HCJB
(I’ve re-arranged the order of some of the comments based on the subject.)
Matt congratulated the coach on being Princeton and Colgate since the last show. HCJB: “We played well vs. Colgate. Princeton will be very good in the Ivy league. Our defense has been very good. We haven’t shot the ball well but that can happen early in the season.” He said he wasn’t worried about Trevor Cooney. “What I’m interested in is his defense. I know he’ll shoot the ball.”
They discussed Arkansas the upcoming opponent in the Big Easy-SEC challenge on Friday night. Matt suggested “it feels like Raleigh“, (where we played- and beat- North Carolina State last year). JB: “It will be a tough place to play but that can we good for you. We’ll be playing in a lot of tough places….They have won all their home games easily. They were up by 11 points on Wisconsin. They are much improved from last year.” Matt said he would ask the coach about his memories of the last time we played Arkansas later in the show, “if he cares to share them”.
I called in and joked that my bother is a professor at the University of Hawaii and I keep telling him they are sure to wind up in the East. Coach said “That’s possible”. I reminded him that “if you keep going east, you’ll get there eventually.” Coach laughed. Then I asked my question, (above).
Coach thought it was a great idea to grant an assist when the guy gets fouled but that they would never change the rule because it would distort the historical stats too much. “An assist is a pass that results in a basket without the player having to make a move. It’s pretty cut and dried. One bounce might be OK, like on a fast break. It’s interesting on the road. At Boston College we’d score 80 points and get credited with 4 assists. The NCAA says that about 60% of baskets get assisted.”
Jim isn’t too sure Sherman Douglas needs to be worried. “22 assists is a lot- the game would have to be up and down. I think that was against Providence and it was a 100 point game. He had about 8 alley oops. He’s by far the best I’ve ever seen at that.” It was 1/28/89 and we beat Providence 100-96.
Matt noted that MCW had 9 assists on our first ten baskets and wound up with 13 vs. Colgate. JB: “He easily could have had 18. That would have been second best. He’s tremendous at seeing the court, making good decisions and getting the ball to people.” Matt said Michael had told him that he was taught two things at an early age: look for the easiest basket and reward the guy who got you the ball”. That’s why he passed it back to Triche on that one fast break when he could have dunked it.
Jim said that we’ve had a lot of great point guards here. Matt recalled a banquet for Jason Hart where Coach said that the greatest SU point guard would have been here tonight but the Pearl couldn’t make it.
They talked briefly about Rakeem Christmas and DaJuan Coleman. “We’ve discussed it many times. Big guys take time. They never played against big guys in high school. We are blessed to have good big guys inside.”
Matt asked what Rick Pitino must be thinking now that Louisville will be in the ACC. JB: “It’s a little different when it’s you and not somebody else. Losing Maryland is a big loss but getting Louisville is a big gain. They have great facilities- as good as anybody in the country. A great fan base. It‘s a great road city.”
He said that “I never wanted to be in the ACC all alone like Boston College. We used to play before 6000 in their gym. I saw them playing Wake Forest on TV and there were only 300 people there. We’ll have Pitt, Miami and BC. There will be a lot of common commonality.” (Yes, he actually said that.)
JB had half jokingly suggested that there be a draft of teams by the conferences. Matt said it could be like a fantasy league. Just have 5 guys do it. JB: “Five guys could do a better job than this.” Matt asked who JB would draft first if he was doing it. “Alabama. They’ve got the best football team. There’s a lot of money there. Notre Dame would be great but they want to be independent.” Matt asked if the coach would draft East Carolina. That got a chuckle.
Matt said he’d hear rumors that the Big Ten might want North Carolina and Virginia and the Big 12 wants Florida State and Clemson. JB: “Anything could happen but the state of North Carolina would never allow UBC to leave Duke and NC State.” They talked about West Virginia’s misadventures in the big 12. “West Virginia could easily have won the Big East. Why do they want to go out there and play Oklahoma and Texas every year?”
“Will the Maryland kids want to play in Iowa City every year? They may make $10 million more but they’ll be losing in all sports. The schools has probably a $1 billion dollar budget. How much is $10 million to them?” He later specified that he was talking about the over-all school budget, not the athletic department budget, which he thought might be around $100 million. Matt noted that Maryland has a lot of sports to support that other schools don’t have, such as water polo. “Why?” JB: “People think there will be endless TV money.”
JB would like to see the ACC in a North-South divisional set-up. “we’d be playing teams we always played and playing them twice like in the old Big East. We’d play two teams from the other division twice and it would be like an 8 team league. We may be heading in that direction. I’d like to get there sooner rather than later.” (I remember the Old Big East. I used to know all the players on every team because we played all of them twice a year, then again in New York and maybe again in the NCAA’s- and everybody stayed for four years so you’d see a guy 8-10 times in his career. Now we play DePaul and who are these guys?)
Matt asked what Coach Boeheim thought of the accomplishments of Coach Marrone’s football team. “The kept getting better all season, although the offense was good from the beginning. They could have been in the BCS. They have a lot of good young players and should have a good recruiting class and will continue to make progress. Football takes time if you’re not Alabama. It takes at least 4-5 years.”
They talked about what happened at Auburn. JB: “It’s not just whether you had a good year or a bad year. It’s the direction of the program, the psyche of the players, the total picture. They weren’t losing 28-21. They were losing 49-0. Most Alabama kids want to go to Alabama. Some years they get a lot of players and Auburn can get some players. Other years, they don’t.”
Matt segued from this back to basketball. “Another team, (like Alabama) that you can’t keep down is Indiana.” JB: “Tom Crean is a good coach. It took a while. They needed to rebuild. North Carolina doesn’t look good. They don’t have the talent they’ve had in past years. Michigan is just as good, (as Indiana), Illinois and Wisconsin are good. Ohio State is very good, although Duke will be tough. This is the best Big Ten in a while.”
A caller asked how walk-ons get on the team. “Try outs. We knew of Nolan hart- I knew his father. But he and Matt Lyde Cajuste and Griff Hoffman and the rest went through try-outs. It’s a good group. We’ve had some very good walk-ons over the years. If we have an extra scholarship we give it to one of them. You normally have no more than 10-11 scholarship players but you need about 15 guys to practice because guys have classes or are hurt or whatever.”
Matt noted that Rob Murphy’s Eastern Michigan team will be coming in on Monday with former SU big man Da’Shonte Riley. “The Eagles are 5-1. They beat Madonna in their last game, 75-57.” JB: “Did she have a good game?” (She played like a virgin.) Dash is averaging 4 points, 7 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in 21 minutes a game for the Eagles.
SU will also be playing Long Beach State, who beat Pitt last year and are “good again. We aren’t playing name teams at home but they are all well-coached and have good players.”
Matt asked what the Coach thought about baseball’s Hall of Fame dilemma. “You have to make a decision and go from there. You just don’t know who used what and who didn’t. it was a messed up era. They’ll just have to put the best players in. They don’t need to put anything on the plaques about steroids. Everybody knows about it.”
There’s a new book coming out about Dave Bing. It has the story of his recruitment. About 100 colleges were after him. He was learning toward San Francisco or Villanova. Fred Lewis called Ernie Davis in to seal the deal as he also did with Floyd Little. They may be giving away some copies of the book to listeners of the show in the future.
I suspect they were referring to this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Dave-Bing-A-Life-Challenge/dp/1450423523
Matt remembered to quiz JB about the 1995 Arkansas game. It was “the wrong end of a classic“. JB: We lost and that’s all I think about. We made a great comeback to get the lead and gave it way at the end. We were down by 11 with 11 to go. We just didn’t finish it. There were a lot of great players on the floor that night.”
Mike Anderson is a protégé of Nolan Richardson, (“A great coach and good friend of mine”), who was the Arkansas coach that night. Anderson rebuilt Missouri into a power quickly and is trying to do the same at Arkansas.
He’s “cleaned up” their motto from “40 Minutes of Hell” to “The Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball”. We’ll have to take care of the ball and get back and play good defense. You need to take care of the basketball on the road.”
Matt asked about JB’s latest recruiting class. He didn’t talk about individuals but praised his staff for their hard work. “We’ve had some solid, consistent years. These players are significantly better than the they were rated by the so-called ‘experts’.” I think HCJB qualifies as an expert.
