NCAA Basketball 2011-12 Catch-All

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So the preseason rankings are out. Kansas is overrated at #13, but it is hard to doubt what Bill Self can do with any team at this point.

1.) North Carolina (62), 1,620

2.) Kentucky, 1,501

3.) Ohio St. (1), 1,482

4.) UConn (2), 1,433

5.) Syracuse, 1,338

6.) Duke, 1,301

7.) Vanderbilt, 1,120

8.) Florida, 1,086

9.) Louisville, 1,055

10.) Pittsburgh, 1,027

11.) Memphis, 997

12.) Baylor, 892

13.) Kansas, 755

14.) Xavier, 747

15.) Wisconsin, 720

16.) Arizona, 616

17.) UCLA, 404

18.) Michigan, 401

19.) Alabama, 395

20.) Texas A&M, 357

21.) Cincinnati, 353

22.) Marquette, 335

23.) Gonzaga, 283

24.) California, 230

25.) Missouri, 139

Others receiving votes: Florida St. 131, Michigan St. 128, Temple 69, Washington 44, New Mexico 33, Butler 25, Texas 21, Villanova 14, Creighton 12, Purdue 10, Belmont 8, Drexel 8, UNLV 7, Saint Mary's (Cal.) 6, George Mason 5, West Virginia 4, Long Beach St. 3, Miami 3, Harvard 2, Illinois 2, Marshall 1, Minnesota 1, San Diego St. 1.

Ok, going to play homer here but....Where is the H#!! are the NIT champs in the pre-season rankings? 4 Starters returning with a 7 footer, win in NY, and still no love.

Disgusting

gizmo wrote:

Ok, going to play homer here but....Where is the H#!! are the NIT champs in the pre-season rankings? 4 Starters returning with a 7 footer, win in NY, and still no love.

Disgusting

WSU should be there in March. Gregg Marshall is a great coach and he has a deep and athletic team returning.

Charleston might have a transition year, but they did land the number 3 center out of high school last year and might surprise a few folks.

I have really been dumfounded at the lack of respect that the Missouri Valley has gotten the last few years. The conference has a number of quality programs, and plays quality basketball with athletes that are much better than expected at this level. They do it be developing players and with strong defensive systems, rather than just bringing in the top guys for a year or 2, but quality ball is quality ball.

I am hopeful that we can get enough respect in the early season tourneys to get least 2 teams into the tournament.

As for the Charleston news, that is a great get for Bobby Cremins. I really enjoyed seeing him back on the national stage a bit last year.

I like the Missouri Valley. SLU really screwed up when they jumped from Conference USA to the Atlantic 10. If they had jumped to the MVC, they would be in much better shape right now. Traveling so far east so much has killed their recruiting and fan interest. It would still be the best bet for them to move again. They really wasted the opportunity that presented itself in Rick Majerus taking the head coaching job.

Hooray!

IMAGE(http://www.mancavesports.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/kentucky.jpg)

Is there a "season pass" type subscription thing for college hoops? I know ESPN has their Full Court stuff, but thats lumped into espn3 which I already get through Comcast.

Any other choices?

Jayhawker, might want to add 2011-12 to the title. I was about to start a new thread until I stumbled on this one.

Anyway... this week is the week. Actually 3 NCAA games (non-exhibition) last night. And this Friday... 120 games!

Happy with Louisville's freshmen in the exhibitions so far. Could be quite a good year. But, as usual, we'll have to avoid injury. One freshman, Wayne Blackshear, is already out, for probably the whole season. Seems like a constant curse these last few years with our team always losing a key player or two and coming up short.

Stele wrote:

Jayhawker, might want to add 2011-12 to the title. I was about to start a new thread until I stumbled on this one. ;)

Done. Thanks for catching that.

I'm really interested to see what Self does with Kansas this year. They have lost a motherlode of talent over the last couple of seasons, and it is taking a serious toll. Add to that the ineligibility of two freshman that would have seen a lot of court time as well as the lack if development of Jeff Withey, and the team is going to look small this year.

I might be surprised by Withey, but he did not impress much last year, and Self's scramble to find a big man shows how little faith he has in the kid. Of course, Withey did pick up a triple double in the team's first exhibition game, but I still think he will get pushed around by big time programs.

Because, oh yeah, Kansas' non-conference includes #2 Kentucky in one week, Georgetown as their next game, and #3 Ohio St. on December 3rd. sh*t gets real. Real quick. Throw in a game vs. USC, and they will be thoroughly tested before conference games start.

I'm just hoping Thomas Robinson shows up as the player he seemed to be developing into. He could be the savior of the team. He is going to need to avoid foul trouble because that bench is not deep.

This aircraft carrier game has been interesting. All the buildup and extra non-basketball stuff has been fun too. And the camo uniforms.

Louisville looking strong tonight, as they should against UT-Martin.

And I see Kansas isn't struggling with Towson like they did with Duquense the other night.

Most of these games are boring. UL, UK, KU, UConn, Fl, Pitt, all these ranked teams up by 20.

Yeah, tonight was warm-up for Kansas, 100-54. I never know what to take from blowouts like this. Towson was clearly over-matched, but KU took a ton of fouls among their starters. They aren't deep enough to take a lot of fouls next week versus Kentucky.

Well there was one shocker last night. Loyala Marymount defeated UCLA by 11. Granted, Pauley Paviliion is renovating this year so UCLA home games won't be at home. But that's still not a great excuse.

mindset.threat wrote:

Is there a "season pass" type subscription thing for college hoops? I know ESPN has their Full Court stuff, but thats lumped into espn3 which I already get through Comcast.

Any other choices?

Full Court is the only one that I know of. With each conference having their own networks be so profitable and available through most providers, there really is no need for one.

My Hoosiers looked great last night. Cody Zeller appears to be the difference maker IU fans were hoping for. How many 7 footers are you going to see make a steal along the sideline and beat everyone 3/4 the way down the court? It's been a long few years in Bloomington, but I think better days are here at last.

So CofC is on ESPN tomorrow.

Unfortunately, they are on at 8 in the morning, as evidently ESPN is doing some kind of crazy 25 hour college basketball marathon starting at midnight tonight.

At least I will be able to watch the replay on ESPN3.

Been doing that the last 2 years. It's awesome! 24 hours of games. It's fun to stay up until 4am or wake up at 6am or whatever and see live college basketball.

#7 Vandy lost to Cleveland St last night. Although I guess Ezili is still hurt? But even so that's pretty embarrassing. Thought they were overrated. Not like the SEC to have 3 top 10 teams in basketball.

In more awful news for Louisville... Mike Marra torn his ACL last night and is out for the season. That's 2 of our best 8 or 10 guys that would have been playing major minutes gone for the season now. And 2 others are currently healing from other injuries. If we can't stay healthy we won't stay in the top 10 long either.

Stele wrote:

Been doing that the last 2 years. It's awesome! 24 hours of games. It's fun to stay up until 4am or wake up at 6am or whatever and see live college basketball.

#7 Vandy lost to Cleveland St last night. Although I guess Ezili is still hurt? But even so that's pretty embarrassing. Thought they were overrated. Not like the SEC to have 3 top 10 teams in basketball. ;)

It used to be...back in the Rick Pitino/Nolan Richardson days...those were good days.

WV is about to go down to Kent St, at home. Down 13, 5 min left.

Don't know if this needs it's own thread, but tragedy has struck Ok St. again. Women's head coach and assistant die in plane crash.

Quote from Doug Gottlieb echoes what popped into my head.

"It doesn't seem fair or real or possible that ... 10 months removed from the 10-year anniversary in which we celebrate the lives of the 10 that were lost, that here we are again," Gottlieb said. "But it doesn't seem right it could happen to anyone, let alone the same university."

69-53, Louisville wins at Butler. Feels pretty good considering all the injuries we have right now.

Stele wrote:

69-53, Louisville wins at Butler. Feels pretty good considering all the injuries we have right now. :cool:

Just over a month until the epic clash between UoL and Charleston.

Yeah... that was our only road game out of our first 13 or something.

Stele wrote:

Yeah... that was our only road game out of our first 13 or something. :oops:

Yeah, IU only plays one game outside the state of Indiana before the conference schedule starts. Kinda weak if you ask me.

Bobby doesn't rebuild, he reloads! CofC 72 Clemson 69 at Littlejohn.

I was surprised to hear that was UK's first win over KU since 1999. Guess they haven't played that many times in the last decade.

Sloppy, though. You take a bunch of freshmen to Madison Square Garden and it's like they forget their heads!

Minarchist wrote:

I was surprised to hear that was UK's first win over KU since 1999. Guess they haven't played that many times in the last decade.

http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/sta...

My favorite was the 150-95 game in 89', Pitino's first year. He wouldn't call off the press, so Roy told his boys to keep shooting layups.

Totally forgot about Maui tonight. At least Gtown-Kansas is still on this late.

Looks like Vandy and Marquette both had close calls for ranked teams tonight.

This Maui final is a good one. Back and forth, Duke and Kansas.

Good luck, Jayhawker.

EDIT: Oh man that was a dagger.

Stele wrote:

This Maui final is a good one. Back and forth, Duke and Kansas.

Good luck, Jayhawker.

EDIT: Oh man that was a dagger. :(

Definitely bummed, but I am actually really happy with where Kansas is right now. They have two losses, but they were to teams ranked #3 and #6, and they were both really good games.

The problem facing Kansas this year is that they are just not a very deep team. They lost three freshmen due to being ruled partially eligible. They have come to Kansas, but can't play this season. And with the Morris twins and Josh Selby all leaving early, they needed bodies, if nothing else.

If those guys had a clue, they would be playing at KU right now instead of locked out in the NBA. And then we would be looking at the #1 team in the country. But such is life when you recruit one and done type players.

So this is a really down year for Bill Self, and he still has them playing at an insanely high level. I'm really looking forward to seeing how they develop.

Just saw this thread. The Aggies have some challenges ahead - our brand new head coach was just diagnosed with Parkinson's, which is obviously a lot more serious than basketball, and I hope it goes as well as is possible - I'm under the impression that being cured is not really in the cards.

Also, our best player is out injured for a couple months. Still, we brought in some really good new players this year. I think our ceiling is actually higher than last year's, but with all of this going on I don't know how it'll pan out.

I was thinking tomorrow against Butler we would find out just how good these Hoosiers really are, but apparently Butler sucks again. Guess we will have to wait for NC State in the ACC/B1G Challenge. Oh.. and Kentucky.

Close call with Ohio U last night for Louisville. They made a little run and actually took a 6 point lead with 3 or 4 minutes left in the game. We rallied of course. And then we got a bit of a lucky charge/block call when only up 1. Thankfully we hit our free throws to seal the deal. A win is a win, so I'll take it. But it definitely wasn't our best effort.

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