Hoops HD

For today’s UTR Game of the Day between Austin Peay and Western Kentucky – CLICK HERE

NEWS AND NOTES

To say that Memphis was in the news last night would be a bit of an understatement. Just hours before their victory against Illinois-Chicago, the NCAA ruled star freshman James Wiseman ineligible because they deemed that Penny Hardaway was a booster prior to being named head coach at Memphis and had provided moving expenses for Wiseman and his family to move to Memphis.

Within moments, a judge in Shelby County temporarily halted the ruling and allowed Wiseman to suit up and play for Memphis for the time being. The NCAA warned Memphis that any games from this point on are in danger of being vacated as long as Wiseman continues to play for the Tigers.

If not for the Memphis saga, our lead story from last night would be Merrimack getting their first D-1 victory with a win at Northwestern last night. The Warriors had a 17-4 run late in the game to turn a 5-point deficit into an 8-point lead with under a minute remaining and won the game at the foul line.

Washington also got a significant victory against Baylor in the Armed Forces Classic in Anchorage last night. Isaiah Stewart hit a shot with 30 seconds remaining to put the Huskies ahead for good and gave themselves and the Pac-12 a big win that was noticeably lacking last season.

Utah did things to Mississippi Valley State that would be illegal in the other 55 states, districts and territories in this country. Well, maybe not in Louisiana – Grambling also did the same things to Ecclesia College. We will go out on a limb and guess that no conference has ever had one team win by 90+ points in one game and another team lose by 90+ points in a separate game on the same night.

Northeastern also scored a mild upset at home against Harvard – they have now opened their season with 2 victories in the basketball version of the Bean Pot.

Vermont got a double-double from Anthony Lamb to put themselves over the edge with a win at St. Bonaventure, and Dartmouth got a big win on the road and put an emphatic end to Buffalo’s 26-game home winning streak.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-WRIGHT STATE AT MIAMI OH (Mythical Miami Valley Conference).  An interesting UTR game between a Wright State team that’s expected to be a fruntrunner in the Horizon League, and a Miami OH team that we think can make some noise in the MAC.

-LIPSCOMB AT MIDDLE TENNESSEE.  A crosstown UTR rivalry with both teams coming into this game after winning their opener.  Lipscomb has a lot of pieces to replace, but they should once again be one of the better teams in the A-Sun.

-SAN DIEGO STATE AT BYU.  This is an old conference rivalry renewed. Both teams have been a little down in recent years, but both have quite a bit of potential for this year.  This is a really good early season game because it’s a resume builder for whoever pulls it off.

-KANSAS STATE AT UNLV.  UNLV is in rebuild mode and they’ve got a ways to go before everything is entirely rebuilt.  K State also has a lot to replace from a team that finished in first place in the Big 12 last year.  This would be a nice early season road win for them if they’re able to pull it off.

-IOWA STATE AT OREGON STATE.  Both teams come into this 1-0, but neither were really tested in their first game.  I think Oregon State is a potential sleeper team and they’ve got a chance to show that today if they can knock off what looks like a good Iowa State team at home.

-TEXAS AT PURDUE.  Texas barely missed the NCAA Tournament last year, and even though it’s early in the season this game still feels like it has a sense of urgency to it.  Both teams will have multiple chances at quality wins throughout the year, but this is a chance to get one early and sprint ahead to the front of the pack, so to speak.

-NORTHERN IOWA AT NORTHERN ILLINOIS.  I kind of like this UNI team, and this is a winnable road game that could get them off to a solid 2-0 start.

-VALPARAISO AT SAINT LOUIS.  Both teams won their opener, and while we don’t expect either one of them to be frontrunners in their conferences, this is still a game worth keeping an eye on.

-OKLAHOMA VS MINNESOTA (Sioux Falls SD).  This is a resume building opportunity for both teams seeing that it’s a chance to pick up an early OOC win away from home.  I still have more questions than answers about both of them, so this game should teach us something.

-RHODE ISLAND AT MARYLAND.  Rhody is trying to rebuild and get back to being a top 25 caliber team.  They appear to have a ways to go, but a road win like this could catapult them pretty far pretty fast.  Maryland is ranked in the top ten and looks to be good enough to compete for a protected seed.  Both teams won their opener, but neither were tested like they will be tonight.

-EAST TENNESSEE STATE AT UT MARTIN.  Both teams come in 1-0, and it’s a chance for ETSU, who we think will be a potential bubble team, to pick up a road win.

-LMU AT NEVADA.  This is a winnable road game for an LMU team that could turn out to be a dark horse this year.

-BOISE STATE AT OREGON.  Boise State won their first game and from all accounts seems to be much better than they were a year ago, but winning on the road against an Oregon team that will compete for a protected seed is a very tall order.

-GEORGIA STATE AT CHARLESTON – both teams 1-0

-DELAWARE VS SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (Sunshine Slam, Kissimmee FL) – both teams 1-0

-AUSTIN PEAY AT WESTERN KENTUCKY – both teams 1-0

-IDAHO AT UC RIVERSIDE – both teams 1-0 (amazingly)

-SOUTHERN MISS AT SOUTH ALABAMA – both teams 1-0

-TULSA AT UT ARLINGTON – both teams 1-0

-SOUTH DAKOTA STATE AT CAL STATE BAKERSFIELD – both teams unbeaten

BUY GAMES

-Robert Morris @ Notre Dame
-Central Arkansas @ Georgetown
-Nicholls @ Pittsburgh
-Morgan State @ Temple – both teams 1-0
-Portland State @ Indiana – both teams 1-0
-Southern Utah @ Nebraska – Nebraska could easily end up 0-2
-Stony Brook @ Seton Hall
-Texas Southern @ Wichita State
-Kansas City @ Oklahoma State – both teams 1-0
-Prairie View A&M @ UCF
-Central Connecticut @ Saint John’s
-Wagner @ Penn State
-NJIT @ Providence
-New Orleans @ Butler – both teams 1-0
-Indiana State @ Dayton
-Arkansas Pine Bluff @ Gonzaga
-Bethune Cookman @ Texas Tech
-Cal State Fullerton @ Stanford

NEWS AND NOTES

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For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day between Radford and Liberty – CLICK HERE

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-AUBURN VS DAVIDSON (Veterans Classic, Annapolis MD).  Auburn is coming off a Final Four season, and big things are expected of Davidson this year as they return a lot of talent from last year’s team.  It’s Davidson’s first game, and Auburn’s first challenge.

-COLORADO STATE AT DUKE.  Both teams come in 1-0, but Duke’s win against Kansas was the slightly more impressive win.

-NORTH CAROLINA AT UNC WILMINGTON.  Both teams won their opener, but UNC clearly looks like the superior team and shouldn’t have too much trouble.

-NORTH TEXAS AT VCU.  This is a buy game, but I like this UNT team and think that they may be able to stick with VCU for a while.  They appear to be overmatched and they’re on the road, but this should be more competitive than most buy games.

-LOYOLA CHICAGO AT FURMAN.  Both teams are 1-0.  Furman won this one last year before going on to Villanova and beating them as well.  You may recall they exploded onto the scene with back to back road wins against teams that were in the previous year’s Final Four.

-AKRON AT WEST VIRGINIA.  This is the season opener for the Mountaineers, who are once again healthy and who did look pretty good in a charity game against Duquesne.  Akron won their first game, but they’ll face a much bigger test tonight.

-VERMONT AT SAINT BONAVENTURE.  A lot of us at Hoops HD are really big on this Vermont team.  If they’re as good as some of us seem to think they are, then this should be a winnable road game for them.

-BOWLING GREEN AT LSU.  Bowling Green is the preseason favorite to win the MAC.  They’re probably overmatched tonight, but they’ve got a chance to make an early splash on the national scene.

-HARVARD AT NORTHEASTERN (Bean Pot).  Both teams won their opener, and while Harvard looks to be the better team, playing on the road against a rival will be a lot tougher than playing at home against MIT.  We should learn a little something about the Crimson tonight.

-NORTHERN KENTUCKY AT MISSOURI.  This is a buy game, but since NKU is one of the better teams in the Horizon League we’ll go ahead and highlight it.  Both teams come into this 1-0, and while Mizzou should win, they better not overlook the Norse.

-UNC GREENSBORO AT KANSAS.  This may look like a mismatch, and perhaps it is, but UNCG is a top 50 caliber team that just missed the NCAA Tournament a year ago, and may be good enough to land inside the bubble this year.  Winning at Kansas is probably over their heads, but it will be interesting to see what they can do against one of the best teams in the country.

-WEBER STATE AT UTAH STATE.  Utah State escaped their season opener against Montana State.  They face their Beehive State rivals tonight.

-ILLINOIS AT GRAND CANYON.  Some people are really big on Illinois.  Quite frankly, I’m not seeing it, and the fact that they needed overtime to get by Nicholls in their opener didn’t help my opinion of them much.  At least they won, though.  Grand Canyon couldn’t get past a div2 team in their opener.  Still, it winning at GCU is never easy.

-WASHINGTON VS BAYLOR (Armed Forces Classic, Anchorage AK).  This is an early season neutral floor game between two teams that look like they could be NCAA Tournament teams.  It should be a fun one.

-ARIZONA STATE VS COLORADO (Not Pac 12, Shanghai China).  I guess the Pac 12 couldn’t find a team to go to China for their annual early season game, so they just decided to send two Pac 12 teams.  In case you’re wondering, this will not count in the conference standings.  But, it is an important game.  We feel that both are contenders to make the NCAA Tournament.

-OAKLAND VS DELAWARE (Sunshine Slam, Kissimmee FL).  Both teams 1-0

-UTSA VS SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (Sunshine Slam, Kissimmee FL).  Could be a fairly competitive UTR game

BUY GAMES

-Eastern Kentucky @ Kentucky – both teams 1-0
-UIC @ Memphis – both teams 1-0
-Siena @ Xavier – both teams 1-0
-Sacred Heart @ UConn
-Longwood @ George Mason – both teams 1-0
-Radford @ Liberty
-Florida Atlantic @ Miami FL
-Coppin State @ Virginia Tech
-Arkansas State @ Ole Miss
-Eastern Illinois @ Wisconsin
-Fairleigh Dickinson @ DePaul – both teams unbeaten
-Sam Houston State @ Mississippi State – both teams 1-0
-Merrimack @ Northwestern
-Mississippi Valley State @ Utah
-Portland @ USC – both teams 1-0

NEWS AND NOTES

-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day between Marshall and Robert Morris – CLICK HERE

–JNG.  Even though we are just a couple of days in, people are already asking for/demanding Joby’s Nitty Gritty Rankings (the JNG)!!!  As far as how they work and what computers and programs he uses….I have no idea.  What I do know is that all 353 teams need to have played at least one game against a div1 opponent in order for his formula to work.  Otherwise, if he tried to run the formulas, his computer would explode or something like that.  As soon as all teams have played a div1 game they will be posted, and they will be updated on a pretty much daily basis from that point on.

-Notre Dame led North Carolina throughout much of the first half and through part of the second half.  UNC eventually opened it up and got the win, but the Irish made a pretty good account of themselves.  They look a lot better than the team that lost 8 out of 9 (or whatever it was) to end the season a year ago.

-Syracuse squared off against Virginia, which is never a good idea if you can avoid it.  They did hold the defending national champs to just 48 points!!  The problem is that they themselves only scored 34 points.  Starting the season off with a conference road win is a pretty good way to start things off.

-Ohio State and Cincinnati played one of the ugliest first halves of basketball that you may see all season, but they both kind of came out of it in the second half and we saw a free flowing, well played game where both teams were able to score.  For the second year in a row, Ohio State picked up the 64-56 win.  It wasn’t just the second year in a row that Ohio State won.  It was the second year in a row that they won 64-56.  Cincinnati did look pretty good (at least in the second half) under their new head coach.  To go on the road against a ranked team and be able to stay with them, and to shut them down defensively, is a pretty promising sign despite the loss.

-Boston College held off Wake Forest in their ACC opener.  BC is now in first place in the ACC, and will be for the next six weeks or so.  Think about that!

-Pitt picked up a nice win at home against Florida State.  I’m not going to say that I’m shocked by it, but it was a game that I thought the Noles would win.  It’s a great start for a Pitt team that hasn’t had much to be excited about in the last several years.

-Mount Saint Mary’s had a 59-45 lead on Georgetown about midway through the second half, and had played an outstanding game up to that point.  Then Georgtetown finally wok up, outscored them 36-9 from that point on, and ended up getting the win.

-San Jose State started the season off with a really solid road win at Hofstra.  SAN JOSE STATE!!!  A SOLID ROAD WIN!!  I’m trying to think if that has ever happened before.  As it stands now, I think they’ve got the most impressive win out of anyone else in the MWC.  Granted, it’s very early, but that was a good start.

-I thought Merrimack would have a chance to win their div1 debut against Maine.  I was wrong.  The Black Bears picked up the win and never even really had to sweat.

-Belmont and Illinois State went back and forth before Illinois State was able to pull out the win at home.  It was a good showing by a Belmont team that had a fair amount of roster turnover, and I don’t want to say it was a bad loss in the sense that they can still bounce back, but the margin for error is so small for a UTR team that they need to be able to win games like this one.

-Oklahoma State really had to sweat out Oral Roberts, but they were able to come up with the win.

-UCLA got all they wanted from Long Beach State, and actually trailed for most of the game, but was able to pull it off in Mick Cronin’s debut.

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-WINTHROP AT HARTFORD – Hartford can improve to 2-0 with a win

-SEATTLE AT WASHINGTON STATE.  This may be the most intriguing game of the night.  Seattle was decimated with injuries last year, but prior to that they had looked pretty good.  They’re healthy this year, and they may be able to take down (and possibly even beat) a low level Pac 12 team on the road.

-BRYANT AT RUGERS – buy game

-PRESBYTERIAN AT CLEMSON – buy game

-SOUTHWESTERN (nondiv1) AT TCU – buy game