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, North Carolina. Read More »

For the coaches in the college recruiting race to land Julius Randle, play time is officially over. Check out how Roy Williams showed up John Calipari on Tuesday night. Read More »

Any thoughts about coming back next year stronger and healthier, and making another run at a national championship are going out the window in Chapel Hill. Of course, the Heels will be back again with another talented team, but they’ll be starting over in a way. That’s because Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Kendall Marshall are all going to the NBA and taking their combined 39 points, 17.8 rebounds and 12 assists a game with them. Read More »

The lasting image of Harrison Barnes after UNC’s loss to Kansas in the Elite 8 on Sunday was of him sitting in the locker room for 15 minutes with a towel draped over his head. Barnes hadn’t just lost a game; he’d seemingly lost his way. There wasn’t a Drake song playing in the background, but there might as well have been.

“I missed a lot of shots I usually make,” Barnes told the media when he came up for air. “And big-time players come through in big-time games.”

Things weren’t supposed to be nearly this complicated for the former No. 1 recruit in the country, who seemed from the start to have it all put together. Read More »

*College basketball is here (unlike the NBA), and this year might be one of the best in recent memory. The powerhouse is back, while the Cinderellas believe. That’s a deadly combination. We know some of y’all have been asking for some previews. We have you covered – we’ve previewed each of the top 16 teams in the country. Today is the final one. After we broke down contenders Ohio State and Kentucky yesterday, we’ll finish this off with the best team in the country, No. 1-ranked UNC (ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll).* Read More »

What’s the difference between 82 and 78? Four. In the grand scheme of most things, that’s not a whole lot, especially if we’re talking NBA games. An 82-game schedule pretty much went out the window after last week, but the NY Post is saying if a deal is finalized sometime this week, we could be looking at a 78-game affair. We’ll take it. They’re saying it has to be an even number of games, and that David Stern is willing to push the season back enough to fit in as many games as possible, maybe even push a possible NBA Finals Game 7 to just a few days before the draft. That might affect the way the games are played, but for us it just means more basketball packed into a shorter time. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing … Read More »

There ain’t nothing like going home. Except for Kobe Bryant because home is a number of different places for him: in Philadelphia where he went to high school and first received a brush with fame; in Los Angeles where he’s become world famous, and in Italy where the first seeds of a love affair with a game took him to places none of his childhood friends thought possible. Wouldn’t it be fun to go back there and shove it all in their faces? See how good I’ve become. See how successful I’ve become. The Mamba has a great chance now to do that. Hoping that chance would appeal to his competitive fire, the Italian club Virtus Bologna has offered Bryant a one-year deal for $6.7 million to play for them. Read More »

This past weekend, the Phoenix Suns came into L.A. looking to capitalize on a pair of games against the city’s two hometown franchises. While the Lakers would hand them a crushing 3OT loss this past Tuesday, two days earlier, the Suns were busy mopping up the Blakers for a nice 108-99 win at Staples Center. This was also the same Sunday that both Duke and North Carolina were fortunate enough to escape serious second-round upset bids from both Michigan and Washington, respectively. After the Suns’ victory over the Clippers, we were able to catch up with one of Tobacco Road’s most famed alums, Vince Carter, to get his take on the NCAA Tournament thus far. Read More »

After an efficient sophomore year in which he averaged 13.0 points on 45.5 percent shooting, including 47.4 percent from distance, Marquette guard Darius Johnson-Odom upped his scoring average by nearly three points this season and made big strides on the defensive end to became an All-Big East Second Team selection. On Sunday, DJO poured in 17 points, including the game-winning triple with 25 seconds left, to lift Marquette to an upset over 3-seeded Syracuse that clinched the school’s first Sweet 16 birth since the Dwyane Wade era. Friday, DJO will look to continue his hot play against No. 2 North Carolina, a school that he grew up about 40 minutes from in Raleigh, N.C, yet still wasn’t recruited by. Here are his words: Read More »

Second Baptist School (Houston, TX) junior L.J. Rose is one of the most gifted point guards in the country. Despite suffering from nagging foot and ankle injuries last summer that limited him in the crucial AAU/camp season, he still has everyone from Kansas to Kentucky to Arizona trying to lure him to their schools. Rose has agreed to give Dime and High School Hoop exclusive access by chronicling his thoughts in a regular diary. Here’s an excerpt from his newest entry: Read More »