Surely Maryland junior, Greivis Vasquez, has watched the movie Hoosiers. Even though the classic ‘David vs. Goliath’ tale graced the big screen more than a decade before the 6’6″ guard was born, it is on the required viewing list for every basketball player. Right?
The Pete Maravich Assembly Center is the scene for this pivotal non-conference matchup as Sean Miller’s #15 Xavier Musketeers (16-2 / 5-0) travel south to take on Trent Johnson’s Louisiana State University Tigers (15-3 / 3-1).
Men’s College Basketball is very different than the NBA, we know that. But why? We can throw away the obvious answers; age, experience, skill level, and the abundance of hefty salaries left and right. Why then do people enjoy watching the college kids shoot the rock more than the superstars in the NBA if the NBA has bigger, faster, older, more skilled guys playing the game we all love for a living? One reason: The Fans.
The Demon Deacons pay a visit to Littlejohn Coliseum for a Top Ten matchup between undefeateds as #2 Wake Forest (15-0 / 2-0) takes on #10 Clemson (16-0 / 2-0) in an ACC battle.
In an entertaining game that featured 11 lead changes and just as many ties Derrick Brown led four Musketeers in double figures as Xavier endured an evening of shoddy ball handling and poor shooting to take a victory at Rhode Island, 67-65.
With the College Basketball season about half over, the Big East still has eight teams in the AP Top 25, which is a team down from last week (West Virginia dropped from the rankings). Here are my mid-season awards and recognitions for the Big East Conference.
While much has been deservedly made of the Big East and their potential for nine or ten teams earning invitations to the NCAA tournament in March, the ACC has shown they could be punching more than one ticket to the Motor City come April.
Joel Coliseum on the campus of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina is the scene as the #4 Demon Deacons (13-0) host the #3 University of North Carolina Tar Heels (14-1).