Mid-week report (Cynic edition)

College Hoops got its brawl last night, live on air, on CSTV, with Pete Gillan. The un-sportsmanlike brawl ended up with a Wyoming player stomping on a New Mexico player while he was tangled up on the floor. One of the officials was brave enough to tackle one of the brawling players in order to stop the brawl. Sad... Embarassing... Just play the game... Who wants to be the next Wyoming coach? How about the next New Mexico coach? The Pit can be quite a home court! Mike Montgomerry?

If you missed it (and I forgot to post it in the daily TV listings), CSTV's Crystal Ball (basketball) made its debut on Monday with Seth Davis, Steve Lapas and special correspondant Seth Greenberg. It may repeat again, my local listings on CSTV are rather shaky at the moment. One of the funniest basketball moments of the year was Greg Amsinger attempting to Pete Gillan impersonation. Anyway, Seth Davis an "insider" segment in this show and he said a full-fledged recruiting war broke out for Kyle McAlarney after his herb incident at Notre Dame, but Brey was able to re-recruit him back to the Domers. Seth noted that if this happened at most of the other Big East schools McAlarney wouldn't even be suspended for a single game. You may recall the Laptop Williams and Laptop Price incidents among others. This is my opinion: One on hand one should praise Notre Dame for sticking to their code despite the risk of losing an NCAA bid because of the suspension. However, a cynic can easily point out that people of the same thinking are kicking a student-athlete out of school for herbs, while they cover up child m*l*st*ing priests. You decide...

Seth Davis: Calling Myles Brand to ban "storming the court". Safe and sensitive thing to do or spoiling the party? You decide...

Brad Daughterty: You may remember this 7-footer from his NBA days, from his North Carolina days, from his college basketball analyst days on ESPN. Well, now he is back on the air, he made his debut as a ...NASCAR analyst. From a left hook to a left turn...

Bill Raftery: A Game a Day routine: he did three games in a row (Saturday, Sunday, Monday). Don't know if he did one yesterday

Clemson: Same old story? Just after they made a believer out of me...

Gonzaga: This Cinderella is too pretty for the Bracket Busters. But to their defense they will get busted by the Lopez twins tonight, and have a shootout with the AASAA Tigers later on...

Arizona: Shredded by Doug Gottlieb for selfish play and Shakur reverting back to his "Moody Blues" days. As you may recall the other members of the Moody Blues: Chris Rodgers, Salim Stoudamire, Hot Sauce and Kirk Walters.

TV Hoops: Wednesday January 31, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern; adjust for other time zones ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games may be regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***


LIVE GAMES!

4pm, Miami at North Carolina, ESPN. Prediction: Ole Roy by 30+. Give him another fridge full of Coke!

4pm, Ohio State at Purdue, ESPN2. Carl Landry vs Greg Oden! I feel your pain Matt Painter. Ohio State wins!

4pm, Wisconsin at Indiana, ESPN Full Court. Thanks to the Anonymous user for reminding me about this game in the Comments section. I am having a hard time picking - on paper I want to say Wisconsin, however, I think the weight of Assembly Hall will tilt the game to Indiana. It will probably go to the last possession. And I have a wilder prediction: It may not be as low scoring as one would think (wild prediction alert!). just added!

5pm, 930pm, 5am, Tulsa at Tulane, C-USA action on CSTV.

6pm, Texas at Texas Tech, ESPN2, game of the day!, the General hopes to beat yet another high profile Big 12 team. Will they storm the court this time? Prediction: Nope, because Durant will score 33 on Knight, DJ Augustin will carve the lane and Texas will win!

6pm, Alabama at LSU, ESPN Full Court. Another high stakes game, both teams need a win, both have underachieved, more pressure on the home team, someone has to win this time, I think Big-Game-Brady (thank you for beating Duke last year!) comes up with a statement win. just added!

8pm, poor Zags at Stanford on FSN/FoxCollegeSports. Poor Zags, they are playing Stanford at their best, with the Lopez twins starting to deliver big time, and Stanford on a winning streak, and a strong comeback against UCLA. Heytvelt delivered against Psycho-T and Brandan Wright, can he do so when facing the Lopez twins? How about Micah Downs vs Lawrence Hill? Prediction: Stanford wins

No College Gamenight this week because of expanded SuperBow(l) coverage





REPEATS and CLASSIC games

7am, from 1989, DriveThru edition (1-hour long), Oregon at California, ESPN Classic. Gary Payton alert!

7am, UCLA at Stanford, FoxCollegeSports

9am, Oregon State at Washington, FoxCollegeSports

11am, from 2004, Texas at Texas Tech, ESPN Classic

12pm, 5pm, 1am, Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech, FoxCollegeSports

1pm, from 2000, USC at UCLA, FoxCollegeSports

3pm, USC at Cal, CSN

3pm, SF at Gonzaga, FoxCollegeSports

5pm, from 1999, USC at Oregon, FoxCollegeSports

5pm, Hardwood Heavens: The Smith Center, on INHD (HDTV channel)

6pm, 930pm, St Marys at Pepperdine, CSN

3am (Thur) Rider at St Peter's, FoxCollegeSports

5am (Thur) Loyola (MD) at Rider, FoxCollegeSports

5am (Thur) Oregon at Washington State, FoxCollegeSports, overtime thriller!


If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

TV what to watch: Tuesday January 30, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern; adjust for other time zones ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games may be regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***


LIVE GAMES!

4pm, Mississsipppi State at Misssssisssssiiiipppppiii, ESPN. Prediction: The team from MS wins, I can guarantee you that :)

4pm, Wichita State at Nothern Iowa, ESPN2. The Valley of Darkness for Wichita State. Can they win enough MVC games to return to being a mid-major darling? Prediction: Home team wins. Game of the day!.

6pm, Michigan State at Illinois, ESPN. Once upon a time (a couple of years ago) this was a big game with national implications. Now it's of NIT relevance (ouch!). Prediction: Someone has to win, I just can't see either team winning (ouch again).

6pm, 1030pm, 3am, Wyoming at New Mexico on CSTV. Prediction: New Mexico.

6pm, Hardwood Heavens, Allen Fieldhouse on INHD. A 30-minute documentary on the historic Allen Fieldhouse in Kansas. The series repeats a few more times on INHD (high definition channel)


Classic games and Repeats

11am, from 1998, Illinois at Michigan State on ESPN Classic

12pm, SF at Gonzaga, FSN/FoxCollegeSports

130pm, 1130pm, USC at CAL, CSN (Comcast Sports Net)

630pm, Crotty Classic: Carnasie vs St Dominic, regional-FSN/FoxCollegeSports

10pm, unknown game, repeats on FoxCollegeSports

3am, from 1999, USC at Oregon, FoxCollegeSports

5am, from 2000, USC at UCLA, FoxCollegeSports

7am (Wedn) from 1989, one hour DriveThru game edit, Oregon State at CAL, ESPN-Classic

7am, GW at Rhode, FoxCollegeSports (maybe!)

7am, UCLA at Stanford, FoxCollegeSports repeat of the day!

11am (Wedn) from 2004, Texas at Texas Tech, ESPN Classic


If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

The Polls, the polls...

The latest AP and ESPN/Coaches/USAToday polls have been released. I won't discuss the merits of the polls, not how accurate they are. That's for another time.

Florida remains #1 in both polls, while Wisconsin got 1/3rd of the #1 votes in the AP Poll. The two polls are now very close, the biggest difference is four spots, Clemson #25 and #21.

The writers being more basketball-savvy than the coaches (ha!!!) added Stanford and Vandy in their top 25, while the coaches countered the writers by adding an old-school-style coach/team in UNLV.

Surpringly Alabama is around #20 in both polls... Mike Patrick probably used all 20 of his AP votes to help Duke climb up from the dreaded #10 spot... Watch out for the power guard trios and more, Marquette and Oregon could sneak up (sizewise) and bite a lot of teams in March!... If Air Force gets the right matchups in the Tourney, they could be this year's George Mason... Can't wait for Thursday's matchup when Oregon visits UCLA...

Outside the Polls: Is Bob Knight back as a nationally relevant contender? His coaches show will be debut on FoxCollegeSports next week... Iona's Jeff Ruland went all crazy on the media, doing the "with us or against us" routine. Now if this was coming from an average Joe coach the media would not be as scared, but Jeff Ruland is an NBA space-eater... Those with access to the INHD channel check your listings for an upcoming repeat of the series Hardwood Heavens that profiles some of the storied arenas and fieldhouses in college hoops such as the Smith Center, Allen Fieldhouse, and a few more. Check my daily TV listings for more details... Is Syracuse practicing dunks and alley-oops this week (after their game at Louisville)?... In the GQ segment, Doug Gottlieb pointed out that Duke assistants don't wear ties. I think they are happy to be free from the stranglehold Coach K had on them... Moving on, Paul Hewitt went old school by making his players wash their uniforms, and do the chores typically associated with student managers. He also removed the names from the back of their jerseys... I was shocked to discover that wrestlemania-defender Lorenzo Matta is a basketball player as he scored in a couple of basketball moves inside the paint against the Lopez twins... Did you all notice how Ben Howland was obnoxiously inside the lines even during the game? The zebras should really warn him and T-him-up. He looks like a desperate little-league coach (ouch!)...

HDTV TV Listings Guide at HDSportsGuide.com

If you have an HDTV and access to HDTV sports programming and you want to push your HDTV to the max, here is a website (HDSportsGuide.com) that lists upcoming college basketball games that will be shown in HDTV (high definition). They cover CBS, ESPN-HD, ESPN2-HD, and FSN-HD (regional coverage may vary). HDSportsGuide.com also provides listing of sports in HD for the NBA, NFL, college football, NHL, MLS, Golf, and a lot more...

What's on TV? Monday January 29, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern; adjust for other time zones ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games may be regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***

LIVE GAMES!

4pm, Pitt at Nova on ESPN. Big Monday starts with a Big East high-stakes game. Prediction: Pitt gets a road win. Game of the Day!

4pm, Central Conn at Quinipiac, regional-FSN/FoxCollegeSports

5pm, 3am, Rider at St Peters, regional-FSN/FoxCollegeSports

6pm, Kansas at Nebraska on ESPN. A chance for the Bill Self All Stars to show everyone that they can win comfortably on the road against a middle of the ...road team. Perhaps if they can do that Bill Self won't have to get upset when asked questions about how his team is doing. Prediction: Kansas

9pm, San Diego at Gonzaga, on ESPN2. The Zags rarely play at home anymore, but I predict a comfortable 20 point win.

It appears that ESPN is going into SuperBowlWeek mode, so no College Gamenights




CLASSIC games and REPEATS

7am SF at Gonzaga, FoxCollegeSports

9am UCF at UTEP, CSTV

11am, from 1998, Pitt at Nova, on ESPN-Classic, in anticipation of the Big Monday game later today

11am Utah at San Diego State, CSTV

1pm, 5am, UCLA at Stanford, FoxCollegeSports, Repeat of the Day!

130pm, MSG's College Basketball Weekly, 30-minute preview show on FoxCollegeSports, covering the NY/NJ area

2pm Pepperdine at StMary's, CSN

3pm, 3am, Oregon State at Washington, FoxCollegeSports

5p UCLA at USC, FoxCollegeSports

830pm, USC at Cal, CSN

11pm, 5am, Boston College at Duke, FoxCollegeSports

1am, from 1999 USC at Oregon, FoxCollegeSports (I think)

3am, Coastal Carolina at Winthrop, FoxCollegeSports

7am (Tuesday), 1-hour edit of the 1993 Indiana vs Penn State game on ESPN-Classic

11am (Tuesday), 2-hour edit of the 1998 Illinois at Michigan State on ESPN-Classic, in anticipation of their game later on Tuesday.



If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

Top 10 Players of 2007 at Recruiting Wars

The top 10 players of 2007 according to my non-scientific opinion are posted at Recruiting Wars.

Sports and SciFi!

As sports fans seem to be big fans of scifi as well, here is a sale that might be of interest: The Stargate SG-1 Season 8 DVD set is on sale at Amazon for just $20. Typical prices are around $40 per season. Please keep in mind prices change on Amazon all the time, so the price may be different by the time you are reading this...

Saturday's Shots

Duke bias in the ACC? No way! On a totally unrelated note the Zebras apologize for giving the game to Duke by giving them an extra 1.5 seconds to run their winning play. Jay Bilas continues to slide into homer mode. First off by defending the officials giving Duke an extra 1.5 seconds and then by defending his friend and teammate Tommy Amaker. So many Dookies, not enough TVs for them!

Meanwhile North Carolina "owned" the Silver Fox on his own home court (without Brandan Wright and Ginyard even!). It is now obvious that Lute Olson has worn out his starting five by playing them a lot of minutes even in the "cupcake games" early in the season, and not trusting his bench after the meltdown in Game 1 of the season at Virginia. What he needs to do is start Jordan Hill for defense and rebounding, and bring Budinger or McClellan or M-Will off the bench for an offensive spark and Dillon for a defensive spark. He is a Hall of Famer, he is supposed to be able to figure out something as simple as that! And how about those Tar Heels? If they continue to progress and listen to Roy Williams they will be scary by Tourney Time. Remember the 2005 Championship team made great strides during the season after buying into Roy's system and they won it all. Ad Watch: Roy's "Coke Habbit" aired once again during the CBS broadcast...

Congratulations to Jim Boeheim for coaching his 1,000th game today!

Also congratulations to the King of Philly, D2 coach Herb Magee, about to become the winningest men's basketball coach in Division 2 (at Philadelphia University) by surpassing "Big House Gaines". He was featured on this week's edition of the critically acclaimed "Hawk Talk", the only basketball coach's show that barely talks about basketball even though it has Phil Martelli and his side-kick, Mr Bracketology, Joe Lunardi. Hawk Talk is shown nationally CSTV, usually on Fridays.

If you are a fan of Bracketology make sure you tape/record/watch the Hot List on ESPN-News every Monday and Friday. It features a segment with Joe Lunardi at some point during the three-hour show.

Attention message board writers, bloggers and other critics: According to Rick Pitino, you are unsuccessful people criticising successful people. Pitino also crossed into TMI territory while recalling getting a job offer from Boeheim on his wedding night. (you have to watch his coach's show to find out). As if Rick Pitino didn't get enough PR, he is featured in the latest edition of CSTV's 30-minute profile/documentary called "One to One". The episode will debut on Sunday night on CSTV and will repeat a few more times after. Check local listings...

Which one of the touted freshmen would be the first to get a triple double? It wasn't Greg Oden, no, it wasn't Spencer Hawes, or Brandan Wright or Kevin Durant or Robin Lopez. It was Brook Lopez, who missed the start of the season with an injury. But he was the first one to get a triple double on points, rebounds and 12 blocks against USC. 12 of Stanford's 19 blocks. Block party! Here come the Lopez twins!. Brook was supposed to be the more refined offensively, while Robin was the most refined defensively.

New Drinking Game: Every time Hubert Davis says outstanding drink a shot. And by drink don't get me wrong, I mean water, or green tea or milk or orange juice or vitamin water. If you want to splurge, how about some Perrier? :-)

Meanwhile in the Big 12 Bill Self is throwing Joan Collins style fits when asked why his team is struggling to blow out opponents despite having an NBA roster. And Ricardo Patton is yet another example of why a coach should not stay at the same place unless they go to the Final Four or win national championships. Reporterdly he has already cleared out his office. Riley Wallace of Hawaii and Pete Gillen of Virginia are also recent examples of staying too long (or long enough for the wolves to come out).

According to Andy Katz Greg Oden may return next year, depending on how well he and his team does this year. According to Katz, Oden wants to leave college after he has become a dominant player and he is able to use both hands without problem. But this is late January. Things usually change in March, and they change once again as we get closer to the NBA draft...

The Truthiness RPI!

This is a brand new RPI derivative rating system that I came up with while watching paint dry.

It has two components:
1) The RPI raw data, as of right now, from KenPom's website. Thanks to KenPom's RPI for making it available to everyone on the net.
2) The second component is the Truthiness co-efficient. Truthiness is defined at this link The "Truthiness co-efficient" is a rating (not a ranking) from 1 to 25 that I give each team based on how good I think they are, regardless of their RPI, SOS, wins and losses and talent level. 25 is the highest score a team can get, and 1 is the lowest (a below average team). (No, I did not give Duke a 1) :-)

The "Truthiness RPI" is derived by multiplying the raw RPI number of each team with the "Truthiness co-efficient". Then the results are sorted based on the highest raw scores. For the first edition I am only looking at the Top 30 RPI teams. I may expand this in the future...

So here it is, the first Truthiness-RPI!. The results have surprised me too, and I was the one doing the rating :-)

1. North Carolina
2. Florida
3. UCLA
4. Wisconsin
5. Kansas
6. Arizona
7. Ohio State
8. Pitt
9. Duke
10. Kentucky
11. Oklahoma State
12. Memphis
13. Oregon
14. Butler
15. Air Force
16. Texas Tech
17. Marquette
18. Tennessee
19. Texas A&M
20. Washington State
21. Southern Illinois
22. UNLV
23. Clemson
24. Villanova
25. Virgina Tech

Comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback???

All you can eat Fridays!

Welcome to another edition of the incoherent all you can eat Friday's segment!

Unless the situation involves confidentiality or privacy issues, BC should let us know what was the offense(s) that led to Sean Williams and Akida McClain getting kicked out. This is starting to sound like an Orwellian nightmare. I hope it's not as silly as the Notre Dame situation of simply carrying herbs on one's person...

Clever move by the Orange Krush to show their cellphones to 500-phone-call-violation Kelvin Sampson.

Quotable Seth Greenberg: "I like my team, Roy (Williams) likes both of his teams".

Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps seem to have sided with Kelvin Sampson on the Eric Gordon recruiting soap opera.

Sportsmanship moment: A Virginia Tech player prevented a Maryland player from getting a serious injury by slowing down his fall. He earned a "kudos" from the G-Man during the broadcast (I forgot who the player was).

Memo to ESPN: Can you please stop interrupting live action games for those silly 30-30 updates? At least do the updates in a voice-over! There is no need to show stock images of some random baseball player instead of the live game in progress. You have 10 TVs time-outs and 15 minutes of halftime to do all the updates you want!

Memo to CBS: Can you please assign Verne Lundquist to golf and other slow motion games? He is so out of sync with the game and the players... Marquette's "Barro" is not "Barrio". Speaking of Marquette, if Wes Matthews ever gets tired of basketball, he can always start the Wesley Matthews Band. It has a nice ring to it...

Memo to Officials, Refs and Zebras:. It is time to start T-ing up Coaches when they get out of the box and particularly when enter the court when the action is on the other side or other half of the court. Ben Howland is one of the most obnoxious ones. T-him up!


Myth Busters

Pac-10 games are fun!. Well, not if UCLA, Washington State, Arizona State, California or Oregon State are playing...

Coach K is not the D*v*L. Mike Patrick said that Coach K told him Clemson would make almost all their free throws last night. And they did. How else could he know it? :-)

Mike Patrick is not a Duke homer. He was shocked that Duke was so low in the polls (#10). I am shocked they are so high in the polls!

Bruce Pearl is human. Not true. If you watched Tennessee women's game, you discovered that Bruce Pearl is an Orange Smurf!

Weekend what to watch: Saturday 27, Sunday 28, January 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games are regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***


SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 2007

730am, Basketball Weekly, on CSTV, a 30-minute preview of weekend basketball action around the country (mostly "BCS", eg ACC, SEC, Big East)

8am, Three Point Club on CSTV, covers the SEC

8am, Gameday morning edition, ESPN

830am, ACC Basketball Today, Fox College Sports.

9am, Michigan at Indiana, on ESPN. Job-saving win for Tommy Amaker? I think not. Prediction: Indiana wins 39-29 (final score, not halftime!)

9am, Dayton at Xavier, on ESPN2. Prediction: comfortable Xavier victory

9am,1pm, Winona State vs No. State on CSTV and Fox College Sports.. Division 2 action!

10am,GAME OF THE DAY! on CBS, North Carolina at Arizona. Prediction: Roy Williams will have dinner at Lute's tonight, and he will win the game by 5.

11am, Oklahoma at Texas A&M on ESPN. Prediction: First one to 49 wins. That would be the team with Acie Law...

11am, Wisconsin Green Bay vs Milwaukee, ESPN2. Prediction: The team from Wisconsin will win. I guarantee you that (unless the game is postponed) :-)

11am, Seton Hall at Rutgers, on CSN/FullCourt. The battle of Joisey but no one outside the area cares (or inside for that matter)

11am, American at Lafayette on CSTV. John Feistein's favorite conference, now with scholarships!

12pm, College Basketball Weekly, Fox College Sports. Covers a tri-state area but I have not seen it before, so I don't know which three states :-)

1pm, Villanova at Notre Dame on ESPN. Prediction: Scottie Reynolds wreaks havoc and steals one for the Fighting Randy Foyes.

1pm, St Johns at Pitt on CSN/FullCourt. Another dramatic game like last year, or a 20+ blowout? My crystal ball is muddy.

1pm, Western Michigan at Akron on ESPN2. Prediction: No LeBron, but Akron wins!

1pm, 1130pm, 330am, Oregon State at Washington, FSN/Fox College Sports. Prediction: Washington wins by 20+

1pm, UCF at UTEP on CSTV. Home cooking!

3pm, Baylor at Texas on ESPN2. Durant scores 30+. Needless to say, the Fighting Rick Barnes's win.

3pm, USC at Cal on CSN. USC wins in triple overtime.

3pm, Utah at SDSU on CSTV. A must win for Steve Fisher. 10 years later the Fab 5 have no eligibility left, but SDSU wins!

4pm, Syracuse at Louisville, ESPN. Teacher vs Pupil game! Will we see 2-3 zone for all 40 minutes? Home team wins.

5pm, SF at Gonzaga on FSN/Fox College Sports. Zags win 30+

5pm, Gameday pre-game edition from C-Bus, on ESPN2. Prediction: Bilas will get dunked on by Greg Oden

6pm, Michigan State at Ohio State on ESPN2. Prediction: An easy win for the Thad Five.

7pm, Pepperdine at St Mary's on CSN. Home cooking.

7pm,5am: Cal Poly at CS Northrdige (the Stanford of SoCal) on Fox College Sports.

7pm, Oregon at Washington State, Fox College Sports. Intriguing matchup of the day. Oregon has won at Georgetown, so can they overcome the Bennett's slowdown style? Aaron Brooks will play in this game.

9pm, Coastal Carolina at Winthrop on Fox College Sports. Wintrhop by 40.

9pm, Midnight Madness on ESPN. It's really College Gamenight with a different name. Usually manned by "the Radio Guys": Tom Brennan and Doug Gottlieb


SUNDAY, JANUARY 28, 2007

6am, Game of the week on ESPN-Classic. A repeat of the best game of the week. Do not know which game they have selected. Wake up early and be surprised!!!

10am, Wisconsin at Iowa or Tennessee at Kentucky on CBS. The 2nd game sounds more fun. I predict both road teams will win!

12pm, Tip Off Show, FSN/Fox College Sports.

1230pm, Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech, FSN/Fox College Sports. Sounds like a fun up-and-down game on paper. Georgia Tech has to win! Will they?

1pm, NY area High school action, Canarsie vs St Dominic, regional FSNs and Fox College Sports.

230pm, 11pm, 3am, Boston College at Duke, on FSN/Fox College Sports. Can we restore Sean Williams's eligibility just for this game? As much as I want BC to win, I can't see it happening this time around.

5pm, UCLA at Stanford, Game of the day!, on FSN/Fox College Sports. Can the Lopez twins take advantage of UCLA's wrestlemania defense and beat them at their own wrestling game? The Stanford guards are the key to the game. If they can keep Collison in their zipcode+4, and not let Afflalo score 25 in the 2nd half... I predict a Stanford win, but I will say upfront it's unlikely

930pm, College gamenight on ESPN





If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

Public Service Announcement

The Cancer Project is a collaborative effort of physicians, researchers, and nutritionists who have joined together to educate individuals, families, and the public on the benefits of a healthy diet for cancer prevention and survival.

TV: Friday, January 26, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games are regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** r-FSN is regional FSN coverage; I can't check all 20+ of them ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***

930am, 2pm, 4am, repeat of the Duel in the Desert (more like a practice duel), Arizona State at Arizona, r-FSN/FoxCollegeSports

1030am, UCLA at Cal, r-FSN/FoxCollegeSports

11am, from 1993, Indiana at Michigan, on ESPN-Classic. Yes, Bob Knight!

1230pm, 1am, USC at Stanford, r-FSN/FoxCollegeSports

230pm or 3pm, Basketball Weekly on Comcast Sports Net. Repeats tomorrow 730am on CSTV. A 30-minute preview of the weekend basketball action from CSS featuring Bob Wenzel as the expert analyst.

230pm, The Big 12 Preview Show on CSTV. Name says it all...

5pm, 8pm, from 92, the WAC Final: BYU vs UTEP on the religious channel BYU-TV. Commercial-free!

630pm, 930pm, from 1981, Digger Phelps's favorite game!, BYU vs Notre Dame, on BYU-TV! With Danny Ainge!

10pm, College Gamenight on ESPN!

1130pm, Cal at Oregon, CSN

Rest of the weekend coming later on today...

Reading is FUN-damental segment!

Here are some basketball books that might be of interest to basketball fans. Pictures are links to the Amazon product description pages.




By the way, Amazon has a $15 off coupon for purchases over $150 for books that loosely qualify as textbooks. Searchable list of over 130,000 books that qualify for this promotion and details on the promotion. Terms and conditions of the Amazon offer

TV what to watch: Thursday January 25, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games are regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***


LIVE GAMES!

4pm, Clemson at Duke on ESPN. Geau Tigers! (oops wrong Tigers). Prediction: Duke will win in overtime in a controversial pro-Duke officiated game, as the Zebras take their revenge on the Tigers ;-)

5pm, Charlotte at StLouis on CSTV. Prediction: The home team beats "the fighting bobby lutzes"

6pm, Fresno State at Boise State on CSN. Prediction: Home team wins!

6pm, UCLA at California on FSN/FoxCollegeSports. Prediction: CAL beats the wrestlemania Bruins! Or not...

8pm, USC at Stanford on FSN/FoxCollegeSports. Prediction: The Lopez twins deliver big time in a W.

8pm, Oregon at Washington on regional-FSN/FoxCollegeSports. A must win for the Huskies!. Aaron Brooks was getting a lot of love from Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas but he won't be playing tonight because of the "incident" during last year's Pac10 conference tourney. Prediction: Oregon wins!

930pm, 930am, College gamenight on ESPN, the 30-minute west-coast-bias edition


Repeats/Tape-delayed games

11am, from 1994, California upsets Arizona at McKale, ESPN-Classic

1130am, Arizona State at Arizona, Fox College Sports

11pm, High school basketball game from Wisconsin, not sure if major D1 prospects are appearing, Fox College Sports

7am Friday, 1-hour drive-thru version of the 1994, California upsets Arizona at McKale, ESPN-Classic

11am Friday, from 1993, Indiana at Michigan, ESPN-Classic


Looking forward

Sunday will be the debut of the Rick Pitino "One to One" (or is it "One on One"?) on CSTV. If you miss the original broadcast, it will repeat about a dozen times in the next few weeks.

February 1st will be the debut of this season's Generation Next with Seth Davis on CSTV. It will feature some of the recruiting experts and cover the talent recruits of 2007 and beyond.



If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

TV Games: Wednesday January 24, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games are regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** r-FSN is regional FSN (I can't check all 20+ of them)
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***

11am, classic game from 1995, Wake Forest vs North Carolina on ESPN Classic

4pm, North CArolina at Wake Forest on ESPN. Prediction: NC by 20+

4pm, Minnessota at Michigan State on CSN/FullCourt. Prediction: Michigan State by 20+

430pm, DePaul at Georgetown on ESPN2. Prediction: Hoyas by 20+

630pm, 330am, Arizona State at Arizona on r-FSN/FoxCollegeSports. The battle of the desert - the winner gets a dessert. Prediction: Arizona by 20+

1040pm, 940am, College gamenight on ESPN.

various repeats on r-FSN and FoxCollegeSports

7am, Thursday, 1-hour edit of the 1994 Michigan vs Purdue on ESPN-Classic

11am, Thursday, 2-hour edit of the 1994 California at Arizona on ESPN-Classic


If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

Eight teams for the Pac-10?

Seth Davis mentioned this a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was highly unlikely (and still do). Here is a discussion on this at YocoHoops.com

TV what to watch: Tuesday, January 23, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games are regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** r-FSN is regional-FSN ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***


LIVE GAMES!

4pm, Indiana at Illinois, on ESPN. Promises to be a tough game. Both want to win. Illinois really needs to win, otherwise they may be facing UConn in the NIT Final Four. Prediction: Illinois in overtime. SOAP OPERA ALERT!: Kelvin Sampson and Bruce Webber (Weber?) were involved in a heated and dramatic recruiting war over 2007 Top 10 talent Eric Gordon, who changed his mind from Illinois (verbal) to Indiana (signed). Of the things to watch is any interaction between the two coaches. Bruce Weber was the one who lost in this, so he is the one to watch. We can officially call this series the Eric Gordon Invitational, following the Doug Winnins Invitational (UConn vs StJohns games). More likely: nothing will really happen. Perhaps the pre-game hand-shake will last 250ms less than the usual handshake duration?

430pm, Notre Dame at St Johns on CSN/FullCourt. Hot off their win vs Syracuse (which draws well at MSG), the Johnnies will give the Domers all they can handle, but I predict ND winning.

430pm, Robert Morris at St Francis (Pa) on r-FSN/FoxCollegeSports

6pm, Alabama at Auburn on ESPN. Game of the day!. Auburn is a very feisty and athletic team. They may be the Clemson of the 2007-2008 season!. They will give Bama all they can handle and win in overtime (prediction).

7pm, San Diego State at UNLV, on Versus and VersusGolf-HD (high definition channel created by blending Versus and Golf, both Comcast channels). No Running Rebels, these are the Kruger Rebels. Prediction: SDSU in quadruple overtime (and you know how likely is that!)

940pm, 930am, College Gamenight on ESPN. Prediction: They will show 6 gym gems.


Classic games and Repeats

11am: Big 10 Fan anxiously waiting for the Indiana-Illinois game? Catch their classic game from 1989 on ESPN Classic.

11am, Zags at Santa Clara, acrylic sweater night (no chance of seeing Bruce Pearl in body-point and losing your last three lunches), FSN/FoxCollegeSports

12pm, 630pm, Stanford at Oregon State, FSN/FoxCollegeSports

1pm, Arizona at UCLA, the Wrestlemania Bruins deliver another beatdown/takedown/knockout to the finesse Wildcats. Shakur rejoins the Moody Blues. on FSN/FoxCollegeSports.

1pm, 5am, Arizona State at USC. No, they didn't get their first conference W here. They may go 0-18 since they lost at home to Oregon State

3pm, from 2001, UCLA at USC, FSN/FoxCollegeSports. Another Fired-Coaches-Battle, as Henry "Easy-Going" Bibby faces Steve "Wooden" Lavin. (nicknames inserted are for entertainment purposes only)

630pm, LIU at Wagner, FSN/FoxCollegeSports

730pm, Santa Clara at San Diego, on CSN (I believe this originally aired on ESPNU). Speaking of which, Comcast please add ESPNU already!

830pm, Maryland at Virginia Tech, overtime grinder, repeat game of the day!, FSN/FoxCollegeSports

1130pm, Santa Clara at SF, CSN

7am, Wednesday, from 1990, LMU vs LaSalle, 1-hour version, ESPN Classic. No, Bill Raftery did not play in that game.

11am, Wednesday, from 1995, Wake Forest vs North CArolina on ESPN Classic.


If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

The BC Mystery remains... Why were Sean Williams and Akida McClain dismissed?

The BC Mystery remains... Why were Sean Williams and Akida McClain dismissed?
There is a long thread on this topic in the BC forums, but be warned, it is not for the faint of heart: Discussion of situation at Scout.com's Boston College Forum

Thanks to LaRev blog for the link!

Thanks to the Zags blog La Revolucion for the link and the shoutout! The Zags play tonight at 9pm pacific (midnight eastern) at Portland on ESPN's Big Monday. Speaking of which, Nik Raivio just committed to Portland via JuCo. I do not know if he is related to Derek Raivio, but they have the same last name and Nik is apparently from WA according to the CSTV recruiting page.

College Basketball Video Games list!

This is a list for reference purposes, not a recommendation or review of these games... The thumbnail pictures are links to the Amazon product detail page... The more recent versions are bigger thumbnails. Older versions are smaller thumbnails.