terrell holloway – Rush The Court

Soon-To-Be Household Names: 12 Breakout Players for 2010-11

zhayes9 — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:58:21 +0000

Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist at Rush the Court.

One of my favorite parts of the college basketball season is watching players make the leap to stardom, from the game notes to the headline, from role player to All-America candidate. Every season players spring up in November and December with performances that make you wonder if they’ve finally harnessed all of that talent and are prepared to take off to unforeseen heights, a recent example being Wes Johnson’s virtuoso two-game clinic at MSG against California and North Carolina. It was Jacob Pullen emerging as [...]

Sweet Sixteen Game Analysis: Thursday Night

rtmsf — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:25:51 +0000

Over the next two days, RTC will break down the regional semifinal games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds. Here are Thursday night’s games from the East and West Regionals.

7:07 pm – #1 Syracuse vs. #5 Butler (West Region)

We’re starting to worry about this Arinze Onuaku situation. Sooner or later, Jim Boeheim’s team is going to need the 11 points, [...]

Second Round Game Analysis: Sunday Games

rtmsf — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:51:34 +0000

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 16 of the second round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds. Here are the Sunday games.

12:10 pm – #1 Syracuse vs. #8 Gonzaga (Buffalo pod)

In the CBS national game to start the day, everyone will get this very enticing game between Syracuse and Gonzaga. Given [...]

First Round Game Analysis: Friday Afternoon

rtmsf — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:14:13 +0000

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 32 of the first round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds. Here are the Friday afternoon games.

12:15 pm – #2 West Virginia vs. #15 Morgan State (Buffalo pod)

West Virginia enters the NCAA Tournament as one of the hottest teams in the [...]

ATB: Does Anybody Want A Ticket To The Big Dance?

nvr1983 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:24:46 +0000

Coming into conference tournament week there had been a lot of talk coming from the college basketball media that this might be the weakest bubble ever. We are loath to admit it, but they might just be right.

Ticket Punched. Lost in all the mess of the BCS conference also-rans blowing their chances every night is that one team actually earned a NCAA Tournament bid in the last .

Lehigh 74, Lafayette 59. For the 16th time in 20 years, the Patriot League will send its regular season champ to the NCAA Tournament after that same [...]

Checking in on… the Atlantic 10

jstevrtc — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:27:28 +0000

Joe Dzuback of Villanova By The Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

The Threshing Floor

If conference play muddied the rankings for the teams at the top (Charlotte moved into #1, pushing the trio of Rhode Island, Temple and Xavier, teams that had topped the standing since New Years, down a notch), the teams in the middle and bottom are sorting out, both by record and efficiency differentials. A threshing floor is a wide and flat surface, located in an open area (always breezy, though sometimes windy), where farmers can spread their wheat, and [...]

Boom Goes the Dynamite: 02.06.10 Edition

rtmsf — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:44:24 +0000

Another weekend means that the RTC crew is back with another thrilling edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. This weekend’s games are not as strong as you might expect for an early February weekend, but that just means the rest of the month is going to be stuffed to the gills with great matchups. Still, any Saturday that has a total of 147 games on the slate is going to have quite a few goodies. Here are the games that we plan on trying to keep an eye on today…

12 PM: #2 Villanova @ #7 Georgetown [...]

Checking in on… the Atlantic 10

rtmsf — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:28:53 +0000

Joe Dzuback of Villanova by the Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Efficiency Differentials

The Atlantic 10 teams have played just over 20% of their conference schedule (as of Sunday, 1/17); every team has posted three or four games to the conference ledger. I might be a week (maybe?) early for conference-only efficiency differentials (offensive points per possession – defensive points per possession), but I was curious to see what the numbers and rankings could tell me now…

Xavier may have the most wins, but Temple has the largest positive differential. The Owls’ [...]

Boom Goes The Dynamite: 1.16.10 Edition

jstevrtc — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:54:12 +0000

WOW. 284 of the 345 Division I college basketball teams are in action on Saturday, and an inordinate number of those games are being broadcast on TV somewhere. We all know what happened last week — an upset-lover’s dream, with a wave of surprising results that started about halfway through the day and kept rolling through Sunday night. And then we had the equally compelling performances by Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds on Monday night and the Robbie Hummel/Evan Turner show on Tuesday. What will this weekend bring? If you check the schedule, many of these match-ups are pretty intriguing, [...]

Checking in on… the Atlantic 10

rtmsf — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:11:34 +0000

Joe Dzuback of Villanova by the Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Looking Back/Looking Forward

The Atlantic 10 conference season has begun (literally) — the first games were played Wednesday 1/6, and next weekend will find virtually every conference team playing a conference schedule. How did the conference fare in the out of conference portion of the season? I have pulled together efficiency statistics from Ken Pomeroy’s web site and combined them with each team’s record (through January 5) and the difference of their offensive efficiency and their defensive efficiency (expressed as points per [...]

Checking in on… the Atlantic 10

rtmsf — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:28:34 +0000

Joe Dzuback of Villanova by the Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Go-to Guys

The term “Go-to” guy was Ken Pomeroy’s first attempt to describe a player who took more than 25% of his team’s possessions and shots when he was on the floor. The term might be a cliche, a slight misrepresentation even, so Pomeroy over time modified the adjective several times, eventually settling on “Major Contributor” to describe a player who took 24% or more of the team’s possessions (irrespective of the number of minutes played).

Who are the “Go-to” guys [...]

Checking in on… the Atlantic 10

jstevrtc — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:16:30 +0000

Joe Dzuback of Villanova By the Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Road Warriors

A few BCS schools developed reputations for rarely venturing far from their home arenas during their out of conference seasons and relying on their conference’s RPI to bolster their resumes come Selection Sunday. Coach Jim Calhoun masked the inexperience of his 2007 Huskies by keeping them at home from early November to late December where they ran off 11 straight wins and rose to #12 in the polls. They opened the Big East season with a 10 point [...]

Boom Goes the Dynamite: 12.19.09

jstevrtc — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:46:12 +0000

Welcome back! Another weekend means another edition of everyone’s favorite college basketball live blog. Assuming they all actually happen (there was, like, a huge snowstorm, you see), there are actually some pretty darn good games happening today (Michigan at Kansas, anyone? Maybe a little Xavier at Butler?), and since we know you’ll be watching, and we know we’ll be watching…why not watch with us? We’ll be commenting all day, but we want to know what your thoughts are on the games as they’re being played. So keep checking this space and hitting that refresh button, and let’s have [...]

Checking in on… the Atlantic 10

rtmsf — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:17:31 +0000

Standings (12/15/2009)

Rhode Island (8-1) Charlotte (8-1) Temple (8-2) Richmond (7-2) Dayton (7-2) George Washington (7-2) Xavier (6-3) Duquesne (7-3) La Salle (6-3) St. Louis (6-3) St. Bonaventure (6-3) Massachusetts (5-5) Saint Joseph’s (3-6) Fordham (2-6)

Taking Stock

Common Opponent Analysis: Providence. Both Rhode Island and George Washington hosted the Providence Friars within a 4 day period. How did the Rams and Colonials match up against a common opponent under similar circumstances? Rhode Island won a 3-point decision (86-83), while George Washington lost by a whopping 27 points (110-83). As the table shows, both teams played about 78 possessions (lower than they usually play — Pomeroy [...]

A Shootout To Remember

jstevrtc — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:49:24 +0000

This fall I’ve had the pleasure to travel around a little and attend several college basketball games as a media member, but as I walked by the loading docks and into the back of the Cintas Center on Sunday night, I felt it as soon as I got inside. I’ve attended Xavier basketball games on a media credential in the past, but this time, the buzz, the sounds, the aura…

This was different.

I had expected a different experience, because this was my first Crosstown Shootout. But this was beyond expectation. I made a [...]