Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2451718, member: 289"] PART 2 The other trivia question was “Who both played and coached against Jim Boeheim?” I suspect there are many but the answer they gave, (the question may have referred to coaches we will meet this season), was Pittsburgh’s Kevin Stallings, who was on that Purdue team we played all those eons ago. “But he didn’t even play- he was one the bench and never got into the game!” Jim felt it would be a good trivia question to ask who was the Purdue coach in that game- but he got it wrong because he had the wrong game. When you think of the Purdue game you think of the game where Rosey Bouie blocked Joe B. Carroll’s shot in 1980. (1/13/80 national TV: SU 66 Purdue 61) and so did the coach, 9Purdue’s coach was lee Rose, who had also bene the coach of the UNC Charlotte team that eliminated SU from the NCAAs in JB”s first year, so there was a bit of revenge there.) But we also played Purdue in the semi-finals of the 1981 NIT, also beating them 70-63, (on 3/23/81), in a game nobody remembers. (The one they remember from that tournament is the final against Tulsa where we got hosed by the refs.) Stallings did play in that game and his coach was Gene Keady, who had replaced Rose. Later, when I called in my second question, I offered my own trivia question: What now famous coach played against SU in the first game Jim Boeheim lost as a head coach? Jim got that quickly. It was a 78-83 loss in his second game on 11/27/76 to West Virginia and their 6-3 guard Bob Huggins, who doesn’t look much like a guard any more: [ATTACH=full]119579[/ATTACH] “He reminds me of that every time I see him! But we beat them late that season! (At Manley 1/15/77: 96-74). I told the coach I was surprised he remembered his first loss as I know he remembers the losses more than the wins. He laughed. Gomez later said he’d taken an on-line Jim Boeheim trivia test and got only 33% of them right. JB: “I’m not surprised”. One of the items was how many games has Jim coached where both teams were nationally ranked? 432! “Michigan State struggles on the road- they lost to Ohio State and had trouble with Rutgers.” Actually, Rutgers was a home game: 76-72. Ohio State “got (Keita-Bates) Diop back, (20.8ppg, 8.8rpg) and he’s probably playing the best of anybody in the Big Ten. It probably cost Thad (Matta) his job when he got hurt.“ Gomez suggested that Diop might be the Big Ten Player of the Year. “He’s in there….Ohio State started slow but now they’ve beaten Michigan State and Maryland by 20 at home. They are shooting very well.” Dion Waiters has been shut down for the year and will have surgery on his ankle. “He thought about surgery in the off-season. It was just too painful so he’s having it now. He has a two year deal with Miami.” Jeremy Grant is getting a guaranteed contract. “OKC doesn’t have a lot of young players. He’s athletic ability to play at that level and is working on his shot.” Tyler Ennis “had a couple of really good games when Ball was out. He’s become a good NBA back-up point guard. But Ball will play 40 minutes when he gets back so Tyler will only have about 8 minutes to show what he can do. .” On Lavar Ball: “The NBA doesn’t pay attention to parents. The media shouldn’t do stories on him. It just helps him raise money to sell his brand. Who wants to go to Lithuania to see a couple of mediocre players play?” Cleveland ”is in a rut. Isaiah Thomas hadn’t played in 6 months and is having trouble adjusting to LeBron having the ball all the time. Kyrie Irving is a great, great player. He and Steph Curry are the two best point guards, although James Hardin and Chris Paul are very good too.” (Russel Westbrook? Gomez said LeBron is supposedly thinking of retirement. JB: “Players play as long as they can play. That’s what players do.” Gomez pointed out that Danny Schayes played 18 seasons. JB: “But not a lot in the last 8 years. Players used to be done at age 32. This is Carmelo’s 14th year. There’s better conditioning now but to play 100 games a year for 14-15 years – it’s hard to keep going. “ On the All-Star game draft, which they are keeping secret: “A lot of players don’t want it made public. Others want it televised. It’s embarrassing if they are not picked. Maybe they should make it so the last player picked gets a car.” How gutsy a call was it for Nick Saban to go to his back-up QB in the national championship game? “He knew his players and saw from practice that the back-up was the better thrower. He had to make a change. If it was 13-10 you don’t make that change. They knew this kid could throw, could run a little and had presence. In basketball if you are really good you get to play. In football they will go with the best quarterback. If the starter had gotten hurt in the first game, the back-up would never have come out….If they’d lost that kicker would never have returned to Alabama. He would have found a cabin in the woods and sent for his stuff.” Matt Patricia is apparently going from the Patriots to become the Giants head coach. He’s from the Utica area and went to VVS high school. “He’s really smart- an engineer. But was it him, Belichick or the system?” Matt noted that Nick Saban is undefeated against his former assistants and he thought Belichick probably had a similar record. (I don’t have time to look that up right now). Dominck the father of two aspiring basketball players, ages 12 and 10, called in for the coach’s advice on how to prepare his sons for a possible college career, (he’s thinking Division 2). They are playing on a local AJim’s his kids played AAU ball in the summer with “individual stuff on the side. You just need a ball and a basket to practice their shooting and ball handling. Working out in the weight room helps. These days you can’t even play D2 ball without conditioning. There’s a big gap from Division 2 to 1 but those guys are good players. The best players in the Syracuse area will normally go Division 2…My sons work out 3-4 hours a day the year around. My daughter practices but won’t do the extra stuff. To be Division 1 requires a tremendous amount of work. It’s a lot different from the old days. I practiced 30 minutes a day with no lifting. I did play a lot of ball in the summer.” Katie called to ask how tall players sit on airplanes. Can they get comfortable? . “Commercial flights are tightbut we use charter. I’m 6-4 and commercial is tight for me. With commercial flights you have to we have to leave a day early and fly all day and then stay overnight after the game. We’d have to leave 9 O’Clock Friday morning and stay until Sunday and arrive back in the afternoon, then have a game on Tuesday. At the time it seemed OK. But now we can fly out Friday afternoon and get back by 9PM Saturday (it’s a 2PM game). Gomez noted the dire weather reports for the weekend, saying “the Weather Channel van is in town. When Jim Cantore walks in here, (the Shaughnessy’s) we know we’re in trouble.” JB: “10-12 inches of snow comes with the territory. You can get 25 inches and it doesn’t make the news. Blizzards are a great time to go to restaurants- everybody’s home. It’s crazy!” [/QUOTE]

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