Dribblings 11/30/2004 (Agriculture & Mining Edition)

Georgia State 85, Louisiana-Lafayette 78 (story) - A good Atlantic Sun club beat a bigger and stronger Ragin' Cajun team - one picked by many to storm through the Sun Belt Conference this year - by making their free throws down the stretch. It was the front end of a rare non-conference home-and-home; as GSU coach Mike Perry told the Opelousas Daily World, "Louisiana is a lot like us in that they have trouble scheduling, because nobody really wants to play either of us."

Mercer 103, Georgia Southern 94 (2OT) (story) - In a game that featured the highest combined score so far this season, middling A-Sun'ers wore down a squad with grand aspirations in the SoCon. This other GSU was playing its sixth game in 12 days, and rallied from a 73-55 deficit with 10 minutes left in regulation only to fall in double OT. The two teams are old friends from the defunct Trans-America Conference.

Ohio 81, San Francisco 66 (story) - The Bobcats put on a 22-8 run at the close of the first half, and never looked back. You can be sure they were rested, as they hadn't played a single game yet - now all 326 Division I teams have tasted action. That means we can officially state that the 2004-05 college basketball season is truly underway. Again.

And are we into conference season already? My, my. Metro Atlantic play tips off this evening with Manhattan at Fairfield, while Eastern Michigan and Marshall square off in a rare late-November Mid-American tilt.

Ken Pomeroy is laying down the law when it comes to Texas A&M and its Corpus Christi satellite campus. Yes, the CC has recently become a Lone Star State hoops capital, thanks to an impressive 4-1 start by the only bunch of Islanders never to have sported a Gorton's Fisherman logo.

From now on, the Texas A&M main campus shall be referred to as TAMU-College Station in all future posts. Speaking of TAMU-CS, how must the administration there feel knowing that their program, with all the advantages of being in the Big XII and having a brand new arena, has sunk below a school without conference affiliation that has been D1 for all of six years?

Now this is a bandwagon I can hop onto. Until further notice, our Texas A&M info page will reflect this updated information, and the Aggies will be designated as TAMCS in the schedule and results panel to the right.

Hoop Time v3.0 is a new blog but existing concept (it used to be a print pub) that's dedicated to the Patriot League and the thriving D2 and D3 scene in an area dear to my heart, central Pennsylvania. The guy writes a wide streak and clearly knows his territory, and you'd be well-served to include this site in your daily readaround.

The XM-Sirius satellite radio war took another turn yesterday when Sirius purchased the rights to broadcast the NCAA Tournament through 2007. I'm still on the fence which way to go, and haven't bought into either brand yet. So let's review: Sirius has the NFL, NBA, a smattering of college sports, and Howard Stern. XM has baseball, the ACC, the Pac-10 and the Big Ten. Hmmm, this is a tough call. But inevitably, one company will buy the other, hike the prices, and it won't matter.

College basketball/fashion guru Angela Lento, who can't seem to resist a man in a well-tailored suit, profiles Evansville sideline-pacer Steve Merfield. Is she the one who talked the Purple Aces out of wearing the t-shirts?

Mark Haymore, who played for the 1976 national champion Indiana team and later starred for Massachusetts, died in Amherst, Mass. at 48.

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