College Basketball 2011-2012

[VegasJustin]

Its about that time of year for the college basketball season to start. It has been down the last few years, but hopefully with a lot of players staying because of the lockout we will have a good college basketball season. How do you expect your team to do? What teams should we watch out for and will the Pac-12 be anything other than crap?


Here in Vegas UNLV should have a good year that could turn into a great year. They are outside the top 25, but they have a good chance at winning the conference and being a top 20 team at the end of the year. They have commercials on TV advertising the fact that they are called the Runnin Rebels. Dave Rice is the new coach and he played on teams that would destroy you so whenever they are up by 10 look for them to try and increase the lead to 20. That's definitely a change from Kruger and will probably sell out a lot of games. I think they can be a 5 seed in the tournament and make an elite 8 run, but at least win a game in the tournament if that doesn't happen.

[VegasJustin]

The season has started and there have been some upsets. Pittsburgh lost at home to Long Beach State and Vanderbilt lost to Cleveland State. Oh and UCLA is 0-2.

Coach K passed Bob Knight for most wins all time with 903. I hate Duke, but congrats on the achievement.

[AggieMatt]

I'll second that hatred for Duke. I grew up a fan of Terps hoops, so I can't stand Duke or UNC.

I'm really interested to see what happens with my Ags this year. I was excited about our new coach, Billy Kennedy, the staff he's put together and his style of play. We had a setback when Kennedy's health started waning and he was diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson's. He's returned to the sidelines but they're being careful about easing him in while they get his treatment sorted. Hopefully he'll be able to manage it. Kennedy has called A&M his dream job and it's such a shame to see him suffer this after finally getting his big break.

[VegasJustin]

In a stunning result, UNLV beat North Carolina. Not only did they beat them, but they dominated them by running the ball. I don't know many teams that can beat Carolina in a running game, but apparently UNLV is one of them.

This team is better than I thought they would be. Moser is one of the best rebounders in the country and Bellfield and Stanback are legitimate stars. Add to this the fact that they can run and play defense and they could end up as a top ten team at the end of the year.

[SoCalJoe]

Huge win by UNLV. Was in Vegas earlier this month and looks like the new coach was a great choice. They are the 'Runnin' Rebels' and if you want to get the local populace to get excited, that's who they need to be.

Pac-12 is slightly better than last season, but UCLA who was a preseason top 15 is imploding (Their best player Nelson is a headcase and on the edge of being booted, and the second best player Smith is literally eating himself out of a career) at the moment. Both Oregon schools are vastly improved, especially Oregon State where Obama's brother-in-law has got a once proud program moving in the right direction. Arizona is super talented, but super young. They've looked great in beating St.Johns in NYC, but shot 5 of 26 from 3 pt. land in a home loss to SDSU. Sean Miller brought in a top 3 class this season, and has the unanimous number 1 class coming in next year.

[jumpkutz]

At the risk of jinxing them, my alma mater, the might Murray State Racers, won their 17th without a loss tonight against Jax St. They don't get much love from the national crowd, or even the locals, who are more focused on the collective fortunes of Kentucky, Louisville or Indiana. Just hope they can make some noise in the big dance. GO RACERS!

[VegasJustin]

Well UNLV has really played some shit basketball lately. For some reason they play a slow game on the road rather than running. The Mountain West lives up to its name with most of the schools at high elevations so maybe they are too tired to run. They play alot of players so that shouldn't be an issue, but they ran up and down early in the season so maybe it is. Rice needs to find a way to get them to run though as they could easily win until March Madness and get a very high seed. Do that and you can have a couple of easy games before the sweet 16 and have all the confidence in the world.