Big Ten Tournament: Opening night recap

NEW YORK – A week earlier than the normal scheduled time, the Big Ten Tournament opened on Wednesday. The venue, the ‘World’s Most Famous Arena’, Madison Square Garden, plays host to the event. Without getting into the positives and negatives (and there are more than a few per the critics), here is a rundown of what transpired on the court. For now, the board room is on the back burner.

First round scores:
Iowa 96, Illinois 87
Rutgers 65, Minnesota 54

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The Morning Dish – Monday, February 26, 2018

Nebraska is going to be an interesting case for the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, depending on what they do in New York later this week. Their fate might tell you how the Big Ten is viewed when it’s all said and done.

The Cornhuskers finished a 13-5 Big Ten run with a 76-64 win over Penn State on Sunday. They finished Big Ten play without a home loss, something no other team in the conference did. Will that, along with something in New York, be enough to get into the NCAA Tournament?

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The Morning Dish – Sunday, December 24, 2017

New Mexico State has been a quality program for a long time. But this year is different.

It seemed like that when the Aggies swept their annual early-season home-and-homes with longtime rivals New Mexico and Texas-El Paso. It looked like a pretty good bet when they won what was essentially a road game against Illinois last weekend. And it can be said for certain now after NMSU has announced its arrival on the scene with a pair of exciting wins on national television in the Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii, the latest a 63-54 victory over previously undefeated and sixth-ranked Miami (Fla.) Saturday night. … Continue Reading

The Morning Dish – Monday, November 20, 2017

The biggest of the early season tournaments are coming up, but there is something to take from the ones that took place this weekend. In each case, the winner is a team that we’re trying to gain a sense of for one reason or another, and this could be just the early boost they need. Sometimes, that’s what a tournament can do for a team – with a big early win or two, the team gets a boost that sends them on their way.

So it may be for Iowa State, Temple and Texas Tech, all of who won tournaments with Sunday victories.

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The Morning Dish – Saturday, November 18, 2017

At times, it can be easy to forget that among New England Division I schools, Providence has about as much tradition on the hardwood as any of them. UConn’s emergence as a national power and Boston College’s move to the ACC, along with an unprecedented string of success before Al Skinner was fired, certainly help, along with the Friars being a good, not great, program for a lot of the past couple of decades.

Ed Cooley is changing all of that. And it’s only fitting since he’s a hometown hero.

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2016-17 Big Ten Post-Mortem

There were major questions before the 2016-17 college basketball season about Purdue forward Caleb Swanigan, as well as just how much help he and his stellar frontcourt teammates would get from their backcourt.

Rest assured, there are questions no more.

Swanigan made as big of a leap as any player in the country on his way to consensus first team All-American honors and finishing just shy of national player of the year honors. Purdue’s backcourt also caught up to its frontcourt, playing far more than a supporting role, and the result was the Boilermakers’ first Big Ten regular season title since 2010, as well as its first NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearance since that year as well. … Continue Reading

College Basketball Tonight – March 19, 2017

Welcome to College Basketball Tonight! We are down to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament, and if the first round didn’t have what you want, the second round surely did. The results of the two rounds could not be more different.

First, we look at Sunday’s action, where two No. 2 seeds went down a day after the first No. 1 seed went down. Along the way, we look at how Villanova’s loss followed from seeding issues the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee had. The Wildcats lost to a good Wisconsin team that underachieved a bit in the regular season in part from injuries, but there are plenty of arguments to be had that they were seeded lower than they should have been.

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The Morning Dish – Sunday, March 12, 2017

This year’s NCAA Tournament is poised to have a number of great stories, including four schools making their first appearances ever (and a fifth in Northwestern almost certain to).

None will be better, though, than New Orleans. The Southland Conference regular season champion Privateers clinched their spot in the field with a 68-65 overtime victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and you can bet you’ll be hearing about UNO’s journey to get there for the next week, until it faces almost certainly a 1 or 2 seed (or maybe even a 16 seed) in its first game. … Continue Reading

The Morning Dish – Wednesday, February 8, 2017

A few days after Eastern Washington and Portland State played a three-overtime game that ended with two players scoring 45 points each and EWU finally winning 130-124, Alabama and South Carolina did their best to wrestle the mantle away for wildest game of the season.

On Tuesday, the Crimson Tide and Gamecocks played on, and on, and on. It took four overtimes, but Alabama finally earned a very nice road win, 90-86 over South Carolina. Again: in four overtimes.

In true SEC hoops fashion, the numbers for this one were a mix of amazing and bizarre. The Gamecocks’ Sindarius Thornwell scored 44 points and grabbed 21 rebounds, yet shot just 9-for-25 from the field. Thornwell didn’t need to convert a lot from the field to score 44 points, though, when he was hitting 25 of 33 from the free throw line, setting a new SEC record for foul shots made in a conference game-breaking a record formerly held by none other than Pistol Pete Maravich. … Continue Reading

The Morning Dish – Sunday, December 11, 2016

On the second Saturday in December, the stars were out across the country in college basketball.

A day that was anticipated for its matchups ended up being a showcase for some herculean individual efforts. Several players delivered huge, memorable performances that reminded us once again that the sport will never lack for talent to step up, no matter how many players leave early for the pros.
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