Tweet
I have the brand new cbsSportsline.com College Basketball Preseaon Issue, and will give a full report.
On the cover: Brandon Rush (Kansas), Brian Randall (Illinois), and Drew Neitzel (Michigan State).
First you have to get past all the oblilgatory self loving full page ads for CBS, CBS's website cbssportsline.com, and all the CBS affiliates, as well as full bios on all the CBS broadcasters and personalities, and all the full page promos on all their upcoming basketball coverage and scheduled games, and sales talks about CBS gear, etc.
Then you see the incredible love affair everyone who writes this issue has for Greg Oden. I know he's a great player, but he definitely get disproportionate attention in this issue.
Their POY-Joakim Noah
1st Team All Americans: Noah, Tyler Hansbrough, Glen Davis, Nick Fazekas, Corey Brewer.
2nd Team All Americans: Luc Richard Mbah A Moute, Brandon Rush, Greg Oden, Jared Dudley, Dominic James.
3rd Team All Americans: Taureen Green, Josh McRoberts, Aaron Gray, Aaron Afflalo, Ronald Steele.
Then an editorial about how great Greg Oden is, then an article about how great the incoming Class of 2006 is, especially Oden
Then an article about Florida and how they expect Florida to repeat.
THEN A GREAT, GREAT ARTICLE ON THE MISSOURI VALLEY
The title is "No Avoiding the Valley", "The Valley is Valid", and a full page, nice picture of Jim Les with Will Franklin in the background.
It's a full size version of this pic:
The article is by Gary Parrish and he drools lots of love all over the Valley, and really has a lot of nice things to say.
Other nice pics of Blake Ahearn, Nate Funk.
And a little discussion about how the BCS guys are afraid to schedule the Valley any more. Here's a line from Jim Les:
"But when we tell them we'll come to their place and play them as long as they return the game the next year, then all of a sudden the demeanors of those coaches are a lot different than what their public demeanors are. It's like they want to criticize our league and criticize our success, but they certainly don't want to prove it on the basketball court."
Parrish also points out how the attendance at Valley schools beats some Big Ten, Pac Ten, and top ranked schools.
Then an article about Memphis, then a listing of their predicted Top 64 teams for 2006-2007.
I will list just the top 20 (and MVC schools) for reference:
1-Florida
2-Kansas
3-UNC
4-UCLA
5-Wisconsin
6-Ohio State
7-Georgetown
8-Memphis
9-Pitt
10-Ga Tech
11-LSU
12-Duke
13-Syracuse
14-Texas
15-Tennessee
16-Washington
17-Alabama
18-Southern Illinois
19-Louisville
20-Akron
22-Wichita State
33-Creighton
41-Missouri State
42-Illinois
Then they have lots of conference reports, going thoroughly over all the different teams but they have some errors and omissions.
The conferences are arranged alphabetically so you have to dig to page 112 to get to the FOUR page Missouri Valley report.
it is very thorough and accurate.
They pick Bradley to be "near the top of the MVC standings", and they have Daniel Ruffin as a 2nd Team All-Valley pick.
1st Team-Tatum, Ahearn, Couisnard, Webster, Stout
2nd Team-Ruffin, Young, Holzinger, Coleman, Tolliver
(they make very little mention of Funk or Kyle Wilson)
POY pick is Tatum.
In the Bradley writeup they are obviously unaware of Xavier Crawford's departure at the time they wrote it, and are also completely unaware of Ray Brown's year long suspension.
Then they review all the kids who are Class of 2007, the present group of high school seniors.
Kevin Love is #1, OJ Mayo #2, Eric Gordon is #3, Derrick Rose is #4.
They have a Top-60 high school juniors ranking (Lewis Jackson is #60 tied with Ralph Sampson, Jr.), then they have a short womens preview followed by a recap of all the 2006 NCAA tourney games, scores, etc.
If anyone has any specific questions, let me know.
I am also going to try to do a recap of the other preview issues.
On the cover: Brandon Rush (Kansas), Brian Randall (Illinois), and Drew Neitzel (Michigan State).
First you have to get past all the oblilgatory self loving full page ads for CBS, CBS's website cbssportsline.com, and all the CBS affiliates, as well as full bios on all the CBS broadcasters and personalities, and all the full page promos on all their upcoming basketball coverage and scheduled games, and sales talks about CBS gear, etc.
Then you see the incredible love affair everyone who writes this issue has for Greg Oden. I know he's a great player, but he definitely get disproportionate attention in this issue.
Their POY-Joakim Noah
1st Team All Americans: Noah, Tyler Hansbrough, Glen Davis, Nick Fazekas, Corey Brewer.
2nd Team All Americans: Luc Richard Mbah A Moute, Brandon Rush, Greg Oden, Jared Dudley, Dominic James.
3rd Team All Americans: Taureen Green, Josh McRoberts, Aaron Gray, Aaron Afflalo, Ronald Steele.
Then an editorial about how great Greg Oden is, then an article about how great the incoming Class of 2006 is, especially Oden
Then an article about Florida and how they expect Florida to repeat.
THEN A GREAT, GREAT ARTICLE ON THE MISSOURI VALLEY
The title is "No Avoiding the Valley", "The Valley is Valid", and a full page, nice picture of Jim Les with Will Franklin in the background.
It's a full size version of this pic:
The article is by Gary Parrish and he drools lots of love all over the Valley, and really has a lot of nice things to say.
Other nice pics of Blake Ahearn, Nate Funk.
And a little discussion about how the BCS guys are afraid to schedule the Valley any more. Here's a line from Jim Les:
"But when we tell them we'll come to their place and play them as long as they return the game the next year, then all of a sudden the demeanors of those coaches are a lot different than what their public demeanors are. It's like they want to criticize our league and criticize our success, but they certainly don't want to prove it on the basketball court."
Parrish also points out how the attendance at Valley schools beats some Big Ten, Pac Ten, and top ranked schools.
Then an article about Memphis, then a listing of their predicted Top 64 teams for 2006-2007.
I will list just the top 20 (and MVC schools) for reference:
1-Florida
2-Kansas
3-UNC
4-UCLA
5-Wisconsin
6-Ohio State
7-Georgetown
8-Memphis
9-Pitt
10-Ga Tech
11-LSU
12-Duke
13-Syracuse
14-Texas
15-Tennessee
16-Washington
17-Alabama
18-Southern Illinois
19-Louisville
20-Akron
22-Wichita State
33-Creighton
41-Missouri State
42-Illinois
Then they have lots of conference reports, going thoroughly over all the different teams but they have some errors and omissions.
The conferences are arranged alphabetically so you have to dig to page 112 to get to the FOUR page Missouri Valley report.
it is very thorough and accurate.
They pick Bradley to be "near the top of the MVC standings", and they have Daniel Ruffin as a 2nd Team All-Valley pick.
1st Team-Tatum, Ahearn, Couisnard, Webster, Stout
2nd Team-Ruffin, Young, Holzinger, Coleman, Tolliver
(they make very little mention of Funk or Kyle Wilson)
POY pick is Tatum.
In the Bradley writeup they are obviously unaware of Xavier Crawford's departure at the time they wrote it, and are also completely unaware of Ray Brown's year long suspension.
Then they review all the kids who are Class of 2007, the present group of high school seniors.
Kevin Love is #1, OJ Mayo #2, Eric Gordon is #3, Derrick Rose is #4.
They have a Top-60 high school juniors ranking (Lewis Jackson is #60 tied with Ralph Sampson, Jr.), then they have a short womens preview followed by a recap of all the 2006 NCAA tourney games, scores, etc.
If anyone has any specific questions, let me know.
I am also going to try to do a recap of the other preview issues.
Comment