Highlighted Games for Wednesday, Nov. 27th

Posted on November 27, 2013 by David Griggs

ARKANSAS VS GONZAGA (Maui Invitational). Gonzaga has lost to Dayton and beaten a div2 team, so they really need a win today to get something out of this tournament. The rest of their OOC schedule isn’t as strong as what we’re used to seeing. Arkansas had a nice win against Minnesota and a win today would be huge as well.

-DREXEL VS ARIZONA (Preseason NIT). I like this Drexel team, but think they’re way overmatched today by an Arizona team that’s playing like a #1 seed. Drexel plays in a weak conference and won’t have the chances to pick up quality wins, so if they could pull off the upset today it would be huge.

-ALABAMA VS DUKE (Preseason NIT). Alabama appears to be a team that could make the NCAAs, and Duke is, once again, looking like they’ll end up on the #2 or #1 line, but they have struggled lately. If Bama can pull the upset today, they will go from being viewed as a fringe tournament team to a solid tournament team.

-BAYLOR VS SYRACUSE (Maui Invitational). Both teams are off to terrific starts, but I just don’t think Baylor has looked like a legitimate top 25 team yet. The key word is “YET.” If they win tonight that will change.

-CALIFORNIA VS DAYTON (Maui Invitational). In a nutshell, this is a neutral floor game between two tournament caliber teams looking to build their resumes. Dayton led Baylor the whole way in the semifinal game, but ended up losing in the final seconds. Cal played well against Syracuse, but ended up losing as well. Cal is not in the rankings, but I believe they’re a strong team and will end up having a big year.

-WISCONSIN VS WEST VIRGINIA (Cancun Challenge). West Virginia has a really bad loss to Virginia Tech. Having said that, it’s their only loss. A win today would be huge when it comes to boosting the status of their profile.

-EASTERN MICHIGAN AT KENTUCKY. Kentucky had a scare in their last game and Eastern Michigan hasn’t lost yet this season, so there is reason to tune in. People will call the MAC a one bid league, but if a team can pick up wins like this they won’t need to win their conference tournament.

-YOUNGSTOWN STATE AT KENT STATE. Two 6-1 under the radar teams.

-SAINT BONAVENTURE VS LOUISIANA TECH (Gulf Coast Showcase). Two teams that are under the radar that may perhaps stay under the radar, but right now each has just one loss.

-OLD DOMINION VS SAINT LOUIS (Cancun Challenge). SLU suffered their first loss of the season to Wisconsin the other night, but still has a decent profile. They need to take care of 4-2 Old Dominion today in order to sustain it.

-SOUTHERN ILLINOIS VS SAN DIEGO (Gulf Coast Showcase). A win gets San Diego to 7-1 on the year.

-IDAHO AT BOISE STATE. This is a rivalry game, but in this case it appears as though Idaho is way overmatched by the unbeaten Broncos.

-RICHMOND AT AIR FORCE. Richmond played well against North Carolina earlier in the week, and now needs to avoid picking up a loss to a bad Air Force team on the road.

-BALL STATE AT UTAH. A win for Utah gets them to 6-0.

-MINNESOTA AT CHAMINADE (Maui Invitational). Minney missed their chance to pick up a good win. Now, they just need to avoid a bad loss.

-TULSA VS INDIANA STATE (Great Alaska Shootout). Indiana State has one good win already, and should be the favorites to win this tournament. Tulsa has no wins, so this would be a pretty bad loss for the Sycamores if they don’t pull it off.

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Bracket Racket 11/24/13

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Johnny Basketball

HHDpodsOn this episode of the Bracket Racket, we take a look back at the hot games of the past week, including Indiana-UConn, UNC-Louisville, and Michigan’s struggles both foreign and domestic (okay, Puerto Rico isn’t “foreign” per se, but you get the idea). We talk a bit about the surprises from the week, as well as the unexpected struggles of teams like Duke, Michigan State, and VCU. We also look forward to Thanksgiving Week and the bounty of games that await us, including previews of the Maui Classic, Preseason NIT, and more.

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Small Conference Game(s) of the Day – November 25-27

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Chad

Thanksgiving Week.  The time for turkey, family, football…and exempt college basketball tournaments.  This week will bring us the Maui Invitational, Battle 4 Atlantis, Old Spice Classic, Wooden Legacy, Great Alaska Shootout, Cancun Challenge, Legends Classic, the conclusion of the NIT Season Tip-Off and more.  Lost amongst all the major schools playing in their tournaments this week is a new player on the exempt tournament list — the Gulf Coast Showcase.  The Germain Arena is Estero, Florida is the site the next three days for this mid-major focused event.

The tournament starts today with four quarterfinal round games (all times Eastern):

12:00 PM – Louisiana Tech vs UNC-Greensboro

2:30 PM – Illinois-Chicago vs San Diego

6:00 PM – Wagner vs Stetson

8:30 PM – Southern Illinois vs St. Bonaventure

The semifinals and consolation bracket semifinals will be played on Tuesday, and the final games (1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th places) will be played Wednesday.  Streaming video of the entire event is available at http://gcs.bdglobalsports.com/.

Louisiana Tech, on paper at least, appears to be the best team in this field.  However, San Diego has also been off to a solid start and could give them a challenge in the semifinal round.  On the other side of the bracket, the team to beat appears to be Wagner, who already has a home victory over Vermont this season — and by now everyone should know what Vermont almost did at Duke last night.

While the Gulf Coast Showcase is certainly not one of the marquee highlight events of this exciting week of exempt tournaments — it does give us a chance to see a full field of mid-major programs participate in a tournament, as opposed to the majority of the other exempt events which historically have not allowed more than a small handful of these schools into their fields each year.

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Small Conference Game of the Day – November 24

Posted on November 24, 2013 by Chad

After taking a few days off, the SCGD is back today with a game between two teams that should be amongst the best in their respective conferences…and an in-state rivalry on top of that.  It was not very long ago that the state of North Dakota was not even mentioned in Division I sports, without a single school competing at the top level.  Today, the state has both North Dakota and North Dakota State in Division I and both schools are amongst the best in their conferences (the Big Sky for UND and the Summit League for NDSU).  North Dakota State has also become a powerhouse in football, where they should be the top seed in the FCS tournament when its bracket is announced today.

These two programs will meet at UND’s home court in Grand Forks, North Dakota at 6:00 PM Eastern today for their fourth ever encounter as Division I foes (television coverage on MidcoSN and Fox College Sports-Pacific).  While the North Dakota State Bison hold a 2-1 edge in matchups since both teams moved to Division I, UND leads the all-time series 158-128 — a series that dates back to 1905.

The North Dakota State Bison enter today’s game with a 2-2 record, coming off a road win over Western Michigan after losing at St. Mary’s and losing a one point heartbreaker at home to Southern Miss.  They have been led so far by Taylor Braun’s 16 points per game and TrayVonn Wright’s 13.5 Points and 6.8 rebounds per game.

The University of North Dakota is playing only its third game of the season, having defeated non-D1 Minnesota-Morris before losing at Wisconsin 103-85 last time out.  That game was notable for the Badgers having hit triple digits for the first time in over a decade.  UND has also been putting up points so far though, as senior Troy Huff led the way with  37 against Wisconsin.

The other notable fact about North Dakota is that it is the lone school in Division I without a team nickname.  The school retired its Fighting Sioux name before last season after an extensive fight with the NCAA about it, but pursuant to state legislation cannot adopt a new nickname until 2015.  So for now, they are simply the University of North Dakota.

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Under the Radar 11/22

Posted on November 23, 2013 by David Griggs

In this edition, we talk extensively about the Atlantic Ten and how it is outperforming several of the Power Conferences. We also look at the West Coast Conference and what was a good week for Conference USA.

All that, and more!!

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Mid-Week Hoops Fix

Posted on November 21, 2013 by David Griggs

Tonight, we start off with special guest Mark Chavez from the New Mexico fan site TheLoboLair.com. We discuss the coaching changes, the current state of their program, and their upcoming match-ups in the Charleston Classic, which features four other undefeated teams.

From there, we go on to discuss the struggles of the ACC, and North Carolina State’s surprising upset loss to NCCU.

We then look at Michigan State, and whether or not they are legitimately the top team due to their recent struggles against lower caliber teams.

From there, we examine the success of the ACC, or lack thereof, as they have not only been on the receiving end of upset losses, but no one in the league has registered a win of note.

We look at Xavier, and whether or not they are a dark horse to become a front-runner in the Big East after being dismissed by all the prognosticators early one.

From that point, and for the remainder of the show, we take an extensive look at the Atlantic Ten and how impressive it has been up to this point, particularly Dayton, UMass, George Washington and VCU.

All that, a look at the upcoming exempt tournaments, and more.

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