The pajamas are on. The windows are closed. The Monday Night Football game is over. It’s time to concentrate to college basketball – and a whole lot of it.
Today/tonight/this morning marks the beginning of the 24-hour college basketball marathon on the ESPN family of networks to unofficially kick off the season- a college basketball dodecaheader if you will! Fortunately, this one-day gluttony of college basketball wasnt’ around while I was still a schoolboy, or those straight A’s would have been kissed goodbye. (Sound the nerd alert alarm, yes.)
To honor the day-long hardwood fest, we here at A Lot Of Sports Talk will have a running thread of commentary during the 24-hour window from midnight Tuesday to the end of the marathon, sometime in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Definitely add your commentary to our running thoughts, and we hope to have your opinions come in at any point in the day – even the comments from the people in the Mountain Time Zone! (Kidding, we love the people in the Rocky Mountain area.)
Let’s have some insomnia-induced fun, shall we?
12:38 AM EST: And that’s that! What a way to end the marathon. Jabari Parker is the truth, Andrew Wiggins is the truth and Kansas might very well just make it 10 Big 12 conference titles (sorry Oklahoma State and Baylor). Lost a little steam at the end here commenting, but wall-to-wall college basketball for 2013 did not disappoint. Thanks for keeping track with us!
9:56 PM EST: AKentucky should probably foul. Five-second difference between game and shot clock is too narrow to go down length of floor and score (assuming you grab the defensive rebound).
9:44 PM EST: And just because, switching to Fox Sports 1 for Tennessee/Xavier…and BILL RAFTERY is on the mic! Almost want to leave it on here despite the upcoming good finish with MSU-UK. Onions!!! Lingerie on the deck!!
9:40 PM EST: After tying the game, MSU runs off five straight. Kentucky has not led, and you get the sense that they won’t be able to get over the hump of playing from behind all game.
9:28 PM EST: SEC flexing some strength against the Big Ten as we speak. Kentucky on the comeback trail (only down one) and Florida off to a great start at Wisconsin. A pseudo SEC-Big Ten Challenge breaking out right now.
9:19 PM EST: Treveon Graham: Thank you for the buzzer-beater! Oh, and a VCU player left the bench after the three was made (Lewis)!!
9:13 PM EST: Go to ESPN2…NOW! End of VCU-UVA!
8:59 PM EST: Of all the rule changes the NCAA adopts for NCAA Basketball, they can’t get of the silly resetting of the 10-second count if you call a time out while in the backcourt? Coach Bennett bails out his team with the T.O.
8:30 PM EST: Back to VCU and Virginia, and Virginia is much more athletic than I thought they were going into this season. VCU, again, a very pedestrian team if you can break pressure and get your inside game going. Rams will still win at least 23 games, though.
8:26 PM EST: In 2008-09, a Michigan State team that made the Final Four won the Big Ten by the largest margin (four games) since 1984-85. Big Ten is decent this year, but there’s no way, with the way Spartans are playing and who they have back, that they can’t win the Big Ten this year by at least three games – if not more.
8:19 PM EST: Dinner is done, and did not want to type about basketball with greased fingertips. (That is what a Philly Cheese Steak will do.) Michigan State making Kentucky looking like a bunch of freshman so far. Looks like both Bluegrass State powers are going to really have to adapt to the new “freedom of movement” rules. Spartans playing as good of defense than football counterparts.
7:25 PM EST: Back home, and back before the Champions Classic…and back home to see VCU and Virginia. Can’t be surprised at the low score to start. Looking at a couple of the shots missed, those rims in Charlottesville are TOO HARD, like you see with the new rims imported for the NCAA Tournament. Can someone get a screwdriver and loosen those rims??
6:20 PM EST: Alright, people, thank you so much for your support so far! Leaving the office in a couple of minutes and hustling home on the A train to make sure to be home (and warm) before the Champions Classic. Hoping I come across the accordion-playing performer who did The Imperial March from the Star Wars trilogy at Penn Station, like I did yesterday. See you soon!
6:10 PM EST: A tutorial involving Jay Williams that did not cover how to flop correctly, a.k.a. The Duke Way?
6:02 PM EST: Sorry about that. It’s JAY Williams, not Jason. By the way, I wish ESPN would hype up the Kentucky/Michigan State and Duke/Kansas games more. I don’t think they are giving the games enough pre-game hype. Joking aside, the talent on display is going to be sick.
6:00 PM EST: Kara Lawson in the studio makes it easier on the eyes to bare the sight of Jason Williams on the set. Can you imagine Williams, instead of Derrick Rose, being the point guard for the Bulls long-term? That could have happened.
5:33 PM EST: John Saunders introduced Sean Farnham as a former UCLA “star.” Farnham averaged 1.25 points in 60 career games at UCLA from 1996-2000. That’s superstardom, folks!
5:29 PM EST: Yup…foul occurred after the buzzer/horn/clock reached zero/sun setting. Baylor wins.
5:22 PM EST: My rule of thumb: If you’re down by one possession and don’t have the ball, the smallest differential between game and shot clock that I would allow in which I would not foul and play defense is seven seconds. Without ability to advance ball with a timeout, it’s too tough to get stop and go length of floor to win. South Carolina should foul…and they did. Good move.
5:11 PM EST: Have a feeling that South Carolina is going to finish higher than the 12th place designation they were selected for at SEC Media Days. Haven’t seen most of SEC yet, but to hang with a long, talented (yet a very raw still) Baylor team on road is impressive.
4:53 PM EST: Glad they showed Kim Mulkey, head coach of Baylor women’s basketball, and talked about her competitiveness and success. Im my mind, her team winning the 2005 national championship is the main reason Baylor started to take off as a force to be reckoned with in major college athletics. Men’s basketball followed, now football may soon reach Oregon-type popularity levels.
4:06 PM EST: Red Auerbach, what do you have to say about flopping?
4:02 PM EST: I’m almost going to go off on a Fran-Jimmy tangent, this about the block-charge. Jimmy hit nail on head: The block-charge call, unlike what most people have been almost trained to think, was NOT the hardest call in college basketball. Pretty much three out of four of those plays should have been called blocks. Even if adjusting to new rules causes officials to miss some calls in favor of the offense, no problem. Have to eliminate flopping.
3:53 PM EST: Fran and Jimmy: talk about the South Carolina/Baylor game, although I am very, VERY interested about Michigan State and Kentucky and breaking down that match-up.
3:44 PM EST: Would rather have Fraschilla and Dykes on the call if either of them were going to be paired with a not-so-great play-by-play guy. Does Bruce Ellington really want to go from Steve Spurrier to Frank Martin once football season is over?
3:20 PM EST: So next up is South Carolina and Baylor, and ESPN decided to go with a play-by-play-less combination: Fran Fraschilla and Jimmy Dykes. Sounds like it could be a disaster, but those are two color commentators that I trust.
3:14 PM EST: Yes, that drive to the basket – and subsequent blocking foul call – should be a block 100 times out of 100. But it took a tweaking of a rule for that to happen, since there was/is a good chance that would have been called a charge in the past. Looks like Virginia Tech will hold on.
2:59 PM EST: Back after lunch, meeting and phone calls. Close call with West Virginia and VA Tech. So surprising that both schools have had precipitous falls in college basketball success. Guess there’s a reason that they’re football schools.
1:22 PM EST: No Sleep Til Brooklyn! Chaz Williams and Minutemen hold on to win. Now a lunch run, then concentrate on West Virginia/Virginia Tech, with Huggy Bear…no, not that Huggy Bear.
1:12 PM EST: Am certain that I will watch as many UMass games as possible this season. They are bats out of hell on a basketball court. A 10-point lead could turn into a five-point deficit can turn back into a seven-point lead…all in the span of five minutes.
1:03 PM EST: Being in press row is the best seat in the house…until you get trucked by platers diving for a loose ball! Looked like some student reporters took the charge there.
12:42 PM EST: Jeff Goodman now in the fold for ESPN, essentially being a second Andy Katz for the network and providing insider information. Goodman is a total soldier of fortune now – I have seen him working for FoxSports.com, CBSsports.com and now he’s with ESPN. Game is getting good. Shame that “J-O-B” (Johnny O’Bryant III) has four fouls and more than half the second half to play.
12:25 PM EST: Watching interview with UConn’s Bria Hartley and Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike on SportsCenter, after they went against each other in yesterday’s women’s basketball top-three match-up. Honestly, who needs to be on campus in college when you can be on the SportsCenter campus in Bristol?
12:08 PM EST: There were 43 combined free throws between LSU (16) and UMass (27) in the first half. Makes for smooth watching.
12:00 PM EST: HAFLWAY THROUGH! Slow…clap.
11:54 AM EST: Just was reminded of a former player who played at LSU whose name was Magnum Rolle. Magnum Rolle. Just let the John Shaft coolness of his name sink in.
11:31 AM EST: The fashion police should be called on UMass. Unless you’re Georgetown and/or actually have gray in your actual school color scheme, there’s no need for the gray/graphite-colored unis. Might as well stick with a black third jersey, like everyone else had a few years ago.
11:16 AM EST: Sounds like Bram Weinstein, who’s doing the play-by-play, is not the most polished PxP guy. Too much of a radio call in his delivery (describes almost every aspect of a play even though viewers can see the action). Well, he is normally a studio host, so I’ll give him a break. Glad to see a female color commentator for the game, and she’s a real good one in former Lady Vol standout Kara Lawson. And why are Lawson and Weinstein standing up for their on-camera live shot??
11:11 AM EST: Best nickname of the marathon so far: Johnny O’Bryant III, post player for LSU. “J-O-B” or “J-O-B three.”
11:07 AM EST: High school shoutout alert: Chaz Williams, star point guard for UMass, is a graduate of Bishop Ford Central Catholic High School in Brooklyn – just like me. That’s where the similarities between Williams and myself end.
10:48 AM EST: Not sure about making Tim Welsh show his personality “around the town” in Philadelphia. He’s not cardboard on camera, but he is a little stiff-erific. He should have been head coach at Hofstra right now, but then this happened back in 2010. If we all could land so softly and go back to a cushy TV gig after going through something like that.
10:36 AM EST: Into the office and back to blogging. And is La Salle going to start 0-2 on the season? Quinnipiac ties things up. Their rebounding acumen causing trouble for the guards/big men for Explorers.
9:28 AM EST: Oh, and I’m still on “best left-handed player of the marathon” alert. D.J. Peterson (1) and Jerrell Wright (25) both southpaws on La Salle (and good players). Matt Carlino still leads near the halfway mark.
9:24 AM EST: Now to balance college basketball viewing with deciding which soap and toothpaste to use as I get ready to go into the office today. Dove bar soap and Arm & Hammer Extra Whitening are the early favorites.
9:04 AM EST: Here is our interview from A-10 Media Days with Dr. John Giannini, whose name is already being mispronounced by the ESPN personalities (pronounced ja-KNEE-nee, not GEE-uh-knee-nee). Regardless, here’s our conversation with the 10-year Explorer head coach.
8:58 AM EST: Guards galore coming up next, with Quinnipiac playing 2013 Sweet 16 participant La Salle, specifically Tyreek Duren, Tyrone Garland (Southwest Philly Floater), Sam Mills and D.J. Peterson of the Explorers! Will have interview we did with La Salle head coach Dr. John Giannini up real soon!
8:52 AM EST: Hartford and Mark Nwakamma: definition of a one-man army! Will probably be seeing he and FGCU’s Chase Fieler in NBA Summer League in less than a year. Talented players.
8:21 AM EST: Let’s all take in the wonder that is play-by-play broadcaster/scholarly rapper Mark Jones. In the same game, he can come up with some bad puns and trite comments – Fieler feeling it OR That has to be jelly because jam don’t shake like that – and follow that up twenty minutes later using words like temerity, mendacity and Pyrrhic victory. Drop some copious amounts of knowledge, home slice.
8:03 AM EST: Could I get away with having the pinned-back dreadlocks look on television that LaPhonso Ellis has going on right now? It may be worth a try.
7:39 AM EST: This Mark Nwakamma guy from Hartford is straight from the 40-and-over rec league. Old-school ground game: drives to basket and has sweet jumper although he barely elevates from the ground on his shot. Oh, and he looks like he is actually 40 years old. All kidding aside, a very good player, and can see why he’s a pro prospect.
7:24 AM EST: SNOW?!?! In New York?!?! On November 12th?!?
7:20 AM EST: Right when I say that games aren’t grinding to a halt, the sound that’s coming out of Hawai’i right now at the end of the game: SCCRRREEEECH!!!!!
7:05 AM EST: Dunk City is on! I’ll admit, I forgot the nickname of Florida Gulf Coast University until the opening tease on ESPNU just now (Eagles).
6:59 AM EST: Sim Bhullar can drain free throws like a guard. If only Dwight Howard was up watching this.
6:54 AM EST: Hawai’i is making this a game. Down 9 and going to the FT line. And an 80-71 score with good flow to the game? Rule changes are looking good and games, so far, are not grinding to a halt. Can only hope that’s the case nationwide for the next five months.
6:43AM EST: Our first player ejection of the marathon livens things up. Aloha, Keith Shamburger.
6:36 AM EST: Catnap over and Sim Bhullar back to dunking. Exactly where I left the game.
6:02 AM EST: First designed catnap of the college basketball marathon after seeing the SAME halftime report on loop once again. See you in about 30 minutes.
5:43 AM EST: New Mexico State, looking down the road, might be an NCAA Tourney upset pick. They are long, very athletic and have a big man that could cause havoc to a major conference team that does not have a dominant big. Also, they were in the NCAA Tournament last season, so they’re experienced in the Big Dance and won’t have stage fright if they make it back. In other words, they have all the earmarks of a team that can pull a surprise.
5:37 AM EST: What a cool video montage of all of the foreign players on Hawai’i speaking in their native language and welcoming people to Hawai’i. As an aside, a vacation to Hawai’i needs to happen pronto!
5:16 AM EST: Fun fact: As a freshman, Sim Bhullar, the 7-5 center for NMSU, won the WAC Tournament MVP in 2013 in leading the Aggies to the NCAA Tournament. The last freshman to win the WAC Tournament MVP was 7-foot-6 BYU center Shawn Bradley. You just can’t make this stuff up.
5:10 AM EST: Shameless alma mater plug: The NMSU-Hawai’i game breaks the three-game streak in the marathon in which a Syracuse graduate – either an undergraduate or grad school alum – on the mic for play-by-play (Dave Pasch, Dave Flemming, Carter Blackburn).
5:06 AM EST: Sorry Zips and Gaels, but have to head to ESPNU and start watching NMSU and Hawai’i. The Rainbow Warriors (I still call them that) wearing the black unis at home…nice!
4:52 AM EST: Highlight montage of former Gael Matthew Dellavedova got me thinking to who was the best player I ever saw in college who hailed from Australia? Maybe Andrew Bogut at Utah or Patty Mills from Saint Mary’s, but I’m partial to Andrew Gaze, the former Seton Hall standout who helped lead the Pirates to the 1989 national championship game.
4:44 AM EST: Jordan Giusti is playing very well but not well enough to wrest the title of best left-handed player during the college basketball marathon from Matt Carlino of BYU.
4:40 AM EST: Just about 20 minutes away from New Mexico State and Hawai’i and the chance to see the Bhullar twins (incorrect: brothers) in action for NMSU: 7-foot-5 Sim and 7-foot-3 Tanveer. If that is not worth staying up for, I don’t know what is.
4:27 AM EST: By the way, who needs to show school pride by putting the school name on the uniforms when you can have a jersey like Akron’s, that looks like Zorro personally sliced his calling card on the front of it…
4:17 AM EST: With his last-second assist to end the first half to his defensive play, looks like guard Jordan Giusti really improved his game in the offseason for Saint Mary’s. Went from an emergency starter at end of the season/NCAA Tournament to being possibly a solid all-around contributor.
3:57 AM EST: Halftime in Moraga: Saint Mary’s 38, Akron 31. Now time for ESPN2 to re-rack the tape they have used for the past two halftime reports. What, no live studio hits at four in the morning from Bristol???
3:53 AM EST: Beau Levesque at the free throw line for Saint Mary’s, and all I can think about is that he shares the same last name as the wrestler known as “Triple H,” Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Paul Levesque). No, I don’t watch the WWE…maybe.
3:36 AM EST: First there was Demetrius “Tree” Treadwell, now there’s Isaiah “Old School” Johnson, who has a tattoo on his right arm that plainly says “Big Dog.” Glenn Robinson fan, maybe? I doubt it, since he was born in November of 1994, eight months after Robinson won NCAA player of the year at Purdue.
3:18 AM EST: “Tree” Treadwell may be tall (6-7), but he’s nowhere near as tall – nor as wide – as the person I first remember playing for Saint Mary’s College: Brad Millard, a.k.a. “Big Continent.” Saw him in the NCAA Tourney in 1997, playing Wake Forest and Tim Duncan. Just looked up Millard’s dimensions: 7-foot-3, 345 pounds. Hey, I found a pic of Millard against Duncan. Look at how small Duncan looks. Geez!!
3:12 AM EST: Say hello to Demetrius “Tree” Treadwell of Akron. His Twitter handle? @Tall_ass_tree. Don’t believe me? Here!
3:09 AM EST: Controlled anger wins again…Wichita State in the win column over the Hilltoppers. Now Akron and Saint Mary’s for our viewing pleasure. (Make sure to spell “Saint” fully, instead of the abbreviation. Same with Saint Louis, but you can state the the Red Storm as St. John’s.)
2:59 AM EST: The Wichita grandmother duo being shot on camera multiple times downing the energy drink are still hanging in there in the stands with less than four minutes left. Get home safe, ladies! P.S. Is it ok for senior citizens to be chugging energy drinks?
2:47 AM EST: Mark Adams, the color commentator in the WKU/Wichita State game, is one of the five best color commentators in college basketball. Is a bank of knowledge when it comes to smaller-budget (“mid-major”) schools. Just broke down why Georgia State is a sleeper in the Sun Belt Conference. I’m sold. Oh, and he’s a motivational speaker to boot. He’s a good man!
2:42 AM EST: Where do you get those Gumby costumes? Just saw one in the stands in Wichita. And do they also sell Pokey costumes to complete the set?
2:18 AM EST: I must admit that I cheated on the college basketball marathon for a few minutes to watch A&E, as it is doing a profile on big-time drug trafficker Quasand Lewis – the cousin of former Michigan and NBA player Robert “Tractor” Traylor. Lewis’ takedown ended up being the largest drug-related prosecution in the history of the state of Michigan. That’s all. Nothing much. Now back to our regularly-scheduled programming.
2:01 AM EST: Right call, refs. Count the basket. Three for WKU to end the half. Wichita State 30, WKU 28 at half. Now to work on football commentary and get a cup of Sunkist orange soda. Sunkist is one of my guilty pleasures in life.
1:56 AM EST: The words “Freedom of movement” has officially jumped the shark, and it is only four games into the season.
1:51 AM EST: Our first airball from the free throw line in the 2013-14 season. Thank you Patyon Hulsey of WKU.
1:40 AM EST: Cleanthony Early. Fred VanVleet. Tekele Cotton. It’s not Boubacar Aw, Ya-Ya Dia and Joseph Touomou of Georgetown of the later 1990s, but those are a nice selection of names that Wichita State has on the team.
1:25 AM EST: Western Kentucky and Wichita State now taking center stage. A Final Four team last year was Wichita State, and return three starters and nine players that played for the team last season. WKU, back in 2008, was a Sweet 16 team. And I was in Tampa live to see the Hilltoppers win those two NCAA games. By the way, can you say you were ever this close to the best mascot in college basketball? Hello, Big Red!
1:13 AM EST: Glad to see that officials will still call OBVIOUS blocking fouls charges in the name of keeping games interesting. This game, as fun as it is, is keeping me from posting by Big Red mascot picture leading up to the WKU/Wichita State game.
1:07 AM EST: BYU with 103 points in this game with 2:25 remaining…or only 859 points fewer than the number of points Jimmer Fredette has scored in his two-plus seasons in the NBA.
12:44 AM EST: Do the uniforms in the team in blue right now read “Brigham Young” or “Loyola Marymount (c. 1989)? Eighty-eight points with over seven minutes left? Can see this team overtake Gonzaga in WCC. (First sleep-deprived inane comment of the day.)
12:35 AM EST: Matt Carlino (BYU): The best left-handed player that I’ve seen during the marathon. More than 23 hours and 20 minutes for that to change.
12:18 AM EST: David Shaw, head coach of the Stanford football team, sitting in front row with fresh black leather jacket. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott probably cursed at the TV set after seeing him with the Cardinal defeating the Pac-12’s best chance at making it to the BCS Championship Game, Oregon.
12:05 AM EST: BYU 56, Stanford 48, halftime. Please let this be a sign of things to come for the rest of college basketball games this season: Fluid offense, lots of scoring and star players (Dwight Powell).
12:00 AM EST: Here we go…BYU taking it to Stanford now on The Farm. Seems like life without Jimmer Fredette hasn’t gone so bad for Cougars. As for Jimmer? Well, umm…
