HoopsHD at the Wooden Legacy: Part 1 of 3

Posted on December 6, 2019 by Jon Teitel

There are a lot of great college basketball tournaments every late-November: the Maui Invitational, the Battle 4 Atlantis, etc. When the Wooden Legacy organizers announced that its 2019 field of 8 schools would include both Penn AND Arizona, HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel had no choice but to request a media credential/buy a plane ticket/check out his 2 alma maters in person. He expected to see a total of 6 separate games (3 involving the Quakers and 3 involving the Wildcats) but due to some travel nightmares and wild finishes he only saw 3 games during the weekend. We begin with a recap of a tumultuous Thanksgiving followed by the dream/nightmare matchup of the 2 teams above in Part 1 of our coverage.

What a Thursday: I woke up in Phoenix where I spent the 1st half of my Thanksgiving week, enjoyed some quality time with the fam, then headed to the airport to fly west to see my 2 schools play back-to-back in the evening session in Anaheim. The good news is that there was no traffic so I arrived at the airport with time to spare. The bad news is that the subsequent 2 ½ hour delay gave me plenty of time to…watch some NFL action at an airport bar. By the time I arrived at the rental car facility near LAX I had already missed 1 fantastic finish, and rather than drive an hour in the rain to watch Arizona face a team that it has never lost to (Pepperdine) and would probably blow out (the Cats were leading the nation with a scoring margin of 30.3 PPG) I decided to meet up with a friend at a bar in Redondo Beach to see the nightcap while enjoying a nightcap. The Penn finish was a tale of 2 video reviews: the Quakers had a 3-PT lead and the ball with 3 seconds left before throwing away an inbounds pass that was awarded to UCF after a video review, then Darin Green Jr. made a 3 at the buzzer to send it to OT…until video review confirmed that he had stepped on the line as the Quakers held on for a 68-67 win. The Arizona finish was a tale of 2 shots: Pepperdine’s Colbey Ross made a floater with 7 seconds left to tie the game at 91-all, then Arizona freshman Nico Mannion made a running hook shot with 2.1 seconds left to clinch a 2-PT win.

Then it hit me: the “who does Jon cheer for” game was going to take place after all. My 2 teams would be facing each other for only the 2nd time ever and the 1st time in almost 25 years: I know because I was there! It was December 30, 1996 and I was a recent Penn grad living in Phoenix. Back then the Wildcats hosted their own holiday tournament every December (the Bank One Fiesta Bowl Classic) so I decided to drive 2 hours south to see the red and blue face the red and blue at the McKale Center. I had a great seat on press row and then spent the next 40 minutes questioning my life choices as Arizona destroyed Penn by a score of 93-51. It was so long ago that 1 of the freshmen on that Wildcat team was a guard named Josh Pastner! If there is such a thing as a respectable 42-PT loss then that 1 might qualify based on the caliber of the 2 squads involved: the Quakers went 12-14 that season after winning the Ivy League during each of the previous 4 seasons, while the Wildcats became the only team to ever beat a trio of #1-seeds en route to winning the 1997 national title.

I visited some California friends who I had not seen in a long time on Friday afternoon and then headed to the Anaheim Arena for the big game. The pregame meal hit the spot: rice/beans/make-your-own tacos. The lower bowl was rather empty but the Arizona contingent was out in force (due in large part to Coach Sean Miller having 6 players on the roster who hail from southern California):

Wilma/Wilbur also spent their Thanksgiving in Anaheim:

As did a few lucky cheerleaders:

Let’s do this:

AJ Brodeur only made 3-10 FG in the 1st half but operated well inside against a Power 5 team with 2 layups and an open dunk while also adding 4 AST/2 STL.  He/Zeke Nnaji may both weigh 240 pounds but the Penn senior and Arizona freshman have very different skill sets:

The 1 Wildcat who is no stranger at all to facing the Quakers is grad transfer Stone Gettings. He played against Penn 6 times while an undergrad player at Cornell and had some big-time performances, including 21 PTS/7 REB/5 AST in a loss at the Palestra on 2/12/17 and 20 PTS/17 REB in an 8-PT loss in Philly on 1/12/18. He only had 1 PT on Friday…but what do you expect from a guy wearing unlucky #13!

Chase Jeter had a perfect 1st half with 8 PTS on 4-4 FG and 4 REB. He did all of his damage down low with a variety of low post moves…and when you are rolling like that then you get to roll up the shorts on your right leg:

Coach Miller’s team outshot Penn from 1-PT land/2-PT land/3-PT land in the 1st half but still needed to huddle the troops as Coach Steve Donahue’s Quakers would not go away and were only down by 8 PTS at halftime:

Penn tried to cut into the lead early in the 2nd half but Brodeur picked up his 3rd/4th fouls in rapid succession with 17 minutes left and did not attempt a single FG the rest of the night. However, Coach Donahue decided to run the offense through his SR star, who somehow ended up with a double-double of 11 PTS/10 AST:

The star of the show for Penn was freshman SG Jordan Dingle. After making only a single 3-PT shot in the 1st half he got in the zone in the 2nd half and sunk a spectacular 6 long-range shots to finish with a career-high 27 PTS. He might not be the best freshman in the country…but the only other 1st-year player averaging 17+ PPG who has made 22 3PM so far is Virginia Tech FR SG Landers Nolley II:

Speaking of freshmen, Arizona has 3 of them in its starting lineup and they are all playing like veterans. Nnaji kept making layups (finishing with 16 PTS), Josh Green scored both inside and outside (finishing with 14 PTS), and Mannion continued his stellar play while making shots from all over the court. He scored a career-high 24 PTS/11-14 FG by nailing a couple of long jumpers and showing off his signature shot: a floater that he releases high into the air off of either foot.

Arizona won 92-82 but Penn kept it competitive deep into the 2nd half and with a resume that already includes road wins at Alabama/Providence they proved that they can play with the big boys. Hope you enjoyed Part 1, please check back later this weekend for Part 2.

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News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Friday, Dec 6th

Posted on December 6, 2019 by David Griggs

CLICK HERE for our latest Under the Radar Video Podcast

NEWS AND NOTES

-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day, which features the Silent Night tradition at Taylor – CLICK HERE

-If you missed the Furman v Auburn game, you missed a great one.  Furman led for most of the game, and even built up a double digit lead on multiple occasions in the second half.  Auburn tightened up their defense and came back, but every time they made a run, Furman seemed to have an answer.  Auburn ended up pulling it out in overtime, and you kind of hate it for Furman because as good as they are, it’s going to be difficult for them to put together an NCAA Tournament resume that reflects it.  A win in a game like yesterday would have made a huge difference.  It was their last really good opportunity to get a big OOC win.

-Louisiana Tech, who had been kind of flying under the radar even by UTR standards, went into Mississippi State and picked up a huge road win.  It’s time to start paying serious attention to the Bulldogs.

-Oklahoma and North Texas seesawed back and forth all night, but when the time ran out Oklahoma was ahead.  It was the first true road win of the season for the Sooners.

 

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-IOWA AT MICHIGAN (Big Ten).  Big Ten play gets underway tonight as Michigan looks to bounce back from their loss at Louisville.  They’ve got a winnable home game an Iowa team tonight that’s decent, but still has work to do (as does pretty much everyone).

-DUKE AT VIRGINIA TECH (ACC).  This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for VA Tech, and it could still end up being that, but after watching them pick up a couple big wins over in Maui, the Hokies may be better than advertised.  They’ve got a tall order tonight against a Duke team that totally blew out Michigan State earlier in the week.

-PROVIDENCE AT RHODE ISLAND.  This is always a great game, and I don’t expect it to be any different tonight.  Rhody has been a little better than expected, whereas Providence has been a bit of a disappointment, but sometimes a win in a rivalry game can really get a team’s motor started.  This one isn’t really in the national consciousness, but if you tune in to it tonight you may be shocked at the intensity level in this one.

-STEPHEN F AUSTIN AT ALABAMA.  SFA is on a roll, and they’ve got another winnable road game tonight against an Alabama team that’s been somewhat of a disappointment.  If they can get this win, I think they should be on pace to land inside the bubble if they hold serve throughout Southland play.

-DARTMOUTH AT SOUTH FLORIDA.  This game probably won’t end up on the committee’s radar, but for now Dartmouth is having a better than expected season and South Florida, while still dealing with not having their full expected roster, is starting to get a few of their pieces back.

-PITTSBURGH AT LOUISVILLE (ACC).  Louisville is coming off their first real test against Michigan, and looks to keep that momentum going, pick up a conference win, and hold on to their #1 ranking.

-USC AT TCU.  This is a rather important game for both teams.  Both have good records, and both have been tested some, but neither has been tested a lot.  This is a chance for two teams who don’t have a lot of notable wins yet to pick up a notable win.

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Under The Radar Game of the Day: Friday, December 6th

Posted on December 6, 2019 by John Stalica

For last night’s Under The Radar weekly podcast – CLICK HERE

Ohio-Chillicothe at Taylor – 6:00 PM EST (Facebook Live)

Today’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to one of our favorite traditions – Taylor University is hosting the Hilltoppers of Ohio University-Chillicothe. Both teams participate in NAIA Division II. This is the 23rd edition of the Silent Night game that has become tradition for Taylor before final exams every December. There are a couple of very notable alumni in the NCAA coaching ranks that attended Taylor – Akron’s John Groce and Ohio State’s Chris Holtmann.

In short, the game opens up in complete silence until Taylor scores the 10th point of the game. At this point, the place erupts and fans storm the floor to celebrate. Per agreement of both teams, Taylor is charged with a timeout as this happens (and not a technical foul as would normally happen under such a scenario).

These are some highlights from last year:

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Under the Radar: December 5th

Posted on December 5, 2019 by David Griggs

Tonight’s feature conference is the WAC, which has been kind of disappointing up to this point with New Mexico State dealing with injuries and GCU falling short of expectations, but Chicago State picked up their first road win since 2017, and New Mexico State should be dangerous once they’re healthy again.  After that we run through the other 21 leagues and discuss the slump that Vermont is in, the solid play out of CUSA from teams like Louisiana Tech, how tight the race in the Colonial will likely be, the surprising season Coppin State has had so far, and how strong the SoCon and MAC continue to be.  All that and more.  And as always, we close with our UTR Top Ten.

And for all you radio lovers, below is an audio only version of the show….

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Under The Radar Game of the Day: Howard at Hampton (and other News, Notes, and Games)

Posted on December 5, 2019 by John Stalica

For Rocco Miller’s recap of Georgia Tech’s win against Nebraska – CLICK HERE

Howard (0-9) at Hampton (3-5, 0-5 D1) – 7:00 PM EST (Watch Live)

Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day reunites a former pair of rivals in the MEAC – Howard hits the road to take on the Hampton Pirates (home of former Bad Boy Rick Mahorn). While Hampton has moved on from the MEAC to the Big South recently, they are beginning a week in which they will take on Howard and Norfolk State back-to-back. Jermaine Marrow has averaged over 25 points a game through Hampton’s first eight games this season.

This is also a game that has been billed “The Battle for the Real HU” – the Bison come into tonight’s game looking for their first victory of the season. While they’ve lost both home games, including Washington Adventist (NAIA) and the rest of their games against div1 opponents have been road games (including 4 games in the round-robin Men Against Breast Cancer Classic with Notre Dame, Marshall, Toledo and Robert Morris), they will have home games against Appalachian State, Harvard and Penn coming up in December. Charles Williams is averaging 17.7 points a game for the Bison thus far.

 

OTHER NEWS NOTES AND GAMES

-We saw an extremely impressive, and somewhat surprising, showing from Purdue yesterday as they ran Virginia off the court in a 69-40 win.  The Boilermakers have faced three straight ranked opponents and beaten two of them.  I’d say that’s a good week.

-Ohio State’s showing at North Carolina probably topped that.  They blew the Tarheels off of their home floor.  UNC doesn’t lose too often, they lose at home even less, and they almost never get blown out at home.  It was Ohio State’s first true road game, and I’d say they were up to the challenge.

-LMU actually led Colorado for most of the game.  It wasn’t until the final minutes that the Buffs got the lead and got control.  The 76-64 score doesn’t really indicate how close the game actually was.  Still, Colorado gets the win and remains unbeaten at 7-0.

-DePaul trailed for most of the game against Texas Tech, but it was close all throughout.  They hit a 3 with less than ten seconds to go to force overtime, and then made several big plays in OT to get the win.  DePaul remains unbeaten on the season, and now has wins over Texas Tech, Iowa, and Minnesota.  That has all the makings of a tournament caliber resume.  After the game, the fans stormed the court, and even though Texas Tech wasn’t ranked, it was still very much justified!!

-Georgetown, despite all the off the court drama and the loss of two key players, went down to Oklahoma State and beat a very good team on the road.  That is one of the more impressive performances of the week just when you factor in what Georgetown has gone through and the caliber of the players that left the team.

-California Baptist knocked off UC Riverside to capture this year’s Battle of Riverside!!!!

-OKLAHOMA AT NORTH TEXAS.  Coming into the year, I thought North Texas would be a lot better than what they are.  Their 3-5 start to the season is kind of a disappointment.  Still, the Sooners aren’t going to want to just completely overlook them.  It’s their first true road game of the season, and it’s perhaps the most winnable true road game that they have on the schedule.

-FURMAN AT AUBURN.  I’m big on this Furman team, although they are coming off a loss to a South Florida team that you would have expected them to beat even though they were on the road.  They’ve got a much taller order tonight against 14th ranked Auburn on the road, but it’s the kind of game that if they were somehow able to win then it could put them in a situation to be inside the bubble come March and not need to win the conference tournament in order to get in.

-LA Tech @ Mississippi State – buy game, although LA Tech is off to a decent 5-2 start
-Central Arkansas @ Wichita State – buy game
-Northern Illinois @ Saint Mary’s

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Behind Devoe, Georgia Tech pulls away from Nebraska

Posted on December 4, 2019 by Rocco Miller

Michael Devoe scored a game-high 26 points to lead Georgia Tech to a 73-56 victory over Nebraska on Wednesday night.

The Yellow Jackets (4-2) pulled away from the Cornhuskers over the final 14 minutes to secure a win in the B1G-ACC Challenge. Devoe converted a three-pointer and a 2nd chance layup to give Georgia Tech the breathing room it needed to gain separation against Nebraska (4-4).

Haanif Cheatham led the Huskers in scoring with 14 points. Jervay Green and Cam Mack each scored 11 points for Nebraska.
The Huskers are learning to adjust to life under Head Coach Fred Hoiberg. Under Hoiberg, Nebraska brought in 11 newcomers this season. After a 3rd Place finish in the Cayman Islands Invitational, hopes are high that this team will continue to improve. In addition, Coach Hoiberg received high praise from Georgia Tech Head Coach Josh Pastner during the Postgame Press Conference, when Pastner eluded to Hoiberg being one of the best coaches in the nation.

The Huskers came out determined to prove they were here for a road victory. They held a few different leads during the first half, but ultimately too many turnovers proved to be costly. Hoiberg gave credit to James Banks III for clogging the middle and the rest of the Georgia Tech defense applied energetic ball pressure to get Nebraska out of rhythm.

Banks III swayed the game even more toward Georgia Tech on a monster block on Yvon Ouedraogo’s fast-break attempt.
The fans inside McCamish Pavilion were mostly quiet in the 1st Half, but the block brought the fans to their feet Later in the 2nd Half, Nebraska fans tried to spark a comeback with chants of “Defense,” but Tech fans came over the top with much louder “Offense” chants. It was impressive, and something I hadn’t witnessed.

The Yellow Jackets dominated the paint and forced tough Cornhusker shot attempts, that was the story here tonight. Georgia Tech finished with a 48-30 edge in the paint, and held Nebraska to 6-26 3-Point shooting.

BIG PICTURE:

Nebraska: The Huskers have never beat Georgia Tech, now 0-2. The last loss came in The Omni back in 1983.

Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets improved to 8-11 all-time in the B1G-ACC Challenge. However, when the Jackets play at home during the Challenge, they are now 6-3.

UP NEXT

Nebraska: The Cornhuskers are in the midst of a difficult stretch. They travel to rival Creighton on Saturday. Next week? A trip to Indiana and hosting Purdue. They need to improve quickly.

Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets host Syracuse on Saturday at Noon. It prompted a funny moment in the press room. Pastner reiterated numerous times that the game is on Saturday, not on Sunday the 8th. Apparently there was a ticketing issue where all of the tickets read the 8th.

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