Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. We’re in the midst of the early season tournaments, and they give us plenty to talk about as we expected. But first, we had to step outside that realm.
Amidst all the tournament and showcase action, Stephen F. Austin grabbed top billing as they went to Durham and edged Duke in overtime on a buzzer-beating layup. It ends Duke’s 150-game home non-conference winning streak.
We then get into some of the early season tournaments that have been in action to date, starting with the Charleston Classic. Florida won it, but the team they beat, Xavier, got there after winning a double overtime thriller two nights earlier that we get into more detail on.
The next tournament to get into is the Maui Invitational, which has often had the best tournament field but may not this year. However, it has given us excellent games, as well as Obi Toppin’s national coming-out party as Dayton is in the final. In Michigan State’s win over Georgia, Cassius Winston and Anthony Edwards both looked like the kind of stars they did not look like in their first games in Maui.
As we later get into games like Butler’s win in the Hall of Fame Classic championship game, we then get into local rivalries, many of which have been lost. College basketball has a great stretch with these tournaments, but thus far the opening weeks have been lackluster. Many local rivalries have been lost due to conference realignment, but teams should be playing local rivals as one way to get fans interested in the sport before March, or even late February. Ted has a call to action on this for our listeners and media colleagues.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Happy Thanksgiving, and we hope you tune in next week as we continue to talk about college basketball.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
