K-Stated

From ESPN:

ESPN Regional Television, Inc. (ERT), a subsidiary of ESPN, announced today seven of the eight teams in the field for the 2009 O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off, to be held Nov. 19-22 at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico, in the cosmopolitan Hato Rey district of San Juan.

The field for the third annual O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off will include UAB, Dayton, George Mason, Georgia Tech, Indiana, Kansas State and 2009 Final Four participant Villanova. The eighth team will be announced at a later date.

Five of the seven teams announced reached the postseason this year. Villanova and Dayton played in the 2009 NCAA Tournament, with the Flyers advancing to the second round. The Wildcats, a No. 3 seed, will face No. 1 seed North Carolina in the Final Four on Saturday, April 4, in Detroit. UAB, George Mason and Kansas State played in the National Invitation Tournament.

“With the announcement this year’s field, we couldn’t be more thrilled with the continued quality of this event,” said Pete Derzis, senior vice president and general manager, ESPN Regional Television. “Coming off of last year’s event that placed five teams in the NCAA Tournament and one in the NIT, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off is quickly being recognized as one the premier events in college basketball.”

The 2009 O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off, a bracket-format tournament, will feature 12 games in three days, Nov. 19 -22. Each team will compete in one game per day, advancing through a bracket-tournament format. The two teams that remain undefeated throughout will face off in a championship match Sunday, Nov. 22.

In November, Xavier took home the 2008 Puerto Rico Tip-Off trophy, defeating Memphis 63-58 in the championship game. Both teams went on to be nationally ranked in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Top 25 poll throughout most of the 2008-09 season, with Memphis finishing the regular season ranked No. 2. Xavier will appear in the 2009 Old Spice Classic.

In 2007, the Miami Hurricanes won the inaugural O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off.

Additional information, including travel packages, can be found on the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off Web site at www.PuertoRicoTipoff.com.

I wouldn’t make fun of him, I’ll post the picture of the San Diego State mascot/guy and allow you to decide for yourself what to think:

Here are a few snippets from an hour-long Q&A I conducted last week with Kansas State coach Frank Martin. A very, very condensed version focusing solely on the K-State program will appear in the Eagle and the Star tomorrow, but the complete transcript will be available tomorrow on the papers’ Web sites.

Have there been times when you felt the team wasn’t prepared well but you still managed to win?

That happens every year. You have games that you… just don’t prepare as well as you should. You don’t put players in the best situations that you can as a coach to allow them to succeed. Yet, you’re resourceful, you create the will and you overcome and still figure a way to win. That’s why I don’t just evaluate myself after losses. I evaluate myself after every game.

That Nebraska game the other day that we won, I felt in practices we didn’t do a good job of doing some of the things that we needed to do defensively to allow us to be as consistent as we needed to be to win. When it was over, I went home and spent time re-evaluating what we did in practice, what was right and wrong, to make sure the next time we play Nebraska – if we do again this year – that I do a better job in the preparation time leading into the game.

At Oklahoma State the other night, I wasn’t satisfied with what we were trying to do offensively in the last three minutes of the game. Our players turned it over, but I felt the calls I made put our guys in a tough spot. Whether it did or didn’t, that was my evaluation. I had to go home and understand that. Should the players turn the ball over? No, that’s not acceptable. It’s their job to shoot the ball, yet I wish I could have a do-over and call different sets.

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According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, DeMarcus Cousins, the nation’s No. 2 player in the country per Rivals, has given a commitment to Memphis.

He was considering Kansas State. His coach at LeFlore High in Mobile, Ala., Otis Hughley, told K-Stated in late January that Cousins would possibly visit Manhattan, but that doesn’t seem likely now. Then again, Cousins was also committed to UAB, but waffled once the school wouldn’t agree to release Cousins from his letter of intent if coach Mike Davis wasn’t around.