Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

DePaul has a chance to produce the worst season in Big East history. And that’s saying something given the 0-18 league record a few years ago.
It is truly astounding.

 

When even the Gump-iest Bammers are calling for a suspension, you know it is bad.

 

I think the women's team plays at Carmichael. At least they did a decade or so ago when they hosted a regional. Tuned in to see a local team get spanked and was very disappointed they didn't haul out the flip card scoreboard.

 

One thing that surprised me from the documentary on the ACC tourney is that Carolina’s men only played 20 years at Carmichael. Opened in 1965.

 

Carmichael still gets a lot of use. It's the home court for the women's team, but also gets used for volleyball and wrestling, probably something else I'm unaware of. When the men's team played there, it had a capacity of about 9,000. In the mid-2000s they gave it a major overhaul that reduced it to about 8,000, and then a subsequent renovation brought it down to 6,800. It's in fantastic shape and loud as f*ck when it's full. Such a contrast to the Dean Dome, which is much better than it was 20 years ago thanks to some seats changing hands, but it can still be quiet for such a large crowd.

 

There's some serious talk developing about replacing the Smith Center, partly because it's the only way to solve the Dean Dome's biggest problem, and partly because there's a huge piece of property next to campus that's about to become available to the university. It's crazy to think they've played there twice as long as they played at Carmichael.

 

I get tons of entertainment out of all of it, especially when my team is in the thick of it all, but it is totally for entertainment purposes and it changes by the second when games are going on, especially this time of year. Probably don't need to do more than a couple of updates a week!

 

They can shake up the seeds and teams as many times as they want, and it comes out the same.

Win uninspiring first-round game, go on eight-minute scoring drought and lose to lower seed in second round.

 

Vols looked terrible against Mizzou the other night.

 

They played great . . . for five minutes.

 

Always loved Carmichael.

We would play pickup hoops in UNC's first "arena," Woolen Gym. It had multiple courts set up when I was there and we'd do intramurals there as well. I graduated in '98, and one of the best things about Woolen was Court 1 would always be major players. More than once I saw pickup games that included, over the years, Rasheed and Stackhouse, Vince and Jamison, with Duke and NCSU players also mixed in. Trajan Langdon made shooting look easy there. It was insane to see up close. Rasheed was a genius at talking. Genius. Nobody had more fun than him.

Marion Jones, who played basketball as well at UNC, would also play with them, often running point. In between games once, I saw Marion toss a bounce pass to Stackhouse and ask for a game of 21. Stack turned her down. "Jones, you'll just run by me," Stack said, laughing.

That's one of my best UNC memories.

 

Did Rasheed say, "Both teams played hard"?