Running 2011-12 College Basketball thread

Virginia's free-fall continues with a loss to Clemson. The Cavs legitimately might not win another game. They're down to 7.5 scholarship players with Joe Harris hurt, and two, maybe three of them are playing at an acceptable ACC level right now.

 

If you want to see a lack of interest scenario for a particular program, flip over to ESPNU and take a look at the sparse crowd inside the Maravich Center tonight as LSU hosts State.
That's the kind of scene that will make the home coach worry, worry, worry.

 

Even with a pair of Final Four teams, LSU hasn't drawn flies since Dale Brown left town.

 

Um, I think it proves that it's tough to win on the road against top 25 teams, particularly those as tough at home as Louisville, and that Syracuse still can't rebound and has zero in the way of a half-court offense.

 

Meanwhile in Carbondale, Ill., Southern Illinois' opponents have shot 24 of 26 from 3-point range in the Salukis' last two games. Indiana State shot a NCAA record 12 of 12 on Saturday and Creighton shot 12 of 14 on Tuesday. Yikes.

 

LSU

USC

Two programs that would be great fits for Bruce Pearl.

 

And LSU goes on to beat State in front of a lot of empty seats. State with inexplicable back-to-back losses to Georgia and LSU. It would help if one of their starters, Sidney, would show some level of interest in actually, you know, trying.

LSU has gone from horrible to being good enough to beat decent teams at home, even if the seats are covered with gold towels instead of people. They beat Marquette and now State and they are 5-1 at home in the SEC. Will this save Trent Johnson's job? People are kind of pissed off right now that he lost Ricardo Gathers, the first true "big-time" recruit out of Louisiana since Greg Monroe, to Baylor. LSU hasn't signed a Louisiana Mr. Basketball since Tasmin Mitchell.

But that also identifies his problem. Louisiana doesn't usually go 4 years between studs. When LSU went to the Final Four in 2006, they had five Louisiana kids in the starting lineup, four from greater Baton Rouge. Right now, I think you'd be hard pressed to put together a decent NIT team made up of Louisiana kids, much less a Final Four team.

 

Are all the great athletes down there playing football now?

Are all the great athletes down there playing football now?

 

That's part of it, but it's a little more complicated than that. Part of it was just a down cycle. Louisiana has studs coming out for at least the next three years starting with this year with Gathers. Next year, Baton Rouge has two kids in the top 100 in Rivals and in 2014, St. Augustine High in New Orleans has a forward who's going to be an elite kid. As far as I can tell, none of these kids will be quite as highly-regarded as Monroe, but it seems like it's a matter of time before the next Monroe or Stromile Swift.

But I do think the 6-6 forward is more likely to play tight end than in the past. In fact, one of the 2013 BR hoops studs started playing football this year and he already has an LSU offer for football, so he can go either way. And the 6-2 guard is more likely to play safety.

The other thing is I think we're finally seeing an end to the Katrina effect. Although New Orleans has largely re-populated, I do think a disproportional number of those who did not come back were probably athletes and that issue is probably just now subsiding. Think about it. A kid who graduated from HS last year would have been 12 or so in 2005. If a 12-year-old shows up in Texas and starts kicking butt in junior high hoops (or football or baseball) when the family starts thinking about going back to New Orleans, the booster and coach types from the Texas high school would probably do what they can to encourage them to stay. Maybe momma gets a better job, etc.

That's hard to track, but I can't help but think that had some impact.

 

I am so fucking excited for the Radford-Binghamton matchup Saturday! BracketBusters rulz!!

 

Looks like Air Force is going to upset Wyoming tonight in Laramie. Surprisingly, it looks like TCU is the only school interested in the No. 4 spot from the MWC. My gosh.

 

With 2:24 left, SMU has 22 points, after scoring 39 on Saturday. Big East my ass.