sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Welcome to VCR Day!
VCR Day is a day to celebrate the videocassette recorder. Over time, VCR's have been used to play back home movies and commercially made films and programs, as well as to record programming off of television. Prototypes and early versions of the VCR were made in the 1950's, but they cost thousands of dollars and were only used at large television networks. The Telcan, made it England in 1962, was the first home VCR, which cost what would be the equivalent of over $1,600 in 2014 US currency. It could only record for 20 minutes at a time and was exclusively in black and white. Other various VCR's competed for the market for the rest of the 1960's and into the 1970's. In 1972, commercial films were available to play on VCR's for the first time, and by the mid 1970's VCR's began having mass market appeal. At this time there were a few incompatible types of tape cassettes that were competing for the market share, and eventually the two main types to emerge were Sony's Betamax, sometimes just known as Beta, and JVC's VHS, which stands for Video Home System. This competition was known as a "format war". Eventually VHS won out, mainly because of their longer recording time. VHS was the preferred way to play and record video until shortly after 2000, when DVD's overtook the market and VCR's ended up in basements, attics, and yard sales.
SU News
Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
The biggest questions facing Adrian Autry as Syracuse basketball’s head coach (TNIAAM; Szuba)
On the back of last week’s news that Judah Mintz would return to the Syracuse Orange men’s basketball program for a sophomore season, the roster is now set and we can begin to get an idea of what the team will look like ahead of the 2023-24 season.
With that in mind, we decided to take a look at some of the biggest questions facing the basketball program as it goes from a storied, 47-year Hall-of-Famer to newly minted head coach.
By all accounts, it’s been a gangbuster offseason since Adrian Autry took the helm. He retained both assistant coaches and made one new hire in Brendan Straughn. Autry managed to keep the entire 2022 freshman class intact to return for their sophomore season — no small feat. The only blunder of the offseason was the inability to retain Jesse Edwards for a fifth year. But the Syracuse staff did an excellent job addressing needs in the transfer portal, securing commitments from JJ Starling, Chance Westry, Kyle Cuffe Jr. and Naheem McLeod. Getting Mintz back was the feather in the cap.
...
Syracuse and Colgate schedule men’s basketball game in the JMA Wireless Dome (PS; Ditota)
Syracuse and Colgate will meet again on the basketball court in 2023-24. The game, announced this morning by SU, is scheduled for November 14.
The Orange holds a 127-46 record in the longtime series between two schools located about 45 minutes apart. SU had once won 54 straight. But Colgate won the last two games in the Dome by a combined score of 180-153.
Matt Langel, entering his 12th year at Colgate, brings a core group back from a 26-9 team that once again won the Patriot League regular season and its conference tournament. The Raiders played in their third straight NCAA Tournament last year.
Colgate loses Patriot League star and stat-stuffer Tucker Richardson and shooter Oliver Lynch-Daniels to graduation, but returns All-Patriot League center Keegan Records, who briefly entered the transfer portal before coming back to Colgate. Ryan Moffatt, a 45% shooter from the 3-point line, returns as a starting wing; so does Braeden Smith, the talented point guard who made the all-Patriot League rookie team last season. Big man Jeff Woodward also returns.
...
The Biggest Questions on Syracuse's Roster (orangefizz.net; Simone)
Judah Mintz is back, Adrian Autry has threaded the needle between keeping last year’s freshman core and augmenting the roster with transfers and Syracuse fans are widely excited for what’s to come. Despite the optimism and the return of SU’s best player, the Orange remain a team full of question marks.
The only sure things are Mintz and his backcourt mate JJ Starling, a former five-star recruit who averaged 11 points per game at Notre Dame last year. That’s the backcourt figured out. Every other player and position group on the roster has a wide range of potential outcomes associated with it. For Syracuse to be successful, it needs at least some of these questions to be answered in a positive way. So, let’s examine these questions:
Who is Benny Williams?
Williams, who averaged 7.2 points per game, scored in double figures in three of his final four games of last season, including 24 against Pitt and 18 in the ACC Tournament loss to Wake Forest. However, the third game of that four contest stretch was the final game of the regular season against Wake, in which he didn’t score in eight minutes.
Williams had 27 rebounds across those four games, only one came in the Dome finale.That, in a nutshell, is the problem. Williams has the talent to be a reliable scorer and dominant rebounder. The problem is he doesn’t show it on a consistent level. If Syracuse has a reliable wing that scores 13 points per game and grabs 7 rebounds per game, that transforms the team both offensively and defensively.
Who’s going to shoot?
Ideally, the answer is “take your pick.” Both Mintz and Starling shot around 30% from three last season. Mintz came on towards the end of the year, though. If they can both boost that mark closer to 35%, that should already do wonders. If one or both can exceed that and approach 40%, that would both make the team better and turn whoever reaches that mark a first round NBA draft pick.
The other two obvious candidates are Chris Bell and Justin Taylor. Bell, as Jim Boeheim will tell you, is a shooter. That’s what he was developed as throughout his youth career and he doesn’t bring much else to the table. He shot 34.5% last year, not a terrible mark but if he’s still going to be one dimensional, that mark has to go up. Taylor, meanwhile, shot 39%, an excellent mark, but at a low volume. Whether he can do that with a bigger sample size is yet to be seen.
The Orange need at least two of those four players to be consistent three point threats.
...
Syracuse basketball fields versatile 2023-24 roster (cbssports; video; Finneral)
Syracuse basketball fields versatile 2023-24 roster
Locked On Syracuse - Daily Podcast On Syracuse Orange Football & Basketball: Position Break Down: Grading Judah Mintz And Quadir Copeland's Freshmen Seasons on Apple Podcasts (apple.com; podcast; Locked on Syracuse)
Position Break Down: Grading Judah Mintz And Quadir Copeland's Freshmen Seasons
Keeping Up With The 315 6-6-23 (ESPN; radio; The 315)
Brian Higgins opens the show reacting to the wild news that the PGA Tour and LIV have merged and trying to make sense of why it happened and what it means. Later, he talks about the latest game added to the Syracuse men’s basketball schedule and how it’s shaping up to be a very challenging stretch for SU.
Boeheim’s Army adds a familiar big man to its 2023 TBT roster (PS; Ditota)
Paschal Chukwu was supposed to play on Boeheim’s Army’s 2021 team. That squad won The Basketball Tournament and the $1 million winner-take-all riches.
But visa complications because of the Covid-19 pandemic prevented Chukwu from leaving his pro ball home of Switzerland that summer and arriving in the United States on time to play in the tournament.
Those visa restrictions no longer exist and Chukwu has been training in the United States after a season in France playing in the third-division NM1 league.
The 7-foot-2 center played about 16 minutes per game and averaged about six points and six rebounds per game. He shot 69% from the field. He was also Les Sables’ best shot-blocker.
Few men of Chukwu’s size have played in TBT over the years.
“We’re super excited to have him,” Boeheim’s Army GM Shaun Belbey said. “I think he can bring something to the tournament that’s really never been seen before with his size and his ability to clog the paint and block shots. And hopefully do some damage on the offensive end as well. I think he’s going to make a huge impact. Probably a little under-rated, but I think once the games start, he’s going to be huge for us.”
...
MBB: Biggest Spenders 2023 (RX; HM)
MBB: Biggest Spenders 2023
According to Tony Altimore, here are the top 20 schools in terms of spending on Men's Basketball:
Nobody spends more on basketball than Duke ($28.0 million/year), but Louisville comes fairly close ($21.9 million/year). The only other ACC school in the top 20 is Syracuse ($14.8 million/year). Surprised that North Carolina didn't make the cut? So was I!
...
Other
Onondaga County legislators narrowly approve $1.7M Inner Harbor land sale for aquarium (PS; Breidenbach)
Onondaga County Legislators on Tuesday narrowly approved the purchase of land at the Inner Harbor to build an aquarium.
The vote was 9-8.
Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon had asked legislators to approve a deal to pay Cor Development $1.7 million for 4.7 acres of vacant land.
The land was once owned by the state’s Canal Corp., which gave it to the city of Syracuse. The city, in 2012, transferred the property to Cor Development with the hopes that it would be developed.
At the time, the price was set at $2.8 million for 28 acres – or $100,000 an acre. Cor was not required to pay that amount to the city, however. It was allowed instead to use the money for environmental remediation. The state, in 2013, also contributed $3 million to help clean up the property.
Cor developed a hotel and a mixed-use building on some of that land.
But Cor failed to meet the city’s deadline to start construction on the 4.7 acres now to be used for an aquarium. The city could have taken back the land at cost, but the city did not pursue that option.
Instead, the county will pay $1.7 million for taxpayers to get it back.
The legislature’s six Democrats voted against it. They were joined by Republican Majority Leader Brian May, of Lysander, and Republican Ken Bush, of Elbridge.
Legislator Chris Ryan, the Democratic minority leader, pushed to postpone the land purchase for 60 days to allow more time to take stock of the true cost of building an aquarium in an age of inflation.
...
VCR Day is a day to celebrate the videocassette recorder. Over time, VCR's have been used to play back home movies and commercially made films and programs, as well as to record programming off of television. Prototypes and early versions of the VCR were made in the 1950's, but they cost thousands of dollars and were only used at large television networks. The Telcan, made it England in 1962, was the first home VCR, which cost what would be the equivalent of over $1,600 in 2014 US currency. It could only record for 20 minutes at a time and was exclusively in black and white. Other various VCR's competed for the market for the rest of the 1960's and into the 1970's. In 1972, commercial films were available to play on VCR's for the first time, and by the mid 1970's VCR's began having mass market appeal. At this time there were a few incompatible types of tape cassettes that were competing for the market share, and eventually the two main types to emerge were Sony's Betamax, sometimes just known as Beta, and JVC's VHS, which stands for Video Home System. This competition was known as a "format war". Eventually VHS won out, mainly because of their longer recording time. VHS was the preferred way to play and record video until shortly after 2000, when DVD's overtook the market and VCR's ended up in basements, attics, and yard sales.
SU News
Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
The biggest questions facing Adrian Autry as Syracuse basketball’s head coach (TNIAAM; Szuba)
On the back of last week’s news that Judah Mintz would return to the Syracuse Orange men’s basketball program for a sophomore season, the roster is now set and we can begin to get an idea of what the team will look like ahead of the 2023-24 season.
With that in mind, we decided to take a look at some of the biggest questions facing the basketball program as it goes from a storied, 47-year Hall-of-Famer to newly minted head coach.
By all accounts, it’s been a gangbuster offseason since Adrian Autry took the helm. He retained both assistant coaches and made one new hire in Brendan Straughn. Autry managed to keep the entire 2022 freshman class intact to return for their sophomore season — no small feat. The only blunder of the offseason was the inability to retain Jesse Edwards for a fifth year. But the Syracuse staff did an excellent job addressing needs in the transfer portal, securing commitments from JJ Starling, Chance Westry, Kyle Cuffe Jr. and Naheem McLeod. Getting Mintz back was the feather in the cap.
...
Syracuse and Colgate schedule men’s basketball game in the JMA Wireless Dome (PS; Ditota)
Syracuse and Colgate will meet again on the basketball court in 2023-24. The game, announced this morning by SU, is scheduled for November 14.
The Orange holds a 127-46 record in the longtime series between two schools located about 45 minutes apart. SU had once won 54 straight. But Colgate won the last two games in the Dome by a combined score of 180-153.
Matt Langel, entering his 12th year at Colgate, brings a core group back from a 26-9 team that once again won the Patriot League regular season and its conference tournament. The Raiders played in their third straight NCAA Tournament last year.
Colgate loses Patriot League star and stat-stuffer Tucker Richardson and shooter Oliver Lynch-Daniels to graduation, but returns All-Patriot League center Keegan Records, who briefly entered the transfer portal before coming back to Colgate. Ryan Moffatt, a 45% shooter from the 3-point line, returns as a starting wing; so does Braeden Smith, the talented point guard who made the all-Patriot League rookie team last season. Big man Jeff Woodward also returns.
...
The Biggest Questions on Syracuse's Roster (orangefizz.net; Simone)
Judah Mintz is back, Adrian Autry has threaded the needle between keeping last year’s freshman core and augmenting the roster with transfers and Syracuse fans are widely excited for what’s to come. Despite the optimism and the return of SU’s best player, the Orange remain a team full of question marks.
The only sure things are Mintz and his backcourt mate JJ Starling, a former five-star recruit who averaged 11 points per game at Notre Dame last year. That’s the backcourt figured out. Every other player and position group on the roster has a wide range of potential outcomes associated with it. For Syracuse to be successful, it needs at least some of these questions to be answered in a positive way. So, let’s examine these questions:
Who is Benny Williams?
Williams, who averaged 7.2 points per game, scored in double figures in three of his final four games of last season, including 24 against Pitt and 18 in the ACC Tournament loss to Wake Forest. However, the third game of that four contest stretch was the final game of the regular season against Wake, in which he didn’t score in eight minutes.
Williams had 27 rebounds across those four games, only one came in the Dome finale.That, in a nutshell, is the problem. Williams has the talent to be a reliable scorer and dominant rebounder. The problem is he doesn’t show it on a consistent level. If Syracuse has a reliable wing that scores 13 points per game and grabs 7 rebounds per game, that transforms the team both offensively and defensively.
Who’s going to shoot?
Ideally, the answer is “take your pick.” Both Mintz and Starling shot around 30% from three last season. Mintz came on towards the end of the year, though. If they can both boost that mark closer to 35%, that should already do wonders. If one or both can exceed that and approach 40%, that would both make the team better and turn whoever reaches that mark a first round NBA draft pick.
The other two obvious candidates are Chris Bell and Justin Taylor. Bell, as Jim Boeheim will tell you, is a shooter. That’s what he was developed as throughout his youth career and he doesn’t bring much else to the table. He shot 34.5% last year, not a terrible mark but if he’s still going to be one dimensional, that mark has to go up. Taylor, meanwhile, shot 39%, an excellent mark, but at a low volume. Whether he can do that with a bigger sample size is yet to be seen.
The Orange need at least two of those four players to be consistent three point threats.
...
Syracuse basketball fields versatile 2023-24 roster (cbssports; video; Finneral)
Syracuse basketball fields versatile 2023-24 roster
Locked On Syracuse - Daily Podcast On Syracuse Orange Football & Basketball: Position Break Down: Grading Judah Mintz And Quadir Copeland's Freshmen Seasons on Apple Podcasts (apple.com; podcast; Locked on Syracuse)
Position Break Down: Grading Judah Mintz And Quadir Copeland's Freshmen Seasons
Keeping Up With The 315 6-6-23 (ESPN; radio; The 315)
Brian Higgins opens the show reacting to the wild news that the PGA Tour and LIV have merged and trying to make sense of why it happened and what it means. Later, he talks about the latest game added to the Syracuse men’s basketball schedule and how it’s shaping up to be a very challenging stretch for SU.
Boeheim’s Army adds a familiar big man to its 2023 TBT roster (PS; Ditota)
Paschal Chukwu was supposed to play on Boeheim’s Army’s 2021 team. That squad won The Basketball Tournament and the $1 million winner-take-all riches.
But visa complications because of the Covid-19 pandemic prevented Chukwu from leaving his pro ball home of Switzerland that summer and arriving in the United States on time to play in the tournament.
Those visa restrictions no longer exist and Chukwu has been training in the United States after a season in France playing in the third-division NM1 league.
The 7-foot-2 center played about 16 minutes per game and averaged about six points and six rebounds per game. He shot 69% from the field. He was also Les Sables’ best shot-blocker.
Few men of Chukwu’s size have played in TBT over the years.
“We’re super excited to have him,” Boeheim’s Army GM Shaun Belbey said. “I think he can bring something to the tournament that’s really never been seen before with his size and his ability to clog the paint and block shots. And hopefully do some damage on the offensive end as well. I think he’s going to make a huge impact. Probably a little under-rated, but I think once the games start, he’s going to be huge for us.”
...
MBB: Biggest Spenders 2023 (RX; HM)
MBB: Biggest Spenders 2023
According to Tony Altimore, here are the top 20 schools in terms of spending on Men's Basketball:
Nobody spends more on basketball than Duke ($28.0 million/year), but Louisville comes fairly close ($21.9 million/year). The only other ACC school in the top 20 is Syracuse ($14.8 million/year). Surprised that North Carolina didn't make the cut? So was I!
...
Other
Onondaga County legislators narrowly approve $1.7M Inner Harbor land sale for aquarium (PS; Breidenbach)
Onondaga County Legislators on Tuesday narrowly approved the purchase of land at the Inner Harbor to build an aquarium.
The vote was 9-8.
Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon had asked legislators to approve a deal to pay Cor Development $1.7 million for 4.7 acres of vacant land.
The land was once owned by the state’s Canal Corp., which gave it to the city of Syracuse. The city, in 2012, transferred the property to Cor Development with the hopes that it would be developed.
At the time, the price was set at $2.8 million for 28 acres – or $100,000 an acre. Cor was not required to pay that amount to the city, however. It was allowed instead to use the money for environmental remediation. The state, in 2013, also contributed $3 million to help clean up the property.
Cor developed a hotel and a mixed-use building on some of that land.
But Cor failed to meet the city’s deadline to start construction on the 4.7 acres now to be used for an aquarium. The city could have taken back the land at cost, but the city did not pursue that option.
Instead, the county will pay $1.7 million for taxpayers to get it back.
The legislature’s six Democrats voted against it. They were joined by Republican Majority Leader Brian May, of Lysander, and Republican Ken Bush, of Elbridge.
Legislator Chris Ryan, the Democratic minority leader, pushed to postpone the land purchase for 60 days to allow more time to take stock of the true cost of building an aquarium in an age of inflation.
...
