LATEST STORIES FROM HOOPRAKER
The Purdue Paragon
Outside the State of Indiana, the names and talents of Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore were not particularly well-known at the season’s inception. It was the darlings of Major Media, IU’s Eric Gordon and Thad Matta’s next great recruiting class led by Kosta...
Purdue Indiana CXCI
An august rivalry once dictated by two coaching mastodons is now steered by a rapidly rising acolyte in West Lafayette and a lame duck scofflaw in Bloomington. As if the clash for Indiana bragging rights needed more amplitude, Tuesday's game is a smorgasboard of both backstory...
Michigan State & Indiana: The First Fundamental
Over two seasons, the Michigan State Spartans have developed an inexplicable aversion to taking care of the basketball. Against IU on Saturday night, the Spartans' turnovers did them in once again. Will they get it straightened before the season passes them by?
Bitter Red Pill: Wisconsin & Indiana Basketball
Hoopraker looks at the week in Big Ten Basketball, from Wisconsin's methodical sweep of Indiana to the trials of Kelvin Sampson and whether Illinois and Bruce Weber can finally start winning some games.
Loose Balls: November 12
Rare indeed are November weekends where victories against Army, Idaho State, Radford and Brown portend anything more than a cheap win let alone the virtues of progress and hope. But in Iowa City, Ann Arbor and Minneapolis, the Big Ten Conference welcomed Todd Lickliter, John Beilein...
Sheep And Shepherd
With a vast swath of the pundit class bleating the name of Eric Gordon and installing his one year affiliation Hoosiers as conference heavies, the stench emanating from the program continues unabated. With an inevitability that Hoopraker foresaw from the moment of his coronation by...
Another Set Of Standings
Amidst the giddy anticipation of pre-season as coaches and players moved from the Vegas-lite of Midnight Madness into official practice, from intrasquad runs to the blowouts and mock upsets (Grand Valley State, Findlay) of exhibition games, from rusty jumpers, mistimed cuts, and bad...
Kid Coble Becomes The Man
In the final weeks of preseason when most paid observers are sloughing out their banal, predictable top ten lists (UNC and UCLA are locks for San Antonio!) and bandwagon storylines (Eric Gordon is the new Kevin Durant!), there are some Big Ten stories that deserve more than the passing...
Post Mortem And Last Rites
At last the Thad Five All-Stars were put to rest, losing demonstrably and without ever seriously threatening a Florida team that had only one five star recruit and nary an instant NBA lottery pick but much more of what makes for high IQ basketball and championship basketball teams...
Loose Balls: November 8
With green leaves still clinging to the red maple trees outside my window, it’s hard to grasp November is here and the Big Ten Basketball season is upon us. In an off-season highlighted by the addition of three head coaches into the Big Ten brethren, the Conference now boasts...
In the Wake of Freshmen
With three of his four freshmen ditching Columbus, Thad Matta and Ohio State are left in the lurch, shrugging shoulders and pointing fingers. Rationalized as the inevitable consequence of recruiting five-star players by the ever growing basketball cogniscienti, unfortunately this predicament...
Jump Back On The Brucewagon
By the end of the day on October 11, Bruce Weber, the nation’s winningest coach during his four years at Illinois, found his bandwagon had gone from roomy to full capacity. With the verbal commitments of class of 2008 Simeon (via Leo Catholic) forward Stan Simpson, and 2009 guards...
What’s a Hoopraker?
hoop·rake
intr.v. hoop·raked, hoop·rak·ing, hoop·rakes
A hoopraker (n. hoop-rak-er) is a journalist, writer or filmmaker who investigates and exposes societal issues effecting college basketball, such as exemplary effort, player development, coaching incompetence, institutional...
Loose Balls: October 24
Summer is when this rake forgoes his acid-tipped quill for three uninterrupted months of profuse sweating, baseball intolerance, and trips to Gotham mechanic-criminals who charge usurious rates to stare fecklessly at my car’s AC system. This summer was no different. But just...
The Team in Iowa
When Steve Alford quit on Iowa last April, he bestowed upon Hawkeye fans the unanticipated gift of a coaching vacancy. Moving swiflty after an ill-conceived interlude with Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl, Iowa AD Gary Bartha displayed his basketball acumen by hiring a coaches’...
Bounce For The Buck
The story is an increasingly familiar one. Facing criticism from fans, alumni, boosters, and the media class, an athletic director capitulates to the most superficial elements of the peanut gallery, snow-jobs the president and the budget director, and makes a budget-busting hire that...
For Callum
On what may be considered a quiet moment in the college basketball universe, I want to direct your attention to something off topic but far more important.
Friends of friends of mine, J. Robbins (formerly of the band Jawbox) and Janet Morgan, have a one year old son named Callum who...
Red Scare
"It's not the end of the world or the end of the program. I think it's one of those ugly coincidences. These were not violations of any kind of moral turpitude and I think we should put it behind us because we're going to have a good season."–Patrick Shoulders...
Kelvin Sampson: Sheep and Shepherd
With the announcement today of NCAA allegations of major infractions against Indiana University and its rescidivist coach Kelvin Sampson, Hoopraker looks to the transgressions of Sampson and the enabling environment fostered by IU from October 2007.
The Excellence Problem - Michigan State
Such are the kingly basketball standards in East Lansing that even the best start in the 109-year history of the program, twenty wins by early February, and the tenth spot in the current AP poll aren't enough to keep Tom Izzo and the legions of his zone from maligning the team...
The Purdue Paragon
Outside the State of Indiana, the names and talents of Robbie Hummel and E'Twaun Moore were not particularly well-known at the season's inception. It was the darlings of Major Media, IU's Eric Gordon and Thad Matta's next great recruiting class led by Kosta Koufos and...
Murphy’s Law
With his acceptance of the Green Bay Packers team presidency Northwestern Athletic Director Mark Murphy will depart Evanston by January 1. The question in his wake is whether his tacit two-year evaluation window of Bill Carmody will remain in effect.
Will a regime change buy Carmody...
Tornadoes and Lightning in January
Though there were tornadoes and lightning on the outside, the Horizon League contest in the Gentile Center on the Loyola University campus in Chicago, was a calm and well-contested game between Loyola and Butler. Nationally ranked No. 14, the Butler Bulldogs demonstrated their signature...
Robbing the Cradle
The ink’s dry on the November letters of intent for the high schoolers fortunate enough to have been offered Division I basketball scholarships. Lost in the parsing of recruiting classes, the accolades of team rankings, and the rating of players with “stars” is an...
Life In The Mid-Majors
Much is made of growing parity in college basketball and there is a lot of evidence that basketball in the Mid-Major conferences is every bit as good as it is in the six major conferences that rule the media outlets and, to a great extent, dominate the governance and management of...
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