To clear things up a bit, both Seton Hall and North Carolina are missing their best 2 players

GWMayem,  I agree about Maryland, this is a typical Turgeon team, meaning they will play below their talent level. If you look at Maryland's roster, they have top talent and ability, but this group will probably end up being a 4 or 5 seed in the NCAA tournament and will be lucky to get past their 2nd round opponent. Maryland had only scored 7 or 8 points through the first 15 minutes of the first half. Even if Seton Hall started 5 elite defenders, that's just inexcusable for a team with Maryland's talent!!

FQ,  that's news to me. I always assume that every player on North Carolina was at least a top 75 player coming out of high school

VCU at Wichita State     right now  on ESPN2 -  Wichita State is up 18-6 early
Western Kentucky at Rhode Island    2    ESPN+
St.Bonaventure  at Middle Tennessee State  3
UMBC at George Mason  4  MASN or MASN 2   - Darnell Rogers has been out with an injury, maybe he'll return for this game
#13 Dayton at Colorado   6:30  CBS SportsNetwork  - this game is in Chicago, so it must be part of a tournament
St. Louis vs Kansas State  7 ESPN+  - neutral site game in Kansas City

The Dude wrote:

Ed Cooley and Providence pound Shaka Smart and Texas.  70-48

Shaka's Texas team has played a schedule that would make Boeheim blush. Don't let that record fool you they are about the same as they've been year after year, bubble/off bubble.  He's 31-41 in league play, it has been so far an unmitigated disaster for Shaka at Texas.

Rick Barnes got fired by Texas for losing in the NCAA 2nd round too much in recent years, sure looks good right now. Barnes was 186–94 in league play at Texas. Sometimes the grass isn't always greener.


 

The weird thing about Shaka’s team at Texas is they don’t force turnovers.   I think he’s lost his identity as a coach with the move because when I watch Texas, I really don’t know what their identity (seems to be just ball screens for Coleman or Ramey to make a play, and vanilla defense).

FQ, Perhaps that is it.  Thomas noted he's had those NBA 1 and done bigs, but you know what he's not really having? deep recruiting classes, I think hard to win without that.  Perhaps a lot of high impact transfers, but he hasn't really had that either.

No offense to Shaka, but as I noted when he bolted our A10, VCU was really good before he got there and they've been really good since he left. 

Bill Self took Tulsa to 32-5, Elite 8 Heights, he even took Oral Roberts from terrible to the NIT!  Oral Roberts! 

For these really coveted jobs I'd want someone like that, not a guy who arrived at a great situation and kept things humming.  that comment was scoffed at the time, but it was true then, true now, he inherited the players who made a Final 4 run, which made his big fame, his own VCU built teams looked like a lot of VCU teams under many other Coaches before and since, NCAA round 1 losses type teams.  

Dan Hurley turned Wagner around instantly, then took Rhode Island from the very bottom of the league to the very top.  I'd want someone like that, those are much MUCH tougher places to begin, starting a much tougher spots, not someone like Shaka at the big time BCS jobs, I said all this on the board at the time.

Karma is that Rick Barnes has totally turned around Tennessee, what a great team they had last year.  

 

Last edited by The Dude (12/22/2019 10:10 pm)

Michigan transfer Ibi Watson scored 30 points tonight for Dayton.

They are a legit A10 Juggernaut of a team.  Impressive stuff.

I think Shaka Smart was well on his way to turning VCU into Gonzaga(he was starring to get top 30 players to pick VCU over BCS schools), meaning a top 10 team every year, but I understand why he left for Texas, the money and the status of a place like Texas was too good to pass up. I wasn't aware that Texas extended Shaka Smart.

Dayton lost to Colorado on a buzzer-beater about a week ago, so they dropped to #18. They may have jumped into the top 10 if they won that game. I just checked a mock draft site and saw that Obi Toppin is now projected to go #4 in the upcoming draft.   

Maryland had 2 local players transfer yesterday, twin big men Makhi and Makhel Mitchell left. They attended McNamara and Wilson in high school. They may be a long shot for GW, but I'm assuming that Jamion Christian will make an effort to get them because they are local players who are now available. A guy who works for Maryland's recruiting site tweeted that Georgetown is a likely destination for them if Ewing wants them. I checked Georgetown's board to see what the posters had to say about this, and a number of them don't want the Mitchell twins for whatever reason. 

American U at Georgetown   noon   FS1
Bucknell at La Salle   2     ESPN+