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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1299594, member: 289"] OTHER TOPICS When Gomez showed up, he made it “in the nick of time” due to all the traffic problems with the snow. He wondered if there had been an over/under on his arrival time. Jim said there had not been but if he was late, he wasn’t getting any food. At one point, per Jim, the “Peanut Gallery” walked in. It was Julie and the kids. They joked with the coach and he ‘ordered’ the maître de to “put them in another room- as far away as possible”. Both Matt Park and Gomez asked Jim about his impressions of and experiences with Dean Smith and Jerry Tarkanian, two fellow Hall of Fame coaches who have passed on since the last show. “Smith and Tarkanian were very different coaches but among the very greatest.“ Dean Smith “was a program builder who built an incredible program. They’ve bene in the top ten more than anybody in history. He was beloved by his players and was a great teacher and developer of players, a great innovator with the four corners and changing defenses. He had very detailed practice schedules. He ran the most structured practices I’ve seen with every single minute planned. He was the most organized coach in basketball history.” A fan called in and asked what Jim’s most memorable moments competing against Smith had been. The fan, (didn’t catch the name), had been at the 1987 NCAA game. But he also recalls the 1975 game when Jim was an assistant. The fan recalled that UNC had 7 future NBA guys on that roster and listed them. He also recalled the inbounds play Smith tried to use to get a cheap foul after Jimmy Lee’s shot. Jims aid that he got that from Wake Forest, who had successfully used it on him. The fan later met Walter Davis in an elevator, (so I guess he was also at the ’75 game) and, upon seeing the fan in his SU outfit, said “You guys kicked our butts”. A key moment was when the Heels had built up an 8 point lead with Smith’s “White Team”, he sent in the “Blue Team” and we got a bunch of turnovers and got it to 2 by halftime. “He had us on the ropes. It made a big, big difference.” So maybe “platooning” isn’t such a good idea, after all. The fan remembers Smith hiding out under the stands to smoke a cigarette at halftime. JB: “He smoked but he tried to hide it.” He called that “probably the greatest victory we’ve ever had”, altho9ugh he noted we had to beat Kansas State in overtime the next day to get to the Final Four. He remembered coming back to Hancock Field to a mass of humanity, (I was one of them), with cars parked along the road for a half mile all the way out to the main road, (South Bay). “You couldn’t walk. That was the first time I realized how big going to the Final Four was. But when he became a head coach “people in North Syracuse didn’t know who I was.” (I knew who he was!)Then came the carrier Dome, the Big East and ESPN. Even Dave Gavitt, in his wildest dreams, never imagined 35,000 people watching a game like this in the Dome.“ He also wondered why we can’t sell one more ticket to set the record again. Matt noted that Smith was the first coach to stress ‘offensive efficiency’ long before Pomeroy. Coach acknowledged that and he understands the stat but “I don’t need stats to tell me that Kentucky or Virginia are strong defensive teams. I didn’t need them to know that Georgetown made it tough for you to do anything. I’m not saying that stats aren’t relevant but they aren’t as relevant as people make them. Some of the stuff you don’t need to see. 20 turnovers is bad. Taking 30 shots to score 20 points is bad.” Hey, coach, those are stats! “Sometimes you can’t stop people just because they’re good.” Jerry Tarkanian “was one of the best man-to-man pressure defense coaches ever and his players always played very hard. Jerry was a humble, nice guy and a great, great coach. He was one of the few guys to get a gold card in Las Vegas- he could go anywhere without having to pay for anything. If he wanted a new wide screen TV or his daughter needed a new car, it would be delivered the next day. One time we were at the best restaurant in Vegas. There was a parking garage 20 feet from the restaurant door but they parked Tark’s car right out front. This was 25 years ago. Everybody’s meal was at least $1000, plus drinks. It must have come to $2-3000. Tark asked me “Jim- is $5 enough for the tip?” He had no idea how much to tip. I told him I’d take care of it. When the attendant got his car, all he did was shake his hand. He had 200 tickets for every home game. 200 season tickets. One time he sold them to a guy who sold them for $5,000 each. “ Coaches were making $50,000 when I started. I was making $25,000, which seemed like a lot after making $10,000 as an assistant. By 1990, salaries were up to $125-150,000. Now some coaches are making $4-5 million. Sneaker money started coming in in about 1978. I was with Pony for two eyars before switching to Nike. George Blaney made $100,000 from his summer camps and they became big. You made more money from a summer camp than you did from your salary.” Around college basketball: Connecticut “will have to fight to get into the tournament, even though they won the title last year.” Too many teams all look the same. They were watching the Mississippi Florida game, which the Rebels won on a long buzzer shot. “The Gators can’t get a break this year.” That Greek kid who played for Wake Forest, (Konstantinos Mitoglou), made hit his first 5 shots- all threes- vs. Miami, (he was 6 of 7 from the arc) and scored 21 points in a 72-70 win. “The way they played that night against us, that was a good win. The way Virginia Tech shot in the second half down there, that was a good win. They discussed calling time outs when things were going poorly. John Calipari refused to call one, saying he wanted his team to play through the adversity. “Wooden never called time outs. Smith would call them for strategy but not because things were going bad. I call more timeouts than I used to. It helps a young tea. It can settle them down. I can give them a play.” Carmelo Anthony has announced he will shut it down after the All-Star game, (which will be played at the Garden. “if his knee is bothering him, he should get it fixed. I don’t think it’s a bad knee injury. They’ll clean it out. He’ll be running in 2-3 months and then be ready to go full-speed next year. “ Phil Jackson’s triangle offense “has been a disaster in New York. It’s a specific offense for a great player. You need another really good player for all the isolations. The Knicks need to set screens. Tex Winter started the triangle at Kansas State when he had three 6-10 guys and wanted a triple post offense. It’s only worked when Jackson had Michael and Scottie or Shaq and Kobe. They thought they’d get LeBron, Paul or Durant. They’ve got no young guys. Atlanta built a nice team by developing young players. The Celtics are trying to do the same thing.” Karl Malone has revealed he almost had a fight with Kobe Bryant after Karl hit on Kobe’s wife. JB: “That would have been a one-sided fight. Karl is 6-9 and 280.. Kobe’s around 200.” Ralph in Richfield, Connecticut wants something I want. A team inbounding in their own offensive end should not be able to throw the ball into the backcourt . That should be an “over and back”. Jim recalled that we once lost an NCAA game when the refs called an over and back in an inbounds form the sideline, (actually Scoop Jardine thought it was going to be an over and back and traveled trying to avoid it). But he wasn’t “that concerned. Let them inbounds it. I want a 30 second clock.” ESPN did a poll of coaches and 59% of them want a 30 second clock. Another 10% want a 24 second clock. And 10% want a 45 second clock. “I asked Tony Bennett, who objects to it, who long it takes his team to get a shot off. It’s about 15-16 seconds. Everybody gets off a shot in 30. Pitt attacks. Duke attacks. It actually hurts tams to hold the ball until the end. They get a bad shot. Coaches who aren’t very good think they are going to win by holding the ball.“ Still, it kills me when we give up threes at the buzzer. We never get them, Of course, because we don’t wait that long, although Cooney did get one vs. BC. They will be trying a 30 second clock I the NIT. “It’s a serious discussion. It won’t speed the game up a lot but it will help somewhat. Jim was asked about weight training. “Weight training is essential in college athletics. It makes you a better player. Off season we do it 2-3 days a week. In season we do it to maintain. Our strength and conditioning people run a test on each player and design a program for him. We’ve had players who came in under 200 pounds get up to 240 or 250.” (Who?) A 10-15-20 even 30 pound change happens quite often. Eating right is important as well. Strength is Kaleb Joseph’s problem. He’s not strong enough yet.” Coach “most likely” will be at the lacrosse game on Sunday against Cornell. “It’s a great sport to watch”. He’s excited we’d finally got a guy who can get us our share of the face offs, “They could win the national championship. They’ve come close hardly getting any face-offs as well.” But he doesn’t think much of the face-off itself. “It’s the dumbest thing ever. Basketball got rid of it, (the center jump after every basket) with the peach basket. But the traditionalists like it.” Duane wanted to know how many autographs Jim had signed and what was the strangest thing he’d been asked to sign. “I don’t think I can say. I signed 10,000 basketballs after we won. I’ve signed 5,000 things in one day. In a normal year I probably sign 4-5,000 things. I’m just glad people want my autograph. If they don’t, that’s when you’re in trouble.” Last week someone had him sign a program from his first game as coach. “That was really cool.” [/QUOTE]

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