It's about that time. AP Top 25 Poll is out. Mich St with their first ever preseason #1 ranking.
Here's your top 10 11, so you can see all 4 ACC teams.
1 Michigan State (60)
2 Kentucky (2)
3 Kansas (3)
4 Duke
5 Louisville
6 Florida
7 Maryland
8 Gonzaga
9 North Carolina
10 Villanova
11 Virginia
And in another interesting hoops story, Butler Blue III: One Last Trip
After eight years of greeting potential students with the news of their admission to Butler University, running down bones at Hinkle Fieldhouse to officially get basketball games started, and serving as Butler’s all-around ambassador, I will retire at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year.
And now the wait for Butler IV to be named.
Very excited for Buzz's first season at A&M! He was an assistant here many years ago, and Aggies have wanted him to come back for quite a while.
Caught UNC's exhibition game last night. Cole Anthony should be fun to watch this year, but it's clearly a w-i-p for most of the remaining team. And of course, as things go, Brandon Robinson rolls his ankle in the first half. No timetable for returning. Poor kid. He had just made it into the starting lineup for his senior year.
Still.
HERE COMES BASKETBALL SEASON!
Tuesday is gonna be awesome.
Tyrian wrote:Tuesday is gonna be awesome.
Still can't believe the ACC is opening with conference games but it's exciting.
Yeah, the 20 game conference season is going to put some stress on the normal schedule. Still, I'm not turning down more basketball!
Tuesday has some serious high end matchups and I can't wait! I'm burning another PTO day on Wednesday so that I can stay up and watch all the games!
Duke somehow survives in Madison square garden. They did 'force' a ridiculous 28 turnovers from an otherwise decent looking Kansas squad. Neither team was having much luck playing consistently on the offensive end, but there was some tenacious defense.
Looking forward to round 2!
UK takes down Michigan St to complete the evening
MSU looked out of sorts for a lot of the game. Open looks not falling, defensive miscues, etc. UK had some strange sequences too, but looked more complete in general. Tyres Maxey looked ready to play. Reminded me a LOT of De'Aaron Fox and Malik Monk from a couple of seasons ago.
The main takeaway for me was "ain't nobody playin 100% yet", particularly with a lot of freshman on the floor at the same time.
UNC kicks off their season tonight against Notre Dame, and we're ranked... so that almost guarantees a loss!
No loss, but it took an absurd 2nd half performance from Cole Anthony to keep UNC in front. Hell of a debut, but once coaches change plans to account for him, I am not sure we have a viable second or third option at this point.
It is an interesting case and Penny can make the argument that he was the kid's high school coach and was helping out the family, and would have done that even if the kid wasn't moving to the school where he was an alum and would later be hired as the coach. If I was adjudicating it I would want to see if he made similar 'loans' to other high schoolers he coached to move to where they went to college. If there is a pattern, then ok. If he only did it for this number one recruit of his own school where he was expected to be the next coach, then it was obviously paying a player and a violation.
"That's a nice college basketball program you have there, Penny. Shame if something were to happen to it."
And down goes #1, as Evansville hands Kentucky their first loss of the season.
I did not see that one coming!
Definitely lived up to that one!
Next up, Villanova gets crushed at Ohio State.
It is an interesting case and Penny can make the argument that he was the kid's high school coach and was helping out the family, and would have done that even if the kid wasn't moving to the school where he was an alum and would later be hired as the coach. If I was adjudicating it I would want to see if he made similar 'loans' to other high schoolers he coached to move to where they went to college. If there is a pattern, then ok. If he only did it for this number one recruit of his own school where he was expected to be the next coach, then it was obviously paying a player and a violation.
Well, there is the fact that he is classified as a Memphis booster at the point he gave the money to the kid's family. He'd given substantial money to Memphis. Him being coach now really isn't relevant other than if they suspend him as well as the kid.
Also, not really relevant here, but it was against the TSSAA (Tennessee's high school athletics' governing body) rules for him to do what he did as well. So he just doesn't care about rules.
Interesting is that everybody knows college ball is corrupt lots of places. Memphis is basically just acknowledging the fact that they don't care.
Reminds me of LSU.
I'm generally anti-paying players, and anti-professionalizing college sports in the future, but I'm sympathetic to people helping out lower income families in general. I understand the whole slippery slope and all that, so we have to enforce the rules - but if it looks like a family getting help rather than a player shopping his services to the highest bidder, I'm not morally outraged.
I'm generally anti-paying players, and anti-professionalizing college sports in the future, but I'm sympathetic to people helping out lower income families in general. I understand the whole slippery slope and all that, so we have to enforce the rules - but if it looks like a family getting help rather than a player shopping his services to the highest bidder, I'm not morally outraged.
Helping a family move to be able to more easily play on my AAU and high school teams isn't exactly humanitarian work to me.
I don't know what the kid's situation was, but Nashville to Memphis isn't really a step up when you look at opportunities for the parents. Nashville's kind of the boomtown, while Memphis is flat in economic growth right now comparatively.
Penny broke the NCAA rules and he broke the TSSAA rules. Yet only the kid is punished.
I'm not opposed to paying players. But until those rules are established, gaining unfair advantage by doing so should be punished according to the rules.
Monster athletic sequence on both sides of the ball.
Yves "The Flying Frenchman" is an amazing athlete that's starting to get good at basketball. Pon's elbow above the rim on the block, and he got up fast.
Cal plays Duke at MSG tomorrow night. Since we have no chance of winning.. I'll just leave this here.
Last night's Georgetown / Duke game was... bizarre. The officiating was all OVER the place. There were more than 50 fouls called throughout (though mostly consistent), but some serious misses in terms of possession affecting calls. I don't think the final score accurately reflects how close the game was at points.
Speaking of horrible officiating:
Why Notre Dame vs Toledo was the dumbest college basketball game in years
That sounds amazingly ridiculous.
Down goes Sparty, again. To Va Tech, with new coach... Mike Young?
Lol Izzo.
That's the former Wofford coach, yeah?
I watched the game. VT mostly played well, and MSU mostly didn't. Pitt outscrapped K-state for a victory... It's gonna be another weird year in basketball.
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