sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Today we celebrate unicorns: mythological animals that look like horses with horns on their foreheads. Although the holiday is observed all around the world, it has special significance in Scotland, where the unicorn is the national animal. Unicorns may not be real, but the concept of them goes back millennia, and they have been an ever-present part of culture.
Early depictions of unicorns appeared in Mesopotamian artwork, as well as in ancient myths in China and India. The Greek historian Ctesias referenced an animal with one horn in 400 BCE. He likely was referring to the Indian Rhinoceros, but he described the creature as having a white body and purple head, with a multicolored horn on its forehead. He wrote that the animal was very fast and that those who drank from its horn were protected from some illnesses.
SU News
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim previews 2019-20: ‘We’ll be an interesting team’ (PS; Waters)
The Syracuse Orange will look a lot different next season than it did this past year.
And not just because the Orange loses three starters, including leading scorer Tyus Battle.
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim envisions a team with a more fluid offense rather than the dribble-drive dominant one of the past few seasons.
Boeheim provided a preview of next year’s team during an interview during the Final Four in Minneapolis.
The stagnant offenses of the past few years will be gone. Ball movement slowed as a result of no playmakers and the lack of offensive threats. Limited outside shooting meant defenses could pack it in to cut off drives.
Syracuse’s assist totals in the last two years mark the lowest and third-lowest since the school started keeping tracking assists in 1971.
“We didn’t move the ball a lot,’’ Boeheim said of his recent Orange squads. “We had to drive a lot. In some games, like Duke, we were OK, but we didn’t move the ball and we had no post presence.
“Next year, we should be able to move the ball better and not dribble-drive as much,’’ he continued. “We have guys who can shoot it and pass it.’’
The new-look Orange will compete in an ACC that’s in line for a huge makeover. The league’s elite teams all figure to suffer major talent losses.
Duke will lose Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish. North Carolina will lose seniors Luke Maye and Cameron Johnson along with freshman point guard Coby White. Virginia could lose De’Andre Hunter and Ty Jerome. Virginia Tech is in search of a new coach and also loses Ahmed Hill and Justin Robinson.
“The league at the top won’t be as good,’’ Boeheim said. “There’s a lot of guys going out of the league. It’ll be an interesting team to watch. There will be a lot of competition.’’
Boeheim must replace the starting backcourt of Battle and Frank Howard and also find a center with the departure of Paschal Chukwu. Those three players were full-time starters for each of the past two seasons.
Next year’s team will be young with no scholarship senior on the roster, but juniors Oshae Brissett, Elijah Hughes, Marek Dolezaj and Bourama Sidibe do have experience.
“I think it will be an interesting team to watch develop,’’ Boeheim said.
The development will start with a trip to Italy in August. It’s the first foreign tour for Syracuse since a four-game trip to Canada prior to the 2013-14 season.
“The summer trip will be important,’’ Boeheim said. “I knew we’d have three, four or five freshmen. It’s the reason why we scheduled the trip this summer. We’ll get practice days and some games. That really helped Tyler Ennis and Jerami Grant that season. It’ll help these guys.’’
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Syracuse Basketball Opens 2019-20 Season with Defending Champs (247sports.com; McAllister)
The Virginia Cavaliers won the 2019 NCAA Tournament Championship. That comes just one season after suffering the worst loss in NCAA history, as they were the first one seed to lose to a 16 seed when they fell to UMBC in the opening round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament. What does this have to do with Syracuse? Outside of the fact that Virginia is in the ACC so it furthers Syracuse's conference prestige, the Orange open the 2019-20 season with Virginia. That means Syracuse will start the year with the defending National Champions.
Interestingly, the football program's home opener this fall will be against the defending National Champions as well, when the Orange host Clemson.
The ACC is launching the ACC Network in August and is moving to a 20 game conference schedule in basketball. That means there will be two conference games in November, and the ACC previously announced the first for Syracuse and Virginia will be a November 6th matchup in the Carrier Dome. While the dates and times for the rest of Syracuse's conference slate is not known, but the Orange's conference opponents home and away are.
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Syracuse Basketball: An NBA career on the ropes; the Wes Johnson story (itlh.com; Esden Jr)
Former Syracuse basketball star Wes Johnson has been released by the Washington Wizards. Here are the details of his professional future.
Former Syracuse basketball players are becoming extinct in the NBA in 2019. The latest casualty appears to be Wes Johnson.
Late on Saturday night, the Washington Wizards announced they released Johnson shortly before the end of the NBA regular season. According to Chris Carlson of Syracuse.com that leaves just four active Orange players in the pros:
Things are going exceptionally well for Grant with the Thunder. He’s in the midst of a career-year in points per game (13.5), minutes (32.5), three-point percentage (39.1 percent), and rebounds (5.2). Great timing because before this season he signed a three-year $27 million contract in free agency with OKC.
Michael Carter-Williams, Orlando Magic
Prior to this latest stint with the Magic, MCW seemed like he was going to be another former Orange star on his way out of the pros, but he has saved his career with the playoff-bound Magic.
Tyler Lydon, Denver Nuggets
Since being a first-round pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, Lydon has either been injured or a non-factor thus far in the NBA. If he doesn’t improve soon, he’ll be playing overseas.
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Episode 139- Syracuse Sports: Cuse News, Way Too Early Starting Five! - Armchair All-Americans (armchairallamericans.com' podcast; Cuse Militia)
Episode 139- Syracuse Sports: Cuse News, Way Too Early Starting Five!
NCAA championship: Virginia becomes fifth different ACC program to win national title in basketball (cbsports.com; Palm)
Virginia's 85-77 overtime win over Texas Tech for the 2019 national championship gave the ACC its third title in five seasons and 15th overall, tying the Pac-12 for the lead in that category. The ACC has also been in four of the last five championship games, with UNC losing to Villanova in the 2016 title game.
Virginia also becomes the fifth different school to win a national championship while a member of the ACC. Duke, Maryland (now in Big Ten), North Carolina, NC State are the others.
The Cavaliers were making only their third Final Four appearance and first since 1984. No team has gone anywhere near that long between its most recent Final Four and its first title.
Former Virginia star Ralph Sampson was a rookie in the NBA back in 1984, but he did lead the Cavaliers to their first Final Four in 1981. Those were really the last glory days for Virginia basketball. The Cavaliers have only made five Sweet 16s in that time and advanced to the Elite Eight in three of those seasons.
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Worst to First: Virginia defeats Texas Tech to win the 2019 NCAA Championship - ACCSports.com (accsports.com; Geisinger)
for Hoo's That
They — whoever they is — call it March Madness for a reason. One year ago, Virginia basketball was licking its wounds after its historic upset loss to UMBC. On Monday night in Minneapolis, though, just before the clock hit midnight on the East Coast, something cosmic happened — as Virginia claimed the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament title with an 85-77 win over Texas Tech.
Virginia Men's Basketball
✔
@UVAMensHoops
The 2019 NCAA Champions! #NationalChampionship
#GoHoosThe win marks the first national title in program history for Virginia, which has dominated the ACC over the last six seasons — twice champions of the ACC and four times the league’s regular season champ. This, however, was the elusive final piece — a trip to the Final Four and perhaps even more nets to cut down after that.
For head coach Tony Bennett, this must be surreal. Offensively, though, this was very much a real, authentic performance from Virginia. The Cavaliers hit 11 3-pointers (45.8 3p%), went 20-of-23 from the free throw line (87 FT%, 61.5 TS%) and turned the ball over 11 times. Virginia also assisted on 15 of its 27 field goals — an assist rate of 55.6 percent.
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Young returns to the New River Valley and readies for the challenge of the ACC - Virginia Tech Athletics (hokiesports.com; Robertson)
Those who love the history of Virginia Tech Athletics, and specifically Virginia Tech men's basketball, probably enjoyed listening to Mike Young on Monday morning.
He recited the starting lineup of the 1973 NIT championship team. He threw out names like Allan Bristow, Charlie Thomas, Craig Lieder and Don DeVoe and talked about how Bristow used to leave tickets for him and his dad to come to games. He pointed out places where he and his dad used to sit in Cassell Coliseum and watch the Hokies take on the likes of Memphis and Louisville during the Metro Conference days.
"As I look around, I think of all the big games I've seen in here through the years, and so help me goodness, I have felt this building shake on a number of occasions," Young said. "And to be standing over there [pointing to the Tech bench] as your basketball coach for a long time is meaningful to me. I'm so excited I can't stand it."
Young said those exact words at a news conference at Cassell Coliseum on Monday morning, one which introduced him to Hokie Nation as the new head coach of the men's basketball program. He comes to Tech from Wofford, a small school in Spartanburg, South Carolina where he has spent the past 30 seasons, including the final 17 as the head coach. He guided Wofford to five NCAA Tournament appearances in the past nine years, earning conference coach of the year honors on four occasions and amassing a 299-244 record as the head coach.
The news conference featured a lot of questions about Young's Southwest Virginia ties, and he played up those, referring to landing the Tech job a "mountaintop experience." He gave a shout-out to former football coach Frank Beamer, who sat in attendance, and paid homage to former legendary high school football coach Norm Lineburg, a relative who also was in attendance. He made sure to single out former longtime Fork Union basketball coach Fletcher Arritt, who coached Young for a season, and his college coach, Bob Johnson, who passed away in 2009 after a battle with cancer.
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Other
New York, Spectrum nearing deal allowing cable company to remain in state (PS; Moriarty)
State regulators and Charter Communications are getting close to an agreement allowing the cable company to stay in New York and settling their dispute over the speed with which it is expanding its broadband network to rural areas.
Charter, which operates under the brand name Spectrum, reported in a letter to the New York State Public Service Commission Thursday that the company and the commission’s staff have exchanged settlement term sheets and reached agreement “on many key issues.”
Settlement term sheets set forth the proposed terms of an agreement ending a legal dispute.
“Considerable time and resources have been deployed to convert the term sheets into a long-form agreement, which has required extensive internal review both at Charter and by the Department (of Public Service),” Charter said. “The parties have made considerable progress and have now exchanged and discussed revisions to a draft of a long-form agreement.”
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