0 comments by Yesh Ginsburg on 3/10/2016
A week ago, I spoke about a potential dilemma for the selection committee. What would they do with Wichita State if the Shockers failed to win their conference tournament? It was an interesting thought exercise in what the committee would care about more–the resume or the team. This week, though, things got crazy. Every imaginable […]
SEATTLE, WA – NOVEMBER 27: Quarterback Jake Browning #3 of the Washington Huskies passes the ball as defensive lineman Darryl Paulo #99 of the Washington State Cougars and linebacker Peyton Pelluer #47 of the Washington State Cougars pursue during the second half of a football game at Husky Stadium on November 27, 2015 in Seattle, Washington. The Huskies won the game 45-10. (Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)
0 comments by Bart D
If you’re woebegone, searching the Internet for college football pieces that are written far too early, congrats, you’ve come to the right place. The horses are extra dark this time of year, because we have no idea who is going to win position battles, let alone succeed in live games when the lights are on. […]
0 comments by Bart D on 3/9/2016
Pull up a chair and let your old man tell you about the days when no one cared what spring practice was, and if you were a die hard or just simply needed something to do, maybe the spring game was worth five minutes of your time. Also, get me a glass of bourbon while […]
CHARLOTTE, NC – JANUARY 03: Head coach Lovie Smith of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers watches his team during their game against the Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium on January 3, 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
0 comments by Bart D on 3/7/2016
Open jobs are only so open as long as no one else actually wants them. Good open jobs rarely, if ever, are. When Josh Whitman somewhat sloppily fired Bill Cubit and then hired Lovie Smith to be Illinois’ football coach, this had “genius” or eternal pariah written all over it. Wins will end up deciding […]
CHAMPAIGN, IL – OCTOBER 24: Head coach Bill Cubit of the Illinois Fighting Illini is seen during the game against the Wisconsin Badgers at Memorial Stadium on October 24, 2015 in Champaign, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
0 comments by Terry P. Johnson on 3/6/2016
Wait and see. That’s my advice to everyone watching the Illinois coaching situation. Let’s be honest: that won’t be an easy thing to do. When I first learned that new athletic director Josh Whitman fired Bill Cubit, a number of different things crossed my mind. Was it right for Whitman to dismiss Cubit without even […]
CHAMPAIGN, IL – DECEMBER 30: Caris LeVert #23 of the Michigan Wolverines brings the ball up court during the game against the Illinois Fighting Illini at State Farm Center on December 30, 2015 in Champaign, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
0 comments by Bart D on 3/3/2016
Caris LeVert will walk into the Crisler Center on Saturday for the final time as a Michigan basketball player. He won’t play a single minute, but he’ll be praised loudly by an adoring home crowd, one that’s watched him grow immeasurably from niche, wiry defensive freshman to potential All-American in four years. About this time […]
0 comments by Yesh Ginsburg on 3/2/2016
The Wichita State Shockers present an interesting dilemma to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee this year. Of course, the committee has dilemmas every year, but those dilemmas are fairly standard. Bubble teams have resumes the committee must parse through and compare. Teams have to be judged. Then, at the end of the process, teams’ resumes […]
0 comments by Mike Abelson on 2/15/2016
There are three weeks left in the college basketball regular season, which means that the fine-tuning found in team maintenance is done. The next fundamental challenge for coaches is to maintain and maximize the resources they have as they hit the stretch run. The average teams have effort. The good teams have talent. The great […]
0 comments by Mike Abelson on 2/14/2016
With a month to go until the next Atlantic 10 tournament champion is crowned, much is left to be decided. The A-10 is as tough as ever and could potentially send as many as four teams to the NCAA tournament. Yet up and down the league standings, plenty is yet to be determined as teams […]
Rick Pitino and Louisville made The American a much stronger league in 2014 compared to the current 2015 version. Sure, SMU leads the conference this season, but it achieved a lot more in the 2014 campaign. Why is 2015 SMU’s RPI at 18 while last season’s team carried an RPI of 53 into Selection Sunday? The answer becomes very obvious as you continue to read this piece… and no, it’s not about winning games, either.
0 comments by Allen Kenney on 2/8/2016
It comes up nearly every time a high-profile program runs seriously afoul of the NCAA’s Byzantine set of rules and regulations governing the multibillion-dollar college sports industrial complex. Scholarships get docked, postseason bans are implemented, and complaints start ringing out about such a hamfisted system of justice. Not surprisingly, college hoops legend Rick Pitino became […]
0 comments by Mike Abelson on 2/5/2016
This is the second part in a recurring series profiling college basketball programs in New England. The second stop is a place where basketball and winning have never been synonymous, but a new coach is working to change that. … When it comes to basketball, few programs own a more barren history than the University […]
BATON ROUGE, LA – NOVEMBER 28: Head coach Les Miles of the LSU Tigers celebrates after defeating the Texas A&M Aggies 19-7 at Tiger Stadium on November 28, 2015 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
0 comments by Chris Abshire on 2/4/2016
By any standard, LSU’s National Signing Day was a mixed bag. Sure, the Tigers landed five-star corner Kristian Fulton, but that was just the cherry on top of a loaded defensive-back class at a position which already was a relative strength on the depth chart. Elsewhere, LSU lost out on key four-star linebacker Erick Fowler […]
0 comments by Ryan Palencer
Sure, John Calipari has never had a recruiting class ranked lower than second at Kentucky. It’s also true that whenever Calipari has struggled, he has usually been able to right the ship before it was too late. This dynamic was never more apparent than in 2014, when Calipari took an eighth-seeded team to the national championship […]
Texas head coach Charlie Strong celebrates with the Golden Hat after defeating Oklahoma, 24-17, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015. (Brandon Wade/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/TNS via Getty Images)
0 comments by Chris Abshire
You don’t change the paradigm of a program on National Signing Day alone. Winning games between the lines, claiming titles, changing a team’s culture — that’s the stuff which remakes the program, or in Texas’s case, restores it. However, bringing in big-time talent is almost always the first step toward achieving the above goals. Texas […]
0 comments by Mike Abelson on 2/3/2016
Providence College lost to DePaul in Chicago on Tuesday night. Just let that fact sink in. This was the 11th-ranked team in the country losing to a program that hasn’t won more than 12 games in a season since 2007. What does that make Providence? Providence did lose the Big East’s leading scorer, Ben Bentil, […]
