Below is a rundown of all of today’s action and a look back at a busy day yesterday.
NEWS AND NOTES
-Butler began this season unranked and without much of a spotlight on them. We’ve seen this before. In fact, more often than not for the past 15 years now Butler does not start off in the rankings and is believed to be at the end of their run. Well, yesterday they beat 8th-ranked Arizona to stay unbeaten, and are almost certian to be a national story now.
-Baylor also began the season unranked. They now have wins against Oregon, VCU, Michigan State, and Louisville, whom they overcame a 20 point deficit in the second half to come back and beat. That’s as impressive a start as any other team out there right now.
-Gonzaga had some trouble in their first real test of the season against Florida in a quasi-road environment, but held on to win and will face a strong Iowa State team tomorrow.
-Temple, who none of us expected anything out of, picked up another huge and surprising win yesterday against West Virginia in the NIT. They actually had a 20 point lead and almost blew it, but they held on to win. Since losing to New Hampshire and UMass, the Owls have looked like a top 25 team in knocking off both Florida State and West Virginia.
-USC picked up another nice win at home agianst SMU to remain unbeaten. Watch out for the Trojans this year – they now have a noteworthy win at home to go along with their win at Texas A&M last week.
-For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day between Akron and Mercer – CLICK HERE
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-NORTHERN IOWA AT XAVIER. These two just met in the championship game of the Tire Pros Invitational, and this is technically a non bracketed exempt game that’s part of that event. Xavier is already in good shape, and if UNI could pull off the upset it would probably be their biggest win on their profile all year long.
-YALE AT VERMONT. Both teams have looked good early, but both have a small margin for error in regards to landing either on the bubble, or in the bubble, come March.
-SOUTH CAROLINA VS SYRACUSE (Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational). Both teams come in unbeaten, and South Carolina is coming off a big home win against Michigan. I know it’s early, but both look like they could be tournament teams, and this is a chance for them to pick up a quality neutral floor win. For Syracuse, it is their first real test of the season.
-CHATTANOOGA AT KENNESAW STATE. We highlight this only because we feel Chattanooga is about out of at-large strikes. The rest of their games this year are winnable, and they pretty much need to win all of them.
-PENN STATE AT GEORGE WASHINGTON. Both teams have shown signs of life early on this season, but both still have a lot of work to do in regards to building a tournament caliber profile.
-LOYOLA CHICAGO AT NC STATE. Both teams come into this game with just one loss. NC State doesn’t have any huge wins yet and may not want to overlook a Loyola team that’s off to a pretty good start and looking to pick up a notable win of their own.
-CHARLOTTE AT DAVIDSON. This is a crosstown rivalry that actually has a meaningful storyline this year. Both teams come in at 3-1, and both need big wins. This one will help both on and off paper.
-RICE AT INCARNATE WORD. Rice is off to a really good start. A win in this one gets them to 5-1, and would also be their third true road win of the year.
-MEMPHIS VS IOWA (Emerald Coast Classic). Both teams are coming off a loss and are looking to salvage the trip down to the Emerald Coast by picking up a notable neutral floor win.
-UT ARLINGTON AT FORDHAM. Fordham is looking for their sixth straight win. They’ll have to take down the preseason Sun Belt favorites in order to get it.
-EAST CAROLINA VS AIR FORCE (Savannah Invitational). Both teams are coming off a loss, but are still off to fairly decent starts this year, and this is a chance to pick up what could be a notable neutral floor win.
-NORTH DAKOTA AT WRIGHT STATE. It isn’t likely that either team will be in the bubble talk at the end of the year, but each only has one loss coming into this game.
-PROVIDENCE VS VIRGINIA (Emerald Coast Classic). Providence is off to a surprisingly good start with just one loss, and Virginia has been blasting through everyone on their schedule. If Providence can somehow win this then they’ll really get the attention of the nation, but that is much easier said than done.
-RICHMOND VS BOSTON COLLEGE (Barclays Center Classic). Richmond fell in overtime to Maryland yesterday and needs to at least pick up this win today in order to keep themselves in the early picture.
-MIDDLE TENNESSEE VS TOLEDO (Challenge in Music City). Middle Tennessee picked up a huge win against a very good UNC Wilmington team yesterday, and can improve to 5-1 with a win over a pretty good Toledo team today, which would give them a rather impressive early profile.
-KANSAS STATE VS MARYLAND (Barclays Center Classic). Both teams enter this game unbeaten. For K State it is their first real test, whereas Maryland has already won at Georgetown and beat what looks to be a fairly decent Richmond team yesterday. Still, it would be one of the bigger wins for either team up to this point.
-TCU VS WASHINGTON (Global Sports Classic). TCU is off to a quiet 5-0 start. If they win this game against a Washington team that’s looked pretty good since dropping their season opener, TCU will suddenly be a lot less quiet.
-IONA VS NEVADA (Great Alaska Shootout). A win for Nevada would be their sixth straight since dropping the opener against a very good Saint Mary’s team. There are also rumblings that this 39th version of the Great Alaska Shootout championship could be the final one ever played, so there may be some historical significance attached to this game.
BUY GAMES
-Appalachian State @ Duke
-Lipbscomb @ Cincinnati
-NJIT @ Purdue
-Loyola MD @ Creighton
-Cornell @ Houston
-Utah Valley @ BYU
-Mount Saint Mary’s @ Michigan
-Chicago State @ Notre Dame
-Tulane @ Georgia Tech
-Seattle @ UCF
-Houston Baptist @ Marquette
-Reinhardt (nondiv1) @ Tennessee State
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.