Anthony Mason Jr. returned to action on January 9  in Louisville, nearly 14 months after his college career seemingly ended. His first shot back clanged off the rim, just long.  But in truth there were days his return appeared a longshot. The return has not been completed.  His lateral movement appears cautious and the forward [...]

The Big East Conference expected to suffer a dramatic drop-off in national success this year.  The conference sent nine players to the NBA draft, and nearly every program lost multiple three-year starters. Surprisingly, the power conference lost little of its nationwide dominance.  In this edition of the Beast Report, we take a look at the [...]

Two teams filled with gold/black bedecked players tussled last Tuesday night in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.  The Purdue Boilermakers outlasted the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, 69-58 in a battle between two programs that crossed paths while seemingly headed in different directions. Despite recently sending two players to the NBA, Wake has not won an NCAA [...]

Wisconsin scored a big victory for both its program and the Big Ten conference on Wednesday night. The Badgers upset No. 5 Duke 73-69 on the final day of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, all but clinching the Big Ten’s first win in the 11-year history of the event. Wisconsin’s triumph officially evened the 2009 score at [...]

What looked early to be the least competitive game of the entire Big Ten-ACC Challenge ended up being its most intense. Early on, the Clemson Tigers could do no wrong, as Trevor Booker showed exactly why he’s in the discussion for ACC Player of the Year.  No Illini big man was able to figure out [...]

For the third time less than a full year, the Spartans and Tar Heels battled in the national spotlight. And for the third time, the Tar Heels turned what was supposed to be a hard-fought battle into a one-team coronation with a convincing thrashing of a highly-ranked and highly-talented Spartan squad. You would think losing [...]

Maryland went into Bloomington, Indiana on Tuesday night and pulled out a hard-fought 80-68 victory over the Hoosiers to put the ACC on the scoreboard of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. The Terrapins trailed throughout the majority of the first half before earning a 35-33 advantage at the intermission. After a back-and-forth start to the second [...]

Sean Miller left Xavier in the spring, reinforcing the belief that Xavier is a launching-pad program.  The last four lead Musketeers, all wildly successful at the Cincinnati campus, moved on to bigger and better things. It’s hard to blame a guy for accepting the head coaching position at the University of Arizona where the money, [...]

Dayton’s win over Creighton, though expected, raises the national focus on the Flyers from a whimper to a murmur. Brian Gregory’s bunch of athletic anomalies got national airplay by playing in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tipoff, but they lost to Villanova and Kansas State. Forward Chris Wright, offered by Michigan State, can only [...]

This is one of the better brackets in recent memory (of course I would say that, given my projection). But top-to-bottom, Mike Slive’s Committee did a fantastic job of selection and seeding. Surprises: Boston College: A 7-seed seems a bit high for a team that lost to Harvard and Saint Louis in the non-conference portion [...]