David Ely is an RTC contributor.

Every year teams come out of nowhere and burst into the top 25, while sports writers run to their keyboards to type the requisite “Where Did Team X Come From” story. I mean how many people saw Cornell coming last year? Who said last October that Butler would go on to lose the national championship game by just a couple of inches?  Conversely, there are teams that look great on paper in the preseason but fail to live up to the hype once the season starts. Think North Carolina last season. Why did the Tar Heels begin the year in the top 10 again?  Allow us to sort through the mess and pull out this year’s Cornells and North Carolinas for you. Missouri fans, get ready to be excited. West Virginia fans, start thinking of things to say in your hate mail.

On Monday we took a look at four teams that will be up this season.  Today we’ll examine four teams that will be down as compared to where they were last year.

#1) West Virginia

There's a Lot of Pressure on Kevin Jones to Produce This Year

No Devin Ebanks. No Da’Sean Butler. All kinds of problems for the Mountaineers, who are the only team from last year’s Final Four to begin the season outside of the AP top 25. Bob Huggins’ squad lost a lot of what made last year’s team so tough to handle with the depatures of Ebanks and Butler. The 2009-10 Mountaineers got by on their ability to suffocate opponents with their brutally physical play combined with Butler’s brilliance on the offensive end. Now much of the responsibility falls to forward Kevin Jones, who averaged 13.5 points per game as West Virginia’s third option. Can Jones step up his game this year when defenses single him out as the guy they have to stop? If Jones struggles, then the Mountaineers will have a hard time duplicating even some of the success they enjoyed last year.

Reports coming from preseason practices aren’t too encouraging. Huggins recently told the Charleston Gazette that freshmen Kevin Noreen and Noah Cottrill “look lost” at practice. And that was after Cottrill sparked rumors when he was introduced but didn’t participate in West Virginia’s Midnight Madness. There also was the case of Casey Mitchell, who was suspended for a violation of team rules but is now back with the team. These aren’t the kinds of stories that equate to success in the regular season. This year might be one to forget in Morgantown.

#2) Cornell

Such is the Life of a Mid-Major -- Seasons Like Last Year Come Around Once in Generation

The Big Red was the last year’s feel good story, upsetting Temple and Wisconsin en route to an unprecedented run to the Sweet 16. And what was the reward for America’s favorite brainiacs turned basketball stars? A return to obscurity.

Cornell lost its X&Os wizard in Steve Donahue when he opted for the greener pastures of the ACC, taking the head coaching gig at Boston College. The Big Red lost all-time leading scorer and 2010 Ivy League Player of the Year (Ryan Wittman), the sparkplug and catalyst of its NCAA Tournament run (Louis Dale) and six other seniors from last year’s squad.  That would be a lot of attrition for even a team like Duke to endure, and there’s no doubt Cornell and new coach Bill Courtney are headed for a big step backward this season.

The Big Red was predicted to finish third in the Ivy League, which would require a number of players to step up fill the voids left by the likes of Wittman and Dale. Cornell needs big seasons from proven players like point guard Chris Wroblewski and forwards Adam Wire and Mark Coury. Then the Big Red will need some of its unknown pieces (one if its four freshman or maybe junior transfer Anthony Gatlin) to emerge if Courtney & Co. hope to compete for a fourth straight league title.

#3) Purdue

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Zach Hayes is an RTC editor, contributor and bracketologist.

Bids per conference (auto bid listed first):

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Halloween, as most of us know, is and always will be one of the Four Pillars of Absolute Kid Happiness, right up there with Christmas (where celebrated), birthdays, and the moment of the announcement of a snow day. It seems like only a blink of an eye ago that we were those kids, but alas, each of us at RTC has long since put away our ghostly sheets and our Star Wars masks (we eBayed those) and — some more gradually than others — over time, evolved, kicking and screaming, into what we suppose you’d call…a grown-up. Just because the body has matured, though, doesn’t mean the mind has, because we still get jazzed for All Hallow’s. Not only is it a metaphorical “Next Exit” sign for an upcoming holiday season (which we still dig, and always will), but October 31 is a city limits line, as well. It signals that the last non-college basketball month has passed. It means that it’s been a long summer, but now we’re all back in town for another golden autumn in Hoop City.

It's Time To Hand Out Treats To Things We Like, and Tricks (Or Rocks) To Those We Don't.

What better time to reward with treats some of the recent developments or teams/players/coaches in our game we’re diggin’ on these days, and require tricks of things that we’re not. It’s time for Rush The Court’s Tricks and Treats for 2010.

Treats (no particular order):

Harrison Barnes and Jared Sullinger. We haven’t been this high on big men since Andre’ the Giant’s turn in The Princess Bride. We’re just as hyped to see these guys take the court as we were for Messrs. Wall, Favors, Henry, and Cousins before last season. When each of us here at RTC was 18, our worries included things like summer fast food jobs and blowing money on these things called CDs (discoid objects that played music). These guys have to worry about things like, oh, making sure Ohio State basketball doesn’t drop at all after losing the Player of the Year, and bringing North Carolina basketball — home to not exactly the most patient of fan bases — back to prominence. Plus, as they’re instant program-changers, we want to finally see these dudes play against college competition. We’ve waited long enough. And heck, let’s throw Baylor’s Perry Jones in there, too.

We're Ready For Some Sullinger. Is the Big Ten?

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

With college basketball approaching in a matter of days, fans across the nation can look forward to one of the major draws of the sport: pre-conference tournaments. Aside from catering to hungry fans that want to see highly ranked teams do battle even in the earliest stages of the season, these tournaments are golden opportunities for coaches to judge and evaluate where their teams stands against elite competition. It presents our first chance to surmise that, say, Kentucky’s fabulous freshmen may not quite stack up to last year’s history-making class, that Duke may miss Brian Zoubek and Jon Scheyer more than originally expected or that Jacob Pullen can adequately handle point guard duties for Kansas State. The teams we label in early November as the prime contenders to cut down the nets five months later in Houston are revealed for the first time in tournament settings that allow programs to build early season momentum, confidence and quality wins that stand out come Selection Sunday. No other sport provides such drama in tournament settings at such an early point in the season.

As usual, a handful of headlining programs have elected to participate in these tournaments. Duke will encounter their first true tests in the CBE Classic, Pitt eyes a difficult field in the 2K Sports Classic and North Carolina heads out to Puerto Rico in a wide open field. All of these fields could provide intense drama and classic clashes normally reserved for the first days of spring. Here’s a preview of the best tournaments college basketball has to offer in pre-conference play and the main storylines heading into each event. Mark your calendars now.

2K Sports Classic (Opening Rounds: November 8-10, Semifinals: November 19, Finals: November 20)

The Field: Ever since the Gardner-Webb shocker upended plans for Kentucky and their rabid fans to travel to Madison Square Garden, this has been an event where the four regional hosts automatically advance to NYC. This year’s participants are Pittsburgh, Illinois, Texas and Maryland. The prohibitive favorite has to be preseason Big East topper Pittsburgh and their four starters returning from an overachieving squad that garnered a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Ashton Gibbs is a game-changing scoring guard and the athletic Gilbert Brown is an x-factor on the wing for Jamie Dixon. Illinois has expectations of reaching the second weekend in March for the first time since the national championship defeat in 2005, while Texas hopes that addition by subtraction helps avenge last season’s collapse from #1 team in the nation to first round victim. Maryland will likely still be figuring out a rotation at this stage after their three leading scorers were all lost to graduation. One player that may vault into stardom is Terps big man Jordan Williams, who nearly averaged a double-double as a freshman in the ACC.

The Sleeper: It’s difficult to fathom that losing Damion James and Dexter Pittman can possibly make a team better, but one has to prescribe to the notion that more defined roles and a clear-cut rotation should translate into improved chemistry for Texas following last season’s bitter disappointment. Rick Barnes still has tremendous talent up and down his roster including the infusion of two McDonalds All-American recruits in point guard Cory Joseph and power forward Tristan Thompson. If he utilizes more discretion on when to pull the trigger, it wouldn’t shock us if Jordan Hamilton had a breakout campaign. This also provides an early chance for Florida transfer Jai Lucas to shine on a big stage. Remember, Lucas is just two seasons removed from averaging 8.5 PPG and shooting 44% from deep as a freshman.

The Pick: While Texas has a strong chance of advancing, we’re even more bullish on Illinois in the preseason. Mike Davis and Mike Tisdale bring height and scoring inside, Demetri McCamey is an assist machine at the point and freshman Jereme Richmond is the perfect answer on the wing for Bruce Weber. If they were to face Pitt in the final, McCamey out-muscles Ashton Gibbs on the perimeter, Richmond’s length contains Gilbert Brown on the wing and Tisdale’s versatility pushes Pitt big man Gary McGhee from his comfort zone in the paint. With the victory, the buzz around Illinois’ chances in the ultra-competitive Big Ten will only escalate.

CBE Classic (Opening Rounds: November 12-18, Semifinals: November 22, Finals: November 23)

The Field: While Duke, Marquette, Kansas State and Gonzaga will play two warm-up games on their home floor, all four advance to Kansas City for a star-studded doubleheader (controversy could certainly unfold should San Diego State, the preseason MWC favorite and a top-25 caliber squad in some experts’ minds, upset Gonzaga and still be forced to play in Oxford, Ohio rather than KC). As the near-consensus #1 team heading into the season’s tip-off, Duke is the favorite and receives the easier semifinal matchup in Marquette. The Golden Eagles enter the season as a likely second tier Big East team along with West Virginia, Seton Hall, Notre Dame and possibly Connecticut or Louisville. Look for the Kansas State–Gonzaga matchup to be one of the best games of the entire month. The Wildcats boast one of the best players in the nation in Jacob Pullen and a bruising, deep frontline, while Mark Few has the Zags loaded with talent, notably German import Elias Harris and sharpshooting swingman Steven Gray.

The Sleeper: Gonzaga has a golden opportunity in this tournament to do some major damage, boost their portfolio with two quality wins and become the storyline of the month of November. Defeating two top-five teams is a daunting task, but all Gonzaga has to do is escape Kansas State and at least remain competitive with Duke to make a positive impression nationally. Last year, it would have been the hard-nosed Matt Bouldin to contain Pullen around the perimeter. With Few’s ability to match his frontcourt to at least a draw with the Kansas State paint patrollers, how defensive-minded junior guard Demetri Goodson handles the challenging assignment of slowing down Pullen could ultimately determine Gonzaga’s success in KC.

The Pick: We’ve seen the role of contrarian playing by some prognosticators pegging Michigan State at #1 rather than Duke, but I’ll abstain. Duke will win this tournament, although Frank Martin’s bunch should be an awfully difficult draw in the final with their physicality and the scoring prowess of Pullen. The Blue Devils’ remarkable perimeter depth has the tools to wear down either opponent. Expect both Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins to drain some key treys that help keep the Blue Devils atop the rankings.

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Zach Hayes is an RTC editor, contributor and bracketologist.

College basketball fans: get your calendars out. Over the next few Wednesdays until opening night arrives on November 8, we’ll unveil a portion of our 68 Can’t-Miss Games of 2010-11, a countdown of the matchups that you need to make sure to see this season. From the early season headliners to the best rivalries conference play has to offer, this list has you covered with the game, date, time (ET), network and a brief synopsis of what to expect. Remember, folks: this list doesn’t even include another eight to ten must-see early-season tournament games, for which we’ll have a separate post later this month.  Without further ado, here is the fourth installment  of the list — set your Tivos/DVRs now.

To see the #27-68 games on this list, click here.

#26. January 26 – San Diego State at BYU, 9 pm (CBS College Sports) – This clash in late January could be an early indicator whether the Aztecs or Cougars will prove the class of a competitive Mountain West this season. While the most gifted pure scorer in the conference is unquestionably BYU’s Jimmer Fredette, one could argue San Diego State boasts the best overall player in sophomore forward Kawhi Leonard. The Riverside native and future pro nearly averaged a double-double during his debut campaign and only improved as the season continued. BYU’s frontline of Noah Hartsock and Brandon Davies’ attempts to contain Leonard may prove the difference, while the Cougars’ gameplan will clearly be to make this a perimeter-oriented game behind guards Fredette and Jackson Emery. The victor receives a leg up in the MWC race.

This Has Become a Great MWC Rivalry (K. Johnson/Deseret News)

#25. December 18 – Kansas State vs. Florida, 4:30 pm (FSN) – Two preseason top ten teams will meet in mid-December, the winner emerging with a victory that will look absolutely tremendous on Selection Sunday. No surprise defections and five returning starters from an NCAA Tournament team has Billy Donovan and Gator Nation as excited as any moment since the Noah/Horford-led squad disbanded. The success of Florida this season could come down to whether they improve their three-point accuracy, notably sophomore Kenny Boynton. The five-star recruit came to Gainesville with a reputation for proficiency behind the arc, but he shot just 29% on 245 treys as a freshman. Donovan expects a jump in accuracy from both Boynton and fellow guard Erving Walker this season. They’ll need every three they can get against a K-State squad that will attempt to physically impose their will on the Gators.

#24. December 1 – Purdue at Virginia Tech, 7:30 pm (ESPN) – I had this game higher up on the list until Robbie Hummel’s ACL tear dropped the Boilermakers a few notches on the preseason rankings. Regardless of that devastating blow, it’s still one of the premier contests of the non-conference slate and one of two ACC/Big Ten Challenge headliners on the first day of December. While we’re all pitying Matt Painter and Purdue, remember they still feature two all-Big Ten caliber performers in big man JaJuan Johnson and two-guard E’Twaun Moore, plus a steady point guard in Lewis Jackson that shone as a freshman before injuries derailed his momentum. In all likelihood, though, Purdue slipped from slight favorites to underdogs in this game with Hummel sidelined. Virginia Tech will be playing in front of their rowdy home crowd, boasts arguably the ACC’s best scorer in Malcolm Delaney, an underrated big man in Jeff Allen and the extra incentive to add a portfolio-building win after last year’s disastrous pre-ACC slate.

#23. February 6 – Michigan State at Wisconsin, 1 pm (CBS) – For as much success as Tom Izzo has had since becoming the head coach at Michigan State, there’s one task on his to-do list that has yet to be accomplished: beat Bo Ryan in Madison. Believe it or not, Izzo is 0-6 on the road against Wisconsin since Ryan took the helm. The most recent defeat came last February when the 19-3 Spartans, ranked in the top five in the country, marched into the Kohl Center and departed with a 67-49 beatdown. It was a banner game for two Badgers that will need to step into bigger roles if Ryan wants to have another successful campaign: junior forward Rob Wilson (5-5 FG, 10 points) and junior guard Jordan Taylor (17 points, 3-8 treys). The Spartans are a near-consensus #2 team in the nation behind Duke in the preseason, so there’s reason to believe Izzo’s winless streak could come to an end on this date.

This is a Win Both Teams Need for National Legitimacy

#22. November 16 – Ohio State at Florida, 6 pm (ESPN) – In this writer’s opinion, here’s the most intruging game in the month of November. Can the Buckeyes possibly be better after losing Player of the Year Evan Turner? The answer is yes. Thad Matta brought in a game-changing big man in Jared Sullinger, a frontcourt partner in DeShaun Thomas and a heady, defensive-minded point guard in Aaron Craft. Every significant contributor that played alongside Turner is also back — Jon Diebler, Dallas Lauderdale, David Lighty and breakout candidate William Buford. The toughest test of their non-conference slate is this trip to Gainesville to battle a Gators team with equally lofty expectations. Florida will need defensive stalwart Vernon Macklin to contain Sullinger in the post and avoid an early home loss. This is another huge resume win for either team in March.

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For the second October in a row, we’re bringing you our RTC Impact Players series.  The braintrust has gone back and forth on this and we’ve finally settled on a group of sixty players throughout ten geographic regions of the country (five starters plus a sixth man) to represent the who and where of players you should be watching this season.  Seriously, if you haven’t seen every one of these players ball at least once by the end of February, then you need to figure out a way to get a better television package.  As always in a subjective analysis such as this, some of our decisions were difficult; many others were quite easy.  What we can say without reservation is that there is great talent in every corner of this nation of ours, and we’ll do our best to excavate it over the next five weeks in this series that will publish on Mondays and Thursdays.  Each time, we’ll also provide a list of some of the near-misses as well as the players we considered in each region, but as always, we welcome you guys, our faithful and very knowledgeable readers, to critique us in the comments.

You can find all previous RTC 2010-11 Impact Players posts here.

Upper Midwest Region (MI, WI, MN, IA, NE, SD, ND)

• Kalin Lucas – Sr, G – Michigan State.  Few elite players and certainly no other senior elite players will enter this season as more of an unknown quantity than Kalin Lucas. Coming off a solid junior season where he averaged 14.8 points and 4.0 assists per game, Lucas and the Spartans were poised for yet another run at the Final Four before a torn Achilles tendon in the second round against Maryland supposedly ended those hopes along with the possibility that Lucas might declare for the 2010 NBA Draft, already lacking in depth at the point guard position. We all know what happened instead (MSU rallied to yet another Final Four even without their starting point guard).  All indications point to Lucas having recovered from the untimely injury to near 100%, but we can’t help but wonder if his explosiveness, which already was a concern for NBA teams, might be compromised. Lucas is certainly fast enough when he gets going in the open court, but his first step has never been at the level of the other elite point guards he has been compared to and a potential reluctance to push off that torn left Achilles tendon may hinder that more. Despite the questions, Tom Izzo is certainly happy to have Lucas and his all-around skills and intangibles back in East Lansing—there are very few All-American point guards in BCS conferences that stick around for their senior season—and if Michigan State is going to make a push to yet another Final Four it will be Lucas who will again be the driving force. Having lost the enigmatic but explosive Raymar Morgan and equally enigmatic but troublesome Chris Allen, Izzo will expect Lucas to carry an increased offensive load while still distributing the ball to wings Durrell Summers and Draymond Green along with the talented Delvon Roe, who has yet to fulfill the promise he showed coming out of high school. If Lucas is able to meet those expectations, he could have a senior season much like one of his Spartan predecessors (Mateen Cleaves) that results in the Spartans cutting down the nets in Houston next April.

Lucas Returns For a Last Final Four Shot

• Blake Hoffarber – Sr, G – Minnesota. Here’s the thing about Blake Hoffarber: he’s probably not the best player on this Minnesota team, maybe not even the third or fourth best player, but he is absolutely critical to their success, perhaps the most important player on the team in that regard. Guys like Al Nolen and Devoe Joseph, Ralph Sampson, III, and Colton Iverson, are all probably more talented and more complete players than Hoffarber, but last year’s Golden Gopher results tell the tale of a team that succeeded when Hoffarber succeeded and failed when he failed. In the 15 games in which Hoffarber scored ten or more points last season, Minnesota went 13-2; in the remaining 20 games when he scored less than ten, they were 8-12. The lesson is simple: Hoffarber needs to score for this team to be successful. And given that Hoffarber’s offensive game is almost entirely predicated on hitting spot-up threes, maybe the true impact player here should be Joseph or Nolen, getting Hoffarber good looks on drive-and-dish. Or maybe it should be Sampson and Iverson for sucking in defenders in the post or kicking out offensive rebounds that eventually find their way into Hoffarber’s hands. But the point remains, Hoffarber needs to get and hit threes for the Gophers to be successful. His offensive numbers tell the story well, as last season Hoffarber was the most efficient offensive player in the nation, but only used 14% of all Gopher possessions when he was in the game. He scored a total of 351 points last season, 255 of which came from behind the arc (at an impressive 46% clip, leading to an effective field goal percentage of 67.3%, good for fourth in the nation). Of the remaining 96 points, 28 came from the line, meaning he scored just 34 hoops inside the arc, less than one point per game. Basically, Hoffarber is the very essence of a pure shooter – you really don’t need to worry about him going around anybody and the only open looks he’ll create for teammates is when he draws defenders to him at the line and rotates the ball around the arc. Sure, he contributes a handful of rebounds a game and rarely turns the ball over, he passes pretty well and is a decent if unspectacular defender, but when it comes right down to it, he’s “just a shooter” – one of the best in the nation upon whom the Golden Gophers’ chances depend, but in the end, still “just a shooter.”

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Zach Hayes is an RTC editor, contributor and bracketologist.

College basketball fans: get your calendars out. Over the next few Wednesdays until opening night arrives on November 8, we’ll unveil a portion of our 68 Can’t-Miss Games of 2010-11, a countdown of the matchups that you need to make sure to see this season. From the early season headliners to the best rivalries conference play has to offer, this list has you covered with the game, date, time (ET), network and a brief synopsis of what to expect. Remember, folks: this list doesn’t even include another eight to ten must-see early-season tournament games, for which we’ll have a separate post later this month.  Without further ado, here is the third installment  of the list — set your Tivos/DVRs now.

To see the #41-68 games on this list, click here.

#40. February 1 – Purdue at Wisconsin, 7 pm (ESPN) – This game, and truly Purdue’s Final Four hopes as a whole, were tempered when Robbie Hummel re-tore his ACL in the second drill of practice last Saturday, but this Big Ten grinder could still have serious implications. While the Badgers are nearly unbeatable at home since Bo Ryan took the helm, Matt Painter’s baby-turned-senior Boilers have had moderate success in the Kohl Center relative to other challengers. And despite the crippling blow that is Hummel’s injury, it’s not a death sentence for Painter and his team. Never underestimate the us-against-the-world mentality in college sports, that same attitude Purdue likely had when they stunned #8 Wisconsin as an unranked, unproven commodity three seasons ago. Facing a perennially overachieving Badgers team will be one of their stiffest challenges on the road towards convincing the doubters yet again.

#39. February 7 – Pittsburgh at West Virginia, 7 pm (ESPN) – Ah, yes. The Backyard Brawl: Hoops Edition. The hatred among these two factions are as deep-seated and emotional as any in the Big East. One thing we know for certain about Bob Huggins’ team post-Final Four is that Kevin Jones should be up to the task of taking over the alpha dog role. If the two-headed point guard monster of Darryl Bryant and Joe Mazzulla can provide more punch offensively, Deniz Kilici can continue to develop into a post presence and freshmen Noah Cottrill and Kevin Noreen are able to contribute immediately, Huggins could have another tough-minded contender on his hands. They’ll need a team effort to down a Pitt squad that returns four starters and has realistic expectations of reaching the school’s first Final Four since the FDR administration.

The Backyard Brawl Went 3-OT Last Year

#38. December 9 – Georgetown at Temple, 9 pm (ESPN2) – Here’s a non-conference clash that may float a bit under the radar. With a top-four Big East team traveling to the preseason Atlantic 10 favorite, this game deserves serious national attention. Contrary to their storied history of producing legendary paint patrollers, the Hoyas will be as perimeter-oriented as ever this season led by the three-headed tandem of Chris Wright (had a strong summer on the USA Select Team), Austin Freeman (this writer’s preseason Big East POY) and the tremendously underrated Jason Clark. With sharpshooting Juan Fernandez and Ramone Moore, the Owls have some firepower of their own. To avoid defeat, Georgetown needs Julian Vaughn to contain double-double machine Lavoy Allen on the low block.

#37. November 16 – Virginia Tech at Kansas State, 4 pm (ESPN) – One of the highlights of ESPN’s Tip-Off Marathon is a late afternoon matinee pitting two schools with goals of playing on the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend. Despite injuries hurting their frontcourt depth, the Hokies’ Big Three — Malcolm Delaney, Jeff Allen and Dorenzo Hudson — have remained intact and 100% healthy heading into practice. The best head-to-head matchup of the entire day may be the Delaney-Jacob Pullen bout at point guard. Play that to a wash and the Wildcats should be able to protect the Octagon of Doom on this afternoon, especially if the reports of Florida International transfer Freddy Asprilla being a potential difference maker in the post are true. Martin also boasts Jamar Samuels, Curtis Kelly and Wally Judge, all integral weapons in a physical, tough, long frontcourt.

VT Has Played Well in Cameron: Will the Octagon Rattle Them?

#36. January 17 – Kansas at Baylor, 9:30 pm (ESPN) – The Jayhawks are a bit of a wild card this season. It’s a credit to Bill Self and the depth he’s assembled that the Jayhawks are even discussed as a potential top ten team after losing Sherron Collins, Xavier Henry and Cole Aldrich. A trip to Waco to face an uber-athletic Bears squad would be challenging for even Self’s team of a year ago. Most expect Marcus Morris to make the leap to all-Big 12 contention, but the length of Perry Jones and Quincy Acy could make this the most difficult matchup of his season. As a result, this clash could come down to guard play, where the Bears LaceDarius Dunn (domestic violence arrest) and the Jayhawks Josh Selby (eligibility) both face question marks regarding their availability. My best guess is that those two all-world talents will be on the floor earlier than January 17.

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Rush The Court is back with another edition of One on One: An Interview Series, which we will bring you periodically throughout the year. If you have any specific interview requests or want us to interview you, shoot us an email at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Few college coaches have had careers with as much success at as many different venues as Charles “Lefty” Driesell. After playing at Duke under Harold Bradley, he coached a few years of high school basketball in Virginia finishing with a 57-game winning streak at Newport News High School before accepting a head coaching position at Davidson where he coached for nine seasons compiling a 176-75 record leading the Wildcats from the bottom of the Southern Conference to the Elite Eight in back-to-back seasons (yes there was basketball at Davidson before Stephen Curry). Following the 1969 season, Driesell moved to Maryland, which is where most basketball fans associate him with. After a rough start his first two years in College Park where his teams went a combined 27-25 (10-18 in the ACC), Driesell quickly turned things around making it to the NCAA Elite Eight twice more and winning the NIT in a span of four seasons at a time when only the ACC Tournament champion was awarded a bid to the NCAA Tournament.  This hit the Terrapins especially hard in 1974 when they were a top five team who lost what many consider to be one of the greatest college games of all-time, a 103-100 loss in overtime to David Thompson and eventual national champion North Carolina State. It was just prior to the start of that run in 1971 that Driesell instituted what would come to be viewed as the predecessor of Midnight Madness when he gathered his team a few minutes after midnight on the first day of practice for a training run around the track. In the subsequent 39 years, the tradition has transformed from a humble event into a media spectacle. Following that four-year run, Driesell’s most notable success came in the mid-1980s when the Terrapins re-emerged in the national consciousness with the play of Len Bias and his subsequent passing just after he was drafted by the Boston Celtics. After leaving Maryland in the wake of the Bias scandal, Driesell was away from the sidelines for two years before returning to coach at James Madison and later Georgia State, making the NCAA Tournament three more times including a 2001 win at GSU over Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. For his contributions to the game, Driesell was inducted into the University of Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002 and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. Earlier this week we caught up with him to discuss the origins of Midnight Madness and other issues relating to the current state of college basketball.

Driesell Helped Build Progams at Four Schools

RTC: You started “Midnight Madness” in 1971 based on a 1.5 mile run, which it seems like you continued all the way through your Georgia State days. Could you talk a little bit about your motivation for coming up with the idea and what your thoughts are on what it has become today?

LD: My thought at the time was to make sure that the guys, when practice started on October the 15th [were ready]. We didn’t have all this conditioning and weightlifting like they have now. Until October the 15th you couldn’t have anything to do with the players. Right now they start conditioning with four hours per week for team practice or something. You know what I’m saying. Back then you couldn’t do anything until October the 15th. You couldn’t hold meetings. You couldn’t lift weights with them. You couldn’t run or condition them. It was a way for me to encourage them to get in shape for October the 15th when practice started. I always ran them a mile on October the 15th. That kind of messed up my practice on that day. So George Raveling and I were talking and we said why don’t we just run the mile at 12:01 and then we can practice at 3 o’clock that afternoon. So that’s what we did for the first year. You know we had cars on the track with lights on so nobody would cut the course, but I heard that [Len] Elmore did. So I don’t know if we did that one year or two years, but Mo Howard said, “Hey Coach. Why don’t we just have a scrimmage at midnight next year?” because they wanted to get out of the running. So I said, “Yeah. Alright we can do that.” So we did the next year. We had a scrimmage and had seven or eight thousand kids. . . In fact we had a lot of kids watching us run that night [in 1971]. It was like my second year at Maryland. We were going to have a good team. We had [Tom] McMillen and Elmore coming up as sophomores. We had our undefeated freshman team the year before so everybody was excited. We had a lot of people just watching us run that first year so Mo said “Let’s have a scrimmage at midnight next year” so we did and we had about ten thousand people show up and from then on we filled it up. So that was kind of the way we got it started. It let us get a jump on everybody. I told them we’re going to practice before anybody else in the country and we’re going to be playing on the last day in the NCAA Finals. You know just a little motivational thing.

From the Oct 16, 1971 edition of The Virgin Islands Daily News

RTC: Could you talk a little bit about its evolution and what it has become now? It’s on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, all of the ESPNs, and a lot of other channels. What are your thoughts on that?

LD: I think it’s great. It has helped promote basketball. It gets the students and the fans thinking basketball in the middle of football and baseball and everything. I think it’s great. The only thing that I don’t like is that they let them have it at 5 o’clock in the afternoon instead of midnight. I think midnight created more interest because kids like to stay up late. I think one of the best teams I ever had was at James Madison and we played a game at midnight. I see that a couple teams play games at midnight this year. I think that’s great because college kids like to stay up late when they should be in bed. At least they are better off at a basketball game than somewhere else. I wish it was still at midnight. A lot of people call it “Basketball Madness,” but it really is “Midnight Madness.”

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Fall is the most appropriately named season. It is called that because the sun is falling below the celestial equator, for you amateur astronomers out there, but poets and writers far better than this one have described so many other reasons throughout time to illustrate why fall is known as the “season of descent”  — the decreasing number of daylight hours, the leaves, the mercury in your thermometer, the amount of filler material on SportsCenter. Of the few things that do indeed rise at this time of year, one of them has become one of surest signs that fall has arrived…

When the Tents Sprout in Lexington for Big Blue Madness Tickets, You Know That Fall Is Here.

True, in the Driesellian sense, nobody has true “Midnight Madness” anymore. And there’s so much more interaction now between coaches and players that happens prior to that circled mid-October day where once none was allowed. It doesn’t matter, because the psychosis to which college basketball aficionados across the nation willingly give in is real, and it arrives tomorrow.

That’s right, tomorrow. A big black “x” in the October 15th square on your wall calendar means that hoopheads are celebrating their own national holiday, which, inasmuch as it isn’t real Midnight Madness, we’ll call the First Official Day of Practice (FODP). Like it or not, the NCAA still calls the shots, and if they say that that particular day is open season for full-squad, you-can-use-a-ball workouts to begin, then celebrate we will, for the season is short but sweet for certain (apologies to Dave and the boys).

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Shamelessly cribbing from the clever NBA catch phrase, we here at RTC will present you with the 2010-11 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball as we ramp up to the start of the season a little over a month from now.  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.  If you want to have some fun while killing time, we encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons.  Enjoy.

#23- Where Big Ten 6, ACC 5 Happens