College Basketball 2009-10

[Andy]

23 isn't bad. I think that is about where Illinois should be. I'll take it.

 

I'm happy you guys are ranked. 6 of 11 teams are ranked. Sweet.

Damn it, you just reminded me how annoying it is that this whole thread is going to be Big Ten slurping.

 

(They'll likely deserve it, granted, but it'll still be annoying.)

[snoodmonger]

I'm a little lost on Kentucky and Texas. How can they be unranked and 23rd respectively to end last year and then debut in the top 5 when there are teams behind them that return practically everyone? I don't understand that. If a team that finishes last season ranked 15 and returns everyone of importance plus has a good recruiting class how can they be behind a team that finished ranked below them?

 

Kentucky is the one that bothers me most. They didn't even make the tourny last year nor win the NIT and yet they are top 5? Goes to show you how stupid the media is.

 

As for Texas they are pretty much bringing most everyone back outside of Abrams, had maybe the 2nd best class behind Kentucky (Jordas Hamilton and Avery Bradley) and a transfer of Jai Lucas from U of Florida. Damion James and Dexter Pittman should be very good this season too.

 

 

IIRC, the thing about Texas is they didn't have a trustworthy PG last year. That (and Abrams not being quite the player they expected) really hurt them. The addition of Bradley alone will improve the Horns dramatically.

 

How does Bradley help the problem of not having a PG?

 

I was under the impression he could handle the ball. Is that false?

 

EDIT: I thought he was more of a ball handler. Still, they added Lucas, too, who is a true PG.

Edited October 29, 2009 by snoodmonger

[illiniguy]

 

So you want an inaccurate poll to start the season?

It sounds like his main beef is that teams who return everyone(Purdue) aren't ranked higher. Kentucky's gonna be very good.

[XZero771679666304]

23 isn't bad. I think that is about where Illinois should be. I'll take it.

 

I'm happy you guys are ranked. 6 of 11 teams are ranked. Sweet.

Damn it, you just reminded me how annoying it is that this whole thread is going to be Big Ten slurping.

 

(They'll likely deserve it, granted, but it'll still be annoying.)

 

Being that this is a board for fans of a midwestern team, you'll just have to deal with it. Most people here are going to be Big 10/Big 12 fans.

[SouthSideRyan]

23 isn't bad. I think that is about where Illinois should be. I'll take it.

 

I'm happy you guys are ranked. 6 of 11 teams are ranked. Sweet.

Damn it, you just reminded me how annoying it is that this whole thread is going to be Big Ten slurping.

 

(They'll likely deserve it, granted, but it'll still be annoying.)

 

The Big Ten has a good argument for being the best conference in basketball. 9/11 of the teams have tourney hopes to start the season, they have top end teams in MSU and Purdue, the only argument against them is Iowa and Indiana, but I'm not really sure there's a conference that doesn't have an IU and Iowa.

 

It's certainly better than the Big East slurping that went on last year because of all their high end teams(all the while ignoring the utter dreck at the bottom) which amounted to 0 teams in the Championship.

 

I think ND(and Georgetown) makes the tourney btw on a dead cat bounce and a down year for the Big East.

[SouthSideRyan]

I'm a little lost on Kentucky and Texas. How can they be unranked and 23rd respectively to end last year and then debut in the top 5 when there are teams behind them that return practically everyone? I don't understand that. If a team that finishes last season ranked 15 and returns everyone of importance plus has a good recruiting class how can they be behind a team that finished ranked below them?

 

Kentucky is the one that bothers me most. They didn't even make the tourny last year nor win the NIT and yet they are top 5? Goes to show you how stupid the media is.

 

As for Texas they are pretty much bringing most everyone back outside of Abrams, had maybe the 2nd best class behind Kentucky (Jordas Hamilton and Avery Bradley) and a transfer of Jai Lucas from U of Florida. Damion James and Dexter Pittman should be very good this season too.

 

 

IIRC, the thing about Texas is they didn't have a trustworthy PG last year. That (and Abrams not being quite the player they expected) really hurt them. The addition of Bradley alone will improve the Horns dramatically.

 

How does Bradley help the problem of not having a PG?

 

I was under the impression he could handle the ball. Is that false?

 

EDIT: I thought he was more of a ball handler. Still, they added Lucas, too, who is a true PG.

 

Richardson ran the point at Findlay, Bradley was the shoot 30 times per game guy. Not that he wasn't worthy of shooting 30 times per game, he's an incredible scorer, but he wasn't a PG type.

Edited October 29, 2009 by SouthSideRyan

[rawaction]

IU will be better than your typical next to last team in the conference. This isn't saying much, but I'm confident IU could beat the 2nd worst team in most major conferences.

 

Iowa, eh.

[Exile on Waveland]

23 isn't bad. I think that is about where Illinois should be. I'll take it.

 

I'm happy you guys are ranked. 6 of 11 teams are ranked. Sweet.

Damn it, you just reminded me how annoying it is that this whole thread is going to be Big Ten slurping.

 

(They'll likely deserve it, granted, but it'll still be annoying.)

 

The Big Ten has a good argument for being the best conference in basketball. 9/11 of the teams have tourney hopes to start the season, they have top end teams in MSU and Purdue, the only argument against them is Iowa and Indiana, but I'm not really sure there's a conference that doesn't have an IU and Iowa.

 

Actually, I'm not sure another conference does have an IU. I haven't researched this, but I think you'd struggle to find a next-to-worst team in any league with as much talent as IU has. They do have three 4-star players and eight 3-star players.

[SouthSideRyan]

23 isn't bad. I think that is about where Illinois should be. I'll take it.

 

I'm happy you guys are ranked. 6 of 11 teams are ranked. Sweet.

Damn it, you just reminded me how annoying it is that this whole thread is going to be Big Ten slurping.

 

(They'll likely deserve it, granted, but it'll still be annoying.)

 

The Big Ten has a good argument for being the best conference in basketball. 9/11 of the teams have tourney hopes to start the season, they have top end teams in MSU and Purdue, the only argument against them is Iowa and Indiana, but I'm not really sure there's a conference that doesn't have an IU and Iowa.

 

Actually, I'm not sure another conference does have an IU. I haven't researched this, but I think you'd struggle to find a next-to-worst team in any league with as much talent as IU has. They do have three 4-star players and eight 3-star players.

 

DePaul.

[Vanilla Ice]

Wall isn't the only great freshman they have, he's just the best one they have. They are definitely a top 10 team.

 

Wall's good, but the hype is a little outrageous. He can't shoot. And that will really impair his ability to use his quicks. People talk like he's the best guard we'll have seen in a long time. He's not. Dude isn't as good as Rose or Gordon.

His high school team went 17-13 in the small class last year. I am gonna need to see a bit more, I doubt he can sniff Rose.

And that is with C.J. Leslie-a top 20 player in his class, a Xaxier commitment (Dezmine Wells), and another pretty good recruit in Bishop Daniels also on the team.

Although, Leslie and Wall were held out of some games so that record was not built entirely with him.

Edited October 29, 2009 by Vanilla Ice

[Vanilla Ice]

Bitter duke face/

It is a [expletive] joke that UNC is #4. Their PG is [expletive] Larry Drew.

[illiniguy]

Bitter duke face/

It is a [expletive] joke that UNC is #4. Their PG is [expletive] Larry Drew.

If anyone should know it would be a Duke fan. After all, weren't you pretty highly ranked with Greg Paulus as your point guard? Every year he was there?

[Vanilla Ice]

Bitter duke face/

It is a [expletive] joke that UNC is #4. Their PG is [expletive] Larry Drew.

If anyone should know it would be a Duke fan. After all, weren't you pretty highly ranked with Greg Paulus as your point guard? Every year he was there?

I never liked Greg Paulus, you can look at my posts here. I wanted Sean Dockery to play over him his freshman year and Nolan Smith to start over him his last two years.

 

Also, I don't think we were up at 4 for a couple of those years.

 

EDIT: All of these are preseason rankings

#1 his freshman year. Although, that was certainly because of Redick and Williams

#11 his sophomore and junior years

#5 last year

 

UNC at 11 would be OK with me.

[illiniguy]

Bitter duke face/

It is a [expletive] joke that UNC is #4. Their PG is [expletive] Larry Drew.

If anyone should know it would be a Duke fan. After all, weren't you pretty highly ranked with Greg Paulus as your point guard? Every year he was there?

I never liked Greg Paulus, you can look at my posts here. I wanted Sean Dockery to play over him his freshman year and Nolan Smith to start over him his last two years.

 

Also, I don't think we were up at 4 for a couple of those years.

 

EDIT: All of these are preseason rankings

#1 his freshman year. Although, that was certainly because of Redick and Williams

#11 his sophomore and junior years

#5 last year

 

UNC at 11 would be OK with me.

But, you were ranked higher than that, so why wouldn't the Tar Heels in a weaker field, with better talent around the pg?

[Vanilla Ice]

Bitter duke face/

It is a [expletive] joke that UNC is #4. Their PG is [expletive] Larry Drew.

If anyone should know it would be a Duke fan. After all, weren't you pretty highly ranked with Greg Paulus as your point guard? Every year he was there?

I never liked Greg Paulus, you can look at my posts here. I wanted Sean Dockery to play over him his freshman year and Nolan Smith to start over him his last two years.

 

Also, I don't think we were up at 4 for a couple of those years.

 

EDIT: All of these are preseason rankings

#1 his freshman year. Although, that was certainly because of Redick and Williams

#11 his sophomore and junior years

#5 last year

 

UNC at 11 would be OK with me.

But, you were ranked higher than that, so why wouldn't the Tar Heels in a weaker field, with better talent around the pg?

Carolina this year does not have much better talent than Duke the last two years. Ed Davis and Deon Thompson are both going to have to take monster steps forward this year for them to be able to claim that.

Duke at 11 was a joke for Paulus' sophomore year (and for the same reasons). Duke had just graduated almost all of their key players, but had a good enough season to stay up high.

 

Also, Larry Drew is not as good as Greg Paulus. Larry Drew was just terrible last year.

[snoodmonger]

Bitter duke face/

It is a [expletive] joke that UNC is #4. Their PG is [expletive] Larry Drew.

If anyone should know it would be a Duke fan. After all, weren't you pretty highly ranked with Greg Paulus as your point guard? Every year he was there?

I never liked Greg Paulus, you can look at my posts here. I wanted Sean Dockery to play over him his freshman year and Nolan Smith to start over him his last two years.

 

Also, I don't think we were up at 4 for a couple of those years.

 

EDIT: All of these are preseason rankings

#1 his freshman year. Although, that was certainly because of Redick and Williams

#11 his sophomore and junior years

#5 last year

 

UNC at 11 would be OK with me.

But, you were ranked higher than that, so why wouldn't the Tar Heels in a weaker field, with better talent around the pg?

Carolina this year does not have much better talent than Duke the last two years. Ed Davis and Deon Thompson are both going to have to take monster steps forward this year for them to be able to claim that.

Duke at 11 was a joke for Paulus' sophomore year (and for the same reasons). Duke had just graduated almost all of their key players, but had a good enough season to stay up high.

 

Also, Larry Drew is not as good as Greg Paulus. Larry Drew was just terrible last year.

 

There's some talk that Strickland will supplant Drew, especially if his ball-handling continues to improve. And I think the general feeling is that Davis and Thompson are both ready to break out. UNC at 5 isn't a big stretch to me, especially this year.

[Exile on Waveland]

 

DePaul.

 

I totally forgot they even had a team.

 

Just for the record: they have one 5-star (Nayal Koshwal), one 4-star, and six 3-star players. It's an embarrassment they've been so bad recently.

[Andy]

23 isn't bad. I think that is about where Illinois should be. I'll take it.

 

I'm happy you guys are ranked. 6 of 11 teams are ranked. Sweet.

Damn it, you just reminded me how annoying it is that this whole thread is going to be Big Ten slurping.

 

(They'll likely deserve it, granted, but it'll still be annoying.)

 

The Big Ten has a good argument for being the best conference in basketball. 9/11 of the teams have tourney hopes to start the season, they have top end teams in MSU and Purdue, the only argument against them is Iowa and Indiana, but I'm not really sure there's a conference that doesn't have an IU and Iowa.

 

It's certainly better than the Big East slurping that went on last year because of all their high end teams(all the while ignoring the utter dreck at the bottom) which amounted to 0 teams in the Championship.

 

I think ND(and Georgetown) makes the tourney btw on a dead cat bounce and a down year for the Big East.

There are a lot of good arguments for the Big Ten being better than the Big East. Number of teams in the championship game of a one-and-done tournament is not one of them.

 

It surprises me that on a board full of people who generally agree that playoff baseball is a crapshoot that so many people are eager to jump on a one-and-done tournament performance as justification for one conference over another.

[SouthSideRyan]

There are a lot of good arguments for the Big Ten being better than the Big East. Number of teams in the championship game of a one-and-done tournament is not one of them.

 

It surprises me that on a board full of people who generally agree that playoff baseball is a crapshoot that so many people are eager to jump on a one-and-done tournament performance as justification for one conference over another.

 

I don't recall a big "Big Ten is better than Big East" argument last year. More along the lines of "Big East isn't as good as people think and Big ten isn't as bad. "

 

I mentioned the tourney because everyone based the Big East = best conference ever stuff based on their top end teams, and they wound up striking out with them.

[Andy]

There are a lot of good arguments for the Big Ten being better than the Big East. Number of teams in the championship game of a one-and-done tournament is not one of them.

 

It surprises me that on a board full of people who generally agree that playoff baseball is a crapshoot that so many people are eager to jump on a one-and-done tournament performance as justification for one conference over another.

 

I don't recall a big "Big Ten is better than Big East" argument last year. More along the lines of "Big East isn't as good as people think and Big ten isn't as bad. "

 

I mentioned the tourney because everyone based the Big East = best conference ever stuff based on their top end teams, and they wound up striking out with them.

They had four teams in the Elite Eight and two in the Final Four. No one made the final, but Pitt might have if Nova hadn't upset them - I think the Panthers would've had a good shot at UNC. MSU/UConn was a close game. I wouldn't call that 'striking out'. It wasn't setting the world on fire, but half the Elite Eight and half the Final Four is a pretty solid tournament performance.

[illiniguy]

There are a lot of good arguments for the Big Ten being better than the Big East. Number of teams in the championship game of a one-and-done tournament is not one of them.

 

It surprises me that on a board full of people who generally agree that playoff baseball is a crapshoot that so many people are eager to jump on a one-and-done tournament performance as justification for one conference over another.

 

I don't recall a big "Big Ten is better than Big East" argument last year. More along the lines of "Big East isn't as good as people think and Big ten isn't as bad. "

 

I mentioned the tourney because everyone based the Big East = best conference ever stuff based on their top end teams, and they wound up striking out with them.

They had four teams in the Elite Eight and two in the Final Four. No one made the final, but Pitt might have if Nova hadn't upset them - I think the Panthers would've had a good shot at UNC. MSU/UConn was a close game. I wouldn't call that 'striking out'. It wasn't setting the world on fire, but half the Elite Eight and half the Final Four is a pretty solid tournament performance.

But, after the hype job the Big East got last year I expected that. Hell the Big ten got two teams in the Final Four in '05, in case you forgot that was another one of the down years for our conference according to the experts. Too many "experts" have agendas.

[Andy]

There are a lot of good arguments for the Big Ten being better than the Big East. Number of teams in the championship game of a one-and-done tournament is not one of them.

 

It surprises me that on a board full of people who generally agree that playoff baseball is a crapshoot that so many people are eager to jump on a one-and-done tournament performance as justification for one conference over another.

 

I don't recall a big "Big Ten is better than Big East" argument last year. More along the lines of "Big East isn't as good as people think and Big ten isn't as bad. "

 

I mentioned the tourney because everyone based the Big East = best conference ever stuff based on their top end teams, and they wound up striking out with them.

They had four teams in the Elite Eight and two in the Final Four. No one made the final, but Pitt might have if Nova hadn't upset them - I think the Panthers would've had a good shot at UNC. MSU/UConn was a close game. I wouldn't call that 'striking out'. It wasn't setting the world on fire, but half the Elite Eight and half the Final Four is a pretty solid tournament performance.

But, after the hype job the Big East got last year I expected that. Hell the Big ten got two teams in the Final Four in '05, in case you forgot that was another one of the down years for our conference according to the experts. Too many "experts" have agendas.

As a Notre Dame football fan who listens to his team get trashed year after year on ESPN because most of our games aren't on that network, you don't have to tell me twice.

[SpongeWorthy]

23 isn't bad. I think that is about where Illinois should be. I'll take it.

 

I'm happy you guys are ranked. 6 of 11 teams are ranked. Sweet.

Damn it, you just reminded me how annoying it is that this whole thread is going to be Big Ten slurping.

 

(They'll likely deserve it, granted, but it'll still be annoying.)

 

The Big Ten has a good argument for being the best conference in basketball. 9/11 of the teams have tourney hopes to start the season, they have top end teams in MSU and Purdue, the only argument against them is Iowa and Indiana, but I'm not really sure there's a conference that doesn't have an IU and Iowa.

 

It's certainly better than the Big East slurping that went on last year because of all their high end teams(all the while ignoring the utter dreck at the bottom) which amounted to 0 teams in the Championship.

 

I think ND(and Georgetown) makes the tourney btw on a dead cat bounce and a down year for the Big East.

There are a lot of good arguments for the Big Ten being better than the Big East. Number of teams in the championship game of a one-and-done tournament is not one of them.

 

It surprises me that on a board full of people who generally agree that playoff baseball is a crapshoot that so many people are eager to jump on a one-and-done tournament performance as justification for one conference over another.

 

The better team wins quite a bit more in basketball though.

[NCCubFan]

John Wall must sit out two games and repay $800. He will miss an exhibition game and the season opener against mighty Morehead State.

[CubbieBum]

Read in the Purdue Blue Ribbon preview that LewJack is actually 5'7", 5'8" with shoes. The shocking part however was that he dunked for the first time when he was 5'2". I would like to see what his vert is.