We did not plan to talk about Halloween. But right at the top of this episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, which was recorded Tuesday afternoon, Matt Norlander wished me a Happy Halloween Eve -- at which point I explained how my neighborhood, late Monday night, nonsensically moved trick-or-treating from Wednesday night to Tuesday night.
Terrible decision.
Somebody didn't think this through.
So I ranted on this ridiculousness for a few minutes. After that, the conversation went like this ...
- 7:16: The CBS Sports Preseason All-American teams published Tuesday afternoon. So we discussed our First Team -- including our Preseason National Player of the Year (Duke's RJ Barrett). Then we tried to identify some players left off of all three of our teams who could maybe turn into First Team All-Americans by the end of the season. My suggestions were North Carolina's Nassir Little, Michigan State's Cassius Winston and some Kentucky player -- perhaps Reid Travis.
- 16:18: Nevada's Eric Musselman is our Preseason Coach of the Year. And, I think, he really is the favorite to also be the Postseason Coach of the Year because he is, at least on paper, at risk of losing very few games once the Mountain West Conference schedule arrives. Simply put, Nevada is SO MUCH BETTER, again, on paper, than anybody else in its league -- evidence being how the Wolf Pack are No. 6 in KenPom's preseason ratings while the second-best MWC team (San Diego State) is 65th. If you set the over-under for Nevada wins on Selection Sunday at 29, I'd probably take the over. And any Nevada coach with 30 wins on Selection Sunday is probably going to be the favorite to win National Coach of the Year.
- 29:35: Norlander recently did a piece on some programs that earned at-large bids to the 2018 NCAA Tournament that won't return to the 2019 NCAA Tournament. So we spent a few minutes on that. We discussed, among other teams, Arizona, Wichita State and Texas A&M.
The latest Eye on College Basketball podcast is below. Give it a listen. And if you're not already subscribed, please subscribe to the podcast via iTunes. If you are already subscribed, thank you. And #ShoutsToDevanDowney.
