Already a Good Team, Cornell Keeps Improving

PHILADELPHIA – They have won back-to-back Ivy League titles and return everyone of consequence from the team that won last year.  The core of the team is a group of seniors that has won the last two together, growing up from being freshmen a few years ago that played like a young bunch.  This year, they don’t appear to have missed a beat, opening with a win at Alabama and winning at UMass along the way.

It sounds like Cornell should be well on their way to another Ivy League title, especially since just about every other team enters the season with question marks in terms of being contenders.  So how do they win again, you ask?

“I say to them, for us to win the Ivy League, we have to be the most improved team in our league, if not the country,” said head coach Steve Donahue.

That sounds like coach-speak, to be sure, but don’t discount it as that.  Sure, other Ivy League teams that might contend have their questions: Penn’s current group is more experienced but hasn’t won yet, Harvard is very young although off to a good start and Princeton looks to be a year away, to name a few.  But everyone is gunning for Cornell, as the Big Red are sure to get everyone’s best shot.  Players also don’t get better simply by showing up, no matter the level of play.  And Donahue has as much respect for the Ivy League as anyone, having previously been an assistant at Penn.

The Big Red are 5-2 after winning all three of their games at the Legends Classic sub-regional hosted by Drexel.  They knocked off the host team on Sunday in a well-played game in which they trailed for just 17 seconds and were tied twice.  It was also a classic strength vs. strength matchup, with the Dragons known for their tough and physical defense and the Big Red for their offense.  The Big Red were a little better defensively than the Dragons offensively, but the big difference was how Cornell played like a veteran team.

“I thought this was a great challenge for a team that is trying to start another run at a championship in terms of trying to identify who you are, how you play,” said Donahue.  “All three games were a test in certain ways, but to play the third one against a team this tough, in their own building, it speaks volumes.”

While Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale get a lot of the attention, and big man Jeff Foote gets his fair share as well as a rare seven-footer in the Ivy League, the Big Red reinforced that they are more than just those three.  In fact, while Wittman was the MVP of the sub-regional, Dale had just five points on 2-9 shooting on Sunday, though he had four assists and no turnovers.  But the Big Red got key contributions off the bench from Mark Coury (eight points, four rebounds) and Geoff Reeves (two big three-pointers).  And Jon Jacques, a little-used reserve, hit two free throws in the final minute to seal the game as they made it a two-possession game.

“I can’t say enough about Jon Jacques,” Donahue said.  “I know people are surprised by that, but to me he’s what we’re all about.  No one cares about how it gets done, and that kid – he’s our captain, three years of not playing, you don’t know how difficult those two foul shots are for a kid like that.”

Even though Wittman made a couple of clutch shots, he was usurped in that category by sophomore Chris Wroblewski, who had just seven points but five in final minutes.  Both shots put the Big Red ahead, the second one giving them back the lead for good.

“The kid has such poise, and I think people forget again that he’s one of our better players and you forget about him,” said Donahue.  “The thing I love about him is that nothing changes with his demeanor.  Miss or make, it’s not going to change how he goes about his business.”

Cornell won this game without starting forward Alex Tyler, who is likely out until their first game in the MSG Holiday Festival on December 20 at Madison Square Garden, and Max Groebe, a key reserve.  Even so, they won with depth, getting the aforementioned key performances.  Donahue is looking for players on the bench to make them better in addition to his starters continuing their improvement.  He thinks players like freshman Errick Peck as well as Coury and Groebe can all make them better.

The Big Red have certainly not played perfect basketball, and aren’t about to rest on their laurels.  Donahue thinks they’re far from their ceiling even though they are clear Ivy League favorites with over a month to go before Ivy League play starts.

“We can get a whole lot better,” said Donahue.  “We’re winning, in my mind, despite not playing really well.  In general, I think we have a long ways to go.  We can improve immensely.  I think it’s great that we can still win games as we’re improving, but this is a long season.”

Old Spice Classic Announces Field for 2010

According to a MAAC release, the eight-team 2010 Old Spice Classic field has been announced, and five of its participants are teams that were part of the 2009 NCAA Tournament: Boston College, California, Temple, Texas A&M and Wisconsin. Notre Dame, a 2009 NIT participant, Georgia and Manhattan round out the field.

The competition will have 12 games through three days (four games each day), Nov. 25, 26 and 28. Each team will play a game per day and advance in a bracket-tournament format. The two teams that remain undefeated through two games will play in the championship match on Sunday Nov. 28.

Drexel Just Needs Some Patience to Score

PHILADELPHIA – Bruiser Flint is known as a defensive coach, and his Drexel teams always have a clear identity as a tough defensive team.  Offensively, the Dragons have put up some numbers that aren’t pretty during his tenure, but they haven’t lacked talent.  And although this season’s team has had a tough time offensively, they have shown at times that they’re very capable of scoring.  There’s a simple thing that makes all the difference, and it showed up in the second half against Cornell on Sunday.

“In the second half, we just made them guard us,” Flint said after the Dragons’ loss to the Big Red.  “When we came out, we ran offense.  Honestly, that’s what we knew we could do from the beginning, but we just didn’t carry it out at the beginning of the game.”

Last year’s Dragons were tenth in the Colonial in scoring and last in field goal percentage by a wide margin, shooting 37.2 percent from the field.  Entering Sunday’s game, they were shooting 36.3 percent from the field and just 22.7 percent from long range.

Flint said before the season that last year’s team simply had trouble making shots, including open ones.  He felt they ran good offense, and considering they didn’t turn the ball over a large number of times, it’s clear he’s not trying to offer up a euphemism.  And a look at the field goal percentages shows that even the post players, who typically got shots closer to the basket than the guards, struggled to make shots, as only Leon Spencer shot better than 50 percent from the field.

In light of that, anyone who had not seen the Dragons prior to the second half against Cornell might have come away with a vastly different impression of their offense.  After turning the ball over 12 times in the first half, which matched their total for the entire game against Vermont on Friday, the Dragons had just six turnovers and shot 68 percent from the field in the second half.  The guards looked like they could score all day.

“We decided to be patient and let our offense work itself through,” said forward Samme Givens.  “In the first half, we rushed a lot of shots.  Once we settled down, we started getting into the flow of our game and making them play our game.”

Indeed, the Dragons took a lot of shots early in the possession in the first half.  When they weren’t doing that, their starting guard trio of Gerald Colds, Jamie Harris and Derrick Thomas were turning the ball over – seven times against one assist.  In the second half, they combined for 29 points on 11-16 shooting.

It’s for that reason that Flint told his team they didn’t have to look far to see what can happen with an experienced team.

“I give them credit, this was a great game, because you see, when your team is experienced, what happens,” Flint said of Cornell.  “There was no panic in those guys, they made big plays when they needed to, they stayed within themselves.  Whereas, I start the game and all my guys are running, going crazy, trying to go to the basket, trying to do things they can’t do.”

As usual, the Dragons’ defense will keep them in games.  A very good Cornell offense shot just 40.4 percent from the field against them on Sunday, and opponents are turning the ball over nearly 15 times per game.  None of the Dragons’ four losses thus far have been blowouts – Flint at one point commented, “we haven’t had a clunker all season” – so they’re not far away from winning more games.  If they show a little more patience on offense and the results follow, their defense will probably be enough to win a lot of games the rest of the way.

Young Rockets Have Growing Pains

PHILADELPHIA – With his team down by 28 with a little over 14 minutes left in the game, Gene Cross called a timeout to talk to his young Toledo team.  He didn’t spend time drawing up a play – in fact, the clipboard at one point left the huddle.  Instead, it was a teaching moment, a moment to challenge his team and about something larger than trying to win the game.

“It was more about us coming out and trying to show some maturity,” said the second-year head coach.  “That’s kind of an oxymoron when it comes to this group, because we’re so young, but show some toughness.  I’m trying to help our guys develop some mental toughness in order to get out there and perform and play through mistakes and play through when things don’t go your way.”

Indeed, to say the Rockets are young would be putting it mildly.  There isn’t a senior on the roster, which features eight true freshman and a redshirt freshman in leading scorer Stephen Albrecht, to go with four sophomores.  Forwards Justin Anyijong and Mouhamed Lo are the only juniors.  For good measure, Albrecht has quite the baby face and doesn’t even look like he’s old enough to be in college.

Cross is running into something that is common in the second year of a coach’s tenure.  He inherited a team with four seniors last year, but no juniors.  Oftentimes, players who will transfer upon a coaching change tend to be those with more than one year of eligibility left since it’s often not worth it to sit out and play just one year at a new school.  Although that didn’t happen at Toledo, Cross nonetheless has a roster with a lot of youth in his second year, and even his older players aren’t loaded with experience as only three entered the season having played more than 700 minutes in their career.

The Rockets certainly have some pieces.  Anyijong has good length and remains a “potential” player, although his college career is getting to the point where he is what he is.  Sophomore Larry Bastfield, a co-captain along with Anyijong, gives plenty of effort and had a promising freshman year last season.  Albrecht has quickly made an impact, as has true freshman Jake Barnett, and both have shown that they can knock down the long range shot.  Lo is now coming off the bench, while freshman Jordan Dressler and sophomore Ian Salter have shown that they can be contributors.

The Rockets came out of the Legends Classic sub-regional that Drexel hosted with three more losses, dropping to 0-6 on the season.  That’s one of the tough parts of this, as losing is never easy and especially for a young team.

“A lot of things they are experiencing right now, they’ve never experienced before,” Cross said. “That’s part of the growth process.  Unfortunately, it comes with wins and losses.  We lost this round of games, but hopefully we can begin to develop a winning mentality as they grow and get older.”

Besides providing teaching moments for some of what winning at the college level takes, Cross also talked about how playing three games in three days, as they had to this weekend, is a grind.  He told his team that this is what they can expect in March when the conference tournament comes, when a team has to win at least three games in three days and some need four wins in four days.

“If you want to be able to perform at a high level, you have to display a level of toughness that we didn’t display this weekend,” he added.

Additionally, he didn’t have to look far this weekend for some inspiration.  It wasn’t all that long ago that Cornell, who also played in the sub-regional, was far from a given to win a lot of Ivy League games.  No one would have imagined back-to-back Ivy League titles, including a perfect 14-0 mark two years ago, at that time.  But as the Big Red grew up from being a young team, the wins started coming and the NCAA Tournament bids followed.  Now there are plenty who feel that the Big Red could win a game in the NCAA Tournament.

A Chicago native who has spent much of his coaching career in the Midwest, Cross likes the school and the area.  Last year, the Rockets led the MAC in attendance despite a 7-25 mark overall that included going 6-7 at home, so he knows what kind of interest and support there is among the fan base.  He has recruited well in that region in his career, and many on his current team are from there.

Cross has been in a rebuilding effort before, as he joined Dave Leitao’s staff at DePaul and helped them rebound from two straight losing seasons to reach the postseason three straight years.  So there’s no doubt that he knows what it takes to get a program going again, and that part of it is some patience in addition to players needing to adjust to a whole different ballgame physically and mentally.

Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that he knows what can happen when a team like this sees losses add up.

“When you lose, you want to try to gain something from it.  If you continue to lose, at some point as young men you start to question the method,” Cross said.  “As long as we keep trying to reinforce that this is the formula, and we stay the course with what our formula is, then we’ll begin to see some success.  We will, we just have to continue to grow and go back to the drawing board and keep getting older and more mature.”

There will probably be more teaching moments this season, although perhaps not quite like the one on Sunday or under the same conditions.  That’s the nature of a young team, but the Rockets have some talent, so with some growth the wins won’t be far behind in due time.

It’s Finally Starting to Come Together for St. John’s

PHILADELPHIA – With all the public speculation about Norm Roberts’ job the last couple of years, it’s only fitting that things are starting to come together for his team.  The feeling was that this would be the time – and certainly, the speculation has been that it’s make-or-break – for St. John’s to break through.

The Red Storm came to Philadelphia in the Philly Hoop Group Classic and took home two big wins.  A big second half rally gave them a win over a good Siena team on Friday night, then on Saturday they held off Temple 55-48 in a game that wasn’t far from being a true road game.  With those wins, they are 5-0 for the first time in Roberts’ tenure, but there’s more than just the record that signals this as a potential turning point.

The core of this team is a group of juniors that came in over two years ago.  It appeared that Roberts was finally gaining traction in recruiting New York kids, as Malik Boothe and Justin Burrell headlined the group.  They certainly haven’t been alone, as D.J. Kennedy, Sean Evans and Paris Horne also start now.  As a group, they had a rough go of it at first, going 11-19 as freshmen before making the CBI Tournament last year and finishing with a 16-18 mark.  They took their lumps and had promising signs along the way, and now they look ready to turn the corner.

And they, along with their coach, believe they deserve to be lauded for it.

“I think these guys deserve buzz,” said Roberts.  “They’ve tried so hard, they want to represent the school, their team, their families the right way.  It would be great for them to get that buzz.  But we also know you’ve got to earn the buzz.  You have to earn it, you have to continue it, be consistent, and we’ve just got to work toward that.”

In all but one season of Roberts’ tenure, the Red Storm has knocked off a ranked team.  That means they’ve certainly been capable and is a reflection of the hard work that Roberts has preached all along, although the talent and experience hasn’t been there.  With wins hard to come by at times, it’s been difficult to keep up the confidence of the team.  As they start winning games, the confidence has to be soaring, because they are seeing a bottom-line reward for the hard work.

“We took our lumps, we never complained about it, we never made excuses about it,” said Boothe.  “We just continued to play, and I think this year is a year that we can go out there and get a little bit of buzz.”

Added Burrell, who seemed to come back to life a bit in Saturday’s win: “We work extremely hard.  It’s been unfortunate that our freshman and sophomore years, we weren’t able to put things together, but we definitely deserve the buzz.  We’re improving.”

The players added that they would not have won Saturday’s game last year.  There, Temple made a run in the second half on a few occasions, but the Red Storm never relinquished the lead.  In fact, after the Red Storm went up by 10 at one point, the Owls never got within one possession as the Red Storm had answers every time they were on the verge.

“We’ve grown up so much,” said Burrell.  “Last year, we would have thrown that game away.  Just in the closing minutes right there, we turn the ball over and they come down and get a dunk.  We kept our composure, we came back down and we take care of the ball on offense.  Last year we definitely wouldn’t have done that.”

Kennedy has been the team’s leader, as the team’s top scorer had a big second half in the win over Siena and made several big shots in the second half against Temple.  He’s always been capable of being more than a scorer, and he’s largely done just that before starting this season very well.  Roberts was happy that he started going to the basket once his jumper wasn’t falling, and the results showed.  Boothe noted that Kennedy’s nickname is “Big Play”.

The players knew this team would get better, although they didn’t want to admit that they would take their lumps.  Those times weren’t easy, but they appreciate that good times appear to be on the way.  Roberts is keeping them grounded, knowing that they haven’t arrived yet, but the way they are playing suggests they are well on their way.  This weekend showed it, and it had the outcome they hoped for when the team agreed to play in the event.

“I wanted this weekend because I think it’s a great springboard, hopefully, for the rest of our season,” Roberts said.  “I knew they would be very difficult games because they were on the road, and I knew playing here would be like playing Temple at home, and it’s part of the maturation process.”

They are doing this without Anthony Mason, Jr., who is still several weeks away from returning, as well as Rob Thomas, another scorer who will only make them deeper.  If they can integrate them into this team without issue, they will only be more dangerous, and that turning point will be ever closer.

Delaware Keeps Uphill Battle Going

PHILADELPHIA – Delaware entered this season looking like a team facing an uphill battle.  The Blue Hens had questions up front, but looked like they would have a perimeter unit capable of making this team more than just a tough out in the Colonial Athletic Association.  But that was before Brian Johnson tore his ACL late in the summer, after which a lot changed.  Yet they’re still plugging away, and nearly had a breakthrough on Saturday night in an overtime loss to Virginia Tech.

The Blue Hens don’t have another true point guard like Johnson, who had started since arriving on campus three years ago.  They have asked Jawan Carter, who at one time was a point guard in high school but had become more like a scorer, to run the team, and that’s had an impact they are trying to manage.  Besides having to change his mindset to not just look for his offense, the change makes it more difficult for him to be a scorer in part because he has to shoulder a good deal.  In Saturday night’s loss, he handled it quite well, scoring 23 points and handing out eight assists.

“It’s an awful lot to ask of him,” said head coach Monte Ross.  “To whom much is given, much is required.  He really got in the lane and fed the big guys, fed D.J. (Boney) and also had the pressure of getting his own.  It was a tremendous job.”

Carter got to the line 16 times, making 12 attempts, and had just three turnovers.  In a game where offense was hard to come by for both teams, he played a rather efficient game overall, and it’s a big step.

The backcourt issues are the most acute for the Blue Hens, and that was especially the case on Saturday as Alphonso Dawson dressed but did not play for disciplinary reasons.  That left Carter and Boney as the starting guards, with Edwin Santiago and Malcolm Hawkins off the bench.  Santiago has not developed in his two-plus seasons, while Hawkins is a freshman and played just three minutes as he has some work to do.  The Blue Hens could have used Dawson in a game like this.

“We consider it an extreme privilege to put on the Delaware uniform every single night,” Ross said after the game.  “Once you start taking that privilege for granted, sometimes you have to be made to step back, reflect, and get that hunger back.  We just need to re-energize him for that hunger, for that specialness that it is to put on the Delaware uniform.”

The frontcourt has plenty of questions as well, and that was clear in this game.  Ross said the difference was the Hokies’ strength, and they had 22 offensive rebounds that they turned into 23 second-chance points.  Delaware starts a frontcourt with two freshmen and Rhode Island transfer Hakim McCullar, and the two reserves are a freshman and sophomore.  McCullar had foul trouble on Saturday but has been their best player there, and Jamelle Hagins and Josh Brinkley, two of the freshmen, may have emerged as the next best players Ross can hang his hat on.  But they are freshmen, so there will be growing pains that come with it.

Ross has never been one for moral victories, a point he reiterated after Saturday’s game.  Even so, he’s keeping a sense of perspective, knowing his team isn’t going to be an NCAA Tournament at-large team and there’s a larger goal in non-conference play besides wins and losses.

“There are really some signs here, and I keep harping on it, that we’re not going to use the excuse that we’re a young group, but I think I saw some signs from our young frontcourt,” Ross reflected.  “If they keep bringing the work ethic that they’ve been bringing to practice, we have a chance to be okay as we go along.”

Although the game was a loss, another bright spot came on the defensive end, long a concern.  With the offense being fundamentally different without Johnson, defensive improvement is a must, and before Saturday’s game the Blue Hens weren’t stopping anyone.  Opponents came into the game shooting 49.3 percent from the field and averaging 85.5 points per game.  Virginia Tech shot 35.4 percent from the field en route to scoring 74 points with five extra minutes.

“We missed some free throws, but we played the scouting report well and we talked, and that’s a big part of defense,” said Carter.  “We were missing that for a couple of games.”

Delaware is now 1-4, with a matchup at in-state rival Delaware State and then their CAA opener looming.  The latter is a tough test as they travel to face preseason favorite Old Dominion.  Ross is hoping the intangibles he saw Saturday night continue in these games and the remaining ones going forward.

“One thing I don’t have to worry about with my guys is them fighting,” said Ross.  “We may not be good enough on a particular night, like tonight, but we’re going to fight tooth and nail every single time.  As long as we do that, we’ll be fine.”

The uphill battle continues, and the Blue Hens continue to plug away.

Siena Bounces Back Behind Point Guard, Balanced Attack

PHILADELPHIA – Senior-laden Siena is certainly not a one-man show.  Evidence of that came on Saturday for those who weren’t already aware.  But there’s no question that the man running the show is a major key to this team, and that can be seen in the contrast of Friday and Saturday night for the Saints.

In Friday night’s loss, point guard Ronald Moore had a career-high seven turnovers.  That wasn’t exactly the script for a young man playing not far from his hometown, and while the Saints didn’t lose the game because of that – six came in the first half, and the Saints allowed the Red Storm to shoot 63 percent from the field in the second half – they certainly didn’t help.  But on Saturday, Moore bounced back, scoring 19 points and handing out 11 assists as the Saints blew out Brown 99-79.

Moore was 9-12 from the field, leading the way as Alex Franklin had 21 on 7-10 shooting and Clarence Jackson had 23 on 8-12 shooting, including 5-8 from long range.

“He was a little over-aggressive last night, he made a couple of uncharacteristic turnovers,” head coach Fran McCaffery said of Moore.  “There was a lot of contact on backdoor cuts and the ball was getting fumbled out of bounds.  Tonight, we encouraged him to do what he always does, but try to get him to shoot that pull-up.”

McCaffery said he’s been trying to get Moore to take that pull-up jumper more.  It’s a deadly weapon considering his quickness and ability to find others, because teams won’t initially play him for the jumper.  They will play him more for getting to the basket and dishing off to teammates like Franklin, Jackson, Ryan Rossiter or Edwin Ubiles, among others, mindful that Moore was among the nation’s leaders in assists last season.  Before Saturday, he had already moved into second place all-time in assists at the school.

A good three-point shooter, Moore had been struggling heading into the game against Brown.  Even after hitting his only attempt from long range, he’s still shooting below 19 percent from behind the arc on the season.  That’s all the more reason McCaffery wanted him to try something different offensively.

“He’s been shooting too many threes,” McCaffery said.  “He’s a pretty good three-point shooter, particularly out of the corner, he’s excellent, but his pull-up game is as good as anybody in the country.  He can get to that elbow, he can get to that free throw line area, against pretty much anybody.”

Moore’s teammates are right with him.  Said Franklin: “That’s his game.  He can hit that shot nine out of ten times, we tell him to shoot that all the time.”

With those abilities, Moore obviously has a balancing act to play, and he’s well aware of it.  Depending on how teams defend the Saints, the results can vary by game.  But given his track record, it’s not hard to figure that his teammates trust him completely.

“I’m so focused on finding other guys,” Moore said.  “I’ve got a lot of good players surrounding me, so as the year has been going along I’ve been trying to juggle both, knocking down the little 15-foot jump shot and being able to find guys.  Tonight, it really worked out for me.”

The big efforts from Moore, Franklin and Jackson also helped offset another tough game for Ubiles, who was 2-9 from the field and has been hampered by tendinitis in his knee.  Ubiles said he first noticed it after the game against Northeastern, in which he played an excellent game with 26 points.  He hasn’t been the same since.

“All I remember was, when I was stretching and trying to stretch my hip, and I turned my knee and I felt my knee crack,” Ubiles recalled.  “It didn’t bother me during the game, so I just kept playing through it, and then after the game, that was it.  My knee just started feeling weak after that.  I don’t remember hurting it in the game, because that whole game I was playing great, and then after it just hit me.”

In the win over Northeastern, Ubiles played better than his 26-point stat line would suggest, as he played like a consummate senior leader.  The trouble with the injury he has is that it’s often one that will only get better with rest, and he’s not going to have much of that until late March.

The Saints may have a tough time being an NCAA Tournament at-large candidate.  Their best win is over Northeastern, a team not likely to be an at-large candidate, and save for Georgia Tech and Missouri Valley favorite Northern Iowa, they’re out of chances for wins that will likely impress the NCAA Tournament committee.  Both games are on the road, which will help, but the Saints look like they will have to come out of the MAAC as champions.

While the MAAC looks good this year, the Saints are the clear favorites.  They have a senior core that has won a lot of games together, including in the NCAA Tournament, and McCaffery is trying to develop some depth as well, which will only help.  That senior core has plenty of balance as well, especially the point guard who makes this team go.  How he plays can often set the tone, as evidenced near his hometown this weekend.

Blue Devils Are a Contender Once Again

NEW YORK – In recent years, Duke teams have been good, but not quite at the level many expect Duke to be.  The name is so big in college basketball, casual fans expect that the Blue Devils will be a national championship contender every year.  But of late, their neighbors down the road in Chapel Hill have taken some of that instead with two national titles in the Roy Williams era.  This time around, however, we can probably start to look at them as a team capable of making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament if what they showed in New York is any indication.

With their 68-59 win over Connecticut on Friday, the Blue Devils took home the NIT Season Tip-Off for the third straight time they have participated in it.  They also improved to 22-2 all-time in the event.  But more importantly, they showed that they have a lot of parts that can come together to make this team tough to beat in March.  That has been essentially their motto all along.

“For us this year, we just said going into the year, let’s win,” said senior guard Jon Scheyer, who had a game-high 19 points.  “Whatever people want to say about us, they can say about us, but let’s win.  This was our first chance against a high-level opponent to really show that we’re a really good team.”

The Blue Devils appear at first glance to be built around Kyle Singler.  The junior forward is the team’s most recognizable player, but on Friday he had an off game with six points on just 2-12 shooting and eight rebounds.  It ended a streak of 20 consecutive games where he scored in double figures.  But he had plenty of help, especially among his frontcourt mates.  The Blue Devils had a 56-43 edge on the glass, which went a long way towards winning despite shooting just 28.4 percent from the field.

“Kyle has drawn so much attention thus far this season,” said Scheyer.  “He’s our guy, no question about it.  The fact that he didn’t score the ball as much and we won is a big thing for us.”

Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek each had 11 rebounds before fouling out.  Zoubek, who’s battled injuries for much of his career, isn’t going to put up eye-popping numbers, but he’s come off the bench to average 8.5 rebounds per game thus far and has never been more effective.  Miles Plumlee, who had seven boards before fouling out, is right behind him in that category.  Singler hauls down seven boards per game, and the production the Blue Devils are getting means they can bring young guys like Ryan Kelly along at any pace they want to.

“Everybody has been talking about our perimeter, but our bigs are very good,” said Nolan Smith, the Blue Devils’ leading scorer.  “When they show up, they can compete with any bigs.  Today they rebounded the ball tremendously, played great defense, and we count on them.”

The talent on the perimeter isn’t in dispute.  Smith has finally started to play up to his billing, averaging over 18 points per game.  Scheyer has a great basketball I.Q. and is showing it this year with his terrific assist/turnover ratio as he has 32 assists and just four turnovers thus far in addition to scoring almost 17 per game.  With freshman Andre Dawkins coming off the bench, the Blue Devils aren’t missing a beat despite the unexpected transfer of Elliot Williams to Memphis after he was a key to last season’s late success.

“Jon is a terrific player,” said head coach Mike Krzyzewski of Scheyer, who added five assists Friday.  “He’s a terrific basketball player.  He has a great feel for the game.”

Dawkins, who Krzyzewski calls “as good a shooter as we have,” was supposed to be a senior in high school right now.  He was already committed to Duke, but graduated early and arrived on campus in the fall.  It hasn’t taken him long to make an impact, as he’s their best marksman from long range having hit 50 percent of his shots from behind the arc and averaging just under 11 points per game.

“Andre gives us another scorer.  He’s confident and knows how to make plays,” said Smith.  “He’s a good defender, and his confidence as a freshman for us is huge.  I think when he comes in, he knows that we’re behind him and what he does on the court, and he’s going to get better all year.”

The Blue Devils undoubtedly feel a lot of confidence after winning on Friday.  They beat a team with a lot of athleticism, doing so by out-rebounding them and largely shutting down their running game, aided in part by their 25 offensive rebounds.  The big men were difference-makers inside, doing what they needed to do.  It all means they just might be back to looking like a team that could make a deep run come March once again.

“Our offense is getting better, but to win a championship you play defense like that,” said Smith.  “If we continue to do that all year long, we’ll definitely be in the running for a national championship.”

Different Sun Devil Team Has the Same Leader

NEW YORK – Herb Sendek said before the season that this Arizona State team would have to be different.  The Sun Devils saw James Harden leave school early to be a lottery pick in the NBA Draft, while Jeff Pendergraph graduated and became a second round pick, leaving them without the two guys who had the biggest role in putting them back on the basketball map.  So while it was a given that they had to be different, there has been an unlikely constant that has kept them afloat in senior point guard Derek Glasser.

Not many people would have figured Glasser to be a key to a Pac-10 team in the hunt for an NCAA Tournament bid.  He’s not the most physically gifted player, although he has a terrific I.Q. for the game that shows up all the time.  He hasn’t put up big numbers for his career, although he has a couple of noteworthy ones.  Although he was a solid player for Artesia High School, becoming the first player ever to score 1,000 points and hand out 500 assists at the school, he was a late pickup for USC and was going to walk on there.

Glasser got largely mid-major looks, opting to walk on at USC with the idea that he would get a scholarship.  But when Kevin Kruger transferred to UNLV to play his final season of eligibility with his father, the Sun Devils acted quickly and offered Glasser the scholarship that had just opened, while USC had a scholarship open that they did not offer him.  Sendek, then the new head coach at the school, had already hired Glasser’s high school coach, Scott Pera, as director of basketball operations.

Now a senior, Glasser is well on his way to becoming the school’s all-time leader in career assists and has been Sendek’s quarterback from the outset.  The six he handed out in Friday’s win over LSU give him 420 for his career, 34 behind Bobby Thompson for the all-time record.  In his 104 games, he has had 18 turnover-free outings.  And now more than ever, they need him, and he’s delivering.

“He’s very important.  He’s experienced a lot,” said senior forward Eric Boateng.  “He is one of our big leaders on this team because of what he’s been through.  He really carried us today and really gave us that spark.”

Glasser had a career-high 24 points on Friday and seemed to come up with big shots on several occasions.  Every other possession, it seemed like he was right in the middle of things.  In the first half, when it looked like LSU was in control, he kept them afloat by hitting all three of his shots en route to 10 points.  He hit a three-pointer to cut an 11-point lead back into single digits, then keyed a late 7-0 run with a couple of baskets.

But the best was yet to come.  With the Sun Devils trailing 38-31, Glasser keyed a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good, scoring twice and assisting on another.  Then a 19-2 run that broke the game open was aided by seven of his points and two more assists.

Glasser’s primary help came from Boateng, who Sendek said had a good off-season.  Boateng’s 17 points on 7-9 shooting along with eight rebounds continue a solid start that sees him averaging 11.2 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.  Friday’s game came after a tough outing against his former team on Wednesday, as he had just four points and nine turnovers in 31 minutes in the loss to Duke.

“He put us on his back in the post and rebounded and finished with 17 and 8, three assists,” said Sendek.

As important as the play of Glasser and Boateng was, it was the team defense that made the big difference.  While LSU was without starting point guard Bo Spencer, his presence alone likely wouldn’t have changed everything and Chris Bass did a credible job in his place.  In the second half, the Tigers made just five field goals and shot 20 percent from the field, with one of those field goals coming in the closing seconds.

Sun Devil opponents came into the game shooting 35.5 percent from the field, and LSU’s 37.8 percent showing won’t move that up much.  With less proven scoring punch on the roster, that’s a big key to this team.

“A lot of people doubted us because we lost James and Jeff,” said Glasser.  “But I still think we have a lot of talent on the team and we’re a very competitive team.  Our thing is we play defense.  As long as we play defense like we did in the second half of this game and the first half of the Duke game, we’re going to be able to compete with anybody.”

Boateng has stepped up, as have other holdovers like Jamelle McMillan and Rihards Kuksiks.  Freshman Trent Lockett has made an impact right away as well.  But along with the defense, the big constant that holds the Sun Devils together is the point guard, the unlikely key to a team that feels like they can win the Pac-10 this year.  Derek Glasser has run the show since Herb Sendek arrived in Tempe, and he’s ensuring that this team isn’t missing a beat.

UCLA: Needy Bruins Get Senior Leader Back

Senior Nikola Dragovic was reinstated by UCLA Wednesday following a two-game suspension for his arrest in an assault case. Since, he’s played in three games, all Bruin losses, averaging 8.6 points per game.

According to an Associated Press report, Dragovic, who will plead not guilty at his Dec. 21 arraignment, was arrested on a warrant that alleges the forward knocked a man into a glass case during a concert in Hollywood. However, Dragovic’s lawyer, Jon Artz, said the other man was the aggressor. Artz said the man was drunk and armed with a knife with which he threatened to kill Dragovic as the Bruin tried to leave the theater.

Head coach Ben Howland said Dragovic, UCLA’s only returning starter, won’t immediately regain his spot in the Bruins’ starting lineup

Texas: Freak Layup Line Injury Ends Ward’s Season

Texas starting guard Varez Ward was expected to have surgery this week to repair a ruptured quadriceps that will cause him to miss the rest of the season, according to an ESPN.com report.

Ward, who averaged 6.7 points and 3.0 rebounds in three games this season, suffered the injury during pregame warm-ups of a Nov. 24 win over Pittsburgh. He fell to the floor and had to be removed from the arena in a wheelchair.

Texas coach Rick Barnes is certain Ward “will be back.”

Crimson Bounce Back Nicely

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – As young as Harvard was last year, with a ballyhooed class of freshmen, the Crimson have an even younger unit this season.  There are three seniors and no juniors on the roster, and a number of players in the rotation are freshmen.  One sophomore, Andrew Van Nest, may as well be a freshman after missing all of last season with an injury.

In light of that, how the Crimson would respond to not playing well en route to a loss.  The answer: just fine, as they beat New Hampshire 78-60 on Wednesday in a game that wasn’t even that close.

“I thought it was a really good bounce-back game for us,” said head coach Tommy Amaker.

The Crimson have started the season well, improving to 4-1 with the win.  Only one win has not been by a double-digit margin, a game that they won in triple overtime over William & Mary on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Jeremy Lin.  But just two days before Wednesday, the Crimson dropped their first game of the year at Army.  They didn’t play well offensively and came up just short.

That meant that Wednesday’s game would be a test, especially with the trap of being right before the Thanksgiving holiday.  But the Crimson broke the game open around the midway point of the first half and poured it on in the early minutes of the second, leading by as many as 32.

“We were focusing on just coming out,” said freshman guard Christian Webster, who scored 15 points in his first career start.  “In the Army game, we didn’t play our game.”

The Crimson got the job done defensively, holding the Wildcats to 19 percent shooting in the first half and not letting them get second shots.  They out-rebounded them 22-10 in the opening stanza and held a 39-25 edge at the end of the game.  For the game, they scored 19 points off 13 turnovers.  That shows how they translated the defense into offense, as they shot just under 61 percent from the field in the first half.

“Our defense leads to our offense, and I think we can’t allow a team to shoot 50 to 60 percent and then think we’re going to shoot 50 percent,” said Amaker.  “I think there’s a reason we were able to shoot 60 percent, because we got a lot of high-percentage shots because our defense was tremendous.”

New Hampshire struggled on offense but did get to the line often in the half, which means the Crimson could have been even better on defense.  The Wildcats were 14-22 from the line, so they didn’t take full advantage.

Two key veterans on this young team, Lin and Oliver McNally, came up big for the Crimson.  They lean on Lin as the senior leader and a player who impacts games in a number of ways, and he scored a game-high 18 points and grabbed a team-high seven boards on Wednesday.  McNally had nine assists with no turnovers, orchestrating the offense nicely.  As both play in the backcourt and have the ball in their hands often, their significance to this team is magnified.

McNally is a competitor that Amaker can hang his hat on.  Lin has a similar competitive nature and sometimes can put a lot of pressure on himself, especially when the team needs a spark.  As such, how he responded following a bad game at Army -he was 0-6 from the field and had eight turnovers – was going to be a key for the team.

“We ask him to do everything, and he has to be a rock,” Amaker said of Lin.  “When things aren’t going well, he can’t look like he’s coming unglued.  None of our older guys can.  We can’t expect the young kids to respond if our older guys are coming unglued and showing signs of frustration.”

The young players certainly responded on Wednesday.  Besides Webster, Dee Giger had 11 points off the bench, Kyle Casey had six points, four rebounds and two assists in 11 minutes, and at times sophomore Andrew Van Nest looked better than his stat line of three points and four boards in 13 minutes would suggest.  Van Nest missed all of last season with a shoulder injury, so he may as well be a freshman on the court.  Brandyn Curry didn’t have a stat line that jumped out, but played 24 minutes.  In all, freshmen played 93 of the 200 minutes.

As was the case last year, Amaker knows that the freshmen are going to have ups and downs.  But with several likely to be counted on for key minutes, their play will impact the bottom line.

“At one point, I looked out there and I think we had four freshmen and Van Nest, so it’s like a five-freshman crew,” Amaker reflected.  “I like what these kids have been able to do thus far.  I’m very pleased with their progression, and I also know it’s a roller coaster with freshmen.”

Only Webster started on Wednesday among the freshmen, so the Crimson are mainly using the younger players in reserve roles.  Webster started because Max Kenyi, normally a starter on the wing, tore his MCL against Army.  With Kenyi likely out for a while, Webster figures to get more starts, but he’ll be the only freshman in the starting lineup.

The young Crimson responded well following their first loss of the season.  If they continue to respond to losses this way, they should be in good shape for much of the season.

Early On, Areas of Concern Emerge For Northeastern

BOSTON – The season is just three games old, but already a couple of clear areas of concern have shown up for Northeastern.  Foul trouble in the frontcourt has hampered the Huskies in their two losses, and on Wednesday they did not execute well down the stretch en route to an overtime loss at cross-town rival Boston University.  At the same time, those concerns can easily be a little overstated right now in light of how young the season is.

The first concern is foul trouble up front.  Starters Manny Adako and Nkem Ojoughboh were both in foul trouble for much of the season-opening loss at Siena, and both fouled out at Boston University.  Adako played just 20 minutes against the Terriers, and thus far his numbers aren’t what one would have expected with the way he progressed in his first three seasons.  But it wasn’t just about either of the two not playing much as individuals that had the biggest effect.

“Our frontcourt was in foul trouble pretty much the whole night, so we were forced to go with an unconventional lineup for us, and that lineup kind of gave us a lift,” said head coach Bill Coen, referring to a stretch where the Huskies came alive in the second half and took the lead back from the Terriers.  “We played four guards and a post player and pressed a little bit and trapped a little bit, and I thought that picked our energy up and created some easy baskets for us offensively.  But it really took us out of how we normally play, and I think at the end our execution wasn’t what it should have been because of the different lineup that was out there.”

Indicative of the issue is that freshman guard Jonathan Lee saw his first action of the season, playing 10 ineffective minutes.  Besides Adako and Ojoughboh (who played 35 minutes), Vinny Lima played just seven minutes and Mathiang Muo, who stands 6’6″ despite being more of a post player, saw 13 minutes of action.  Everyone else who played was a guard or wing.

The Huskies forced 20 turnovers and got many stops at the defensive end after the Terriers ran out to a 40-29 lead early in the second half.  At one point, the Terriers went more than 10 minutes without a field goal and had just one over about 14 minutes.  As effective as the defense was, it’s not who this team is, and it showed later in the game.

“We just have to be better about that,” said Coen on the foul trouble.  “Some of the fouls, you’re going to get if you’re playing aggressively, and some of the fouls are giveaway fouls, and it’s those fouls that kind of get you sitting down early.  There’s a foul or two every game that we don’t need to commit, and we have to be better about that, because it is limiting the play of our frontcourt and it’s making a difference in how we finish games.”

That brings us to the second area of concern: executing down the stretch.  The Huskies did not do that well against Boston University, as they couldn’t hang on in regulation and had chances in overtime they weren’t able to take advantage of.  In the final three minutes of regulation, the Huskies didn’t score, missing three shots and turning the ball over on the other possession.  In the extra session, they gave up the lead with less than a minute to go and proceeded to turn the ball over and miss three shots, not scoring a point the rest of the way.  After the turnover, the Terriers turned it over again and gave the ball away after a missed shot, but the Huskies still could not capitalize.

The troublesome part isn’t just the stat line.  Down 67-64 in the final seconds, the Huskies got the ball into the frontcourt quickly, leaving plenty of time to get a reasonably good shot under the circumstances.  Baptiste Bataille tried to lean in on a defender as he launched an off-balance three-pointer that missed badly, with no chance to get a foul as the defender simply wasn’t that close to him.

“Overall, I thought the difference in the game was that BU made plays when they needed to,” Coen said.

While the foul trouble and execution down the stretch are not good issues to have, especially for a team with a core of veterans, it’s still early in the season.  The Huskies also don’t have any “gimme” games on the non-conference schedule, so they have been and will be tested throughout the next month or so.

It is also worth noting that they went into a three-game losing streak around this time last year during which they didn’t play well at all and, like now, appeared to have some serious concerns.  Before long, they turned it around and then ran out to a great start in CAA play.  Right now, Husky fans have to hope history repeats itself in that respect.

NJIT edges Wagner for second win

NEWARK, N.J. – About a half hour after the Wagner-NJIT game the nets were up and the men’s volleyball team was stretching to begin practice. The score, 56-51, was still on the scoreboard. You can’t blame the scoreboard operator at Fleisher Center for keeping the final tally on display. It favored the home school and marked the second win of the young season for NJIT.
The game was closely contested throughout. Wagner entered 0-2 but had a strong inside presence in 6-7 Michael Orock, who finished with a game-high 22 points and 14 rebounds. The perimeter was another story. “That was a defensive priority for us,” NJIT coach Jim Engles said. “We were willing to give up something inside but didn’t want to give up the perimeter.” Wagner shot 3 of 22 (14 percent) from beyond the arc. For the game the Seahawks barely cracked 30 percent going 19 of 62 from the floor.
The Highlanders were supported by the play of Isaiah Wilkerson with a team-high 17 points and 13 boards and Chris Flores, who added a dozen points. In the stretch NJIT’s Jheryl Wilson, who finished with eight points, hit a big trey to give NJIT a seven-point lead, a lead they took into the final minute and wouldn’t relinquish.
“ Last year we had several games like this late in the year,” Engles said. “We just didn’t know how to win and finish it off. Now we have two wins. The mindset has changed. We can walk on the floor in a number of our games knowing we can give a good 40-minute effort and have a chance to win.”
Deane said his Wagner club, “was outhustled and they were just tougher than us.” He was pleased with Orock’s work in the paint but not upset with the outside shooting per se. “We didn’t shoot a good percentage but we had looks,” Dean said. “Chris (Martin) had look and so did some of our other players.” Martin, a 6-foot freshman, had 13 points but shot 2 of 10 from three.
“We are young and will get better offensively,” Deans said. “Even our seniors are young in terms of playing experience and knowing their roles.”
• NJIT committed 17 turnovers. That figure wasn’t a concern for Engles because the Highlanders forced 17 Wagner turnovers. NJIT entered the game averaging 12 turnovers per outing, a marked improvement over last year. “This year we have better ball handlers,” Engles said. “We have guys who can handle and dribble the ball. We are a lot better in taking care of the ball.”
• The upgrade in talent at NJIT is evident in Wilkerson. Last year the 6-4 sophomore had to play the point by default. There was no one else. This season Wilkerson is more comfortable at a more natural four spot. “If he was 6-10 he could be a lottery pick,” Engles said. “He works incredibly hard. He is a 6-4 version of the (DuJuan) Blair kid who played for Pitt.”
• Among those in attendance was former FDU coach Tom Green. He’s spending the season visiting different practices and watching games. One of his favorite coaches is Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, whose practices he’s visited 6 times. Green also plans to get back in coaching. “Outside of teaching school a year,” Green said, “I have coached 37 years and want to get back.” Here’s hoping it is soon. And with a school that appreciates his fine work.

Texas: Ward Needs Gurney to Leave Court After Knee Injury

Texas sophomore guard Varez Ward injured his knee during warmups before the Longhorns’ 78-62 win against Pittsburgh in the CBE Classic, according to an Associated Press report. He collapsed while waiting his turn in a layup line, and he could not leave the court on his own, needing a gurney to take him to the locker room.

Team doctors did not provide immediate information about the extent of the injury. Ward can play either point or shooting guard for the Longhorns, averaging 6.7 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 23.0 minutes per game.

Ohio State: Offutt Plans to Transfer

Ohio State backup guard Walter Offutt has decided to leave the team to transfer, according to Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News.

Offutt averages 3.7 points and 1.0 rebounds in 7.3 minutes per game. Offutt wanted more playing time, but he has not received it this season. With Ohio State bringing in a highly regarded recruiting class next season, Offutt figured that he will not likely see significant minutes as a Buckeye.

North Carolina: Williams Has Shoulder Surgery After Falling in October

North Carolina coach Roy Williams will wear a sling for about a month after having shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum, according to an Associated Press report.

Williams fell a charity golf event in October and injured his shoulder. The Tar Heels did not practice yesterday. The team’s next game is Nov. 29 against Nevada.

Providence Wins, Gets Better

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Non-conference play is only about wins and losses to a point.  While the final score from Providence’s blowout of Vermont will jump out at most, there was much more to take from the game for the Friars.

A final score of 106-64 is usually indicative of the winning team playing very well and the losing team playing very poorly.  That would certainly be an apt description of Tuesday night’s game, but there’s something bigger to take out of it.  Clearly, Providence is getting better in the young season, and the result, as well as how it came to be, bears it out.

The Friars’ defense held the Catamounts below 37 percent shooting and forced 23 turnovers.  They cashed in those turnovers for 33 points as Vermont simply couldn’t run with them.  They had a 52-32 edge on the glass, owing mainly to 23 offensive rebounds.  They never allowed the Catamounts to get untracked.  While Marqus Blakely had 24 points on 9-15 shooting for Vermont, those numbers are deceptive because he was never really a factor in this game.

Most of all, the Friars bounced back from a tough loss in Alabama a few nights earlier with a stellar effort.  It was exactly what the doctor ordered.

“You don’t know how a team is going to respond, especially a team that’s as young as this one,” said head coach Keno Davis.  “So for us to come out and have that kind of intensity, running the court, rebounding the ball, talking on defense, that’s something that is a really good sign for us.  As long as we do that, you’re going to see the individual players, the young players on this team improve.”

Davis thinks they can still improve a good deal defensively, especially after seeing what happened last year.  He felt they started out well, but later simply weren’t good enough defensively against some of the better teams in the Big East.

While they certainly showed up on offense on Tuesday, going 15-27 from long range, the numbers aren’t what count there.  Indeed, what really matters is that many of those shots came in the flow of the offense and with better ball movement.  The Friars have had a tendency to settle for jump shots, including from long range, so it would seem to be no accident that the shots started dropping now.

“I think we’re getting a better vibe, getting chemistry together,” said freshman guard Duke Mondy.  “We pushed each other and ran the break well.”

There were no better examples of the offense than Marshon Brooks and Jamine Peterson.  Brooks had 24 points in 22 minutes, going 8-10 from the field and 4-5 from long range.  Peterson suddenly found the touch from deep, making all three from there en route to 20 points in 16 minutes.  Brooks has once again started off a season well, but he’s looking better than he was during his early season run last year and seems to be in a better place to sustain it.

Providence is 4-1 now, but they’ve done it in such a way that they look better every time out.  Players are slowly establishing identities and they are clearly playing with each other better all the time.  They’re taking better shots and looking more like a team that can thrive with their shooting in addition to using the press well.  Perhaps most of all, they’ve passed the first test of true adversity they have had to face, which can never be underestimated given how much adversity teams face during a season.  It all adds up to why the coach likes what he sees to this point.

“As you look at our team, we’re not really a finished product, but you see glimpses of, when everything comes together, how dangerous we can be,” Davis said.

Orange Delight: Syracuse Runs to Coaches vs. Cancer Title

NEW YORK – Entering the Coaches vs. Cancer final respective coaches Roy Williams of North Carolina and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim were in agreement it would a game of spurts. It turned out to be that way and Syracuse had a definitive run that allowed the Orange to post an 87-71 victory in the championship.

Trailing 39-37 at the break Syracuse went on a transition-fueled 22-3 run over the initial 8 minutes of the second half to regain the lead and pull away. “They were hitting their shots we were not,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. “We were committing turnovers and began to get frustrated.” During the course of those frenzied 8 minutes, North Carolina actually had more air balls (3) than made field goals (1).

North Carolina made a run to make it a three-possession game midway through the final half. Syracuse responded and pulled away. The Tar Heels, who enjoy a fast pace, struggled in transition against the Orange. UNC was guilty of 19 turnovers on the evening. The Orange guard combination of Andy Rautins (11 points, 7 assists, 7 steals ), Scoop Jardine (6 points and 4 assists) and Brandon Triche (11 points) ran the break, hit the open shots and distributed the ball. Beneficiaries of those passes included Wes Johnson (a game-high 25 points) and Arinze Onauku (15 points), the latter of who established a strong inside game.

The play in the paint was a Syracuse strong point both nights. As Boeheim pointed out after the semifinal win, last year’s team was guard-oriented. This year, there are some good big men, so some of the emphasis has changed.

North Carolina knows. The Tar Heels won the rebounding battle 42-37. Ed Davis led UNC with 16 points and 10 boards. But Deon Thompson , who scored 11 for UNC, shot 3 of 8 from the floor and was affected on a number of occasions by Syracuse’s size. In the end result North Carolina had no answer for Johnson who added a team high 8 rebounds.

“We couldn’t guard Johnson,” Williams said. “He’s quick , can shoot the threes and is tough inside. We couldn’t handle him.”

That was a major reason the Tar Heels went down to defeat.

• In the consolation, Ohio State edged California 76-60. Evan Turner of OSU and Cal’s fine guard Jerome Randle shared scoring honors with 26 points. Turner had the dubious triple double against UNC (23 points, 11 boards and 10 turnovers). Following that contest he was emphatic on cutting down on the number. Turner had four turnovers against California, which went a long way toward Thad Matta’s team exiting New York with a split.
• California was minus wing Theo Robertson, who was injured and listed day-to-day but never played. The 6-6 Robertson is an 18 PPG scorer and a three-point threat.  As a result Mike Montgomery’s club saw zones both days. Syracuse plays the 2-3 as its signature defense. Operating on less than 24 hours rest and with Robertson out, Ohio State opted to zone.With Robertson out the Golden bears may see a lot more zone. They received solid performances from Randle both nights (he had 25 against Syracuse). In the end, the big men need work and need to establish themselves inside. Ohio state blocked 11 shots and Syracuse (9) as the Golden Bears struggled with both opponents size.
• Given the traditions of the schools UNC and Syracuse had not met since the 1987 East Regional Finals at Meadowlands Arena. Syracuse with a freshman Derrick Coleman upset the Tar Heels to punch their Final Four ticket. A common thread from that game and Friday was a Triche. Brandon Triche’s uncle Howard Triche played on that Syracuse team in ’87.
  Interestingly, California and Syracuse had what their first-ever basketball meeting in the semis.
• Attendance exceeded 15,000 both nights. The national draw especially of North Carolina and Syracuse was a huge factor. Vocal, orange-clad Syracuse following made it look like a Big East Tournament game in March.

All-Tournament Team:
Andy Rautins (SU)
Evan Turner(OSU)
Jerome Randle(Cal)
Marcus Ginyard(UNC)
Wes Johnson (SU) MVP

Quotable

• “He doesn’t force. He takes good shots, rebounds and is a good defensive player. He lets the game come to him.” – Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim on Wesley Johnson, the Orange forward who earned MVP honors.
• Boeheim on his guards: “Andy (Rautins), Brandon (Triche), Scoop (Jardine)… a lot of people were worried about our guards coming into the season. They are all very good and will only get better.”

On The Baseline

With football season in full force, North Carolina was the only school that sent cheerleaders. For the UNC group it was an easy stop en route to Boston College where they cheered their Tar Heels (to victory) on Saturday.

National Prep Showcase – Final Notes

The 2009 National Prep Showcase has come and gone, with 20 games in three days.  The games got better as the weekend went along, going from four of six games on Friday being blowouts to a Sunday that saw the only overtime game of the weekend as well as two games decided by buzzer-beaters.

Now we take one last look back at the event with some quick hitters.

• Lorenzo Brown (6’5″ Sr. PG-SG, Roswell (GA)) probably improved his stock as much as anyone here. The feeling among many in the gym is that North Carolina State has an excellent addition coming their way next season as he’s athletic, very skilled to play both guard positions and his body isn’t quite there yet.

• The Kiski School may have been blown out twice, but they caught attention with the size they have. None are very polished right now, although Stefan Jankovic (6’9″ So. SF-PF, Mississauga (Ont.)) is the most advanced of the three as he has some ball skills that can still get better and has a ways to go physically. But the players who grabbed the most attention were two young brothers, Tanveer Bhullar (7’2″ Fr. C, Toronto (Ont.)) and Sim Bhullar (7’4″ So. C, Toronto (Ont.)). The younger brother, Tanveer, is only 14 and has good hands, although he’s not the most mobile player inside. Sim has a wide body and less upside as he has a more developed lower body and looked very slow getting up and down the floor.

• Tilton played Sunday’s game without low post anchor Ryan Canty (6’9″ Jr. PF-C, Danvers (MA)), who was sick.

• Blair Academy’s main post player, Lionel Gomis (6’9″ Jr. PF, Dakar (Senegal)) didn’t have his best day offensively but held his own on the glass. Although he had just four points, Gomis grabbed 11 rebounds and played well. His offense still needs some work as he’s quite a bit raw, but he’s showing a good motor and contributing at the defensive end as the team’s inside anchor.

• In his first game with his new school, Ricardo Ledo (6’5″ So. SG-SF, Providence (RI)) picked up right where he left off and tried to carry St. Andrew’s to victory against Blair Academy. Ledo scored 27 points and grabbed six rebounds in the losing effort.

• St. Thomas More has a couple of nice glue guy-types in Jacob Jenkins (6’4″ Sr. SG-SF, Louisville (KY)) and Matt Conway (6’7″ SF, Sarasota (FL)). Jenkins showed three-point range on his jumper, while Conway knocked down several mid-range shots and has a mature body.

• Although St. Thomas More is often loaded with post-graduates and most of the rest are seniors, this year’s team has a couple of quality underclassmen. Andre Drummond (6’10″ So. PF, Middletown (CT)) is already well-known, but Trashon Burrell (6’6″ Jr. SF, Albany (NY)) has been under the radar to this point. That should change, as the lanky athlete looked good in their two games with transition baskets and a few jumpers, and his body still has some filling out to do.

• Winchendon has a great deal of balance and depth. In their two games, no player scored more than 15 points in one game, and the two players who posted that on Saturday – Khem Birch (6’9″ So. PF, Pierrefonds (Que.)) and Devon Saddler (6’2″ Sr. SG, Aberdeen (MD)) – each had a team-high 25 for the two games.

• Syracuse-bound C.J. Fair (6’7″ Sr. SF, Baltimore (MD)) isn’t known for his length, but it gave Worcester Academy a lot of trouble when Brewster pressed them. Fair played two excellent games, making some clutch baskets in each. He had 15 points and 10 rebounds against Worcester, then 19 points on 8-10 shooting against NIA on Sunday.

• Fair’s teammate, Naadir Tharpe (6’0″ Jr. PG, Worcester (MA)), had a nice game on Sunday and in the two games showed that he continues to grow overall. He got in the lane often and continued to show more scoring ability, making him tougher to guard. He had 16 points on 6-9 shooting and five assists in the losing effort against NIA.

• Although Massanutten Military Academy lost two games by double-digit margins, Chance Rucker (6’3″ Sr. SG, Kannapolis (NC)) impressed with his touch from three-point range and athleticism, the latter of which he showed a few times including one drive and left-handed finish.

• Champlain St. Lambert’s most impressive players were in the frontcourt, with athletic rebounding forward Ibrahim Appiah (6’6″ Sr. SF-PF, Montreal (Que.)) and well-built wing Yann Charles (6’5″ Sr. SF, Longueil (Que.)). Charles hit his share of three-point shots and also had a clutch baseline drive for a field goal in traffic against South Kent. A player to keep an eye on is freshman Kewyn Blain (6’1″ Fr. SG, St. Leonard (Que.)), a baby-faced guard who was more aggressive in Sunday’s game and looks like he may have some potential down the road.