College Basketball is Finally Back!

The 2013-14 college basketball season finally tips off tonight and while the opening night games are not as good as last year there are some interesting match-ups. Listed below are three intriguing games along with a few pre-season awards.

Florida Gulf Coast University at Nebraska, 9pm, Lincoln, Nebraska -2.5

Last spring FGCU captured the nation’s attention with their run to the Sweet 16 as a fifteen seed. This year they have a new coach in former Kansas assistant Joey Dooley but return flashy point guard Brett Comer and shooting guard Bernard Thompson. They also add guard Jamail Jones, a transfer from Marquette. With FGCU coming to town, Tim Miles and Co. open up their sparkling brand new arena. In his second season, Miles looks to improve upon his first year where Nebraska won five games in the Big 10, but will have to start the season without their top returner in senior guard Ray Gallegos who is suspended for the first two games of the season. The new arena will be rocking but look for Dunk City to continue their high flying ways.

St. John’s vs. Wisconsin, 7pm, South Dakota, Wisconsin -4

A Big East-Big 10 showdown in South Dakota will feature two teams with drastically different personnel and styles. Last year Wisconsin ranked 318^th in the country in Ken Pomeroy’s tempo rankings and prefer to initially look for quick hitters or run the shot clock down to under 10 seconds. The Badgers return senior guard Ben Brust who averaged 11.1 ppg along with sophomore Sam Dekker who had a 116.7 offensive efficiency rating in limited minutes. St. John’s returns junior guard D’Angelo Harrison who averaged almost 18 points per game along with sophomore forward JaKarr Sampson. They also add freshman guard Rysheed Jordan who could turn out to be on one of the top freshman scorers. St. John’s will look to push the pace and get out in the open court while Wisconsin will try to force the game into a half court game where every possession counts.

Oakland at UNC, 9pm, Chapel Hill, UNC -16

The Tar Heels are ranked number 12 in the country but tonight’s game against Oakland will give some insight into how the team plans to adapt without star shooting guard P.J. Hairston and shooting guard Leslie McDonald. Without Hairston, the team will struggle mightily in the ACC and their tough out of conference games due to the lack of wing depth and shooters. 6’1” point guard Marcus Paige will get significant time at the 2G position, while freshman Nate Britt and P.J. Tokoto will step into much larger roles. Meanwhile, Oakland returns 6’5” senior sharp shooter Travis Bader who hoisted 360 three point attempts last year while hitting 38.6%. Oakland shouldn’t have a problem scoring, but last year their overall defense was relatively poor in all statistical categories. Expect McAdoo to get out for some open court finishes, but the lack of shooting will hurt the Tar Heels in what could be a long, long season.

Player of the Year:

Doug McDermott, F, Creighton

Last year McDermott averaged 23.2 points and 7.7 rebounds per game in the Missouri Valley. Despite a step up in competition with a move to the Big East look for McDermott to continue his high scoring ways. 

Rookie of the Year:

Julius Randle, PF, Kentucky

In a very close call, I gave the nod to Randle over the future number one draft pick in Andrew Wiggins. While Wiggins is the better of the two players, Randle will be more of a consistent beast on the court and should not have a problem powering his way to the basket for buckets. Wiggins will definitely showcase his athleticism and his potential, but will also blend in to the crowd at times during Kansas games. I fully expect Wiggins to have a great game against Duke as he always dominated the top ranked competition in high school, but Randle should have the more consistent season.

Most Important Player:

P.J. Hairston, SF, UNC

Most pre-season magazines and polls have UNC ranked in the top 15 to start the season. If Hairston is deemed eligible at some point, this ranking could prove to be legit, but if Hairston is forced to miss substantial games or the entire season the Tar Heels turn into a team that would struggle to make the tournament. Hairston has a scorer’s mentality and can drain three’s from deep or dunk on an opposing player with a drive down the middle of the lane. Last year he averaged 18 points per game once he was moved into the starting line-up. Without Hairston, the lack of wing depth will be on full display as will the lack of a go to scorer. No person is more important to their team that Hairston this year.

Most Underrated Freshman

Bronson Koenig, G, Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s freshman guard Bronson Koenig finished his senior year unranked in Scout.com’s Top 100. As a sophomore, Koenig was considered a top 50 recruit and had the coaches from Duke, UNC, and UVA all over him before his early commitment to Wisconsin. This year Koenig will come off the bench for the Badgers but will be able to play both the point and shooting guard positions. Despite lacking the athletic ability to blow by defenders, Koenig has strong ball-handling abilities and is a stellar mid-range and three point shooter. He won’t “wow” anybody, but expect him to make a solid contribution in Big 10 play. There was a reason many of the top schools in the country went after him despite his drop in the rankings.

March Madness: Vegas Style

What’s better than March Madness? Only March Madness in Las Vegas where every game matters, no matter the time or the score. The 2013 NCAA Tournament kicked off bright and early Thursday morning at the Cosmopolitan auditorium. With seating at a premium, men of all ages (and a few women) waited outside the gate looking forward to rushing in as though they were at a real live sporting event. In year two of the staggered start times, the initial fury of watching four games at once to start the day has disappeared, but that didn’t mean the viewing was any less intense. 

At 9:15am PST, the first jump ball of the tournament was tossed (the real tournament, not the play-in games) and action began in Auburn Hills, Michigan. While both Michigan State and Valparaiso started off seeing which team could miss the most jumpers, those that bet the under were secretly smiling. A 35-18 halftime lead for Michigan State began a long string of 1^st half under plays on the day. Despite the monotonous first half, big boy Derrick Nix decided to come out and dominate the second half while helping the Green and White build an insurmountable 49-22 lead. With a 27 point lead in the 2^nd half, most Michigan State fans breathed a sigh of relief. However, if you were a fan of Michigan State winning by 10 points or more, the game still had your undivided attention. Soon enough the lead was cut under 20 and Ben Boggs (who?) came alive for the Crusaders dropping three pointers and getting to the foul line at will. Boggs scored 12 points in the last three minutes and cut the Spartan lead to 11 points with eight seconds left with a dunk. The Boggs dunk got everyone in the auditorium off their feet with loud chants of “FOUL, FOUL” and “DON’T FOUL, DON’T FOUL” as the clock wound down. Luckily for Spartan fans Bryce Drew did not motion for additional fouling and a potential backdoor cover scenario by the Crusaders was avoided. 

As this game ended, the Butler / Bucknell game was crawling toward a 21-14 halftime score. Bettors that took the first half under were cashing their tickets while bettors who took the under 122.5 for the game were cashing their tickets mentally. Unfortunately for those people, a scoring spree was ready to ensue. Despite both teams trading jump shots, it was still a 49-42 game at the final TV timeout (3 minutes and 91 total points). Bucknell had no intention of waving the white flag though and after Bryson Johnson hit a three pointer with 2:15 to go, the foul fest was on. Soon enough 24 points were scored by both teams and Butler’s Kameron Woods stood at the line for two shots and the 122.5 total hanging in the balance. While bettors frantically tried to add up the two point totals, Woods calmly drilled both shots to give Butler an eight point win and ruined the “under” bets that were mentally cashed only an hour before. The rest of Day 1 continued on with Southern threatening to become the first 16 seed to knock off a one seed and Matthew Dellavedova trying to cap a furious and improbable comeback. Gonzaga bettors quickly realized they had no shot of covering a 22 point spread and quickly turned into Southern fans, while Memphis fans and bettors tried to hold on for dear life as their first round win and -1.5 cover was in dire straits. Once again with the crowd on their feet, Southern found it too difficult to overcome a Pangos three and Dellavedova could not pull any magic from his hat. The rest of Day 1 featured a Marquette buzzer beater, HAVOC, and a bunch of angry customers who could not bring their Secret Pizza purchases into the auditorium. While Day 1 was exhilarating, it was Day 2 that brought out the surprises. 

Duke kicked off Day 2 and avoided losing to a 15 seed for the second consecutive year, but not before letting Albany cover the 18 point spread. Meanwhile, a 5-12 upset was taking place in Kansas City. All week the talking heads on ESPN and twitter said that poor Ole Miss didn’t have a shot going against the disciplined and methodical Bo Ryan led Wisconsin badgers. As the spread steadily moved up from four to six in favor of Wisconsin spread, a funny thing happened, Marshall Henderson caught fire. With Henderson knocking down jumpers, the slow methodical offense of Wisconsin could not keep up with the Rebels from Mississippi. A slow tempo favorite going down at the beginning of the day was just a sign of things to come.

FGCU ML

UNC -4

Two big east teams kicked off back to back afternoon games with Georgetown going off in Philadelphia as a two seed and Villanova facing UNC as a nine seed in Kansas City. At the start of the Georgetown game, it was sophomore Brett Comer of Florida Gulf Coast University trying to do what his high school backcourt mate, Austin Rivers never could….win a tournament game. Comer opened the game with a jumper and an assist as the Eagles looked to do their best Davidson / Ohio / VCU impression. While FGCU entered the half up two, Villanova was down 20 points to the hot shooting Tar Heels. At the same time, FGCU began their massive 2^nd half run to blow things open it was Villanova who came all the way back from 20 points to take a 2^nd half lead and put a scare into Tar Heel fans and bettors simultaneously. While FGCU continued their run of three’s and alley-oop dunks it was UNC who turned the tables on Villanova and rode their own three-point shooting to a win. FGCU ruined brackets while UNC held on to cover the four point spread for a fantastic Vegas afternoon.

The games continued on throughout the night and despite several blowouts fans still remained until the last game’s final buzzer which also turned out to be the final win for Tubby Smith in his Minnesota career. With two days in the books, there were only 12 hours left until a rush on seating was made for Day 3.  March Madness in Las Vegas. It can’t get much better than that.