Running 2011-12 College Basketball thread

UCLA's ugly tat man was on the cover of the SI college basketball preview issue on the West Coast. Then the Bruins lose to gritty little LMU. Awesome.

Nice story in there also about the USC player from Antelope Valley JC. His mother sounds way too controlling and downright scary.

 

The Zo Martin era begins in Knoxville, with a rousing success by the Vols and an intriguing quote from Bruce Pearl's replacement:

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2011/nov/11/vols-golden-against-unc-greensboro-92-63/

"It's humbling to be head coach anywhere, but to be the head coach at Tennessee is certainly an honor and a privilege I don't take for granted."

 

I wish nothing but the best for Zo. He is one of my all-time favorite Purdue players and people. Class act.

 

Hoops season gets real on Tuesday. Florida is at Ohio State with Kansas-Kentucky and Duke-Michigan State in NYC. There's also San Diego State at Baylor, though I'm sure the Aztecs will be way down this year.

 

Don't underrate them. Chase Tapley should be the MWC's best player for the next two years.

 

Good to hear.

He's gotten a lukewarm reception in Knoxville. Mostly because the fan based loved Bruce so much. But also because he's not selling the program, and you really have to do that to sell popcorn in a 20,000 seat arena.

Winning will help. But unless he wins big in the next couple of years, he may find himself on the hotseat from an AD who didn't hire him, and who needs to put as many butts in the seats, especially if the football team continues to blow and there are 75,000 in Neyland ever week.

 

Other than getting the blueprints for the Dean Dome on the cheap, I've always wondered why UT built such a huge arena. They launched it during the Don DeVoe era, and he was hardly a threat to pack 'em in the aisles.

 

And now, we get three or four days of uninterrupted Krzyzewski-slurping as brief respites to the Paternopalooza.

 

That quote sounds like Cuonzo being Cuonzo to me. I second Bulldog's take on him. As a lifelong Purdue fan, Cuonzo is still my favorite former player, with Brian Cardinal and Glenn Robinson running close behind.

He's obviously nothing like Bruce Pearl and isn't going to get the fan base excited with his personality. But I'll be surprised if he doesn't put a winning team on the floor if the Vols are patient through this season, which should be rough. I'd be happy to have him as the coach at either of my alma maters, especially if they were dealing with the kind of mess Pearl left behind.

 

Cleveland State beat No. 7 Vanderbilt 71-58 as they await NCAA sanctions from the Penn State scandal.

 

Nice to see Cleveland has something to cheer for.

 

They've been in the Top 5 in attendance every year since it was built, so it's more than paid for itself.

Although I for one miss Stokely...and its rubberized floor.