Duke has the firepower of an elite team.
Duke has the talent of an elite team.
Duke has the most successful coach in Division I history.
But Duke doesn’t have a chance of going much further than the first couple rounds of the NCAA Tournament unless the Blue Devils figure out how to play better defense. In fact, I’m officially putting Duke on upset alert starting with the first game they play in the tournament. … Continue Reading
Florida State would have the look and feel of an elite team if not for one gigantic red flag: turnovers.
The Seminoles have one of the worst turnover percentages in the country, based on Ken Pomeroy’s stats. Florida State gives the ball away nearly once every four possessions. That’s brutal for an offense that shoots fairly well but has a tendency to go into slumps.
The result of such inconsistency is an occasional five- or six-minute scoring drought. In the NCAA Tournament, that could spell disaster against a team that catches fire, especially from long range. … Continue Reading
It’s February — one of the most underrated sports months of the year.
With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, the biggest event in U.S. sports will command the attention of tens of millions of viewers, generating tens of millions of dollars for everyone associated with the event.
A few weeks later, the NBA All-Star game will show the NFL how exhibition weekends should be run. In my opinion, the NBA All-Star weekend festivities are the best of any pro sport, with baseball coming in a close second. Did anyone actually watch the Pro Bowl last weekend?
We don’t have any winter Olympics this year, but that’s a February event, too.
And then we have college hoops. To casual fans, March is the month of joy. But February is the month that sets the table for March. Dozens of teams are jockeying for position right now, fighting for a better seed and location or merely a bid to the Big Dance.
The schedule-makers know what they’re doing, too. Next Wednesday — just days after the Super Bowl — the top rivalry in college hoops will go down for the first of two meetings in a month when Duke visits North Carolina. That’s a nice way for the NCAA to tell America: “Guess what? Football is over. It’s time to set your sights on the hardwood.”
And of course, as we work through the thick of conference play, we’ll have the rush of bracket projections to feed the hoops addiction. Hoopville will join the fray as usual, starting this Friday. We choose to wait until February because it just feels right. By now, we have a large enough sample size to judge teams’ résumés and make projections that have a good shot of standing up during the final few weeks before Selection Sunday.
Get ready for more technical fouls and a shorter leash on players or coaches who act out. Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog reports that John Adams, the NCAA’s national officiating coordinator, sent a notice to all officials that implored them to clamp down on bad behavior.
Clemson has indefinitely suspended junior Milton Jennings, a former McDonald’s All-American, because of academic reasons, according to the Associated Press. Jennings averages 8.9 ppg and 5.4 rpg.
Arizona will finish the season without junior Kevin Parrom, who broke his foot in a loss to Washington last weekend, according to a CBS Sports.com report. He averaged 4.9 ppg, 2.9 rpg and 1.7 apg this season.
Iona is looking to remain one of the premier programs in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, and the university extended the contract of coach Tim Cluess to help make that happen, according to a CBS Sports.com report.
Don’t mess with a player’s routine. North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes shared some of the details of his routine with Andrew Jones of Fox Sports to explain why he changed his shoes at halftime of the Tar Heels’ win against Georgia Tech. Like the rest of the team, Barnes started the game with pink shoes to help promote breast cancer awareness. But he went with his usual Kobes in the second half.
VCU coach Shaka Smart stirred some commotion in the commonwealth during a teleconference Monday, writes Myron Medcalf for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. Smart asserted that Virginia’s best schools reside in the CAA. He didn’t call out the ACC teams in Blacksburg or Charlottesville by name, but Smart felt compelled to give UVA coach Tony Bennett a call to clarify his comments.
The NCAA won’t be seeking any further action against Connecticut freshman guard Ryan Boatright regarding an investigation into his eligibility because of money and benefits that he and his mother received, according to the Associated Press. But the AP reports that the Boatrights’ lawyer isn’t finished with his actions against the NCAA, lambasting the organization for releasing private information.
The only coach to ever lead Canisius to an NCAA Tournament win died Saturday, according to the Associated Press. Joseph Curran, 89, passed away in Mystic, Conn. He led the Golden Griffins to a 76-66 record in six seasons, which included a shocking four overtime victory against No. 2 North Carolina State in the 1956 NCAA Tournament.
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Miami couldn’t seem to shake Boston College no matter what they did. They led often, but the game was played within a ten-point window even as the Hurricanes were doing a better job of defending the young Eagles as the game wore on. Suddenly, with the game tied at 49, all that changed, as the Hurricanes went on a 14-0 run and turned what was a close game into a 76-54 rout. It all went right with what head coach Jim Larranaga has preached to this team.
“I thought our guys stayed very poised,” said Larranaga, currently in his first season at the school. “Early in the season, we tended to go our own way and tried to do it on our own. Tonight, I thought we stuck with some things and were able to fight through it, and our defense got better as the game progressed. They were at 49 for a long time.”
If any team could claim to be battle-tested heading into conference play, it had to be Long Beach State.
The 49ers loaded up their nonconference slate with the likes of Kansas, North Carolina, San Diego State, Louisville and Xavier. The team struggled through many of those games, ending up with a 7-6 record heading into Big West play.
But don’t be fooled. The 49ers were more than competitive against the big boys, with single-digit losses on the road at San Diego State, Kansas and North Carolina. Plus, the 49ers beat Pittsburgh, Xavier and Auburn. None of those are particularly outstanding — the Xavier win came during the Musketeers’ tailspin following the brawl against Cincinnati. But in short, Dan Monson’s team learned how to win and how to believe in itself.
This team has taken that lesson and applied it well through the first seven games of Big West play. Long Beach State sits atop the conference standings with a 7-0 record, and only Cal Poly stayed within 10 points of the 49ers.
If Long Beach State can continue to plow through the Big West and claim an automatic to the NCAA Tournament, the 49ers should be a popular first-round upset pick. Their lack of hefty wins will prevent the team from earning a seed much higher than a No. 12 or 13 spot. But that just makes this team a sound pick to upset any No. 4 or 5 seed from a major conference on a neutral court.
The benefits of such a tough schedule might not show up in the win-loss columns immediately. But if Long Beach State goes 1-1 or 2-0 during the first weekend of March, that tournament success will be partially due to the team’s preparation early in the season.
Murray State will get back leading rebounder Ivan Aska, who grabs 6.0 rpg and scores 12.6 ppg, for the team’s game against Eastern Illinois Saturday, according to the Associated Press.
Michigan could have big Jon Horford back for the Wolverines’ game against Purdue Tuesday, coach John Beilein told Wolverine Nation’s Chantel Jennings for ESPN.com. Horford has been out with a stress fracture since early December.
Arguably the most intense and spite-filled rivalry in the ACC, Maryland and Duke will clash for the first time this season Wednesday night in College Park. And the Terrapins will likely have freshman 7-footer Alex Len, even though he twisted his ankle during the Terps’ loss at Temple last weekend, according to the Washington Post’s Liz Clarke.
Of course, that’s no disrespect to the North Carolina vs. Duke rivalry. And this year, coach Roy Williams won’t have his best defender, Dexter Strickland, who tore his ACL in the team’s win against Virginia Tech Thursday, according ESPN.com’s Robbi Pickeral.
Arkansas coach Mike Anderson is considering adding a hometown hero to the Razorbacks squad, according to the Associated Press. Former Oklahoma State guard Fred Gulley has enrolled at Arkansas and plans to play for Anderson as a walk-on or scholarship player. He was a star high school basketball player in Arkansas before leaving the state to play for the Cowboys.
Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan railed against the rule that allows graduated players to transfer and play immediately during a news conference Monday, writes Benjamin Worgull for Badger Nation.com.
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Wake Forest’s 71-56 win at Boston College on Saturday won’t make national headlines at all. It was a win over a team that most figure will battle to stay out of the ACC cellar. But the Demon Deacons are fresh off a bad year and in the midst of one with a lot of ups and downs, so they’re not about to downplay what this win means for them.
“This is another big step for us in our journey to be the type of team we all want to be,” said head coach Jeff Bzdelik.
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Don’t look now, but there’s a big surprise near the top of the ACC standings. With only Duke sporting an undefeated record, one team in the logjam at 2-1 is the very young Boston College Eagles, who beat Virginia Tech 61-59 on Saturday to claim both home games that had a quick turnaround.
Before the season, and even recently before conference play started, the question was being asked: will BC win an ACC game this year? The easy answer was “yes”, especially since the ACC is not a great conference this year. After Duke, North Carolina and Virginia, there’s a noticeable drop-off. And as the Eagles progress over the course of the season, chances are they might knock someone off at home. It’s already happened, and with two straight wins they have likely surprised just about everyone except for the people in their locker room.
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Over a week earlier, Seth Greenberg felt great about his team. Virginia Tech’s 0-3 start in the ACC hasn’t changed that, but it certainly hasn’t put the Hokies in a good position as they head into a stretch where the schedule doesn’t get any easier. That’s where the Hokies stand after a 61-59 loss at Boston College on Saturday, and it leaves them needing to do some things better surrounding their offense.
It didn’t help that the Hokies were without their top player, point guard Erick Green, who missed the game with a sprained LCL in his left knee. The Hokies had a pretty good idea that he might not be able to go, although he wound up being a game-time decision. That left them with Marquis Rankin as the only point guard and left players like Dorenzo Hudson and Robert Brown to have to handle the ball more than they are accustomed to. It showed, as Virginia Tech struggled mightily to score in the halfcourt offense with 17 turnovers and poor shooting for much of the second half.
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – It’s only two games into ACC play, but already Clemson may be nearing a key point in their season. A 59-57 loss at young Boston College on Thursday night makes the questions with this team a little more urgent.
Clemson hasn’t been able to put together a three-game winning streak all season thus far. They came into Chestnut Hill hoping to do that for the first time all season, and had their chances to do it. But in dropping this one, they lost a chance to have some real momentum in the midst of a home-heavy stretch. Three of the next four are at home as part of a stretch where they play five of seven in Littlejohn Coliseum, including the next game against Duke.
If North Carolina can play with the same defensive energy, efficiency and effectiveness that the Tar Heels did in shutting down Miami, there’s little doubt this team will be in New Orleans in April competing for the national championship.
Entering Tuesday night’s game, Miami figured to pose some problems for a North Carolina team that occasionally forgets to play fundamentally sound perimeter defense. With talented shooters like Malcolm Grant, Durand Scott, Shane Larkin, Rion Brown and Trey McKinney Jones, the Hurricanes had plenty of options to use. But North Carolina shut them all down. … Continue Reading
Last month, Boise State head football coach Chris Petersen talked to local reporters about the BCS. Mainly, he simply unleashed a lot of feelings that many of us have, and rightly so for a lot of reasons. Many of us understand that the BCS is hurting college sports, especially college basketball.
From the outset, the BCS was a joke as far as its place in college football is concerned. There is no national championship in the Football Bowl Subdivision; the winner of the BCS Championship Game is like the winner of the NIT Season Tip-Off or the Maui Invitational in basketball, not a national champion. (The Division I national champion will be either Sam Houston State or North Dakota State, who will play on Saturday.) The system is your basic old boy network applied to college football, as it’s designed to benefit the six conferences that were in on the whole deal all along. The Big East has been a laughingstock in football for a while now, yet it still gets its champion into a BCS bowl while more deserving teams – which often have included Petersen’s Broncos – are pushed back into less prestigious bowl games (and ones without nearly the same payout).
Conference play begins Saturday in the ACC, and it’s officially go time for much of the conference.
The magic number will be 11. If you’re a team that doesn’t reside at either end of the eight-mile stretch of Rte 15-501 that runs from Durham to Chapel Hill, you better get to 11 conference wins to feel good about receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
A couple of surprising teams, such as Virginia and North Carolina State, enter ACC play in better shape than a few others that need to really rack up wins to prove their worth after a forgettable nonconference slate. … Continue Reading
If you’re looking at nothing but overall productivity on the court per 40 minutes, a few big names don’t have the same impressive stats when compared to guys who aren’t receiving as much attention but are legit stat stuffers.
As mentioned in the latest TIQ stats for the ACC, Pac-12 and SEC, I’m taking a look at head-to-head comparisons from each conference. Here’s who’s on tap:
Quick — who’s having the better season so far: North Carolina State’s Lorenzo Brown or North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes? What about Vanderbilt’s John Jenkins or Florida’s Patric Young? Or Oregon State’s Jared Cunningham vs. Washington’s Tony Wroten?
If all you do is look up the scoring averages of each player, you’ll come up with an oversimplified — and probably wrong — answer for each comparison. That’s the limitation of using scoring averages as a measure of a player’s productivity. And that’s where the Total Impact Quotient can reveal far more relevant information by estimating the total points that a player contributes on offense and defense. You can find out more details about the TIQ system if you’re interested. … Continue Reading
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – The first game after Christmas was decidedly a mixed bag for Boston College, more so than one might expect from simply looking at the scoreboard and seeing a 21-point loss. Now the underdog in the matchup with Harvard, the Eagles came in with three straight wins before the break and weren’t expected to win the game by virtually anyone outside of their locker room.
At times, the offense looked excellent. There were crisp passes to cutters, great movement without the ball, and some great reads of the defense that led to some easy baskets. There was a nice 14-3 lead early on, before reality set in and Harvard started getting stops. Even after that, there were times, particularly when Dennis Clifford was in the game and they were able to get him the ball, where the offense was a thing of beauty.
With the new year arriving in a few days, we’re about to bite into the meat of conference schedules.
Already, about half of Division I conferences have played at least one conference game. The Summit League’s South Dakota State sits at 3-0, giving the Jackrabbits the most conference wins of any team in the country. There’s a random fact for you.
In many ways, it feels like the season starts anew when conference play begins in earnest when the calendar turns to a new year. Yes, there are plenty of fantastic nonconference games throughout the season, and some of the best rivalries involve teams from different conferences, such as this weekend’s bout featuring Louisville and Kentucky. However, no matter how intense those rivalries might be, the stakes just aren’t as high when the winner doesn’t gain ground in the win-loss column of its conference standings.
I like to view the nonconference schedule as a time for growth. Teams get two months to adjust to new arrivals — on the roster or coaching staff — while playing only a few games conference games. That gives the coaching staff a chance to settle on an effective rotation and integrate any late additions because of transfer rules or early season suspensions.
In addition to growth as a team, the nonconference slate gives teams a chance to build their résumé for the NCAA Tournament. For the vast majority of D-1 programs, the only route to an NCAA Tournament is the automatic bid awarded with a conference tournament championship. However, for a bunch of teams, November and December help set expectations for conference play. Just look at Indiana, which entered the season unranked. The Hoosiers beat up some overwhelmed competition, which wouldn’t do Indiana any good in the eyes of the selection committee members come March. Then the Hoosiers went out and beat Kentucky. That’s a massive win that will help solidify Indiana’s NCAA Tournament status, even if the Hoosiers scuffle a bit in Big Ten play, finishing with only a .500 Big Ten record.
On the other hand, teams like Vanderbilt enter conference play knowing they have some work to do. The Commodores started the season as a top 10 team, but they have dropped games to Cleveland State, Xavier, Louisville and Indiana State. A couple of those losses are surprising while a couple are missed opportunities. Right now, the Commodores’ best wins are against Oregon, Oregon State and North Carolina State. None of those teams is a lock for the NCAA Tournament. So Vanderbilt must make hay in the SEC, especially against Florida, Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi State. The Commodores get those teams six times, and Vanderbilt probably needs to win at least three — preferably one on the road — to feel secure about an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
And that just spices up already-compelling conference slugfests.
We’ll have at least two undefeated teams heading into 2012, as Baylor and Syracuse don’t play again in 2011 after winning last night. And that’s more than previously unbeaten Indiana and Louisville can say after dropping their first game of the season last night. Missouri plays Old Dominion Friday, and fellow unbeaten Murray State will also be in action Friday, against Eastern Illinois.
Connecticut might not be undefeated, but the Huskies are 1-0 without Jim Calhoun on the sidelines this season, CBS Sports.com reports. The Huskies beat South Florida last night, the first game of Calhoun’s three-game suspension, which is his punishment from a recruiting scandal in which he was cited for creating an atmosphere of compliance in Storrs.
Rhode Island is 1-11 this season, and that’s with senior guard Jamal Wilson in the lineup for 11 of those games. Life won’t be any easier for coach Jim Baron after he suspended the team’s leading scorer for breaking team rules, according to an Associated Press report. Wilson is averaging 17.5 ppg for the struggling Rams.
One of the complaints about conference expansion/realignment/destruction is the loss of rivalries that get the fans going. The Big Ten and Pac-12 are looking to avoid those situations via a strategic partnership that will allow the conferences to schedule multiple games between its members to encourage compelling match ups, which could include rivalry games, according to an ESPN.com report.
Maryland had to wait 10 games to get Ukrainian big man Alex Len on the court, writes Eamonn Brennan for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. However, he could become a critical player quickly, as evidenced by his 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting in his first game Wednesday against Albany.
In case you missed the big news of yesterday, Louisville coach Rick Pitino announced that he intends to call it a career when his contract expires in 2017, according to the Associated Press. At 59, Pitino is already looking ahead to the end of his coaching run, which includes trips to the Final Four with three different teams (Providence, Kentucky and Louisville).
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Boston College has come back from the Christmas break in a better place than they were before it. In fact, it’s better than where they were over a week before their last game, as their 83-73 win over Sacred Heart last Wednesday was their third straight.
With a young team, confidence is big, and head coach Steve Donahue has been talking about that all along. He knew the wins would be hard to come by and keeping up confidence would be a battle. There was no question the players would get better, and Donahue has constantly said that the players are doing what he has asked of them and then some. There hasn’t been a complaint about the effort and work ethic, and that’s not to be underestimated.
Good journalism isn’t easy.
That’s especially true when a juicy story comes along that’s sure to rile up the masses, generating lots of readers and charged opinions. Those stories force editors and reporters to make critical decisions about the validity of sources and effort required to seek comment from an opposing side.
In the emerging brouhaha about the transfer of Todd O’Brien from Saint Joseph’s to UAB, we have an awful lot of information spewing from the O’Brien side and almost nothing from the Hawks’ side.
If you missed the background, Sports Illustrated’s website ran a lengthy column by O’Brien, who outlined his journey through college basketball, which has landed him at UAB as a graduated senior with one remaining year of eligibility. However, before O’Brien can play for the Blazers, Saint Joseph’s must grant him a full release from his scholarship. And supposedly coach Phil Martelli refuses to do so. Without that release, O’Brien won’t play college hoops again.
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine a legitimate reason for not letting a guy play, especially for a team in a different conference and not on the Hawks’ schedule. But that’s not the point.
As the media outcry has sided with O’Brien — who is seeking legal recourse to force his way onto the court — only a handful of commentators have taken a measured approach to this story. So I tip my hat to CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel, a man with plenty of strong opinions, for leaping into the fray waiving a gigantic caution flag.
While everyone is crying foul, Doyel cried, “Wait!” He rightfully observed that Saint Joseph’s is remaining mum because they are respecting student-athletes’ privacy. The bottom line is we don’t know the Saint Joseph’s side of the story, and we might not for some time. So it’s presumptuous at best and flat-out wrong at worst to side with the supposed victim in this story.
Of course, it’s far less engaging to remain on the fence when others are going all in and calling for Martelli’s ouster. That bloodlust is unhealthy and not reflective of this country’s innocent-until-PROVEN-guilty judicial system. If mob rule dictated justice, we’d have a lot of major mistakes to apologize for whenever we learned the truth — if we ever learned the truth.
A good journalist’s duty is to present clear, accurate and precise information. Commentators who espouse opinions based on incomplete information aren’t doing anyone any good. As unsexy as it may be, we all need to follow Doyel’s lead and wait and see. Let the established rules play out in the NCAA, and if the courts get involved, let the state and local laws as interpreted by the courts decide the matter.
But there’s no need to call for Martelli’s head on a platter until there’s substantiated evidence that he acted like a callous, vindictive control freak.
Kentucky had no problems getting past Samford, 82-50, even without Terrence Jones, who missed the game to recuperate from a dislocated pinky, writes the Associated Press’ Colin Fly.
California will be without one its big men this week as sophomore Richard Solomon recovers from a left foot injury, writes Diamond Leung for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. The sophomore forward is one of the team’s best rebounders, averaging 6.9 rpg, and he’ll miss at least the team’s games against UNLV Dec. 23.
Miami will get back DeQuan Jones, who figured to play a bigger role for the Hurricanes this season — if for no other reason than he’s one of the bigger players on the teams. Jones missed the first month and a half of the season because the school suspended him for the season while the NCAA investigated his possible involvement in the recruiting scandal that has rocked the university. However, according to an Associated Press report, the Hurricanes have reversed that decision, and Jones could be back in the lineup as early as this week.
Some tech-savvy pranksters punked Oregon’s website Sunday night and Monday morning, writes the Washington Post’s Steve Yanda, and the hackers posted some disparaging comments about Virginia that were attributed to Oregon coach Dana Altman. The Ducks lost to the Cavaliers 67-54, and the hacker made up comments ranging from Mike Scott’s hair to the Ducks’ pregame meal. Oregon apologized to the Cavaliers for the malfeasance.
New Mexico State is bringing suspended guard Christian Kabongo back into the fold after the sophomore had been suspended for two games for making obscene gestures in a game against UTEP, writes ESPN.com’s Diamond Leung for the “College Basketball Nation” blog.
NCAA Division I programs couldn’t get enough support to overturn a rule that bans universities from hosting high school prep tournaments, according to an Associated Press report.
Houston boosters might have lost as much as 40 percent of their investments in the David Salinas Ponzi scheme affair, according to the Associated Press. Salinas committed suicide last year, a few weeks before the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit that detailed the deceptive investments and behavior that swindled a bunch of Division I programs and coaches.
It hasn’t been a banner season for Boston College if you look solely at the bottom line. Even after last Sunday’s 66-51 win over Stony Brook, the Eagles are 3-7 after breaking a four-game losing streak. The bottom line doesn’t reflect it, but there’s a feeling that this team is growing and it seemed evident on Sunday while the bottom line did reflect it this time around.
BC head coach Steve Donahue admits he’s been preaching to his team about winning four-minute stretches – covering the time between media timeouts in a game. Sometimes that’s what you have to do when wins are hard to come by, and it’s been known for a while that they were not likely to be plentiful for this team. Freshman forward Ryan Anderson talked about this a little more, noting that even though they’re competitors and thus don’t like losing, they are looking away from the bottom line when evaluating where they are.
Get familiar with this Virginia team now because you might be seeing this team for quite awhile come March.
At 8-1, Virginia has the looks of the No. 3 team in the ACC, behind Duke and North Carolina. Led by fifth-year senior Mike Scott, the Cavaliers have steamrolled through nearly every team on the schedule, winning by at least eight points in each win.
Granted, Michigan is the best team that the Cavaliers have played thus far, and that game was in Charlottesville. And the team has a pretty ugly loss to TCU in the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands. Despite a weak strength of schedule, ranked in the bottom 10 percent, this team is built on a sturdy foundation, with coach Tony Bennett running a slow-paced, grind-it-out strategy to wear opponents into submission.
And Scott is Bennett’s primary grinder. … Continue Reading
After losing to Drexel on Wednesday night, where Northeastern stands is clear in the CAA. They are not contenders yet, and until they knock off a team ahead of them in the standings, that’s where they will be.
The first full weekend of Ivy League play is in the books, and one thing that wasn’t too surprising happened: the league favorites asserted themselves as just that. Harvard looked like a team on a mission, and coming away with two convincing road wins is what was desired.
Some quick hitters about Boston University’s rebounding, a transfer helping Marquette, an improving Husky guard and a couple of key road wins among others as we head into another weekend.
Quinnipiac can now head home with the hope that their last game in the current road stretch does more for them than add one into the left-hand column. The Bobcats had a few tough games recently, and had another one in which they managed to pull out a 78-71 win in overtime at Bryant on Saturday.
We have a few quick hitters on a streaking America East team, another whose star had his first rough night, two inconsistent Patriot League teams and a couple of teams who have lost a player for the season but for different reasons.
Ron Hunter knew he had a culture to change at Georgia State, and he knew he was in a different place. Now he has a different issue on his hands with his team, which stands 5-2 in CAA play after a loss at Northeastern on Wednesday night.
There’s a big surprise near the top of the ACC standings. With only Duke sporting an undefeated record, one team in the logjam at 2-1 is the very young Boston College Eagles after two straight home wins.
Just over a month ago, Boston University looked ready go on a good run. But a six-game losing streak resulted instead, and the Terriers hope to regain confidence after ending it on Sunday.
Harvard improved to 13-2 on Saturday by winning the first Ivy League game of the season. While the bottom line is all positive, the Crimson also lived dangerously for a while, more so than the 16-point final margin of victory might lead one to believe.
With conference play, a bad non-conference run with one loss after another doesn’t matter on the bottom line. One example of that is UMBC, a team that won one game in non-conference play but is tied atop America East after an 82-76 win at New Hampshire on Monday night.
JUST IN TIME FOR TONIGHT’S GAMES… All the news you ever wanted to know about the Big Sky, the weekly edition. YOUR WEEKLY DAMIAN LILLARD IS A STUD LINK-FEST: A Salt Lake Tribune story on his success. USA Today also jumped in sometime in the last week to talk about …
In a game with major implications for the regular season Horizon League championship and seeding for the Horizon League Tournament, the Cleveland State Vikings dominated the Milwaukee Panthers by a score of 83-57 in a game in which the Panthers never led. The Vikings and Panthers began the day in …
One team stands alone atop the standings for now, with another a little behind them and a logjam near the middle of the pack.
The Cleveland State Vikings started 2012 off on a winning note with a 69-48 victory at home on Saturday afternoon over the visiting Loyola Ramblers. In his pregame radio comments, Vikings coach Gary Waters stated that the Ramblers’ 5-10 record heading into Saturday’s matchup was deceiving and that the Ramblers were …
Opening weekend in the Big Sky Eastern Washington Record: 7-7, 1-1 Weekend: 1-1 Major superlatives: Won by 16, lost by 8; 76.5 ppg for, 72.5 against; plus-4 scoring margin; 52-112 FG; 20-53 3pt; 29-43 FT. Summary: One night, the lead stuck. The other, it didn’t. The Eagles made an early …
The Big Sky is about to dive in to conference play, and so far, the season has unfolded pretty much as expected, with Sacramento State looking like the one surprise.
Like the rest of the country, the Horizon League teams have been enjoying the holiday season and taking it easy on the hardwood. Here’s a roundup of the action that did go down during the past week.
Cleveland State had plenty of Christmas cheer to share in the Vikings’ easy win against Sam Houston State, though they didn’t exactly give the Bearkats a festive feeling.
Butler Bulldogs (5-7): Butler began the week with a matchup against the Purdue Boilermakers at Conseco Fieldhouse. Having struggled in the early part of the season, the Bulldogs probably weren’t given much of a chance by most observers against the Boilermakers. Summing up some of the magic that has helped …
Butler Bulldogs (4-6): Butler has continued to struggle in the early stages of the 2011-12 college basketball season. However, don’t start writing Butler’s obituary just yet. Horizon League fans shouldn’t forget that Butler began last season slowly and bottomed out with a loss to Youngstown State before turning their season …
We take a quick run through the results from the past week in the Big Sky Conference, giving a little love to each team in the conference.
Missouri and Baylor are looking great, but we love the improvement of one of Lon Kruger’s guards.
Longtime Cleveland sports fans are familiar with the “Kardiac Kids,” which was the nickname bestowed on the 1980 Cleveland Browns team that won multiple games in the waning seconds of the game. Although the 2011-12 college basketball season is still somewhat young, the Cleveland State Vikings have already given that …
The Vikings keep rolling as they take out Detroit in an early battle for positioning at the top of the Horizon League.
Yes, a few Big East teams have faltered early in the season. No, that’s not a reason to panic, as it is still November.
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