College basketball is here

11/14/2008

Toledo men's basketball plays its first game tonight at Florida, and a few of its opponents have already tipped off.

Miami is 1-1, with a win over Weber State and a 5-point loss to No. 4 UCLA. I stayed up and watched the whole game and was very impressed by the RedHawks, who I thought would miss Tim Pollitz more than they did. Even with Kenny Hayes having an off night, Michael Bramos was very tough for UCLA to guard, so I'm assuming it'll be that much harder for MAC players. Their freshman post Julian Mavunga (6-foot-8, 255 pounds) is going to be a lot to deal with come MAC season. And they had a lot of role players play exactly how they should without trying to do too much.

U Mass, which comes to Toledo for the Savage Arena opening, lost to Southern Illinois and its point guard Chris Lowe had 10 turnovers.

Houston, which comes to town Dec. 20, lost to Georgia Southern 65-63.

A bunch of MAC schools play tonight as well.

Tonight, Florida coach Billy Donovan is looking for leadership and defense from his team, which has a lot of youth for the second year in a row.