*Midnight Madness is over, and with it went the smoke machines, dunk contests and laser shows that kick off the season. College basketball begins now, and while the excitement still remains it’s time to peel the hype back and see who the nation’s best truly are. That’s why Dime has you covered with individual previews of the nation’s top 15 teams and a few others just outside, all over the course of the next few weeks. Today, Missouri. Read More »

Do you remember the dunk phenom that is Keion Bell? Not too long ago, we posted the video of Bell, then at Pepperdine, dunking over seven people.

Since that post, Bell transferred to Missouri, and he was back at it again at their Midnight Madness yesterday. Read More »

Missouri faced off against the national team of Netherlands on Saturday during a game of their exhibition tour, with Missouri easily outmatching the European squad by 25 points at halftime. The Dutch were understandably pissed, and started to take out their frustration on Mizzou with elbows, verbal exchanges and like. Except, unlike NBA refs who have quick trigger fingers and rarely let things get out of hand, these refs just couldn’t handle the mayhem. Missouri head coach Frank Haith had just been ejected for berating officials over a non-call on an elbow to forward Stefan Jankovic‘s head, so he decided to pull the plug. He and his players left the court, abandoning the game entirely. Read More »

When my buddy Nils Wagner from Hoopmixtape says that a dunk is one of the craziest he’s ever seen, that statement carries some weight. Check out Missouri-bound guard Phil Pressey (who we featured in Dime #49) dunk on his future college teammate Tony Mitchell at the TABC All-Star Game in San Antonio. Did we mention that Pressey is listed at 5-10 and Mitchell at 6-8? Crazy!

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*Dime’s NCAA Tournament Day 2 coverage*

This was the first-round game I wasn’t gonna miss for anything, even if I had to watch it on my little computer screen. Clemson likes to run and gun; Missouri thrives on a full-court press taught by Mike Anderson, a disciple of Nolan Richardson and “40 Minutes of Hell.” Mizzou’s J.T. Tiller is a defensive demon and one of my favorite college players, while Clemson’s Noel Johnson is the son of ex-NBA player “Cheese” Johnson, who always makes sure to call up the Dime office and update us on his kid’s progress since we did a story on Noel in 8th grade. AND Gus Johnson is on the mic? You couldn’t drag me away. Read More »

Now that the brackets have been released, and you’ve been able to get your initial observations out of the way, it’s time to start talking upsets. So check below for 6 first round upsets to have in your bracket. Read More »

Besides from losing their games last night, N.C. State’s Javier Gonzalez and Mizzou’s Kim English had to go to sleep also thinking about the vicious dunks that Virginia’s Mustapha Farrakhan and Texas A&M’s Ray Turner gave them. Read More »

Just like an art collector scouring the globe for a masterpiece, sole searching sneaker fiends will go to great lengths to find an exclusive pair of kicks. Back in Dime #25 (August 2006), we put together a list of the Top 25 Sneaker Stores when the kick game had never been bigger. But while that list was limited to mostly US spots, we decided in our 50th issue to take it worldwide. Read More »

A couple of themes dominated last night’s NCAA tourney Sweet 16 games: Defense and Onions. First you had UConn defensive stalwart Hasheem Thabeet putting together his first dominant game of the tourney (15 pts, 15 rebs, 4 blks) to push the Huskies past Purdue. Then Villanova slapped a stifling total team defensive effort on Duke, ball-pressure and denial for which Coach K‘s boys seemed totally unprepared. And then Missouri’s new-school “40 Minutes of Hell” paved the way for them to get past Memphis … As for the onions? Look no further than Levance Fields. Read More »