Today’s post is more of the butt-kissing variety.

For instance, there’s The Guy Who Gets It, Mike DeCourcy, and his remarks on how in some cases, offense can be ahead of defense at this time of year. Definitely not your typical analysis of early season action, but yet evidence of the usual claim that offense improves as the season wears on is sketchy at best. With that in mind, it’s disturbing that through last night’s action, average efficiency in Division I games was 96.0 (pts per 100 possessions). Last season, it was 98.9. And no, it’s not all Southern Miss’s fault. (Last night they continued a historic streak of offensive futility by posting 35 points in a loss at Arkansas.)

The premier of the Mid-Majority Report is available for your iPod or whatever piece of machinery you use to play an MP3. Wasn’t I surprised to hear Yoni and Kyle hamming it up. Bloggers have voices? I had always guessed that Yoni sounded something like Eddie Murphy and Kyle like, well, the kid from South Park. Boy was I wrong – they are professional sounding commentators. Yoni hits the nail with his bewilderment at WVU dropping from this week’s top 25. Just another reason why polls are stupid. There’s much more topical stuff as well as additional time spent with Chris Dortch of Blue Ribbon Yearbook fame, who stands tall when Kyle goes all Mike Wallace on him about my beloved Longwood being left out of this year’s edition. Check it out.

Line o’ the Night

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T  A F  S TO BLK Pts
Cedric Simmons         36  5-8   0-0  3-5  3-13 5 2  1  4  6   13
Result: Loss. Iowa 45, N.C. State 42.     

This is starting to get difficult. There were a few worthy candidates out there. Marco Killingsworth (34 pts on 15-20 FGs, 10 boards) had a monster game against Duke, but his seven turnovers make it seem less monstrous. Leon Powe debuted for Cal in style (27 and 10). Derrick Byars (20 pts on 7-8 FGs, 7 assists, 5 boards, no turnovers) stuffed the stat sheet in Vandy’s win over Oregon. Eyewitness accounts from Hawkeye Hoops Ryan indicate Simmons got screwed out of a few more blocks by the scorer. Simmons was the defensive force in a defensive slugfest, somehow managed to get five assists when his teammates had only 12 made field goals, and was the only player in the game that made more shots than he missed.