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Loyalty Isn't Only for the Folks You Like
by T.H. on Apr 27, 2010 11:20 PM EDT
in Basketball
7 comments
Oliver Purnell, formerly of Clemson and now at DePaul, isn't being greeted with open arms in Chicago:
"Me, personally, I would have kept the whole staff," said Irvin, whose family owns the influential Mac Irvin Fire AAU program. "Billy and David know the city a bit, but they can't attack it by themselves. Maybe they want to be well-rounded and go to different cities and states to find the pieces to the puzzle they are building.
"Everybody wants to come to Chicago to see basketball. College coaches call me every day and want to talk about the talent in Chicago. It is the mecca of basketball, and it's going to be that way for at least the next 10, 12 years. By doing that, I don't know if DePaul knows that. Maybe they are scared of us?"
Note that this is after Purnell retained two DePaul staffers and brought three assistants with him from Clemson. The local Chicago crowd wanted him to keep all of the DePaul assistants. The same guys whose recruiting led DePaul to a mighty 8-23 record the previous season.
I've never understood the entitlement fans and folks who deal with programs have towards assistant coaches. It's the same as when Matt Doherty arrived at Carolina and fans expected him to keep on the assistants from Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge. Yes, they were loyal to the program, but Doherty also had to be loyal to his assistants from Notre Dame. Assistant coaching is a cruel world of being underpaid and overworked, while relying mostly on the protection of head coaches. You can't expect a coach to just cut loose the people he's been working with for the guys who worked under the last coach. (You'll notice when Roy Williams replaced Doherty, he brought his own assistants. No one seemed to mind.) So the Chicago high school coaches really need to readjust their expectations. After all, if Irvin was suddenly offered the DePaul job, he probably would have brought his assistants along, no matter what he might say.
Also, "the mecca of college basketball?" There are some decent players, but I'd look at it as more like the Disneyworld of college basketball. You feel obligated to visit every couple of years, but always come back with something Goofy-looking.
(As an aside, what the hell is this? The guy is 22 and his own foundation. As opposed to his sister, who has her own company running charitable foundations for athletes. A fortuitous coincidence.)
When Is a Conference No Longer a Conference?
by T.H. on Apr 27, 2010 8:38 AM EDT
in Football
6 comments
Most everyone in the college sports-blogging world has spent the week chewing over various conference expansion schemes. Some of that is because all of the conference commissioners were down in Scottsdale meeting, and couldn't keep their mouths shut even if they cared to. The rest is de to the fact that it's the silly season of college sports, and folks like nothing better than making their own ideal conference line-ups. It's basically the sports version of writing fanfic, but with slightly less slash involved. (And only slightly – I remain unconvinced folks aren't putting Texas and Florida in the same conference only to increase the odds Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy somehow find themselves making out.)
The cold water will soon be thrown on most of these ideas; everyone's already decided that Notre Dame's sitting things out, for instance. But everyone seems oddly excited about 16-team superconferences in general. Am I the only one who thinks it's an absolutely horrible idea?
The general theory seems to revolve around the Big Ten leaping from 11 teams to 16 by stealing a couple of Big East football teams, and maybe Missouri and Iowa State. The SEC responds by poaching Texas and Texas A&M; from the Big 12 and Florida State and Clemson from the ACC. Then there are second order effects combining the Pac-10 with most of the rest of the Big 12 and the ACC probably scooping up the rest of the Big East, leaving four 16-team conferences and some bystanders. Now, let's put aside that the last sixteen team superconference broke apart after only three years because of travel costs and academic concerns. Or that the superconference in UNC's own history twice had mass defections to form other conferences. What does a sixteen team conference get you?
In football, you're going to get eight or nine conference games. And most likely eight, since Texas and Florida aren't going to sign up for a ninth game when they still have Oklahoma and Miami on their respective schedules. You either end up with two conferences with a scheduling agreement and a weird playoff at the end or the strange rotating quadrants of the mayfly that was the 16-team WAC. The latter won't fly anywhere where there's more than one rivalry per team – just think about the SEC. Florida has to be paired with Florida State, but they also need the World's Biggest Cocktail party with Georgia and the Tennessee game. But Tennessee needs its Alabama rivalry, and Georgia its game with Auburn; something gets blown up in this situation. And if you have two divisions, well then you get to see your vaunted Texas-Florida matchup twice every sixteen years. Exciting.
In basketball, of course, you're pretty much stuck with the Big East's horrible method of one game per year, and possibly the bizarre system where you can fail to make your own conference tournament. That right there is why you'll never see the ACC expand to 16; not only is the ACC tournament still the big moneymaker that needs to be protected from dilution, but shifting to one scheduled UNC-Duke game a year, would be a huge profit loss in addition to being a crime against humanity. The SEC probably wouldn't bat an eye about diminishing a pretty weak basketball product, but the Big and Pac Ten-or-Mores would probably pull back from the abyss. And it would actively destroy most of the Olympic sports, as travel expenses became unmanageable and ate away at a chunk of the new pot of money.
So no, sixteen-team conference probably won't start popping up any day now, and if one came into existence it would probably fall apart pretty quickly. We're stuck with the kluged-together system we have now, as more teams approach twelve and keep threatening to poach one another. Expect lots of talk but little action, the NCAA's favorite type of game.
Well That Was Anti-Climactic
by T.H. on Apr 23, 2010 8:12 AM EDT
in Basketball
5 comments
After everyone and their brother-in-law swearing the NCAA was expanding the basketball tournament to 96 games, the press release hit the wires announcing... an expansion to 68. This past season, that would have meant Virginia Tech, Mississippi State and Illinois to the field, none of who advanced to the NIT semis in Madison Square Garden, but compared to 96 is a small cut.
I wouldn't want to be the eight minor conference champions pushed into a Tuesday/Wednesday slot, though.
Ed Davis Goes Pro Before the NBA Goes on Strike
by T.H. on Apr 12, 2010 10:40 PM EDT
in Basketball
15 comments
In a move that was expected from a good portion of Carolina fans, Ed Davis announced today that he's forgoing the rest of his college eligibility to enter the NBA draft. According to his father, the upcoming NBA contract negotiations influenced the decision:
"This was a tough decision for him, because he loves Carolina, loves his teammates,'' Terry Davis, a former NBA player, said in a phone interview. "But with a possible lockout the next year, that could set him back another year. And he wanted to fulfill his dream."
This isn't the first time events in the NBA has pushed a Carolina player into the draft. Marvin Williams left after his freshman year in part because of discussions of an NBA policy that eventually became the NBA one-and-done rule.
Davis got some grief this season for his lack of leadership and not fully filling the void left by Tyler Hansbrough before his wrist injury took him out for the season. The fact that he wasn't part of the teams resurgence in the NIT may lull some folks into thinking he won't be missed, but with his departure and Thompson's graduation, UNC suddenly goes from being overstocked in the paint to being rather thin. Henson and Zeller should come into their own, but we may be looking at the most perimeter-oriented UNC team in over a decade.
Assuming he's drafted, Davis will be the 97th Tar Heel drafted by the NBA, and should he go in the first round the 40th UNC player to do so. There are currently 14 Carolina players in the NBA.
ESPN Would Like to Take Over Your Saturday
by T.H. on Apr 10, 2010 9:45 AM EDT
in Football
2 comments
I've never gotten particularly pumped fro spring football. The concept comes from the once basketball-starved SEC, where after a long winter the fans are chomping at the bit to see any sort of action. For me, spring is the occasional trip to the baseball parks and the beginning of road racing season – a good chunk of day will be spent at packet pick-up for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler tomorrow morning – not football. Come talk to me right as the heat gets unbearable in August. That's when I'm ready to start looking at quarterbacks again.
(For what it's worth, this isn't a basketball bias talking. I don't really care for Midnight Madness or much of the basketball exhibitions either. It's not until the leaves have changed that I'm ready to contemplate basketball.)
That being said, with ESPN airing UNC's practice today, Butch Davis seems to have gone out of his way to make it something worth watching. The teams weren't picked by draft, but to specifically provide match-ups the coaches want to see, with Travis Bond on Marvin Austin being an example the coaches gave. They're also abandoning the scrimmage concept of the last few years for an actual game, if a time-compressed one to suit ESPN's schedule. But it's basically a chance to see players after a long drought, and to focus on where the improvement has come from and what needs work. And if you're not a T.J. Yates fan, a chance to see what alternative you'll be pushing for come fall.
The problem is, an hour into the two hours ESPN has devoted to the game, ESPNU is throwing Carolina lacrosse at you, with the Big City Classic up in New York. This is the first event at the New Meadowlands Stadium, and the organizers have aired the undefeated, second-ranked Heels against the top-ranked, also undefeated Virginia Cavaliers. (Your rankings may vary. The Washington Examiner, for instance, has Carolina as No. 1. It's also a horrible paper.) UNC hasn't beaten UVa in six years, but recently got back the services of attack Billy Bitter, who had been out with a leg injury. Bitter had four goals in last week's 11-7 victory over Johns Hopkins and five in last year's 11-10 loss to the Cavaliers. The two teams are the last two undefeated schools in Division I lacrosse, and play right before a meeting of third and fourth ranked Syracuse and Princeton in the second game. This is a likely preview of what we'll see in the playoffs, and I think ESPN might lose some of its audience to its sister network come four o'clock. Me, I just hope to be through the lines and received my race bib at that point.
There'a good article on Bitter and UVa defenseman Ken Clausen here, and a good overview of the resurgence in the UNC program here.
Lay Low for a Few Days and the Entire Basketball Landscape Changes
by T.H. on Apr 8, 2010 9:06 PM EDT
in Basketball
0 comments
Where to begin? The easiest place to start is Kentucky, who just had five players elect to leave early for the pros – junior Patrick Patterson and the four freshmen Wall, Bledsoe, Cousins and Orton. UNC has gone through this twice in recent years, but both times followed national championships and consisted mostly of upperclassmen. This is the equivalent of the 2009 championship team leaving early in 2007, after losing to Georgetown. Calipari has always been on an extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to one-and-dones, having lost Dajuan Walker, Shawne Williams, Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans after one year apiece at Memphis. (For comparison, while with the Tigers he only had five upperclassmen go pro, four seniors and a junior.) Kentucky fans don't seem worried, but it's going to increase the pressure to perform next year, and Calipari already has a history of running programs that get victories vacated. The temptation to wander into gray areas is only going to rise.
That one-and-done spectrum, as I picture it in my head at least, puts Calipari on one end and Krzyzewski on the other, with Roy Williams in the middle although leaning towards the Duke end of things. Williams recruits players who could potentially leave after a year and occasionally do, but seems to shoot for a level of character that doesn't automatically default to leaving early. Or perhaps he just offers enough in coaching and experience that they don't want to. On the other hand, the last player I can think of who Krzyzewski recruited that could have potentially been a one-and-done was Elton Brand; the default tenure as I understand it in Durham is three years, with encouraged summer enrollment before your freshman year to make getting a degree in that time feasible. Those who have left prior to that have mostly appeared to come as a shock. Recently that's been McRoberts and Randolph, but I remember Krzyzewski being quite annoyed at the departures of Avery and Maggette in the 1999 class that marked a change in Duke's recruiting and playing philosophy. Me, I'm happy that UNC is in the middle, naturally.
More interesting than the players however, is the coaching movements. Wake Forest fired Dino Gaudio, saying:
"This was not a decision based upon a one-year performance. We can put up with a disappointment. We have disappointments all the time. But there is a pattern here that needed to be addressed, a 3-year pattern that needed to be addressed."
That three-year pattern was a 61-33 record, 27-21 in the ACC and two tournament appearances. Compare that to 59-39 (21-27) for Skip Prosser's last three years, or 58-39 (22-26) for Dave Odom's last three. Recruiting seemed to be going well, even with losing sophomore Al-Farouq Aminu, but apparently the postseason is what the athletic director had a problem with. My question is, who exactly is going to be lining up to take this job? The last three people to hold it have left abruptly, died prematurely, and been fired, respectively. Two out of three NCAA tournament appearances and keeping a team together after a tragic loss isn't considered success. All while playing for a small school who has to compete with Duke and Carolina year after year. This looks to be the N.C. State hiring fiasco all over again. The fans expectations are a little lower, but the only two guys on that list I could see considering it are Gregg Marshall and Brad Brownell. This is supposed to be a saavy move? And all you coaches clamoring for the NCAA tournament to expand to 96 to help your job security? This is your future. Tournament appearance can't save your job now let alone once they've been watered down to participation awards.
Then there was Oliver Purnell leaving Clemson for Depaul, the latest in a string of coaches to abandon higher profile jobs (Odom at Wake, Smith at Kentucky, Sendek at State) for rebuilding efforts where they'll be appreciated. The thing is, unlike Sendek and Smith, Purnell was loved by the fanbase. Nor do I think it was simply a matter of Clemson being "a football school" who can't retain a basketbal coach. That's a crock explanation when it's applied to football coaches at UNC, and it's equally poor here. Maybe there were a lot of problems with the administration, or maybe a man can only live in rural South Carolina for so long. Either way, this is going to be a pretty big setback for the Tigers, as Purnell was a good coach who did yeoman's job of making that program respectable.
The end result is a pretty depleted ACC for next season. And don't believe the hype about a Duke repeat. Even if Singler stays, and that's doubtful, this was a thin team playing an unconventional style that only worked because of the specific players involved. (Don't believe me? A key offensive move was a 7'1" center ignoring a putback in favor of a three-pointer.) Take away their primary perimeter scorer (Scheyer) and the most hyperspecific post player in all of college basketball (Zoubek, who wasn't a part of the offense outside of rebounding) and you're going to have to come up with a new offense, not just snap the Plumlees and some freshmen into the empty spaces. Duke doesn't make it out of the Sweet Sixteen next year.
So where does that leave UNC? That primarily depends on who they have on the floor. Through most of the season until the NIT, the rumors were flying fast and furious. The most outrageous one neatly encapsulated all of them, actually, and said Davis would go pro, Drew and McDonald would transfer, and Will Graves would be encouraged to graduate. Taking them in reverse, Graves being asked to leave is just ridiculous. He's already been suspended from the team once; if Williams didn't want him he doesn't have to play him. Graves was often the lone perimeter threat, and he's with the team through the remainder of his eligibility. The McDonald transfer rumors are remnants from the early season, when he wasn't getting any playing time and fans assumed he never would. Instead, he played his way into the lineup and only improved as the season went on. Davis, of course, is the big mystery, no matter what they may be saying on Twitter.
And then there's Larry Drew. I was out drinking with one of the UCLA bloggers recently, and the first words out of his mouth were asking about him transferring. And it's a fair question, since of anyone Carolina fans have been the hardest on him as the team floundered. Some it was for the sin of not being Ty Lawson, some for turnovers that were more the fault of the guy on the other end of the pass, and some was probably deserved. But he played through the NIT with more heart than I've seen from almost everyone else on the team, won games single-handedly, and generally made the statement that the critics were wrong. Will he leave? I have no idea, but I'd rather him stay.
When you prompt substantial boos from North Carolina fans during a basketball game at the conclusion of a winning season, it's safe to say something has gone very wrong.
T.J. Yates gets the profile treatment from Dr. Saturday. Nothing new, but a nice summary of where he sits.
Sigh
by T.H. on Apr 6, 2010 8:05 AM EDT
in Basketball
2 comments
A couple of friendlier bounces off the rim, or one or two foul calls going the other way, and I'm a much happier man this morning. Oh well. One of these days, we'll all look back and think, "Duke and Butler combining for only 120 points? What kind of season was 2010 anyway?"
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