I enjoyed the read this week.
1. "former UT coach/Trap favorite Kevin O’Neill"
It makes sense he would be a favorite. The guy sucked at UT and is about to get drilled by Pearl but everyone blames it on lack of talent. At Arizona it was hard to make that argument, at USC it will be even harder once the full roster is available. He does preach half court defense, unfortunately he is also in the running with Bo Ryan for most horrible offense run by a coach many people consider very good.
2. Also, it would be a nice nonconference scalp for a conference in desperate need of some quality wins.
Huh? Because the Big 10 has lots of better quality wins? Purdue has TN and Alabama...The Big 12 and the Big 10 and every other conference in basketball except the ACC and the Big East are in desperate need of some quality wins if the SEC is. The SEC has wins against UConn, UNC, Michigan State, Florida State, Indiana (twice), St. Mary's,
4. The guess here is that this one will be one of the more intensely contested games of the early season.
So WVU and Ole Miss will be close? You said aside from the obvious SEC sucks jabs that WVU was one of the best teams in the country. I said they are overrated and would lose to Ole Miss or Purdue. A little hedging now that the game is upon us?
I guess the concerns you had about South Carolina playing Richmond were wrong.
Richmond Spiders vs. South Carolina Gamecocks - Recap - December 16, 2009 - ESPN The Downey led Gamecocks have no bad losses, just one to Miami (10-1 with a one point loss on the road to BC) and Clemson (9-2 losses to Illinois by 2 and to Texas A&M a team with 2 losses to UNM and WVU). If they can win December 30th at BC and Jan. 2 at Baylor they will have to start getting some respect nationally.
Lastly, this was not in your blog but Duke Gonzaga should be a good measuring stick tilt.