Arena The Madness Has Begun!: NCAA Basketball Discussion

They should be used to it - everybody has a long layoff around finals, usually doesn't mean much.

Speaking of not meaning much, especially this early in the season, but Sagarin likes Clemson right now. Actually had Clemson as the #1 team in the country a couple days ago, and they're still at #3 right now.

From the ACC, UNC, Duke, Maryland, FSU, and Virginia are also in the top 25, while a certain overrated SEC team (Florida) is not in the top 25 there... although it does have Florida as #1 in Predictor. ELO_CHESS barely has Florida in the top 50, though.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/bkt0607.htm

 

yeah I saw that Clemson is #1 in that poll. I just hope Clemson dosen't collapse in ACC play. Our last non conference game we could lose is Georgia. Georgia beat Gonzaga handily, they will give Clemson trouble but other than that we don't have any tough non-conference games.

 

Yeah, Georgia's got a good team- they're well past that mess with Harrick 4 years ago and have a great set of guards, including Mike Mercer and Sundiata (sp?) Gaines. Levi Stukes, one of their 2 seniors, is pretty good too. The only question I have with them is their inside play - they dont have any good big men I know of, and definitely look like a team that will depend on being able to run. Clemson could get them into a slower paced game with a lot of banging inside, and if thats the style, Clemson will probably beat Georgia. Conversely, if Clemson lets Georgia run on them, Georgia will probably win.

 

Possibly the best news of the season for South Carolina - Freshman Forward Chad Gray has been accepted to the University and will begin practice tomorrow, eligible to play starting Wednesday with our game against Princeton. Don't know if he will play this quickly, given that he'll have had hardly any practice time with the team, but still, this will help our depth tremendously.

Granted, he's not a huge recruit at the level that the big name schools can bring in, but he's the top guy we had coming in this year and is a pretty big recruit for us. And we need him badly.

 

Sam Houston State is undefeated?


edit: I could have sworn I heard that on the radio, guess not

 

GO TAR HEELS!

That's all I have to say about that. Roy Williams, quickest coach to 500 wins. Tar Heels FTW.

 

I'm ready to see Kentucky in some SEC play. UK had a rough start but we have had a couple quality wins against Indiana and Louisville the past few games.

We got the crap beat out of us by UNC though.

 

The SEC has been disappointing out of conference so far this year. After sending 5 or 6 teams to the tourney last year (and USC winning the NIT), I thought we were poised for a great year. It's started slowly with a few UK losses, UF losing to FSU and Kansas, Bama getting destroyed by the Domers, etc. At least Tennessee (as much as I hate them) got a decent win on Monday over Ok. State. Hopefully UF can do something against Oden and OSU this Saturday.

 

USC beat Princeton tonight, in a typical Princeton low scoring close game. We actually led by 16 early in the second half, before letting Princeton come all the way back to within 3 points before closing it out for the win. Tre Kelley led all scorers with 24, and Bryce Sheldon had 15 points on 4 3s and 3/3 FTs (from being fouled on a 3). Princeton shot really well from 3, though, which is what kept them in the game even though we did a great job stopping the backdoor cut - they only managed to run it successfully once, 3 more were broken up, and at least a dozen (if not more) times they wanted to run it but it wasn't open. Still, who needs that when you keep draining 3s like they did?

Also, Chad Gray had 1 rebound in 2.5 seconds of play, which averages to 24 rebounds/minute or 960 rebounds/40 minutes. Somehow I think that average will come down. WAY down.

 

Duke struggled in the first half against Gonzaga, trailing 21-20 at the half (yeah, ugh) while viewers were forced to watch two overtimes of Pitt-OkState (which, while better basketball, nobody where I was cared about it one bit) before Duke came back to win in the second half behind Greg Paulus' 20 points in his best game of the season by far (also only 1 TO, nice to see that). Ran into the scorers table 3 times, had to get several stitches on his chin once but managed to come back after only missing a couple minutes or so to lead the team. McRoberts also had a double-double, though I'm still waiting on his aggressiveness.

Florida vs Ohio State today, looking forward to that. Al Horford's questionable for the game, unless Ohio State just lays an egg, I don't think theres any way Florida wins. Oden's gonna dominate the overrated Noah inside easily, especially if Noah doesn't have Horford to help him.

EDIT: now they're saying Horford will play, but he probably isn't at 100%, so his impact is still questionable.

 

...and Ohio State looked pitiful shooting in the first half. Looked like a much better team than Florida otherwise for most of the half, but couldn't shoot worth anything. Hence a 9 point deficit at the half. Unbelievable. Can Florida be any luckier?

And its not like its Florida's D thats making OSU miss - they're missing wide open shots that they should knock down easily.

 

Thad Matta ought to make his players run back to Ohio.

Agreed. Absolutely pitiful showing by Ohio State.

 

yeah next up for Clemson is Georgia, will be a challenge

 

Georgia will definitely be the best team Clemson's faced this year. Again, major style of play difference with Georgia being very run-oriented, whichever team controls momentum should win.

 

UF shot an outrageous percentage in the second half. Granted, Oden showed that he can't hold OSU up by himself against the cream of the crop and that OSU is a pretty streaky team. I agree that Florida is overrated, but they showed their experience in beating the Buckeyes. So as much as I think UF is overrated, OSU is much more so.

 

UF is definitely overrated. Every team they beat just has a bad night. UCLA, George Mason, Nova, Georgetown, LSU, and now OSU all got blown out by a pretty poor UF team because they all had bad nights.

It isn't because the Gators have talent or have a great coach who comes in with a quality gameplan to shut the other team down. They don't work well together as a team and have very little passion for playing the game.

 

are you going to say that for every one of their big wins?

 

Only when it applies. And in this case it does. Watching a game, its not difficult to tell the difference between a team thats being dominating and a team thats just having a horrible night but not because of the opposing team.

And the Gators do have talent - though less than the media would have you believe. Donovan's a good coach, though not one of the greats (yet, at least, he does have the potential to get there) and he's had some good gameplans the last couple years. Also had some gameplans that weren't worth anything, too (see: South Carolina times 3 last year at the very least). They worked well (mostly) as a team last year, but that hasn't been as good this year, and I think it falls apart further down the stretch.

 

what are the new polls like?