"Just when you think you have all the answers, I CHANGE THE QUESTIONS! -Roddy Roddy Piper
-"You want it to be one way.
-But. It's the other way." -Marlo Stanfield
GOOD STUFF
I just wanted to drop a quick couple thoughts on last night’s game. I mainly want to talk about Duke, but first just a few quick hits.
I am in an office pool at work. 15 people in it, 3 girls 12 guys. 7 of them had Memphis in the final 2 game. I found this be really funny. I watch a ton of hoops, and I have seen Memphis play for about 40 minutes this year. And I can guarantee you that the 7 people who picked them to go to the Final Four and then Final Two had seen 40 minutes less than I did. I am just confused on why everyone was so set on Memphis. Even some of the guys and people I know, who are aware of what’s going on in the college game liked them way too much. There was just no data on them. You never saw them play past the opening week tournaments and the game vs. Gonzaga midseason (in which they hammered the Zags). They rattled off 24 in a row before last night. Do you know who they play in their league? Have you seen some of those teams? And I never really understood the talking point about their defense. Everyone stressed how stingy they were on defense, and that was just a joke. Of course they weren’t stingy on defense-they’re Memphis. An offensively retarded team in Mizzou hung 102 on them. That was perhaps the biggest joke of anything-their great defense. C’mon. And I love Memphis. On Selection Sunday last year, I knew Memphis was gonna win the whole thing. They didn’t and they cost me $500 dollars, but you could argue that they really should have won. I love Cal; I think he’s the most charismatic guy in college hoops. I love DDM; I think that’s the way to play the game and where the game is going. But they just didn’t have it this year. And I think people should been a little smarter with that take. Having said all that, watch out for them next season, especially if they land John Wall. If Wall commits and Evan stays-holy shit
And just as a side note, the office pool stories about the most clueless person in the office winning the pool-those are all true. I am currently in 3rd place, behind Jessica and Andrea. Both cool girls, both really nice, not exactly hanging on to every word Jay Bilas and Andy Katz write on espn.com. They picked “chalk” pretty much the whole way, and I can guarantee you one of them win the pot. My bracket is going to blow up today (Friday).
Didn’t catch much of the Pitt-X game. I was busy with my interval training for the upcoming spring and summer basketball leagues. Caught the last 10 minutes, which was enough. Looked like a hard fought game between two really tough teams. I can’t imagine trying to get a shot off in that game. Gotta be a man to get space in that game. Levance Fields continued to make big plays for Pitt down the stretch. He seems like a very clutch player. He knocks down free throws late in games, and is never scared to fire his jump shots. He trusts his J.
Where do you guys stand on DaJuan Blair? If I owned an NBA team I would take him in the lottery just so he could be on my team and I could hang around with him from time to time.
My take is I think he’s special talent, with a really unique attitude and playing ability. He’s hungry and wants to improve. He’s relentless on the glass and can finish with his back to basket. He’s a little girthy, but has a great wingspan. He knocks down free throws. He has a good feel for the screen and roll game, evidenced by them featuring him in every high ball screen in the last ten minutes. He can definitely grow into a pick and pop midrange J or pick and pop one-to-two dribble move to the hoop player in the NBA.
Unfortunately, he’s really hard to take if you’re in that lottery range. It’s really hard to take a guy like that in the top 13. As great as it would be to take him, it’s really hard too. He’s listed at 6’6, which means he’s probably 6’5½ , he’s shown mimimal to average explosion capabilities and he’s very foul prone on the college level. He can only guard a 4, and even at that, most 4’s would have their way with him on the box. He’s quick, he’s just not a great perimeter defender because he has never played out there. He hasn’t shown an ability to knock down any midrange shots yet and conditioning has been a question mark. Might need to drop 10. This is a really weak draft, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he sneaks into that lottery zone. But I doubt it. I’m definitely trying to trade into that 13-16 range to try to take him. I think he’s special. Better than Big Baby, but not quite Zach Randolph. Hungry.
Great moment in that game last night, which really told me a lot Xavier and also Derrick Brown. Last night in that game a ball got tipped and catapulted into the back court by Pitt. Derrick Brown went Devin Hester and next-man’d speed and chased it down going the length of the court. It would have been a huge turnover. Unfortunately he stepped on the end line, and the ref was right there to call it. Brown was so pissed that he really snapped and barked at the ref. Almost technical worthy. It was a cool moment, because I think it really showed how much X wanted to win that game. I always thought Brown kind of loped around and mailed it in most of the time and hammered the occasional lob. That split second showed me he was there to play and he was playing hard for his teammates. He made 2-3 great plays for others in the last 3 minutes. 2 set up assists, and a great defensive help. Those guys at Xavier play extremely hard. And they do because they have a great coach.
Very pleased to see Villanova hammer Duke. That was just men amongst boys. Dogs v. pussies. A total mismatch for Duke. And good riddance because Duke is an absolute joke of a program right now. To me, I wouldn’t even him them in the top 20 teams right now. They have a really shitty business model right now. I really have a lot of problems with it. And unfortunately, it is really all due to the arrogance of Coach K and his staff. Well, arrogance is a big part of it but not all of it. Coach K has made the decision that he is not going to recruit kids that have any character question marks, or are going to leave in 1 year or 2 years. And he’s earned that right, and I’m fine with that. He’s probably the best coach of all time. They play hard, play a great style of offense and defense, and win 25 games a year because they are so well coached. HES NOT STUPID. He knows what he’s doing. So some of it, but not the majority, has to be arrogance. I think the arrogance plays both ways too. I think recruits grew up and hated Duke and their arrogance, and don’t wanna be part of that. It’s easy for other coaches to talk recruits outta Duke by just talking about their arrogance. I dunno. He just hasn’t had a good player in there for a while. Probably Loul Deng was his last big time guy. Redick kind of has his own category. He has however had a lot of quote/unquote pussies though in the last couple years. Guys that you can tell even if you haven’t played just don’t have any balls or raw toughness. There are no guys on Duke that give me that “I would like to go to battle with him” feeling. I mean Jon Sheyer, did you catch his act last night? How many NBA 3’s did he take with 5 on the shot clock after two pump fakes and a step through? 3? I mean he looked like I would have looked like in that game. Can’t get space. Looks like they’re gonna steal it from him every time. Gets leveled off after two dribbles. Can’t finish in traffic. They just need to get some things in order there. They gotta tweak their model a little bit, and try to find some tougher players. They gotta find a Jeff Adriane. An Antonio Anderson. A Jerry Smith. A Delvon Roe. They won’t be back into the discussion until they do.
-"You want it to be one way.
-But. It's the other way." -Marlo Stanfield
GOOD STUFF
I just wanted to drop a quick couple thoughts on last night’s game. I mainly want to talk about Duke, but first just a few quick hits.
I am in an office pool at work. 15 people in it, 3 girls 12 guys. 7 of them had Memphis in the final 2 game. I found this be really funny. I watch a ton of hoops, and I have seen Memphis play for about 40 minutes this year. And I can guarantee you that the 7 people who picked them to go to the Final Four and then Final Two had seen 40 minutes less than I did. I am just confused on why everyone was so set on Memphis. Even some of the guys and people I know, who are aware of what’s going on in the college game liked them way too much. There was just no data on them. You never saw them play past the opening week tournaments and the game vs. Gonzaga midseason (in which they hammered the Zags). They rattled off 24 in a row before last night. Do you know who they play in their league? Have you seen some of those teams? And I never really understood the talking point about their defense. Everyone stressed how stingy they were on defense, and that was just a joke. Of course they weren’t stingy on defense-they’re Memphis. An offensively retarded team in Mizzou hung 102 on them. That was perhaps the biggest joke of anything-their great defense. C’mon. And I love Memphis. On Selection Sunday last year, I knew Memphis was gonna win the whole thing. They didn’t and they cost me $500 dollars, but you could argue that they really should have won. I love Cal; I think he’s the most charismatic guy in college hoops. I love DDM; I think that’s the way to play the game and where the game is going. But they just didn’t have it this year. And I think people should been a little smarter with that take. Having said all that, watch out for them next season, especially if they land John Wall. If Wall commits and Evan stays-holy shit
And just as a side note, the office pool stories about the most clueless person in the office winning the pool-those are all true. I am currently in 3rd place, behind Jessica and Andrea. Both cool girls, both really nice, not exactly hanging on to every word Jay Bilas and Andy Katz write on espn.com. They picked “chalk” pretty much the whole way, and I can guarantee you one of them win the pot. My bracket is going to blow up today (Friday).
Didn’t catch much of the Pitt-X game. I was busy with my interval training for the upcoming spring and summer basketball leagues. Caught the last 10 minutes, which was enough. Looked like a hard fought game between two really tough teams. I can’t imagine trying to get a shot off in that game. Gotta be a man to get space in that game. Levance Fields continued to make big plays for Pitt down the stretch. He seems like a very clutch player. He knocks down free throws late in games, and is never scared to fire his jump shots. He trusts his J.
Where do you guys stand on DaJuan Blair? If I owned an NBA team I would take him in the lottery just so he could be on my team and I could hang around with him from time to time.
My take is I think he’s special talent, with a really unique attitude and playing ability. He’s hungry and wants to improve. He’s relentless on the glass and can finish with his back to basket. He’s a little girthy, but has a great wingspan. He knocks down free throws. He has a good feel for the screen and roll game, evidenced by them featuring him in every high ball screen in the last ten minutes. He can definitely grow into a pick and pop midrange J or pick and pop one-to-two dribble move to the hoop player in the NBA.
Unfortunately, he’s really hard to take if you’re in that lottery range. It’s really hard to take a guy like that in the top 13. As great as it would be to take him, it’s really hard too. He’s listed at 6’6, which means he’s probably 6’5½ , he’s shown mimimal to average explosion capabilities and he’s very foul prone on the college level. He can only guard a 4, and even at that, most 4’s would have their way with him on the box. He’s quick, he’s just not a great perimeter defender because he has never played out there. He hasn’t shown an ability to knock down any midrange shots yet and conditioning has been a question mark. Might need to drop 10. This is a really weak draft, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he sneaks into that lottery zone. But I doubt it. I’m definitely trying to trade into that 13-16 range to try to take him. I think he’s special. Better than Big Baby, but not quite Zach Randolph. Hungry.
Great moment in that game last night, which really told me a lot Xavier and also Derrick Brown. Last night in that game a ball got tipped and catapulted into the back court by Pitt. Derrick Brown went Devin Hester and next-man’d speed and chased it down going the length of the court. It would have been a huge turnover. Unfortunately he stepped on the end line, and the ref was right there to call it. Brown was so pissed that he really snapped and barked at the ref. Almost technical worthy. It was a cool moment, because I think it really showed how much X wanted to win that game. I always thought Brown kind of loped around and mailed it in most of the time and hammered the occasional lob. That split second showed me he was there to play and he was playing hard for his teammates. He made 2-3 great plays for others in the last 3 minutes. 2 set up assists, and a great defensive help. Those guys at Xavier play extremely hard. And they do because they have a great coach.
Very pleased to see Villanova hammer Duke. That was just men amongst boys. Dogs v. pussies. A total mismatch for Duke. And good riddance because Duke is an absolute joke of a program right now. To me, I wouldn’t even him them in the top 20 teams right now. They have a really shitty business model right now. I really have a lot of problems with it. And unfortunately, it is really all due to the arrogance of Coach K and his staff. Well, arrogance is a big part of it but not all of it. Coach K has made the decision that he is not going to recruit kids that have any character question marks, or are going to leave in 1 year or 2 years. And he’s earned that right, and I’m fine with that. He’s probably the best coach of all time. They play hard, play a great style of offense and defense, and win 25 games a year because they are so well coached. HES NOT STUPID. He knows what he’s doing. So some of it, but not the majority, has to be arrogance. I think the arrogance plays both ways too. I think recruits grew up and hated Duke and their arrogance, and don’t wanna be part of that. It’s easy for other coaches to talk recruits outta Duke by just talking about their arrogance. I dunno. He just hasn’t had a good player in there for a while. Probably Loul Deng was his last big time guy. Redick kind of has his own category. He has however had a lot of quote/unquote pussies though in the last couple years. Guys that you can tell even if you haven’t played just don’t have any balls or raw toughness. There are no guys on Duke that give me that “I would like to go to battle with him” feeling. I mean Jon Sheyer, did you catch his act last night? How many NBA 3’s did he take with 5 on the shot clock after two pump fakes and a step through? 3? I mean he looked like I would have looked like in that game. Can’t get space. Looks like they’re gonna steal it from him every time. Gets leveled off after two dribbles. Can’t finish in traffic. They just need to get some things in order there. They gotta tweak their model a little bit, and try to find some tougher players. They gotta find a Jeff Adriane. An Antonio Anderson. A Jerry Smith. A Delvon Roe. They won’t be back into the discussion until they do.
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