Looking Forward To NCAA Basketball 2012-13 Season posted by Austin Burress

As sports fans everywhere are in the midst of football season, it is never too early to begin looking toward the start of college basketball.  To me, NCAA basketball, particularly March Madness, is the biggest time of the year in the sports world.  As an avid follower of basketball, I can guarantee that this season promises to be an interesting one and fans everywhere are in for some big surprises everywhere. All across the nation a host of talented young players are entering the college ranks, while many of our all star players from last season have went on to the pros.  This can always lead to an unclear future for both the powerhouse teams, like UK, UNC, or Duke, and for the teams who they compete with.  

It is hard to say which teams will be the No. 1 Seeds this early, but after a few games, it will become clearer and clearer who will be the teams to beat.  The best preseason method of prediction I know of is read blogs, follow coaches and players on twitter, and refer back to the last few seasons to see which returning players are dominating on the court.  I hope to have begun to make predictions in the blog in the next few weeks.  Hopefully, it will be accurate and when I do my Bracketology it will be at least 80% accurate on seedings and 75% accurate on who wins what games.

I will do my best to keep everyone updated on the college scene by making new blog posts frequently when basketball season gets underway in November.  Through these posts, hopefully, everyone, myself included, will be able to dig a little deeper into the nuances of the games and see which team will win it all.

NBA Draft - Is it Time For A Minor League System posted by Gary Keating

After this past NBA Draft you are hearing more coaches changing their feeling about advice to players. More coaches now are telling players if your dreams are to make the pros do it early instead of waiting for the end of their senior season. More of the draft choices are younger players that they can develop instead of the 4-year players who have played out their college eligibility. What was once thought of as gaining more experience has now become a detriment as the longer a player stays in college the lower their draft selection is becoming.

 This is why players enter after their freshman season in college. They see the chance to enter now and work their way up the draft in workouts and interviews. Here are individuals who when they first decide to come out early are projected low then their combine workout turn heads. Then slowly with their individual workouts with teams they climb up the draft because of the upside that teams see.

Of course this all being done within the NBA agreement of the "one-n-done". All you here now is the complaints that this affects both college and pro basketball. The college side says it hurts them because of players only staying one year. The NBA complaints is that they are too young to withstand the rigors of the pro season.

If now some of these players are going to be drafted for their upside is it time for the NBA to go with a full minor league system for each team. Some of these players may not be ready right now so would it be better for them to play every night on a minor league team or sit every night on the NBA roster? The D-League is a great idea for players to work their way up to the NBA but is it time to use this league as a full minor league for each NBA team to develop their own young players that they see having an impact down the road. Just a thought.

Dancin' in March, Foolin' Around in April, and Why the Hell is it still cold on the East Coast? P.S. Mock Draft! posted by Amari Harris

They call it March Madness.  Rather simple concept isn’t it.  I’ve recently seen imitations of the title:  March Mania, March Music Madness but the gist of the thing is that March is a crazy month…especially in the world of sports.
At center stage, you have the annual NCAA basketball tournament.  Technically there are two tournaments, but I’m talking about the Big Dance, not the homecoming dance (sorry feminist).  Already, madness is around us.  Not only did the city of Richmond put two teams in the Sweet 16 but the team with the lowest expectations, VCU, is now in the Final Four with just as good a chance as anybody of being National Champion.  If you thought the city burned in the 19th century you just wait until Rams bring a National Title to the newly anointed Hoops Capital of the World.  But madness also has its downside…
This damn March.  Did you know there is a lockout in the NFL?  The one thing nobody wanted to happen has happened in March 2011 and there is truly no end in sight.  Both sides are mudslinging and fibbing (yes I said fibbing), and they are putting the NFL season in jeopardy.  At first, I must admit that I was on the side of the players.  My rebel heart always wants the underdog to win the fight but the newly found lawyer in me decided to address the arguments of the other side.  
If the Roger Gooddell and the NFL are telling the truth about what they offered to the players, it seems like a fair deal.  Both sides can legitimately get what they want, but the players and D. Smith must understand that the NFL owners have the a bit of a bargaining advantage because they have the money to outlast the players in a lockout scenario, and employ a fantastic legal team.  
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ncaa tourney feb 22 posted by john howard

Kansas got closer to locking up a one seed.  They beat Oklahoma soundly last night.  As for the Sooners, it has gotten so bad that the coach is threatening scholarships.  OUch!

The big game of the night was UConn beating West Virginia.  WV is fighting for a top seed and last night didn't help.  They may now be a 3 or 4 seed if the selection were today.  UConn took a big step towards getting in. I think they are still out of the field as of right now since their conference record is still below 500.  They have always been a tourney favorite.  I look for them to keep building on that win.  I say now they are not in. I predict that they will get in.

The 1992 Duke Blue Devils Were the Best College Basketball Team Ever posted by Colin Linneweber

The 2010 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament will commence in three weeks and the Final Four is scheduled to begin on April 3 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Below are the five best teams to win a national championship over the course of the past quarter century.  

1)      The 1991-1992 Duke University Blue Devils- Duke trounced the University of Michigan Wolverines 71-51 in Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis to capture their second consecutive national championship. 

Duke (34-2, 12-2 ACC), who became the first squad to win successive crowns since UCLA in 1973, was led by All-American’s Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill.  

Hurley, the NCAA all-time leader in assists with 1076, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. 

The Blue Devils, who began the season ranked number one, embarrassed Michigan’s famed “Fab-Five” and cemented their place as the best men’s college basketball team since 1985.  

2)      The 1989-1990 UNLV Runnin’ Rebels- The Rebels (35-5, 16-2 Big West) pulverized Duke 103-73 to win the national championship at McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado. 

UNLV, the number two ranked team to begin the season, featured future NBA Draft Lottery picks Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony. 

Additionally, the Rebels started spectacular shooting guard Anderson Hunt. 

Hunt scored 29 points against the Blue Devils to be named Most Outstanding Player of the Tournament by the Associated Press. 

It's better to support a cheater than it is to root for a man like Bobby Knight posted by Colin Linneweber

Reprehensible former college basketball coach “The General” Robert Montgomery Knight attended a fundraiser for the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame last week and he seized the event to chastise current University of Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari.

Knight, 69, who captured three NCAA Division I men’s college basketball championships at Indiana University and has recorded more victories than any coach in history, urged the governing body’s administration to more closely monitor players academic marks who are competing in postseason games.

“We’ve gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking and that’s why I’m glad I’m not coaching,” said Knight, who was fired by the Hoosiers in 2000 for committing a litany of deplorable actions both on and off of the court.

“We’ve got a coach at Kentucky (John Calipari), who put two schools on probation and he’s still coaching. I really don’t understand that.”

After Calipari left the Universities of Massachusetts and Memphis respectively, both schools were sanctioned by the NCAA for violations that were committed during his tenures.

“I get up to go to mass this morning and there’s like 100 text messages and I’m like what in the world happened?” said Calipari, 50, who signed an eight-year contract with incentives worth $31.65 million to lead the Wildcats last April.

“And I get word and what I can tell you is I’m a big fan, respect him as a basketball coach, always have.”

Joy at Florida International basketball team Loss Focused on Isiah Thomas posted by Bryan Rose

I don't usually take joy in the misfortune of others especially when it is centered around a group of college kids that just want to play basketball, but when I read that Isiah Thomas' Florida International University basketball team was beaten this week by NAIA Northwood, I had to smile.

I like everyone else was left scratching my head with the hiring of Thomas by FIU last summer. The destroyer of the CBA, the demolisher of the Knicks and yet here is a school willing to give complete control of their basketball program over to him. Maybe the school thought his high-profile name would draw recruits, give some publicity to their institution other than being known for that massive on field brawl with Miami a few years back in football.

It has been a tough month for Thomas, I will give him that. Magic Johnson came out and bashed him in his book and now his team can't even win their first exhibition game against a team that is not even in the NCAA. 

But FIU is reaping what they sowed and if they think that Thomas is going to lead them to the promise land (the NCAA Tournament) they need to look back at the road of destruction he has left behind him. The owners of the CBA teams that he left in financial ruins, the once proud Knicks team that is a laughing stock of the NBA and has been for years. 

FIU should cut their losses, get rid of Thomas now before he can do anymore damage. If they don't and as the season wears on, I am sure this Thomas led team will give us lots to talk about as we watch this dismantler of programs take down FIU.

NCAA Basketball Season Beginning Will Hopefully Down Play Off Season Woes posted by Bryan Rose

This off-season for college basketball fans was one of the toughest in recent memory. Scandals, coaches in trouble and basketball teams fighting football teams all marred the sport.

Probably biggest of these scandals to me was the Rick Pitino scandal where he was allegedly being blackmailed by a former lover with whom he allegedly had an extra-marital affair. Pitino was always one of those guys who seemed to do everything right, at the college level at least, and when he became front page news, it was a real shock to many.

The other scandals, Billy Gillispie's drunk driving trial, the Kansas Jayhawk basketball team (the No. 1 team in the nation in the polls) fighting the Kansas football team along with a score of other issues made us wonder what was going in this sport that we love.

But for all the drama and questioning the off season brought, with the start of the season just days away, it will give fans a chance to put some of those issues on the back burner. If there is one thing that we know about college basketball and its fans, is that we can put aside all debate when the games start up again.

Every year, when the NCAA tournament brackets come out, we debate who should have not been in and who should be in but when the games start in earnest on that Thursday, all that stops and we focus on what is important, the game being played. While the events of the summer are much more serious than those of who made the tournament and who didn't make the tournament, the bottom line is as fans, we can put aside the turmoil of the summer and enjoy the sport we love.

The World Would Be A Better Place If More Dick Vitale's Were In It & Derek Jeter is Number One posted by Colin Linneweber

The World Would Be A Better Place If More Dick Vitale's Were In It

Famed ESPN college basketball sportscaster Dick Vitale has decided to pay the costs of a cemetery plot for a high school student who was inexplicably murdered last week outside of Southeast High in Bradenton, Fla.

According to authorities, Daniel Floyd Williams, 18, approached a vehicle idled in the school’s parking lot with four girls inside of it and asked for one of the females to give him a Lewinsky.

The girls flatly denied Williams’ lewd request for fellatio. Williams momentarily retreated before he walked back, pulled out a gun and fired four shots at the car. Jasmine Thompson, a 17-year-old cheerleader who planned to study criminal law in college, was struck by one of the bullets and she died almost instantly from her wound.

“Here’s a 17-year-old girl, Jasmine Thompson, who really did nothing wrong in her life except for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Vitale, 70, told the New York Daily News last week.

Vitale, a resident of nearby Lakewood Ranch who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last September, continued.

“A senseless killing. As a dad and somebody who has five grandchildren, to have so close to home something like that happen, it just shakes you.”

Vitale said he is not acting in such a generous manner to gain positive publicity. The legendary New Jersey high school basketball coach, and onetime leader of the Detroit Pistons, stated he was informed that Thompson’s family would have trouble financing the funeral arrangements.

The World Would Be A Better Place If More Dick Vitale's Were In It posted by Colin Linneweber

Famed ESPN college basketball sportscaster Dick Vitale has decided to pay the costs of a cemetery plot for a high school student who was inexplicably murdered last week outside of Southeast High in Bradenton, Fla.

According to authorities, Daniel Floyd Williams, 18, approached a vehicle idled in the school’s parking lot with four girls inside of it and asked for one of the females to give him a Lewinsky.

The girls flatly denied Williams’ lewd request for fellatio. Williams momentarily retreated before he walked back, pulled out a gun and fired four shots at the car.

Jasmine Thompson, a 17-year-old cheerleader who planned to study criminal law in college, was struck by one of the bullets and she died almost instantly from her wound.

“Here’s a 17-year-old girl, Jasmine Thompson, who really did nothing wrong in her life except for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Vitale, 70, told the New York Daily News last week.

Vitale, a resident of nearby Lakewood Ranch who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last September, continued.

“A senseless killing. As a dad and somebody who has five grandchildren, to have so close to home something like that happen, it just shakes you.”

Vitale said he is not acting in such a generous manner to gain positive publicity.

The legendary New Jersey basketball coach, and onetime leader of the Detroit Pistons, stated he was informed that Thompson’s family would have trouble financing the funeral arrangements.

“I don’t need the publicity,” said Vitale. “From what I understand, the costs of the funeral would make it tough on the family. The state will take care of a good portion. I’m simply going to take care of the cemetery plot, about 1500.”

UMKC coach Richardson rounds out staff (Yahoo! Sports)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri-Kansas City basketball coach Kareem Richardson has completed his first coaching staff by hiring Angres Thorpe as associate head coach and Sean Bledsoe and Jason Sautter as assistant coaches. [read full article]

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UConn ends Wolf's suspension, returns as walk-on (Yahoo! Sports)

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Pittsburgh leads field for Legends Classic (Yahoo! Sports)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pittsburgh, playing its first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference, highlights the teams that will play in the championship round of this year's Legends Classic at Barclays Center. [read full article]

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Washington's Wilcoxundergoes foot surgery (Yahoo! Sports)

SEATTLE (AP) -- Washington guard C.J. Wilcox has undergone surgery on his left foot to stabilize a stress fracture that bothered him for much of his junior season. [read full article]

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Montana hoops lands Washington transfer (Yahoo! Sports)

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) -- Montana men's basketball coach Wayne Tinkle has announced the signing of 6-foot-8 forward Martin Breunig (BROY'-nig), who is transferring from the University of Washington. [read full article]

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