Saturday, March 20 (all CBS)
1:05pm - Villanova vs. St. Mary's
3:20pm - Butler vs. Murray St
3:35pm - Tennessee vs. Ohio
5:40pm - Kansas vs. Northern Iowa
5:45pm - Baylor vs. Old Dominion
5:50pm - New Mexico vs. Washington
8:10pm - Kansas St vs. BYU
8:15pm - Kentucky vs. Wake Forest
Thursday Night Doldrums. There weren’t a lot of great games on paper tonight, and it turned out to be the case in reality as most of the marquee games were average at best. We’ll break down the biggest two games, and just highlight the others.
Purdue Didn’t Choke, But Kelsey Barlow Did. #7 Purdue 78, Indiana 75. The one exception tonight was this game in Bloomington between the surging Boilermakers and the home Hoosiers. These two teams went back and forth for thirty-eight minutes before a 5-0 run keyed by Robbie Hummel (21/7) and E’Twaun Moore (14/5/3 assts) put Matt Painter’s team in position to win at IU for the first time since the 90s. Indiana had a shot to tie the game at the buzzer, but Verdell Jones III’s (22/6/4 assts) shot from around 40 feet missed the mark, and Purdue won its fifth straight game prior to the big showdown with Michigan State next Tuesday. JaJuan Johnson had a big night with 21/7, and as we’ve discussed in this space before, when the big man is putting in the work, Purdue is a much better team. He’s gone for 18/8 a night during the Boilers’ five-game winning streak; in the previous three-game losing streak, he put up an average of 6/5. Obviously Matt Painter and his guards want to keep Johnson happy. As for Indiana, their second-consecutive loss on the final possession stings, but it’s further evidence that Tom Crean’s team isn’t all that far from competing in the Big Ten. We’d suppose that one year from now IU will be winning these close games. Final note: starter Kelsey Barlow will undoubtedly be suspended as soon as Matt Painter sees the below image (taken in the final moments of the game). Brilliant move, that one.
When Will Kelsey Barlow's Suspension Begin?
Dud in Durham. #9 Duke 86, #19 Georgia Tech 67. This was fairly close until three minutes left in the first half, at which point the Blue Devils turned up the defense a couple of clicks and began to separate themselves from the Yellow Jackets. The one thing Tech couldn’t afford was to let Duke hit a three at the end of the half and make it a double-digit lead, so when Jon Scheyer found Kyle Singler in the corner for a trey as the buzzer sounded, you didn’t need a Magic 8-ball to predict the Jackets’ second half. Georgia Tech got in early foul trouble and never came close to finding a rhythm against the Devils, who looked comfy at home as usual. You would never have known that it was the Yellow Jackets who came in with the nation’s fourth-best defense (holding opponents to 37% shooting per game). Duke shot holes through that with tremendous ease, and got big games they needed from Singler (30/5 on 9-17 shooting) and Scheyer (21/7 assts), not to mention a helpful 11 boards from Lance Thomas in a performance that was frankly better than their current #9 ranking.
RTC Live will be coming to you this afternoon from cloudy Bloomington, Indiana, where the Gophers from Minnesota will visit the Indiana Hoosiers at historic Assembly Hall. While Indiana is in the 2nd year of a re-building campaign under Coach Tom Crean, Minnesota is looking to crack into the top echelon of the Big 10 under Coach Tubby Smith. Minnesota is led by Lawrence Westbrook with 13.7/2.6/1.6 asst and Blake Hoffarber with 11.8/3.5/1.6 assts. The Gophers were making more news earlier in the season with their off the court exploits, but have since compiled a 12-5 overall record and 3-2 in the Big Ten. Minnesota has lost to Purdue and Michigan State, both highly ranked nationally. Indiana has struggled with a 7-9 overall record and 1-3 in the Big Ten, having dropped 3 in a row. Indiana is led statistically by Verdell Jones and Christian Watford with 12.8 apiece. Minnesota doesn’t play well on the road (1-3 on the year), but Indiana has struggled to deliver consistency even at home. This is RTC Live’s first (and hopefully the first of many to come) trip to historic Assembly Hall, and we expect it to be a great one. Join us on a cloudy day in Bloomington…
Horrible news for Tom Crean’s young Indiana Hoosier team, as leading scorer Maurice Creekbroke his kneecap during last night’s game with Bryant and will miss the rest of the season. Creek is one of the top freshman scorers in America at 17.6 PPG, ahead of other notables such as Kansas’ Xavier Henry (17.2) and Derrick Favors (12.9). Huge blow to Indiana as it heads into the conference season.
Northwesternlanded at #25 in the AP poll for the first time in forty seasons this week. How awesome is that, especially after all of their injury problems this season? Nine of their next ten games are very tough matchups for the Wildcats, but we’ll be rooting for them. This could be the best little-guy story we’ve had in some time in this game if they can stay in the hunt for an NCAA bid this year.
Seth Davis’ annual Jigsaw Man article, and it has nothing to do with Saw VI either.
Jeff Goodman explains why and when the six remaining unbeatens will lose rather soon. No argument on that point, but specifically, we do think Syracuse and Texas will last longer than what he suggests. Texas losing at Arkansas is a pretty big reach with as bad as the Hawgs have been this year.
Yeah, conference play begins in earnest this week in the Pac-10, Big East and Big Ten, but it feels a little weird to have meaningful conference games before the New Year holiday. We’ll be there watching, though.
Damion James Makes an Early Case for POY. #2 Texas 79, #9 Michigan State 68. Four days and two games against top ten opponents for Rick Barnes. No sweat, right? Texas passed yet another difficult test prior to the winter break by imposing their hellacious perimeter defense into 22 Michigan State turnovers and allowing the future Big 12 all-time rebounder Damion James to put up 23/13 on 10-18 FG in a statement victory at home. The dynamic defensive duo of Dogus Balbay and lengthy freshman Avery Bradley confused star point guard Kalin Lucas (3-11 FG and 2:6 A:TO ratio) all night while also forcing guards Chris Allen and Korie Lucious into a combined nine turnovers of their own. In a key stretch late in the second half, reserve forward Gary Johnson drained a difficult shot and forced two consecutive Michigan State miscues around the halfcourt line that were converted into easy buckets. But the real story is the utter dominance of Damion James. He’s now been clearly the best player on the floor against two national title participants in a matter of four days, making a case ahead of Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich and Craig Brackins for the favorite to win Big 12 POY (and perhaps more). Texas also received four treys from freshman Jordan Hamilton and did most of their damage with center Dexter Pittman on the bench with foul trouble. One could certainly make a case for the Longhorns as the #1 team in the land. They play Kansas, right?
Texas is Good Enough to Do the Florida Twin-Title Thing
Down to Seven Unbeatens.Arkansas 66, Missouri State 62 (OT). The undefeated run came to a bitter end in Fayetteville for Missouri State as the enigma that is the Arkansas basketball team edged the Bears in overtime. Regulation ended in crazy fashion with a wide-open Caleb Patterson layup at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. With 18 seconds left in the extra frame, three-point mastermind Rotnei Clarke nailed a clutch trey and then sealed the game with two free throws afterwards. Missouri State struggled from the field all night, shooting just 32% from three and 31% overall in a rare positive showing for the Razorback defense. Kyle Weems led the way for the Bears with 24 points.
Cal Challenges Kansas for a Half.#1 Kansas 84, California 69. Maybe the Pac-10 is improving? The much-maligned league got three wins over BCS conference teams in the same evening; and considering that coming into tonight’s games, the league was a combined 6-20 against the other five power conferences this season, three more wins in a single night is something to be excited about. This was not one of those three wins. For about twenty-five minutes tonight, though, Cal hung right there with the nation’s #1 team on its home court, but eventually the superior talent of KU won out, as the Jayhawks hit a scorching 73% for the second half and used a 15-3 run to open some distance and ultimately put the game away. All five Kansas starters scored in double figures, led by Sherron Collins’ 17/5 and Cole Aldrich’s 10/10/5 blks. Patrick Christopher had 21 for the Bears, picking up for the struggling star Jerome Randle (3-15 FG), who had trouble finding open looks against the Jayhawk defense (including seven turnovers).
Texas Tech Loses More Than a Game.#19 Washington 73, Texas A&M 64. UW got 25/13/3 blks from Quincy Pondexter, who is putting up all-america numbers this year, but more importantly the Huskies’ defense was superb, holding A&M to 30% shooting and handling the Aggies on the boards (+10). The overarching story of this game, though, was the terrible injury that TAMU guard Derrick Roland suffered when he came down awkwardly and broke his leg after jumping under the basket in the second half. Those who saw it live compared it to the gruesome broken leg that Joe Theismann once endured on national television a generation ago. If you’re the type of person who does not handle seeing injuries well, you probably shouldn’t make the jump today (we put the video up, but you don’t have to watch it; seriously, it’s bad).
In our first college football-free weekend of the season (except for Mark Ingram’s Heisman and ESPN’s phenomenal documentary on “The U”) we had quite a few interesting story lines from the weekend, but one stood out on Sunday — the pair of upset victories by Atlantic 10 teams over highly ranked Big East teams in crosstown rivalry games (Temple against Villanova and Xavier against Cincinnati). Not only does it give those individual programs some bragging rights and a much needed boost on the recruiting trail, but it also gives a huge lift to the national perception of the Atlantic 10 and might cause some consternation amongst the Big East fans who like to promote their conference as the best in the nation for college basketball.
A great night for Xavier and the A-10 (Credit: AP/David Kohl)
The A-10 Rising
Xavier 78, #19 Cincinnati 75 (2 OT). This might not be as shocking to the rest of the nation, but it might go down as the game of the year so far. It had a little bit of everything you could ask for in a game at this point of the season. Bitter rivalry? Check. Physical play? Check. Biting fan chants? Check (Brian Kelly). Big comeback? Check. Buzzer beater? Check (later waved off). National TV audience? Not so much thanks to ESPNU’s sparse national penetration, but RTC Live was there. In the end it was Terrell Holloway’s 26 points and Jason Love’s 19 rebounds that were the difference as the Musketeers overcame 22 points from Lance Stephenson in a game where neither team led by more than 4 points during the last 19 minutes of the game and that was only after the Bearcats fouled Xavier in an attempt to get the ball back when Dion Dixon missed a 3-point attempt that could have tied the game with 21 seconds left in the second overtime. To get a really good feel as to how intense this game was, definitely read our accounting from RTC Live above and check the highlight package below.
Temple 75, #3 Villanova 65: The Owls used an 11-0 run to start the 2nd half to overcome a 6-point deficit at halftime to knock off the Wildcats. The story of the game was Juan Fernandez who scored 33 points including 7 of 9 from 3-point range to knock off the highest ranked Big East team coming into the weekend. While the casual basketball fan will consider this a huge upset, those of us who follow college basketball closely knew that this would be a tough game for Jay Wright’s crew against a team that had only lost by one to Georgetown (still undefeated) and St. John’s (only one loss by nine against Duke). The Wildcats managed to keep it relatively close with 23 from Scottie Reynolds, 16 from Antonio Pena, and 14 from Corey Fisher, but in the end it wasn’t enough to overcome Fernandez, 20 points from Ryan Brooks, and 10 points and 17 rebounds from Lavoy Allen. The loss was just the 2nd loss for Villanova in their last 23 games against one of their Big 5 rivals. After the victory, the fans began chanting, “We want Kansas!” in reference to their upcoming game on January 2nd. We love what the Owls have done so far this season, but the student body might want to be careful what they wish for because they might just get it. One bright spot for Villanova fans: Reggie Redding (think he might have been helpful against Allen today?) will return to action against Fordham on Saturday in his first action since he was suspended ten games for his arrest for possession of marijuana and other drug paraphernalia.
In other action…
Saturday’s Games.
#1 Kansas 90, La Salle 65: The Jayhawks were able to overcame an off-night from Sherron Collins (1/12 FG) thanks to a season-high 31 points from Xavier Henry (the last KU freshman to score 30 points in a game was some guy named Paul Pierce) and a 12-point, 12-rebound effort from Markieff Morris. Cole Aldrich added 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 blocks while Tyshawn Taylor had 10 points and 6 assists with no turnovers. The Jayhawks’ next two games should be a bit more competitive as they face a pair of teams—Michigan (12/19) and California (12/22)—that have failed to live up to preseason expectations, but both have a lot of talent.
We are back with our first Boom Goes The Dynamite of the season (not counting our coverage of ESPN’s 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon). For those of you who are not familiar with this feature, we will be covering all of the important college basketball being played today in a live blog. So for those of you who love college basketball, we invite you to spend part (or all) of the day with us. If you’re still getting back into college basketball after spending the fall following a sport that does not let an undefeated team play for a title, here is a quick rundown of the major games that we will be following throughout the day:
Noon: #4 Kentucky at Indiana on CBS
Noon: #15 Ohio State at #20 Butler on ESPN and RTC Live
2 PM: #13 Georgetown vs. #16 Washington on FSN and RTC Live
2 PM: La Salle at #1 Kansas on ESPN
4:30 PM: Mississippi State vs. UCLA on FSN and RTC Live
5 PM: Marquette at #23 Wisconsin on ESPN2
6 PM: New Mexico vs. #18 Texas A&M on Fox Sports Southwest
7 PM: Kansas State vs. #17 UNLV on ESPN Full Court
9 PM: #5 Purdue at Alabama on ESPN2
Noon: And we’re live. Like we noted earlier there are 2 big games to watch in this TV session. We’re expecting Kentucky to destroy Indiana, but Ohio State-Butler promises to be much more interesting especially with the absence of Evan Turner.
12:10 PM: Agree with Greg Anthony. DeMarcus Cousins is the key for Kentucky’s title hopes this season. John Wall and Patrick Patterson are almost a given. If Cousins can play consistently (and the Wildcats play a little D), they have a great shot at a NCAA title.
12:12 PM: Phenomenal start for Indiana. Tom Crean could not have asked for anything more than a 12-4 start. Is it possible that Kentucky could have overlooked Indiana. I know the Hoosiers are down, but you have to get up for a trip to Bloomington, right?
12:15 PM: For those who caught that discussion about the relative scoring ability of Matt Howard and Jay Bilas. Here are Jay’s numbers from his time at Duke.
12:20 PM: Kentucky looks really sloppy right now. Have the Wildcats been listening to all the hype?
12:25 PM: Great start for Butler. Up 24-14 midway through the 1st half. William Buford answers a bucket but misses the free throw. Wow. That’s a ridiculous class for Ohio State, but like Bilas mentions how long will they stay there. Gordon Hayward almost converts a ridiculous alley-oop from Shelvin Mack.
12:30 PM: Wow. Bilas thinks Northwestern is still a NCAA Tournament team even without Kevin Coble. I’m not so sure about that. I guess there is a lot of Big 10/11 basketball to be played.
12:32 PM: And Kentucky has taken the lead at 21-19 thanks to a 12-2 run. It figured it would only be a matter of time before they came back, but this is pretty quick. The question is whether the Hoosiers can respond and keep this game tight. If they keep it within 10 at half, the crowd should still be into it.
12:35 PM: Did they just say that Wall has a 3.8 GPA? Has Kentucky’s semester already ended or is that his high school GPA? I have heard it was closer to 2.6 in high school. Is this another Tim Tebow situation?
The More They Stay the Same…#11 UNC 89, #9 Michigan State 82. Ok, can we now all just agree that UNC just has Michigan State’s number? For the fifth straight time, and the third episode within one calendar year, North Carolina made Tom Izzo’s Spartans look like charlatans on the basketball court. How is this possible? How can a team like Nevada hang with the Heels a few days ago for most of the game, and a loaded, deep, talented, athletic team like MSU continually get punked and embarrassed by the same squad? Well, motivation helps. Ed Davis (22/6) and Larry Drew II (18/6 assts) both had career highs in points, and in watching the game, it seemed as if Carolina could get and make nearly any shot it wanted. Michigan State, for some reason, seems to think that it can run with Carolina, and as they learned for the third time with the same core of Lucas, Morgan, et al., they cannot. Why do they try? The thing about MSU is that they weren’t the second-best team last year, and they surely aren’t this year either — but aren’t we used to this with Izzo’s teams by now? They typically underachieve in the regular season, only to overachieve in the NCAA Tournament. The problem is that teams that are routinely blown out do not win national championships. Granted, Michigan State made a run in this game to get the margin back to a respectable score, but Carolina was never seriously threatened after the first ten minutes of the game. So what went wrong other than allowing UNC to shoot lights-out again? How about 2-20 from three (and many of those misses were open looks), a terrible evening from deep for a team that came into this game shooting 37% from distance? How about allowing point guards Drew and Dexter Strickland to torch the MSU defense for repeated forays to the rim for easy buckets (9-12 FG)? How about the rough-and-tumble Spartans getting outrebounded (36-34) by the admittedly bigger (but tougher?) Heels? Honestly, the reason we thought this game would go Carolina’s way was because they were playing at home, but we’re not sure that it would have gone any differently had they played this game on Mars. Michigan State simply cannot get over on Carolina, and it’s starting to get ridiculous. At least Raymar Morgan (18/6) looked healthy and played well, right?
ACC/Big Ten Challenge. We’re deadlocked at 3-3 going into the last day, and yeah, it’s gone exactly as we predicted so far. Which of course means all five games tomorrow will go crazy — expect all kinds of upset specials. Seriously, though, we still think it comes down to the BC-Michigan game tomorrow night. Winner of that one wins the Challenge (our choice: UM).
#6 Purdue 69, Wake Forest 58. Wake played well enough for a half to win this game, but the Deacs don’t have enough offensive threats beyond Al-Farouq Aminu when he has an off game (12/10 on 3-11 FG including 6 TOs) and they turn the ball over like it’s their job. But we knew that already. Purdue, on the other hand, is only getting production from their Big Three of Robbie Hummel (11/11 on 3-11 FG), E’Twaun Moore (22/4/3 assts) and JaJuan Johnson (21/9/3 blks) — the rest of the team only scored fifteen points. That’ll carry the Boilermakers against the lesser teams, especially in Mackey Arena, but we have concerns about when they start playing athletic teams like WFU that also have multiple serious scorers. Wake played superb defense, holding Purdue to 34% for the game and 1-15 from deep, but their endemic problems with ballhandling and lack of a three-point threat will be problematic all season.
Northwestern 65, NC State 53. Northwestern is quickly becoming our second favorite team of this season (behind Portland). With the injury troubles that they endured to start this season, we would have completely understood if the Wildcats had simply packed it in and hoped for next year. But they didn’t. Beating Notre Dame, Iowa State and NC State isn’t exactly equivalent to Michigan State, Purdue and Ohio State, as they’ll face in the Big Ten, but the key is that NW is gaining experience with winning and they’re doing it in environments away from the comforts of home. Tonight Michael Thompson stepped up with 22/4 and Jeremy Nash also chipped in 12/8/4 assts in the win. The Wildcats could realistically enter Big Ten play at 10-1 by the end of this month. Good for them.
Tonight at 11pm ET we’ll be visiting California for our second RTC Live of the young season. On Monday, we had a nice turnout for Cal-Murray State considering it was a late-night game for people in the East and there didn’t seem to be a lot of excitement for that particular game. But it ended up being the best game of the evening, and maybe we’ll get lucky again.
Detroit is projected as a middle-of-the-pack team in the Horizon League, but they have one thing that could give Cal trouble: a strong frontcourt. Eli Holman and Xavier Keeling are two former Indiana players who transferred after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco blew up. You might even recall that Holman was escorted out of the IU basketball offices two years ago because he threw a potted plant at someone or something during a meeting about a transfer with Tom Crean. We’ve already discussed that Cal’s kryptonite is a strong frontcourt, and this could be a good barometer for Jamal Boykin, Markhuri Sanders-Frison, Harper Kamp and Max Zhang. Cal has a major advantage in the backcourt, however, and it was clear that Jerome Randle wasn’t happy with his performance on Monday night, so it’ll also be interesting to see how he and Patrick Christopher responds.
JaJuan Johnson (C), Purdue (112.3 ORtg, 8.1 Block Percentage)
6th Man. Robbie Hummel (F), Purdue.
Impact Newcomer.D.J. Richardson (G), Illinois.
What You Need to Know.
The Big 10 is Very Good This Year. No, really, we mean it. Last year we predicted mediocrity, and I think we were mostly right. Although Michigan State had a great run in the tournament, it was not a Final Four team “on paper.” Indeed, the efficiency margins of the teams were bunched closely together, without any real spectacular performers. Sure, lots of teams made the Dance, but not a lot of them garnered high seeds. But we think that will be different this season, mostly because the Big Ten didn’t lose anyone. Sure, B.J. Mullens is gone, as are standouts Marcus Landry, Craig Moore and Jamelle Cornley. But the conference’s best players all returned, including the entire all-conference 1st Team. Throw in some strong recruiting classes, and you’ve got what appears to be the conference’s best year in possibly a decade. Although there’s not a lot of star quality to this conference–there might be less than 10 NBA players among the 11 teams–there is the experience that can take you far in March.
Michigan Stateand Purdue are the expected frontrunners, but they have company this year. Both the Spartans and Boilermakers return most of the minutes from good teams, so there’s no reason why one of them can’t win the conference crown. But watch out for Ohio State and (especially) Minnesota. They returned more minutes than anyone, and they also both have a couple other things going for them. For Ohio State, you might be talking about the most talented starting five in the conference, and one of the best in the country. With the Gophers, you have an incredibly deep roster. So deep that athletic freak and top 50 recruit Rodney Williams will fight for playing time. When these teams are grabbing high seeds on Selection Sunday, don’t forget where you heard it first.
Last night was the celebration, but it’s back to the blood, sweat and tears of two-a-days for the roughly 5000 Division I players around the country today as coaches begin whipping their teams into shape for season openers in less than a month. RTC’s John Stevens dynamited last night’s disappointing ESPNU coverage, ultimately finding that the various tweets and message board updates from fans, coaches, players and media around the country were entirely more interesting than Steve Lavin sitting in an empty locker room waiting for a volleyball game to end. So to wrap up our Midnight Madness coverage, let’s take another look at some of the sights and sounds from last night’s events around the nation.
First, some of the bigger events of last night…
Duke’s Midnight Madness took an odd turn last evening. From The Onion:
DURHAM, NC—Freshman Nate Washburn, 17, was mutilated in front of 12,000 students, players, and coaches at Duke University’s Cameron Indoor Stadium Friday during the school’s traditional “Midnight Madness Sacrifice A Freshman Ceremony.” Prior to their first official practice, six hooded members of the Duke basketball team, lightly chanting the school’s fight song, led a blindfolded Washburn to center court, where he was greeted by head coach Mike Krzyzewski…
Ok, that’s a joke. But the following video wasn’t. They actually showed this at last night’s Countdown to Craziness in Cameron (this is the kind of stuff ESPNU should have been showing!), and the Titanic scene is absolutely going to give us nightmares for the entire rest of Nolan Smith’s career. Seriously. Check it out at the 1:55 minute mark (but the whole thing is worth watching).
And you may have heard that some tomfoolery got into those silly students at Georgetown last night. Well, one specifically. A freshman named Alex Thiele was arrested on suspicion of lifting a loaded handgun from a Park Police officer and then firing the damn thing in a bathroom in one of the dorms on campus. What – it wouldn’t flush? This is just bizarre.
Moving on, here’s Tom Izzo driving into the sold-out (first time ever) Breslin Center at Michigan State in a Formula 1 race car. The tie-in, of course, is that Indianapolis is the site of the 2010 Final Four.
Here’s some of the freshman dance skit at Kansas’ Late Night in the Phog last evening. Gary Parrish was there for this one.
You knew Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness was going to be on the other side of insane last night, and it was. Here’s John Calipari’s opening speech, which is being compared favorably with Obama’s gift of oratory by some (though not all).
Here’s Bob Huggins entering West Virginia’s Midnight Madness last night. WVU is getting a lot of early season hype as a darkhorse F4 candidate.
Ed. Note: for our Midnight Madness wrapup post, click here.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our first Boom Goes The Dynamite of the new season. And now, we can say those words — “new season.” For tonight is the final hurdle in that long lull of the off-season that we have to cross. Maybe it’s inappropriately named, but who cares? Tonight is Midnight Madness across the country. Schools all over the place have got the festivities going, the first official games are less than a month away, and we can finally say that the new season is here.
ESPN-U’s broadcast is minutes away from starting. I’m John Stevens, one of the editors here at Rush The Court, and I’ll be live-blogging the whole way with RTMSF, our founder and guru, behind the scenes watching message boards, Twitter accounts, and getting texts and video from all over, and we’ll put up everything we get. So settle in, enjoy the coverage, and let us know your opinions as always. Keep hitting that refresh button, and we hope you enjoy it. Most of all — welcome. It’s finally here.
9:01pm: Here are some tweets RTMSF has already procured from various sources:
Mike Davis, Illinois
IlliniBalla24… @BuckWildBill33: Three point contest tonight, i’m looking to go 15 for 15 <—- I like ur confidence but I like @dkeller23 for a bill lls
Abdul Gaddy, Washington
gaddy0uw…Midnight madness tonight! Everybody come support
Jim Boylen, Utah
JimBoylen…Talking to the media for a few minutes before practice starts. We’re going to hit the ground running!
MDCoachWilliams…MARYLAND MADNESS IS HERE!!!! Come out to the Comcast Center and check out all the action.
9:12: Evidently the University of Kentucky had recording artist Drake at the festivities. No report on Ashley Judd’s whereabouts.
9:16: Right now, just lots of talk by Katz, Gallindo, and Branch. Mostly about North Carolina. Keep in mind, in the race for all-time wins, UNC is only 4 behind Kentucky, and the two face off on December 5th. Might be REALLY important.
On the eve of college football’s start… let’s get caught up on the news and notes from the last week in roundball.
Preaching to the Choir. Gary Parrish wrote an article that was ostensibly about the A10’s financially-motivated decision to move from its ancestral home of Philadelphia to its Sun Belt environs of Newport News, Virginia, but morphed into a scathing critique of the rapidly increasing revenue gap between the power conferences and the mid-majors. We liken this a little bit to what has happened in major league baseball over the past twenty years or so. It’s not an issue of there once being equality where now there is none; it’s more an issue of relative inequality being much larger than it ever has been (and only increasing). The Yankees and other major market franchises in MLB always had more money to spend on players, marketing, etc., and were summarily rewarded with larger media deals and ticket prices. This is similarly true for the power conferences in football and basketball. But in the modern era of 100-million dollar contracts for baseball players and billion-dollar contracts for media rights, what we’re witnessing is an acceleration of the revenue gap between large and small to a future point that is completely unsustainable. As an example of the disparity, the $2.2B television contract that the SEC has with ESPN is probably worth more than the contracts of every mid-major league in existence has ever had, combined. Seriously. As Parrish points out, this sort of exposure leads to recruits, and the cycle starts all over again. We’re really uncertain as to how the NCAA plans to deal with this over the next decade, but if we know anything about the entity at all, we’re betting that they’ll be completely behind the curve when something happens.
Vegas Watch: Big 12 Preview. We mentioned this in a previous FBs, but Vegas Watch is leading an exercise previewing each of the six BCS conferences using last year’s Pomeroy rankings, this year’s incoming recruits, and the sharp eye of his respected cronies (Money Line Journal and Sports Investments). He invited RTC along for the ride this time around, and we tried to provide some value where we could. Keep an eye out for the remaining installments over the next several weeks. (note: not even a regression analysis is needed to determine KU is #1 in the Big 12)
Get Creative, SEC Schools. Look, it’s not every year that a player named Nimrod Tishman comes into your league as a freshman, assuming that the NCAA clears his amateur status in the next few weeks. But Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators picked up the 6′6 Israeli to replace Nick Calathes and you should expect to see his curious name all over the place next season. So here’s our request of the other 11 SEC schools – get creative. Come up with some really clever signs and chants for when Florida visits your house this winter. If we hear a school derisively chanting his first name with no further thought or effort put into it, we’re going to be extremely disappointed. Come on, UK and UT fans, we know you’ve got something up your sleeves – an opportunity like this only comes around once a decade.
SI’s 25 Things We Miss in Basketball. This wasn’t exclusively a list of college basketball memories, but the ones chosen by Grant Wahl, Seth Davis and others were exceptional. It’s not every day we can honestly say we learned something completely new about the modern era of CBB, but the piece about Bo Ellis designing Marquette’s national title year “untucked” jerseys indeed was (image here). It was so ugly that the NCAA banned it a few years later. We also enjoyed the pieces on great team nicknames, Len Bias and the SEC in the 80s. Give it a read. You won’t regret it.
Closing Out Pitino/Sypher. An awful lot of bandwidth was used writing about the Pitino/Sypher Scandal, and presumably there’s more to this story coming down the road. But the best piece we read last week was this one on CNNSI by Pablo Torre, who attempts to describe Pitino’s inner circle and how intertwined they all are. The worst one was this abomination by Jason Whitlock. Then there was this hard-hitting interview from WLKY in Louisville…
Comings and Goings. J’Covan Brown wascleared to play at Texas this season. Ditto with Mississippi St.’s John Riek, who will sit out the first nine games of the season over extra benefits. Pitt’s Gilbert Brown, on the other hand, will be sitting out the fall semester due to academic troubles. South Carolina picked up a heckuva transfer in walk-on Malik Cooke, who averaged 9/5 for Nevada last season. Darryl “Truck” Bryant’s legal troubles don’t appear to be too burdensome – he’ll face no jail time after leaving the scene of an accident and striking a WVU student with his vehicle in separate incidents this summer. What’s that get you under Huggins? A one-game suspension? Finally, in the let’s-keep-our-fingers-crossed dept., BYU’s Dave Rose got a clean bill of health after his pancreatic cancer surgery earlier this summer. He’s hopeful that he’ll be back on the court this season (his next scan is in two weeks).
Josh & Mike from Big Ten Geeks are the RTC correspondents for the Big Ten Conference.
The Season That Was
Politicians often talk about “Two Americas” – there’s the super-rich, lighting Cuban cigars with $100 bills, and then there’s the rest of us. Well, this year, there were “Three Big Tens.” First, there was Michigan State, who won the conference title in a walk by four games. That’s the largest margin in a very long time (over 10 years). And just like this little credit crisis hasn’t forced Warren Buffett to fly coach [Ed. Note: Having read about Warren, he might fly coach anyways.], Raymar Morgan’s long bout with pneumonia didn’t slow down the Spartans one bit. We predicted Michigan State to win, we just didn’t know it would be this easy.
Then there’s the middle, which was filled with parity. Second place through ninth place was separated by 3 games. Call it the Big Ten’s middle class. Purdue didn’t develop into the team everyone thought they would. Sure, Robbie Hummel’s extended absence hurt, but it was really the big steps back taken by E’Twuan Moore and Keaton Grant that made the biggest difference. Illinois actually overachieved this season, after last year’s debacle. The truth is that the Illini weren’t that bad last year, but suffered a lot of close losses. A big turnaround was to be expected. But to go from 16 wins to 23 (and counting) without adding a single player of significance was beyond optimistic. That’s exactly what Bruce Weber’s team did though. Wisconsin will see their streak of 30-win seasons come to an end this year, and despite what you might read or hear about this team, it was the defense that let them down. In fact, the Badgers sported the league’s best offense on a per possession basis. But without twin towers Brian Butch and Greg Steimsma, opponents shot much better from inside the arc.
Penn State continued its happy-go-lucky ways, going 10-8 in conference play despite being outscored (handily) by its opponents. But good for the Nittany Lions, it’s wins that punch Dance tickets, not scoring margins. Ohio State might have had the most talent in the league, but finished right in the middle of the pack. We said that before the season started that Ohio State would be hard-pressed to improve on last year’s performance. We were right – Thad Matta is finding out that landing All American Recruits isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Speaking of attrition, Northwestern had virtually none, and that went a long, long way into fueling their best post-war season. The Wildcats will come up short for landing an NCAA Tourney bid unless they win the conference tournament, but that shouldn’t diminish the job Bill Carmody’s done. Another turnaround was present in Ann Arbor, where John Beilein has Michigan on the brink of their first NCAA Tournament appearance in over 10 years. The Wolverines have looked like giant killers that took down Duke, UCLA, and nearly UConn; but this is also the same team that was outscored by opponents in conference play. They need to find that early-season magic for the stretch run. Minnesota has been somewhat of an oddball team as well this year in that this is the worst field goal shooting team in the conference, but they’re also tied for the best free throw shooting team in the conference. Clearly they have the talent to score more, but it just hasn’t happened.
It seems like there is a lot of news coming out of Bloomington for a team is at the bottom of the Big Ten with a record of 1-14 in the conference. We figured that they would stay under the radar after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco, but in the past few months they have managed to get in the news with reports of rampant drug use and their continued inability to understand how to use phones.
Santa (#1) gets some PT. http://www.insidethehall.com
This time the Hoosiers have managed to make news headlines for a positive story though as Tom Crean has announced that he has promoted team manager Mike Santa to a reserve guard. While this move does reek of desperation (and I’m sure Indiana’s Big 10 rivals will have fun taunting him particularly with his last name), we like the move as it might help boost morale on the team and on campus. I’m not sure if it the fact that the campuses are just 200 miles away or my lack of imagination, but this reminds me of the whole “Rudy” Ruettiger mixed with a bit of Ollie from “Hoosiers”.
200 miles between Notre Dame and Indiana
We don’t know much about Santa’s high school basketball career (for all we know he could be a Jimmy Chitwood-style sharpshooter), but he did play against Northwestern even if ESPN hasn’t even bothered to give him a position, height, or weight. If anybody has some background info on Indiana’s Rudy, let us know by posting it in the comment section.
Tom Crean should be proud of his Indiana team this year – despite basically playing with D2 talent, the Hoosiers have used grit and hustle to compete in nearly every Big Ten game, even winning one against Iowa a few weeks ago. Furthermore, the stench of impropriety and illicit activity that enveloped Bloomington during the tenure of Kelvin Sanctions is finally, like a soupy fog lingering to mid-day, starting to lift. As a result, the phone lines at the athletic department are free and clear; nobody is hiding under their desks trying to, um, get a signal (yeah, that’s you, Senderoff).
What’s that?
Please Pick Me Up and Call a Recruit
Oh, maybe the stink hasn’t quite dissipated after all. Perhaps there’s something about the phones in that place that is so magnificent… so wonderful… so awe-inspiring, that coaches just can’t resist the siren-like urge to pick it up and call someone. Someone like, oh we dunno, just thinking out loud here, maybe… a recruit! From the Indy Star:
Indiana University reported a secondary NCAA violation involving what the school said was an inadvertent extra phone call by the men’s basketball staff to recruit Bawa Muniru in October. IU punished itself by not making any recruiting phone calls for a week in December, according to the report, revealed through a public records request by The Indianapolis Star.
Rumors and Rants had an excellent set of suggestions for the Indiana coaching brass, seeing as how they have loads of trouble getting all these confounding phone rules right (i.e., two calls per week, fellas). Here are their best two recommendations:
The smoke signal: This is one of the oldest forms of communication known to man, dating back to ancient China, and it’s particularly useful for long distances. The smoke signal will be most effective when courting in-state recruits in places like Indianapolis, Richmond and Terre Haute.
The heliograph: Here’s another one where knowing Morse Code will come in handy. A heliograph was standard issue in the British and Australian armies until the 1960s, and involves using a flashes of sunlight to convey Morse Code with, basically, a mirror. It works, according to Wikipedia, to 50 kilometers or more, which is perfect if you want to get in touch with a player while recruiting in Canada or Europe.
Agreed. Nothing says Ironic Indiana U. basketball like using smoke signals to communicate with each other. Right, Eric?
John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC. His column appears on Tuesdays throughout the season.
Could it really be that, as of this coming weekend, we are only five weeks from Selection Sunday? That means we’re only four weeks from putting crowns on the heads of conference tournament champions and even closer than that to anointing some regular season champs. It doesn’t seem possible, but here we are. I think this also means the Ivy League announces its tournament representative, like, what, tomorrow?!? OK, maybe not that quickly. But it’ll all be here pretty darn soon.
After much cunning, good timing, and top-flite negotiation, the boys and I have made the Vegas hotel reservations (deals abound like you wouldn’t believe) and locked in our flights (deals aren’t as great as ya might be hearing) for the annual Vegas excursion for the first two rounds. The Vegas-related e-mail chatter has increased. Ah, how I love it. And since I’m here in the RTC Midwestern Compound, all this Vegas talk provides a wonderful antidote, a perfect bridge from now to the first tip in March, over what we hope are the last strains of what’s been one hell of a winter.
The RTC MW Compound is nice, but does not have a view like this. (credit: gpsmagazine.com)
That said, let’s take another peek inside the collective head of the Vegas oddsmakers and see what they’re thinking. Most of you probably know, but for the untrained, the way the money line works is that if you see a team with, say, +1000 beside them then that means if you bet $100 on them, you get $1000 back, plus your bet. The lower the x is in +(x), the bigger the favorite. If you should ever see a team with a negative (-1000) that means you have to bet $1000 on them to win $100. That doesn’t apply to this list, though.
Yep, it’s still Carolina. They’ve given up another $30 since the last time we checked, going from +220 to +250. But it looks like someone in Sin City has found something to like about the oft-bewildering Connecticut Huskies, since their value has been cut in half from +1000 to +500. Odd that Vegas would basically feel twice as good about UConn, seeing as how the Huskies seem to lose focus so easily at times. It can’t just be about the #1 ranking, because the last time we looked at this, UNC had just taken their first loss and actually extended their lead as favorite over the next-closest contender. Connecticut is a fine team and undoubtedly a title contender, but that’s a big move. I wonder what else it’s based on?
Mr. Calhoun can’t explain it, either. But he ain’t arguing. (credit: daylife.com)
Call me crazy, but I still think Louisville is an attractive option at +1800 even though they’ve been “demoted” a couple hundred bucks since last time and they have the occasional problem staying focused, as well. The chance to win 18x your money isn’t a bad value for the current #5 team in the country, eh? I also think UCLA is playing better recently than the mere $200 bump Vegas has allotted them (+2000 to +1800). Heck, even Memphis (+2000 from +3000), a very athletic bunch playing very well of late, can’t be ignored; come on, like you wouldn’t plop down a little dough for the chance to win twenty times your cash on that team. But as far as I’m concerned, along with Rick Pitino’s Cardinals, I think the best bet on the board comes in the form of the Oklahoma Sooners (+1500), a current #2-ranked team that Vegas will give you fifteen times your money for if they take it all. Not a bad deal for a team that has who I consider the national POY (in spite of, uh, THIS) surrounded by an incredibly athletic and hungry surrounding cast. The only thing in the college basketball world bigger than the value you can get for the Sooners and Cardinals is perhaps Andy Kennedy’s head.
Another interesting matter is the continued presence of Gonzaga and an unranked Georgetown team high on the list. I was all about Gonzaga earlier this year — and why not? They have a good coach, exceptional guard play, solid inside game, what we thought was a budding star in Austin Daye…and yet they can barely stay afloat in the Top 25. Everyone thought this was going to be the year Gonzaga, as a program, took that next step into adulthood…what happened? True, the season’s far from over but all the evidence we have up to now has to make you wonder why they’re ranked 19th in the AP poll but still sit as the 9th favorite according to Vegas. And for some reason here sits Georgetown, careening downward like an Acula class submarine, GONE from the Top 25 but still perched here as Vegas’ 12th choice. These oddsmakers usually know their stuff — I wonder what they still see in the Zags and Hoyas?
One final thing I definitely have to mention…even with all of the lines up there that it seems strange that they’d even mention (Georgia at +50000? Texas Tech at +17500?), maaaaan…to just throw more dirt on Indiana like that, actually bothering to list them at +99999?!? That’s got to be classified as cruel and unusual!! Haven’t they endured enough for one year?
The next time we check this will probably be in a month, as we take a final look right before the tournament starts. My hombres and I have our suite waiting and our sportsbook seats reserved, and we’ll be touching down the night of the play-in game…so hey, if you see something on the odds board you like, feel free to send us some dough, and we’ll put it in play for you, ya know? Come on…you can trust us!
Mr. Stevens promises your money will not be used for…tips. (credit: chinadaily.com)
A really weak set of games tonight and only one really worth watching. To be honest, this is a surprisingly weak week of games. I would say there are only a handful of games that I would consider worth watching this week, but I’ll get to that in another post.
Game of the Night (The only one worth watching) #10 Marquette at #19 Notre Dame at 7 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: This game might answer some of the questions I posed this weekend about the Big East. I think the conference is not as good as everyone says they are. I think there are only 3 great teams (Pittsburgh, UConn, and the reborn Louisville Cardinals) and a whole bunch of borderline teams. I am actually starting to think the ACC would match-up pretty well against the Big East if you account for the Big East having approximately 1/4th of D-1 in the conference.
While Marquette has an impressive record (17-2), they have not faced a good team all year (Villanova is questionable and that game was at home). A win at Notre Dame would certainly erase some of the doubts that many in the media have. Do I count as the media? Even though Notre Dame’s aura of invincibility in South Bend went up in smoke on Saturday against UConn, winning there will still be quite challenging. Buzz Williams, who has done a good job replacing Tom Crean, will need big games out of Wesley Matthews, Jerel McNeal, Lazar Hayward, and Dominic James if he wants to steal one in South Bend and have his Golden Eagles stake a legitimate claim as a Big East title contender.
That said, how likely is it that the Irish, who had a three-year, 45-game home winning streak snapped on Saturday night by UConn, would lose two in a row at home? Not very. Mike Brey’s team went stone cold in that game, shooting a miserable 33%, highlighted by Kyle McAlarney’s 12 bricks in a row (after starting 3-3) and a combined 2-15 from Zach Hillesland and Ryan Ayers. Luke Harangody was the only scorer that showed for ND in that game (particularly in the second half when UConn’s defense was spectacular), so I expect that we’ll see a much-better Irish team tonight. They sorta have to win this game – they’ve already lost their last three and a trip to Pittsburgh looms next. A five-loss losing streak could crush this team’s confidence.
How is This Humanly Possible?Harvard 82, Boston College 70. In one of the biggest transitive property sequences we’ve ever seen, Harvard, a school who had never in its illustrious basketball history defeated a ranked team, went to BC and knocked off the newly-ranked Eagles a mere 72 hrs after those same Eagles had gone into the nation’s #1 team, North Carolina, and knocked them off. Sure, this kind of scratch-your-head stuff happens every year to a certain extent. But rarely is it in back-to-back games, and even more rarely is the difference in talent so great in the larger of the two upsets (according to Sagarin, BC was #40 in America; Harvard #247). Of course, we know that the transitive property doesn’t work in basketball, but it’s fun to talk about. What’s also fun to talk about is the word “letdown,” and BC may have redefined the word by completely failing to show up for a crosstown rival that its second team should be able to handle (esp. love the cheerleader angle below on the video). Credit is due to Tommy Amaker’s crew, who took advantage of an opportunity to catch an ACC team sleepwalking – the Crimson took the lead 19-17 with 7:32 remaining in the first half, and never lost it again, even extending into the 12-16 pt range deep into the second half. Jeremy Lin was the story, dropping 27/8/6 stls, and perhaps signaling to the rest of the Ivy League that Amaker’s influx of talent will be heard from this season. As for BC, Tyrese Rice, who was outstanding against Carolina, had a quiet 14-pt foul-out game. In the long run, this game won’t hurt BC too terribly much if they reboot and have a good ACC slate (8-8 or better, for example). But if they go 6-10 or even 7-9 in conference, this could end up being a bubble knockout game for the Eagles.
Curry Watch.Duke 79, Davidson 67. This game wasn’t as close as the floor, but we do have a few points to make about this one. First of all, the announcing trio of Tirico/Jackson/Van Gundy was soooooooooooooooooooo much better than it would have been listening to Dickie V. chortle about Curry and K, Duke and Carolina, Roy and Dean, and various other interludes for two hours. Secondly, COMPLETE AGREEMENT with Van Gundy and it took an NBA guy to point it out, but the charge call in the NCAA (perfected by Duke) where a player stands underneath the rim waiting on a driving player to run into him has got to end. College basketball needs the NBA block/charge semi-circle, we’ve been saying it for years – it would put an end to that gimmicky nonsense and avoid penalizing players who make fantastic drives to the rim without running through someone (standing under the basket Battier-style does not qualify). About the game, Stephen Curry was cold early, made some shots late, and turned the ball over a lot (but he still ended with 29/8/6 assts to go with his 7 tos). Davidson isn’t as good as they were last year, but heck, they lost all these type of games in the pre-conference season in 2008 too, so we won’t write them off for a March run just yet. Other than that, we’ll have to respectfully disagree with Mark Jackson’s assessment of Curry’s game as a PG – we’re more in concert with SVG’s thoughts – great shooter who has questionable decisionmaking skills. For Duke, Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer had twin 22-pt games.
Overtime Madness. There were two games tonight that went into OT and, in both cases, the home team outplayed the visitor for the majority of the contest, only to be shocked by furious comebacks which led to OT losses for Indiana and Tennessee.
Gonzaga 89, Tennessee 79 (OT). This game probably shouldn’t have gone into overtime, as Matt Bouldin’s final shot in regulation should have counted due to a missed goaltending call where a UT player’s hand went up through the net and into the rim as the ball flew over the goal. Thanks, Jay Bilas. Nevertheless, Tennessee’s porous defense caught up with them tonight and ended their 37-game homecourt winning streak, as they allowed Gonzaga to get off the schneid and pull out a key road victory thanks to 53% shooting and Bouldin’s 26/4/5 assts. Austin Daye added 20/8, but more importantly for the Zags, they held UT to only 36% shooting, their worst home performance since late in the 06-07 season. Does this mean that the Zags we saw a month ago – the ones who played defense – are back? Obviously, it’s uncertain, but at least they appeared to be interested in the concept tonight. Or maybe they just know how to play Tennessee.
Michigan 72, Indiana 66 (OT). We’ll give credit to Tom Crean’s kids – they’re playing extremely hard. They just don’t have the kind of talent to hold good teams down when they wake up and realize they’re down 20 pts to an inferior squad, as Michigan did in the second half tonight. We were sure this was going to be an L for the Wolverines when we saw the early score, but Manny Harris, Laval Lucas-Perry and DeShawn Sims (49 pts combined) didn’t allow that to happen. UM improves to 2-1 in the Big Ten.
Edgar Sosa Watch and Other Interesting Things.
Louisville 71, S. Florida 57. Tonight’s Edgar Sosa Watch: 5-9 for 12 pts. Verdict: not invited to transfer after this road win for the Cards.
Syracuse 85, Depaul 68. Andy Rautins hit five threes to continue his hot streak over the last few games (25-44). Cuse’s main six players all scored between 12-17 pts.
Providence 87, Cincinnati 79. If PC is going to make a run at an at-large, it’s games like this on the road that they have to win. The Friars are now 3-0, but they’ve played three of the four bottom-feeders in the league so far (St. John’s and Depaul in addition to Cincy).
Morgan St. 66, Maryland 65. Horrendous home loss to a MEAC team (albeit probably the best one in that conference). Very rough night for the ACC.
Marquette 81, Rutgers 76. Rutgers is making it known they’ll not be a pushover in the RAC this year. Wes Matthews was perfect from the field (10-10) for 23/6 in a game where MU had to hold on down the stretch despite having a 21-pt lead earlier in the second half.
Wisconsin 74, Northwestern 45. UW moved to 3-0 in the Big 10 in an easy home win over the Wildcats (now 0-3).
UNC 108, Charleston 70. Carolina rebounded from its first loss of the year with a huge second half against Charleston, putting all five starters into double figures (led by TH’s 24/7, of course).
The Indianapolis Star reported tonight that former Hoosier standout Eric Gordon spent time living off-campus during last year’s tumultuous season in large part because of the drug use that was occurring among members of his team. He declined to name names of the users, but he did say the following:
Gordon didn’t say which players used drugs, but he said D.J. White and two others still on the team were among those who did not. Attempts to reach White and several other former players were not successful. Gordon said Sampson “tried to stop it,” but the coach “was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything.” Gordon said he spent considerable time with a family friend in Bloomington because the atmosphere around some players was so bad he didn’t feel comfortable on campus. “Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even a real basketball team because of all the turmoil that went on,” said Gordon, now a starting guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. “I was just thinking about that the other day. It was so crazy that all that stuff threw off a good season and made it a waste, basically. “It was really tough for us to be around each other all the time off the court because we were so separate.”
photo credit: cartoonstock.com
If true, this confirms one of the oft-repeated rumors in Bloomington as to the seedy underbelly that led to the demise of Kelvin Sampson possibly even moreso than his ridiculous phone call scandal. Certainly if Sampson had knowledge of certain players using drugs and he “tried to stop it” but ultimately turned a blind eye to the matter, then Indiana administrators – no dummies, them – would have caught wind of this problem and looked for any way possible to get rid of him. This also explains the mass exodus that took place both prior to and upon Tom Crean’s arrival in Bloomington.
data source: statsheet.com
We do have one question for Eric Gordon, though, and this in no way should be taken to suggest that we think HE was involved in any illegal activities. But, it’s a little hypocritical to throw a bunch of your teammates under the bus for a failed season when your own numbers dropped significantly in the last two months of the season, isn’t it (see above fg%)? Perhaps he’d argue that his mind wasn’t into it anymore because his teammates were more concerned with snorting blow than beating Izzo, but we think, as the best player on the team, he should have taken some responsibility and looked into the mirror with the rest of the clowns to explain IU’s miserable finish in 2007-08 (8-6 after beginning 17-1) .
Update: We wanted to address a post by the Indiana blog Cannot Falter, which accuses us of shooting ourselves Plaxico Burress-style by failing to mention that Gordon was suffering through an injury to his non-shooting wrist through the second half of the 2007-08 season. They’re right in that we should have mentioned it as a contributing factor, and for that omission, we apologize. They’re wrong in that we still don’t believe that was the sole reason for his precipitous decline in play, ESPECIALLY after Kelvin Sampson was fired (the wrist injury was on Jan. 29; IU’s first game w/o Sampson was on Feb. 23). Not only did Gordon’s FG% drop to a disastrous 32 percent over his last seven games post-Sampson, but he also committed 4.2 turnovers per game in that span (from 46.6% and 3.4 tos). Was that all due to his wrist injury? Or did he quit playing and lose focus along with the rest of his drug-addled teammates in those games after his coach was let go? You tell us.
Our third installment of Set Your Tivos brings us what I consider the first legitimate tournament of the season–the Maui Invitational. It’s your yearly chance to see some of the biggest names in college basketball rocking Hawaiian t-shirts or polos. You could argue that I’m just being nostalgic over the most shocking upset in NCAA history (that barely anybody saw live) except that the famous game actually happened a little less than 3 months before I was born. Anyways, onto our weekly countdown. . .
#10: Boston College vs. #10 Purdue, Wednesday at 7 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: I’m curious to see how one of the Big 10 co-favorites (along with Michigan State and now Michigan) will do against a middle to bottom of the pack Big East ACC team. This game is about getting some respect for the Big 10. If the Boilermakers don’t win this game easily, it could be a sign that we’re in for another season of really bad Big 10 basketball.
#9: Duquesne at #5 Duke; Friday at 3 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: It will still be November when they play this game so the Blue Devils should win this game even though they have struggled at times this year. One of the revelations from last week’s Coaches vs. Cancer was that Brian Zoubek may still be a stiff, but he is a tall one. Look for Coach K to try to get Zoubek involved as he may be a key for Duke if they want to advance deep into the NCAA tournament this year. (Hint: Don’t put Duke too far in your March Madness bracket).
#8: Maryland vs. #7 Michigan State, Thursday at 7 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: This game seems more interesting on paper (program reputation) than it will be on the court (this year’s teams), but I’ll be tuned in to see what Tom Izzo actually has this season. The Spartans come in with a preseason #7 ranking, but got “UNLV-Duke 1990″ crushed by Memphis in their Sweet 16 match-up and have lost their floor general Drew Neitzel. This year’s Spartan team has the potential to make it to Detroit (for the Final 4–I can’t imagine why you would want to go there for any other reason), but they’ll have to step it up several levels from where they were last week (beating Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne by 11 in a game that was as close as the final margin indicates).
#7: UAB vs. #14 Oklahoma, Wednesday 9 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: This game will be a match-up of potential All-Americans–Robert Vaden and Blake Griffin–although they won’t match-up against each other outside of the occasional switch off a screen. The Sooners looked like they were still basking in the glow of beating America’s sweetheart Davidson when they almost lost to Gardner-Webb although BIlly Gillispie may disagree. The thought here is that if Oklahoma could hold of Stephen Curry then they can do the same against Vaden.
#6: Saint Joseph’s vs. #8 Texas, Monday at 3 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Rick Barnes managed to get to the Elite 8 one year after losing national POY and the greatest freshman ever (I disagree with rtmsf) Kevin Durant. Now the question is how far he can get the Longhorns after losing All-American point guard D. J. Augustin. The early game of ESPN’s tripleheader will give us some insight into that. The Longhorns should win this one easily since Phil Martelli’s crew is in rebuilding mode (see their loss to Holy Cross), but the Hawks could show us some weaknesses that the Longhorns may have.
#5: Syracuse at #19 Florida, Monday at 7:30 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Jim Boeheim will need big games out of Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf to pull off the upset tonight. Despite struggling to put away Richmond last week, the Orangemen have the potential to pull off the upset against Billy Donovan’s young squad especially after the loss of last year’s starting PG Jai Lucas. I’m assuming that the Gators will return to the NCAA tournament, but if they want to have a successful season (Sweet 16 trip), they will have to be able to beat teams of Syracuse’s caliber.
#4: Indiana vs. #9 Notre Dame, Monday at 5:30 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Our first look at Tom Crean’s new squad (Bruce Weber has already told us what he thinks of them). Unfortunately this game isn’t at Alumni Hall. It will be interesting to see how the Hooiser faithful react to Crean and his JV squad. I am imaging the scene out of Hooisers at town hall where they vote Norman Dale out before Jimmy Chitwood shows up and saves the day. Unfortunately, I don’t think Eric Gordon can come back to Bloomington with any eligibility to recreate this. Bottom line: The Golden Domers will have something to look forward to after pelting their football players with snowballs after another embarrassing loss.
#3: #6 Pittsburgh vs. Texas Tech, Friday at 7:30 PM on HDNet: I’m guessing that Pat Knight’s boys won’t be putting up 167 tonight unless this game goes to 6 OTs. So far the Panthers have players compared to Shaq (DeJuan Blair) and Lebron (Sam Young) and that doesn’t even factor in Levance Fields, who may be the most important player on the roster. There is no question that Pittsburgh is the better team in this match-up, but I’ll be following this to see just how good the Panthers are and the Red Raiders have had a tendency to come up with big upsets early in the year.
#2: #3 Louisville vs. Western Kentucky, Sunday at 3 PM on Fox College Sports Atlantic: Our first good look at RTC pre-season bracketology national champion against some real competition. The Hilltoppers lost a lot in the backcourt (Courtney Lee, Ty Rogers, and Tyrone Brazelton), but they return a lot of experience in the frontcourt. If the Hilltoppers want to give Rick Pitino’s Cardinals a game they will need JUCO transfer Sergio Kerusch, Motlow State Community College transfer Anthony Sally, and Dejan Cvoro, a point guard from Serbia, to step up. I’m guessing that Western Kentucky will keep it close for the first 10 minutes before Louisville pulls away, but it should still be interesting to see just how good freshman Samardo Samuels is. If he is as good as advertised, Pitino may have a legitimate title contender.
#1:Oklahoma State vs. #11 Gonzaga, Thursday at 9 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Mark Few comes into this year with his 2nd highest ranked team ever (7th in the 2005-2006 preseason poll) and one of the most talented teams he has ever had. While the Zags lack the superstar they had a few years ago in Adam Morrison, they are not lacking in talent (Jeremy Pargo, Matt Bouldin, Austin Daye, and Josh Heytvelt). However, as the Zags have steadily moved up in the national conscience andthe regular season polls, they seem to have underperformed in the NCAA tournament. After losing to Cinderella (Davidson) in the first round last year, the Zags are hoping to bounce back and their first big test of the season will be against Travis Ford’s Cowboys. Ford has been quick to keep expectations realistic for his rookie season, but some experts have picked the Cowboys to be a surprise in the Big 12 despite their lack of interior play.
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