{"id":76381,"date":"2015-01-27T13:56:14","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T13:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sandbox.web.rcn.net\/rcntv\/?p=76381"},"modified":"2023-03-01T21:40:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T21:40:46","slug":"sportstalk-shop-college-basketball-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/sportstalk-shop-college-basketball-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"The SportsTalk Shop: College Basketball Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the last several blog entries, we\u2019ve examined a plethora of winter sports news in the RCN-TV coverage areas dealing with professional and scholastic sports.\u00a0 This week, I\u2019d like to highlight some exciting accomplishments among the collegiate teams in action right now.<\/p>\n<p>First, I had a chance to talk with American University\u2019s Head Basketball Coach Mike Brennan about a series of standout moments in his current season\u2014from several last-second, game-winning contests, both in and out of the Patriot League, to his team meeting baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. as well as other highlights in his current season.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eNm2qd1M0oA\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Some of American\u2019s highlights this year include Pee Wee Gardner scoring two last second, game-winning baskets in consecutive games. \u00a0Gardner\u2019s late-game heroics earned him Patriot League Player of the Week honors this past week.\u00a0 \u00a0The Eagles also posted several non-conference wins including an overtime defeat against La Salle, and nearly beating my alma mater, Temple, in its opening game of the season. \u00a0It won\u2019t be an easy week as the defending Patriot League champ has to play four of its next five games on the road, including tough ones against Navy, \u00a0Holy Cross, and the team currently in first place in the league, Colgate.\u00a0 \u00a0The Raiders jumped out to their best start in decades this season and have been very tough playing at home this winter.<\/p>\n<p>Currently Brennan\u2019s squad finds itself just one game out of first place, and just ahead of two other teams in our viewing area, Lehigh and Lafayette.\u00a0 Speaking of the Mountain Hawks and Leopards, they also have some impressive wins this year.\u00a0 Lafayette has posted wins against Princeton, Penn, NJIT, Loyola Maryland and Boston\u2014a team that lost to American in last year\u2019s league championship.\u00a0 Lehigh barely squeaked by the Leopards when the two teams met last weekend and has tough opponents coming up against Bucknell and Army over the next week.<\/p>\n<p>On the women\u2019s side, Lafayette\u2019s Emily Homan was recently selected as one of 30 women&#8217;s basketball candidates for the Senior CLASS Award. The senior forward leads the Leopards and is second in the Patriot League in scoring, averaging nearly 18 points per game.\u00a0 Lehigh\u2019s Kerry Kinek, who had an outstanding scholastic career at Allentown Central Catholic, continues to have an outstanding junior campaign, and is among her team\u2019s leaders in points, three-points, blocks, three-point and free throw shooting percentages and rebounding.<\/p>\n<p>I had the tremendous honor of watching another player in high school, Darrun Hilliard, who continues to lead a Villanova team that\u2019s currently ranked fourth in the nation.\u00a0 Hilliard leads the team in points and three-pointers and is second in a bunch of other statistical categories.\u00a0 Nova is coming off a tough loss to another team in the RCN viewing area, Georgetown, 78-58.\u00a0 The win puts the Hoyas one win ahead of the Wildcats in the Big East Standings, and should make for an interesting rematch when the two teams square off against each other once again in early February in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>Kara Bonenberger, another outstanding athlete RCN viewers had a chance to see play at Northampton HS, has gone on to a stellar career at Penn (currently 9-5 in the Ivy League).\u00a0 She\u2019s been part of an \u201cIron-5\u201d that has started every game so far this year and is among her team\u2019s leaders in points, rebounds and field goal percentage.\u00a0 Bonenberger, a senior co-captain who has earned many rewards during her collegiate career, leads a team that\u2019s looking to defend its Ivy League title. \u00a0Penn\u2019s recent highlights include wins over Temple, NJIT and Richmond but still have more than half its league schedule still to play.<\/p>\n<p>Other Big 5 notes include my Owls pulling off a big win against a Kansas team ranked tenth in the nation at the time they played.\u00a0 Following three consecutive league losses, Temple has bounced back with a win over USF and has several big contests coming up over the next several weeks if they want to improve their seeding for the American Conference playoffs.\u00a0 The Owls will face all the teams currently in front of them in the standings, with UConn and Cincinnati coming to the Liacouras Center and Temple having to travel to play SMU and Memphis on the road.<\/p>\n<p>St. Joe\u2019s and LaSalle have struggled to stay above .500 and find themselves several games back of the top spot in the Atlantic-10.\u00a0 However, another team in our area, George Washington, has jumped out to an amazing start and finds itself with just one league loss entering a big ball game against VCU.\u00a0 \u00a0The Colonials are led by Patricio Garino, Kethan Savage and Kevin Larsen\u2014all scoring in double figures for GW this season.<\/p>\n<p>What other college teams in the RCN-TV viewing area would you like to see us highlight here on the \u201cSportsTalk Shop\u201d or on our live Thursday night \u201cSportsTalk\u201d show?\u00a0 Which players in our coverage area deserve some extra mention or should receive a shout-out?\u00a0 We always welcome your comments, suggestions and opinions!\u00a0 Email us at any time at <a href=\"mailto:RCNSportsTalk@rcn.com\">RCNSportsTalk@rcn.com<\/a> and check back for more updates on teams and athletes in the RCN viewing area!<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last several blog entries, we\u2019ve examined a plethora of winter sports news in the RCN-TV coverage areas dealing with professional and scholastic sports.\u00a0 This week, I\u2019d like to highlight some exciting accomplishments among the collegiate teams in action right now. First, I had a chance to talk with American University\u2019s Head Basketball Coach&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","category-the-sportstalk-shop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The SportsTalk Shop: College Basketball Updates - ATVN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The SportsTalk Shop: College Basketball Updates - ATVN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the last several blog entries, we\u2019ve examined a plethora of winter sports news in the RCN-TV coverage areas dealing with professional and scholastic sports.\u00a0 This week, I\u2019d like to highlight some exciting accomplishments among the collegiate teams in action right now. 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