" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

A Couple Links
The Comcast-Big Ten Network deal is official. Programming will begin on expanded basic cable on August 15. Comcast will have the option to move the channel to its digital basic package (not a digital sports tier) next year. I’ve already got a digital box (doesn’t everyone have to get one [...]

Now that the NBA early-entry decisions have all been finalized, the national college hoops experts are updating their preliminary top 25 rankings:

ESPN.com’s Andy Katz has MSU at #11.
Foxsports.com’s Jeff Goodman has MSU at #2.
Our own Joe Rexrode has MSU at #4.

All three experts have North Carolina #1. After that, there’s no real consensus:

Katz
Goodman
Rexrode

1
UNC
UNC
UNC

2
Pitt
MSU
UCLA

3
UCLA
UConn
Louisville

4
Notre Dame
Duke
MSU

5
Louisville
Gonzaga
Pitt

6
Duke
Louisville
UConn

7
Memphis
Notre [...]

SI.com’s Luke Winn has a breakdown of the winners and losers from offseason developments, with NBA early-entry decisions having been finalized yesterday. The biggest winner, of course, is North Carolina, which returns all three guys who had been looking at the NBA draft plus player of the year Tyler Hansborough (who didn’t even explore [...]

The LSJ has an in-depth feature on incoming Spartan Delvon Roe written by Joe Rexrode. Plenty of encouraging nuggets:

He’s on track to be 100% by the fall.
The microfracture surgery on his knee wasn’t nearly as substantial as that of other basketball players who have undergone the procedure.
He’s used the rehab time to improve his [...]

Here are the depth ratios for the 11 Big Ten teams during this past conference season:

Purdue
2.28

Penn St.
2.34

Minnesota
2.57

Michigan
2.63

Michigan St.
2.90

Illinois
3.03

Northwestern
3.32

Indiana
5.43

Wisconsin
6.53

Ohio St.
8.53

Iowa
11.35

This would further illustrate that, while depth appears to be a preqrequisite to success for Izzo-led teams, that’s not necessarily true for all college basketball teams. Of the four NCAA Tournament teams from top four teams [...]

Here are a couple NBA-related items:
In the midst of a made-for-TV finals match-up, the NBA gets hit with the ultimate allegation: league officials basically fixed playoff games to increase TV ratings.  Now ex-referee Tim Donaghy certainly doesn’t qualify as a rock of credibility, but here’s the thing: it doesn’t really matter whether Donaghy’s accusations are [...]

In my post looking back at the MSU basketball roster over the last 13 years, I asserted that depth is a key component for a Tom Izzo-coached team to be successful. This is, of course, not an original conclusion. The Artist Formerly Known as the Big Ten Wonk (TAFKATBTW) in a November 2006 [...]