It's here, not much has changed....Kentucky is still loaded and so is Duke. The rest of the teams seem to be chasing them. ACC/B1G challenge is coming up with the Irish taking on the Hawkeyes of Iowa at home and the Irish women traveling to Iowa for their game. Shaka Smart has added some big time recruits this month, but the team is struggling out the door some this season, still think he'll be a very good coach at Texas and have the Longhorns competing with KU.
Ohio State is 5-0 and our first real test will be Virginia Thursday night in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge at Virginia. Hopefully, we will have a much better team this year than last year.
Purdue (5-1) gets Louisville tomorrow night. Only loss so far was by 3 points to last years NCAA champs...but that was our only real game so far. Trying to find our identity without Hammons. Haas has plenty of size but so far has been a fouling machine. Caleb Swanigan looks to have a big year. I see we play Notre Dame this year on Dec. 17...I remember when Digger would never play us.
I watched Purdue/Villanova and the Boilermakers looked very good that night. ACC/B1G challenge is tied at 4-4 right now. B1G has won this the last several years. Monday, Nov. 28 * Florida State 75, Minnesota 67 * Northwestern 65, Wake Forest 58 Tuesday, Nov. 29 * Pittsburgh 73, Maryland 59 * Penn State 67, Georgia Tech 60 * No. 17 Wisconsin 77, No. 22 Syracuse 60 * Notre Dame 93, Iowa 78 * Illinois 88, NC State 74 * No. 5 Duke 78, Michigan State 69 Challenge tied 4-4
Here are the final games in the ACC/B1G challenge. Some really good games left. * No. 15 Purdue at No. 14 Louisville, 7:15 p.m., ESPN * Virginia Tech at Michigan, 7:15 p.m., ESPN2 * Rutgers at Miami, 7:15 p.m., ESPNU * No. 3 North Carolina at No. 13 Indiana, 7:30 p.m., ESPN * Ohio State at No. 7 Virginia, 9:15 p.m., ESPN2 * Nebraska at Clemson, 9:15 p.m., ESPNU
Buckeyes led Virginia by 12 at the half, but cooled down in the second half and lost by two points. We definitely have a chance to play with good teams this year. However, 30 turnovers is a bit too much! :roll: Indiana took care of Nort Carolina and Whisky beat Syracuse.
Huge win by UCLA at Kentucky yesterday. ACC 9 B1G 5 in this year's challenge. ACC could be as deep as it has been in a long time. Baylor also looking very good after beating Xavier at home, XU has a very good team this year.
Some big games yesterday. Kentucky beat UNC in a barn burner and UCLA beat Ohio State. Texas is sliding in Shaka Smarts second season. He's got some great young talent coming next year but this year he is short. The best teams are the ones you think of Nova, UCLA, Kentucky, Duke, KU, plus add in Butler and Gonzaga and West Virgina is very good. Conference play starts in a couple of weeks. ACC is playing 18 conference games and next year might go to 20 conference games.
As suspected, the Aggies are a point guard short this year. Great front court, but no one to distribute the ball. 3 close losses to the PAC have us off the radar. I still think we'll make the tournament, but that will be it.
Sorry... wasn't trying to downplay the PAC. I meant those were our chances to have a meaningful OOC win, and we struck out.
Can our PAC 12 experts here educate me re UCLA? I thought the alums wanted to tar and feather Alford before the season began but the Bruins have been blowing teams off the court since the season started. Michigan played their best game of the season when we played them at Pauley but still lost by over 20.
:idea: :idea: :arrow: re: UCLA Bruin loyalists had the tar warmed up and the crucifix assembled... when along came Ball... Lonzo Ball is one of the greatest players of all-time and he's only a freshman. According to his father, he is the first of three "one and done" Ball bothers who will play for the Bruins. The others will be LiAngelo and LiMelo who're still in high school. Lonzo hasn't lost a game since a tournament in Australia in his junior year of HS and he doesn't figure to lose any in his only year of college. The appearance of this super class of freshmen has forced many of last year's starters onto the bench, where they represent the deepest team in the NCAA. As an example, Ohio State got beat by Lonzo's backup the other night when the kid finally hit a cold spell. That backup was a freshman starter last year. These guys are good and so far, it looks like a Wooden team: An NBA starting lineup with an endless bench and a pipeline of super recruits on the way. The Balls are local from Chino Hills: http://usatodayhss.com/2015/with-three-brothers-and-a-cousin-its-a-whole-new-ball-game-for-no-2-chino-hills
Thanks JoCo! Michigan has a guard oriented team that plays up tempo ball but when we played UCLA, we looked like a Dodge Dart trying to drag race a Porche.
Scott, No worries, I didn't take it that way. I was just saying sometimes a good loss is better than a bad win. Bobda, JOCO pretty much nailed it. The key at UCLA is always to keep the best players in SoCal on the team. While he hasn't quite reached that level, landing the Ball brothers will go a long way toward that. I watched the 2 younger brothers toy with Bishop Gorman the other night. If he can manage to keep them around for more than a year each, he could have a nice run for himself in Westwood. I was one of the pitch fork carrying mob, but wanted to wait until the Kentucky game to see where this program is really at. Despite the youth of the team, we 'man handled' Kentucky as Calipari said. Hopefully, this team doesnt lose focus along the way because the conference is good and there's some real snake pits out there in the P12.
I watched the game. A real barn burner. The Monk kid came back to earth. Impressed with Louisville's defense and ball movement.