Official College Basketball Thread

[Kyyle23]

now i havent seen much of SIU or Butler, but are both teams small or was it just the angle?

 

They are starting to get some of the bigger kids nowadays though. The Salukis 5 year run into the tournament has really given SIU better recruits. When they went to the sweet 16 in 2002 they were a much smaller team. Rolen Roberts was the center at 6' 6"

[Rowand44]

They are starting to get some of the bigger kids nowadays though. The Salukis 5 year run into the tournament has really given SIU better recruits. When they went to the sweet 16 in 2002 they were a much smaller team. Rolen Roberts was the center at 6' 6"

Did you get a chance to watch our game today, my friend?

[Kyyle23]

Did you get a chance to watch our game today, my friend?

 

Nope, I work saturdays. But I "watched" it over gamecast, and read valleytalk updates.

 

Did anyone see the end of the Louisville-Marquette game?

 

Jerry Smith. Wow

[Rex Hudler]

It's been a hell of a day for me and college basketball.

 

I went to the Evansville - Samford game here in Birmingham and then came home and watched the IU - Michigan game. Went to the grocery store, cooked a frozen pizza for dinner and just finished watching the SIU - Butler game. Gotta love the DVR!

 

Some thoughts:

 

1. I'll spare you anything on the E'ville-Samford game other than to mention it was a weird game. Evansville shot 69.7% from the field for the whole game, only committed 13 turnovers, yet won by only 4. Danman, you talk about small gyms, Samford's gym (they are building a new one now) is no better than your average Indiana HS gym. Very small. Attendance was reported as 1,141. It felt like a bad HS atmosphere.

 

2. The Butler - SIU game was excellent. Both are very good teams and play hard. Apparently Graves was sick today and it showed in how he played. But he battled his ass off while being constantly hounded by the Salukis. I'd love to see both of these teams at least win one in the big dance.

 

Danman, Hinkle may have a small gym feel, but it seats between 10,000 and 11,000 and was packed to the rafters today. Hinkle is an unbelievable place and as others have said every basketball fan should see a game there. I saw a game many years ago there where Evansville beat Butler 136-128 in two overtimes. It was one of the wildest games I have ever seen.

 

3. IU is really pissing me off right now. After watching them the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to put my finger on their problem. It seems to me they have gotten into the habit of dribbling too much and aren't making the "hockey pass" as Majerus put it in the SIU game today. They are shooting way too many threes off the dribble and not making the extra pass to find the open guy who can spot up for the three rather than have to try and create it. They were doing this early on, and that is exactly what they have done when they hit a lot of threes. Guys like Wilmont, Ratliff and Bassett have had some success hitting threes off the dribble and I think they have fallen into the trap of relying on that. Until IU gets back to focusing on ball movement via the pass and finding the open man off the dribble and making the extra pass, they will continue to struggle.

 

Both Butler and SIU are very good at this. IU has been and needs to get back there. The only thing keeping this from being an awesome day was IU not getting it done at Michigan. Still, seeing three good games from start to finish was a lot of fun.

Edited February 18, 2007 by Rex Hudler

[CWSGuy406]

Did anyone see the end of the Louisville-Marquette game?

 

 

Couldn't ask for anything more in that game. Padgett had three fouls within the first three minutes of the game and, because of the foul trouble, was more or less silent the whole game. We shot pretty well, around 48% from the field.

 

But those damn free throws. Up four with 30 seconds left, McNeal misses the front end of a 1-and-1. They go down, bury a three. We go down and hit 1-of-2 from the line, and their player goes coast-to-coast to make an EASY layup to tie up the game. Dominic James gets to the free throw line with five-and-a-half second left, hits the second free throw... and... they go down and hit a three in McNeal's face with less than a second left.

 

Kudos to Louisville. That's three in a row for Marquette with no 'easy' games left... Wouldn't surprise me at all for Marquette to drop all three and fade into oblivion for the rest of the post-season.

[whitesoxfan101]

I can tell you for a fact Butler is small because they play Willie at the 3 and 4 when he's in, and he's only 6'3. His HS team last year was just as big as Butler is this year.

 

Also, random info, but I was at the 1st and 2nd round games in 2002 when SIU beat #6 Texas Tech and #3 Georgia to advance to the Sweet 16. Kent Williams and Jermaine Dearman were unstoppable, and Dearman looked like Ludacris, IIRC.

[danman31]

Danman, Hinkle may have a small gym feel, but it seats between 10,000 and 11,000 and was packed to the rafters today. Hinkle is an unbelievable place and as others have said every basketball fan should see a game there. I saw a game many years ago there where Evansville beat Butler 136-128 in two overtimes. It was one of the wildest games I have ever seen.

Yeah, I liked it a lot. Looked very cool and the atmosphere was great.

[WhiteSoxfan1986]

My buddy on Butler (Veasley, #21) might have had one of his better games of his freshman year, and I'd say for sure played his most minutes in a game (he played probably 32 minutes or so) and SIU wins a great game. I'll take it.

 

You know Willie Veasley from Freeport? I think I remember him going off against my high school my senior year.

[IlliniKrush]

What about when Corey Bradford was a freshman and they were towards the bottom of the conference?

I was referring to mainly the off the court problems for this team. Bad injuries (near death even), the number of injuries, suspensions, recruiting, guys not finishing the year, sickness/disease, etc. Then you throw in the bad basketball, and it's pretty terrible.

Edited February 18, 2007 by IlliniKrush

[whitesoxfan101]

Brian, Luther, and Dee will all be there tomorrow. If that doesn't get the team ready to go, I'm really not sure what will.

[RockRaines]

Ya, both teams are small. Our bigs are strong and athletic though and they can keep up with bigger bigs because of that, but height wise we're definitely limited.

Kjust checking. Does it make you nervous to go against teams in the big ten who have 7 footers who can basically dominate the paint. I mean, it seemed to me like the thing missing in that game was a post player game, as good as SIU appears to be in that conference, I would really wonder what they would do against a Wisco, or an OSU with the height they will have in the tourney.

[thedoctor]

I was referring to mainly the off the court problems for this team. Bad injuries (near death even), the number of injuries, suspensions, recruiting, guys not finishing the year, sickness/disease, etc. Then you throw in the bad basketball, and it's pretty terrible.

 

yeah, it's been pretty much one thing after another since the washington loss last year.

[Rowand44]

Kjust checking. Does it make you nervous to go against teams in the big ten who have 7 footers who can basically dominate the paint. I mean, it seemed to me like the thing missing in that game was a post player game, as good as SIU appears to be in that conference, I would really wonder what they would do against a Wisco, or an OSU with the height they will have in the tourney.

To be honest, not really. Like I said, both our big are small height wise but both of them are really strong and really athletic so they'll be able to hold their own. We actually do have a real good post scorer in Falker, unfortunately he was in foul trouble all game, and we went completely small with another guard because of Butler's lack of size, that's not something we'd do against a bigger team, so you didn't exactly see our biggest team out there either. We've faced two big ten teams so far this season(if Minnesota counts) and we did a pretty good job against DJ and Tollackson who are both pretty darn good big men. Now, obviously everyone is going to be worried about a Greg Oden if it got to that point but our bigs can hold their own even against taller competition.

[Kyyle23]

Kjust checking. Does it make you nervous to go against teams in the big ten who have 7 footers who can basically dominate the paint. I mean, it seemed to me like the thing missing in that game was a post player game, as good as SIU appears to be in that conference, I would really wonder what they would do against a Wisco, or an OSU with the height they will have in the tourney.

 

Throughout the past 5 years the Salukis have been able to hold their own against teams with big men in the post because they deny, deny, deny. Its when other teams have large guards that can match our guards quickness and toughness, those are the teams that give the Salukis problems. Also, what the Salukis lose in height, they make up in depth. Lowery has a pretty deep rotation and he isnt afraid to go to his bench when necessary.

And they do have some height on the bench as well, they have Jamaal Foster at 6'10", Tony Boyle at 6'8", even little used Jordan Armstrong 6'6" and Kobby Acquah 7'1". Foster and Boyle get the large majority of the sub minutes, but they are effective subs for Falker and Shaw.

[Brian]

We've faced two big ten teams so far this season(if Minnesota counts)

 

[Rex Hudler]

Jason, I see Wright St. whipped your Fullerton Titans yesterday. Was that game on TV? Did you see any of it?

 

They have won 16 of their last 18 games after a rough start with a new coach. I'm curious as to how good they are. Has anyone else seen then?

Edited February 18, 2007 by Rex Hudler

[WHarris1]

I love Chester Frazier.

 

I could seriously give a f*** how many points he scores.

 

Dude has been through an INSANE amount of injuries this year, just goes out there and plays his ass off.

[Rex Hudler]

Here is a good piece by Joe Lunardi, the hated ESPN bracketologist. He highlights a few myths about the selection process and shows that he truly gets it, regardless of what many think.

 

Lunardi: Bracket Building

[SleepyWhiteSox]

I have no idea how to post a clip but go to the 21 minute, 20 second mark on this to see just a sick Wilson Chandler dunk from yesterday on a usf player.

 

mms://a3.v20473a.c20473.g.vc.akamaistream.net/7/3/20473/v0001/espn.download.akamai.com/20473/t_assets/20070217/b5ffa9ce20eda8d57889cf4abf3eecaa1076090e.wmv?s=espn360&c=Basketball

 

Sure, I'm being biased, but one of my favorite dunks in college basketball of the year. If anything, he's had some other nice ones this year...

Edited February 18, 2007 by SleepyWhiteSox

[whitesoxfan101]

Height is overrated in terms of post defense. It's all about ball denial, and in fact if the guards do a good job of dening and plugging the passing lanes (which Tatum, Mullins, and Young all do), then it's very difficult to get the ball into the post, even if the post player has position.

 

Also, great to see the Illini just win today and get it over with under those circumstances. Frazier is such a weird player, he has NBA lottery pick skills at everything but shooting, but can't shoot at all.

[whitesoxfan99]

Also, great to see the Illini just win today and get it over with under those circumstances. Frazier is such a weird player, he has NBA lottery pick skills at everything but shooting, but can't shoot at all.

 

I love Chester but he doesn't see the floor as well as lottery PGs do. If he ever can develop a jump shot he will be a great college player though. He has forever earned my respect just playing through the injuries and now with his family situation. Guy is an absolute warrior and the exact type of player I love to cheer for.

Edited February 19, 2007 by whitesoxfan99

[watchtower41]

Congrats to all the SIU fans.... you got quite the team there. Easily the best game I watched all weekend. I'm pulling for you guys to get that 3 seed

[Kyyle23]

Congrats to all the SIU fans.... you got quite the team there. Easily the best game I watched all weekend. I'm pulling for you guys to get that 3 seed

 

Im hoping they get a protected seed so they can play in Chicago again. When they went to the Sweet 16 they started in Chicago and it was practically a home game for them, it would be nice to get that again.

[AssHatSoxFan]

so does tOSU deserve the #1 ranking in the polls this week over Wisky?? everyone seems to be handing it to them when I think Wisky is a better team...guess we'll see later this week when they play

[Felix]

We've faced two big ten teams so far this season(if Minnesota counts)

We're better than you at hockey... and football!!!!1

 

and we did a pretty good job against DJ and Tollackson who are both pretty darn good big men.

lol. As someone who watches Tollackson in person on just about a weekly basis, and has for the majority of the year, let me just say that he's not "a pretty darn good big man." He has his moments on offense (ripped Iowa apart), but the majority of the time he's a bumbly handed guy who can't rebound worth a lick. Then again, no one on this team can rebound, so in comparison, he looks okay.

 

I'd also like to say that Tollackson didn't start against OSU for the simple reason that he can't really do anything to other big men.

Edited February 19, 2007 by Felix