The Lede.  ‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve (Christmas Adam, so they say), and all through the land, not a creature was shooting.  Well, that’s not completely true.  Actually, it’s not true at all, as the week of Holiday Hoops finished strong tonight.  There were several good games, some excellent performances and even an ugly incident in Oahu for our enjoyment this evening.  The schedule reduces to nearly nothing the next few days — four games in Cancun on Friday, four games in Honolulu on Saturday, two random games on Sunday — and that’s fine.  Christmas is for spending quality time with our friends and families, so as much as we’ll miss it, things will be a bit light around here as well over the weekend.  Of course, if anything major happens, we’ll be there to comment and analyze it.  Short of that, though — from everyone at RTC, have a very Merry Christmas, folks!

What a Ridiculous Incident in Honolulu Tonight

Your Watercooler Moment.  Players Go All Knucklehead in the Stands.  Mississippi State won its game at the Diamond Head Classic yesterday against San Diego, but it was a later incident between teammates Renardo Sidney and Elgin Bailey that captured all the headlines.  As the two sat in the stands prior to the Utah-Hawaii game, they got into a fracas that was of course caught on tape for the world to see.  Regardless of who was at fault in this incident, is there any doubt that MSU’s recruitment and retention of Sidney has resulted in much more trouble than he’s worth?  This was his second incident in the last week, and the prevailing meme is that there’s no way Rick Stansbury can now keep him on the Bulldog team.  With images still somewhat fresh in mind of the Malice in the Palace where fans and players went after each other, this is reminiscent and disastrous footage for the MSU program.  Heads will roll on this, we’d have to imagine.

Don’t stop, make it pop. DJ, blow my speakers up. Memphis lost the game, but they won the damn highlight reel, that’s for sure.  Hey, Mr. DJ.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Discipline Over Raw Talent.  No disrespect to the excellent players populating the rosters of Georgetown and Washington State, but their opponents tonight (Memphis and Baylor, respectively) have more players on their teams that make the NBA scouts drool uncontrollably.  Klay Thompson and Austin Freeman are considered nice players, but it’s guys like LaceDarius Dunn, Perry Jones, Will Barton and Joe Jackson who have the greater upside.  Score one (actually, two) tonight for the teams that actually know how to play the game, as the Hoyas and Cougars repeatedly used their experience to fool the teams still figuring it out.  Both shot 57% from the field while holding their opponents in the 30% range, and proved to us that Georgetown is every bit as good as its top ten ranking and Wazzu should probably be a co-favorite along with a few others in the Pac-10 this season.

• Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s hoping everyone had a safe and patriotic ID4 weekend.

1. Sometime this week — perhaps today, but our bet is on tomorrow — the NCAA will announce that it has decided what to do about the four Play-In Games for next year’s and subsequent NCAA Tournaments.  So far we haven’t caught wind of any leaks from among the Committee (where are ya, Andy Katz?), but we’ll lay odds on each of the three stated options.  1) PiGs populated by #16/#17 seeds (odds – 2:1); 2) PiGs populated by last eight at-large teams (odds – 5:1); 3) mixture of the two (odds – 7:2).  We’re truly hopeful that the Committee will somehow incorporate the last few at-large teams into the play-in mix, but we’re not expecting that to happen.
2. On Friday, TMZ reported that the NCAA is investigating “two current and two” former Kentucky players for contacts with agents that may have jeopardized their eligibility to play college basketball (note: Sports by Brooks reports one of the players to be John Wall).  Your immediate reaction of “TMZ?” followed by a complete and utter lack of shock that John Calipari’s players would be accused of this, is forgivable?  Well, the truth is that TMZ broke the Tiny Gallon/Oklahoma violation back in March so their credibility on this issue might have more weight than considered at first blush, but it is somewhat disconcerting that the report failed to name anyone as explicitly as they did with Gallon.  UK fans are rightfully skeptical with so few details yet released, but we’re not prepared to dismiss TMZ based on rumor-mongering alone because as far as we know, they’re currently hitting 100% on breaking recruiting violation stories (we know of no other recruiting story they broke that was wrong).
3. Georgia Athletic Director Damon Evans…  we don’t meant to call you stupid, but you’re all kinds of stupid.
4. UCLA guards Jerime Anderson and Tyler Lamb had surgeries last week to continue the yearlong injury bug that has befallen the program.  Neither are expected to be out for long, but you never know with the bad luck that the Bruins have experienced lately.
5. We’re really not sure how we feel about this, but we’re incredibly hopeful that it works out.  Former Tennessee forward Emmanuel Negedu has reportedly been cleared to play next season at New Mexico, providing an immediate lift to Steve Alford’s team as they recover from losing two of the best players in its history this offseason.  Negedu of course collapsed and his heart stopped beating for a while last fall during workouts at UT.