Archive for February, 2010

Downey and Kentucky fans

Interesting comments from Devan Downey in an interview with longtime Kentucky beat writer Jerry Tipton of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Downey told Tipton he had gotten a number of “hate mail and Facebook message” from Kentucky fans, and after some prodding, Downey some had “ugly and racial” tones.
“If I tell you some of the stuff I’ve heard, [...]

The Arkansas TV snafu

I’ve received a few e-mails from fans complaining that last week’s game at Arkansas was not televised on Time Warner Cable, as had been the plan. And I was among the people who wanted to watch it, since I wasn’t there either. The main carrier of the game was CSS, which isn’t available on TWC, [...]

Horn radio show

Just a quick note for those of you that like to tune in to the weekly Darrin Horn radio hour.
Because of the Kentucky game, it will be held Tuesday night, rather than the normal Thursday air date.
However, it will be at the same time, 7-8 p.m., at The Wild Wing in the Vista.

Avoiding the cellar

We’re now a little over two weeks away from the SEC tournament, and the picture for South Carolina is getting a bit clearer.
The Gamecocks are alone in fifth place, three games behind the teams ahead of them, and one ahead of Georgia. Everybody has four games to go. So barring some upsets, you can pencil [...]

A note on the NIT

As we move from the NCAA tournament bubble watch to the NIT bubble watch, I think it’s important to clarify something.
There’s a misconception out there that you have to have a winning record to make the NIT. In fact, there is no rule precluding the NIT from selecting a team with a .500 record or [...]

Horn: Success was this close

Just got done with Darrin Horn’s media session to preview the Arkansas game. The highlights:
- The coach repeated a bit of his position on winning road games, and also said his team, currently 5-5 in the SEC, was close to being 7-3. Here’s his quote in full:
“Everybody keeps wanting to separate one game from another, [...]

No more bubble watch?

The loss at Georgia has seemingly made South Carolina disappear from the NCAA tournament radar screen. Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com and CollegeRPI.com doesn’t even list USC among its at-large possibilities. It sort of reminds me of last year’s SEC tournament loss to Mississippi State, when the Gamecocks went from the bubble to completely out of [...]

Pearl on last year’s USC team

More from today’s SEC teleconference, this time from Bruce Pearl.
The Tennessee coach, when asked about the possible expansion of the NCAA tournament to 96 teams, said he was in favor of it and cited South Carolina last year as an example.
“How can a team that won 10 games in the league and shared the division [...]

Downey outruns the Fox

Georgia coach Mark Fox on Monday revealed something interesting about the waning moments of Saturday’s game against South Carolina.
Fox, his team leading by three with about 30 seconds left, had ordered his players to foul Gamecock star Devan Downey, rather than let him shoot. Downey still got off two shots – a layup then a [...]

Viewing for Saturday

If you’re snowed in, and just want to spend all day watching basketball, here’s a viewer guide. But from a bubble watcher’s perspective.
For South Carolina, the most important thing is to win its 4 p.m. game at Georgia. If it does, it stays alive for now. If it doesn’t, well the road just got a [...]