The regular season is flying by. Believe it or not, we’re only nine weeks away from having an official NCAA Tournament Bracket to review and obsess over. We also happen to be nine weeks removed from opening night, so yesterday marked the official midpoint – 63 days on each side – of the regular season. Which means, of course, for all you folks who have been busy with the holidays, busy with the bowl games, busy with the NFL Playoffs… let’s get you caught up.
From now until the first tip in Dayton March 17th on the Road to the F4 in Detroit (ugh), roughly 150 or so teams are realistically jostling for position to be selected as one of the Chosen 65. As we nestle into the familiarity of conference play (only the Ivies have yet to begin) and America once again wakes up to our game, weaknesses will be exposed, experienced teams will try to avoid complacency and young teams will start to figure it all out. Come Selection Sunday, many of these prospective bracketeers will have fallen by the wayside, but there will be 50 or so at-large teams holding NCAA-caliber resumes, even though only 34 will be taken. Before we jump in with both feet into the fun that the next two months will bring, let’s take a look back at the first two months to see what we’ve learned.
Carolina is Not Unbeatable, but Are the Heels Still the Favorite? A mere month ago we wrote that North Carolina was playing like a team with plans to lose no more than a couple of games (if that many) all season. Then the last eight days happened. First, UNC lost at home to an underwhelming BC team, followed by a road loss at Wake Forest last night to start 0-2 in the ACC. So what’s going on – how can this juggernaut of a team with nearly everyone returning look so… mortal? It’s easy, really. So far, UNC’s defense hasn’t been up to snuff. It’s more efficient as a whole than last year’s version, but their statistical profile is elevated on the defensive end by forcing turnovers which in turn fuels their lethal fast break. In a halfcourt set, as Wake and BC repeatedly and effectively showed, UNC can be penetrated and exposed. The key to playing with the Heels is limiting those TOs that Ty Lawson turns into the quick strikes that overwhelm teams. Is it a fatal flaw? It could be (how’s that for a hedge?). Teams that can’t consistently make stops don’t win championships, but we really don’t see why UNC’s defense shouldn’t be able to make the commitment to improve over the next two months. The 2005 title team only became legit once Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants and Sean May got serious about stopping people in addition to outscoring them. Can the 2009 Heels – specifically, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green, Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Deon Thompson – do the same? Stay tuned.
These Guys Have to Commit to Better Halfcourt Defense
The Big East Should Have Its Own Region. Seriously, let’s just rename the E. Rutherford Region this year and invite every Big East team. Or at least the top 12. Of course, if we did that, it would prohibit the possibility of the conference placing four teams in the Final Four this year – a plausible scenario. Tell us that you couldn’t envision a situation where four of the following teams – Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, Syracuse – would reach Detroit in April. Throw in Villanova, Marquette and West Virginia and you might just have nine of the Sweet Sixteen. The top half of this conference is really that good. So who is the best of the best? It depends on when you ask the question. Two weeks ago it was UConn. A week ago Georgetown. Now it’s Pittsburgh. Next week… probably Syracuse. The point is nobody knows. UConn has the most raw talent, but they’ve exhibited problems putting it together consistently. Georgetown, haven’t you heard, has rebounding issues. Pittsburgh isn’t reliable from behind the arc. Syracuse has a tendency to lose to teams like Cleveland St. on miracle shots. Louisville spends much of its time looking for its ass with both hands. Notre Dame has a maddening tendency to play defense with its hands. Marquette and Villanova are too guard heavy. West Virginia has Bob Huggins. And on and on. All we can say for certain is that the quality of play in the seemingly-nightly matchups between Top 25 teams is top-shelf, and it makes up for all those other nights where we’re stuck watching Auburn-Ole Miss.
The Big Ten Doesn’t Suck This Year.Now don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying that our friendly midwestern conference is on par with the Big East, or even the ACC, but it’s a lot stronger in the middle of the pack than it has been in recent years. Not much was expected out of Minnesota (15-1), Illinois (14-2) or Michigan (13-3) this year, but each of them are playing excellent ball and have marquee wins over the likes of Louisville, Missouri, Duke and UCLA in their pockets. Combine their success with the standard good seasons expected from Michigan St. (13-2), Purdue (12-4), Ohio St. (11-3) and Wisconsin (12-4), and you have a competitive six-bid conference. Even traditional cellar dweller Penn St. (13-4) has shown signs of life this year. Heck, they even made the ACC/Big Ten Challenge competitive (losing 6-5) this year!
Our Midwestern Friends Have Been Practicing
They’re Putting It Together. Now that Tom Izzo once again has a full complement of players with Goran Suton back in the fold, Michigan St. has looked much better since their abysmal performance in the ACC/B10 Challenge against UNC. They’ve run off nine in a row with wins at Texas, at Minnesota and Ohio St. – everyone wrote this team off after that UNC game, but they’ll be heard from in March. UCLA is also quietly going about its business, also reeling off nine in a row (including a 3-0 start in road games in the Pac-10) since their loss to Texas in mid-December. Ben Howland is getting production from eleven players, and if anyone really thought the Bruins were going to have a ‘rebuilding’ season, they need to have their head checked. This team will win close to 30 games again. It’s amazing how a series of close games that go your way can make or break a team’s confidence. After Louisville had dropped tight ones to Minnesota and UNLV in late December, everyone was ready to write off the Cards. Now that they’ve won three of their lost four on the last possession, they sit at 3-0 in the Big East (with two road wins) and appear to be in relatively good shape compared to some of the other Big East contenders (UConn, ND, and Georgetown in particular). We’ll see just how good they can be when #1 Pittsburgh visits on Saturday.
Pleasant Surprises. Obviously, Wake Forest is a pretty big surprise – we expected them to be pretty good, but nobody saw a top five team coming from Dino Gaudio this year. What about Syracuse? – at 16-1 and the lone loss to Cleveland St. from 75 feet, Jim Boeheim’s crew has as much talent as just about anybody in the country. Clemson is pulling its annual ridiculous start, but there are signs that this Tiger team is legit – they have a balanced attack, they’re strong at both ends of the court, and they have good road wins at Illinois, South Carolina and Miami (FL) so far. Butler is a HUGE surprise, although we shouldn’t ever be surprised with that program. The Bulldogs sit at 14-1 and two of their top three players are freshmen, yet they once again appear to be the class of the Horizon and a top mid-major. Tubby Smith has Minnesota playing great ball, and the Gophers are on a fast track to the NCAA Tournament at least a year ahead of schedule. Coaching matters – Mike Montgomery also has California playing hard for the first time in a decade. The Bears look like a top three team in the Pac-10 at this point.
Syracuse Has the Look of a Team Built for March
Disappointments. Since the Q1 update, Gonzaga has done nothing but crap itself, losing games to Arizona, UConn, Portland St., and Utah. They did get a key OT win at Tennessee last week, and their defense is still stronger than in recent years, but for some reason or another, the Zags are having trouble putting it all together. USC is destined to become this year’s NC State (a preseason ranked team that won’t make the NCAA Tourney). The SEC – Tennessee, Florida and Kentucky – have all been various shades of disappointing. Between the cream of the SEC East, there’s what, three quality wins? On the other side of that conference, only Arkansas has even been mildly interesting, with big home wins over Oklahoma and Texas. At the mid-major level, Southern Illinois (6-8 ) and Wright St. (9-8 ) have a long way to go before they’ll turn their seasons around.
RTC Midseason All-Americans. We’ll take some heat for not putting defending NPOY Tyler Hansbrough on our first team, but his numbers, particularly his rebounding average, are off from last season. Granted, he’s still probably recovering from a stress reaction injury, so he’ll have time to recover his (rightful?) place on the 1st team, but for now, we like Griffin (obvious choice) and Harangody in our frontcourt. Curry and Harden are also easy choices in the backcourt, but we’re making a leap of faith choosing Teague – his last two games against BYU and UNC were very impressive performances (he averaged 32/5/4 assts on 59%) and we’re riding on the Wake bandwagon right now.
Jeff Teague, G – Wake Forest(21/4/4 assts on 54%/54% 3fg shooting)
Stephen Curry, G – Davidson (29/4/7 assts/3 stls on 45%/37% 3fg shooting)
James Harden, G – Arizona St. (23/6/5 assts on 56%/42% 3fg shooting)
Blake Griffin, F – Oklahoma (23/14/3 assts on 65% shooting)
Luke Harangody, F – Notre Dame (25/13 on 51% shooting)
Knocking on the Door (2d Team).
Tyler Hansbrough, F – North Carolina (22/8 on 54% shooting)
Patrick Patterson, F – Kentucky (19/9/3 assts on 71% shooting)
Dejuan Blair, F – Pittsburgh (15/13 on 61% shooting)
Manny Harris, G – Michigan (19/8/5 assts on 44%/31% 3fg shooting)
Ty Lawson, G – North Carolina (15/3/6 assts on 53%/42% 3fg shooting)
All-Freshman Team. Al-Farouq Aminu (Wake Forest), Jrue Holiday (UCLA) and Gordon Hayward (Butler) were tough to leave off this list.
Greg Monroe, C – Georgetown (14/6/3 assts on 57% shooting)
Sylven Landesberg, G – Virginia (19/6/3 assts on 49%/30% 3fg shooting)
Tyreke Evans, G – Memphis (16/6/4 assts/3 stls on 45% shooting)
Seth Curry, G – Liberty (20/4 on 45%/40% 3fg shooting)
Paul George, F – Fresno St. (16/7 on 54%/46% 3fg shooting)
RTC Greatest Hits (Q2).
John Thompson, Sr., gave his son, JT3, some unsolicited advice to cure Georgetown’s rebounding problems.
Big Games (Q3). Here are the top 10 games of the next month.
Syracuse @ Georgetown – 01.14.09
Pittsburgh @ Louisville – 01.17.09
Georgetown @ Duke – 01.17.09
Wake Forest @ Clemson – 01.17.09
Texas @ Baylor – 01.27.09
Duke @ Wake Forest – 01.28.09
California @ UCLA – 01.29.09
Connecticut @ Louisville – 02.02.09
Duke @ Clemson – 02.04.09
Michigan St. @ Minnesota – 02.04.09
Notre Dame @ UCLA – 02.07.09
Extremes. This won’t last much longer, as we fully expect all three of the unbeatens to have a loss by this time next week, if not sooner. That’s what conference play does to you. NC Central will get a win against a D2 squad soon, but poor little NJIT has no relief in sight. They’re sitting on 49 in a row and, according to KenPom’s projections, 60+ in a row is within reach. Memo to NJIT coach Jim Engles – take a page from the NC Central playbook and schedule some JVHigh School D2 teams.
Unbeaten (next possible loss)
Pittsburgh (Big East):15-0 (@ Louisville 1/17)
Wake Forest (ACC): 14-0 (@ BC 1/14)
Clemson (ACC):16-0 (v. Wake Forest 1/17)
Winless (next possible win)
NJIT (Ind): 0-16 (Bryant 1/21)
North Carolina Central (Ind): 0-18 (D2 Central St 1/16)
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist. He’ll be regularly out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.
Conference play is beginning to heat up (what a game between Wake Forest and North Carolina on Sunday night) and that means the bracket is starting to become a bit less muddled. This week saw 10 teams trade places in the bracket and a major shift amongst the top four seeds. I used RPI, SOS, record, conference record and wins vs. RPI top 1-50 while evaluating the true bubble teams by their individual resumes. Please leave any thoughts/gripes in the comments.
Quick notes:
By now you know the routine: I factor in conference tournaments for the automatic bids. Meaning that while Tennessee probably doesn’t deserve their 5-seed, I have them projected to win their conference tournament. That results in three extra wins prior to Selection Sunday and a seed boost. This used to apply for Oklahoma (1), California (3) and Michigan State (3), but now you can make the argument those are proper seeds regardless of the conference championship. Memphis (6), Gonzaga (7) and San Diego State (9) do receive the slight boost.
The top seeds are much more clear this week with the #1’s going to Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, Duke and Oklahoma. North Carolina drops to 0-2 in the ACC and a 2 seed, joining undefeated Clemson and one-loss Connecticut and Syracuse. Not too much debate there. Projected Big 10 champion Michigan State garners a 3-seed, while the Cal Bears huge 3OT victory in Seattle mean they move ahead of UCLA as the projected Pac-10 champion. The other 3-seeds are Georgetown and those Bruins.
Arkansas had a golden opportunity to claim the projected SEC champion berth, but fell at home in a stunner to Mississippi State. Tennessee at 1-0 remains in that position with their squeaker over Georgia.
Dayton barely sneaks into the field as my Last Team In, carrying two wins over the RPI Top 50 (most notably Marquette), while Kentucky’s best win is a squeaker over 8-seed West Virginia. Oklahoma State’s 21 SOS, 2 wins over the RPI Top 50, 12-3 record and conference victory over Texas A&M on Saturday carry them barely into the bracket. Maryland (bad loss to Morgan State but have those quality wins over both Michigan schools) and Florida State (riding that win over Cal, also beat Florida) also sneak in.
Illinois State’s bad loss at Indiana State, along with a 251 SOS, mean they’re removed from the field. Boston College had a terrible week after their monumental upset in Chapel Hill, losing to Harvard and Miami at home, dropping the Eagles out. Missouri losing at Nebraska was a crucial defeat.
Last Four In: Dayton, Oklahoma State, Maryland, Florida State Last Four Out: Kentucky, Illinois State, Boston College, Missouri Next Four Out: Creighton, Stanford, Arizona, South Carolina
Multiple bids per conference: Big East (9), Atlantic Coast (7), Big 10 (7), Big 12 (6), Pacific 10 (4), SEC (3), Mountain West (3), West Coast (2), Atlantic 10 (2).
Automatic bids: Binghamton, Xavier, Wake Forest, East Tennessee State, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Weber State, VMI, Michigan State, Long Beach State, George Mason, Memphis, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Miami (OH), Morgan State, Northern Iowa, San Diego State, Robert Morris, Morehead State, California, Navy, Tennessee, Davidson, Stephen F. Austin, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State.
New additions: Binghamton, East Tennessee State, Long Beach State, Miami (OH), Morgan State, Northern Iowa, Oklahoma State, Robert Morris, San Diego State, Weber State.
Back for another day of BGTD. We have a light early schedule today with only a couple interesting early games. I’ll be updating this post throughout the early part of the day so keep on checking back and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments.
St. John’s at #1 Pittsburgh, Noon
– Been a struggle so far for the #1 team in the country. The Red Storm have been on fire from the field while the Panthers have struggled to find their range from the FT line (7/15). The Red Storm have been getting a big game out of D.J. Kennedy, who has 9 points at the half. The only reason the Panthers are in this game has been dominating the glass and a big start from DeJuan Blair, who has been beastly in the first half. It will be fun seeing Blair go head-to-head against the other big men in the Big East.
– Rough start for Sam Young with 5 points on 2/11 FG although he just got a nice assist to Gilbert Brown to put Pitt up by 5 with 1:20 left and then a nasty dunk off a feed from Levance Fields.
– Pitt up 41-36 at half after heating up a little at the end of the half and St. John’s missing a couple shots in a row.
– Interesting fact: Both Kennedy and Blair played at Schenley HS (Pittsburgh) on a team that won the Pennsylvania (PIAA) Class AAAA Championship. Does anybody know if Schenley is a regional powerhouse or just a fluke getting 2 D-1 scholarship guys on the same team?
– Weird setup for the seating at Petersen Events Center. It almost looks like they have luxury boxes behind the benches. Hard to see on TV. Does anybody who has been inside the arena have a little more info on this?
– Pitt is up 58-42 with 13:01 left.
– Wow. That’s a brutal schedule for Pittsburgh for the rest of January (5 straight games against ranked teams after a game against USF).
– Looks like Pitt has opened up a big lead and should be able to cruise the rest of the way. I’m going to switch my focus to the other 2 game below unless something interesting happens in this game.
– Pitt is putting on a clinic now. 85-61 with 2:36 left. Time to call this game.
#18 Xavier at Fordham, 1 PM
– Xavier up 35-22 with 4:34 left in the first half.
– Pretty dominant performance so far. They are shooting 60% from the field compared to Fordham’s 28%.
– I guess this is why people ranked Xavier above Butler in the BlogPoll a few weeks back even after Butler beat them. (Butler barely beat a bad Detroit team at home yesterday).
– Not getting this one on TV so if anybody is actually watching this one and wants to fill us in. Feel free because it’s hard to say something insightful by looking at constantly refreshing box scores.
– Fordham starts the 2nd half on an 13-4 run to cut the lead to 6 with 16:42 left making my above comment look really bad.
– Make that an 18-4 run to cut it to 49-48 with 15:25 left. How is the #18 team in the nation letting this happen against a 2-11 team?
– Xavier finally brought their team out after halftime. Now they’re up by 15 with 9:10 left. If I just saw the box score tomorrow morning, I would have assumed that Xavier rolled in this game.
– Xavier is up by 23 now with 4:07 left. Looks like another “routine” victory.
– Nice balanced effort from Xavier with 6 guys in double figures.
Wisconsin at #14 Purdue, 1:30 PM
– This should be a good game. Wisconsin has played well this year winning their first 3 games in the Big Ten including a big win at Michigan earlier this year.
– The game is being played on Keady Court. Is it too much to ask for a logo with a horrible combover?
– Speaking of the court. It looks like another of the raised courts (benches are below the floor). How many other schools have something like this? Does it have something to do with the colors? The only other one I can think of is at Vanderbilt.
– Looks like Robbie Hummel is healthy as he just hit a 3 after missing some time. He is coming off the bench, but I don’t think that will last long.
– Looks like a football game is breaking out here. Bodies hitting the floor.
– Nasty putback dunk by JaJuan Johnson. I guess the Big Ten does have some athletes.
– The Badgers have played pretty poorly, but is still in the game at half, 32-26 off an 8-0 run to end the half. If Purdue wants to make a run in March, they need to start putting teams away.
– Big first half by Johnson with 14 points on 6-of-7 from the field.
– Wisconsin keeps hanging around, but they haven’t been able to challenge Purdue for the lead. Each time they come close, they fail to convert.
– Tough foul on E’Twaun Moore there. Could have went either way.
– I have no idea what Bill Raftery was trying to say there. Something about Hummel’s 3-pointer, church, and marriage.
– Purdue is opening up a nice working margin here.
– Wisconsin would be right in this game if they could finish near the basket. They must have missed a dozen shots within 5 feet so far today with 7 min left in the game.
– Nice victory for Purdue (first win in the Big Ten after 2 losses). They won a game they should win without ever being in too much trouble. Great game from JaJuan Johnson with 20 points and 10 rebounds.
Set Your Tivos is back with a loaded schedule. It looks like the NCAA is kicking the season into full swing this weekend with that pesky little college football sport and its antediluvian method of determining a champion out of the way, we can all focus on what’s really important.
Saturday Noon – NC State at #11 Clemson on Raycom Sports and ESPN Full Court: The Wolfpack will be looking to hand the Tigers their first defeat. Just based on history, I don’t have a lot of faith in Clemson and it looks like the pollsters don’t either. I don’t think this is a particularly interesting game based on the teams playing (especially when you look at the other games you can watch in this time spot), but keep an eye on this one particularly around the end when you could see a team fall from the ranks of the unbeatens.
– #21 Louisville at #17 Villanova on ESPN and ESPN360.com: Will Edgar Sosa’s resurgence lead more disgruntled college coaches to adopt the Rick Pitino method of motivation? Pitino will need Sosa, Earl Clark, and Samardo Samuels at the top of their game if he wants to go into Philadelphia and get Louisville its first quality win of the year. Jay Wright will counter with Dante Cunningham and Scottie Reynolds as the Wildcats hope to return to form after 2 rough games on the road. We’ll be interested to see if Louisville can ride the momentum off their big win over Kentucky to finally play up to the form that we expected them to earlier in the season.
We’re big fans of Original Recipe
– #22 West Virginia at #15 Marquette on Big East Network, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: Honestly, I don’t know if any Big East team is going to be able to make it out of the conference with less than 4 losses. The scary thing is that both of these top 25 teams will struggle to go 8-8 in the conference this year. After a tough loss to Connecticut, the Mountaineers travel north to face the Golden Eagles. Alex Ruoff and Da’Sean Butler will need to outplay Wesley Matthews, Jerel McNeal, and Lazar Hayward if they hope to get a road win, which will be a rarity this year in the Big East.
1 PM
– Kansas at #12 Michigan State on CBS: Tom Izzo has his Spartans playing well after some early struggles. Does anybody want to work out a comparative score about how bad Harvard would beat Michigan State? Bill Self will rely on the inside-outside combo of Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins if he hopes to steal one in East Lansing. The key to this game will be how Collins does against Kalin Lucas. If Collins can outplay Lucas, don’t be surprised if the Jayhawks extend their impressive recent run including a win over Tennessee.
2 PM – #2 Duke at Florida State on ESPN and ESPN360.com: This could be potential letdown game for the Blue Devils after their win over Stephen Curry and Davidson on Thursday. [Yes. Curry played well. Much better than he had in previous BCS games, but I don’t buy the starting PG, 18-20 PPG as a rookie, and NBA superstar stuff that ESPN was trying to stuff down my throat. I’ll post more on this in the near future.] I’m sure that Coach K will remind his team that the Seminoles have knocked off heavily favored Duke teams several times in the past few years (I attended the most shocking of these upsets). I would normally say that Duke should win this type of game without any problem, but with the recent history of this “rivalry” I wouldn’t be too short of anything. As usual with Duke, watch the officials closely.
7 PM
– Miami (FL) at #24 Boston College on ESPNU: As we earlier wrote this week, we have no idea what to make of the Eagles. Beat UNC then lose to Harvard the next game. The Hurricanes have been winning all the games they are expected to, but they need to start winning some of the tougher games on their schedule if they want to live up to their preseason top 25 ranking or even make the NCAA tournament. This game will likely come down to a showdown between Jack McClinton and Tyrese Rice. Well that and whether BC decides to show up for this game.
Sunday
Noon
– St. John’s at #1 Pittsburgh on Big East Network, ESPN Full Court, and ESPN360.com: The Red Storm are coming off a shocking victory over Notre Dame. I don’t really think they should pose much of a challenge to the #1 team in the country, but momentum has a funny way of affecting games like these that shouldn’t be competitive. The Red Storm lost Anthony Mason Jr (son of that Anthony Mason) three games into the season, but have a balanced attack with 4 players averaging between 10.1 and 13.0 PPG. As you’re aware (since you visit this site), the Panthers aren’t quite as balanced, but Sam Young and DeJuan Blair may be one of the best 1-2 combo in nation. Look for this one to be closer than you would expect.
The Red Storm could use some help from Junior and daddy this weekend.
1:30 PM
– Wisconsin at #14 Purdue on CBS: After years of bashing the Big 10, it looks like the conference is slowly making a comeback. The problem they have now is that they have a lot of solid teams, but no great teams (with the possible exception of Michigan State). After a big win over Michigan at Crisler last weekend, the Badgers go into Indiana looking to pull off another upset. I’m guessing most people will probably be watching the NFL playoffs around this time, but keep this one on “Recall”, “Last”, or whatever function your remote has so you can flip back and forth between the games.
8 PM
– #3 UNC at #4 Wake Forest on FSN: Without question, the biggest game of the weekend features the experienced Tar Heels going into Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum to face the extremely young Demon Deacons. I don’t think there is much to say about the Tar Heels, but here’s a brief summary: Tyler Hansbrough hustles and pulls in the ladies; Ty Lawson is fast, inconsistent, and shouldn’t be let near a car; and Roy Williams wears goofy ties and has a tendency to make comments he wishes he could take back. Oh yeah, they also ball with the President Elect. The Demon Deacons are still kind of an unknown to most of America, but with their win at BYU (ending the Cougars NCAA-leading home winning streak at 53) may be our first glimpse at how good this team could be in the very near future. Al-Farouq Aminu may get the headlines nationally, but be sure to watch for Jeff Teague, James Johnson, and Chas McFarland who are all at least as important to Wake as Aminu is. A win here could be big for Wake in getting a high seed in the NCAA tournament. I’d like to take Wake here, but I think the BC game may have woken up the Tar Heels who may have been buying into the hype that was being thrown their way (definitely not from us).
10:30 PM – #7 UCLA at USC on FSN: The Bruins have quietly rebounded from a couple of close, early-season losses to roll off 8 straight wins (against admittedly weak competition). The Trojans have been inconsistent with some solid wins followed by some horrible losses (Oregon State). This will be one of our East Coast offices first good looks at the Pac-10, which only has two top 25 teams currently. There are a couple of intriguing aspects in this game. How has Darren Collison adjusting to not having Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook? How is Demar DeRozan adjusting to college hoops and is he legit? Do teenage girls still love Lil’ Romeo? If any of these mysteries interest you or you want to see one of the better crosstown rivalries in recent years, we recommend you tune in at the end of a long weekend. If none of that interests you, tune in to see what Jordan Farmar was complaining about.
How is This Humanly Possible?Harvard 82, Boston College 70. In one of the biggest transitive property sequences we’ve ever seen, Harvard, a school who had never in its illustrious basketball history defeated a ranked team, went to BC and knocked off the newly-ranked Eagles a mere 72 hrs after those same Eagles had gone into the nation’s #1 team, North Carolina, and knocked them off. Sure, this kind of scratch-your-head stuff happens every year to a certain extent. But rarely is it in back-to-back games, and even more rarely is the difference in talent so great in the larger of the two upsets (according to Sagarin, BC was #40 in America; Harvard #247). Of course, we know that the transitive property doesn’t work in basketball, but it’s fun to talk about. What’s also fun to talk about is the word “letdown,” and BC may have redefined the word by completely failing to show up for a crosstown rival that its second team should be able to handle (esp. love the cheerleader angle below on the video). Credit is due to Tommy Amaker’s crew, who took advantage of an opportunity to catch an ACC team sleepwalking – the Crimson took the lead 19-17 with 7:32 remaining in the first half, and never lost it again, even extending into the 12-16 pt range deep into the second half. Jeremy Lin was the story, dropping 27/8/6 stls, and perhaps signaling to the rest of the Ivy League that Amaker’s influx of talent will be heard from this season. As for BC, Tyrese Rice, who was outstanding against Carolina, had a quiet 14-pt foul-out game. In the long run, this game won’t hurt BC too terribly much if they reboot and have a good ACC slate (8-8 or better, for example). But if they go 6-10 or even 7-9 in conference, this could end up being a bubble knockout game for the Eagles.
Curry Watch.Duke 79, Davidson 67. This game wasn’t as close as the floor, but we do have a few points to make about this one. First of all, the announcing trio of Tirico/Jackson/Van Gundy was soooooooooooooooooooo much better than it would have been listening to Dickie V. chortle about Curry and K, Duke and Carolina, Roy and Dean, and various other interludes for two hours. Secondly, COMPLETE AGREEMENT with Van Gundy and it took an NBA guy to point it out, but the charge call in the NCAA (perfected by Duke) where a player stands underneath the rim waiting on a driving player to run into him has got to end. College basketball needs the NBA block/charge semi-circle, we’ve been saying it for years – it would put an end to that gimmicky nonsense and avoid penalizing players who make fantastic drives to the rim without running through someone (standing under the basket Battier-style does not qualify). About the game, Stephen Curry was cold early, made some shots late, and turned the ball over a lot (but he still ended with 29/8/6 assts to go with his 7 tos). Davidson isn’t as good as they were last year, but heck, they lost all these type of games in the pre-conference season in 2008 too, so we won’t write them off for a March run just yet. Other than that, we’ll have to respectfully disagree with Mark Jackson’s assessment of Curry’s game as a PG – we’re more in concert with SVG’s thoughts – great shooter who has questionable decisionmaking skills. For Duke, Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer had twin 22-pt games.
Overtime Madness. There were two games tonight that went into OT and, in both cases, the home team outplayed the visitor for the majority of the contest, only to be shocked by furious comebacks which led to OT losses for Indiana and Tennessee.
Gonzaga 89, Tennessee 79 (OT). This game probably shouldn’t have gone into overtime, as Matt Bouldin’s final shot in regulation should have counted due to a missed goaltending call where a UT player’s hand went up through the net and into the rim as the ball flew over the goal. Thanks, Jay Bilas. Nevertheless, Tennessee’s porous defense caught up with them tonight and ended their 37-game homecourt winning streak, as they allowed Gonzaga to get off the schneid and pull out a key road victory thanks to 53% shooting and Bouldin’s 26/4/5 assts. Austin Daye added 20/8, but more importantly for the Zags, they held UT to only 36% shooting, their worst home performance since late in the 06-07 season. Does this mean that the Zags we saw a month ago – the ones who played defense – are back? Obviously, it’s uncertain, but at least they appeared to be interested in the concept tonight. Or maybe they just know how to play Tennessee.
Michigan 72, Indiana 66 (OT). We’ll give credit to Tom Crean’s kids – they’re playing extremely hard. They just don’t have the kind of talent to hold good teams down when they wake up and realize they’re down 20 pts to an inferior squad, as Michigan did in the second half tonight. We were sure this was going to be an L for the Wolverines when we saw the early score, but Manny Harris, Laval Lucas-Perry and DeShawn Sims (49 pts combined) didn’t allow that to happen. UM improves to 2-1 in the Big Ten.
Edgar Sosa Watch and Other Interesting Things.
Louisville 71, S. Florida 57. Tonight’s Edgar Sosa Watch: 5-9 for 12 pts. Verdict: not invited to transfer after this road win for the Cards.
Syracuse 85, Depaul 68. Andy Rautins hit five threes to continue his hot streak over the last few games (25-44). Cuse’s main six players all scored between 12-17 pts.
Providence 87, Cincinnati 79. If PC is going to make a run at an at-large, it’s games like this on the road that they have to win. The Friars are now 3-0, but they’ve played three of the four bottom-feeders in the league so far (St. John’s and Depaul in addition to Cincy).
Morgan St. 66, Maryland 65. Horrendous home loss to a MEAC team (albeit probably the best one in that conference). Very rough night for the ACC.
Marquette 81, Rutgers 76. Rutgers is making it known they’ll not be a pushover in the RAC this year. Wes Matthews was perfect from the field (10-10) for 23/6 in a game where MU had to hold on down the stretch despite having a 21-pt lead earlier in the second half.
Wisconsin 74, Northwestern 45. UW moved to 3-0 in the Big 10 in an easy home win over the Wildcats (now 0-3).
UNC 108, Charleston 70. Carolina rebounded from its first loss of the year with a huge second half against Charleston, putting all five starters into double figures (led by TH’s 24/7, of course).
Since the ATB writers have been in a self-induced coma as a result of last week’s NYE festivities (hey, it’s hard living in your mom’s basement), rather than rehashing a bunch of stale games from Wed-Sun, we thought it’d make more sense to just hit some highlights and trends of things we’re watching as the haze continues to wear off from our vision and the strange burning sensations subside.
Some News & Notes.
Is Tubby Smith on the short list of coaches looking at Arizona? Maybe the Tubbster realized that, yes, those icicles on your c#&k really do stay there for six months of the year, and as such, Tucson is looking pretty tasty.
Former Hoosier and UAB carpetbagger Armon Bassett ended up transferring to Ohio U. He will be eligible after next fall’s quarter.
Kyle Whelliston is awesome. Seriously. The Mid-Majority founder and resident subversive in the college hoops world discovered a clear trend showing that the BCS teams are playing each other more often during the out-of-conference slate, and the mid-majors less. He thinks this is good for the mids, but we’re not so sure. The mids really need those opportunities to shine that beating S. Florida and Oregon St. UCLA and Duke provide.
The Dagger had a great year-in-review wrapup article over at Yahoo Sports, as well as a look at what college hoops might look like if the BCS was running things over here.
The Big East is insane this year. In just the last three weeks, we’ve seen UConn look like the most likely hurdle for North Carolina through its clutch win in Seattle vs. Gonzaga. Then we jumped on the Georgetown bandwagon after the Hoyas proceeded to go up to Storrs and thump those Huskies behind a balanced offensive attack and its standard sticky defense. Only for our mis/pre-conceptions to be challenged again when Pittsburgh chose to use this weekend’s matchup in DC at Georgetown to manhandle (manhandle? try superman-handle… the Panthers had more o-rebs – 18 – than the Hoyas had total – 17) the same team that looked so fantastic against UConn five days prior. We really don’t know what to make of this league with these performances. Given the way things have gone so far, Pitt should now be in position to get its bell rung by UConn in Western Pa. We just don’t know. One thing we think we can say without too much hedging is that UConn, Georgetown, Pitt, and possibly Notre Dame, Syracuse and Louisville (if those three ever get it completely going), are the best top six to a conference we’ve ever seen. It’s likely that all six of those teams would win the SEC and compete with UCLA for the Pac-10 crown. In 1995, the ACC had a really strong top four, but nothing like this group. As for Georgetown, we noted after the UConn game that their lack of strong bench production could end up biting them in the arse down the stretch, and it was absolutely exhibited here (2 pts). This will ultimately be the Hoyas’ downfall, as their 29-game homecourt winning streak was snapped when Pitt went on a 17-4 run to blow open a 40-40 tie game. As much as we love Greg Monroe, he was schooled by the savvier Dejuan Blair, who dropped 20/17 on the bigger player.
Monday update: Notre Dame 73, Georgetown 67. Notre Dame defeated Georgetown at home tonight, keeping their 44-game homecourt (and 19-game conference) winning streak alive. This occurred a mere two days after the Irish laid a leprechaun egg against St. John’s in NYC. Just like that, Georgetown is now 1-2 in the conference, when one week ago tonight they looked like the team to beat. Wow.
Is the SEC surging? It’s probably too little, too late, for the SEC to save its sinking sunk RPI in time to matter much come Selection Sunday, but the last few days of games showed that the league may have some fight left in it, following up on Arkansas’ upset of Oklahoma and pulling off a few key wins in games that its teams would have lost in November or early December. Consider the following scores:
South Carolina 85, Baylor 84. SC is one of the definite surprise teams of this season, proving once again that Dave Odom has been the luckiest man alive to have bilked multiple schools of millions of dollars by passing himself off as a legitimate head coach. Getting a win over a ranked team in a true road game is something the SEC hadn’t done all year. Until Friday night. Shooting 54% and putting all five starters in double-figures helps.
Florida 68, NC State 66. We probably shouldn’t be giving too much love to a team that allowed its marginal ACC opponent to shoot 59% on its home floor, but hey, an intersectional win is a win! Nick Calathes saved the day with 24 of his 34, including the go-ahead jumper with 11 seconds left, coming in the second half.
Alabama 88, Georgia Tech 77. Bama will be as good as Ronald Steele is and he was excellent on this night (23/10), echoing memories of his healthy first two years in Tuscaloosa. Ga Tech appears to once again be going nowhere fast.
Mississippi St. 82, Houston 65. MSU simply took control of this game, holding an 8-2 Houston team to 28% shooting in the process.
Vanderbilt 78, Massachusetts 48. Wow, a complete obliteration of UMass in Amherst by a team that had really shown next-to-nothing so far this year. Derek Kellogg has lost that team.
Louisville 74, Kentucky 71. Yeah, it’s an L for the SEC, but Kentucky has been playing better ball lately and took Louisville to the brink before Pitino whipping boy Edgar Sosa dropped a 25-foot three to win the game with 2.6 seconds remaining. There may not be a better inside/outside duo than UK’s Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson (50/18 in this game).
Most Impressive Win of the Weekend.Wake Forest 94, BYU 87. It was televised to all of six people in America on The Mountain network, but Wake going into the viper’s pit known as the Marriott Center in Provo where the Cougars had won their last 53 games against all comers was very impressive. This was especially so given that Wake was teetering in the mid-second half before their assassin Jeff Teague (30/4/4) and muscle man James Johnson (22/15) took over the game, as the tired BYU players starting coming up short on their shots. What’s the difference between this Wake team and some others (most notably, the Chris Paul teams) in the recent past? This Deacon squad plays defense. Whether it’s by design or simply the absurd athleticism that three potential lottery picks in the starting lineup (Teague/Johnson/Aminu) provide, their length and size bothers teams, and as a result, the Deacs are currently the fifth most efficient defensive team in America. The UNC-Wake game next Sunday in Winston-Salem looms large to see just how good this Deacon team can be.
What Has Happened to the Zags?Utah 66, Gonzaga 65. It’s almost as if that loss to UConn two weeks ago took all the wind out of the sails of the Zags. Since that game, they’ve lost at home to Portland St. and now away at Utah in a game they had multiple chances to win. Next they’re at Tennessee on Wednesday before WCC play starts. Meanwhile, conference foe St. Mary’s is cruising along at 14-1, although against admittedly lesser competition. As for the Zags, there is top ten talent on this team, and they need to stop feeling sorry for themselves because they lost a heartbreaking game. Jeremy Pargo in particular needs to get his team’s attention and back on the right track, and Austin Daye needs to improve his shot selection (a 6’11 guy shouldn’t be shooting 44% from the field); otherwise, America’s favorite “underdog” from the Pacific Northwest will once again disappoint in March.
USC is the Most Confounding Team in America.USC 83, Oregon 62 & Oregon St. 62, USC 58 (OT). USC once again has several future NBA Draft picks on its roster, but as has been a trend in recent years for the Trojans, they are just as likely to shock you with an efficient evisceration of an opponent as they are to simply not show up for the engagement at all. Case in point was the Oregon two-fer last weekend. On Friday night, the Trojans went into Oregon’s Macarthur Court (one of the tougher venues in the Pac-10, even in a year when Oregon is clearly down) and completely humiliated the Ducks with a +21-pt second half (probably its best half of the year). Then, riding that wave of success, USC visited Oregon St. on Sunday – remember, the Beavers went 0-18 in the Pac-10 last season – and managed to hand OSU its first conference victory in 683 days. If anyone can explain this team, let us know.
Some Other Scores That Caught Our Eye.
UNLV 56, Louisville 55. Of course, this was prior to the victory over their nemesis on Sunday, but the Louisville bugaboo of poor shooting (29.6%), weak guard play and a seeming lack of focus allowed UNLV (w/o Wink Adams) to come east and steal a victory. After this game, Edgar Sosa reportedly was asked to transfer by Coach Pitino – he responded with his best game in two years against Kentucky (18 pts).
Marquette 79, Villanova 72. Someone send us an email when you can figure out just how good either of these teams actually are. Both are two-loss guard-oriented teams that have similar RPI profiles (#29 and #30), capable of a major upset at any time, but not quite strong enough to reach the top tier of the Big East.
Arizona St. 90, Stanford 60. Has a BCS team ever defeated another BCS team by 45 points at home, only to lose by 30 points in the next week to another BCS team at home? That’s a 75-pt difference for you mathemagicians out there. Stanford followed up this blasting with another home win against Arizona on Sunday, so maybe the Cardinal just had a bad game against Herb Sendek’s team.
Xavier 84, Virginia 70. XU really needed to win this road game against an ACC team (even a likely bottom-dweller) to convince folks that their rough two game stretch against Duke and Butler last month is behind them.
Illinois St. 86, Creighton 64. ISU stamped itself as the team to beat in the MVC with this big home win on Saturday. Now 14-0, the Redbirds used a huge second half to blow the game open led by Osiris Eldridge’s 20/9.
Michigan 74, Illinois 64. This was a big win for John Beilein’s UM squad, because the Illini have been playing extremely well of late. Amazingly, after only two games, only Wisconsin and Michigan St. are unbeaten (2-0) in the Big Ten race.
Duke 69, Virginia Tech 44. A 13-point second half will not get it done in Cameron. Although Duke is #2 now, we still don’t believe in them in the long term. Only five points came off of their bench in this game.
California 81, Arizona St. 71. If this keeps up, Mike Montgomery will have to be in the conversation for NCOY. Two days after demolishing Stanford, Arizona St. got outhustled and outplayed in the second half (Cal shot 68% behind Jerome Randle’s 26/10 assts). This was two nights after putting away Arizona, 69-55. Monty has this program competing way ahead of schedule.
On Tap Tuesday. check our now-daily Set Your Tivos feature for the games to watch tomorrow.
Josh & Mike from Big Ten Geeks are the RTC correspondents for the Big Ten Conference.
Looking Back
Conference play is here, and if the early returns are any indication, it’s going to be a topsy-turvy season in the Big Ten. Illinois made a statement in the opener, taking down Purdue in West Lafayette in a 71-67 overtime win. We’ve given some grief to the Illini for their strange style – they have all the characteristics of a perimeter-oriented team, except for the whole shooting 3-pointers thing. Instead, the Illini settle for lots of mid-range jumpers, fueled by the shooting prowess of their All-Mike Frontcourt. On its face, this is not a recipe for success. But the Illini made it work again against Purdue, grabbing a road win against one of the best (if not the best) teams in the conference. A solid start for Bruce Weber’s squad.
I’ll be honest with you. This doesn’t even come close to Super Saturday from a couple weekends ago, but it’s certainly better than watching all the specials about how your retirement account fell apart this year or some mediocre college football teams play in a meaningless bowl games that nobody has ever heard of. It certainly should be enough to distract Big Ten fans away from their teams getting blown out in the bowl games. In any event it will get the rest of you ready for Dick Clark at midnight. . .
Noon ET
– #15 Michigan State at #21 Minnesota on the Big Ten Network: Both teams are riding high after impressive victories on Super Saturday. The Spartans (9-2) have rebounded from a slow start including a blowout loss to UNC (doesn’t seem that bad any more. . .ok losing by 35 in a virtual home game is really bad) to reel off 5 straight wins including a win against Texas on the 20th. Meanwhile, Minnesota (12-0) has been playing consistently good basketball–quality wins over Virginia and an overrated Louisville team–all year despite coming into the season with modest expectations from the media. While the Spartans are more of a known quantity with a number of marquee players, the Gophers are more of an unknown as their soft early season schedule (only Louisville was a RPI top 100) is the reason they are 12-0 yet only ranked #21 in the country. The key to this game will likely be Spartan sophomore PG Kalin Lucas who comes into the game boasting a better than 6.5:1 assist to turnover ratio. If he continues to play at that level, Tubby Smith will have a tough time matching Tom Izzo and the Spartans.
2 PM ET
– #3 Pittsburgh at Rutgers on ESPN Full Court and ESPN360.com: The Panthers are heavy favorites in this game, but we’ll be more interested in how the Scarlet Knights are performing in the middle of the toughest 3 game stretch in college basketball history (#1 UNC then #3 Pitt then current #2 UConn in the same week). Jamie Dixon should have his guys ready for this game after UConn’s loss to Georgetown a couple night earlier, but you never know with college kids particularly ones who probably went home for the holidays and spent time around people who praised them even more than what they normally hear at school. This is definitely an “upset alert” game, but we think the UConn loss should be enough to keep Levance Fields and the Panthers on their toes.
– Wisconsin at #24 Michigan on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: At first glance this would appear to be a mismatch with the Badgers being unranked and the Wolverines receiving a lot of attention from the media this year, but this game should be very close. Most of you know about the Wolverines (10-2) with losses to Duke (avenged) and Maryland, but the Badgers (9-3) come in with a pretty strong resume too–a blowout loss against UConn along with 2 close losses to Marquette and Texas (by a combined 8 points). Despite their strong starts, both teams still have work to do if they want to guarantee themselves a ticket to the NCAA tournament. As usual the Badgers come in without a true superstar, but have a very balanced attack with 5 players averaging between 7.8 and 12.6 PPG. The Wolverines rely on their stars–Manny Harris (19.8 PPG, 7.8 RPG, and 5.1 APG) and DeShawn Sims (17.2 PPG and 9.2 RPG). I figure the Wolverine fans (and Manny Harris) should be enough to put their team over the top in the Big Ten opener.
4 PM ET
– Iowa at #23 Ohio State on the Big Ten Network: Unfortunately we don’t think we will be seeing Mr. Trillion (Mark Titus) make an on-court appearance because this also figures to be a close game. The Hawkeyes (10-3) haven’t been world-beaters, but they should put up a pretty good fight if Anthony Tucker can rebound from his recent suspension and play up to his early-season form. The Buckeyes looked absolutely awful in their last game a 76-48 loss to West Virginia, which dropped them 10 spots in the polls. If the Buckeyes expect to rebound and contend for a Big Ten title, which they have the potential to do, they will need freshman B.J. Mullens to start playing like the big-time recruit he was out of high school. At the very least, Thad Matta needs Mullens to start playing like the 7-footer that he reportedly is. Seriously, 4.0 RPG in 17.7 minutes per game against mediocre competition isn’t going to cut it for someone who has been hyped as a potential lottery pick. If Mullens can raise his game, he and Evan Turner should be enough to make them contenders for the Big Ten title.
6 PM ET
– UNLV at #18 Louisville on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: I would use an “upset alert” on this one, but with the way Rick Pitino’s boys have been playing this year they haven’t played well enough for me to consider another loss an upset. Louisville has the talent to blow out UNLV, but to date they haven’t shown the ability to translate that talent into performance this season. UNLV certainly hasn’t been playing great this year, but their pressing defense has started to pay dividends recently with a big win over Arizona. Normally a team as talented as Louisville shouldn’t have trouble with a trapping defense of the level of UNLV’s (saw it on Christmas Eve on a replay of the Southern Utah game on Mountain TV–don’t ask), but it might just be enough pressure to rattle a team that appears to be as mentally weak as Louisville. My prediction: Let’s just say I have a strong suspicion that Rick will be giving another long speech after this one.
8 PM ET
– #17 Gonzaga at Utah on CBS College Sports: As much as I would like to make this a game about 2 teams (sorry Utah), this game is really all about Gonzaga. The Bulldogs, who were ranked 4th in the nation a couple weeks ago, have lost 3 of 4. We’re willing to let the loss to UConn go (we called it the “Game of the Year (to date)” at the time, but neither team has done much lately to help with that claim), but losses to Arizona and Portland State have basically knocked Gonzaga out of contention for a #1 seed this year. However, Mark Few still has a chance at a #2 seed and spot in the West Region if Jeremy Pargo, Matt Bouldin, and company can get back in gear.
10 PM ET
-#1 UNC at Nevada on ESPN2. This is a true road test for the Heels, but it looked better on paper a month ago than it probably will be tonight. The Wolfpack, with Luke Babbit, Armon Johnson and Brandon Fields, appeared to be ready to compete for another WAC championship and an NCAA bid coming into the season, but they have been nothing short of a disappointment so far, losing to pretty much every good team they’ve played. Still, there is talent here, and if UNC is looking ahead to hanging out in the seedy casinos afterwards, Nevada could use their homecourt advantage to make a game of this one. It’s worth keeping an eye on as you lift your glass to toast the new year in the east.
Credit: Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
There is some good news for the residents of Detroit. [Ice hockey is not a sport so don’t even bother telling us about the Red Wings.] In a brilliant PR move, the University of Detroit has decided to make tickets for their New Year’s Day game against Youngstown State free. If you’re in the Detroit area on New Year’s Day, we want to tell you how sorry we are recommend you check out the “Free for All” at Calihan Hall (1:05 PM tip). In addition to the free tickets, spectators also get free non-alcoholic Bloody Marys and complimentary aspirin or ibuprofen for the hangover from some more potent drinks the night before. To be honest, this isn’t the most attractive match-up on paper (3-8 Youngstown State at 4-7 University of Detroit), but we believe that it is important to reiterate that it is FREE. According to our rudimentary math skills, it’s pretty hard to beat that value proposition (at least in ratio form).
While the University of Detroit is probably most well-known as the only successful stint of Dick Vitale’s coaching career (78-30 with a 21-game win streak that ESPN uses to justify his role as the most well-known promoter of our beloved sport), the Titans have been perennial contenders for the Horizon League title and had 4 consecutive 20-win seasons between 1997-98 and 2000-01. The Titans program also produced NBA stars Dave DeBusschere and Spencer Haywood.
While I hope that the Detroit basketball program reaps some rewards from this PR move, I am more intrigued by the idea of a grassroots campaign to get people into college basketball at a level that is more pure than what ESPN and CBS feed down our throats from Midnight Madness until One Shining Moment. If more colleges try this model, they can start to pull in families and get a younger generation of fans who actually root for their local team rather than just what they see on SportsCenter or what some rapper is wearing on BET. If they do that, college basketball can start to fight its way back into the national conscience, which is a place we all know it belongs.
John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC. His columns appear on Tuesdays throughout the season.
In college basketball terms, the arrival of January means that it’s time to, as Zack de la Rocha said, “rally ‘round the family.”
Wearing red — is Zack a Louisville or Davidson fan?
(Photo credit: stereogum.com)
Ah, yes…it’s time for conference play.
The importance of conference play doesn’t have to be explained to anyone reading a college basketball blog. My personal favorite aspect of conference play is that any given team’s biggest rival is often found in their conference, but within a conference, you can make any game a rivalry game. The ACC, for example, doesn’t necessarily have to be defined by the Duke-UNC hatred. Sure, that’s the biggest ACC example but I guarantee you that Wake Forest and Clemson can find enough reasons in their history to hate each other, and when it’s time to play, those reasons will definitely be remembered. It doesn’t matter if you’re from a BCS conference, mid-major, or bottom-dweller. Take two teams from any conference in the land, put them in a gym, and it’s like putting two young blonde up-and-coming Hollywood starlets in front of a camera. The competition is fierce and ruthless. They can always find a reason to scratch each other’s eyes out.
It seems to have abated in the past couple of seasons, perhaps due to tighter security, more restraint among fans (I doubt that one), whatever; but floor-rushing has been a practice that college basketball fans have made their very own through the years. Yeah, I know fans often take over the field after a big college football win but it’s just not the same. Most fans storming a college football field have one goal in mind, and that’s bum-rushing the goal posts, or to be near the goal posts as they are upended. These days, football stadiums have the “retractable” goal posts that can be intentionally lowered by event staff if they are threatened. College basketball has no such equivalent. Plus, at a football game, it’s several THOUSAND students/fans against, at most, a few hundred security guards who aren’t about to (except for a few documented extreme cases) resort to any real physical force to keep the storm from happening. Look at a basketball arena when there’s a pending rush; there are true stare-downs happening between fans and security. None of us here at Rush The Court would ever advocate putting anyone in real danger in the name of a floor-rush, but the point is – it’s just harder to take over a basketball court. And watch it when it happens; it’s much more dramatic than that of a football game. In a football stadium, for the most part, there is an initial rush of fans and then the rest come slowly funneling out, and the whole of the field is almost never even covered. On a basketball court, it looks almost viral. The fans absorb the playing surface within seconds. It’s just cooler.
This is not the type of Rush we’re talking about.
(Photo credit: mediabistro.com)
The question is begged, then. When is it appropriate? Since this site is called Rush The Court it only seems sensible that we have an opinion on this, and it only seems sensible that we force that opinion on others in the manner of any self-appointed authority. In this case, however, I feel that the definitive work on the subject was written by ESPN.com’s Pat Forde in the beginning of this article from 2006. It’s a great set of provisions, and there’s almost nothing I’d change about it except to add Kansas to the list of schools that have at least three national titles (not the case at the time of the original article), and therefore put them under Forde’s Old Money Principle. Here’s a quick summary of Forde’s rules:
I. Old Money Principle. If your program has 3 or more titles, you should never rush a court. The only allowable exceptions apply ONLY if your team has fallen on hard times AND 1) you beat a #1-ranked and/or undefeated opponent at least halfway through the year, 2) you defeat a top-5 team at the buzzer with a shot measuring 25 feet or more, 3) you’re hammered and can’t recall how many titles your program has or your opponent’s rank, or 4) you see Ashley Judd in the stands and you’re taking the shortest route to her. Rush The Court (and probably Pat Forde) understands – but advises even MORE caution – if there is some overlap between items 3 and 4, there.
I know it’s a hockey jersey. You complainin’?
(Photo credit: UKHockey.com)
II. Upper-Middle-Class Principle. If your program has multiple national titles you may only rush the court if you defeat one of the above leviathans and only with a buzzer-beater. Exceptions: if your titles predate Texas Western’s title (1966), you can rush if you beat a top-5 team (Ancient History Exception), or if your titles came before the 3-pointer was introduced, you can only rush after a “dramatic win over a top-ranked team.” (Semi-ancient History Exception)
III. Middle Class Principle. If your major-conference program has had SOME basketball chops and “takes itself seriously,” then you can only rush after defeating a top-5; beating a truly hated, unbeaten, in-conference rival; ending a period of extended futility/frustration against a rival; or clinching a conference championship.
IV. Lower Class Principle. If you play in a mid-major or low-major conference and you beat a BCS conference team, you may rush. Exceptions are Gonzaga, Memphis, or “any other school whose program is [bigger] than its conference profile.”
V. Bottom Feeder Principle. A case of true gigantic discrepancy between programs; Forde cites an example of South Dakota State beating Wisconsin as being a permitted rush.
So far this year we are aware of two major examples where a court has been rushed. Using the Forde Protocol, we will evaluate them now.
Case 1: #4 Duke at Michigan, 6 December 2008.
Michigan does not qualify for evaluation by rules I and II because they only have that 1989 national title (note that rule II necessitates “multiple” titles), but without question is subject to rule III (Middle Class Principle). Because they defeated a top-5 opponent, we feel that Michigan’s exuberance was not in excess, and the rush was warranted. Michigan’s 12/6/08 rush is approved.
Case 2: Arkansas at Missouri State, 22 November 2008.
Missouri State is a Missouri Valley Conference team, currently ranked 8th in conference RPI at RealTimeRPI.com, only two spots below the SEC. It certainly qualifies as at least a mid-major conference and therefore puts Missouri State subject to evaluation under rule IV (Lower Class) even though I think the names of these Principles might need adjusting. We know Arkansas’ status as an SEC school, so in this regard, Missouri State’s enthusiasm was in no way overdone, and therefore Missouri State’s 11/22/08 rush is approved.
Another reason I like the Forde Protocol is that not only does it leave just enough room for discussion in some areas, but it also respects the importance of conference play in that it does not leave much room for the approval of a court-rush on a non-conference opponent. But as much as I think Syracuse should be feared this year (especially now that Devendorf has been reinstated), I HAVE to show you this video of a court rush from last season that would NEVER have been approved by the Forde Protocol or even the most liberal criteria…
This happened on February 16, 2008. It was a normal conference game against Georgetown, ranked #8 at the time, a team who already had four losses. And this was a ‘Cuse team that would go on to win 21 games. Given the chance, we would have stomped that court-rushing into a whimpering, bloody submission. This brings up another important aspect about taking over the floor – if you do it, despite the fact that you just won a game, are you not acknowledging that you are somehow subordinate to the team you’re rushing? This should definitely keep teams in the major conferences from rushing the court except in the most extreme circumstances. I have friends on both sides of the Duke-UNC rivalry who say that they would NEVER consider rushing the court after a win over the other side because they want to show that it just “isn’t a big deal” to beat the other program. Even if Georgetown were ranked 5th in the game referenced above and therefore Syracuse’s court rush should have been approved by rule III, if you’re a Syracuse fan, would you want to send that message to Georgetowners? Keep in mind, the Forde Protocol isn’t there to tell you WHEN to rush…only when it is permitted. You don’t HAVE to do it. Upon further review, perhaps rule II should include teams that have won at least a single national title.
This is the time of year when we’re more likely to see fans and students come down out of the stands in celebration, because the teams they support are fighting against their family members and the emotions run high. So enjoy conference play, and if you decide to rush your home court after a big victory in the next few months, be ready, because we’ll be watching — and more than ready to pass judgment.
(All videos: www.youtube.com. And if those first two don’t already make you fired up for March, then you have problems I can’t fix. –JS)
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist. He’ll be regularly out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.
Rather than wallow in my own pity after my Patriots were knocked out of the playoffs, it’s my duty here at RTC to provide our readers with another Monday morning bracketology. While the week was somewhat quiet due to the holiday, there were some significant upsets (Portland State!) and big wins (Texas winning in Madison) to shake up the bracket from last week’s edition. Once again, I took a still-developing RPI with a grain of salt and factored in non-conference SOS, but mostly I’m just digging through each team’s schedule to find quality wins/bad losses and comparing them to the other teams in the field for seeding.
As always, I mixed in a few upsets in the bracket for fun.
Some quick notes about the bracket:
You might be thinking that Tennessee, Michigan State and UCLA are overseeded. While that may be true, I had to factor in each of those teams winning their respective conference tournaments before Selection Sunday, meaning they’d garner three significant wins and take the conference title.
The four 1-seeds remained the same from last week: North Carolina, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Oklahoma (I added the individual regions to the bracket and seeded these four teams closest to home).
Texas received the final 2 seed with their road win over Wisconsin, slightly edging out Notre Dame.
Baylor edged Syracuse for the final 4 seed. Baylor has a nice win over Arizona State and hung with Wake Forest while Syracuse’s three big wins- Florida, Kansas, Memphis– are all overrated.
Biggest jump goes to Butler (10 to 7) while the biggest drop goes to Xavier (3 to 6). Butler won at Xavier on Monday.
Kansas also took a three seed drop from 8 to 11 after their second half collapse at Arizona. Much like Illinois over Missouri, that was a very important game for a Kansas team looking for a signature win.
Maryland continues to be boosted by their two wins over Michigan and Michigan State
Portland State moves from a 15 seed to 14 seed with their shocking win over Gonzaga, with the Zags dropping to the last 3 seed on the table
Conference Winners: Vermont, Xavier, North Carolina, Belmont, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Portland State, VMI, Michigan State, Cal State Fullerton, VCU, Memphis, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Miami (OH), Hampton, Creighton, BYU, Quinnipiac, Austin Peay, UCLA, Navy, Tennessee, Davidson, Lamar, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State
Last Four In: California, Boston College, Kansas, Dayton
Last Four Out: Kentucky, Miami (FL), Cincinnati, Louisville
Departures: Murray State, Stetson
Arrivals: Austin Peay, Belmont
Bids per conference: Big East (8), ACC (7), Big 10 (7), Big 12 (6), Pac 10 (5), SEC (3), MVC (2), WCC (2), Atlantic 10 (2), MWC (2).
Not much change from last week in terms of the teams in the field. Next Sunday it could shake up a bit with all of these key bubble games:
Key Bubble Games for 12/29-1/5:
Cincinnati at Memphis, 12/29- This would be a stellar win for Cincinnati, who are currently in the last four out.
Seton Hall at Syracuse, 12/30- The Hall probably need wins over Syracuse and West Virginia to climb back into the picture.
George Mason at Dayton, 12/30- Big game for Dayton in the bubble picture. If Mason should win this game, I may replace Vermont with the Patriots.
Oklahoma at Arkansas, 12/30- Arkansas has a shiny record and zero good wins. This would qualify.
Northwestern at Penn State, 12/31- Reaching here a bit, but you never know this early.
UNLV at Louisville, 12/31- Louisville needs this game at home for a win over an NCAA team.
USC at Oregon, 1/2- If USC wants to start creeping back, winning at Oregon is a good start.
South Carolina at Baylor, 1/2- See Arkansas for South Carolina.
Arizona at California, 1/2- Huge bubble game for both teams.
Missouri at Georgia, 1/3- The Tigers cannot afford to slip up here.
Tennessee at Kansas, 1/3- Believe it or not, KU is on the bubble. A win over 2-seed Tennessee would go a long way towards securing a bid down the road.
NC State at Florida, 1/3- See Kansas for Florida. They’re lacking quality wins.
Charlotte at Maryland, 1/3- If Maryland slips up here, they could be out of the field.
West Virginia at Seton Hall, 1/3- Seton Hall needs this one at home.
Washington at Washington State, 1/3- Washington State dropped from consideration for this bracket. This is the first step in working their way back.
Creighton at Illinois State, 1/3- HUGE game in the Missouri Valley.
Cincinnati at Marquette, 1/4- Cincinnati with another chance for a big win here.
Kentucky at Louisville, 1/4- Biggest bubble game on the slate this week.
Virginia Tech at Duke, 1/4- Virginia Tech can creep back into consideration if they can spring a huge upset at Cameron.
Arizona State at California, 1/4- California is barely in. A win over Arizona State gives them more comfort.
Arizona at Stanford, 1/4– Another big bubble game for Arizona.
Super Saturday is a term usually reserved for the final Saturday of the US Open where the two men’s semifinals and the women’s final are played, but this Saturday of college basketball trumps any day at Flushing Meadows (unless we could somehow get a Kournikova-Ivanovic final). Normally I would cover all the interesting games on the docket, but today is so good that I’m only going to cover the ones featuring ranked teams matched up against each other.
No naps this Saturday afternoon
The Undercard: On any other Saturday, these games would be the headliners, but today they are merely an appetizer to get you ready for the even bigger match-ups to follow.
– #22 Michigan State at #5 Texas at 2 PM on CBS: Tom Izzo’s Spartans come into Saturday badly in need of a victory against a quality foe. Although Michigan State comes in with a respectable record of 7-2, they have been underwhelming and certainly nowhere near the level they were predicted to be coming into the season (AP #5 back on November 24th). On the other side, the Longhorns have been surprisingly strong with their only loss coming against Notre Dame (81-80) in what was the best game of the Maui Invitational. Texas has responded well to the setback with wins over 2 ranked teams in December (UCLA and Villanova). The last time Michigan State played a team of this caliber was in their much-anticipated match-up against UNC (clearly Texas isn’t quite at that level), they were blown off the court in a virtual home game. Tom Izzo will need a big game from Raymar Morgan and hope that his defense can contain A.J. Abrams and Damion James if he hopes to steal one in Austin.
– #20 Davidson vs. #18 Purdue at 4 PM on CBS: Both teams are all but assured of NCAA tournament bids. However, neither team has a signature win yet. Davidson certainly has the marquee value with national POY contender Stephen Curry, but they lost their only game against a ranked team (82-78 at #14 Oklahoma on November 18th). While the Wildcats can hardly be faulted for losing a road game against Blake Griffin and the Sooners, it still leaves them without a win they would need to merit a potential 5 seed or better. If they are unable to win today in Indianapolis, their only other chance to beat a top 25 team will be on January 7th against Duke at Cameron (ESPN might be hyping that game a little bit in the time leading up to the BCS title game). The Boilermakers are in a similar situation albeit without a star anywhere close to the level of Curry. The Boilermakers lost their only games against ranked teams back-to-back (87-82 in OT against Oklahoma on November 28th and 76-60 at home against Duke on December 2nd) and after tomorrow they don’t have a game against a currently ranked team until February 3rd against Ohio State. This game will likely come down to how well the Boilermakers can contain Curry (31.9 PPG and 6.8 APG) and limit his sidekick on the inside Andrew Lovedale (13.9 PPG and 10.7 RPG). The Boilermakers will counter with a much more balanced attack (4 players averaging between 9.9 and 15.6 PPG).
National POY?
– #11 Syracuse at #21 Memphis at 6 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: The Orangemen (other than Jim Boeheim) responded well to their crushing loss at the buzzer on Monday night. However, they will be without Eric Devendorf for at least 2 games so Jonny Flynn will have to hope that Paul Harris and/or Arinze Onuaku can pick up the slack as John Calipari will almost certainly be focusing on Flynn on the perimeter. The Tigers could use a quality win here as they have lose both of the games they have played against quality opponents (Xavier and Georgetown). Tyreke Evans and Shawn Taggert will need to play well, but this is a game that the Tigers should win.
The Title Bouts: These games are as good as you will find any time this season (in-conference or out-of-conference) until we get to March.
– #7 Xavier vs. #6 Duke at 2 PM on CBS: Although this game is a “neutral” site game and quite far away from North Carolina, East Rutherford, New Jersey has become a de facto home for Coach K and the Blue Devils over the past 20 years. Despite that edge, I don’t think Coach K will be starting his bench (including everybody’s favorite whipping boy Greg Paulus) like he did in the Blue Devils last game against UNC-Asheville. Sean Miller didn’t have quite the same luxury in Xavier’s last game as they had to fight hard to beat crosstown rival Cincinnati 76-66 a week ago. Both teams rely on a balanced scoring attack, but the outcome of the game will likely be decided by Duke’s ability to hit the 3. The Blue Devils don’t shoot a particularly high percentage from 3 (32% for the season), but they are such high-volume shooters (20.6 attempts per game compared to 15.3 attempts per game for the Musketeers) that it becomes a major factor in all of their games. Their only loss this year was their rematch against Michigan in Ann Arbor where they opened the game hitting 3 of their first 27 attempts for 3 point range before hitting 4 in a row late to close the gap. The key match-up in this game should be Kyle Singler versus Derrick Brown, which should be interesting to watch if Singler tries to pull Brown away from the basket with his outside shooting. This should be a close game, but look for Duke to win this one as they have had a tendency to pull out big games before conference play starts.
– #2 UConn vs. #7 Gonzaga at 4 PM on CBS: This game could have very easily been a 2-4 match-up if Gonzaga hadn’t slipped up last week against Arizona in Tucson. One of the interesting subplots, which I’m sure that CBS will cover repeatedly, is that it was match-up that introduced the nation to Gonzaga basketball less than 10 years ago and propelled UConn to its first Final 4 trip. While I remember the game for its significance for Gonzaga’s program, I had completely forgotten that it gave UConn its first Final 4 trip ever (won the title that year in a nail-bitter over Trajan Langdon’s Blue Devils). This Gonzaga team is significantly different than the one you might see on ESPN Classic. They are no longer just the team that relies on exceptional skill and execution. Now they have the athletes to compete with anybody in the nation. However, UConn has been playing better than anyone in the nation not wearing baby blue so Gonzaga will have its hands full trying to keep up with the Huskies, who have a balanced scoring attack led by Jerome Dyson, Hasheem Thabeet, and Jeff Adrien. Dyson leads the Huskies in scoring at 15.4 PPG and provides Jim Calhoun with a versatile one-on-one scorer. Thabeet, his counterpart on the inside, has finally started to show some of the promise that has had NBA scouts salivating over him in the past as he has started to score on a consistent basis to compliment his always strong defensive presence. The one area that the Huskies need to improve upon if they want to compete for the national title (read: challenge UNC) is for A.J. Price to step up as an elite college PG. His 35% FG and 36% FT isn’t going to cut it in March and may even be a liability in Big East play, which may be more competitive than the NCAA tournament itself on a nightly basis. The Bulldogs have also been playing exceptionally well this year with the exception of their loss last week to Arizona last week. They also come in with a balanced attack, but they are led by PG Jeremy Pargo whose scoring is slightly down (12.1 PPG to 8.9 PPG) from the past 2 season as he has focused more on running the team (3.4 assist:turnover ratio compared to 1.8 last year). To beat the Huskies, Mark Few will need everybody–Pargo, Austin Daye, Josh Heytvelt, and Matt Bouldin–to be near the top of their games. In the end, the Huskies depth and superior interior defense will probably be too much for Gonzaga to overcome.
Josh & Mike of Big Ten Geeks are the RTC correspondents for the Big Ten Conference.
Looking Back
It was a fairly uneventful week for the Big Ten, as most member squads feasted on cupcakes while preparing for finals. There were, however, a few exceptions. Ohio State won a defensive struggle against previously-undefeated Butler, giving the Buckeyes their third straight win over a top 40 team (according to Pomeroy). Ohio State continues to look a lot better than we Geeks expected, and it’s all due to the nation’s best defense according to adjusted defensive efficiency. Dallas Lauderdale’s insane shotblocking rate has been a huge part of that effort.
Posted by Rush the Court 
Set Your Tivos is back with a loaded schedule. It looks like the NCAA is kicking the season into full swing this weekend with that pesky little college football sport and its antediluvian method of determining a champion out of the way, we can all focus on what’s really important.
Rush the Court 