Soft Pretzel Logic

I got exclusive interviews with all of the Big 5 coaches at a luncheon held for the media at the Palestra this afternoon. I was a bit surprised that Drexel wasn't there, but this was a Big 5 event and for better or worse, those were the schools present.

Anyway, we have:

-- Introductory remarks from all of the men's coaches and women's coaches Pat Knapp (Penn) and Dawn Staley (Temple). The master of ceremonies was Brian Seltzer, who reports for WPEN 950-AM and also is the radio play-by-play voice of Penn basketball.

(Sorry for the less-than-stellar audio quality on that one. I couldn't get the microphone close enough to the podium.)

-- Phil Martelli
-- Jay Wright
-- Fran Dunphy
-- Glen Miller
-- John Giannini

"Macadams fan" writes

Shame Shame Shame on Frank Fitzpatrick for failing to mention the legendary John MacAdams, who for years was THE voice of the building.

Booo

His simple way of saying "Villanova basket by #45 John Pinone" or "Temple basket by #12 Mark Macon" still rings in my ears.

I couldn't agree more. Way back when this blog first launched, I wrote about my interactions with John (except it's McAdams, not MacAdams) when he was inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame.

I bet, though, that McAdams wouldn't have wanted to be included on a list like that. What made him so great was the very understatement you refer to, how he tried to not make himself part of the action. Yet in the end, he was -- and still is -- right there in the middle of all our memories.

The column said: "All those coaches like Al Maguire and Gary Thompson who complained that they would never come back or go there in the first place weren't all wrong"

Who is Gary Thompson?

I may be pre-dating myself but that name doesnt ring a bell

I know of Gary Williams.
I know of John Thompson and sons.

What gives?

I haven't heard of him either, to be honest. But I'm not that old myself, and I only know Al McGuire from old highlight tape. Anyone who wants to chime in is welcome.

I do know that the movie critic for the Daily News is named Gary Thompson, but I doubt that's who Frank is referring to...

-- I have to admit, I'm not sure which was the bigger surprise: Temple beating a pretty good Ohio team or Drexel getting crushed at George Mason. Here's the box score. Look at Frank Elegar's line:

Unbelievable, isn't it.

-- I thought the Gonzaga-St. Joe's game was great, even if there wasn't a lot of scoring. I wish I could have been there, but even watching on TV I could tell just how much the Fieldhouse was rocking. It was thrilling to see the Hawks come back, but that jumper by Austin Daye to make it 65-61 was as gutsy as it was beautiful.

Mike Jensen mentioned on Monday's podcast that the winner of the game deserved to be ranked. There aren't ties in college basketball the way there are in soccer, but I feel like this game was effectively played to a draw and I wonder if that will change things.

-- The Inquirer's Frank Fitzpatrick reminisces about his old memories of the Palestra in his Morning Bytes column today.

There's also an http://www.philly.com/inquirer/sports/">Incites Sports Poll asking readers to choose whether the Big 5 is: "A historic collection of long-standing rivals," "The most overrated group since the Spice Girls" or "Irrelevant until after the Super Bowl."

We all know the answer to that.

-- Speaking of the Big 5, all six men's coaches and a few of the women's coaches will be at the Palestra this afternoon for a Media Day. A bit late, to be sure, but I'm headed over there anyway because this week is giving us some good stuff to talk about.

-- And speaking of the CAA, the night got even weirder for the conference when Virginia Commonwealth lost at Hampton, 64-55. Eric Maynor scored 22 points on 8-of-18 shooting (4-of-4 from three), but the Rams committed 21 turnovers and 29 fouls. The Pirates committed 13 and 16. As ESPN.com's Andy Glockner (a known reader of this blog) notes, it's been quite a season so far for the MEAC.

-- I missed a Bracketology earlier in the week. Villanova and St. Joe's are in.

Cobbling together a few things in the news today...

The Associated Press, quoting the Harrisburg Patriot-News, reports today that Penn State football coach Joe Paterno "is being paid more than a half-million dollars this year."

On the count of three, let's all be shocked together: One, two, three...

Yeah, that's what I thought. I know that Paterno and Penn State fought hard to keep the information private, but given how much college football coaches get paid today is this really such a big deal?

Two basketball games last night caught my eye as I was drifting off to sleep. The first took place at the Carrier Dome, where Massachusetts knocked off Syracuse, 107-100. I'm not sure what's more surprising: that the Minutemen upset the Orange, or that both teams topped the century mark.

This happened despite a six-possession differential -- 86 for UMass to 80 for Syracuse -- and the fact that the Orange outrebounded and shot better from the field than the Minutemen.

But consider what UMass guard Ricky Harris did last night. Yes, he scored a game-high 25 points for the winning team, but look at the rest of his line:

The other strange game was contested between VMI and Columbia Union. Thanks to a mind-blowing 119 possessions, the Keydets tied a school record by scoring 156 points against the Division II Pioneers.

Okay, so it isn't quite fair to go too deep into this game given the level of the opposition, and the other team VMI dropped 156 on (Virginia Intermont) was also D-II.

But still... one hundred and nineteen possessions. Put another way: 107 field goal attempts, 41 free throw attempts, 23 turnovers and 30 offensive rebounds (59 total).

Columbia Union scored 91 points and recorded 114 possessions: 87 field goal attempts, 44 turnovers (!) and 23 offensive rebounds (50 total).

Combined, that's 233 possessions in the game, or 5.83 possessions per minute. Which translates to a possession every 10.28 seconds.

I have no idea how that's possible in a 40-minute game.

One thing I do know, though, is that the whole mess led to five (yes, five) unbelievable lines. For VMI, we have Chavis Holmes, Travis Holmes and Reggie Williams; for Columbia Union, we have Mark Moore and Tim Turner. Look at the minutes played as much as anything else:

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I realize that had nothing to do with anything around here, but it really was just too weird to pass up.

To make up for that, perhaps the two biggest games in the country tonight will both involve local teams. Drexel goes to George Mason for a conference game in November that will be broadcast on Comcast SportsNet, while St. Joe's welcomes Gonzaga in a game that has become a tougher ticket than Jameer Nelson's senior day. It will be broadcast on ESPNU.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a shooting performance quite like the one turned in by Chris Lofton in Tennessee's 93-59 win over North Carolina A&T last night:

Makes you wonder where he took the two-point shot from.

A couple of other blogs I read have had posts lately about stuff that's been discussed on here.

First, a post I really should have referred to when writing about the Philly Classic. One of the things I was thinking about a lot when trying to pass a judgement on the attendance at the Palestra was the small crowds at other tournaments I watched during the week.

Yes, the gym was always packed at the Maui Invitational, and the two tournaments at Madison Square Garden drew a few big crowds when teams with big alumni bases in the New York area were in the house.

But so many of the other games I saw -- especially the ones in Puerto Rico and Orlando -- had crowds just as sparse (at least proportionally, given the sizes of the arenas) as the Philly Classic crowds.

Which brings me to this post from David Scott of CSTV.com's Hang Time, who just happens to be a known reader of this blog as well. His weekly report card gives a C- to tournaments with bad crowds, even calling out the CSTV-broadcasted South Padre Island tournament.

The other post of interest is related to the BCS mess, and indeed to this comment from some guy you might have heard of who goes by dmac:

Who should play for the National Championship? Whoever wins the two semifinal playoff games. Oh.

Yeah, I'm with you. So is an old friend of mine, Zachary Levine of the Houston Chronicle, who also falls in the category of blogs that get more hits than I do (at least judging by the comments).

On said blog, The Unofficial Scorer, he took a rare time-out from analyzing Houston teams of no consequence to come up with fields of eight and 16 teams for a college football playoff. He even drew up a selection-committee style field with automatic bids for each I-A conference.

We can only hope to see it some day... and we can really only hope to have enough free time on our hands to come up with that sort of thing.

Somehow there's still a week left in the regular season at the I-A level. As Rutgers still has a game left, I guess we have to go yet one more week before we close this thing out. So here we go again...

30. Penn State (30) -- off, season over
38. Rutgers (39) -- off, at Louisville (51) 11/29
81. Delaware (86) -- home win vs. Delaware State (150), at Northern Iowa (40) Dec. 1
98. Villanova (98) -- off, season over
130. Temple (130) -- road loss vs. Western Michigan (106), season over
167. Lafayette (168) -- off, season over
150. Delaware State (144) -- road loss vs. Delaware (81), season over
174. Lehigh (172) -- off, season over
186. Penn (185) -- off, season over
242. La Salle (242) -- off season over

Of note, Northern Iowa is by miles the highest-rated I-AA team. Among the teams ranked below the Panthers are Alabama, Maryland and Louisville.

And now for what has to be the screwiest Top 10 comparison of the season:

So who do you think should be No. 1? And more importantly, who do you think should play for the national championship?

Ryan writes:

Has anyone else felt like that their teams have been a victim of a Jim Burr call. Such as the call against Villanova durning the NC State game last Sunday night. This guy may need to retire soon.

I'll leave the straight answer to that question to you all, but I will say the call that I presume you're referring to -- the foul with 0.4 seconds left that sent Gavin Grant to the line for the game-winning free throws -- was really dumb.

I asked Mike Jensen about it on today's College HoopsCast and he agreed.

In addition to Villanova's trip to Orlando, we talked about:

-- The freshman guards leading Drexel and Penn this year
-- Visits to Philadelphia this week by some of the top mid-major teams in the country: Ball State and Gonzaga at St. Joseph's, Ohio at Temple and Creighton at Drexel
-- The Hawks returning to action after a 10-day layoff
-- and some of the big games on the national scene lately, including Arizona-Kansas, Xavier-Indiana and North Carolina-Ohio State.

Plus, I got exclusive interviews with Virginia guard Sean Singletary and his mother, Jacqui, after the championship game of the Philly Classic.

Speaking of the Philly Classic, I'll share some of my thoughts on it after the jump.

So I'm watching Arizona-Kansas just now, and Brandon Rush just heaved up a buzzer-beating 3/4-court shot that went off the rim, up off the backboard, then rolled around the front of the rim and out.

Overtime instead of the shot of the year, no matter how many games come after tonight.

What, you thought I'd be watching something else at this hour?

Back tomorrow with some Philly Classic analysis...

I call it an upset, and listening to Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez I think he thought it was one too.

But the Pirates dominated this game from start to finish, routing Virginia, 74-60, to win the Independence Bracket of the Philly Classic.

Neither team shot well, but it sure seemed like Seton Hall made all the big shots. The Pirates were 25-for-69 from the field (36.2%), 7-for-23 from three-point range (30.4%) and 17-for-25 from the line (68.0%) for an average of 1.09 points per possession. Nine assists to a mere six turnovers, 43 rebounds (19 offensive) and 16 fouls committed.

The Cavaliers shot 20-for-61 from the field (32.8%), 7-for-28 from three (25.0%) and 13-for-18 from the line (72.2%) for an average of 0.92 points per possession. Twelve assists to 16 turnovers, 50 rebounds (20 offensive) and 21 fouls committed.

That three-point percentage tells a lot of the tale, even with all the rebounds. Adrian Joseph, who torched Penn last night, did next to nothing tonight -- six points on 2-for-7 shooting, including 2-for-5 from beyond the arc.

Sean Singletary tried awfully hard to put the team on his back, but I can't help thinking he did too much. He doesn't get the line of the game, but it's worth posting anyway:

Laing does get the line of the game, as well MVP honors for the bracket. The minutes played might be as impressive as the points total:

The play of the game was a bit tough this time, but I think this one sums up the night pretty well. With 14:44 gone in the second half, Virginia's Mamadi Diane knocked Seton Hall's Jeremy Hazell to the floor as Hazell fired up a three-pointer.

The shot hit nothing but net, and although Hazell missed the free throw it was one of those moments where you just figured it wasn't the Cavaliers' game.

Because it's the last game of this tournament, a few more quotes than usual. First from Virginia coach Dave Leitao:

"What I thought might be a game that might be wide open, they decided to make into a little bit of a backyard kind of game and really took the game from being pretty and just came after us on both ends." -- Leitao on Seton Hall's style.

"We played defense over 80 minutes in this tournament for about seven."

And a bunch from Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez:

“Just tell him to call it both ways. He’s going with the chalk. He knows that Virginia’s favored.” -- Gonzalez to the referees with 6:20 left in the first half.

"They’re going to treat him like Michael Jordan. Just stay in front of him.” – Gonzalez gives instructions to Paul Gause on how to guard Sean Singletary.

Finally, this one from after the game. I didn't know until tonight that Gonzalez's wife was pregnant to the point of expecting, but someone asked about it, and Gonzalez replied: "Now that we beat Virginia, I’m going to tell her that it’s okay for her to have the baby."

So that wraps it up from a very long two days of basketball at the Palestra. Thanks to all of you who've read along with the coverage. Time to get some sleep.

To the surprise of probably everyone except the very big contingent of Seton Hall fans in the house, the Pirates lead at the half, 40-29. Brian Laing is the game's leading scorer with 14 points and right now he is at the top of my all-bracket first-team ballot.

The Hall shot 17-for-38 from the field (44.7%), 5-for-15 from three-point range (33.%) and 1-of-2 from the line (50.0%) for an average of 1.18 points per possession. And at last, a team with more assists than turnovers: seven of the former to four of the latter.

The Cavaliers shot 9-for-28 from the field (32.1%), 4-for-11 from the line (36.4%) and 7-of-10 (70.0%) from the line for an average of 0.86 points per possession. They recorded seven assists and 10 turnovers.

Sean Singletary certainly disappointed, shooting 3-for-11 from the field and 1-for-4 from three.

Back to the action.

Well, we did get a decent game in the end. Penn won, 71-67, taking the lead for good with 3:01 to play on a jumper by freshman guard Tyler Bernardini.

The game was played at a frenetic pace – 85 possessions for Navy and 82 for Penn. Both teams are used to that, though.

Navy took a whopping 72 field goal attempts, but made only 22 of them (30.6%). The Midshipmen made five of 28 three-point attempts (17.9%) and 18 of 23 free throws (78.3%), resulting in an average of 0.79 points per possession. They recorded eight assists, 18 turnovers, 44 rebounds (16 offensive) and 32 fouls committed.

Penn attempted a more modest 46 field goals and made 19 of them (41.3%). The Quakers shot 3-for-12 from three-point range (25.0%, though 3-for-6 in the second half) and 30-for-42 from the free throw line, resulting in an average of 0.87 points per possession. They recorded nine assists, 22 turnovers, 43 rebounds (six offensive) and 20 fouls committed.

Play of the game goes to Bernardini, whose diving baseline layup from the right side with 1:32 left in the game pushed Penn's lead to two possessions, 62-57.

Navy quote of the night: “The dumbest 1300 sat guy I’ve ever seen in my life.” Navy coach Billy Lange talks to the bench about one of his players with 13:40 left in the first half.

Penn quote of the night: “It’s nice to be able to win one of those ugly games.” – Penn coach Glen Miller after the win.

Line of the game goes to Navy's Greg Sprink, who turned in one of the most inefficient 22-point games you'll probably ever see.

Now it's time for the glamor game of this whole tournament, Seton Hall-Virginia.

Okay, now THAT was really ugly.

Navy leads at the half, 26-23, after 20 minutes of basketball that featured 40 possessions per side. So that works out to 0.65 points per possession for Navy and 0.57 for Penn.

Yikes.

The Midshipmen shot 9-for-32 from the field (28.1%), 1-for-10 from three-point range (10.0%) and 7-for-11 from the line (63.6%), with two assists and 10 turnovers.

The Quakers shot 8-for-26 from the field (30.8%), 0-for-6 from three-point range (uh, I think that's 0.0 percent, but my math stinks) and 7-for-13 from the line (53.8%), with four assists and 13 turnovers.

To the second half we go, thankfully.

Drexel just won a great game, 54-52. The Dragons held a nine-point lead with 6:03 left, but Loyola rallied to within a point thanks to a clutch three from the left corner by Gerald Brown. Drexel made its free throws down the stretch, though, and never gave up the lead because of it.

So the Dragons are the champions of the Liberty Bracket. I guess that's worth something to someone.

Drexel shot 20-for-48 from the field (41.7%), 4-for-10 from three (40.0%) and 10-for-17 from the line (58.8%). 0.83 points per possession, 12 assists, 16 turnovers, 33 rebounds (7 offensive) and 18 fouls committed.

Loyola shot 17-for-56 from the field (30.4%), 4-for-19 from three (21.1%, but that was a big one late) and 14-for-20 from the line (70.0%).

It was a slow game: 65 possessions per side.

Play of the game is a hard one. I think I have to go with my gut, though, and give it to Frank Elegar for making both free throws when he was sent to the line with 13 seconds on the clock to give Drexel a 53-49 lead.

Loyola quote of the game: “That guy went to DeMatha, He knows I coached at [Archbishop] Carroll... That’s DeMatha vs. Carroll at its finest.” – Greyhounds coach Jimmy Patsos berates the ref with 12:05 to play in the first half. Okay, so I'm biased because I know about both those schools having grown up in the D.C. area. But I wasn't the only person on press row who got the joke.

So here's another to make up for it, from Patsos after the game: "[The] Philly team got all the breaks, and I mean that like the basketball gods were looking out for Drexel. They play here more than us."

Drexel quote of the game: "I've been a coach for 19 years and I've never coached anybody with his shirt on backwards... and he actually played with it on backwards." -- Bruiser Flint on Kenny Drexel, who took the floor for Tribbett during the first half.

Or something like that.

Line of the game goes to Frank Elegar, who was named the bracket MVP. I probably would have given MVP to Gerald Brown for his combined effort over the two games, but Elegar certainly had a good game today.

21 points in 21 minutes, yet you can legitimately say he didn't have an efficient game.

I was asked to submit an all-bracket first team and here's I wrote down:

G Gerald Brown (Loyola)
G Gerald Colds (Drexel)
G Tramayne Hawthorne (Drexel)
F Eugene Myatt (Howard)
C Frank Elegar (Drexel)

Alright, I'll be back in a few hours for Penn-Navy.

Loyola with a 25-20 halftime lead. Again, we look at assist-to-turnover ratio as the key stat: 7 to 10 for Loyola and 6 to 13 for Drexel.

The Greyhouds were 9-for-24 from the field (37.5%), 2-for-8 from three-point range (25.0%) and 5-for-8 from the line (62.5%) for an average of 0.74 points per possession.

The Dragons shot 7-for-19 from the field (36.8%), 1-for-4 from three (25.0%) and 5-for-11 from the line (45.5%) for an average of 0.58 points per possession. Not good.

But I'm pretty sure that if Frank Elegar hadn't picked up two fouls in the first eight minutes, that all would have been pretty different.

Off we go again.

After two almost identical halves, Robert Morris ends up cruising to a 72-53 win. The Colonials outscored Howard 36-26 in the first half and 36-27 in the second half.

The tempo was moderate: 69 possessions for Howard and 71 for Robert Morris.

Robert Morris finished the game having shot 30-for-63 from the field (47.6%), 7-for-16 from three-point range (43.8%) and 5-for-6 from the line (83.3%). The Colonials only attempted one free throw in the entire second half.

They averaged 1.02 points per possession and recorded 24 assists, 20 turnovers, 38 rebounds (15 offensive) and 26 fouls committed.

Howard shot 18-for-50 from the field (36.0%), 3-for-18 from three-point range (16.7%, including a frigid 2-for-13 in the second half) and 14-for-25 from the line. They averaged 0.77 points per possession and recorded seven assists, 23 turnovers, 35 rebounds (16 offensive) and nine fouls committed.

Nine fouls committed in a game. Who'd have thunk it.

The play of the game came with 14:20 on the clock in the second half. Robert Morris guard Tony Lee drove to the basket in traffic and hit a really nice over-the-back-of-his-head layup off the glass to give the Colonials a 50-30 lead.

Robert Morris quote of the game: "The problem with first year coaches [is], they get so hyper and they're so up to getting their guys to play hard that it's sometimes without a purpose and some function." -- Colonials coach Mike Rice after the game, talking about the flow of his offense.

Howard quote of the game: "We've got to have games closer than that. We can't have teams run away from us, and then they're shooting like it's practice." -- Bison coach Gil Jackson

Line of the game from a rather unspectacular boxscore goes to Robert Morris forward A.J. Jackson.

Off to Loyola-Drexel. Should be a pretty good game even though neither team's fan section is as big as it was yesterday.

RMU leads at the half, 36-26. The Colonials shot a reasonable 14-for-33 from the field (42.4%) and 4-for-10 from three (40.0%), to go with 4-for-5 from the line (80.0%). They averaged 1.02 points per possession.

Howard shot 7-for-19 from the field (36.8%), 1-for-5 from three (20.0%) and 11-for-13 from the line (84.5%) for an average of 0.72 points per possession. Not many attempts from the field, but nice to see the Bison (both teams, really) making their free throws.

Hey, it's something, especially compared to yesterday.

The real glaring stat is assists to turnovers: 10 to 11 for Robert Morris and three to 17 for Howard. Ouch.

We're back courtside at the Palestra for the consolation game of the Liberty bracket between Howard and Robert Morris.

The attendance report is bleak: to be honest, probably fewer than 100 fans in the stands right now and they're pretty spread out. I know these aren't the marquee teams in the field, but I would have hoped for better than this.

For example, Howard brought a decent traveling contingent to its game against Penn here last week, but there are no Bison fans here at all right now as far as I can tell.

Anyway, off we go.

Virginia wins, 100-85. The result was never in doubt, but the two teams did tie for 50 points apiece in the second half.

For the game, Virginia shot 34-for-72 from the field (47.2%), 10-for-14 from three-point range (41.7%) and 22-for-30 from the line (73.3%). 1.22 points per possession, 17 assists, 21 turnovers, a whopping 56 rebounds (and an even more impressive 25 on the offensive end) and 30 fouls committed.

Penn shot 26-for-56 from the field (46.4%), 6-for-21 from three (28.6%) and 27-for-40 from the line (67.5%). The Quakers recorded 0.96 points per possession, 20 assists, 19 turnoverse, 26 rebounds (9 offensive) and 23 fouls committed.

That rebounding margin is the glaring stat, as is the tempo -- 82 possessions per side. Virginia dictated that, but Penn was effective the few times it could get out on the fast break.

Play of the game goes to Penn's Remy Cofield, if only because it was the most stunning basket of the day in any game. With 6:05 left in the first half, Cofield drove to the basket, took some good contact along the way, went flying to the floor and while he was falling he threw the ball up in the air.

Somehow -- I still don't quite know how -- the ball ended up falling into the net. As sweet as Virginia's many threes and dunks were, that was the play that really drew oohs and aahs from the crowd.

Quote of the day, Penn edition: "Not all actually. I just threw it up there." -- Cofield on whether he expected the shot to go in.

Quote of the day, Virginia edition: "I knew the Penn fans would be all over me about those free throws. I'm sure they remember that about my time at Penn." -- Virginia forward Ryan Pettinella on the cheers he got from the Penn fans in the building when he missed the two free throws during the first half.

Line of the day goes to Virginia guard Adrian Joseph, who hit all kinds of shots in all kinds of impressive ways throughout the game:

To sum up the day, I would say this. It wasn't the best basketball and it wasn't the kind of atmosphere I think the tournament could have and deserves. I do think, though, that one of the tournament's goals was achieved in having all eastern teams in the field: each of the eight coaches knew full well the importance of playing in the Palestra.

Four games in a day make for a long time spent in a backless seat typing on a table that isn't quite fastened in place. But I'm doing it again just over 10 hours from now for good reason.

Virgina winning easily, 50-35. Lots of orange in the house, a couple of "Let's Go, Wahoos!" chants, and I think I just saw a few people singing the Good Old Song.

The high point for Penn was when former Quaker Ryan Pettinella stepped up to the free throw line, missed both attempts and got a big ovation. The fans around here have seen that a few times, it has to be said.

Other than that, the Cavaliers had the run of things. 17-for-35 from the field (48.6%), 7-for-13 from three (53.8%) and 9-for-14 from the line (64.3%). They averaged an impressive 1.38 points per possession.

A pretty quiet night for Sean Singletary so far: 1-of-7 FG, 1-of-2 3pt and 4-4 FT for nine points to go with three assists, a steal and three turnovers. But he got by far the biggest cheer of any game today when his name was announced during the starting lineups.

Penn shot 11-for-28 from the field (39.3%), a paltry 1-for-10 from three (10%, which you probably knew) and 12-for-17 from the line (70.6%). The Quakers averaged 1.12 points per possession.

Nice to see both teams go above 1.0 points per possession.

The biggest stat of all, though, is on the boards: 12 offensive for the Cavaliers to eight defensive for the Quakers.

Interesting to see the two ADs, Penn's Steve Bilsky and Virginia's Craig Littlepage (a former Penn player and coach) chatting in the front row courtside. And as I type, Littlepage is talking to Phillies president David Montgomery, another Penn alum.

No sign, however, of Gov. Rendell, a regular at Penn games. Just saw Rendell, sitting two seats over from Montgomery in their assigned seats near the top of the chairback section.

Seton Hall makes a nice comeback in the second half to hold off a Navy team that played a lot better than I thought it would, 79-75.

The Midshipmen shot 25-for-66 from the field (37.9%), which tells you what you need to know about the second half (10-for-30/33.3%). 13-for-37 from three (35.1%) and 12-for-19 from the line (63.2%). 0.89 points per possession, 18 assists, 22 turnovers (15 in the second half), 40 rebounds (13 offensive) and 25 fouls committed.

The Pirates shot 26-for-64 from the field (40.6%), 4-for-12 from three (17.4%) -- including 1-for-9 in the second half -- and 23-for-40 from the line (57.5%). 1.04 points per possession, 12 assists, 19 turnovers, 50 rebounds (20 offensive) and 18 fouls committed.

50 rebounds is quite impressive, but can someone please make a free throw?

Play of the game came with 9:14 left in the 2nd half. Paul Gause stole a Navy pass and fed it on a bounce to Brian Laing for a pretty breakaway slam.

Navy quote of the day: "If I say Bruiser's teams don't come after it he's going to come after my team and beat me." -- Mids coach Billy Lange talking about Drexel, which beat Navy 86-70 in a Philly Classic preliminary game at the DAC.

Seton Hall quote of the day: "He was shot out of a cannon -- he had his quickness, he had his energy going." -- Pirates coach Bobby Gonzalez talking about guard Paul Gause, who finished the night with 13 points, sevne rebounds, six assists and four steals.

Line of the day goes to the aforementioned Laing:

Okay, time for Penn-Virginia, and it looks like there's a pretty big crowd for it.

At last, we have a basketball game. And not just because Navy leads 43-39 at the half.

The Midshipmen shot 15-for-36 from the field (41.7%) in the first 20 minutes, 8-for-24 (33.3%) from three and 5-for-9 (55.6%) from the line.

The Pirates shot 13-for-37 from the field (35.1%), 3-for-14 from three (21.4%) and 10-for-15 (66.7%) from the line. Okay, that's not so great, but overall it was a lot better than what we saw this afternoon.

Midshipmen forward Adam Teague's four threes were the highlight. Seton Hall really couldn't stop him, though I can't say they tried all that hard on some of the shots.

Here we are at the evening session, with Navy and Seton Hall a minute or so from tipoff. The crowd isn't huge, but there are people sitting in the upper rows of the 200 level on the side opposite press row, which makes me think the final attendance will be pretty good.

Already a good bit of Virginia orange in the house, along with two sections of Seton Hall blue. But the neutrals seem to be rooting for Navy.

BH, if there ever was some.

That's short for Bad Hoops. The abbreviation was, as far as anyone around here knows, coined by veteran Associated Press college basketball writer Jack Scheuer. He wasn't here to see it (or to see me steal his catchphrase), but he didn't miss much.

Drexel won the game, 56-40.

The Dragons shot 20-for-45 from the field (44.4%), 7-for-14 from three (50.0 percent) and a truly foul 9-for-23 from the free throw line (39.1 percent, and apologies for the pun). 0.76 points per possession, 15 assists, 26 turnovers, 42 rebounds (8 offensive) and 22 fouls committed.

Robert Morris shot 16-for-54 from the field (29.6%), 1-for-16 from three (0.63 percent -- wow), and an even worse than Drexel (by percentage) 7-for-19 from the line (36.8%). 0.55 points per possession, 12 assists, 21 turnovers, 36 rebounds (11 offensive) and 21 fouls committed.

Then again, isn't this place known for not having the best basketball played on its floor?

The play of the game, since it probably ought to be something defensive, was a ferocious block by Frank Elegar on Colonials guard Mezie Nwigwe. Nwigwe drove hard to the post for a layup, but Elegar got all ball and shoved his arm down so hard that it knocked Nwigwe on his rear end right onto the floor.

We have a tie for the Robert Morris quote of the game. The first comes from coach Mike Rice, who yelled at Dallas Green with 3:07 left in the game: "Dallas, this is your only chance, Dallas, because you’ve been really bad today.”

On the very next play, Green fouled Drexel's Adrian Hynes-Guery as he scored a layup.

The second is also from Rice, postgame: "I got my first technical in the Palestra. I can always say that."

The Drexel quote of the game comes from Bruiser Flint, of course: "I told them it's my fault, because I should have made everyone come to my house and hang out with me [for Thanksgiving]... Guys were trying to rush home and they played that way. I knew we were in trouble last week when guys were asking me, what are we doing for Thanksgiving?"

And the line of the day pretty well has to go to Frank Elegar, even though he didn't score much:

That wraps up the afternoon session. I'll be back in a couple hours for the night session, which starts with Seton Hall-Navy at 7 p.m.

I really would not want to be in Robert Morris' locker room right now. As the Inquirer's Mel Greenberg, who's here to cover the game for the paper, said: "If the real Robert Morris had shot like that, we'd be under a monarchy."

It's 32-14 Drexel at the half, as the Colonials shot 6-for-25 from the field, 0-for-8 from three and 2-for-3 from the line, for an average of 0.38 points per possession.

Read that again.

Now, to make you feel better: the Dragons shot 12-for-21 from the field, 5-for-8 from three and 3-for-7 from the line for an average of 0.88 points per possession.

At least we had a little drama at the halftime buzzer, as Colonials coach Mike Rice got t'ed up for yapping at the refs. By the way, if that name sounds familiar to you, it is: Rice was an assistant at St. Joe's from 2004 to 2006.

Two of Rice's assistants also have Philly ties: Jimmy Martelli, also known as Phil's son, and former Penn guard Andrew Toole.

No surprise, then, that Phil is sitting a few rows back behind the Robert Morris bench with his wife, Judy, and St. Joe's athletic director Phil Martelli.

Keeping with the local ties, the Colonials also have a forward named Dallas Green. Then again, this one wasn't born in 1980... and he's from Indianapolis.

As for the crowd, it's bigger than the Loyola crowd was but not by too much. There are probably two sections' worth of Drexel fans, plus the band. Not much, but better than canned music any day.

Loyola wins it, 73-58.

The Greyhounds shot 24-for-63 from the field (38.1%), 4-for-18 from three (22.2%) and 21-for-23 (91.3%) from the line. 1.01 points per possession, 16 assists, 10 turnovers, 38 rebounds (12 offensive) and 21 fouls committed.

Howard shot 20-for-53 from the field (37.7%), 2-for-13 (15.4% -- yikes) from three and 16-for-20 from the line. 0.81 points per possessions, 10 assists, 18 turnovers, 38 rebounds (9 offensive) and 19 fouls committed.

The play of the game came with 8:06 to play in the second half. Loyola's Joe Miles drove to the basket but Jeron Smith swatted the layup away hard. Except the ball went straight to Greyhounds guard Tony Lewis, who scored uncontested.

Howard quote of the game: “That’s not what you do on the playground, is it?” -- Bison coach Gil Jackson yells at his team for not running the offense well with 7:33 left in the first half.

Loyola quote of the game: "It's a real honor to get your first win in the Palestra as a head coach. I got a win here as an assistant, to get a win here -- this is just an unbelievable place." -- Greyhounds coach Jimmy Patsos after the game.

And the Line of the Game goes to Loyola guard Gerald Brown:

Loyola led at halftime, 36-25. Howard shot 7-of-24 from the field, 1-of-5 from three and 10-of-11 from the line, turned it over 11 times (to three assists) and committed 11 fouls.

So yeah, that's 14 points from the field in a half, and a paltry 0.67 points per possession.

Loyola shot 12-of-33 from the field, 3-of-11 from three and 9-of-19 from the line, turned the ball over six times (to a much more respectable nine assists) and committed 12 fouls. The average was 1.00 points per possession, which at least tastes a little better than the Bison's offering.

Still... yikes.

Welcome to the Palestra, where as always it’s cold outside but short-sleeves warm inside. We’re just underway in the first game of the Philly Classic between Loyola, Md., and Howard. I’m not planning on liveblogging every game in full, but throughout today and tomorrow I’ll bring you highlights, anecdotes and some analysis from each game.

So check back throughout the weekend for new posts.

To answer Fred's question, you bet I'll be keeping an eye on the stands to keep track of the attendance. The crowd right here isn't all that big right now -- under 1,000, I'd say -- but there's a nice traveling contingent of Loyola fans and a good few people who seem to be here just to watch a basketball game.

I'm sure there will be many more here for the Drexel game.

By the way, I’ll be keeping one eye on Delaware State-Delaware when that kicks off, too.

WASHINGTON NEW CARROLTON, Md. LINTHICUM, Md. ON A TRAIN RETURNING TO PHILADELPHIA -- After taking a quick trip south to visit the family, eating a lot of very good food and paying absolutely no attention paid to yesterday's football, it's back to action today as we begin the countdown to a big day of college sports in the region.

Almost all eyes will be on the Palestra today, at least among readers of this blog. But outside of us, who knows? We'll find out when the final attendances are announced, but Philly Classic tournament promoter Rob Kennedy told Dick Jerardi in today's Daily News that he expects "in the 4,000 to 5,000 range" for the evening sessions and the afternoon sessions are "still anybody's guess."

I'll let Kyle make the point for me:

Re the Palestra Tourney

I think the promoters have done a poor job of generating any interest.

There is little buzz in the papers, as noted by "FD". Also there has been little radio promos on the 4 main AM local sports/sports related stations. Even Comcast hasnt said much.

Would think the promoters would
have done a bit more on this front.

Admittedly, none of us know what the marketing budget for this thing is. But I too would have liked to see a bit more buzz about this thing, maybe even from the tourism groups in the city. Yeah, it's good that Penn and Drexel are in the field, but they aren't the really big names around here and most of the Penn fans are elsewhere for Thanksgiving.

So why not go after the other schools' fans? Do a package deal promoting the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the basketball, or something like that. But hey, that's why I work for Philly.com instead of some marketing company.

I will say this, though: the best news in that story is that Villanova will be in next year's field. That should do plenty for ticket sales and buzz.

Speaking of Villanova, we welcome Corey Fisher to his college career this morning. His 18 points helped the 'Cats to a 76-68 win over Central Florida in Orlando, setting up what should be a great game tonight against George Mason.

On the football side of things, we have Delaware State-Delaware today. Frank Fitzpatrick takes a really good in-depth look at the history behind why the schools have never played each other.

David Aldridge leads with the race angle, but also compares the situation to why the Big 5 teams always play each other but Georgetown and Maryland don't.

(Amen, if I may say so.)

Finally, Temple wraps up its season tomorrow with a visit to Western Michigan. Winning five out of their last seven games would be a great statement for the Owls, and one which definitely confirms that the MAC is the right place for them to be.

I'll be back in a few hours for Howard-Loyola.

You are looking live at a blog post being written on a bench at 30th Street Station, as I get ready to head out of town for a few days for the holiday.

Fred writes:

All of this college basketball talk about RPI, mid-majors, and these mind-numbing stats is starting to make my head spin. Especially at this stage of the season.

I would like to get back on track to the college football, which captures my attention and energy this time of year.

Q1: Is there any other reason besides what has been stated with LaSalle bagging the program? It never seemed to get much attention locally, both in the papers and on TV. I feel bad for the players and the staff.

Q2: Delaware plays DSU on Friday. Why is the game on Friday? Its the only Friday game of the first round of the I-AA playoff, with the other games being played on Saturday. And, what is the buzz on the game? For years, DSU has been chasing the game, and now they have it.. in a playoff!

Well first of all, don't worry. The basketball stats make my head spin too sometimes.

Part of the reason why La Salle football hasn't gotten much interest is that the MAAC football conference, despite nominally being I-AA, doesn't really play at the same level as the CAA, Patriot League or even the Ivy League.

If you look at the stadium sizes and the level of players (not to mention the conference Sagarin ratings), you'll see the difference. MAAC schools that wanted to have more serious football programs, such as Georgetown and Duquesne, have left or are leaving the conference. Schools that didn't want to make the investment also got rid of their programs.

So we ended up with only four teams in the conference, as Joe Juliano noted in his story about all this. I think that's a legit argument.

I'm not sure about the money involved, because La Salle gets A-10 basketball money and they haven't really traveled far to play. And I can easily name you a non-scholarship program in the region that La Salle isn't playing, as can we all. But I'm pretty sure Penn's schedules are set from now until either 2010 or 2011, and I doubt the Explorers would want to wait around.

Now, that shouldn't necessarily have prevented the two teams from playing in past years. Penn played Duquesne, another MAAC team, in 2003 and 2005. The games weren't close, but at least they existed.

I feel bad for the players and the staff too. But I have a couple colleagues at Philly.com who attended La Salle in recent years, and they tell me that there wasn't much interest in football on campus. I'm sure that didn't help things either.

As for that Delaware State-Delaware game, it's at 1:30 p.m. Friday because ESPN says it is. That's no surprise, but it's a nice move to pick that game for national exposure. It's a great storyline and it while the Blue Hens definitely have the better players, it would be cool if the Hornets pulled off the upset.

It's nice to know that Delaware coach K.C. Keeler wants to play the series regularly, but given the (not-so-subtly racist) history between the two schools, I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm sure it will be a great atmosphere in Newark -- it always is -- and I'd love to be there, but I'll be at the Philly Classic.

After the jump, let's crunch some numbers.

The new College HoopsCast is now up. In it, I talk to Mike Jensen and Joe Juliano about a range of topics, including:

-- Temple's dramatic collapses against Providence and the College of Charleston (and almost Marist)
-- Villanova's win over Bucknell, and their trip to Orlando this week for the Old Spice Classic
-- Drexel's game at Virginia tonight, which is being played as I write this
-- Penn's early season struggles
-- and whether or not the Philly Classic will succeed.

Click here to listen to it.

I would have posted it a lot earlier, but I had to cover the Jimmy Rollins MVP press conference.

Also because of that, I will deal with this week's football crunchy numbers -- and some very good questions from Fred -- in the next post.

We give out two LOTDs today, because I meant to do this yesterday and forgot.

First up is Temple's Mark Tyndale. No, it's not just because the Owls' win over Marist got them off the schneid for the season. There will be whole teams that don't do this well this year from the free throw line in games:

I'm fairly sure you won't see a guy score 23 points but end up with a 21-point efficiency score all that often.

Next up is Duke's Kyle Singler... and yes, it pains me somewhat to give a LOTD to a Duke player, but his role in the Blue Devils' 83-61 embarrassment of Princeton (it was 31-4 midway through the first half) was pretty impressive:

Back tomorrow with the next-to-last football Crunchy Numbers of the season.

Still working on figuring out why all those little boxes you usually see on the right side of the blog wandered off to the bottom of the page below all the posts. I doubt it'll be fixed this week because of the holiday, but we can hope it'll be resolved soon.

It's cold, rainy and generally miserable out. So why not cheer yourself up with this Basketball Prospectus article about just how stunning Temple's collapse against the College of Charleston really was?

Oh, wait...

That was a really good game on the Main Line tonight that Villanova won, 70-64. Both teams played hard, worked for every possession and pushed each other for all 40 minutes. It certainly made up for what I sat through yesterday.

Here's audio of the postagme press conferences from Bucknell and Villanova.

Let's dig into the numbers a bit, because there were a lot of good ones.

The big stat was rebounds, because just saying that Villanova had a 43-26 advantage isn't enough. Within that, the Wildcats pulled down 20 offensive rebounds to only 17 Bucknell defensive rebounds.

Most of that advantage was built in the second half. Villanova recorded 12 offensive rebounds to seven Bucknell defensive rebounds in the frame, while grabbing 12 defensive rebounds to only two offensive boards for the Bison.

The results were even more evident: Villanova had a 28-10 edge in points in the paint and a 25-8 advantage in second-half points, including a 19-3 margin in the second half.

Having said that, the Wildcats pretty much had to win the game in the paint, because they struggled from the arc while Bucknell absolutely shot the lights out in the first half from beyond the arc. The Bison were 9-for-17 from three-point range, but only made three of 12 two-point attempts.

Bison guard John Griffin, a Philadelphia native who played with Reggie Redding at the Prep, was the main reason for that. Griffin hit six of his 10 three-point attempts in the game, including 5-of-7 in the first half. He only took one two-point shot, and missed it.

Bucknell coach Pat Flannery (also a Philly guy) (thanks Homer) knew full well coming in that perimeter shooting had to be the gameplan, as you'll hear him say in his postgame remarks.

Anyone who's seen his team over the last few years knows that Flannery is an outstanding coach. Today proved it again, as the Bison stuck to that gameplan and executed incredibly well -- not just with the shooting, but in other facets of the offense as well.

Bucknell attempted only nine free throws in the game, and three of them when Griffin was fouled shooting from beyond the arc with nine seconds to play.

Furthermore, the Bison recorded 17 assists to 18 turnovers (10-to-10 in the first half), easily beating Villanova's 10-to-15 ratio (an even worse 3-to-10 at halftime).

But in the second half, the Wildcats were able to play to their strength. By pounding the ball inside and dominating the glass, Villanova was able to wear Bucknell out and wrap up a win that will look quite good come March.

Now, for a change of subject. After the jump, my thoughts on the debate in the comments about what a mid-major is.

Despite SEPTA's best efforts to stop me, I made it to the Pavilion mere seconds before tipoff of the Bucknell-Villanova game.

I'm here to see the Wildcats for the first time all year, and also to see what I consider to be the preeminent mid-major team in the state of Pennsylvania.

Unlike some, I don't consider the Atlantic 10 to be a mid-major conference. I see it in a second tier along with Conference USA, the WAC and the Mountain West. That leaves Bucknell, Drexel and Penn (in something resembling that order, despite Drexel's recent record against Penn) as the top three mid-majors in the state. It should be fun when the Dragons and Bison hook up later on the year.

But for now let's see how they match up against one of the Big East's big boys, and let's see how Villanova matches up against Jay Wright's alma mater -- a team that also has a great coach in Pat Flannery.

Speaking of mid-majors, a comment about Penn from Mickey:

Was Gilbert Jackson ever considered to succeed Dunphy?

Is Penn really this bad?

To the first, no, and to the second, I'm not sure. Jackson was only gone for a year when Dunphy left, and it seemed clear from the start of Penn's search that Jackson would be allowed to go his own way. Having said that, I don't know what would have happened if Dunphy had left earlier.

As for how bad Penn is, last night was indeed pretty bad (not least compared to the football game that preceded it).

I am a bit more inclined than some of the people I talked to yesterday to credit Howard's hot shooting instead of blaming Penn's defense. Howard's Eugene Myatt, a Philadelphia native, had a ridiculous game and made 13 of his 17 shots. That's an outstanding performance no matter how bad the other guy's defense is.

At the same time, though, it's really bad to give up an average of 1.26 points per possession, especially considering that Penn outrebounded Howard 31-24 and the Bison only had five offensive rebounds.

On offense, I thought Penn was able to move the ball around pretty well, but this team really lacks a perimeter shooter at the moment. Not having Darren Smith makes a big difference in that respect, because he could shoot and could also draw defenders off Brian Grandieri when he had the ball.

From everything I've heard, Tyler Bernardini will end up being that kind of a shooter, but given that he's a freshman it's no surprise that he isn't there yet.

Penn is definitely a work in progress. I thought after the Drexel game they could be pretty good by February. Now I don't know where they'll be. They could still be good, but it seems to me they've got a ways to go.

Okay, time for me to pay attention to the game here. And not just because I just saw Curtis Sumpter chatting with Larry Brown.

Greetings from a sunny, not-too-cold Franklin Field. I'm here to cover the Penn-Cornell football game for the Inquirer. Later this afternoon I'll head next door to the Palestra to cover the Penn-Howard basketball game, also for the paper.

To be honest, I'd rather be out on the Main Line for the Villanova-Delaware showdown. I wanted to see Omar Cuff, the Blue Hens' stud running back, in person. And I'd really like to be at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Conn., where a sellout crowd of more than 60,000 is watching Harvard and Yale play for the Ivy League title as I write this.

Both clashes are among Mike Jensen's Games of the Week for good reason.

The rest of this post, though, is going to be about basketball. Unfortunately, I don't have anything insightful to say about Temple's shocking 25-point collapse yesterday to the College of Charleston because I'm still stunned myself, so I'll leave it to Mike Jensen and Mike Kern to break it down from San Juan.

But the game I'm covering this afternoon has a nice little storyline to it. Howard coach Gil Jackson spent 16 years as an assistant coach to Fran Dunphy at Penn before leaving for Washington in 2005.

Today, he makes his first trip as a head coach to the arena he called home for a very long time, facing his old team in a preliminary round game of the Philly Classic.

I talked to Jackson on Thursday, and yes, I started with the rather obvious question of what it would be like to come out of the visitors' locker room for once.

It turns out he's done that quite a few times before.

"I used to go in there at around 4 o'clock and get dressed in the visitor’s locker room, so I’m familiar with that," he said, "but it will be strange talking to a team there, getting a team ready to take the floor from that side of the court. That’ll be a little strange, and sitting on that side of the bench, and the Red and Blue Crew being against you and not for you."

But Jackson won't be the only person on the Bison bench familiar with the surroundings today. You might remember a former Drexel guard named Randy Hampton. He's playing in the Washington neighborhood known as Shaw now, and Jackson is very happy to have him.

"He’s very athletic but he’s only 6-[foot]-4 -- he’s a slashing time player, strong, can finish," Jackson said of Hampton. "He’s working to improve his outside shooting, and he’s a very good defender when he concentrates and a very good rebounder because of his athleticism."

Hampton is also a D.C. native, and while at Dunbar High School he was the DCIAA (their public league) player of the year. He was a Washington Post first-team All-Met player that year as well, and take a look at who else was on that team: Jeff Green, Dwayne Anderson and Abdulai Jalloh among others, with Rudy Gay the Player of the Year.

Between that and the fact that Hampton's mother works at Howard, it didn't come as too much of a surprise when Jackson noted that "sometimes when my wife and I walk around Washington with some Howard gear on, people say, 'Oh, you have Randy Hampton playing for you.' "

Well, it did surprise me in one respect. Find out about it after the jump.

I wish I could be watching Temple-Providence, but we don't have ESPNU here in the Philly.com newsroom.

We do, however, have a poll asking readers which of the local teams is the best in the region. So far, Villanova is winning in a landslide.

So let's have a look around today's stories, because there are a lot of them.

-- Austin Scott pled not guilty to a range of assault charges yesterday.

-- Jeff McLane also writes about Penn State's offensive line, which is living up to that perennial nickname "big eaters." We also learn that Dan Connor is a finalist for the Walter Camp Award.

-- Joe Juliano takes a look around the local small-college football scene, as a number of local programs get ready for the playoffs.

-- Mike Kern wonders why Hawai'i isn't getting any respect.

-- Drexel won at Florida Gulf Coast, 77-58, thanks to a career high 22 points from Tramayne Hawthorne.

-- Bad news at Penn, which lost guard Darren Smith for the year due to a broken kneecap suffered against Drexel. Smith was definitely going to be one of the Quakers' main scoring options this year and those hopes for a fourth straight Ivy League title just took (no pun intended) a big hit.

-- Speaking of Penn, there are no more single-game tickets left for the North Carolina game. Jay Bilas has some thoughts about the Tar Heels' win over Davidson last night.

Okay, now for a little bit of fun. Line of the Day makes its return this afternoon with a frankly astonishing game last night between Troy and Dallas-based Paul Quinn College. The Trojans won in overtime, 133-131.

The Basketball State boxscore reports that Troy recorded a "NASCAR" tempo of 109.3 possessions and an average of 1.22 points per possession. The Paul Quinn stats aren't included (the team is NAIA) so the stats don't go into the Basketball State machine), but the Yahoo box score has them.

Both teams attempted 92 or more field goals each, including 41 three-point attempts each. Whoa.

This being a new season of LOTD, I've redesigned the template a bit and added the NBA's efficiency model statistic. It is used by Basketball State and a few other sites as well.

The formula (which I am thankful I don't have to do by hand) is:

((Pts + TReb + A + Stl + Blk) - ((FGA - FGM) + (FTA - FTM) + TO))

Our first winner of the season is Troy's Justin Jonus:

The entire right column of the blog seems to have wandered off somewhere, at least on the main page. We're working on finding it.

No, I don't really know what it would be like to do that. But I've just had what felt like an out-of-this-world college basketball statistics experience. It's certainly nothing like anything I've ever felt before.

See, I was looking at the Basketball State box score for last night's St. Joe's-Syracuse game and all of a sudden... whoa. I was moved.

Okay, I have to put in a disclaimer here. Basketball State is the brainchild of Kyle Whelliston. He's the guy who writes The Mid-Majority (including some astoundingly good travelogue essays), and more than occasionally serves as a pundit for ESPN.

He's also a known reader of this blog and a guy I know as more than a passing acquaintance (though I might never live down interviewing him).

But lest you think I'm shilling for him, fear not. He has not bribed me at all to praise his site -- in fact, I stumped up the $20 for a subscription to his stuff. And so should you, not least because I'm going to link to his site a lot.

He's got a lot of really interesting data comparing teams, conferences, players, and so forth. It's a bit denser (and in a smaller font) than Ken Pomeroy's site, but there's some really amazing things.

Among the cooler toys are a map showing every basketball game in the country on a given day and a nifty way of graphically representing how good all the teams in a conference are on offense and defense (this is the A-10's for last season).

Anyway, here's what I've figured out so far about last night's game that you won't find in the box scores in the Inquirer and Daily News:

-- St. Joe's had a higher points-per-possession average, 1.13 to 1.06. That's a pretty big differential as this thing goes.

-- St. Joe's had a lower turnover rate (TOs per 100 possessions), 20.9% to 23.0%.

-- The teams were almost dead even in the percentage of baskets that were assisted: 70.8% for St. Joe's and 70.4% for Syracuse. That's a little less than three out of every four. I'm inclined to think that for two teams with young backcourts, that's pretty good.

-- Although St. Joe's shot a lower 3-point percentage (42% to 43%) and FG percentage (44% to 46%) than Syracuse, the Hawks had a higher effective FG% (which gives 1.5x weight to threes), 54.6% to 50.8%.

-- Despite that, Syracuse had almost seven more statistical possessions than St. Joe's, 74.0 to 67.1.

-- That's because the Orange had more of all the factors that go into the possessions formula (field goal attempts + turnovers + [0.475 x free throw attempts] - offensive rebounds) than the Hawks did.

-- St. Joe's had more "points per weighted shot," a measure of how efficiently a team scores, by 1.13 to 1.06. But Syracuse had a higher "floor percentage," which measures the percentage of offensive possessions in which a basket is scored, 50.0% to 47.1%.

Now, I've thought all this time that scoring efficiency and scoring on a percentage of possession basis were the same thing. So if there any lawyers or law school students out there -- or if Kyle himself stumbles across this when not sleeping for 84 minutes -- can explain the difference between the following, please do:

Floor % - Floor Percentage. Measures the percentage of offensive possessions in which there is at least one point scored.

PPWS - Points per Weighted Shot. Measures how efficiently a player translates field goal attempts and free throw attempts into points. Formula: PTS/(FGA + (0.475 x FTA))

UPDATE: The best way to describe it, apparently, is that Floor % is the number of made baskets as a percentage of shot attempts, while PPWS is the number of points as a percentage of shot attempts.

That explains why PPWS is a number greater than 1, because you score more points than your number of attempts (unless you miss a ridiculous number of shots). It also explains why St. Joe's had a higher PPWS, as they made 11 three-pointers to Syracuse's 6 even though the percentages were similar.

My preferred reason for why the Hawks lost last night, though, has nothing to do with any of what I just wrote:

That was one clutch shot by Jonny Flynn.

Okay, I'm off to see if Davidson can keep North Carolina from being No. 1 when the Tar Heels come here next month.

And by the way, the hoops on TV start bright and early at 9 a.m. tomorrow with Houston against Eric Maynor's Virginia Commonwealth on ESPNU. The game is in the same Puerto Rico tournament in which Temple plays Providence at 2:30, also on ESPNU.

Okay, let's try something new.

I have a prior commitment that is going to keep me away from my computer for most of the St. Joe's-Syracuse game. So taking after two of my favorite bloggers, Will Bunch of the Daily News and Steven Goff of the Washington Post (despite the fact that I'm not on either blog's blogroll), I'm going to let you all do the in-game commentary for me.

So leave your thoughts on the game in the comments. I hear that there will be a lot of Hawks fans in the Carrier Dome tonight (including a few known readers of the blog), but hopefully there are a few more of you out there who can clear out the tumbleweeds on here for a few hours.

It isn't often that you have two teams in this list playing each other. Of course it happens this coming weekend with Delaware at Villanova and Lafayette with Lehigh, but let's have a look at what happened to Temple and Penn State in Sagarin...

22. Penn State (24) -- road win vs. Temple (130)
37. Rutgers (45) -- road win vs. Army (126)
80. Delaware (75) -- home loss (in five overtimes!) vs. Richmond (70)
101. Villanova (110) -- road win vs. Towson (167)
130. Temple (132) -- home loss vs. Penn State (22)
143. Delaware State (139) -- home win vs. Norfolk State (175)
169. Lehigh (172) -- road win vs. Bucknell (223)
178. Lafayette (189) -- road win vs. Holy Cross (136)
195. Penn (199) -- road loss vs. Harvard (152)
242. La Salle (242) road loss vs. Duquesne (224)

Not many wins on the slate, but Lafayette's stands out the most to me.

And by the way, next week will be the last week for this. Crunchy Numbers for basketball will begin some time next month, when we have enough numbers in the system to actually start making some judgements.

The Top 10 comparison:

Up until now, I had thought pretty much all year that the computer and human rankings would look the same after a while. It's been such a wild year in college football that it hasn't happened yet. And this week's discrepancies are among the biggest we've seen all year.

So who's right?

Andy writes:

Sounded like the game was a total wire-to-wire job by PSU, and we aren't that good this season. That tells me how far the gap really is between us and Temple.

Glad I didnt make the drive down and sit out in the cold for a 31-0 lopsided ballgame.

Temple wasn't quite that bad. Yes, the Owls gave up 202 rushing yards and only recorded four net themselves, but Vaughn Charlton threw for 238 yards passing to Anthony Morelli's 260.

But having said that, Temple was 0-for-4 in the red zone, while Penn State was 4-for-5. There's the difference between the teams in so many ways.

You were certainly right about the weather, though. I went outside for the halftime show and felt at least a little better about the press box being enclosed.

Here's postgame audio:

-- Al Golden
-- Joe Paterno
-- Anthony Morelli

When Temple came out of the tunnel, I looked around and thought there was actually a pretty healthy number of Owls fans in the stands. But then Penn State took the field, the decibel level (as such in an enclosed press box) just about tripled, and that was that.

Welcome to Lincoln Financial Field, which is sold out but not nearly full yet. It's cold, overcast and quite windy, which means it's perfect football weather.

The Owls just put together a pretty nice drive: nine plays and 69 yards in 3:28. But after Dan Connor chased Vaughn Charlton into a sack, Jake Brunell hooked a 23-yard field goal halfway to the Spectrum (seriously, it was that far left) and we remain scoreless.

I'm not going to be liveblogging this thing, even though it's on ESPNU and most people around here don't get that channel. But I'll chime in every once in a while.

For now, here are some photos I took of tailgaters in the parking lot before the game:

The Temple fans were definitely outnumbered, but I found more than a few groups of people dressed in cherry and white.

Some Temple fans strike a pose.

Penn State flags in the parking lot.

And a Temple flag. Though I don't get the "PHETE Team" reference. If someone does, please let me know.

There was even some mingling between the two fan sets.

Now this I thought was funny. Not least because I thought Penn was the place to find the most anti-Penn State stuff around here.

Mike Kern and Kevin Tatum recap the game. And here's postgame audio from Drexel and Penn.

Brian Grandieri led all scorers with 23 of the quietest points you'll ever see in a noisy Palestra. He shot 8-of-14 from the field, a somewhat surprising 0-of-1 from three-point range, and only 7-of-12 from the free throw line -- which he admitted wasn't good enough.

For Drexel, Tramayne Hawthorne (6-of-12 fg, 4-of-10 3pt) and Gerald Colds (6-of-11 fg, 6-of-9 3pt) tied for top scorer with 18 points. But look at the breakdown by halves: