sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Welcome to Festival of Sleep Day!
Festival of Sleep Day celebrates all types of sleep. It is a day for sleeping in, taking naps, or not even getting out of bed in the first place. After all, it is a festival, so it should be celebrated to the fullest. It likely happens when it does because the holidays have just ended, and people never seem to get enough sleep during them. This makes it an ideal time for catching up on sleep, especially because some students aren't even back in school yet, and some workers are still on vacation.
SU News
Syracuse basketball recruit Quincy Guerrier physically ready to play college hoops (PS; Waters)
The first thing a visitor to the Thetford Mines practice facility notices about Quincy Guerrier is the maturity of his body. On a recent December morning, in an empty gymnasium, he wore a tank top and shorts over tights as he attempted jump shots, worked on his handle and showed the versatility of a player renowned for his ability to produce points.
At 19 years old, the future Syracuse basketball forward has built a body that already looks rugged enough to play with pros. He is 6-foot-7 and a sculpted 220 pounds. When he scrimmaged on his recruiting visit with Syracuse players last fall, Guerrier appeared bigger and brawnier than most of his future teammates, SU assistant Adrian Autry said. When he worked out last year with the Canadian men’s national team, his prep coach Ibrahim Appiah said, nobody would have guessed he was still in high school.
“The transformation I think happened this past summer. Everybody that saw him said, ‘He looks so big, what has he been doing?,’” Appiah said. “He’s playing more than anything. He wasn’t religiously in the gym. But his father is a pretty big dude and his mom, physically, she’s cut. He just blew up and everybody that saw him on every visit mentioned it. It’s incredible.”
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Syracuse Basketball: Orange heads into ACC play with some momentum (itlh.com; Adler)
The Syracuse basketball squad wrapped up its non-conference slate with an 81-47 shellacking of St. Bonaventure on Saturday afternoon from the Carrier Dome.
The SU hoops outfit has ended the non-conference portion of its 2018-19 campaign on a juicy note, crushing St. Bonaventure by a final mark of 81-47.
Lofty expectations led the bevy of ‘Cuse fans to prognosticate that the Orange would roll through the out-of-conference schedule with perhaps only a blemish or two (myself included).
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Syracuse Basketball: Orange opens ACC play at Notre Dame (itlh.com; Adler)
The Syracuse basketball squad is hitting the road for a critical Atlantic Coast Conference duel this coming Saturday with Notre Dame.
Let Atlantic Coast Conference competition commence.
The SU hoops outfit is set to leave the friendly Carrier Dome confines for an enticing affair this Saturday afternoon at Notre Dame.
It’s the inaugural encounter for the ‘Cuse in the ACC, following a 9-4 mark during the non-conference slate. The Syracuse fan base, myself included, is a tad disappointed in how SU has fared so far in the 2018-19 campaign.
Save for a success at nationally ranked Ohio State, the Orange has under-performed to date, at least when you factor in the lofty expectations for this roster prior to the present stanza starting.
Senior point guard Frank Howard still doesn’t seem like he’s at 100 percent, and we’ll need him to round into top form should Syracuse hope for a strong showing in the ACC race.
Junior wing Tyus Battle, on the other hand, had an exceptional performance in his most-recent game, when the ‘Cuse blasted St. Bonaventure on the Hill in late December. Battle’s 21 points resulted in him getting named the ACC Player of the Week for the second instance in the 2018-19 term.
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https://player.fm/series/cuse-militia-podcast/episode-112-syracuse-basketball-notre-dame-preview (player.fm; Cuse Militia)
Listen to Episode 112- Syracuse Basketball: Notre Dame Preview! and 111 other episodes by 'Cuse Militia Podcast. No signup or install required.
ACC Roundup - Last Night Of Cupcakes (DBR; King)
In Wednesday’s ACC action, UNC took Harvard 77-57, Wake Forest finally had a serious win, beating Cornell 83-61 and Georgia Tech took down South Carolina Update Upstate 79-63.
UNC won, but once again, Ol’ Roy Williams was not happy with his bunch. UNC continues toas ESPN puts it, “[struggle] in many of the same areas it has throughout the season, taking bad shots, making careless turnovers, failing to secure rebounds and allowing too many open 3-pointers.”
When you see it put that way, how much stock should you put in Kentucky’s win over the Heels?
Just asking.
As Ross Perot used to say, “that’s just sad.”
Tommy Amaker respectfully disagreed, saying that “[t]hey can speed you up with how hard they play defensively in denying and creating turnovers. And that’s something they’ve done so well forever, and we certainly — a few that I thought we just kind of self-inflicted.”
Still, it’s safe to go with Ol’ Roy’s opinion. He’s not joking about suicide yet, but that may not be far off.
One bit of bad news for UNC: Sterling Manley was held out with a knee issue.
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ACC Basketball Preview: The Road to Charlotte (augustafreepress.com; Graham)
There are six ACC teams in the national polls as we begin the new year, but after those six, you may see a steep drop-off.
Duke and UVA look like Final Four teams, with Duke’s freshmen and UVA’s old guys each getting due buzz.
Florida State and Virginia Tech, meanwhile, look like real deals.
North Carolina is, well, North Carolina.
And then there’s N.C. State. Everybody Likes Kevin Keatts should be on Netflix soon.
Tournament Watch
The Big Dancers Right Now: Duke (11-1, #1 KenPom.com), UVA (12-0, #2), Virginia Tech (12-1, #7), North Carolina (9-3, #8), Florida State (12-1, #17), and N.C. State (12-1, #21).
The Maybes: Syracuse (9-4, #30), Clemson (10-3, #33), Louisville (9-4, #43), Miami (8-4, #56), Notre Dame (10-4, #70), and Pitt (10-3, #84).
The Outside Looking Ins: Georgia Tech (7-5, #94), Boston College (9-3, #106), and Wake Forest (6-5, #159).
Top Storylines
Duke can play D
KenPom.com being our friend here, Duke is ranked third nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency (.870 points per possession).
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NC State opens ACC play on the road hoping to avoid recent pitfalls (newsobserver.com; Giglio)
N.C. State dawdled through the first 16 minutes against Loyola (Md.) last Friday.
The Wolfpack was able to turn it on, and win easily, but that’s not a winning formula for ACC play, senior Torin Dorn said.
The 18th-ranked Wolfpack (12-1) opens league play on the road on Thursday (7 p.m., ESPNU) at Miami (8-4). Dorn said N.C. State can’t afford such lapses.
“You’ve got to be ready to play when you come out,” Dorn said. “If you start slow, you could be down 20-0.”
N.C. State led 33-27 with 4 minutes left in the first half against Loyola. The Wolfpack cranked up its energy and defensive pressure and won 97-64.
But Loyola, No. 293 in the KenPom rankings, is not the same caliber opponent as Miami, No. 56, and there won’t be many off nights in league play.
The road can be particularly unkind, as N.C. State learned early last season. The Wolfpack opened league play with road losses to Clemson (78-62) and Notre Dame (88-58).
“You have to be ready to play every night,” Dorn said. “It’s important that the guys that are returning impart that on our team. That we have to start out hot.”
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The difference the shape of ball makes: College hoops at Clemson and Alabama | NCAA.com (ncaa.com; Lopresti)
His team is getting ready to face the No. 1 ranked bluebloods of all bluebloods. Yeah, the Clemson coach certainly has a challenging weekend ahead.
Football’s Dabo Swinney, eyeball-to-eyeball with Alabama? Nah. Basketball coach Brad Brownell. He has to go to Duke. Just another reminder they play more than one sport at Clemson.
(And Alabama, too.)
Alabama and Clemson. What a difference the shape of ball makes.
When you find out you'll be on in primetime at Duke...
Our game at No. 1 Duke on Saturday, Jan. 5 will officially tipoff at 8 p.m. on ESPN #ClemsonGRIT pic.twitter.com/dTtDjASroI
— Clemson Basketball (@ClemsonMBB) December 31, 2018
They’re powerhouses 1 and 1A in football, together again in the national championship game for the third time in four years. There have been 12 semifinals and championship games in the playoff system since 2015. By late Monday night, this duet of domination will have won 11 of them. Nick Saban is an icon at Alabama, Swinney is getting there at Clemson.
So what about the worlds of Avery Johnson and Brownell? They coach basketball at Alabama and Clemson – round ball leaders in oblong ball-mad places. There are times when it must feel like working in the shadows. This week, for instance.
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https://www.greensboro.com/sports/a...5-5976-9685-93fdff5ab9ea.html(greensboro.com; Hardin)
So after two months of pretending we cared about college football, the real season begins this week.
As we prepare to watch the collisions of the best teams in the ACC, if not all of college basketball, just what have we learned since November? Do we think any differently of the old ACC footprint now than we did before the season began?
Not really.
Duke might be a little more potent than we thought. Carolina might be a little less. State is somewhere in the middle, and Wake is nowhere to be seen.
On the outer edges of Tobacco Road, the Virginia schools are poised for their own run to March, and Clemson lurks, likely poised to disappoint yet again.
As the conference games begin, we once again turn our attention to the way we were, pretending to care about the Big East schools orbiting around us but concentrating on those closest to our driveways.
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Miami Basketball hosts NC State to begin ACC Play: Game Info (caneswarning.ciom; Rubenstein)
The Miami Basketball team gets their place back in the spotlight after the Hurricanes football team stole the headlines over the past four days. The Hoops team opens ACC play by hosting North Carolina State.
The Miami Basketball team had an up and down non-conference season. The first 12 games to the Men’s basketball season mirrored the football team. The Hurricanes began the season 5-0, lost four straight and rebounded with wins in their last three games to enter ACC play 8-4.
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Other
Onondaga County Legislature approves sales tax deal with Syracuse (PS; Knauss)
Onondaga County legislators today approved a deal to extend the county’s existing sales tax sharing agreement with the city of Syracuse for another 11 years. If the Syracuse Common Council also votes yes, the agreement on how to split more than $350 million a year will run through 2030.
Today’s vote came less than three weeks after County Executive Ryan McMahon and Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh proposed the deal. Although a few county legislators complained about the rush to vote -- the current deal does not expire until 2020 -- others saw the lack of public debate as evidence of a promising new era of inter-municipal cooperation.
Legislator Kevin Holmquist, R-Manlius, pointed out that the formula approved today is unchanged from when it was first adopted in 2010. But the 2010 debate was filled with long, rancorous hearings, and it sparked political feuds lasting years.
Part of the difference was that the 2010 deal marked a radical shift from the previous distribution formula. Holmquist said McMahon and Walsh also deserve credit for working behind the scenes this year to win support from suburban towns and villages, smoothing the way for approval.
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