It’s a very busy day in college basketball as a lot of teams get one last big game in before Christmas. Below is a rundown of all the action.
NEWS AND NOTES
-To watch and/or listen to our latest Hoops HD Report Video Podcast – CLICK HERE
-For Chad Sherwood’s Under the Radar Game of the Day featuring Grand Canyon, The Team of the People, – CLICK HERE
-For John Stalica’s most recent Bracket Projections, and the comments from Chad and David as to what they thought was wrong with it – CLICK HERE
-Grand Canyon added another notable win away from home to their profile when they knocked off Houston last night. I believe this makes them the best transitional program in college basketball history. That may not even be debatable. The NCAA has to let this team play in the conference and NCAA Tournaments!! Join the movement!! Tweet at the NCAA!! Call the NCAA!! Tell them to let the lopes play!! #LopesWaiver
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
VIRGINIA TECH VS SAINT JOSEPH’S (Brooklyn, NY). Saint Joe’s is out to an 8-2 start and although they still have some work to do to get the attention of the committee, it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
-AUBURN VS NEW MEXICO (Diamond Head Classic). Auburn has a ton of ground to make up, and although New Mexico is 7-3, they’ve done little to nothing away from home. This tournament is a chance for both to improve their profiles, but they’ll have to pick up the win today to do it.
-RADFORD AT CHATTANOOGA. Chattanooga has some big wins and should cruise to an at-large bid if they can blow through the rest of their schedule.
-LITTLE ROCK AT TEXAS TECH. Little Rock comes in unbeaten with some notable wins, and Texas Tech has just one loss, but hasn’t beaten a team as good as Little Rock yet. Both teams have a lot of momentum, but in the case of Little Rock they won’t have too many (if any) chances at big wins that will impress the committee from here on out, so this is a really big game for them. I’m not sold on this Texas Tech team just yet, but wow! Chad Sherwood sure is!
-STEPHEN F AUSTIN AT ARIZONA STATE. SFA has had a disappointing beginning to the season, but they are still likely the best team in the Southland. Arizona State has been better than expected and will be in the conversation come March if they keep it up.
-FORDHAM VS BOSTON COLLEGE (Brooklyn, NY). A win for the Rams gets them to 10-1, and even though they’ve done it against a weak schedule, it’s still their best start in recent memory.
-MIAMI FL AT LA SALLE. Miami has just one loss on the year, and they continue to climb the rankings. This would just be their second true road win of the year, and many true road wins in conference will be tough to come by, so winning this will help round out their profile even more.
-CLEMSON AT GEORGIA. Both teams are looking more like NIT teams than NCAA teams at this point, and need to turn things around in a hurry if they want that to change. A win today would be the right kind of start.
-IOWA STATE AT CINCINNATI. Cincinnati should roll over their conference along with UConn, but even if they do their opportunities at big time wins will be limited, so this is a big game for them. Iowa State has the ability to be a top ten caliber team, but they just haven’t shown it yet this year. This is actually their first true road game of the season, as well as their first game against a team that will likely make the NCAAs on the first ballot.
-XAVIER AT WAKE FOREST. Xavier is ranked #6 and I don’t feel they’re overrated. They’ve won handily against some pretty good teams, but this is just their second true road game, and their first against a team as good as Wake, so this is arguably their toughest game to date. It’s the latest installment of the Skip Prosser Classic in honor of the man who coached both programs before passing away of a heart attack in 2007. This year they’re both looking like NCAA Tournament teams as Wake Forest is much improved under head coach Danny Manning.
-RHODE ISLAND AT OLD DOMINION. Rhody’s profile would look so much better had they held on to beat Providence. As it is now, they’ll need a very strong showing the rest of the way to end up on the right side of the bubble.
-MICHIGAN STATE AT OAKLAND (Auburn Hills). This is sort of a road game, I guess. Oakland is doing the event management, so it is their home game, but it’s at the Palace of Auburn Hills, which will probably feature a crowd very partial to Michigan State. Oakland is very good at 7-3 and could make quite a bit of noise once they start Horizon League play. Tonight’s game is a great opportunity where they have nothing to lose.
-GEORGETOWN AT CHARLOTTE. When it comes to how good or bad a team will look on any given night, Georgetown is the biggest wild card of them all. They’re good enough to be a protected seed, but poor enough to lose to a team that misses the CIT. Who knows what they’ll do tonight against a horrendously poor 2-8 Charlotte team.
-MIDDLE TENNESSEE AT GEORGIA STATE. Both teams have kind of been under the radar even by Under the Radar standards, but both come into this game with just two losses, and Middle has looked pretty good in their last couple of games.
-SAINT BONAVENTURE AT SIENA. Can the Bonnies pick up their third true road win and improve to 8-2 on the year?
-VANDERBILT AT PURDUE. Vandy hasn’t had a really big win for their profile yet, and they also don’t have a true road win yet, so a win tonight would go a long way toward improving the complexion of their resume. Purdue has looked outstanding despite the fact that they’re coming off a loss to a very good Butler team.
-KENT STATE VS SMU (Las Vegas Classic). SMU is dead to me due to being ineligible, but Chad says that I have to keep talking about them anyway. Kent State, on the other hand, is 7-2, and a win like this would be a huge statement win. It’s the kind of win that makes the difference between getting looked at by the committee and being completely ignored.
-SAINT JOHN’S VS SOUTH CAROLINA (Basketball Hall of Fame Shootout). This year’s Saint John’s team should not be allowed to participate in any event that has “Hall of Fame” in the title. South Carolina is unbeaten, they continue to win against decent competition, they’ve played their way into the rankings and deservedly so, and I think they’ll pick up another win tonight.
-LONG BEACH STATE AT ARIZONA. I know this is a buy game, but Long Beach is at least good enough to where we can highlight it.
-MERCER AT OHIO STATE. Mercer is 9-2, and prior to Ohio State’s win against Kentucky, I’d say they’d looked like the better team this year and should be able to snag the road win. Ohio State sleepwalked through their first ten games, but perhaps now they’ve finally turned the corner. We’ll see tonight. It may not look this way to the casual fan, but beating Mercer at home will actually be a sign of improvement.
-GEORGE WASHINGTON AT DEPAUL. GW has just one loss on the year, but they also have just one true road win, so today is a chance for them to add to their resume.
-CALIFORNIA AT VIRGINIA. I still like this Cal team. They have just two losses, but they are lacking any real big wins. They’re depth (or lack thereof) has also been an issue. Virginia has looked like one of the best teams in the country since their loss to GW, and I’m expecting them to win impressively tonight.
-SOUTH DAKOTA STATE AT WEBER STATE. This would be SD State’s fifth true road win if they pull it off.
-COLORADO VS PENN STATE (Las Vegas Classic). There is nothing “Classic” about Penn State. Colorado, on the other hand, has looked really strong since losing their season opener in a close game to Iowa State, and doing well in this tournament should help boost their resume even more.
-KANSAS AT SAN DIEGO STATE. Kansas has looked like a #1 seed this year, and San Diego State has looked like an NIT team. This isn’t the kind of loss that hurts a team in and of itself, but SDSU is running out of chances to do something that will impress the committee. They also have losses to Grand Canyon and San Diego that they need to offset.
-OKLAHOMA VS WASHINGTON STATE (Diamond Head Classic). Wazzu is much improved, but in saying that you have to remember just how bad they were before. They’re not to the point of being able to stay with a Final Four caliber team like Oklahoma.
-NORTHERN IOWA AT HAWAII (Diamond Head Classic). Northern Iowa is coming off a huge win, but they have another huge test and opportunity today against a Hawaii team that has yet to lose at home. A win isn’t just a quality win, but a chance to play better competition in the later rounds, so it’s a big game for both teams.
BUY GAMES
-Presbyterian @ Richmond
-Troy @ Ole Miss
-Kennesaw State @ Indiana
-South Florida @ Seton Hall. Not a buy game, but might as well be.
-UNC Greensboro @ NC State
-Miami OH @ Dayton
-Jacksonville @ Florida
-Delaware @ Villanova
-Montana State @ Syracuse
-North Dakota @ Kansas State
-Alabama A&M @ Evansville
-IUPUI @ Memphis
-Southern Utah @ Butler
-Tennessee Tech @ Iowa
-Delaware State @ Utah
-UMKC @ Louisville
-South Dakota @ UNLV
-McNeese State @ UCLA
-Seattle @ Washington. I know this is a regular home and home, but it’s practically a buy game.
Throwback Thursday – The Bluegrass Rivalry
Click here for Chad Sherwood and David Griggs’ latest Under The Radar Podcast
11 NCAA Championships. This is the combined amount of titles won between the University of Kentucky Wildcats and the University of Louisville Cardinals.
When you think of Kentucky, you think of the flagship state university. 8 NCAA titles, 2 NIT titles, 17 Final Fours, 2,000+ victories and counting, a death penalty (and a near-repeat in the late 1980s), Adolph Rupp, Joe B. Hall, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith and John Calipari. The shadow and mystique of Rupp was so big that even an up-and-coming coaching legend like Paul “Bear” Bryant could not escape it; he would go on to lead Texas A&M and Alabama to prominence.
When you think of Louisville, you look at the state’s largest city and urban area. The Cardinals not only have 3 NCAA titles under their name, they also have 10 Final Fours, an NIT title and also an NAIA title to their name. Denny Crum, Darrell Griffith, Pervis Ellison, and Rick Pitino.
There are 3 periods that divide the series – the first era took place between 1913 and 1922. Kentucky would win 7 out of the first 9 matchups. Of course, this was also an era in which scoring 38 points (UK won 38-14 in 1922) represented an offensive explosion.
The 2nd period lasted between 1922 and 1983. Only 3 meetings would take place, all of which would take place in a tournament setting. The first meeting actually took place in New York – Kentucky won their first NCAA Championship in 1948 with wins over Michigan, Holy Cross and Baylor; Louisville won the NAIA title that year with wins over South Dakota State, Emporia State (KS), Beloit (WI), Xavier (OH) and Indiana State. Not surprisingly, Kentucky would trounce Louisville 91-57 in this battle of national title winners. The only other meetings took place in the NCAA Tournament – Kentucky would win 79-68 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in 1951; Louisville would win 76-61 in the Round of 16 in 1959. Another thing in common between those 3 games – neither one took place in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The 1951 game was played at NC State’s campus; the 1959 contest took place at Northwestern’s campus.
Perhaps the most memorable game between the two teams took place in 1983 (click here for the pregame and game coverage). Like the last 3 games player between UK and UofL, this game was also played outside the commonwealth on Tennessee’s campus. Even this game almost didn’t happen; it took a buzzer-beater by Louisville to knock off Arkansas (who, ironically, was coached by future UK head coach Eddie Sutton). Kentucky secured their spot with an upset win over interstate rival Indiana. CBS also did a nice pregame piece showing Kentucky’s aversion to playing Louisville in almost a quarter-century, but the national audience was treated to an overtime thriller that saw Louisville defeat Kentucky 80-68 to clinch a Final Four appearance for the 2nd straight year. Even a loss to Houston a week later could not dampen the spirits of Louisville fans.
But thanks to this game and some “encouragement” from then-governor John Brown and the Kentucky legislature, Kentucky-Louisville finally became a fixture game in the regular season. It has traditionally been played on the first weekend after Christmas, but this has not always been the case. The 1983-84 season actually had a double feature; Kentucky would win the regular-season meeting in Lexington and also in the NCAA Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena as well (you can click here for the 1st half of that game and here for the 2nd half of the game). Kentucky would go on to the Final 4 that season, but it would be 12 years before they would make it that far in the tournament.
Since the series resumed, they have met twice in the NCAA Tournament; Kentucky would defeat Louisville 69-61 in the 2012 Final Four in New Orleans en route to their 8th national title. Louisville would win the national title the next season, but 2014 saw Kentucky “avenge” Louisville’s title with a 74-69 victory in the 2014 Sweet 16 in Indianapolis. Overall, Kentucky leads the series 33-15. Louisville has never won as many as 3 in a row; Kentucky’s longest winning streak in the series is 5 games.
One common thread in the series is Rick Pitino. Pitino would help rescue Kentucky from NCAA sanctions levied against Kentucky in the 1980s; he would go on to 3 Final 4 appearances with Kentucky along with the national championship in 1996. He would have a 6-2 record against Louisville in his Kentucky tenure. After a brief attempt at coaching in the NBA with the Boston Celtics, he surprised everyone in basketball circles when he replaced Denny Crum as the head coach at Louisville. In his first 8 seasons at Louisville, Pitino compiled a 4-4 record against his old employer. Once John Calipari became head coach at Kentucky, the Wildcats have dominated the series by winning 7 out of their last 8 matchups, including the 2 aforementioned wins in the NCAA Tournament.
Finally, you can also click here to read Jon Teitel’s interview with Rory Owen Delaney (who filmed the documentary The Rivalry: Red v. Blue)