich, DeCourcy, and Forde in a media room, hell, you’re ready for anything, heh), but when Ashley Judd looks you dead in the eye?  Ballgame.  Good night, everybody.  Yes, she’s very attractive.  But it’s not just that.  She’s got that “star quality,” meaning that when she’s looking at you and talking, it’s morphine.  You are tractor-beamed, and you’re very aware of it when your time is over.  This is not something she’s trying to do, it’s something with which you’re born or you aren’t.  They say politicians have this ability, too, though I doubt I’d feel the same effect if I were standing in front of, say, Strom Thurmond.  As for my question, because she had been asked every possible hoops-related question by the 30 or so reporters around her, I asked her how that frenzy in the media room compared to the scene on a Hollywood red carpet.  She replied like someone who, though she was glad her Wildcats escaped, was even happier to be home, even if temporarily.  She smiled, thought for a second, and said with relish,  “This is better!  This is the blue carpet!”

Ashley is Happy to See RTC There

Moving On… Obviously, there were a bunch of other upsets this weekend beyond #1 Kansas going down, but we don’t have time to discuss them all so here are some of the key takeaways as we see them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Much more on this weekend’s ATB wrapup later, but how about Bruce Pearl’s Tennessee Volunteers, staring adversity in the face and having it slink away with its tail tucked?  The #1 Kansas Jayhawks ran into an emotionally-charged, feisty and gutty UT team this afternoon that showed pluck and heart despite losing four players to dismissal/suspension.  Credit to Bruce Pearl for doing what he does best – getting his six scholarship players and walk-ons to internalize their difficult situation and play the underdog role to a T.  Congrats to his team are in order.  College basketball at its finest!

Pearl Uses the Underdog Role Exceptionally Well

Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist plus author of the weekly Ten Tuesday Scribbles and Bubble Watch columns.

With college football crowning another faux-national champion Thursday night in Pasadena, the college sports scene can officially shift its axis to basketball. While a number of college basketball diehards such as yours truly were knee-deep in mid-major box scores and enthralling non-conference tournaments since the season tipped off in mid-November, it’s perfectly understandable for our college football-fan brethren out there to have been entranced in the gridiron scene during this time. For many folks out there, college basketball truly begins when a football champion is crowned and conference play heats up, when Rece and the gang show up on our TVs every Saturday morning at 11 AM and the bubble begins to take its early shape. For those people, you sure missed plenty of exciting hoops action. To get you caught up in what has gone down thus far on the hardwood, here’s a summary for your enjoyment, divvied up into the six major conferences and all the rest:

ACC

What we’ve learned: There was much back-and-forth debate entering this season whether Duke or North Carolina represented the class of this conference. After two solid months of play, it’s fairly evident Duke has separated themselves from their bitter rival as the class of the ACC. While the Tar Heels may top Duke skill-wise up front, Carolina simply does not boast the backcourt to even contend with the Dukies’ tandem of Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith. The primary knock on Duke heading into this season was point guard play with Elliot Williams transferring to Memphis. As a true sharp-shooting 2-guard who creates his shots coming off screens in Redick-like fashion, could Scheyer handle the responsibility of running the Duke offense? The answer has been resounding in the affirmative: 19.7 PPG, 46% FG, 92% FT, 43% 3pt and an otherworldly 4.8 A/TO ratio that currently leads the nation. Another key to Duke’s early season success has been Coach K’s willingness to adjust his defense to fit his roster. Rather than employing the normal Duke on-ball pressure attack, Krzyzewski is utilizing more of a sagging defense that plays into the frontcourt depth Duke enjoys with six players that receive time at 6’8 or taller.

Scheyer Has His Devils Looking Great This Season

What’s still to be determined: After Duke and Carolina (and let’s not go overboard following the Heels loss to Charleston, they’re still clearly the second best team in this conference), who will emerge as the third contender behind the top two dogs? An ever-shifting proposition, the current edge probably goes to Florida State despite their utter lack of point guard play. The Seminoles are one of the tallest teams in the nation and have a few capable long-range shooters that get open looks when defenses collapse on Solomon Alabi and Chris Singleton. Plus, they’re off to a head start with a December win at ACC foe Georgia Tech. Plenty of folks think Clemson could be that team behind powerful big man Trevor Booker, but they lack a second scoring option and I can’t stop thinking back to their collapse at home to an inexperienced Illinois squad. It would be unwise to count out Gary Williams, and the jury’s still out on Virginia Tech and Miami due to their soft schedules, so I’ll give the current edge to Wake Forest as that third team. The road win at Gonzaga’s on-campus arena stands out, Ish Smith has turned into a fine point guard and Al-Farouq Aminu has as much pure talent as anyone in this conference.

NCAA Locks: Duke, North Carolina.

Likely bids: Clemson, Florida State, Wake Forest.

Bubble teams: Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami (FL), Virginia Tech.

Make other plans for March: Boston College, North Carolina State, Virginia.

Big East

What we’ve learned: The NCAA picture is shaping up quite similarly to last season when Louisville (regular season champion), Pittsburgh and Connecticut all received #1 seeds. There will be much back-and-forth debate about whether the top three teams this season — Syracuse, West Virginia and Villanova –– holds the edge in this conference, but does it really matter? Right now you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t think Kansas, Texas, Kentucky and Purdue are the likely #1 seeds (of course plenty could change, we have two months of games left), while those top contenders in the Big East are likely all on the second seed line. Even of greater importance though is the obvious revelation that Jamie Dixon can coach basketball. You wouldn’t be alone if you counted out Pittsburgh following a near-loss to Wofford, a 47-point output at home vs. New Hampshire and a second half butt-kicking at the hands of Indiana, but those losses came without their most athletic player, Gilbert Brown, and their best defender, Jermaine Dixon. Those two have returned to action with the most improved Big East player Ashton Gibbs (who recently broke the all-time Pitt record for consecutive free throws made) as a fearsome trio that has carried the Panthers to road wins over previously-undefeated Syracuse and fringe-top 25 Cincinnati. If Dixon is able to coax his Panthers into a NCAA Tournament team after losing such enormous production and leadership in Sam Young, DeJuan Blair and Levance Fields, there is little debate on his merits as National Coach of the Year.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first shoe dropped today in the Tennessee basketball players New Year’s Day fiasco, as star forward Tyler Smith was dismissed from the Tennessee basketball team in a statement released by Bruce Pearl:

We felt we had enough information at this time to dismiss Tyler Smith from the team.  I am deeply troubled and saddened. Playing basketball at the University of Tennessee is a privilege, and where conduct is displayed that is detrimental to the team and the university, this discipline is required. Tyler has accomplished a great deal and we are all disappointed his playing career at the University of Tennessee will end this way.

Disappointment, Thy Name is Tyler

The three other players involved in the incident — Melvin Goins, Brian Williams and Cameron Tatum — remain indefinitely suspended as #1 Kansas visits Knoxville this weekend.  The twitterati and message board chatter yesterday implied that this decision was coming, as allegedly Smith was found to be the owner of the two guns found in the rental car where the four players were riding. 

This is obviously a huge blow to the Tennessee team this year as well as to Bruce Pearl’s program in general.  Smith was generally viewed as a success story around the SEC, as the local kid had returned home from Iowa after his freshman year to be with his sick father and help Pearl rebuild the UT program.  He was all-SEC first team as a sophomore and junior, and helped lead UT to its second straight Sweet Sixteen in 2008 for the first time in program history.  Furthermore, the perception that Pearl only has loose control of his players is exacerbated by this situation, and it may ultimately impact his recruiting to Knoxville. 

Smith, to his credit, said in a statement that he’s only a dozen hours short of his degree and he intends on finishing it, but what on earth was he thinking here?  If he really feels such imminent danger on a daily basis that he needs to have not one, but two, weapons near him at all times, then it’s probably for the best that he’s no longer staining Tennessee athletics with whatever he’s involved in; but if he’s just trying to act hard by brandishing guns in a way that really isn’t necessary given his lifestyle and status as a star UT athlete, then he may want to give Gilbert Arenas a text to see how that’s working out for him these days.