Live courtside at the Vines Center for Liberty’s first home BracketBusters game. The Flames are 0-2 in BracketBusters contests with losses at Niagara and Old Dominion.

Your lineups:

IONA (17-10, 11-5 Metro Atlantic Athletic)
Mike Glover (F, 6-7, 215)  18.7 ppg/10.1 rpg
Scott Machado (G, 6-1, 180)  13.9/4.0
Rashon Dwight (G, 6-3, 185)  8.1/2.2
Alejo Rodriguez (F, 6-8, 235)  6.7/6.5
Kyle Smyth (G, 6-4, 185)  10.1/2.2

LIBERTY (19-9, 13-3 Big South)
Jesse Sanders (G, 6-3, 200)  11.0/6.3
Evan Gordon (G, 6-2, 185)  15.0/2.9
David Minaya (G, 6-6, 205)  11.0/3.4
John Brown (G, 6-4, 195)  11.6/10.8
Joel Vander Pol (C, 6-10, 225)  4.1/3.4

Notes, thoughts, etc.

1. What a wild week in the Big South. When we last met on Wednesday in the power rankings blog, Coastal Carolina still had leading scorer Desmond Holloway and there was some hope that guard Kierre Greenwood’s injury wasn’t severe. Unfortunately for the Chanticleers, Holloway is suspended indefinitely for an eligibility issue, and Greenwood is done for the year with a torn ACL in his left knee. Coastal is certainly more vulnerable right now, but someone is still going to have to go into Conway and beat the Chants on their home floor in the Big South tournament. Coastal’s depth certainly took a hit, but Dexter Moore is a capable scorer. It’ll be interesting to see how the minutes are distributed going forward. I’ll say this, it would be a mistake to count Coastal out, depleted or not.

2. This Iona team is very good. The Gaels have lost 10 games, but only one by more than six points, a 10-point setback against a solid Cleveland State team. The Gaels lost to Kent State by one, to Byrant by two, to Syracuse by six, to Vermont by five, to Siena by six, to Canisius by two, to Rider by two and to Fairfield by four.

3. Here’s an interesting New York Post story on Iona’s Mike Glover, who is the team’s leading scorer and rebounder.

4. Good nugget from Alan York, Liberty’s radio broadcaster. Apparently Iona’s Scott Machado goes by Scott instead of his first name—Michael—because he grew up a huge New York Knicks fan and hated the Chicago Bulls. The Michael Jordan-led Bulls of course tormented the Knicks in the 90s, so Machado chooses to use his middle name.

5. The guy to watch off the bench for Iona is Jermel Jenkins, a 5-foot-11 guard who averaged 9.8 points per game. The only other big bench contributor is freshman guard Sean Armand, who checks in at 5.6 points per game.

6. Liberty’s Jeremy Anderson got a trim for the first time in recent memory and no longer sports locks that are reminiscent of Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons.

7. The Flames need a big breakout from guard David Minaya today. He’s 5-for-24 from the floor in his last two games, and Liberty needs his mid-range game to succeed in this one.

8. Quick aside from this game ... I was up in Charlottesville Wednesday to catch up with former Liberty guard Seth Curry (look for a story in next Wednesday’s News & Advance), and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski had an interesting take on the mid-game interviews that are becoming more prevalent in college broadcasts. Krzyzewski doesn’t do halftime interviews, having one of his assistants take care of that task. A reporter (I believe Ken Tysiac) asked Krzyzewski about how he felt about interviews now taking place during media timeouts. Krzyzewski’s response:

“It’s horrible. Horrible. A coach’s responsibility from the time you talk to them in the locker room before the game until the time you talk to them in the locker room after the game is sacred for you and your team. Anything you do outside of that, in college sports, I think is wrong. I think it takes away from your responsibility. My responsibility is to my kids, my team. You shouldn’t be distracted. You don’t owe anything to anyone else. That’s why I never do halftime interviews. The only people I’m talking to, from start to finish, is (my team). OK, sometimes to referees. Maybe we should interview them. We’re trying all kinds of things on ESPN this week, we might as well try that. Why don’t you have a coach interview a ref? Was that really traveling?

“It’s a good question. You should be congratulated on that. I’ve seen it a couple of times, and I’m like, ‘What are we doing? What are we doing with our sport to have that? It’s wrong. Just wrong. ... Just show the kids playing. The game is a great game. You don’t have to go to the places ... I mean, are we going to tweet somebody? That’s when I’m out. I’ll remember the good old days when men were men and basketball players were basketball players. ... And women were women. I have three daughters, so I don’t want letters from them.“

9. Broadcast crew change here, as Mark Adams replaces Bruce Bowen on color on ESPNU.

10. Your shooters to watch:
a. Liberty’s top 3-point threats: Evan Gordon (63-185, 34.1 percent); David Minaya (21-61, 34.4); John Caleb Sanders (32-90, 35.6); Jeremy Anderson (17-54, 31.5)
b. Iona’s top 3-point threats: Scott Machado (32-99, 32.3); Kyle Smyth (60-159, 37.7); Jermel Jenkins (57-156, 36.5); Rashon Dwight (26-63, 41.3); Sean Armand (39-94, 41.5)
c. Liberty’s top free-throw shooters: Gordon (80-105, 76.2); Jesse Sanders (107-141, 75.9); Minaya (60-79, 75.9); Antwan Burrus (45-64, 70.3); Chene Phillips (20-23, 87.0)
d. Iona’s top free-throw shooters: Jenkins (18-23, 78.3); Dwight (55-73, 75.3); Trinity Fields (11-12, 91.7)
e. Liberty’s worst free-throw shooters: John Brown (39-67, 58.2); Joel Vander Pol (38-65, 58.5)
f. Iona’s worst free-throw shooters: Mike Glover (129-203, 63.5); Machado (82-124, 66.1); Smyth (27-41, 65.9); Alejo Rodriguez (29-55, 52.7); Chris Pelcher (21-34, 61.8); Randy Dezourvre (13-25, 52.0)

11. I was mistaken in today’s info box in the News & Advance. Iona coach Tim Cluess (pronounced CLEWSS, one syllable) told me he coached at the other Suffolk CC on Long Island in 2005-06, so he didn’t coach former Liberty center Alex McLean in JUCO. But he was aware of McLean, since the two schools played in the same conference.

12. That’s it for now. I’ll post in-game updates on Twitter @ChrisLangLNA.