Monday, January 14, 2008

College Basketball Ineptitude

Here's a rundown of several ignominious incidents in college basketball this season:

North Carolina State got off to a decent start against top-ranked North Carolina, trailing only 16-11 through the first 9 minutes of their game on January 12th. Ten minutes later the score was 41-11. NC State missed 18 straight shots during the 25-0 run. UNC won the game 92-63.

*****

Rick Majerus came out of retirement for this shit? Majerus's St. Louis Billikens lost to George Washington on January 10th, by the score of 49-20. SLU shot 14.6% from the field (7-48), including 5% (1-19) from 3-point range, but they did assist on 4 of those 7 baskets. I guess that's good passing. They missed 23 consecutive shots at one point and scored only 7 points in the first half. 20 points set a new DI record for fewest points in a game in the shot clock era. Georgia Derek's alma mater Georgia Southern previously held the record with 21. After the game Rick Majerus said George Washington played tough on defense.

Rick Majerus deserves better

*****

Bobby Knight's Texas Tech Red Raiders played similarly tough defense against Louisiana Tech on Decemeber 5th. After taking an early 22-12 lead, TTU went on a 46-3 run over the next 20 minutes. Louisiana Tech went 19 minutes without a field goal, but they did have 19 turnovers during that span.

*****

And the Arizona women finished a game against Oregon State on January 3rd, with only two players on the court. Arizona has 10 players, but two were hurt, one was ineligible, and one missed the game for personal reasons. That left them with only 6 players in uniform for this game. Arizona started playing shorthanded with 1:28 left in regulation. Amazingly, they kept the game tied for that final 1:28 and the entire first overtime, while playing 4 on 5. Once they lost 2 more players that was too much to overcome and they played the final 1:01 with a 3 player disadvantage, eventually losing 94-88.

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