Even better the second time

It's the debut of The Almanac, Vol. 2. And it's everything you ever wanted to know about the 2023-24 season. Plus, Big Ten and CAA announced schedules, and what Dartmouth's unionization efforts mean for hoops.

Author

Mike Miller
September 20, 2023

Congrats to those of you who bought The Almanac, Vol. 2 (click here for access) and are now sifting through the hundreds of team previews and reading enough text — this sucker ended up being more than 800,000 words — to feel like you’re back in college.

And to those who haven’t bought it yet … it’s just $20. Click here for more.

1. The Almanac, Vol. 2 — a feast for hoopheads

I know. We’ve been endlessly promoting The Almanac, Vol. 2 for weeks. But hey, when you’ve got a dozen people from The Field of 68, Three-Man Weave, Heat Check CBB and Verbal Commits working together to produce the most comprehensive college basketball preview on the market, you tend to hype it up a bit.

Besides, it’s not just a digital magazine this year. It’s evolved into a full-blown website.

Why the change? For starters, ease of discovery and navigation. Instead of scrolling through a massive PDF to find a specific team, the menu at the top of each page makes things infinitely easier.

(For anyone longing for a PDF format, use the Print/save to PDF option from your browser and you can download a team or conference overview for offline viewing.)

There are dozens of features on national storylines. Once you finish each one, there’s bottom-of-the-page navigation to take you to the next thing.

Point is, the format ensures readability is far easier than Vol. 1, ensuring the product itself as the same high quality as the content itself. Because the content is best in class.

We’ll spend the next few weeks highlighting stories and insights into those programs, which is where The Almanac, Vol. 2 really shines. These previews aren’t just lists of players and who’s back. These are breakdowns of how coaches will approach the 2023-24 season, why they’re optimistic, and what issues might arise.

So there you go. One last hard sell to buy The Almanac, Vol. 2.

2. The looming St. John’s question

We’ve hit on Rick Pitino and St. John’s a lot this summer, and with good reason. The Red Storm have been overhauled, retooled, remade, etc., etc. In short, they’ll look different from last season.

But will the results be any different?

St. John’s didn’t make The Almanac’s Preseason Top 25, but it’s not from lack of talent, or versatility, or coaching.

It’s more about whether it can all come together. From The Almanac:

It’s not a spoiler to say we think St. John’s will improve on last season’s 18-15 overall record and 8th-place finish in the Big East. We think they’ll be much better.

But can they crack the Top 3 of Marquette, Creighton and UConn? Will they outwork Villanova, Providence and Xavier?

What I know for sure is the Big East is going to be incredible viewing if the Red Storm finish 7th.

3. Circle March 2 on the Big Ten schedule

The Big Ten announced 140 men’s hoops matchups on Tuesday, a 20-game conference schedule that ensures every program plays every school at least once, and some will face the same school twice.

With that mind, it’s easy to pinpoint the must-see game: Saturday, March 2, Michigan State at Purdue.

The Big Ten’s two best teams (per The Almanac) only play once. And that showdown comes right as March begins, a fitting treat for those of us who look forward to the month like my daughter looks forward to a new Taylor Swift album.

The only thing is … I don’t know if history will be on the Spartans’ side. They’ve lost five of the last six to Purdue, and haven’t won at Mackey since 2014.

But hey, this is the entire Big Ten schedule, so they’ll be plenty of time to hype up a likely Top 10 showdown. Beyond that game, these jumped out at me:

  • Dec. 1: Maryland at Indiana

  • Jan. 10: Wisconsin at Ohio State

  • Jan. 16: Purdue at Indiana

  • Jan. 18: Illinois at Michigan

  • Jan. 30: Michigan at Michigan State

  • March 10: Illinois at Iowa, Michigan State at Indiana, Wisconsin at Purdue

Need more on the Big Ten sked? Try the Sleepers. Carter and Greg will have more than a few takes.

4. The CAA opens at the close

The CAA — now the Coastal Athletic Conference, in case you forgot — also dropped its league schedule on Tuesday.

It’s also in that spot where it has too many teams for a true home-and-home schedule. That benefitted Hofstra last season when it beat Charleston in its only matchup, and the programs shared the regular-season title.

This year? Those teams play twice, and serve as the opener and closer to the conference schedule. (Those schedule-makers, man. They get you every time.)

Well, technically Hampton at Drexel on Jan. 1 opens conference play, but Jan. 4 has a full slate of seven games with conference-newcomer Campbell included. Also important? UNC Wilmington and Drexel also play on Jan. 4. Those two, Charleston and Hofstra are the top four teams in the league, per The Almanac.

It should be quite the day. And if you’re planning to spend part of your winter in Charleston (see Goodman, Jeff), better plan in advance. The Cougars have hit the big time.

5. When basketball players unite

The Dartmouth men’s basketball team hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since Jerry West played college hoops. But it might have a bigger impact this season than just about any other program.

Last week, 15 players from the Big Green filed a petition to unionize, the second time in the last 10 years a college team has attempted to do so. (Northwestern’s football team tried it in 2014.) School officials are “carefully considering” the petition.

Matt Brown over at Extra Points has an insightful article on the move, explaining how Dartmouth’s move is different than Northwestern because the state of college sports has significantly changed in the last 10 years, among other things. It’s a premium article, but worth your time and money.

Or, maybe you’d like to hear the players’ reasons.

Juniors Romeo Myrthil and Cade Haskins penned an op-ed in the student newspaper, with two of their reasons highlighted below:

First, many of our players currently juggle part-time jobs alongside their academic and athletic commitments to help pay for their tuition and living expenses. While we currently receive many forms of non-traditional compensation, these don’t pay our bills, and so we are unionizing to be compensated like other student employees, with hourly wages similar to other student wages on campus or scholarships. This would alleviate the need for second jobs and enhance our experience as part of the Dartmouth community. There is nothing legally or logistically complicated about being classified as a student employee for the athletics department. Additionally, being a student and an employee of the College are not mutually exclusive. In 2021, the executive director of the Ivy League, Robin Harris, stated while commenting on NIL policies, “One of the fundamental philosophies of the Ivy League is that student-athletes should have the same opportunities as all students.” Other than a set of rules that the schools impose on themselves through the Ivy League Agreement, there is no reason that basketball players shouldn’t be considered student employees like students working any other campus job.

Second, several of our players have suffered serious injuries during practices or games and needed to pay substantial amounts of money out of pocket to cover their health insurance deductibles. We believe Dartmouth should be held responsible for those costs and any long-term disabilities that may arise from our participation in Dartmouth sports. These corrections will provide a more holistic, successful and well-rounded experience for our team members at Dartmouth. The list of corrections is not limited to just these, but we found it important to shed light on certain prominent issues.

It’ll be fascinating to see where this ends up. As Brown points out, this could raise significant issues with student visas and international players.

And you thought the transfer portal was the only thing changing the game.

Flying high

Marquette took the Big East by surprise last year, defying preseason expectations for a regular-season and tourney title. After an offseason in which nearly every key player returns, should Shaka Smart’s team be expected to match last season? Or be even better?

Links as you dive into those Almanac conference previews.

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