Big Games in College Hoops Happening NOW!
The college basketball season is really heating up… and so is quail season in Texas, apparently. But more on that later. Big games are being played all over the country, so let’s try to go over a few before the weekend starts and there’s a whole mess of things to discuss. First up: Gonzaga at St. Joe’s. The Zags needed some late-game heroics to hold on to their spot at No. 19 in the nation. They are without a few key players due to injury, so the Zags might stumble a bit before they can get back into Tourney shape. This is expected, Zags ended up holding on. Another big game was Oregon-Kansas State, which went into overtime. Oregon won in the end, but the real winners were the fans who were watching at the game and on TV.
The other big thing happening in college hoops is Bob Knight. Earlier in the week the Final Four Blog told you about the hunting incident that he got into. Well, now there’s a video out. Could this get any better for college basketball bloggers? It’s like an early Christmas present. Well, enjoy the weekend of college hoops coming up and make sure to check out the YouTube video of the whole hunting dispute.
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Bob Knight Pulls a Dick Cheney
Usually the funny sports stories at the Final Four blog are reserved for Friday, but this one can’t wait. And besides, it’s very timely, so you should be up-to-date on all of the controversy if anybody brings this subject up at the office water cooler. Apparently Bob Knight, a college basketball coach known for his profanity-laced tirades and short-temper violence, has been accused of firing pellets at somebody while hunting. You can read up on the incident at any sports media outlet, because the bloggers and sports writers (like Yours Truly) go nuts for this kind of stuff.
An interesting thing that you can check out is the “Tale of the Tape” comparison between Bob Knight and Vice President Dick Cheney. The comparison is very interesting because there seems to be a lot of very similar attributes about the two human hunters. Of course, the most glaring similarities are their respective reputations as mean tyrants and their fowl marksmanship. Another thing that was left out was their startlingly similar comments. Cheney once famously told a legislator on the Senate floor to “Go (expletive) yourself!” Knight recently said about the hunting incident, “I got no comment on that whatsoever because that’s absolute (expletive).”
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Brad Stevens of Butler: So Hot Right Now
CBSSports is running an article about Brad Stevens, the 31-year-old coach of the Butler men’s basketball team. Recently Stevens coached his team to a win versus Texas Tech, a program coached by the famous (or some say infamous) Bob Knight. Knight has been around the block a few times, having coached Division I basketball teams for decades, and at 67-years old, he’s a fitting contradiction to the young Stevens. Tech and Butler are also very different programs. Butler is a mid-major who’s rising in the hoops world, but Texas Tech comes from a huge sports conference and gets a lot more press because of their size and the size of Knight’s reputation.
If you are interested in Butler basketball, or just caught up in the mid-major craze, then the article is a good read. Teams like Butler are always compelling to watch and cheer for during college basketball season. The underdog is always more interesting than the establishment. Right now the Bulldogs are ranked No. 16 in the polls, so they might be going the way of Gonzaga. If you followed the story of the Zags, then you know that they were once the Cinderella story of the Tournament, but now they are expected to be good. The Bulldogs of Gonzaga have become the very establishment that they built their reputation fighting upstream against.
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Clemson off to Great Start… Again
Clemson has won their first five games, prompting many basketball writers to take note that this year is starting to look a lot like last year. That would be a good thing if all you knew about the 2006-’07 Clemson Tigers was that they went 17-0 to begin their season. After that however, the Tigers dropped nine of their last 13 league games and wound up in the NIT. So now that Clemson has a hot start, fans of the Tigers are getting worried that history will repeat itself. If you look at an article by Andy Glockner at ESPN, you’ll be a little less worried. If you are a fan of the orange paw prints, then this is a must-read.
I don’t think that I should spoil the article too badly for any potential readers, so I will only say that it has convinced me this will not be a repeat of a year ago. Clemson will probably be in the top tier of the ACC, right behind the North Carolina Tar Heels and Duke Blue Devils. Expect that with plenty of returning players, the Tigers will be in the NCAA Tournament. From there, you know that anything can happen. But until March, you should make sure to be at the Clemson home basketball games.
To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.
Duke’s Other Freshman Shines
The Duke Blue Devils are always the talk of the college basketball world, and this year should be no different. After a lackluster NCAA Tournament showing last time around, much is expected of the Tobacco Road team. Duke doesn’t exactly have the star power that their rivals, the North Carolina Tar Heels, have. Like many top teams nowadays, the Devils will have to rely on the efforts of some blue chip freshmen recruits. In fact, Duke’s highest average scorer this year has been freshman forward Kyle Singler, who’s averaging over 14 points per game.
On Sunday night Duke’s other frosh standout took over the game. Versus Eastern Kentucky, Taylor King reigned down 27 points- a game high- as the #13 Duke Blue Devils rolled to another win. If you take a look at the article about the game at CBSSportsLine.com, you’ll see that the Dukies had to battle some serious jet lag after having played at a Maui tournament only a matter of hours before. If King and Singler can continue to have great games, Duke could be a national title contender once again. If that’s the case, then tickets are going to be hard to come by. Good thing guys like us are around to help you get into the games.
To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.
Saint Mary’s Feasts on Ducks
The Saint Mary’s College Gaels defeated the No. 12-ranked University of Oregon Ducks at their home in Moraga, California. The win is an upset by all accounts, as the Pac-10 Ducks were expected to be one of the best college basketball teams in the nation coming into this year. Last season Oregon reached the Elite Eight before they were beaten by the eventual champion Florida Gators. Saint Mary’s, on the other hand, has had some trouble getting to the NCAA Tournament from the WCC, a conference known almost exclusively as the mid-major home of Gonzaga. The final score read 99-87. Gaels freshman Patrick Mills proved to be the best player on the floor last night. He scored a game high 37 points on 10 of 20 shooting.
In other NCAA basketball news, the UCLA Bruins won a huge game over the No. 10–ranked Michigan State Spartans 68-63. The Spartans were not at full strength for the game, or at least their team leader, point guard Drew Neitzel. Apparently Neitzel has flu-like symptoms leading up to the game, so he probably could have added more to the Spartan effort than his 13 points, which actually lead Michigan State, as a matter of fact.
To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.
College Basketball Rivalry Games
There are few things about college hoops more important than rivalry games. Every school has a rival. It’s not just Duke-North Carolina, the over-hyped drama that plays out every year before a national audience. If you went to a college that had a basketball team, they had a rival, and the fans, players and town all perked up when game time finally came. Rivalries are important, let’s just leave it at that. But other than Duke-UNC, the list of great college basketball rivalries seems to lose some grandeur in the national conscious. It’s not like with college football, where you can name about a dozen famous rivalries right off the top of your head.
So that’s why Luke Winn of SportsIllustrated.com went ahead and did the homework for you. He’s organized a list of a few hoops rivalries that you should pay just as much attention to as you do the Tobacco Road hypsters. This blogger’s personal favorite is the Texas-Texas A&M feud. Like a lot of great sports rivalries, you should enjoy how this one not only incorporates various non-sports elements (such as regional culture and history, even politics) but that Winn makes the whole thing seem like a Homeric epic. A highly recommended read.
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Weekly Hoops Roundup at ESPN
ESPN has a section about college basketball that you should check out. Called the “Weekly Watch,” this section will keep you informed of the water cooler talk in the office before you have the need to take five and wet your throat. Filled with all of the hottest trends and most talked about happenings of the past week, there are sections that deal with the best players of the past week, the typical events that took place, the games you wish you had seen, the hottest team, the most disappointing team, the best upcoming games, the possible upsets to watch out for, the best of the mid-majors, and quick-hit facts about the hoops world right now.
As far as information goes, it’s hard to get this much stuff jammed into one page without making it entirely too concentrated and hard to follow. However, ESPN is pretty good at laying out the info so that it’s all accessible. The college basketball season is just getting started, but already there are some surprises (like Miami winning an early season tournament) and some expected domination (Tyler Hansbrough and the Tar Heels winning games easily). You’ve got to be in the know about these things, so get to the site to know the state of the game. Then, you can always take a break to …
…get your NCAA basketball tickets at StubHub.com.
Some Good College Hoops This Weekend
If you’re like the Final Four blog, then you have been waiting all year long for this moment. This weekend will not be the official start of the hoops season, but it will definitely see a bunch of good teams go up against one another. Lots of opening games featured good teams versus weak teams, but now the meat and potatoes of the college basketball diet is coming up. You should check out some of the upcoming games, because non-conference matchups will be the order of the day for a while here. The later part of the season is usually reserved for conference games, but now you get a real taste of where each conference stands.
Gary Parish of CBS Sports writes that his favorite upcoming matchup is Memphis-UConn. As he will explain, the major storyline for this game is the relationship between John Calipari and Jim Calhoun, the two coaches. Apparently they dislike each other. The feud goes way back. But if that doesn’t interest you, then there are plenty of other awesome games featuring good teams. Arizona-Virginia will be a good one to get tickets to see. It will be played in Tucson, Arizona, so if you are in the area, Parish suggests that you drive to the arena to see it. Either way, enjoy the college hoops this weekend, and the Final Four blog will see you all back here on Monday.
To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.
Memphis Tops ESPN’s Power 16
If there is one thing that ESPN is good at, it’s constantly ranking teams. Lucky for you, ESPN is on the ball this hoops season with their “Power 16” ranking system. Why 16? Who knows, who cares? This list is compiled from the writers at ESPN, so there’s nothing official about it. There’s no need to get too upset if you don’t see your team there. However, if it’s on ESPN, you have to take it seriously. You should check it out to see if your team is on the list, and then feel proud when it is. This is actually the second version of the weekly ranking, but there’s not much to go on right now. Most teams have only played a couple of games.
However, Memphis is already doing some upward movement. They replaced North Carolina at the top spot because they came out with some fire, and UNC won in a rather unconvincing fashion their first game. Other than that, there hasn’t been too many big movements in the rankings, but you should pay attention to it more and more as the weeks go by and the actuality of the situation in the NCAA comes to light. Probably the most important poll is the AP, and whatever else the experts use to pick tourney teams. Who knows, some of the selectors might use ESPN to help them determine which votes they cast at the last minute.
To get NCAA basketball tickets, go to StubHub.com.