2024-25 College Basketball Thread

[TigerVols]

This was the logo at the Stokley Center forever and a day. I think it may have even carried over to the early years of Thompson-Boling Arena.

View attachment 19134

By contrast, as much as I adore UK's new floor for including Kentucky Bend, it feels wrong that you could stand inside Pike County while shooting free throws.

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Somehow I was today years old when I first heard of Kentucky Bend.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Bend

 

[Neutral Corner]

Georgia has 159 counties, second-most behind Texas' 254.

It only seems like 300. Back in the day every town with a major crossroad or a railroad station made a bid to become a county seat.

 

[tapintoamerica]

It probably isn't ideal when you know you are playing your best game of the year in February but holy fork Bama. Up 83-53 on Clanga with nine minutes to go.

Tide went 22-of-45 from 3.

 

[BTExpress]

Got it out of their system tonight . . . I hope.

 

[Cosmo]

VCU swept Richmond by a combined 59 points after winning last night at Robins Center by 18. Mooney is probably on his 10th life at UR. Lost his best player early this season but getting prison forked twice by your rival isn't a good look. Yet he seems to always survive, even if his ash cheeks have third-degree burns by now.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

This was the logo at the Stokley Center forever and a day. I think it may have even carried over to the early years of Thompson-Boling Arena.

View attachment 19134

By contrast, as much as I adore UK's new floor for including Kentucky Bend, it feels wrong that you could stand inside Pike County while shooting free throws.

View attachment 19135

To be fair, you're standing in Phelps to shoot free throws.

 

[sgreenwell]

VCU swept Richmond by a combined 59 points after winning last night at Robins Center by 18. Mooney is probably on his 10th life at UR. Lost his best player early this season but getting prison forked twice by your rival isn't a good look. Yet he seems to always survive, even if his ash cheeks have third-degree burns by now.

He reminds me of former URI coach Jim Baron a lot, except that Mooney has gotten over the NCAA tournament hump a couple of times. They've consistently been good to very good, but clearly a rung down from Dayton and VCU. He's been at Richmond for 20 years, if I'm counting right, and only had a ranked team twice in that time frame.

 

[dixiehack]

I don't see how a lot of these basketball-only private schools are going to be competitive on a national level in the long run. Villanova has a recent run of championships to dine out on a bit longer and Pitino has shocked St. John's back to life. Places like Gonzaga, Creighton and Dayton make it work because they are the star attraction in isolated "bigger than you'd think" cities. But those are exceptions to the rule. Much of the A-10 and the back half of the Big East probably can't hope for more than a once in a generation March Madness run going forward.

 

[Cosmo]

You're not wrong here, especially when it comes to the A-10. VCU is an outlier -- no football, big school, in a decent sized city, really good NIL budget, good facilities. They've had one below .500 season in conference play since joining (8-10 in the COVID year). But the rest of the league? St. Joe's, La Salle, Fordham especially, they have no chance. Richmond is weird as it has way more in common with Duke (small private with a major out-of-state student population) than it does with VCU or Mason, which are huge public schools that draw heavily from Virginia for their student populations.

Villanova is interesting. Jay Wright took one look at where college hoops was heading and peaced the fork out. They'll never reach the level they hit in the mid 2010s (four straight 32-plus win seasons) again. Outside of a blip in the mid 2000s, Georgetown has been decidedly mediocre. Same with DePaul, Seton Hall, and Providence.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

As is one of my bad habits, I was just checking out the non-PA conferences' standings on ESPN.com. I cannot believe neither Marist nor Quinnipiac has had the good sense to change their school's nickname to The Pollsters.

 

[franticscribe]

I don't see how a lot of these basketball-only private schools are going to be competitive on a national level in the long run. Villanova has a recent run of championships to dine out on a bit longer and Pitino has shocked St. John's back to life. Places like Gonzaga, Creighton and Dayton make it work because they are the star attraction in isolated "bigger than you'd think" cities. But those are exceptions to the rule. Much of the A-10 and the back half of the Big East probably can't hope for more than a once in a generation March Madness run going forward.

St. John's revival is as much about billionaire alum Mike Repole giving Pitino a blank check in NIL money as it is about Pitino himself. Though, to be fair, Repole wasn't opening his checkbook as generously for Mike Anderson.

The Big East schools might be OK with the new revenue sharing model. Several of the projections I've seen tossed around, it seems like they should be able to stay on par - maybe even slightly ahead of - the expected revenue allotments of the P4 schools going to basketball since we know most will spend on football first.

As a long-time Butler fan, I'm anxious about it though. There's no basketball loving billionaire alum coming to save the program and last off-season's NIL/transfer portal carousel was disasterous for the team. Still, I think the Big East schools, at least, are in better position to remain competitive than say a Wake Forest, BC or TCU just because they don't have to compete with the football team for their portion of the revenue sharing pot.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

Private schools are going to have major issues with the House settlement. They can't just add $20 million to the annual budgets out of thin air. Public schools have more options to water down the pain. Private schools, like Boston College, who also sponsor football at the major level are going to be especially hard hit.

Add in the enrollment cliff, and it's going to be a rough go for private schools athletic departments.