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A Look at Ole Miss
College basketball in the SEC that isn’t Kentucky is easy to overlook these days. Ole Miss is best known as the Alma Mater of Eli Manning and as one of the most proudly-southern schools in the deep south. These Ole Miss Rebels can play some hoops as well, however, and after knocking off Indiana and Kansas State, they move on to the Puerto Rico Tip-Off final to face our Villanova Wildcats at 8pm on Sunday night.
Ole Miss, like Villanova, is 4-0 on the season so far, beating Arkansas-Little Rock and Alabama State at home before heading to Puerto Rico. In their biggest challenge so-far, they defeated Kansas State on Friday night, 86 to 74. Four starters scored in double digits in that game, but they didn’t receive much offensive production off of their bench.
The Rebels are coached by former Cincinnati (Interim) Head Coach, Andy Kennedy. Last year this team went 16-15 and tied for fourth in the SEC. They return two starters from last year’s team. That was a team that was hit hard by the injury-bug, however, while this year’s Ole Miss squad is healthy and ready to go. Read more
Nova Beats Dayton in Puerto Rico
Junior big man Antonio Pena calmly sank two free throws with 14 seconds remaining to solidify 6th ranked Villanova’s 71-65 win over Dayton.
‘Nova (4-0) got 18 from Corey Fisher (4-8FG, 10-12FT) as the Wildcats, who led by as much 18 in the second half, made their last 9 shots from the Free Throw line to ensure the victory and their place in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off Final.
For the Wildcats, Taylor King added 14 and Pena had 13; ‘Tone was also 2 rebounds short of his third consecutive Double-Double.
Villanova will play the winner of Kansas St. & Mississippi on Sunday.
A look at Dayton
The Villanova Wildcats’ second game in Puerto Rico will be against #21 Dayton, a team th
at will possibly end up being their best non-conference opponent this season. The Flyers (2-0) are coming off a 63-59 victory over #19 Georgia Tech, and won their first game of the season by 10 points against a tough Creighton team picked to finish 2nd in the Missouri Valley Conference behind last season’s conference champion Northern Iowa. Dayton was picked to win a tough Atlantic 10 conference that features always solid Xavier, and Villanova’s Big 5 rivals St. Joe’s, Temple, and LaSalle among other teams. The Flyers return all players but one (starter Charles Little) from last season’s squad that upset the Big East’s own West Virginia Mountaineers in the first round of the NCAA tournament before falling to Kansas in the second round.
‘Nova Beats Mason in San Juan
Freshman Isaiah Armwood took one shot against George Mason; that 3-Point attempt went in with 24 seconds to go and gave Villanova (3-0) a 69-68 win in the first round of the Puerto Rico classic.
The Cats were down by as much as 13 in the first half and found themselves in a 9-point hole at the intermission.
Scottie Reynolds paced ‘Nova with 18 points (along with 10 turnovers). Corey Fisher ended up with 17 based on 14-18 from the charity stripe, and Antonio Pena recorded his second consecutive Double-Double with a 10 Point-12 Rebound effort.
Villanova ended up shooting 35.8% (19-53) from the field and only 32% from distance (8-25). On top of those two poor performances, the Wildcats were a dismal 23-39 from the line (59%).
Expecting Tech
In the second round of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Classic, the Wildcats will face either Dayton (#18 AP/ #21 Coaches) or Georgia Tech (#21 AP / #19 Coaches). Since I currently live in Georgia Tech’s home territory of Atlanta, I am bracing myself for that match-up. With the potential for this match-up around 50/50, I decided to prepare an anticipatory preview.
Georgia Tech is a historically a school that cares more about football than basketball. Despite that, the ACC affiliation keeps Tech basketball relevant, and draws in some of the southeast’s top recruits. The program has been active since 1911 when John Heisman, then the football and baseball coach at Tech, decided to organize a basketball team as well and lead the Yellow Jackets to a .142 winning percentage in their first season. Read more
Judging George Mason
George Mason is Villanova’s opening round opponent in this weekend’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Classic. We all remember that cinderella run to the Final Four in 2006 (unless you were at the Villanova game, then you maybe saw the score and some highlights later on). This is not the team that beat UConn back then, all of the 2006 Final Four team members have graduated, however, it is a strong CAA program that has opened its season 2-0.
In it’s opener, Mason had a 76-72 win against Liberty (who were blown out by Clemson yesterday). They followed that up with a 20-point win over Ivy Leaguers, Dartmouth. George Mason will almost certainly be heavy underdogs in this game (the vegas spread hasn’t posted yet). Read more
Field Set for Puerto Rico Tip-off
Start looking into airfare.
The field for the 2009 Puerto Rico Tip-off has been announced- well, 7/8 of the field.
Joining Villanova in San Juan from November 19-22 will be… Read more
