I have the feeling that phrase was uttered by most coaches after yesterday’s games.
In the game of the day Dayton rallied past Georgia Tech. An impressive win for the Flyers given Chris Wright’s struggles (6 turnovers, 7 points). Doug Harris writes about the difference a couple of sophomores made. Playing ‘Nova today gives Dayton and opportunity to beat a top 5 squad for the first time since 1984. For Georgia Tech the game resembled several close losses last year–20+ turnovers, poor foul shooting, and a failure to make a big play in the final three minutes. Writing for the Altanta-Journal Constiution, Mark Bradley says it’s too early to blame Paul Hewitt. He’s correct that losing to Dayton is nothing to freak-out about but the Jackets aren’t that young anymore and expectations are lofty. I know he can’t shoot free-throws well and had committed several turnovers but Gani Lawal has to play in end game situations to secure rebounds.
A short-handed Villanova squad avoided a huge upset thanks to a late three by seldom-used (but highly rated) freshman Isaiah Armwood. Armwood, only playing because the Cats had a few players foul out, was the fifth option on that key play according to Jay Wright.
Also in San Juan, Ole Miss, led by Murphy Holiday, defeated Indiana. Terry Hutchens compares this years Indiana’s squad to last year’s Hoosiers that took their lumps in Maui. Tom Crean wants to see more toughness while Hutchens would enjoy better decision making from Jeremiah Rivers and some improvement in IU’s god-awful free-throw shooting.
In Madison Square Garden UNC overwhelmed Ohio State for 32 minutes and then held on for a narrow victory. Coach Williams credits his upperclassmen, Marcus Ginyard and Deon Thomspson for setting the tone for the Heels. In the other game Syracuse dominated Cal. Jeff Faraudo writes the Orange overwhelmed a Cal team, missing their best two bigs, with its size. Mike Waters explains Coach Boeheim’s belief that the difference was the Cuse zone forcing the Cal guards into a poor-shooting effort (Christopher 0-7 from three).
Scoring 102 points in a college game is pretty good. Giving up 92, especially to Sam Houston State when you’re Kentucky, is not so good. The Wildcats won the game comfortably, but surrendered a record 18 three pointers. For those keeping track UK has allowed 33 three-pointers in two games. Coach Cal was not pleased:
Ok so they’ve already started but most of the high-profile games, like Dayton and Georgia Tech in Puerto Rico, start today. Luke Winn has a run down on the most important tournaments for SI.com.
The Gazelle Group, probably hoping to avoid a Gardner Webb situation, has guaranteed that regional hosts make the championship rounds of their tournaments even if they lose an opening round game. That might be a good thing as Cornell defeated UMASS last night in Amherst. UMASS still gets to travel to Atlantic City (where they’re a big draw? really?) for the semi-finals of the Legends Classic. Cornell returns to Ithaca to prepare for a rare visit from a Big 6 foe when Seton Hall comes to campus on Friday. Bobby Gonzalez knows just how good the Big Red, who also already defeated Alabama, are. This will be one of those off-the-radar games that could matter towards RPI, league rankings and NCAA bids come March. Who says the regular season and preseason is meaningless?
Brett McMurphy at AOL Fanhouse broke a story of NCAA violations at South Florida. Most of the allegations center on forward Gus Gilchrist and his “advisor” Terrelle Woody. Gilrchist, who previously was committed to Virginia Tech and enrolled at Maryland, has been instrumental in USF’s hot start this season.
Bruce Weber has taken some major flak for hid recruiting at Illinois. If it their early season form hold he’s added two impressive freshmen this year in Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson and a highly ranked class committed for next year.
We often hear of coaches pulling scholarships or trying to force recruits away from men’s programs. In the Charlotte Observer, Peter St. Orange chronicles such events in the women’s game as Duke strongly encourages commit Clair Watkins to look elsewhere.
ESPN unofficially launched the college season yesterday with 24 hours of games. I can’t claim to have seen all of it but I saw a fair amount of really ugly basketball.
Ugly enough that Bill Plaschke called UCLA’s loss to Cal St. Fullerton the Bruins’ worst in his thirteen years covering the team. Given how difficult good UCLA teams are to watch, this is no small statement.
Mark McGuire suggests Siena’s grind-it-out victory over Northeastern will look good come March. That may be true but the Saints have other chances to impress with Temple, St. John’s, Northern Iowa and Georgia Tech all on the schedule before Christmas. Win a few of those and the talk of a MAAC at-large bid might make sense. Niagara won yesterday and Rider knocked off Mississippi St last week. Speaking of Miss St., it was announced that Kodi Augustus is suspended for his criticism of Coach Rick Stansbury following that loss to Rider.
Mike Wise thinks Greg Monroe’s game winning shot against Temple points to good things for Georgetown this season. He’s right that is was redemption for Monroe who was outplayed by Lavoy Allen most the game. According to Allen in the Philly Inquirer, Monroe defied the scouting report on his game winning shot by using a spin move and his off-hand. I still wonder if Georgetown’s depth, conditioning and offensive options are as strong as their ranking suggests.
While most people were watching the Mich St.-Gonzaga and Kansas-Memphis games, Louisville quietly thrashed a short-handed Arkansas. Transfer Reginald Delk was huge as the Ville solved a zone and registered 24 assists on 35 field goals. Louisville, Clemson and Duke were mighty impressive against lesser competition yesterday.
Miami of Ohio’s coach lets loose after being asked how his team relinquished an 18 point lead against Kentucky. Link swiped from Cant Stop The Bleeding.
Ok, its been here for a bit. FTPL is back and we”ll see it through this year. We’re going to play the full 40 minutes like UW-Green Bay’s Bryquis Perine did against Kent State.
2009 is a new year. Turn those frowns upside down.
Despite the #1 team in the country losing, you might argue the biggest upset of the weekend occurred in Corvalis. Oregon State, fresh off an 0-18 run in the Pac-10 last year, defeated USC in overtime. The Oregonian’s Paul Buker profiles pre-game articles referring to the Beavers as a “speed bump” and “gimme” before the game. Coach Robinson’s early win should help change the culture at OSU. It sounds like the Trojans ignored their coach while floundering down the stretch. From Buker’s post game analysis:
“TIM FLOYD: (On how USC planned to defend Schaftenaar’s shot)
“The plan was to foul under seven seconds. That’s the first thing that didn’t happen — we did not get the foul. We wanted to put (Haynes) on the line for two shots or one-and-one, get a rebound and make it a free throw contest. That didn’t happen either.”
(Did he want Gibson to leave Schaftenaar to help on Haynes?)
“No, but it happened.”
The win means Oregon State is not in the cellar of the Pac-10 for the first time in awhile. That ignominious distinction falls to Oregon and Arizona. The Ducks excuse is they’re starting three freshmen. Arizona’s wild ride continues as they were swept in the Bay Area. The loss to Cal was alright, but to lose to a Stanford team that was throttled by Az State? Darren Sabedra reviews the game writing, “A victory over Arizona might not carry the cache it did during the Lute Olson era, but Stanford will happily accept what unfolded Sunday night at Maples Pavilion.” Ouch. It was a bad night for Chase Budinger, four field goals made, four fouls and four turnovers. As a team the Wildcats coughed it up 20 times enroute to starting their Pac-10 campaign 0-2 for the first time since 1995-1996.
How about Cal? It appears Mike Montgomery is on his way towards waking the Pac-10’s sleeping giant as Cal beat Arizona and Arizona State over the holiday weekend. Monte Poole attributes the Golden Bear’s hot start to the Coach and new star, Jerome Randle–26pts, 10 assists, 5reb against Arizona State. Scott Ostler has more on how Randle has thrived under the new coaching regime.
So North Carolina won’t go undefeated this season as some prognosticators in their less sagacious moments suggested. The formula to beat the Tar Heels players has never responded well to physical challenges (see Kansas and Georgetown in the NCAAs) and Ty Lawson struggles when matched up with offensive-minded, physical guards (see Rice, Tyrese & Vasquez, Greivis).
Roy Williams recognizes the problems: “We didn’t do a very good job of attacking. We’ve got to be more physical, we’ve got to be tougher mentally and physically and all those things.”
Hopefully last night’s display will push Rice into the national spotlight. Basketball fans know he’s good but even in the ACC where BC is a Siberian outpost the 6-1 guard is under appreciated. Bob Ryan argues Rice compares favorably to other elite BC guards, Michael Adams, Howard Eisley, & Troy Bell. Back in November SI’s Kevin Armstrong wrote this feature on Rice, chronicling the relationship the guard had with his high school coach.
The beleaguered SEC scored two wins over ACC foes this weekend. Alabama blew away Georgia Tech as the Jackets refused to play defense for most of the game. With the woeful end to the Tide’s football season, fans can be encouraged by the stellar performance of Ronald Steele–23points, 10 assists. Coach Mark Gottfried said of his injury ridden point guard: “Early in the game, it was as good as I’ve seen him in a couple years. He was quick, aggressive. Today maybe was a breakthrough. I don’t know that he has to do that every night, but tonight he was an exceptional player.” Bama completes their mini ACC tour with Clemson on Tuesday evening.
Florida limped by NC State. Ken Tysiac reminds Wolfpack fans of familiar problems, inconsistency and injuries in the back-court. State’s 18 turnovers doomed them. But, why was Ben McCauley switching onto Calathes in a one point game?–either double and get the ball out of his hands or switch back in that situation. McCauley had no chance and gave away a clean look.
According to Corey Clark the Seminoles did enough in their non-conference schedule to expect an invite in the dance come March. Its hard to argue his point if wins over Florida and California hold up as the middle of the ACC could see very little difference between team 4 and team 11.
Ole Miss Coach Andy Kennedy, who took over the Bearcats when Bobby Huggins was fired, got arrested this morning in Cincinnati. From theCincinnati Enquirer:
“Former University of Cincinnati head basketball coach Andy Kennedy, now head coach at Mississippi, was arrested this morning on a charge of assault, accused of attacking a taxi driver and hurling racial slurs at the man, according to police and court records. Also arrested was William Armstrong, the director of operations at Mississippi, on a charge of disorderly conduct, reports show. The men are in town for the SEC/Big East invitational at U.S. Bank Arena. Mississippi plays No. 8 Louisville tonight.
Reports state Armstrong, 31, was drunk and thrown out of the Lodge Bar downtown early this morning. After that, he and Kennedy got a cab. A report says Armstrong taunted the driver “in which his conduct was likely to cause a violent response. A separate report says Kennedy “was the aggressor” and punched the driver, Mohammed Ould Jiddou. During the attack Kennedy used “racial slurs.”
Kennedy has pleaded innocent to the charges. We’ll let the system work its course but this certainly presents a distraction for the Rebels tonight.
Tyler Hansbrough should pass Phil Ford to become UNC’s all time leading scorer tonight. Robbi Pickerall is all over the story for the Charlotte News-Observer. He has Psycho T’s take on the milestone. Pickerall declares Lennie Rosenbluth’s 26.9ppg career average an untouchable UNC record. Tyler’s mom will be on hand this evening, and all season, as she has landed a job with the UNC School of Dentistry. I’m sure everything is on the up and up but it looks terrible.
#25 in the polls but #1 in your RPI….Clemson! Pete Iacobelli of the AP examines the Tigers’ annual hot start.
Florida State is 10-1, defeated Florida, but that doesn’t mean Leonard Hamilton is happy. He’s struggling to find a combination that is efficient on both ends of the court. Hamilton is apt to juggle his starting line-up tonight. The Noles must get better before Saturday’s game with #3 Pitt.
Get to know the other Curry: The Chicago Tribune profiles Stephen’s younger brother Seth, a freshman phenom at Liberty.
It no secret the SEC has been dreadful this year. Still, Tennessee and Vanderbilt swept the Big East on Tuesday night and the SEC can gain some respect tonight if Ole Miss and Mississippi State can spring upsets in Cincinnati. The Bulldogs, facing off against the hometown Bearcats, get Coach Rick Stansbury back after his hospital stay. Ole Miss figures to be out manned by Louisville but the Cardinals aren’t the most consistent squad. Nothing sums up the disparity between the leagues–the Big East the strongest at the top; the SEC without a single threat to reach Ford Field at this point–than the following segment from David Brandt’s game preview:
“Louisville is so deep that Reginald Delk, who played a large role for two seasons at Mississippi State before transferring after the 2006-07 season, barely sees the floor as the team’s 10th-most used player.
As for the Rebels, the offense has revolved around guards David Huertas and Chris Warren, two of the four healthy players on the roster who have Division I basketball experience.
Combined, the two are averaging nearly 41 points per game. It’s the rest of the roster that’s been hit and miss.“
players has never responded well to physical challenges (see Kansas and Georgetown in the NCAAs) and Ty Lawson struggles when matched up with offensive-minded, physical guards (see Rice, Tyrese & Vasquez, Greivis).
