Set Your Tivos: Week 3

Our third installment of Set Your Tivos brings us what I consider the first legitimate tournament of the season–the Maui Invitational. It’s your yearly chance to see some of the biggest names in college basketball rocking Hawaiian t-shirts or polos. You could argue that I’m just being nostalgic over the most shocking upset in NCAA history (that barely anybody saw live) except that the famous game actually happened a little less than 3 months before I was born. Anyways, onto our weekly countdown. . .

Courtesy: http://www.gizmodo.com

#10: Boston College vs. #10 Purdue, Wednesday at 7 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: I’m curious to see how one of the Big 10 co-favorites (along with Michigan State and now Michigan) will do against a middle to bottom of the pack Big East ACC team. This game is about getting some respect for the Big 10. If the Boilermakers don’t win this game easily, it could be a sign that we’re in for another season of really bad Big 10 basketball.

#9: Duquesne at #5 Duke; Friday at 3 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: It will still be November when they play this game so the Blue Devils should win this game even though they have struggled at times this year. One of the revelations from last week’s Coaches vs. Cancer was that Brian Zoubek may still be a stiff, but he is a tall one. Look for Coach K to try to get Zoubek involved as he may be a key for Duke if they want to advance deep into the NCAA tournament this year. (Hint: Don’t put Duke too far in your March Madness bracket). 

#8: Maryland vs. #7 Michigan State, Thursday at 7 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: This game seems more interesting on paper (program reputation) than it will be on the court (this year’s teams), but I’ll be tuned in to see what Tom Izzo actually has this season. The Spartans come in with a preseason #7 ranking, but got “UNLV-Duke 1990” crushed by Memphis in their Sweet 16 match-up and have lost their floor general Drew Neitzel. This year’s Spartan team has the potential to make it to Detroit (for the Final 4–I can’t imagine why you would want to go there for any other reason), but they’ll have to step it up several levels from where they were last week (beating Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne by 11 in a game that was as close as the final margin indicates). 

#7: UAB vs. #14 Oklahoma, Wednesday 9 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: This game will be a match-up of potential All-Americans–Robert Vaden and Blake Griffin–although they won’t match-up against each other outside of the occasional switch off a screen. The Sooners looked like they were still basking in the glow of beating America’s sweetheart Davidson when they almost lost to Gardner-Webb although BIlly Gillispie may disagree. The thought here is that if Oklahoma could hold of Stephen Curry then they can do the same against Vaden.

#6: Saint Joseph’s vs. #8 Texas, Monday at 3 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Rick Barnes managed to get to the Elite 8 one year after losing national POY and the greatest freshman ever (I disagree with rtmsf) Kevin Durant. Now the question is how far he can get the Longhorns after losing All-American point guard D. J. Augustin. The early game of ESPN’s tripleheader will give us some insight into that. The Longhorns should win this one easily since Phil Martelli’s crew is in rebuilding mode (see their loss to Holy Cross), but the Hawks could show us some weaknesses that the Longhorns may have.

#5: Syracuse at #19 Florida, Monday at 7:30 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Jim Boeheim will need big games out of Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf to pull off the upset tonight. Despite struggling to put away Richmond last week, the Orangemen have the potential to pull off the upset against Billy Donovan’s young squad especially after the loss of last year’s starting PG Jai Lucas. I’m assuming that the Gators will return to the NCAA tournament, but if they want to have a successful season (Sweet 16 trip), they will have to be able to beat teams of Syracuse’s caliber.

#4: Indiana vs. #9 Notre Dame, Monday at 5:30 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Our first look at Tom Crean’s new squad (Bruce Weber has already told us what he thinks of them). Unfortunately this game isn’t at Alumni Hall. It will be interesting to see how the Hooiser faithful react to Crean and his JV squad. I am imaging the scene out of Hooisers at town hall where they vote Norman Dale out before Jimmy Chitwood shows up and saves the day. Unfortunately, I don’t think Eric Gordon can come back to Bloomington with any eligibility to recreate this. Bottom line: The Golden Domers will have something to look forward to after pelting their football players with snowballs after another embarrassing loss.

#3: #6 Pittsburgh vs. Texas Tech, Friday at 7:30 PM on HDNet: I’m guessing that Pat Knight’s boys won’t be putting up 167 tonight unless this game goes to 6 OTs. So far the Panthers have players compared to Shaq (DeJuan Blair) and Lebron (Sam Young) and that doesn’t even factor in Levance Fields, who may be the most important player on the roster. There is no question that Pittsburgh is the better team in this match-up, but I’ll be following this to see just how good the Panthers are and the Red Raiders have had a tendency to come up with big upsets early in the year.

#2: #3 Louisville vs. Western Kentucky, Sunday at 3 PM on Fox College Sports Atlantic: Our first good look at RTC pre-season bracketology national champion against some real competition. The Hilltoppers lost a lot in the backcourt (Courtney Lee, Ty Rogers, and Tyrone Brazelton), but they return a lot of experience in the frontcourt. If the Hilltoppers want to give Rick Pitino’s Cardinals a game they will need JUCO transfer Sergio Kerusch, Motlow State Community College transfer Anthony Sally, and Dejan Cvoro, a point guard from Serbia, to step up. I’m guessing that Western Kentucky will keep it close for the first 10 minutes before Louisville pulls away, but it should still be interesting to see just how good freshman Samardo Samuels is. If he is as good as advertised, Pitino may have a legitimate title contender.

#1: Oklahoma State vs. #11 Gonzaga, Thursday at 9 PM on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Mark Few comes into this year with his 2nd highest ranked team ever (7th in the 2005-2006 preseason poll) and one of the most talented teams he has ever had. While the Zags lack the superstar they had a few years ago in Adam Morrison, they are not lacking in talent (Jeremy Pargo, Matt Bouldin, Austin Daye, and Josh Heytvelt). However, as the Zags have steadily moved up in the national conscience andthe regular season polls, they seem to have underperformed in the NCAA tournament. After losing to Cinderella (Davidson) in the first round last year, the Zags are hoping to bounce back and their first big test of the season will be against Travis Ford’s Cowboys. Ford has been quick to keep expectations realistic for his rookie season, but some experts have picked the Cowboys to be a surprise in the Big 12 despite their lack of interior play.

After the Buzzer: UCLA Escapes

Game of the Night.  UCLA 64, Miami (OH) 59.  Considering there was only one game of consequence tonight (no, Weber St. over Prairie View 78-68 doesn’t count), the GOTN was the second-round battle of UCLA and Miami (OH) in Westwood.  We just knew this would be a good game, and although once again, we couldn’t see the damn thing, all indications are that Charlie Coles’ Redhawks gave the Mighty Bruins everything they wanted.  Just how close was this game?  The largest lead by either team was 5 pts either way, and the majority of the game was played within one possession.  Whereas last night UCLA was led by its Fab Five freshmen, tonight the Bruins looked to their upperclassmen to secure the victory.  The rooks produced only 10 pts and 5 rebounds, while seniors Darren Collison and Josh Shipp accounted for 32 of the remaining 54 pts (including the last two pairs of FTs to seal the game in the last twenty seconds).  This will be a recurring theme for UCLA this year – when the young’uns produce, UCLA will be able to play with anyone in America; when they don’t, things will get dicey for Ben Howland’s club.  As for Miami (OH), they were led by Michael Bramos’ 22/4, but they were never able to create enough separation from UCLA to truly put the pressure on the Bruins.  We would have loved to have seen this game (leave comments below if you were lucky enough to do so), but we suppose this is a standard-issue Miami team, and they’ll have more than a few more opportunities to frustrate the hell outta some major conference squads in the next two months (@ Pitt, @ Xavier, @ Temple, @ WVU). 

CvC Semifinals.  The Gazelle Group got the F4 it wanted with the host school ‘top seed’ from each regional advancing to Madison Square Garden for the semifinals on Nov. 20.  UCLA will play resurgent Michigan, while Duke will play S. Illinois.  Clearly the tourney was set up to get the top five matchup between Duke and UCLA, but we’re not so sure about that.  By our calculations, UCLA, for instance, is only 1-2 in the eastern time zone on the eastern seaboard during the Howland era, and the single win was a one-point victory at Drexel a couple of years ago.  UCLA just doesn’t seem to travel east very well, and given their struggles tonight against a game Miami (OH) team at home, Michigan might be poised to spring the upset.  The UM Hoops blog encourages us to dampen the hype a little, and we get that sentiment given the Wolverines’ recent history, but with UCLA’s seemingly constant offensive struggles, Michigan could ride Manny Harris to a big upset next week.  In the other half of the bracket, we don’t expect Duke to have much trouble with S. Illinois simply because those are the types of teams that Duke feeds off of.  SIU just doesn’t have the athleticism that is required to close out on Duke’s shooters and finish plays over its defense.  Oh well – that’s why they play the games.  We’ll talk more about this next week.

On Tap Friday (all times EST) – must-see games in red:

• Florida (-23) v. Toledo (ESPNU) – 6pm
• Kentucky v. VMI (ESPN FC) – 7pm
• Stanford (-12.5) @ Yale – 7pm
• Connecticut (-26.5) v. W. Carolina (ESPN360) – 7:30pm
• Pittsburgh v. Fairleigh Dickinson – 8pm
• Maryland v. Bucknell – 8pm
• Kansas St. v. Florida A&M  (ESPN FC) – 8pm
• Villanova v. Albany – 8pm
• Texas v. Stetson (ESPN FC) – 8pm
• Oklahoma St. v. UT-San Antonio (ESPN FC) – 8pm
• Oklahoma v. American  (ESPN FC) – 8pm
• Purdue (-23) v. Detroit (ESPN360) – 9pm
• Clemson (-18) v. Hofstra  (CSS) – 9pm
• Texas Tech v. St. Francis (PA) (ESPN FC) – 9pm

After the Buzzer: Opening Night Doldrums

 

Hello again, everyone.  For those of you who might be new to the site this season, we want to introduce you to a feature that we try to run most nights during the season.  We like to call this feature After the Buzzer (ATB) because it’ll be posted well after the witching hour in the East for your first perusal the next morning (make RTC your home page!  you won’t be disappointed…).  The format will change depending on what happened that night, but we’ll typically try to give some brief wrapups of the night’s biggest games and stories of interest with some commentary thrown in.  If we’re feeling particularly frisky, we may also take a look ahead to the next night’s games.  Note that we said most nights; there will inevitably be nights where the games that night were simply unwatchable, or we’re down at the Savoy because some Duke scrub hit a late three to cover the spread, or our better half threw the tv and/or computer out the window.  In any case, like Olbermann and O’Reilly, we’ll be there as many nights as we can muster, annoying the hell out of you with our smug banter. 

Game of the Night.  There was no Game of the Night because there really is no “Opening Night,” and this really irritates us.  Seriously, how stupid is the NCAA when it comes to how it starts the season?  MLB, the NFL, the NBA and even NCAA football have an opening day/night with significant fanfare – it’s something that fans and the media alike can get excited about.  Instead of a showcase night of several good ‘opening’ games, we get Duke vs. Presbyterian on ESPNU (was Methodist unavailable?  how about Baptist?).  Instead of Vitale/Bilas/Digger, we get the painfully monotonous Beth Mowins.  Instead of college basketball nation all at once reaching an orgasmic climax because hoops is finally back in action, we get a game that is hidden away on the least-watched channel in the ESPN suite of programming.  It’s ridiculous.  We’ll say that ESPN is at least thinking the right way with its 24 hour bonanza of coverage next week (Nov. 18), but the NCAA and ESPN need to work a deal out next year so that this happens on a true “opening night.” 

Other Games.  The only games tonight were in the Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament in the Durham, NC, regional.  The first game wasn’t televised, but Georgia Southern pulled off a mild upset (6-pt dog) in defeating CUSA’s Houston Cougars 65-63.  Sleeper schmeeper.  Trumaine Pearson led GSU with 19/11, as the Eagles withstood a late three attempt that was off the mark.  Georgia Southern will now play host Duke, as the Devils got out to a large halftime lead against Presbyterian (24 pts) before mostly coasting in the second stanza to win 80-49.  We actually saw most of this game – here are some quick thoughts.

• Presbyterian is nicknamed the Blue Hose – someone needs to explain this to us.
• Coach K wasn’t very happy with his team’s performance, and with good reason.  The Devils committed 21 turnovers and only shot 3-11 (27%) from long range. 
• Kyle Singler (19/10) and Nolan Smith (15/3 stls) looked solid, if not spectacular, but what was alarmingly apparent was how Coach K’s recruiting in recent years has led to lineups in the Duke lineup that look way too much like the SEC and ACC in the mid-50s.  A Duke ‘whiteout’ will not be an uncommon occurrence again this year.
• Time and time again the Presbyterian offense was able dribble penetrate into the paint for decent looks at the rim.  They rarely finished these forays because they were often too small and intimidated by the Duke ‘bigs,’ but this is going to be a serious problem again for the Devils this year.  Incumbent center Brian Zoubek fouled out in seven minutes of play.  Against.  Presbyterian.  The other option, freshman 6’10 F/C Miles Plumlee had 0/2 in thirteen minutes.  Why can’t Coach K get big man studs anymore?
• ESPN isn’t allowing embedded video on this game yet, so here is the link to the highlights.

On Tap Tuesday (all times EST).  Several more CvC games, but only a few of interest.

• Northeastern (-6) v. IUPUI – 4pm
• Michigan v. Michigan Tech (ESPNU) – 7pm
• Duke (-25) v. Georgia Southern (ESPNU) – 9pm

CvC Starts Tonight

So if you haven’t heard, tonight is the beginning of college basketball regular season games.  What we’re really talking about, though, is two games from Durham as part of the Coaches v. Cancer Tournament (only one televised on ESPNU).  In fact, the first game (Houston v. Georgia Southern) starts in about forty minutes. 

So we wanted to throw up the brackets again just to remind ourselves of who was playing in this thing, and what we might expect to see in a week or so.  Some predictions below the bracket.

Duke Regional.  Obviously, Duke will be heavily favored in both games, but Houston is a slight sleeper here.  The Cougars won 24 games last season, defeated Kentucky, and played Memphis tough in both of their CUSA contests.  They lost their top two players from last year, but return their next four, and Coach Tom Penders’ teams play hard and typically can score with anybody. 

SIU Regional.  Two easy first round game for S. Illinois and UMass, but that matchup presents an interesting contrast in styles – SIU with their methodical pace and UMass with its breakneck pace (#4 nationally in possessions/game last year).  We’d expect SIU to win because they simply don’t lose many nonconference games at home, but it could be an interesting game.

UCLA Regional.   Ho-hum.  UCLA will have no problem with anyone in this region, but we’d recommend bringing your iced double latte if the Bruins play Miami (OH) in the second round.  That game won’t break 100 pts total. 

Michigan Regional.  It wouldn’t shock us if Michigan lost a second-round matchup with Northeastern here.  In fact, this is probably the most likely shot at an upset in the four regionals.  Northeastern returns its entire starting lineup from a team that some expect to make some noise in the CAA this year.  And while we love John Beilein, he’s probably a couple years away from fully implementing his system in Ann Arbor. 

The Picks to go to MSG.  Duke, S. Illinois, UCLA, Northeastern.

Preseason Tourney Brackets

This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive listing of the preseason tournaments, rather just the best ones, but if you feel like we omitted something relevant, link to it in the comments.  And against our better judgment, we’re putting those ridiculous CBE and Legends Classic “brackets” into the post as well.  Losers. 

The 2kSports Coaches v. Cancer tips off the season with games beginning on Nov. 10.  Duke, S. Illinois, UCLA and Michigan are expected to make it to the semis at MSG, but don’t sleep on UMass or Northeastern as spoilers.   

The Maui Invitational, on the Mon-Wed of Thanksgiving week, as usual, shouldn’t disappoint.  There are at least five NCAA teams here, and UNC-Notre Dame in the finals could be seen again in late March or early April. 

Another Thanksgiving week classic, the Preseason NIT, with the semis on the Wednesday prior to the holiday and the finals on Friday night, is a little weaker than normal.  But any chance to see Stephen Curry on the big stage at MSG is worth watching, so let’s all root for Davidson to pull off the second-round upset over Oklahoma.  A number of teams could win this tourney, but we guess Purdue is most likely?  Arizona?  Cornell?

The Old Spice Classic is a newer tournament also airing during Thanksgiving weekend, but what a great lineup!  There are literally no bad teams here – all eight could be playing in March Madness 2009, and it would be a huge disappointment if any fewer than six do.  We like Siena to pull the upsets to play Gonzaga in the finals there, with mid-major glory all around. 

The Anaheim Classic is another ESPN property airing during Thanksgiving weekend – the lineup is solid, although not as strong as the Old Spice.  We like the young Deacs to play run-n-gun Baylor in the finals. 

Sigh…  here is the “Championship Round” bracket for the Legends Classic.  Remember, each of these teams has already been slotted into these spots no matter what happens in the previous two rounds of this ‘tournament.’  So… disgustingly… weak.  Pitt should roll here no matter what happens in the other game. 

Along the same lines, the CBE Classic is so lame that they won’t even give us a bracket to put up for you.  The matchups aren’t bad, but we’re still bitter (see Legends Classic).  We like Florida and Kansas to play in the final, with UF taking the title. 

—CHAMPIONSHIP ROUNDS—

Semifinal Doubleheader (November 24 – 7:30 ET) Syracuse vs. Florida- ESPN2 Kansas vs Washington- ESPN2

Championship Doubleheader (November 25 – 7:45 ET) Consolation Game- ESPNU Championship Game- ESPN2

Any others?  We’ll revisit these when they actually start, but we wanted to get them all in one post as part of the preview. 

10.05.08 Fast Breaks

Folks, we’re only five weeks from the first games… just sayin…

• Sixteen months after agreeing to return to Florida after about-facing on the Orlando Magic job, Billy Donovan finally signed his contract. 
• Fooling with the Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun setup of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament because of gas prices is pure folly – surely the NCAA isn’t that stupid, is it?
• This is a pretty interesting NY Times article on how YouTube is changing the world of prospect identification and recruiting. 
• More foolishness involving the Gazelle Group – they’re apparently trying to move UMass to a different subregional in the CvC at the last minute.
• The difficulty of playing in the Big East, where 9 teams could be top-25 worthy this year.  Although Jameson at B/R makes a compelling argument that Georgetown is wildly overrated this year.
• Ok, so it turns out that the George Mason F4 rings on Ebay were stolen and will be returned to the rightful owner, Dr. Scherrens.  Nice investigative work by Chris Brooks over at B/R. 
• Gary Parrish continues with his ‘seedy underbelly’ offseason theme.
• So what you’re saying is that the SEC will get seven teams in the NCAA Tournament next year (and deserve four)?
• So who wants to bet on which coach will have the better 08-09 campaign – Marquette’s Buzz Williams or Indiana’s Tom Crean?

Quite Possibly the Most Ridiculous Thing We’ve Ever Seen

Today we were doing some background work on some of the preseason tournaments – you know, the Maui, the PNIT, the Coaches v. Cancer, the CBE (formerly Guardians) Classic, etc. – and we came across some information that absolutely floored us.  Seriously – like a-George-Mason-administrator-who-also-happens-to-be-a-college-football-referee-selling-his-F4-rings-on-Ebay (h/t GMB) floored us.

Photo Credit: LA Times

When we started researching the CBE Classic and the Legends Classic, both tournaments put on by The Gazelle Group organization, we discovered very quickly that we couldn’t find a complete bracket for these tournaments.  Instead, all we located was a weird one-page listing of matchups on the CBE site, and a similar listing in addition to a four-team “Championship Bracket” on the Legends site.  As we floundered wondering what the hell was going on with these tournaments, we noticed an interesting little phrase tucked into the middle of the page of the CBE site (emphasis added). 

This year, the O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic will be played under a new format…

– Regional hosts automatically advance to the Championship Rounds in Kansas City regardless of the regional results.

– All other participants will advance to play a round-robin series at one of two other sites. Thus, every participating team will be guaranteed four games.

Ummmmm…. whaaaaaaattt??? 

Is this some kind of a joke?  Does The Gazelle Group think that we, the college hoops public, are complete effing morons?  How can they get away with this???  One of the ironclad bastions of basketball at every level from peewee league up to the pros is the idea of tournament play – you win, you advance.  You lose, you go home.  And here we have the first instance we’ve ever seen where that rule of basketball law is being fixed supplanted so that the money teams get to keep playing irrespective of their on-court performance.

Oh, but RTC, Kansas, Florida, Washington and Syracuse are going to win those CBE Classic games against a couple of nobodies anyway.  Same for Wazzu, Mississippi St, Pitt and Texas Tech in the Legends Classic.  No harm, no foul, right? 

Where’s My Shotgun?

Well, here’s a reminder for those of you with that clouded mentality – Gardner-Webb.   Does that name ring a bell from last year’s CvC Classic?  In the subregional round, the little school from outside of Charlotte shocked the basketball world by defeating mighty Kentucky in its worst home loss in almost two decades.  In the middle of football season, that loss earned far more attention in the national media (PTI, Sportscenter, etc.) than whoever won that tournament actually got.  But the problem, apparently, was that the Kentucky loss resulted in G-W and its dozens of fans going to NYC to play in Madison Square Garden rather than the Big Blue and its legions of fans (and dollars).  So this year the Gazelle Group has managed to rig the system in two of its sponsored tournaments so that the marquee names have a 100% chance (as opposed to the 99% chance they previously had) of getting to the semifinal round. 

Sorry Fairleigh Dickinson, Eastern Kentucky, North Alabama and Akron (among others), The Gazelle Group doesn’t have room for you on its dance card this year.  But hey!  At least you’re guaranteed four games, right?  That’s just as good as playing in a big-time arena on ESPN, right?

Memo to TGG for next season – why don’t we just take a vote of 12 random teams and declare it the champion of the tournament?  That way we can simply do away with the tedium of getting teams to the various locations, televising the games, and actually worrying about who will advance to the next round!  You can run ads on ESPN for a month given all the money you’ll save!  As for your judges, we hear that there’s a former French Olympic judge available to serve on your panel, and Katherine Harris is always around for this sort of thing…

What a stinking, heaping, vomit-inducing pile of abomination. 

Please tell The Gazelle Group how much they suck at: gazelle@gazellegroup.com.

10.01.08 Fast Breaks

It’s Wednesday afternoon, 72 degrees and sunny, and we’re heading outside…

• Kelvin Sanctions fires back at Indiana – get this blasted bus off of me!
• Good news – Bob Knight will be back on your television set in some capacity this winter.  Will Digger’s jealous rage get in the way?
• We like this – which coaches got begotten, er, begatten? 
• Let’s call it the “trickle-down effect” of college basketball.  Although unlike the economic version, this kind, you know, actually works?
• Two weeks ago, we (and our bookies – seriously, the check is on the way) might have been worried about this…  luckily, the implosion of the Palin-drone appears nearly complete, and our worries have subsided.
• The guy who allegedly killed Tubby Smith’s nephew pleaded not guilty in Worcester, Mass., yesterday.  There were numerous witnesses – good luck with that. 
• For fear of karmic payback of mammoth proportions, we’ll abstain from captioning the below photo (h/t Hugging Harold Reynolds), but LORDY…  you’ve got Jim Boeheim, Gary Williams and Mark Gottfriend all in one place!  All you need to add is Steve Lavin and Dave Odom (6th man: John Brady) and you’d have a starting five of mediocrity unmatched in history.

After the Buzzer: Zone Offense

11.06.07

Well, we already covered the Ohio St. debacle. More CvC tonight…

Kentucky 67, Central Arkansas 40. Billy Gillispie debuted at Kentucky with the third highest victory total (27) for a coach’s first game in UK history (Rupp; Smith), while holding C. Arkansas to 20% shooting for the game, the lowest total against a UK team in 12 yrs. The Cats were paced by sometime-malcontent Joe Crawford, who was benched for the first 13 mins of the game before coming in to score 20 pts. Who is Mark Coury? The UK walk-on soph had a double-double (13/10), while Patrick Patterson, who looked great in the two exhibition games, got himself into early foul trouble and finished with four pts. Unless Patterson dominates and Carter gets healthy, inside play could be a season-long bugaboo for the Cats. For the definitive take on tonight’s action, check A Sea of Blue.

 

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

Memphis 80, Richmond 63. After a performance last night against Maine last night that may have set the game’s evolution back a generation or so, Richmond decided to bring its game tonight. Or at least its zone defense, which seriously confounded the Tigers until a 14-2 run with 13 mins to go in the game finally put the Spiders away. Seriously, UM was only up one point at halftime, and by all accounts, looked confused. Once again, Derrick Rose was the story, with a line of 21/5 but only one assist. CDR also contributed 19/9 (on 5-14 shooting, though). Could zone be an achilles heel of the Calipari’s AASAA offense? Also, for the second consecutive night, someone went off on the Tigers, as David Gonzalvez blew up for 25 in a losing effort.

 

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

Other Games: Gardner-Webb 69, Alabama A&M 55. So our SWAC predicted champion got beat, but how about our A&M boy Mickell Gladness? Nearly a trip-dub tonight, with 8/10/7 blks. G-W advances to play Kentucky tomorrow night.

 

On Tap Tonight. The Lexington Regional continues and the Storrs Regional gets started (aka the Regional that Holy Cross Can’t Play In).

• #15 Kentucky (-25.5) v. Gardner-Webb (ESPNU) – We heart Mark Coury.
  
• Connecticut (-26) v. Morgan St. (ESPNU) – Calhoun and Bozeman in a game of who is shadiest.
• Ohio Valley (NL) v. Buffalo – Could you have handpicked two crappier teams, Calhoun?

ESPNUSUCK.

The official start of the 2007-08 regular season isn’t until Friday, but the NCAA exempted the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament, which is starting tonight in Memphis and will run throughout the week at several other sites (Storrs, Lexington, Norman) before holding the championship rounds at MSG next week. ESPN and Comcast have ensured that we won’t be able to see any of this week’s games in our local viewing area – thanks, guys! But jeez, this seems really early – we just changed our clocks for chrissakes. Mike DeCourcy has the best take on the matter:

Once again, instead of the triumphant introduction to the season we have in such sports as NFL football and Major League Baseball, college basketball just sort of stumbles in and grabs a seat in the corner.

With college football and the NFL in full swing, it’ll take until Thanksgiving for anyone to notice that we’re already playing games, but that’s ok. It gives us a chance to bone up on early hits and misses (ahem, Michigan St.) while nobody’s watching.

Here’s the CvC bracket:

A few comments:

• Quick Rant. Why the hell aren’t ESPNU games part of the Full Court Package? That makes completely no sense to us as it seems a natural fit. And yes we’re extremely annoyed that Comcast will not offer ESPNU in our area.
• Predictions. Memphis will roll through its regional, keeping the nation’s longest homecourt winning streak (32) alive. Kentucky will bomb Central Arkansas but struggle with Alabama A&M and shotblocker extraordinaire Mickell Gladness in the second round. UConn will get a game from Todd Bozeman’s Morgan St. squad before faltering, then destroy Buffalo in round two. Our possible upset alert is USF over Oklahoma. The Dons probably don’t have enough to pull it off, but we expect a close game there. Still, we expect Jeff Capel’s OU team to represent the Norman region at MSG next week.
• Quick Fact. Kentucky is 0-2 in this event, with both losses coming in 2000 (UCLA, St. John’s) when it was a four-team tourney. Grab the ball, Tayshaun! That record will change this time around.