December 2007 ArchivesComfort, Enemy of Progress When folks find out I sleep in truck stops and live out of my suitcase during college basketball season, I can't blame them if they're not impressed. If my life was a Richard Dawson survey-says, the number one reaction would be horror, followed closely on points by the kind of sympathy that prompts people to offer five bucks, you know, "for something to eat." That's fine, I'm not offended, but keep the cash. When folks find out about the elaborate survival system I've developed over three-plus years on the hoop highway -- either by direct conversation, hearsay, or this website -- they're usually a little bit impressed, at least enough to wonder what kind of a moron I am. Some are even curious about the origins of the system, how I came up with this particular brand of madness. Here goes.
Beatrice and Sandy Ever since faces launched ships, men have been giving inanimate objects women's names. Who knows why, really. It might be a subconcious effort to tap into the whole earth-mother provider thing, or it might just be an excuse to think about sex more often. Whatever the reason, it's something deeply ingrained. In modern Western times, we have even more opportunities to do so. We may not have ships or bomber planes, but a high percentage of American males have given at least one of their automobiles a female name (I've tended to name mine in honor of Playboy Playmates from my college days). And then there are all these new electronic items, many of which ask to be named right out of the box. Food Ask any assistant coach in college basketball, they'll tell you that one of the toughest challenges with away games is food. Carefully prepared team meals are usually the rule at home, but the road is an endless and glowing ribbon of McDonald's, Burger King, convenience stores and casual dining. Chain restaurants might align themselves with sports by way of official sponsorships and such, but the reality is that what they sell makes you fat. Same goes for travelling journalists, too. I have my own offseason workouts -- eight-mile runs in the park back in Pawtucket, two-a-day hourlong stationary bike sessions of 17 miles each, all with the goal of maintaining some level of fitness during the five-month grind. By late November, though, I find myself sweating and short of breath on long flights of stairs, and the one-two punch of Thanksgiving and Christmas makes my shirts and pants start getting uncomfortably tight by the time the calendar turns. With all the sitting around in chairs and car seats that covering athletics requires, I get my Freshman 15 once a year, every year. MUNCIE, Ind. -- Well, here it is, the last Boubacar of 2007, coming at the beginning of the final broken week of the 2007-08 season. No Boubacar tomorrow, but there will be a few special treats posted here, including our annual New Year's essay. You'll want to stay tuned for that. For now, here are a bunch of weekend upsets to enjoy.
Butler (Horizon) at Southern Illinois (Missouri Valley) This weekend is the official start of the Valley season, but we've got a little bit of nonconference business to take care of. We have the ESPN-mandated return game of last season's premier BracketBusters matchup between two then-ranked squads and eventual Sweet 16 participants. And it's going down in the Dawg Pound... tonight! There's not much we can say about Butler we haven't already in this space, but it still seems like they're the most anonymous ranked team in America. There are reasons for that, of course... over the summer, the Bulldogs lost their leader to Iowa and their power forward to graduation, and folks are still just getting to know new head coach Brad Stevens and freshman PF Matt Howard, who's averaging double figures (11.5 ppg) with two 12-rebound games. And there are those holdover guards that even a few casual fans can name, A.J. Graves and Mike Green, who give the team 31.5 ppg combined. It's just nice to see that Butler is a name that poll voters know now. Southern Illinois is not a ranked team right now, and there are reasons for that, too. The Salukis have shot below 40 percent on four separate occasions, and they are a very average 5-5 due to their sporadic offense. The defense? Rarely fails, forcing opponents into turnovers on a whopping 28 percent of their possessions. But the real difference between last year's Sweet Salukis and this .500 team is rebounding. Only 11 teams in Division I get fewer boards per contest (25.3) in 2007-08, and until the Kansas game last year, SIU was undefeated when they won the rebounding battle. For a squad that has a slim margin for error on offense, a few extra caroms would really help. Lots of great storylines in this one. Will Butler's injury returnee Pete Campbell return to form after two slow games? Was SIU's 88-point outburst last weekend a sign things have turned around, or a statement about Western Kentucky's defense? Can the "Dawgzooka" shoot hot dogs as wella s t-shirts? If you have ESPNU, you can join in the fun as well. CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The end of the holiday season means the end of holiday music, and thank gosh for that. The world doesn't need another imaginative reinterpretation of Irving Berlin (much less a hip-hop one), and I've long held that the sound of recorded sleigh bells sounds just like fingernails against a chalkboard -- sped up. Even the Official Wife, who swears up and down every December 1st that my grumpy grouchiness will never dim her Christmas spirit, is pretty sick of holiday music by December 20 and is back to her 1990's playlist. Folks like me (and most probably you), we're just happy that conference season is starting, we're glad that we can track league races instead of the steadily dwindling percentage of mid-major upsets. Doubly pleased that the games will be played with no dance teams in Santa hats, and most importantly, no no no holiday music on the P.A. system. I spend enough time in truck stops that I get that stuff full-blast all through December, and I've compiled a short "good riddance" list to the music that will be taken out of rotation for the next 11 months.
Are there any holiday songs you're glad that you won't have to hear until Thanksgiving 2008? You know how to get in touch. Sorry, no Bally given to the best response this time. The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the Final Four in a simulation of last season. For our purposes here, it gives the world's only hype-free, non-voting, computer poll of teams in the lower 22 conferences. This is a recording. As of 12/27/2007, 1 p.m. ET I spent a good deal of time in my ESPN chat yesterday sifting through questions in regards to whether this index was broken or not. The formula may rely a bit too much on the RPI (13 percent), but I 'm a fan of its performance so far. It's identified stories I wouldn't have picked up on if I were relying only on the standings for guidance, and teams that rate high here have gone on to have some pretty big upset wins. The teams that are hanging around are generally balanced, solid squads that could have very real chances to win NCAA Tournament games in March.
Rider (Metro Atlantic) at Drexel (Colonial) We're in the nonconference home stretch now, with just a few more games to go before everyone gets deep into their real seasons, the ones that happen in parentheses. That's where we'll be able to see if Rider's seven non-league win form translates to the MAAC grind, if they're a realistic title threat against emergent favorites Niagara (who they've already lost to) and Siena. The Broncs may not have put up the eye-popping team numbers that those other squads have, but they do have a legitimate NBA prospect in 6-11 former MMBOW Jason Thompson, who's averaging 19.8 ppg in addition to being the MAAC's leading rebounder with 11.3. His double-double average has translated to seven in-game dub-dubs, including ones in both conference games the Broncs have played. Drexel (6-5, 0-1 CAA) has been frustrating, and that's not just because I used to go to school there. The Dragons have been a lot like Southern Illinois in miniature, a solid defensive team that can't hit a barn with an asteroid on offense. The frontcourt tandem of Frank Elegar and Randy Oveneke have held things down on D, but Elegar (team-leading 13.7 ppg) hasn't had a lot of help on the scoring end. The guards are young and still being sorted through, but a good sign is the great game Scott Rodgers had against Bucknell last weekend (18 points in a 65-53 win) after six weeks of being the guy who's on the floor who you never notice. And all five of the games since this relatively local series resumed has gone to the home team, so the Dragons have that going for them. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Hey y'all, hope you had a great holiday. We sure did here at the version of TMM Mobile HQ that has its own basement. And with the lack of actual games these past three days, we also have the chance to catch our breaths and look at a few off-court stories in Hoops Nation lately.
At the USU-hosted Gossner Foods Holiday Classic last week, Carroll filled his shopping cart with points. In the opening round game against Utah Valley State on Thursday, the 6-2 senior guard shot 11-for-16, including six 3-pointers, for a season-high 32 points. In the championship game the next night, he shot 12-for-15 for 33 points versus Northern Arizona. Carroll was also perfect from the free throw line in the tourney, hitting all four of his freebies against UVST and six in the NAU win. With 21.8 ppg on the season, he's the WAC's leading scorer and 20th nationally, and is making a sterling 94.5 percent of his free throws (52 of 55). Mr. Carroll is no stranger to MMBOW honors -- actually, he probably is, because he likely doesn't know he's getting them. But he was our fourth honoree back during his freshman season in 2004-05, when we still felt the need to rely on conversational filler to get our point across. Now in his fourth year of eligibility, he's an All-American and a 2,000-point scorer, becoming the school's second-leading scorer all-time on a 3-pointer during the Utah Valley State game. Congratulations, Jaycee Carroll, long-time hero of this site... you are the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- As promised, we're going to crown our ARRRGH contest winner today and give out a free stuffed Bally. We were looking for the best mid-major ARRRGH moment, the worst instance of thwarted victory, the most crushing realization that the big guys have won again and that "Hoosiers" moments are all too rare and precious. We had a lot of great entries, but Pierce from N.C. (the winningest U.S. state in Mid-Majority contest history) won it with a UNC Wilmington 2003 tale that hit all the right notes: snide nicknames for opposing players and teams, vivid detail, and -- most importantly -- the sense of devastation that occurs when a mid-major season goes from triumphant to "over" in just a few seconds. The most disheartening mid-major defeat in NCAA history took place on March 21, 2003 at the Sommet Center in Nashville, Tenn. The 11-seeded UNC-Wilmington Seahawks were pitted against the defending national champion, 6-seeded Maryland Terrapins. The Seahawks sank two free throws to take a 73-72 lead with just several ticks remaining. Dubya did an outstanding job in preventing the ball from going to Steve “I’m-better-than-I-look” Blake, and instead the Twerps inbounded to Drew Nicholas. I remember sitting… scratch that… standing with my brother saying a few “Hail Marys”. As Nicholas drove down the court, we embraced, as it appeared as though there would be no open looks. Nicholas got forced into a corner and threw up a desperation three off his back foot. As the ball floated through the air, we prematurely began our victory celebration. Swoosh! Improbable. Unexplicable. Devastating. “This can’t be happening.” Over 10 minutes later, I was still in the fetal position on my living room floor. I’m not sure I ate or slept that night. I love March Madness. And on the last weekend before the two-day Christmas break, there was a gigantic frustrating ARRRGH moment in Hoops Nation, followed by a few which were quite wonderful indeed.
Sutton is, quite simply, the most alive person I know, and is the first person I think of whenever something comes up that seemingly can't be done. He was also one of the first head coaches to publicly admit he read this site several years ago, and he remains a good friend of TMM despite that time I called him Eddie by mistake (maybe we really do need an editor). We caught up on Thursday evening and discussed the Golden Eagles' up-and-down start to the season, the cost of broken backboards, his continuing recovery from an ailment that nearly claimed his life, and what it's like to coach from the visitor's bench at Kentucky after spending years there as an assistant.
Holy Cross (Patriot) at Siena (Metro Atlantic) You may be able to find a more exciting, more meaningful or more televised contest this weekend. And bully for you if you do. This one's for the true hoops geeks, who love watching contrasting styles. And hoo boy, do these styles contrast. Siena, that's the fast team. The defending MAAC runner-ups have the league's best athletes, and run whenever they can. The Saint (Bernard)s spread the offense around with four double-figure scorers, and with 81 points per game in offense, there's a lot of love to share. But Kenny Hasbrouck, a MAAC POY candidate if ever there was one, is averaging 17.6 ppg and nearly beat Syracuse in November with his 24. On defense, Siena loves to press and trap, forcing opponents into 19 coughups a game and a 26 percent turnover rate. Holy Cross is a great defensive team too, but they prefer to take it slow and stuff your shots. Only nine teams in America are better at stopping two-point field goals, and with 7-0 Tim Clifford patrolling the middle, the scareaway numbers are likely pretty high as well. Clifford gets it done on the other end, too -- a team-leading 15.5 ppg on 61 percent shooting. Cross' rebounding numbers (32 per game) are deceptively low because there aren't very many possessions in its games, and the fact that the 'Saders grab 56.9 percent of all caroms (46th best in D-I) is a more accurate measure of their skill in that area. One set of mutual disadvantages that may cancel each other out is the extensive academic break each squad has taken. HC hasn't played since a 71-66 win at Saint Joseph's, and Siena has been out of action since sweeping its first two MAAC games on Dec. 7 and 9. Will the time off stiffen the Saints' quick legs, or will the Crusaders forget their defensive assignments because they're still thinking about all those ridiculously hard tests they just took? Tune in... if you can. NEW YORK -- A quick few words about mid-major upsets, followed by a lot of words about mid-major upsets. I go on the electronic sports talk radio some. The hosts usually don't know who I am, don't read this site or realize that "oh, you wrote that ESPN.com story?" I don't mind any of that. What I do mind is the automatic, easy, no-brainer question for the "mid-major guy." "So, Carl Millstone, because teams like Butler and Southern Illinois are doing so well, do you think the gap between mid-majors and majors is shrinking?" This question makes me want to break a lot of FCC rules, the ones George Carlin talked about all those years ago. It's the product of the same sort of cheap exceptions-proving-rules logic that I spend so much time railing against. It's like those guys who spend five minutes on a college campus, see three hot girls walking around, and jump to the conclusion that the girls at that school are hot. Here are the records of the 22 smaller conferences and independents against the Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10, SEC, Big XII, ACC and the two money leagues (C-USA and MWC) for the past two-plus seasons. Atlantic 14 wins are counted only if they're against the Big Six. 2007-08: 103 upsets in 1100 games (.093) Upsets are usually measured in volume and headlines, and we're up considerably from last year. But on the whole, in percentage terms, we're sliding backwards and will continue to do so. That's primarily because there are more of us than ever before (and more on the way), schools moving up from Division II and the NAIA. The pace of upsets is not keeping up with the number of extra games, creating an optical illusion that makes people ask stupid questions. You know how to shrink the gap between the little guys and big guys? Money, just like in every other life-related context. Smaller schools don't have the resources to compete financially with the crushing and powerful machinery of the Big Six programs, they can't compete consistently for recruits, can't outbid to keep their coaches, and they can't build and maintain facilities as nice. But like Tupac Shakur once said, that's just the way it is, baby. Or was that the Rembrandts? Bruce Hornsby? I forget. But that's what makes the following all the more sweet.
Centenary (Summit) at North Texas (Sun Belt) We hear there's some battle royale of double-digit undefeateds happening somewhere tonight, but we don't give a %^#&. Our invisible G!O!T!N! broadcast team will be in Denton, providing virtual "TMM 360" event coverage of two teams that couldn't be more different, disposition-wise: the Gentlemen and the Mean Green. Centenary (7-4, 1-1 SL) is 3-1 against the great state of Texas (loss: at Baylor), and notably took advantage of Bobby Knight's niceness and beating Tech earlier this month. This right here is the 15th-best 3-point shooting team in the country, and the Gentlemen are great from the line, sinking 75.5 percent of their freebies (that's 17th best). And don't forget about the Gents' "white-glove defense", which may allow a lot of shots to go in but ends a lot of possessions prematurely: Rob Flaska's squad forces a Badlands Conference-best 17 turnovers a game. Tonight, the staid Gentlemen will travel from their geodesic Gold Dome to the funky Super Pit, where they will be challenged to get down. North Texas (7-2), defending Sun Belt champions, have shown themselves to be gritty on the glass again, averaging a league-best 37 rebounds and grabbing 59.7 percent of all available missed shots (only 13 teams do it better). The Mean Green are led by 5-10 Josh White, one of the most exciting freshmen in Hoops Nation with his game-winning heroics against Oklahoma State earlier this season, and his 18.6 ppg. He's a nice player -- a perfect gentleman, even -- but the team is Mean! Mean! Grrrr! Tune in for the ultimate battle that will determine the collective mood of Hoops Nation. KENT, Oh. -- Just a reminder that you have until Friday morning at 7-ish Eastern time to enter the Mid-Majority ARRRGH essay contest. We did the great NCAA moments during Finals Week, now it's time to recall the most frustrating mid-major collapse, defeat, buzzer-beating dropped decision you can think of. One-point loss in the NCAA Tournament? Blown 30-point lead? Missed free throws? The choice is yours. Just go about 100-200 words and, as sports journalists are always asking players, "describe how it felt." Drop your masterpiece in the feedback form, and we'll announce the winner on Monday. The reward is the most rare prize in all of Hoops Nation, a stuffed Bally that says "Boing" when you bounce him. You'll be one of only, like, 10 people to have one. So enter now! Today's Boubacar is brought to you by the letter W and the number 4 ('cause that's how many upsets there were last night).
Bradley (MVC) at Butler (Horizon) When we pundits make our predictions in October, we are usually soooo sure of ourselves and our expertise and our intimate knowledge of the game of basketball. Many in this business make ice-cold ice-pick lock-stock-and-barrel picks, only to see everything turned on its ear a month into the season. And, after all, that's why they play the games, right? (Actually, they play the games because if they don't, the NCAA will decertify the protesting schools involved. But you get the idea.) We had Bradley as a strong No. 2 in the Missouri Valley behind Southern Illinois, but that was before things like this happened... if the Salukis can manage just 27 percent shooting against Western Michigan, how will they do against other good-guarding teams from their own conference like Bradley and Creighton? Time to conveniently forget that one-bid Valley prediction too, what with the league's 52-32 nonconf record and No. 8 RPI. Seven of those wins belong to these Braves (7-3), who have size and depth along with last year's great backcourt. You probably know about the Crouch-Ruffin guard combo, but how about Andrew Warren, who's almost tripled his scoring average as a sophomore? He exploded for 23 at Wright State last Tuesday in a big 72-65 overtime win. That's the same Wright State team that beat Butler, the only team that's topped the Bulldogs (9-1, 1-1) so far. Butler's been one of the few we've all gotten right, though we thought they might take a step back after losing a head coach and power forward off a Sweet 16 team. Wrong again. Brad Stevens' crew features the same exceptional ball control (just 10.4 turnovers per game), and overcome severe rebounding deficiencies with efficient offense and an unwillingness to put the other team on the line (HL-low 16.2 fouls per game). After a two-game mini-slump, Butler's own guard combo of Mike Green and A.J. Graves returned in a big way against Florida State last weekend, but the team is still without key defense-scattering big guy Pete Campbell (knee sprain), who can shoot the three just as well. He won't return this evening, but Hinkle Magic might: Bradley has lost in its last seven visits there. AKRON, Oh. -- There are so few of us... we who overanalyze everything about college basketball, pore over pages of stats, treat our game like a gigantic 341-piece puzzle that takes five months to solve itself. Our vision is distorted because we spend so much time talking to each other; we forget that we make up a minor sliver of the greater pie. Most college basketball fans -- I'd guess at least 95 percent -- experience the sport in a much different way than we do, microcosm instead of macro. They love their old school, cheer it on, forsake all others. They fly the team colors, convince themselves that opposing players and students are somehow less human than they are, and they long to hear validations and confirmations from national voices that their team is the best. These people are the ones who make arenas loud. People like us easily forget that, because we're generally not the type of people who yell a lot. College hoops is built on knee-jerk reactions, ridiculous logic, overwhelming emotions and, yes, yelling. And that right there is why Dick Vitale is the king of college basketball -- he represents each and every one of those people that makes up the overwhelming majority of the sport's fans. Dickie V is an easy target for geeks like us, and it's easy for us to dismiss his importance or reduce him to a silly cartoon instead of respect and recognize him for the national treasure he is. It's an absolute travesty that he's not in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and I won't visit there again until his plaque is installed on the great concave wall of glory in Springfield. And now, the last entry concerned with the second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week. The 40th and final question was an essay question: What is your favorite mid-major NCAA Tournament memory, and where were you when it happened? We received 84 completed essays, and here are six of the best ones -- it's something we like to call "user-generated content." In the dark of December, some simple reminders of the supreme joys that spring provides -- and we're not talking about the reporting date for pitchers, catchers and equipment managers with shady connections. Selection Sunday is just 89 days away, let's enjoy each one as much as we can. The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the Final Four in a simulation of last season. For our purposes here, it gives the world's only hype-free, non-voting, computer poll of teams in the lower 22 conferences. This is a recording. As of 12/18/2007, 1 p.m. ET The Bearkats are No. 1 for the second straight week because they're a.) undefeated and b.) good. I know nobody's keeping track of the actual index numbers, but Sam State's rating slipped four points, mostly because of an efficient but too-close 54-51 win over Texas Southern, but no other team distinguished themselves enough during Finals Week to overtake them in this index.
Elon at Chattanooga (SoCon) Tonight in the grand old Southern Conference, we have two league-undefeated teams going at it. The Phoenix and Mocs are both 5-4 overall, but Chattanooga has won its first three of its 20-game SoCon schedule, while Elon has swept its initial pair of league tilts. So something's gotta give... and it'll probably be Chattanooga's offense. The Mocs give it up on 26.4 percent of their possessions, and there are only 15 teams more generous. Despite the cheap cliché-turn, John Shulman's bunch has certainly taken advantage of the possessions it does see to completion. There might not be a better frontcourt in the league, leading the SoCon in rebounding at 36.8 per game, and the team is hitting 58 percent of all of its two-point baskets (that's seventh in the land). You can thank 6-7 junior Nicchaeus Doaks for a lot of that, he's averaging 12.6 ppg and 6.4 rpg. The Mocs bullied their way to easy wins over the two Charleston schools (The Citadel and the College), and came within six points of beating Tennessee at McKenzie in a rarer-than-rare home shot at Big Orange. Then there's Elon. We're doing some reading up on the Phoenix in advance of our nonconference date at the Palestra on Thursday, and we may be catching up on some newspapers during that game. Elon has been able to gut out wins against Western Carolina, Wofford and Furman in the early going by playing at a punishingly slow pace, 32-second possessions that usually end in an Ola Atoyebi basket. The big Chicagoan is averaging 15.1 ppg and 8.3 rpg, and most notably put up an impressive 20-and-12 double-double in a losing effort at Georgia. Frontcourt against frontcourt, who ya got? EMMITSBURG, Md. -- All three Ballys from Finals Week were sent out by The Official Wife yesterday, and the two from earlier contests are on their way as well. Still heartbroken that you didn't get one? Well, here's your chance.
Use the feedback form to make your submissions, and your deadline is Friday morning at 7 a.m. Eastern. The winner will get a stuffed Bally, much like the one pictured here to the right, and the virtual award itself (which goes to a team that shouldn't suck, but somehow does) will be cast as a bronzed statue of the key player from the winning losing moment. (If you're having trouble getting into the proper ARRRGH! mindset, go out to your local mall and try to get from the highway to a parking space in under 20 minutes. That'll do it.) Also, if you are one of the beautiful and talented recipients of a Bally, please please please take him to a game and snap a picture. We're trying to fully document his travels around Hoops Nation in a special photoset. You can either put him up on Flickr and tag the photo(s) "midmajority" or send them directly to Bally's e-mail address on the bag he came in. Make sure you include your Bally number (it's on the bag too) and any helpful description of the action depicted. This one here is from Youngstown State last night, where Bally joined the Penguin Club and his dues were waived. Little dude's a legend.
In two Valparaiso (10-1, 2-0) victories last week, the 6-8 sophomore missed only four shots from the floor. In a hard-fought win over Evansville last Tuesday, he keyed a second-half spurt and finished with 20 points on 6-for-8 shooting, including 3-for-4 from 3. But on Saturday, he went all unconscious in a home blowout of Chicago State: a career-high 32 points, with 11-for-13 floor shooting. Ten of those were 3's (10-for-12), which always sets us to scrambling towards that dearly beloved stat called Effective Field Goal Percentage, which weights long balls (FGM + (0.5 x 3PM))/FGA). Samuel earned a 123.1 percent mark, which is far and away the highest value recorded this season. Haanpaa nailed 10 3's on Saturday to break the school record of nine, which had been held by Bryce Drew, who became famous worldwide for that sort of thing back in the 1990's. Bryce had a front-row seat for the performance (he's the associate head coach there now), but I don't think he minded his record being broken. Did we mention that Samuel is 6-8? Here are some fun facts about Mr. Haanpaa. He's from Finland! There are actually umlauts over the last two "a"'s, but a lot of people read this site with Google Reader and we don't want to break the RSS feed. Aw, heck, let's do it anyway. Onnittelut, Samuel, te olette meidän keski viikon enemmistön ballemme. [Samuli checks in from Finland with a better translation than the compu-tron one: Onnittelut Samuel, olet meidän keskiviikon enemmistön palloilija. Thanks, Samuli!]
Texas-Arlington (Southland) at Texas Christian (C-USA) We've been talking about UTA quite a bit so far this year, and with good reason. The Mavericks are exceeding all coaches' poll expectations, starting out 8-0 with nice wins at Wichita State and over fellow mid-major darling North Texas in a previous G!O!T!N!. Best-shooting team in the land at 53.2 percent, fifth-best field-goal defense at 35.9 percent... no wonder that they're winning their games by an average of 28.5 points. But if you need a face to put on this team, it's 6-9 senior Jermaine Griffin, who's averaging 15.5 ppg at a positively insane 73.6 percent clip. We generally don't concern ourselves with teams from conferences that built themselves up by poaching mid-major schools and promising they'd be on TV, but TCU (5-3) is a school that holds a special dark place in our hearts. TCU joined the WAC in 1995 after the old Southwest Conference split up, but was one of the airport defectors six years later when the Mountain West was formed. But that turned out not to be good enough for the school, so it jumped to Conference USA in 2005 (giving TCU the rare distinction of having been a member of both money conferences). It's sorta like those people who go from church to church until they find the gospel interpretation they want to hear. The official symbol of Texas Christian University shouldn't be the Horned Frog, it should be the Shopping Bag. Anyhoo. Gameplan. This will be a wicked, fast back-and-forth battle that could end up in the 80's, or even the 90's -- both teams play really quick. I'd suggest heavy rotation and as much perimeter physicality as can be managed. Stop Henry Salter, he's their best and most efficient scorer. They do crash the glass well and don't give the ball up... but they do shoot poorly overall, just 41.2 percent on average (261st in the country). But here are the stats that really matter: TCU has an athletic budget of $37 million and spends $3.6m of that on men's basketball. Arlington spends $667,000 on hoops out of its $6m coffers. That, right there, is what's going to make this sweet tonight, if and when it happens. And it probably will. YOUNGSTOWN, Oh. -- It takes me so long to write these Boubacar intros, you can't even imagine. The pressure to write something clever and erudite is just... so immense. Usually takes about an hour just to have an idea, and that's after banging my forehead on the table until something figuraliterally bleeds out. Not today, though! We have contest winners to announce! The results of second annual Mid-Majority Finals Week are in, and we have three academic champions! Each will receive a stuffed Bally in an individually wrapped, production-numbered and signed (by me, not Bally) Ziploc travel bag, which is certified by the TSA to be safe for your liquids and medications. Just cross out my name first before you use it for that purpose. There was a tie at the top: Eric G. from Massachusetts and Tim B. from Florida. Congratulations to you both! The third winner is B.J. S. from the Republic of Hotmail (who hasn't responded to my congratulatory e-mail yet) who broke a 13-way tie for second with his essay. If my notification e-mail was spam-filtered, please go ahead and use the feedback form to send your mailing address, and drop a quick note on what your essay was about so I can filter out the jokers. As promised earlier, we'll be posting some of the best answers to the essay questions. Later, though... it was a pretty heavy weekend in Hoops Nation, and we have a lot to discuss.
I asked John to share some more about the game and its origins, and he kindly obliged. Along the way, he told me about his first tabletop basketball game, his love for the Dayton Flyers, and about trying to lug an APBA basketball game through the jungles of Vietnam. He even gave a rundown of a Bucknell-Army game he'd played recently. We discussed the balance between detail and playability, and whether there's even a place for tabletop basketball in an XBox age. Come join us after the jump. Thanks to the 168(!) people who played along with our second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week. That's so many people, they'd have to hold this class in one of those auditoriums where the professor doesn't know you from Samuel Haanpaa, where you have to spend five minutes of your six-minutes during the Tuesday afternoon office-hours window explaining who you are. This is nothing like that, promise. I care about each and every one of your continuing educations. The Mid-Majority T.A.'s will be grading everyone's answers overnight using fuzzy logic, giving folks the benefit of the doubt in all borderline cases (that's why this wasn't multiple choice). And the top three will be notified sometime on Sunday, just fire back your mailing address and we'll send you your prize. And there had previously been a deliberate policy of not posting a picture of what you've been fighting over, so you wouldn't get cute overload and start an adorable riot. There will be other chances to win a stuffed Bally, don't worry.
After the jump, the answer key.  And finally, painfully, mercifully, we've come to the end of the second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week. The slim slates of games are over, most teams are back practicing and playing again, looking forward to March Madness instead of exam excitement. We are too -- that's why this fourth section of the test is all about the NCAA Tournament. As in the first three sections, you'll have 24 hours from the timestamp on this message (7:00 PM Eastern) to finish this portion of the test. The top three in the class (ties will be broken with the essay question you'll find at No. 40) will get a stuffed Bally. Its IQ is at at least 160, but that's a conservative estimate. If you answered any previous questions, enter the same e-mail address you used before, and you'll get proper credit. Winners will be notified sometime Sunday, and we'll post the names of the winners in Monday's Boubacar. We'll also be printing the best of the essay question responses, so if you're just joining us, there might be some mid-level weblog stardom in it for you if not a free gift. After the jump, go crazy, folks. Go crazy.
Miami (Oh.) (MAC) at Wright State (Horizon) As we ease back into post-exam hoops, that little bridge across the holidays towards conference season, we have two teams that won their respective leagues last year. Both teams play slow, bruising styles that have earned them their respective championships, so this weekend the "O" in G!O!T!N! might just stand for "ouch." Miami has been idle for 11 days, so you might have forgotten about the Redhawks. Remember how Atlantic 14 standout Xavier has that one loss? Miami gave it to 'em. Don't mind that 4-3 record, the drops have been by a combined eight points and came to two power-conference teams and Dayton -- this is a team that plays smart, fundamental-oriented basketball, fouling and turning the ball over about as seldom as a team can. And there's also the team's emergent heart/soul guy: the day after Michael Bramos' selection as MMBOW two weeks ago, he keyed a blowout win against Indiana State the next day. Bramos is averaging 20.4 ppg, and is good at basketball. The Raiders also have three losses, but like Miami they aren't thinking at-large, they're out to grind down their conference opposition and be the last standing. You know, like last year, when they beat nationally-ranked Butler twice down the stretch and claimed the Horizon League's auto-bid. Wright has already beat Butler this season, and Year Two of the Brad Brownell era is shaping up to be plenty of the same sort of grinding, guts-on-the-floor stuff as last. Keep an eye out for two emerging sophomore guards, Todd Brown and Vaughn Duggins, who have combined for nearly 30 points. This B&D combination may be SFW, but it's still plenty nasty. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- It had to come to an end eventually, these two weeks of sitting at home, watching basketball, cooking dinner for the Official Wife and digging out the driveway. This weekend, I go out on the road again for a seven-day, eight-game trip through Ohio, Maryland and Pennsylvania. But if you're still stuck at home, there are some great basketball games featuring mid-majors on the tube tomorrow (overall sked is here). If you're one of the 176 U.S. households that get ESPNU, you can watch Drexel and Temple tomorrow at 12 noon ET, followed later by Southern Illinois at Saint Louis, a game that might end up 41-25. Full Court purchasers get Mississippi State and South Alabama, a neutral-court game that Team USA has a shot at winning. If you're stuck with the Deuce, Ohio's at Kansas. If the Bobcats are hitting their 3's, that could be interesting.  This right here is the third of four sections of the second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week, which is not as much fun as watching college basketball but is 1000 percent more participatory. Speaking of percentages of things, this segment has to do with math. All kids love math!You'll have 24 hours from the timestamp on this message (7:00 PM Eastern) to finish this portion of the test. The top three in the class (ties will be broken with an essay question) will get a stuffed Bally. He doesn't speak English like in the cartoons, he knows only one word and it's "boing." If you answered any previous questions, enter the same e-mail address you used before, and you'll get proper credit. If you're just joining us, you probably won't have enough correct answers to win -- what with 20 questions out of 40 remaining -- but anytime you have fun, you're a winner. My mom told me that once. After the jump, no calculators. OK, you can use them, but they won't help you much.
Louisiana Tech (WAC) vs. Centenary (Summit) Tonight's G!O!T!N! is a long-overdue chance to spill some ink on Centenary's start. The Gentlemen are 6-4, with wins over Texas Tech and SMU, and they split their first weekend in the Badlands Conference. If that doesn't impress you, consider that this is a team that went 10-21 (3-11 in what was then known as the Mid-Continent) last year, and that was -- in relative terms -- a breakthrough season! The newfound winning ways are great, but doubly great for guys like guard Tyrone Hamilton, who was the best player on a 3-24 team in 2004-05 and had to watch an entire 4-23 campaign from the bench as a redshirt. Now Hamilton is an 18.5 ppg scorer on a team of overachieving giant-slayers, and he has support too. Nick Stallings, a 6-1 pickup from last season, is averaging 18.4 ppg, making the Gents' backcourt the most potent in the conference. Speaking of 10-win seasons, LaTech had one too in 2006-07. That was enough of Keith Richard, and the school brought in Kerry Rupp, who had notably interimed for Rick Majerus during his 2004 health problems, leading the Utes to the NCAA Tournament. It's virtually guaranteed that Rupp's first season in Ruston won't result in postseason anything -- the Bulldogs are 1-6 and have already provided thrilling wins for the likes of Southeast Missouri and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. On the year, the Bulldogs are shooting at a .334 average, which will get you a pay hike in baseball but a seat on the bench in this sport (there are only two teams shooting a worse FG percentage: UMES and North Florida). Bobby Knight's Texas Tech team -- the one Centenary beat -- ripped LTU apart 86-31 last week. Get your kicks in now, Centenary, the Bulldogs won't stay down for long. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- It's the bright early morning of an American day that will likely end with a lot fewer baseball fans. As I often say to disillusioned sports nuts tired of steroids this and Barry Bonds that, why don't you give mid-major college basketball a try? We've got close games, tons of teams all over the country, and hot cheerleaders. You like hot cheerleaders, don't you? We get the odd gun charge, sure, but it's so rare it still registers as a shock instead of "another day, another strip club incident." We've got no betting scandals, no salary caps, and most importantly no drugs. Basketball is a game that doesn't lend itself to anything that makes you big, bulky and immobile. That's how some players start out, and four years is supposed to cure them of those ailments. We call those players "projects." So as you leave your baseball fandom behind for good at 2 p.m. Eastern time, we, ummm, don't have any games on TV for you. Finals, you know. Academics. And stuff. Oh well.
Just a refresher: You'll have 24 hours from the timestamp on this message (7:00 PM Eastern) to finish this portion of the test. The top three in the class (ties will be broken with an essay question) will get a stuffed Bally, he really does make sounds when you bounce him. Technology, man... When people ask you if it's some cheap knockoff of the Syracuse Orange mascot, you can tell them where to stick it. We are using the Scantron 2.0 grading system, which is from the future. If you answered the 10 history questions from yesterday, enter the same e-mail address you used for the first section, and you'll get proper credit. If you're new to the exam and didn't fill out the first part, don't worry... this test is certified tough, and getting 30 right will be as difficult as Lamar trying to beat BYU. So go ahead, go for it. After the jump, you're on the clock.
Pacific (Big West) at Santa Clara (West Coast) G!O!T!N! goes late night again, to a strange and wonderful land of silicon and dreams called Northern California. And tonight, we have two historically significant mid-major programs that have registered nary a peep on the hype mill, despite fine starts. Pacific (6-3) rattled off three straight 20-win seasons and scored two consecutive first-round NCAA wins (2004 and 2005), pushing Boston College to overtime in the third. Then scoring stud Christian Maraker graduated, and the Tigers went through a gloomy 12-19 down year. They're already halfway to that win total this year, and are strong contenders to double it. Junior guard Steffan Johnson, a solid bench presence for the 2005-06 Big West champs before blossoming as a sophomore, leads all scorers with 16.2 ppg, including a 32-point outburst versus Pepperdine at Oregon's tourney that earned him the league's weekly top-dude honor. On the whole, the Tigers are shooting 50 percent as a team, just like they did when they were collecting Big West pennants like Magic: The Gathering cards. Kerry Keating assisted UCLA to two straight Final Fours, and now he's the bench boss at the Mission Campus. Despite the coaching change, Santa Clara (6-2) isn't experiencing any turbulence after Dick Davey's final campaign, in which the Broncos won 21 games and came nine points short of the NCAA Tournament. Two losses to WAC teams (Nevada and Utah State) aside, Keating's kids lead the nation in shooting percentage (54.1 percent) and are among the nation's best carer-sharers, as 71 percent of their hoops have assists attached. The Broncos feature big 6-10, 305-lb. John Bryant, who has doubled his scoring output from sophomore to junior years, averaging 21.6 ppg and notching three double-doubles. There'll be a lot of good shooting and big offense in this one, so if you're staying up late you should dial this one up on the Intertron radio to stay awake. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Here's the mail, it never fails... it makes me want to wag my tail. Remember me? Im the guy from the espn.com chat that was talking about why and how Rhode Island would go into the Dome and take care of Syracuse on Saturday night. After laughing in my face and down talking a very good Rhode Island team, i was promised either an article or "a poem" IF Rhode Island won. Rhode Island did their part, so instead of ranking them the 28th best mid major and always pretend like they are not a real time i'd like my article (or poem) you so kindly offered me. Thanks. Gladly.
What are you playing for? The top three in the class (ties will be broken with an essay question) will get a stuffed Bally, which squeaks when you bounce him. You'll be one of only, like, 10 people in the world to have one. Until mass production hits, of course. Unlike last time, we have a web form for you to fill out. Put your e-mail address in the top line, and fill out your answers. Tomorrow, enter your same e-mail address and do it again, and so on. Don't worry, nobody else has the same e-mail address as you, so you'll get proper credit for each day's answers. If you try to fill the form out twice, it'll only count your first answer. No multiple choice, no cheating, but plenty of Googling. Like in 2004, I can't stop you from doing that. After the jump, pencils up. The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the Final Four in a simulation of last season. For our purposes here, it gives the world's only hype-free, non-voting, computer poll of teams in the lower 22 conferences. This is a recording. As of 12/11/2007, 2 p.m. ET The Bearkats take the top spot this week because the computer loves great road performances, and dayum was that a great one on Saturday afternoon at Saint Louis. Sure, the Billikens are having a sort-out year to begin the Majerus era, but they've won six games to date and shouldn't be held to just 29 percent shooting on its home floor. And, ooooh, look! Hype!
Saint Mary's (West Coast) at Southern Illinois (Missouri Valley) Even in a light week, we couldn't pass this one up, a rematch of the 2005 first-round mid-major-off between the No. 7 Salukis and No. 10 Gaels. That resulted in a wonderfully exciting 65-56 SIU win; it was the third straight Tournament appearance for Southern Illinois in a streak that's now reached six; the Gaels haven't been back since that loss. But it sure looks like they're going back this year. We've talked about Saint Mary's (7-0) quite a bit these last few weeks, what with their big wins over Oregon, San Diego State and Seton Hall. They're your No. 1 team in the RPI, too. The Gaels play fast and fun, score a lot of points, and are pretty much everything you want out of a mid-major NCAA aspirant. But there's also this: look at their three leading scorers, and you have a freshman (Patty Mills), a sophomore (Omar Samhan) and a junior (Diamon Simpson). They're undefeated with three wins against power- and money-league teams. If this is a team with seniors who just role-play, buckle up for a long future of trying to find new and interesting things to say about Saint Mary's. On the other hand, we've spent the past few years trying to figure out new and interesting angles about SIU, since they've just kept on winning and going to the NCAA's and flying the Valley flag high. They've won at least 15 games in Hoops Nation's toughest mid-major conference five years running, and came into the season as one of those handful of teams at this level that get Top 25 votes. Not much poll love recently, though, since the Salukis have hit a major offensive slump during the last three games, averaging 50.6 points a contest in losses to USC, Indiana and Charlotte. The defense isn't a problem, though, never is... SIU averages 20.7 forced turnovers a game, and opponents turn it over 31 percent of the time. They'll find their shooting touch again, SMC just hopes it's not tonight. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Folks sometimes come up and ask me how they can get started with their very own mid-major college basketball blog. "Read mine all the way through, then do it better," I tell them. "Put me out of business, so I can go back to what I really love... 18-hour days of cross-checking my employees' PHP code, and traveling to client meetings where they say nothing but 'make the logo bigger.'" Others don't wait for my advice, they go ahead anyway. And who could blame them? Mid-major college basketball is something that's very hip and now, and the iron is too hot to stay unstruck. You might have run into some of these new blogs out on the Intertron, a few of them are even offshoots of giant corporate-owned blogging empires. It's too late for them, but not for you. When you start your own mid-major college basketball blog, don't do as they did. Don't: Bring a power-conference mentality. Making fun of small schools on the basis of their names, nicknames or conference affiliations is something that Big XII fans do to pass time time during guarantee-game blowouts -- it seems really out of place from writers who are supposedly celebrating the little-guy. Not that I'd ever get in the way of your right as a citizen of Hoops Nation to go for a cheap laugh, but it doesn't make much logical sense to respect the disrespectful. Throw teams under the bus because they're losing. If you know anything about this level of hoops, it's that things work in cycles. If you want to gush about teams like Butler and all the other current mid-major super-darlings, go ahead, just be careful who you're crapping on. The Bulldogs won 29 games last year, but it took two whole seasons for them to achieve that total earlier in the decade. Discuss any of Big Ten Wonk's FDT. The Wonk is an ex-Wonk now, but his words live on forever. I'm working on a filter that will purge any blog from my Google Reader that uses the phrases "bad call" or "stupid announcer" in any capacity.
Last week, we made prominent mention of his Thursday performance at Oakland, a 114-105 overtime loss in which Brumagin became the first 40-point scorer this season to do so in under 30 minutes -- our database doesn't go far enough back to find the last time that happened in a game between two Division I schools. In just 28 minutes, Brumagin shot 12-for-17 from the floor, added nine free throws, and scored 40 before fouling out. His followup performance was nearly as impressive: 14-for-20 shooting and a perfect 4-for-4 from the line on the way to 35 points at IPFW in a nine-point loss. Sure, the Kangaroos didn't get any wins out of the trip, but Brumagin's two stellar performances came on the road, which is always impressive on own merits. Mr. Brumagin hails from nearby Montgomery City, Mo., a three-hour drive east on I-70. It looks like an absolutely great place to live and raise your kids, if you don't ming having a dot-matrix mayor. He was a prep star at Warrenton Christian high school, where he was honorably mentioned on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch all-metro team for averaging nearly 26 points and 14 rebounds as a senior. His college career has been slowly ascendant: showing up for some minutes as a freshman, cracking the starting five as a sophomore and emerging as the team's shooting star this year. Brumagin leads the team in scoring (20.3 ppg), field goal percentage (54.4 percent), and a bunch of efficiency stats: points per shot (1.41), average efficiency (20) and points per 40 minutes (28.5). His school bio says he's undecided on a major. We suggest a B.A. in basket-filling. Congratulations, Dane, you're the Mid-Majority Baller of the Week.
New Jersey Tech (Independents) at Stony Brook (America East) Tonight's eight game slate gives us this standout contest, between two schools that have combined for 18 losses so far, with only one win between them. Lest you think that finals week has made us resort to a game like this, know that it's exactly the kind of game I would drive three hours for. (Not today, though, it's real icy out.) NJIT (0-11) is -- how shall we put this -- the worst team in Hoops Nation right now. The RPI is being charitable with a No. 337 ranking, but there's no way that Jacksonville State, Campbell, North Florida and Eastern Illinois are worse. All those teams have actually won games and are averaging more than 51.5 ppg. Basketball State's new rating system tells it like it is, punishing them for their home losses and recognizing that yes, there are 340 teams better than the Highlanders. NJIT opened the season by getting a soul-destroying, humiliating 70-28 revenge beatdown by Manhattan for the school's first-ever NCAA win a year ago, and they've just never recovered from it. And here's the exciting part, for all you fans of history (and/or the 2004-05 Savannah State Tigers)... Stony Brook might actually be the last beatable team it faces this season. Stony Brook (1-7), on the other hand, is a team that should be doing a lot better. The Seawolves started out 0-4 with three close losses after a reasonably-expected bad opening-game drop to Villanova, and they did destroy Dartmouth two weekends ago. But they've just been getting smoked in second halves lately. Ricky Lucas is a decent senior guard who can score a little (12.8 ppg), but the rest of the team can't shoot (37.6 percent FG), and doesn't want to share the ball (8.0 team apg, fourth-worst in the country). Offense is the problem here, a the defense has been, well, America East-quality. We'll see what Stony Brook does tonight in a game that should only take 52 points to win. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I was looking over the schedule, trying to find some games to go to this week. Maybe you were too. There's hardly anything going on out there in Hoops Nation this week. Virtual bupkis. Not enough nothing to cancel the G!O!T!N! for the week, but all across the land, the "athlete" part of things is taking a back seat to the "student" side. It's Finals Week. We've got exams over here as well. Starting tomorrow, we'll be running the Second Non-Annual Mid-Majority Finals Week, something we haven't tried in three years. Longtime readers will remember how much fun that was back in 2004, and we'll be doing it again this year with some better grading technology: "scantron" web forms instead of e-mail entries. That was a lot of answers to sift through the first time, let me tell you. I don't know how teachers do it. Just like back then, the test will be in four parts: History, Geography, Mathematics and Bracketology. The top three winners each get a free stuffed Bally that squeaks when you bounce him. So start cramming like you haven't crammed since that History of Underwater Basketweaving class that you slept through.
After a tough nonconference loss to Kent State last Saturday, the first-ever MMBOW to be interviewed on this site was kind enough to sit down with your host to discuss a variety of topics: the season so far, what it's like for a big-city NYC kid to attend school in North Carolina, Waffle Houses, 1979 Cadillacs, and the relative weight of honors from The Mid-Majority and Dick Vitale.
Utah Valley State (Independents) at California-Santa Barbara (Big West) Thunderdome's simple. Get to the weapons, use them any way you can. I know the Gauchos and Wolverines won't break the rules, because there aren't any. We picked tonight's home team to win the Big West, and UC-Santa Barbara has done little to make us look elsewhere. Aside from a blowout loss at Stanford's tournament marked with horrendous 34 percent shooting, UCSB has won its other eight games. Sure, there's only one real quality win (UNLV), but the Gauchos are doing what you should be doing against inferior competition: winning by large margins (+9 on the season scoreboard so far). Last year's team was somewhat of an all-defense, no-offense squad, but the points have been piling up this year -- thanks in part to a real improvement in foul shooting, from 72.5 percent last year to a healthy 78 so far in 2007-08. The D is still there, too -- opponents are only shooting 28.5 percent from 3. And the 'Chos feature near-shoo-in league POY Alex Harris, the 12th-leading scorer in the land at 23.4 ppg. He's bad. He's beautiful. He's crazy! Non-officially, the Wolverines (3-5) were 2007 United Basketball League champions, going 9-1 in the home-and-home scheduling cabal of D-I independents, closing the year on a nine-game win streak (insodoing, becoming one of the only teams in America to end the season with a win). But turnover has hurt, as 30 points and 10 rebounds of production graduated. At least they still have junior guard Ryan Toolson, who was the best indie player in 2006-07 and is a 19.6 ppg scorer this season. And as mentioned plenty of times, there was nothing soft about their 22-7 record last season, as it included faraway roadies at places like New Jersey Tech, the Dakotas and IUPU-Fort Wayne. But the UBL club's pretty much broken up since a lot of those teams upped and joined the Summit League, and Dick Hunsaker's schedule is uneven and cobbled -- including a two-week, five-game road trip into the American South come January. The road's been unkind so far, however, and UV has lost four road games, just short of the six it lost all of last season. But as far as tonight goes, you know the law: two teams enter, one team leaves. Remember where you are. This is Thunderdome. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- It's taken a week, but I believe we have all the entries in our Pop Loser contest, most of which took as much time as media mail to arrive because of e-mail clog on this end. And of our 22 entries, I had to eliminate 15 of them. The point was not to point out an instance of reference dyslexia by one of your stupid (and/or drunk) buddies, or your mom, this was all about turning the mirror on your own pop culture failings. It was about raw, naked honesty, it was about thinking Cindy was the one who said, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!" But we do have a winner. Congratulations to Rod in Asheville, a long-time friend and co-conspirator of the site (probably because it's one of the only places to get sporadic Big South news). He entered this tragic tale of Big Ten misapproriation and mistaken identity. But seriously, all he had to say was "Simmons." Ironically, my blown reference was: 1) about basketball; and 2) to Bill Simmons!! He had invited readers to submit their favorite athlete/celebrity look-alike, and of course I thought of Kammron Taylor/Chris Rock. But in the e-mail, I wrote "Michael Flowers"!! Almost as soon as I hit "send", I realized my mistake... but by then, my feeble "um, hahaha, of course, I meant Kammron Taylor" e-mail probably seemed even lamer than the original mistake. To Bill Simmons. I'll never write him again (needless to say, I received no reply, either). But we're glad you're writing us, Rod! Your squeak-Bally is on its way, please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery.
North Carolina When I'm covering a game, I always dress in a crisp shirt and a solid-color tie, usually a coat as well... just like the coaches do. It's important to look nice. (That's something I picked up from Andy Katz.) Those coaches, and sometimes other media members, will occasionally engage me in conversation about how far away from home I am. Sometimes they'll ask, "Where are you staying?" In the past, I'd always reply with "Comfort Inn," which of course is a synonym for "rental car." I don't like lying or intentional misdirection when it's not explicitly required, so I've changed that. Now I say, "oh, you know, around," or "I'm not staying... I'm goin'."
Valparaiso at Wright State (Horizon) An embarrassment of small-conference league-game riches tonight. Among other contests, we've got Sacred Heart at CCSU in the NEC, ambitious Morehead State will take on league champs Austin Peay in the OVC, and South Dakota State -- a team we like -- will begin its life in the Tonight we welcome Valparaiso, one of the classic mid-major schools for its late-Nineties Tournament heroics, to the Horizon League. The Crusaders spent their last season in the ex-Mid-Continent building and tooling towards the type of team that will do well in this conference, and the result of a 16-15 shakeout season is a big, tough, defensively-skilled team that could very well win the league in its first try. Valpo has already beaten two potential NCAA teams in Peay and the MAC's Western Michigan, and are ranked second nationally in 3-point field goal defense (22.2 percent). And with a scoring frontcourt of Urule Igbavboa and Shawn Huff (23.4 ppg combined), these 'Sada Boys are definitely going to "crank dat." Wright State won this conference despite all the Butler hubbub last season, remember? And, perhaps, the reason why people aren't talking too much about them is because they've only played three games. The Raiders started late (Nov. 19), plowed Coastal Carolina and Marshall, then lost badly to rebuilding Marist. And Wright is in transition as well, having lost focal point Dashaun Wood (19.6 ppg) over the summer to the cap-and-gown team. But two sophomore guards -- Vaughn Duggins and Todd Brown -- served in key roles as frosh during the championship campaign, and have stepped up to take Wood's points. Duggins and Brown are scoring 33 points combined, and will be the keys if the Horizon League ends up experiencing Wright repetition.
But here's my favorite item |
Dayton. We talk a lot about upsets, and we get all sorts of excited mid-major teams beating ACC, Big East and SEC squads. Most of those, admittedly, are wins over money-bloated squads with too many underclassmen, imploding coaching situations, or rampant attitude issues. We'll take those, sure, but then there are the giant, man-sized upsets, the ones over nationally ranked teams by a lot of points. Like Saturday's 
Eddie Sutton in San Francisco. Jessie Evans had amazing success at Louisiana-Lafayette early in the decade, and the ULL-Western Kentucky rivalry was once one of the best that mid-majordom had to offer. He could just never get it going in San Francisco, had trouble recruiting and even more breaking through to 20 wins. His Dons muddled through three years in the WCC's midsection, which is where they'd already been for four seasons anyway before he arrived. It was probably time for a change.
After a slow beginning to the 2007-08 season, the Utah State Aggies are now 9-5 with a four-game winning streak, and a lot of that has to do with their star guard. The All-American senior spent a lot of time in head coach Stew Morrill's office during the 3-4 start, trying to figure out how to turn things around, and he's indeed done so. Jaycee Carroll is our seventh Mid-Majority Baller of the Week for 2007-08. 
In March 2005, Tennessee Tech head coach Mike Sutton was suddenly stricken by Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a disease that can only be described as "mysterious." It laid siege to his central nervous system, leaving him paralyzed and clinging to life in a hospital for 10 months. Immobile and attached to a ventilator, his weight plummeted and his only method of communication was blinking his eyes. A month after his return home that November, he was at the end of the TTU bench in a large wheelchair. A year later, he was strong enough to use a walker to get around. He continues to undergo extensive physical therapy in order to retrain his musculature, slowly regaining the type of normal everyday body movement that you and I take for granted.
Inspired by yesterday's announcement of the new 
This was a close one... we had one major-beating, hyper-efficient performance by a Sun Belt baller with 
You usually meet the best people by accident, and often in the strangest places. I made the acquaintance of John Kuchar in a PayPal complaint box -- he had subscribed to 
Welcome to the second part of second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week, something to do while you're waiting for the real students to get done with their non-basketball related tests. Today's topic is the geography of Hoops Nation. If you've been around the world and I, I, I... you'll do pretty well on this.
Here we go, once again! It's the second non-annual Mid-Majority Finals Week. The test is 40 questions long, 10 each in four sections: History (today), Geography (Wed.), Mathematics (Thu.) and Bracketology (Fri.). You'll have 24 hours from the postmark of each message (roughly 7:15 PM Eastern... this is a night class, you know) to complete each portion of the test. Answers will be collected Saturday night, winners will be notified on Sunday, and we'll make the proper announcements in Monday's Boubacar.
The Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos (3-7, 0-2 SL) are off to a tough start in Badlands Conference play, dropping their first couple of games on the road. But that shouldn't detract from a week by a player whose team just hasn't caught up with his greatness yet. For scoring 75 points in two league away games, UMKC junior guard 
PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Good morning, Hoops Nation. I've been having a bunch of fun with our new database of officials over at Basketball State. We've got a 