Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1237369, member: 289"] OTHER TOPICS One topic I should have included in yesterday’s post: “We’re making progress. But it’s not something you’ll jump up and down about. Chris McCullough is a good player. I was just joking about the lottery. There are no thoughts about it this time of year. Carmello Anthony just played basketball and made his decision after the season. That’s the way it’s done here.” They discussed the recent “health scares” in college basketball. Mick Cronin has an “unruptured brain aneurism” but has tweeted that its’ not life or career threatening. (I would think it could be if it ruptured and I wonder what they can do about it, short of brain surgery?) JB: “He’s a good, competitive guy.” Then there’s Dwayne Polee, the St. John’s transfer now playing for San Diego State who collapsed during a game. Apparently he’ll be OK . “Kids are funny. Sometimes they don’t eat or drink. They pass out or lose their bearings.” I remember Hank Gathers had a similar incident and was thought to be “OK” before he collapsed and died in a later game. But there’s a backstory to that: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Gathers[/url] Hopefully Polee’s condition is something different and he won’t have a relapse. They talked briefly about the Montrel Harrell suspension and also the football brawl between Memphis and BYU. JB didn’t see the brawl and asked Matt about it. He had no comment on it but instead went on to talk about Kentucky’s chances of going undefeated this year. He feels that Louisville is the only regular season opponent that would have a chance against them. “If Kentucky gets by Louisville they likely won’t lose until the tournament and then probably not until the final or maybe the semi-final. This is the first great team since that 1996 Kentucky team we lost to. Most teams like us have 1-2 NBA players at most. We have Rakeem Christmas. They have 3-4 centers like that, a couple of power forwards, a couple of 3 men, a couple of 2 men. They have two deep high school All-Americas at every positon. “ Gomez said that some 80 D-1 players had already decided to transfer this year. JB said that last year 5000 players made that decision. “They’re not happy because they’re not stars. They get bad advice. People are always telling them they should be playing ahead of that other guy. They almost never become stars. One guy, (Katin Reinhardt), was averaging 12-14 points, (actually 10.1) at UNLV and transferred to USC, where he’s averaging 6, (actually 10.8). We had a kid, (Keith Hughes), who wasn’t going to play behind Derrick Coleman and Billy Owens and averaged 16 points for Rutgers.” Gomez comment how ranked teams have been getting badly beaten- Miami vs. Eastern Kentucky and Kansas vs. Temple. JB: “Ranked teams are good but not that good anymore.” How long does it take to get over a blow-out loss? “Not long. Just get on the plane, go home and forget about it. It was just a bad night.” A fan asked him about his glorious career in intramural athletics at SU and he was excited to talk about that. He was a noted squash player. “I didn’t know anything about it except to hit the ball hard.” As a resident advisor, he led both his dorm and then his fraternity to football championships. “I invented the spread formation. We had 6 guys and I sent 5 of them out for passes. I figured I could scramble around long enough to get the ball to them. We never lost and won each game by at least two touchdowns. It was only close in the dorm finals. We hadn’t perfected it yet. I think we had more talent in the fraternity, too. The fields were always wet so the runner had the advantage because he knew where he was going. “ He was also the golf coach. “I just sent them out and then I played the back nine. We always won because I was the one who reported the scores. Then, in 1971 they shortened the school year from the last week of May to the first and dropped golf and baseball. They wanted to save money. The golf team cost them about $15,000 so they didn’t save much. Today the travel budget would be high, you’d have 8-10 guys on scholarship and it would cost maybe $4-500,000. Gary in Syracuse praised SU for “playing a wonderful, incredible game that gave us a lot of hope”. (I assume he meant Villanova.) JB: It was a good effort.” Gary wanted to know what Jim felt about the NBA “robbing talent” from the colleges. JB: “It’s OK if they make it. If Rakeem had come out when he was a freshman or a sophomore he wouldn’t have gotten a chance. But he stayed and now he’ll have a shot. Carmelo and Dion left early and made it. It’s reality. It’s fine. We’ve had 4-5 guys who could have left and stayed until their junior or senior years and had better NBA careers because of it.” They talked about the proposed tow year minimum. “it’s all up to the NBA and the player’s association. The colleges have no say in it. The players association is fighting it. I don’t know why. They just like to fight everything … Kentucky would greatly benefit from the two year rule.” Would they? Wouldn’t their recruiting have to slow down a bit? Wouldn’t some of those truckloads of players they bring in each year have to go elsewhere? In the NBA, the Rondo trade should help both teams “He was going to leave anyway and the Celtics got something for him. They did OK….Josh Smith is talented but takes a lot of shots and he’s not that good a shooter. …James Harden is a tremendous scoring guard. On the US team we have the four great young guards and they might by now be just the four best guards- Harden, Irving, Curry, Rose, (they also had Klay Thompson) .When we played against Hardin in the NCAA tournament, (Arizona State in 2009), he did nothing against us the whole game. I don’t know why.” Darko Milicic, who was drafted by the Pistons ahead of Carmelo Anthony, is now a kick-boxer. “They thought he had great potential. Those guys never make it.” Adam in Buffalo asked Jim who the Bills should draft for next season.. (I’m sure Jims spends a lot of time obsessing over Bills draft picks). JB: “They’ll need a quarterback- again. If you don’t have a top 10 quarterback you don’t have much of a chance. But they’re hard to come by. The Bills had a good, decent year and Coach Marrone is doing a good job.” Gomez asked Jim who he thought would win the NFL playoffs. “I haven’t been much engaged in it. New England is playing very well and Seattle is coming on. Denver seems to have slipped.“ Regarding the first college playoff: “Ohio State is coming on so big. It will be interesting to see how they’ll fare.“ Gomez noted that Michigan had tweeted Jim Harbaugh a Happy Birthday message. “If he takes a college job, he’ll go there.” Jim’s book is still on the New York Times’ best seller list for sports books at #5. He’s slowly edging into the world of modern technology. Gomez said he had a “smart phone” but JB said it’s Samsung Galaxy 5 “or something like that”. (That’s not a smart phone- is it a dumb phone?) . His own reading includes Daniel Silva and James Patterson. He reads 50-60 books a year, mostly on road trips. He now uses an IPad because it’s easier. He likes Silva’s series about an Israeli Assassin. He’s read 10-15 books in that series. So when JB isn’t yelling at the refs, he’s reading about an Israeli assassin. Hmmmm... [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?