Peter Newmann, ESPN's college hoops researcher, wrote a nice piece on one-side games and their results. He highlights some real lowlights in terms of games, and I'm still not convinced why a Stanford, rated #1 at the time, played #310 New Hampshire any more than I'm thrilled that Syracuse schedules Cornell every year in its annual fattening up on the Twinkies of college basketball before playing teams that could come close to beating it.
Now, I am not in favor of creating a Division I-AA for college basketball, and I think that part of the great attraction to major college hoops is that on a given day a Bucknell can travel to Pitt and upset a top-10 ranked home team. That type of result doesn't happen that often, and, my guess is that Pitt won't let it happen again in the near future. At least not against Bucknell.
Which makes it very hard for the good low- and mid-major teams to get meaningful games against the top competition. Sure, Syracuse would prefer to schedule Patriot League doormat Colgate and Ivy also-ran Cornell every year rather than, say, Patriot League favorite Bucknell and perennial Ivy power Princeton. Why? Because they're looking for tuneup games and wins, and not for a game that will give them a bloody nose on national TV.
And even if the top programs will schedule the best of the mid-majors, they'll seldom do so on the road. For example, when he first got to Duke, Coach K played Princeton at Princeton, and the game was a disaster for the Blue Devils. They went to Jadwin Gym woefully unprepared (you'll recall that in that season, Coach K's big recruits were players of the year in Canada, Utah and Nebraska, none of which have ever been known as hoops hotbeds). Vince Taylor was the Duke star, and he got picked clean a few times by quick Princeton guards and ended up in foul trouble. The Tigers used their back door offense all night, and won by 22. (Princeton ended up a disappointing 13-13 that year, so it wasn't a memorable Tiger team by any stretch).
Never again.
Huh? Well, the Duke men probably won't play at Princeton so long as Coach K is the coach. They'll play in Durham, but the only place Coach K will play in NJ is at the Meadowlands, and usually come NCAA Tournament time. Which leaves open the dare to Coach K? Hey, Coach K, Dean Smith played Princeton at Princeton in the famous '97-'98 season, in which the Tigers lost only 2 games (by about 7 to UNC in a great game in a packed Jadwin Gym) and then to Mateen Cleaves and Michigan State in the second-round of the NCAA Tournament. So, why don't you do what Dean did and take your team to central NJ in the winter time? It's not as though you're Napoleon and you're traveling to Russia for a land war. It's Princeton, for Pete's sake.
No one denies that the top programs deserve a Twinkie or two, especially if they play in the Pre-Season NIT or the Great Alaska Shootout or have some good games against non-conference opponents who are at their level because the TV money is too good to pass up. You'll need a break or two. And that's fine, so long as you limit your cupcake intake. So, if you're UNC, you'll play Kansas, Illinois, UCLA and a few others, but then why don't you play a good Mid-American Conference team, a good A-10 team, than, say, the college hoops equivalents of the three guys sitting on the couch during the first-night of rush week at the Omega fraternity in the movie Animal House?
Why not?
Probably because they think that there's nothing to gain by doing so. Because, they and their supporters will argue, they have grueling conference schedules and some huge TV games, so why not give the team a few games that they know they can win almost by just showing up than games where they'll have to fight their hearts out because for a Ball State, a Montana, a St. Mary's, a Princeton, well, this could be the equivalent of their NCAA final game, because those opponents will never get there. Truth be told, those games could take a lot out of a Cadillace team.
The challenge, then, to the Top 40 schools, is to play a well-balanced non-conference schedule. Play your traditional rivals, your important non-conference TV games, and then give a chance to well-deserving mid-majors who have earned it. Every now and then, even, take a chance and travel to Philadelphia's heralded Palestra, Princeton's Jadwin Gym, the home venues at St. Mary's, Bucknell, Vermont, College of Charleston, Miami U., and pay your respects.
Because good, whole basketball foods are much better for you than cupcakes.
Who can argue that playing a top-drawer mid-major won't pay dividends down the road, especially in their building? The reasons are pretty clear: your team will get a taste of what it's like to play against a well-coached, reasonably talented team that will play its hearts out to win and won't care that you're Duke or Carolina, and, more importantly, you'll get to play in the face of a hostile crowd. As we all know, even at the newly configured regional venues in the NCAA Tournament, it's not unlikely that the hometown crowd will root for the underdog Coppin State team that is giving Texas a battle in the second round. If you're a Texas or OK State, that December road game at Princeton or Penn or Vermont will be an experience that your kids can draw on come Tournament time.
We all love cupcakes, and, yes, at times, well, you just need one. You're having a bad day, you need a break, you want to share an experience with your kids, well, there's nothing better than a Twinkie or a Tastykake. Or, at least not much.
But as you grow older you realize that if you have a diet of too many cupcakes, well, they're just flat-out bad for your health.
And your RPI as well.
Got your attention now?
Monday, January 17, 2005
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Do Not Underestimate the Birds
A few days ago, I posted this in Sports Frog's Swamp (in the section regarding the Eagles-Vikings game):
The Eagles, to a large extent, have been underestimated. And, they're probably the most underestimated right now. Earlier in the season, they were viewed as a weak defensive team, bad against the run, and, yes, Pittsburgh did beat them badly. So, what did they do? They moved Jeremiah Trotter into the middle linebacker position, moved Mark Simoneau outside, and then they started to push people around on defense bigtime. That said, people forgot that they have the best secondary in the NFL, with three Pro Bowlers and one Dr. Z first-teamer. Even after their defense improved (and, remember, up until week 15 they had allowed the least points in the NFL), they were still underestimated. Remember when Green Bay was going to march into Philadelphia on December 5 and beat up on the Eagles? Final score, 47-17. Eagles. Then, they decided to coast and not risk further injuries after TO went down. They lost two meaningless games, and now the self-appointed cognoscenti say that they've had a five-week layoff and will be rusty. Well, they underestimate Andy Reid and this Eagles team, and they're overestimating the Vikings. Yes, they backed into the playoffs, and yes, they had a good win against a Green Bay team that played awful last week, but, yes, Mike Tice is still their head coach. Bottom line, the Eagles will win this football game. Call it Philadelphia 27, Minnesota 10. And remember the name Greg Lewis.
Now, I am not claiming clairvoyance here, and, no, I'm not a descendant of Jeanne Dixon, but my point all along is that people have been underestimating the Eagles because a) they play in the NFC and b) they failed to reach three straight NFC championship games (even if two years ago they were the underdog and were driving for the winning score in St. Louis when time ran out). As a result, they're viewed as soft, fatally flawed, and all of the rest.
Well, today they dominated the Vikings, 27-14, in a game that wasn't nearly as close as the score. The Eagles controlled every aspect of the game. Donovan McNabb looked very sharp, the Eagles' defense was outstanding (especially the linebackers, who got two picks), and the wide receivers were excellent (special kudos to Freddie Mitchell, who had 1 TD pass for a score, recovered an immaculate-reception-like fumble by L.J. Smith for a score, recovered an onside kickoff and almost had another TD).
True, they didn't score ten points they should have, and, no doubt, because they didn't win 47-17 at home, once again people will be overestimating the wares of the Atlanta Falcons, who are a good football team, and underestimating the Eagles. I'm sure that next week the experts (except for Mike Golic of ESPN Radio) will be saying that Donovan McNabb is a semipro league player when compared to Michael Vick, and that the Eagles' receiving corps got lucky against a weak Minnesota defense.
And the proverbial "they" are entitled to their opinion.
Because if they underestimate the Eagles, they'll do so at their peril.
No doubt, today, all over the greater Philadelphia area, the stevedores and the Walnut Street fund managers, the skycaps and the electricians, the teamsters and the teachers, the politicians and the pediatricians, the sanitation workers and the social workers, the prosecutors and the preachers, all were watching the game united in their undying affection for the team in green. Hanging on every pass, every blitz, every deep cover. And despite their different backgrounds, they all can unite in the rousing, uplifting cheer that has penetrated the Delaware Valley during Andy Reid's tenure as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles football team.
E-A-G-L-E-S! Eagles!
They'll continue that rousing cheer all through next week, in sports bars, local tap rooms, union halls, on Broad Street, Rittenhouse Square, Fairmount Park, at the Eagle in Hecht's (once Wanamaker's, when the big Eagle really meant something in city lore; ironically, the Eagles team probably means more to the town now than any time since 1981), in City Hall Courtyard and any other place imaginable.
Their hearts are in their mouths, and they're wearing their emotions on their sleeves. Unlike those who are wont to underestimate their beloved (if frustrating) Birds, these fans know well enough not to overestimate the home team. They worry about more injuries, they are more than concerned about Terrell Owens' absence, and they still fear that their undersized defensive line is a bit weak against the run. They remember the Steelers' game, they know all about Peyton Manning and the mystical qualities of the New England Patriots.
But like the coach, who takes one game at a time, they root one game at a time. And they know full well that the Falcons are a formidable squad, and that the road to Jacksonville goes through the Atlanta Falcons.
Hopeful?
You bet.
Overconfident?
Not a chance.
They are a tough group of fans, and, right now, their team is playing just as tough as they are.
It will be easy to underestimate them given their history over the past three years.
But it might prove to be a big mistake.
In Case You Were Wondering
About the NHL season, that is. Click here for the latest.
The latest isn't just about this season, but the next one as well.
And it isn't very promising.
It's hard to understand what the owners and players are really thinking, that somehow a two-year absence from the airwaves and arenas is actually good for the game. If you analogize NHL hockey to supermarkets and shelf space (and I'll let the economists who follow both subjects correct me on the topic), other products have and will continue to fill the vacuum that the absence of professional ice hockey has created. Because of this vacuum, the product behind the trademark is tarnished, as it no longer stands for a reliable, happy product (for another analogy, look at Major League Baseball after 1994, where attendance suffered because the strike canceled the World Series. Attendance was healthy for the 2004 season, but it took MLB about ten years to recover), but a clumsy, unreliable one.
The way I understand it, bread companies are well organized machines that make sure come hell or high water that their delivery trucks get to the supermarkets so that they can preserve their optimal shelf space. Miss out on a day, and then your precious bread could be at foot level if it gets any space at all. Which means, of course, that when you go to the supermarkets on a daily basis you see shelf space that is in very good order. Why? The market demands it, and the market efficiencies are such that if one brand doesn't make it, others fill the vacuum.
Can the same be said for a professional sport with a major problem? Okay, so different breads are much more similar than, say, basketball and ice hockey, which means, at a minimum, there will be some diehards who will wait forever to see the return of Jaromir Jagr from Siberia (literally) and Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier from their well-documented visit to Tatarstan (really -- both ESPN the Magazine and SI wrote articles about this visit, and, once again, ESPN the Magazine wrote the earlier article).
But what about the remainder of the fans? The corporations who buy tickets for entertainment (who are probably more interested in the event aspects of the games rather than the fact that they're ice hockey games), the fans who get disgruntled, and the fans who are not the diehards? Miss one year, they might be understanding, and they might even sympathize that the salary structure in the NHL is so out of whack that absent major reforms, barring a timeout from play the whole NHL could end up broke. Fine, but a two-year hiatus?
Good luck.
The owners could win the battle and lose the war. Sure, they might right the course of their beloved league, but how will elite players fare after a two-year layoff? How many will go back to their native Europe and remain? How many fans will be forgiving, especially when ticket prices are very expensive, the product is boring, there are too many teams and too many of those teams make the playoffs? It's not just the labor issue that's paramount, it's the quality-of-the-product issues as well. They could rectify the salary structure, but then they could lament that even under a new and more favorable collective bargaining agreement they are struggling because the post-lockout attendance figures cannot support even a reduced salary burden.
Relative to the rest of the world, there remains a golden goose out there, even for the owners and players, none of whom at this moment are worthy of it.
But as each days passes, the golden goose is slowly dying.
As is the National Hockey League.
The latest isn't just about this season, but the next one as well.
And it isn't very promising.
It's hard to understand what the owners and players are really thinking, that somehow a two-year absence from the airwaves and arenas is actually good for the game. If you analogize NHL hockey to supermarkets and shelf space (and I'll let the economists who follow both subjects correct me on the topic), other products have and will continue to fill the vacuum that the absence of professional ice hockey has created. Because of this vacuum, the product behind the trademark is tarnished, as it no longer stands for a reliable, happy product (for another analogy, look at Major League Baseball after 1994, where attendance suffered because the strike canceled the World Series. Attendance was healthy for the 2004 season, but it took MLB about ten years to recover), but a clumsy, unreliable one.
The way I understand it, bread companies are well organized machines that make sure come hell or high water that their delivery trucks get to the supermarkets so that they can preserve their optimal shelf space. Miss out on a day, and then your precious bread could be at foot level if it gets any space at all. Which means, of course, that when you go to the supermarkets on a daily basis you see shelf space that is in very good order. Why? The market demands it, and the market efficiencies are such that if one brand doesn't make it, others fill the vacuum.
Can the same be said for a professional sport with a major problem? Okay, so different breads are much more similar than, say, basketball and ice hockey, which means, at a minimum, there will be some diehards who will wait forever to see the return of Jaromir Jagr from Siberia (literally) and Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier from their well-documented visit to Tatarstan (really -- both ESPN the Magazine and SI wrote articles about this visit, and, once again, ESPN the Magazine wrote the earlier article).
But what about the remainder of the fans? The corporations who buy tickets for entertainment (who are probably more interested in the event aspects of the games rather than the fact that they're ice hockey games), the fans who get disgruntled, and the fans who are not the diehards? Miss one year, they might be understanding, and they might even sympathize that the salary structure in the NHL is so out of whack that absent major reforms, barring a timeout from play the whole NHL could end up broke. Fine, but a two-year hiatus?
Good luck.
The owners could win the battle and lose the war. Sure, they might right the course of their beloved league, but how will elite players fare after a two-year layoff? How many will go back to their native Europe and remain? How many fans will be forgiving, especially when ticket prices are very expensive, the product is boring, there are too many teams and too many of those teams make the playoffs? It's not just the labor issue that's paramount, it's the quality-of-the-product issues as well. They could rectify the salary structure, but then they could lament that even under a new and more favorable collective bargaining agreement they are struggling because the post-lockout attendance figures cannot support even a reduced salary burden.
Relative to the rest of the world, there remains a golden goose out there, even for the owners and players, none of whom at this moment are worthy of it.
But as each days passes, the golden goose is slowly dying.
As is the National Hockey League.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Strange Metaphor for Villanova Wildcats
About a week ago, their leading scorer, Curtis Sumpter, hurt his knee and is now out for 4-6 weeks. A few days ago, ill-fated center Jason Fraser broke his hand. He had surgery yesterday, and he's out for a month (at least).
Which leaves the Villanova Wildcats with four very good players -- Alan Ray, Randy Foye, Kyle Lowry and Mike Nardi -- all of them guards, and all of them under 6'3". Which leaves the undersized Villanova Wildcats in the fight for their basketball lives. Given what happened a few nights ago in Providence, they're thrilled that their basketball lives is all that they're fighting for.
All this bad luck with injuries after a great start that has the Wildcats at 9-2 and that had people talking that this was the year for this team to return to the NCAA Tournament. And perhaps make some noise.
And then, of course, there's been the speculation atop the injuries. It's the kind of talk that started dogging the Wildcats' program since the end of last year. It even surfaced again today in a suburban paper. Yes, the story about the fate of coach Jay Wright. Get to the Big Dance or else is really what the message is.
Truth be told, that story, those whispers, had started to vanish after the great start and before the injuries to Sumpter and Fraser. But now that these two players have gotten hurt, the speculation has begun anew. The article I linked to above came out today of all days. It probably was a dead story after the Cats beat West Virginia, but now it's back. As if that was bad enough.
And now this.
It's a scary story, and atop everything else this program has gone through to boot. Luckily, it had a happy ending.
It doesn't take a literature major or a Rhodes Scholar to make the analogy here. Literally, the 'Nova program had started to crash with Sumpter's injury and perhaps started to burn with Fraser's. Figuratively, well, the team almost did the same in Providence of all places.
Coincidence?
Metaphor?
In Providence?
I'm not a superstitious sort, and I don't believe in omens, but this episode seems to have been scripted by the same folks who wrote for the Boston Red Sox this past year. Part Old Testament, part Greek Mythology. Team loses two key players, almost has catastrophic accident. The players return, and the team takes its difficult road to its Promised Land.
The NCAA Tournament.
Thankfully, Coach Jay Wright and his Wildcats now can take a deep breath, kiss the ground and begin to focus on how to take care of business. After all, beating Syracuse and UConn on the road without most of your frontcourt should be a piece of cake compared to the landing that they experienced in New England.
Jay Wright is a better coach than he gets credit for. And the four guards that now form the heart of the roster for the next month are as tough a group as they come.
Will they be enough? Will the Villanova Wildcats be able to win enough games to get an invitation to the NCAA Tournament?
The road most certainly will be a tough one.
Fate has been kind to them once, but now it's time for them to determine their own fate.
And after what happened the other night in Providence, their luck is bound to change.
Which leaves the Villanova Wildcats with four very good players -- Alan Ray, Randy Foye, Kyle Lowry and Mike Nardi -- all of them guards, and all of them under 6'3". Which leaves the undersized Villanova Wildcats in the fight for their basketball lives. Given what happened a few nights ago in Providence, they're thrilled that their basketball lives is all that they're fighting for.
All this bad luck with injuries after a great start that has the Wildcats at 9-2 and that had people talking that this was the year for this team to return to the NCAA Tournament. And perhaps make some noise.
And then, of course, there's been the speculation atop the injuries. It's the kind of talk that started dogging the Wildcats' program since the end of last year. It even surfaced again today in a suburban paper. Yes, the story about the fate of coach Jay Wright. Get to the Big Dance or else is really what the message is.
Truth be told, that story, those whispers, had started to vanish after the great start and before the injuries to Sumpter and Fraser. But now that these two players have gotten hurt, the speculation has begun anew. The article I linked to above came out today of all days. It probably was a dead story after the Cats beat West Virginia, but now it's back. As if that was bad enough.
And now this.
It's a scary story, and atop everything else this program has gone through to boot. Luckily, it had a happy ending.
It doesn't take a literature major or a Rhodes Scholar to make the analogy here. Literally, the 'Nova program had started to crash with Sumpter's injury and perhaps started to burn with Fraser's. Figuratively, well, the team almost did the same in Providence of all places.
Coincidence?
Metaphor?
In Providence?
I'm not a superstitious sort, and I don't believe in omens, but this episode seems to have been scripted by the same folks who wrote for the Boston Red Sox this past year. Part Old Testament, part Greek Mythology. Team loses two key players, almost has catastrophic accident. The players return, and the team takes its difficult road to its Promised Land.
The NCAA Tournament.
Thankfully, Coach Jay Wright and his Wildcats now can take a deep breath, kiss the ground and begin to focus on how to take care of business. After all, beating Syracuse and UConn on the road without most of your frontcourt should be a piece of cake compared to the landing that they experienced in New England.
Jay Wright is a better coach than he gets credit for. And the four guards that now form the heart of the roster for the next month are as tough a group as they come.
Will they be enough? Will the Villanova Wildcats be able to win enough games to get an invitation to the NCAA Tournament?
The road most certainly will be a tough one.
Fate has been kind to them once, but now it's time for them to determine their own fate.
And after what happened the other night in Providence, their luck is bound to change.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Of Trees and Trolls
Every year, fans of all D-I college hoop teams look at the standings of each conference and try to project which 64 (err, 65) will make it to the NCAA Tournament. For those fans whose teams are fortunate enough to be 8 seeds or higher, there can be dreams of the Sweet 16 or beyond. For those fans whose teams are in the bottom quadrant, well, the discussion usually is whether the Bucknells of the world will have a good enough body of work to merit a 12 or a 13 seed and perhaps a chance to win a first-round game against a large-conference runner up (that hope usually gets dashed when they run into a #5 seed whose front line goes 6'10", 6'10", 6'8" against the low-major team's front line that goes 6'8", 6'5", 6'5").
It's fun to speculate, for sure, whether you're at the Superman or Sisyphus level in the post-season scheme of things. And yesterday's men's college hoops results gave us a good look at a well-oiled machine at the upper level and a struggling team that usually is in the hunt for one of those 12 or 13 seeds.
It's a tale of two conferences, to be sure, a tale of two regions, and a tale of the two poles of major college basketball. At the penthouse, the North Carolina Tar Heels made quite a statement, breezing by a good Georgia Tech team by more than 20 points. The win was Carolina's 14th in a row, and they've won those games by an average of more than 20 points per game (or more than Michael Jordan averaged per game while in Chapel Hill). Click here for Dave Sez's report on this game (and click on the links in Dave's post) and other ACC action.
It says here that the Tar Heels are a Final Four team. I won't be so bold at this point to name them the national champions, but they are a first-rate basketball team (I promise to be a little more profound in the rest of the post!). Roy Williams probably holds the title as the best coach never to win an NCAA title (although others, such as John Chaney and Eddie Sutton could make a run for that title), and he's bound to get there someday.
Very soon.
At the other end of the spectrum are the Penn Quakers, a perennial contender in the Ivy League. Penn has an excellent hoops tradition, is one of only 15 teams to win 1,500 games during its history, and usually battles Princeton for the Ivy title year in and year out. I recently blogged that Penn's five games in January against non-league opponents would speak volumes about the Quakers' chances for the Ivy title, and so far Penn is 0-2 in those games. Last night they dropped a home game against visiting Rider by 6 in overtime, and their three primary outside shooters -- Tim Begley, Ibby Jaaber and Eric Osmundsen -- shot 4-22 from behind the arc, with Begley, the team captain and go-to guy, shooting 2-11 from behind the three-point line.
Two years ago, Begley was the Quakers' fifth option on offense (the first four were Ugonna Onyekwe, Andy Toole, Jeff Schiffner and Koko Archibong, each of whom earned at least one first-team all-Ivy nod during his career), blended in well, passed great and hit the open shot. Last year, he was the second option next to Schiffner (who was a returning first-team all-Ivy player), and he played very well. Schiffner, though, as the first option, couldn't replicate his first-team all-Ivy season. As the first option, he just didn't have enough game to take over a game. Begley, who I think is a better all-around player than Schiffner (although perhaps not a better competitor), finds himself this year in the spot Schiffner found himself last year. And, so far, it's been a bit of a challenge, in that he can't carry the team on his back all the time (last night he had 18 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, but had 5 turnovers and did shoot 2-11 from behind the arc). Super sophs Mark Zoller and Ibby Jaaber are in a bit of a sophomore slump; Zoller has been fighting off the effects of an ankle sprain, and Jaaber has been challenged on offense. Osmundsen is not a penetrator, and he turned the ball over 5 times against Illinois-Chicago. And the Quakers' big men -- Steve Danley, Jan Fikiel and Ryan Pettinella -- have been serviceable. All have shown promise -- Fikiel had 21 last night -- but none has been consistent.
So Penn is 4-7 right now and still trying to find a rhythm. The Quakers still have a chance to turn it around, as they have 3 more non-league games to play and 14 league games. Their Ivy record right now is 0-0, but their non-conference record suggests that while they're tough on the boards they're not good at protecting the basketball and not as good at shooting it as they have been in the past. And that could bode trouble in the Ivy campaign.
All that said, the Ivies usually boil down to Penn and Princeton, Princeton and Penn. True, Brown and Yale have found themselves in the mix over the past four years, and this year Columbia might be a gate-crasher.
Okay, so it's not the ACC, but watch the Patriot League championship game in early March, watch a Penn-Princeton game in February or March, and tell those teams and their fans that. Because basketball is basketball, and they play to win in Hanover, New Hampshire, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Providence, New Haven, Ithaca, New York, New York City, Princeton and Philadelphia with the same passion that they do on Tobacco Road. They might not jump as high, run as fast or shoot as well, but the kids who play the game want to win as badly.
That's what the teams who compete for the NCAA Tournament's top seeds and bottom seeds have in common.
And that's what makes Division I basketball as compelling as it is.
It's fun to speculate, for sure, whether you're at the Superman or Sisyphus level in the post-season scheme of things. And yesterday's men's college hoops results gave us a good look at a well-oiled machine at the upper level and a struggling team that usually is in the hunt for one of those 12 or 13 seeds.
It's a tale of two conferences, to be sure, a tale of two regions, and a tale of the two poles of major college basketball. At the penthouse, the North Carolina Tar Heels made quite a statement, breezing by a good Georgia Tech team by more than 20 points. The win was Carolina's 14th in a row, and they've won those games by an average of more than 20 points per game (or more than Michael Jordan averaged per game while in Chapel Hill). Click here for Dave Sez's report on this game (and click on the links in Dave's post) and other ACC action.
It says here that the Tar Heels are a Final Four team. I won't be so bold at this point to name them the national champions, but they are a first-rate basketball team (I promise to be a little more profound in the rest of the post!). Roy Williams probably holds the title as the best coach never to win an NCAA title (although others, such as John Chaney and Eddie Sutton could make a run for that title), and he's bound to get there someday.
Very soon.
At the other end of the spectrum are the Penn Quakers, a perennial contender in the Ivy League. Penn has an excellent hoops tradition, is one of only 15 teams to win 1,500 games during its history, and usually battles Princeton for the Ivy title year in and year out. I recently blogged that Penn's five games in January against non-league opponents would speak volumes about the Quakers' chances for the Ivy title, and so far Penn is 0-2 in those games. Last night they dropped a home game against visiting Rider by 6 in overtime, and their three primary outside shooters -- Tim Begley, Ibby Jaaber and Eric Osmundsen -- shot 4-22 from behind the arc, with Begley, the team captain and go-to guy, shooting 2-11 from behind the three-point line.
Two years ago, Begley was the Quakers' fifth option on offense (the first four were Ugonna Onyekwe, Andy Toole, Jeff Schiffner and Koko Archibong, each of whom earned at least one first-team all-Ivy nod during his career), blended in well, passed great and hit the open shot. Last year, he was the second option next to Schiffner (who was a returning first-team all-Ivy player), and he played very well. Schiffner, though, as the first option, couldn't replicate his first-team all-Ivy season. As the first option, he just didn't have enough game to take over a game. Begley, who I think is a better all-around player than Schiffner (although perhaps not a better competitor), finds himself this year in the spot Schiffner found himself last year. And, so far, it's been a bit of a challenge, in that he can't carry the team on his back all the time (last night he had 18 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, but had 5 turnovers and did shoot 2-11 from behind the arc). Super sophs Mark Zoller and Ibby Jaaber are in a bit of a sophomore slump; Zoller has been fighting off the effects of an ankle sprain, and Jaaber has been challenged on offense. Osmundsen is not a penetrator, and he turned the ball over 5 times against Illinois-Chicago. And the Quakers' big men -- Steve Danley, Jan Fikiel and Ryan Pettinella -- have been serviceable. All have shown promise -- Fikiel had 21 last night -- but none has been consistent.
So Penn is 4-7 right now and still trying to find a rhythm. The Quakers still have a chance to turn it around, as they have 3 more non-league games to play and 14 league games. Their Ivy record right now is 0-0, but their non-conference record suggests that while they're tough on the boards they're not good at protecting the basketball and not as good at shooting it as they have been in the past. And that could bode trouble in the Ivy campaign.
All that said, the Ivies usually boil down to Penn and Princeton, Princeton and Penn. True, Brown and Yale have found themselves in the mix over the past four years, and this year Columbia might be a gate-crasher.
Okay, so it's not the ACC, but watch the Patriot League championship game in early March, watch a Penn-Princeton game in February or March, and tell those teams and their fans that. Because basketball is basketball, and they play to win in Hanover, New Hampshire, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Providence, New Haven, Ithaca, New York, New York City, Princeton and Philadelphia with the same passion that they do on Tobacco Road. They might not jump as high, run as fast or shoot as well, but the kids who play the game want to win as badly.
That's what the teams who compete for the NCAA Tournament's top seeds and bottom seeds have in common.
And that's what makes Division I basketball as compelling as it is.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
College Football and Judged Sports
The Lords of College Football are at it again, voting at their convention whether to change the current system of voting in polls. More specifically, they're voting whether to make their balloting public, among other things.
You know how I feel on judged sports (see my posts on gymnastics at the Summer Olympics) and on the BCS (see my many posts on this topic, including one on giving props to Joe Paterno for splitting his number one vote in a late poll among Auburn, USC and Oklahoma). My bottom line is that championships like those in Division I-A should be decided on the field.
And not because a bunch of coaches who don't have ample time to telephone their children or send Dad a birthday present decide it without doing the type of preparation that they do for an opponent on Saturday in terms of watching film of all the contenders and determining with precision who are the best. And not because a bunch of writers who tend to get hagiographic in their coverage of the local team sometimes exercise a regional bias. And, most certainly, not because a President of the United States (remember Richard Nixon) decides that Texas deserves a title.
This if football, after all. Not rhthymic gymnastics.
If you're not going to advocate a national championship game (which, by the way, you should), then have more accountability in the way you select a national champion. Something stank to high heaven when Cal dropped out the BCS bowl picture after "only" beating Southern Mississippi on the road by 10, and absent a disclosure as to who changed their votes, the public is left wondering whether Big 12 coaches did so in an effort to get their conference a bigger share of the huge Rose Bowl gate by voting against Cal and for Texas (again, I am not alleging this, but absent full disclosure, the taint lingers).
You always tell your players to be honest with themselves, to be accountable, and to give their best effort. You tell them to be aggressive, to be stand up guys, and to be responsible. You reward the players who seize the initiative and attempt to be difference makers.
So it's high time for your group to strap on a pair yourselves.
Joe Paterno did, and he's the model as to what a major college football coach should be. (After all, splitting your vote in a late BCS poll was not a popular move to say the least, and the only reason he didn't draw more flack is because of who he is).
Follow his lead.
If you truly believe in your system, then be accountable and don't hide anything. Of course, that type of accountability has a price, as Lloyd Carr and Bob Stoops allude to. The public hounding will be much worse, and head coaches will get asked much more about their votes in the polls than about their own teams. I agree, that most certainly will happen.
And I can understand, to a point, that the coaches do not want the hassle. That's fine, too, as that's their right. But then they should take a stand. They're big-time guys, they like the limelight, they take a lot of money to take an awful lot of heat, and they have tough jobs. No one will deny that. But with the big bucks they make (sometimes at the expense of their kids), they have to take tough stands.
And the choice, it says here, is between a playoff (that well might be a windfall for the teams in the national semis and final games but could hurt overall revenue because the Sewer Detergent Bowl and others like it will have to get scrapped) and a poll that reveals which coach voted for what team.
Because, absent that, the doubts and suspicions will remain. And tough, well-choreographed young men will have their fates in the hands of exhausted coaches who probably don't have many good metrics as to how to determine who the best team is.
And in a group (Division I-A) where many programs spare no expense, they're opting for the two-ply tires on the Escalade. It doesn't make any sense. As a result, to some, the decision about who is the Division I-A winner will have the integrity of the determinations made in Olympic figure skating and Olympic gymnastics.
If you're really a sport, then you decide your titles on the field, head-to-head.
And if you stick to the old ways of doing business, then what are you?
A great movie (as this year's season had some great games) with a potentially terrible ending? The first-round of the Ukrainian presidential elections?
Sometimes you'll get lucky, but even this past season, while USC made a huge statement in beating Oklahoma, an undefeated team was left out in the cold. 13-0 Auburn didn't have a seat at the table. In all other NCAA sports, they would have had a spot in a playoff. Except here.
So, Division I-A coaches, whatever you do, fix the system.
Everyone involved, including you, deserves better.
You know how I feel on judged sports (see my posts on gymnastics at the Summer Olympics) and on the BCS (see my many posts on this topic, including one on giving props to Joe Paterno for splitting his number one vote in a late poll among Auburn, USC and Oklahoma). My bottom line is that championships like those in Division I-A should be decided on the field.
And not because a bunch of coaches who don't have ample time to telephone their children or send Dad a birthday present decide it without doing the type of preparation that they do for an opponent on Saturday in terms of watching film of all the contenders and determining with precision who are the best. And not because a bunch of writers who tend to get hagiographic in their coverage of the local team sometimes exercise a regional bias. And, most certainly, not because a President of the United States (remember Richard Nixon) decides that Texas deserves a title.
This if football, after all. Not rhthymic gymnastics.
If you're not going to advocate a national championship game (which, by the way, you should), then have more accountability in the way you select a national champion. Something stank to high heaven when Cal dropped out the BCS bowl picture after "only" beating Southern Mississippi on the road by 10, and absent a disclosure as to who changed their votes, the public is left wondering whether Big 12 coaches did so in an effort to get their conference a bigger share of the huge Rose Bowl gate by voting against Cal and for Texas (again, I am not alleging this, but absent full disclosure, the taint lingers).
You always tell your players to be honest with themselves, to be accountable, and to give their best effort. You tell them to be aggressive, to be stand up guys, and to be responsible. You reward the players who seize the initiative and attempt to be difference makers.
So it's high time for your group to strap on a pair yourselves.
Joe Paterno did, and he's the model as to what a major college football coach should be. (After all, splitting your vote in a late BCS poll was not a popular move to say the least, and the only reason he didn't draw more flack is because of who he is).
Follow his lead.
If you truly believe in your system, then be accountable and don't hide anything. Of course, that type of accountability has a price, as Lloyd Carr and Bob Stoops allude to. The public hounding will be much worse, and head coaches will get asked much more about their votes in the polls than about their own teams. I agree, that most certainly will happen.
And I can understand, to a point, that the coaches do not want the hassle. That's fine, too, as that's their right. But then they should take a stand. They're big-time guys, they like the limelight, they take a lot of money to take an awful lot of heat, and they have tough jobs. No one will deny that. But with the big bucks they make (sometimes at the expense of their kids), they have to take tough stands.
And the choice, it says here, is between a playoff (that well might be a windfall for the teams in the national semis and final games but could hurt overall revenue because the Sewer Detergent Bowl and others like it will have to get scrapped) and a poll that reveals which coach voted for what team.
Because, absent that, the doubts and suspicions will remain. And tough, well-choreographed young men will have their fates in the hands of exhausted coaches who probably don't have many good metrics as to how to determine who the best team is.
And in a group (Division I-A) where many programs spare no expense, they're opting for the two-ply tires on the Escalade. It doesn't make any sense. As a result, to some, the decision about who is the Division I-A winner will have the integrity of the determinations made in Olympic figure skating and Olympic gymnastics.
If you're really a sport, then you decide your titles on the field, head-to-head.
And if you stick to the old ways of doing business, then what are you?
A great movie (as this year's season had some great games) with a potentially terrible ending? The first-round of the Ukrainian presidential elections?
Sometimes you'll get lucky, but even this past season, while USC made a huge statement in beating Oklahoma, an undefeated team was left out in the cold. 13-0 Auburn didn't have a seat at the table. In all other NCAA sports, they would have had a spot in a playoff. Except here.
So, Division I-A coaches, whatever you do, fix the system.
Everyone involved, including you, deserves better.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Basketball Irkutsk
All sorts of sayings come to mind, such as "innocent until proven guilty" or "he hasn't been convicted of anything," or "he deserves a second chance," although they wouldn't be totally apt.
Yes, Jayson Williams is playing basketball again.
In Idaho.
In the CBA (which is ironic, because the University of Idaho's nickname is the Vandals, which, when it comes to the former all-star power forward, hits pretty close to home).
Which, for a guy with a huge house, lots of amenities and not much else, is tantamount to Hoops Siberia.
The Idaho Stampede.
Okay, so he hasn't signed a contract yet, and, yes, if he does, he'll be the oldest player in the CBA at 36. Which is usually an age when, if you're not in the big leagues, you retire. Because then you're a hoops senior citizen, and it's time to think about the next chapter of your life. If you're a real senior citizen, you probably wouldn't move to Idaho at the age of 70. You'd move to Arizona.
And, when you read the article, you'll discern that Cavs coach Paul Silas believes that Williams can help a team in the NBA. This is your dad's Paul Silas, the old Celtics and Suns warrior who took no guff from anyone, and who railed at good guy PG Eric Snow for alleged insubordination earlier in the season. It's hard to believe that the Cavs would pursue Williams for two reasons. First, do you really think Paul Silas would tolerate Williams' act if he threw a public fit about Snow's play? Second, do you think that Cavs management would want Williams around as an influence for LeBron James? As much as the Cavs think they miss Carlos Boozer on the low blocks, they don't need Jayson Williams to improve their chemistry.
I really don't know what to think of all this. I usually think that when someone retires that he should stay retired, unless you're Roger Clemens or the late Wilt Chamberlain. After all, even the thought of Wilt's return to the hard wood at the age of 55 to give some team 15 minutes a game would have been something to watch. I, for one, would have paid money to see him play. Michael Jordan, too.
But not most others.
The problem with the NBA today is that there are too many players, not too few. Sure, there are those who would argue that there are too few good players, but it's a reach to argue that Williams would be considered a good player, even using today's grade inflation. The NBA's product is lacking, and on the heels of the battle royale in Detroit earlier this season, the return of Jayson Williams is perhaps the last thing that the NBA needs to polish its image.
Still, playing again is his right, and it's the right of every team in need of production at the power forward position to take a look at Williams if they want to.
Just don't bet that they'll be lining up for the privilege. There will be no stampedes to Idaho to check him out. Media, perhaps. Scouts, no more than usual.
So, meanwhile, Jayson Williams is looking to resurrect his career in Idaho.
Is he building character by exiling himself to this cold weather climate?
Or is this just another episode in the career of a character?
Remember, he hasn't signed a contract yet.
Yes, Jayson Williams is playing basketball again.
In Idaho.
In the CBA (which is ironic, because the University of Idaho's nickname is the Vandals, which, when it comes to the former all-star power forward, hits pretty close to home).
Which, for a guy with a huge house, lots of amenities and not much else, is tantamount to Hoops Siberia.
The Idaho Stampede.
Okay, so he hasn't signed a contract yet, and, yes, if he does, he'll be the oldest player in the CBA at 36. Which is usually an age when, if you're not in the big leagues, you retire. Because then you're a hoops senior citizen, and it's time to think about the next chapter of your life. If you're a real senior citizen, you probably wouldn't move to Idaho at the age of 70. You'd move to Arizona.
And, when you read the article, you'll discern that Cavs coach Paul Silas believes that Williams can help a team in the NBA. This is your dad's Paul Silas, the old Celtics and Suns warrior who took no guff from anyone, and who railed at good guy PG Eric Snow for alleged insubordination earlier in the season. It's hard to believe that the Cavs would pursue Williams for two reasons. First, do you really think Paul Silas would tolerate Williams' act if he threw a public fit about Snow's play? Second, do you think that Cavs management would want Williams around as an influence for LeBron James? As much as the Cavs think they miss Carlos Boozer on the low blocks, they don't need Jayson Williams to improve their chemistry.
I really don't know what to think of all this. I usually think that when someone retires that he should stay retired, unless you're Roger Clemens or the late Wilt Chamberlain. After all, even the thought of Wilt's return to the hard wood at the age of 55 to give some team 15 minutes a game would have been something to watch. I, for one, would have paid money to see him play. Michael Jordan, too.
But not most others.
The problem with the NBA today is that there are too many players, not too few. Sure, there are those who would argue that there are too few good players, but it's a reach to argue that Williams would be considered a good player, even using today's grade inflation. The NBA's product is lacking, and on the heels of the battle royale in Detroit earlier this season, the return of Jayson Williams is perhaps the last thing that the NBA needs to polish its image.
Still, playing again is his right, and it's the right of every team in need of production at the power forward position to take a look at Williams if they want to.
Just don't bet that they'll be lining up for the privilege. There will be no stampedes to Idaho to check him out. Media, perhaps. Scouts, no more than usual.
So, meanwhile, Jayson Williams is looking to resurrect his career in Idaho.
Is he building character by exiling himself to this cold weather climate?
Or is this just another episode in the career of a character?
Remember, he hasn't signed a contract yet.
Monday, January 10, 2005
One Hundred Year Drought?
USA Today has a follow-up piece on the Boston Red Sox final-out baseball fiasco, as does Off-Wing Opinion. On the same screen, next to the article, is a poll as to what fans think that BoSox 1B Doug Mientkiewicz, should do with the baseball. You will note that my prior suggestion (which, by the way, is most constructive and not graphic) is not one of the choices in the poll.
Which is too bad, because I believe that there is precedent for what I suggest (the article talks of the auction of the '86 ball to actor Charlie Sheen, but doesn't mention what Eric at Off-Wing Opinion did, which is that Mets' traveling secretary Arthur Richman gave the proceeds to charity). That doesn't seem to be in the cards, but a nasty fight might be.
The interesting thing about this controversy, however, is that given the Red Sox' demand that the ball be given back to them, you would think that as a matter of course all Series-ending balls end up with the home team's management and then sent to the Hall of Fame.
But if you thought that, you would be dead wrong. Or, to paraphrase Warner Wolf, if you thought that and took 100 years, you lose!
Because the last Series-ending ball that the Hall of Fame has in its possession is from the first World Series, in 1903. Where are the others? Click the links to find out, but Charlie Sheen has one, and so does Josh Beckett, who apparently keeps it in a glove under his bed.
And that's significant because in reading all of the articles about this controversy, a disinterested observer might have concluded that there was ample precedent for Major League Baseball, as it were, to take jurisdiction/title to the ball and then send it to the Hall of Fame because you might have inferred that all balls ended up in the Hall.
Except the exact opposite is true. In a game with a collective bargaining agreement the size of the Will and Ariel Durant series on the great philosophers and a rule book that is about as big as the instructions to program your average VCR, anarchy rules. Squatters' rights, perhaps? First-come, first-served? There are no rules on the subject (okay, so my erudite lawyer friends might say that common law should govern, but, then again, if the situation comes down to that, Major League Baseball would have lost, big-time).
So, while I'm not that sympathetic with either Mientkiewicz or with the Red Sox' management, the truth seems to be that there is no precedent for a baseball team to demand return of the ball. There may be legal arguments, though, but the Lords of Baseball should remember that they won't always win by being right 100% of the time. And, if they take Mientkiewicz (whose name is a nightmare for the average sports blogger to type) to the mat, then what of the people who have the balls from earlier Series-ending games (assuming, of course, that they're authenticated)? Will they pursue Josh Beckett, too?
That's why I'll stick with my original proposal, which I believe is a fair and just solution that will help baseball once again be an ambassador of good will.
Because, absent that solution, the situation could get very nasty. And it quickly could cause people to forget the wonderful things that happened in the ALCS and World Series last year.
It's just a ball, guys. And they come and go. But this World Series win, it should last forever.
Untarnished by intra-family squabbling.
Which is too bad, because I believe that there is precedent for what I suggest (the article talks of the auction of the '86 ball to actor Charlie Sheen, but doesn't mention what Eric at Off-Wing Opinion did, which is that Mets' traveling secretary Arthur Richman gave the proceeds to charity). That doesn't seem to be in the cards, but a nasty fight might be.
The interesting thing about this controversy, however, is that given the Red Sox' demand that the ball be given back to them, you would think that as a matter of course all Series-ending balls end up with the home team's management and then sent to the Hall of Fame.
But if you thought that, you would be dead wrong. Or, to paraphrase Warner Wolf, if you thought that and took 100 years, you lose!
Because the last Series-ending ball that the Hall of Fame has in its possession is from the first World Series, in 1903. Where are the others? Click the links to find out, but Charlie Sheen has one, and so does Josh Beckett, who apparently keeps it in a glove under his bed.
And that's significant because in reading all of the articles about this controversy, a disinterested observer might have concluded that there was ample precedent for Major League Baseball, as it were, to take jurisdiction/title to the ball and then send it to the Hall of Fame because you might have inferred that all balls ended up in the Hall.
Except the exact opposite is true. In a game with a collective bargaining agreement the size of the Will and Ariel Durant series on the great philosophers and a rule book that is about as big as the instructions to program your average VCR, anarchy rules. Squatters' rights, perhaps? First-come, first-served? There are no rules on the subject (okay, so my erudite lawyer friends might say that common law should govern, but, then again, if the situation comes down to that, Major League Baseball would have lost, big-time).
So, while I'm not that sympathetic with either Mientkiewicz or with the Red Sox' management, the truth seems to be that there is no precedent for a baseball team to demand return of the ball. There may be legal arguments, though, but the Lords of Baseball should remember that they won't always win by being right 100% of the time. And, if they take Mientkiewicz (whose name is a nightmare for the average sports blogger to type) to the mat, then what of the people who have the balls from earlier Series-ending games (assuming, of course, that they're authenticated)? Will they pursue Josh Beckett, too?
That's why I'll stick with my original proposal, which I believe is a fair and just solution that will help baseball once again be an ambassador of good will.
Because, absent that solution, the situation could get very nasty. And it quickly could cause people to forget the wonderful things that happened in the ALCS and World Series last year.
It's just a ball, guys. And they come and go. But this World Series win, it should last forever.
Untarnished by intra-family squabbling.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
What Will They Say on Monday?
Hearty congratulations to Herm Edwards, Chad Pennington and the New York Jets on their first road playoff win since 1982. The victory has to be especially sweet for the head coach and starting QB, both of whom get hit with salvos worthy of the U.S. artillery almost daily in the New York media.
Edwards? They say he's a good guy, an average coach, someone who doesn't know how to manage a game and someone who should fire his offensive coordinator, Paul Hackett.
Pennington? They say he doesn't have a gun, he doesn't muscle throws, he throws the safe ball, that his arm is hurt, and that he may not be a big-game QB.
Or, at least, that's what they said for the past several months. The popular view went something like this: the Jets backed into the playoffs, didn't go in exactly on a high, there were games with coaching gaffes and games where Randy Moss's college QB looked, well, like a college QB. And not, certainly, one who inked a contract worthy of Wall Street.
What will they say on Monday?
What will callers who call into WFAN, especially the Mike and the Mad Dog show, say? Will they become converts to the cause? Will they give credit where credit is due? Or will they say that it wasn't that the Jets played well, but that San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer coached too conservatively, coached horribly, and shouldn't have put the kid kicker in the situation he put him in. That he performed about as well as a Union Army general in the Civil War prior to the arrival of Ulysses S. Grant and George Mead. Will they say that it was more that the Chargers lost the game than the Jets won it?
Let the fun begin, at least for those who can't take satisfaction in their good fortune (and for those New Yorkers who are dyed-in-the-wool Giants fans and who cannot give the Jets any props at all).
Because, for those on the Jets, players and coaches, they did what they had to do.
They won the game on the field.
All the rest is just conversation.
Edwards? They say he's a good guy, an average coach, someone who doesn't know how to manage a game and someone who should fire his offensive coordinator, Paul Hackett.
Pennington? They say he doesn't have a gun, he doesn't muscle throws, he throws the safe ball, that his arm is hurt, and that he may not be a big-game QB.
Or, at least, that's what they said for the past several months. The popular view went something like this: the Jets backed into the playoffs, didn't go in exactly on a high, there were games with coaching gaffes and games where Randy Moss's college QB looked, well, like a college QB. And not, certainly, one who inked a contract worthy of Wall Street.
What will they say on Monday?
What will callers who call into WFAN, especially the Mike and the Mad Dog show, say? Will they become converts to the cause? Will they give credit where credit is due? Or will they say that it wasn't that the Jets played well, but that San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer coached too conservatively, coached horribly, and shouldn't have put the kid kicker in the situation he put him in. That he performed about as well as a Union Army general in the Civil War prior to the arrival of Ulysses S. Grant and George Mead. Will they say that it was more that the Chargers lost the game than the Jets won it?
Let the fun begin, at least for those who can't take satisfaction in their good fortune (and for those New Yorkers who are dyed-in-the-wool Giants fans and who cannot give the Jets any props at all).
Because, for those on the Jets, players and coaches, they did what they had to do.
They won the game on the field.
All the rest is just conversation.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
College Coaches and the Basketball Hall of Fame
Doug Gottlieb has wondered aloud at espn.com about which coaches who are not in the Hall of Fame are deserving of being there. You may remember Gottlieb as a PG for Notre Dame who then transferred to Oklahoma State, and he's also an on-air personality for ESPN Radio.
The most amusing part of the post to me is where he takes a few swipes at former Princeton head coach Pete Carril. Not direct ones, mind you, but the comparative type of swipes where he basically implies either that Tex Winter is deserving because even Carril made it or that Carril isn't worthy if a guy like Winter isn't in the Hall of Fame. To make matters worse, he misspells Carril's last name. Carril probably could care less about what Gottlieb (or what anyone else, for that matter) says about him on a topic like this, but some of the rest of us do. Doug, whatever you do, at least remember to spell the guy's name right.
On top of that, he's one helluva coach.
One of Gottlieb's basic premises is that Eddie Sutton and Jerry Tarkanian should be in the Hall, and he speculates that they might not be in the Hall because of violations of NCAA rules. And then he wonders aloud why they are not in if other coaches (including, of course, coaching Rushmore's Larry Brown) are in. To top it all off, he then casts aspersions on John Wooden, of all people, saying that basically Wooden was a .500 coach at UCLA until an allegedly shady booster, Sam Gilbert, got involved in the program (in this latter regard, he forgets to mention that Wooden's ascendancy within the Pac 8, as it then was called, let alone the national spectrum, also coincided with Pete Newell's retirement from Cal, as the Golden Bears had something like an 8-0 record against the Bruins of Wooden from 1960-1964).
ESPN does disclose at the end of the article that Gottlieb did play for Oklahoma State, but Gottlieb doesn't disclose that he played for Eddie Sutton. He also takes a few oblique shots at Temple greats John Chaney and Harry Litwack because "they didn't win anything," and Louie Carnessecca gets painted with that broad brush too.
Gottlieb makes some valid points (and it's hard to argue that some of the coaches he names, such as Roy Williams, Gary Williams and Jim Boeheim, do not belong in the Hall), although he basically steamrolls many legacies in so doing. Also, let's review the cases of Sutton and Tarkanian separately to see if what Gottlieb says has merit.
As to Sutton, what went on when he was at Kentucky was one of the most notorious series of NCAA violations since the betting scandals of the early 1950's (and the scandal at BC in the late 1970's). Permanently embedded in the minds of many college hoops fans is a story about a recruit in Southern California, an assistant coach and a Federal Express package that leaked out at least one thousand dollars. I don't recall if Sutton was implicated personally or not, but Kentucky went on probation and that whole episode stained that program and the nation's vision of it for quite some time. In my view, Sutton was lucky to revive his coaching career. He has an excellent body of work in terms of wins and losses, no one can deny that. But it may well be that this particular recruiting episode (and the other violations that led to Kentucky's receiving NCAA sanctions) is what is keeping him out of the Hall.
As for Tarkanian, well, he's in a league of his own. He had some great teams, and he was a great coach. UNLV was a high-caliber basketball program for many years, and Tark also had outstanding programs (again, in terms of results) at Long Beach State before UNLV and at Fresno State after it. But the results aren't the only things that the Hall voters examine, and Tark was always in the NCAA's penalty box or at its doorstep and seemingly scandals always surrounded his program. Yes, he did win games, and yes, he did take chances on kids no one else would have, but he also took kids that no one else would have touched either. And, in certain cases, subsequent events bore out why that was the case.
I am sure that for some voters, to enshrine Jerry Tarkanian would be to say that at the end of the day, it isn't how you complied with rules and policies, it isn't how many kids you graduated, and it isn't how many kids had run-ins with the law or were in hot tubs with boosters, but what your record was. And for voters who always have endeavored to do things the right way, that's probably a concession that they will never make.
True, Jerry Tarkanian's basketball teams were better than Pete Carril's, and, true, when they played head-to-head the outcomes never were in doubt, but as far of Hall of Famers go, there is no comparison between Pete Carril and Jerry Tarkanian.
One won under very trying circumstances, trying to recruit kids with the outstanding academics and financial resources necessary to go to a school that didn't offer basketball scholarships. In many cases, he took kids with promise and turned them into outstanding ballplayers, as the Ivies were seldom the place where a HS all-American would go at the expense, say, of an ACC school such as Duke or Carolina. He had his chances to go to other schools, big-time schools, but he preferred that his journey be taken on a road less traveled, a harder road, to be sure, because unlike golf tournaments at country clubs, an Ivy team isn't spotted points when it plays Duke or Carolina on the road. And he won over 500 games in the process!
The other, in a sense, took the easier way out, finding the best hoopsters possible without worrying too much about the requirements of a university community or the major association to which it belonged. It's not surprising that he won a national title; given his circumstances, it's surprising that he didn't win a whole lot more.
You aren't always a champion because you win game after game and then the biggest one at that.
And perhaps, in the end, that's the messsage the Hall of Fame voters are trying to send.
The most amusing part of the post to me is where he takes a few swipes at former Princeton head coach Pete Carril. Not direct ones, mind you, but the comparative type of swipes where he basically implies either that Tex Winter is deserving because even Carril made it or that Carril isn't worthy if a guy like Winter isn't in the Hall of Fame. To make matters worse, he misspells Carril's last name. Carril probably could care less about what Gottlieb (or what anyone else, for that matter) says about him on a topic like this, but some of the rest of us do. Doug, whatever you do, at least remember to spell the guy's name right.
On top of that, he's one helluva coach.
One of Gottlieb's basic premises is that Eddie Sutton and Jerry Tarkanian should be in the Hall, and he speculates that they might not be in the Hall because of violations of NCAA rules. And then he wonders aloud why they are not in if other coaches (including, of course, coaching Rushmore's Larry Brown) are in. To top it all off, he then casts aspersions on John Wooden, of all people, saying that basically Wooden was a .500 coach at UCLA until an allegedly shady booster, Sam Gilbert, got involved in the program (in this latter regard, he forgets to mention that Wooden's ascendancy within the Pac 8, as it then was called, let alone the national spectrum, also coincided with Pete Newell's retirement from Cal, as the Golden Bears had something like an 8-0 record against the Bruins of Wooden from 1960-1964).
ESPN does disclose at the end of the article that Gottlieb did play for Oklahoma State, but Gottlieb doesn't disclose that he played for Eddie Sutton. He also takes a few oblique shots at Temple greats John Chaney and Harry Litwack because "they didn't win anything," and Louie Carnessecca gets painted with that broad brush too.
Gottlieb makes some valid points (and it's hard to argue that some of the coaches he names, such as Roy Williams, Gary Williams and Jim Boeheim, do not belong in the Hall), although he basically steamrolls many legacies in so doing. Also, let's review the cases of Sutton and Tarkanian separately to see if what Gottlieb says has merit.
As to Sutton, what went on when he was at Kentucky was one of the most notorious series of NCAA violations since the betting scandals of the early 1950's (and the scandal at BC in the late 1970's). Permanently embedded in the minds of many college hoops fans is a story about a recruit in Southern California, an assistant coach and a Federal Express package that leaked out at least one thousand dollars. I don't recall if Sutton was implicated personally or not, but Kentucky went on probation and that whole episode stained that program and the nation's vision of it for quite some time. In my view, Sutton was lucky to revive his coaching career. He has an excellent body of work in terms of wins and losses, no one can deny that. But it may well be that this particular recruiting episode (and the other violations that led to Kentucky's receiving NCAA sanctions) is what is keeping him out of the Hall.
As for Tarkanian, well, he's in a league of his own. He had some great teams, and he was a great coach. UNLV was a high-caliber basketball program for many years, and Tark also had outstanding programs (again, in terms of results) at Long Beach State before UNLV and at Fresno State after it. But the results aren't the only things that the Hall voters examine, and Tark was always in the NCAA's penalty box or at its doorstep and seemingly scandals always surrounded his program. Yes, he did win games, and yes, he did take chances on kids no one else would have, but he also took kids that no one else would have touched either. And, in certain cases, subsequent events bore out why that was the case.
I am sure that for some voters, to enshrine Jerry Tarkanian would be to say that at the end of the day, it isn't how you complied with rules and policies, it isn't how many kids you graduated, and it isn't how many kids had run-ins with the law or were in hot tubs with boosters, but what your record was. And for voters who always have endeavored to do things the right way, that's probably a concession that they will never make.
True, Jerry Tarkanian's basketball teams were better than Pete Carril's, and, true, when they played head-to-head the outcomes never were in doubt, but as far of Hall of Famers go, there is no comparison between Pete Carril and Jerry Tarkanian.
One won under very trying circumstances, trying to recruit kids with the outstanding academics and financial resources necessary to go to a school that didn't offer basketball scholarships. In many cases, he took kids with promise and turned them into outstanding ballplayers, as the Ivies were seldom the place where a HS all-American would go at the expense, say, of an ACC school such as Duke or Carolina. He had his chances to go to other schools, big-time schools, but he preferred that his journey be taken on a road less traveled, a harder road, to be sure, because unlike golf tournaments at country clubs, an Ivy team isn't spotted points when it plays Duke or Carolina on the road. And he won over 500 games in the process!
The other, in a sense, took the easier way out, finding the best hoopsters possible without worrying too much about the requirements of a university community or the major association to which it belonged. It's not surprising that he won a national title; given his circumstances, it's surprising that he didn't win a whole lot more.
You aren't always a champion because you win game after game and then the biggest one at that.
And perhaps, in the end, that's the messsage the Hall of Fame voters are trying to send.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Auction the Ball for Charity
There's a new baseball scandal brewing. No, it's not about steroids or about team's taking their share of the luxury taxes that the Yankees pay and plowing the money into the bank accounts of the owners (as opposed to spending that money on players). Not a scandal of that sort, and, perhaps, it's not a scandal. Okay, it's a controversy.
About a baseball.
And not any baseball to be exact, but the baseball that made the last out in the 2004 World Series that enabled the Boston Red Sox to clinch their first World Series title in 86 years.
You see, BoSox backup 1B Doug Mientkiewicz caught it, and he wants to keep it. He says it constitutes his retirement, and an MLB spokesperson said that the ball belongs to the 1B.
Not so fast, say the Red Sox, who think the ball is theirs. I defer to the Sports Law Blog for a critical analysis of property rights in baseballs caught on the field, but while Mientkiewicz wants it for his reasons, the BoSox want to put the ball into a BoSox museum of sorts. Or at least that's the plan.
Because for too many years, the only ball that the BoSox fans were left wondering about was the one that went in between Bill Buckner's legs in the '86 World Series. Not a pleasant memory, and, I'm sure, those Red Sox fans who were able to afford psychoanalysts were told that in ensuing years they were suffering from some type of ground ball anxiety, a pronounced fear of getting disappointed at a key moment in a game because of errant fielding -- even if the game was a spring training "B" game in Bradenton. Getting this ball, of course, would enable BoSox management to have the ball of all balls and trump all disappointing balls of BoSox past.
Except Mientkiewicz isn't budging.
Which makes for an interesting drama. Do the BoSox cut him? Does the union step in and say that the cut was in retaliation for the first baseman's exercise of a valid property right? Does the team keep Mientkiewicz but sue him in court and fight out the property right? It's a shame that Ally McBeal is off the air, because creator David E. Kelley would have had a field day with this one.
After all, the BoSox management really wants that ball. And, from going to many games over the years, we all know first-hand how hard people fight for game-used baseballs. Men in $1,000 suits dive for them and risk shattering their Tag Heuer watches, people throw punches over them, jump onto the field for them, wrestle for them and even go to court in the San Francisco area over them.
So I have a better idea. Guys, with all due respect, the ball is just a thing. And things come and go. And, yes, things can be replaced. Even this thing. Yes, even this ball. Because, at the end of the day, what matters is the accomplishment of a great group of players, not the ball that made the last out. So who really cares if either side gets to keep it?
Especially given that halfway around the world, a catastrophe of biblical proportions just hit. Well over 100,000 people lost their lives, there's a fear of potential outbreaks of infectious diseases because of the aftermath of the tsunami, and many who lived lost everything. So while you're fighting over a baseball, you're being silly in the grander scheme of things. Instead of fighting about this in the press and in back rooms, why don't you let the ball do something very good?
Auction it for charity.
You'll get hundreds of thousands, perhaps over a million. Because out there in this world is some brahmin, some magnate, some actor, some money manager, some investment banker -- someone who absolutely adores the Boston Red Sox. Someone who is very much into collecting trophies. Someone who wants this ball badly.
And someone who will pay even more than what it's probably worth because it will be for a great cause.
So go to Christie's, go to Sotheby's, ask them to waive their fees (and they could use some good publicity too), and then auction the ball to the entire world. Let's hope it goes for $1 million, and then let's use that $1 million to help people rebuild their lives.
After all, the Red Sox' 2004 season was all about hope, never giving up and the art of the possible.
Let's let this ball be about the same things.
About a baseball.
And not any baseball to be exact, but the baseball that made the last out in the 2004 World Series that enabled the Boston Red Sox to clinch their first World Series title in 86 years.
You see, BoSox backup 1B Doug Mientkiewicz caught it, and he wants to keep it. He says it constitutes his retirement, and an MLB spokesperson said that the ball belongs to the 1B.
Not so fast, say the Red Sox, who think the ball is theirs. I defer to the Sports Law Blog for a critical analysis of property rights in baseballs caught on the field, but while Mientkiewicz wants it for his reasons, the BoSox want to put the ball into a BoSox museum of sorts. Or at least that's the plan.
Because for too many years, the only ball that the BoSox fans were left wondering about was the one that went in between Bill Buckner's legs in the '86 World Series. Not a pleasant memory, and, I'm sure, those Red Sox fans who were able to afford psychoanalysts were told that in ensuing years they were suffering from some type of ground ball anxiety, a pronounced fear of getting disappointed at a key moment in a game because of errant fielding -- even if the game was a spring training "B" game in Bradenton. Getting this ball, of course, would enable BoSox management to have the ball of all balls and trump all disappointing balls of BoSox past.
Except Mientkiewicz isn't budging.
Which makes for an interesting drama. Do the BoSox cut him? Does the union step in and say that the cut was in retaliation for the first baseman's exercise of a valid property right? Does the team keep Mientkiewicz but sue him in court and fight out the property right? It's a shame that Ally McBeal is off the air, because creator David E. Kelley would have had a field day with this one.
After all, the BoSox management really wants that ball. And, from going to many games over the years, we all know first-hand how hard people fight for game-used baseballs. Men in $1,000 suits dive for them and risk shattering their Tag Heuer watches, people throw punches over them, jump onto the field for them, wrestle for them and even go to court in the San Francisco area over them.
So I have a better idea. Guys, with all due respect, the ball is just a thing. And things come and go. And, yes, things can be replaced. Even this thing. Yes, even this ball. Because, at the end of the day, what matters is the accomplishment of a great group of players, not the ball that made the last out. So who really cares if either side gets to keep it?
Especially given that halfway around the world, a catastrophe of biblical proportions just hit. Well over 100,000 people lost their lives, there's a fear of potential outbreaks of infectious diseases because of the aftermath of the tsunami, and many who lived lost everything. So while you're fighting over a baseball, you're being silly in the grander scheme of things. Instead of fighting about this in the press and in back rooms, why don't you let the ball do something very good?
Auction it for charity.
You'll get hundreds of thousands, perhaps over a million. Because out there in this world is some brahmin, some magnate, some actor, some money manager, some investment banker -- someone who absolutely adores the Boston Red Sox. Someone who is very much into collecting trophies. Someone who wants this ball badly.
And someone who will pay even more than what it's probably worth because it will be for a great cause.
So go to Christie's, go to Sotheby's, ask them to waive their fees (and they could use some good publicity too), and then auction the ball to the entire world. Let's hope it goes for $1 million, and then let's use that $1 million to help people rebuild their lives.
After all, the Red Sox' 2004 season was all about hope, never giving up and the art of the possible.
Let's let this ball be about the same things.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Ugh!
Duke 59, Princeton 46. And it wasn't even that close (and I'll admit that my prognostication of a Duke win at 56-48 meant that the game was going to be a close one, and, well, it just wasn't.).
There were many keys for Princeton going into last night's game, and I'll just touch on a few of them.
I haven't watched as many Princeton games as some of my readers, but they seem to be rather slow coming out of the starting gate. They aren't always in sync, and the result is that they don't always put forth a solid effort in the first half. Princeton coach Joe Scott said after the game that he needed a solid 40 minutes against Duke last night, and he only got 20. The Tigers have to improve on their starts, even in the Ivies. They need to do a better job of coming out and taking charge.
Princeton needed to shoot fairly well from behind the arc to win the game, but they just couldn't do it. They didn't even come close. Coach K said after the game that they saw that Princeton scored 60% of its points on threes, so Duke's strategy was to deny the three and make Princeton find other ways to score. Unfortunately for the Tigers, their ballhandling and passing wasn't crisp enough in the first half to exploit Duke's overplaying on defense. Only Tiger Will Venable was composed enough and relaxed enough to blow by Duke defenders for layup after layup, and he played a great game, with 21 points and 6 boards. Bottom line and key stat: Princeton shot 1-17 from behind the 3-point line.
Double ouch.
I had also said that the Tigers needed to keep Duke off the offensive glass, and they just failed to do so. They also didn't establish a third option on offense outside Venable and C Judson Wallace, who battled Shelden Williams admirably but who only got going in the second half. The back door was there at times last night, or at least shorter jumpers after getting the ball past overplays, but the Tigers just couldn't convert. Cameron is a very tough place to play at, and the Tigers had trouble staying poised in the face of a suffocating Blue Devil defense.
The Tigers were outrebounded 37-24, and Duke got 11 offensive rebounds to Princeton's 5. Princeton only turned the ball over 13 times to Duke's 18, but Duke did a very good job converting after Princeton turnovers. And, while Princeton kept its fouls down, relatively speaking, it shot only 6 free throws to Duke's 22. The Tigers had 10 assists to Duke's 8 and 13 steals to Duke's 10, but the great Duke perimeter defense told the story.
Click here for the box score.
There were many keys for Princeton going into last night's game, and I'll just touch on a few of them.
I haven't watched as many Princeton games as some of my readers, but they seem to be rather slow coming out of the starting gate. They aren't always in sync, and the result is that they don't always put forth a solid effort in the first half. Princeton coach Joe Scott said after the game that he needed a solid 40 minutes against Duke last night, and he only got 20. The Tigers have to improve on their starts, even in the Ivies. They need to do a better job of coming out and taking charge.
Princeton needed to shoot fairly well from behind the arc to win the game, but they just couldn't do it. They didn't even come close. Coach K said after the game that they saw that Princeton scored 60% of its points on threes, so Duke's strategy was to deny the three and make Princeton find other ways to score. Unfortunately for the Tigers, their ballhandling and passing wasn't crisp enough in the first half to exploit Duke's overplaying on defense. Only Tiger Will Venable was composed enough and relaxed enough to blow by Duke defenders for layup after layup, and he played a great game, with 21 points and 6 boards. Bottom line and key stat: Princeton shot 1-17 from behind the 3-point line.
Double ouch.
I had also said that the Tigers needed to keep Duke off the offensive glass, and they just failed to do so. They also didn't establish a third option on offense outside Venable and C Judson Wallace, who battled Shelden Williams admirably but who only got going in the second half. The back door was there at times last night, or at least shorter jumpers after getting the ball past overplays, but the Tigers just couldn't convert. Cameron is a very tough place to play at, and the Tigers had trouble staying poised in the face of a suffocating Blue Devil defense.
The Tigers were outrebounded 37-24, and Duke got 11 offensive rebounds to Princeton's 5. Princeton only turned the ball over 13 times to Duke's 18, but Duke did a very good job converting after Princeton turnovers. And, while Princeton kept its fouls down, relatively speaking, it shot only 6 free throws to Duke's 22. The Tigers had 10 assists to Duke's 8 and 13 steals to Duke's 10, but the great Duke perimeter defense told the story.
Click here for the box score.
Debutante Ball
Philadelphia's Main Line is a pretty chic place. If you don't send your kids to the right private or even public schools (which are very good), you don't count much in a town where what you've joined or where you live can, if you let it (or, perhaps, if others decide it for you) defines you. Wrong charities, wrong vacation spot, wrong golf club, wrong side of a township and you could be yesterday's news.
For example, if you live east of the Schuykill (pronounced school-kill) River, you're among the great unwashed, and if you live in parts of Philadelphia other than as-tony Chestnut Hill (which is perhaps the Main Line with more eccentricities and less fear) or, heaven forbid, South Jersey, then you need innoculations and/or visas to make a visit to a place like the Main Line. Living in those places is like being a low-to-mid-major college hoops team trying to get a home-and-home with Duke, as they'll probably never travel to your place.
Great golf courses, nice homes, outstanding schools, swimming pools and movies stars (okay, not necessarily the last part). And deb balls. After all, getting introduced to society can be a very precious thing.
And a deb ball of sorts took place last night in Villanova, where the Wildcats played an unkind host (which is not necessarily what the Book of Etiquette says you should do) to undefeated and #23 West Virginia. The Mountaineers came into the game at 10-0, the Wildcats at 7-1. West Virginia was getting all sorts of great press, and the Wildcats were getting ignored, even in their local papers.
Why was that? First, the Eagles are Super Bowl contenders, which leaves little room for anything else on the local sports pages. Second, last year was the Year of the Hawk, as St. Joe's became the darling of every adult who read "The Little Engine That Could" as a kid and, barring some great play from John Lucas III of Oklahoma State, would have made it to the Final Four. Okay, so the Hawks didn't get there, but they certainly showed that they weren't a fluke and that they could play with anyone. And, in certain ways, Villanova is the anti-St. Joe's and vice versa. To be blunt, most of the available hoops inches in local papers went to the problems LaSalle had and whether Penn's Fran Dunphy would leave his beloved Quakers to return to his alma mater (he didn't). If there was any press about Villanova, it was about the bad knees of once-prized recruit Jason Fraser and it contained speculation as to the fate of head coach Jay Wright should the Wildcats fail to return to the NCAA tournament.
Yes, the school that pulled one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Finals history in 1985 was flying under the radar screen, upstaged by its neighbors to the south. The game was reminiscent of a line once uttered about a contender's prospects in a fight ("It will take two hits. Me hitting you, and you hitting the ground.") Villanova won, big, 84-46. Two statements were made in the process, namely that Villanova could be that good, and, well, that the Mountaineers were probably at least a tad overrated. Hard to argue with those statements after last night.
In Allen Ray, Curtis Sumpter, Mike Nardi, Randy Foye, Jason Fraser and Kyle Lowry, the Wildcats have 6 bona fide players, all of whom were big recruits. Before last night, they were just another team with something big to prove. After last night, they showed that they truly are a force to be reckoned with.
As coming-out parties go on Philadelphia's Main Line, this was one of the best in a long time, and they didn't even do any dancing.
But that will come in March, most likely, at the biggest dance of them all.
For example, if you live east of the Schuykill (pronounced school-kill) River, you're among the great unwashed, and if you live in parts of Philadelphia other than as-tony Chestnut Hill (which is perhaps the Main Line with more eccentricities and less fear) or, heaven forbid, South Jersey, then you need innoculations and/or visas to make a visit to a place like the Main Line. Living in those places is like being a low-to-mid-major college hoops team trying to get a home-and-home with Duke, as they'll probably never travel to your place.
Great golf courses, nice homes, outstanding schools, swimming pools and movies stars (okay, not necessarily the last part). And deb balls. After all, getting introduced to society can be a very precious thing.
And a deb ball of sorts took place last night in Villanova, where the Wildcats played an unkind host (which is not necessarily what the Book of Etiquette says you should do) to undefeated and #23 West Virginia. The Mountaineers came into the game at 10-0, the Wildcats at 7-1. West Virginia was getting all sorts of great press, and the Wildcats were getting ignored, even in their local papers.
Why was that? First, the Eagles are Super Bowl contenders, which leaves little room for anything else on the local sports pages. Second, last year was the Year of the Hawk, as St. Joe's became the darling of every adult who read "The Little Engine That Could" as a kid and, barring some great play from John Lucas III of Oklahoma State, would have made it to the Final Four. Okay, so the Hawks didn't get there, but they certainly showed that they weren't a fluke and that they could play with anyone. And, in certain ways, Villanova is the anti-St. Joe's and vice versa. To be blunt, most of the available hoops inches in local papers went to the problems LaSalle had and whether Penn's Fran Dunphy would leave his beloved Quakers to return to his alma mater (he didn't). If there was any press about Villanova, it was about the bad knees of once-prized recruit Jason Fraser and it contained speculation as to the fate of head coach Jay Wright should the Wildcats fail to return to the NCAA tournament.
Yes, the school that pulled one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Finals history in 1985 was flying under the radar screen, upstaged by its neighbors to the south. The game was reminiscent of a line once uttered about a contender's prospects in a fight ("It will take two hits. Me hitting you, and you hitting the ground.") Villanova won, big, 84-46. Two statements were made in the process, namely that Villanova could be that good, and, well, that the Mountaineers were probably at least a tad overrated. Hard to argue with those statements after last night.
In Allen Ray, Curtis Sumpter, Mike Nardi, Randy Foye, Jason Fraser and Kyle Lowry, the Wildcats have 6 bona fide players, all of whom were big recruits. Before last night, they were just another team with something big to prove. After last night, they showed that they truly are a force to be reckoned with.
As coming-out parties go on Philadelphia's Main Line, this was one of the best in a long time, and they didn't even do any dancing.
But that will come in March, most likely, at the biggest dance of them all.
Name The Team That Beat 3 Top-10 Teams in 8 Days
And it's not a men's team, either.
Congratulations to the Rutgers Scarlet Knight's women's team and Coach Vivian Stringer on their upset of #1 LSU last night.
Something's cooking in New Jersey, and it's probably the best stuff since Artie Bucco was making riccotta pies for the Soprano family.
Women with serious hops are playing serious hoops in Piscataway.
Going into last night's game, they were ranked #19. In the past 8 days they've beaten #1 LSU and #8 Tennessee at home and they ended #3 Texas's 41-game home winning streak.
Will they vault into the Top 10? Definitely.
The Top 5?
They should.
Keep an eye on 'em.
Congratulations to the Rutgers Scarlet Knight's women's team and Coach Vivian Stringer on their upset of #1 LSU last night.
Something's cooking in New Jersey, and it's probably the best stuff since Artie Bucco was making riccotta pies for the Soprano family.
Women with serious hops are playing serious hoops in Piscataway.
Going into last night's game, they were ranked #19. In the past 8 days they've beaten #1 LSU and #8 Tennessee at home and they ended #3 Texas's 41-game home winning streak.
Will they vault into the Top 10? Definitely.
The Top 5?
They should.
Keep an eye on 'em.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
The Best Ball Striker Ever
For those of us suffering from the winter blahs, it can be fun to take refuge in warm weather pastimes, such as golf. Some of us are fortunate to have schedules that will enable us to travel in the wintertime and play a few rounds. Others play some form of the sport on PlayStation, and yet others might have fun watching the early tournaments on television.
Of course, you can read about it, too, and that's just what I did. There's a good new biography of the Ben Hogan out there, Ben Hogan: An American Life, written by James Dodson, and it's a great read. I had always heard about the Hogan mystique, about how Hogan recovered from a horrible car accident to pull off a miracle at the U.S. Open at Merion 16 months later, how he hit a one-iron from the fairway to ice his victory, and how he was somewhat of a sphinx, especially compared to the good-natured warmth of Byron Nelson, and the homespun hillbilly-ness of Sam Snead, both of whom were his contemporaries.
James Dodson does a great job telling the story of Ben Hogan's very difficult childhood and his subsequent determination to make it on the nascent professional golfers' circuit. Hogan failed twice before succeeding, and he concentrated on his game in such a way that he left little room on the course for interpersonal warmth and charm. Out on the course, he managed his game, and he was all business.
Excellence in many things requires that. The best shooters in basketball block out distractions and find themselves in a zone where it's them and the hoop. The same can be said for the best hitters in baseball. They're up there thinking totally about the pitcher's release and how to read the ball -- if there's a red dot, it's a slider, and so forth. They're not up there thinking about what boat they're going to buy or where they're going to eat after the game. Those with shorter careers and lower averages do that, but not the best ones.
And that doesn't always make the great ones the most interesting stories. I'm sure if you spoke with Hogan, Pete Rose or Larry Bird at their primes it would have been hard to talk with them about anything else other than what they did so well for a living. Why? Because they were so focused on excellence they really didn't leave themselves any room for any hobbies. It may be great to be a renaissance man, but I think it would be hard to be a renaissance man and be the absolute best at just one thing.
Concentration. Preparation. Dedication. That was Ben Hogan.
He wasn't perfect in life, but he wasn't far from it, either.
Of course, you can read about it, too, and that's just what I did. There's a good new biography of the Ben Hogan out there, Ben Hogan: An American Life, written by James Dodson, and it's a great read. I had always heard about the Hogan mystique, about how Hogan recovered from a horrible car accident to pull off a miracle at the U.S. Open at Merion 16 months later, how he hit a one-iron from the fairway to ice his victory, and how he was somewhat of a sphinx, especially compared to the good-natured warmth of Byron Nelson, and the homespun hillbilly-ness of Sam Snead, both of whom were his contemporaries.
James Dodson does a great job telling the story of Ben Hogan's very difficult childhood and his subsequent determination to make it on the nascent professional golfers' circuit. Hogan failed twice before succeeding, and he concentrated on his game in such a way that he left little room on the course for interpersonal warmth and charm. Out on the course, he managed his game, and he was all business.
Excellence in many things requires that. The best shooters in basketball block out distractions and find themselves in a zone where it's them and the hoop. The same can be said for the best hitters in baseball. They're up there thinking totally about the pitcher's release and how to read the ball -- if there's a red dot, it's a slider, and so forth. They're not up there thinking about what boat they're going to buy or where they're going to eat after the game. Those with shorter careers and lower averages do that, but not the best ones.
And that doesn't always make the great ones the most interesting stories. I'm sure if you spoke with Hogan, Pete Rose or Larry Bird at their primes it would have been hard to talk with them about anything else other than what they did so well for a living. Why? Because they were so focused on excellence they really didn't leave themselves any room for any hobbies. It may be great to be a renaissance man, but I think it would be hard to be a renaissance man and be the absolute best at just one thing.
Concentration. Preparation. Dedication. That was Ben Hogan.
He wasn't perfect in life, but he wasn't far from it, either.
Duke-Princeton Prognostication
So much has been written that I don't feel a need to go into overdrive about the issues that Duke is facing or how well (or not) Princeton is playing. Yes, the two teams play tonight, at Duke, at 7 p.m. on ESPN. Not ESPN the Deuce, mind you, but the real enchilada, ESPN.
You've heard about Duke's issues, how they're short, how they're missing Shavlik Randolph, how strong (if not too tall) forward Reggie Love is out with a broken foot, and how, well, Princeton might have a chance because the height differentials aren't too pronounced.
Well, of course the Tigers have a chance. They always do. But here are a few main issues for them:
1. They get called for a lot of fouls. They cannot afford to have senior co-captains Judson Wallace and Will Venable get into foul trouble. Wallace will present a challenge for Shelden Williams, and Venable is really the only Tiger guard athletic enough to stay with the Duke guards. They need to be on the floor for most of the game, and with all of the media timeouts, they should be. If the Tigers keep their fouls to say under 22, they'll be in the game.
2. They start two freshmen, Noah Savage and Matt Sargeant. Both are inconsistent. Savage is a shoot-first forward who can tend to be a matador at times on defense and then commit silly fouls. But he can shoot. Sargeant has one good game and then a bad one, but he can shoot fairly well and is a decent passer. It's hard to rely on two frosh starters on the road, and look for the Tigers to substitute soph G Max Schafer for Sargeant and soph F Luke Owings, perhaps their best shooter, for Savage.
3. Their senior F, Andre Logan, remains a bit of a mystery. He's been plagued by injuries throughout his career, and he looks a little rusty, although his big steal against Davidson in the second OT sealed the victory for the Tigers in a hard-fought contest. If the Tigers are to challenge Duke tonight, they'll need a solid 10-15 minutes from both Logan and backup C Mike Stephens, who looked like a vintage Kareem Abdul Jabbar and even pushed Williams around a pit in the paint in the first half of last year's contest at Cameron.
4. Defense. The Tigers play very hard-nosed defense but can be a little lax inside and sometimes fail to step into the lane in front of the other team's quicker guards. That said, Wallace took two big charges down the stretch against Clemson, and Venable is a defensive magician. The Tigers will have to be at their best against Duke's guards and not let J.J. Redick beat them off of screens.
5. Speed/Athleticism. The Tigers have to be concerned that Dukes Gs (Ewing, especially, and then Dockery and Nelson) can out-athlete them (okay, so I invented a word). The Tigers do have 4 Gs to throw at Duke, so they can put rested players on Duke's guards, but they'll have to work hard to stay with them. They probably can guard J.J. Redick, but if they really concentrate on him, then Ewing can get open, and he can kill you. Also, Princeton G Scott Greenman is only 5'9", and opponents have exploited height differentials in the past. Look for Duke to try to overmatch Greenman.
6. Rebounding. The Tigers need to stay close here. They might have a good chance, but they'll have to watch out for Duke's guards crashing the boards. They need to keep the guards off the offensive glass.
7. And, finally, outside shooting. If the Tigers can shoot 38% or higher from behind the arc, they just might well win the game (if they also can keep their turnovers down).
I don't look for this to be a high-scoring game, especially given the relatively low final score of the Duke-Clemson game on Sunday night.
I think Princeton's effort against Davidson will buoy the Tigers tonight, and they'll come into Cameron with one more year's experience and benefitting from last year's game in Durham, and they're coming into Cameron against a weaker Duke team than last year's. Okay, enough by way of full disclosure.
I still think that Duke's guards and Williams (not to mention F Lee Melchionni, a good F in his own right) will prove too much for Princeton. Call it Duke 64, Princeton 56.
But, if Princeton keeps its turnovers to 12 or fewer, has say 20 or fewer fouls, gets outrebounded by no more than say 7, shoots 38% from behind the arc, 46% for the game and 75% from the foul line, well, the Tigers can pull off the upset. After all, Bucknell beat Pitt at Pitt the other night, so an upset is possible for a lower-end mid-major.
All typos are mine.
You've heard about Duke's issues, how they're short, how they're missing Shavlik Randolph, how strong (if not too tall) forward Reggie Love is out with a broken foot, and how, well, Princeton might have a chance because the height differentials aren't too pronounced.
Well, of course the Tigers have a chance. They always do. But here are a few main issues for them:
1. They get called for a lot of fouls. They cannot afford to have senior co-captains Judson Wallace and Will Venable get into foul trouble. Wallace will present a challenge for Shelden Williams, and Venable is really the only Tiger guard athletic enough to stay with the Duke guards. They need to be on the floor for most of the game, and with all of the media timeouts, they should be. If the Tigers keep their fouls to say under 22, they'll be in the game.
2. They start two freshmen, Noah Savage and Matt Sargeant. Both are inconsistent. Savage is a shoot-first forward who can tend to be a matador at times on defense and then commit silly fouls. But he can shoot. Sargeant has one good game and then a bad one, but he can shoot fairly well and is a decent passer. It's hard to rely on two frosh starters on the road, and look for the Tigers to substitute soph G Max Schafer for Sargeant and soph F Luke Owings, perhaps their best shooter, for Savage.
3. Their senior F, Andre Logan, remains a bit of a mystery. He's been plagued by injuries throughout his career, and he looks a little rusty, although his big steal against Davidson in the second OT sealed the victory for the Tigers in a hard-fought contest. If the Tigers are to challenge Duke tonight, they'll need a solid 10-15 minutes from both Logan and backup C Mike Stephens, who looked like a vintage Kareem Abdul Jabbar and even pushed Williams around a pit in the paint in the first half of last year's contest at Cameron.
4. Defense. The Tigers play very hard-nosed defense but can be a little lax inside and sometimes fail to step into the lane in front of the other team's quicker guards. That said, Wallace took two big charges down the stretch against Clemson, and Venable is a defensive magician. The Tigers will have to be at their best against Duke's guards and not let J.J. Redick beat them off of screens.
5. Speed/Athleticism. The Tigers have to be concerned that Dukes Gs (Ewing, especially, and then Dockery and Nelson) can out-athlete them (okay, so I invented a word). The Tigers do have 4 Gs to throw at Duke, so they can put rested players on Duke's guards, but they'll have to work hard to stay with them. They probably can guard J.J. Redick, but if they really concentrate on him, then Ewing can get open, and he can kill you. Also, Princeton G Scott Greenman is only 5'9", and opponents have exploited height differentials in the past. Look for Duke to try to overmatch Greenman.
6. Rebounding. The Tigers need to stay close here. They might have a good chance, but they'll have to watch out for Duke's guards crashing the boards. They need to keep the guards off the offensive glass.
7. And, finally, outside shooting. If the Tigers can shoot 38% or higher from behind the arc, they just might well win the game (if they also can keep their turnovers down).
I don't look for this to be a high-scoring game, especially given the relatively low final score of the Duke-Clemson game on Sunday night.
I think Princeton's effort against Davidson will buoy the Tigers tonight, and they'll come into Cameron with one more year's experience and benefitting from last year's game in Durham, and they're coming into Cameron against a weaker Duke team than last year's. Okay, enough by way of full disclosure.
I still think that Duke's guards and Williams (not to mention F Lee Melchionni, a good F in his own right) will prove too much for Princeton. Call it Duke 64, Princeton 56.
But, if Princeton keeps its turnovers to 12 or fewer, has say 20 or fewer fouls, gets outrebounded by no more than say 7, shoots 38% from behind the arc, 46% for the game and 75% from the foul line, well, the Tigers can pull off the upset. After all, Bucknell beat Pitt at Pitt the other night, so an upset is possible for a lower-end mid-major.
All typos are mine.
Bad Shooting Night KOs Penn Quakers
The University of San Francisco (and not your dad's or big brother's or grandfather's USF, for that matter, as there are no Bill Russells, K.C. Joneses or Bill Cartwrights on this Dons team) beat Penn last night in The City, 65-61. The Quakers, who turned the ball over less and had more assists, normally an indicator of a good performance, rebounded badly and shot poorly, both from the line (10-18, with reserve F Mark Zoller shooting 4-9) and from behind the arc (5-20, with ace swingman Tim Begley shooting 3-9 and promising soph 2G Ibby Jaaber shooting 0-4). Click here to see the box score and here for the wire story. The Quakers are 4-5 and play 5 winnable games in the next 20 days against Illinois-Chicago, Rider, Siena, Lafayette and St. Joseph's. How well the Quakers fare in those games will give Quaker fans and rivals and indication as to how formidable this Penn squad will be in the Ivy race.
Chow Time
Last night's Orange Bowl put to rest the notion that surfer dudes cannot play football, as the Men of Troy kaboomed, kerplowed and kerplunked the Boomer Sooners of Oklahoma, 55-19 for the whole nation to see. Click here if you need to read more about it.
Last night's national championship probably marked the first time that a blogger starred in the national spotlight. A blogger, of course, who also has the Heisman Trophy on his young resume. The entire blogging nation, with the possible exception of bloggers in Oklahoma and other Big 12 states, should be cheering this fact. Okay, so perhaps that's a reach, but a great game by a great QB nonetheless. Here's one piece of gratuitious advice to a fellow blogger: go pro, be the #1 pick in the NFL Draft and take your huge signing bonus. You deserve it. I know college is fun and that you'd like to stay another year, but strike while your very hot. You have nothing more to prove in the college game.
But we all know about Matt Leinart, about USC's head coach Pete Carroll, and some of us heard this morning on ESPN Radio that Sean Salisbury, another former USC QB, believes that if Leinart returns USC will be even better next year, if that's possible. That's all, of course, interesting stuff, but now we have to turn to a man who has never really gotten his due.
The best offensive mind in the college game, the guy behind the 55 points last night and the national title the year before, a guy who inexplicably got passed over for the head coaching job at BYU, his alma mater and the place where he spent most of his coaching career, about 5 years ago (maybe it's now 7). A guy who has mentored so many quarterbacks that you lose count. Yes, he's USC's offensive coordinator.
His name: Norm Chow.
I believe that Stanford hired Walt Harris over Chow several months ago, and that perhaps the concern about Chow is his age, as he's 59. Okay, so maybe he won't be coaching at his next gig for 25 years, but name a coach with a better offensive mind than Chow in the college game. You can't, and perhaps there are only two or three in the pro game who are worth a comparison (their names are Weis, Reid and Martz, and the latter hasn't exactly had the smoothest of seasons in both of the past two years). Plain and simple, if the USC defensive line coach (remember, head coach Pete Carroll is the Trojans' defensive coordinator) got the Mississippi job (Ed Orgeron), Chow is more than worthy of a head coaching job at his own. I had blogged on potential new head coaches a while back in the context of Penn State and Joe Paterno, and Chow (and Orgeron for that matter) was on the list.
So, Syracuse, are you listening? Because if you aren't, you should be? Your program has floundered over the past several years, and what a better way to pack them in than to hire Norm Chow to run your team. It's that simple.
Because if you don't, you wonder what could be brewing in the minds of Brian Billick in Baltimore and USC alum Jack Del Rio in Jacksonville, both of whom just fired their offensive coordinators. If I'm Del Rio, and I want to improve the 29th best offense in football, I go to my alma mater, offer Chow the big bucks and ask him to bring his great brain to the pros. Byron Leftwich and Norm Chow would form an awfully potent combination.
I would hope that Norm Chow wants to see what he can do running a college program, and I would hope that some AD at a school looking to improve its program wakes up and moves away from the blown-dry old boy (actually, if you think about it, younger boy) network and hires Chow.
They say that offense sells tickets and defense wins championship games, and that's usually the case. But last night in Miami, the offense was so far out of this world, that it almost won the title game all by itself.
If you're an alum of a football program looking for a head coach, send blast e-mails, faxes, hire sounds trucks, send telegrams and overnight mail, stand on the rooftops and shout for all to hear that you want Norm Chow.
He deserves the chance.
Last night's national championship probably marked the first time that a blogger starred in the national spotlight. A blogger, of course, who also has the Heisman Trophy on his young resume. The entire blogging nation, with the possible exception of bloggers in Oklahoma and other Big 12 states, should be cheering this fact. Okay, so perhaps that's a reach, but a great game by a great QB nonetheless. Here's one piece of gratuitious advice to a fellow blogger: go pro, be the #1 pick in the NFL Draft and take your huge signing bonus. You deserve it. I know college is fun and that you'd like to stay another year, but strike while your very hot. You have nothing more to prove in the college game.
But we all know about Matt Leinart, about USC's head coach Pete Carroll, and some of us heard this morning on ESPN Radio that Sean Salisbury, another former USC QB, believes that if Leinart returns USC will be even better next year, if that's possible. That's all, of course, interesting stuff, but now we have to turn to a man who has never really gotten his due.
The best offensive mind in the college game, the guy behind the 55 points last night and the national title the year before, a guy who inexplicably got passed over for the head coaching job at BYU, his alma mater and the place where he spent most of his coaching career, about 5 years ago (maybe it's now 7). A guy who has mentored so many quarterbacks that you lose count. Yes, he's USC's offensive coordinator.
His name: Norm Chow.
I believe that Stanford hired Walt Harris over Chow several months ago, and that perhaps the concern about Chow is his age, as he's 59. Okay, so maybe he won't be coaching at his next gig for 25 years, but name a coach with a better offensive mind than Chow in the college game. You can't, and perhaps there are only two or three in the pro game who are worth a comparison (their names are Weis, Reid and Martz, and the latter hasn't exactly had the smoothest of seasons in both of the past two years). Plain and simple, if the USC defensive line coach (remember, head coach Pete Carroll is the Trojans' defensive coordinator) got the Mississippi job (Ed Orgeron), Chow is more than worthy of a head coaching job at his own. I had blogged on potential new head coaches a while back in the context of Penn State and Joe Paterno, and Chow (and Orgeron for that matter) was on the list.
So, Syracuse, are you listening? Because if you aren't, you should be? Your program has floundered over the past several years, and what a better way to pack them in than to hire Norm Chow to run your team. It's that simple.
Because if you don't, you wonder what could be brewing in the minds of Brian Billick in Baltimore and USC alum Jack Del Rio in Jacksonville, both of whom just fired their offensive coordinators. If I'm Del Rio, and I want to improve the 29th best offense in football, I go to my alma mater, offer Chow the big bucks and ask him to bring his great brain to the pros. Byron Leftwich and Norm Chow would form an awfully potent combination.
I would hope that Norm Chow wants to see what he can do running a college program, and I would hope that some AD at a school looking to improve its program wakes up and moves away from the blown-dry old boy (actually, if you think about it, younger boy) network and hires Chow.
They say that offense sells tickets and defense wins championship games, and that's usually the case. But last night in Miami, the offense was so far out of this world, that it almost won the title game all by itself.
If you're an alum of a football program looking for a head coach, send blast e-mails, faxes, hire sounds trucks, send telegrams and overnight mail, stand on the rooftops and shout for all to hear that you want Norm Chow.
He deserves the chance.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
And The Phillies Traded Him and Larry Bowa for Ivan DeJesus
Smart move, huh? See, way back when the Philadelphia Phillies had this third baseman named Schmidt. College shortstop at Ohio U., moved him to third base, and, well, he had a pretty okay career. You could look it up. At the time Schmidt was in his prime, the Phillies drafted this kid from the state of Washington who turned down a football scholarship to Washington State, which, I believe, had recruited him to play quarterback. This kid fancied himself as a baseball player. He was a shortstop.
He played shortstop in the minors, but they didn't think he had the range for the Show, and there was this guy named Bowa in Philadelphia who had made himself into quite a player, a defensive whiz who also taught himself to hit. So there was no room on the left side of the infield, and the Phillies didn't know what to do with this kid. He had a good stick, and there were others in their farm system who excited them more, a fleet OF named Jeff Stone (who hailed from the Ozarks in Missouri and when once asked in the minors if he would like a shrimp cocktail, replied, "No thanks, I don't drink) and a fleet 2B named Juan Samuel -- watching him run out a triple was like watching Secretariat on the home stretch of Belmont in '73.
And, the thing of it was that Bowa was getting old, and he was wired tight to boot, getting slower, too. They had a great team which won it all in 1980, and they wanted to replenish their squad. So they traded this kid to the Chicago Cubs along with a still useful Bowa for the Cubs' younger SS, Ivan DeJesus, and, really, they got fleeced. Why, you ask? Well, most businesses have non-competes for key personnel that prevent them from competing against a former employer for a reasonable time after leaving, but in baseball they don't. So one-time Phillies' manager Dallas Green had moved to Chicago to become GM of the Cubs, and he liked the kid, and had the unique thought that this former SS/3B could play second base. One of his first moves was to get the kid, and, oh, he'd take Larry Bowa in the deal as well. What the heck.
And the kid showed them that he could play second base, which he did, to perfection, earning him election today into Baseball's Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, Ivan DeJesus proved to be an average fielder and average hitter, Jeff Stone fizzled, and pitchers figured out that Juan Samuel just couldn't lay off the outside breaking ball. The Phillies traded 5 players for Von Hayes (which is the first time his name has been mentioned in years), tried to pass off Glenn Wilson as the next Greg Luzinski, trotted out an ancient Pete Rose, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan for one last hurrah in in 1983 (where they got to the World Series thanks to clutch HRs by young first baseman Len Matuszek in September against the Expos, only to have the young 1B not eligible in the post-season, and then the Orioles beat them into submission), inked Gregg Jefferies as a free agent (a huge sum of $25 million for a five-year deal, and that didn't turn out so well), saw Steve Carlton fall off the cliff with other teams and then retire, continued to be futile at developing front-line pitchers and faded into oblivion, where, to a certain extent, they still reside. The curse of this kid, as it were.
So congratulations, Ryne Sandberg on a career well done! Philadelphia's loss was Chicago's gain, and we're sorry we hardly knew ye.
He played shortstop in the minors, but they didn't think he had the range for the Show, and there was this guy named Bowa in Philadelphia who had made himself into quite a player, a defensive whiz who also taught himself to hit. So there was no room on the left side of the infield, and the Phillies didn't know what to do with this kid. He had a good stick, and there were others in their farm system who excited them more, a fleet OF named Jeff Stone (who hailed from the Ozarks in Missouri and when once asked in the minors if he would like a shrimp cocktail, replied, "No thanks, I don't drink) and a fleet 2B named Juan Samuel -- watching him run out a triple was like watching Secretariat on the home stretch of Belmont in '73.
And, the thing of it was that Bowa was getting old, and he was wired tight to boot, getting slower, too. They had a great team which won it all in 1980, and they wanted to replenish their squad. So they traded this kid to the Chicago Cubs along with a still useful Bowa for the Cubs' younger SS, Ivan DeJesus, and, really, they got fleeced. Why, you ask? Well, most businesses have non-competes for key personnel that prevent them from competing against a former employer for a reasonable time after leaving, but in baseball they don't. So one-time Phillies' manager Dallas Green had moved to Chicago to become GM of the Cubs, and he liked the kid, and had the unique thought that this former SS/3B could play second base. One of his first moves was to get the kid, and, oh, he'd take Larry Bowa in the deal as well. What the heck.
And the kid showed them that he could play second base, which he did, to perfection, earning him election today into Baseball's Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, Ivan DeJesus proved to be an average fielder and average hitter, Jeff Stone fizzled, and pitchers figured out that Juan Samuel just couldn't lay off the outside breaking ball. The Phillies traded 5 players for Von Hayes (which is the first time his name has been mentioned in years), tried to pass off Glenn Wilson as the next Greg Luzinski, trotted out an ancient Pete Rose, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan for one last hurrah in in 1983 (where they got to the World Series thanks to clutch HRs by young first baseman Len Matuszek in September against the Expos, only to have the young 1B not eligible in the post-season, and then the Orioles beat them into submission), inked Gregg Jefferies as a free agent (a huge sum of $25 million for a five-year deal, and that didn't turn out so well), saw Steve Carlton fall off the cliff with other teams and then retire, continued to be futile at developing front-line pitchers and faded into oblivion, where, to a certain extent, they still reside. The curse of this kid, as it were.
So congratulations, Ryne Sandberg on a career well done! Philadelphia's loss was Chicago's gain, and we're sorry we hardly knew ye.
Ease Her Pain
One of my West Coast buddies is really hurting. She's a Cal alum, suffering from the double whammy of Cal's taking the gas pipe in the Holiday Bowl and the success of USC (which is basically ipecac for UCLA, Stanford and Cal alums, none of whom have any professed love for one another in the first place, but all of whom unite in their dislike of the Trojans), and she's a Dodger fan to boot (an long-time Orange County-ite, she still hasn't adopted the now more successful Angels at the expense of her longtime favorites, the Dodgers). And while the whole Cal situation stung, the Dodger situation hurts more.
First, she's wondering aloud whether Dodger GM Paul DePodesta is the dumbest Harvard alum of his generation, or whether Dodger owner Frank McCourt is the true El Cheapo of Dodger ownership lore (an NY writer once gave that nickname to Branch Rickey, who, while he had many admirable qualities, was somewhat worthy of the moniker). Why, you ask?
Because, in her opinion, the beloved Dodgers are crumbling. Paul LoDuca? Gone. Adrian Beltre? Gone. (And why this is especially troubling is that through her SoCal grapevine she heard from a very reputable source that all the Trolley Dodgers had to do was pony up an additional $6 million over 5 years to ink the 27 year-old (or is Beltre only 25?) third baseman). Shawn Green? Traded to the D-Backs for a promising catcher from the Yankees farm system (which is irksome in its own right, since the Yanks' farm system has been more barren than your average Siberian wheat field since Derek Jeter came up), a bucket of baseballs and the home DVD set of the first season of "Growing up Gotti." Guillermo Mota? Long-time gone. Able lefty Odalis Perez? Soon to be somewhere else.
And in their place? J.D. Drew, inked to a 5-year, $55 million contract, despite the fact that he usually ends up on the disabled list because of a strained oblique muscle or an aggravated big toe (the latter potentially incurrable while dodging golf balls and D batteries hurled by Phillies' fans still angry over his snub of them years ago). Jeff Kent, the statue of a second baseman (yes, statue, not statue-esque) who at 37 still can hit but renders the once-vaunted Dodger defense a liability at one of the key positions on the diamond. And, of course, once-heralded Yankeed prospect Ricky Ledee, who is basically a fourth outfielder.
Yes, the pitching staff is promising, but then again, they do have Elmer Dessens, who was perhaps the ace of the D-Backs staff last year, which is like being the best cricket player in Cooperstown (the D-Backs weren't the '62 Mets last year, but they came pretty close). Anyway, check out the whole Dodger roster and decide for yourself. What the heck is going on in Chavez Ravine?
DePodesta was Billy Beane's right-hand man for years in Oakland, where the A's had to do more with less. Here it's not clear whether DePodesta is so stuck on Moneyball tactics that he is trying to spend less because he doesn't feel a need to spend more (as they never had more to spend in Oakland) or whether he's unable to adapt his Moneyball background to a monied environment. Put in shopping terms, is he still looking for bargains at Nordstrom's Rack when he can shop at Nordstrom's, or is he happy to hunt for bargains at Nordstrom's Rack even if he can afford to shop at Nordstrom's?
Put another way, is Moneyball still a viable strategy when now at least four teams are believers -- the BoSox, the Blue Jays, the A's and the Dodgers? Remember, Buddy Ryan's heralded "46" defense was the rage in the NFL in the mid-1980's, but then offensive coordinators figured it out and you don't hear about that defense any more. My guess is that the "Cover 2" may suffer the same fate, if only because change is inevitable. Which means that somewhere in baseball world someone has figured out the next best way to evaluate baseball talent that might even involve Wonderlic tests and computer analysis of bat speed and physiology, which, along with some numbers crunching, will give an enterprising GM an edge. The point? If you have the big bucks, spend it. Remember, even Billy Beane said he might do things differently if he had more money to spend. Naturally, if the Dodgers sign Carlos Beltran, then perhaps all will be forgiven. But if they don't, well, there isn't much relief in sight.
I think you'd agree that my pal in Orange County is hurting, and you sense the suffering beginning now. But wait, because it will be much worse come mid-August.
So let's ease her pain, but how? There's no pro football in Los Angeles or Orange County, her beloved Lakers are a bunch of swingmen waiting for a first-round playoff exit, the Clippers are, well, the Clippers, star QB Aaron Rodgers is leaving Cal and will be one of the top picks in the NFL Draft this spring, and she's probably too much of an old-line SoCal native to switch her allegiance from Walter O'Malley's Dodgers to the now-Los Angeles Angels.
There's always the beach.
First, she's wondering aloud whether Dodger GM Paul DePodesta is the dumbest Harvard alum of his generation, or whether Dodger owner Frank McCourt is the true El Cheapo of Dodger ownership lore (an NY writer once gave that nickname to Branch Rickey, who, while he had many admirable qualities, was somewhat worthy of the moniker). Why, you ask?
Because, in her opinion, the beloved Dodgers are crumbling. Paul LoDuca? Gone. Adrian Beltre? Gone. (And why this is especially troubling is that through her SoCal grapevine she heard from a very reputable source that all the Trolley Dodgers had to do was pony up an additional $6 million over 5 years to ink the 27 year-old (or is Beltre only 25?) third baseman). Shawn Green? Traded to the D-Backs for a promising catcher from the Yankees farm system (which is irksome in its own right, since the Yanks' farm system has been more barren than your average Siberian wheat field since Derek Jeter came up), a bucket of baseballs and the home DVD set of the first season of "Growing up Gotti." Guillermo Mota? Long-time gone. Able lefty Odalis Perez? Soon to be somewhere else.
And in their place? J.D. Drew, inked to a 5-year, $55 million contract, despite the fact that he usually ends up on the disabled list because of a strained oblique muscle or an aggravated big toe (the latter potentially incurrable while dodging golf balls and D batteries hurled by Phillies' fans still angry over his snub of them years ago). Jeff Kent, the statue of a second baseman (yes, statue, not statue-esque) who at 37 still can hit but renders the once-vaunted Dodger defense a liability at one of the key positions on the diamond. And, of course, once-heralded Yankeed prospect Ricky Ledee, who is basically a fourth outfielder.
Yes, the pitching staff is promising, but then again, they do have Elmer Dessens, who was perhaps the ace of the D-Backs staff last year, which is like being the best cricket player in Cooperstown (the D-Backs weren't the '62 Mets last year, but they came pretty close). Anyway, check out the whole Dodger roster and decide for yourself. What the heck is going on in Chavez Ravine?
DePodesta was Billy Beane's right-hand man for years in Oakland, where the A's had to do more with less. Here it's not clear whether DePodesta is so stuck on Moneyball tactics that he is trying to spend less because he doesn't feel a need to spend more (as they never had more to spend in Oakland) or whether he's unable to adapt his Moneyball background to a monied environment. Put in shopping terms, is he still looking for bargains at Nordstrom's Rack when he can shop at Nordstrom's, or is he happy to hunt for bargains at Nordstrom's Rack even if he can afford to shop at Nordstrom's?
Put another way, is Moneyball still a viable strategy when now at least four teams are believers -- the BoSox, the Blue Jays, the A's and the Dodgers? Remember, Buddy Ryan's heralded "46" defense was the rage in the NFL in the mid-1980's, but then offensive coordinators figured it out and you don't hear about that defense any more. My guess is that the "Cover 2" may suffer the same fate, if only because change is inevitable. Which means that somewhere in baseball world someone has figured out the next best way to evaluate baseball talent that might even involve Wonderlic tests and computer analysis of bat speed and physiology, which, along with some numbers crunching, will give an enterprising GM an edge. The point? If you have the big bucks, spend it. Remember, even Billy Beane said he might do things differently if he had more money to spend. Naturally, if the Dodgers sign Carlos Beltran, then perhaps all will be forgiven. But if they don't, well, there isn't much relief in sight.
I think you'd agree that my pal in Orange County is hurting, and you sense the suffering beginning now. But wait, because it will be much worse come mid-August.
So let's ease her pain, but how? There's no pro football in Los Angeles or Orange County, her beloved Lakers are a bunch of swingmen waiting for a first-round playoff exit, the Clippers are, well, the Clippers, star QB Aaron Rodgers is leaving Cal and will be one of the top picks in the NFL Draft this spring, and she's probably too much of an old-line SoCal native to switch her allegiance from Walter O'Malley's Dodgers to the now-Los Angeles Angels.
There's always the beach.
Seth Davis of SI Becomes a Stock Analyst
Of sorts, of course. It's tough enough for those of us who listen to Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio to listen to Dickie V's "stock up, stock down" reports every now and then (I think that Dickie V. and Bill Walton are the only on-air guests that, from their behavior, you can guess the hosts would like to hurry along), but now the more polished Mr. Davis gets into the act.
Of course, we're not talking about whether to short pharmaceutical stocks or to go long on diversified oil drilling companies, we're talking about major college basketball. Among the obvious dumps (which, Davis rightly points out, should have been "sold' long ago) is Stanford. How the Cardinal could have been on some pre-season Top 25 lists is beyond me, and they were. It didn't make sense then, because absent Josh Childress they don't have an impact player who can take over a game, and, no, Chris Hernandez was not and is not that guy. Until the Cardinal get some better players, they'll be at the bottom of the Pac-10, Trent Johnson or no Trent Johnson (and he did very well at Nevada, so the guess here is that he'll get some players).
Read the whole thing, as there are still so many buys that it's really hard to fathom which teams will fill out the Final Four. My guess right now is that there are eight ACC teams potentially worthy of a post-season invite, and, further, that if the ACC gets seven teams invited to the tournament, they'll have a good chance (depending, of course, on whether they're evenly spread in the brackets) of having at least two and potentially three teams in the Final Four, a la the Big East in 1985 with Villanova (the unlikely squad that won it all, an 8th seed), St. John's (with Chris Mullin) and Georgetown (with Patrick Ewing). Wouldn't that be something?
Read the whole thing and see if you agree with Seth Davis.
Of course, we're not talking about whether to short pharmaceutical stocks or to go long on diversified oil drilling companies, we're talking about major college basketball. Among the obvious dumps (which, Davis rightly points out, should have been "sold' long ago) is Stanford. How the Cardinal could have been on some pre-season Top 25 lists is beyond me, and they were. It didn't make sense then, because absent Josh Childress they don't have an impact player who can take over a game, and, no, Chris Hernandez was not and is not that guy. Until the Cardinal get some better players, they'll be at the bottom of the Pac-10, Trent Johnson or no Trent Johnson (and he did very well at Nevada, so the guess here is that he'll get some players).
Read the whole thing, as there are still so many buys that it's really hard to fathom which teams will fill out the Final Four. My guess right now is that there are eight ACC teams potentially worthy of a post-season invite, and, further, that if the ACC gets seven teams invited to the tournament, they'll have a good chance (depending, of course, on whether they're evenly spread in the brackets) of having at least two and potentially three teams in the Final Four, a la the Big East in 1985 with Villanova (the unlikely squad that won it all, an 8th seed), St. John's (with Chris Mullin) and Georgetown (with Patrick Ewing). Wouldn't that be something?
Read the whole thing and see if you agree with Seth Davis.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Why This Kid (Despite His Pedigree) Won't Be Going Ivy
A long while back, I had a funny conversation with a friend who was a very good player at an Ivy school. The kid went to the Ivy school from a heralded HS program and was a sophomore at the time of the conversation. One of his HS teammates was, at the time, a HS senior and a top 10 recruit nationally.
After we dispensed with the pleasantries, the conversation went something like this (I have modified it in certain ways so as not to get so specific):
Me: So where's so-and-go going to go to college?
Friend: Hard to tell at this probably somewhere in the ACC. Duke or Carolina. (Pause) You know, his grades and scores are better than mine.
Me: So why doesn't he play in the Ivies?
Friend: If you could really play, why would you go to the Ivies?
The kid went to the ACC school (and played in the NBA, too).
And, no, I'm not talking about the Charlotte Bobcats' Emeka Okafor, who scored over 1310 on his boards and was recruited by the Ivies, only to eschew them because the hoops weren't good enough. He ended up, as you well know, at UConn, on somewhat of a flier, as Jim Calhoun wanted someone else (the name escapes me as to who) and wasn't sure this skinny kid from Houston could play. And, to quote Paul Harvey, you know the rest of the story.
Well, this kid is a very good basketball player (and acquitted himself very well against the top teams in the Philadelphia area over the past couple of weeks -- perennial power Chester and current force Episcopal Academy with Top 25 recruit Wayne Ellington and Notre Dame signee Ryan Ayers). His father played football and baseball at Princeton, and his mother rowed crew at Wellesley. His sister is a freshman center on the Yale women's basketball team.
And that's probably as close as he'll get to an Ivy hoops game.
And, of course, Coach K is interested too.
Princeton fans would salivate having this kid as the core of the vaunted Princeton offense, while Penn fans would love it if they could lure him to the great confines of the Palestra and have him thump archrival Princeton for four straight years.
It's not going to happen.
But imagine if it did.
After we dispensed with the pleasantries, the conversation went something like this (I have modified it in certain ways so as not to get so specific):
Me: So where's so-and-go going to go to college?
Friend: Hard to tell at this probably somewhere in the ACC. Duke or Carolina. (Pause) You know, his grades and scores are better than mine.
Me: So why doesn't he play in the Ivies?
Friend: If you could really play, why would you go to the Ivies?
The kid went to the ACC school (and played in the NBA, too).
And, no, I'm not talking about the Charlotte Bobcats' Emeka Okafor, who scored over 1310 on his boards and was recruited by the Ivies, only to eschew them because the hoops weren't good enough. He ended up, as you well know, at UConn, on somewhat of a flier, as Jim Calhoun wanted someone else (the name escapes me as to who) and wasn't sure this skinny kid from Houston could play. And, to quote Paul Harvey, you know the rest of the story.
Well, this kid is a very good basketball player (and acquitted himself very well against the top teams in the Philadelphia area over the past couple of weeks -- perennial power Chester and current force Episcopal Academy with Top 25 recruit Wayne Ellington and Notre Dame signee Ryan Ayers). His father played football and baseball at Princeton, and his mother rowed crew at Wellesley. His sister is a freshman center on the Yale women's basketball team.
And that's probably as close as he'll get to an Ivy hoops game.
And, of course, Coach K is interested too.
Princeton fans would salivate having this kid as the core of the vaunted Princeton offense, while Penn fans would love it if they could lure him to the great confines of the Palestra and have him thump archrival Princeton for four straight years.
It's not going to happen.
But imagine if it did.
The Woolly Mammoth Lives!
Read this story if you don't believe me.
No one has raised $3 million for its mascot. In fact, the home gym that this woolly mammoth plays in probably didn't cost $3 million. The gym it played in on the road yesterday cost a lot more.
For too long we've read about how mid-major schools have come close to slaying the giants (for example, a very good 10-1 Hofstra squad went up to Syracuse last week and took the Orange to the wire, losing by 5). Usually they do so on the road, because it's hard to get the titans to come into your building to play. Or, if they do, the mid-major school typically has to promise two or three games at the high-major school's venue to get one in the cozy gym that the typical mid-major plays in. Regardless of venue, we've read too many stories about the old college try, about moral victories and the like.
Until yesterday, that is.
Forget the "good losses" and all of that nonsense.
This was a great win.
And, what made this particular game more remarkable is not only did the mid-major team win, but also the mid-major team won on the road, upsetting a Top 10 team!
The Patriot League bloggers are having a field day, as well they should. To get a more intimate description of this huge upset, click here and here. The former post is more erudite, perhaps, but the latter post is more concise and, to a certain degree, more eloquent.
Remember the Bucknell Bison. They will be playing in a post-season tournament, and methinks it's spelled NCAA.
No one has raised $3 million for its mascot. In fact, the home gym that this woolly mammoth plays in probably didn't cost $3 million. The gym it played in on the road yesterday cost a lot more.
For too long we've read about how mid-major schools have come close to slaying the giants (for example, a very good 10-1 Hofstra squad went up to Syracuse last week and took the Orange to the wire, losing by 5). Usually they do so on the road, because it's hard to get the titans to come into your building to play. Or, if they do, the mid-major school typically has to promise two or three games at the high-major school's venue to get one in the cozy gym that the typical mid-major plays in. Regardless of venue, we've read too many stories about the old college try, about moral victories and the like.
Until yesterday, that is.
Forget the "good losses" and all of that nonsense.
This was a great win.
And, what made this particular game more remarkable is not only did the mid-major team win, but also the mid-major team won on the road, upsetting a Top 10 team!
The Patriot League bloggers are having a field day, as well they should. To get a more intimate description of this huge upset, click here and here. The former post is more erudite, perhaps, but the latter post is more concise and, to a certain degree, more eloquent.
Remember the Bucknell Bison. They will be playing in a post-season tournament, and methinks it's spelled NCAA.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Princeton 70 Davidson 68, 2OT
The day after New Year's day can typically be a lazy day for many Americans, as they are wont to hang low, watch hopefully meaningful NFL games, eat leftovers and get psyched to return to work after what for some is an extended vacation from Christmas through New Year's. Lethargy can tend to take over, or, putting it more charitably, a mellow mood.
Well, the same could be said for the Princeton Tigers men's basketball team, which came out of the locker room sluggish, remained undisciplined on offense, was unable to bust a tough Davidson zone defense and staggered to a 23-22 lead at intermission. Senior swingman Will Venable is the best athlete on the Princeton team, and his athletic prowess and tenacity kept the Tigers in the game. The outside shooting of the Tigers did not. Scott Greenman kept on getting open looks from behind the arc, but he kept misfiring, hitting the back of the rim on several occasions. The 5'9" lefty just was not in rhythm, and the Tigers were unable to get the ball inside routinely to Judson Wallace. Credit Davidson coach Bob McKillop and Davidson big man Logan Kosmalski, a 6'8" senior who plays within himself, contributes on offense and guarded Wallace tightly. The Tigers were left with having the 6'3" swingman Venable trying to penetrate against the zone and kick the ball to an open man, and, well, that's a hard way to beat a zone repeatedly.
Before the season, this game looked to be a very promising matchup, pitting the Ivies' favorite against the favorite in the Southern Division of the Southern Conference, a school that competes against the Ivies for players because of its excellent academics and the fact that it gives hoops scholarships (for the uninitiated, the Ivies don't), and a school that sometimes gets players the Ivies miss. As it turned out, the fans were in for a barn-burner, and Davidson's 5-6 record coming into the game belied the fact that they lost to Charlotte by 6 and Wake Forest by 3 and also played Duke. Their star player, Brendan Winters, is the son of former NBA player (and former Princeton assistant coach) Brian Winters, and their PG, Matt McKillop, is the son of Davidson's head coach, Bob McKillop, so Princeton was facing two coaches sons on the floor against them. Both played as they knew exactly what to do at all times, and the Davidson backcourt outmatched the Tigers' for most of the game.
The second half proved to be more of the same, a wrestling match that didn't enable either team to take more than a 6-point lead on the other, and the Wildcats did lead the Tigers by about 6 with 7 minutes to go. But Princeton rallied, and a telltale sign for the Tigers was a sequence late in the game. Venable stole the ball, drove the length of the court, but missed the layup. The layup would have tied the game, and Venable ran down the court with a fervor, jumped in front of a Davidson pass, drove the length of the court and converted the layup. The crowd went wild, as it should have, but right then and there Will Venable willed the Tigers back to a tie.
It came down to the last possession in regulation, and the ball made its way to Scott Greenman, who lofted a jumper from behind the arc. It went in, the crowd went wild, as it appeared that the Tigers won the game. But the officials waved off the shot, to the utter disbelief of the Tiger bench, and overtime ensued. Venable, meanwhile, had fouled out near the end of regulation, and the first overtime saw more players foul out. Neither team was able to garner the edge in the first OT, but the Tigers were able to convert on several three pointers in the second OT, fouled wisely near the end to prevent Davidson from being able to set up a three, and held on for a 70-68 win, upping their record to 8-4 in a game between two very well-matched opponents. Click here for the box score.
Observations:
1. Opponents will zone Princeton all night long until the Tigers can consistenly establish the three-point shot. At certain points in the second half, Princeton Coach Joe Scott had both Luke Owings and Noah Savage in the game at the same time, along with Greenman, trying to take advantage of his best three-point shooters. Look for Owings to come up big in the second half of the Tigers' season; he played very well today.
2. It's not just the Tigers' shooting on offense, it's their passing that is not that disciplined or that crisp. In contrast, watch the Penn offense from time to time and see the Quakers zip the ball around the three-point line. It helps Penn that their senior captain Tim Begley is a very unselfish player who is always thinking about where the ball should go once he gets it. That extra sense has Begley release his pass the moment he gets the ball, thereby keeping the defense off-balance and giving a teammate that extra split-second necessary to launch a good shot. In contrast, Tiger players aren't all that confident with the ball, and they hesitate before they pass it. It also doesn't help that frosh F Noah Savage thus far is a shoot-first small forward who has to learn more about seeing the floor. He'll get it, and he has potential to be a very good one.
3. The Tigers continued to play soft on the baseline and inside. Their help defense wasn't that good, and Davidson also did a nice job crashing the offensive boards.
4. As for the numbers, Davidson outrebounded Princeton 38-23, but had more turnovers (18 to Princeton's 14) and fewer assists (9 to Princeton's 13). That said, sometimes Davidson's guards had open lanes to the basket and were able to drive without the need of an assist. When they missed, an occasional Davidson forward was there to tip in a miss. At times, Princeton had to work much harder for its shots than Davidson (for example, there were a few occasions where Princeton ran a good set and got a two or even a three, taking 30 seconds, and then Davidson would push the ball downcourt and immediately convert).
5. Fitting, now reserve Princeton F Andre Logan, who was ineffective in the first half (and is less effective generally against a zone than a man-to-man defense), played in the second overtime after Savage and Venable fouled out. It wasn't a play of the caliber of Johnny Most's "Havlicek Stole the Ball" call in playoffs between the 76ers and Celtics in the mid-1960's, but with 7 seconds to go in the second OT, Davidson had the ball with a chance to tie the game or win it. After a time out, they inbounded the ball, and then Logan intercepted the pass as time expired. A heady play from a hard-luck veteran.
6. The officiating was absolutely horrendous and kept Davidson in the game. Early in the first half, Princeton mentor Scott lectured one of the officials in that they had called 6 post fouls against the Tigers and none on Davidson. The wave-off of the Greenman three at the end of regulation looked to be a terrible call (I'd love to see the replay and stand corrected), and the refs didn't start to call the mugging that Davidson was committing on Wallace until late in the second half and in the OT. Two Davidson inside players, Ian Johnson and Tom Sander, fouled out trying to guard Wallace, and Kosmalski finished the game with four fouls. Wallace, as it was, shot 17 foul shots (making 15), but he could have been at the line 28 times had the officials been consistent on their inside calls. At one point in the second half, the oldest official of the crew turned to Scott and said audibly, "That's it, I've had enough", which prompted some Princeton partisans to yell back, "We've had enough too, go home." You probably had to be there, but these guys would have given the crew that coached John Chaney's gift-wrapped win in his 1,000th game a run for their money. Judson Wallace had 22 points and 14 rebounds, and he was held for most of the game.
7. Princeton shot a fair 10-28 from behind the arc (.358). Matt Sargeant, who played great on Friday against Loyola, was a virtual no-show against Davidson, scoring 1 point in 33 minutes. In contrast, SF Luke Owings played his best game of the season, scoring 10 points in 15 minutes. Backup center Mike Stephens looked slow out there on defense against the Wildcats.
8. Penn update: Penn's third guard (that is, if you consider Tim Begley a SF, Eric Osmundsen the PG and Ibby Jaaber the 2G), frosh Michael Kach, left the Quakers squad because seemingly he's tired of basketball. The Quakers, who came into the season thin at guard, are even thinner, as Kach was playing meaningful minutes and playing reasonably well. The result is that frosh G David Whitehurst, an excellent athlete whose game needs polish, and once very highly touted prospect, now senior, swingman Frederich Ebede, will get Kach's minutes. With Ebede on the floor (he's about 6'6"), the Quakers will field a big lineup, but the question remains about how well they'll be able to handle and protect the basketball. Still, expect the Quakers to be a most formidable opponent for the Tigers when the Ivy season starts.
9. Next for Princeton: At Duke, Wednesday, January 5.
Well, the same could be said for the Princeton Tigers men's basketball team, which came out of the locker room sluggish, remained undisciplined on offense, was unable to bust a tough Davidson zone defense and staggered to a 23-22 lead at intermission. Senior swingman Will Venable is the best athlete on the Princeton team, and his athletic prowess and tenacity kept the Tigers in the game. The outside shooting of the Tigers did not. Scott Greenman kept on getting open looks from behind the arc, but he kept misfiring, hitting the back of the rim on several occasions. The 5'9" lefty just was not in rhythm, and the Tigers were unable to get the ball inside routinely to Judson Wallace. Credit Davidson coach Bob McKillop and Davidson big man Logan Kosmalski, a 6'8" senior who plays within himself, contributes on offense and guarded Wallace tightly. The Tigers were left with having the 6'3" swingman Venable trying to penetrate against the zone and kick the ball to an open man, and, well, that's a hard way to beat a zone repeatedly.
Before the season, this game looked to be a very promising matchup, pitting the Ivies' favorite against the favorite in the Southern Division of the Southern Conference, a school that competes against the Ivies for players because of its excellent academics and the fact that it gives hoops scholarships (for the uninitiated, the Ivies don't), and a school that sometimes gets players the Ivies miss. As it turned out, the fans were in for a barn-burner, and Davidson's 5-6 record coming into the game belied the fact that they lost to Charlotte by 6 and Wake Forest by 3 and also played Duke. Their star player, Brendan Winters, is the son of former NBA player (and former Princeton assistant coach) Brian Winters, and their PG, Matt McKillop, is the son of Davidson's head coach, Bob McKillop, so Princeton was facing two coaches sons on the floor against them. Both played as they knew exactly what to do at all times, and the Davidson backcourt outmatched the Tigers' for most of the game.
The second half proved to be more of the same, a wrestling match that didn't enable either team to take more than a 6-point lead on the other, and the Wildcats did lead the Tigers by about 6 with 7 minutes to go. But Princeton rallied, and a telltale sign for the Tigers was a sequence late in the game. Venable stole the ball, drove the length of the court, but missed the layup. The layup would have tied the game, and Venable ran down the court with a fervor, jumped in front of a Davidson pass, drove the length of the court and converted the layup. The crowd went wild, as it should have, but right then and there Will Venable willed the Tigers back to a tie.
It came down to the last possession in regulation, and the ball made its way to Scott Greenman, who lofted a jumper from behind the arc. It went in, the crowd went wild, as it appeared that the Tigers won the game. But the officials waved off the shot, to the utter disbelief of the Tiger bench, and overtime ensued. Venable, meanwhile, had fouled out near the end of regulation, and the first overtime saw more players foul out. Neither team was able to garner the edge in the first OT, but the Tigers were able to convert on several three pointers in the second OT, fouled wisely near the end to prevent Davidson from being able to set up a three, and held on for a 70-68 win, upping their record to 8-4 in a game between two very well-matched opponents. Click here for the box score.
Observations:
1. Opponents will zone Princeton all night long until the Tigers can consistenly establish the three-point shot. At certain points in the second half, Princeton Coach Joe Scott had both Luke Owings and Noah Savage in the game at the same time, along with Greenman, trying to take advantage of his best three-point shooters. Look for Owings to come up big in the second half of the Tigers' season; he played very well today.
2. It's not just the Tigers' shooting on offense, it's their passing that is not that disciplined or that crisp. In contrast, watch the Penn offense from time to time and see the Quakers zip the ball around the three-point line. It helps Penn that their senior captain Tim Begley is a very unselfish player who is always thinking about where the ball should go once he gets it. That extra sense has Begley release his pass the moment he gets the ball, thereby keeping the defense off-balance and giving a teammate that extra split-second necessary to launch a good shot. In contrast, Tiger players aren't all that confident with the ball, and they hesitate before they pass it. It also doesn't help that frosh F Noah Savage thus far is a shoot-first small forward who has to learn more about seeing the floor. He'll get it, and he has potential to be a very good one.
3. The Tigers continued to play soft on the baseline and inside. Their help defense wasn't that good, and Davidson also did a nice job crashing the offensive boards.
4. As for the numbers, Davidson outrebounded Princeton 38-23, but had more turnovers (18 to Princeton's 14) and fewer assists (9 to Princeton's 13). That said, sometimes Davidson's guards had open lanes to the basket and were able to drive without the need of an assist. When they missed, an occasional Davidson forward was there to tip in a miss. At times, Princeton had to work much harder for its shots than Davidson (for example, there were a few occasions where Princeton ran a good set and got a two or even a three, taking 30 seconds, and then Davidson would push the ball downcourt and immediately convert).
5. Fitting, now reserve Princeton F Andre Logan, who was ineffective in the first half (and is less effective generally against a zone than a man-to-man defense), played in the second overtime after Savage and Venable fouled out. It wasn't a play of the caliber of Johnny Most's "Havlicek Stole the Ball" call in playoffs between the 76ers and Celtics in the mid-1960's, but with 7 seconds to go in the second OT, Davidson had the ball with a chance to tie the game or win it. After a time out, they inbounded the ball, and then Logan intercepted the pass as time expired. A heady play from a hard-luck veteran.
6. The officiating was absolutely horrendous and kept Davidson in the game. Early in the first half, Princeton mentor Scott lectured one of the officials in that they had called 6 post fouls against the Tigers and none on Davidson. The wave-off of the Greenman three at the end of regulation looked to be a terrible call (I'd love to see the replay and stand corrected), and the refs didn't start to call the mugging that Davidson was committing on Wallace until late in the second half and in the OT. Two Davidson inside players, Ian Johnson and Tom Sander, fouled out trying to guard Wallace, and Kosmalski finished the game with four fouls. Wallace, as it was, shot 17 foul shots (making 15), but he could have been at the line 28 times had the officials been consistent on their inside calls. At one point in the second half, the oldest official of the crew turned to Scott and said audibly, "That's it, I've had enough", which prompted some Princeton partisans to yell back, "We've had enough too, go home." You probably had to be there, but these guys would have given the crew that coached John Chaney's gift-wrapped win in his 1,000th game a run for their money. Judson Wallace had 22 points and 14 rebounds, and he was held for most of the game.
7. Princeton shot a fair 10-28 from behind the arc (.358). Matt Sargeant, who played great on Friday against Loyola, was a virtual no-show against Davidson, scoring 1 point in 33 minutes. In contrast, SF Luke Owings played his best game of the season, scoring 10 points in 15 minutes. Backup center Mike Stephens looked slow out there on defense against the Wildcats.
8. Penn update: Penn's third guard (that is, if you consider Tim Begley a SF, Eric Osmundsen the PG and Ibby Jaaber the 2G), frosh Michael Kach, left the Quakers squad because seemingly he's tired of basketball. The Quakers, who came into the season thin at guard, are even thinner, as Kach was playing meaningful minutes and playing reasonably well. The result is that frosh G David Whitehurst, an excellent athlete whose game needs polish, and once very highly touted prospect, now senior, swingman Frederich Ebede, will get Kach's minutes. With Ebede on the floor (he's about 6'6"), the Quakers will field a big lineup, but the question remains about how well they'll be able to handle and protect the basketball. Still, expect the Quakers to be a most formidable opponent for the Tigers when the Ivy season starts.
9. Next for Princeton: At Duke, Wednesday, January 5.
Don't Read This Post Before A Meal
Because if you do, you might not be able to eat.
That is, if you really think that there are a ton of good causes out there that are really worthy of your charitable dollars more so than the one identified on the link below. Such as, by way of example (as I'm sure I'm forgetting many wonderful causes) helping the tsunami victims, helping cure a variety of diseases, helping underpriviliged children. Legions of great causes, and I do hope that you did your bit at the end of the year to support as many as you could with as much money as you could spare.
But this one takes the cake, or, perhaps better said, the beignet.
That is, if you don't choke on your food reading about it.
I never knew that there was so much money to spare in Louisiana. I never knew that the best minds came out of the Bayou State, that it's a leader in high tech and biotech innovation, that its high school students are in the Top 10 nationally in every category. But it must be true, and the mainstream media (read, the righty bloggers' code word for the New York Times, the Washington Post, most other non-red state dailies and all TV networks but Fox) has to be deliberately misleading the public. After all, it must be true if the people of Louisiana had $3 million to spare to build a habitat for the football team's mascot.
After all, who would spend $3 million on a house for the mascot unless there were BMW's in most Baton Rouge and New Orleans driveways, if major corporations didn't have their headquarters in those cities, Lafayette and Monroe, if L.S.U. students weren't taking the lead in Rhodes scholarships and if the states' universities weren't at the vanguard of creating new ways to solve all sorts of modern problems? It must be that that's the case to have enough left over to spend $3 million on a house for the mascot, musn't it? The people of the state must have plenty of money to burn, and Louisiana is the next "hot" state out there. It just has to be.
After all, L.S.U. spent $2.3 million a year on the football coach's salary and offered to increase Nick Saban's take-home pay to $4 million a year to keep him at the school and not lose him to the Miami Dolphins. So what's an extra $3 million from among friends?
Of course, now that I stop writing in a tone more suitable for The Daily Show, the sad truth is that L.S.U. graduated 40% of its players as recently as a year ago. So while coaches make millions and coordinators have agents, the kids aren't getting degrees. And, no doubt, there are other burning social issues in Louisiana (as there are in the other 49 states) that could use the $3 million more. They all could.
I am sure that Mike the Tiger and his predecessors are wonderful mascots. And, no doubt, Mike the Tiger is a solid part of the lore that is L.S.U. football.
But $3 million from boosters for a house for the tiger?
Whoever replaces Nick Saban should ask for at least double that for a housing allowance if the mascot, who, last I heard, doesn't have x-and-o responsibility and isn't the chief recruiter for football players, got $3 million for his digs. (How many of the players come from families whose houses cost more than $300,000? $30,000?)
Of course, the $3 million would be better spent put into a fund to help create a tuition pool for former football players to come back and get their degrees in meaningful subjects once their glory days are over, once the relatively full-time job of being a D-I college football player is over, and once, yes, their eligibility is up. Once, yes, when they're no longer "really" needed in Baton Rouge.
But don't bet on that happening any time soon.
Players, apparently, have a playing life-span in Baton Rouge of no more than five years.
Mike the Tiger, apparently, will live on forever.
That is, if you really think that there are a ton of good causes out there that are really worthy of your charitable dollars more so than the one identified on the link below. Such as, by way of example (as I'm sure I'm forgetting many wonderful causes) helping the tsunami victims, helping cure a variety of diseases, helping underpriviliged children. Legions of great causes, and I do hope that you did your bit at the end of the year to support as many as you could with as much money as you could spare.
But this one takes the cake, or, perhaps better said, the beignet.
That is, if you don't choke on your food reading about it.
I never knew that there was so much money to spare in Louisiana. I never knew that the best minds came out of the Bayou State, that it's a leader in high tech and biotech innovation, that its high school students are in the Top 10 nationally in every category. But it must be true, and the mainstream media (read, the righty bloggers' code word for the New York Times, the Washington Post, most other non-red state dailies and all TV networks but Fox) has to be deliberately misleading the public. After all, it must be true if the people of Louisiana had $3 million to spare to build a habitat for the football team's mascot.
After all, who would spend $3 million on a house for the mascot unless there were BMW's in most Baton Rouge and New Orleans driveways, if major corporations didn't have their headquarters in those cities, Lafayette and Monroe, if L.S.U. students weren't taking the lead in Rhodes scholarships and if the states' universities weren't at the vanguard of creating new ways to solve all sorts of modern problems? It must be that that's the case to have enough left over to spend $3 million on a house for the mascot, musn't it? The people of the state must have plenty of money to burn, and Louisiana is the next "hot" state out there. It just has to be.
After all, L.S.U. spent $2.3 million a year on the football coach's salary and offered to increase Nick Saban's take-home pay to $4 million a year to keep him at the school and not lose him to the Miami Dolphins. So what's an extra $3 million from among friends?
Of course, now that I stop writing in a tone more suitable for The Daily Show, the sad truth is that L.S.U. graduated 40% of its players as recently as a year ago. So while coaches make millions and coordinators have agents, the kids aren't getting degrees. And, no doubt, there are other burning social issues in Louisiana (as there are in the other 49 states) that could use the $3 million more. They all could.
I am sure that Mike the Tiger and his predecessors are wonderful mascots. And, no doubt, Mike the Tiger is a solid part of the lore that is L.S.U. football.
But $3 million from boosters for a house for the tiger?
Whoever replaces Nick Saban should ask for at least double that for a housing allowance if the mascot, who, last I heard, doesn't have x-and-o responsibility and isn't the chief recruiter for football players, got $3 million for his digs. (How many of the players come from families whose houses cost more than $300,000? $30,000?)
Of course, the $3 million would be better spent put into a fund to help create a tuition pool for former football players to come back and get their degrees in meaningful subjects once their glory days are over, once the relatively full-time job of being a D-I college football player is over, and once, yes, their eligibility is up. Once, yes, when they're no longer "really" needed in Baton Rouge.
But don't bet on that happening any time soon.
Players, apparently, have a playing life-span in Baton Rouge of no more than five years.
Mike the Tiger, apparently, will live on forever.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Disappointing Loss Shouldn't End Voting Inquiry
Just because this happened, doesn't mean that this story goes away.
Although, I am sure, that some of those who run or are involved with the BCS hopes that the result of Thursday night's Holiday Bowl game will put the whole matter to rest.
But that would be too convenient for them.
It shouldn't happen, and the mainstream sports media should not let it.
Because they certainly aren't drinking the BCS's Kool-Aid that the current system of deciding a national champion in Division I-A college football is a good one. There are plenty of columnists (note I didn't say reporters) who will tell you that.
So, mainstream sports media, decide whether you are part of the pageantry and the production, or part of the fourth estate that actually tries to keep the games honest.
Because at this juncture, it's still pretty hard to tell.
Although, I am sure, that some of those who run or are involved with the BCS hopes that the result of Thursday night's Holiday Bowl game will put the whole matter to rest.
But that would be too convenient for them.
It shouldn't happen, and the mainstream sports media should not let it.
Because they certainly aren't drinking the BCS's Kool-Aid that the current system of deciding a national champion in Division I-A college football is a good one. There are plenty of columnists (note I didn't say reporters) who will tell you that.
So, mainstream sports media, decide whether you are part of the pageantry and the production, or part of the fourth estate that actually tries to keep the games honest.
Because at this juncture, it's still pretty hard to tell.
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