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PIONEERS, O PIONEERS! Joe Scott has tried to lead Denver to its first NCAA tournament, but after almost a decade on the job, that goal remains elusive. The Pioneering pursuit continues for a man dedicated to the process of coaching.

Coaching in focus: The Second-Chance Club

0 comments by on 2/19/2016

In a sport with 351 head coaches, a lot of stories are waiting to be told. Typically, the stories which capture the headlines are the stories of the men who lead their teams into the Madness of March. However, basketball is bigger and broader than just the sweet sound of success. It’s also about the […]

Mark Turgeon

Mark Turgeon and others try to pull off college basketball’s great escape

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College basketball differs from college football in so many ways. One of them: time. Basketball coaches might not have an abundance of time on an overall level — look at North Carolina State, Memphis, and other teams which were essentially finished as at-large candidates before February even began. That said, basketball bosses have so much […]

College basketball chaos: Wednesday night was a study in moving parts

0 comments by on 2/18/2016

The continuing chaos of the 2016 college basketball season emerged in a number of striking ways on a wild Wednesday night which felt a little bit like March. Fact No. 1: Penn State has now beaten both Indiana and Iowa at home this month. Fact No. 2: Penn State has work to do to merely […]

Texas Tech’s Devon Thomas is hoisted in the crowd after Texas Tech defeated Oklahoma 65-63 in an NCAA basketball game Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, in Lubbock, Texas. (AP Photo/Brad Tollefson) ORG XMIT: TXBT108

Texas Tech wins a classic mid-February bubble game

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Wednesday night’s game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Oklahoma Sooners wasn’t a classic in the sense of being the best basketball you’ve ever seen. This was not a remarkable showcase of hoops at the highest level, with Buddy Hield struggling (he’s human, ya know) and Texas Tech making only 10 of 17 […]

If not us, who? If not now, when? Those questions echo through the world of men’s college basketball, as it waits for the first female head coach. Nancy Lieberman could soon emerge from the mess in Sacramento, giving athletic directors a chance to make history… and improve their program.

Need a new basketball coach, Division I ADs? Here’s one suggestion

0 comments by on 2/17/2016

We’re not too far away from the end of the college basketball regular season. Don’t look now, but March arrives in two weeks. Small-conference tournaments will begin, and power-conference regular seasons will give way to the festival of brackets which fills our lives during the transition to longer evenings and the coming spring. The following […]

Removed from the bright lights, coaches age with their programs

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When only 128 people hold a specific job position on the planet, one can reasonably say that such a job is rather exclusive. Such is the case for head coaches of Football Bowl Subdivision programs. If 351 people hold a specific job, it’s not as though the position is terrifically expansive or widely available. Yet, […]

PATRICK DODSON/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER UAlbany’s Peter Hooley (12) shoots a buzzer beater three pointer to beat Stony Brook in the America East championship game at University at Albany’s SEFCU Arena on Saturday, March 14, 2015.

There’s a huge game Wednesday night… followed by Duke-UNC

0 comments by on 2/16/2016

Is it an embellishment to say that a huge game exists on the Wednesday-night schedule in college hoops… and that oh, by the way, there’s also Duke and North Carolina on your television? Sure. Is it wrong to say that the America East clash between the Stony Brook Seawolves and the Albany Great Danes is […]

BracketBusters needs to return… but with a new look

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For more than a decade, the BracketBusters event represented a well-intentioned attempt to separate some mid-major bubble teams from others in late February. The idea was — and still is — excellent. If any sport must select a given number of teams for its postseason event, it is necessary for that sport to provide an […]

SMU guard Nic Moore (11) shoots over Gonzaga forward Kyle Wiltjer (33) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jim Cowsert)

While America ran on dunkin’, how did college hoops change?

0 comments by on 2/14/2016

It’s one of the most forgotten nights of the college hoops season, easily the most forgotten Saturday night of the season in the weeks after NFL Divisional Playoff Saturday. The Saturday night of NBA All-Star Weekend belongs to the league’s slam dunk contest. This is true in any year, but it’s especially the case when […]

Major Theme: 2016 belongs to the power conferences

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You don’t need to be told again that this college basketball season is crazy, bonkers, bananas, silly-pants, looney tunes, and all the rest. We have that part down, especially after a Saturday in which six top-15 teams and eight top-25 teams fell. Another theme is worth emphasizing after a full Saturday of plot twists and […]

South Carolina should have been included, but that’s another story. What’s worse about the Selection Committee’s performance on Sunday is that by excluding both the Gamecocks and Monmouth, it made it impossible to tell whether ambitious non-conference scheduling mattered or not. That’s the worst part — not the bad exclusion, but not offering an intellectually consistent message to the snubbed teams.

February Fanfare: You can argue about the real USC, but both schools have soared

0 comments by on 2/12/2016

It’s almost Presidents’ Day, which means that college basketball is getting down to the nitty gritty. The Super Bowl is done. The NBA All-Star Game will be done when America’s next federal holiday arrives. You might be sane right now, but you can begin to get a whiff of madness, wafting into the room. Yes, […]

Follow the bouncing team — you’ll need to

0 comments by on 2/11/2016

Follow the bouncing ball? That’s easy. Follow the bouncing team? That’s what’s so hard about this college basketball season. The “bouncing team” dynamic can simply refer to any team which displays a great deal of volatility over the course of the season. It is better understood as the combination of rapidly declining teams (from a […]

Texas A&M, Providence, and SMU: February tales as old as time

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Remember the 2014 Iowa Hawkeyes? They merit a place in a discussion of the current college basketball season, and more specifically, what transpired on a wild Wednesday night. Other teams have done what 2014 Iowa did. Consider the 2011 Villanova Wildcats as another example. If you look through the record books, you’ll find yet more […]

The early March memo: Get to the tin and draw fouls

0 comments by on 2/10/2016

March is the month of reckoning in college basketball. It’s the time when individual free throws — especially front ends of 1-and-1s — can mean hundreds of thousands of extra dollars for schools and conferences. Yes, free throws come with a lot of pressure, but unless chronically bad charity pitchers are involved, they’re first-world problems. […]

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