College Hoops Recap - November

Truly getting into college basketball in November is difficult even for the most staunch fan like myself, because the college football season is still in high gear and the bowl season is rapidly approaching. It really is hard to get excited about the Preseason NIT, the Maui Invitational, the Old Spice Classic, and the Great Alaska Shootout when this is still four months of non-stop action around the country. With college football, there are a smattering of week night games and one full day of action on Saturday. For college hoops, each team has 2 games per week typically, and ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, Fox Sports Net, and even local sports channels show two to three games per night. For most folks, it's hard to really get up games multiple days of the week when there's college football on Saturday and the NFL on Sunday. Hopefully, most people are like me, and by the time January rolls around, you're obsessed with college basketball.

Many of the readers of this blog know of my passion for college basketball (in spite of my wife's distaste for the sport of basketball) so over the next few months the Total System Failure blog is going to become your wall-to-wall source for interesting nuggets, tidbits, and analysis on the college hoops world. I look forward to everyone posting their comments and visiting the TSF blog throughout the season.

To start the season, here's a recap of some of musings on the first month of the college basketball season:

Team of the Month: Butler

Todd Lickliter has proven himself to be a good coach as indicated by his 2-1 record in the NCAA Tournament and his 100 plus wins in just five years as a head coach, but not even the most avid Butler fan would have expected a spot in the Top 25 and possibly even the NCAA Tournament this season. After last season's 20-13 record and appearance in the NIT, it looked like a rebuilding year for the Bulldogs as Horizon Conference player of the year Brandon Polk and both starting guards (Avery Sheets and Bruce Horan) graduated. Of course, any time you play great defense and control the tempo like Butler teams are known to do, you can play with any team in the country. However, what Butler has accomplished this season in moving to 8-0 on the season, winning the Preseason NIT, and defeated Notre Dame, Indiana, Tennessee, and Gonzaga is beyond impressive. Butler is now ranked #18 in the country and has a very good chance to spend much of the season ranked in the Top 25 as they appear to be the class of the always difficult Horizon League. The continued solid play of forwards Brandon Crone and Brian Ligon will be key, but with guards A.J. Graves and Mike Green, Butler could just be the "George Mason" of the 2006-2007 basketball season.

Player of the Month: Trey Jackson of Jackson State

Jackson State had quite the gauntlet to run to start the 2006-2007 basketball season. Games on the road against Alabama, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Memphis, and Rutgers would be enough for any major conference basketball team to navigate, so just imagine what it is like for a SWAC team. Fortunately, for head coach Tevester Anderson, he has Trey Jackson on his squad. In spite of only going 1-4 on the 5 game road trip (which ended with a 71-70 win against Rutgers), Trey Jackson put up 36 points versus Alabama, 33 points versus Georgia Tech, 27 points versus Illinois, 32 points versus Memphis, and 20 points versus Rutgers. For the season, the 6'5 senior guard is averaging 30.4 points per game in 37.9 minutes of playing time per game and is shooting 42% from the field and 37.7% from three point range. Behind the strong play of Jackson, Anderson's team is now 4-4 on the season and looks to be the class of the SWAC. Jackson is probably the best SWAC player to come along since Alabama State legend Steve Rogers, and Jackson just might have enough game to take Jackson State to its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2000.

Misc. Thoughts (aka "Free Throws")

Has a head coach ever been relieved of his coaching duties more quickly in a college basketball season than former Minnesota head coach Dan Monson? I've seen coaches fired after Christmas and during conference play, but never immediately after Thanksgiving. Monson came to Minnesota after getting the Gonzaga dynasty started. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to replicate that success with the Golden Gophers...at least, Clem Haskins got Minnesota to a Final Four, but of course, he did violate a few NCAA rules along the way. I think what hurt Monson the most was recruiting players that were 'too good' for college basketball. He'd have a good player for a year or two (Joel Pryzbilla, Kris Humphries, and Rick Rickert), and then they would bolt for the NBA. Interim head coach Jim Molinari (formerly of Bradley Brave fame) certainly isn't the long term answer, but after losing to Montana and Marist this past week, it definitely was time for a 'new voice' as Monson put it. Maybe Mark Few knows what he is doing by staying at Gonzaga...I'm sure that Monson is wishing he'd have stayed in Spokane these past six seasons.

Does Clemson have the quietest 8-0 record in college basketball? There are 26 undefeated teams currently in Division I, and there is not one team with more wins than the Clemson Tigers. Now, let's be honest - Clemson has only played two teams from major conferences (Mississippi State and the aforementioned Minnesota Golden Gophers), but they are dominating teams that they should (such as Monmouth, Charleston Southern, and Appalachian State) and winning on the road against solid teams. Clemson defeated an Old Dominion team that went on the road and beat Georgetown. With a solid senior point guard in Vernon Hamilton and a deep bench where 9 players are averaging more than 10 points per game, Oliver Purnell has got a team that could cause some problems in the always tough ACC. Clemson should easily clear the double digit mark in wins prior to the start of conference play and even finishing 0.500 in the ACC could put Clemson in the race for their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 8 years.

As a Georgetown basketball fan, I've got to give a shout out to the job that former Hoya Harold Broadnax is doing at Savannah State. Prior to this season, Savannah State had a record of 2-56 over the past two seasons. Playing less than stellar competition, the Tigers are 5-5 through the end of November. Wins over Jacksonville and Mercer and close losses to SWAC favorite Jackson State, Florida A&M, and Georgia State indicate that Savannah State is improving in its second year under the direction of Broadnax. Now, let's be honest for a second.....Savannah State is not a good basketball team and several bad losses are on the way with upcoming road games against North Carolina State, West Virginia, Marquette, Nebraska, and Louisville to name a few. Nevertheless, Broadnax is doing things the right way down in coastal Georgia, and better things are to come for the Tigers.

Speaking of the Hoya basketball....what a disappointing start to the season! Some pundits were talking about the Hoyas being a possible Final 4 contender, but those so-called experts didn't realize just how important Brandon Bowman and Ashanti Cook were to the team. In my opinion, Jeff Green is a complimentary player and not a star player. Green does a lot of things well, but carrying a team and scoring a ton of points are his strengths. Roy Hibbert is still too awkward and foul prone to dominate games like past Hoya centers, and Jonathan Wallace is the only consistent backcourt threat. John Thompson III has a lot to try and figure out with this team, because this supposedly great team has only looked good in its game against Vanderbilt (which has since lost to Wake Forest and Furman). Sure, Old Dominion played a near perfect half of basketball to beat the Hoyas at McDonough Gym, but Oregon exposed the Hoyas. Oregon's lineup did not nearly have the size of the Hoyas, but the Ducks out hustled and outplayed the Hoyas on the offensive glass. From what I saw in the Oregon game, the Hoyas look like a NIT team this season.

It's time to give Mike Anderson some serious credit. The guy can flat out coach. Even with a cupcake schedule, Missouri has no business being 8-0. When Missouri was just 7-0 after beating the likes of Army, Stetson, Coppin State, and North Carolina A&T, I wasn't that impressed. But then, Anderson's team showed Arkansas what 40 minutes of hell is really like when they dominated the Razorbacks from start to finish and won 86-64 in Columbia. Now, it's time to stand up and notice what Mike Anderson is doing with the Tigers. Upcoming games with an improved Purdue team and Illinois will tell us even more about Missouri, but after the first month of the season, people in the Big 12 better be ready for Mike Anderson's style of ball.

This will sound like a cliche - but Gonzaga is becoming the Duke of the West Coast. The cast of characters constantly changes and the superstars come and go, but the wins just keep on piling up. Gonzaga will get another chance to prove itself in early December with a road game at Texas and two games against their in-state rivals (7-0 Washington State and #11 ranked 6-0 Washington), but after beating North Carolina on a neutral floor, I think the Zags have proved that there is life after Adam Morrison. Mark Few needs to just stay in Spokane and just enjoy the fruits of his labor. His program is not about to go anywhere, and sooner or later, the Zags are going to break through to the Final Four and permanently legitimize this program.

A 6-2 start to the season is something to be proud of if you're a basketball fan of Auburn University. Times have been tough under Jeff Lebo, and for some reason, he's under a little heat this year in spite of inheriting a program at rock bottom after the Cliff Ellis era. With a new arena on the way (Praise the Lord, Hallejuah!), I think people are going to see an upswing in the excitement around this program. Vot Barber and Rasheem Barrett are establishing themselves as dominant SEC-caliber players, and more help is on the way once Quan Prowell and Josh Dollard return to action. The real key for the Tigers is trying to find a way to cut down on the number of turnovers. These games of 19 and 20 plus turnovers have got to stop if Auburn is going to find a way to make it to the postseason. Also, the free throw shooting woes that have plagued Auburn basketball since the days of Cliff Ellis have to stop. With the talent that Lebo is starting to bring to the Plains, there are going to be some close SEC games on the road and in Beard-Eaves Colesium this season...and Auburn needs to steal some of those wins to reach the NIT or even the NCAA Tournament, but free throw shooting will be key. It'll be truly interesting to see just how far the Tigers have come since last year when they host Pitt on Sunday.

College basketball is truly a fun sport to follow....just take the Kansas Jayhawks. The second game of the season, Oral Roberts strolls into Phog Allen Fieldhouse and does a number of the Rock,Chalk, Jayhawks by winning 78-71. Kansas fans are beside themselves with Coach Bill Self and down on their beloved Jayhawks, especially after just getting by Ball State. Then, you've got a shot against the #1 team in the country on a neutral floor. All of the media experts and ESPN talking heads are hyping this game like the Ohio State-Michigan football game, and the Gators appear to ready to roll. But then, Kansas plays an almost flawless game - only 12 turnovers, 54% field goal shooting, outrebounds the Gators by 2 - and ends up knocking off the #1 ranked Gators. It truly was one of the great early season games that I've had the pleasure of watching in quite some time. I still think that the Gators will fail in their quest to repeat as national champs, and I don't think either the Jayhawks or Gators will even make the Final 4 this season, but both teams gave us a taste of March Madness caliber hoops in November.

And now, after one month of action, the Total System Failure Top 25:

1. Ohio State
2. UCLA
3. Florida
4. North Carolina
5. Pittsburgh
6. Kansas
7. Texas A&M
8. Alabama
9. Marquette
10. Washington
11. Duke
12. Syracuse
13. Wisconsin
14. Butler
15. LSU
16. Maryland
17. Georgia Tech
18. Connecticut
19. Arizona
20. Gonzaga
21. Memphis
22. Wichita State
23. Oregon
24. Air Force
25. Missouri