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.

Monday Digest

Hello NIT: UConn, Illinois

While this blog doesn't cover the NBA, I have to mention something when it is FREE!: One week free NBA League Pass preview for this week, 1/22 thru 1/28, on cable/satellite systems where the NBA League Pass package is available. Check local listings or the NBA website for details.

Who could be this year's George Mason? How about Air Force? They have already played and won a number of close games (the latest on Saturday vs San Diego State), which usually bodes well for a team in the tourney where the games are closer and the pace slows down a bit.

Unanswered QuestionsCBS's play by play guy is Ian Eagle but pronounced I-o-n. Why?

The Derrick Caracter Soap Opera continues: As you may recall he played a bit against Marquette last Monday, then he got suspended over the weekend and missed the DePaul game, but he may return to active status for today's game (UConn).

Bilas was not dunked on this time in his on-court segment. Tyler Hansborough was nice to a Dookie? WoW! But the ESPN crew was not nice to Bilas as they showed a highlight of clips from Bilas's playing days where he got dunked on over and over and over.

Speaking of Bilas, he was brave enough to eat the chocolate pudding from the North Carolina cafeteria live on the air. I wouldn't...

What happened to the Missouri Valley and Fox College Sports? Last year they had at least 2 games per week on FCS. This year, there's nothing! Did they sign a contract with another network? Or???

College Gameday did a feature on what is an upset. And then they proceeded reading the teleprompter that usually defines an upset as everytime a ranked team loses. Who writes these things? ESPN are you listening? :)

Error Correction Segment: Joe Lunardi, Tony Bennett's dad is Dick Bennett, not Tony Senior :-) And ESPN-News-anchor-du-jour, all ten Pac-10 teams go to the Pac-10 tourney, not the top 8.

Is the Cal-Tech story (winning their first game after almost 300 losses) an inspirational story or just irrelevantly silly? You Decide!


Coaches Spotlight

Bob Knight tried to block his own college students from storming the court. But Mr Tough Bob Knight left the court surrounded by security guard protectors. You are not in Indiana anymore. And your record is not that of the 80s, Mr Tough Guy.

Roy's Coke habbit is back on national TV. The Coca Cola commercial aired again during the CBS college basketball broadcast on Saturday. It also airs during his coaches show on Fox College Sports.

If you go to a game at the new USC Arena in LA make sure you check under your chair - you may find Tim Floyd's gum!. The FSN cameras caught him red-handed sticking his gum under the chair.

Lute Olson is the silver fox, he is in the hall of fame, but how could he not predict that playing his five starters almost non-stop would burn them out? I mean, this is common sense! It's not like he doesn't/didn't have players on the bench. He fell into the trap of falling in love with the high level of play of the starting five and forgot that they may wear down, or get in foul trouble, or have bad nights - which is what gave them their three-game losing streak.

Retired Coaches Radio Shows: John Thompson (Big John), and Jerry Tarkanian. And let's not forget Tom Brennan who had a radio show even before he retired. And yes, Coach Amex has a radio show too where you get a concentrated burst of his BS-ology. Radio includes the satellite (XM, Sirius) "radio" services.

Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith together, promoting Kentucky Farm products on a TV spot. And Louisville fans please stop sending Pitino Starbucks gift cards: He has given up coffee. The things you see/learn when you watch the Coache's shows :-) Speaking of which, Pitino's show may be of interest to basketball fans in general as he actually breaks down opposing teams and players (at a high level). It airs nationally on Saturdays on CSTV at 830am PT/1130am ET.


Recruiting Segment

This week's Sports Stars of Tomorrow featured their first Top 20, and features on Solon's Dallas Lauderdale and Winter Park's Nick Calathes. They are going to Ohio State and Florida respectively. They also had a flashback feature on Illinois's Deron Williams. For more details, visit their website.

TV what to watch, Monday January 22, 2007

January 22, 2007

5am Monday: Penn State vs Minnessota, repeat I assume, Fox College Sports

7am Monday: from 1988, Alaska Shootout, 1-hour Drive-thru edit, Cincinatti (Bob Huggins) vs Duke, ESPN-Classic. A Duke Loss!. Celebrate! ESPN is showing a Duke loss! Wow!!!

11am, from 1997, Oklahoma at Oklahoma State, on ESPN-Classic, preparing fans for the 6pm Big Monday matchup of this season. Clever way for ESPN to use their tape library! Great feature ESPN. Please keep it up!

11am, 9pm, 7am repeat, Memphis at East Carolina on CSTV

Pac-10 and WCC repeats on Fox College Sports

4pm, UConn at Louisville on ESPN Big Monday with Dickie V! (I think). Prediction: The new small run and gun Cardinals win. Caracter will play 6 minutes and get four fouls in 3 minutes. In case you missed it, he was suspended over the weekend but may play on Monday. The soap continues...

4pm, Women's action: Duke at Tennessee on ESPN2. Go Lady Vols! Beat the Dookies! Dunk on them Candance Parker!

430pm, LIU at Wagner, on Fox College Sports

6pm, Oklahoma at Oklahoma State on ESPN Big Monday. First one to 50 wins. Watch it only if you can stand the monotonous tone and predictable comments of Ron Franklin

9pm, Gonzaga at Portland on ESPN. Well they may actually lose so it may be worth watching/TiVo-ing. Prediction: Zags by 20.

7am Tuesday, 1-hour edit of the 1991 Indiana at Ohio State game on ESPN-Classic

All you can eat Fridays! (West Coast Edition)

These are the Analysts Segment

Don McLean (FSN analyst and UCLA's highest scorer ever): "Arizona doesn't play zone". Well Donnie, you should really watch some Arizona games this year. You are after all covering the Pac-10. This year Arizona plays almost as much zone as Jim Boeheim. You get 2-3, 1-3-1, and even some other tweaks/variations. Sure, Arizona doesn't play zone. Yeah. Okay. You convinced me!

If you are a 7-footer and you don't get to play against the Lopez Twins, you may want to consider transfering or listening to the coach. I am not talking about Oregon's Ray Schaefer ;-)

Has Kevin Galloway transfered out of USC or not? Because he played against Arizona on Thursday. CORRECTION!!!. This is the last time I trust what the TV announcers say. Apparently Daniel Hackett changed his jersey number once again, this time taking #13, vacated by the transfer of Kevin Galloway. So Golloway is gone, and this comment is officially invalid! CORRECTION!!!!

Lute Olson is notorious for being stingy with timeouts. The total opposite of Pete Gillen (not Gillan, he wasn't a member of Deep Purple). He even has his own Wiki entry.

You can call former Washington guard Harvey Perry a Vandal, and he won't be offended. Why????

Sean Williams was a highly sought out late under the radar type of recruit from the West Coast that Al Skinner managed to grab despite Arizona and others going after him. Now (it seems) he is off the team (once again). Does anyone know what the reason for the dismissal was? Please don't tell me it was something silly like drinking beer or smoking "things"...

Tom Brennan jinxed his old team as he predicted as very comfortable victory at home against Maine.

I thought the final score of the Wake Forest - Duke game was the half-time score. It looks like Chris Paul meant a whole lot more to Wake Forest than most people thought.

You may remember Bruce Pearl going crazy and getting a technical on the road at Auburn. If you watch the footage carefully you will notice that Dane Bradshaw is actually the one who triggers Bruce Pearl's outburst. Right after the timeout call was made, Bradshaw went crazy-mad as he was running towards the bench and Pearl, and then Pearl got crazy at the officials.

Planning a Maui Vacation for Thanksgiving 2007? You can catch the Maui Invitational as well. The field is set for 2007, with Arizona State, Duke, Illinois, LSU, Marquette, Oklahoma State, Princeton, host Chaminade. Coach K may get a chance at avenging the 2006 Sweet 16 loss to LSU (Geau Tigers!)

Never too early to sign up for March Madness On Demand!

I know it is January, but it's never too early to sign up for March Madness On Demand!. According to their website you can watch the games online for free this year, just like last year. As you may recall a couple of years ago they tried a paid subscription model, but last year they switched to FREE, which they are continuing this year. FREE is better :-)

TV: What to watch Saturday and Sunday, January 20, 21, 2007

Busy Saturday, rather slow Sunday. But lots of excitement...

*** 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 ***


Saturday, January 21, 2007

730am, Basketball Weekly, on CSTV. 30-minute show previewing the weekend action of "BCS" conferences, with Bob Wenzel

8am, Gameday on ESPN from Chappel Hill, NC

830am, 3-point club, on CSTV. 30-minute preview show covering the SEC

9am, Louisville at DePaul on ESPN. Prediction: DePaul by 20, or they lose in overtime.

9am, Eckerd at Rollins on CSTV

1030am, Texas at Villanova on CBS. Prediction: Durant scores 30+. Nova wins

11am, Wisconsin at Illinois, on ESPN. First one to 62 wins.

1130am, Northwestern at Minnessoooooooota, on CSN (Comcast Sports Net)

12pm, Charlotte at George Washington on CSTV

1230pm, Duke at NC State on ABC. Please NC State win! Prediction: Duke by 20+.

1245pm, UConn at Indiana on CBS. Prediction: Indiana wins 53-49.

1pm, Kansas at Texas Tech on ESPN. Predicton: Superior talent outshines Bob Knight's teamwork

1pm, Arizona at UCLA, on FSN and Fox College Sports, and on FSN-HD (high definition) where available. Game of the Day!. UCLA went 3 out of 3 against Arizona this year. UCLA should win.

2pm, San Diego State at Air Force on Versus and Versus-Golf-HD (high definition) where available. Versus-Golf-HD is a high definition channel composed of content from Comcast's sports channels, Versus and The Golf Channel. Prediction: Air Force in three overtimes.

2pm, Pacific at UC Davis on CSN

3pm, Washington at Washington State on FSN and Fox College Sports. A must win for Washington. Prediction: Washington wins!

3pm, Memphis at East Carolina on CSTV. Prediction: Yet another tease-game for C-USA teams against Memphis. At some point they'll think they are in the game, before Memphis pulls away or stumbles to yet another undefeated C-USA season

5pm, Stanford at Oregon State on FSN and Fox College Sports. Prediction: Stanford!

5pm, Arizona Staet at USC on FSN and Fox College Sports. USC avoids the letdown of the Arizona win and wins this one as well.

5pm, Gameday, the pre-game version, from Chappel Hill, NC

6pm, ESPN Primetime Game, Georgia Tech at North Carolina on ESPN. Prediction: Carolina scores over 100, Georgia Tech at least 80, a fast-paced and highly entertaining game. Dick Vitale mentions the Broken Egg three times and praises Duke 2 times. Very detailed predictions!

7pm, Saint Marys at San Francisco on CSN

7pm, Cal State Fullerton (Harvard of SoCal) at UC Irvine on FSN and Fox College Sports. Prediction: The winner enjoys ... eating ants.

730pm, Pepperdine at Loyola Marymount on CSTV. Everybody loves the Big West / WCC on Saturday nights!

9pm (or later): Midnight Madness, a recap of the day's college hoops action on ESPN.

a handful of games on ESPN Full Court


Sunday, January 21, 2007

6am, Game of the Week replay on ESPN Classic. Do not know which game

6am, 3pm, Connecticut high school game, St Joseph's vs Harding on FSN and Fox College Sports. Do not know if any major D1 prospects are playing

12pm, Game of the day, Marquette at Pitt on CBS. Prediction: Marquette wins! Marquette wins!!!!

12pm, New Orleans at Western Kentucky, Fox College Sports

1pm, Loyola Maryland vs Rider, Fox College Sports

4pm, ACC Sunday Night Hoops Tip Off Show, FSN and Fox College Sports

430pm, Maryland at Virginia Tech, FSN and Fox College Sports. First one to 100 wins! Promises to be an exciting and entertaining game!


Early Monday morning, January 22, 2007

5am Monday: Penn State vs Minnessota, repeat I assume, Fox College Sports

7am Monday: from 1988, Alaska Shootout, 1-hour Drive-thru edit, Cincinatti (Bob Huggins) vs Duke, ESPN-Classic

11am Monday, from 1997, Oklahoma at Oklahoma State, on ESPN-Classic, preparing fans for the 6pm Big Monday matchup of this season. Clever way for ESPN to use their tape library! Great feature ESPN. Please keep it up!

11am Monday, repeat, Memphis at East Carolina on CSTV


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: Friday January 19, 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 ***

All games today are repeats/classics unless otherwise indicated

9am, repeat of one of the Timberwolves Shootout games, Hopkins of MN vs Campbell Hall of MN. Campbell Hall features two of the most highly touted prep players in California, the Holiday brothers, Justin and Jrue. One has committed to WA and Lorenzo Romar, the other one is the subject of recruiting wars.

11am, from 1993, the ACC Conference Final, North Carolina vs Georgia Tech on ESPN Classic

10am, Stanford at Oregon, on FSN. A watchable low-scoring game. I kid you not!

11am, 1pm, 9pm, 1am, 3am, Pac-10 game reruns on Fox College Sports

12pm, California at Oregon State, on FSN.

3pm, Basketball Weekly, on Comcast Sports Net, a weekly 30-minute preview show on the weekend's basketball action, anchored by Bob Wenzel. Check local listings as CSN programming may vary from state to state.

5pm thru 11pm on BYU-TV (the religious channel). Two classic BYU games, repeating twice, vs Air Force from 1989 and vs UCLA in the NCAAs in 1981. This is Digger Phelps favorite game! Guess who won? :-)

730pm, 12am (midnight): MAYBE: New Mexico at San Diego State on CSTV. TV listings are contradictory on this one

If you like Comedy Central, you may like DeadSpin.com!

If you like Comedy Central, you may like DeadSpin.com!. DeadSpin.com offers sports news and information without mercy, raw news, without the usual spin you may find in the big name TV or print media.

TV: Thursday, January 18, 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 ***

6pm, Game of the Day!, High School Hoops, as some of the Top 100 2007 and beyond talents play on ESPN tonight: Oak Hill Academy at Simeon of Chicago. Derrick Rose of Simeon is considered by some the best HS player in the class of 2007 and he is headed to Memphis and John Calipari. Announcers: Dave Revsine and Doug Gottlieb. More details at Recruiting Wars

4pm, UMass at Xavier on ESPN. Prediction: X wins! X wins!

4pm, Wake Forest at Duke on ESPN2. What a shocker! A Duke game on ESPN2, while an A-10 game on ESPN. Not that it really matters since both channels are available in most cable/satellite systems. Common-sense says Duke is hungry and wins, but, yes but, I predict Skip Prossers develops a canny game plan and takes the Dookies by surprise!. Go Wake! Go Skip! Go Deamon Deacs!

530pm, Stanford at Oregon on FSN/FoxCollegeSports, the first of all four Pac-10 games on TV today. Contrast in size: the two 7-footer Lopez twins vs small-ball Oregon. Mascot analogy works too: Cardinal Tree vs Duck. Prediction: Oregon as they have shown they can win small and they can win big, they can win slow and they can win fast. The Nike Ducks have arrived!

7pm, Fresno State at Nevada on CSN. Do not know if Fazekas plays. Nevada wins regardless.

730pm, Arizona State at UCLA, on FSN/FoxCollegeSports. This game is over before it even starts. Herb Sendek's new zone defense may slow down UCLA's offense to 60 but ASU cannot possibly score more than 40 on UCLA!

730pm, Arizona at USC, on FSN/FoxCollegeSports. Prediction: Arizona in triple overtime.

730pm, Oregon State at California, on FSN/FoxCollegeSports. California wins in a slugfest

930pm, 930am, College Gamenight on ESPN, 30-minute edition



Repeats/Old games

11am, from 1994, Wake Forest at Duke on ESPN-Classic

2pm, UCLA at USC on on FSN/FoxCollegeSports

2pm, INSTANT CLASSIC! on ESPN-Classic, the triple-overtime game, Texas at Oklahoma State. Not sure if they will show they whole game, or a 2-hour time-slot edit.

6pm, INSTANT CLASSIC! on CSTV, the wild Rice Owls comeback from a 20+ deficit early in the 2nd half against the Turnaround Tom Weavers (Cougars). Strange turn of events with some controversy at the end.

7am Friday, from the 1993 Maui Classic: Arizona vs Kentucky, one hour drive-thru edit (I did not make up that name), 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.

Highlights: SportsCenter vs FSN Final Score

Here's a quick face off that when it comes to NCAA College Basketball Highlights: ESPN Sportscenter vs FSN Final Score

1. FSN Final Score shows highlights from more games than SportsCenter. Final Score covers most "BCS" conference games along with select mid-majors. SportsCenter covers mostly Top-25 teams, and shows non-Top-25 teams only if they earn a Top-10 play.

2. SportsCenter highlights are full-screen, FSN Final Score are not full-screen as they fill up the screen with a thick side-bar on the right-hand column, and a stack of tickers on the bottom, versus one thin ticker on ESPN.

3. FSN Final Score lasts 30 minutes, SportsCenter lasts 60 to 90 minutes.

4. FSN Final Score shows more college basketball highlights in terms of actual TV minutes, unless a lot of the Top-25 teams play, in which case SportsCenter has more.

Today's OTL: Concussions and Depression

Today's OTL Centerpiece looks at the link between concussions and depression among athletes, and highlighting NFL players.

Comeback of the year? Rice beats Houston!

Game shown on CSTV and replays tonight and tomorrow on CSTV. Rice was down by 20+ in the first half, and early in the 2nd half, yet they managed to win by 5, in a semi-controversial game, as almost all the Houston people run off the floor at the end of the game without the obligatory sportsmanship shaking-hands.

Texas at Oklahoma State triple over time classic repeat!

ESPN Classic will rebroadcast the triple overtime instant classic of Texas at Oklahoma State on Thursday at 5pm Eastern Time according to ESPN News. Because of the short notice of the schedule change it may not be reflected in your TV listings...

Mid-Week Update

The Derrick Caracter soap continues. Not only Caracter is back on campus, he also played a few minutes against Marquette on Monday. It looks like Pitino has a hard time letting go of players he himself removes from the program. A recent example, Terrence Farley's "dismissal" a couple of years ago.

Don't forgot to check the multi-color fishwrap (Jim Rome's term for USA Today) every Tuesday. It features college basketball stories and commentary from the one and only Dick Vitale!

It looks like J.P Prince is going to Tennessee after all, not Vandy.

Onions Award: Tre Kelley of South Carolina

For years the Ben Howland - Jamie Dixon Experiment at Pitt was having great regular seasons but not a lot of success in the NCAAs considering their regular season record and NCAA Tourney seed. But last year Ben Howland made it all the way to the NCAA Final. The difference? NBA-caliber talent!. The Pitt teams of Howland/Dixon have exactly zero NBA players. The UCLA Final Four team had Farmar, Afflalo (projected NBA talent), along with Steve Lavin's Cedric Bozeman and Ryan Hollins (currently in the NBA).

The new ESPN Gameday TV spots are funny but nowhere near as funny as the North Carolina Cafeteria. The two new commercials are dorm-themed with the Gameday four-some moving into the dorms.



SEEN on TV segment

ESPN's Student Spirit Week is in full force! But they also featured Kentucky Super Fan Bob Wiggins. He has followed Kentucky basketball for 54 years and watched 1368 games in person! (Kentucky at South Carolina game on ESPN). Now that's what I call a fan!

UAB's Mike Davis "Pimp My Ride" team bus, featured on CSTV. A luxurious bus for the team travels as they prefer that over chartered flights for their C-USA road games.


What makes a game unwatchable
If you are not emotionally invested in the outcome of a game (eg fan or hater of either team), a combination of these factors makes a game unwatchable:

turnovers that don't lead to fastbreaks

too many calls

not a lot of ball movement

"giving the ball a headache" dribblers

slow pace

jittery/nervous fast pace

containment defense

etc, etc, etc


Feedback

Ideas for stories, comments, suggestions, recommendations, etc? Please feel free to leave them as comments or send me an email via the Contact via Email link in the left-hand side column.

TV What to Watch: Wednesday January 17, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** predictions are not the most likely/logical outcomes ***

4pm, Game of the day, on ESPN, North Carolina at Clemson. Both teams are smarting from a loss, Clemson lost a shootout at Maryland, North Carolina got embarassed by Virginia Tech before waking up and making Seth Greenberg and the Hokie Nation sweat and immediately do their Coca Cola routine to prevent a loss. This would be a statement win for Clemson. As they have shown with Maryland, they are not shy about an up-and-down run and gun game. If this North Carolina team wasn't so young, I would predict a win for them. But if they play anywhere near the level they played during their comeback at Blacksburg, Carolina will win. I give them a small edge despite the risk of angering Clemson fans :-)

4pm, Watching paint dry game, Illinois at Minnesota, on ESPN2. Sorry Big 10 (Big Eleven) but you have a reputation for unwatchable grinder slugfests who are unbearable to watch for anyone who is not emotionally invested in the outcome (eg fans of the team). Ohio State is not enough...

5pm, 730pm, 12am, 5am, Houston at Rice on CSTV. You can't miss it, even if you try as it airs four times in 12 hours. Player of the year candidate Morris Almond faces the crazy 3-point shooting weave of Turnaround Tom. Should be an entertaining game. Prediction: Houston in double overtime!

1040pm, 940am, College Gamenight, on ESPN

12am (midnight), High school game, Verona (not the Italian Euroleague basketball team), vs Randolph on Fox College Sports. At this moment I do not know if any high-major recruits are playing in this game. I don't even know what city/state it is at. Will update the post if I find out...

Repeats: Oregon State at Arizona State (both teams tried hard to lose the game), Gonzaga at Santa Clara (acrylic sweater night at SCU), both on FCS, UAB at Memphis (blowout as I predicted), Hoop Hall classic triple header repeat on CSTV, and USC vs UCLA from Feb-2000 on Fox College Sports (FCS).


Sneak peek at Thursday

7am Thursday: 1-hour drive-thru game on ESPN-Classic, from the 1987 Tip-Off Classic, North Carolina at Syracuse.

11am Thursday, 2-hour edit of the 1994 Wake Forest - Duke game on ESPN Classic. The 11am slot features classic games of matchups played later in the day. Great idea by ESPN!

Four Pac-10 games on FSN and Fox College Sports

6pm, Oak Hill at Simeon on ESPN. Derrick Rose one of the top 5 players in the class of 2007 faces Oak Hill which shouldn't really be considered a high-school since they are like a prep school but only use players with high-school eligibility. But that's another story. Some people consider Derrick Rose to be the #1 player in the case, ahead of OJ Mayo, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Eric Gordon et al. I do not (at least not just yet). The game will be called by the dynamic duo of Dave Revsine and Doug "do-it-all" Gotlieb.

TV What to Watch: Wednesday January 17, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** predictions are not the most likely/logical outcomes ***

4pm, Game of the day, on ESPN, North Carolina at Clemson. Both teams are smarting from a loss, Clemson lost a shootout at Maryland, North Carolina got embarassed by Virginia Tech before waking up and making Seth Greenberg and the Hokie Nation sweat and immediately do their Coca Cola routine to prevent a loss. This would be a statement win for Clemson. As they have shown with Maryland, they are not shy about an up-and-down run and gun game. If this North Carolina team wasn't so young, I would predict a win for them. But if they play anywhere near the level they played during their comeback at Blacksburg, Carolina will win. I give them a small edge despite the risk of angering Clemson fans :-)

4pm, Watching paint dry game, Illinois at Minnesota, on ESPN2. Sorry Big 10 (Big Eleven) but you have a reputation for unwatchable grinder slugfests who are unbearable to watch for anyone who is not emotionally invested in the outcome (eg fans of the team). Ohio State is not enough...

5pm, 730pm, 12am, 5am, Houston at Rice on CSTV. You can't miss it, even if you try as it airs four times in 12 hours. Player of the year candidate Morris Almond faces the crazy 3-point shooting weave of Turnaround Tom. Should be an entertaining game. Prediction: Houston in double overtime!

1040pm, 940am, College Gamenight, on ESPN

12am (midnight), High school game, Verona (not the Italian Euroleague basketball team), vs Randolph on Fox College Sports. At this moment I do not know if any high-major recruits are playing in this game. I don't even know what city/state it is at. Will update the post if I find out...

Repeats: Oregon State at Arizona State (both teams tried hard to lose the game), Gonzaga at Santa Clara (acrylic sweater night at SCU), both on FCS, UAB at Memphis (blowout as I predicted), Hoop Hall classic triple header repeat on CSTV, and USC vs UCLA from Feb-2000 on Fox College Sports (FCS).


Sneak peek at Thursday

7am Thursday: 1-hour drive-thru game on ESPN-Classic, from the 1987 Tip-Off Classic, North Carolina at Syracuse.

11am Thursday, 2-hour edit of the 1994 Wake Forest - Duke game on ESPN Classic. The 11am slot features classic games of matchups played later in the day. Great idea by ESPN!

Four Pac-10 games on FSN and Fox College Sports

6pm, Oak Hill at Simeon on ESPN. Derrick Rose one of the top 5 players in the class of 2007 faces Oak Hill which shouldn't really be considered a high-school since they are like a prep school but only use players with high-school eligibility. But that's another story. Some people consider Derrick Rose to be the #1 player in the case, ahead of OJ Mayo, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Eric Gordon et al. I do not (at least not just yet). The game will be called by the dynamic duo of Dave Revsine and Doug "do-it-all" Gotlieb.

TV What to watch: Tuesday January 16, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern time ***
*** predictions are on the wild side, not the logical side ***

4pm, Game of the Day!, UConn at Pitt on ESPN2, with Dick Vitale!. You know that you have arrived as a program when you get two back to back games with Dick Vitale! This year the game is a bit different, as Pitt is the old and mature and consensus favorite team, while UConn is full of freshmen and inexperienced players. Logically this should be an easy win for Pitt, but don't count out Calhoun!

4pm, Iowa at Indiana on ESPN2. Catch their 2000 matchup on ESPN-Classic at 11am. Prediction: Indiana. First Steve Alford visit at IU since the coaching change...

6pm, Kentucky at South Carolina on ESPN. The NIT Dynasty (South Carolina) has to win this game if they want to advance to the NCAA level and build their dynasty there. Prediction: Dave Odom in a close game

6pm, Texas at Oklahoma State on ESPN2. Catch another installment of the Kevin Durant Show. You may be looking at the #1 pick of the 2007 draft (even if Greg Oden declares)

6pm, 10pm, 5am, UAB at Memphis on CSTV. The AASAA offense visits Mike Davis. A statement win it would be for Mike Davis as Memphis is once again looking at an undefeated conference season. Prediction: Memphis by a lot.

940pm, 940am, College Gamenight on ESPN. Start time may shift. 20-minute edition.

3am, Winthrop at UNC-Asheville, obviously tape-delayed, on Fox College Sports

4 games on ESPN Full Court, including two ACC games and George Mason


Reruns

The Hoop Hall Classic, a triple-header of high school and preps basketball will repeat on CSTV twice, the first triple-header starts at 9am, and the second one starts at midnight.

630pm, 5am: classic USC vs UCLA games, this one from February 2000. A classic Henry Bibby vs Steve Lavin matchup. How times have changed for the two storied LA schools.

A couple of WCC reruns on CSN


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MLK Day Special Report: African-American Coaches

As a special Martin Luther King Day feature, I will be looking at African-American college basketball coaches in the six power/"BCS" conferences. Most players are African-American, and most coaches are former players, so you can do the math...

I am doing this off the top of my head, I haven't check coaches biographies and resumes, so if I left anyone out, please feel free to make a correction via a Comment post or by sending me an email via the Contact via Email link on the left-hand side column.

Let's start with the ACC, which I will break down in three geographic areas:

ACC total, 7 of 12.

ACC-South, 4 of 4. Paul Hewitt became a star two years ago as he took Georgia Tech to the Final Four, playing an exciting and energetic style of play. The team is currently rebuilding, but they will be there once again as they have plenty of talented but young players coming in... Oliver Purnell quitely managed to turn Clemson into a contender in the ACC, as this time around, they managed to remain the last undefeated team in the country three games into the ACC season. With James Mays eligible this time, Clemson may become a Sweet 16 team this time around. Time will tell... At Florida State, the experienced Leonard Hamilton is on the verge of a break out that FSU has been waiting for the last few years... Meanwhile down at Miami, former Texas assistant Frank Haith is trying to rebuild in a city dominated by Shaq and D-Wade, and many things not-basketball.

ACC-North Carolina, 1 of 4. Sidney Lowe has taken over his alma-mater coming over as a Detroit Pistons assistant. So far he has managed to exceed all expectations given how few players he has available this season. He has also made a big splash on the recruiting trail by signing high profile talent such as JJ Hickson. Perhaps he is the one to take the Wolfpack out of the shadow of Duke and Carolina?

ACC-North, 2 of 4. Al Skinner has turned Boston College into a regular contender by blending the flex offense with crafty recruits, players who flew under the radar, or did not fit the ideal types/styles of other teams... Dave Leito, a Jim Calhoun protege and close personal friend has already managed to turn around Virginia after rebooting the DePaul program and he will be taking advantage of their brand new shiny arena. The future recruiting looks promising as well.

Big East Total, 3 of 16

New Big East, 1 of 5. Robert McCullum is facing a major challenge as South Florida was added to the Big East strictly for football. The basketball program is receiving a boost from competing in the Big East, but it is definately an uphill battle in the Monster Big East

Old-school Big East, 2 of 11. John Thompson III is his own man. He paid his dues, and he is blending the Princeton offense he learned under Pete Carrill with the Georgetown legacy of his dad. He is one of the up-and-coming coaches in the profession, with already one Sweet 16 appearance and plenty of talent in the pipeline, including touted DeMatha players... Norm Roberts was a highly thought of assistant before returning to New York to try to rebuild St. John's. Not an easy task, as St Johns is a commuter campus, in a city that has just about everything. It won't be an overnight success story, but Roberts is managing to keep some of the talented NYC players at home.

Pac-10, 3 of 10. Trent Johnson has returned to Stanford after a successful stay at Nevada where he manhandled everyone's favorite Cinderella, the Zags. Nevada's continued success is built upon the Trent Johnson foundation. At Stanford he has signed a number of talented players, including the Lopez twins, two athletic and versatile 7-footers, who some say maybe even better than the Collins twins at this stage of their careers. As with all young teams, there will be struggles, but the future is very bright at Stanford... At Oregon, Ernie Kent has managed to go from Hot Seat to Hot Coach as the pieces have finally started to fall in place with this group of talented players... Lorenzo Romar is not getting as much credit as he deserves at Washington, as he has managed two Sweet 16s and an epic loss against UAB two years ago, and has defended the home turf recruiting-wise against national powers (Duke, Carolina, UCLA, Kansas), and has produced NBA-talent in high-energy Nate Robinson and versatile Brandon Roy. This year's team is very young and will have its struggles but the future is very bright. As you may recall this team has been unlucky in the NCAAs, with a very close loss to UConn last year, and a very close instant-classic against UAB a couple of years ago. If they beat UConn last year, they would have probably been to the Final Four!

Big 10, 2 of 11. Kelvin Sampson is bringing back toughness to IU. His style of play is not for everyone since most of his Oklahoma games were unwatchable and without flow, unless one was emotionally invested in the outcome of the game. This may change a bit if he gets more talent, with Eric Gordon pulling a switcharoo (is this even a word?), and backing out of Illinois and committing to play in his home state... Tommy Amaker has the confidence of the Ann Arbor administration for cleaning up the mess at Michigan, but on the court he has yet to deliver an NCAA bid, which is what Michigan fans were used to in their glory days. The quick success at rival Ohio State which was also in trouble with the NCAAs is not making it easier for Amaker.

Big 12, 3 of 12 Mike Anderson is a rising star in the coaching profession. His UAB teams were fun and exciting to watch. He has already exceeded expectations at Missouri where he has taken the struggling Quin Snyder players and turned them into a fast-moving up-and-down team. This is just the becoming as he brings in more players that fit his style of play. This is Nolan Richardson-TNG for sure... A surpring choice, Oklahoma decided to scoop up one of the young promising coaches in the industry, VCU's Jeff Capel. This is not an easy job as Oklahoma is recovering from the Kelvin Sampson 500-call sanctions, and it is a football school after all, but it is a good fit for a young aspiring coach like Capel... Ricardo Patton is ending his tenure at Colorado at the end of this season, proving that perhaps staying at the same place for more than 5-6 years back-fires on a coach, unless national championships or final fours are involved.

SEC, 3 of 12. Tubby Smith is in his 10th season at Kentucky, a socio-politically significant hire. Tubby has managed to win, and is one of the classiest and more respectable coaches in the industry. The fans at Kentucky want Final Fours and Championships, and Tubby got them one in 1996, but that's ten years ago. The team had some strong regular seasons, but has not made the Final Four since, stopping at the Elite 8 in 2003, where Arizona and Kentucky were considered the two favorites. As you may recal, the NCAA Selection Cmte was in deep trouble because they had those two teams facing each other in the National Semifinal instead of the Final. But Dwyane Wade and Roy Williams spoiled the party for Arizona and Kentucky, and saved the NCAA Selection Cmte from a major mistake... Dennis Felton is rebuilding Georgia after the Jim Harrick situation, a team that could have made the Final Four had it not been for the extra-curricular activities. Felton's rebuilding is similar to Oliver Purnell's at Clemson. Georgia is having a good season this year, but the big push may come next year as they get older and get even more new recruits that fit Felton's system... Stan Heath is also rebuilding Arkansas, and he is on the verge of a breakout. Already an NCAA trip last year, and NBA early-entry talents in the books, this team is competing in a very deep SEC.

Relevant resource: Black Coaches Association

Monday Digest

I frequently make fun of Dan Bonner's prediction of 9 ACC teams making the NCAA tourney. Well, now Seth Davis has made a very similarly silly prediction: 8 teams out of the Pac-10. Now that's just silly and this is a west-coast priority (*cough* bias *cough*) blog! There's no way all three of these teams make the NCAA tourney: Cal, Stanford and Washington. Cal has to re-prove itself without DeVon Hardin, Washington has to show they can win conference games, and Stanford is going to be judged as both Dr Jerkyl and Mr Hyde ...

The Virginia Tech Coca Cola commercial works! They now managed to beat North Carolina in an almost instant-classic game (It was selected as Game of the Week by ESPN Classic, shown at 6amPT/9amET on ESPN-Classic every Sunday morning). If you are a Hokies fan, make sure you follow the instructions in the Coke commercial and your team will remain undefeated!

Because of the above, CSTV may have to find another TV analyst for their March Madness TV coverage. Seth Greenberg is going to be busy this March!

Two is not always better than one. A couple of teammate pairs in high-school have failed to live up to their very high expectations in college. Remember Joe Crawford and Malik Hairston of Detroit Rennaissance? They were rated very high, but it's only now in their Junior year that they are starting to live up to their hype/potential. The same thing may be happening to Philly teammates Wayne Ellington (rated best HS shooting guard in 2006), and Gerald Henderson. Both are doing okay, but they are not living up to their high rating. Perhaps having two really good players together on the wing makes them look a lot better than they actually are? Something for all the basketball analyst to ...analyze!

Coach K Watch: "You become a leader by making lay-ups". I thought that was one of the prerequisites for being a basketball player even on a Division 3 team!

Great on-going feature by the Three Point Club, a weekly magazine show looking at SEC basketball: Each week they are giving us an insight into the world of Officials. Yes, the Refs, and the Umpires (Vampires), everyone's favorite Zebras! It's Awesome Baby! (Okay, I've overdone the Vitalisms)

"Send it in Jerome!", was featured in ESPN's Gameday at the Zoo in Oakland (Pitt's home court)

Who said free throw defense does not exist? If you want proof, watch the last few seconds of the Stanford at Virgina game. Washington (the player) played great free throw defense. I kid you not! Watch and believe...

Nicely done ESPN feature on Fathers & Sons on the Ewings and the Thompsons at Georgetown.

Jay Bilas got dunked on once again, this time by Aaron Gray

Pitino tries to revitalize his team, so he goes back to his Providence days, a smaller run and gun team, with T-Will (Terrence Williams) playing the 4 spot. According to Pitino he leared all the plays for the 4 spot in just 75 minutes. But who will play the Billy Donovan role? And something non-hardcore Louisville fans may not know: Chris Current was home-schooled. And one more thing: Rumor has it Derrick Caracter is back on campus. More on this later...

Creative feature by Rick Majerus and Dave O'Brien: Dollhouse Analysis. I think Rick Majerus thought the dollhouse was made of Gingerbread and couldn't wait to take a bite ;-)

Thad Matta was coaching injured (back problems), but that hasn't stopped him

UConn managed to win the Doug Wiggins Invitational, this time on the court. Ouch!

GQ segment: Degrading moment for Verne Lindquist according to him: Doing the Hot Bod voice-over commercials during the games. Well, perhaps even more so for Hot Bod having a very mature gentleman advertise something sexy for college-age buyers. Speaking of which, I wonder how many people would actually buy HotBod products if they knew that they are actually made by the same company who makes cheap/generic fragrances.

Karma segment Is it Karma, Yin and Yang, Nirvana? Case in point Maryland: Their men's team beat the only undefeated team in the country, while at the same time, their women's team lost their undefeated status.

Conspiracy Theory Segment: Has anyone seen Gonzaga's Derek Raivio and AND1's "The Professor" in the same room at the same time? Well, anyone??? .... I thought not!

Prep Hoops segment: Derrick Rose is featured in this week's episode of Sports Stars of Tomorrow. Make sure you catch next's week's episode where they will unvailed their first 2007 Top 25 (teams) and look at some of the top prep players. For more details, check their website

TV W2W4: Monday, January 15, 2007

*** all times pacific, add +3 for eastern ***

in-progress, MEAC MLK Day special game on ESPN2, Delaware State vs Maryland Eastern Shore

2pm, Marist vs Siena on Fox College Sports and ESPN Full Court

4pm, Marquette at Louisville on ESPN's Big Monday. A C-USA rivarly now played in the Big East. Prediction: Louisville in double over time, as Pitino-small-ball matches up well with Marquette's line-up, eg T-Will vs Lazar Hayward, Dominic James vs Edgar Sosa, etc, etc...

430pm, 1130pm, 1am: Western Carolina vs Appalachian State, on Fox College Sports

5pm, 930pm, 3am: Lamar vs Sam Houston State on Fox College Sports

6pm, Missouri at Kansas, on ESPN's Big Monday. Prediction: Since Mizzou likes to play up and down, I predict a high-scoring blowout as the Self-Hawks are finding their ...self

9pm, Gonzaga at Saint Mary's, on ESPN's Big Monday. One of the Zags rivals, but after playing a grueling out of conference road/neutral schedule, the Zags are ready for the hostile road games in the WCC. Zags win.


Repeats and Classic Games

11am, from 1998, Kansas vs Missouri on ESPN-Classic. Kudos to ESPN Classic for showing 1.5 classic games per day! (1 full game, and one 1-hour Drive-Thru game; I kid you not with that title).

11am, Washington State at Stanford, an overtime game, on FSN

1pm, ACC Basketball Today, on Fox College Sports

1pm, Portland at Saint Marys on Comcast Sports Net (CSN)

10pm, 1am, Gonzaga at Santa Clara, on Fox College Sports (FCS)

1130pm, Washington at California, another overtime, on CSN

3am, Duke at Miami, on Fox College Sports

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.

Basketball Training Videos, Free, On-Demand

If your cable system has an On Demand feature, you may have free basketball training videos available to you. They have short (5-10 minute) video clips for various categories such as defense, drills, rebounding, etc. These are under "Sports & Fitness", and "Basketball" and under "Sportskool" (or Sports School in regular english).

This is so for Comcast, but I obviously I can't check every cable system in every city/state. YMMV...

TV: Weekend what to watch, Friday thru Sunday, January 12,13,14, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***

Friday, January 12, 2007

One live game, 430pm, repeats at 1am, Lipscomb at Belmont, on Fox College Sports. If the names sound familiar, that's because these are the two teams that met in the Atlantic Sun conference final in 2006. Prediction: Belmont!

Repeats on Fox College Sports: Washington at Stanford (battle of three seven-footers!, Oregon at Arizona State, Oregon State at Arizona.

Classic BYU games on BYU-TV (commercial free!): 2000 BYU vs UNLV, 1998 BYU vs New Mexico


Saturday, January 13, 2007

Game of the day: Clemson at Maryland, exclusively on ESPNU. I do not have access to ESPNU in my TV listings, so I don't have the start time handy. Prediction: Gary Williams make a statement with a 10+ point victory.

8am, ESPN Gameday, morning edition on ESPN2. Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps, Hubert Davis and Reece "Bama" Davis along with the one and only Dookie Vitale!

9am, West Virginia at Marquette on ESPN. Two groups of young and talented players compete. An interesting clash of styles here, promises to be an entertaining game to watch, I have to give the edge to the home team, and predict Dominic James has a field day against the 1-3-1 zone.

10am, Tennessee at Ohio State on CBS. Promises to be a run and gun extravaganza when Oden is not on the floor. Prediction: Ohio State wins in a closely contested game

11am, Kansas at Iowa State on ESPN. Kansas steamrolls and Paris Hilton is in tears!

11am, Hope vs Calvin on CSTV

1130am, Wagner at Saint Francis of PA, on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs

1130am, The Battle of Los Angeles, UCLA at USC, on FSN and Fox College Sports. Prediction: Crystal ball is muddy, I see UCLA with a razor-thin margin. Game-plan wise I predict Tim Floyd will outfox Ben Howland.

1130am, Wisconsin at Northwestern on CSN (Comcast Sports Net)

1230pm, North Carolina at Virginia Tech or Oklahoma at Texas on ABC, with regional coverage.

3pm, Inside College Basketball, brand new 30-minute show, on ABC. Start time will shift if the basketball games take longer than anticipated.

1pm, 930pm, Colorado State at San Diego State on CSTV. Prediction: SDSU comfortably in a barrage of 3-pointers

2pm, Washington at California on CSN. Prediction: Washington by 2.

3pm, 5am, SMU at Houston on CSTV. Prediction: Houston by 20+

330pm, Oregon State at Arizona State on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. Someone has to win, this is not soccer, a draw is not possible. I predict Oregon State in double overtime.

4pm, Washington State at Stanford, on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. Prediction: Wazzu lulls the Lopez twins to sleep and wins 55-52.

5pm, Louisianna Lafayette at Western Kentucky Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. Prediction: Western KY

5pm, ESPN Gameday, the pre-game edition, on ESPN

6pm, GAME DAY GAME! with Dick Vitale, Georgetown at Pittsburgh on ESPN. Prediction: Georgetown wins, Hibbert has a good game, Jeff Green is a major factor, Pitt hits a lot of outside shots. Vitale promotes the Broken Egg three times during the day

7pm, 1030pm, Portland at Saint Mary's on CSN

7pm, 1am, San Diego at Pepperdine on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs

730pm, 7am, UC Irvine Ant Eaters at Pacific on CSTV. The ants are very tasty in Stockton, but I predict a home win.

8pm, Gonzaga at Santa Clara on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. A trap game for the Zags as Dick Davey has been known to bite Top-25 teams (including the 2005 national champions of North Carolina. Prediction: Gonzaga wins

930pm, Midnight Madness, an in-studio recap of the day's games on ESPN. Start time may shift.

ESPN Full Court: Games start at 9am, and the last game starts at 6pm. Total of 18 games! I'm too lazy to type them all out :) Check ESPNPVV.com or the ESPN.com and search for keyword Full Court for exact matchups and airtimes. I believe this is the last day of the free preview (or maybe it was Friday? not 100% sure).



Sunday, January 14, 2007

230pm through 9pm on CSTV, Hoop Hall Classic, a three-game prep basketball tourney, featuring some of the top 100 players in the country. Details at Recruiting Wars

1030am, Illinois at Michigan State on CBS. This game looked good on paper from a national perspective when CBS made the schedule. Now, it's more of a regional and Big-10 type of a game. Prediction: Izzo State wins, barely.

11am, Seton Hall at Notre Dame, the only game on ESPN Full Court

1pm, Nevada at Hawaii, tape-delayed on CSN

2pm, Tip off show on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs

230pm, Duke at Miami, Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. Hot off their W at Maryland, Miami is bold enough and brave enough. Sadly for them, a furious Coach K gets 95-5 of all the 50-50 calls, and Duke wins by 15+. (I want Miami to win)

5pm, Oregon at Arizona, Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. This game could end up 103-102 in regulation, but usually run-and-gun games on paper, don't always materialize. There will be fast-paced action but it will probably be 93-92. Prediction: Hard to go against the Silver Fox in Tuscon. If the score is over 100, then Oregon wins, otherwise Arizona.

That's all folks!

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***

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.




Previewing next week

Student Spirit Week at ESPN, spotlighting students and fans of the game during their various broadcasts

two classic games per day from ESPN Classic.

All-day classic game marathon on Monday on CSTV

UConn at Pitt, North Carolina at possibly undefeated Clemson, Arizona at UCLA, and many many many more

Top 5 2007 player Derrick Rose vs the Oak Hill Academy on ESPN (Thursday)

All you can eat Fridays

I am breaking my record in posts today! Here is the weekly "All You Can Eat Fridays" post...

The Incoherent Segment

It was refreshing to see the Tom Penders weave. Weave action and hoisting random three-pointers while the defense is dazed and confused by all the weave action

Arizona looked a lot different on paper last summer. 10+ talented players, all figuring to be part of the rotation (similar to North Carolina, but not as talented). Fast-forward to right now, Arizona is really a five-man rotation, with three spot-up duty backups (Dillon, Brielmaier, Hill). Absent are JP Prince (transfer), Nic Wise (currently unknown), Kirk Walters (injury). Tangara and Onobun make occasional guest appearances.

Heard on TV: Greg Oden and the Odenettes! (I forgot who said it)


The Negativity Segment

A correction for the all-knowning Billy Packer: The 2005 North Carolina championship team lost to Santa Clara, not Saint Mary's in November 2004. Mark it down, Billy Packer was wrong, during the Virginia at North Carolina broadcast

CJ Giles may have saved Jay John from the hot seat. Who else can get a McDonalds All-American at Corvalis? Even a "broken" one. Ouch!

A tape-delayed congratulations to Cal Tech for losing their ... losing streak.

Truthiness segment: I can't help but feel that Aaron Gray is over-rated :)


Funniest TV analysts - in my opinion, not a scientific study
1. The trio of Bill Raftery, Sean McDonough, and Jay Bilas (ESPN)
2. Marques Johnson (FSN)
3. Bill Raftery (ESPN, CBS)
4. Pete Gillan (or Gillen?) (CSTV)

Weekly preview shows on TV

Are you looking for a 30-minute show to preview the weekend's action? You are in luck! A number of these shows are now available on a national level via digital cable or satellite. If I missed any, please email me, or write them in as a comment below.

Here they are
(all times are pacific; add +3 for eastern):

Gameday, on either ESPN or ESPN2. One hour show previewing the day's action with Vitale, Bilas, Hubert, Digger and Reece.

Basketball Weekly, produced by CSS, it airs on CSTV on Saturday morning and on Fridays on some regional Comcast Sports Nets. Bob Wenzel is the basketball analyst. They cover most of the BCS conference matchups of the week.

The Three Point Club, airs on CSTV early Saturday, and mostly covers upcoming SEC action.

The Big 12 Preview Show, airs on CSTV, Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. The title says it all. Airs on various days/times.

The Drive, airs on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs, on Mondays (locally on Sundays). This covers upcoming games along with the previous week of action. Focuses on the Big 12 mostly, and particularly the three major D1 teams in Kansas (Wichita State, Kansas State, and Kansas)

ACC Basketball Today, on Fox College Sports on Saturday mornings and other times. As the name suggests, it is mostly about the ACC where Dan Bonner can feel comfortable enough to predict 13 teams from the ACC making the NCAA tourney this year ;-).

Inside College Basketball, on ABC. Debuts this week at 3pm. May start a bit later if the live games before it take longer than expected. Not sure exactly what this show will feature, probably a blend of things from other ESPN properties?

Sports fans are also SciFi fans

Limited time sale at Amazon, the DVD sets of the two Frank Herbert's Dune mini-series aired on the SciFi Channel are on sale at Amazon for just $10 each. "Dune" is a three-DVD set special edition director's cut with extensive bonus features.

"Children of Dune" is a two-DVD set. At $10 each, the price is very good, and will go up in a few days.

The Big 12 vs the Pac 10 Challenge is for real!

The work-in-progress negatiations between the Big XII and the Pac X (ha!) resulted in a real event, starting with the 2007-2008 season.

Initially when they mentioned 12 games I thought that the challenge would include two other west coast teams along with the 10 from the Pac-10 to match up with the 12 teams of the Big 12. For example, they could have added Gonzaga or UNLV or San Diego State. But instead they went in a different direction.

The series is a four year contract, with 12 games, 10 of which will happen in a 4-day extravaganza, and two more games in the preseason. Arizona and Stanford will play two games in the challenge, in both the 4-day event and the bonus games. The games will repeat in 2008-2009 at the home court of the away teams.

The biggest matchups are Arizona at Kansas (no Roy Williams though), Texas at UCLA (Kevin Love but probably no Kevin Durant), Texas A&M at Arizona, and Oregon at Kansas State (Michael Beasley and Billy Walker)

Television coverage will be announced at a later date according to the press release. Perhaps they are hoping for a bidding war between CBS, ESPN and FSN :-) This explains why the games are Thursday thru Sunday, and includes the first weekend of CBS coverage in the season. Not sure if they will go for an exclusive contract with one TV partner, or sell the games one by one or as single-day package or weekend vs weekday package.


Here are some links and reaction to this:

KUsports.com

AOL Sports Blog

ESPN

Official Pac 10 website

Thank you Friends of Air Force Basketball.org for the link!

Thanks to the Friends of Air Force Basketball website for the link! Their website covers all things Air Force basketball. They also feature a comprehensive list of college basketball links.

If you have not seen Air Force play this year, make sure you watch at least one Air Force game on TV, as they play one of the purest forms of basketball: passing, cutting, reading the defense, with unselfish teamwork. If you have watched Arizona's starting five in their half-court when they are passing, cutting and reading the defense, this is similar to the AF style of play, without the McDonalds recruits. The games are regionally available on the "mtn", and nationally on Versus (formerly OLN) and CSTV.

Clemson Mania on ESPNU!

Clemson's Saturday game at Maryland will be shown exclusively on ESPNU on Saturday, January 13, 2007. After Maryland's home loss to royalty-free Miami (Anthony King is out), Clemson's chances for remaining undefeated just went up. (Unless of course you subscribe to the theory that Maryland will be really jazzed up after a loss). Once upon a time Maryland and Gary Williams were Duke's Nemesis, but ever since the national championship era, Maryland has been struggling, part of it being the success of the program gave all the assistant coaches head-coaching jobs, with Gary Williams rebuilding not just with the players, but also with the assistant coaches.

If you want to watch this game, and your cable/satellite provider (such as Comcast), does not carry ESPNU, please call them and demand that they add ESPNU to their line-up. They got tired of hearing it from me :-) Also let ESPN know, since there seems to be some sort of issue that prevents this from happening.

Memo to Comcast and ESPN: Add ESPNU now!

Winningest active college coaches (as of right now)

My numbers may not be 100% accurate, but here are the winningest active college coaches in men's NCAA basketball division 1:

1. Bob "Never Nervous" Knight, 882
2. Lute "Silver Fox" Olsen, 773
3. Coach "AMEX" ShoeChefSki K, 766 (Thank you Georgia Tech for keeping him at 766)
4. Jim "Serene" Calhoun, 745
5. Jim "2-3 Zone" Boeheim, 738

PS> Only one of the above nick names is real. Guess which one :)


There are two trends of interest in the last couple of seasons:
1) Coach K is catching up on Lute Olson
2) Calhoun is pulling ahead of Boeheim

Thank you Paul Hewitt!

Thank you Paul Hewitt for beating the Dookies! I knew I could count on you for at least one W over the Dookies.

Thank you Georgia Tech players, students, fans, alumni, cheerleaders, parking attendants, secretaries, professors, fellows, janitors, and everyone else!

Go Rumblin Wreck! Go Yellow Jackets!

This is even more so exciting because Duke not only lost two back to back games, but they also lost two games they would have won in any other year.

So let us celebrate a victory for college basketball and fair and square competition, and an end to Duke Favoritism by the NCAA!

TV: Thursday, January 11, 2007, what to watch?

*** all times pacific ***

11am: from 1984, StJohns vs Seton Hall on ESPN-Classic

4pm: StJohns vs Seton Hall on ESPN, Prediction: The 1984 game is probably more fun!

5pm, 930pm: Xavier at Fordham on CSTV. Atlantic-10 (14) action, with Xavier getting a hard-fought and hard-earned victory on the road facing the tough Fordham team. CSTV is picking up A-10 games this season, and with CSTV's co-operation with Comcast, we may eventually see A-10 games on standard cable (Versus). CSTV and Comcast are already doing this with "mtn" games of the Mountain West. Similarly this may happen to C-USA games. These are forward looking speculations on my part, by the way...

530pm: Oregon State at Arizona, on FSN and Fox College Sports. Prediction: Arizona but not by a blowout. Jay John is a former Silver Fox assistant, so he'll pull back once they reach a margin of 40+ ;-)

6pm: Game of the Day, on ESPN, Memphis at UAB. Mike Davis almost managed to beat Florida on road-neutral in the Orange Bowl. I predict almost beating Memphis as well :)

730pm, Oregon at Arizona State on FSN and Fox College Sports. Prediction: Oregon by 10+, with 10+ 3-pointers made

730pm, Washington at Stanford on FSN and Fox College Sports, although the listings on this one are a bit sketchy. This is sad if the game of Spencer Hawas and Jon Brockman vs the Lopez Twins is not televised. Come on FSN, what are you smoking? :-) Prediction: Washington in double overtime.

930pm, 930am tomorrow: College Game Night on ESPN. Start time may be shifted.

Who wants to buy Oliver Purnell DVDs?

The Clemson coach is starting to become a star as his team continues to remain undefeated after 3 games in the ACC. Just today ESPN News had an interview with Coach Purnell on their signature show, The Hot List. Not just the coach, but the Energy Brothers are now starting to become known on a national level.

Clemson's schedule at KenPom's site

Their best wins so far: Mississippi State, @Old Dominion, Georgia, @Minnessota (coach-firing blowout) and @South Carolina

Conference wins: @Florida State, Georgia Tech, NC State

Now if they can beat Duke, Carolina, Maryland or Boston College, they'll make a believer out of me. Jay Bilas has been on record stating that this year this is a very good team.

I have only seen them play for half a half so far, so I don't have enough data for a personal opinion...

Rumor-speculation: Andy Katz on Tony Bennett

Andy Katz Rumor-Speculation
Andy Katz, ESPN's multimedia star, mentioned this rumor-speculation during the Hot List on ESPN-News: Tony Bennett of Washington State may be one and done! The current Minnessota AD is a friend of the Bennetts. Doug Gotlieb mentioned that there could be another job opening in the Big 10 this summer, a college that starts with M.... (eeeeecheeegan). Jay Bilas was not there to defend Tommy Amaker :)

My take
It may be hard to convince the peoples of Minnessota on the Tony Bennett hire. That's because of the "Dan Monson effect". He was coaching down the street from Tony Bennett, at Gonzaga, just miles away from the Washington State campus.

As far as Tommy Amaker is concerned, the "deciders" at Ann Arbor may be happy with him as a coach-teacher, since this is after all a college, and not the NBA. But I think he has to make it to the NCAA this year, otherwise it may be hard even for the people who like Tommy Amaker to defend his record. But the "deciders" at Ann Arbor may decide to keep him regardless... In 8 out of 10 other universities he would have been gone by now, so (I guess) kudos to the Ann Arbor "deciders" for rewarding his teacher-coach performance, not just wins and losses. However, when you compare Amaker's performance on the court with Thad Matta at Ohio State, a bitter rival of Meeecheeegan, well, ...

Thanks to A Sea of Blue!

Thanks to a A Sea of Blue for the link on their website. A Sea of Blue is a website covering Big Blue sports, but they have information of interest not just to Kentucky basketball fans, but also of interest to SEC and college basketball fans overall. Their latest posts include a Power Rating analysis of the teams in the SEC, and a recruiting update on the latest KY signees as well as some of the top unsigned players, such as Huntington, W.Va's Patrick Patterson, and Jai Lucas (yes, son of John Lucas, and brother of the 2004 Final Four Oklahoma State Lucas).

TV: Tuesday and Wednesday January 9 and 10, 2007

*** all times pacfic *** add +3 for eastern time ***

All apologies for the lateness of this post. Blogger was having some maintenance that lasted longer than anticipated (don't they always?).


Tuesday, January 9, 2007

4pm, Arkansas at Florida on ESPN. They may be down during the 1st half, but when the game is over Florida will have another comfortable W.

4pm, West Virginia at Notre Dame on ESPN2. John Beilein has made a believer out of me, but Notre Dame will win at home, but it won't be an easy one.

6pm, GAME OF THE DAY: Ohio State at Wisconsin on ESPN, with Dick Vitale. Hard to beat the Badgers at home, and they have plenty of depth so they won't be worn down by the Thad Matta express. I give Wisconsin the edge.

6pm, LSU at Alabama on ESPN2. Big Baby on TV!. Common sense says Alabama wins, but I'm gonna go with Big Baby and the Dale Brown Tigers!

940pm, repeats 940am tomorrow: College Gamenight, ESPN. Start time usually gets pushed back depending on the live games before it.

ESPN Full Court is FREE this week, but no games scheduled for tonight


Wednesday, January 10, 2007

repeats: 940am College Gamenight, ESPN

1991 classic game, Duke at Georgia Tech on ESPN Classic

4pm, Marquette at UConn, on CSN and ESPN Full Court. Two young, raw but very talented teams. Advantage: Home team

4pm, Pitt at DePaul on ESPN2. DePaul wins! DePaul wins!

4pm, Duke at Georgia Tech on ESPN. Paul Hewitt's squad will need a comfortable advantage to make up for the 80-20 Duke-favored calls made by the refs. I really want Georgia Tech to win! :-)

5pm,9pm,1am: East Carolina at Tulsa, C-USA action on CSTV. Prediction: Home team

6pm, Oklahoma State at Kansas on ESPN2. Win the games or win the press conference?. A contrast here, as Bill Self is the charming, media-savvy and media-friendly coach, while Sean Sutton is on the other end of the spectrum. But Sean Sutton has won a lot more games than he was supposed to, while Bill Self has lost a handful of games he was supposed to win... Kansas fans probably won't like this paragraph, but I'll sugarcoat it by predicting a Kansas win :-)

6pm, Syracuse at Rugers on CSN and ESPN Full Court

7pm, 11pm, 3am, 7am, UNLV at Wyoming, Mountain West action on CSTV.

1040pm, repeats 940am tomorrow: College Gamenight on ESPN

ESPN Full Court FREE PREVIEW!, seven games, starting at 5pm, including Iowa at Illinois, Northwestern at Izzo State, Auburn at Kentucky, Missouri at Texas, Syracuse at Rutgers, Marquette at UConn and Virginia at North Carolina (BEEP-BEEP alert: Sean Singletary vs Tywon Lawson!)

*** all times pacfic *** add +3 for eastern time ***

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.

Congratulations Florida Gators!

Congratulations Florida Gators, college basketball, and now college football National Champions! Well done Urban Legend!

Monday Digest

With college football about to crown its champion tonight (or at least the BCS champion since it's not decided on the field), college basketball is alive and kicking...


ESPN Gameday Revisited

Hubert Davis is a rising star on ESPN, as he was added to the ESPN Gameday Road Crew. His signature word is "outstanding" as he uses it in every segment he is on. And he is not a Dookie :-)

Jay Bilas felt like he was playing in college gain: He got dunked on by Big Baby.

Digger Phelps opened up his wallet and offered to pay for the books of an LSU student attempting to hit a half-court $10,000 shot

Funny "Cribs" segment on Big Baby with Andy Katz. I hope the beauraucrats at the NCAA don't consider Big Baby drinking his muddy nutritional supplement "Alive" as a commercial endorsement (or his favorite movie soundtracks).

You can never have too many point guards. Case in point North Carolina: They have three, yet two of them went down with injuries at about the same time.

Dickie V and his family were sitting around the TV, crying, after Notre Dame got owned by LSU in football. I kid you not, Dickie V said that :)

Dumb, dumb move by Stanley Robinson of UConn. Taunting Big Baby was not only un-sportsman-like, but it was also stupid. Maybe that's why he was left off the McDonalds team? His team lost the game, yes, lost the game, so he went into TO mode and looked like a total idiot.



Random, incoherent thoughts

One way ticket purchased: Mike Jones (Syracuse), Mark Egerson (Georgetown)

Funny graphic by FSN portraying Roy Williams as a Chef, narrated by Mike Gminski

New weekly 30-minute college basketball show to debut on ABC, on Saturday January 13, 2007. The name: Inside College Basketball.

Congratulations to Tubby Smith: His players got the highest GPA average in Tubby's coaching career in the Fall of 2006 semester. (This according to Tubby Smith on his Coaches show)

OJ Mayo made a Top 10 appearance with an acrobatic fastbreak score during his ESPNU game.

Deron Washington cleared Greg Paulus as he jumped over him. If this was high-jump in the Olympics, it would have been a valid attempt! Take that Dookies!

Do you really think Virginia Tech could beat Duke without the Coca Cola commercial? I think not :-) If you haven't seen the Virginia Tech student Coke commercial, you may not get it. I'm sure its posted on the Coke site or YouTube, if you missed it... Keep up the good work Hokies!

Lavin and Brent Masburger almost got in trouble with the ...Cornjerkers (Thad Matta connection)


TV Wars

Cable TV Wars: Comcast moved FSN+ from its standard cable slot to digital cable. In its place Comcast is showing its own CSN+. This is what happens when service providers become content providers.

I wonder how the FSN executives felt during the ACC Sunday Night Hoops broadcasts when they saw that the big halfcourt ad for ...Comcast Sports Net!


Rants

Memo to Comcast and ESPN: Please work it out and add ESPNU to your cable systems already!

I am upset about the misuse of the word "upset". And the people who misuse it are not basketball people. They are play-by-play guys (Tim Brando is notorious for his non-basketball-savvy comments), highlight anchors (Sportscenter, FSN Final Score, local sports editors, etc), and casual/seasonal basketball fans. They think that an upset is every time a lower ranked (or non-ranked) team beats a higher ranked team. Jay Bilas has pointed out this issue repeatedly but it's falling on deaf ears. Maybe ESPN can get all their people together and have Jay Bilas lecture them. Oregon beating UCLA in Eugene, Oregon, in a conference game is not an upset. North Dakota State beating Wisconsin at the Kohls center is an upset.

How do you select the "Player of the Year" and the "Freshman of the Year"? This is a multiple choice question:
A) The player who played the best as of right now (eg Alando Tucker, Kevin Durant)
B) The player projected to have the best season by the end of the season
C) The player projected to have the best career after he completes his college eligiblity
D) The player projected as an NBA player in the NBA Draft (eg Greg Oden)
E) The player's projected impact and achievements during his future NBA career

Classic Quote by eponymous: "I took a paycut when I went to the NBA".

What to watch: Monday January 8,2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***

LIVE GAMES!

4pm, Everybody loves George Mason! as they host UNC-Wilmington on ESPN Full Court, free preview this week! Prediction: George MASON! George MASON!

4pm, more CAA action on Fox College Sports, as Old Domininion visits Hofstra. Prediction: Hofstra.

430pm, NY-action as Saint Francis of New York visits Long Island also on Fox College Sports. No prediction.

5pm, Big Monday debut! on ESPN, Villanova at Georgetown. Prediction: Georgetown, comfortably...

7pm, The Battle of the BOBs!, on ESPN, Bob Knight visits Bob Huggins for a cup of coffee and bundt cake. Predicton: If Billy Walker plays at full strength, Kansas State, otherwise, Bob Tech wins (ooops! Texas Tech)

9pm, WCC action on the Deuce! (ESPN2). Once upon a time these games were the battle for 1st place in the WCC. They may become that again in the future, but for now Pepperdine is struggling and they will lose to the Zags.

1020pm, College Gamenight on ESPN. Start time may change...


Repeats or Tape-Delayed
* 5pm, Colorado State at New Mexico on CSTV. A chance to watch 7-footer Jason Smith of Colorada State vs Bill Self disgruntlee JR Giddens.
* 8pm, Florida State at North Carolina on Fox College Sports.
* 9pm, Arizona State at Washington, on Fox College Sports.
* 11pm, USC at Oregon State, on Fox College Sports. (a blowout!)

Business news affecting three regional FSNs

Three regional FSNs (Northwest, Rocky Mountain and Pittsburgh) may change hands by the wheeling and dealing between Liberty Media and Rubert Murdock's News Corp what could be a blockbuster trade involving DirecTV. Details here and here

Thank you Oregon!

Thank you Nike Ducks for beating the wrestlemania UCLA Bruins! Maybe this will serve as a wake-up call to control freak Ben Howland and allow the kids to play basketball, not play wrestlemania with occasional fastbreak points. This is really a shame to turn the storied UCLA program into wrestlemania! So a big thank you to the Oregon players, students, fans, coaches, and alumni for this win :-)

Thank you Virginia Tech!

Thank you Virginia Tech for beating the smug-fest called Duke Basketball! The smug-cloud was so dense, the fire marshall ordered the doors of Cameron Indoor Stadium to be kept open at all times. With the doors open, and the smug-cloud evaporating, the Hokies were able to BEAT DUKE! this time around, after two very very very close games last year. Thank you Seth Greenberg! Thank you Virginia Tech players, students, fans and alumni! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies! Go Hokies!

OTL Sunday: Home schooling and sports!

Sunday's edition of Outside the Lines deals with the issue of home schooling and participation in sports. A preview at the OTL website.

All you can eat Fridays!

Jeff Goodman has a story at FoxSports on Lewis Clinch, and the honor code at Georgia Tech. And you can keep track with all the transfers here

JP Prince is transferring to Vandy, not Memphis and not Tennessee. Perhaps he realized that he would get a lot more PT there, plus the Princeton-esque style of oaf-fense may be more suited for a tall wannabe point-guard.

The free throw defense was horrible during the Arizona at Washington game. They made almost every single free throw :-)

ESPN, please stop trying to be like CNN. What is up with interrupting live games with the silly 30-30 update and now with the "Screening Center". You might as well call it "The Situation Room" and hire Wolf Blitzer! If you can't afford Cafferty, Jay Bilas is tall enough to play "The Bilas File".

The other day I had a brilliant thought on how to make NBA games more meaningful!. Borrow a page from soccer, and send the last team in the Eastern and Western Conferences to the NBDL for one season. Yes, good old relegation!. That would make every game meaningful!. Or perhaps send them to Europe to compete in the Euroleague...

Cable Sports Wars? With cable companies getting more and more involved in content, fans may be the ones to lose. Comcast already has assembled the Golf channel, Versus (formerly OLN), and Comcast Sports Net. Cox Sports is also increasing their involvement in sports, with some tourneys only available on Cox networks. Given the geographic monopolies of cable companies and their unlikeliness of co-operation, we may have national-level games not airing because of cable wars. This is something to watch out for...

Is ESPNU the official flagship of the NC State tv network? It feels like all of their games are there! Perhaps because ESPNU is in Charlotte? :)

Lavin on Tom Izzo: He is the Joe Pesci of basketball coaches.

Lavin looks younger than Greg Oden. This may explain why Lavin kept calling him "Mr Oden" during the Indiana at Ohio State game.

Very funny basketball Gameday TV teaser running on the ESPN family of networks. The Gameday crew is having lunch at a cafeteria and Jay Bilas keeps getting abused. Why? Because they are in Chappel Hill! I'm sure someone must have uploaded it to YouTube by now.

Five years is a reasonable time for a coach before they get on the hot seat: Jay John at Oregon State (partially because the Bennetts managed to turnaround Washington State, but he is still struggling), and Ritchie McKay at New Mexico. More coming soon ...

Washington's Quincy Pondexter will be very popular at FatWallet.com. His nickname is ...Q-Pon

Can they sing? Maurice Gibbs of UAB and Tony Bennett of Washington State...

Florida is slowly but steadily discovering that they are the opponent's game of the year. UAB almost got them at the basketball Orange Bowl...

Nevada has the Zags numbers in the Key Arena. Another beatdown in the Battle of Seattle got Mark Few scared enough to say "I don't want to play them again this season".

Thank you Marques Johnson for standing up to the ACC Sunday Night Hoops homers! Dan Bonner's prediction of 9 ACC teams in the NCAA tourney this year makes Steve Lavin's prediction of 6 from the Pac-10 seem rather reasonable...

Memo to West Virginia: Make John Belein a professor!. Increase his salary! Tie him up! This season is showing everyone how good he is. And now as he shows he can win with athletic players, the big-name BCS schools will come calling with the seven figures and the Final Four promises. I am not saying he will or should leave...

"He broke my limits". Is that a description of an S&M relationship or Coach K referring to Bob Knight (or both?)

Bob Knight is very media-savvy despite his frequent outbursts with the media. He gave major props to Dick Vitale during the #880 celebration and wanted Dickie V in the basketball hall of fame. This managed to get Dickie V speechless and on the verge of tears...

Why does it feel like players have been around for ever? Because of increased TV coverage. Now almost every game (at least in the BCS conferences) is on TV. Ten years ago may be you saw a team 5 times a year, now it's 15 times. So obviously it feels like players have been around for a long time...

Jay Bilas is a close friend of Tommy Amaker. As a lawyer, he should be making this disclaimer every time he defends the on-court failure of the Tommy Amaker era at Michigan. Let's not forget Thad Matta inherited a big mess at Ohio State, yet he managed to turn them into a Final Four contender and signed two back-to-back Top 5 recruiting classes. What has Tommy Amaker done?

Definition of stick-to-it-ive-ness: In a single play, Ivan Radenovic got blocked twice by the Lopez twins, but he tried a third time, this time getting a basket.

Is Mustafa Shakur having a Jason Terry senior season metamorphosis? He is no longer a member of the Moody Blues, perhaps because the other band members have graduated or they are sidelined (Salim Stoudamire, Chris Rodgers, Hassan Adams, Kirk Walters)?

Nick Robinson is back on the bench at Stanford as a member of the staff. His all-around hard play is rubbing off already: Fred Washington should win the Nick Robinson award this season!

Who is this year's recipient of the Tyler Hansbrough older freshman award? Taj Gibson at USC, he is at least 21. Some could argue that it should be Greg Oden because he looks old/mature, but he's just a kid! Insert Greg Escherick's tirade of "He's just a kid" right here!

College coaches records are misleading. It is time we started calculated a career RPI and SOS that goes along with the winning percentage. Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim may not like this :)

There should be a throwback appreciation award for all-around players who never take plays off, and do whatever it takes to win, such as Pendergraft (aka Pendo) of Gonzaga and Fred Washington of Stanford.

Great first year coaches, but then disaster: Matt Doherty and Mike Davis. Is it a coincidence that they have the same initials? :-)

Why isn't Florida on TV more often? They are the defending national champions with everyone back! Even their game against FSU didn't get any reruns, even though Fox College Sports reruns everything about a million times.

In case you haven't figured, this is a west coast priority blog!

Come back next Friday for another burst of nonsense :-)

TV what to watch: The first weekend in January 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for east coast times ***
*** this is a west coast priority blog! ***
*** some predictions are on the wild side ***


Friday, January 5, 2007

12pm, Arizona at Washington repeat on FSN. Great high-scoring up and down game!

430pm, 9pm: Utah vs UNLV on CSTV (taped). This is a double overtime game. You may recall highlights from this game on Sportscenter and FSN's Final Score. It included a "soccer fan" throwing something on the court and hitting an employee.

5pm to 11pm on BYU-TV (religious channel): Two classic BYU games from 1979 against LaSalle, and 2002 against UNLV. Both games repeat one after the other. Commercial free!


Saturday, January 6, 2007
* Very busy day! Cancel your appointments, tune up your TiVos and VCRs! *

Women's Triple Header on CBS!

8am, ESPN Gameday morning edition, on ESPN2. One hour long.

9am, Virginia Tech at Duke on ESPN. Go Hokies! I am tempted to do a Reece Davis and sing their fight song and then post it as an mp3 ;-) Prediction: Duke. Hope for: Virginia Tech! Beat those smug Dookies!!!

10am, 10pm, 3am: Fordham at Richmond on CSTV. A10 action (A14 really). Prediction: Fordham by 3

1030am: Oklahoma at Texas Tech on CSN. Prediction: Bob Knight gets 881! I will be having a short tribute on Bob Knight's record in the next couple of days.

11am: ACC Basketball Today on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs

11am, Ohio State at Illinois on ESPN. Game of the Day!. Can the Illini next-gen stop Greg Oden and the sharpshooters? Bruce Weber has the beef inside, but can they? Prediction: Ohio State, comfortably (but not numb)

11am, UCLA at Oregon on FSN and Fox College Sports. This was supposed to be the battle of the undefeated. But Tim Floyd spoiled the fun and will probably cause FSN lower ratings. But Oregon will be very motivated to showcase their new found glory by un-undefeating the wrestlemania Bruins. I want Oregon to win, but i'm afraid the Wrestlemania Bruins will win :-(

1230pm, UNLV at Air Force on Versus. A double-header on the Comcast-owned channel (found on standard cable in most places). Two teams that are doing it with fundamentals. Even if you don't watch this game live, tape it if you are a hardcore fan of the game. Prediction: Crystal ball is muddy

1pm, 630pm: LMU Lions at GoneZaga, WCC action on Fox College Sports. The Zags are smarting after a 4-game losing streak, a first in the Mark Few era, where losses are ...few and ...marked on the schedule. Okay enough bad puns. Prediction: LMU pulls the upset and gets revenge for the close losses of last year.

1pm, 5am: Holy Cross at Lafayette on CSTV.

230pm: SDSU at BYU on Versus. The 2nd part of their Mountain West double-header. Two more solid teams. The Mountain West is trying to return to its glory days where it was fighting off C-USA for the 7th best conference. Long before the Missouri Valley Conference was the new darling conference, even among the haters *cough* Billy Packer *cough*

3pm USC at Oregon State on Fox College Sports and FSN. Fresh after defeating the then undefeated Nike Ducks, USC lets it get to their head and loses to Oregon State, slightly cooling off the hot seat for Jay John.

3pm, Citadel at Oakland on Fox College Sports in Mid-Con action. Mid-majors!

3pm, 12am, 7am: Marshall at George Washington on CSTV. No longer trendy, GW can fly under the radar once again. No Mike Jarvis and no Alexander Kool.

5pm, 9pm: Arizona State at Washington on Fox College Sports. Finally the Huskies get their first Pac-10 win. They will probably take it out on the NC State Sun Devils ;-)

5pm, ESPN gameday pre-game edition on ESPN2 actually. One hour long.

6pm ESPN Gameday game: UConn at LSU. The whole circus will be there, Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas, Reece Davies, Digger Domer Phelps, and rookie (but not Dookie) Hubert Davis.

7pm, 7am: Arizona at Washington State on Fox College Sports. Other than UCLA, this team probably has a good chance of beating the Wildcats. Prediction: Wazzu wins 65-64 and they storm the court!

730pm, 1030pm: St Marys at Santa Clara in WCC action on CSN.

930pm, Midnight Madness on ESPN. This appears to be a new name for College GameNight on Saturdays. Debut!

High school games as well
A triple header on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs from Minnessoooota:

10am: St Margaret (MN) vs Taft (CA)

12pm: Hopkins (MN) vs Campbell Hall (CA)

2pm: Lake Hall (MN) vs Lake Oswego (Oregon). Kevin Love is playing!. For those not familiar, Kevin Love is one of the top 5 players of the 2007 class and he is heading to UCLA.


ESPN Full Court FREE PREVIEW

First game starts at 9am and they continue through the day

Big East: Notre Dame at Georgetown, DePaul at Nova, StJohns at West Virginia, Seton Hall at Dunkin Donuts (Providence)

Big Ten: Penn State at Purdue, Meeeecheeeegan at Northwestern, Minnesssooooota at Wisconsin

SEC: Georgia at Florida, Alabama at Arkansas, Vandy (JP Prince is coming!) at Auburn, Kentucky at Ole Miss (the first Ole Miss national-access TV game this year?)

Big12: Oklahoma at Texas Tech, Texas at Colorada, Iowa state at Missouri, Kansas State (Billy Walker!) at Texas A&M. This could be a major blowout!

ACC: BC at NCState



Sunday, January 7, 2007
* Wow I still haven't written 2006! remember, all times are pacific

130pm, Kansas at South Carolina on CBS. Bill Self wants to give Dave Odom a chance at a quality win. He will take it! South Carolina wins! (yeah right!)

130pm, Tip Off Show on FSN and Fox College Sports

2pm Stanford at Virginia, on FSN and Fox College Sports. After beating Arizona and the Zags, Virginia should be able to beat Stanford. But then again, this team lost to Appalachian State and got blown out by Utah, and barely beat a non-D1 team in Puerto Rico. Prediction: Stanford pulls the upset (or loses by 20)

4pm, Florida State at North Carolina on FSN and Fox College Sports. After losing at home to Clemson, a win here would be very very nice at FSU. They may win the first half, they may win the "3rd quarter", but they are not winning the game :)

5pm, Syracuse at Marquette on CSN and ESPN Full Court. Promising game on paper. Prediction: Marquette, comfortably.

Other ESPN Full Court games: South Florida at overrated Pitt, Mississippi State at Tennessee, Rutgers at Cincy (fighting for a spot at MSG (the Big East tourney))


**** That's all folks ****

ESPN Full Court one week preview starts tomorrow!

If you are a hoops junkie and you don't subscribe to ESPN Full Court, you have a whole week to get a free one week preview of Full Court, starting January 5, 2007. I presume this will be available on cable and satellite systems where the pay per view package is available (eg the channels will be unblocked for a whole week). I do not know if the free preview will be available online as well.

This pay per view package costs around $100 per year (depending on when you sign up), and a bit less as we get closer to March Madness...

Thanks to NCAA Hoops Heaven!

Thanks to NCAA Hoops Heaven for the link. NCAA Hoops Heaven is a new NCAA college basketball blog. Their latest post takes a look at the fall of inner-state hierarchies.

Thursday January 4, 2007: TV what to watch!

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern times ***

Grab your remotes, plenty of games tonite!

Note: The predictions are frequently wild and should be considered contrarian indicators. Unless they involve Virginia :-)


LIVE GAMES!

4pm, Pitt at Syracuse on ESPN2, in a Big East neo-rivarly game. Prediction: Syracuse.

430pm: Marquette at Providence on CSN and ESPN Full Court. Prediction: Marquette by 18, with Dominic James scoring 31.

5pm: IUPUI at Oakland on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs. Mid majors on the tube!

530pm, USC at Oregon on ESPN Full Court. One of the last three undefeated teams! The ESPN Full Court FREE one week PREVIEW begins January 5. I can guarantee you that by Sunday there will be a max of two undefeated teams. This is not a prediction, this is a money-back guarantee - unless the UCLA-Oregon game gets postponed :-)

6pm: Cincy at Memphis, on ESPN2. Prediction: A blow-out, 20+, for the Vance Walberg offense.

6pm, Michigan State at Iowa on ESPN. A grinder in the making or a neo-Big10 fast-paced game? Prediction: Izzo State wins!

730pm, Arizona at Washington on Fox College Sports, regional FSNs, and FSN+. Game of the Day!. The youth of the Huskies at home versus the fast-forward Princeton offense (what?) of Arizona. Prediction: Arizona in double over-time.

930pm, season debut of College Gamenight on ESPN. Formerly known as College Hoops Tonight. The start time may shift depending on the live games before it. Repeats at 930am tomorrow.



Repeats
* many repeats on Fox College Reports. Check local listings as these tend to be all over the place



*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern times ***

On TV, Wednesday January 3, 2007

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern time ***

Outside the Lines: Nick Saban's final answer. Not basketball, but it's a cliffhanger soap :-)

LIVE GAMES!

4pm: Kansas State vs Xavier on ESPN2. Catch a glimpse of highly touted Billy Walker, OJ Mayo's teammate. Prediction: Kansas State in a close game

430pm: Villanova at West Virginia on CSN and ESPN Full Court. Promising game on paper, with two exciting teams to watch. Lock up John Beilein West Virginia! The multi-million contract offers are going to be flying his way after he proves this year that he can win big with his system and more athletic players. Prediction: Crystal ball is muddy...

5pm: Penn at North Carolina, on ESPN. This game redefines "not even close". NC will score 90+ but under 100.

6pm: Gonzaga at Virginia on ESPN2. When you have a nice new shiny arena, you want to bring in the stars. And the Zags continue to be a mid-major star-darling. Have the Zags been worned out? Remember they are playing without four players that they are supposed to be part of their rotation. Prediction: Gonzaga wins comfortably.

630pm: CAA action! Hofstra at UNC Wilmington on Fox College sports and regional FSNs

7pm: California at Stanford on FSN and Fox College Sports. The Battle for NoCal. On paper Stanford should win with 20+. But in a local rivarly game anything is possible...

8 games on ESPN Full Court starting at 3pm

Reruns
* a number of reruns on Fox College Sports...




*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern time ***

How about some good news?

Bad news involving student-athletes always make the front page or the headline news. But there's also a lot of good news, a lot of good and charitable work being done by student athletes and people involved with NCAA sports. A brand new blog, Good News In College Sports will be covering all things good, including all NCAA divisions as well as NAIA. The Good News in College sports blog will try to emphasize the good news stories that often get buried in the mainstream and even Internet media.

Tuesday January 2nd, 2007: TV what to watch!

Two games today, all times pacific:

4pm, Temple at Duke on ESPN2. Go Temple! Prediction: Duke 52-39

5pm, Indiana at Ohio State on ESPN. Prediction: Ohio State and Greg Oden's first triple-double. I predict that everytime he plays :-) correction!!!! I previously wrote Ohio State at Illinois, this game will be played on Saturday, not today! All apologies for any confusion caused by this!

three games on espn full court, free one week preview starts january 5, 2007
*** all times pacific, add +3 for eastern time
*** happy new year!