Monthly Archives: December 2004

Day one of the post-Majerus era at ESPN did not go so well. Doug Gottlieb, whom I have praised in the past, botched a rule interpretation at the end of the DePaul/Northwestern game. He stated that the privilege of running the baseline on the throw-in after a made basket is lost after a second timeout. […]

I can’t begin any post today without announcing how disappointing it is to hear that Rick Majerus will coach USC next season. It’s a great move for USC, but a blow to humanity, as Majerus will likely never appear as a analyst on a college basketball game again. Fortunately one of his rare TV gigs […]

Yesterday, Kyle over at midmajority.com provided a link to an article written by Rice head coach Willis Wilson on collegeinsider.com. It starts, It’s a lost art, a thing of the past. Many college basketball analysts use such phrases when describing the current state of free throw shooting. On any given night you can peruse the […]

A look at each of the remaining unbeatens, ordered by rank in the Pomeroy ratings (yeah, so that’s not too self-serving)… Illinois 9-0 (Pomeroy rank: 1)Best performance to date: 12/1 beat Wake Forest 91-73, but it wasn’t nearly that close.Worst Performance: 12/9 beat Georgetown 74-59 in a game that was tied with four minutes remaining…in […]

I’m planning to do a running diary on the TCU/Kansas game tonight.  It could well be a blowout, but TCU was one of my sleeper teams at the beginning of the season, so I should get to know them better. One edge TCU has on KU is depth – they have 9 players averaging double […]

On Monday, USC coach Henry Bibby became the first head coach to be fired this season. And on Wednesday, Jim Saia became the first interim head coach to lose a game this season, as USC fell to Fresno State 71-68 at the Sports Arena. It’s been hashed and rehashed about how the timing of the […]

Not Flashy

The Syracuse/Oklahoma State game was a big dud. I don’t care how much people want to talk about great defense, the big game last night was a replay of the 2002 NCAA Final between Maryland and Indiana, especially for the first 30 minutes. With all of that talent on the court, someone should have been […]

The Third

Average possessions per game (2004-05) (Ranked by slowest) 1) Air Force (53.2)2) Princeton (54.1)3) Samford (58.4)4) Georgetown (58.7)5) Utah State (59.6) When Georgetown hired John Thompson III last spring, I guess I didn’t really think things through. Sure, it made sense for him to succeed Craig Esherick. The Hoyas had fallen on hard times. So […]

Items of note from the weekend… Loyola of Maryland beat Niagara 97-89 on Sunday. It was kind of an ugly game. Loyola had more free throws (53) than field goal attempts (51), the first time that’s happened in any D1 game this year. Niagara had three players foul out and five more that finished with […]

Last night (correction: game was Tuesday), Florida International coughed up the ball 26 times against UConn. This was more than any single UConn opponent turned the ball over last season. In 15 of their 39 games last season, Huskies opponents committed fewer than 10 turnovers, and only twice did their opponents cough the ball up […]