Arena The Madness Has Begun!: NCAA Basketball Discussion

Coaches poll

1. UCLA (31) 11-0 775
2. North Carolina 10-1 740
3. Florida 11-2 693
4. Wisconsin 12-1 648
5. Duke 11-1 624
6. Ohio State 10-2 594
7. Arizona 9-1 577
8. Alabama 11-1 545
9. Connecticut 10-0 503
10. Kansas 10-2 491
11. Pittsburgh 11-2 461
12. Texas A&M 10-2 401
13. Washington 10-1 396
14. Oklahoma State 12-1 347
15. Butler 12-1 337
16. Wichita State 9-2 234
17. Air Force 11-1 219
18. Nevada 10-1 205
19. LSU 7-3 203
20. Oregon 11-0 176
21. Clemson 12-0 172
22. Marquette 12-2 168
23. Memphis 9-3 131
24. Notre Dame 10-1 105
25. Michigan State 12-2 91


I'm not going to say that about every big win, and Florida will probably lose at least 3-4 games in the SEC schedule. But to discount what they have done (blowouts against all those teams I listed, minus Georgetown) against that great competition is pretty silly to me. To me they are a legitimate top 5 team and a legitimate threat to repeat. But hey I go there so I'm pretty biased.

Merry Christmas!

 

3 los teams sold not be in the top 25 at this point in the year

 

Depends on whom those losses are to, and whom they've beaten.

And currently, I can't remember whom Memphis has played.

 

USC freshman Chad Gray, with all of 2.5 seconds of playing time this season, has a big toe injury in practice and is definitely out for the next two games (tonight and tomorrow), and may take a redshirt the season. Which is probably better for him, gives him an extra year of playing time, but won't help our depth in SEC play one bit.

USC vs UNC Asheville tonight, they've got a 7-1 starter and a 7-6 guy coming off the bench, while USC's tallest contributer is 6-9 Brandon Wallace. We'll likely see more of 6-10 Ousmane Konate, who has played a little bit so far this season, 6-7 freshman Evaldas Baniulis (who is more of a guard but would get us a little more height on the floor, also hasnt played very much) and even a sighting of 6-11/7-0 freshman Mitchell Carter, who has barely played at all but may be needed to try to defend those guys.

According to the paper, though, that 7-1 center is only averaging 3 points a game, so he probably isn't any good, just tall. And if he's still starting ahead of that 7-6 kid, he probably isn't any good either. At least, such is my hope, because we struggle enough with rebounding against really short teams as it is. Height is NOT one of our strengths.

 

every time Georgia got close we went on runs. pretty good game our next test is on January 5th vs Florida State

 

Congrats to Clemson, thats their best win of the season so far.

USC didn't have any trouble at all tonight against UNC Asheville, opened the game with a 17-4 run and it never really got close. Final score was 71-51, but that was after a 12-0 UNCA run to end the game with all our backups (aka, nobody) in the game and them pressing and running it quickly. And I was right, those 7-footers weren't any good at all, though the 7-6 kid (who is positively huge and made EVERYONE else out there, including 2 other 7-footers, look tiny) was fun to watch, when he could play (he had to play in short spurts before he would get completely worn out). He's probably one of the few players who gets cheered by opposing fans - my roommate kept yelling for him to dunk without jumping, which he did twice, accounting for 4 of his 5 points. He looked really awkward out there, with braces on both his knees and all but limping - he couldnt run at all, and was certainly the worst pure athlete out there. And his jump shots (well, non-dunks, he didnt really jump either more than a inch or two) were practically at a downward angle, as were his free throws.

Jacksonville tomorrow, after the bowl game against Houston, hope we can do as well as we did today.

 

FSU is supposed to be a ramped up version of Georgia State and we struggled at times against GSU. Im picking FSU to beat Clemson by a good 8 points 79-71

 

I have serious questions about Florida State, which may or may not be answered when they play Clemson. Still, I think Clemson pulls that one out, before falling to an extremely talented Georgia Tech team.

USC beat Jacksonville on Friday 80-73, in a game that should not have been so close. Still, I'll gladly take the 80 points of offense, including double digits from all 5 starters and 20 from Tre Kelley. Bad part is that Tre had a knee injury (sprain) and didn't play the last several minutes (during which they tightened it up from a 16 point lead or so). Hopefully its not serious, it didn't seem to be, but he will miss the Westen Carolina game on Wednesday. Thats going to be trouble, as we havent played well at all when Tre's been out all year. We've got to learn to play without him.

 

Well I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just having horrible computer problems that are keeping offline more than on (which doesn't seem that bad sometimes).

Glad that ACC play is finally starting for the Heels. All these non-conference games are like sloppy scrimmages and it's kind of hard to discern real skill from just overwhelming talent. Plus I'm sick of ESPNU.

 

Ah, wondered where you'd gone.

Yeah, it'll be nice to see some good ACC games coming up.

USC has a game tonight, minus Kelley. And it looks like I'll be all alone watching it there, probably in another extremely sparse crowd. Oh well.

 

starting off the ACC year at 1-0 is huge. A win in Tallahasse where we usually have trouble (then again there really isn't any ACC stadium we don't have trouble in). A close victory is important. Cliff Hammonds is the heart and soul of Clemson this year. Huge game against Georgia Tech this saturday at Littlejohn. Can't wait to go to it

 

USC won 67-53 yesterday despite having Kelley on the bench. Actually, Kelley looked like another assistant coach out there, except that he was wearing jeans. He was very active out there, pointing things out to players as they came in at timeout, etc. And it was very obvious just how much he wished he was out there playing. We seem to have found a backup point guard, though, and its not whom I expected - 6-9 forward (and the closest thing we have to a center in our main rotation) Brandon Wallace. Dwayne Day and Brandis Raley-Ross also spent time at the point, as expected, and both had good games - Dwayne had 7 assists, as many as he'd had all season, and Brandis had 18 points - but the team as a whole looked much better when Brandon was running the point. He had one of his quieter games, only scoring 7 points (and 5 of those coming in the closing minutes) but still grabbing 12 boards and giving out 4 assists against only 2 turnovers. Dwayne looked good distributing the ball, but mostly when he wasnt bringing the ball up the court and directing the offense. Brandis looked really good as a 2-guard, which is his natural position, and he regained some of his aggressiveness which has been missing the last few games, but was sloppy handling the ball, notching one assist and four turnovers. Bryce Sheldon also had a good game shooting, scoring 20 points on 4-6 from behind the arc (Brandis was also 4-6 from downtown). We did struggle a bit with foul trouble for a couple players - Dominique Archie picked up his fourth with 12 or 13 minutes to go and had to sit down a while, and Dwayne Day picked up his fourth a few minutes later, although he stayed in for the rest of the game without fouling out. Both did an admirable job of playing good defense without fouling in the last several minutes of the game.

Kansas on Sunday, still no word on whether or not Tre will be able to play. If he plays, we have a slim chance, if he doesn't, we have none at all.

 

Oregon goes down to Southern Cal. Now Oregon needs to upset UCLA and Clemson needs to beat Georgia Tech and the Tigers will be the last one standing

 

im leaving to go to Clemosn vs GT!

Virginia Tech beats Duke 69-67 and Arkansas is blowing out Alabama

 

Just got back from UF-UGA game in Gainesville. After a really, really ugly and unimpressive first half for the Gators, they turned it on and won by 16. Capped by a Noah three-pointer in the closing seconds, haha.

Interesting day. Looks like UCLA may be going down to Oregon, VT edges the Dookies, and Bama disappoints once again.

 

That was, quite simply, one of the worst performances I've ever seen Duke have. Paulus looked absolutely horrible, McRoberts had a rotten first half and then couldn't buy a free throw in the second half... and Duke still almost pulls it out. I guess thats about all the comfort I can take from that game.

I was hoping Georgia would pull it out against UF, but no such luck.

Looks like Tre Kelley will play (and start) against Kansas tomorrow, but thats not official yet. Mike Jones is transferring from Syracuse, and it seems likely he will return home and play for USC, but thats far from official. He had originally committed here before backing out to go to Syracuse, but apparently was homesick. The one concern if he does come here is total scholarships. While we only have 12 scholarship players right now (and 3 of those are transfers sitting out right now as it is) so we have room now... we have 3 players graduating and have 5 high school seniors committed for next year, which means we would be two over the limit (and one over the limit even without Jones, if he doesn't come here). I'm sure the coaches would make room for Jones somehow, as he would be the biggest recruit since Rolando Howell, who, coincidentally, went to the same HS as Mike Jones. Of course, Howell was also way overrated and incredibly lazy. Talent, sure, but a big waste of talent. But a lot of this is still speculation.

Come on, GT!

 

and then there was one

 

Who would have thought, before the season started, that Clemson would be the last unbeaten team in the country?

 

Good Conference win for the Aggies. WHOOP!

Wisconsin killed Minnesota...not unexpected.

Spectacular to see UCLA and Duke lose.

 

what do you mean? wisconsin is really good and minnestoa is bad

 

Hence it was not unexpected and thus expected.

Ugly game for USC this afternoon against Kansas, we couldn't hit free throws and got completely out-physicaled (if thats a word). Despite the lopsidedness in fouls called (I think we had 9 total called on us compared to at least 17 and close to 20 for Kansas) it was the worst officiated game I've seen this year, beginning with the "intentional" foul on Dominique Archie. It was a bit of a hard foul, and yeah, he probably was trying to foul him, but no more than any other fast break like that, and he got a lot of ball. He did get some body as well, and it was a foul... but there is no way in the world it was an intentional foul.

Just an ugly, ugly game. At Georgia on Wednesday to open up SEC play, then Florida here Saturday, followed by Kentucky here on Tuesday. If we don't start playing well quickly, that could be 0-3 and the start of a LONG conference season.


And oh yeah, my little rant against the stupid event staff people, who decided to make one of the student sections general admission, apparently just for this one game, as according to all university publications it is supposed to be student reserved this year. And thats where my tickets were for, so they just said what amounted to "I'm sorry, we don't care that you have a ticket for that seat, its now general admission, so since some other random people are sitting there, you can't have your seat" (and the exact words weren't too far from that, either). Next time I'm bringing a USC publication that clearly states it is a reserved section to make my point, if they try that again.

 

If last year is any indication, you might get your first SEC win against UF. Did you guys lose anybody from last year's squad?

 

We lost Tarence Kinsey (now with Memphis Grizzlies, at least some of the time) and Renaldo Balkman (now with the NY Knicks).

And as much as I still think that Florida's overrated (they are!), they're still better than us. Which isn't saying much.

 

Well, looks like UNC will move up to the top of the polls. I really prefer when we just hang out in the Top 5 or 10 without being #1, particularly with a young team. Though I know it sounds like it, I'm not complaining. UNC always has that target on their chest whether they're #1 or not, but the only thing teams enjoy better than beating UNC is beating UNC ranked #1.

As for Paulus, how much longer is "K" gonna give him before Scheyer is running the show? With no AA's to bail him out, the mediocrity that is Paulus has become truly evident. At this rate, I'm thrilled to death that Dook football sucked so much that Paulus figured he could walk on as the QB there.

 

Yeah, UNC should be #1 easily in the next poll.

And I really think Paulus will bounce back, but I have no clue what happened with him in the VT game. Even when he wasn't playing well earlier this season he never looked that bad.