Monday Grab Bag: Game Week, at last.

To answer your question, yes, in fact, it is November.  Rejoice, basketball fans, we've made it.

While the men won't get the season started for another four days, the women were actually in action this weekend.  In an exhibition with the Colorado School of Mines, the 18th ranked Buffs kicked the tires and shook off the rust en route to a commanding 91-42 victory.

Sure, the competition wasn't close to what the team will face when playing D-1 opponents, but there were plenty of positives to take from the first public action of the season.  Arielle Roberson dropped 20 points in as many minutes, Lexy Kresl posted a 6-0 assist-to-turnover ratio, and the team shot nearly 48% from the field.  Good job all around.

Exhibition season concluded, the ladies will now have to wait until next Tuesday for the official start of 2013-14 when they head up to Fort Collins to take on the Rams.  I expect raw carnage, get it done, Buffs!

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Today in the bag, I'm talking a cross country championship, another Pac-12 loss in football, and a little basketball.

Click below for the bag...

Quick Post: Mayor and Jelly kill some time on Twitter

What to do on a slow Thursday afternoon in NorCal...  Why not have a twitter battle!  That's what Spencer Dinwiddie and Josh Scott decided to do.  I hope you caught it, because it made for high comedy on a lazy Thursday.

Of course, this wasn't Dinwiddie's first twitter battle royale.  The Mayor took on Alec Burks last year, throwing his ring up against Alec's statistical dominance.  If this is how the future NBA star blows off steam, I'm all for it, because everyone needs to laugh every now and then.

Below, saved for posterity, is Mayor v Jelly.   An anti Mayor campaign is waged, the names Omar Strong and Jordan Bachynski are invoked, Ben Mills takes some collateral damage, and laughs are had by all.

The Freshman 15: Josh Scott

After only 15 games, I believe you can begin to get a sense of what kind of player a freshman starter will turn into.  How quickly have they fallen into the rhythm of collegiate life?  Has their been play consistent?  Are they showing improvement?  The answers to those questions can go a long way towards determining if a first year starter will have just a strong collegiate career, or a legendary one.  You can't necessarily build a definitive judgement off of those early results, but they often attest to a player's future trajectory.

You can also use those first 15 games to begin to put a player's talents into perspective.  Much like last year, when I compared Spencer Dinwiddie's first 15 games with those of his recent star-guard predecessors, I'm interested in comparing Josh Scott, the star of CU's heralded 2012 recruiting class, with a recent high profile post.  With last Thursday's USC game, Scott and the Buffs crossed the 15 game mark this season, making this an appropriate time to begin that process. 

CU, along with many other programs, have long been searching for a true "star" post player.  While there were ample recent examples to compare Dinwiddie against, there's really only one player in the post-Billups era who can hold a candle to Scott's skill and prowess in the paint.  I've had to go back over a decade, but I've dug out the stats on the one, the only, David Harrison.

Below the fold, I'll touch on each player's narrative before discussing how Jelly compares to Big Dave, and what that means for the future.  A little history, a little analysis.  What could possibly go wrong?