Semi OT: great Grantland piece on Carleton...

[jekelish]

Numerous quotes from JB and also Tyler's dad, and lots of references to Ennis himself and our game against Carleton and the culture of Canadian basketball.

grantland.com/features/carleton-university-basketball-canada-syracuse-tyler-ennis-kansas-andrew-wiggins/

Really excellent read.

 

[UnderHisOwnPower]

Numerous quotes from JB and also Tyler's dad, and lots of references to Ennis himself and our game against Carleton and the culture of Canadian basketball.

grantland.com/features/carleton-university-basketball-canada-syracuse-tyler-ennis-kansas-andrew-wiggins/

Really excellent read.

I would have thought Grantland was a public relations piece on the entire Grant family. A sort of reality TV show covering every move of Jerami and his blue blooded basketball lineage, but for print. Mind, blown.

Seriously, that is a great piece, and what a contrast in rules for the coaches when it comes to actually, you know, coaching their players. Americans are the kings of corruption and bureacracy to try and manipulate said corruption.

 

[TexanMark]

If Syracuse would like to reach out...I would have Syracuse play Carleton next Fall.

Instead of soup du jour Div 2 team...play Carelton in early November after warming up with Cal St LA or LeMoyne 4-5 days earlier.

Another option is playing Carleton in a Closed scrimmage at Ft. Drum or other North Country High School

 

[jncuse]

Great article.

Since moving back to Ottawa from Toronto in 2007, I have seen ONE Carleton game... Syracuse vs Carleton. It really gets no press here, and is underappreciated. Heck, I learned some things about the program from reading that article.

A friend asked me if I wanted to go the Canadian final on this upcoming Sunday. I was hesitant to say yes at first because I preferred to stay home and watch the Syracuse game.

But I decided I should take a chance to take in this special team... given that Syracuse is about a 3 hour drive from Ottawa, they should look to schedule them for exhibition games.

A few things on the article:
1) The article first quoted Steve Nash as the reason for the growth in Canadian basketball players. That is incorrect. It was the birth of the Toronto Raptors in the mid 90's, and especially the Vince Carter era before he became a baby, (around 1999-2002), that drove a generation of young players from Toronto. The majority of Canadians in the NBA and the prospects this year (Wiggins, Ennis, Stauskas) come from the Greater Toronto Area,

 

[jncuse]

Canada does not really support any collegiate sports including hockey, . Football has the greatest following, followed by basketball, then hockey. Canada does have a strong support for Junior Hockey (OHL, WHL, QMJHL) but that is the only amateur / minor league it supports... unless you consider the CFL a minor league.

There are pockets of stronger college football support - consistently 10,000+ fans (Western, Laval), and some teams out East do support basketball more than the rest of the country.

Personally, I went to Waterloo, and we rose to #1 in the country during my time at university (before I arrived the team had lost almost every game for 5 years... and subsequently accomplished a similar feat this decade). It was also banned for a steroid scandal after a winless season. I went to maybe 5 basketball games in 4 years, and 0 hockey games.

 

[jncuse]

One thing Canadian Sports Fans love is the NHL Trade Deadline. It is the most idiotic thing I have ever seem.

TSN and Sportsnet (our two main sports networks), have about 15 analysts in their studios for the deadline. They have about 4 different panels of 3-4 people, that basically all discuss the same thing.

You have a panel of insiders, a panel of analysts, another panel of analysts, and a few different insiders. You also have this guy playing crappy songs on a guitar.

And they start coverage the night before, and keep it going all day until 2 hours after the deadline has passed.

For some Canadians, this is the same as the first Thursday of the NCAA tournament. They stay home for this. Stupid twats.