College Basketball 2009-2010

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JohnBM01

JohnBM01

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This is my second year not truly focused on college hoops. Though, I will make this thread available for ALL college hoops fans to share their love of collegiate hardwood action.

A bunch of exhibition games have taken place recently. Kentucky creamed Campbellsville a few days ago, I believe. And last night, Division 2 non-football school, Le Moyne College upset #25 Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. Of course, it's an exhibition, so it doesn't count.



College hoops fans, the road to March Madness 2010 has begun (or will begin)!
 
College hoops kicked off Monday night. A big highlight was that Jim Boeheim(?) picked up his 800th win as a head coach. He is one of about six or seven Division 1 men's coaches to accumulate 800 wins or more. Congratulations to the Orange on this lovely win against the Albany Great Danes.
 
We have a good team this year and may actually earn a spot in the tourney instead of having to get picked. Of course to do that the team needs to stop getting in trouble(3 freshman suspended thus far).:nervous:

Go GOPHERS!!!!!!
 
And who's Minnesota's coach? Tubby Smith, formerly the awesome coach at the University of Kentucky until disgruntled fans ran him out of town. Nothing more depressing than a former coach or player doing much better in a different place.

Last night, Rider beat #19 Mississippi State by about 14.
 
With the long ESPN marathon of college basketball games, I figured I'll touch up on a few results.

* Miami University took Kentucky to the limit, but J. Wall was the late-game hero as #5 Kentucky held on to win.

* California State-Fullerton upset UCLA in double-overtime.

* #23 Clemson hammered Liberty 79-39 at Liberty.



The season's kicked off proper, players! By the way, a new logo was posted for the upcoming 2011 Men's Final Four here in Houston, which can be seen here: http://www.ncaa.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/110509aab.html . Pretty cool logo. This, speaking as a Houston native.
 
Bill Self said it best: "Our offense just stinks." Kansas didn't play well last game, and we barely escaped.

John, did you catch the KU-Hofstra game? I was babysitting and couldn't go in person. :( But our freshmen are dynamite.


It's basketball season, and my three conditions to root for Missouri with no holding back no longer apply. (football against Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State) So much fun will be had with my Dad's half of the family... :D

High-Test's $%^& list:

Missouri (self-explanatory)
Minnesota (other reasons)
Kentucky (Calipari seems slimy)


Way too early in the season, but here's half of my final four:

Kansas
Purdue
__________
__________
 
I didn't see that game. While I won't religiously cover college hoops as I attempted in the past, I will leave this thread available because I want a home on GTP to discuss college hoops for men and women. Dayton's doing pretty well, and VCU creamed Oklahoma. Both in the men's ranks.
 
And Kentucky just beat North Carolina!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was 68-66, but the first half saw Kentucky up by as much as 19 points. John Wall got injured (major leg cramps) with 18 minutes left in the second half and team morale crashed after that, fortunately he made it back and even though he was still in pain he helped the team hang on by making his free throws during the foul stop clock strategy at the end.

The first half was awesome, but the second half showed that Wall is necessary for Kentucky this year. If he gets seriously injured it is game over.

Hopefully Calipari can see that he needs to spend some time making his team work without Wall.
 
Right now, Kentucky and Connecticut are in a barn burner of a game in New York City. Currently 61-60 in favor of #12 Connecticut. Players are fouling out, John Wall's on top of his game (John Wall is the truth for UK)... GREAT game right now.
 
JohnBM01
Right now, Kentucky and Connecticut are in a barn burner of a game in New York City. Currently 61-60 in favor of #12 Connecticut. Players are fouling out, John Wall's on top of his game (John Wall is the truth for UK)... GREAT game right now.
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And we won.

We are now 9-0. The record best coaching career start at Kentucky is 10-0 by Adolph Rupp. Kentucky has their first true away game this weekend against Indiana, but it is Indiana. So, if the guys have their heads in the game properly then Calipari will likely tie and break Rupp's record, especially considering our weak schedule from now until we play Louisville.

Here is our schedule for the rest of this calendar year:
  • 12/12/09 at Indiana (CBS) Bloomington, Ind. 12:00 p.m. ET
  • 12/19/09 vs. Austin Peay (CSS) Lexington, Ky. 4:00 p.m. ET
  • 12/21/09 vs. Drexel (ESPNU) Lexington, Ky. 7:00 p.m. ET
  • 12/23/09 vs. Long Beach State (FS South) Lexington, Ky. 1:00 p.m. ET
  • 12/29/09 vs. Hartford (ESPN2) Lexington, Ky. 7:00 p.m. ET
  • 01/02/10 vs. Louisville (CBS) Lexington, Ky. 3:30 p.m. ET
It is quite possible that Calipari will have a 14-0 record heading into our state rivalry game with Louisville. And based on what Louisville has been doing, it is possible that he will have a perfect 15-0 going into conference play.

The scary thing is that this team obviously has a lot of room for improvement still.

We are also three wins away from being the first NCAA basketball team to have 2,000 wins. North Carolina closed the gap to less than a 10 win difference in recent years, but short of a major breakdown it looks like we will be first to 2,000 and hold on to our lead.
 
Oakland is 4-4 right now, so they aren't doing horrible I guess. They are playing Michigan State tonight which should be an interesting game...they'll loose for sure but still and interesting game never the less. Hopefully I can find it on TV somewhere.
 
Joey D
Oakland is 4-4 right now, so they aren't doing horrible I guess.
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This can never be said in Kentucky unless you also mention how half the team was injured in a bus crash. 4-4 gets you fired. Just ask our last coach.

Sometimes I have to step back and remind myself that 20-10 is a good season for most.
 
Once again, it seems like there is no dominant #1 team this year in the NCAA.
If I had to guess, there's probably at least 12, maybe 16? teams that have a legitimate shot at a the Final Four.

Having said that, after watching Kentucky grind out another win against a quality opponent last night--even while shooting under 40% from the field--I am inclined to think that if they keep improving (cutting down on turnovers, rebounding like they are capable of, and eliminating some bad shots) they will certainly have as good a chance as anyone at reaching the Final Four--and maybe even win it all. Who knows?

One thing I do know is that great guard play will get you a long way in the NCAA tournament, and Kentucky has probably the best guard (maybe even the best player?) in the country in John Wall. It's early days, but I've seen him in enough close games and clutch situations this year to know that he is indeed the "real deal." In fact, I think these close games Kentucky has had to win early on this year will serve them well as the season progresses...provided they learn from the mistakes they have made in these close wins.

It's really great to be a Kentucky fan again :) This is going to be a very exciting season.
 
Unless Kentucky falls apart during the season, they WILL be back in the NCAA tournament. I actually saw most of the second half of the Kentucky/UConn game. And I said earlier, John Wall is the truth! Not only because he has the same first name as I do :), but because he's an awesome player. He had a sick one-hand flying dunk last night. Trying to be like LeBron James.

I haven't followed my Houston Cougars much this season, but I think this is Houston's best chance to take Conference USA with all the troubles at Memphis. Some say this could be Central Florida's year too. Rice may be a dangerous team in C-USA as well.

And as for Oakland (who gets Michigan State tonight), I do hope for the best for them. They still have to get through a school called Oral Roberts. North Dakota State and Missouri-Kansas City could be tough tickets as well in the Summit League.
 
So, Kentucky convincingly showed why we are the first team to reach 2000 wins last night when they thumped Drexel 88-44, and that was with Calipari putting every single player on the floor to allow every name on the team to be counted as part of this milestone. I imagine that had he not done that the score could have been more like 100-44.

The rest of our schedule should look out. On January 2nd Louisville must drive 70 miles to enter Rupp Arena and face this team. And no one will be holding back against Louisville.

4206634252_78962b888b_o.jpg
 
I actually wanted to chat about that win, FoolKiller. Congratulations to UK on this lovely win. In fact, I knew Kentucky would hammer Drexel (though Drexel is not a bad team).
 
Louisville at #3 Kentucky going on right now. It's very physical and chippy. How so? In just one minute, there were six fouls on both teams (three for each team). One Wildcat picked up a foul with only eight seconds off the clock. He had to be calmed down by John Calipari. Then before one minute even passes, #15 for Kentucky threw an elbow and only got an Unsportsmanlike Technical foul, when the commentary crew of Verne Lundquist and Clark Kellogg thinking it should have been a Flagrant Foul. But right now as of this post, it's 15-3, Kentucky with 11:04 left in the game. NO field goals for Louisville so far.
 
That was the ugliest, roughest basketball game I have ever seen. I wonder if that is some sort of record for technical fouls.

Oh well, Kentucky wins and enters conference play 15-0.
 
On Sunday, #16 Tennessee took down #1 Kansas even with a few Vols not playing due to being arrested. Only Texas and Kentucky are the remaining unbeatens. Kentucky plays at Florida for their match on Tuesday.
 
So, Kentucky is #2 and Texas is #1.

If Danoff liked basketball we could be having a much more interesting debate than we ever had regarding football.


As for Florida; this could be Kentucky's first loss. It is hard to win in Florida. But if the cats can keep their head in the game, unlike what they did with Georgia, then they can likely pull it off very easily.
 
Ahem, I will maintain all decorum.

Kentucky now has a record of 19-0, the only undefeated team this season.

Also, you should raise that finger Mr. Wildcat, because we are ranked:

ncb_g_kentucky1_576.jpg


















#1
 
Well, that number 1 ranking was short-lived unfortunately.
Really sub-par effort against South Carolina tonight (South Carolina? :rolleyes: )

God, Kentucky has lost three in a row to South Carolina. Unbelievable.
Shockingly, Kentucky--the biggest team in NCAA basketball--got outrebounded by South Carolina. To all those who said Kentucky needs to lose a game somewhere along the way because they won't go undefeated anyway, they got what they wanted. I didn't think they needed to lose a game. I may be in the minority, but I do believe someone will go undefeated again in men's college basketball. And I don't subscribe to the theory that you need to lose a game before the NCAA tournament.

I know this Kentucky team is dominated by freshmen, and that the top 7 players are freshman or sophomores, but man, this team can make some really boneheaded mistakes. They missed three wide open layups/dunks that I counted. And they had so many pointless/ridiculous turnovers it was amazing. But they have had a tendency to turn the ball over that has improved only marginally since the start of the season.

Hopefully this loss will do what it's proponents hoped, and offer a "learning" opportunity for the team. We'll find out pretty soon as they will face Vanderbilt this Saturday.
 
Wewt!

Of course, this won't mean anything unless we can go the rest of the season with four losses AT THE MOST. I really wish Dominique Archie hadn't blown up his knee against Miami, else we probably would have been ranked for this game.
 
cpp214
Well, that number 1 ranking was short-lived unfortunately.
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It isn't over yet. New polls aren't out until next week. Everyone else still has games and we still have to play Vandy before then. Of course, Vandy was the loss I expected, not SC. Depending on how we play Vandy, I will be surprised if we keep top 5 status. To maintain first every other 1 loss team has to lose and we have to give Vandy a beating unlike any seen before.

Really sub-par effort against South Carolina tonight (South Carolina? :rolleyes: )
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Agreed.

God, Kentucky has lost three in a row to South Carolina. Unbelievable.
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You did watch the team last year, right? Almost any loss to a decent team this year could come with this kind of statistic.

Overall I was extremely disappointed in how Kentucky played. I really hope that this was a distraction issue, because everything I had been hearing about them since they trounced Arkansas had little to do with on the court: Rankings, media coverage, calls from President Obama, etc. Honestly I am surprised it took this long. This team has flirted with disaster too many times and it finally caught up to them. If they can maintain for a full game, like they did Arkansas, they would have easily been undefeated, but they always seem to just let half of every game get away from them.
 
Lots of attrition yesterday...

* Texas has now lost 3 out of 4.
* #11 Georgetown upsets #7 Duke, even with President Barack Obama in the house.
* Gonzaga loses in Overtime at San Francisco
...all among others.

BYU is now 20-2 or 21-2 after beating Utah at home last night. Kentucky stepped on Vanderbilt's throats to beat the Nashville school. My hometown Houston Cougars blew out Marshall at home.

Next thing you know it, we'll have to seriously think about who all will fill the March Madness spots.
 
Just how big is Kentucky basketball? Big enough for some big names (other than Ashley Judd) to make an appearance and participate in a cheer.



For some reason LeBron James has been hanging out with Coach Calipari and John Wall. I wonder if someone is looking to add some talent to his NBA team, in particular some talent that is really good at getting the ball to other players.

Kentucky is now 20-1 after taking Vandy out as the only undefeated SEC team.

JohnBM01
* #11 Georgetown upsets #7 Duke, even with President Barack Obama in the house.
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Obama is some sort of jinx. Two weeks in a row now (that I know of) he has had some form of interaction with a team just before they got upset. Of course, it means nothing, but if players are superstitious it could become a self-fulfilling curse.
 
Not sure what happened between the regular season and now, but the Golden Gophers are on fire. They will play OSU for the championship tomorrow.
 
I'm pretty happy that the University of Houston won C-USA and Sam Houston State won the Southland. I'm still a bit on the fence as to whether or not to try that Facebook bracket challenge or not. I still like college basketball, but not really as much as I used to. I even told Joey D congratulations to his Golden Grizzlies of Oakland University.

Some say this may actually be one of the better tourneys since there are no really great teams. If I had to pick a great team, maybe Kentucky or Ohio State. I'd be wary of BYU.
 
We're falling apart in the second half.:(


Hopefully making it to the championship game will be enough to get us into the tournament.
 

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