Tuesday's Shootaround: Exhibition losses overshadow the start of the season?

As exciting as it was for us college hoopheads to finally be watching meaningful basketball, by the end of the night my twitter feed was dominated not by talk of Brad Wanamaker's performance or Maryland's point guard struggles, but by the D-II schools that knocked off two SEC teams last night.

• Tennessee, who we ranked at 18th in the preseason, not only lost, they lost by 15 to Indianapolis University. The Vols allowed a decisive 26-3 run to open the second half. I wonder if Bruce Pearl admitted to recognizing the box score after the game. Indianapolis plays in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, which is also home to Lewis, who knocked off DePaul over the weekend, and Bellarmine, who handled Xavier.
  


• Auburn isn't expected to be nearly as good as Tennessee this season, but the Tigers still struggled to a 54-52 loss to Columbus State last night.


• Alabama very nearly joined Tennessee and Auburn in the loss column. UA-Huntsville took the Crimson Tide to double overtime before losing.
  


• And then there is Indiana, who needed to come back from 13 down in the last seven minutes and from nine down in in the final 2:22 of regulation just to be able to have a buzzer beater from Ferris State get waved off to force overtime. The Hoosiers ended up winning 78-65.
  

But enough about the games that don't matter, because last night they actually played games that do, in fact, count!

Pitt 83, Rhode Island 75: The Rams threw a scare into the Panthers thanks to the hot shooting of Delroy James, Akeem Richmond, and Nikola Malesevic, but in the end Rhody just did not play enough transition defense. URI likes to get up and pressure in the full court, and they did have some success in forcing turnovers. But once Pitt broke that press they were able to get layups on seemingly every possession. And while I loved what I saw from Nasir Robinson's replacements -- particularly redshirt freshman Talib Zanna, who finished with 9 points, 11 boards, and 2 blocks -- it should be noted that if Pitt had made their layups, this would have been a 20 point game.


One more note about this game. Everyone talks about Ashton Gibbs when they talk about Pitt, and rightfully so. Gibbs is a tremendous player. But the best player on the floor last night was Brad Wanamaker. Gibbs may be listed as the point guard on the roster, but Wanamaker is the facilitator of this offense. He finished last night with 24 points, 8 assists, and just 2 turnovers.

Maryland 105, Seattle 76: This was a pretty ugly game to watch, as both clubs were pressing and trying to kick up the tempo. Sean Mosley (21 points, 4 boards, 4 assists) and Jordan Williams (17 points, 15 boards) both had good games, but it was clear that the Terps success this season is going to be determined at the point. Senior Adrian Bowie struggled handling the ball, finishing with seven turnovers. The answer may end up being one of the two talented Terps freshmen. Pe'Shon Howard really looked good last night, showing some defensive ability, athleticism, and making a number of nice passes and finishing with 8 assists.

Terrell Stoglin had more of an up and down game, and while he had a few "freshman" turnovers, he did do some things I really liked. One example that stands out -- midway through the first half, Stoglin had an ugly turnover that led to an uncontested layup for Seattle. He tried to chase the player down, couldn't catch up, but then took the in bounds and went coast to coast for an and-one layup. He finished with 15 points and 5 assists, but also had 4 turnovers. Maryland, as a team, had 29.

Texas 83, Navy 52: Texas is a talented team, there is no question about that. In the first half, however, they really struggled with Navy's 1-2-2 matchup zone, which isn't necessarily unexpected considering their relative inexperience. In the second half, Jordan Hamilton really turned it on, finishing with 26 points and 10 boards. In the first half, he settled for too many threes as did the Longhorns team as a whole, but after Barnes made some halftime adjustments (and, most likely, ripped Hamilton and co. about taking those threes) the Horns' offense was much smoother. The Texas freshman -- Tristan Thompson (12 points, 7 boards, 4-10 FT's) and Cory Joseph (5 points, 3 assists) -- weren't overwhelmingly impressive.

Illinois 79, UC Irvine 65: The Illini jumped out to a 38-10 lead in the first half thanks, in large part, to five threes from sophomore Brandon Paul. The Anteaters made a run in the second half, and the Illini seemed to get a bit lackadaisical down the stretch. Its difficult to take much out of this game. Tisdale looked very solid in the paint, although UC Irvine was undersized big time. Bruce Weber's freshmen all played solid minutes. McCamey was typical McCamey (13 points, 8 assists, 5 turnovers). There is a lot to like about this Illinois team when they put it all together.