Big West

2008 CollegeHoops.net Mid-Major All-Americans

CHN — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:12:32 -0700

CollegeHoops.net Mid-Major Player of the Year: Stephen Curry (Davidson)

CollegeHoops.net First Team Mid-Major All-American
G: Stephen Curry (Davidson)
G: Mike Green (Butler)
G: Courtney Lee (WKU)
F AZ Reid (High Point)
F: Jason Thompson (Rider)

CollegeHoops.net Second Team Mid-Major All-American
G: Lester Hudson (UT- Martin)
G: Patty Mills (Saint Mary’s)
G: George Hill (IUPUI)
F: Reggie Williams (VMI)
F: Gyno Pomare (San Diego)

CollegeHoops.net Third Team Mid-Major All-American
G: Al Fisher (Kent State)
G: Bo McCalebb (New Orleans)
F: Charron Fisher (Niagara)
F: Kyle Hines (UNCG)
F: Ryan Wittman (Cornell)

CollegeHoops.net FourthTeam Mid-Major All-American
G: Alex Harris (UCSB)
G: AJ Graves (Butler)
G: Demetric Bennett (South Alabama)
F: Tim Pollitz (Miami)
F: Thomas Sanders (Gardner Webb)

Mid-Major Honorable Mention:
Josh Alexander (Stephen F Austin), Marqus Blakely (Vermont), John Bryant (Santa Clara), J’Nathan Bullock (Cleveland State), Scott Cutley (Fullerton), Jeremiah Dominguez (Portland State), Justin Hare (Belmont), Brandon Johnson (San Diego), Dior Lowhorn (San Francisco), Jason Richards (Davidson), Jonathan Rodriguez (Campbell), Greg Sprink (Navy)

The CollegeHoops.net All-American teams are voted on by staff writers. Up tomorrow are our All-Rookie teams.

CHN 2007-08 Postseason Awards

All-Americans, All-Rookie, Top Coaches & more!

Daily Dribble: Friday Report Card

Shawn Siegel — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:31:22 -0800

The Report Card

A - Big West Race

The battle for top spot in the Big West is shaping up to be an exciting race. The top four teams in the conference met last night with Pacific beating Northridge in OT and UCSB getting the best of Fullerton. These four teams are now all within a game of each other. Northridge is still the favorite in my opinion, as their schedule shapes up nicely.. with a challenging road game at Fullerton, but otherwise home games or easy road games remaining.

B - Pittsburgh

When Levance Fields and Mike Cook went down right before New Year's, this team looked like it might collapse. But since the Dayton debacle, the Panthers have hung tough in Big East play and currently sit at 6-4 after Ramon's buzzer-beater upended West Virginia. The Panthers did enough in their non-conference schedule so that anything over .500 in league play should situate them nicely for the Big Dance. The rest of their schedule is by no means a walk in the park, four road games at Marquette, ND, WVU, and Syracuse remain, which is why last night's win was so important.

C - Shaun Pruitt

Watching the senior hit only 1 of 7 free throws, including two at the end of the 2nd OT that could have won the game, was painful. But it pains me to put Pruitt low on the list, because he's one of my favorite players in the Big Ten, is the team's most consistent player, and he's worked hard to improve since freshman year.

D - Virginia

Remember when the Cavs beat Arizona back in November and then almost beat Syracuse a couple weeks later. They were 10-2 heading into January 1st, but are just 1-8 in 2008.. must have been some bad champagne on New Year's. Obviously the increased talent-level of the ACC competition is a big reason for the struggles, but they're not even coming close to winning games. Making things worse, its not like youth is an excuse. Singletary & Joseph are seniors, and Diane is a junior.

F - Illini Nation

Enough with the Eric Gordon obsession. It's not his fault your coach can't recruit.. brought in nobody with talent last year, and has no one good lined up for next year. At one point during the game, the announcers mentioned that this team "has more talent" than a 10-14 team. But that's completely wrong. This team barely has the talent of a 10-14 team.. but Weber's coaching (he can't recruit but he can coach) keeps them in games.

The Daily Report Card tells you all you need to know about the day in college hoops. From good to bad and bad to worse, I'll be laying down the law.

Previous Best / Worst

February 6th - Chris Lofton / Dick Vitale

February 5th - Bob Knight / Josh Heytvelt

February 4th - New York Giants / Washington State

February 1st - Nevada / Penn

January 31st - Kansas State / St. John's

January 29th - Winthrop / Dyson & Wiggins

January 28th - Rutgers / Doris Burke

January 25th - Ron Hunter / Princeton Offense

January 23rd - Kentucky / Archbishop Burke

January 22nd - DJ Augustin / Scott Sutton

January 21st - New York Giants / Marquette

January 20th - Maryland / ESPN.com editors

January 18th - Cleveland State / Marquette

January 17th - Drake / HP Laptops

January 14th - Roy Hibbert / Michigan State

January 10th - Tony Bennett / Saint Louis

January 9th - DJ White / CSTV

January 8th - Robert Morris / Schedule Makers

January 7th - Wayne Ellington / Illinois

January 6th - Herb Sendek / Kentucky

Daily Poll: Who Will Win the Big West?

Shawn Siegel — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:43:22 -0700

Joel Knows: Weekend Review

Joel Welser — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:37:10 -0800

Does Joel know everything? Anything? Or does Joel simply know nothing? Find out every Sunday in Joel Welser’s new weekly column: Joel Knows.

Joel knows Michigan State’s unbalanced conference schedule will come back to haunt them. In the Big Ten, each team plays four opponents just one time. The Spartans randomly drew Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue and Minnesota. With all due respect to the Boilermakers, it’s hard to argue that those aren’t the four worst teams in the Big Ten. To make matters worse, of the four, the Spartans get Northwestern and Minnesota at home. Not having a game at Northwestern is like not having a home game. It could be worse though, we could be talking about the Big East scheduling.

Joel knows that all of Corvallis should be embarrassed. The Bruins of UCLA absolutely annihilated Oregon State 82-35 on Saturday. The good news is OSU already beat Arizona State on the road. The Beavers and the Sun Devils square off again next weekend and Oregon State could end up 2-16 in conference…a full two games ahead of the winless ASU squad. Yet, some props need to be given to ASU for nearly beating a ranked Washington State squad on Saturday.

Joel knows the SEC West is messed up. The West leader heading into the weekend was Auburn at just 4-4. The Tigers got beat bad by Ole Miss 59-82, leaving the top spot even more wide open than it was before. A struggling Alabama team has taken the lead after a nail biting win over South Carolina. Even many prognosticators favorite LSU has lost five in a row and is a surprising 2-6 in conference.

Joel knows Colorado really needed a big win. With Ricardo Patton a lame duck coach and the Buffaloes heading into the weekend with a dismal 5-13 record, nobody would have had a second thought if the Buffs finished out the season without winning another game. Yet, when #12 Oklahoma State came to town, CU held onto their 15 point halftime lead to win 89-77. Dominique Coleman tied a career high with 21 points and achieved a career high with 15 rebounds. This could be a spark for Colorado to turn around the program…or it could be more of an indication that Oklahoma State will never win a conference game on the road.

Joel knows Indianapolis won the precursor to the Super Bowl over Chicago. IUPUI, that’s Indiana University, Purdue University at Indianapolis, narrowly escaped with a victory over Chicago State 79-77 on Thursday. If it is any indication, the Colts will beat the Bears, but at least it will be close.

Joel knows Texas A&M Corpus Christi will dominate the Southland conference in five years. This time last year the Islanders were without a conference, and we were still talking about a potential NIT berth. Now TAMU CC is 7-1 in the Southland with their only losses on the season coming at the hands of Oklahoma State, Mississippi State, UNLV, Purdue and conference favorite Sam Houston State.

Joel knows the Big West Conference Tournament is going to be fun. For the first time in a while, there is not a dominant team in the conference. Utah State is gone and Pacific is very far from a conference power this year. I wrote up a blurb about everybody but UC Riverside having a chance to take home the conference tournament championship, but then the previously 0-7 Highlanders went and did something crazy like beat top team Cal State Fullerton 82-76. Now it will be even crazier in Anaheim come March and with a free trip to the semifinals for the top two seeds and a bye to the quarterfinals for the next two seeds, jockeying for position down the stretch is of the utmost importance.

Joel knows that Loyola (MD) can make the NCAA Tournament since their first and only trip in 1994. Despite Saturday’s loss at Marist, the Greyhounds remain atop the Metro Atlantic standings at 9-3. A couple of Big East transfers in Gerald Brown (Providence) and Omari Israel (Notre Dame) are leading the way. Brown averages 22.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists, while Israel adds on 9.2 points and 5.7 boards per contest. Throw in the long range shooting of Marquis Sullivan and the point guard play of Brett Harvey, and you have yourself a dangerous team come MAAC tourney time.

Joel knows just a few years ago Western Illinois looked like a team that could be competitive in the Mid-Continent Conference. Now the Leathernecks, which boast one of the coolest nicknames in all of division I hoops, are in a downward spiral. Coach Derek Thomas brought in a renewed sense of hope, mostly thanks to sharpshooter T.J. Gray, but that disappeared very quickly. After going 3-25 in 2003-2004, Gray, despite a decrease in playing time his sophomore season, led the Leathernecks to an 11-17 record the following year. Gray then transferred and is now starting at Illinois-Chicago, leaving WIU back in the basement of the Mid-Con. This year, the Leathernecks have three wins over division I teams and five overall in an amazingly weak schedule. It would be a surprise if they win another game, but we’ll give them a legitimate shot on senior night against Southern Utah.

Joel knows that he will eat too much chip dip while watching the Super Bowl.

Big West Conference Preview

CHN — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 09:46:14 -0800

Conference Previews | Top 144 | 06-07 Preview Home

Big West Preview

Conference Rank: 21st

Conference Page

All-Conference

Player of the Year - Bobby Brown, CS Fullerton, G

Aaron Nixon, Long Beach St, G

Anthony Esparza, Pacific, F

Derek Stockalper, Cal Poly, F

Chris Devine, UCSB, F

Nat'l	Team (Click for Preview)	Conf	Tourney
111	Pacific	1	NCAA
137	Long Beach St	2
156	Cal Poly	3
195	CS Fullerton	4
207	UC Irvine	5
243	UC Santa Barbara	6
263	CS Northridge	7
286	UC Riverside	8

Other Big South Articles

David Spencer - UC Riverside

Pat Douglass - UC Irvine