Watching my Miners for the first time this year, against a Georgia Southern team that beat Houston last week. It was see-saw most of the first half with GSU taking a 2 point lead at the half, but the Miners are pulling away now behind 29 points from sophomore stud Randy Culpepper...

What were the pre-season odds for UNC winning the title? They have to be the heaviest favorites in years.

extremely entertaining finish between davidson and oklahoma here, OU only up 3 now with 45 seconds left.

Curry has 42 points, Griffin for OU with 25 points/20 boards.

NCAA Tournament - Preseason Betting Lines

9:4 apparently. That's insane.

So Arizona may have the dumbest players in the nation? Discuss...

Dola

These announcers could be the dumbest in the nation also.

Double Dola

Purdue is pretty darn good this year.

Fail

Just saw the highlights, that was... amazing? I dunno, that foul was something alright.

ESPN - Wrist injury will sideline North Carolina Tar Heels forward Tyler Zeller indefinitely

Doh. I have not been impressed with Zeller at all so far, but still, this isn't a good thing.

Patrick Mills has 27 points, 5 assists, and 6 steals in St. Mary's win over Fresno State.

Can I play a tune from the world's smallest violin for you? :D

I think your offense will improve. Memphis is just a really, really good defensive team. It is just hard to score when you have that much athleticism and length on the court. Also, UMass tried to come out running and gunning and just can't do that against Memphis. We could put Witherspoon, Anderson, Evans, Doizer, and Taggart on the floor and sit back in a zone. Niles, the big guy, has lost something like 60 lbs. Our one weakness is depth in the post. We have Doizer, Taggart, Niles and that is it. We have a couple of big men who are still waiting on academic elgibillity. I think our full court press may be better than last year, but we don't have the depth to make it 40 minutes of hell. Cal would never do that anway. We do have the better looking Cal daughter.


There never seemed to be a good flow to the game. I would like to say Memphis shot the ball poor due to the late start and the officials calling everything. The announcers did seem to talk about everything about the game. There would be subitutions made and I would have no idea who came in for who. It was frustrating.

Was this series a home and home? Memphis will be fun to watch next year.

OMG OMG OMG HANSBRO GINYARD AND NOW ZELLAR TEH SKY IT IZ FALLINGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;)

Was at the OU-Davidson game last night. What a performance by two very special players, who at what they do are the best in the country, without a doubt. Curry just has such a sweet touch and getting to the line 14 times proves that he is more than just a guy who shoots threes off screens. He had only 18 of his points on three-pointers...not even half. He can drive to the lane. Easily a Reggie Miller type guy in the NBA, moreso than a JJ Redick.

Griffin is a monster this year and he really seems to take it to a new level. He's so athletic and seems so much more in control and confident in his game at all times. He's currently averaging 23/19.3. Despite Dick Vitale not having him in his first or second team All-American list (and saying he needs another year or so), he will be a top-three pick.

heh wow, update on Zellar's status, exactly how much it changes UNC's title chances I would not think very much, but I feel bad for the kid:

ESPN - North Carolina Tar Heels' Tyler Zeller likely out for year with broken wrist

I don't think you get to go towards the 'no respect' card for Griffin here ;)

ESPN - ESPN.com All-America Teams

Everyone else but Vitale has him on the first team at ESPN, and a couple guys pick him for national player of the year. More offensive than Vitale's selections may be Fran Frischilla's:



:D

I think it is a home and 'home'. Cal was quoted along the lines of "ESPN asked us to do a game with the A-10 and I told them I wouldn't do it home and home, but with Derek coaching there I agreed."

I still think the return game may be in Boston, or at least Springfield, and obviously Gonzaga and Kentucky have backed out of their agreements the past 2 years, but barring anything unforeseen, Cal won't do that.

Haha, I wasn't trying to play no respect, more like Vitale is losing it. I mean, I could see him saying he might not be one of the top ten players in the nation just because he's a high pro prospect. But to have Mike Patrick offer up Blake when Dick is listing his top players and have him say "he needs another year or so" is on the brink of lunacy.

What do you think of Ford's system and do you think it will work at the big conference level? Mizzou's tried with Anderson from UAB (not sure exactly how the styles are different except for maybe Anderson is press based, and Ford is more up-tempo) with not so great results as of now.

Clemson is looking good so far. Maybe they will have a good season!

Meanwhile, the Lady Tigers beat the Gamecocks last night! Woo hoo!

UCLA-Michigan about to start up. Whoever wins this game doesn't have a prayer of beating Duke if they get the same officials from the SUI game

You mean the officials that came to the game in the Duke team bus?

Michigan up 4 with the ball and 15 seconds left.

Great win for Michigan.

SUI-UCLA is going to be one dull game, worse then this one.

Shipp is so bad for a 5th year senior, oh my

tsk tsk, so worried about preparing to blame the refs for future games that you forgot to wait til your team won the current one. Go Michigan!

Who did that?

Radii-

Bug can worry about the refs all he wants, and it won't affect the team. Since Coach Howland has come to Westwood, his teams have been nothing but classy, no-excuse players, which makes it even worse when they beat Stanford :(

Strangely enough, I can call out bad reffing even when it doesn't involve my team. And, of course, no one should know better than you what officials can be like with Duke.

Good game by Michigan tonight. Beilein really has a system that gives Howland teams fits--this is the third time in four games against Beilein teams that highly ranked UCLA teams have lost to them. Harris is a big time player, and there are some other guys who seem pretty decent, too. I hope they give Duke all they can handle.

As for UCLA, this team's a work in progress. The freshmen have a long way to go to get to where they can even approach replacing the depth we had last year. They'll get there, but it's going to take time. Well, except for Holliday, that kid can just flat play now.

As for the seniors and upperclassmen, really, only Collison showed up. Aboya was about what he is (so at least he didn't get worse). Shipp was just awful, showing he's essentially a worse player today than when he was a fireshman. Keefe was a non-entity, Roll was cringe-worthy at times, and Drago was making bad decisions all game. These guys are solid backups from past teams--this is their chance to grab a hold of their opportunities. If they don't, I don't have any qualms with letting the freshmen just all play and start building for next year.

I'm in a bind on Howland. You can't argue results, and he certainly gets them. But the inability to devise an offense that can attack a zone, any zone, and his rigid insistence on a boring passing attack that only results in miserable contested outside shots while the shot clock buzzer rings is a huge limitation on the potential of this team. This team has the kind of athleticism and guard/wing talent that they should be playing a pressure D and fast breaking every chance they get.

*sigh* Im with you Chief

In a bind on Howland? Well, I can't defend you there. That's poor form. 98% of programs would love Ben Howland as their coach.

It's not every year you go through the preseason without a disappointing loss.

Word. There are some programs where it seems like if the team doesn't go undefeated the fans are unhappy. I can't imagine what it would be like to root for a team with that level of expectations.

Mizzou managed to give Xavier a gift yesterday. Mizzou outplayed Xavier the whole game and then managed to make 1-9 free throws down the stretch to lose the game. Unbelievable wasted opportunity there. What was even worse was that 7 of those misses were by seniors.

Looks like Mizzou will face USC on Sunday as long as they don't get upset by the Mocs later today. Should be good matchup.

ignore me, just my frustration with the continuing proliferation of bitching about referees instead of actually discussing basketball. See last season's rant:

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Official 2007-2008 College Basketball Thread

Can you even name 7 that wouldn't?

Duke.

Ok, I'm done.

It hurts really bad when you lose.

Fans expecting undefeated seasons are crazy! To me its only a failed season if my team doesn't make the final four. Much more reasonable ;)

Hurting in a loss and questioning the ability of a coach that has taken your team to 3 straight final fours to get the most out of his players is the big difference here I believe.

What an absolutely huge win for Michigan.

If we play this game in December, it's a loss, but we had UCLA at the perfect time, and won an ugly game.

Is this a game that'll turn the program around right away? No. But this is a great resume game on the off chance we can get into the bubble picture.

I felt like this team was a year away from the dance, but it could happen this year if we can split these two games in two weeks with Duke, and hit B10 play 10-2.

From there a 10-8 record (plus a game vs UConn in Feb which could go either way) and 2 wins in the B10 tourney could seal Michigan for it's first tourney in a decade.

As a fan that's been there and done that (see University of Dayton, 2007-08 season), don't get your hopes up too high too early. One big early win does not a season make. There's a long way to go.

But it was a very good win for UM.

I'm not that enamored with Travis Ford's system on offense, especially with the 3-point line moving back. At UMass, he had 3 phenomenal players in Lasme, Freeman and Forbes leading the team, and he hasn't shown he can recruit big men at all. (He has been fantastic at recruiting/coaching Guards. I mean, Chris Lowe was an unrecruited borderline 2/3-star sitting there unsigned in August and he'll probably be UMass' all-time assist leader. Ricky Harris averaged 18 a game as a Sophomore, and David Gibbs has NBA-talent.) At the same time, I really believe getting athletes and then running pressure defenses and offenses that like to get out in the open floor and fast-break are what almost every team should be doing. Tennessee under Pearl, Memphis under Cal and even Kansas/UNC under Roy are big time teams I think have been very successful using this tactic.

Under the system, it's not even like we had good games and bad games, there would instead be horrific 10-minute stretches and great 10-minute stretches. Games were simultaneously exciting and frustrating to watch - it didn't matter if we were up 10 or down 10, the deficit would be reversed within 5 minutes. That'll probably excite the fanbase early on during the rise up, when making the NIT/competing for an at-large is considered an achievement, but will probably frustrate the fanbase and turn on him once they're expected to make the NCAA's. And of course whether he can recruit a legitimate big man is yet to be answered.

In another sense, it really doesn't matter - if the UK job opens up, he'll be jumping there in a second.

Izulde, did you catch Sanchezz going off for 12 and 12 last night when UC Davis pulled some size out to guard Rotnei. Those that were there were saying things like "looked great," "coming out party," and "not an oafish buffoon."

Shocking.

Nope, I still haven't managed to get off my ass and get tickets yet.

Did we win last night?

And hey, maybe Sanchez won't totally suck snozberries after all.

....I'm calling this one a fluke, though.

In a bind, as in, everything you say above is completely true, so it's disappointing that a guy that is such a terrific coach doesn't improve in this area. I'm certainly not advocating his removal. I just want to see problem areas addressed. For the most part, they are.

I don't see why it's poor form to criticize where there's room to criticize. Not like we don't give him enough plaudits.

Aren't you a Patriots fan? :confused:

Wow, really, you guys have taken one comment and really gone overboard here. No one here's in a mob mentality, let's hang Howland in efigy mode.

I'm not sure why it's such a big deal that a couple fans would be disappointed in one or two aspects of a team's coaching, even if it's overall very successful. Would an Indiana fan have been called out like this if he said Knight needs anger management lessons? Would a UNC fan be grilled because he thinks Williams' teams need to play better in Final Fours?

This is fair commentary here. Howland is a very, very, very good coach. I wouldn't give him up for anyone except Wooden, much less Coach K or anyone else.

That doesn't mean as I a fan can't point out a flaw or two that could use some work.

You guys really need to remind yourselves that the Internet is at best a sub-mediocre medium for the transfer of tone and context.

2 final fours, 1 title where it matters. I'm quite fine with it. ;)

That's a completely different situation.


Yes, absolutely. Michigan fans who bitched about Lloyd Carr were laughed at; LSU fans who have compared Les Miles to Larry Coker are ridiculed.

Yeah, we won by 9 or so. Led by 10 pretty much the whole way. Every time we'd push it to 15 they'd hit a series of treys to get right back in it. Never truly threatened, though. Fortson had more turnovers than assists and we were 1-14 from three point line. Weird game, but a win is a win.

Yeah, YOU are. ;) I made the wrong choice there. Let's see what would have happened to a KU fan.

How? It's a flaw that could have, and probably did, hurt the performance of his teams.




Michigan fans were right to criticize Carr. He made plenty of mistakes, and was never on the level of Schembechler. Is he a very good coach? Yes. That doesn't mean he's above criticism. UM fans had every right to take him to task for his faults.

Your second example is a poor one, a worse example than you suggest mine was with Knight. That's comparing two completely different coaches, and Coker largely sucked. That would be like me comparing Howland to John Jay. Any fan doing that would rightly be lampooned.

But that's apples and oranges. No one's talking about comparison. What we're talking about is how you want to take away my right to be critical about the flaws of the team I follow.

You can be as critical of Howland as you want, I'm just pointing out that to fans of other schools it comes across as demented.

Well, that's a them issue. Unfortunately, people didn't look inward or look logically at the problem, but instead attacked Bug and me.

Maybe to some, but definitely not to all.

Hell, GT is a long way from being in the plane of Duke, Kentucky, UNC, and such but even I didn't think there was anything unjustified about the observation here.

I'm not sure what the big deal is? Howland has done wonders to the UCLA program, but as Chief said, he's not without criticism. I wouldn't trade him for any other coach in the nation, not even Roy. Ben Howland and the Shipp's might be the only people in the world who think Josh Shipp was helping UCLA win yesterday. If it's painfully obvious to a guy like me (who sucks at basketball), I can't understand the desire to give him more minutes? I'd take Ryan Walcott over Josh Shipp right now (There is a reference for you Chiefy)

Well I think Bo Ryan is awesome. That is all.

dola, Mike Eaves is pretty bad ass too. The jury is still out on Bret Bielema. If it weren't for that tattoo, I'd like him a lot more.

Wow, that's a ref I wasn't expecting. ;)

Not sure I would go that far, either, lol. But yeah, Shipp should be better by now than he has become.

Well, I guess we'd never get along too well. C'est la vie.

Georgia Tech in the process of trailing all day & possibly losing to Mercer. A 25-9 run has pulled them back to within 67-65 after trailing by 18 in the second half. 2:45 left

edit to add: And no, I don't care if Mercer does already have wins over Alabama & Auburn this season.

edit 2x: Headed to overtime as we miraculously manage to hit a pair of FT's to tie it at 69 and then deflect Mercer's last shot attempt. GT just 10-23 from the line today.

GT wins it 82-76 in overtime. Still a sorry performance for much of the day.

Subscribed to the Arkansas official pay service for online content called "Razorvision" just to watch tonight's game. Quality is pretty good and it is only $10 a month so I might keep it. Either way I've got a month to watch the live broadcasts and on-demand archives of stuff that they already broadcast this year.

Tonight's game is at Missouri State. They are debuting their new John Q. Hammond stadium tonight, so they may be pretty emotionally charged, making it a scary game. Same way I am with the football team this year, though, I'm not terribly concerned with wins and losses, but good coaching and improvement. Going to be a long way back from the damage done to our athletics program by the Broyles senile years, so I'm pretty patient.

I guess I'll report back on the game soon. About to tip now.

One of the worst halves of basketball I've ever seen. I've seen some bad basketball by Razorback teams in the last 14 years, believe me, but that was among the worst. I can handle losing to a bad team playing over their heads on an emotional night. What I can't handle is getting blown out by a bad team that is playing badly. I mean, Missouri State looks terrible and it took us scoring the last 4 points of the half to get back within single digits.

Halftime score: Missouri State 28, Arkansas 20.

TWENTY.

Clemson hangs on to beat Charlotte (they will always be UNCC to me) by 1.

A bit sloppy but Bobby Lutz has had our number. I am really surprised he hasnt moved into a major D1 job.

5-0. Cant complain

What's the conference after today? Something like 37-1 I think.

37-2, boston college lost to saint louis tonight in addition to the va tech loss last night.

Came back and actually took the lead before reverting back to sucking. I shut it down with Arkansas down by 4 and without the ball with less than 10 seconds to go. As much as I could stomach to watch.

Va Tech lost to.... Xavier.

A10 reprazent.

ACC V Big Ten Challenge should be fun this year....

Really happy to see Mizzou knock off a ranked team yesterday. Was also pretty impressed to see the Xavier team that Mizzou and Virginia Tech both should have been manage to pull the upset of Memphis. Bad day for ranked teams in Puerto Rico.

For those that were not aware, the College Basketball Hall of Fame inductions happened yesterday. Great to see and hear some of these great coaches, players, and personalities talk about their college basketball experiences. Jim Phelan was wonderful and it was nice to see a lot of the Arkansas people show up for Nolan Richardson's induction.......

Nolan Richardson

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/906034.html

Jim Phelan

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/906029.html

Charles Barkley

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/906058.html

Billy Packer

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/906042.html

Dick Vitale

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/906046.html

Danny Manning

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/906050.html

Arnie Ferrin

Arnie Ferrin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A UNLV team that's on the cusp of breaking into the top 25 comes to El Paso tonight to take on the Miners. This is a big game for the Miners, it'll show how far we've come and how far we have yet to go. I honestly think the Miners can take this one and show that they're a legit team to contend with this year...

Seriously, is there a reason why Stephon Curry at Davidson shouldn't be considered one of the top 3 players in the country? He put up 39 last night. He's the focus of the defense in every single game and just puts the team on his shoulders and carries them. Better yet, he does it in the flow of the offense and gets his teammates involved. He's just an incredible player.

Hell of a game between #8 Notre Dame and #6 Texas out at the Maui Invitational. The Irish eeked out an 81-80 win. AJ Abrams almost hit the miracle half court shot as time expired, but it bounced off the front of the rim.

I saw the end of the irish/texas game, very entertaining. I'm very much looking forward to UNC/Notre Dame now.

Heh. Stephen Curry was held scoreless today in the Davidson-Loyola game, but that was because the other coach told his team to double team him all over the court, no matter what.

So Curry just stood in the corner with his two defenders on him, and the rest of his teammates had a four on three powerplay on offense.

Davidson won 78-48

LOL. Very interesting. I'm guessing that tactic won't be used in future matchups.

The coach was very proud, stating that Loyola was able to do something Oklahoma couldn't. and that ten years from now, people wouldn't remember the result of the game, but they would remember that they had kept Curry scoreless

fail

Arkansas travels to Pelphrey's old stomping grounds to take on South Alabama tonight. Would be impressive to pull this one off on the road. At the first break it's 15-12 South Alabama. We seem to not defend three pointers this season.

A couple kids I played hockey with play for South Alabama. The Tabet twins, Philip and Charles. Two big boys out there. Not sure how often they play though.

Philip just fouled Montrell McDonald so he's in. 30-26 Arkansas with 8 and change to go in the first half, btw.

Charles is a sophomore who has played in their two blowouts this year, 2 mins in one, 12 mins in the other. Averaging 2ppg & 5rpg.

Philip is a junior who has appeared in all of their games so far, averaging 6 minutes per game, 1.0ppg & 0.5 rpg.

Averaging 5 rebounds a game in just 14 minutes total play?

That's impressive. :D

Thanks for the heads up. They quit hockey when every time they hit someone it was an elbowing penalty. Some fucking towers there.

Yep. Credited with 9 rebounds in just 12 minutes of action in their 93-64 win over Florida A&M.

Perimeter defense completely optional tonight. Both teams shooting well over 50% from 3, South Alabama leads 45-44 at halftime.

8/12 for Arkansas on 3 pointers, I know S Alabama was 6/11 late in the half and I think they made another one and missed another one, so I'm guessing 7/13 for them. Missed what the announcer guy (who keeps saying Courtney Forston instead of Courtney Fortson argghh) was the correct stat for S Alabama, though.

Our threes seem to be wide open, but we are frequently contesting theirs. I hope they cool off on the contested ones in the second half, because they are making way too many of them. Fortson and Clarke aren't going to cool down on open treys, so if we keep getting them, hopefully that will be the difference.

Clarke made 76 three pointers in a row once in an exhibition in high school.

edit: halftime graphic shows 6/14 from three for S Alabama. Whatever. Liars.

Hey, how'd we get drug into this conversation?

Seriously, tho. I know a lot of KU fans critical of Roy and how "soft" his teams always were. But all teams have their strengths and weaknesses and winning the title or even making the Final Four requires a massive dose of luck.

Frankly, Roy was unlucky at KU more than anything, with not winning it all with some of the teams he had. That "maligned" offense that lost to Syracuse in the title game was the same one that jumped out on a 27-6 run early in a Final Four game and completely dismantled a good Marquette team by 33- best half of basketball I think I've ever seen.

SI

Arkansas gets a 3 from Stefan Welsh to take a 2 point lead with 3 seconds to go. Currently shooting free throws. Just went final 79-77 Arkansas win.

Welsh went nuts tonight. Complete ball hog, had probably twice as many shots as anyone else. Had a career high 24 points, but was just launching it any time he had a shot. Made up for it a bit with the 3 at the end for the win, but somewhat concerning.

Big win, showed a lot of fight.

Try more than twice as many. 24, to next high Fortson 11 and Clarke 10.
Then again, he was also second on the team in assists with 4 (to Fortson's 5).

And Fortson outscored Welsh. I don't know what the heck that was, but it needs to be ratcheted back about 10 notches for the future. I appreciate the big shot at the end, but christ, pass up a shot now and then.

Did Henry get many minutes?

Hansbrough & UNC trying to pull away from the Irish now, up by 15 with 15 minutes to play.

Henry is suspended indefinitely. Apparently nothing major, but several smaller things and Pelphrey drew the line.

Doh! Thanks.

McAlerney hits 10 threes & finishes with 39 for Notre Dame but it was far far too little as UNC wins going away in Maui 102-87.

Certainly another factor in why a kid might choose to go pro

That kid can shoot, with him and Harengody the Irish are going to be in the top 10 most of the season I assume.

I'm obviously thrilled with how UNC played, I remain incredibly happy with the play of the 'other' big men, Deon Thompson and freshman Ed Davis. Hansbrough's 34 is of course nice to see.

There will be another hopefully great matchup during the ACC - Big 10 Challenge next week with UNC hosting Michigan State.

Miners go to Anaheim and come out with a 13 point win against St Mary's in the first round of the 76 Classic. They managed to hold on to their double digit first half lead, something they weren't able to do Monday against UNLV. Looks like we're probably taking on Wake Forest tomorrow in the second round...