2007-2008 USA Today Sports Weekly College Basketball Preview review

Thanks to Rush the Court for alerting me about the publication of the new 2007-2008 USA Today/USA Sports Weekly College Basketball Preview Special Edition. Check for it at your local newsstands. The cover price is $4.95, and it is printed on thick newspaper-type paper with some color pictures. It is more like Barron's in size and style than The USA Today (the daily multicolor fishwrap).

Let's start from the end. Spoiler alert! The TV schedule for both men's and women's basketball games is printed in decent size font. It starts on November 5, 2007 and ends on April 3, 2008 with the NIT Final Four. And boy is the schedule loaded this season! Not only do we have new events (Big12 vs Pac10, SEC vs Big East, OJ Mayo Classic, Puerto Rico TipOff, etc), we also have the brand new Big Ten Network (BTN) and The Mtn and Versus are increasing their coverage. Channels included in the TV listings: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, CBS, ABC, FSN, Versus, CSTV, BTN, The Mtn. Channels not included: Fox College Sports, ESPN Full Court (pay per view package), regional networks (Lincoln Financial, Jefferson Pilot, etc - or whatever their new names are).

If you are a hoops junkie. you may need a second TiVo to keep up! Okay that may be overkill, but here are some of your options for recording college basketball games on TV.

And now that we got the TV schedule out of the way, let's see what goodies we have in this preview:

The cover features a split-screen of OJ Mayo and Kevin Love trying to look mean. At the top of the cover, in a tiny picture, Psycho T squeezes the air out of a basketball. Is that a recap of last year's season for North Carolina? :) Ouch!

Conference previews: The six BCS conferences and Calipari's Conference USA get a two-page conference preview each. The tier #1 mid-major conferences (A10, Big Sky, Big West, Horizon (now with Valpo), MAC, MVC, MWC, Ohio Valley, Sun Belt, WAC and West Coast) get a full page each. The remaining conferences get half a page each. The Colonial once again should feel dissed since they are in the 2nd tier, not the 1st tier, despite George Mason to the Final Four, the VCU Duke Slayers, and solid seasons from Hofstra, UNC Wilmington and such. Especially considering some of the other mid-major conferences included in the first tier (Big Sky? Big West? OVC? Sun Belt? Horizon? MAC?) but not the Colonial? Come on multi-color fishwrap, wake up and smell the fish!

Memphis gets a two-page preview as the fishwrap's #1 team. The other top teams are receiving one page full previews: Georgetown, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State, North Carolina, Tennessee and UCLA and USC. Rosters are included for these eight teams, but not the jersey numbers. The remaining teams get short previews in their respective conference's preview.

A three page feature on Kevin Love and OJ Mayo that also moonlights as a UCLA and USC preview.

A two page preview on the Rutgers women's team with a giant picture of center Kia Vaughn screaming (at Don Imus?)

A three-page general interest men's college basketball national preview

One page spotlight of the top 10 freshmen. Well, make it nine, sadly Chris Wright of Goergetown is out for the season :-(

There is a two-page TV Viewer's Guide, spotlighting some of the most exciting games of the season, mostly focusing on out of conference games.

A four-page preview of women's hoops, which along with the Street and Smith (ooops, I mean the new Sporting News) is the most extensive coverage. Why hasn't anyone come up with a women's preview magazine? Do we really need half a dozen men's previews? How about five men previews and one for the ladies for a start?

As mentioned at the start of the review, there is a comprehensive TV schedule for both men's and women's tv games. If your local cable or satellite provider does not have some of the channels, bang your monkey! (a Jim Rome Jungle phrase).

2007-2008 Sporting News (aka Street and Smith) College Basketball Magazine Review

College Hoops Preview Magazine review #3 is ready to go with TSN, The Sporting News 2007-08 College Basketball preview magazine. I picked this one at Borders Bookstores at the list price of $6.99, with the unfortunate cover of the Lopez twins. Unfortunate because Brook Lopez is academically inelligibile for the first semester. Better fire up Photoshop and make a new cover! While there I also noticed that the CBS Sportsline preview magazine was out. I didn't flip through it, but the previous year's editions were, to borrow a word from Bill Walton, hooooooooooorrible.

For historical reference, this is my 2006-2007 Sporting News review. Speaking of 2006-2007, every 2007 NCAA college basketball Tournament game is available on DVD, produced officially by NCAA On-Demand.

And one last thing, check out our gigantic 2007-2008 season preview of links to various websites and blogs writing about the 07-08 season. And this is a good time to plan ahead for the upcoming season, how are you going to record your favorite games on TV?

The magazine starts with a "Dear Readers" letter by publisher Mike Kallar, revealing the merger of Street and Smiths and the Sporting News preview magazines. The Sporting News name is retained but it will be published in Charlotte, NC, home of Street and Smiths. So did Street and Smith ruin the excellent Sporting News preview magazine or did they manage to improve it further? Read on to find out!


General Interest Stories

The expected alphabetic Team Index is on page 4.

TSN's Top 25 is revealed with a paragraph for each team

A 2.5 page national overview article blended with the top 25 includes mentions of Duke, UCLA, Calipari, and three All American teams. Also a list of one-and-out candidates with the usual names. Story by TSN's Mike DeCourcy

The top 100 incoming freshmen are broken down geographically (based on their state of origin, not the college's location)

The excellent New Destinations page (page #13) has a list of transfers eligible for this season, transfers eligible for next season, and the coaching changes in-between the seasons.

A two page "Whatever happened to" tracing Dane Fife, JR Van Hoose, and Teddy DuPay.

A great idea, a page with the final standings conference-record wise of all teams in all conferences. Nice!

Five pages of Cheerleader photos - perhaps the ones rejected by HBL. An example of Street and Smiths mediocrity ruining the Sporting News excellent basketball guide. Booo!

Continuing the Street and Smith tradition of giving the smaller conferences and divisions some love, they include a one page preview for the NCAA Division II, one page for Division III, and one page for the NAIA.

Four-page coverage of the JuCos! (JC aka junior colleges)

Four page coverage of Women's College Basketball

A six page article (page #182) has 2006-2007 statistics, both individual and team statistics for NCAA D1, D2, D3, NAIA and Women's too.

The schedules are included! A 12-page block starting on page 188 has every team's schedule. Break out your magnifying glass though. This is the first one of the preview magazines I have seen that has a complete schedule!

Last page: A list of the top in-season exempt tournaments of interest, along with dates for the conference tournaments and sites for the 2008 NCAA Tournament

Lincoln Financial Sports's SEC conference schedule is included as an advertisement on page #113.

Grade: B-


Recruiting Coverage

Four page coverage of Junior colleges and juco players

Ten pages of recruiting coverage with a focus on the 2008 class. Players after 2008 are all grouped together (another S&S oddity). All-Metro teams are provided which includes top five players in 22 major metropolitan areas. A long list of prep/hihg-school games of interest is given as well. A two-page article spotlights the top 25 high-school basketball teams.

A five-page story spotlights some of the top Women's high school players and teams.


Conference Previews

The BCS conferences along with some high mid-major conferences (A10, C-USA, MVC, MAC, Mountain West and WAC), get a full page of conference preview. They are presented alphabetically at the start of the book. Each conference preview includes a ranking of the conference teams recruiting-wise with a short explanation for each team, a nice feature looking at future recruiting prospects powered by Rivals, the all conference players team, predicted order of finish, the conference superlatives (best player, best defender, etc), and a text intro to the conference. The magazine brands them as High Major.

A few more mid-major conferences start on page 130 with half a page for the conference preview. This is for the Big West, Colonial, Horizon, Southern Conference, Sun Belt and Gonzaga Conference (oops WCC). For reference, I will call this Tier #2. The magazine brands them as Mid Major.

The remaining conferences get a 1/5th of a page for their conference preview. For reference, I will call this Tier #3. The magazine brands them as Low Major.


Team Previews

BCS teams and the top six mid-major conferences receive either half a page or a full page preview. The full page preview includes the roster with jersey numbers, bujt gone are the detailed player statistics of the previous season. Also gone is the team's schedule in the team's page that was a trademark TSN feature. Boo @ Street and Smith! You ruined it! On the plus side, a graph of a team's number of wins in the last five year is posted (a Street and Smith feature). Also included are Power Ratings, rating the team on five key factors. A nice touch! An impact rookie from each team is spotlighted very briefly. There is one picture per team. The text preview itself is one long text, not broken down in sub-categories like TSN used to do. The record of the head coach and the names of the assistant coaches are listed but they are not as detailes as TSN's was. Boo again! The bottom teams of each conference receive half-a-page review instead of full-page but they do get full rosters with jersey numbers. This approach creates some strange things, for example Purdue and Michigan get half a page, while Tulsa has a full page. I'm not complaining but BCS koolaiders may do so.

Teams belonging to conferences in Tier #2 (see the previous section on Conference Previews) get about 1/6th of a page coverage without any rosters. The exception is the top team in the conference that receives half-a-page preview which includes a roster with jersey numbers.

Teams that belong to Tier #3 conferences (see the Conference Preview above) receive one to two paragraphs each and that's all.


Conclusions

There is no dancing around this, they have ruined what made The Sporting News (TSN) my favorite preseason magazine.

They decided to use the Sporting News name because it is more popular and recognizable but this magazine is really a renaming of the Street and Smith magazine. While not bad, they are not TSN! Which is why they bought TSN.

One big plus of this magazine is that it has a 12-page schedule of every team in the country.

There is more women's coverage here than any other preview magazine I have seen so far.

They have a lot of recruiting coverage for the 2008 class and 2007-2008 high school season, but very little for 2009 and beyond

The most extensive JUCO coverage I have seen, a total of four pages, including team coverage

This is good preview magazine to get, especially if your a fan of one of the top 6 non-BCS conferences as it has very detailed ccverage (A10, MVC, MWC, MAC, C-USA nad WAC). The Colonial will probably feel dissed and left out once again as they are relegated to the 2nd tier despite producing a Final Four team just two years ago.

But I'm not happy with them ruining the successful Sporting News format! Boo!!!!!!! Bring back the real Sporting News!!!

2007-2008 Lindy's College Basketball Preview Magazine Review

And here we go, just days after we reviewed the Athlon preview magazine, we have the Lindy's college hoops preview magazine review. I picked it up at Borders Bookstores for the list price of $6.99, same price as last year.

One quick note on Borders, they have the 2006-2007 version of the Sporting News preview magazine on the shelves, so be sure not to get the wrong year by mistake. But if you are looking for the 06-07 TSN version, you may find it there.

For reference, this is my 2006-2007 Lindy's review. I am using a slightly different review format this year. Speaking of 06-07, every game of the 2007 NCAA Tournament is available on DVD, for around $20 to $25 per game at Amazon. And if you prefer a free online previews, check out our gigantic 2007-2008 preview links.

One more thing, plan ahead for the season, what is the best way to record your favorite college basketball games?

And now to the Lindy's magazine preview review! The cover says "Display until Dec 15", and list price is $6.99. The west coast bias edition features UCLA's Darren Collison, Brook Lopez and DeVon Hardin on the cover. The magazine is 210 pages long.

It starts with a table of contents and a letter from the publisher, celebrating year #10 of Lindy's. The publisher is Lindy Davis, so now we know the Lindy in Lindy's :) There he mentions that the schedules will be published on their website on October 15 and you can also request a print edition. Because Athlon and Lindy's get published so early, they cannot have the finalized schedules in time for the printing process.

General Interest Stories

Page counts mentioned do not include ads!

The 2007-2008 Top 25 is presented, with each team getting a short preview featuring "The Good", "The Bad" and "Our Call". They also include teams 26 to 40 with single-sentence previews. Nice feature and quick intro to the new season (five pages long). Also of note is that five mid-major conference teams are in their Top 25 (excluding Memphis). I won't reveal their #1, I don't want to be mauled by bears! I won't reveal their #2 I don't want to be in silence of the lambs! And I wouldn't volunteer to be eaten by a tiger so I won't reveal #3 and #4. This week I'm going to a bird watching seminar on cardinals, so I can't reveal #5 either!

An excellent six page featured called "Scoping the Nation" is jam-packed with interesting features, including The Return of Rick Majerus, One and Done college superstars, a tribute to Skip Prosser, a spotlight on some preseason games to watch, including the holiday tourneys and the conference challenges, top 10 freshman candidates to be one and done, list of coaching changes, top 10 one and done candidates of the 2008 class, ten candidates for stardom, top ten D1 transfers, top ten JuCos, top 10 shooters, top 10 defenders. They also rate the conferences from #1 to #31, and give us their Field of 65 predictions, along with their Sweet 16 ad Final Four. This is the most compact and concise six pages of preview I saw in a preview magazine so far!

A four page feature "Meet the New Boss" covers Billy Gillispie at Kentucky, Billy the Diva Donovan at Florida and Tubby Smith at the TimberGophers.

A two page feature on the search for the next Gonzaga, with some focus on the Missouri Valley

A two page feature on "Embracing Kelvin Sampson". I would have named it "Embracing Slugfest" :)

A two-page story by Frank Burlison on recruiting (players commiting earlier and earlier)

Top 25 players per position, one page devoted to each position! Nice!

Top 10 Backcourts (two pags) and top 10 Frontcourts (two pages)

Women's Coverage" Top 25 teams (4 pages), including the top 15 female players.

Back page: The 2007 NCAA tournament brackets, completed with scores and teams advancing. Nice touch!

Grade: A

Shop for your favorite colleges gear, dvds, books, apparel, toothbrushes, and more at Amazon

Recruiting Coverage

A two-page story by Frank Burlison on recruiting (players commiting earlier and earlier, pages 32-33)

Recruiting coverage is provided by Rivals, at the back of the magazine

Top 25 Recruiting Classes of 2007 with analysis!

A half-page story by Justin Young of Rivals taking a post-summer look

A recap of the 2007 class with the top 50 players listed (1 page)

Top 100 players of the Classes of 2008 and top 100 of 2009 and top 10 of 2010.


Conference Previews

A number of conferences, not just BCS conferences, get a two page conference preview. Yes two pages per conference. A half-page intro to the conference kicks things off. Lindy's includes a table of Good News/Bad News/Our call for each team, top 15 players, returning statistical leaders (scoring, rebounding, assists and 3 point shooting percentage). Also in the preview a detailed analysis of the incoming recruits within the conference (nice touch Lindys!), the superlatives (best player, rebounder, defender, etc), and Team Stats from 2006-2007 including FG%, FT%, 3PT FG%, and margins (rebounds, turnovers, points). This is the most comprehensive conference coverage.

Conferences receiving the two page previews: ACC, Atlantic 10, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Conference USA, Missouri Valley, Mountain West, Pac-10, SEC, and WAC.

The remaining conferences receive 1/3rd of a page conference preview that includes top 10 players, superlatives (Best player, rebounder, etc) and predicted order of finish.

Props to Lindy's for giving some of the high mid-major conferences the same amount of space as they give the six BCS conferences!

Did you know? Every 2007 NCAA tournament game is on DVD! at Amazon. Get yours know! A great way to scout teams for the upcoming season!


Team Previews

Even bigger props to Lindy's for treating teams more equally. Basically the Top 40 teams get a full page preview, while the remaining teams from the BCS and the high mid-major conferences (mentioned above) receive half a page each. This is a more fair way to spread the love. In contrast, Athlon is blatantly pro-BCS.

The teams from the remaining conferences get half a column ina a page with three columns (1/6th of page), but the text is very compact, so they are squeezing in a long paragraph, starters and key reserves, newcomes, starters lost, 06-07 record, and the head coaches's overall record. Not bad for such a small amount of space. Better coverage than the equivalent Athlon.

The full page reviews of the Top 40 teams include a text preview, a picture, key players (sadly not a complete roster and no jersey numbers), key losses. Each player mentioned gets a one-liner description. They feature the coach's record, teams' 06-07 record, honors candidates (eg player of year, freshman of year), and a "Keep an eye out" paragraph on a player to watch. Another table has their team stats from 06-07.

The half page reviews (BCS and high mid-major teams outside the top 40) have the same features, but no picture, and obviously less text.


Shortcomings

Rosters are not complete, they are just "key players"

No jersey numbers listed! Grrrr!

No schedules but that's to be expected since it is published so early. They will make them available online on October 15 and you can request a printed copy once they are available

USC is not in the Top 40!!! Hello Lindy's, OJ Mayo and Devon Jefferson are calling :-)


Stand out features

Fair and balanced treatment of the Top 40 teams regardless of conference affiliation. In fact, five (+Memphis) of their top 25 teams come from mid-major conferences. No BCS koolaid served at Lindy's :)

More coverage of mid-major conferences and teams than any other magazine, especially the high mid-major conferences (A-10, C-USA, MVC, MWC, WAC). Although some other non-BCS conferences were downgraded in coverage compared to previous years (CAA, Big West, etc)

Two-page conference preview instead of the usual one page in other magazines. Included is recruiting analysis per conference.

Excellent six page ultra-compact and juicy "Scoping the Nation" article

Good Recruiting Coverage

Four pages of women's coverage


Compared to Athlon's preview magazine

Lindy's has more mid-major coverage. Athlon drinks the BCS Koolaid

Lindy's not does have complete rosters or players jersey numbers. Athlon does, along with more detailed roster info.


Did you know that every 2007 NCAA tournament game is available on DVD?. Get yours now! This is a subliminal message. You are not really reading this! ;-)


Conclusion/Recommendation

This is a nice preview magazine. It has very good general interest stories as mentioned above. Those features alone make it worth the price of admission. Recommended for the college basketball fan!

If you are a fan of a high mid-major conference or any other non-BCS conference, this magazine probably has the most non-BCS coverage. So grab it!

If this is the only preview magazine you are buying, and you want to look up the players while watching games on TV, beware, it does not have the players jersey numbers listed! Infact it does not even have complete rosters.


Comments or Corrections?
Please feel free to leave them as a comment or send me an email via the "Contact via Email" link in the left column of the blog.


Get Ready for the 2007-2008 season!

Scout the teams by getting 2006-2007 NCAA tournaments on DVD! from Amazon.

Shop for your favorite college's gear, apparel, licensed products, books and DVDs at Amazon.com!

Also be sure to check out my Gigantic 2007-2008 online preview of links to online previews

Get historic and classic college basketball dvds from Amazon!

Sprawl on the couch and draw plays like a real coach!.

If you liked this review, and you want to see more magazines reviewed, please let me know!

If you are a publisher and you want your magazine to be mercilessly reviewed, please let me know

2007-2008 Athlon College Basketball Preview Magazine Review

Yes, the first preview magazines have been out for a couple of weeks. I picked up the Athlon Sports 2007-2008 preview from Borders Bookstores. Just like I did last year when I reviewed four of them, I'll be reviewing some of the 2007-2008 magazines, starting with the Athlon!

For reference, this is my 2006-2007 Athlon review. I am using a different format this year. If you want to relive the 2006-2007 NCAA tournament, every game is available on DVD!. And if you prefer a free online previews, check out our gigantic 2007-2008 preview links.

One more thing, plan ahead for the season, what is the best way to record your favorite college basketball games?

And now I am putting on my magazine reviewer hat: Cover price is $6.99 and it says "Display until December 21, 2007" on the front cover. This is a price increase of $1 from last year! The one I got is the west coast bias edition with Stanford's Brook Lopez and Cal's DeVon Hardin. The magazine is 194 pages long and printed in quality glossy paper.

It starts with an editorial from editor Mitchell Light, then the table of contents. An alphabetical team listing is available on page 11 so you can quickly look up any team.

General Interest Stories

Ads are not included in the page counts below.

10 things to watch in 2007-08 spotlights, you guessed it, ten things! Included are OJ Mayo, Helen of Troy of the Big Eleven (Eric Gordon), McKillop's Wildcats, Tubby Smith. (4 pages long)

Five pages of Hoops Madness, a pot pouri of tidbits and notes, including a Bob Knight quote, a list of 15 emerging college stars, Top 10 players in these four categories (Floor Leaders, Shooters, Slashers, Inside-Out, Post Men), the top 18 transfers, and a list offensively challegned players (they have more game starts than field goals made!).

A list of the coaching changes (page 23)

A list of the D1 Exempt holiday tournaments (page 27)

A three page feature on Young Coaches Stealing the Spotlight featuring among others Billy the Diva, Ben Howling Wolf, JT III, Mark "AASAA?" Turgeon, and Thad Matta.

A New Hope, a full page story spotlighting Billy Gillispe and Kentucky. When you are Kentucky, you get a full page to yourself to discuss the coaching change!

A long list of 2008 Bob Cousy Award candidates including two players from D2 and D3 each (Spoiler Alert: Greg Paula is included).

"The Fix", a two page look on Tulane's 80s scandalous past

Full page interviews with three players, Bama's Ron Steele, Huggins's Kansas State's Billy Walker, and Izzo's Drew Neitzel

Field of 65 predictions in cascading bracket style (2 pages). I won't reveal their final four, but the two teams they pick for the championships could easily make their own Lord of the Rings movies! Also projected is the post-season NIT field! NIT Love! NITology is picking up momentum!

Traditionally preview magazines feature their top 25 or top 40 teams with a capsulte for each team, but not this magazine!

Three five-player All American Teams, with a ...psycho predicted as POY (player of the year). Also 25 honorable mentions and six super freshmen.

Women's Preview: The preseason top 25 with a paragraph for each team (two pages long), pages 190-191

The Back Page (inside back cover) looks at some of the most famous coaching trees, starting with James Naismith and taking stops at Kentucky and North Carolina. Also featured, UCLA, Indiana and Duke.

CSS, the Comcast Sports South cable channel took out an ad sdvertising 175+ men's and women's college basketball games in 2007-2008 (page 19)

There are no scheduled in this magazine (since it is printed so early)

Grade: B++

Shop for your favorite college's gear, apparel, licensed products, books and DVDs at Amazon.com!


Recruiting Coverage

Recruiting coverage in the preview is provided by Scout.com. Starting at page 183.

Top 100 players of 2007. I won't reveal who they picked #1 but you may have it in your sandwich. I won't reveal the #3 either, but that's all you need according to the Beatles.

Top 25 recruiting classes (just a list)

Top 101-300 class of 2007 with college of choice listed

Top 100 players broken down in Top 20s for each traditional position

Top 100 2008 class

Top 25 2009 class. I won't do you any favors by revealing the #1 ;-)

Top 10 2010 class


Conference Previews

The BCS conferences get a full page conference preview that includes: predicted finish order, 06-07 team standings, Team Recruiting Ranking, All conference first, second and third team, and Player of the Year, Defensive player of the year, Most Underrated and Newcomer of the Year. Conferences with a full page preview: ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10 and SEC. If you are keeping count, yes they are the six BCS teams :)

The remaining conferences only get an All-Conference team, nothing else!

2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament games on DVD!

Team Previews

The BCS teams get a full page preview for each team. Each preview has an intro, frontcourt, backcourt adn final analysis. Rosters with jersey numbers, height/weight, class status, hometown and detailed statistics from 06-07 are inclded. Props to Athlon for this! The incoming players are included at the bottom of the roster and a short paragraph briefly introduces them. Another nice touch by Athlon! Key players gone from 06-07 are also included, as well as how did the team do in the post-season. No coaching records, just a mention of the head coach. A player from the team is usually pictured within the preview.

High mid-major teams predicted to get to the post-season (NCAA or NIT) get a half-page review, with a detailed roster, but not as detailed as the BCS teams. For example, four Atlantic 10 teams get half-page previews, while the remaining 10 teams get about 1/6th of a page of full text. Other mid-major conferences receiving half-page reviews for their top teams: The Colonial, Conference USA, the MAC, Missouri Valley, Mountain West, the WAC, and WCC. The only mid-major conference teams receiving full page (instead of half-page) reviews are Memphis and Gonzaga.

The mid-majors get just one paragraph instead of a full page. The top teams in the mid-major conferences get longer paragraphs. No rosters, no nothing, but the top players of each time are discussed in the preview.


Shortcomings

No schedules posted, apart from the exempt holiday season tournaments. This is understandable since the magazine is posted so early.

No coaching records or list of assistant coaches

Teams from non-BCS conference who are not projected to make the post-season get either one paragraph or 1/6th of a page. Not very mid-major/low-major friendly.

Only two pages of women's coverage


Stand-out features

Detailed rosters with jersey numbers (for those following the games on TV), and detailed statistics from 06-07 (points, rebounds, percentages, etc)

Nice coverage for all BCS teams, along with Memphis and Gonzaga

List of Bob Cousy 2008 award candidates

Good recruiting coverage

Nice general interest features


Compared to the other preview magazines

Coming later! This is the first preview magazine I got so there's nothing to compare it with :)

2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament games on DVD!

Recommendation/Conclusions

This is a nice preview magazine for the college basketball fan!

Fans of BCS teams will love it

Nice set of general interest features

If your favorite non-BCS team is projected to make the NCAA or the NIT you get a nice half-page preview with a complete roster. If not, you will be disappointed by the coverage.

Which magazine to get? At the time of writing only this one and Lindy's are available. I haven't looked at Lindy's this year, but I do recommend the Athlon assuming you do not object to its shortcomings.


Get Ready for the 2007-2008 season!

Scout the teams by getting 2006-2007 NCAA tournaments on DVD! from Amazon.

Shop for your favorite college's gear, apparel, licensed products, books and DVDs at Amazon.com!

Also be sure to check out my Gigantic 2007-2008 online preview of links to online previews

Get historic and classic college basketball dvds from Amazon!

Sprawl on the couch and draw plays like a real coach!.

If you liked this review, and you want to see more magazines reviewed, please let me know!

If you are a publisher and you want your magazine to be mercilessly reviewed, please let me know!

If you are a billionaire and you loved this review, and you want to send me a million dollar check, I'll gladly take it!

Review of the Sporting News (TSN) 2006-2007 College Basketball Yearbook

Update September 2007

The 2006-2007 season is long gone, but the 2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament games are available on DVD!.

And you can get started on the 2007-2008 season by checking our Gigantic 2007-2008 preview of links.

Catch up the latest recruiting rankings


The original 2006-2007 review
I picked this one up at Borders, at the list price of $6.98, cover #5 (Arron Afflalo of UCLA and Derek Ravioli of Gonzaga).

Comprehensive Review
* The review is divided in two parts
* The first part covers all the special features, stories, recruiting and player rankings.
* The second part covers the meat of the magazine, the team-by-team within conference-by-conference analysis





Part One Grade: B-
Very good coverage of recruiting (especially Top 50 JuCos), but not too many in-season features.
Front of the magazine

Top 25 (two pages with a sentence for each team)

Six pages of various features including a Mike DeCourcy story, a story on the new NBA Draft rule, revisiting the best incoming freshman classes of all time (77, 79, 81, 88, 95 and of course 2006), and various other things including a fan favorite Stock Exchange with BUY and SELL on certain teams and players.

Field of 65 projection

All American Teams (three of them)

Top 100 players, broken down by position (20 per position)

Top 10 frontcourts and backcourts
Back of the magazine

offer to subscribe to TSN for 33c per issue (60 issues total, 92% off newstand price)

major preseason tourney schedule and conference tourney schedules

Top 100 Class of 2007 (provided by Rivals.com) OJ Mayo is #5! Wow!!!

Top 25 Class of 2008

Top 25 Class of 2009 - Lance Stepheson in the top 5

Top 50 Incoming players - class of 2006; Yes, Oden is #1

Top 50 incoming Junior College players for the 2006-2007 season. Great JuCo feature, by BallStars.net

Top 50 Junior College sophomores - to enter Division 1 in 2007-2008. Great JC feature as well by Ballstars.net

Recap of 2006 NCAA tourney scores and list of future NCAA sites







Part Two Overall Grade: A

Conference Pages. Grade: B+
* The Conferences are printed as they are ranked by TSN. #1 rated conference is (no surprise) the SEC. TSN is unique among preview magazine in presenting all 31 conferences in ranking order. Last one are the Independents.
* The six BCS conferences get one full page as a conference preview, featuring first and second team predictions, player and newcomer of the year, a six-category Honor Roll (best shooter, playmaker, NBA prospect, defender, most versatile and most underrated). Also included the Top 10 Impact Newcomers, last season's standings, and detailed team-level statistics of last year. Also short intro, ascending and descending teams, and three players on the rise, and a picture of a player. All this per conference.
* The next few conferences (A10,MVC, MWC, C-USA, WAC) get less than half a page as a conference preview, embedded in the page of our one their teams. These get similar coverage as the BCS conference, expect its the Top 5 Impact newcomers, and they dont get the short intro/ascending/descending/three players on the rise. Shockingly the Colonial is not among these!
* The remaining conferences get a 1/5th of a page preview that has the all-conference team prediction, last season's standings, and player/newcomer of the year prediction

Team by Team pages. Grade: A
* Each team predicted to make the NCAA gets an asterisk by its name
*** The top teams of each BCS conference get a full page preview, with a complete roster with jersey numbers. A big surprise is that while the height/weight/class and PPG/RPG/APG are maintained, the percentages are no longer posted! (FG%, 3PT%, FT%). These were available in last year's TSN NCAA basketball yearbook. There is a data box for the university including the overall record of the coach and his record at the school, and the names of all three assistants and the number of years at the school, among other things. A unique feature of TSN is the including of the full schedule in this page. The text of the preview is broken down in three groups: "What we like", "What Scares Us", and "X-Factor". Also included is a text box of "An insert-conference-name-here Coach Says", providing a short scouting report on the team.
* The remaining teams of each BCS conference get half a page preview. This has the same structure except there is less text (obviously). Half page previews do not get the "An xxx coach says" scouting report. This includes some NCAA-bound teams
*** For the advanced mid-major conferences (A10,MWC,MVC,C-USA,WAC) the coverage is as follows. (Shockingly the Colonial is not among these!):
* The top team gets a 3/4th to a full page preview (similar format as the BCS reports)
* The top half of each conference gets a half page preview (similar format as the BCS reports)
* The bottom teams only get 1/6th of a page coverage. No rosters, no schedules, very little coverage. It does include the projected starters, and the coaches overall and at-this-school record. If your team is one of these, you won't be happy!
*** The remaining conferences get just 1/6th of a page coverage for all their teams, with the same structure as the previous bullet. This surpringly includes the Colonial conference!





Shortcomings

One obvious difference between this edition and the previous editions is the quality of paper it is printed on. Presumably in an effort to save money TSN went with a newspaper-like paper instead of the more glossy type used in their previous magazines. This feels better than newspaper paper though, and it really shouldn't matter, unless one must have glossy paper :-)

Some of the individual player statistics are gone compared to previous TSN editions (FG%, 3PT%, FT%).

Poor coverage of the Colonial!

No coverage of Women's NCAA basketball

Downgraded coverage of the bottom teams of the A-10, WAC, MWC and C-USA: In previous years all the teams in those conferences got a half-page preview. This year, (presumably more cost-cutting), TSN downgraded the coverage of those teams to a mere 1/6th of a page, without any of the special features such as complete rosters with jersey numbers or schedules. If you are a fan of those teams, you may want to look elsewhere.


Compared to the other NCAA college basketball preview magazines

TSN is unique among other preview magazines in putting the team's schedule in the same page as the team preview. This is only available for the BCS teams and the top teams of the advanced mid-major conferences. But it is a very handy feature!

TSN (Sporting News) is unique among preview magazine in presenting all 31 conferences in ranking order.

Extended JuCo player coverage (top 50 of 2006-2007 and top 50 of 2007-2008)



Recommendation

If the Shortcomings above do not deter you, and you only want to buy one magazine as a college basketball fan, then I would recommend this one, with Street and Smith a very close second. (The in-page schedules give TSN the edge over Street and Smith)

If you want to buy a preview magazine to specifically follow your favorite team(s) and conference(s), then you have to sift through all of them to see which one has the better coverage for your favorite team(s) and conference(s). For example this one does a poor job covering the Colonial and has downgraded coverage of the bottom teams of the A10, WAC, MWC and C-USA. But it has upgraded coverage of the Missouri Valley, and it leapfrogged the MVC ahead of those four! Yes, they think MVC is the 7th best basketball conference in the nation.



Upcoming reviews

Next review will be the USA Today special edition, now available in newstands wherever the multicolor fishwrap is available

Other preview magazines available: Blue Ribbon Yearbook, CBS Sportsline, ACC Handbook,

Not yet published: SI special edition and ESPN the Magazine previews.

If you are a publisher and you want to send me a copy for an early review, I will be more than happy to review it :-)



Supporting this blog and reviews
You can support this blog and reviews if you make your Amazon purchases following this link

2006-2007 Street and Smiths College Basketball Preview Yearbook

Update September 2007

The 2006-2007 season is long gone, but the 2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament games are available on DVD!.

And you can get started on the 2007-2008 season by checking our Gigantic 2007-2008 preview of links.

Catch up the latest recruiting rankings


The original 2006-2007 review
The Street and Smiths 2006-2007 NCAA basketball college preview yearbook is now out! I picked it up at Borders Bookstores for the list price of $6.99 (display until Dec-5-2006). This is a west coast edition with UCLA's Arron Afflalo on the front cover.

You can support this review if you make your Amazon purchases following this link



And now I am putting my Magazine Reviewer hat on.

Comprehensive Review
* The review is divided in two parts
* The first part covers all the special features, stories, recruiting and player rankings.
* The second part covers the meat of the magazine, the team-by-team within conference-by-conference analysis.


Part One: Grade: A-
Very good coverage on recruiting and JuCos, but not many in-season features.
Front of the book

Editorial on Coaching Carousel

Two page feature on the incoming freshmen

All American Teams

Top 25 Teams with a 15-line 1/3-page wide paragraph for each team. This is a bit of a shocker, but North Carolina is listed as #3 (WoW!) Duke at #5 (WOW!)

Whatever Happened to feature, looking back at the All America Teams of 10 years ago, 1996-1997 seasons, featuring names such as Battier, Chris Burgess (he escaped the Puke Empire), Odom, El Amin, Schea Cotton (who?), Luke Recker, etc, etc

Compact one page list of last season's standings by conference. Nice quick reference page!

Top 100 incoming freshmen sorted alphabetically and by region. No individual rankings

Nice "New Destinations feature" on page 15: Features Transfers eligible for this season, transfers eligible for next season and 2006 Coaching Changes
Back of the book

One page preview of NCAA Division II

One page preview of NCAA Division III

One page preview of NAIA

Three page coverage of JuCos, listing the top 10 JuCos for this year, the top 50 or 60 JuCos moving to division 1 in 2006-2007, and statistical leaders of the 2005-2006 JuCo season.

Three page Women's Preview with Top 25 teams and a couple of other features

Two pages of short profiles of twenty 2007 recruits (including OJ Mayo, Kyle Singler, Kevin Love, etc) - sorted alphabetically

High school All American Teams of 2007, including four five-member teams, and long lists of "High Honorable Mention" and "Honorable Mention". Also included "High Honorable Mention" and "Honorable Mention" for the class of 2008 and beyond (all undersclassmen). Sorted alphabetically.

All Metro teams (five players per metro area, most major cities listed)

list of the promiment high school basketball and all star tourneys

Top 25 High school basketball teams. I can't reveal who is #1, knock on oak wood ;-)

Women's High school All American Teams of 2007 as well as a long list of honorable mentions divided geographically

Top 20 Women's Prep schools

Final statistics of the 2005-2006 season for Division I, II and III, NAIA and Women's Division I and NAIA.

List of 2006-2007 preseason tournaments (Maui, Alaska, NIT, etc)

Calendar listing conference tourney dates and NCAA tourney arenas

Complete schedules of all teams (in tiny print)



Part Two: Overall Grade: A-
The Top 14 conferences go first, sorted alphabetically, followed by the remaining conferences which get significantly smaller coverage.

Conference Pages. Grade: B
* The Top 14 conferences get one full page for a conference preview that features a long write-up on the conference, a quick recruiting recap per team, and the superlatives (best player, best freshman, best coach, etc, etc). The rest of the conferences get a short 20-line 1/3rd of a page wide paragraph and the top 5 players, and a couple of superlatives. Significantly less than the top 15.
* The top 14 conferences are according to this magazine (sorted alphabetically): ACC, A-10, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Big West, C-USA, MAC, MVC, MWC, Pac10, SEC, WAC, West Coast (WCC). Surpringly the Colonial and Horizon are not included in this and get reduced coverage.

Team Pages. Grade: A
* The top 14 conferences get luxurious coverage as expected. The top and mid-level teams of the BCS conferences, and the top teams of the non-BCS conferences get a full page preview. The remaining teams of the top 14 conferences get half-a-page review (horizontally). Each team has complete rosters with jersey numbers, height/weight and class status (FR/So/Jr/Sr). Street and Smith continues their unique feature of a graph charting each team's wins for the last five years. Cool feature. An even cooler feature is a 1 to 5 power rating of each team in terms of Offense, Defense, Rebounding, Playmaking and Coaching. Only teams with full page previews get this feature! Coaching records are only printed for the coaches tenure at their current school, not their whole career. Assistant names are listed! Teams with full page previews get a short Impact Rookie segment. The meat of the preview is contiguous without any sub-divisions and pretty much free-flowing depending on each team. Teams are listed in POF (predicted order of finish) for each one of the 14 conferences mentioned here.
* The remaining teams (not of the 14 conferences mentioned above) get a very short preview each. The top players are mentioned but there are no rosters. Very short coverage here, totalling one page for each conference total.


Shortcomings

If your team is in one of the 14 conferences listed above, then you have nice coverage. If your team or conference is in one of the remaining conferences, the coverage is poor (one page for the whole conference).


Compared to Lindy's and Athlon
+ Complete schedules (but with very small fonts at the back of the magazine)
+ Five year trend graph of number of wins for some teams in the top 14 conferences
+ Power Ratings (1 thru 5) on Offense, Defense, Rebounding, Playmaking and Coaching for the top teams from the top 14 conferences.
+ Better women's coverage than the other two
+ More JuCo coverage
+ Division II, III and NAIA one page preview each
+ Jersey numbers included
- No individual player statistics per team
- no predictions on the field of 65 (other than their Top 25 list upfront)
- not as much coverage on an individual basis of each team's freshmen/newcomers as the other two


Recommendation

A nice overall magazine, covers most of the basics, great for the college basketball fan in general or fans of the 14 conferences getting expanded coverage.

A little thin on special features but has more recruiting features than others so far.

A lot of reviewers are afraid to make a hard recommendation because they don't want to upset anyone. I will be brave here since none of the magazine publishers are likely to read this review (or care) anyway :-) If you are going to be buy only one, from the ones I have reviewed so far (total of three), I recommend this one :-)



Upcoming preview magazines

Blue Ribbon yearbook, CBS Sportsline, ACC Handbook, Sporting News, SI, and ESPN

If you are a publisher and you want to send me a copy for an early review, I will be more than happy to review it :-)


Supporting this blog and reviews
You can support this blog and reviews if you make your Amazon purchases following this link

2006-2007 Athlon College Basketball Season Preview Review

Update September 2007

The 2006-2007 season is long gone, but the 2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament games are available on DVD!.

And you can get started on the 2007-2008 season by checking our Gigantic 2007-2008 preview of links.

Catch up the latest recruiting rankings

Looking for the 2007-2008 Athlon Sports preview magazine review? I just finished the review! Check it out!!!


The original 2006-2007 review
The Athlon Sports 2006-2007 NCAA basketball college preview is now out! I picked it up at Borders Bookstores for the list price of $5.99 (display until Dec-15-2006). This is a west coast edition with Stanford's Mitch Johnson and California's Ubaka sharing the front cover.

And now I am putting my Magazine Reviewer hat on.

Comprehensive Review
* The review is divided in two parts
* The first part covers all the special features, stories, recruiting and player rankings.
* The second part covers the meat of the magazine, the team-by-team within conference-by-conference analysis.


Part One: Grade A-

Lots of advertising in this magazine, including ESPN Full Court, Samsung 40" LCD HDTVs (nice way to start the season, but who's gonna pay for it?), Sirius, and sadly a few gambling sites. Ironically in one of them (page 101) there is a picture of a random dude partially covering his face, but he looks a bit like the Coach K! That made me laugh for a few minutes :-)

Magazine content starts with an editorial from Michael Light

Five pages called "Hoops Madness" that cover a variety of topics, including some top XX lists, including coaches on the hot seat, and "put up or shut up" for touted but not-delivering players (they usually play on teams who underachieved or did not make the NCAA) (DUH!)

A three-page story on the new "One & Done" phenomenon because of the new NBA Draft rules. Featured is a full page picture of Greg Oden. Interesting "Oden" is an anagram of "Done". One & Done for Oden?

Next there is a "Ten things to watch in 2006" list. This covers players, teams and coaches.

A very nice touch follows, the preseason Bob Cousy Award candidates, about 40 of them including two from Division 2 and one from Division 3. Some of them are combo guards, but I digress. Included in the list are some of the highly touted freshmen. The 2006 class is definately going to sizzle this year! New Feature!

Three one-page interviews follow with Joakim Noah, Arizona's M-Will (Marcus Williams) and Kansas's Juliana Wright.

New Feature!: Their post-season predictions come with a nice overlay of the colleges on a two-page USA map. Very clever idea! Quite surpringly Oden State is not predicted to make the Elite 8! And their pre-season #1 maybe a surprise, but it is really the common-sense choice. Here is a hint: Ole Roy ain't that good? Two mid-majors are predicted to make the Sweet 16 and neither one is Gone-Zaga.

Then they present their three All-American teams, along with 30 honorable mentions. (Top 45 in all)

Recruiting
* Top 100 of the 2006 class, sorted by position.
* Top 25 recruiting classes of 2006
* Next 200 (101-300) of the 2006 class sorted alphabetically
* Top 100 of the 2007 class sorted alphabetically
* Top 25 of the 2008 class
* Top 10 of the 2009 class
(Editiorial humor: What's missing is the Top 5 of the Embryo class)

Two pages of Women Hoops coverage

Scheduling: The back of the magazine has an incomplete schedule of all teams, sorted alphabetically. Because the magazine is published relatively early, and some of the schedules have not been announced/finalized, some teams has complete schedules, some teams have partial schedules, some have none. They do however have a listing of all the holiday tournaments, but the font is very tiny. Pull out your magnifying glasses! The first game listed is the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic on November 7 and 8 at College Park, Maryland. If you want to see Gary Williams sweat early in the season, bang your monkey and demand ESPN-U! (Jim Rome radio listeners should be familiar with that phrase)

The Back Page: They take a critical look at the Athlon Top 20 Recruits of 2002. Some very familiar names there such as Melo, McCants, Dee Brown, Bosh, Felton, and Hot Sauce. There's also some disappointments: Evan Burns (who?), Christian Drejer, Anthony Roberson (the Me-First class at Florida pre-championship), Elijah Ingram and Soft Davis (of Izzo). But I disgress.




Part Two: Overall Grade A-

In a nice new twist, all conferences are listed alphabetically. In the past the smaller conferences were sent to the back. Not any more. All conferences alphabetically. Good!

Conference Pages. Grade B-
* The BCS conferences get one full page each for a conference preview, which includes the predicted order of finish (POF), a one-line recruiting round-up analysis, first, 2nd and 3rd all-conference teams (top 15 players), and the superlative awards (player of the year, defensive player, underrated, newcomer).
* The non-BCS conferences get the POF and the all-conference first team only, but they don't get a page for the conference preview.

Team Pages. Grade A-
* Team by team coverage for BCS teams: Each BCS conference team gets its own FULL PAGE, with Intro, Frontcourt, Backcourt and Analysis. Thankfully this magazine (unlike Lindy's) has complete rosters with jersey numbers for the returning players and most of the freshmen/newcomers. The redshirts and transfers are clearly indicated. For returning players comprehensive stats are listed (Games Played, MPG, PPG, RPG, APG, FG%, FT%) and their hometowns. For newcomers/freshmen it lists their hometowns and a short paragraph of recruiting analysis which is a nice touch. Each team also gets a corner picture of one of their players captioned with a sometimes related statistical factoid. Also nice! Sadly coaching records and tenure are not included.
*Team by team coverage for non-BCS conferences: The designer teams (Memphis, and Gonzaga) get a full page, similar to the BCS teams above. Semi-designer teams expected to make it to the post-season (NCAA or NIT) get half a page (eg Nevada, George Mason, New Mexico State, Charlotte, Xavier, Akron, four MVC teams, GW, and a few more), which includes full rosters, jersey numbers and but no recruiting analysis. The remaining teams who are not expected to make to the NCAA or NIT get only a 15-line writeup that is 1/3rd of a page wide, no rosters, but the top players are mentioned in the 15-line writeup. Ouch for those teams in terms of coverage.


Shortcomings

Schedules are incomplete

Tenure and coaching records along with assistant names are not included


Compared to Lindy's magazine
+ Athlon: Complete rosters and almost all jersey numbers
+ Athlon: More recruiting coverage in the back of the magazine
+ Athlon: partial schedules (vs none for Lindy's)
+ Lindy's: More coverage for teams not expected to make the NCAA/NIT
+ Lindy's: Coaching records (but no assistants) included


Recommendation
* I recommend this if you are a college basketball fan.
* If you are buying it mainly for your conference or team, the BCS teams get a nice full page of coverage each. If your team projected to make the NCAA/NIT you also get a nice half-page to full-page coverage. For teams projected not to make the post-season the coverage is very little.
* Which one to get? Compare the +/- of each, and browse through them at your local bookstore/newstand.


Upcoming Preview Magazines
* Sporting News, CBS Sportsline, Blue Ribbon Yearbook, ESPN, and SI

Supporting the blog/reviews
If you found the review useful you can support this blog by making your Amazon purchases using this affiliate link. This will encourage me to review every single 2006-2007 college basketball season preview magazine :-)

Lindy's 2006-2007 College Basketball Preview Magazine is out!

Update September 2007

The 2006-2007 season is long gone, but the 2007 NCAA College Basketball Tournament games are available on DVD!.

And you can get started on the 2007-2008 season by checking our Gigantic 2007-2008 preview of links.

Catch up the latest recruiting rankings

If you are looking this year's edition, the 2007-2008 Lindy's Magazine preview review is ready!.


The original 2006-2007 review
The Lindy's Sports 2006-2007 College Basketball preview magazine is out! I spotted it at Borders Bookstores today, with a list price of $6.99 + tax, on August 31, 2006! Yet another sign the new season is just around the corner!

And now I will put on my Magazine Reviewer hat, and as a self-appointed authority on the topic, I am writing a review blog-style:

Comprehensive Review
* The review will be divided in two parts.
* The first part covers the first half of the magazine: the special features, player rankings, etc, along with the recruiting pages in the back
* The second part covers the meat of the magazine: conference-by-conference and team-by-team analysis.


Part One: Grade: A+
A great selection of features by Lindy's Sports! Starts on page 8:

Top 40 teams, with the Top 25 teams getting a three-paragraph overview. Nice! Mid-majors in full force!

A look at the Vegas sneaker camp situation. Good choice of a topic!

Short stories on Maggie Dixon and Mike Sutton

Many Top 10s: JuCos of 2006, Freshman of 2006, Class of 2007, Under-appreciated college players, Shooters, Tranfers

All Coaching changes listed

Ranking of the 31 conferences

Six dates to remember (tourneys and single-games to mark in your calendar!)

Field of 65 projections

Five great defenders

A long story on the state of the Big 12 (half the teams have new coaches), including a full page on Bob Huggins (nicely done by the way!), and a story on Bob Knight

Feature story on Florida as the national champions

Frank Burlison takes a look at the touted freshmen of the 2006 class

Story on UCLA and Ben Howland

Top 25 players per position (five pages total!) Nice!

Top backcourts and top frontcourts (four pages total) Nice!

Four pages on Women's Hoops

Recruiting wise: Top 25 classes of 2006, Top 50 incoming freshmen in 2006, Top 100 prospects of 2007, and half a page overview of the summer camps


Part Two Overall Grade: B-

Conference pages: Grade: B+ The conferences are in two groups: major and non-majors. Conferences are listed alphabetically in each of the two groups. The major conferences (11 total) get two pages of coverage each, followed by individual team pages. Those two pages include a general preview, a big table with three columns offering Lindy's quick hitters on each team, an analysis of recruits/newcomers per team, top returning player statistics (scorers, rebounders, etc), Lindy's all-conference teams (total of 15 players), and Lindy's top players in various categories. The smaller conferences get a third of a page (one column out of three) with obviously a lot less content, followed by individual team pages with obviously less information (except for the Top 40 teams).

Team pages: Grade: C+ The Top 40 teams get a full page to themselves and they are listed in ranking order. The unranked teams are listed alphabetically. Teams outside the Top 40 from the top eleven conferences get half a page. Teams from low/mid-major conferences are six per page (three columns of two each). But kudos to Lindy's for printing returning starters, key reserves and newcomers for each mid-major team! They managed to squeeze all that while having six teams per page. Nice touch! (Note: The low grade is because of the first two shortcomings below).


Shortcomings

Rosters of teams are not complete. They do not even claim they are rosters. They call them "Key Players". Some players are mentioned in the text preview, but they are not listed in the roster (errr Key Players list). Bad! Bad! Bad!

Players numbers (jersey numbers) are not printed. Bad! Bad! Bad!

Because the magazine is published so early it is not possible to print the schedules. Lindy's will make them available online and you can be request a printed copy after Oct 15.


Recommendation

I recommend this magazine unless you must have complete rosters or rosters with the jersey numbers printed: this magazine does not have them. But they do have a nice selection of features, and those alone make it worth the price. The magazine should also receive credit for giving the mid-majors some more respect!


Comments or Corrections?
Please feel free to post them as comments or send an email :-)

Supporting the blog/review
If you found the review useful you can support this blog by making your Amazon purchases using this affiliate link. This will encourage me to review every single 2006-2007 college basketball season preview magazine :-)