Running 2011-12 College Basketball thread

Home crowds have been growing steadily as the bandwagon fans are catching on to this team.

Basketball is usually a tough sell at Southern, but when they get a team that catches the public's fancy like they did back around 1990, when Clarence Weatherspoon was their star, and like this team has done, they'll come out, and when their coliseum is full or nearly full (it holds about 8,000), it gets loud and fairly intimidating.

No one will ever mistake it for Cameron Indoor or Allen Field House, but it becomes a significant home-court edge for USM when they get a big crowd in there in support of a good team.

 

That's good. UAB had a game there a couple of weeks back and it looked like a Sunrise Rotary-sized crowd.

 

Watched Michigan tonight and couldn't help but wonder this - clearly John Beilein is an excellent coach and his teams play hard and play smart and the Wolverines have the look of a program that is going to be in the top four or five in the Big 10, rarely win it and be a fixture in the NCAA but rarely go deeper than the Sweet 16.

That's great at West Virginia and Richmond but my question is, will that be good enough for Michigan in a few years?

I don't know, I'm asking.

 

No.

They'll get greedy.

Meanwhile, at Indiana many fans will act like similar results are just fine.

 

Michigan's got a really good class coming next year, so expectations are gonna skyrocket even higher.

 

Pretty wide spread on FT opportunties for the two sides . . . shocker, down there, I know.

Memphis still sliced and diced them on drives. But they're just so, so stupid.

 

Is Southern really that good this year or did Memphis sort of spit the bit with free throws?

USM is one of those teams that's always on my list of teams to consider on the last five spots on my top 25 vote. So far, I haven't pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, I did not see the Memphis game.

 

I'm interested to watch Brigham "We're in the WCC now" Young take on Gonzaga tonight.

The Zags look great when their inside guys come to play; we'll see how Sacre, Harris and Dower do against post-Jimmer BYU.

With just about every Pac-12 team doing its best to play its way out of the tournament, BYU could still get in. Those 68 teams have to come from somewhere, right?

 

I've come around to Southern as a 20-25 team in the rankings, and if Selection Sunday was today, I think they'd be a 10, possibly even a 9.

They've got a pretty solid resume. Their three losses: A 7-pt loss at U. of Denver in November in the first of a two-game swing thru Colorado, and they went up to Fort Collins two nights later and waxed CSU by 21; a 9-pt loss to Murray State in the finals of the Great Alaska Shootout; a 2-pt loss at Memphis when they had the ball for the last shot to tie or win and couldn't get one to fall. They've also got quality wins over Ole Miss at home, Arizona State on the road, South Florida at home and UCF on the road.

USM goes about nine deep, and they've got a great bench. They had 45 points off the bench last nite, mostly from Demar Dotson (Kentucky transfer) and Neil Watson, a little PG who came from Coffeyville CC pretty unheralded but who has become arguably their most important player. Bottom line: Memphis played pretty well last night, but Southern was just better.

 

WCC looks on line for three bids. St Mary's is pretty much a lock at this point, and as long as Gonzaga or BYU don't tailspin, both are strong candidates.

The Pac 12 might be the third-best conference in the West, behind the Mountain West and WAC, though someone's going to get their shit together out there.

 

Is Long Beach in even if it pulls its annual fold against Santa Barbara in the Big West final? Last I checked it was sitting at 34 in the RPI.

 

Yes, they are getting McGary but are going to lose Novak and will lose Hardaway Jr. if he decides to test the NBA waters (which is what Darrius Morris stupidly did, but Hardaway is better than Morris was). At the same time, Michigan State will be bringing some pretty good recruits (including five-star player Gary Harris, who may be the best high school small forward in the nation).