NEWS AND NOTES
-It’s Thanksgiving!! Eat lots of turkey!! Drink lots of alcohol!! Watch lots of basketball!! Enjoy the day regardless of what you do, and be safe. Test your deep fryer before using it, call a cab, fall asleep on the couch until you feel better, tolerate the friends or family that annoy you rather than starting a ruccus, and if all else fails, just retreat to a room somewhere, turn on the TV or smart phone, and watch what is actually a packed day of college hoops!! Do what you have to do to enjoy the day and be safe while doing it!! If you end up needing legal assitannce, just call Chad or Joby. That’s what I always do.
-For our latest Under the Radar Video Podcast – CLICK HERE
-For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day between UC Davis and Weber State up in Alaska – CLICK HERE
-For John Stalica’s Throwback Thursday – CLICK HERE
-For the past two seasons South Carolina has looked really good in the first half of the season, but then tapered off. They won a big game against a pretty good Michigan team yesterday, and again are looking good. Angry Frank even looked like he wasn’t completely angry for at least several minutes in a row!
-Valparaiso is doing what Chattanooga, Monmouth, and Siena are not doing right out of the gate. They’re winning the difficult but winnable games that they need to win in order to put themselves in the NCAA Tournament picture if they end up not winning the automatic bid. They knocked off Alabama two nights ago, and took care of a pretty good BYU team last night.
-Georgetown followed up their big win against Oregon by getting curb-stomped by Oklahoma State. It’s as if they went out and got drunk celebrating after the Oregon win, and just looked terrible for their second game.
-Late last night while most of you were sleeping Nevada got a scare from a pretty good Oakland team, but held on to win up in Alaska. The Mountain West is down this year, and Nevada, along with San Diego State and possibly New Mexico, looks to be one of the few teams with a pulse.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-BAYLOR VS MICHIGAN STATE (Battle 4 Atlantis). Baylor fought off a pretty good VCU team yesterday, and Michigan State didn’t get the cakewalk against Saint John’s that we were expecting. Both teams are in the rankings, Baylor already has a big win this season, and Michigan State is looking for what would be their biggest win up to this point.
-TEMPLE VS FLORIDA STATE (NIT). Florida State is out to a 4-0 start, and shouldn’t get too much of a test from Temple today, but this is their first game that’s not a home buy game.
-INDIANA STATE VS IOWA STATE (Advocare Invitational). Iowa State is off to a 3-0 start, but this tournament will be their first games that aren’t home buy games.
-TEXAS A&M VS CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE (Wooden Legacy). TAMU looks to be pretty good this season, and this tournament is a chance for them to pick up some notable wins from home. They’re not going to want to overlook this CS Northridge team, that should be one of the better teams in the Big West.
-LOUISVILLE VS WICHITA STATE (Battle 4 Atlantis). Both teams are unbeaten, but this is clearly the biggest test for either of them so far. Wichita State has blown through their entire schedule, including a blowout win yesterday against LSU, whereas Louisville needed overtime after a very poor shooting performance to get past Old Dominion.
-ILLINOIS VS WEST VIRGINIA (NIT). I feel that Winthrop should be here instead of Illinois, and I’m not wrong. West Virginia comes in at 3-0, and although they really haven’t been tested, don’t be surprised if they win big today.
-STANFORD VS MIAMI FL (Advocare Invitational). Both teams come in unbeaten and looking to pick up some early notable wins in this tournament.
-NEW MEXICO VS VIRGINIA TECH (Wooden Legacy). Virginia Tech will face strong competition in conference, but when it comes to their OOC schedule it’s really weak, and this tournament is their best chance to put some wins of note on their profile, so it’s important that they do well. New Mexico is in a similar situation. Their chances for statement wins are even more limited, and picking up some wins in this tournament may end up being what makes their profile the strongest.
-GONZAGA VS QUINNIPIAC (Advocare Inviational). Gonzaga should be tested in this tournament, but that test will not come today.
-SAINT JOHN’S VS VCU (Battle 4 Atlantis). Both teams are coming off of a loss, but will still have opportunities to add quality neutral floor wins to their profile.
-BUTLER VS VANDERBILT (Las Vegas Invitational). Butler is off to a pretty good 4-0 start and could once again be better than what we were expecting them to be in the preseason. That really seems to be standard operating procedure for that program.
-SETON HALL VS FLORIDA (Advocare Invitational). Both teams come into this without a loss, and we believe both of them are solid tournament caliber teams, so this game, and this whole tournament is certainly an opportunity for them to build their profiles.
-DAYTON VS NEBRASKA (Wooden Legacy). Dayton has a home loss to Saint Mary’s, and Nebraska comes in at 3-0, but neither team has really won what looks to be a notable game yet, so like all tournaments, this is a chance to build their profiles and build up momentum.
-LSU VS OLD DOMINION (Battle 4 Atlantis). Both teams are coming off losses, but both still have the opportunity to build their profiles by picking up wins away from home.
-SANTA CLARA VS ARIZONA (Las Vegas Invitational). Arizona appears to be undermatched in this game, but they’ve struggled at times when you haven’t expected them to, so I wouldn’t completely count them out.
-PORTLAND VS UCLA (Wooden Legacy). Both teams come into this unbeaten, and although they appear to be overmatched in this game, Portland can make quite the national splash if they’re able to pull off the upset and do well in this tournament.
BUY GAMES
-Montana @ Ole Miss (It is strange to see this game on Thanksgiving, but admission is FREE!)
Throwback Thursday: Farewell to the Cincinnati Gardens
For Chad Sherwood’s Under-The-Radar Game of the Day between UC-Davis and Weber State – CLICK HERE
For the latest Under-The-Radar Weekly Podcast – CLICK HERE
When it opened up in 1949, the Cincinnati Gardens was modeled after Toronto’s fabled Maple Leaf Gardens. The first major tenant was a minor league hockey team, namely the Cincinnati Mohawks of the American Hockey League and later the International Hockey League. They would win multiple Turner Cups as champs of the IHL, and another future team (the Cincinnati Swords) would also win a Calder Cup as part of the American Hockey League.
As for basketball, the first major tenant for the Gardens would be the Cincinnati Royals of the NBA. They played in the Gardens for 15 years after relocating from Rochester in 1957. Although they never won any NBA titles, they were a frequent contender in the Eastern Conference thanks to players like Jack Twyman, Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas. One sign that the NBA was not yet a mainstream pro league was that they had to move a playoff series against the Boston Celtics out of the Gardens in favor of a circus one year; the games were subsequently moved to Xavier’s ancient Schmidt Fieldhouse. After the 1971-72 season, dwindling attendance helped spur another relocation as the Cincinnati Royals would become the Kansas City Kings (now the Sacramento Kings).
When it comes to college basketball, the Cincinnati Bearcats would occasionally play games in the Cincinnati Gardens, although the Armory Fieldhouse (built in 1954) was their primary home during this time. Once Riverfront Coliseum was built in the mid-1970s, it offered a new home for the Bearcats along with the World Hockey League’s Cincinnati Stingers. This in turn would eventually provide a permanent home in the Gardens for the Xavier Musketeers. Xavier was a program that had an NIT title in 1958 to their credit (along with a single NCAA appearance in 1961), but they had a program that was abysmally bad in the 1960s and 1970s on a level that would have merited occasional Centenary consideration had HoopsHD existed at this time. Even that may not have been fair to Centenary at that time – their program was actually respectable at this time thanks to a star player named Robert Parish!
But Bob Staak was slowly building a solid program at Xavier that finally found a home in the newly formed Midwestern City Conference in the early 1980s. As attendance began to rise, Schmidt Fieldhouse became inadequate for a growing Xavier fanbase and they would move to the Cincinnati Gardens beginning with the 1983-84 season. And they were rewarded – the 1984 season featured a trip to the NIT that included wins at home against Nebraska and Ohio State. Following a season in which Staak would move on from Xavier to Wake Forest, Pete Gillen took over in 1985-86 and continued to lay a foundation where Xavier would make the NCAA Tournament 7 times in his 9 seasons. Skip Prosser would also follow in his footsteps beginning with the 1994-95 season. They would go undefeated in the MCC (now the Horizon League) regular season in 1994-95 and would get an at-large NCAA Tournament bid despite an upset loss to Wright State in the MCC conference tournament that year.
Another step forward was taken for Xavier’s program in the 1995-96 season. This was their first season in the Atlantic 10, and also meant that instead of hosting programs like Evansville, Detroit and Loyola-Chicago on an annual basis, they would now be playing host to Massachusetts (a national power under John Calipari), Temple, and another emerging program in George Washington annually. It was an overtime loss to UMass on national TV that served notice that Xavier had a team of future stars on their roster. By the end of Xavier’s tenure at the Gardens following the 1999-2000 season, they had accumulated a very impressive 215-25 record at home (.896 winning percentage).
As electric as the UMass game was, few games could ever compare to the Crosstown Shootout. It was at its peak in the early 1990s when Gillen was in his prime at Xavier and Bob Huggins had just taken over a program at Cincinnati that went through its own down cycle in the 1980s. The teams would exchange Shootout victories from 1990 through 1998 – this included a very contentious game in 1994 where Brian Grant would hit a game-tying shot in regulation to force overtime. After Xavier won in overtime, Gillen and Huggins had a shouting match after the game as opposed to the usual handshake line. Things simmered down a bit after Gillen moved on to Providence, but it was hardly the last great moment in the Gardens. That was reserved for the 1999-2000 season – it was the second time in 4 seasons where Xavier would defeat a Cincinnati team ranked #1 at the time.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. After Xavier moved to the Cintas Center on campus for the 2000-01 season, the AHL’s Cincinnati Mighty Ducks remained as a tenant until the 2004-05 season. Once they left town, the Gardens would play host to fringe pro hockey, high school hockey, occasional pro wrestling events and roller derby. As of July 21, 2016, the Gardens was sold to the Greater Cincinnati Development Authority. Memorabilia from the Gardens has already been sold through local estate sales and there are now plans in the works to sell the seats as well through similar channels.
As for the end of the 1999 Crosstown Shootout, click here to see the ending in all its glory.