Welcome back, everyone! Boom Goes the Dynamite returns for the fourth weekend of the year with a blockbuster Saturday of games that are so good that we’re getting them up today as a reminder to join us tomorrow afternoon. With noon-to-night coverage and the fact that most of the country is completely frozen over again, we expect that you’ll be right there with us on the couch, eating a bunch of bad food and breaking down zone offenses. We hope to see you then!
Here are the games we plan on keeping an eye on…
12 PM: La Salle at #15 Temple on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
12 PM: Marquette at #19 Connecticut on Big East Network HD and ESPN Full Court
12 PM: Louisville at #9 West Virginia on ESPN and ESPN360.com
1 PM: #7 Duke at #11 Georgetown on CBS – RTC Live
2 PM: #4 Syracuse at DePaul on Big East Network and ESPN Full Court
2 PM: Indiana at Illinois on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
3 PM: FSU at Boston College on Raycom and ESPN Full Court
3 PM: #25 Northern Iowa at Missouri State
4 PM: Baylor at #6 Texas on Big 12 Network and ESPN Full Court
4 PM: #23 Vanderbilt at #1 Kentucky on ESPN and ESPN360.com A 4 PM: Arkansas at #20 Mississippi on SEC Network and ESPN Full Court
6 PM: Notre Dame at Rutgers on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
6 PM: New Mexico at TCU on CBS College Sports
7 PM: #2 Kansas at #13 Kansas State on ESPN and ESPN360.com
7 PM: Georgia at South Carolina on Fox Sports (regional) and ESPN Full Court
7 PM: Northwestern at #5 Michigan State on Big Ten Network
8 PM: Providence at Cincinnati on ESPN U
9 PM: Utah at #10 BYU on Mountain Network
9:30 PM: #8 Gonzaga at San Francisco on Fox Sports (regional)- RTC Live
We will be dividing the day into three shifts with nvr1983 starting things off then rtmsf will handle the afternoon games before John Stevens takes you into the night with late night coverage of all the day’s big games.
10:50 AM: Apparently ESPN forgot to pay the electricity bill as the lights just went out on Jason Williams. (As a college basketball fan, I refuse to call him Jay. Jason Williams was a great player. Jay Williams crashed his motorcycle.)
11:00 AM: Dear College Students of America, This is how you show up for a College GameDay. I don’t want to call anybody out, but the Kansas State fans are crushing what I saw when I went to GameDay at UNC last year. To be fair, a game against in-state rival Kansas is much, much more important than a disappointing Miami team. This seems more like a College Football GameDay and that’s what we need for the basketball version too. Right now the pressure is on Illinois, Kentucky, Washington, Syracuse, and Duke to match this atmosphere when GameDay comes to town later this year.
11:10 AM: Does anybody have a link to where we can buy one of those Frank Martin t-shirts?
11:15 AM: According to the Kansas State website, the previous record for College Basketball GameDay attendance was 6,700 at Clemson last year before they played Duke. I haven’t heard an official number for today. Bramlage Coliseum holds 12,528 and I would think they are well over half full.
11:20 AM: Is Coach K advocating for abolishing the requirement for players to spend one year in college or wanting them to stay in school for more than one semester, which is all they really have to do to be eligible to play in their freshman year? It sounds more like the former. Jay Bilas is right that this issue is more a NBA/business issue.
11:22 AM: If you’re wondering who Hubert Davis and Digger Phelps are going to pick to win the Kansas-Kansas State game, their clothes might be a pretty good clue. Hubert is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie. Digger is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie and he he has a purple highlighter. . .
Once again we find ourselves with another stacked weekend of college basketball. 142 games in Division I today, and quite a number of those are somewhere on the tube. It’s getting interesting. Some of the big names are starting to come back to the pack a little, and some teams we’d all forgotten about are starting to put some wins together. We’ll be here all day, watching it, commenting on it, enjoying it. We’d like to know what you’re watching and what you think of it all, too, which is why we’re back with another version of BGTD today. We’ll start off checking out Michigan State vs Minnesota and Villanova vs St. John’s, and head for points south and west after that. We’ve even got a man on the ground for RTC Live at the latter game, there, as well as a few more spots today. By all means, join us for a bit. We’ll kick it off in about 10-15 minutes!
12:11 PM ET: Greetings from us to you on this big hoops day. JStev here, starting it off with you. My goodness, Villanova sure has wasted no time in jumping on the Johnnies. Up by seven early and they’ve already forced SJU into five turnovers. We’re just now at the under-16 TVTO. Over on the Big East Network we have Georgetown/Rutgers, with the Hoyas trying to avoid a letdown after their impressive performance at Pittsburgh a few nights ago. Against Rutgers at home that should be no problem, and I’m thinking G’town will have quite a jump in the polls, come Monday. Hoyas up by three early, and Rutgers is already standing straight up in their zone. Minnesota has also shown up early and taken a quick nine-point lead against Michigan State…and ladies and gentlemen, say hello to MR. GUS JOHNSON on the call on CBS. I’ve found my primary game.
12:28: Gus Johnson could comment on the progress of a slug slithering along a rain gutter and, if you heard it, it’d be the most exciting thing you did that day. We’ve said that — or something similar — about a gazillion times on this site and it’s always the truth. He’s showing you why in this game, even this early. Minnesota’s kept their lead in this one despite a little comeback from MSU. Still up seven under seven minutes to play. Dwight Hardy has come out on fire, hitting 5-6 against the Hoyas, and the Johnnies have looked like a different team in the last ten minutes. They’re up by TEN on ‘Nova, now! It’s physical, and if St. John’s wants to have a shot at pulling this off, they better be ready to grind it out against Villanova. They’re glad to bang it out with anyone.
12:46: Great point by Doris Burke as they go to commercial in the ‘Nova/SJU game. When it comes to pulling an upset, you can’t expect to play on an equal footing in ANY aspect of the game. You have to OUT-do your opponent in EVERY aspect of the game. You can’t just hustle as much as them, you have to OUThustle them, etc. That seems like an obvious point, but I bet coaches out there have a harder time getting that across to their teams than you might think. Oh, and Scottie Reynolds just hit a running bank shot off glass that was so gorgeous it almost brought tears. It’ll bring him millions of bucks. Soon.
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist plus author of the weekly Ten Tuesday Scribbles and Bubble Watch columns.
With college football crowning another faux-national champion Thursday night in Pasadena, the college sports scene can officially shift its axis to basketball. While a number of college basketball diehards such as yours truly were knee-deep in mid-major box scores and enthralling non-conference tournaments since the season tipped off in mid-November, it’s perfectly understandable for our college football-fan brethren out there to have been entranced in the gridiron scene during this time. For many folks out there, college basketball truly begins when a football champion is crowned and conference play heats up, when Rece and the gang show up on our TVs every Saturday morning at 11 AM and the bubble begins to take its early shape. For those people, you sure missed plenty of exciting hoops action. To get you caught up in what has gone down thus far on the hardwood, here’s a summary for your enjoyment, divvied up into the six major conferences and all the rest:
ACC
What we’ve learned: There was much back-and-forth debate entering this season whether Duke or North Carolina represented the class of this conference. After two solid months of play, it’s fairly evident Duke has separated themselves from their bitter rival as the class of the ACC. While the Tar Heels may top Duke skill-wise up front, Carolina simply does not boast the backcourt to even contend with the Dukies’ tandem of Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith. The primary knock on Duke heading into this season was point guard play with Elliot Williams transferring to Memphis. As a true sharp-shooting 2-guard who creates his shots coming off screens in Redick-like fashion, could Scheyer handle the responsibility of running the Duke offense? The answer has been resounding in the affirmative: 19.7 PPG, 46% FG, 92% FT, 43% 3pt and an otherworldly 4.8 A/TO ratio that currently leads the nation. Another key to Duke’s early season success has been Coach K’s willingness to adjust his defense to fit his roster. Rather than employing the normal Duke on-ball pressure attack, Krzyzewski is utilizing more of a sagging defense that plays into the frontcourt depth Duke enjoys with six players that receive time at 6’8 or taller.
Scheyer Has His Devils Looking Great This Season
What’s still to be determined: After Duke and Carolina (and let’s not go overboard following the Heels loss to Charleston, they’re still clearly the second best team in this conference), who will emerge as the third contender behind the top two dogs? An ever-shifting proposition, the current edge probably goes to Florida State despite their utter lack of point guard play. The Seminoles are one of the tallest teams in the nation and have a few capable long-range shooters that get open looks when defenses collapse on Solomon Alabi and Chris Singleton. Plus, they’re off to a head start with a December win at ACC foe Georgia Tech. Plenty of folks think Clemson could be that team behind powerful big man Trevor Booker, but they lack a second scoring option and I can’t stop thinking back to their collapse at home to an inexperienced Illinois squad. It would be unwise to count out Gary Williams, and the jury’s still out on Virginia Tech and Miami due to their soft schedules, so I’ll give the current edge to Wake Forest as that third team. The road win at Gonzaga’s on-campus arena stands out, Ish Smith has turned into a fine point guard and Al-Farouq Aminu has as much pure talent as anyone in this conference.
NCAA Locks: Duke, North Carolina.
Likely bids: Clemson, Florida State, Wake Forest.
Bubble teams: Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami (FL), Virginia Tech.
Make other plans for March: Boston College, North Carolina State, Virginia.
Big East
What we’ve learned: The NCAA picture is shaping up quite similarly to last season when Louisville (regular season champion), Pittsburgh and Connecticut all received #1 seeds. There will be much back-and-forth debate about whether the top three teams this season — Syracuse, West Virginia and Villanova -- holds the edge in this conference, but does it really matter? Right now you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t think Kansas, Texas, Kentucky and Purdue are the likely #1 seeds (of course plenty could change, we have two months of games left), while those top contenders in the Big East are likely all on the second seed line. Even of greater importance though is the obvious revelation that Jamie Dixon can coach basketball. You wouldn’t be alone if you counted out Pittsburgh following a near-loss to Wofford, a 47-point output at home vs. New Hampshire and a second half butt-kicking at the hands of Indiana, but those losses came without their most athletic player, Gilbert Brown, and their best defender, Jermaine Dixon. Those two have returned to action with the most improved Big East player Ashton Gibbs (who recently broke the all-time Pitt record for consecutive free throws made) as a fearsome trio that has carried the Panthers to road wins over previously-undefeated Syracuse and fringe-top 25 Cincinnati. If Dixon is able to coax his Panthers into a NCAA Tournament team after losing such enormous production and leadership in Sam Young, DeJuan Blair and Levance Fields, there is little debate on his merits as National Coach of the Year.
Doing the Charleston. Charleston 82, #9 North Carolina 79. We tweeted this during the game, but it bears saying again here: America, if you didn’t know him before, may we introduce you to Andrew Goudelock. He is a 6′2 junior guard from Lilburn, Georgia, and he plays for the Charleston Cougars. No, that’s not a minor league baseball team. Despite their 8-6 record, it’s a pretty good basketball team that knocked off the 9th-ranked Tar Heels on Monday night. We single out Goudelock for three reasons. First, when you put up 24 points on 10-20 shooting (including 4-8 from behind the three-point line) against North Carolina, you deserve a mention. Second, we had him fourth on our pre-season all-Jeff Fryer team as one of the best three-point shooters in the nation and he made us look like freakin’ geniuses. Lastly, it was his three from distance with two seconds left in regulation that forced overtime. You have to see this shot. Fading away, Ed Davis challenging, just short of 30 feet, so high we’re sure it showed up on NORAD radar. All string.
In fact, when Carolina was up by 11 at the final TV timeout, this just looked like a moral victory for Charleston. The lead was cut to eight, and Goudelock went on an 8-0 run by himself (including the long three) to close the scoring in regulation. It wasn’t like he didn’t have any help, though. Senior forward Casaan Breeden was impressive as well, adding 15/7/5 blocks, including one block of an Ed Davis shot late in regulation that must have sailed, as ESPNU color commentator Bob Wenzel said, “about 16 rows deep into the crowd.” Indeed, every single one of Charleston’s starters scored at least 13 points (they only played eight players, and got only two points from their bench), also accounting for all 13 of their threes. As for Carolina, they were guilty of poor game management late in both regulation and overtime. They waited too long to foul when they needed to foul, fouled too quickly when they didn’t need to foul, got caught sleeping on an important in-bounds which led to an easy late bucket for Charleston, and missed a couple of close, easy shots in important situations despite owning the paint for most of the game. Most intriguing, though, was the glaring disparity of threes and free throws between the two sides. Charleston was 13-32 for 40.6%. UNC was ONE FOR SIX (16.7%). Their streak of 421 straight games with a three-pointer was doomed until Larry Drew, II, hit one with a minute left in overtime. From the free throw line, UNC shot 24-34 (70.6%), while Charleston was only three for six! Charleston played a tough man defense for most of the game, but didn’t seem to be doing anything special to defend the three. It looked like UNC just didn’t want to take them. Unfortunately for them, 24 free throws simply cannot compete with 13 three pointers. There’s no doubt Carolina will recover from this, since they were playing without Will Graves and Marcus Ginyard, and life in the ACC will teach the young Tar Heels all that they need to know. They’ll be fine by March. But that shouldn’t take away from Charleston’s victory. Goudelock showed that he’s not just about the three, Charleston showed that they’re better than their 8-6 record (3-0 in the Southern Conference, by the way) and are brimming with new confidence — and the Charleston fans showed that they can rush a court with the best of them:
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist. He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.
The biggest note: this is the most subjective bracket of the process. With RPI still evolving into a tool worth considering substantially, I had to construct this bracket primarily on 1) quality wins and bad losses in non-conference play, 2) non-conference SOS and 3) simple W-L record. Even conference RPI can’t be factored in yet because teams have played, at most, three conference games. With RPI rounding into form as January progresses, the bracket will switch from a more subjective process (had to use the eye test a few times, which I despise) to a more objective compilation.
The #1 and #2 seeds were fairly straightforward. Due to Syracuse tripping up at home to Pittsburgh Saturday, the process became much easier and the four undefeated teams remaining earned the #1 nod. Three Big East teams earned nods as a #2 seed, all with one loss: West Virginia, Villanova and Syracuse. Duke was the other obvious choice for the second line.
One of the more interesting cases was Ohio State. How much do I penalize them for the loss of Evan Turner? I was fairly harsh in the opening bracket following a discouraging defeat to Michigan and a blowout loss at Wisconsin. I’m fairly sure the Buckeyes will be moving further up the bracket when Turner is back in the fold a few weeks from now, but a #11 seed at 0-2 in the Big 10 and wins over California and Florida State seemed appropriate.
USC will not be included in any of my brackets this year. It’s a shame because they have strong computer numbers and are building a handful of quality wins including Tennessee and UNLV. Like the Pac-10 needed to be hurt any further.
Some notable snubs were Miami, Oregon and Saint Mary’s. The point is pretty straightforward: I’m not going to reward you for playing a soft schedule. Miami is 14-1 but has the #85 RPI and #328 SOS in the nation with only notable wins against Minnesota and South Carolina. Oregon may be 2-0 in the Pac-10 but they have some BAD losses and need to do more to find their way into the bracket. The win at Oregon is looking stronger for St. Mary’s, but they still need to do more.
Since we’re so early, I did factor in “quality” losses for some teams. For example, Dayton lost by under 10 to both Villanova and Kansas State (both top-10 teams) and by 2 at New Mexico (top-20 team). They deserve some credit for those close losses.
Since we’re early in conference play, I determined the automatic bids among undefeated squads by which team had the highest RPI. I figured I should stay consistent with this throughout the season.
Last Four In: Northwestern, Richmond, Missouri State, Vanderbilt.
Last Four Out: Oklahoma State, Miami (FL), Saint Mary’s, Oregon.
Automatic bids: Vermont, Temple, Duke, East Tennessee State, Kansas, West Virginia, Weber State, Radford, Purdue, Pacific, William & Mary, UAB, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Western Michigan, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, New Mexico, Quinnipiac, Murray State, California, Army, Kentucky, Western Carolina, UT-San Antonio, Texas Southern, Oakland, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Louisiana Tech.
Bids per conference: ACC (7), Big East (7), SEC (6), Big 12 (6), Big 10 (6), Mountain West (3), Atlantic-10 (3), Pac-10 (2), Missouri Valley (2).
Upset of the Night. Western Kentucky 76, #24 Vanderbilt 69. Vandy dropped its second game in four days after becoming ranked this week, this time losing at the Sommet Center in Nashville (site of this year’s SEC Tournament) to Western Kentucky for the first time since World War II. Granted, the two teams have only played ten times in the last sixty-four years, but ten in a row is still ten in a row. WKU got 27/3 from their star AJ Slaughter and outrebounded the Commodores by five despite giving up considerable size on the interior. Perhaps this game would have gone differently at Memorial Gymnasium across town, as the ‘Dores only shot 5-19 from three, and we know how they can heat up in their old building. This is a very good win for the Hilltoppers, as Ken McDonald’s team lost their previous two games against SEC competition this year (LSU and South Carolina), and will need a couple of solid nonconference wins to ensure an at-large bid come March if they don’t win the Sun Belt Conference.
WKU Had a Lot to Celebrate Tonight (Joe Imel/BG Daily News)
Other Games of National Interest.
#9 Tennessee 75, Middle Tennessee State 54. UT got a breakout game from JP Prince (17 pts) off the bench that helped to make up for a poor offensive game from Scotty Hopson, who had only one point in 24 minutes of action. Bruce Pearl is getting five or more points per game from eight of his players so far this year.
Dayton 58, Old Dominion 50. Dayton’s Chris Wright (16/12) turned it on tonight when needed, scoring ten straight points in the second half to ensure the Flyers’ 24th straight victory at home, good for the third longest streak in the nation.
Iowa State 81, Iowa 71. Iowa State got a huge game from its star Craig Brackins (28/8/4 blks) to win its fourth straight home game against its intrastate rival Iowa Hawkeyes. Todd Lickliter was not back coaching in this game, but is expected to be back next week for the Hawkeyes, but he has some serious issues to deal with on this team.
USC 59, Idaho State 53. Kevin O’Neill once again basically played six players, but he got a school-record thirteen blocks from this team in the hard-fought win.
What’s the best part of the college basketball season kicking off? The early-season tournaments, of course! Coaches vs. Cancer, Preseason NIT, Maui Invitational, Anaheim Classic…these are our first opportunities to see the top teams in the nation, gauge exactly how much of a force they could pose this season, evaluate the progression of upperclassmen and estimate the talent level of the much-ballyhooed freshmen. The preseason tournament fields this season are not quite as loaded as in year’s past (you’ll recall last season Maui featured three top-ten teams, although two — Texas and Notre Dame — didn’t pan out), but there’s plenty of potential for memorable early-season classics. Let’s delve into the cream of the crop in November:
2K Sports Classic Benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer(Regionals: November 9-11, NYC: November 19-20)
* RTC Live will be at the California subregional and the NYC semis and finals.
The Field: The powers-that-be decided to avoid any clunker matchups at MSG in mid-November, so they’ve given the four hosts — North Carolina, California, Ohio State and Syracuse – an automatic pass to the semifinals in NYC, so don’t expect any Gardner-Webb Cinderella stories invading the Big Apple. The tournament kicks off Monday and Wednesday at all four sites with Syracuse battling Albany and Robert Morris, California taking on Murray State and Detroit, North Carolina facing Florida International and North Carolina Central and Ohio State matched up against Alcorn State and James Madison. The semifinal games are set for November 19 with Syracuse vs. California as the under-card and North Carolina vs. Ohio State in the nightcap.
The Sleeper: The bigger news, in my opinion, that came out of the Carrier Dome last Wednesday when Syracusestunningly fell to Le Moyne was not the final score, but Wesley Johnson scoring 34 points after a clunker in the exhibition opener. Big-time programs have been stunned in exhibitions before — you’ll recall Michigan State fell to Grand Valley State a few years back and still reached the Sweet 16 — and Syracuse was primarily experimenting with a man-to-man defense that Jim Boeheim could very well scrap for the season. Johnson exploding for 34 points shows he could be the go-to scorer Syracuse needs with Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf no longer manning the orange.
The Pick: I’ve been on their bandwagon all off-season so why not? My pick is Ohio State. Dallas Lauderdale keeps saying he should be ready to play. They return all-around performer Evan Turner who has a triple-double in his plans this season. William Buford and Jon Diebler can shoot the lights out and should really extend the Carolina defense. Receive steady point guard play from P.J. Hill and Jerime Simmons and that’s a possible top-ten team. I’ll take the Buckeyes to knock off UNC and California.
CBE Classic(Regionals: November 15-19, Kansas City: November 23-24)
*RTC Live will be at the semis and finals.
The Field: Much like the 2K Sports Classic, the semifinals are already set for Kansas City pitting Texas against Iowa and Pittsburgh against Wichita State. The four regional games are as follows: Texas facing UC Irvine and Western Carolina, Binghamton and Eastern Kentucky visiting Pittsburgh, Fairleigh Dickinson and Arkansas-Monticello taking on Wichita State and Iowa getting Duquesne and UTSA. The one possible upset here (not that it matters) is a high-scoring Duquesne team upsetting Big Ten bottom-feeder Iowa.
The Sleeper: It’s really hard to see Texas not annihilating this field, but could Wichita State knock off Pittsburgh? The Panthers won’t have Gilbert Brown (suspension) and possibly Jermaine Dixon (foot injury) for this one while already attempting to overcome the loss of DeJuan Blair, Levance Fields and Sam Young. Gregg Marshall returns seven of his top ten scorers for a squad that could linger near the top of the MVC led by senior guard Clevin Hannah and junior forward J.T. Turley, who is poised to become a star. If the Shockers can contain freshman forward Dante Taylor, they could live up to their name and pull a shocker in Kansas City.
The Pick: I have Texas ranked #2 in my preseason top-25 and they don’t have much sterling competition in this field. Pittsburgh was depleted by losses and may not even be an NCAA tournament team this season, Wichita State is a few rungs behind Creighton and Northern Iowa in the MVC and Texas’ first round opponent, Iowa, won’t be able to stay on the floor with the supremely talented Longhorns. Rick Barnes’ team is extremely deep at every position and could be a national title contender if Florida transfer Jai Lucas or newly-eligible J’Covan Brown provides stability at point guard. Damion James and Dexter Pittman are constant double-double threats inside.
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist. He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the course of the season.
Last Four In: Florida State, Creighton, Xavier, Florida
Last Four Out: Texas A&M, Notre Dame, San Diego State, Wisconsin
Next Four Out: Miami (FL), Missouri, Illinois State, Utah State
Multiple bids per conference: Big East (8), ACC (7), SEC (7), Big Ten (6), Big 12 (5), Pac-10 (3), Atlantic 10 (2), Conference USA (2), Missouri Valley (2).
Automatic bids: Boston University, Dayton, North Carolina, Jacksonville, West Virginia, Kansas, Weber State, Radford, Purdue, Long Beach State, Old Dominion, Tulsa, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Morgan State, Akron, Northern Iowa, BYU, Mount St. Mary’s, Morehead State, California, Holy Cross, Kentucky, College of Charleston, Sam Houston State, Oakland, Western Kentucky, Jackson State, Nevada, Gonzaga.
Shamelessly cribbing from the very clever NBA catch phrase, we here at RTC will present to you the Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball as we gear up toward the start of the season in about two weeks. We’ll be bringing you players to watch for this season and moments to remember from last season, courtesy of the series of dump trucks, wires and effluvia known as YouTube.
Impact Newcomer:Isiah Thomas. Usually, this is where we pick out the best incoming freshman or transfer in the conference. But for the first time in a very long time, people are paying attention to a Sun Belt team in a month that is not March. One can’t be sure if Isiah’s hiring at FIU will be a huge boon for the conference in terms of exposure, or if his actions will make him a white elephant, but his impact will be unparalleled either way. As far as on the court, New Orleans guard Billy Humphrey, a transfer who averaged 12.2 PPG for Georgia before being dismissed from the team following a DUI, is the most proven and highest rated player to make a Sun Belt debut in 2009-10.
What You Need to Know:
If you’re going to pick out guy to win Player of the Year, it has to be WKU’s A.J. Slaughter. He probably would have won the honors in 08-09, but his teammate Orlando Mendez-Valdez overshadowed him. Now that Mendez-Valdez has graduated, expect Slaughter to outshine everyone else in the Sun Belt.
For the past two years, Western Kentucky has been the team to beat in the Sun Belt. In 2008 and 2009, they won the conference tournament and went on to NCAA tournament upsets, beating a #5 seed each year in Drake and Illinois. If not for poor free throw shooting, the Hilltoppers very well could have claimed a victory over Gonzaga in last year’s tournament to go to the Sweet 16.
Isiah Thomas isn’t the only one who has moved out of a powerful program and into a Sun Belt coaching position. John Brady, coach at LSU during their 2006 Final Four run, is now at Arkansas State and Mike Jarvis helmed the St. John’s program prior to his current job at Florida Atlantic. North Texas’ Johnny Jones was the last coach (for one season) at Memphis before some guy named Calipari took over.
Predicted Champion.Western Kentucky (NCAA Seed: #11). Since North Texas made a run and won the conference tournament in 2007, it has been WKU all the way in the Sun Belt. Even though conference Player of the Year Mendez-Valdez is no longer with the Hilltoppers, the return of guard A.J. Slaughter should mean that the conference championship trophy stays in Bowling Green for another year. Couple that with the increased inside presence of WKU center Jeremy Evans and the fact that they return 4 starters from last year, and there’s no reason to bet against the Hilltoppers.
Here’s a friendly public service announcement from your friends at RTC…
If you’re jonesing for some college hoops during the long, hot, humid days of summer, CBS College Sports channel (CSTV on your channel guide) has your prescription. Games started yesterday, but the channel has plans to show the entirety of the 2009 NCAA Tournament over the next two weeks. A complete schedule of games is here, but here are the date/times for the best few. Set your Tivos now…
UCLA v. VCU – Wednesday, July 22 @ 4pm (encore showings: Thurs. July 23 @ 10am and Fri. July 31 @ 6pm) – Eric Maynor does his best to knock off the mighty Bruins but comes up just short.
Tennessee v. Oklahoma St. – Wednesday, July 22 @ 10pm(Thurs. July 23 @ 4am and Sat. Aug. 1 @ 4pm) - Byron Eaton with a clear path to the basket…
Siena v. Ohio St.- Friday, July 24 @ 10pm(Sat. July 25 @ 3:30am and Sat. Aug. 1 @ 10pm) – re-live the plucky Saints hitting clutch shot after clutch shot to defeat OSU in double-overtime.
Gonzaga v. W. Kentucky -Sunday, July 26 @ 4pm (Sat. Aug. 1 @ 8pm) – Demetri Goodson with his best Tyus Edney impersonation…
Missouri v. Marquette – Tuesday, July 28 @ 12pm(Wed. July 29 @ 6am and Sat. Aug. 1 @ 2pm) – the best game of the second round featured end-to-end action throughout.
Pittsburgh v. Villanova -Wednesday, July 29 @ 10pm(Thurs. July 30 @ 4am) – fantastic finish to get to the F4 and the best game of the 2009 Dance.
Michigan St. v. UConn – Thursday, July 30 @ 6pm (Fri. July 31 @ 12am and Sun. Aug. 2 at 12pm) - not the greatest game ever, but it was fun watching the upstart Spartans take on the much more highly-favored Huskies in this one.
Just remembered that we never posted the championship results of this year’s RTC Mascot Death Match. So here goes…
By a resounding margin, Western Kentucky’s Big Red easily handled Cleveland St.’s Magnus the Viking in the final match. Admittedly, the bigger upset was in the semifinal round when the WKU mascot took out Xavier’s Blue Blob. So congratulations to the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and their mascot, Big Red, for winning the first annual RTC Mascot Death Match!
This has been fun. Check back next year during the first week of the NCAA Tournament for the next version, and thanks to everyone who voted over the last month.
And we’re finally down to the RTC Mascot Death Match Championship between the W. Kentucky Big Red (who pulled the shocking upset over Xavier’s Big Blob) and the Cleveland State’s Magnus the Viking. As always, vote early and often. We’ll keep this up all week for your final selection.
And now we’re down to the Final Four. Somehow, Cosmo Cougar continues to move on through the brackets as a darkhorse, but he’ll have his hands full with Magnus the Viking in one game. In the other, featuring the two favorites of the entire Tournament, we have the Blue Blob vs. Big Red. Nobody knows how that one will go down. Only you can decide!
RTC interns Matt P. and Mike L.are our NCAA Tournament East Region correspondents.
Isn’t it amazing how perfectly paired the Sweet 16 games look in the South Region? It’s almost as if the best four teams advanced, or something like that. Currently, Ken Pomeroy has both match-ups at nearly 50-50 odds: UNC with a 55% likelihood of beating Gonzaga and Syracuse with an even slimmer 52% of moving on over Oklahoma. Here’s hoping both games come down to the last shot so all the chalk haters out there can’t complain about a boring tournament.
Team That Almost Went Home
The Gonzaga Bulldogs were 0.9 seconds, some semblance of transition defense, and an acknowledged timeout away from going to an overtime session with Western Kentucky. Luckily for them, none of that happened and a guy who averages 3.8 points per game hit the shot of his life at the buzzer helping Mark Few’s team advanced. Things don’t look to get any easier though. After WKU’s starting guards, A.J. Slaughter and Orlando Mendez-Valdez, dropped 24 and 25 points each on the Zags, they get to try to slow down a rested Ty Lawson and hot-shooting Wayne Ellington from UNC.
Team That Has Cruised So Far
After their marathon time in the Big East Tournament, Syracuse desperately needed two no-sweat wins in the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament, in which they only trailed once – a 24 second stretch in the first four minutes against Arizona State. Most likely, the ho-hum affairs end when they meet Oklahoma in Memphis. Guard Jonny Flynn is currently projected as a mid/late first round draft pick, but a dominant performance against Blake Griffin’s team could boost him into lottery contention.
Team With the Most to Prove
Despite having the player expected to be Player of the Year and first pick in the upcoming draft, there is still a bit of uncertainty surrounding Oklahoma. They’ve yet to win that defining game. They seemed to sputter a bit at the end of the season, but much of that is due to Blake Griffin’s injury. But what seems most uncertain is how freshman guard Willie Warren will play when facing the more experienced guards of Syracuse.
Team With Highest Expectations
For Gonzaga, Syracuse, and Oklahoma, a trip to the Sweet 16 might constitute a respectable 2008-2009 season. For a North Carolina team that came in with talk of running the table, it would mean an embarrassing failure. The week off before Friday’s game against Gonzaga has to help UNC’s chances of surviving, giving point guard Ty Lawson a chance to heal the injured toe that hobbled him for much of March. It should be interesting to watch the Josh Heytvelt/Tyler Hansbrough match-up after the Zags center owned Psycho T two years ago, admittedly while Bobby Frasor was still UNC’s main point man. Then, the Heels went as Tyler Hansbrough went. Now, they go as Ty Lawson goes. He’ll be the key to any championship hopes in Chapel Hill.
Ok, we’re ready for the Sweet Sixteen of Mascot Death Match. Things are starting to heat up. Who is your favorite? Voting will be open the next couple of days.
We’re back with the second annual review of how the major conferences are doing after one weekend of the NCAA Tournament. As we all are aware, the Dance eliminates the pretenders – that means you, Wake and Washington – so that the teams with legitimate chops remain standing. Chalk has predominantly ruled this tournament so far, but that doesn’t keep us from evaluating which conferences are performing better or worse than expectations. We review the conferences with multiple bids below…
Big East (7 bids, 5 remaining, 11-2 record)
The Big East was the most powerful conference all year and they are proving it in the postseason. West Virginia was the only first round loser, and Marquette was outlasted by a tough-as-nails Missouri team in the second round. All other Big East teams advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, setting a new record for the total number from one conference (5). What’s more is that each of these teams are F4-caliber; there isn’t a single Cinderella in the group. It wouldn’t surprise us if this league managed to get 75% of the F4 entrants this year, and we fully expect all five to play into the national quarterfinals.
Verdict: A. The Big East’s expected # of wins for the tournament is 16.2, and there’s a solid chance that the league will bust through twenty wins this season in setting another new record.
Big 12 (6 bids, 3 remaining, 9-3 record)
For the second consecutive year, the Big 12 had another great first round (6-0), culminating in their three best teams making it to the Sweet Sixteen. The league hasn’t had an upset yet, and the three losing teams – Texas, Oklahoma St., and Texas A&M, acquitted themselves nicely in five of their six games (lone exception: TAMU vs. UConn). Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma all have tough but winnable games if they play well, and the Big 12 should reasonably expect to see one of them playing into next weekend. For a “down” year in the league, this is a great performance.
Verdict: A. The Big 12 already has nine wins against an expected performance of 10.57 wins, which basically means they’re doing really well so far.
Atlantic 10 (3 bids, 1 remaining, 3-2 record)
The A10 got three teams into the Dance and made the most of its opportunity, winning two first round games (one an upset with #11 Dayton over #6 WVU), and sending Xavier to yet another Sweet Sixteen. We don’t feel that XU has much of a chance to advance the league’s banner further against Pitt, but never count out a Sean Miller team. Xaviercruised to the Sweets against two good teams.
Verdict: A-. The league was expected to win 2.52 games and they’ve already won three, so anything beyond that is gravy. How pathetic is it that the A10 is outperforming the SEC by a country mile?
Horizon (2 bids, 0 remaining, 1-2 record)
The Horizon had a chance to make some serious noise in this Tournament, but typically-solid Butler couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain when it lost to #8 LSU (who was probably underseeded). However, Cleveland St. so far has had the upset of the Dance with its throttling of #4 Wake Forest, so we’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
First Weekend Storylines. Like most of you guys, we figure we watched approximately 38 hours of basketball last weekend over the first four days of the NCAA Tournament. Since we were in Vegas taking advantage of the sportsbooks’ multiple huge-screen tvs, we pretty much saw pieces of every game on the dance card. Here are some of our thoughts and observations based on the sensory overload (speaking of sensory, that chick making bedroom eyes at the burger in the McDonald’s commercial is ridiculously difficult to remove from the internal hard drive).
Coach K, Your Filet o’ Sole Has Arrived. From our point of view, at least in terms of the elite teams of each conference, there was never any question that the Big East was much stronger than that of the ACC this year. The fact that anyone was even questioning this seemed odd. This year, the Big East had six teams (of seven bids) with a reasonable shot to make a run at the F4 – UConn, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, Villanova and Marquette, and the first five of that group is still standing (the most ever by a single conference in the Sweets, btw); the ACC had three (of seven bids) - Duke, UNC and Wake Forest, but only the twin towers of Tobacco Road royalty are left dancing. The simple fact of the matter is that the ACC’s middle – comprised of Clemson, Florida St., Maryland, BC and Virginia Tech (NIT) - were only “solid” teams that had significant weaknesses due to personnel or other issues. Conversely, the equivalent caliber teams from the Big East (with the notable exception of WVU) were left out of the Big Dance. This group includes Providence, Cincinnati, Georgetown and Notre Dame, and there shouldn’t be any dissent as to the fact that each of these teams would have competed for the middle of the ACC with the above group and several would have also earned bids on the basis of the occasional upset (see: Maryland and BC). Sitting where we are now, with five Big East teams a mere two wins away from the F4, it wouldn’t shock us to see all four slots filled by a BE team. This is still an unlikely scenario, but keep in mind that only Villanova is considered an underdog to reach the next round (Syracuse is a pick’em against Oklahoma), and all five of these teams are more than capable.
#1 Seeds. UConn looked absolutely dominant in its two games, and while not much can be discerned from a 56-pt dismantling of Chattanooga, the 92-66 beatdown of a Texas A&M team that was coming on strong must be viewed with awe. The Huskies will get the best team in the Big Ten next – Purdue - but we have trouble believing that the Boilers will challenge Jim Calhoun’s team at this point. Suddenly a #1/#2 matchup against Memphis in the regional finals looks very appealing. UNC bombed Radford in its first round game before riding a partisan crowd’s energy and Ty Lawson’s toe to a breakaway win over LSU in the second round, 84-70. The Heels should put away Gonzaga easily in the next round (we doubt Heytvelt will dominate Hansbrough this time around), but a regional final against either Oklahoma or Syracuse could present all kinds of problems for the Tar Heels. Louisville and Pittsburgh both struggled to put opponents away in both their first and second round games. Both of these teams sometimes have trouble scoring, and we have to wonder when a prolonged scoring drought against a good team will be enough to end their run to the title. Pitt should have a relatively easy go of it with its next game against Xavier, but we’re looking at Louisville’s next game against Arizona and wondering what might happen if the trio of Budinger, Wise and Hill are all making shots.
After a relatively weak set of 1st round games (except for very late last night), we’re looking to forward to our beloved tournament returning to form with a strong set of 2nd round games. One of the benefits of the lack of shocking upsets in the first round games is that we get a good set of 2nd round games that won’t be blowouts. Right? Anyways, here is your slate of games.
We’ll be starting this post around 3:20 so head over to the aforementioned RTC Live before that time for our coverage of the start of round 2.
3:23 PM: Memphis starts off like they did in the 1st round with a 35-second violation that wasn’t called because Maryland stole the ball as the shot clock expired. Greivis Vasquez just got called for his first foul 57 seconds into the game. That’s definitely something to watch for.
3:27 PM: Nice run by Memphis to silence any of the early doubts after their ugly opening game. This is the Memphis team I put in the Final 4.
3:40 PM: Sorry for the delay. I was busy responding to an e-mail from the NCAA trying to get you coverage from the NCAA East Regional (they’re pretty myopic in Indianapolis). Anyways, back to the game. . . John Calipari has to be pleased with this start. His Tigers have come out much sharper than they did against Cal State-Northridge.
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