I didn't catch the St. Mary's-UTEP game, but looks like UTEP did a job on Mills - 5-20 shooting and 4 turnovers. Youch.

I wasn't able to watch the game, but it sounds like very quick, very athletic soph guard Randy Culpepper guarded him much of the game. It took its toll, though...Randy fouled out of the game, but not before scoring 20 points.

The funny thing is that Randy isn't knowm for his D at all...he's an explosive offensive player.

Back to the old SN, Jeebs?

SI

We were eating dinner during the Maryland - Michigan State game, but I was pretty stoked to see the Terps pull out the win. My DVR didn't record it, but at least I got to see highlights.

/tk

Pretty good matchup underway for a Friday afternoon - Tennessee & Georgetown in the semi-finals of the Old Spice Classic. Tied at 14 with 14 minutes left in the first half.

I took a peek at the Big 12 slate today and noticed some pretty good matchups.....

OU/Purdue
Texas Tech/Pittsburgh
Baylor/Arizona State
Kansas State/Kentucky
OK State/Michigan State
A&M/Tulsa

Excellent 1st half between these two. 39-37 Tennessee at the half.

75-71 Tennessee with 3 minutes to go. Georgetown led by 8 with 9 minutes to go, nice turnaround by the Vols.

Cameron Tatum knocks down several threes and the Vols come away with a nice 90-78 win over Georgetown in spite of foul trouble for Wayne Chism. Solid comeback for UT and a nice win in the early season.

I really hope Oklahoma continues to shoot without getting Griffin a touch. I think that will help our chances a little bit! Go Purdue!

Miners down 42-33 at the half. We were within two with about two and a half to go, but let Wake go on a 7-0 to end the half...

I know Purdue plays physical but 32 free throws to 2? Seriously?

A couple of good games on TV tonight.

Tennessee & Gonzaga in the c'ship of the Old Spice Classic on ESPN2 underway already, 11-10 'Zags early.

On ESPN it's the women's turn tonight as UConn hosts Oklahoma, #1 vs #4.

UTEP is about to take on #14 Arizona State in the consolation game of the 76 Classic on ESPNU. The Miners took #24 Wake Forest right down to the wire the other day, hopefully we can put it together and get a win over a Top 25 team for the first time since '01...

Gonzaga up four on Tennessee at the half, meanwhile UConn women having their way with OU 50-31 with a couple of minutes left in the first half.

Gonzaga looks really good on paper this year. Heytvelt (spelling, probably), Daye, and (my favorite college player) Jeremy Pargo lead the squad. I'm thinking sweet 16 for them this year.

Pargo looks very good tonight. Hell, the whole team looks good tonight, leading by as many as 18 in the latter stages of the second half. Under five minutes left now, Zags by 12.

UCLA - Texas

Should be a solid game, not like last years game with more talent, but still should be fun to watch. UCLA got their early loss of the year out of their way so I would expect Howland to come out strong

I'm looking forward to this game as well. There is a slight chance I'll be there. UCLA will be looking for revenge, after the loss Texas hung on them at home last season.

UNC crushes Michigan State by 35 in Detroit. Ed Davis continues to be the most impressive addition to the team by far, and I am loving Deon Thompson's improvement.

This should be the last game capable of presenting the Tar Heels with a challenge out of conference. They do have road games at Valpo and Nevada in December.

Nice win for Penn State on the road against Georgia Tech.

I was proud of how Maryland got their heads out of their butts and came back strong in the 2nd half to top Michigan.

/tk

Some early conference rankings

Kenpom:

1. ACC
2. Big East
3. Big 10
4. Big 12
5. Pac 10
6. SEC

http://kenpom.com

Realtime RPI:

1. Big 10
2. ACC
3. Big East
4. Big 12
5. SEC
6. West Coast

RealTimeRPI.com Men's College Basketball Rating Percentage Index (RPI) Ratings - A leading sports ratings and resources community on the Internet

I'm love Courtney Fortson

THis game was never billed as a revenge game and UCLA certainly isn't trying to do much to change that line of thinking either

Texas up by 9 at the half.

UCLA making a run.

Damn, that Abrams can shoot from anywhere.

Nice win for the Horns over the Bruins, 68-64.

Good win for Texas. Good experience for young UCLA. Probably a game that helps them both come March.

Lots of odd things to comment on this one, from weird floor decisions in the last couple minutes to what I thought was a little ref help for UCLA to keep the ball in UT's end. With all those opportunities, pretty surprising the Bruins failed to score a point.

Abrams is just an awesome shooter. He killed us tonight (although he tried to keep us in it at the end by missing a FT).

UCLA now and UCLA in February/March aren't going to be reminiscent of each other (at least I'm guessing). The PAC-10 is also down this year. UCLA, ASU, and I'm saying Oregon will finish 1,2,3.

After watching Oklahoma eek out a win over USC last night, I won't have any problems continuing to dislike that program. The whining from the OU players and coaches was borderline intolerable last night. Blake Griffin needs to realize that he's going to get whacked on occasion and learn to deal with it.

You'll be seeing this picture on signs all across the Big 12 this year when OU comes to town............

Blake Griffin In Drag: Blake Griffin's Milkshake Brings All The Boys To The Yard

Michigan is leading Duke by 3 with 6 minutes to go in Ann Arbor.

Michigan with another win over a Top 5 team.

Michigan 81, Duke 73. Go Wolverines!

My alma mater Wright State is struggling like crazy. We are 0-6 in a season where we were picked by almost every publication to finish 1st or 2nd in the Horizon League. We have 3 players out with injury, including our top scorer from last year. We just dropped the first 2 games of the conference season in Wisconsin. Butler had a huge road win at preseason favorite Cleveland State. Butler is a young team but they appear to be one of the teams to beat yet again.

Needless to say, us folks in Raider-land are quite bummed out right now. But we have the best coach in the conference in Brad Brownell and I think we're going to turn this around. I think that Wright State will be in it at the end of the season but WSU has a long way to go until then. First thing first, we need to just get 1 win to get the ball rolling.

I know this isn't a post about your BCS-conference team, but it's the team that I really cheer for. Go Raiders! :)

Just some interesting rumor, but Arizona wants Izzo, and apparently Izzo is interested.

Take it FWIW.

Not much of a new rumor, but I would be stunned if true. Why would any coach go to Arizona after Lute Olson? It's never good to follow a legend and Arizona is going to be epically bad for two years after this year

Big win for Mizzou yesterday. Absolutely manhandled a Cal team that had been playing pretty well. We'll likely be 9-1 (and probably ranked) heading into the big border battle against Illinois. Hoping to break the long losing streak against the Illini.

dola

Ping Mizzou fans in St. Louis. Bragging Rights tickets just went on sale on Ticketmaster. Get 'em while you can.

So Mizzou has a basketball rivalry with Illinois but a football rivalry with Kansas? Seems a bit odd to me...

The Mizzou/Kansas rivalry in basketball is much bigger. Mizzou has the best record of any school in the conference against Kansas overall. Also, Norm Stewart was the only conference coach to have a winning record against Roy Williams, which is obviously saying something given the strength of the program under Roy.

The Illinois rivalry is much more recent in its origins.

When you're the only flagship school in a state, you pretty much have to make your rivalries with your out-of-state neighbors.

Geez, I'm guessing Mr. Tucker would have preferred that Iowa just said that he violated team rules and left it at that..........

wow

Izzo is from Michigan. No way this happens.

ROFL.

I agree, and he probably will only step dowm from MSU hoops to become the MSU AD, but you can also see Izzo is getting burnt out here. I would give credence to him considering a move.

Yeah, that's probably a good spin on that. I think "violation of team rules" would have worked out a bit better.

SI

My favorite part of that portion of the article Mizzou posted is...

Associate Sports Information Director Steve Roe said Lickliter did not want to elaborate anymore on the suspension on Sunday...

lol, what details is exactly is he holding back? Jeez, how about this for negative recruiting?

"Coach Lickliter recruits gay basketball players...and then throws them under the bus publically."

The kid's responsible for his own voyeurism, of course, but, damn, he just got completely railroaded here by his own coach!

Really, they have rivalries with both schools. Kinda like how USC has got both UCLA and Notre Dame. One in-conference, one out-of-conference. But the Kansas one is definitely bigger.

It looks ESPN.com is taking the high road and leaving out the key detail....

Hmmm, actually, does anyone have a link for the actual masturbation angle? I'm seeing "alcohol-related lapse of judgment and violation of team rules".

I think you're right. It appears the origin of the original I posted was a Big 10 rival board.

So it's bullshit then? That's pretty crappy if someone did that, and it somehow got confused into being a legit media story.

Yeah, then it's probably pretty safe to assume it's false

SI

Temple just killed Tennessee today up in Philly. 88-72 as Dionte Christmas couldn't miss and finished with 35. Vols competed for a while in the second half but then three straight treys in a couple of minutes killed any hopes of a comeback.

That was a brilliant performance by Christmas

Kansas looked terrible again yesterday in a loss to Massachusetts. Their young guys are having some prolonged slumps that are killing them. They were lucky they even had a shot to win at the end. It's beginning to look like Mizzou may be the best team in the B12 North. CU, ISU, NU, and KSU are all terrible.

Pretty nice schadenfreude day for Illini fans yesterday:
1.) Kansas losing to Mass
2.) Tennessee losing (by double digits!) to Temple
3.) Indiana gets mauled by Kentucky

We'll see where things are at with a team full of freshman at season's end. It's a little early now.

SI

Big win for Arizona today, upsetting #4 Gonzaga at home, 69-64.

And Clemson remains unbeaten and unranked

Not sure I disagree with the unranked part, just thought it was worth mentioning.

Mizzou's awful young as well (5 freshman and a JUCO), but they have the benefit of two senior starters in the post that are performing awfully well. That's basically the difference between MU and KU at this point.

They're getting noticed by the computer rankings, which are honestly more even-handed anyway. Pomeroy has them at #20 as of today........

2009 Pomeroy Ratings

And here's the page with the predicted record.........

2009 basketball schedule for Clemson

Edit: Just saw that they're ranked #8 in the Sagarin rankings.....

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagar...terstitialskip

I didn't see it, but Cleveland St. beats Syracuse with a 50-footer at the buzzer.

For once, Syracuse managed to put together some quality pre-conference schedule wins (Kansas, Florida, Viriginia), they reach #11 in the polls, and blow a lot of that good start tonight.

And it could get worse, as Eric Devendorf is looking at a season-ending suspension for doing his usual thug stuff....currently under appeal.

And now #1 in RPI yet still not ranked.
:lol:

I know how they feel, in CH2K8, I have my Dartmouth team at 11-1 and #8 in RPI and still not ranked;)

ESPN - NCAA College Basketball Polls, College Basketball Rankings, NCAA Basketball Polls

Actually they are ranked #25 in both polls!

#19 Tennessee handles #23 Marquette 80-68, thanks to a career high 26 pts from Wayne Chism. Vols bench is big too, outscoring the Marquette bench 23-3. Pretty good win on the heels of Saturday's disappointment in Philly.

Vandy beats South Florida 71-52 to give the SEC a pair of wins in the SEC/Big East Invitational.

The SEC as a conference already has some major NCAA bid issues. Their conference is 6th or 7th in the conference rankings depending on which one you look at. Their current strength of schedule is rated as 10th best. That's not good at all. The conference really needs some big wins between now and conference play, which honestly isn't all that far away or they're going to be facing the possibility of a record low number of NCAA bids.

Rough season for Kansas. JUCO transfer Little breaks his hand in practice just as he was to join the squad.......

Kansas guard Little breaks hand, out 2-4 weeks - NCAA Division I Mens Basketball - CBSSports.com News, Fantasy, Video

Not that it's a spectacular win or anything, but I have to gloat that UTEP beat Texas Blech tonight 96-78. God I hate TT...

Wow, a disaster brewing at UAB. 2 players announce they are transferring and two more didn't make grades and are immediately ineligible. To make matters worse, the #1 player in the 2009 class, DeMarcus Cousins, has now officially decommited from UAB and is back on the market. Rumor is that he'll try to follow Coach Davis if he gets a good enough position. In other words, Davis will market himself to schools as the guy who can bring the #1 player to their program, much like the Beasley/Coach Hill situation at Kansas State.

BlazerSportsReport.com - Basketball Bombshell

UAB Is Seeing Everything Fall Apart - NCAA Basketball FanHouse

On the UAB thing, one of the players transferring - Armon Bassett - was already sitting out this season after transferring there from Indiana. Another, Terrance Roderick, was academically ineligible all of last season & only managed to play as a backup this year, so I'd say we might be able to guess why he's leaving now.

Of the academically ineligible pair, one had been out each of the past two fall semesters (including this one) for the same reason, the other was a JUCO transfer reserve.

On the bright side for UAB they get the coach's son back on the roster now. He's a walk-on that was also academically ineligible for the start of this season.

Somehow I get the feeling that this shouldn't have been entirely unexpected.
I also get the feeling that somebody needs to exercise some institutional control over who they let in school to play ball in the first place. Who the fuck takes walk-ons that can't stay eligible?

http://www.al.com/uabbasketball/birm...660.xml&coll=2

Should be interesting to see how UAB does down the stretch. They only have 6 scholarship players and 2 walk-ons on the roster for the rest of the season. Their starters are pretty good, but man, are they going to get worn down by the end of the season.

As a fan of a CUSA school, that sucks for the conference. However, anything that helps the Miners can't be totally bad...

ESPN - Ole Miss Mississippi Rebels coach Andy Kennedy arrested, charged with assault

Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy will coach on Thursday night against No. 9 Louisville despite being arrested early Thursday morning for allegedly assaulting a cab driver in downtown Cincinnati.

Kennedy was at the Rebels' Thursday's shootaround after entering a not guilty plea on misdemeanor assault charges alleging he punched the cab driver in the face while shouting racial slurs.

A pre-trial hearing has been set for Jan. 16.

Ole Miss spokesperson Joey Jones, traveling with the team, said a statement would be forthcoming from the university after it went through the campus' upper administration. Kennedy met with Mississippi athletic director Pete Boone in Cincinnati on Thursday morning.

According to Cincinnati police, Kennedy allegedly assaulted 25-year-old cab driver Mohammed Ould Jiddou at 1 a.m. ET in downtown Cincinnati.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Kennedy has hired former Hamilton County prosecutor Mike Allen to represent him.

Allen entered a plea of not guilty on Kennedy's behalf Thursday morning and said Kennedy "emphatically denies this and emphatically denies making any racial slurs," according to the Enquirer.

The newspaper reported that William Armstrong was also arrested during the incident and charged with disorderly conduct. According to Mississippi's athletics Web site, Armstrong is the Rebels' coordinator of basketball operations.

According to the Cincinnati Police Department arrest report, Kennedy "was the aggressor that punched listed victim with a closed fist. [Kennedy] also was using racial slurs while punching victim. There was an unrelated witness that observed the whole incident."

The victim, according to the police report, sustained injuries described as a "swollen left face."

The Rebels (7-3), considered one of the best teams in the SEC West entering this season, are playing Louisville as part of the Big East/SEC Invitational.

Eric Gordon claims drug use at Indiana last year was the reason for their downfall..........

http://www.indystar.com/article/2008...S0601/81217054

1am huh?

The Mississippi coaching staff was in the cab at the time and is telling a much different story.........

http://www.sportsline.com/mcc/blogs/...71764/12376746

So, one of the Ole Miss coaches is trying to spin this the other way, eh? Yeah, as always, I bet the truth is somewhere in between. If the first cabbie had injuries, how did he get them? Did he Fight Club himself?

I was not commenting on whether he hit the cab driver or not. Just made an observation that he was out after midnight and had an altercation.

It feels like Stephen Curry went from the most underrated player in college to the most overrated in one year. Don't get me wrong, he's a great college player, but this talk of him going #2 in the draft is ridiculous. I've seen him twice this year on national TV and he's looked real bad. Purdue is absolutely destroying Davidson right now and Curry's shooting is one of the reasons for it.

I was on the verge of generically agreeing with that observation until I realized that it was coaches after a film session. Late film + dinner afterwards, really doesn't take much for that to reach 1 AM perfectly reasonably.

Tennessee struggles all day at home against Belmont, can't hit free throws down the stretch. Up 79-77 with seven seconds left Vols foul as Belmont drives to tie, Belmont misses the first & can't get the basket on the intentional miss, although they did get a spinning off balance shot that would have tied it.

Vols looking pretty average for the past couple of weeks, and really for most of the season so far. Not bad, but not nearly as good as advertised.

Even with Duke/Xavier and Purdue/Davidson being disappointments, this has been an excellent day of college basketball. UConn/Gonzaga in overtime now, UConn up 4 with the ball with 2 minutes left.

Great win for Minnesota. They hadn't played anyone to get to 9-0 and they lead the #9 team in the country the whole way for their first legit win. Great to see Al Nolen continue to produce, he'll be the top PG in the Big Ten when he's a senior.

Go Orangemen! Made it even sweeter by beating Memphis, my 2nd most hated team after G'town.

Good to see Arkansas doing well, playing Austin Peay and winning earlier this week and now beating Stephen F. Austin tonight. Both teams are pretty solid and well coached. This Arkansas team is starting to come together with all of these youngsters. This season might turn out to go pretty well.

Just finished that one on TIVO, they looked great (though the FT shooting will surely cost them down the road). I can't remember as strong a pre-conference schedule for Syracuse as this season.

And they also get a huge break with Devendorf's suspension being reduced.

The big east is just so terrifying though - even good teams could shit the bed there.

Well, I think neither extreme is the truth. I definitely don't think he should be taken #2 overall, but when you're leaps and bounds better than any other player on your team (Curry really is light years better than any two of his teammates put together), and you're a long distance shooter, you're bound to have bad games. He's had a few bad shooting nights this season, but I'm not surprised with how much attention he commands.

I mean, one team even did a triangle-and-two with the two guys on him the entire game. He wound up standing in the corner, so his team could play 4-on-3. When was the last time that happened? That sounds like Wilt Chamberlain kind of stuff. He's not perfect, Rainmaker. He is a very, very good player, though.

Honestly, with how much the Knicks obviously want LeBron, and how much LeBron loves Curry, I could see a scenario where if they pick 5th, and rate him maybe 11th on on their board, they still take him to to keep trying to lure Bron in.

Maybe the Knicks should just put a Tandoori Oven in Madison Square Garden.

He's a great player, there is no doubt about it. I just think the hype behind him this year is ridiculous. ESPN has him #2 on their draft board. He hasn't shot that well this year.

My guess is that he'll end up being a Ben Gordon type player. He's not going to be able to hang defensively in the NBA and his passing isn't good enough to be a starting PG. He could be a solid 6th man who gives a team a nice jolt off the bench. I think he's at best a late lottery pick talentwise but will probably go higher because NBA teams are stupid.

Mizzou and Illinois both won on Saturday, setting up a pretty big NCAA resume game on Tuesday night. 10-1 Illinois vs 9-1 Mizzou in St. Louis. Mizzou has lost 8 straight in this series after the first 18-20 matchups were pretty even. Mizzou is the favorite for this one and may even be ranked later today. Should be a lot of fun.

Yep, definitely looking forward to that game, MBBF. The Illini added Alex Legion (Kentucky transfer) into the mix on Saturday, allowing him to get his feet wet before the Bragging Rights game.

I would suggest that you guys probably need to win this year, because the Illini are really starting to line up some serious recruiting talent for the next couple of seasons.

Heck, last year was the year you should have broken the streak but if it does not happen this year then it may be awhile ....

Mizzou definitely should have won last year's game. The team finished poorly, but that was indicitive of last year's team.

The Braggin' Rights game always has some new transfers playing in it, due to its timing just after first semester ends. Always adds a nice twist to the game.

As far as future classes go, counting the chickens before they hatch is always a dangerous thing. Mizzou had a highly touted two year run of recruiting under Quin Snyder, including a top 5 national class 4 years ago. That top 5 national recruiting class graduated last year with no NCAA tourney appearances. Mizzou's current freshman class had mostly 3 star players, but they're playing like contributing veterans already. I've learned my lesson. I'll wait until they're on campus from now on. :)

Fair enough on recruits ... after all, Illinois recently had one very highly regarded recruit that never set foot on campus :(

Very interesting stat heading into the Braggin' Rights game. Illinois is one of the slowest paced teams in Division 1, averaging 64 possessions per game (291st in the nation).

http://kenpom.com/sr.php?team=Illinois&y=2009

In contrast, Mizzou averages over 73 possessions per game (32nd in the nation).

http://kenpom.com/sr.php?team=Missouri

This looks like one of those games where the winning score likely will decide who wins. If the winning score is under 70, Illinois probably wins. If it's over 70, probably a Mizzou win.

KenPom rankings are far kinder to these teams that the pollsters:

Mizzou #8
Illini #16

Of course, rankings that list UNC at #4 clearly cannot be taken at face value. And, yes, I understand that there is a mathematical formula behind the rankings. I put a lot of value in his rankings at the end of the year. Much less so in December.

And what if the winning score is right on 70? Well, Pomeroy has a Mizzou 70-67 win projected (61% certainty).

Wow - only game that Mizzou is projected to lose the rest of the way is @ KU.