2024-25 College Basketball Thread

And a lot of schools that barely give a fuck about sports.

 

Does that make it a trans college sports division?

 

Nice launch angle and exit velocity on that one. Touch them all.

 

Bracket Buster took me on some adventures. Buffalo (at the Sabres arena), Western Michigan (loved it), Miami of Ohio (great food, good college town), Murray State (low rent arena, but great fans), Toledo (solid arena, few fans), Green Bay (Resch Center, sat next to Bret Bielema for reasons that shall remain my secret), Butler (right in their Final Four era, which the school I covered parlayed into a 2-for-1 at their own place when Butler tried to delay the return game out of existence), Morehead State (I lived "Justified", and the "arena" was high school-level, but the people there were great) and Iona (neat place).

Traveling with a mid-major school will take you to some interesting places in general ... though I never want to see Monroe, La. again for the rest of my days.

 

Mine was Tennessee-Martin. NAU took a strange road trip to Lipscomb and UTM, and we stayed in Union City for the UTM game in a place we dubbed the roach motel, because that was the vibe. This was mid-2000s. Lipscomb was great because we stayed near downtown and got to hang out in Nashville.

I also drove from Lynchburg to Clarksville for a Liberty-Austin Peay game once. WTF I was thinking, I don't know. Probably could have skipped it. That was not a short trip.

 

Somehow missed both Austin Peay and UT-Martin, but I more than made up for it by getting to Tennessee Tech and Southeast Missouri State.

 

Lost in all this Calvary ralk, something called East-West University lost 110-33 to Tennessee State last night.

 

Maryland 108, Canisius 37 was the score that caught my eye last night. Gonna be a long season for the Griffs.

 

There are two D-3 schools in my area. The one that has legit playoff aspirations is playing a couple of D-2 schools on the road. The one that doesn't signed up for a bodybag game against a mid-major D-1.

 

The tiny schools taking a beating for a road payout has been going on for quite some time. A lot of times, you're talking about USCAA schools.

Central Penn College is in Summerdale, Pa. It's essentially four buildings, none of them athletic facilities; they play at the local high school. When people around here talk about Central Penn ... well, they don't.

A decade ago, they would schedule at least five mid-majors. At that point, they had one guy, Devon Dorsey, who played a few solid years in Spain. They would lose those games against D-I clubs by 30, 35. They never had one of those stunning upsets, but they also were not embarrassed in that span.

But now, they don't have that "equalizer." Their foray into D-I this season fits into next weekend -- road games against Morgan State and Liberty.

 

As someone who covered the old Big South, I was well acquainted with Central Penn, a regular visitor to Liberty, Radford, VMI, Longwood, etc.

 

Now I want a commercial where Gronk thinks his dumb wish is finally coming true, only to discover he’s joined the USCAA