Women's Tourney Instant Update: I hope no one read my predictions for game 1. I predicted Sylvia Fowles dominating the paint and LSU winning the game. Well, it may have happened in some parallel universe, but in this one, the Rutgers defense dominated LSU... The 2nd game is supposed to be a "woo woo" game (a Raftery term, not related to the story below), but instead it's just 5-2 after six minutes of play!... Speaking of which, Candance Parker's brother is none other than NBAer Anthony Parker. European basketball fans are also very familiar with him as he had a very successful career in the Euroleague with Macabi Tel Aviv of Israel.
Did you know? The first Chinese-American player to play NCAA division 1
college basketball was Willie "Woo Woo" Wong at Cal-Berkeley, coached by the legendary Pete Newell in 1949 (yes, 1949, and yes, the same Pete Newell who does the Big Man camps every summer).
Congratulations to future Texas (???) Coach Gail Goestenkors for being named Coach of the Year. Also congratulations for thinking of escaping the foul-smelling smug smog cloud that Coach K has created at Duke. Go to Texas Coach G! You will have great success there in a smug-free environment!
Xs and Os: When asked how he would defend Noah and Horford, Thad Matta said (jokingly?) we will play zone all the time. Then he said that during the last time they played Oden and Harris split time on those two, and he said to expect something similar. (Red herring???). One thing is certain: he can't use space-eater Dallas Lauderdale (the next T. Dials?) or Kosta Koufos since can't play before the Fall of 2007.
I never thought I would completely agree with Dick Vitale on any single topic, but I agree with his point, to not only give players six fouls, but also allow a player to play after his sixth foul, but each additional foul would be two shots and the ball. Everyone wants to watch the best players play and decide it on the court. We don't want to see another disaster where the stupid zebras (yes, you know who you are, you were the three stooges who got Oden and Hibbert in foul trouble) derail a game and ruin a highly anticipated matchup. Bad zebras!. Hopefully this will get the ball rolling on six fouls and beyond!
CSTV tackles some of the big issues Brian Curtis hosted a special edition of Taking Issue from Atlanta on CSTV. It tackled some of the big issues such as the new NBA draft rule, graduation rates, and diversity in coaches and athletic departments. The panel consisted of a university president, a coach, a player and an AD. Interestingly two of them are potentially involved in the Kentucky coaching carousel, the Florida university president (grouchy fellow - coincidence or ???), and Texas A&M coach Billy Gillespie (who allegedly won't sign a contract until he hears from Kentucky either way). The other two panelists were Michigan's Air Georgia, Brett Petway, finalist to the college hoops dunk contest and the Georgia Tech AD. Gillispie's (CSTV's spelling) comments did not reveal anything about his future. He did say that he wants college players to get their summer back; with the current setup and academic requirements, players have to register in both summer sessions; he supports a player's option in the NBA draft... The Florida president looked stern and grouchy, but I don't know if that's his regular personality (or he is p*ss*d that Donovan is leaving?).
It happened before, will it happen again? Ten years ago a promising young coach was on the verge of a repeat, with rumors swirling around him about another coaching job. The coach was Rick Pitino of Kentucky, and the other job was the Boston Celtics. Pitino lost that game even though his team was the favorite. Sounds familiar? Ten years later the roles are a bit reversed. Kentucky is now the pursuer, and Florida and Billy Donovan are the defending champions and favorites to repeat. Given the multiple connections between Pitino, Donovan and Kentucky, one can only wonder where there is a pattern here...
NCAA Final Prediction: Florida beats Ohio State, the Gators get the repeat, and that creates two big questions:
1) Will Billy Donovan stay or go?
2) Will the four juniors go to the NBA or stay and create history by going after a historical threepeat???
Hall of Fame announcement coming on Monday April 2, 2007. Official press release by the Hall of Fame... There should be a live announcement on NBA-TV, at 8am PT/11am ET on Monday, although not all tv listings are agreeing on this... My predictions on who should be IN or OUT are here
Required homework: Watch the Ohio State at Florida game from earlier this season. Yes, they are not exactly the same team, but there are certain patterns that will remain the same.
If you missed any of the games, you can watch them online for free at ncaasports.com/mmod. Or if you prefer to watch them on TV, CSTV will air an NCAA tourney marathon starting Sunday April 8, 2007. They will show around 10 games, each one repeating twice. Prepare your VCRs, DVRs, 8-track, and TiVos!
The Women's Final Four airs tonight on ESPN, pregame at 330pmPT/630pmET, game 1 LSU vs Rutgers at 4pmPT/7pmET, and game 2 around 630pmPT/930pmET. ESPN will go full circle with this game, with a different view and Doug Gottleib commentary on ESPN2, etc, etc. Pedictions: LSU wins with Sylvia Fowles leading the way, Tennessee wins a very close one, with Candance Parker getting close (or getting) a triple double.
An excellent resource on College Hoops is, the College Hoops Update website.
Satire Segment
With all the all-star games happening, and UCLA's miserable performance, one can only wonder how on earth did the Mc Donalds selection cmte picked James Keefe for the 2006 team. Keefe was probably not good enough to play in a hypothetical all-white McDonalds game last year (the 2006 class was very deep), let alone play in the real-world McDonalds game. Memo to the McDonalds selection cmte: Please select the best 24 players, not select players because they commit to Duke/UCLA/etc, or because you think that you have to have a minimum of 2-3 white players. Please select the best players! This is common sense!
If I was looking for a coach to coach my team of zero players, there's at least one NCAA college that would be willing to listen because it might increase his stock and contract... Who do you think I'm talking about? Find out here!
No comments:
Post a Comment