NCAA Basketball 24-25

[Shirley]

It's getting close!

I went to a UNC exhibition game last night. I also watched the first half of Duke's obliteration of Arizona State in a televised scrimmage.

As impressive as Duke looked, Cooper Flagg wasn't really that great. Honestly, if I had to rank the freshmen I saw in those two games, Flagg might have been the 6th best I saw. (I understand that it's only one game, and an exhibition at that).

The clear two-best frosh I saw were Maluach on Duke and Ian Jackson at UNC. Both were very impressive and looked like certain lottery picks. Kon Knueppel of Duke and Drake Powell of UNC also looked really good. The kid from ASU, Quaintance, also impressed me. All those guys played better than Flagg.

[Nonlinear FC]

I tuned in to watch a replay of MI's exhibition with Toledo. (I think the game was on Saturday.)

The Portal Era is freakin' wild. The roster, especially starting 5, is just completely turned over under new coach Dusty May. I like the style they are playing, but, man... It just looked very clunky. Like, they know the plays and they seem somewhat familiar with each other, but there are certain times when you can just tell they are *thinking* about the plays they are running.

It will smooth out and I think this team could be quite good. But it's gonna take all of November and into December before they look cohesive. (I would wager.)

[Shirley]

Yeah, it's weird. Teams have so many new guys, and some of them are ones you remember, or maybe vaguely remember, but only because you saw them on some other team last year. This makes following these new huge conferences extra hard. There's just no way anymore to know the players on the teams in your conference. It's hard enough to keep up with your own team.

I have to think that this is going to have a negative impact on the sport. A big part of the fun of watching college over the pros was the knowledge of the players and watching them grow over a few years. Plus, you felt some kinship because they chose your school, even if you kinda knew that they may not have the same attachment to the university that you have. That illusion is completely shattered when guys change teams 1, 2, or 3 times over their career. It has all the transactional ugliness of the pros without the continuity of multi-year contracts.

[Shirley]

I just saw this post from Evan Miyakawa of the top returning shooters. 18 of the top 19 on this list have played for at least 2 different teams. Incredible.

[DSafetyGuy]

Having seen Syracuse's first exhibition against D2 Clarion, there's a very good chance their best player is point guard Jaquan Carlos, who transferred in from Hofstra for his senior season.

They will still be terrible on defense and struggle to reach 20 wins.

[Giff]

Whoever the fuck thought having a top 10 matchup on the first day of real games air at 11:30et should be fired.

[mister d]

La Salle has won every game in their renovated arena by double digits. Wow.

[sancarlos]

Whoever the fuck thought having a top 10 matchup on the first day of real games air at 11:30et should be fired.

You already know it was ESPN’s call.

[Giff]

Why not schedule the game Wednesday???

[sancarlos]

Why not schedule the game Wednesday???

They knew that Ryan, AB, BSF, Sybian and me will be busy.

[brian]

Whoever the fuck thought having a top 10 matchup on the first day of real games air at 11:30et should be fired.

On the bright side no need to stay up for this one!

[Shirley]

There were 15 ACC games last night on opening night. 15! And Virginia wasn't even one of them. How the fuck is this supposed to work? The ACC, and I'm sure the other conferences too, used to be so great because you knew all the teams and players and could cheer for/against them as appropriate. With so many teams and so much player turnover, it's just never going to happen any more. Kids aren't going to grow up thinking of their team's conference as a thing with any real meaning.

[A_B]

Maybe your conference's fans. It just means more to me.

[Giff]

Yup, I DVRd it and watched most of it at work. Bleh.

[GoodKarma]

MAC goes 4-8 against the Sun Belt in the first leg of the second annual MAC-SBC Challenge. Took a last second 3 by Buffalo to get that fourth win.

[Nonlinear FC]

MI beat the brakes off of a not good but not terrible (last year) Cleveland ST team.

They play Wake on Sunday which should be a better barometer of how good this team could be.

[Giff]

MAC goes 4-8 against the Sun Belt in the first leg of the second annual MAC-SBC Challenge. Took a last second 3 by Buffalo to get that fourth win.

Eat 'em up, Cats!

[brian]

MAC goes 4-8 against the Sun Belt in the first leg of the second annual MAC-SBC Challenge. Took a last second 3 by Buffalo to get that fourth win.

Central did their part (surprisingly)

[DaveInSeattle]

Just watched the first half, but #6 Gonzaga looks pretty solid again. Absolutely crushed #8 Baylor.

[Giff]

Gonzaga looked amazing indeed, but I can't imagine Mark Few's kid is happy with his dad this morning.

[brian]

Seems like kind of what you have to expect in Club Trillion.

[HaulCitgo]

That is so very fair

[brian]

Just realized some conference is going to break the record for tournament bids - just a question of which one?

[HaulCitgo]

I cant get over that dunk. The look of horror on the fans behind the backboard. Even the baylor guy has seen too much

[Shirley]

I cant get over that dunk. The look of horror on the fans behind the backboard. Even the baylor guy has seen too much

You know, so often people call dunks "posters" or pat their head on stuff that really isn't that close to dunking on someone. That one though. That was the real deal.

Props to the kid for jumping (and coming within about two vertical feet of the ball).

[HaulCitgo]

So, so far from that ball. Ref didnt even bother to give him a whistle for hacking the guys armpit

[Giff]

I cant get over that dunk. The look of horror on the fans behind the backboard. Even the baylor guy has seen too much

You know, so often people call dunks "posters" or pat their head on stuff that really isn't that close to dunking on someone. That one though. That was the real deal.

Props to the kid for jumping (and coming within about two vertical feet of the ball).

Yes! IMO, an underappreciated part of posterizations is the fact that someone was willing to fucking try and stop it.

I was never put on a poster, but I was close. My favorite play ever in my life was senior year diving out of bounds to save a ball at halfcourt where I threw it blindly back to our end of the court right to the best player on the other team (and an Aggie WR commit). He dribbled straight to the basket and I was able to meet him there due to the angles we were taking. I knew this was going to be a dunk in my face, but I tried anyway and blocked it, but the ref blew the whistle for a foul. A few plays later, we were standing next to each other on the key during a free throw with our hands on our knees and he goes "you got all ball man". Proudest sports moment of my life, sadly enough.

[Shirley]

I cant get over that dunk. The look of horror on the fans behind the backboard. Even the baylor guy has seen too much

You know, so often people call dunks "posters" or pat their head on stuff that really isn't that close to dunking on someone. That one though. That was the real deal.

Props to the kid for jumping (and coming within about two vertical feet of the ball).

Yes! IMO, an underappreciated part of posterizations is the fact that someone was willing to fucking try and stop it.

I was never put on a poster, but I was close. My favorite play ever in my life was senior year diving out of bounds to save a ball at halfcourt where I threw it blindly back to our end of the court right to the best player on the other team (and an Aggie WR commit). He dribbled straight to the basket and I was able to meet him there due to the angles we were taking. I knew this was going to be a dunk in my face, but I tried anyway and blocked it, but the ref blew the whistle for a foul. A few plays later, we were standing next to each other on the key during a free throw with our hands on our knees and he goes "you got all ball man". Proudest sports moment of my life, sadly enough.

That's pretty great. Didn't you say you played high school ball with Adam Hall?

[Giff]

I cant get over that dunk. The look of horror on the fans behind the backboard. Even the baylor guy has seen too much

You know, so often people call dunks "posters" or pat their head on stuff that really isn't that close to dunking on someone. That one though. That was the real deal.

Props to the kid for jumping (and coming within about two vertical feet of the ball).

Yes! IMO, an underappreciated part of posterizations is the fact that someone was willing to fucking try and stop it.

I was never put on a poster, but I was close. My favorite play ever in my life was senior year diving out of bounds to save a ball at halfcourt where I threw it blindly back to our end of the court right to the best player on the other team (and an Aggie WR commit). He dribbled straight to the basket and I was able to meet him there due to the angles we were taking. I knew this was going to be a dunk in my face, but I tried anyway and blocked it, but the ref blew the whistle for a foul. A few plays later, we were standing next to each other on the key during a free throw with our hands on our knees and he goes "you got all ball man". Proudest sports moment of my life, sadly enough.

That's pretty great. Didn't you say you played high school ball with Adam Hall?

Yup! He was a freshman my senior year and he started probably the last 80% of the year.

Honestly that near buzzer beater over Duke before stealing the inbounds pass is one of the craziest I've ever gone at the end of a game. It was peak Duke hatred and a guy I played with beating them before hopping up on the scorer's table!

[Shirley]

Don't have to ask me twice to watch that. Loved those unis! The one common Virginia complaint about Tony Bennett was he didn't like orange uniforms. Hope they bring them back.

(That was Pete Gillen's last good year. And the last good year for UVA until they hired Bennett. Hope we don't quickly go back to those dark days.)

[Giff]

An Ivy Leavue school beating ‘Nova makes mister d happy and that makes me happy.

[Shirley]

An Ivy Leavue school beating ‘Nova makes mister d happy and that makes me happy.

I'm not laughing at Villanova until it's clear that they aren't Virginia's future.

[A_B]

As impressive as Duke looked, Cooper Flagg wasn't really that great. Honestly, if I had to rank the freshmen I saw in those two games, Flagg might have been the 6th best I saw. (I understand that it's only one game, and an exhibition at that).

He was damn good last night until about 3 minutes left. And then his coach kept putting him in bad positions and he almost directly cost Duke a chance to win - three turnovers and a foul in the last bit. So it's hard to pin a loss on one guy when he was a big reason it was close but those were end game errors that gave away three possessions plus a foul on the other end.

Those reps will benefit him as the season goes along, but he's pretty well rounded overall.

All that aside, I was glad to see UK win a game like that. Before the season I thought we might be one of those teams that have to try to score 90 to win every night. But last night they played tough, and Duke got very few easy baskets, but neither did UK for the most part. Winning a toughness game and making the plays down the stretch are good omens. I'd say second weekend is still the hopes for the year but this is a good win early and proves they won't be scared to play against anyone. And I love a 9 man rotation. Seems to get so many people into the flow.

[Shirley]

Ha, I was just coming here to post about that. Flagg turned the ball over on 3 of Duke's final 4 possessions. And then he gave up an offensive rebound on a free throw, ending any chance Duke had to come back.

He's still damn good, especially for a 17-year-old freshman, but he wasn't ready for that. I think Scheyer really made a mistake having Flagg be the main ball-handler at the end. Give the ball to Proctor to initiate the offense on those possessions and I think Duke probably wins that game. Still, it was a great, scrappy win by Kentucky.

[EnochRoot]

Ha, I was just coming here to post about that. Flagg turned the ball over on 3 of Duke's final 4 possessions. And then he gave up an offensive rebound on a free throw, ending any chance Duke had to come back.

He's still damn good, especially for a 17-year-old freshman, but he wasn't ready for that. I think Scheyer really made a mistake having Flagg be the main ball-handler at the end. Give the ball to Proctor to initiate the offense on those possessions and I think Duke probably wins that game. Still, it was a great, scrappy win by Kentucky.

Flagg is a one-and-done, so he took the path to Duke because it was his lifelong dream to play for them. Scheyer leaves a lot to be desired so far as a HC. Not sure you’ll ever see him get the kind of results that lead people to say that team was greater than their parts, and you’re seeing that when he runs what, 90% of their offense through two players?

[A_B]

Is Enoch a Dukie, too?!?!?

[Shirley]

Ha, I was just coming here to post about that. Flagg turned the ball over on 3 of Duke's final 4 possessions. And then he gave up an offensive rebound on a free throw, ending any chance Duke had to come back.

He's still damn good, especially for a 17-year-old freshman, but he wasn't ready for that. I think Scheyer really made a mistake having Flagg be the main ball-handler at the end. Give the ball to Proctor to initiate the offense on those possessions and I think Duke probably wins that game. Still, it was a great, scrappy win by Kentucky.

Flagg is a one-and-done, so he took the path to Duke because it was his lifelong dream to play for them. Scheyer leaves a lot to be desired so far as a HC. Not sure you’ll ever see him get the kind of results that lead people to say that team was greater than their parts, and you’re seeing that when he runs what, 90% of their offense through two players?

There are many ways to evaluate the quality of a coach. Getting more out of less is one of those ways, but the Duke program hasn't had "less" talent since the mid-80s. So we'll never know if Scheyer has that skill (or K, for that matter). On the other hand, he's one hell of a recruiter.

[DaveInSeattle]

I think that the well-travelled (Butler, Temple, Arkansas) Khalif Battle is going to be the crowd favorite at Gonzaga this year. This dunk against Arizona State was nasty...

[EnochRoot]

Ha, I was just coming here to post about that. Flagg turned the ball over on 3 of Duke's final 4 possessions. And then he gave up an offensive rebound on a free throw, ending any chance Duke had to come back.

He's still damn good, especially for a 17-year-old freshman, but he wasn't ready for that. I think Scheyer really made a mistake having Flagg be the main ball-handler at the end. Give the ball to Proctor to initiate the offense on those possessions and I think Duke probably wins that game. Still, it was a great, scrappy win by Kentucky.

Flagg is a one-and-done, so he took the path to Duke because it was his lifelong dream to play for them. Scheyer leaves a lot to be desired so far as a HC. Not sure you’ll ever see him get the kind of results that lead people to say that team was greater than their parts, and you’re seeing that when he runs what, 90% of their offense through two players?

There are many ways to evaluate the quality of a coach. Getting more out of less is one of those ways, but the Duke program hasn't had "less" talent since the mid-80s. So we'll never know if Scheyer has that skill (or K, for that matter). On the other hand, he's one hell of a recruiter.

I think it’s safe to say K likely possessed that trait as a HC (military background), but your point is otherwise accepted.

Is Enoch a Dukie, too?!?!?

Oh hell no.

Born in Connecticut (1970). Been a Huskies fan since the Big East’s inception (circa 1980) when games were broadcast on a fledgling, startup cable channel called ESPN.

[A_B]

Shew. But barely better now!