NCAA Basketball 2012-2013 Season Catch-All

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So, Midnight Madness is (was last night) here! Basketball practice has begun.

UK raised their banner last night. (Ugh. :mad:)

But Louisville is pre-season #1.

Also, the Ohio Valley power of basketball is back, with Louisville, Kentucky, and Indiana in everyone's top 5.

CJ wrote:

Lindy's

1. Louisville
2. Indiana
3. Michigan
4. N.C. State
5. Kentucky

Athlon

1. Indiana
2. Louisville
3. Kentucky
4. Kansas
5. Syracuse

Sporting News

1. Indiana
2. Louisville
3. Ohio State
4. Kentucky
5. Michigan

Dick Vitale/ESPN.com

1. Louisville
2. Indiana
3. Kentucky
4. Kansas
5. N.C. State

Going to be a fun year!

Oh almost forgot CBS this week did Conference Champion and Final Four predictions.

Oddly enough Gottlieb picked Syracuse to win the Big East, but Louisville to make the Final Four. I prefer it when he picks against us all the way since he's an idiot.

KU coach Bill Self favors adding a stipend for student-athletes

Kansas basketball coach Bill Self used to hold a pretty hard-line stance when it came to the contentious issue of compensating NCAA athletes beyond the traditional parameters of a scholarship.

But every year around the NCAA Tournament, Self began to see a noticeable disconnect. The television revenue dollars continued to pile up, the NCAA collecting billions, while the parents of his players had to cough up four or five figures to follow their kids to different tournament sites around the country.

“I used to be totally against it,” Self told The Star. “I used to be totally against doing anything other than room, board, books, tuition and fees. But I’ve changed. And the landscape has changed also. It was always big business; now it’s huge business.

“And when you’re sending players from the West Coast to East Coast to play sports, to miss more classes, and the schools benefit from that financially, why shouldn’t the people that are responsible for the business, and that would be the student athletes.”

I've been in favor of paying players for the same reasons. It's good to see Self taking a logical look at the issue and using his secure standing to make his case.

I just don't know how it would be fair. The amount has to be small enough that schools not in the big 6 conferences can afford to pay it.

Here's last fall's breakdown of the top 20 revenue basketball programs.

Louisville, $40.9 million
Duke, $28.9 million
Arizona, $21.2 million
North Carolina, $19.7 million
Syracuse, $19 million
Kentucky, $18.6 million
Indiana, $17.8 million
Ohio State, $17 million
Michigan State, $16.5 million
Texas, $16.4 million
Wisconsin, $16.4 million
Marquette, $15.6 million
Illinois, $15.4 million
Arkansas, $14.6 million
Tennessee, $13.8 million
Minnesota, $13.7 million
Pittsburgh, $13.6 million
Oklahoma State, $12.3 million
UCLA, $11.6 million
Kansas, $11.5 million

Stark difference (x4) from #1 to #20. And I imagine it gets a lot worse when you get down to 100, 200, and 300+. Those schools are still division I and participate in the same tournament. Have to keep any kind of stipend pay equal, or becomes even more of a recruiting advantage than the bigger schools already have.

Of course it has to be equal, that's why it is a stipend and not a salary.

How many players are we talking about and how much money? I think the NCAA can foot the bill themselves. I'd be okay with stipends up to $50K a year. At the very least, let the players get a check from EA for use of their image.

There hasn't been a college basketball game for 3 years.

But that would be a nice way to fund it. Actually license the players name and likeness for basketball and football video games as a group. The games would be more popular, and the money the NCAA makes from the licensing could go towards the stipend payments.

Honestly, I just think the players deserve a big cut of the action. I don't care how it is funded. Straight from the NCAA, a tax on all teams, whatever. But there are billions of dollars being collected by the NCAA and schools. I'm sure there is a number that could go to the students and families that make it possible.

Charleston just decided to leave the SoCon for the Colonial, presumably after this season.

Cremins has retired back to Hilton Head, and the new coach is Doug Wojick, last seen repeatedly taking Tulsa to the NIT.

This year's team should be good if they can avoid last year's plague of injuries.

Hopefully they can pull the upset when they host Louisville.

Georgia meanwhile will likely again finish in the bottom half of the SEC.

Alright, 93-57 exhibition win for Louisville over Pikeville.

Freshman forward Montrezl Harrell led all scorers with 19.

Sweet, Louisville's last exhibition is on ESPN3 tonight. Get to watch in HD!

Tipping off now.

Big slate of opening night games tonight, including live from Germany.

ESPN continuing it's partnership with the military for Veteran's Day weekend.

Top 25 in action tonight: Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio St, Michigan, NC St, Kansas, Duke, Florida, UNC, UCLA, Mich St, Creighton, Baylor, Gonzaga, and Fl St.

Well that was quick. UConn beat Mich St, while leading the game for all but maybe 90 seconds. A ranked team falls.

And Florida St. will now be unranked. Lost at home to South Alabama and trailed most of the way. Maybe they should take more care in scheduling their early season games. :p

Surprise! ESPN is still doing their 24-hour marathon of college basketball, starting tonight at midnight!

They've done it the last two years, but it's always been part of the opening day festivities. Instead we had an opening weekend already.

Anyway, some highlights include WV-Gonz at midnight, Butler-Xavier at 4pm tomorrow, Kansas-Mich St, and Duke-Kentucky tomorrow night.

Harvard-UMass game was awesome this morning. Back and forth the whole second half. Then back to back 3s by UMass in the last 30 seconds to come from behind and win.

This is frustrating. So far, both of the Gopher games have only been available through a subscription service. Their next game is on ESPN3 which I hate using. Sure, the fourth game is on BTN but then the game against Duke in the Atlantis tournament is on something called AXS.tv, whatever the f*ck that is. BTN has alternate channels that they use to broadcast concurrent football games, I don't get why they don't use those for basketball as well.

Aw St John's not playing at the Garden today.

AXS.tv is what HDNet used to be. It's 340 on DirecTV. It seems to be on most cable systems, too.

I'm guessing they are paying the Big 10 more than they make broadcasting on their own.

I just checked out AXS, and they are showing the Rolling Stones Steel Wheels tour right now. It's the only Stones show I ever saw, and I thought they were too old to be touring then. The concert was 22 years ago. FFS, I'm old, and they are still touring.

Not that this belongs here, but that Stones show was part of a three day stretch of among my favorite concerts. The night before I saw Nirvana open for 24-7 Spyz at the Outhouse in Lawrence, KS. The night after I saw the Butthole Surfers at the Bottleneck.

The most striking difference is that I used binoculars to watch the Stones at Arrowhead Stadium. At the Outhouse, the pit was so packed and violent I ended up face down on the stage with people on top of me. I eventually crawled onto the stage, two people deep, and got hit in the head by the bass player. I don't think it would be a good idea to go into the stories from the Butthole Surfers concert.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'm guessing they are paying the Big 10 more than they make broadcasting on their own.

BTN only has the rights to Big Ten team home games so that game couldn't actually be on there. My point about BTN was about the other games. During football season they have at least four alternate channels that they can have games on but they don't use those for basketball for some reason. I think, so far, they've only had the two Indiana games on.

The Battle 4 Atlantis tournament is another issue. It's relegated to being on the NBC Sports Network, which, I guess, not many people actually get, and half the games are on AXS. Kind of a sh*tty deal for what is easily the best tournament field of the year.

Sorry Jayhawker. That was a close one.

And I hate MSU. Was definitely pulling for you a little extra tonight.

Ah, there's something in the air that I haven't felt since March. It's time for Hilton Magic and The Mayor has us all believing in Iowa State again after too many non-magic seasons. I'm excited to see what the Clones will do this year with another set of castoffs.

Eh. Stomping of Samford tonight for Louisville. Good defense, good rebounding, but holy crap we are horrible shooters. Another deplorable night of 3s. Only a few games in but starting to worry about when we play better teams and need to make open shots.

Might find out in 10 days if we play Missouri, Memphis, or Duke in this Battle for Atlantis tournament.

Louisville destroyed Miami (OH) yesterday. 80-39, but it could have been worse. We pulled the starters with a lot of time left.

This might be the best I have ever seen a Pitino team play in November in the 11 years he's been here. Defense was smothering. Shooting was hot. Fast breaks were efficient. Dominated the boards (42-22). Even good team FT shooting (80%). Just a few too many turnovers of our own, but otherwise a nearly perfect game.

And this:

Gorgui Dieng just keeps getting better.

Anyway, big week for a lot of teams. Maui Invitation is on ESPN2 right now. Marquette, Butler, UNC, Illinois, lots of good competition there. Legends Classic tonight with Indiana-Georgia and UCLA-Georgetown. Kansas in the Hall of Fame Classic. Louisville, Duke, and Memphis in the Battle for Atlantis in the Bahamas starts Thurs. Lots of great games for these early season tournaments. Looking forward to all of it.

Thank you, SLU, for making sure Kansas doesn't have to play the Aggies CBE Classic. SLU is looking to have a down year, made worse with the forced retirement of Majerus due to health concerns. But they ran over A&M 70-49.

So it looks like Kansas is in the process of taking Washington State down, and will face the Bilikens in the final tomorrow night. That should be a fun game.

Yeah you have things in control.

Meanwhile, Texas is losing to Division-II Chaminade in Maui, by 17, in the 2nd half. It's just about over.

More great stuff last night. Georgetown-Indiana went to OT. Butler upset UNC. They only won by 11 but were up by 30. Thoroughly dominated for a while. Roy benched all 5 starters to get the fire lit and start to attempt a comeback.

Can't wait for Atlantis to start! Every team in the field but Stanford has been to the NCAA Tournament since 2010 or more recently, and every team but Minnesota has won a game or more since 2010. Should be a fun competition.

the Kansas SLU game was better than the 73-59 score indicated. KU ran out to a big lead, but SLU then proceeded to stick around and never let Kansas run away the rest of the game. They even close to within 9 after being down by 18. SLU lost their best defender to fouls early, and then a groin injury, as Jordair Jett played just nine minutes.

Kansas is really, really good when they remember that playing tough defense is the key to scoring lots of transition points. They are young and seem to lose intensity during periods. Every time SLU started to make a run, Kansas' length and speed would crush their Bilikens.

Ben McLemore, the redshirt freshman is freaking awesome, and he and Withey are going to help Kansas gone a long ways in the Tourney this year. It's a different team without Thomas Robinson, but I really like it.

So... yeah... those were the real Louisville Cardinals tonight. Thrashing #13 Missouri by 23, never trailing after the first TV timeout. Turning them over 22 times. Making Pressy look far from the "best PG in the country" that he thought he was and giving him a career high 8 TOs.

#5 Duke is up next. Should be fun.

I really hope the Atlantis tournament gets such abysmal ratings that the better teams stop going there until the get a better media deal. This is f*cking ridiculous. NBC Sports was running the f*cking Dan Patrick Show while there are games.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

I really hope the Atlantis tournament gets such abysmal ratings that the better teams stop going there until the get a better media deal. This is f*cking ridiculous. NBC Sports was running the f*cking Dan Patrick Show while there are games.

Yeah the basketball quality and teams is amazing, better than Maui, better than NIT, anything. But the coverage is less than desirable. If NBC Sports showed both morning and night sessions it'd be better, but the morning games are on AXS TV or something, which I've never heard of until this week.

Just glad Louisville didn't lose and I get to watch all 3 night games.

Man. What a game. Missed 3 FTs in the last 90 seconds that could have cut it to 2 or 1. Louisville really beat themselves tonight. And losing by 5 without Gorgui still makes me feel very good about our chances this year.

Coach K was pretty respectful towards our players and team, and the other teams in the tournament in all of the post game stuff. I'm really not sure why people dislike him so much, except that they don't like losing to him maybe?

Was a great tournament.

Hopefully the Cards stay in the top 5. Seems like they should just flip flop 2/5 with Duke in the rankings Monday. Dominating Missouri should still count for something to keep us from falling too far.

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