Posts by Shane Ryan
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![Indiana]()
The Hardcourt Shuffle: Indiana, Miami, OKSU, Pitt Win the College Basketball Weekend
If you read Friday’s column, you know there’s a big gray elephant in the room, and we might as well recognize it right off the bat. So, here you go: Yes, I was right about Pittsburgh beating Syracuse, Miami beating NC State, Oklahoma State playing well against Kansas, and Florida blowing out Ole Miss. Does […]
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![Ben McLemore]()
The Hardcourt Shuffle: This Weekend’s Top 10 College Basketball Games
I’m having a hard time believing it’s already February, gang. I know it’s a bad weekend to complain, since the football fans of the world are just hours from hearing the last Super Bowl whistle and confronting the awful offseason, but I can feel March approaching, and it’s happening too fast. Once it arrives, we’ll […]
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![Phil Mickelson]()
Agony: Phil Mickelson Needed One Putt for a 59
Yesterday was the first round of the PGA’s Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale, and Phil Mickelson tore the course to pieces. It started with a bang: four straight birdies, two pars, and then three more birdies for a 29 on the front. When he birdied three of the next four holes, he needed just two […]
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‘Vintage Tiger’ Returns at Torrey Pines
The Pacific fog blanketed the south course at Torrey Pines on Saturday, wiping out an entire round of the Farmers Insurance Open, so Tiger Woods was forced to finish his first PGA win of 2013 in the relative anonymity of a Monday afternoon. It wasn’t a pretty ending — the slow pace frustrated him, he […]
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![La Salle]()
The Hardcourt Shuffle: Villanova & La Salle Go Giant-Killing, NC State Survives the Rivalry
One of the unfortunate realities of sportswriting is that you’re often compelled to make bold predictions, only to suffer all the indignities that follow. Only a true masochist makes predictions, because when you’re wrong — and you’re always going to be wrong — it becomes a feeding frenzy for the bottom-feeders of the homer ecosystem. […]
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![Grant Halverson]()
The Hardcourt Shuffle: Top 10 College Basketball Weekend Games
Today we’re playing Ben Howland ball. No stalls, go go go! Let’s get right to the countdown … 10. No. 5 Louisville at Georgetown, Saturday, Noon, ESPN One revelation for me this season is that teams that play very slow, physical styles with a focus on defense — and a less worthy offense — tend […]
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![Duke Miami]()
The Miami Massacre: No. 1 Duke Goes Down in Coral Gables
On Christmas Day, the Miami Hurricanes basketball team found themselves in Honolulu, leading Indiana State, 47-40, with 2:25 left in the third-place game of something called the Diamond Head Classic. A day earlier, they’d lost to Arizona by 19 points in the semifinals, and it was hard to blame either the Canes or Sycamores for […]
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![Butler]()
The Hardcourt Shuffle: That Old Butler Magic, Cuse Is in the House
Let’s begin by delving into the realm of the imagination. Pretend it’s November 1, 2012, and you and I are real-life acquaintances. Pretend we’re having a conversation on a park bench near a vacant outdoor court. The wind is whistling, and it’s far too cold to even consider playing, but we can’t help stare longingly […]
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![Shabazz Muhammad]()
The Hardcourt Shuffle: Mythbusting the B1G, Top 10 Weekend College Basketball Games
Two weeks ago, when I predicted that Michigan would beat Ohio State on the road, and Minnesota would do the same to Indiana, I was hit with an avalanche of Big Ten fans insisting that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that IT WAS REALLY, REALLY HARD TO WIN ON THE ROAD […]
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![Ole Miss]()
Marshall Henderson Is College Basketball’s Newest Madman
If you were lulled into a stupor watching Bo Ryan run slow, agonizing circles around Tom Crean as the eleven o’clock hour approached last night, you might have missed the hidden gem on ESPNU. And that’s too bad, but I’m here to help. Because while Indiana was losing its first home game, an Ole Miss […]
