Monday, November 16, 2009
1. Montana
2. Southern Illinois
3. Villanova
4. Richmond
5. William & Mary
6. Appalachian St.
7. Elon
8. McNeese St.
9. South Carolina St.
10. Stephen F. Austin
11. New Hampshire
12. South Dakota St.
13. Northern Iowa
14. Jacksonville St.
15. Holy Cross
16. Eastern Illinois
17. Weber St.
18. Liberty
19. Colgate
20. Pennsylvania
21. Montana St.
22. Lafayette
23. Delaware
24. Prairie View A&M
25. Harvard
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Same deal as last night. Game updates will be on Twitter at http://twitter.com/GazetteUMass.
POSTGAME:
Well that officially does it for the Minutemen's playoff hopes. This game was close thoughout, but it never really felt that way.
Tough home finish for the Minuteman seniors as none of them had a particularly great day.
Next week at Hofstra will be interesting. The goal is out of reach. How will UMass play with altered motivation.
HALFTIME:
Well it's been a sloppy, ugly forgettable game between two once-great teams.
Tough senior day for the Minutemen. No catches for Victor Cruz or Jeremy Horne and Tony Nelson had two fumble.
Morris got away with a risky fourth-and-one call in his own territory.
Punting might have been the safe choice, but if you're going to go for it, a Zardas run seemed more prudent. Instead Havens was nearly picked on the play. JMU took over but couldn't score.
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.
