Thursday, November 19, 2009
Like I did during football season, for every UMass men's basketball game this season, I'll be giving out three stars to the top three performers from the Minutemen and keeping track of who earns the most three start points over the course of the season.
I'm putting a little extra weight on No. 1. So a No. 1 star is worth 5 points. A No. 2 is worth three and a No. 3 is worth 2.
Three Stars from UMass vs. Central Florida
Not a great game to choose stars from as the Minutemen struggled.
No. 1 - Terrell Vinson - The freshman looked much more confident with 11 points and four rebounds.
No. 2 - Ricky Harris - He wasn't terrific, but he had 26 points against a defense designed to stop him.
No. 3 - Anthony Gurley - Took good shots. Made 5-of-7 free throws.
Season-to-date points:
Terrell Vinson - 5
Freddie Riley - 5
Anthony Gurley - 4
Ricky Harris - 3
Javorn Farrell - 2
Game updates are at http://twitter.com/GazetteUMass.
UMass looked better than it did against Central Florida.
The defense still needs work, but had moments where the players seemed to get it a little better.
If David Gibbs or Gary Correia doesn't get better UMass is going to continue to struggle offensively. I think Kellogg did the right thing cutting Doug Wiggins loose, but the Minutemen could use him.
Vinson looked pretty good. I have a feeling he'll be playing closer to the basket as the season continues. Against a smaller team, he could have some big nights inside.
Still no Putney, which leads me to believe a redshirt is till very possible.
UMass needs some offense from Sean Carter.
Monday, November 16, 2009
This week John Wall will begin what figures to be a short college career.
LEADING OFF
With a couple of exceptions, last week was the college basketball equivalent of dipping toes into water as few good teams really challenged themselves. The cannonballs arrive this week as the final four of the 2K Sports Classic and the Puerto Rico Tipoff tournaments highlight a legitimate docket of games.
Top 24 - I decided on 24. I started to rank 20 and that felt restricting and 30 felt like too much. Since I'm not actually voting in the A.P. this year I didn't want to pick 25 and mislead anyone so this week's marks the debut of the top 24.
1. Kansas
2. Michigan State
3. Texas
4. Kentucky
5. Purdue
6. Villanova
7. West Virginia
8. North Carolina
9. California
10. Butler
11. Duke
12. Ohio State
13. Oklahoma
14. Washington
15. UConn
16. Missouri
17. Tennessee
18. Michigan
19. Georgia Tech
20. Louisville
21. Dayton
22. Georgetown
23. Minnesota
24. Siena
GAMES OF THE DAY:
MONDAY: Penn at Villanova - Not a great Monday at schedules go. But any matchup between two Big Five teams is worth paying attention to.
TUESDAY: ESPN 24 Hours of Basketball- Somewhere down the line it would be great if this event opened the season, but its still pretty fun where it is. This year's games include:
Memphis vs. Kansas, St. Louis, 10 p.m. - A rematch of the 2008 finals won't compare to that game, but the Tigers figure to give the top-ranked Jayhawks a true test.
Gonzaga at Michigan State, 8 p.m. - This Zags team isn't as good as some of the recent editions, but this is a terrific game never the less.
WEDNESDAY: Butler at Northwestern, 8 - This is a sneaky good game that could slip by a lot of people. But this is as good as Butler has ever been and Northwestern, a perennial doormat has a legitimate shot to make the NCAA Tournament this season.
THURSDAY: North Carolina vs Ohio State at Madison Square Garden, 9 - The Tar Heels are ranked awfully high for a team that lost a lot. Ohio State's Evan Turner could be the best player on the floor here.
Syracuse v, California, Madison Square Garden, 7, -The Orange always seems to be good in Madison Square Garden events in both November and March. But the young and rebuilding Orange will have their hands full with a very good Cal team that has a chance to make a name for itself in this event.
Dayton vs. Georgia Tech, Puerto Rico, 11:30 a.m. -Both of these came into the season with high expectations, this is a huge opportunity to deliver on it.
FRIDAY: Seton Hall at Cornell, 7 - The defending Ivy League champs have loaded up their schedule heavily. With a SEC win already in their pocket, the Big Red will try to add a Big East win.
2K Sports Classic games -Whatever the matchups of the winners and losers of Thursday's MSG will be worth watching Friday.
SATURDAY: Rider at Kentucky, 1 p.m. - Rider beat Mississippi State last week. This will be a much tougher task.
SUNDAY: Puerto Rico Classic Final - I'm guessing Villanova vs. either Dayton or Georgia Tech
Recommended Reading -
For the first time in a long time, there is legitimate optimism in November for St. Bonaventure basketball.
Question I don't know the answer to: How is Georgetown going to Savannah State? I know Horace Broadnax played at Georgetown, but that's still a stunning game for a top 25 team to play on the road.
Buzzer beaters
Keep your eye on Harvard. Yes Harvard. While the Crimson aren't likely to dethrone Cornell in the any time soon, they look more formidable than they have in quite a while.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Like I did during football season, for every UMass men's basketball game this season, I'll be giving out three stars to the top three performers from the Minutemen and keeping track of who earns the most three start points over the course of the season.
I'm putting a little extra weight on No. 1. So a No. 1 star is worth 5 points. A No. 2 is worth three and a No. 3 is worth 2.
Three Stars from UMass vs. Central Florida
Not a great game to choose stars from as the Minutemen struggled.
No. 1 - Freddie Riley - The freshman opened his career with 12 points.
No. 2 - Anthony Gurley - The junior had 14 points
No. 3. - Javorn Farrell - Nine points and a game best five rebounds.
Season to date points:
Freddie Riley - 5
Anthony Gurley - 3
Javorn Farrell - 2
Friday, November 13, 2009
POSTGAME
Ricky Harris' struggled in the second half and UMass didn't really have enough offensively to pick him. He finished with 15. Anthony Gurley had 14 and Freddie Riley had 12.
UMass attempted a school record 38 3-pointers, but made just 12.
Marcus Jordan was scoreless.
Sounds like I missed a heck of a hockey game.
FIRST HALF
Kind of an up-and-down first half with neither team looking especially in sync.
UMass has attempted 25 threes already. The school record of 35 is very much in jeopardy.
Harris has 11. Freddie Riley has six on a pair of threes.
PREGAME
I'm not actually at UCF Arena yet, but I'm starting the liveblog from Barnes and Noble (but borrowing free wireless from Panaera next door) with some items of interest:
1. The rumors from several places is that Michael Jordan is expected to be at the game tonight. He was at the Cavs-Heat game last night in Miami. So he's in the state. I'll be curious if he'll sit near the court or in a suite.
2. UMass' starters for tonight's game will be Ricky Harris, Sean Carter, David Gibbs, Terrell Vinson and Sampson Carter. Kellogg is bringing Anthony Gurley off the bench, to give him a veteran and a scoring presence in that scenario. The bet here is that Gurley will still be on the floor in the final minutes of a close game.
My plan tonight, instead of liveblogging will be to update the score etc. on Twitter at timeouts.
If you don't twitter, you can still click on this page: http://twitter.com/GazetteUMass and gets the updates. It seems like a more efficient way to do it while I'm also writing a story. We'll see how it works out. I'm certainly open to feedback.
3. I'm planning to do three stars for hoop beginning tonight the same way I did for football.
4. Tonight's Atlantic 14 action includes:
Cleveland State at St. Bonaventure
Drexel at St. Joe's
Lehigh at Richmond
UNC Ashville at Charlotte
Youngstown at Xavier
Maine at Fordham
Nichols State at Duquesne
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
UMass will not be announcing the official signing of Maxie Esho today. The 6-7 big man prospect from Washington D.C. who is prepping at Maine's Lee Academy, is still expected to sign with the Minutemen during the early signing period, which began today. But because he is in Maine and his parents are in the Capital area, it could take a little longer for the letter of intent to arrive.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Notre Dame big man Luke Harangody begins his ninth season of college basketball.
LEADING OFF
College basketball season is back and so is the week guide. Every week I'll look at the week ahead in college hoops featuring rankings, predictions and links to stories.
Top 20 - The Associated Press rotated its voters and shrunk the total number of voters from 72 to 65. So I'm not voting this year. That said I'm still going to post rankings here every week. I'm doing 20 instead of 25 so it doesn't appear like I'm actually voting in the Associated Press Poll. I'll post the first poll here in next week's week guide.
FEARLESS PREDICITION: Cornell will beat Alabama, Saturday.
GAMES OF THE DAY:
MONDAY: Florida International at North Carolina - The college coaching debut of Isiah Thomas. History has shown that often good college coaches make lousy professional coaches. Well Thomas has already shown he's a terrible pro coach, so it'll be interesting to see if that works in reverse.
TUESDAY: No games scheduled.
WEDNESDAY: Robert Morris at Syracuse - The best of not-such a great selection of Wednesday games. RMU is coming off an NEC title and and an NCAA bid, but lost the conference player of the year and the defensive player of year.
THURSDAY: James Madison at Ohio State - Like Wednesday, not much to choose from.
FRIDAY: Morehead at Kentucky - The debut of John Wall will certainly draw some attention.
UMass at Central Florida - I don't usually include UMass games in here, but the debut of the Minutemen's five freshmen and UCF's Marcus Jordan makes this one more interesting than most of the big name vs. Washington General games that mark most of Friday's schedule.
SATURDAY: Creighton at Dayton - Creighton isn't as good as it has been, but it's still a good coming-out party for the Flyers.
Davidson at Butler - Davidson obviously isn't the same without Curry. But this is still two of the best mid-majors in recent years.
Cornell at Alabama - The reigning Ivy champs could score an early trophy.
SUNDAY: Oregon State vs. Texas Tech - Not the best possible Pac 10-Big XII matchup, but it's big conference vs. big conference.
Recommended Reading -
The New York Times' story on Jeremy Tyler, who skipped his senior year of high school and college to play overseas, is both a good read and a cautionary tale.
Dan Wetzel looks at Isiah Thomas starting over.
Question I don't know the answer to: I'm curious about Kentucky. Very curious in fact. The Dribble-Drive Motion isn't something people pick up quickly. Memphis struggled at first with it. How quick will the Wildcats pick it up?
Buzzer beaters
Seven hours til hoop season.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Jerry Tipton of the Lexington Leader Herald has a good story about Kentucky learning how to run Calipari's Dribble-Drive offense.
I'm posting it because it's a good story, but more than that because I imagine UMass' freshman are experiencing similar growing pains.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
UMass got bad news on the recruiting front as Florida big man Cady Lalane, who'd been a Minuteman top target, chose Georgia.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Atlantic 10 Preseason poll:
1. Dayton (33)
2. Xavier (18)
3. Richmond (4)
4. La Salle (2)
5T - Temple
5T - Duquesne
7. Charlotte
8. Rhode Island
9. UMass
10. Saint Joseph's
11. St. Bonaventure
12. Saint Louis
13. George Washington
14. Fordham
First team: Chris Wright, Dayton; Lavoy Allen, Temple; Ricky Harris, UMass; Kevin Anderson, Richmond; Rodney Green, La Salle
Second-team: Marcus Johnson, Dayton; David Gonzalvez, Richmond; DiJuan
Harris, Charlotte; Andrew Nicholson, St. Bonaventure's; Damian Saunders, Duquesne.
Third team:Bill Clark, Duquesne, Keith Cothran, Rhode Island; Jordan Crawford, Xavier; Dan Geriot, Richmond; Kwamain Mitchell, Saint
Louis.
Rookie team: Freddie Riley, UMass; Terrell Vinson, UMass; Shamarr Bowden, Charlotte; Aaric Murray, La Salle; Chris Gaston, Fordham
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Minutemen are opening practice to everyone a 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1 at the Mullins Center.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Slam Magazine previews the Minutemen.
Q&A with Central Florida's Marcus Jordan on ESPN. Jordan of course is the son of Michael and Central Florida is UMass' opponent.
Concord Monitor UMass-UNH Preview. Seacoast Online's preview.
BU Daily Free Press on tonight's hockey game.
Tony Gaffney had two points, two boards and a block in last night's exhibition game for the Lakers, but his -12 plus-minus was glaring.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
One month tonight the University of Massachusetts basketball season will be underway at Central Florida.
One month til the national media focuses on Marcus Jordan, while fans in 413 salivate over Vinson, Farrell, Riley Carter and Farrell.
One month til people start checking RealtimeRpi.com even though it'll be weeks before the numbers have any actual relevance.
One month til people start reading Joe Lunardi hoping for a glimse of their team in Bracketology.
One month til Syracuse fans starting whining that the Orangemen aren't getting enough respect from poll voters.
One month til Atlantic 10 fans begin debating the definition of mid-major again.
Less than a month til the top 25s come out.
Less than a month til all the preview magazines are on the stands. Most already are.
Less than a month til Isiah Thomas becomes a college basketball coach.
Less than a month til UMass and Dowling revive their annual rivalry.
Less than a week til practice starts.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Former UMass forward Trey Lang was working out with the Minutemen Friday. While Derek Kellogg is listing Lang's return as "possible," it looks pretty likely that the 6-foot-7 forward who played at UMass in 2007-08 and was a student, but didn't play last year, will be back on the roster.
He's not as big as the recently departed Tyrell Lynch, but he could give the Minutemen another body capable of playing inside.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Here's what my ballot for Atlantic 10 Preseason honors looked like:
ALL-CONFERENCE
For some bizarre reason the A-10 wants the best player listed as No. 15 and the 15th best player listed at No. 1. So the best players is on top of this list.
Player School
15. Chris Wright, Dayton
14. Ricky Harris, UMass
13. Lavoy Allen, Temple
12. Kevin Anderson, Richmond
11. Rodney Green, La Salle
10. DiJuan Harris, Charlotte
9. Damian Saunders, Duquesne
8. Andrew Nicholson, Saint Bonaventure
7. Jio Fontan, Fordham
6. Terrell Holloway, Xavier
5. Melquan Bolding, Duquesne
4. Kwamain Mitchell, Saint Louis
3. Dan Geriot, Richmond
2. Marcus Johnson, Dayton
1. Chris Braswell, Charlotte
ALL-DEFENSIVE TEAM (select five – coaches, please do not vote for players from your own team)
This always seems like an odd thing to vote for in the preseason.Sean Carter and David Gibbs were the nominated Minutemen.
Andrew Nicholson, SBU
Dante’ Jackson, XU
Willie Reed, SLU
Keith Cothran, URI
Damian Saunders, DUQ
ALL-ROOKIE TEAM (select five – coaches, please do not vote for players from your own team)
I vote based not only on who has the most talent, but on who will get the opportunity to play enough to showcase their talent.
Player
Freddie Riley, UM
Chris Braswell, CHA
Mark Lyons, XU
Terrell Vinson, UM
Aaric Murray, LAS
PREDICTED ORDER OF FINISH (coaches, please include your own team in the rankings)
1. Dayton - I'm not exactly breaking new ground here. This is everyone's top pick.
2. Xavier - This is giving Xavier as much credit for being Xavier as there is a lot of turnover again. Still I'd be surprised if I was wrong.
3. Richmond - This should be the Spiders' year. With Dan Geriot returning to play with David Gonzalvez and Kevin Anderson, Richmond should be good. That said, how often does a team running the Princeton offense ever actually win anything.
4. La Salle - John Giannini has been saying for years how young and inexperienced his team is. No longer. Rodney Green is among the best players in the conference and his supporting cast is good.
5. Duquesne - The loss of Aaron Jackson will hurt, but the Dukes continue to move forward as a program.
6. Temple - After No. 5 it's a toss-up. I think few teams have an answer for Lavoy Allen inside and I think Juan Fernandez is on the rise.
7. Charlotte - In theory I could have ranked the 49ers higher, but I'm unconvinced at Charlotte's ability to put together a good year in the league under Bobby Lutz.
8. UMass - Honestly I have no idea how UMass will be. The Minutemen will be very young. I think on some nights they'll look terrific and on some nights they'll look very young.
9. St. Bonaventure - This might be too low.
10. Rhode Island - This one will come back to bite me because Jim Baron's teams are never this bad.
11. Saint Joseph's - This one will come back to bite me because Phil Martelli's teams are never this bad.
12. Saint Louis - The Billikens are a lot like UMass, but younger and less proven.
13. George Washington - It's amazing how far the Colonials have fallen since reaching the top 10 not that long ago.
14. Fordham - They were fortunate to get Jio Fontan back, but this team will need to improve drastically not to be awful.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
By MICHAEL MAROT
AP Sports Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Myles Brand, the former Indiana University president who fired basketball coach Bob Knight and later went on to lead the NCAA, died Wednesday afternoon from pancreatic cancer. He was 67.
As the first university president to ever run college sports’ largest governing body, Brand worked to change the perception that wins supersede academics in college sports.
Brand broke the news that he had cancer in January at the NCAA convention and continued to run the organization’s day-to-day operations. The NCAA announced his death. Officials were not ready to announce who would replace Brand or when they may begin searching for a successor.
Brand gained national attention in May 2000 when he put Knight on a zero-tolerance policy after a former player alleged the hugely successful but hot-headed coach had choked him during a practice years earlier.
Four months after that announcement, freshman Kent Harvey accused Knight of grabbing him, and Brand did what fans considered unthinkable — firing the coach who won three national championships in Bloomington.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
From the moment that Brand fired Bob Knight, that single act was going to be the first line in his obituary. But Brand's impact on college sports extends beyond his dealings with Knight.
As the NCAA president, he attempted to increase the emphasis on academic responsibility in college athletics, Whether his plan - based largely on penalizing schools with poor classroom performance by taking scholarships - makes a legitimate difference remains to be seen. But the attempt is laudable. If it works its impact will be deeper than firing Bob Knight.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Gary Forbes' Tweet on Michael Jordan:
"MJ made me wanna get out my bed n head to the gym... Ultimate competitor"
Friday, September 11, 2009
Well it would have taken me a lot of guesses to come up with them as UMass' first-game opponent in the Legends Classic on Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. Let's face it. It doesn't get much more legendary than Arkansas Fort Smith, which was a junior college two years ago.
This means no Drexel game.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The University of Massachusetts men’s basketball team’s already undermanned frontcourt got a little thinner as coach Derek Kellogg dismissed sophomore big man Tyrell Lynch from the school’s men’s basketball program, Thursday.
Kellogg said that there wasn’t a specific event that led to his dismissal, but declined to elaborate further.
“It was my decision that it was best for the program and for Tyrell that he’s no longer part of the program,” Kellogg said.
