Oof, Tough to post that image, but congratulations again to Kansas for a hard-fought victory in the 2022 Men's D1 Championship. UNC was THAT CLOSE last year. Not sure if they can line things up to make another amazing run, but they're well armed and a bit deeper than last year. Time will tell!
Exhibition games (and scrimmages, secret or otherwise) happened this past week, including an interesting drubbing of perennial favorite Gonzaga by Tennessee! Opening day is Nov 7th. Lots of games to see.
Obligatory links:
Cards looked rough in exhibition. Not pressing the panic button yet but might have to lower expectations for rebuild year 1.
EDIT: Title should say 22-23 
Cards looked rough in exhibition. Not pressing the panic button yet but might have to lower expectations for rebuild year 1.
EDIT: Title should say 22-23 ;)
Whoops, I missed correcting that during the first 17 edits. Thanks.
Funnier to imagine them fitting the entire season into the next 60 days. 
Lets go Aztecs!
IARP finally ruled this morning. No major violations by Louisville, and no postseason bans. 2 years of probation for minor violations. Seems like relief was given for firing anyone and everyone remotely involved. So finally after 5 years, this bullsh*t is over, and the negative recruiting can stop.
IARP finally ruled this morning. No major violations by Louisville, and no postseason bans. 2 years of probation for minor violations. Seems like relief was given for firing anyone and everyone remotely involved. So finally after 5 years, this bullsh*t is over, and the negative recruiting can stop.
Good omen for my football Vols who fired everybody and the NCAA has been a model of cooperation.
NCAA has no teeth anymore.
It's almost time! I've been looking forward to tomorrow for a month!
Bit of a shaky start for my tarheels, but I'll take the win. Did not really look like the team from last year's final four run. They even got out rebounded!
Still, it's nice to have college hoops back.
Duke looks like they also have some work to do, but played to a convincing win over Jacksonville (without their 2 top recruits). Clemson, Pitt, Syracuse, and NCSU all won .... Not sure what happened to FSU.
All 25 ranked teams in action today. Looks like everybody won big except TCU that survived by 1.
Still a couple west coast games in action. Oregon cruising. UCLA just started.
Speaking of, might as well throw the AP rankings in. Usually someone on this list is going to win it all. And likely the whole final four is somewhere here.
1 North Carolina
2 Gonzaga
3 Houston
4 Kentucky
5 Kansas
5 Baylor
7 Duke
8 UCLA
9 Creighton
10 Arkansas
11 Tennessee
12 Texas
13 Indiana
14 TCU
15 Auburn
16 Villanova
17 Arizona
18 Virginia
19 San Diego State
20 Alabama
21 Oregon
22 Michigan
23 Illinois
24 Dayton
25 Texas Tech
At least our football team gives us hope at the beginning of the year...
Until Mark Fox is fired, we enter the season expecting to maybe win 10-15 games total with zero hope of even an NIT bid, and the # of bodies in the stands 100% confirms that.
Last night in our opener we lost to UC Davis... a .500 team from the Big West conference. A team that up until last night we had a 33-0 historical record. We lost.. at home... by 10 points... because of a 21-5 point run to finish the game by UC Davis...
In basketball good coaching can lift lesser talent to at least good fun games with some upsets in there, maybe a berth into the tourney, and maybe even an upset win or two. In 5 years of this joker as head coach, he has done absolutely zero to lift anything. In fact every player whose actually done well or shown some promise has transferred after that season, so he's not even building a team or culture that players want to stay in.
I legit think that a top 10%.. heck maybe even top 20% high school team with an above average coach would be able to beat Cal with a few weeks of practice together.
EVERY year he calls it rebuilding.. dude.. every player on the roster was recruited by you...
The only possible silver lining is that his contract is up after this season. An erroneous report in the Athletic a week or two ago said he was extended for 2 years, which was incorrect.
His statement after yesterdays loss " "I don't want to say Kansas State (Cal's next opponent) is better. UC Davis is a good team." Ladies and gentlemen.. Mark Fox...
Well sh*t. Cards lost opener to cross town Bellarmine 67-66.
Sloppy. Poorly officiated. Never led the second half. But still had 2 realistic chances to take the lead in the last 30 seconds and missed 2 shots. And half court toss at the buzzer that was off too. As bad as it was it could have been saved. Damned frustrating.
Now do that for the next 5 years with not even an NIT bid while extending your coach, and you'll know what its like to be a Cal basketball fan.
3 ranked teams trailing at the half tonight. Gonzaga, UNC and Villanova
Well the first two survived but Villanova loses by 2 at Temple. A couple players missing so maybe an asterisk, but hey, they won. Good game Owls.
UNC came out in the 2nd looking like a much different team. They shot 71.5% from the floor (~60% for the game). Got out rebounded again though, which is weird. Bacot scored 28 points in the game... 27 of them in the 2nd. Crazy.
Still, I'll take it. There was clearly some emotion out there on the court, lot of barking from various players on both teams.
I saw the halftime score for the Mich St / Gonzaga contest and wondered how that'd go.
Duke ran their opponent out of the gym. Some games need a mercy rule.
Duke was down 7-0 to start. Then they got serious apparently.
#19 SDSU survives a tough game versus BYU after being down most of the game. We didn't take the lead until 5:01 left. Final score 82-75
Next we face Stanford, and then Ohio State.
#21 Oregon lost to UC Irvine by 13. Wow. Probably won't be ranked next week.
Cards lost again... by 1 point... on a buzzer beater... after having the ball with 12 seconds and turning it over... and having 2 fouls to give and not using them...
Absolute failure of coaching and execution.
First time any D1 team has started 0-2 with both 1-point losses since 1992 apparently.
First time any D1 team has started 0-2 with both 1-point losses since 1992 apparently.
Cards lost by 1 again.
Scored at the buzzer, appeared to win. Called off on replay. Was maybe 1 tenth of a second too late.
Pretty sure this has never happened before, 0-3 all by 1-point.
And #16 San Diego State safely puts away Stanford 74 - 62. This team is looking good, I'm hoping for a deep tournament run this year.
Stele wrote:First time any D1 team has started 0-2 with both 1-point losses since 1992 apparently.
Cards lost by 1 again.
Scored at the buzzer, appeared to win. Called off on replay. Was maybe 1 tenth of a second too late.
Pretty sure this has never happened before, 0-3 all by 1-point.
I saw that one happen, was a crazy sequence. :/
UNC struggled with Gardner-Webb. Another 30 minutes of lackadaisical play with ~10 min of decent action. I love my team, but they're gonna get chewed up and spit out when they encounter a Michigan State, Kansas, Michigan, etc.
Only watched the first half of the Duke / Kansas game, but both teams looked weirdly great and yet disconnected at the same time. Lots of room for growth there,
I figured you were watching since the ticker at the bottom kept talking about the UNC start time hehe.
UK Mich St was a good watch. 2 brilliant plays by MSU, one underneath out of bounds, and one full court press break, tied the game in regulation and overtime, respectively. Then Oscar fouled out for UK in 2nd OT and it was over.
Cal lost to UC San Diego on the road last night.
UC San Diego just joined D1 basketball 3 years ago...
UC San Diego is 2-0 against Cal in those 3 years
UC San Diego's Head Coach makes all of $110K a year (in some California cities, that qualifies for low-income housing.. no joke)
Cal's Head Coach makes $1.9M a year (which is still lowest in the P12, but who cares)
Cal could quite literally be the worst college basketball team in California, and no doubt we have the most overpaid and underqualified coach in California, if not the country.
I, uh... am not sure what happened to Michigan. After blowing Pitt out by ~30 or so.... They turn around and lose to a hot-shooting Arizona St by 25?!
I saw Gonzaga got blown out by Texas as well.
Wild.
Is it gonna be another one of those seasons?
Ranked (24) Texas A&M got handled by Murray St. Go Racers!
Is it gonna be another one of those wild seasons?
Obviously.
One of the Cards radio talk guys tweeted out that every other team in the Maui besides Louisville is a combined 18-0... during the Cincinnati game Wed night. And then the Bearcats lost hehe.
Ranked (24) Texas A&M got handled by Murray St. Go Racers!
Tyrian wrote:Is it gonna be another one of those wild seasons?
Obviously.
One of the Cards radio talk guys tweeted out that every other team in the Maui besides Louisville is a combined 18-0... during the Cincinnati game Wed night. And then the Bearcats lost hehe.
[Reviews the invite list for the Maui Invitational...]
...
Go Louisville!
Stele wrote:Ranked (24) Texas A&M got handled by Murray St. Go Racers!
Tyrian wrote:Is it gonna be another one of those wild seasons?
Obviously.
One of the Cards radio talk guys tweeted out that every other team in the Maui besides Louisville is a combined 18-0... during the Cincinnati game Wed night. And then the Bearcats lost hehe.
[Reviews the invite list for the Maui Invitational...]
...
Go Louisville!
Go San Diego State!
Tyrian wrote:Go Louisville!
Go San Diego State!
I'd be thrilled if that was the final.
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