Weird Hoops Happenings, Hair

Luke Winn’s college basketball blog at Sports Illustrated.com is worth a look or two. There’s a main article about the odd things that have been happening in NCAA basketball so far this season, starting with some extraordinary upsets. There have also been some interesting player stat totals, both on the good side and the bad, and there have been more than enough off-the-court issues to keep college hoops fans filled with conversation starters. If you are coming home to a Thanksgiving meal in a few weeks, you can talk hoops with your brother-in-law for hours if you read this article. Highly recommended.

Also highly recommended is “The Style Archive.” Luke Winn is a little too nice with some of the players, but he does not lack for the exhaustiveness of his research in recording and archiving the very weirdest in college basketball fashion. There are a lot of odd haircuts out there, so the “Do’s” section is long and tiresome by the end. Personally, this blogger enjoys the section on accessories, which starts off with Tyler Hansbrough’s face mask from last season. Remember that? This section will certainly jog your memory about a few funny things that college players do while they are young and trying to find themselves.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 14, 2007 - Post a comment

Zags Catch Snags: Two Injured for Bulldogs

The Gonzaga Bulldogs will have to play without two of their best players, Josh Heytvelt and Steven Gray, for over a month. Gray and Heytvelt will be sidelined following their recent surgeries. Heytvelt has a nagging foot injury and Gray has a broken wrist. Both will have to take four to six weeks off the court to recover, maybe more. There might have been some worse timing for the injuries, but this sure ranks high anyways. The Zags are just beginning their season, just implementing their game plans, and they assumed that two of their main components would be involved. Now Gonzaga will have to scramble for answers elsewhere. Gray and Heytvelt were two of the program’s most heralded recruits, and two big reasons that the Bulldogs were ranked so highly entering into the 2008 NCAA basketball season.

To make matters worse, Gonzaga has an especially tough schedule in the beginning of the season, playing plenty of non-conference foes right off the bat. The end of the year will be filled with games against WCC teams, many of which are not expected to be very strong this season. A bad start will not cripple Gonzaga’s chance of getting a WCC tournament win and the subsequent NCAA Tournament bid, but it will hurt their seedings and rankings. Gonzaga will have to roll with the punches and change their strategy a bit, but many experts still feel this team will play well under the circumstances.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 13, 2007 - Post a comment

Second AP Top 25 Poll Reflects Upset Losses

The second version of the AP Top 25 Poll reflects some of the very minute changes that the preseason tournaments and opening regular season games have determined. Noticeably Kentucky and USC, who both lost to Atlantic Sun Conference teams (Gardner Webb and Mercer, respectively) were dropped from the Top 25. Ouch. The start of the season might just be the worst time to fail to live up to expectations, as there is so little to go on, every game matters so much more. If Kentucky an USC were to start out 10-0 and then drop one to a weak team, then the loss wouldn’t be as noticeable in the rankings. But if you come out with a weak game right off the bat, everybody will take notice and wonder if you are actually as good as you’re supposed to be.

The top spots all pretty much stayed the same in the Poll. There’s still North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis, Kansas and Georgetown at the tip top of the poll. Of course, one bad loss, and these teams could be kicked right out of the poll and into the nebulous void of “unranked.” Some teams in the poll have not yet played, while others, like Stanford, have already ran out to a 3-0 record. The first few weeks will see a lot of action, but after that, the polls will settle down into more of a groove.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 12, 2007 - Post a comment

Tired of the Major Conference Hype? Check out BasketballProspectus.com

As we near the beginning of the NCAA basketball season, the teams in the major conferences, such as the Pac-10, the Big Ten, the Big East, ACC and SEC, will be getting the majority of the hype, and the majority of the national media attention. There are good reasons for this. The schools in the big-time conferences, tend, on average, to send vastly more teams to the NCAA Tournament, and thus are better than the teams in smaller, lesser-known conferences. But as with every year, a few bright teams from mid-majors will out-play the big guys. The trouble is picking which teams will be the surprising ones, and which will be the duds.

Everybody has come to expect Gonzaga to go to the NCAA Tournament, but will the WCC send another team as well? Will Butler still be a factor in March like they were last season? Is there a sleeper in the Southern Conference? Will George Mason be the next… George Mason? Find out what the stats say on this subject by reading an article at BasketballProspectus.com by Ken Pomeroy. The little guys always make for the most interesting stories of the year, so learn a little bit about them before they start making news.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 9, 2007 - Post a comment

Exhibition Play Exposing Top-Ranked Hoops Team

The Kentucky men’s basketball team, the winningest program in college hoops history, lost to lowly Gardner-Webb yesterday. The Wildcats were stunned by a mid-major at home in an exhibition game that was part of the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic. The tournament has no bearing on Kentucky’s No. 20-AP Poll ranking, as it is an exhibition game, but the fact that such a small program beat such a huge on so handily has to be a little wake up call for Wildcat fans. Kentucky went down by 14 to start of the game, and never got within seven points of Gardner-Webb. Perhaps the worst part for Kentucky is that it happened at home in front of a lot of fans who are excited about what this Kentucky team is capable of this season.

This exhibition tournament is designed to raise money for cancer research and treatment, so everybody technically wins here. But Kentucky will have to reassess their mindset if they want to live up to expectations and win in the games that count. New Wildcats coach Bill Gillispie will be watched like a field mouse at the Owl National Convention, if there were such a thing.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 8, 2007 - Post a comment

Lute Olsen on Leave of Absence

Arizona Wildcats basketball coach Lute Olsen has taken an indefinitely long leave of absence from his sideline duties. Olsen, 73, has made it clear that the reason he is taking a break is not health related, but rather a personal issue. He plans on returning to coach the Wildcats basketball team this year, but for now, he will spend time with his loved ones. Though he has not said what the reason is specifically, one assumes that it must be very important for him to miss time with his team right before the college basketball season is set to begin.

Arizona is ranked No. 17 overall heading into this year. Though Arizona has found getting to the later rounds of the NCAA Tournament difficult, big things are expected this year. Olsen has an overall record of 780-280 in his 34 years of coaching college basketball. He’s 589-187 overall with Arizona. We all wish coach Olsen the best in his current situation. Hopefully this issue is resolved quickly and everything works out for the coach and his family. We would all like to see him back on the sidelines coaching the Wildcats as soon as possible.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 7, 2007 - Post a comment

Izzo’s Spartans Kicked out of own Locker Room

Michigan State is the No. 8 team in the nation according to the preseason AP Top 25 Poll, but you wouldn’t know it by the way they’ve been playing before the season, and by the place where they change before practice. Actually, according to SportsIllustrated.com the Michigan State Spartans men’s basketball team has been banned from their new locker room indefinitely by their coach, the famous Tom Izzo. Michigan State lost to Grand Valley State, a team they should have beaten handily. Subsequently, Izzo has determined that the team should not be allowed to use the luxurious new locker room that was installed this past offseason. Locker rooms are for closers.

With college basketball’s regular season just about to begin, Izzo and the rest of the nation’s teams are doing all kinds of last second preparations and making sure that everything is in order. While having to change in the weight room might be an inconvenience for the players, it might help to motivate them, and teach them a lesson about keeping their focus against weaker teams. Coach Izzo has one of the most impressive resumes of any college basketball coach, so he probably knows what he’s doing. Unless the team wants to change at half court, they will probably play tough the rest of the year.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 6, 2007 - Post a comment

AP Preseason All Americans

The Associated Press has named its preseason All-American team. That’s right, the people who bring you the weekly team rankings will also give you their opinions about who the best players in the college game are. It should come as no surprise learning who topped the list of vote-getters. North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough was just one vote away from being a unanimous pick. He is the starting forward for the No. 1-ranked Tar Heels, and was a second team All-American last year. Other players named to the team were Darren Collison, a guard from the No. 2-ranked UCLA Bruins, Roy Hibbert, a center from the No. 5–ranked Georgetown Hoyas, Chris Lofton, a forward from the No. 7–ranked Tennessee Volunteers, and Drew Neitzel, a guard from the No. 8-ranked Michigan State Spartans.

The All-American list doesn’t mean too much in the grand scheme of things, just that you were recognized as the best player in the nation at your position by one of the most trusted rankings sources for such things. Of course, it is also a tool to build debate. If you don’t agree with the picks, you can always use that as a conversation piece with your hoops-loving buddies, right? Plus, the players they pick today might or might not be in the AP lineup by the time the season ends.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 5, 2007 - Post a comment

AP Poll Out

The Division I NCAA Basketball Associated Press Top 25 Poll is out, so fans can start their complaining, debating and cheering. The AP has selected North Carolina as the top team in the nation headed into the 2007-’08 season of play. This didn’t come as much of a surprise, as several other respected polls had a similar pick for their number one team. The rest of the list is fairly standard as well, with UCLA, Memphis, Kansas and Georgetown rounding out the top 5. UNC got a total of 29 first place votes. UCLA was not far behind with 24. Memphis got 18 first place votes, and Georgetown was the only other team with a first place vote. This leaves Kansas inexplicably skipped over for the first place voting Poor Jayhawks. Of course, they will have plenty of chances to climb up the polls once the season begins.

You can see how the voting process gets very standardized by the way the top 25 teams seems to have been agreed upon by all the voters beforehand, with only the placement of the teams within the top 25 as a point of contention. Just look at how the voting went near the end of the poll:

Team Votes
24. Southern Illinois……..222
25. Kansas State…………216
26. Villanova ………………144

How did Villanova receive 72 fewer votes than Kansas State at that point in the rankings? You would think that the competition to get into the poll would be more… competitive.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 2, 2007 - Post a comment

Texas After Durant

Ohio State is going to have a bit of a rebuilding year in the Big Ten after the departure of No. 1 overall draft pick, Greg Oden. Texas, however, might just have a tourney year in them this time around with a cast that is largely the same, with the noticeable exception of the No. 2 NBA Draft pick, Kevin Durant. D.J. Augustin and A.J. Abrams will lead a Texas program this season that is expected to get a preseason AP Poll ranking somewhere in the teens. Texas already has an ESPN/USA Today Poll ranking of No.16, so the Longhorns aren’t expected to have a dramatic slip up without the dynamic play of Kevin Durant. In fact, by a couple of games into the season, college hoops fan in Austin will probably forget all about the Durant, who is currently starting for the Seattle SuperSonics.

Other than Durant, the Longhorns get all four of their starters back for the 2007-’08 season. Texas coach Rick Barnes has gotten his team ready to play after big-name departures like T.J. Ford and LaMarcus Aldridge, so he knows that Durant leaving doesn’t have to mean the next season is a throw-away. Quite the opposite. You should expect to see Texas near the top of the Nig 12 all season long, and defiantly dancing in March.

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Permalink - Posted in General on November 1, 2007 - Post a comment


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