Monthly Archives: January 2017

Discussion of sports can often fall into an irrational abyss. But even the most levelheaded people lose their ability for rational conversation when it comes to officiating. In a rational world we’d hold the officials to the same standard as the players. Playing basketball at the highest level requires among other things quick decision-making. We recognize that not […]

Hey, a bunch of us got together at the NCAA office last Friday to discuss how to incorporate modern rating systems into the basketball committee’s selection process. That the meeting happened at all is a big step. The NCAA is a large organization with diverse membership and the fact that it is even this far down […]

The 1984 Harvard Crimson improbably have held the season free-throw percentage record for three decades, even in the face of college basketball players collectively shooting better than ever. As we continue to see the national average in free-throw shooting hover around 70%, it seems like there should be an ever increasing number of candidates threatening […]

On Monday, I documented the 18 teams with a realistic chance to go undefeated in conference play. Already, four of them have suffered a loss. North Carolina Central lost at home to Delaware State in a huge upset on Monday. On Wednesday, Dayton lost on the road to UMass and Bucknell dropped a home game to […]

Harvard beat McGill in inconsequential D-I on non-D-I action Tuesday night. Harvard’s web site reports this as Men’s Basketball Blows by McGill, 70-45. It’s an effort worthy of a robot. However, not all releases from university athletic departments have to be so generic. If you remember back in the offseason, Wichita State head coach Gregg Marshall had an […]

The dream of an unbeaten season is really just a dream. Unachievable except in the 813 section of your municipal library. But going unbeaten in conference play is done every year (if you don’t count 2011 as a “year”), sometimes by a team that doesn’t seem all that remarkable. As of this moment there are […]

Last Saturday, the two presumed favorites in the ACC, Duke and North Carolina, lost their respective conference openers. The teams that beat them, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech, proceeded to perform incredibly poorly in their next game. That might make one wonder if the basketball hangover exists. In other words, does a team typically have a […]

There were 1,121 games between Division-I teams in December. Here are the wildest things that happened during the month: Biggest Upsets 3. December 31: #154 Georgia Tech 75, #4 North Carolina 63 (6.8%) It’s rare that you get a home upset in this section, but the Yellow Jackets were pretty large underdogs against UNC even while […]