2003/4 NCAA Regular Season...

[sensei_hanson]

Slow start. Bad TTPers.

Anyways. Onto the two teams anybody actually cares about. UNC won an epic battle against powerhouse Cleveland State today, to move to 3-0 on the year. While there are many things new in Tar Heel country this year, I can only say that, much like last year, the team is one starting-five injury away from being NIT-bound, again. Sean May has to play the whole season, as the frontcourt depth is far more suspect than the backcourt depth.

As for Duke. Luol Deng is money. I will begrudgingly admit that he will probably be the freshman of the year, and will kill the ACC this year. The guy is a monster. A Sudanese monster.

Duke is also 3-0 after big wins against storied programs like U of Detroit, U of Pacific and Liberty U. Deng had 21, 20 and 11 points in each of the wins, respectively. I keep forgetting Duke has Redick, Duhon and Ewing out there as well, but all I hear about is Deng. And for good reason.

I should make mention of the state of Arizona, who hosts some of the best college basketball talent in the country right now. The Arizona Wildcats (aka, point-guard university) have tons of talent, but the gem of the program is Salim Stoudamire. Should also keep an eye on Mustafa Shakur, their freshman PG. They also have Channing Frye and Hassan Adams, to make a lethal 4-man set.

Arizona State has Ike Diogu, who could very well end up being the player of the year come March. Diogu is a dominant post scorer who basically has no help around him, but still kills the opposition on a nightly basis.

I will post the AP and Coaches Polls on Monday. UConn will most likely be bumped out of the #1 spot by then, thanks to their upset loss at the hands of Georgia Tech earlier in the week.

 

[The Apprentice]

Originally posted by sensei_hanson
Should also keep an eye on Mustafa Shakur, their freshman PG.

Not to many people know this but he is the brother of the late rap-star Tupac Shakur. Kinda strange story of two brothers with limited contact and completely different lifestyles and views on life.
Saw it on MTV

 

[sensei_hanson]

AP Poll...

1. Kansas (52) 2-0 1,750 6
2. Florida (8) 2-0 1,604 8
3. Connecticut (1) 4-1 1,524 1
4. Missouri (3) 1-0 1,487 5
5. Michigan St. 3-1 1,389 3
6. Duke (1) 3-1 1,325 2
7. Arizona 1-1 1,302 4
8. Texas (2) 3-0 1,272 11
9. Kentucky (1) 2-0 1,234 10
10. N. Carolina (1) 3-0 1,200 9
11. Illinois 3-0 1,071 12
12. Saint Joseph's 3-0 916 13
13. Ga. Tech (3) 5-0 874 --
14. Oklahoma 3-0 835 14
15. Wisconsin 3-0 720 15
16. Syracuse 1-1 692 7
17. Gonzaga 3-1 570 16
18. Wake Forest 3-0 552 18
19. Cincinnati 3-0 527 19
20. Purdue 4-0 493 --
21. Stanford 3-0 471 20
22. Pittsburgh 4-0 391 22
23. Notre Dame 2-0 342 21
24. Marquette 4-0 205 23
25. Oklahoma St. 3-0 117 24

Others receiving votes: Louisville 99, N.C. State 83, Iowa 71, Maryland 59, Dayton 53, Texas Tech 32, Oregon 20, Indiana 17, Arizona St. 13, Auburn 12, Mississippi St. 11, Providence 10, Charlotte 9, LSU 9, BYU 5, Georgia 5, Vanderbilt 5, Butler 4, UCLA 4, Florida St. 3, Ohio St. 3, George Washington 2, Xavier 2, Arkansas 1, California 1, Manhattan 1, Murray St. 1, Nevada 1, Niagara 1.

Duke's loss to Purdue drops them to #6, UConn's loss to Georgia Tech drops them to #3, while Kansas (thanks to Wayne Simien) gets the #1 spot. The Yellow Jackets make the big jump, going from the land of the unranked to #13 this week.

 

[sensei_hanson]

Roll on you Tar Heels...

UNC moved to 4-0 this season with an 88-81 win over #11 Illinois yesterday. Good win for the Heels, who had just seven players in their rotation. Sean May was huge with 23 points and 14 boards. Obviously it is concerning to have only seven players get minutes, but a win against a quality team like the Illini is a good sign, especially when May dominates in the paint like he did last night.

Duke plays Michigan State today in a huge early game at the ACC-Big Ten Challenge (same tourney UNC and Illinois are in). After losing to Purdue in the final of the Great Alaska, the Dookies really need to put away the Spartans tonight, if only to keep anti-Blue Devils vultures like myself from hounding them for another week.

The big matchup will be on the blocks where Deng matches up with the Spartans' 6'10 machine, Paul Davis. The Dookies also need Duhon to start stepping up, as he is averaging a lousy 8.0ppg so far.

 

[lean]

Missing Noel

Sensei,

The Heels are missing David Noel off the bench to give them some quality minutes, but in saying that, the results haven't been a problem. I think Roy will get the young kids some playing time against Akron and Detroit to get them ready for the ACC regular season.

BTW, Noel should return around February in time for the stretch run into the tourny.

Lean

 

[sensei_hanson]

Another #1 bit the dust today at Kansas went down to Stanford today in the Wooden classic. I have no definite answer to the "who will be the new #1" on Monday, although I think Kentucky will most likely get it.

Michigan State lost another tough one today to Oklahoma, in OT - great game, but lousy result for the Spartans. Izzo did put together a crazy tough preseason schedule, so I don't think he'll be too upset at their mediocre record to start the year. This loss, teammed with the blowout to Duke, will probably drop them down to the mid-teens in the monday poll.

 

[sensei_hanson]

Booya!

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (Ticker) -- For the second straight season, Rashad McCants made Connecticut pay.

McCants nailed a tiebreaking 3-pointer with six seconds left as No. 11 North Carolina ended top-ranked Connecticut's 12-game winning streak with an 86-83 victory.

McCants forged an 83-83 tie with his 3-pointer with 1:14 left, and Connecticut (14-2) missed a pair of chances to take the lead when freshman Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon each missed. The Tar Heels called a timeout with 30 seconds to go, setting up for a final shot.

Raymond Felton started his drive with nine seconds remaining before whipping a pass to his left to McCants, who came off a screen set by Sean May. McCants nailed his shot from the left wing to put North Carolina (11-3) ahead.

Connecticut had one final chance, but Gordon's off-balance 3-pointer as time expired hit off the front rim.

McCants scored 27 points, matching his output from last season's 68-65 victory over Connecticut. He is 17-of-27 from the floor in his career vs. the Huskies.

All-American candidate Emeka Okafor collected 29 points and 13 rebounds for the Huskies, who fell to 0-2 against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents. UConn suffered a 77-61 setback to Georgia Tech on November 26.

Managed to catch this one right before I left for work....the Heels displayed some aggression, for once, notably with May who kept taking the ball at Okafor and Villanueva and getting them into some type of foul trouble, despite the fact they both had their fair share of blocks.

This almost makes up for a pretty bad loss to Maryland mid-week...on a side note, Duke put together a very good (and comprehensive) victory over Wake today, in a big ACC battle.

 

[Yoda]

Did anyone see the Arizona vs. Stanford game on Saturday?

Great game, Stanford should have put them away but Arizona came back in the last few minutes and went up by 3 points. Stanford pressed, stole the ball and worked it around for a 3 and tied it up with just a few seconds left. Stoudamire, bringing the ball up court waits till until under 10 seconds left tries to drive and gets swarmed, Stanford steals it and just a few feet over center heaves up a prayer with .3 seconds on the clock and nails it to win.

Stanford still undefeated.
Can't believe Tiger Woods passed up the Pebble Beach Open to watch that game. Although it was nice to catch a glimpse of his wife close up.

Mmmmmmmmm Elin.

 

[Sandman]

Did anyone....err I mean Sensei catch the Blue Devils beat the Tar Heels last week............again

Sandman

 

[knvb]

Ho hum...

I did. Again.

 

[sensei_hanson]

Did anyone....err I mean Sensei catch the Blue Devils beat the Tar Heels last week............again

Yeah, I caught it. But the banter on this thread is so piss-poor I didn't bother getting into it. The game itself was awesome so it took a bit of the sting out of another league loss (at home). Regardless of the rivalry, you have to be somewhat pleased when you take the #1 team in the country to OT, and lose at the buzzer. Pleased with the performance, that is.

All I can say is that Duhon is playing the best basketball of his college career, and the winning drive in OT was proof of it. Plus, Redick has essentially outdone the high expectations that came after his pretty solid freshman year. To be fair, that game was a saw-off and I think UNC had to be pleased with they way they played. Williams said as much in the post-gamer. The Heels came back to win an important league game against a very good Wake squad (on the road - I think it was their first ACC road win this year) immediately after the loss at The Dean Dome. That's a good sign. Under Doherty (remember him?), I get the feeling they would have folded after such a tough loss. Roy keeps 'em focussed.

While you can never be pleased to be on the losing end of a Duke-Carolina epic, it is obvious that Duke is the class of the ACC right now. So I will have to settle for a good showing in the ACC tourney and a return to March Madness for the Heels. Sean May seems to be evolving into the type of post player you can go to when you NEED a basket, so that bodes well for tourney-style play.

Yoda, glad to see you caught the Stanford-Zona game. It was a beaut. I was impressed with the type of game guys like Lottich and Hernandez played against a Wildcat backcourt which is more athletic and, I feel, more talented. Coach Montgomery has the Cardinal playing tremendous basketball, and they have to be one of the key players when you talk about final four teams in March. Childress is their star, but they've got a lot of good, fundamentally sound players supporting him.

 

[knvb]

Sunshine where it don't shine...

I don't come here to banter, I can honestly say I come here to read your in sights. You're better than ESPN sometimes, I swear. Also, as only a casual fan of the college game, I'd be scared shitless to really start in on you especially seeing as I didn't get my basketball encyclopedia for my birthday. Sandman said he'd start shite with you though... ask him. Go ahead, ask.

 

[sensei_hanson]

Re: Sunshine where it don't shine...

This is true. I spend a lot of (useless) time reading and researching this stuff. Like I've said in the past, once the Grizz flew the coop, my basketball jones was eating away at me, waiting to be fed. This city is bare bones for hoops coverage, so living vicariously through the Tar Heels and Memphis Grizzlies will suffice until one of the two local AM sports talk radio shows gives me my monthly time slot.

To stay on topic, even a casual fan like yourself should be mildly interested that two teams - St. Joes and Stanford - are on the verge of undefeated seasons. It would be the first time in NCAA history that two teams would enter March Madness with perfect seasons on the line.

Regards,
-Billy Packer.

 

[knvb]

I am interested you're right, but I hadn't heard until this morning. I also found out this morning Mojo-730 has the Mike and Mike show in the morning or they did today anyway, and they have Dickie V as a weekly guest. It's where I'll be to avoid that bumbling idiot on the Team. It was a big morning for me as you can tell.

To be honest, yet again, most of my "useless free sports time" has been spent following the NFL up until now which helped considerably with my big pool win. You should have tried it.



All ahead full on the NCAA now though.

 

[Regs]

KNVB,

Offtopic here but MOJO went to an all-sports format yesterday morning to compete directly with The Team.

That is all.

Go Heels,

~Regs.

 

[sensei_hanson]

Is there an existing thread for this kind of banter? I'd like to hear if anybody has comments or comparisons between the two. I'm a diehard TEAM guy, but am willing to do anything to avoid McGooch in the morning.

 

[Sandman]

Sensei,
I couldn't let a Blue Devil win over Carolina get away without a little ribbing. I agree Duhon has been huge this year. I originally considered him as the most over rated collegiate player ever to play at Duke. Saying that, he and Reddick are one of the best backcourts in the country. However, Luol Deng is the dude that I'm impressed with I think he came up with a very strong Double-Double in the Carolina game. I don't know what his stats are but the games that I have seen/listened to he has been huge. Can't wait till March.

Sandman

 

[knvb]

Sensei,

There is now...

http://www.takethepiss.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3761

 

[Yoda]

Because i'm too lazy to research it.
What is the relationship between Arizona's current Stoudamire and past Arizona point guard, Damon? Cousins or brothers.
Must be brothers because they both have that running jumper that is identical.

 

[sensei_hanson]

Salim and Damon are cousins.