The Road to 358

On Saturday November 26th, 2022, I saw my 114th and 115th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the Boston University Terriers take on the Southeast Missouri State Hawks. This game was part of a four team MTE hosted by Milwaukee called The Cream City Classic. Boston is the 2nd team that I have seen out of the Patriot. Boston has a 4-1 record on the year, the one loss on the year came to UConn who has looked great. They most recently played New Hampshire and they won 64-57. The leading scorer for Boston is Walter Whyte and he is averaging 16.2 PPG. SEMO has a 4-1 record on the year. They most recently played William Woods and they won by a score of 87-49. The leading scorer for the Hawks is Phillip Russell and he is averaging 13.8 PPG.  Being this was a battle of a pair of 4-1 teams, I had no idea what to expect. On paper Boston U looked like the better team. However, the Terriers struggled in the first half. Boston scored ten points in the opening five minu...

On Friday November 25th 2022, I saw my 112th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the DePaul Blue Demons take on the Texas A&M Aggies. Texas A&M is the 4th team that I have seen out of the SEC. Texas A&M has a 3-2 record on the year. They most recently played Loyola Chicago and they won 67-51. The leading scorer for Texas A&M is Wade Taylor IV and he is averaging 14.2 PPG. DePaul has a 3-2 record on the year. They most recently played Oklahoma State and they lost 82-78. The leading scorer for the Blue Demons is Umoja Gibson and he is averaging 17.0 PPG. Texas A&M was by far the better team on paper. DePaul came in short handed. Texas A&M has been a struggle to predict this year however. They will beat teams they shouldn’t and lose games they should win. On this day, the hood Texas A&M showed up. The Aggies never trailed in the first half. Tyrece Radford played very well for Texas A&M in the first half. He finished the half with ...

On Saturday November 26th, 2022, I saw my 116th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the UC Davis Aggies take on the Milwaukee Panthers. UC Davis is the 2nd team that I have seen out of the Big West. UC Davis has a 4-1 record on the year. They most recently played Sacramento State and they won by a score of 82-71. The leading scorer for UC Davis is Elijah Pepper and he is averaging 21 PPG.  Milwaukee has a 2-3 record on the year. They most recently played St. Thomas and they lost 76-72.  The leading scorer for the Panthers is BJ Freeman and he is averaging 12.2 PPG.  I fully expected UC Davis to come out and dominate this one. However, I was sadly mistaken. Milwaukee played it’s best half against a Division One opponent all year. Everything was going right for them. UC Davis seemed frazzled from the tip. The bright spot for UC Davis was T.Y. Johnson, the former Loyola Chicago Rambler. He had 16 points on a perfect 6-6 shooting. The Panthers reall...

On Wednesday November 23rd, 2022, I saw my 112th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the St. Thomas Tommies take on the Milwaukee Panthers. St. Thomas is the 2nd team that I have seen out of the Summit. St. Thomas has a 4-2 record on the year. They most recently played Merrimack and they won 72-61. The leading scorer for St. Thomas is Riley Miller he is averaging 15.2 PPG. Milwaukee has a 2-2 record on the year. They most recently played Iowa State and they lost by a score of 68-53. The leading scorer for the Panthers is BJ Freeman and he is averaging 12.7 PPG. Last year Milwaukee was one of the most disappointing teams in College Basketball. They had a top five recruit who never played and a coach who couldn't lead a team with talent. Now we enter to the Bart Lundy Milwaukee era. Only four players return for Milwaukee this year so I really had no idea what to expect. From the get go, St Thomas and Milwaukee seemed very evenly matched. Both teams struggle...

On Monday November 21st, 2022, I saw my 111th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the Bellarmine Knights take on the Duke Blue Devils. Bellarmine is the 3rd team that I have seen out of the Atlantic Sun. Bellarmine has a 3-1 record on the year. They most recently played Clemson and they lost by a score of 76-66. The leading scorer for Bellarmine is Peter Suder and he is averaging 15.3 PPG. Duke has a 3-1 record on the year. They most recently played Delaware and they won by a score of 92-58. The leading scorer for the Blue Devils is Jeremy Roach and he is averaging 14 PPG.  As always, Cameron Indoor is a great venue for a game. I was a little nervous the atmosphere wouldn't be that great since the undergrads were on Thanksgiving break. It was still the same atmosphere that I witnessed when I saw the Devils play Florida State last year. When the first half started, you could tell that Bellarmine was not going to go down easy. They were very fundamentally s...

On Sunday November 20th, 2022, I saw my 109th and 110th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the James Madison Dukes take on the North Carolina Tarheels . James Madison is the 3rd team that I have seen out of the Sun Belt. North Carolina is the 7th team that I have seen out of the ACC. James Madison has a 4-0 record on the year. They most recently played Howard in which the Dukes won by a score of 95-69. The leading scorer for James Madison is Vado Morse he is averaging 15.8 PPG. North Carolina has a 3-0 record on the year. They most recently played Gardner-Webb and they won by a score of 72-66. Despite being the #1 ranked team in the country, North Carolina has struggled to start the year. Only beating Gardner-Webb by 6 and allowing Charleston to score 86 points. Could the Tarheels be on upset alert? The leading scorer for the Tarheels is Caleb Love he is averaging 20.7 PPG.  This was that game that on paper looked like a major chance for an upset. North ...

On Saturday November 19th, 2022, I saw my 108th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the Elon Phoenix take on the North Carolina State Wildcats. Elon is the 1st team that I have seen out of the CAA. I saw North Carolina State back in 2012 at the NCAA Tourney in Columbus OH. I will actually see NC State later in the season in Chicago as they take on Vandy. Elon has a 1-3 record on the year. They most recently played North Dakota. They dropped this contest by a score of 77-73 The leading scorer for Elon is Sean Halloran averaging 12.3 PPG. North Carolina State has a 3-0 record on the year. They most recently played FIU and they won by a score of 107-74. The leading scorer for the Wolfpack is Jarkel Joiner averaging 20.3 PPG. I expect Joiner and Sophomore Terquavion Smith to lead the charge against Elon. I will start this article by saying this. NC State is a very talented team. I am willing to say there aren't many backcourts better than Terquavion Smith and...

Well for my 107th different Division One College Basketball team, this might have been on the most unique game ever. On Friday November 11th, 2022, I saw the Stanford Cardinal take on the Wisconsin Badgers. This game was part of a doubleheader at American Family Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers. The event was coined as the Brew City Battle. Stanford is the 2nd team that I have seen out of the PAC 12.  Stanford comes in off an 88-78 win over Pacific. The Cardinal were led by Davidson transfer Michael Jones who had a game high 31 points. Wisconsin comes in off a 85-59 win over South Dakota. Leading scorer for Wisconsin was Tyler Wahl with 19 points. According to KenPom, Wisconsin is ranked 44th and Stanford is 59th.  I first want to talk about the venue before the actual game. Everyone hears about how tough it is to shoot at the Final Four when it is at a football stadium. I expected some very poor shooting at this game and that is what we saw in the first half. My seats wer...

Welcome to the 2022-23 College Basketball Season. My season kicked off on the opening day of the year as I saw my 106th Division One College Basketball team. On this occasion, I saw the Radford Highlanders take on the Marquette Golden Eagles. Radford is the 1st team and final team that I have seen out of the Big South. This game marks the start of the season for both teams. Radford finished 11-18 last year while Marquette finished 19-13 and lost to North Carolina in the 1st Round of the NCAA Tournament. Both teams have new looks this year. Radford will be looking to get good production out of former Villanova Wildcat, Bryan Antoine. Marquette will be looking to get good production from Kam Jones and Tyler Kolek this season following the loss of Justin Lewis.  You never know what you are going to get out of teams the first game of the year. Most schedule lesser opponents for a reason. It was only one year ago that I was writing about Marquette getting a couple of early season scares...