The big news of the weekend other than all the road “upsets” was the NCAA denying Kentucky‘s appeal on behalf of Enes Kanter. As you can imagine, this set off a huge response online, which we will have much more on later, but we were particularly surprised by one notable college basketball personality — Dick Vitale — calling out the NCAA, saying that if Kanter had gone to Washington, where current NCAA president Mark Emmert previously worked, he would not have been declared ineligible. This led to a pretty interesting back-and-forth online, which Seth Davis will apparently answer with a column on SI with direct quotes from Emmert that will appear sometime this morning. We aren’t surprised that somebody mentioned it, but Vitale was just about the last person in the world that we’d have expected to call out Emmert like that.
Vitale’s ESPN colleague Doug Gottlieb put up a column on Saturday morning asking 10 questions that he wasn’t sure about the answer (ESPN Insider required). The questions themselves — (1) Are UNC/Butler/San Diego State legit?; (2) What’s Purdue‘s ceiling?; (3) Does Kemba Walker have enough support?; (4) Will Tennesee survive without Bruce Pearl?; (5) Will Demetri McCamey come through in big spots?; (6) Can Villanova/Syracuse play defense/shoot?; (7) Will Baylor or Kansas State rebound first? — are pretty good, but Gottlieb’s answers are a bit superficial for my liking so we are interested to what you think the answers are to those questions.
A local columnist poses an interesting question about Pittsburgh, asking how the Panthers have changed from a hard-nosed defensive team into a group of sharpshooters. It should be pointed out that most of Pittsburgh’s reputation for being a tough defensive team that wasn’t able to score much comes from Ben Howland‘s time on the sideline there, and that Jamie Dixon‘s teams, to my knowledge, have been better offensively although not to the level of this season’s team. In any case, don’t expect any 47-32 games out of this Pittsburgh team unless you are talking about halftime scores.
By now you may have heard that Roy Williams has a bit of a point guard problem in Chapel Hill. Ever since Ty Lawson left UNC they have been struggling to find someone who would even be described as serviceable. By now, Tar Heel fans have realized that Larry Drew II is not the answer (at least if they want to get deep in the NCAA Tournament) and although Kendall Marshall shows flashes of brilliance, Roy is hesitant to hand over the keys to him. It looks like help may be on the way in the form of Marcus Paige, a top-five point guard in the class of 2012, who has committed to play at UNC. Paige follows in a fairly strong line of Iowans who have committed to play for Williams either at Kansas or UNC with the most recent being Harrison Barnes. For the sake of Tar Heel fans, we hope that Paige doesn’t struggle in adjusting to the college game as much as Barnes has so far.
Finally, our Morning 5 wouldn’t be complete with a shout out to Roscoe Smith for his ill-advised 75-foot heave with nearly 10 seconds left in the game. Honestly, we are shocked that there aren’t around 100 videos on YouTube documenting the funniest shot we have seen in some time. Fortunately for Smith and UConn they were able to escape, thanks to Kemba Walker doing his thing. We have a pretty poor clip below for those of you who missed it, but consider this a plea from RTC to please upload a decent quality clip of this shot.
Some mid-afternoon thoughts on today’s games filling the heart of the day…
Alex Oriakhi hits the boards. Kemba Walker may get all of the post-game hype after his great finish in UConn‘s big road win at Texas, but for our money the player of the game and the one that we think Jim Calhoun will credit most for the win will be Alex Oriakhi. Calhoun has been all over Oriakhi lately for his lack of rebounding (seven straight games with single-digit rebounds including just one rebound in their loss at Pittsburgh). When I spoke with Calhoun after the Huskies’ New Year’s Eve victory over USF all I had to say was “Alex” before he cut me off and went on a rant about Oriakhi’s lack of rebounding. He was quick to note that Alex was working hard, but that he thought he might have been pressing. After speaking with Calhoun I went back to Alex and asked him about it and he essentially told me that he couldn’t really do anything about rebounding because it wasn’t something that he could do anything about, which I disagree with completely, but he seemed like such a nice kid and seemed troubled enough about it that I didn’t want to tell him that he was wrong (especially since my 5’10” frame and lack of a vertical has been a major hindrance in the progress of my basketball career). He followed it up with an even worse game against Notre Dame where he failed to score a point and only had six rebounds. I wasn’t at the game, but I imagine that Calhoun was very critical of him after that game. Fast forward a few days to today against a Texas team that came in to the game ranked 3rd in the nation in rebounds and one that was expected to dominate the Huskies on the inside with Jordan Hamilton, Tristan Thompson, and Gary Johnson. Instead of getting dominated on the inside, Oriakhi turned in by far his best game since Maui and nearly matched the Longhorn trio in rebound total (22 to 21). Even though he struggled from the field going 5 of 16, Oriakhi more than made up for it on the boards and was probably the star of the game even if the rest of the media is going to focus on Kemba’s late game heroics. UConn is still a flawed team as it relies too much on Kemba to do what he did in overtime and it has too many young players who are still working on learning their roles playing around Kemba, but if Oriakhi can play like this on a more consistent basis the Huskies could be a team that nobody wants to play in March with Kemba on the outside and Alex on the inside.
Kemba Walker saves the day. Now that we have talked about Alex Oriakhi, we can get to Kemba Walker who shrugged off a rare off-night (going 8-27 from the field even with his late game heroics including the ridiculous heave to beat the shot clock with a little over 2 minutes left in OT). We have to give the Texas guards some credit for their defense on Kemba throughout the game, but we saw at the end of the game that there really isn’t anybody in college who can guard him. Rick Barnes had Dogus Balbay, who for our money is one of the best defensive guards in the nation, on Walker at the end of the game and Walker just brushed him off to him the game-winner with 5 seconds left in overtime. Walker might lose some of his early lead in the National Player of the Year race if UConn struggles in the Big East and he has plenty of competition particularly from Jared Sullinger and Nolan Smith, but the UConn PR department will probably have plenty of moments like late in today’s game to hype Walker’s candidacy if they choose to do so.
Roscoe Smith’s heave. We aren’t even sure where to begin with Roscoe Smith. Although it doesn’t quite rank up there with Jamelle Horne‘s pair of boneheaded plays from 2 years ago Smith’s 75-foot heave with nearly 10 seconds left in regulation is going to be replayed on blooper shows for years to come. We are going to give Smith a little bit of a pass (a very little bit) as I would imagine that the frantic finish and blocked shot by Alex Oriakhi that led to the ball ending up in Smith’s hands would have made it very difficult for anybody to be aware of how much time was left on the clock especially a 6’8″ freshman forward who is probably never asked to touch the ball late in games (and after this probably won’t for some time). I’m not sure words can do justice to just how bad this heave was and we can’t find any video footage of this shot yet, but when we do we will be sure to put it up.
Georgia knocks off Kentucky. It has already been a rough weekend for Kentucky. First there was the Enes Kanter ruling then there was the football team getting blown out by a Pittsburgh team that was playing without its recently hired head coach who had been fired after getting arrested on charges of domestic violence. Now their basketball team drops the SEC opener at Georgia. Before the fan base goes crazy (and we are guessing that based on the 4,573 fans on CatsPause at the time we wrote this that they are going crazy) we should point out that that the Bulldog team that they lost to could be very good. They have flown under the radar after losing two games at the Old Spice Classic to Notre Dame and Temple (two very good teams) in Trey Thompkins first games back after an early-season ankle injury. Since that time the Bulldogs have reeled off nine straight wins against some admittedly uninspiring opponents in somewhat unconvincing fashion (four games decided by three points or less). We are not sure if Georgia is a top 25 team, but we should have a better idea by January 18th as they play at Vanderbilt and at home against Tennessee during a three-game stretch. If they come out of that stretch with a 2-1 record don’t be surprised if this team is near the top of the SEC East standings by the end of the season.
The Lede. Here’s hoping everyone had a very safe and happy New Year’s 2011. Just typing those numbers makes it hard for us to believe that there are ten-year olds who never experienced the awesomeness of the 1990s. Speaking of irrelevant references to timing, with the calendar change we’re now heading into the heart of the season. Frankly, the first two months in some ways seemed interminable, with far too many mismatches merely acting as a prelude for the conference season where the contenders and pretenders will be inevitably ferreted out. As a case in point, take a look at last year’s AP Top 10 from one year ago today. Texas, a first-round NCAA loser, was #2; Kansas and Villanova, both second round losers, were #1 and #6, respectively; the #9 team, North Carolina, ended up in the NIT. The lesson here is that there are no finished products yet — many teams have barely tested themselves, and it wouldn’t be the first time that a school with a lofty pre-conference record collapses after seeing its own blood on the road. Who will those teams be? We have some ideas but it’ll have to wait until later this week.
Your Watercooler Moment. Memphis Fan Ejected From Game. This is a no-brainer. There weren’t all that many great games this weekend, but an incident that took place near the end of Memphis’ 91-86 win over Tennessee State on Sunday is what will be talked about on Monday morning. After an on-court scrum where a prominent donor’s wife (is she really the spouse of the Lenny’s Sub Shop guy? — someone please confirm) got agitated from the front row and allegedly yelled at one of the TSU players to “choke on” his mouthpiece, the nearby referee Mark Whitehead threw her out of the game. Yes, you read that correctly, a fan! And not just any fan, but a middle-aged female fan who quite obviously presented a clear and present danger to the players on the floor, especially considering the way that she was pumping and waving around those blue pom-pons. (h/t Chris Littman for the video)
Your Watercooler Moment, Vol. II. Dear Ron: Don’t Eff With Jeannine Edwards — Signed, Billy Gillispie. This has absolutely nothing to do with college basketball per se, but it involves two media personalities who regularly cover the game and it’s hilarious nevertheless. SportsByBrooks reported over the weekend that ESPN commentator Ron Franklin (he of the Big Twelve games, mostly) condescendingly called reporter Jeannine Edwards “sweetcakes” and “a-hole” during a production meeting prior to the Chick-Fil-A Bowl on New Year’s Eve. Franklin was allowed to work that game but he was then pulled from the Fiesta Bowl radio broadcast on Saturday night. We’re not sure if this is a much more common occurrence with female reporters or what, but people seem to enjoy talking down to Jeannine Edwards. Former Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie of course was widely ridiculed for his treatment of the sideline reporter during an Ole Miss game in 2009, and many people in Wildcat country believe strongly that particular embarrassment was the straw that broke his back as the UK coach. It’s undetermined what will happen to Franklin as a result of his latest comments, but it should be noted that he had a similar incident five years ago with Holly Rowe and he still remained with the company. Will Jeannine go two-for-two in her latest battle of the sexes? Let’s hope so.
This Weekend’s Quick Hits…
Kansas: Best Team in America. So says Miami (OH) forward Antonio Ballard, whose team has had the privilege to play the top three teams in the polls so far this season. The Red Hawks lost to Duke by 34, Ohio State by 21, and Kansas by 27, but it was the athleticism of the Morris twins who combined for 38/15 coming off the bench that seemed to make the biggest impression.
Illinois Starts off Big Ten 2-0. The Illini got a key home win on Sunday with its victory over Wisconsin in Champaign. Combined with a win at Iowa last week, and Bruce Weber’s team crystallizes just how important scheduling is in conference races. A winnable road game followed by a home game against a team they’ll likely battle all year in the second tier of the conference race. Contrast this with Minnesota who currently sits at 0-2 as a result of road games to Wisconsin and Michigan State.
Syracuse, Cincinnati & St. John’s Do Likewise. With respect to SU and UC, again, scheduling. Syracuse feasted on two more home meals with Seton Hall and Notre Dame visiting the Carrier Dome, while Cincy got DePaul and the Hall to visit the Queen City. The anomaly of this group is Steve Lavin’s Johnnies. Somehow the same team that lost to Fordham and St. Bonnie managed to get Big East road wins at WVU and Providence last week. If his team is turning a corner, we’ll find out on Big Monday as they host Georgetown at MSG.
Game #86. RTC heads back to UConn for the first time since Kemba Walker was a freshman, but this time we are headed to Hartford instead of Storrs.
Jim Calhoun will be looking for a strong response from his Huskies after they were exposed earlier this week at Pittsburgh. While Calhoun got his usual great offensive contribution from Kemba Walker the rest of the team was nowhere to be found. During and after the game Calhoun was particularly critical of his #2 offensive threat, Alex Oriakhi, who only had 8 points and 1 rebound after coming into the game averaging nearly a double-double. As for USF, it has been a rough season so far and they no longer have the threat of Dominique Jones going off to scare opposing coaches, but the Huskies should be careful in this one because the Bulls have given some very good teams all they could handle this season including a six-point loss at UCF and a two-point double overtime loss against BYU. So even though the Huskies will be heavily favored today, they should be careful to avoid a letdown here because things don’t get any easier for them as they have 8 more games against ranked opponents left on their schedule.
This season we decided that we would expand things a bit by offering our RTC/BCS college basketball rankings using a formula similar to what they use to determine the BCS rankings in college football on a weekly basis. As the season progresses, you can see how certain teams rise from relative obscurity and into the BCS picture while other teams fall from prestigious BCS games down to what would be the equivalent of pre-New Year’s Day games. With conference play about to start we thought that this would be the ideal time to start looking at the potential match-ups.
We kept the same basic rules as we used in previous years:
We are following the BCS Football guidelines as closely as possible, but we replaced the Notre Dame rule with the Duke rule since they both have sketchy TV contracts (Notre Dame with NBC and Duke with ESPN).
The AP and ESPN/USA Today polls are used as the human polls and ESPN.com’s InsiderRPI, KenPom.com, and Sagarin’s ratings as the computer polls. We are not including six computer rankings and dropping the highest and lowest like they do in the BCS because frankly we are not familiar with six reputable computer ranking systems. If you know of any other computer rankings leave a comment below and we might include them in the next installment of our rankings.
We used the traditional BCS calculations for determining each team’s score weighing the two human polls and the combined computer poll average as 1/3 of a team’s total score each.
After a hectic off-season that included a move from the ACC, Oliver Purnell has flown under the radar for most of this season as DePaul has struggled to a 6-6 record so far. There has been a lot of talk about how Purnell could turn the program around if he can take back control of Chicago from the other programs that have raided it for numerous stars in the past few years (Derrick Rose and Evan Turner come to mind). Some NBA scouts believes that Purnell may have a more difficult time than originally stated and that this may be his toughest resurrection job yet. The basic premise is that geographically the local players that Clemson used to get who were passed over by the ACC powers might still want to stay local whereas the Chicago players who get passed over by the Big East powers will probably opt to play for a Big Ten team rather than DePaul, a team that is essentially a Big East doormat.
After UConn‘s loss at Pittsburgh, Jim Calhoun had plenty to be upset about (essentially everything except for Kemba Walker‘s offensive play), but it looks like he took out the brunt of it on Alex Oriakhi, who only managed 8 points and 1 rebound in 19 minutes. We aren’t going to question Calhoun’s methods as he certainly has a few more national championship rings and has done a better job at dealing with the egos of young, talented males who probably have never been told that they did something wrong, but we have to wonder how Oriakhi will respond particularly if Calhoun keeps him in the doghouse for a little while. It is worth keeping an eye on as he may be the Huskies only reliable scoring option outside of Walker and if Oriakhi falls apart the Huskies may follow his lead.
For the second consecutive season Marquette lost a freshman who wanted to transfer mid-way through the season. This time it was Chicago native Reggie Smith who decided to transfer citing a lack of playing time. The transfer itself isn’t particularly big news as Smith was only averaging 1.4 points per game and 1.5 rebounds per game although it leaves the Golden Eagles with only 4 scholarship guards, but we did find the assertion by Buzz Williams that 40% of freshman transfer as rather amusing. We haven’t run the numbers on that, but we would be surprised because that would mean that on average a program would lose 1 or 2 freshmen each year.
Most of the college basketball world is fixated on the remaining undefeated teams, but there are others who are focused on the other end of the spectrum–the teams that have yet to win a game. As of this weekend there were six teams left that had yet to win a game although the likelihood of them going through the entire season without a win (based on Pomeroy’s numbers) varies greatly. I’m not sure what it says about us that we are familiar with all of those schools even if we haven’t seen those teams yet this season.
A few days ago we had some fun at Joe Lunardi’s expense based on his ridiculous early assertion that both Gonzaga and Butler may have played themselves out of the NCAA Tournament by early December, but his list of 37 thoughts (ESPN Insider again, sorry) is worth a look even if most of them aren’t particularly insightful or earth-shattering. The most interesting thing in there is that he think that Kentucky will get a #1 seed. . .in the NCAA Tournament. If he is right, I will have to tip my hat even if I will ridicule some of his other assertions as I don’t think you will find even the most delusional Wildcat fan who would agree with this team of being deserving of a #1 seed based on their play this season and Lunardi does not even seem to be insinuating that he thinks that Enes Kanter might be coming back to play for the Wildcats this season.
Most people seem to still be on Christmas break so our ATB2 is a little light today. If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.
Pre-Game Analysis
Missouri vs. Northern Illinois: Breaking down the match-up that should be a nice post-Christmas present for the Tigers. (Rock M Nation)
News/Analysis
SEC Basketball: What Happened To The Great Expectations?: Coming into the season many expected the SEC to be much improved, but that has not proven to be the case. (A Sea of Blue)
Most Valuable Morris?: Taking a look at whether Marcus or Markieff is more valuable for the Jayhawks. (Rock Chalk Talk)
Defensive efficiency a red flag for UConn: Analyzing the numbers behind Luke Winn’s assertion that UConn’s poor defense may be a limiting factor in their success this season. (The UConn Blog)
If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.
Top 25 Games
#4 Syracuse 97, Morgan State 55: “Sure, the way this game went you’d pretty much be disappointed if Southerland hadn’t set a career-high with eighteen points (12 of which were on three-pointers). Still, couple that with his five rebounds and you’d be remiss not to appreciate what Southerland did during his audition for a spot in the Big East rotation in 12-0 Syracuse’s 97-55 romp over Morgan State (4-5).” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
Pre-Game Analysis
Preview: UNC-Ashville at #2 Ohio State: “Fresh off a 79-57 stomping of South Carolina behind 30 points and 19 boards from Jared “Big Ten Freshman of the Week” Sullinger, the Buckeyes welcome UNC-Asheville to the Schott for the third time since 2008, beginning a stretch of three games in seven days to finish up the non-conference slate.” (Eleven Warriors)
Know Your Braggin’ Rights Rival: Illinois: “Braggin’ Rights is upon us once again, though both teams stumble into St. Louis a bit. Illinois fell into a small funk that culminated in a shocking loss to Illinois-Chicago on Saturday; meanwhile, Mizzou was playing much, much better but has to deal with more adversity, this time in the form of an injury to Phil Pressey. Illinois is a thin team anyway, and it appears Mizzou will continue to play with a shorter bench than Mike Anderson would prefer. Of course, Illinois was thin last year and Mizzou was dealing with injury (okay, illness) then too, and that turned out pretty well for Mizzou, right?” (Rock M Nation)
Sizing Up the Bears: “The Jayhawks wrap up their Pac10 tour this week against the Golden Bears of California. The Bears are picked to be a middle of the pack team in their conference, behind three teams Kansas has already beat and the two Washington schools. That’s not to say this game is going to be a cakewalk. All three games against the teams from out west this year have been far from smooth and the Jayhawks benefited from having two of those at home. This game comes at a time when Kansas seems to be struggling a bit and it is their first true road game of the season.” (Rock Chalk Talk)
UCLA v. MSU Preview: “Don’t think it will ever happen again”: “UCLA plays Montana State tonight at 7:30 Pacific.; All you local fans better go to the game as it will only be on Bank West (Jumbotron) Bruin TV. Montana State(MS) has lost four of their last five, with their only win in that span coming against Johnson and Wales a law firm NAIA school. Montana State has also not won on the road this year. So this game should be a cake walk right?” (Bruins Nation)
Sleeping With The Enemy: The Tigers of Memphis: Putting the spotlight on the Memphis-Georgetown game. (Casual Hoya)
It is still a few days before Christmas, but quite a few coaches got early Christmas presents in the form of players making long-awaited debuts. The most notable of these debuts was that of Josh Selby, who more than lived up to the hype as he was the best player on the court in Lawrence on Saturday and hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 26 seconds left to propel Kansas to a hard-fought victory over USC. While Selby justifiably received the majority of the hype he wasn’t the only notable player making a debut as Jio Fontan was making his debut for the Trojans. Unfortunately for the Trojans Fontan did not has as auspicious of a debut as he stepped on the sideline after catching an inbounds pass following Selby’s 3, which eventually led to the Jayhawks hanging on for a victory. The other notable debut over the weekend was that of Renardo Sidney, who managed to score 12 points in a losing effort for Mississippi State against Virginia Tech.
Tonight Duke will play Elon in a game that probably doesn’t mean much to the average college basketball fan, but it will hold a special meaning for Coach K as he will going for win #879, which would tie Dean Smith for 2nd all-time win list. Everyone can appreciate the meaning as how it relates to the Duke-UNC rivalry, but it will also mean something for Krzyzewski on a more personal level after he spent more than a decade trying to emulate Smith to make Duke into a program comparable to UNC.
While we are on the topic of Coach K, The Fayetteville Observer has an excellent 3-part series on him analyzing him from all points of view. It is definitely worth your time even if we will all be getting bombarded with about a million pieces on him as he approaches Bob Knight‘s all-time wins record.
Earlier this season Len Elmore chimed in saying that he thought that Bruce Pearl should be fired and now Jay Bilas has voiced his opinion and he agrees with the Elmore’s take (Insider only, sorry). So now we know where ESPN’s basketball/legal department stands on Bruce Pearl. We can only hope that someone brings this up when Pearl is being interviewed by Elmore and/or Bilas, but we doubt that the executives at ESPN will let that happen. One more thing about the Bilas column: This is the first time we have ever seen the term “Chillax” on a major website.
We are a men’s college basketball site, but we would be remiss if we did not congratulate the UConn women for their 88th consecutive victory tying the record set by John Wooden‘s UCLA team. The Huskies will be going for #89 on Tuesday night at home against FSU.
Relatively quiet day for college basketball action, but that should be picking up in the next few days. If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com.
Other Games of Interest
Seton Hall 78, Longwood 51: “Coming off an impressive win at UMass on Saturday, Seton Hall made it two straight with a 78-51 win over Longwood at the Prudential Center.” (Villanova by the Numbers)
Pre-Game Analysis
Game Preview: Oakland at Tennessee: After giving two highly rated Big Ten teams all that they could handle the Golden Grizzlies turn their focus to what may be the hottest program in the country. (Golden Grizzlies Gameplan)
News/Analysis
Kentucky Basketball: Comparing UK To Some Upcoming Foes: Looking at Kentucky’s performance so far this season compared to UF and Tennessee. (A Sea of Blue)
Big East Basketball Power Rankings Week Five: Syracuse jumps quite a bit while the voters still aren’t buying Louisville yet. (The UConn Blog)
Big Ten Power Rankings: December 13th, 2010: The voters in the Big Ten do not agree with the national rankings leading to some very surprising results. (UM Hoops)
Today in things that don’t make sense: UConn is ranked 4th in the country: “Yes, I understand that these polls are built, in large part, on who has yet to lose, so I can intellectually understand why UConn is No. 4. Still, really? I mean, I can already hear the “overrated” chants coming from the Pitt fans in two weeks. This is a good team, maybe even a very good team, but until someone besides Kemba (and occasionally Oriakhi) proves themselves to be a regular force we can rely on, I can’t say they’re one of the best four teams in the nation.” (The UConn Blog)
Recruiting Roundup: December 13th, 2010: Analyzing some of the top players that have either committed to play for Michigan or are targeted by the Wolverines. (UM Hoops)
