bierce

Avila sprained his ankle about a month ago. Even a mild re-sprain this soon after could have him out for quite some time. I once sprained an ankle stepping in a rabbit hole when I was 16. Three months later, I stepped funny where grass met driveway while playing pick-up basketball, and my ankle swelled to Chicago style softball size. I was on crutches for 3 weeks.

First two NCAA D1 games featuring two teams not in the SEC or P5 but with a pulse have ended. The Josh Schertz/Robbie Avila/Isaiah Swope era in St. Louis started with less than a bang. Santa Clara was probably favored going in (ranked third preseason in WCC by coaches compared to SLU 4th in the A10), and it won 85-78, with Adama-Alpha Bal scoring 24. What a great name for a basketball player. Avila had to be helped off the court with an ankle injury with 4:37 left in the game. No update yet on severity. Charleston and Southern Illinois are Kenpom 140ish, so I guess this game counts. CoC has a heavily internationally laden roster--Two Serbs, one Croat, one Erin, and a Lithuanian. The Croatian (Ante Brzovic) scored 27 and grabbed 9 rebounds in a 90-80 win.

But if Miami wins out the regular season but loses in the ACC championship game, then the ACC probably gets the champion and Miami.

Possibly. Home court can be big in college basketball, and Johnson and Sellers are excellent and experienced guards. But it's hard to tell what UCF has supporting them until a few games have been played. A&M was smoked by Houston in an exhibition game, falling behind by 24 midway through the second half before Sampson played mostly the bench. But that's Houston. A&M was severely outrebounded (which happens when you miss most of your shots), and it shot poorly from the arc. Then again, UCF was obliterated by Georgia in a scrimmage.

Most exciting game (of course) will be Texas against tOSU on a neutral floor. Ohio State has a nearly totally rebuilt roster coached by Jake Diebler, an assistant who tried to salvage the tOSU season after Holtmann was fired last year, and did a really good job of it. So we have two teams coached by former assistants who had to step up when their bosses were shown the door. Both have done well so far. And both will be putting teams on the floor with a lot of players who will be playing together for the first time. tOSU added grad transfer Meechie Johnson from South Carolina, and I say let him shoot. He's career .328 from three and .428 from two. Aaron Bradshaw was a foul prone big man who is a poor ft shooter and was only so-so as a rebounder as a freshman at Kentucky, but his length could cause problems. Micah Parrish was a good contributor for San Diego State, but his perimeter shooting numbers have steadily declined. Sean Stewart (transfer from Duke) might be the big prize. tOSU will definitely have length on us if Bradshaw and Stewart play together, but the rest of the team is 6'6" or under or walk-ons or Euro freshmen of which I can only take the Sergeant Schulz defense--"I know nothing." Other games of note: Missouri, which went winless in conference in Dennis Gates's second year in Columbia, is the only underdog--playing @ Memphis. Hardaway seemed to have Memphis back on track after the Tubby Smith and Pastner years of slow decline, but Memphis missing the post-season last year probably didn't make FedEx donors happy. Hardaway has coached Memphis 7 seasons and has one NCAA tournament to show for it. Missouri has several transfers, but the transfers they brought in for 2023-24 (Bates, Grill, and Robinson) didn't help much. This year Gates brought in two mid-major stars (Crews and Robinson), a 7 footer who did piss-all in 4 years in the SEC (Josh Gray), and a big point from the Big Ten who never was a good shooter (Perkins). Gates might be on thin ice after last year's 0-18 conference record. I was trying to be polite. A&M is the only other team facing a challenge--going to UCF. UCF has a dangerous guard duo of Sellers and Darius Johnson, but it had to completely rebuild its front line. Everyone else in the conference (10 of them) are playing in home laughers. OK, Florida hosts South Florida, so that might be a game, but everything else is 90+% win probability for home SEC teams.

I really do want to know if Swindle and Kahahawai are dinged or ill or something. Singletary and Kahahawai together have owned the net. Kahahawai hardly played today, and we were outblocked 16-10.

Staved off 2. Outscored 27-11 over last 38 points. Ghastly.

Gee, just facing 7 match points.

We've been outscored 16-3 over last 19 points.

Announcer--Texas wants to do anything to avoid a fifth set. You might as well just flip a coin. Me--not this year. We're 0-4 in those.

No Swindle, and very little Kahahawai. Flu bug hit the team?

Set finished with back to back aces sent at OU player who was in the net on our 23rd point. Gotta be hard to shake off a streak like that. 25-19 Texas. 2-1 sets/

Solo block by Singletary just after coming down after her own middle hit that was sent back quickly. Great play. 19-13 Texas. OU timeout.

What a blast by Ames. 12-10 Texas. 14-11 and OU timeout now.

Wow. Reese Emerick appearing on the stat line.

Just got back from harvesting pecans. Swindle hurt, I take it?

Hedges are no defense to fans wanting to storm the field.

State of art agroid defense has allowed 530 yards tonight to the team that came into the game 96th in the country in total offense.

Bama has the advantage because they can take weapons to bars?

Just missed getting the ball. Too bad qb's head was in the way.

8 yards per carry, 40% completion rate, so you throw two incompletions to receivers at the line of scrimmage instead of trying to pound it on the ground, saving Agroids about a minute and 20 seconds.

I think it would be great if we could have the review booth send medical teams onto the field to conduct a full diagnosis to determine if the injury is legit. That would really speed up the game.

Reed!!!!!!

Sure is nice to get to play the bottom 6 teams in the conference.

I'm hoping for 400+