First Official Day Of The Regular Season

The NCAA decreed that no regular season games could occur before today, other than those already planned for Coaches vs Cancer, which meant that we got a massive slate of games today. Far too many games to get to in one post, so I'll go through a few games here, and then post some more later tonight. Before getting to today's games, though, I have to talk about the good game last night:

#4 UCLA 64, Miami (OH) 59
I hope you, the reader, were able to spend some time last night watching this game on ESPNU. Obviously, games don't have February/March intensity in November, and teams are still getting used to playing with each other, but this game was one of the best games any of us will watch until 2009. These early season games are also the perfect opportunities for teams like Miami of Ohio which have a ton of experienced players, but just don't have the pure athleticism and skill of a team like UCLA. It wasn't hard to tell which team had the higher-ranked recruits. But Miami stayed in this game with great passing and team defense. And in the end, it came down to a single shot. In their opening game, against Weber State, Kenny Hayes hit a go-ahead three-pointer with 1.7 seconds to go. In this one, he had a 3-pointer to tie with under 8 seconds to go. It clanged off the rim, and that was it. Miami has a few more shots at a big early season win, including a game at Pittsburgh on Monday. But they need one of these if they want a hope at an at-large bid. They don't want to turn into another VCU, which went 24-8 last year but a mere 0-3 against the RPI Top 50. Their season ended with a first round loss in the NIT. I do think that Miami has a great shot at the MAC title, and should duel with Kent State for the crown. But a win here would have been a great scalp to have in the event of a MAC Tournament loss in March.

#19 Florida 80, Toledo 58
A very impressive opener for Florida. Toledo is not a bad team, and a young Florida team just blew them off the court. Walter Hodge didn't even play too well (10 points in 31 minutes), but it really didn't matter. He'll be there when they need him. More importantly, Nick Calathes and Dan Werner (a combined 35 points on 12-for-21 shooting) are clearly both going to be big scorers in the SEC. They also look like they will be solid nine deep on the bench, which is key for a team that was relatively thin last year. That said, if there's one thing to keep an eye on it's the inside presence. Chandler Parsons played fine, but nothing too impressive. Alex Tyus got the start at center, but he wasn't too impressive either. I do think that Kenny Kadji will be the future on the inside for Florida, but he will probably be too raw to play a lot of minutes for some time. Kadji played nine minutes and had more blocks (2) than points (1). That might be something we see a lot of until Kadji becomes more seasoned and experienced. Still, a very good start for Florida. They'll be on ESPNU on Sunday afternoon against Bradley. Tune in.

VMI 111, Kentucky 103
Speaking of starts, it's hard to imagine anything worse for Kentucky than to start its season off with a bad loss to a very mediocre VMI team. VMI has historically been a high scoring team, but there is no excuse for Kentucky to give up 111 points in 40 minutes to a team that hadn't beaten a BCS conference team in nearly four years. To be fair, Kentucky really just let VMI get out to a big early lead (23 points at one point) and struggled to fight all the way back. But Kentucky had high expectations this season, and all of that is in question after this start. Jodie Meeks (39 points) and Perry Stevenson (20 points, 13 rebounds) were both outstanding, as was to be expected. But Kentucky seems remarkably thin, as only eight players even got in the game for Billy Gillispie's squad. Kentucky gets an immediate chance to bounce back, as they head to Chapel Hill for a game on Tuesday night. But I just don't see how anything good can come out of it. A better chance for a good win will happen during home games against Kansas State (November 29th), Miami of Florida (December 6th) and Indiana (December 13th).

#21 Wake Forest 94, North Carolina Central 48
This was obviously another one of those games where the result was never going to be in doubt. The most important part of this game was to see how Wake's freshmen would fare. The same freshmen who have encouraged me to believe that they're under-ranked. Of the freshmen, Tony Woods was good off the bench (12 points on 6-for-7 shooting), but the star was Al-Farouq Aminu (21 points and 10 rebounds), who is clearly living up to the hype. Expect him to be one of the best freshmen in the nation. Now, Wake isn't clicking perfectly yet. L.D. Williams had a poor game, and it will remain to be seen if Ty Walker will play a big part in this season. Wake Forest is going with a very easy out-of-conference schedule, so they should head into ACC with a very good record but as a still-unproven squad. But they will jump right into the deep end with UNC coming to town for their ACC opener on January 11th. Something to look forward to.


More game recaps to come soon.