The mid-week repor(t)

Want to add to your basketball DVD collection? We have some good news for you. Some of the most exciting games of the 2006 NCAA tournament are now officially available from the NCAA at Amazon. Each DVD costs from $22 to $25. This includes George Mason's wins over UConn, North Carolina and Wichita State, Ammo's epic meltdown against UCLA, Villanova squeaking by Arizona, along with some women's games, including the Duke vs Maryland championship.

On some Comcast Cable systems, they are showing an unannounced preview of the NHL Network channel. You can find it on digital cable near all the other digital cable sport channels. The numbers will vary from system to system.

Tomorrow at 3pm pacific / 6pm eastern is the Conference USA Men's Basketball Media Slam (aka Media Days). The event will be covered on CSTV! Time-permitting I will be live-blogging the event - thanks to the wonders of TV technology.

March to Madness is opening up e-harmony for basketball coaches! Their first match-making success story? Pat Summitt and Bruce Pearl?

A Sea of Blue profiles sophomore Jodie Meeks, one of the four players of the foundation class of 2006.

CBS Sportsline introduces us to the next NCAA Selection Cmte Chair. And he is coming from a new mid-major darling, Mr Tom O'Connor is the George MASON AD!

Speaking of George Mason, meet their four newcomers. Will they add enough fire power to the team to give Coach L another chance at a miracle run to the Final Four?

Staying in the CAA, the CAA Hoops blog takes a team by team look at the Colonial. And if you want to warm up for the upcoming season, you can relive George Mason's magical mystery tour of the NCAA tourney with M. Litos's book Cinderella: A Season inside the Rise of Mid-Major College Basketball.

MMAS (March Madness All Season) takes a look at more than a dozen sleeper mid-major (non-BCS) teams to watch!. They also introduce their Non-BCS Top 25, to which Calipari is glued to #1 for the next 10 years (or until he goes back to the NBA?)

Want to plan ahead? Here are some exciting non-conference games to watch! And if you are not sure how to record them, here are some suggestions from me.

A central page to all the preview items by MMAS here.

Cracked Sidewalks discusses the impact of new assistant Buzz Williams on attracting talent from the loaded state of Texas. They also track Marquette coverage on the web.

RtC (Rush the Court) dissects the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC). Will Austin Peay cause March troubles? Who else from that conference can make some noise?

College Hoops Heaven talks Philly Hoops, more specifically St Joe's looking to expand and honor Dr Jack Ramsay along the way. More on this here. And if you are not familiar with the Big 5, here is a video intro.

More new stuff at Truth About Duke: Duke football gets in trouble for tape sharing, while a Photoshop thread on Jon Scheyer's face is gathering attention.

Lots of college football coverage at the Sports Flow.


The Goodman Files

What was lost? Brook Lopez goes AI, while Providence's Sharrud Curry will have to sit on the bench and eat ...donuts after suffering a broken foot. This according to Goodman's repor(t). Also there we find out how Rex Walters is doing at Florida Atlantic, now that he has a Final Four player on his roster. Goodman ends the post with a look at Kirk Speraw at Central Florida.

Now this is funny, Calhoun makes fun of Boeheim's scheduling in jest. Perhaps Calhoun forgot to look up his RPI of recnet years at kenpom rpi. But not this season, UConn will be toughening up significantly, giving Hasheem Shot-Blocking Thabeet a chance to block his way to stardom.

As you may recall from last year, I proposed a new drinking game, every time Thabeet bloks a shot, you drink a shot. And by drink, I mean milk or carbonated water, or orange juice, or soy milk or Gatorade or carbonated water or iced tea or grape juice.

Goodman also points out that LaSalle's coach Giannini is feeling V-Good about transfer Vernon Goodridge.


The DeCourcy Files

Ole Roy on speed.

DeCourcy predicts the player of the year, and his #1 choice may surprise you, but it will make Bruce Pearl happy. Four of his top ten are freshmen, with Kevin Love rated as high as #3.

On a weakend ACC.

Then DeCourcy digests out of conference schedules and suggests that tough schedules do not historically translate to March Madness success. He gives two examples from the upcoming season, Arizona is going through hell, both schedule-wise and with Kevin O'Neill ;-) On the other hand he finds Louisville's schedule to be just right.Pitino plays some strong games (Kentucky, @UNLV, potentially UNC, Purdue, BYU), but he also has six at home mid-majorathons.

Last but not least is DeCourcy's signature Inside Dish where he looks at Bud Mackey, Arizona's Jordan Hill, Florida's Marreese Speights (name is a spelling bee candidate), and Iowa State.

Wow, I managed to avoid crack and Paris Hilton references! What a show of restraint!