sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Welcome to Chinese Language Day!
As the world’s most widely spoken language it seems appropriate that Mandarin Chinese has one day every year dedicated to it. This officially marked day of Mandarin language celebration was established by the United Nations as a way of celebrating the language’s history and overall contribution to the world. It is hoped that by having one day every year to celebrate Mandarin Chinese this additional focus on the language will encourage more people around the world to take it up. With China likely to become the largest economy in the world it is important that the wider world becomes interestingly more proficient in this wonderful language. Chinese Language Day is annually celebrated in April. A great way to get involved in the celebration is to join a Mandarin class or attend one of the many Confucian Hubs now established by China in countries around the world.
祝你有美好的一天
SU News
Syracuse basketball pursues Brewster Academy's 2018 SF Sid Wilson, PF Nate Roberts (PS; Ditota)
Syracuse basketball coaches have shown interest in two current forwards from Brewster Academy, a place that has been fertile ground for Orange talent over the years.
Two acclaimed 2018 forwards, Sid Wilson and Nate Roberts, were offered scholarships by Syracuse coaches over the winter. Both players were members of Brewster's undefeated 2017 national prep championship team.
"Sid is a high-level athlete who reminds me a bit of C.J. Fair," Brewster coach Jason Smith said. "Nate has a very high ceiling. Skilled 6-10 kid who can shoot the ball well to three."
Fair is one of several Syracuse players with Brewster roots, the most recent being current SU forward Taurean Thompson and former SU forward Chris McCullough, now with the Washington Wizards.
Wilson and Roberts are about to embark on the spring/summer youth basketball circuit.
Wilson, who is 6-foot-7, plays for New Heights in the Under Armour Association (UAA). His team starts play on Friday. Wilson announced last month on Twitter that his recruitment was wide open; he has scholarship offers from many high major programs. He is a wiry, athletic forward who can attack the rim.
"Sid is ultra-athletic. He's best described as a hybrid forward," Smith said today in a phone conversation. "When he arrived here, he was more of a four than a three, but he is trending as a three. He's the highest level athlete, a very good catch and shoot player from the perimeter. He needs to improve being able to take his man off the dribble."
Nate Roberts
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Expectations are low for 2017-18 Syracuse basketball, and that's not a bad thing - The Juice Online (the juice; Marcus)
Earlier this month, I got back from the Final Four thinking about Syracuse basketball. I worked the 2015 version and again worked this year’s. Naturally, I wasn’t at the year in between, 2016, when Syracuse made the Final Four.
Anyway, when I got back from the Final Four, I thought about how far Syracuse basketball fell from the national conversation this year in comparison to last year. That will happen when you go from making a Final Four to missing the NCAA tournament all together the next season.
But the great thing about college basketball is that if you’ve got a program that is consistently good like Syracuse, you have a fighter’s chance at the Final Four any year.
So with that, I say prepare for another season of SU basketball without worrying about a potential decline in SU’s state as a basketball superpower.
These are college kids. Anything can happen on the court.
Look at this year’s quartet: aside from UNC and Gonzaga, it featured Oregon and South Carolina. There is a high chance that none of those teams will be there next year. Instead, it’s likely four new teams will take their place on college basketball’s biggest stage.
Could one of those be Syracuse? Possibly. Cuse seems to make the Final Four when no one expects them too. And certainly, no one will be expecting that next season, especially with the loss of Tyler Lydon to the NBA.
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ACC basketball | schedule proposal | News & Observer (newsobserver.com; Pomeranz)
Let’s stop with the permanent partners in Atlantic Coast Conference basketball and go to an equity schedule, similar to the NFL. Based on the results of the previous season the higher ranked teams play each other twice and the lower ranked teams play each other twice.
The 2019-20 season – when the conference expands to 20 league games per team – is the right time to do it. ESPN, the major sponsor of all things ACC, may object at first, but in reality, the holder of TV rights will get a better overall broadcast slate.
In the summer of 2016, the ACC voted to expand to the 20-game schedule. Some coaches and athletic directors were for it; several were against it. ESPN wanted more conference games to show on the ESPN Digital Network, a combination of pure broadcast media and mobile device streaming. For the benefit of the conference, Boston College-Clemson games are preferred to a Clemson-Campbell game or a Boston College-SUNY Oswego State game.
My proposal schedules the coming season based on the previous year’s seedings for the ACC tournament. It divides the league into three “PODS” just for scheduling purposes, starts with all teams playing each other once, and adds six duplicate games based on a set formula.
The teams are placed in numerical order based on the previous season and divided into three groups: teams 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15. Based on the 2016-17 results, the PODs would be:
A: North Carolina, Florida State, Notre Dame, Louisville, Duke
B: Virginia, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Miami, Wake Forest
C: Georgia Tech, Clemson, NC State, Pittsburgh, Boston College
The teams in each POD play each other twice, giving each team four additional regular-season games (18 total). The last two games would be assigned with this progressive formula: No. 1 plays No. 6 and No. 11 twice; No. 2 plays No. 7 and No. 12 twice, and so on and so forth. Every year the final standings (tournament seeds) could change, therefore the schedule would change. So, here is the formula for games showing the seed and the opponents for two games:
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Other
Yet another wayward American white pelican finds its way to Onondaga Lake
(PS; Figura)
An American white pelican, rare for this area, has been spotted the past few days swimming along the southwestern shore of Onondaga Lake.
This is the second year in a row that a pelican has turned up in the waterway. The last one, which appeared in January in the Inner Harbor and hung around for more than two weeks before dying of starvation, created quite a stir among bird-watching enthusiasts.
The latest one has been reported by Upstate New York bird waters for about a week, according to Kevin McGowan, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He said there have been reports from Rochester, the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge -- and now Onondaga Lake.
"He showed initiallly (on Onondaga) last Friday," according Joe Brin, who does the Rare Bird Alert for the Onondaga Audubon Chapter. He said the first to report it there was Carla Bregman of Fayetteville.
Kevin Sullivan, who was out cycling on the path near the Amphitheater and emailed the following to Nyup.com:
"I was out for a late afternoon bike ride around Onondaga Lake Tuesday and spotted a white pelican about 300 yards west of the Lakeview Amphitheater, nearly 200 yards away from shore," he said. "It was clearly a white pelican. I am familiar with the mute swans that are spotted on the lake in pairs from time to time, and there was no confusion in my eyes (nor another biker that stopped to watch this large bird)."
The American white pelican is one of the largest North American birds, with adults having a wing span of nearly 8 feet. They eat mostly small fish that occur in shallow wetlands, such as minnows, carp, and suckers, according to allaboutbirds.com.
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