What to watch: Tuesday November 21 Hoops on TV

*** All times are Pacific time - this is a west-coast bias blog ***

Maui Semifinals
* 4pm: Memphis vs Georgia Tech must see TV!. Space-eater Pierre Niles can potentially give Memphis something they lacked last year: a space-eater who can punish opporents in the paint and potentially in half-court sets. This of course assuming Pierre Niles gets in shape and makes progress as set forth by Calipari. GaTech's power-duo is Crittendon and Thaddeus Young (projected lottery pick in the NBA 2007 draft)- on ESPN. Prediction: Memphis

* around 630pm: Kentucky vs UCLA. The two winningest programs in the country. Since they are no longer playing each other, the Maui invitational people made sure they would meet in the semifinals. They gave them the easiest assignments to guarantee this matchup. Also on ESPN. Prediction: Kentucky


CBE/Guardians Classic Final
* 7pm: Duke vs Marquette on ESPN2. Prediction: Duke. Hope for: Marquette. The look of defeat of Coach K's smug-face is PRICELESS!


Other games
* Home games against mid-majors for Florida and Kansas, while Iowa State visits Minnnesssoooottttaaaa, all on ESPN Full Court (pay per view package, $109 per year)
* 630pm: San Jose State at Arizona State on Fox College Sports and regional FSNs
* 7pm: TCU vs St Mary's on Comcast Sports Net (CSNET)

Catching up with recruiting...

Derrick Rose will play in an NBA arena next season...

USA Today publishes their Top 25 Prep teams

Versus, the new Comcast sports channel replacing OLN on standard cable will host a brand new high school basketball tourney right after Christmas, featuring four Top 25 teams, including Derrick Rose's Simeon team, along with Fairfax and local O'Dea.

OJ Mayo signs with USC, Herb Pope shocks everyone with this choice

All the links and details at http://recruitingwars.blogspot.com/

Most poorly officiated game so far!

The zebras were acting like divas, calling every single nickle-dimer, throwing technicals left and right as if it was an NBA game, tossing one coach out, affecting the flow of the game, and affecting the outcome of the game. Horrible, horrible job that turned a potentially entertaining game into a slugfest. Nevertheless, the game ended with excitement on a buzzer beater!

What game was this? New Mexico State at Loyola Marymount.
Who was the head official? Dave Libby

What to watch: Monday hoops on TV!

All times Pacific! Add +3 for Eastern times :-)
This is a West COAST bias blog :-)


Maui Invitational
* 11:30am Oklahoma-Memphis: New Oklahoma coach salvaged the 500-phone-call recruiting class and is facing the Calipari Tigers, who got a big boost after the commitment of Derrick Rose. Rose won't play until 2007-2008, but Jeremy Hunt is back (along with Clyde Wade). The Mercurial Tigers are back? Look for scoring machine Tre'von Willis, space-eaters Pierre Niles and Hashim Bailey along with the Laurenburg sophomores. Prediction: Memphis

* around 2pm Georgia Tech-Purdue. Thaddeus Young and Javaris Crittenton make their national debut. Purdue gets Landry and a guard back for their 5th and final season, but their strong recruiting class comes in 2007-2008. Prediction:: Georgia Tech wins in a blow-out of 20+

* 6pm DePaul-Kentucky: Judging from the earlier games this has the potential of being a slugfest. But it could also be a very entertaining game as Jerry Wainwright tries to mold his team, while Tubby tries to turn Kentucky into a single-digit loss team this season. First one to 50 wins :-) Prediction:: Kentucky

* around 8:20pm Chaminade-UCLA. Prediction:: UCLA in a slugfest



CBE/Guardians Classic Semifinals
* 4pm: Air Force - Duke, Prediction: Duke, Hope for: Air Force


Paradise Jam
* 3pm and 530pm (with a couple of late night replays): the 3rd place and 1st place games on Fox College Sports, their only original event, with Larry Conley as the expert analyst. Teams featured: Alabama (with Davidson back), Iowa, Xavier and the new Villanova team with Scottie Reynolds and Curtis Sumpter.


Other games
* 5pm San Francisco at Ohio State, on ESPN+, Full Court and CSN (Comcast Sports Net)
* 730pm Santa Clara at California on CSN


Reruns
* Early morning on Tuesday the New Mexico State-Arizona and UTSA-Gonzaga (blowout) games will be rebroadcast on Fox College Sports.

New Bob Knight feature on Versus and USA Today!

Versus, the channel emerging from the old Outdoor channel on standard cable is having a timely feature on Bob Knight in their weekly series called "The Soul of a Champion". The piece was done in anticipation of Bob Knight breaking Dean Smith's all time record, not because of the Prince-Chin debacle.


Details at the Official USA Today website for Soul of a Champion and here

Of basketball interest here are the dates for the first broadcast:
* Tuesday November 28, 10pm ET / 7pm PT, Bob Knight!
* This will repeat a few more times. As always check local listings!

The Bob Knight Media Circus

ESPN created a big stir out of the whole "lifting his chin up" situation. While they claimed it wasn't really a big deal, they kept bringing it up during every single ESPN show from Cold Pizza to PTI to QF to ATH to SC to Mike and Mike. This was probably the biggest much-ado-about-nothing since the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction".

Having said all that however, it was interesting to see how almost all the ESPN basketball analysts went into bobble-head mode and agreed with Bob Knight. Jay Bilas desperately tried to defend Knight by reciting text he remembered from his law school text books. Is basketball coaching a "good old boys" network? This is sad...

Only two people on ESPN's air dared to question Knight on this: Doug Gotlieb and Skip Bayless, both of whom are not afraid to speak their mind, but some could argue that they like to take the opposing view for the sake of argument. But Doug Gotlieb was the only basketball insider to "dare to question" Knight on this. Skip is a reporter, not a former coach/player...

What to watch: Weekend Hoops

* All times are Pacific; add +3 for EST (eastern time) *

Friday
* 4pm and 630pm: Coaches vs Cancer double-header on ESPN2 and ESPN2HD, featuring Texas and super-frosh Kevin Durant, Michigan State, Maryland and St Johns.
* 4pm Eastern Kentucy at Ohio State on Comcast Sports Net and ESPN+
* ESPN Full Court (aka Pay Per View) features five games with Kentucky, Texas Tech, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio State hosting mid-majors and cupcakes
* 7pm Battle of the Brains: Northwestern at Stanford on FSN and Fox College Sports. Stanford is still smarting from the 30+ loss vs Air Force in the Bay Area. Perhaps the Mike Montgomery to Oregon rumor will be replaced by the Mike Montgomery returning to Stanford rumor?
* 730pm (and repeat 12:30am) New Mexico State at Loyola Marymount on CSTV. Reggie Theus shocked the recruiting world today by signing Herb Pope away from Pitt, Maryland and such. But Herb Pope isn't playing tonite (2007-2008 recruit). But four high-profile transfers are playing for Reggie Theus tonite (barring any injuries and such)
* 1am repeat: South Carolina at USC on FoxCollegeSports


Saturday

12pm repeat of the 1982 NCAA Final between Georgetown and Jordantown (North Carolina) on ESPN-Classic

1pm Wichita State at George Mason on ESPN2. The new darling mid-majors square off once again against each other. Oh baby!

430pm: Cal at San Diego State on VERSUS. Yes, Versus is the new entity that emerged from the ashes of the standard cable channel Outdoor Life or something like that. Comcast bought it and is turning it into a general purpose sports channel while maintaining a heavy rotation of "outdoorsy" programming. The call sign for this channel is "VS" and is usually found in the 70s or 80s in terms of channel number. As always check local listings

5pm Fairfield at UConn on ESPN+ and CSN (Comcast Sports Net). Get a sneak peek at this year's crop of talented players getting yelled at by Calhoun ;-)


Sunday

Six games on ESPN Full Court, including Iowa State, Indiana, Misery (Missouri), Oklahomo State, Northern Iowa and Kansas (about to lose at home again?). Most of them are hosting either mid-majors or cupcakes. But some of them bite them in the ass :-)

1pm New Mexico State at Arizona on Fox College Sports. This promises to be a shootout as Reggie Theus has an influx of eligible talent

1pm Sacramento State at Washington on Fox College Sports. Spencer Hawes is recovering quite well. Expect a strong showing here! Quite possibly a one-and-done player.

5pm UT-San ANtonE at Gonzaga on Fox College Sports. Josh Heytvelt is a rising star. Abdullaih Kuso (former St Joseph's signee) could emerge as a Rodman-Lite for the Zags. (And they badly need him to do so)

630pm Northern Colorado at Denver, on Fox College Sports. If you watch this game and you are not a fan of either team, then you must be a Hoops junkie! :-)

4pm and 630pm (with reruns later on): Paradise Jam semi-finals from the Virgin Islands. This is the only original programming produced by Fox College Sports, which usually picks up games from regional FSNs, and other local and regional channels/networks.

10pm repeat: 1954 Hoosier classic: Muncie vs Milan on ESPN-Classic

3pm and 1am reruns: Northern Iowa at Washington on Fox College Sports. If you haven't watched this earlier in the week, this is a good game!

7pm rerun: Northwestern at Stanford on Fox College Sports. Battle of the Brainiacs? :-0)


Next week
* tune-up your VCRs, TiVos, DVRs, ReplayTVs, and multimedia PCs! Dozens of games including the Maui Invitational, the Alaska shootout, the final fours of the NIT and the CBE (Guardians classic), the Paradise Jam, South Padre Island, and the ESPN debut of the Old Spice Classic in Vegas (8 teams, 3 games each on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU)

What to watch: Tuesday Hoops on TV

All times are Pacific (PST); add +3 to get to EST (east coast time)

Live games

6pm NIT Regional final: Butler vs Indiana on ESPN and ESPNHD

7pm CBE (Guardians) Regional final: Texas Tech vs Cupcake on ESPN2

730pm Northern Iowa at Washington on Fox College Sports

9pm NIT Round 1: Rice vs Gonzaga on ESPN2


Repeats

2pm Victoria at Arizona (exhibition) on Fox College Sports

4pm Nicholls State at Washington on Fox College Sports


Season previews

ESPN Gameday 60-minute season preview at 5pm on ESPN watch or tape this!

various 30-minute team previews on regional FSN and FoxCollegeSports - check local listings as these vary from city to city


The new Bob Knight incident

Coverage of the latest Bob Knight incident (punching Michael Prince in the jaw (not the singer) to get his attention) on various ESPN shows, including SportsCenter, Cold Pizza, PTI, Around the Horn, etc... This happening with Bob Knight being eight wins away from breaking Dean Smith's record. What a contrast in personalities and temperament between Dean Smith and Bob Knight!

National college basketball TV schedule online!

MSNBC has posted the first online (first that I found) schedule of college basketball games on national TV channels. This includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FSN, CBS and ABC. Details at: Compilation of TV and multimedia schedules. I will be adding more links as I find them. Also added the Yahoo Sports broadcast schedule link. If you have any more please feel free to post them as comments or email me with them.

Post-Election Hoops!

And we are baaaaack after the election extravaganza...

Watch out for the Wildcats!
Both the Arizona and Kentucky Wildcats may surprise people this year. Both teams were on a collision course at the Final Four a few years ago, but they both got stuck in the Elite 8, with Roy's Kansas taking out Arizona and D-Wade taking out Kentucky. They haven't recovered since it seems. As you may recall that year they were the top two teams but the silly NCAA selection cmte had them meeting in the National Semifinal instead of the Final. This prompted a change in the way teams are seated, so the national #1 and #2 are now projected to meet in the final instead of the semifinal (duh!)

Kentucky's freshmen are severly underrated. The 2006 class is so loaded that players that would normally be considered top 10 talent in other classes are considered top 50 talent here. This will benefit these teams as they are less likely to bolt for the NBA after one year since the draft will be loaded with the likes of Oden, Durant, Billy Walker (expected to debut December 16 this year with Huggins State). Both teams have a candidate for the "Tyrus Thomas of this year" award: Perry Stevenson of Kentucky and Jordan Hill of Arizona. Both were under-rated by the experts for different reasons: Stevenson was way too skinny (even though he averaged a triple double in HS (blocks included)), and Jordan Hill had just two years of organized basketball experience. Jasper will prove to be the ultimate team player, not just a "stat-sheet staffer" as Clark Kellogg puts it. Meeks is another versatile player that compliments the other two.

Arizona seems to always be on the brink of the Final Four each year, partly because of Lute (which by the way is featured in a new IN MY OWN WORDS on FSN), partly because they are loaded with talent. Only two of the Moody Blues remain, with Salim Stoudamire, Chris Rodgers and Hot Sauce exhausting their eligibility. The remaining two members of the Moody Blues are not as ...moody, so there is hope. Shakur could still undergo the "Terry" transformation in his senior year, but Nic Wise is available to take over as soon as he gets enough games under his belt (drawstring really). Kirk Walters just needs to block and rebound, and with the emergence of Hill he can be as moody as he wants ;-) Jordan Hill has already become #3 in the big man rotation, even though the analysts had him penciled in as a redshirt-candidate. This guy is gonna be huge this year. If you don't believe me, watch the Arizona exhibition game against Victoria of Canada on one of its many reruns on Fox College Sports. Chase Budinger has been described as an athletic version of Luke Walton. While Budinger may be a bit overrated imho, he is still a big talent. A rotatation of 10+ athletic, skilled and interchangeable players is definitely a plus. The Arizona team will make history as it will be the team that plays Virginia in their first ever game at their shiny and new John Paul Jones arena. Lute Olson is either brave or crazy - that's his first regular season game - on the other side of the country playing a ribbon-cutting-ceremony game!


What to watch on TV this weekend - all times Pacific (add +3 for EST)

Friday

4:30pm-10pm Five games on ESPN FULL COURT, including Ohio State, UConn, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Iowa State hosting cupcakes!

5pm VMI - Ohio State on CSN (Comcast Sports Net) - debut of the THAD FIVE but without the injured Greg Oden

5pm Eastern Washington - Gonzaga on FCS (Fox College Sports) and regional FSNs - debut of Gonzaga-Part1. Gonzaga will add two spring transfers in mid-late December: Micah "Moody Blues" Downs and big Burgess. Make sure you watch or tape this game!. Eastern Washington's Rodney Stuckey is an NBA-caliber talent. Gonzaga may actually lose this game, since this is a local rivarly game!!! Repeats at 930pm and 1am on FCS

730pm Denver at Colorado on FCS. Lame-duck coach Ricardo Patton's first game...

5pm Classic game from 1992: BYU - Utah on BYUTV (religious channel usually available on digital cable); commercial-free game

Saturday

530am: Feature on John Wooden on PBS's Between the Lines. PBS schedule varies from station to station.

1pm Sienna at Stanford on FSN, with repeats on FCS. The debut of one of the Lopez twins. The other one is recovering from surgery/injury. I forgot who is injured.

5pm NAU at Kansas on ESPN FULL COURT. In the midst of college football craziness, ESPN PayPerView is showcasing the highly ranked 1st-round-exiters (oops! the Bill Self Jayhawks)

Sunday

Massive number of 30-minute team previews on FCS. With Bobby Cremmins back in the coaching business, FSN has gone to a single-analyst format. The last couple of years they had a committee of three (Bobby Cremins, Eddie Fogler and another dude). According to the TV schedule they have 14 of them scheduled.

4pm Arizona at Virginia on FCS. Repeats at 1130pm. The Christening of the John Paul Jones arena (pun intended!). Lute Olson is brave-crazy for doing this. Dave Leito has a chance of winning this game, no doubt assisted by the "emotionalness" of the brand new arena.

730pm Pepperdine at Washington on FCS. First of three back-to-back days with Washington games on FCS. No B-Roy, no Nate Robinson, no Spencer Hawes (injured), but look out for Q and Phil Nelson. Pepperdine as you may recall has hired the Fresno State JC coach whose offense is prominently showcased by Calipari's Memphis Tigers. This should be an up-and-down affair!

1230pm through 5pm: four games on ESPN FULL COURT

10pm Classic game on ESPN-Classic: 1983 NCAA Final, Houston vs NC State. The Jimmy V championship game!


To get the TV college basketball game available in your region, search for "college basketball" at tv.yahoo.com/advsearch. To get a listing of the 30-minute FSN previews search for "hoops preview". For CSTV classic games search for "retrovision". Search for "NCAA basketball" for well, NCAA events :)

Holiday shopping!

Here are two great DVD deals that basketball fans may be interested in! This helps in supporting this blog which is totally FREE, unlike ESPN Insider :-)

Stargate Atlantis Season 1 DVD set, sold by Amazon for $16

Dead Like Me Season 1 DVD set, sold by Amazon for $16

I want my record and I want it NOW!

Bob Knight is crying in the comforts of his own home. He was almost guaranteed to break Dean Smith's all-time winningest coach record this year. He went to great extends by "firing" half of his team from last year and bringing a lot of new players. All that was well. But now he has to do it without his star guard Jarrius Jackson. Ouch!!!

Speaking of Bob Knight, there was apparently a staged interview with him and Aaron Bruce of Baylor when Baylor gave Aaron Bruce a camera to interview people at the Big 12 Media Day. He interviewed Bob Knight who was wearing a green sweater and a gold shirt underneath, typically associated with Baylor colors. Bob Knight was very calm, very mild-mannered and very subdued during the interview and he didn't even flinch when Aaron Bruce dared to touch (!!!) the General on the shoulder (the expectation would be for Bob Knight to grab him by the throat *cough* Neil *cough*). Knight complimented Aaron Bruce by saying that he likes the way he plays the game. On a totally unrelated note Rush Limbaugh cannot find a week's worth of horse tranquilizers ;-)

This was broadcast a couple of weeks ago on Baylor Inside Sports, a weekly 30-minute magazine covering Baylor sports. This is usually available on Fox College Sports, regional FSNs and perhaps CSTV.