The Reds probably deserve the majority of my attention at this point, but I had to get in some thoughts on this TJ Houshmanzadeh thing going on in Cincinnati. The Bengals made the decision yesterday to put the franchise tag on kicker Shayne Graham instead of Housh (who is also a free agent). TJ announced immediately after the decision that he was 99.2% percent likely to leave Cincinnati. So if you're scoring at home, the move looks on the surface like the Bengals let their best player walk in favor of tagging their kicker.
Anyway, I figured I would try to gauge the reaction of Bengal fans to this move, and let's just say that people are not pleased. If you look in the comments section on the Cincinnati Enquirer website under the article on the move, there are people who are literally clinging to their guns and their religion in fear over the move. It wouldn't even surprise me to see a "Breaking News: Bengals fans with pitchforks burn down Bengal owner Mike Brown's home" headline coming across the ESPN ticker any minute. If you're a Bengal fan, the move looks like the Bengals are trying to drive the final stake into the hearts of Bengal fans who had any hope left for this franchise.
But is that really the case?? Am I the only Bengal fan who actually LIKES this move?? Oh my, that's maybe the first time I've used the words "Like this move" and "Bengals" in the same sentence other than my annual "talk myself into the pick" state of mind on NFL Draft day about two hours after complaining about the Bengals' pick.
Seriously though, this is not a typical Bengals move. A typical Bengals move would have been to tag TJ, watch him grumble all offseason and not show up for any offseason activity, undermine Carson and Marvin all season, beg out of games/practice with phony injuries, and then run to the media every five seconds about wanting out. We've seen this a hundred times. The Bengals drag these guys along with no plan of action, use the franchise tag on them in desperation, and then watch as the guy sabotages the team in protest. NFL players do not want a a franchise tag when they know the team they play for has no desire to sign them to a long term deal. TJ is a really good player, but he's 31 years old. Putting a $10 million franchise tag on a 31 year old receiver is a complete waste of resources. Just let the guy walk and rebuild with young players.
I'm actually relieved that the Bengals don't appear to have a desire to sign TJ to a multi-year deal. Does anyone really think that would been a smart allocation of resources?? The Bengals have tried this move in the past with long term deals for Rudi Johnson and Willie Anderson and even Chad Johnson, and it has backfired. Older NFL players aren't worth the money that you pay for them. If you are locked into big contracts for old guys, you lose roster flexibility.
Look at the Steelers. They do this every year. They let players walk when they get old, and then they go all out to replace them. It allows them to be flexible as a franchise. Antwan Randle-El is a perfect example. The Bengals would have panicked and kept him. The Steelers let him leave and replaced him with Santonio Holmes. They probably used the cap savings to sign a lineman and maybe a linebacker, and they maybe even are more willing to trade down in the draft to get extra picks because they have more money to spend. That's what smart organizations do. I'm glad the Bengals finally did something smart.
In the NFL, you win with younger players and linemen. Focus on the draft to get your young players (linemen and defense in the Bengals' case), and then use your remaining dollars to go after targeted free agents that fit your system (ie - the Steelers always seem to get one really good LB in free agency that fits their 3-4 defense). If the Bengals have learned this lesson, they may actually be learning some lessons from all of their inept decisions of the past. The Bengals have always been dumb thinkers, and that always annoyed me. If they make smart decisions, I can live with them even if they don't work out. Just have a plan.
Obviously, the Bengals are still a mess, and past mistakes still haunt them. The decision not to trade Chad Johnson last year for #1 and #2 picks from the Washington Redskins will probably loom over this franchise for a long time, but there's nothing they can do about it now. They need to either get what they can get for the guy even if it is just a #2 pick or something like that and build the franchise the right way with guys who embrace the team concept and want to be there. The Steelers win with TEAM guys who want to be there. The Bengals can learn a lot of lessons from their neighbors to the east.
As for the WR position, I'm not even worried about the position, and I am PRAYING that the Bengals don't use their pick on Michael Crabtree. Please please please do not draft this guy. He's a system WR. Just go ahead and change his name to Ashley Lelie right now. I don't trust any Texas Tech players in the pros (yes, I know Wes Welker is a TT alum) If that happens, I'll join the pitchfork crowd again (I've spend enough time in that crowd that I can easily fit right back in). I am fine with the Bengals WRs even if they don't have Chad Johnson. Chris Henry is capable of being a #1 WR, Caldwell is a good young WR who played great when TJ was hurt last year, and maybe Jerome Simpson can fill the #3 spot. I'd probably try to find a solid Derrick Mason type vet to fill the void if one of those young guys can't contribute. That's not a great WR corp by any stretch, but you don't win in the AFC North with your WRs. The Ravens had Derrick Mason as the their #1 receiver and went to the AFC Championship game.
Is today's move a sign that the Bengals are finally embracing a new line of thinking or just a blip in the radar of a long history of being completely inept?? The Bengals obviously don't deserve the benefit of the doubt, but there are some signs that they are making progress. Letting Willie Anderson walk last year and TJ this year along with recent drafts emphasizing youth and defense is a sign that they are adjusting a bit.
The Bengals may end up being the worst team in the NFL with no TJ and maybe even no Chad, but I'd rather take two steps back followed by five steps forward than the typical Bengals parade of two steps back followed by two more steps back.
February 17, 2009
February 16, 2009
Ohio State "One and Dones": The State of the Early Entry Player in College Basketball
It wouldn't be the middle of February unless there was talk of multiple Ohio State underclassmen leaving for the NBA Draft. You can practically set your watch to it. It's been lurking all year for freshman BJ Mullens, but now you can throw sophomore Evan Turner and freshman William Buford into the mix now that they've both played exceptionally well during Big Ten play. Now that the cat is out of the bag, you can bet that all three of those names will be popping up all season and right up until the deadline for declaring for the Draft. Mullens is still considered a lottery pick, Turner is suddenly at #16 on DraftExpress, and even Buford is getting some first round talk with room to move up higher if he keeps playing this well. Predictably, the columns are starting to pop up lamenting the current system of "one and done."
As is usually the case with sports columnists, this column is woefully off target. Bob Hunter seems to be intent on blaming the system of "one and done" for ruining Ohio State basketball instead of focusing on the guy who is ultimately responsible for the roster. Thad Matta!! Instead of whining about how unfair it is that Ohio State keeps losing players every year, how about questioning why Matta insists on bringing these guys in instead of going after a balanced mix of 3-4 year players and "one and dones??" It's not the fault of the NCAA that Matta has recruited six "five star" guys in the last three years, and every one of those five star guys (Oden, Cook, Koufos, Mullens) other than Conley (and maybe Buford) was a lock to go pro after one year. Did Matta really think he was going to keep those guys for more than one year?? If so, he's incredibly naive.
The columnist in the Columbus Dispatch is making college basketball out to be one of two choices: take "one and dones" and win or pass on them and lose. How can he even make that argument with a straight face when there are examples all over college basketball of teams with a boatload of very good 3-4 year players?? You can win without "one and dones." No one is putting a gun to Thad Matta's head saying that he has to take Koufos and Mullens and Buford if he wants to win basketball games. He could have easily gone after a bunch of 4 year guys instead and coached them up like he did at Xavier or like Tom Izzo has done at Michigan State. You see those types of kids at programs all over the Midwest: Illinois, Michigan State, Wisconsin. Just about every player on those teams is a four year player. Matta made the decision HIMSELF to go after "one and dones." When you get burned, you can't turn around and blame the system. Does anyone think Hunter would be writing this column if Ohio State had several good young freshmen and sophomores who weren't candidates to go to the NBA?? If Kosta Koufos was a 6'8" big man instead of a 7 footer, would we be hearing all this complaining about "the system" emanating from the Buckeye Hoops Nation??
Recruiting Kosta Koufos was a complete waste of time, and I'd throw BJ Mullens in there as well, especially for a program like Ohio State that is still trying to find itself and build up some depth. I could see recruiting those guys if you already have a loaded team and just need that stud freshman to top it off, but as a foundation for your program?? No way. What was the point of recruiting Kosta Koufos?? He never had any intent to play more than one year and almost considered playing in Greece immediately after high school. And then you compound the problem by taking on Mullens?? Wouldn't it have made more sense to try lock up an Ohio kid like Tom Pritchard for the next four years? When you put all your eggs into the "one and done" basket, chances are that you are going to get burned. It's not a solution to have a consistently good program.
Don't get me wrong, I think Thad Matta is an outstanding coach, and I think he's done a really good job bringing along an incredibly young team. After David Lighty went down, they could have folded up, but they've been playing good basketball and probably will be a threat down the stretch. For a guy who has had to inherit an entirely new roster every single year, Matta does a good job of developing his teams. But if he's looking for someone to blame on why he has an entirely new roster every year in the first place, he can start by looking in the mirror. And I would suspect that he'll be in the same predicament again next year.
That brings me back to the early entry thing. The dumbest thing being trotted out there in defense of kids staying in school is the "he's not ready for the NBA" canard that we've heard from hacks like Dick Vitale for years. HUH?? Since when has the NBA Draft been about who is ready for the NBA?? It's the DRAFT. You are drafting on potential. Vitale was ranting and raving on Saturday night at the OSU-Wisconsin game that BJ Mullens should stay at Ohio State because he's not ready for the NBA. Who is saying he's ready for the NBA?? NO ONE. It's a false argument. No one thinks Mullens is ready for the NBA right now. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see that he is not, and Dickie V isn't spewing some great insight by declaring that. But that's not the criteria for deciding whether or not to declare for the draft.
The only thing that matters is that Mullens is PROJECTED to be a lottery pick this year. If you are a lottery pick, you are taking a huge risk by coming back to school. If Mullens comes back next year and still hasn't gotten much better, he goes from a lottery pick to a late first rounder at best. Will Dickie V then offer to pick up the tab on all the money he lost by doing that?? I don't think so. Mullens' value is probably at an all-time high right now because no one has seen enough of him to know what his true potential is. So someone will draft him after this year because he's an athletic 7 footer (even though he has no moves and can't rebound). Whether or not he's "ready" doesn't really matter.
Besides, if you are going to play in the NBA someday, wouldn't it make more sense to get to the league as soon as possible so that you can start working on your game year round?? A guy like Mullens can go to some place like Golden State and spend every day working on his game and getting stronger and playing against the best competition in the world. You don't have political science classes or study sessions or a bunch of games against the McNeese States of the world that do nothing for your game. Is it really going to do Mullens any good to have another year learning how to score against Robbie Hummel?? Why not go to the league and learn how to play against guys like Carlos Boozer and Pau Gasol?? If you listen to any NBA player out there, they will tell you that the NBA is a completely different animal from college basketball and that you need to get to the league as soon as possible to learn what it's like to compete at that level.
Oh and I forgot one other thing.....you get paid!! Millions of dollars. If you are a first round pick, you might as well start your clock so that you can get to free agency and start making the big dollars.
If Mullens decides to stay at Ohio State, good for him. I don't think by any means that he HAS to go to the NBA if he's not mentally ready to put the work in. Maybe he just wants to be a kid for another year. There's nothing wrong with making the decision to come back to school, and maybe he genuinely cares about Ohio State and wants to try to win a Big Ten title next year. Maybe he doesn't care about the money right now. But it is ABSURD for a guy like Dick Vitale to scold him on national tv for thinking about coming out for the NBA Draft. Yo Vitale, why don't you call your buddy Chad Ford and find out where Mullens is projected in the draft? Whether he's ready for the league or not, he's a lottery pick right now. If you are looking to blame someone, blame the NBA franchises for falling in love with 7 footers.
As for Evan Turner and William Buford, I know they have sort of skyrocketed up the NBA draft lists this year, but it's not like you couldn't see this coming. When you recruit 6'6" shooting guards with big time skills and play them 40 minutes a game, they are probably going to play themselves into the NBA Draft. Both those guys are great players and have tailor-made size and skills for the NBA. It's not like Turner is a 6'2" shooting guard who is dreaming big dreams and getting carried away. Would I love to see both of them come back?? No doubt about it, but I will not be surprised if one or both of them leave.
I was once in the camp of lamenting players leaving for the pros and declaring that leaving was a mistake and all that, but I've seen more often than not that your age doesn't matter. If you work hard and have the natural ability, you can declare at just about any age and work yourself into a quality NBA player. A perfect example is Daequan Cook. When this guy played his one year at Ohio State, I thought he was an absolute bum. Bad shot selection, no defense, shaky chemistry guy, and a little bit of a team cancer. He hardly even played down the stretch or in the NCAA Tournament. When he declared for the NBA Draft after his freshman season, I figured he would be playing in the NBDL someday at best.
But now? He's making me look foolish. Cook is in his 2nd year, he's scoring about 10 points a game, playing about 25 minutes a game, and he just won the 3-Point Shootout at All-Star Weekend. And oh by the way, he's 21 years old. I think he may even end up having a better career than Greg Oden and Mike Conley. I never thought I would say that in a million years. Even though he certainly "wasn't ready for the NBA" when he was 19 and had some major growing pains in his first year in the league, it didn't matter. He worked on his game, and now he's doing pretty well. Would I say that he made a mistake by coming out after his freshman year?? Ummm, no. That ended up being a great decision, and staying at Ohio State would have only delayed him from getting acclimated to the NBA.
Look at Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson for example. These guys were lottery picks after their freshman year. Now?? Ty Lawson is going to be LUCKY to even get drafted in the first round. Same with Ellington. Both those guys are OLDER than Daequan Cook right now!! They are going to be NBA rookies next year (or the year after in Ellington's case), and Cook is going to be in his 3rd year. I know they got to play at Carolina and pursue their dreams of playing for a national title, but was it a good decision for their NBA careers?? Heck no. Does anyone think Ellington is more ready to contribute in the NBA right now than a guy like Daequan Cook who is already playing and doing good things in the league?? So Dickie V, stop with the "he's not ready" argument. It's one of the dumbest straw man arguments in sports today.
The other thing that comes up a lot as a solution for college basketball is bringing the baseball version of the draft to the NCAAs. When you leave high school, you either declare for the draft or you commit to go to college for 3 years. The Greg Odens of the world can go off to the league after high school, and the rest of the guys can go to college and play for three years without having people pester them after every game about whether or not they are going to the NBA. Coaches would benefit because they can plan their rosters for a few years without worrying about being blindsided by early entries. Colleges benefit because they can get a guaranteed return on the investments that they make in giving scholarships and room and board to these players. Sounds perfect, right??
Hey, I'd love to see it as a fan of college hoops, but is it fair to a kid like Evan Turner?? If Evan Turner has played his way into the middle of the first round after his second year, who is to say that he shouldn't be able to go to the NBA?? Does he benefit more from that third year at Ohio State or by learning how to play in the NBA on the bench of the Dallas Mavericks?? Isn't there an argument that the best interest of the kid is to leave the door open for him to leave??
Let me reiterate that I would love to see all three of those guys back at Ohio State. They are good kids and great players, and Ohio State can win the Big Ten next year if they all come back (maybe even if just two of them come back). And for all I know, they may all come back. But if they decide to leave, I think it would be silly to whine and cry about how unfair the system is that lets them go to the league. If they want to go and are going to get drafted in the first round, more power to them.
I would say the same thing for Luke Harangody by the way. If he graduates from school and wants to go to the league and get paid and start working on having a good NBA career, then I'm happy for him. I can't fault a guy for wanting to do that. His stock probably isn't going to get that much better if he's back for his senior year unless the 2010 draft happens to be unusually weak. He's a 2nd rounder whenever he comes out. I think Luke will be back because he loves ND and wants to enjoy college as long as possible, but I can understand why he would leave. The only way he's going to find out if he can be an NBA power forward is by getting there and finding out how he stacks up.
As is usually the case with sports columnists, this column is woefully off target. Bob Hunter seems to be intent on blaming the system of "one and done" for ruining Ohio State basketball instead of focusing on the guy who is ultimately responsible for the roster. Thad Matta!! Instead of whining about how unfair it is that Ohio State keeps losing players every year, how about questioning why Matta insists on bringing these guys in instead of going after a balanced mix of 3-4 year players and "one and dones??" It's not the fault of the NCAA that Matta has recruited six "five star" guys in the last three years, and every one of those five star guys (Oden, Cook, Koufos, Mullens) other than Conley (and maybe Buford) was a lock to go pro after one year. Did Matta really think he was going to keep those guys for more than one year?? If so, he's incredibly naive.
The columnist in the Columbus Dispatch is making college basketball out to be one of two choices: take "one and dones" and win or pass on them and lose. How can he even make that argument with a straight face when there are examples all over college basketball of teams with a boatload of very good 3-4 year players?? You can win without "one and dones." No one is putting a gun to Thad Matta's head saying that he has to take Koufos and Mullens and Buford if he wants to win basketball games. He could have easily gone after a bunch of 4 year guys instead and coached them up like he did at Xavier or like Tom Izzo has done at Michigan State. You see those types of kids at programs all over the Midwest: Illinois, Michigan State, Wisconsin. Just about every player on those teams is a four year player. Matta made the decision HIMSELF to go after "one and dones." When you get burned, you can't turn around and blame the system. Does anyone think Hunter would be writing this column if Ohio State had several good young freshmen and sophomores who weren't candidates to go to the NBA?? If Kosta Koufos was a 6'8" big man instead of a 7 footer, would we be hearing all this complaining about "the system" emanating from the Buckeye Hoops Nation??
Recruiting Kosta Koufos was a complete waste of time, and I'd throw BJ Mullens in there as well, especially for a program like Ohio State that is still trying to find itself and build up some depth. I could see recruiting those guys if you already have a loaded team and just need that stud freshman to top it off, but as a foundation for your program?? No way. What was the point of recruiting Kosta Koufos?? He never had any intent to play more than one year and almost considered playing in Greece immediately after high school. And then you compound the problem by taking on Mullens?? Wouldn't it have made more sense to try lock up an Ohio kid like Tom Pritchard for the next four years? When you put all your eggs into the "one and done" basket, chances are that you are going to get burned. It's not a solution to have a consistently good program.
Don't get me wrong, I think Thad Matta is an outstanding coach, and I think he's done a really good job bringing along an incredibly young team. After David Lighty went down, they could have folded up, but they've been playing good basketball and probably will be a threat down the stretch. For a guy who has had to inherit an entirely new roster every single year, Matta does a good job of developing his teams. But if he's looking for someone to blame on why he has an entirely new roster every year in the first place, he can start by looking in the mirror. And I would suspect that he'll be in the same predicament again next year.
That brings me back to the early entry thing. The dumbest thing being trotted out there in defense of kids staying in school is the "he's not ready for the NBA" canard that we've heard from hacks like Dick Vitale for years. HUH?? Since when has the NBA Draft been about who is ready for the NBA?? It's the DRAFT. You are drafting on potential. Vitale was ranting and raving on Saturday night at the OSU-Wisconsin game that BJ Mullens should stay at Ohio State because he's not ready for the NBA. Who is saying he's ready for the NBA?? NO ONE. It's a false argument. No one thinks Mullens is ready for the NBA right now. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see that he is not, and Dickie V isn't spewing some great insight by declaring that. But that's not the criteria for deciding whether or not to declare for the draft.
The only thing that matters is that Mullens is PROJECTED to be a lottery pick this year. If you are a lottery pick, you are taking a huge risk by coming back to school. If Mullens comes back next year and still hasn't gotten much better, he goes from a lottery pick to a late first rounder at best. Will Dickie V then offer to pick up the tab on all the money he lost by doing that?? I don't think so. Mullens' value is probably at an all-time high right now because no one has seen enough of him to know what his true potential is. So someone will draft him after this year because he's an athletic 7 footer (even though he has no moves and can't rebound). Whether or not he's "ready" doesn't really matter.
Besides, if you are going to play in the NBA someday, wouldn't it make more sense to get to the league as soon as possible so that you can start working on your game year round?? A guy like Mullens can go to some place like Golden State and spend every day working on his game and getting stronger and playing against the best competition in the world. You don't have political science classes or study sessions or a bunch of games against the McNeese States of the world that do nothing for your game. Is it really going to do Mullens any good to have another year learning how to score against Robbie Hummel?? Why not go to the league and learn how to play against guys like Carlos Boozer and Pau Gasol?? If you listen to any NBA player out there, they will tell you that the NBA is a completely different animal from college basketball and that you need to get to the league as soon as possible to learn what it's like to compete at that level.
Oh and I forgot one other thing.....you get paid!! Millions of dollars. If you are a first round pick, you might as well start your clock so that you can get to free agency and start making the big dollars.
If Mullens decides to stay at Ohio State, good for him. I don't think by any means that he HAS to go to the NBA if he's not mentally ready to put the work in. Maybe he just wants to be a kid for another year. There's nothing wrong with making the decision to come back to school, and maybe he genuinely cares about Ohio State and wants to try to win a Big Ten title next year. Maybe he doesn't care about the money right now. But it is ABSURD for a guy like Dick Vitale to scold him on national tv for thinking about coming out for the NBA Draft. Yo Vitale, why don't you call your buddy Chad Ford and find out where Mullens is projected in the draft? Whether he's ready for the league or not, he's a lottery pick right now. If you are looking to blame someone, blame the NBA franchises for falling in love with 7 footers.
As for Evan Turner and William Buford, I know they have sort of skyrocketed up the NBA draft lists this year, but it's not like you couldn't see this coming. When you recruit 6'6" shooting guards with big time skills and play them 40 minutes a game, they are probably going to play themselves into the NBA Draft. Both those guys are great players and have tailor-made size and skills for the NBA. It's not like Turner is a 6'2" shooting guard who is dreaming big dreams and getting carried away. Would I love to see both of them come back?? No doubt about it, but I will not be surprised if one or both of them leave.
I was once in the camp of lamenting players leaving for the pros and declaring that leaving was a mistake and all that, but I've seen more often than not that your age doesn't matter. If you work hard and have the natural ability, you can declare at just about any age and work yourself into a quality NBA player. A perfect example is Daequan Cook. When this guy played his one year at Ohio State, I thought he was an absolute bum. Bad shot selection, no defense, shaky chemistry guy, and a little bit of a team cancer. He hardly even played down the stretch or in the NCAA Tournament. When he declared for the NBA Draft after his freshman season, I figured he would be playing in the NBDL someday at best.
But now? He's making me look foolish. Cook is in his 2nd year, he's scoring about 10 points a game, playing about 25 minutes a game, and he just won the 3-Point Shootout at All-Star Weekend. And oh by the way, he's 21 years old. I think he may even end up having a better career than Greg Oden and Mike Conley. I never thought I would say that in a million years. Even though he certainly "wasn't ready for the NBA" when he was 19 and had some major growing pains in his first year in the league, it didn't matter. He worked on his game, and now he's doing pretty well. Would I say that he made a mistake by coming out after his freshman year?? Ummm, no. That ended up being a great decision, and staying at Ohio State would have only delayed him from getting acclimated to the NBA.
Look at Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson for example. These guys were lottery picks after their freshman year. Now?? Ty Lawson is going to be LUCKY to even get drafted in the first round. Same with Ellington. Both those guys are OLDER than Daequan Cook right now!! They are going to be NBA rookies next year (or the year after in Ellington's case), and Cook is going to be in his 3rd year. I know they got to play at Carolina and pursue their dreams of playing for a national title, but was it a good decision for their NBA careers?? Heck no. Does anyone think Ellington is more ready to contribute in the NBA right now than a guy like Daequan Cook who is already playing and doing good things in the league?? So Dickie V, stop with the "he's not ready" argument. It's one of the dumbest straw man arguments in sports today.
The other thing that comes up a lot as a solution for college basketball is bringing the baseball version of the draft to the NCAAs. When you leave high school, you either declare for the draft or you commit to go to college for 3 years. The Greg Odens of the world can go off to the league after high school, and the rest of the guys can go to college and play for three years without having people pester them after every game about whether or not they are going to the NBA. Coaches would benefit because they can plan their rosters for a few years without worrying about being blindsided by early entries. Colleges benefit because they can get a guaranteed return on the investments that they make in giving scholarships and room and board to these players. Sounds perfect, right??
Hey, I'd love to see it as a fan of college hoops, but is it fair to a kid like Evan Turner?? If Evan Turner has played his way into the middle of the first round after his second year, who is to say that he shouldn't be able to go to the NBA?? Does he benefit more from that third year at Ohio State or by learning how to play in the NBA on the bench of the Dallas Mavericks?? Isn't there an argument that the best interest of the kid is to leave the door open for him to leave??
Let me reiterate that I would love to see all three of those guys back at Ohio State. They are good kids and great players, and Ohio State can win the Big Ten next year if they all come back (maybe even if just two of them come back). And for all I know, they may all come back. But if they decide to leave, I think it would be silly to whine and cry about how unfair the system is that lets them go to the league. If they want to go and are going to get drafted in the first round, more power to them.
I would say the same thing for Luke Harangody by the way. If he graduates from school and wants to go to the league and get paid and start working on having a good NBA career, then I'm happy for him. I can't fault a guy for wanting to do that. His stock probably isn't going to get that much better if he's back for his senior year unless the 2010 draft happens to be unusually weak. He's a 2nd rounder whenever he comes out. I think Luke will be back because he loves ND and wants to enjoy college as long as possible, but I can understand why he would leave. The only way he's going to find out if he can be an NBA power forward is by getting there and finding out how he stacks up.
February 15, 2009
Mike Tomlin loves Phil Collins
How great is this story about Mike Tomlin playing a little Phil Collins "In the Air Tonight" the night before the Super Bowl to get the team in the right frame of mind?? That's awesome! Tell me you wouldn't be ready to run through walls after hearing that drum solo. We need to get a background story on why Tomlin uses "In the Air Tonight" of all songs. I wonder what Phil Collins thought if/when he heard the story.
I love Tomlin. Just another reason why he's the coolest coach in sports history.
Steven Threet
Wow, so Steven Threet might be transferring. Interesting. Looks like Michigan is going to be starting a true freshman right out of the chute. I actually am surprised that Threet isn't going to be in the mix next year. He's not great by any means, but I thought he at least had enough potential to be adequate. Either Forcier is really that good, or Rich Rodriguez is already mailing in 2009.
Gotta beat them next year. I know it's at the Big House, but we are going there with a 3rd year QB against a team with a QB in the second game of his entire career. No excuses.
Gotta beat them next year. I know it's at the Big House, but we are going there with a 3rd year QB against a team with a QB in the second game of his entire career. No excuses.
February 14, 2009
The Charlie Weis press conference: Is he going to the booth?
Ok, lots of great stuff from the Charlie Weis press conference. On the whole, it was an encouraging presentation.
Some thoughts:
1) Coaching from the Booth - In my opinion, the most revealing thing that came out of yesterday's press conference was the statement by Weis that he is "50/50" on whether or not he's going to coach in the booth next year. Whoa! When he shot down the idea immediately after the Hawaii game, I sort of stopped thinking about it. But it sounds like he has put a lot of thought into the idea and now even appears to be considering it (his wife wants him up there as well, which all but guarantees it is going to happen). That would be a very interesting move. Has any non-Joe Pa head coach ever willingly gone up to the booth for games?? I know Lou and some other coaches have been injured and needed to be up there for a couple games, but Weis would be the first coach I can remember who went up there for strategic reasons.
I posted something about this right after the Hawaii game, and I feel the same way now. I like the idea. I think it is the proper allocation of the resources on this staff. At the end of the day, Weis is an offensive coordinator. He really likes the intellectual side of the game, and I think he had a great time up in the booth at the Hawaii Bowl observing things and getting a feel for what was working and what wasn't working. That's Weis' bread and butter. Scheming and looking for ways to exploit a defense. He has said that it's much easier to do that from up in the booth, which makes sense.
On the other hand, Corwin Brown is Mr. Intensity on that sideline. I haven't seen that kind of fire out of an ND coach since Lou Holtz was pacing the sideline. Let there be no doubt, Corwin Brown was the head coach of this team at the Hawaii game. He did the pregame pep talk (which was apparently legendary from the stories that have gotten out about it), he did all the sideline work, and he was the rah-rah guy firing people up down there. He coached that game like Bo Pelini coached Nebraska in the bowl game a few years ago. The ND sideline has resembled a morgue far too often during the Weis era. The NBC camera pans over to the ND sideline, and there are a bunch of sullen players standing around Weis while he wipes snot away from his nose and stares at his play sheet. You see guys slink off the field like they'd rather be anywhere but ND Stadium. It's downright depressing to see the ND sideline when Weis is down there. Meanwhile, during the Hawaii game, we were chest bumping and flying around and high-fiving and going crazy. Where has that been?? It looked like a USC sideline.
Weis is saying "50/50," but I really think he's strongly leaning toward doing it. Yesterday was a trial balloon, and the reaction was positive. Deep down, I think Weis knows he's an offensive coordinator at heart and that the players don't seem to respond to his leadership for whatever reason. Weis is a very introspective guy, and he knows that the team rallies around Corwin's leadership style. I think Weis LIKES being in the booth and knows that the team is better off with him up there, but he also is very self-conscious and wary of the fact that head coaches don't do that sort of thing. It's a tough decision. Do you do what "head coaches are supposed to do" or do you do what is best to help the team win?? I don't think there's any debate to it. Go in the booth and let Corwin run the show on the sideline. It is obvious that the team responds to Corwin's leadership, and you have to take advantage of that energy that he brings to the table. Weis has his back against the wall. If he wants to remain the head coach at Notre Dame, he needs to do everything possible to win next year.
I do have a couple concerns about this whole experiment. What happens when Corwin Brown leaves?? This guy is a rising star in the coaching world. If he's going to be the "face" of ND football on the sideline on national television every week, he's going to get a lot of exposure. And if the experiment works and we have success with Weis in the booth and Corwin on the field, Corwin Brown is going to be a hot commodity for a head coaching job and probably going to land one within the next 1-2 years. If he's the key to this team winning, he's going to think to himself "wait, why am I not in charge and getting the big dollars?" If/when Corwin leaves, would Weis go back to the sideline?? Would he decide to try to hire a new "associate head coach/sideline coach" that would allow him to stay up in the booth?? I'm just curious as to how that whole arrangement will work since Corwin obviously isn't going to be Weis' sideline coach for the rest of his career. If this thing works out, it almost makes me wonder if we would need to tag Corwin with the Will Muschamp Memorial "Next Coach in Line" tag or something. If he was the driving force behind our success, we wouldn't want him to lose him.
The other downside is that there would be absolutely NO recovery if this thing didn't work right out of the chute. Could you imagine ND being down 13-3 to Nevada in the 3rd quarter and the camera is panning up to Weis in the booth and he has the "Charlie Weis Face" going at full throttle?? Oh my. The horror. That would be the most depressing moment in the history of Notre Dame football. Weis with the sullen look going and completely helpless to do anything about the problems on the field even though he's technically the head coach. He would probably be fired the next day. If Weis goes to the booth, it has to work or that will be the moment when he loses any remaining Weis supporters forever.
Overall, I like the idea, but there are issues that need to be hashed out. Plus, the stigma for Weis would be that he's not the head coach of this team if he's up in the booth, and I think that would be an ego blow. I hope he can work through those things because it seems like the best plan for 2009.
2) The switch to the 4-3 - The other interesting revelation from the press conference was the apparent decision to revert back to the 4-3 defense under the leadership of Jon Tenuta. Tenuta is calling the plays, and we're going to more of a 4-3 look.
I am no football coach, but I agree wholeheartedly with this move. I was not a real big fan of the 3-4 defense that we have tried out in the last couple years. You can't run a 3-4 unless you have the personnel for it. You need big space cloggers on that defensive line who can take up blockers and do the dirty work, and then you need middle linebackers who can take advantage of those lanes to make plays. The 3-4 works great in Pittsburgh because they have Casey Hampton to wreak havoc in the middle, two workhorse ends who eat up blockers, and then an assortment of talented linebackers who can make plays behind them. We don't have any of those things. If we were in the 3-4 next year, we'd be using an undersized Kapron Lewis-Moore as a 3-4 end (Or Kerry Neal). And we'd have true freshman Te'o and maybe redshirt freshman Filer in the middle. Seems like too many undersized/inexperienced guys to run that defense. Plus, our best defensive lineman, Ethan Johnson, would be in the "take up blockers" role as a 3-4 end, and I'd rather see him utilized in a different way.
The decision between a 4-3 and a 3-4 comes down to whether you want an extra DT or an extra LB on the field. In college football, give me that extra d-lineman all day long. You cannot win in college football if you can't stop the run, and we've had one of the worst run defenses in the country the last couple years. I think it's because we haven't had enough beef up front. Our 3 linemen would get blocked easily, and then the RB would be 3-4 yards down the field with a full head of steam by the time our LBs got a shot at him. It's not a good sign when David Bruton has to be in on every tackle to stop the run.
One question about the 4-3 is how Tenuta/Brown plan to utilize the personnel. One idea that has been floated would be to move Ethan Johnson inside to defensive tackle. Not sure if I really like that move. Isn't the whole point of moving to the 4-3 so that we can get some beef up front?? If we have EJ in the middle, he becomes an undersized DT. We'd still probably be vulnerable against the run.
I'm curious to see if one of these redshirt freshmen DTs (Hafis Williams, Cwynar, Newman, etc) can step up and win a DT job alongside Ian Williams. If Hafis can win a job, you can move Ethan Johnson to his natural DE spot, and he can be flanked by KLM on the other side. On 3rd down maybe you move Ethan Johnson inside and bring in Kerry Neal/Fleming to defensive end. Sort of like what the Giants have done with Justin Tuck at times. Suddenly, a terrible pass rush unit could be pretty potent with all those stud d-ends in the game. I think this alignment would give us a lot of flexibility, and it would put people in a position to succeed. Squeezing this team into a 3-4 set without the right personnel always had a little bit of a "square peg in a round hole" feel to it. I like how the 4-3 sets up.
At linebacker, I love Brian Smith as a 4-3 OLB, and I'd probably have Te'o as my other OLB initially. Maybe Filer can win the MLB job, but we also have Toryan Smith around. There are plenty of people to fill those linebacker spots, and we can always try to show a 3-4 look at times with Neal and Fleming.
The story of the 2009 d-line?? I'll go ahead and say it's Kapron Lewis Moore. 6-4, 260, blazing fast, came up here from Weatherford, Texas (I agree with Matt on the Texas town names. They're the best). This guy has been getting rave reviews all year. Get him on the field and see if he can turn into a pass rushing freak. That's the type of presence we need to get pressure on the QB. Can't wait for Bob Davie to comment on KAPRONNNNNN LEWWWWWWIS MOOOOOOOOOORE from WEAAAAAAATHERRRRRRRFOOOOOOOORD, TEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXAS next year. Can't you hear him saying that?
3) Running game - Some interesting stuff coming out from the press conferences of Verducci and Alford on the running game. First, I think Alford sounds like a terrific guy and a good coach. The reviews of him from players have all been really good. We definitely upgraded at the running backs coach position from Mike Haywood (Miami (Ohio) fans...feel free to punch yourselves now after reading that last sentence....i know, the truth hurts). Our running back play has been turrrrrrrrrrrible for a number of years. Our running backs don't hit the hole, they don't break tackles, and they can't seem to stay on their feet. Robert Hughes has regressed. The o-line didn't help, but the running back play needs to get better. There are 4-5 star types all over the place back there.
As for the o-line, Verducci has been saying all the right things. Toughness and fundamentals are his priority, and he plans to really revamp the running game as the new "running game coordinator." I don't know what a running game coordinator does, but that's Verducci. By the way, Charlie Weis really embraces the job-related titles for his staff. We have like 14 "coordinators" and "associate head coaches" right now. Weis makes President Obama's staff of 700 advisers and "czars" and other superfluous nonsense look modest in comparison.
Anyway, we averaged like 3 yards a carry or something absurd like that last year, and Weis wants to bump that up another yard per carry. I'm all for it. You close games out on the ground, and you need to be able to have the threat of a run game to have success on offense. We can't have a repeat of 2008 where teams just sat back with 7 Dbs and waited for Clausen to throw into double coverage because we couldn't run the ball at all.
The ND o-line should always bee good. No excuses. Weis talked all last year about how he was going to "pound it" on the ground. That lasted all of two quarters of the FIRST GAME.
4) Grab-bagging - Uh oh. There's that word again. Amidst all my positivity, I had to drag out the dread "g" word after this press conference because it's still lingering around this program.
Weis is in his fifth year as the head coach at Notre Dame, and the following changes have been made in the last year or so:
1) Weis switched from the 4-3 defense to the 3-4 defense (even hiring a 3-4 guy in Corwin Brown and stating publicly that he was more comfortable in the 3-4) and now have SWITCHED BACK to the 4-3 defense that is now coached by a 4-3 guy (Tenuta)
2) We had a stated goal to "pound it" heading into the 2008 season, gave up on it in the FIRST GAME of the season, and now have a stated goal in 2009 to run the ball again
3) Weis may or may not be moving to the booth to coach the team next year after spending the last four years on the sideline (including a couple pretty good years in his early tenure)
4) Weis gave up the playcalling duties before the 2008 season in an attempt to be more of a "head coach", took them back in the middle of the season, and now is keeping them indefinitely
5) We have a new d-line coach, a new defensive playcaller, a new o-line coach, and a new running backs coach
And that's before you get to the week-to-week (and even in-game) changes that we've seen in the last couple years where we seem to fluctuate from pro-style to the no-huddle "chaos" mode to the spread to "wildcat" with no apparent commitment to anything (other than fades and jump balls of course). While I think these moves are all defensible and probably even beneficial to the program, isn't there also a little bit of a "I'm desperate, I'll do anything" feel to these moves?? Does anyone think Nick Saban is going to switch out of the 3-4 in a year or two and then SWITCH BACK to the 3-4 a year or two later?? Does anyone think Urban Meyer is giving up his duties as the sideline motivator and moving up to the booth any time soon?? Does anyone think Pete Carroll is suddenly going to stop calling defensive plays and then take them back half a season later??
Look, I am long past the point of bemoaning that Weis didn't have prior head coaching experience. We made the decision to hire this guy (which in retrospect was probably not a great move), and we're going to have to live with the growing pains. Part of the growing pains will be Charlie learning on the job what he needs and what he likes and what he wants to do. We've gone through all sorts of trial and error, but that's what we signed up for when we hired a first time head coach. It was inevitable that coaching changes would be made and philosophies would be adjusted. At some point, the investment made in Weis' on-the-job training may actually pay off once he figures this stuff out.
At the same time, I can't help but wonder if all these moves are more signs of a leadership vacuum that continues to exist within this program. If fans are confused about what is going on, can you imagine being a Notre Dame football player these days?? Some of them will be on their 3rd defense, their third playcaller, new o-line coach, new d-line coach, new RBs coach, and now the head coach is talking about going up in the booth. There's no continuity with this program under Weis. The guy is a mad scientist. It's one thing to tinker and another thing to CONSTANTLY tinker. You don't see this kind of inconsistency with Saban and Tressel and Mack Brown and others. They have run the same program since day one at their respective jobs.
5) Randy Hart - Finally, I'll end on some potentially really good news. The new d-line coach has apparently been hired. Randy Hart (sounds like a WWF wrestler) from the Washington Huskies. He's been there for a long time, and he seems to be old-school and highly-respected.
One sentence from his bio jumped out at me.
A disciple of Ohio State's legendary Woody Hayes
................Sorry, had to just tuck in my chubby. The name Wayne Woodrow Hayes always gets my attention, and I couldn't be happier that we have inherited a disciple of the "Old Man." Hayes doesn't have too bad of a track record for developing coaches, and two pretty good ones had a little bit of success at ND in their day:
Lou Holtz
Ara Parseghian
Hart played and coached under Hayes, he grew up in Cleveland, and he coached the d-line of the 1991 UW National Title team led by Steve Emtman. And he's INTENSE. My kind of guy. If Hart is the kind of old school coach who understands the physical style of football that has been successful in the Midwest for almost a century, then he was the perfect hire for the defensive line at ND. Anyone tied to the Hayes tree is going to understand that you win in football by winning the war in the trenches and beating up the man in front of you. Hart will hopefully send that message to Ian Williams and Ethan Johnson. And he seems like a good mentor for Bryant Young if BY is really serious about getting into coaching.
There's a perception that Weis only hires "Belichick guys," but he really hasn't followed that pattern much in recent hires. Tenuta, Hart, and Alford all come from outside that tree. Good to see.
Overall, I thought Weis had a lot of interesting things to say in the press conference, and I thought it went well. He has made a lot of changes, and most of the changes look good on paper. Time will tell how they look on the field.
I'm already fired up for spring practice!! Go ahead and pen me in for attending the Blue-Gold Game this year. April 18, 2009 inside lovely Notre Dame Stadium. Mark those calendars! Go Irish!
Some thoughts:
1) Coaching from the Booth - In my opinion, the most revealing thing that came out of yesterday's press conference was the statement by Weis that he is "50/50" on whether or not he's going to coach in the booth next year. Whoa! When he shot down the idea immediately after the Hawaii game, I sort of stopped thinking about it. But it sounds like he has put a lot of thought into the idea and now even appears to be considering it (his wife wants him up there as well, which all but guarantees it is going to happen). That would be a very interesting move. Has any non-Joe Pa head coach ever willingly gone up to the booth for games?? I know Lou and some other coaches have been injured and needed to be up there for a couple games, but Weis would be the first coach I can remember who went up there for strategic reasons.
I posted something about this right after the Hawaii game, and I feel the same way now. I like the idea. I think it is the proper allocation of the resources on this staff. At the end of the day, Weis is an offensive coordinator. He really likes the intellectual side of the game, and I think he had a great time up in the booth at the Hawaii Bowl observing things and getting a feel for what was working and what wasn't working. That's Weis' bread and butter. Scheming and looking for ways to exploit a defense. He has said that it's much easier to do that from up in the booth, which makes sense.
On the other hand, Corwin Brown is Mr. Intensity on that sideline. I haven't seen that kind of fire out of an ND coach since Lou Holtz was pacing the sideline. Let there be no doubt, Corwin Brown was the head coach of this team at the Hawaii game. He did the pregame pep talk (which was apparently legendary from the stories that have gotten out about it), he did all the sideline work, and he was the rah-rah guy firing people up down there. He coached that game like Bo Pelini coached Nebraska in the bowl game a few years ago. The ND sideline has resembled a morgue far too often during the Weis era. The NBC camera pans over to the ND sideline, and there are a bunch of sullen players standing around Weis while he wipes snot away from his nose and stares at his play sheet. You see guys slink off the field like they'd rather be anywhere but ND Stadium. It's downright depressing to see the ND sideline when Weis is down there. Meanwhile, during the Hawaii game, we were chest bumping and flying around and high-fiving and going crazy. Where has that been?? It looked like a USC sideline.
Weis is saying "50/50," but I really think he's strongly leaning toward doing it. Yesterday was a trial balloon, and the reaction was positive. Deep down, I think Weis knows he's an offensive coordinator at heart and that the players don't seem to respond to his leadership for whatever reason. Weis is a very introspective guy, and he knows that the team rallies around Corwin's leadership style. I think Weis LIKES being in the booth and knows that the team is better off with him up there, but he also is very self-conscious and wary of the fact that head coaches don't do that sort of thing. It's a tough decision. Do you do what "head coaches are supposed to do" or do you do what is best to help the team win?? I don't think there's any debate to it. Go in the booth and let Corwin run the show on the sideline. It is obvious that the team responds to Corwin's leadership, and you have to take advantage of that energy that he brings to the table. Weis has his back against the wall. If he wants to remain the head coach at Notre Dame, he needs to do everything possible to win next year.
I do have a couple concerns about this whole experiment. What happens when Corwin Brown leaves?? This guy is a rising star in the coaching world. If he's going to be the "face" of ND football on the sideline on national television every week, he's going to get a lot of exposure. And if the experiment works and we have success with Weis in the booth and Corwin on the field, Corwin Brown is going to be a hot commodity for a head coaching job and probably going to land one within the next 1-2 years. If he's the key to this team winning, he's going to think to himself "wait, why am I not in charge and getting the big dollars?" If/when Corwin leaves, would Weis go back to the sideline?? Would he decide to try to hire a new "associate head coach/sideline coach" that would allow him to stay up in the booth?? I'm just curious as to how that whole arrangement will work since Corwin obviously isn't going to be Weis' sideline coach for the rest of his career. If this thing works out, it almost makes me wonder if we would need to tag Corwin with the Will Muschamp Memorial "Next Coach in Line" tag or something. If he was the driving force behind our success, we wouldn't want him to lose him.
The other downside is that there would be absolutely NO recovery if this thing didn't work right out of the chute. Could you imagine ND being down 13-3 to Nevada in the 3rd quarter and the camera is panning up to Weis in the booth and he has the "Charlie Weis Face" going at full throttle?? Oh my. The horror. That would be the most depressing moment in the history of Notre Dame football. Weis with the sullen look going and completely helpless to do anything about the problems on the field even though he's technically the head coach. He would probably be fired the next day. If Weis goes to the booth, it has to work or that will be the moment when he loses any remaining Weis supporters forever.
Overall, I like the idea, but there are issues that need to be hashed out. Plus, the stigma for Weis would be that he's not the head coach of this team if he's up in the booth, and I think that would be an ego blow. I hope he can work through those things because it seems like the best plan for 2009.
2) The switch to the 4-3 - The other interesting revelation from the press conference was the apparent decision to revert back to the 4-3 defense under the leadership of Jon Tenuta. Tenuta is calling the plays, and we're going to more of a 4-3 look.
I am no football coach, but I agree wholeheartedly with this move. I was not a real big fan of the 3-4 defense that we have tried out in the last couple years. You can't run a 3-4 unless you have the personnel for it. You need big space cloggers on that defensive line who can take up blockers and do the dirty work, and then you need middle linebackers who can take advantage of those lanes to make plays. The 3-4 works great in Pittsburgh because they have Casey Hampton to wreak havoc in the middle, two workhorse ends who eat up blockers, and then an assortment of talented linebackers who can make plays behind them. We don't have any of those things. If we were in the 3-4 next year, we'd be using an undersized Kapron Lewis-Moore as a 3-4 end (Or Kerry Neal). And we'd have true freshman Te'o and maybe redshirt freshman Filer in the middle. Seems like too many undersized/inexperienced guys to run that defense. Plus, our best defensive lineman, Ethan Johnson, would be in the "take up blockers" role as a 3-4 end, and I'd rather see him utilized in a different way.
The decision between a 4-3 and a 3-4 comes down to whether you want an extra DT or an extra LB on the field. In college football, give me that extra d-lineman all day long. You cannot win in college football if you can't stop the run, and we've had one of the worst run defenses in the country the last couple years. I think it's because we haven't had enough beef up front. Our 3 linemen would get blocked easily, and then the RB would be 3-4 yards down the field with a full head of steam by the time our LBs got a shot at him. It's not a good sign when David Bruton has to be in on every tackle to stop the run.
One question about the 4-3 is how Tenuta/Brown plan to utilize the personnel. One idea that has been floated would be to move Ethan Johnson inside to defensive tackle. Not sure if I really like that move. Isn't the whole point of moving to the 4-3 so that we can get some beef up front?? If we have EJ in the middle, he becomes an undersized DT. We'd still probably be vulnerable against the run.
I'm curious to see if one of these redshirt freshmen DTs (Hafis Williams, Cwynar, Newman, etc) can step up and win a DT job alongside Ian Williams. If Hafis can win a job, you can move Ethan Johnson to his natural DE spot, and he can be flanked by KLM on the other side. On 3rd down maybe you move Ethan Johnson inside and bring in Kerry Neal/Fleming to defensive end. Sort of like what the Giants have done with Justin Tuck at times. Suddenly, a terrible pass rush unit could be pretty potent with all those stud d-ends in the game. I think this alignment would give us a lot of flexibility, and it would put people in a position to succeed. Squeezing this team into a 3-4 set without the right personnel always had a little bit of a "square peg in a round hole" feel to it. I like how the 4-3 sets up.
At linebacker, I love Brian Smith as a 4-3 OLB, and I'd probably have Te'o as my other OLB initially. Maybe Filer can win the MLB job, but we also have Toryan Smith around. There are plenty of people to fill those linebacker spots, and we can always try to show a 3-4 look at times with Neal and Fleming.
The story of the 2009 d-line?? I'll go ahead and say it's Kapron Lewis Moore. 6-4, 260, blazing fast, came up here from Weatherford, Texas (I agree with Matt on the Texas town names. They're the best). This guy has been getting rave reviews all year. Get him on the field and see if he can turn into a pass rushing freak. That's the type of presence we need to get pressure on the QB. Can't wait for Bob Davie to comment on KAPRONNNNNN LEWWWWWWIS MOOOOOOOOOORE from WEAAAAAAATHERRRRRRRFOOOOOOOORD, TEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXAS next year. Can't you hear him saying that?
3) Running game - Some interesting stuff coming out from the press conferences of Verducci and Alford on the running game. First, I think Alford sounds like a terrific guy and a good coach. The reviews of him from players have all been really good. We definitely upgraded at the running backs coach position from Mike Haywood (Miami (Ohio) fans...feel free to punch yourselves now after reading that last sentence....i know, the truth hurts). Our running back play has been turrrrrrrrrrrible for a number of years. Our running backs don't hit the hole, they don't break tackles, and they can't seem to stay on their feet. Robert Hughes has regressed. The o-line didn't help, but the running back play needs to get better. There are 4-5 star types all over the place back there.
As for the o-line, Verducci has been saying all the right things. Toughness and fundamentals are his priority, and he plans to really revamp the running game as the new "running game coordinator." I don't know what a running game coordinator does, but that's Verducci. By the way, Charlie Weis really embraces the job-related titles for his staff. We have like 14 "coordinators" and "associate head coaches" right now. Weis makes President Obama's staff of 700 advisers and "czars" and other superfluous nonsense look modest in comparison.
Anyway, we averaged like 3 yards a carry or something absurd like that last year, and Weis wants to bump that up another yard per carry. I'm all for it. You close games out on the ground, and you need to be able to have the threat of a run game to have success on offense. We can't have a repeat of 2008 where teams just sat back with 7 Dbs and waited for Clausen to throw into double coverage because we couldn't run the ball at all.
The ND o-line should always bee good. No excuses. Weis talked all last year about how he was going to "pound it" on the ground. That lasted all of two quarters of the FIRST GAME.
4) Grab-bagging - Uh oh. There's that word again. Amidst all my positivity, I had to drag out the dread "g" word after this press conference because it's still lingering around this program.
Weis is in his fifth year as the head coach at Notre Dame, and the following changes have been made in the last year or so:
1) Weis switched from the 4-3 defense to the 3-4 defense (even hiring a 3-4 guy in Corwin Brown and stating publicly that he was more comfortable in the 3-4) and now have SWITCHED BACK to the 4-3 defense that is now coached by a 4-3 guy (Tenuta)
2) We had a stated goal to "pound it" heading into the 2008 season, gave up on it in the FIRST GAME of the season, and now have a stated goal in 2009 to run the ball again
3) Weis may or may not be moving to the booth to coach the team next year after spending the last four years on the sideline (including a couple pretty good years in his early tenure)
4) Weis gave up the playcalling duties before the 2008 season in an attempt to be more of a "head coach", took them back in the middle of the season, and now is keeping them indefinitely
5) We have a new d-line coach, a new defensive playcaller, a new o-line coach, and a new running backs coach
And that's before you get to the week-to-week (and even in-game) changes that we've seen in the last couple years where we seem to fluctuate from pro-style to the no-huddle "chaos" mode to the spread to "wildcat" with no apparent commitment to anything (other than fades and jump balls of course). While I think these moves are all defensible and probably even beneficial to the program, isn't there also a little bit of a "I'm desperate, I'll do anything" feel to these moves?? Does anyone think Nick Saban is going to switch out of the 3-4 in a year or two and then SWITCH BACK to the 3-4 a year or two later?? Does anyone think Urban Meyer is giving up his duties as the sideline motivator and moving up to the booth any time soon?? Does anyone think Pete Carroll is suddenly going to stop calling defensive plays and then take them back half a season later??
Look, I am long past the point of bemoaning that Weis didn't have prior head coaching experience. We made the decision to hire this guy (which in retrospect was probably not a great move), and we're going to have to live with the growing pains. Part of the growing pains will be Charlie learning on the job what he needs and what he likes and what he wants to do. We've gone through all sorts of trial and error, but that's what we signed up for when we hired a first time head coach. It was inevitable that coaching changes would be made and philosophies would be adjusted. At some point, the investment made in Weis' on-the-job training may actually pay off once he figures this stuff out.
At the same time, I can't help but wonder if all these moves are more signs of a leadership vacuum that continues to exist within this program. If fans are confused about what is going on, can you imagine being a Notre Dame football player these days?? Some of them will be on their 3rd defense, their third playcaller, new o-line coach, new d-line coach, new RBs coach, and now the head coach is talking about going up in the booth. There's no continuity with this program under Weis. The guy is a mad scientist. It's one thing to tinker and another thing to CONSTANTLY tinker. You don't see this kind of inconsistency with Saban and Tressel and Mack Brown and others. They have run the same program since day one at their respective jobs.
5) Randy Hart - Finally, I'll end on some potentially really good news. The new d-line coach has apparently been hired. Randy Hart (sounds like a WWF wrestler) from the Washington Huskies. He's been there for a long time, and he seems to be old-school and highly-respected.
One sentence from his bio jumped out at me.
A disciple of Ohio State's legendary Woody Hayes
................Sorry, had to just tuck in my chubby. The name Wayne Woodrow Hayes always gets my attention, and I couldn't be happier that we have inherited a disciple of the "Old Man." Hayes doesn't have too bad of a track record for developing coaches, and two pretty good ones had a little bit of success at ND in their day:
Lou Holtz
Ara Parseghian
Hart played and coached under Hayes, he grew up in Cleveland, and he coached the d-line of the 1991 UW National Title team led by Steve Emtman. And he's INTENSE. My kind of guy. If Hart is the kind of old school coach who understands the physical style of football that has been successful in the Midwest for almost a century, then he was the perfect hire for the defensive line at ND. Anyone tied to the Hayes tree is going to understand that you win in football by winning the war in the trenches and beating up the man in front of you. Hart will hopefully send that message to Ian Williams and Ethan Johnson. And he seems like a good mentor for Bryant Young if BY is really serious about getting into coaching.
There's a perception that Weis only hires "Belichick guys," but he really hasn't followed that pattern much in recent hires. Tenuta, Hart, and Alford all come from outside that tree. Good to see.
Overall, I thought Weis had a lot of interesting things to say in the press conference, and I thought it went well. He has made a lot of changes, and most of the changes look good on paper. Time will tell how they look on the field.
I'm already fired up for spring practice!! Go ahead and pen me in for attending the Blue-Gold Game this year. April 18, 2009 inside lovely Notre Dame Stadium. Mark those calendars! Go Irish!
February 12, 2009
What would your expectations be if Notre Dame was playing a tough schedule in 2009?
I've seen a lot of discussion in the past week (essentially since signing day) about expectations for the 2009 season. It seems like the range has been in the 9-11 win range partially based on experience and partially based on the fact that we're playing one of the weakest schedules in the recent history of Notre Dame football.
Let's say for hypothetical purposes that we had discarded the Kevin White/Swarbrick model of 7-4-1 scheduling and had adopted a more traditional Notre Dame schedule for this 2009 season.
For example:
- Instead of playing Washington State in San Antonio, substitute Georgia Tech
- Instead of playing 7 home games and using that 7th game for UConn, we were playing our traditional "home and home" arrangements and had Tennessee on the road
- And while we have no control over this on our current schedule, let's say for hypothetical purposes that Michigan was a typical top 15 Michigan team
The 2009 schedule looked something like this instead. 6 home games, 5 road games, 1 neutral game against a quality opponent
S05 NEVADA
S12 @ Michigan
S19 MICHIGAN ST.
S26 @ Purdue
O03 WASHINGTON
O17 SOUTHERN CAL
O24 @ Pittsburgh
O31 Georgia Tech(San Antonio)
N07 NAVY
N14 @ Tennessee
N21 BOSTON COLLEGE
N28 @ Stanford
How would your expectations change?? Would they still be at 10-2 or 11-1 or would you be more inclined to talk about 9 wins or even 8 wins considering how difficult that schedule would appear to be on paper? If we were playing USC, a top 15 Michigan team, Tennessee on the road, a quality ranked GT team at a neutral site, and all of the other traditional thorns in our side (BC, MSU, etc), that would be a difficult schedule but also something closer to what we have played in the recent past under Davie and Willingham and even Weis until this year.
I understand obviously that our final record is important, but I almost feel like too much is being made of what our final record is going to be this season. I'm really more interested in seeing HOW we look this year. If we go 10-2 with some squeakers over a bunch of 6-7 win teams and get plowed in our bowl game, it would be hard for me to get real excited and call it a "great" season. It would feel a lot like the 2006 season. On the other hand, if we played the schedule above and went 9-3 with a win at Tennessee and over a good Michigan team but got tripped up by GT and USC and maybe MSU, I think I might still classify that as a successful season. And if we won the bowl game under that scenario, you could make an argument that it would be the best ND football season since 1993.
This season is sort of shaping up in my mind to be a lot like the 2000 season under Bob Davie. The schedule that year was unusually soft with Nebraska as the only truly "great" team on the schedule. We were very fortunate to go 9-2 against a pretty weak schedule, and the abomination at the Fiesta Bowl against Oregon State confirmed that we were really not all that great. If anything, Bob Davie's support was probably at its weakest level after that season ended even though that was probably his best year. He had done enough to save his job that year, but you culd sort of see the writing on the wall heading into the 2001 season. Although I'll be honest in admitting that I was probably predicting a win at Nebraska that year and an 11-0 season under the leadership of Matt Lovecchio.
I know everyone has decided that 2009 is the "make or break" year for Charlie Weis, but this current schedule will almost make it hard to determine how good we are. If we go 10-2 next year, will we even be ranked in the top 15?? I guess we would be if we dominate people like in 2005, but there are going to be very few (if any) quality wins on the schedule if we end up 10-2.
With that said, I certainly would not advocate firing Charlie Weis after this year if he goes 10-2 or even 9-3 against this schedule. I think a 10-2 season would be a great improvement from last year, and it might even be a sign that we are on our way to consistently excellent teams. Weis' biggest difficulty thus far has been that he has needed a long time to understand what it takes to be a head coach in college, so a 10-2 season would be a sign that the learning curve for Weis is getting easier.
My opinion of Charlie Weis is that he is going to be the John Cooper of Notre Dame football. A guy who took longer than expected to get comfortable in his surroundings but recruited well and then eventually started to produce some really really good teams. Ohio State had some outstanding and very talented teams in the 90s under Cooper, it took him almost ten years to get to that point. I think that might be what happens with Charlie (although hopefully much sooner than that of course). Cooper has somewhat of a bad name in Columbus, but I think he laid the foundation for what Ohio State football has become under Tressel. I think Weis is doing that as well at ND, and maybe he'll eventually do even more.
In the long term, I think the investment in Charlie could pay off. But I think it will be tough to tell whether Charlie is truly a "great one" just based on the 2009 season. A successful 2009 season could be a springboard to a series of great seasons, but it could also be a mirage that gets exposed in the years after (like the 2000 season under Davie).
Let's say for hypothetical purposes that we had discarded the Kevin White/Swarbrick model of 7-4-1 scheduling and had adopted a more traditional Notre Dame schedule for this 2009 season.
For example:
- Instead of playing Washington State in San Antonio, substitute Georgia Tech
- Instead of playing 7 home games and using that 7th game for UConn, we were playing our traditional "home and home" arrangements and had Tennessee on the road
- And while we have no control over this on our current schedule, let's say for hypothetical purposes that Michigan was a typical top 15 Michigan team
The 2009 schedule looked something like this instead. 6 home games, 5 road games, 1 neutral game against a quality opponent
S05 NEVADA
S12 @ Michigan
S19 MICHIGAN ST.
S26 @ Purdue
O03 WASHINGTON
O17 SOUTHERN CAL
O24 @ Pittsburgh
O31 Georgia Tech(San Antonio)
N07 NAVY
N14 @ Tennessee
N21 BOSTON COLLEGE
N28 @ Stanford
How would your expectations change?? Would they still be at 10-2 or 11-1 or would you be more inclined to talk about 9 wins or even 8 wins considering how difficult that schedule would appear to be on paper? If we were playing USC, a top 15 Michigan team, Tennessee on the road, a quality ranked GT team at a neutral site, and all of the other traditional thorns in our side (BC, MSU, etc), that would be a difficult schedule but also something closer to what we have played in the recent past under Davie and Willingham and even Weis until this year.
I understand obviously that our final record is important, but I almost feel like too much is being made of what our final record is going to be this season. I'm really more interested in seeing HOW we look this year. If we go 10-2 with some squeakers over a bunch of 6-7 win teams and get plowed in our bowl game, it would be hard for me to get real excited and call it a "great" season. It would feel a lot like the 2006 season. On the other hand, if we played the schedule above and went 9-3 with a win at Tennessee and over a good Michigan team but got tripped up by GT and USC and maybe MSU, I think I might still classify that as a successful season. And if we won the bowl game under that scenario, you could make an argument that it would be the best ND football season since 1993.
This season is sort of shaping up in my mind to be a lot like the 2000 season under Bob Davie. The schedule that year was unusually soft with Nebraska as the only truly "great" team on the schedule. We were very fortunate to go 9-2 against a pretty weak schedule, and the abomination at the Fiesta Bowl against Oregon State confirmed that we were really not all that great. If anything, Bob Davie's support was probably at its weakest level after that season ended even though that was probably his best year. He had done enough to save his job that year, but you culd sort of see the writing on the wall heading into the 2001 season. Although I'll be honest in admitting that I was probably predicting a win at Nebraska that year and an 11-0 season under the leadership of Matt Lovecchio.
I know everyone has decided that 2009 is the "make or break" year for Charlie Weis, but this current schedule will almost make it hard to determine how good we are. If we go 10-2 next year, will we even be ranked in the top 15?? I guess we would be if we dominate people like in 2005, but there are going to be very few (if any) quality wins on the schedule if we end up 10-2.
With that said, I certainly would not advocate firing Charlie Weis after this year if he goes 10-2 or even 9-3 against this schedule. I think a 10-2 season would be a great improvement from last year, and it might even be a sign that we are on our way to consistently excellent teams. Weis' biggest difficulty thus far has been that he has needed a long time to understand what it takes to be a head coach in college, so a 10-2 season would be a sign that the learning curve for Weis is getting easier.
My opinion of Charlie Weis is that he is going to be the John Cooper of Notre Dame football. A guy who took longer than expected to get comfortable in his surroundings but recruited well and then eventually started to produce some really really good teams. Ohio State had some outstanding and very talented teams in the 90s under Cooper, it took him almost ten years to get to that point. I think that might be what happens with Charlie (although hopefully much sooner than that of course). Cooper has somewhat of a bad name in Columbus, but I think he laid the foundation for what Ohio State football has become under Tressel. I think Weis is doing that as well at ND, and maybe he'll eventually do even more.
In the long term, I think the investment in Charlie could pay off. But I think it will be tough to tell whether Charlie is truly a "great one" just based on the 2009 season. A successful 2009 season could be a springboard to a series of great seasons, but it could also be a mirage that gets exposed in the years after (like the 2000 season under Davie).
February 11, 2009
Adam Dunn is a Nat
You knew that was coming! If it was possible, Jim Bowden would drag Hal Morris out of retirement and sign him to a minor league contract. If you are an ex-Red from the period of 1995-2005, you have a second career ahead of you in Washington.
In all seriousness, I actually like this move for the Nats. It's a 2 year deal for $20 million for a guy who wanted a 6 year deal and $100 million. You get a guy in his prime who is going to be motivated to play for a better contract in a couple years when the economy turns around. Sounds like he's going to play first base, so the defense issue won't be as problematic.
Adam Dunn comes with his flaws (shaky defense and baserunning, tons of strikeouts with men on base in scoring position, and some horrific slumps that make you wonder if he will ever get another hit again), but here's what he's done in the last 5 years:
2004 - 105 runs, 46 homers, 102 RBI, .956 OPS
2005 - 107 runs, 40 homers, 101 RBI, .927 OPS
2006 - 99 runs, 40 homers, 92 RBI, .855 OPS
2007 - 101 runs, 40 homers, 106 RBI, .940 OPS
2008 - 79 runs, 40 homers, 100 RBI, .900 OPS
In other words, he's going to give you power and production for about $10 million a year. 40 bombs and a 900+ OPS. Not bad. You could say he's a poor man's Ryan Howard, but he's really more like a middle class man's Ryan Howard. He's not going to be a reliable #3 hitter or anything, but you can do worse than having a guy like Dunn somewhere in your lineup. Yea, he strikes out a ton, but he also gets on base at a ridiculous clip. If he's drawing 120 walks a year, you are going to have a bunch of guys coming up with men on base.
Now, I will guarantee that DC fans turn on Dunn in a hurry. He's an incredibly divisive player, and "old school" fans will complain about his low batting average and the strikeouts and the bad defense. I'm not going to lie that I'm happy that the Reds have moved on from the Adam Dunn era and are choosing to build the middle of the order around Votto and Bruce. But I certainly wouldn't have a problem with Dunn still being out in left field for $10 million on this current Reds team. There aren't many guys with his power in major league baseball.
Anyway, here's what the Nats look like heading into 2009:
C - Jesus Flores
First Base - Adam Dunn
Second Base - Anderson Hernandez
Third Base - Ryan Zimmerman
Shortstop - Cristian Guzman
Left Field - Josh Willingham
Centerfield - Lastings Milledge
Right Field - Elijah Dukes
Pitchers:
Scott Olsen
Daniel Cabrera
John Lannan
Colin Balester
Odalis Perez
Let's be honest, that's an awful team that will probably be lucky to win 60 games, but they haven't had that bad of an offseason. They've added Olsen, Willingham, Cabrera, and now Dunn. You could make a case that those are their best four players now. Between Dunn and Willingham and Milledge and maybe even Elijah Dukes, they have some things to work with in that lineup. And if Zimmerman has a bounce back year, he could be a young cornerstone.
At some point, the Nats are going to have to start developing some players. Jim Bowden has been a disaster so far as the Nats GM. I don't know how he still has a job. The guy has been there for a few years, and there isn't really anything to show for it as far as young players that they've developed. I like some of his acquisitions (Olsen, Milledge, etc), but I've come to realize that Bowden is a guy who lives to acquire intriguing players but never really has a plan of action to actually win ball games.
In all seriousness, I actually like this move for the Nats. It's a 2 year deal for $20 million for a guy who wanted a 6 year deal and $100 million. You get a guy in his prime who is going to be motivated to play for a better contract in a couple years when the economy turns around. Sounds like he's going to play first base, so the defense issue won't be as problematic.
Adam Dunn comes with his flaws (shaky defense and baserunning, tons of strikeouts with men on base in scoring position, and some horrific slumps that make you wonder if he will ever get another hit again), but here's what he's done in the last 5 years:
2004 - 105 runs, 46 homers, 102 RBI, .956 OPS
2005 - 107 runs, 40 homers, 101 RBI, .927 OPS
2006 - 99 runs, 40 homers, 92 RBI, .855 OPS
2007 - 101 runs, 40 homers, 106 RBI, .940 OPS
2008 - 79 runs, 40 homers, 100 RBI, .900 OPS
In other words, he's going to give you power and production for about $10 million a year. 40 bombs and a 900+ OPS. Not bad. You could say he's a poor man's Ryan Howard, but he's really more like a middle class man's Ryan Howard. He's not going to be a reliable #3 hitter or anything, but you can do worse than having a guy like Dunn somewhere in your lineup. Yea, he strikes out a ton, but he also gets on base at a ridiculous clip. If he's drawing 120 walks a year, you are going to have a bunch of guys coming up with men on base.
Now, I will guarantee that DC fans turn on Dunn in a hurry. He's an incredibly divisive player, and "old school" fans will complain about his low batting average and the strikeouts and the bad defense. I'm not going to lie that I'm happy that the Reds have moved on from the Adam Dunn era and are choosing to build the middle of the order around Votto and Bruce. But I certainly wouldn't have a problem with Dunn still being out in left field for $10 million on this current Reds team. There aren't many guys with his power in major league baseball.
Anyway, here's what the Nats look like heading into 2009:
C - Jesus Flores
First Base - Adam Dunn
Second Base - Anderson Hernandez
Third Base - Ryan Zimmerman
Shortstop - Cristian Guzman
Left Field - Josh Willingham
Centerfield - Lastings Milledge
Right Field - Elijah Dukes
Pitchers:
Scott Olsen
Daniel Cabrera
John Lannan
Colin Balester
Odalis Perez
Let's be honest, that's an awful team that will probably be lucky to win 60 games, but they haven't had that bad of an offseason. They've added Olsen, Willingham, Cabrera, and now Dunn. You could make a case that those are their best four players now. Between Dunn and Willingham and Milledge and maybe even Elijah Dukes, they have some things to work with in that lineup. And if Zimmerman has a bounce back year, he could be a young cornerstone.
At some point, the Nats are going to have to start developing some players. Jim Bowden has been a disaster so far as the Nats GM. I don't know how he still has a job. The guy has been there for a few years, and there isn't really anything to show for it as far as young players that they've developed. I like some of his acquisitions (Olsen, Milledge, etc), but I've come to realize that Bowden is a guy who lives to acquire intriguing players but never really has a plan of action to actually win ball games.
US-Mexico
Wow, after watching that intro for the US-Mexico World Cup qualifier, I'm legitimately fired up! That duel national anthem thing was cool.
Seems like there is a sizeable Mexican crowd at this game. Didn't realize there were that many Mexicans in Columbus. I think I've represented a couple of the fans in the crowd on No Operator's License charges. I could all but guarantee that Columbus Police is going to have a DUI/No Ops checkpoint on the north side of the city tonight.
Question for soccer fans, why do they do that intro with the little kids holding hands with the players?? Is that some sort of sportsmanship thing?? Part of me thinks it is cool, but also potentially a little creepy.
ESPN2 is hilarious by the way. I haven't watched the Deuce in a long time other than for Mike and Mike. It's all commercials for bass fishing and strongman and BMX bikes and other auto racing stuff. Maybe it's time for a ESPN2-Versus merger or something.
Go USA. World Cup soccer is pretty underrated.
Seems like there is a sizeable Mexican crowd at this game. Didn't realize there were that many Mexicans in Columbus. I think I've represented a couple of the fans in the crowd on No Operator's License charges. I could all but guarantee that Columbus Police is going to have a DUI/No Ops checkpoint on the north side of the city tonight.
Question for soccer fans, why do they do that intro with the little kids holding hands with the players?? Is that some sort of sportsmanship thing?? Part of me thinks it is cool, but also potentially a little creepy.
ESPN2 is hilarious by the way. I haven't watched the Deuce in a long time other than for Mike and Mike. It's all commercials for bass fishing and strongman and BMX bikes and other auto racing stuff. Maybe it's time for a ESPN2-Versus merger or something.
Go USA. World Cup soccer is pretty underrated.
The Four Best Words in Sports...and More...
GENTLEMEN, START YOUR ENGINES!
Oh, wait, that's just the South rubbing off on me. Ok, so no one else may be pumped for the Daytona 500, but I think everyone loves the sweet sound of...
PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT
I don't care how downtrodden the economy is, who or how many people have taken steroids, or what the outlook of your favorite team is. There's something special about pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. I've actually talked myself into this years Braves team, and have my fingers crossed that they sign Bob Abreu or Adam Dunn on a one year $4 million deal. More on that in a second.
-Here's one man's opinion of the A-Rod situation. I think it's great that he admitted to something, instead of apologizing for nothing (Giambi), denying it (Clemens and Bonds) or some other lame statement. But his whole, "the truth has set me free" and acting like he was coming forward with this info is the biggest steaming pile of crap that I've ever heard. Yo, A-Rod. You got busted! You aren't volunteering this information. You got caught and now you are just trying to cover your ass. Also, his claims that Selena Roberts has been stalking him and breaking into his apartment is apparently completely bogus, if you believe Roberts.
-I'm sick of the Steroids Era. Here's the list of players that I know didn't take steroids:
I'm pretty sure that Greg Maddux was not on the juice, but at this point no one gets the benefit of the doubt. Let's just move on. Bud Selig was practically visiting McGuire and Sosa at their lockers during the summer of '98 and making sure they had taken their daily dose of roids. Hitters on the juice were hitting homeruns off of pitchers on the juice. The fact that Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez will never get into the Baseball Hall of Fame is a flat out joke. Their careers happened, they were incredible players with or without the roids, and you cannot begin to mention the history of baseball without those three guys. That's my take on that.
-I've talked myself into this Braves team. I like their pitching, whether or not Tom Glavine accepts their $1 million dollar offer. Derek Lowe may have a ridiculous contract, but now that the ink is dry and there is nothing that can be done about it, I like what he brings to the team. Last year, the Braves had far too many games where the starter got knocked out in the 3rd or 4th inning and the bullpen got severely overworked. I REALLY would like to see them take some money that they say they still have to spend and go sign Bob Abreu or Adam Dunn. Right now, the starting outfield is Jeff Francouer (ugh), Josh Anderson or Gregor Blanco in CF (unless Jordan Schafer blows up this spring) and Matt Diaz in left. That is not a contending outfield. That unit will be lucky to hit 30 homerruns combined. Anyway, with the state of the Braves in recent years, I feel like a Royals or Pirates fan heading into spring training. I've talked myself into the offseason moves and if everything breaks right I could see the Braves in contention in August. In reality, they will probably be in 4th place by the All Star Break.
-I just wanted to throw my two cents in on this Irish basketball season. I think the problem has been twofold. One, the system and personnel has gotten stale. Kyle McAlarney has been running off screens for it seems like 5 years. Everyone in the Big East knows that. He has never developed a dribble drive game, and the offense has not really changed at all since Brey has been here. Brey hasn't really introduced any new players in two years. You just can't do that in the Big East. With the emphasis that teams like Louisville, Pitt, Georgetown and UConn place on defense, you have to constantly be reinventing either your system or your personnel. Brey has done neither. The second problem is the talent level. Comparing our roster to the aforementioned teams and even those like Nova and Marquette is a joke. Look, I'm sure that Ayers and Hillesland are tremendous guys and student athletes. But they just aren't good enough to be key pieces on championship caliber teams. They are fine as 6th, 7th or 8th men. Brey has to find a way to upgrade the talent pool. We need guys like Jerel McNeal or Terrence Williams, slashers or guys that hit the boards relentlessly. I think that Brey can still get this thing turned around long term, but he has to get Nash and Scott as many minutes as possible this year. Time to thank Ayers, Hillesland and Zeller for their contributions and give them each about 15-2o minutes a game.
-Lastly, I had to give my thoughts on the Sixers. First, I couldn't have been more wrong about Marreese Speights. The guy is going to be a star. I had heard that he had weight issues and character issues while at Florida. When I went to a game at the O-Dome last March, the locals booed him off the court for lack of hustle and dumb fouls. Everybody was hoping he would go pro so they could be rid of him. But I give him credit. He has been a team player and is in great shape and is producing big time. A core of Speights, Dalembert, Iguoudala, Thad Young and Lou Williams is pretty solid. Unfortunately, there is the huge contract of Elton Brand sitting on the books. He is a square peg in a round hole. Everyone already realizes it's not going to work, but they really can't do to much about it at this point. He is an aging power forward who has now missed most of the last two seasons. Not exactly great trade material.
-If there has been a better performance than LeBron's 52-9-11 in the non-Jordan category in the last 20 years, I'm not aware of it. The fact that he is only 24 is just scary. Is there any doubt that he will be the greatest of all time? Despite the loss to LA, I still think the Cavs win the championship this year.
Oh, wait, that's just the South rubbing off on me. Ok, so no one else may be pumped for the Daytona 500, but I think everyone loves the sweet sound of...
PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT
I don't care how downtrodden the economy is, who or how many people have taken steroids, or what the outlook of your favorite team is. There's something special about pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. I've actually talked myself into this years Braves team, and have my fingers crossed that they sign Bob Abreu or Adam Dunn on a one year $4 million deal. More on that in a second.
-Here's one man's opinion of the A-Rod situation. I think it's great that he admitted to something, instead of apologizing for nothing (Giambi), denying it (Clemens and Bonds) or some other lame statement. But his whole, "the truth has set me free" and acting like he was coming forward with this info is the biggest steaming pile of crap that I've ever heard. Yo, A-Rod. You got busted! You aren't volunteering this information. You got caught and now you are just trying to cover your ass. Also, his claims that Selena Roberts has been stalking him and breaking into his apartment is apparently completely bogus, if you believe Roberts.
-I'm sick of the Steroids Era. Here's the list of players that I know didn't take steroids:
I'm pretty sure that Greg Maddux was not on the juice, but at this point no one gets the benefit of the doubt. Let's just move on. Bud Selig was practically visiting McGuire and Sosa at their lockers during the summer of '98 and making sure they had taken their daily dose of roids. Hitters on the juice were hitting homeruns off of pitchers on the juice. The fact that Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez will never get into the Baseball Hall of Fame is a flat out joke. Their careers happened, they were incredible players with or without the roids, and you cannot begin to mention the history of baseball without those three guys. That's my take on that.
-I've talked myself into this Braves team. I like their pitching, whether or not Tom Glavine accepts their $1 million dollar offer. Derek Lowe may have a ridiculous contract, but now that the ink is dry and there is nothing that can be done about it, I like what he brings to the team. Last year, the Braves had far too many games where the starter got knocked out in the 3rd or 4th inning and the bullpen got severely overworked. I REALLY would like to see them take some money that they say they still have to spend and go sign Bob Abreu or Adam Dunn. Right now, the starting outfield is Jeff Francouer (ugh), Josh Anderson or Gregor Blanco in CF (unless Jordan Schafer blows up this spring) and Matt Diaz in left. That is not a contending outfield. That unit will be lucky to hit 30 homerruns combined. Anyway, with the state of the Braves in recent years, I feel like a Royals or Pirates fan heading into spring training. I've talked myself into the offseason moves and if everything breaks right I could see the Braves in contention in August. In reality, they will probably be in 4th place by the All Star Break.
-I just wanted to throw my two cents in on this Irish basketball season. I think the problem has been twofold. One, the system and personnel has gotten stale. Kyle McAlarney has been running off screens for it seems like 5 years. Everyone in the Big East knows that. He has never developed a dribble drive game, and the offense has not really changed at all since Brey has been here. Brey hasn't really introduced any new players in two years. You just can't do that in the Big East. With the emphasis that teams like Louisville, Pitt, Georgetown and UConn place on defense, you have to constantly be reinventing either your system or your personnel. Brey has done neither. The second problem is the talent level. Comparing our roster to the aforementioned teams and even those like Nova and Marquette is a joke. Look, I'm sure that Ayers and Hillesland are tremendous guys and student athletes. But they just aren't good enough to be key pieces on championship caliber teams. They are fine as 6th, 7th or 8th men. Brey has to find a way to upgrade the talent pool. We need guys like Jerel McNeal or Terrence Williams, slashers or guys that hit the boards relentlessly. I think that Brey can still get this thing turned around long term, but he has to get Nash and Scott as many minutes as possible this year. Time to thank Ayers, Hillesland and Zeller for their contributions and give them each about 15-2o minutes a game.
-Lastly, I had to give my thoughts on the Sixers. First, I couldn't have been more wrong about Marreese Speights. The guy is going to be a star. I had heard that he had weight issues and character issues while at Florida. When I went to a game at the O-Dome last March, the locals booed him off the court for lack of hustle and dumb fouls. Everybody was hoping he would go pro so they could be rid of him. But I give him credit. He has been a team player and is in great shape and is producing big time. A core of Speights, Dalembert, Iguoudala, Thad Young and Lou Williams is pretty solid. Unfortunately, there is the huge contract of Elton Brand sitting on the books. He is a square peg in a round hole. Everyone already realizes it's not going to work, but they really can't do to much about it at this point. He is an aging power forward who has now missed most of the last two seasons. Not exactly great trade material.
-If there has been a better performance than LeBron's 52-9-11 in the non-Jordan category in the last 20 years, I'm not aware of it. The fact that he is only 24 is just scary. Is there any doubt that he will be the greatest of all time? Despite the loss to LA, I still think the Cavs win the championship this year.
February 10, 2009
Texas 2010 recruiting class
Check out Texas' recruiting class so far for 2010.
They have ten recruits so far!! TEN!! And it's not even Valentine's Day yet. These kids won't sign their letter of intents for another year. Wow. They don't call Mack Brown "Mr. February" for nothing.
Just did a quick glance at some of the other "heavweights" out there, and I didn't see any other school with more than four recruits. Even a school like Florida with all that in-state talent only has four guys so far.
Every one of the kids already committed to Texas is from the state of Texas. Heck, three of the kids are from the town of Garland, Texas. That is amazing. One of these years, Mack Brown is going to have his entire recruiting class filled by the end of February.
I would say that Texas is the easiest recruiting job in the country with all that talent in their backyard, but I'll hand it to Mack Brown for taking advantage of what he has to work with. He certainly doesn't goof around. He identifies the kids that he wants, and he locks them up. And he has a top 5 class every year. In his eyes, he wants the kids who really want to go to Texas, and those are the early commits.
I always knew that Texas had a lot of Texas kids, but I never realized the extent of it. They are ENTIRELY a team of Texas kids. Texas brought in 20 players in this 2009 recruiting class. Every one of those kids was from the state of Texas. In 2008, Texas brought in 19 players. 18 of the 19 were from Texas. 2007 was more of the same. Only one out of state kid. You could probably count the number of out of state kids on that roster on one hand. Even a school like Florida gets some kids from New Jersey and Ohio and Indiana and Georgia. Mack Brown basically made the decision to put a fence around Texas, and it seems like he doesn't even have an interest in making a play for national guys.
One downside is that his style of recruiting doesn't really leave any room for some late bloomers or undecideds. If Mack Brown has already taken 3 DL in April, he's not getting that 5 star stud DL that might want to wait until January at the Army All-American game to make his decision. That probably works to the advantage of Bob Stoops and some of these other coaches that come down to Texas to poach kids from out of state. If Mack has his whole class locked up by April, Stoops and company can come down to Texas all fall and zero in on the late bloomers and the kids who have a tough time making their mind up. USC and Florida always seem to hold out space in their classes to get 5 star types late in the process, but Texas is all about locking up the early commits. If anything, that helps to explain why OU always seems to have just as much talent as Texas. They are more flexible in recruiting, so they can swoop in and get players when Mack's classes are already filled up. It's not a criticism of Mack Brown, but I think it's a reality of what is going on.
Not sure which way is the best to go, but it's not like Mack Brown is hurting for talent. I can't get over the fact that they already have 10 verbal commits.
Anyway, thought that was really interesting.
They have ten recruits so far!! TEN!! And it's not even Valentine's Day yet. These kids won't sign their letter of intents for another year. Wow. They don't call Mack Brown "Mr. February" for nothing.
Just did a quick glance at some of the other "heavweights" out there, and I didn't see any other school with more than four recruits. Even a school like Florida with all that in-state talent only has four guys so far.
Every one of the kids already committed to Texas is from the state of Texas. Heck, three of the kids are from the town of Garland, Texas. That is amazing. One of these years, Mack Brown is going to have his entire recruiting class filled by the end of February.
I would say that Texas is the easiest recruiting job in the country with all that talent in their backyard, but I'll hand it to Mack Brown for taking advantage of what he has to work with. He certainly doesn't goof around. He identifies the kids that he wants, and he locks them up. And he has a top 5 class every year. In his eyes, he wants the kids who really want to go to Texas, and those are the early commits.
I always knew that Texas had a lot of Texas kids, but I never realized the extent of it. They are ENTIRELY a team of Texas kids. Texas brought in 20 players in this 2009 recruiting class. Every one of those kids was from the state of Texas. In 2008, Texas brought in 19 players. 18 of the 19 were from Texas. 2007 was more of the same. Only one out of state kid. You could probably count the number of out of state kids on that roster on one hand. Even a school like Florida gets some kids from New Jersey and Ohio and Indiana and Georgia. Mack Brown basically made the decision to put a fence around Texas, and it seems like he doesn't even have an interest in making a play for national guys.
One downside is that his style of recruiting doesn't really leave any room for some late bloomers or undecideds. If Mack Brown has already taken 3 DL in April, he's not getting that 5 star stud DL that might want to wait until January at the Army All-American game to make his decision. That probably works to the advantage of Bob Stoops and some of these other coaches that come down to Texas to poach kids from out of state. If Mack has his whole class locked up by April, Stoops and company can come down to Texas all fall and zero in on the late bloomers and the kids who have a tough time making their mind up. USC and Florida always seem to hold out space in their classes to get 5 star types late in the process, but Texas is all about locking up the early commits. If anything, that helps to explain why OU always seems to have just as much talent as Texas. They are more flexible in recruiting, so they can swoop in and get players when Mack's classes are already filled up. It's not a criticism of Mack Brown, but I think it's a reality of what is going on.
Not sure which way is the best to go, but it's not like Mack Brown is hurting for talent. I can't get over the fact that they already have 10 verbal commits.
Anyway, thought that was really interesting.
Tate Forcier
Interesting article on this Tate Forcier guy who has just enrolled at Michigan.
Should be interesting to see if this guy wins the job right out of the gate at Michigan. If he is starting as a freshman, there are definitely going to be some growing pains. But if he is the real deal, I think Michigan will probably be a significantly better team next year by the end of the year. From an ND perspective, I'm glad we are getting them early next year. I think they are going to struggle again out of the gate and then probably start hitting their stride in the second half of the year. By 2010, I think Michigan will be competing for Big 10 championships again.
I think people are writing off the Rich Rodgriguez era a little too early. He has had a ton of bumps in the road so far, but you can see where that program is going. He has a couple duel threat QB options now, and he is recruiting a bunch of speedsters from Florida and the rest of the south. It's strange to think of Michigan as an Oregon type program that relies on speed, but look at what these offenses are doing around the country. Florida, Oregon, Oklahoma State, etc. If you can run that offense with the right parts, it is deadly. The key is to get the ball to your playmakers in space, and to have a quarterback who can run and throw. Michigan is starting to accumulate those players. They are still in transition, but I don't think the transition phase will last much longer.
Maybe I'll be wrong about Michigan and Rodriguez falls on his face another year before getting fired. Maybe he's their Tyrone Willingham. But I certainly wouldn't bet on it.
I'm actually surprised at all the Rodriguez bashers from the Michigan fanbase. What exactly has Michigan given up by going in a new direction with Rich Rod?? Look at their last seven years under Lloyd Carr:
2001 Michigan 8-4 6-2 2nd L Citrus Bowl
2002 Michigan 10-3 6-2 3rd W Outback Bowl
2003 Michigan 10-3 7-1 1st L Rose Bowl †
2004 Michigan 9-3 7-1 T-1st L Rose Bowl †
2005 Michigan 7-5 5-3 T-3rd L Alamo Bowl
2006 Michigan 11-2 7-1 T-2nd L Rose Bowl †
2007 Michigan 9-4 6-2 T-2nd W Capital One Bowl
In other words, he was a safe bet to go around 9-3 every year and lose a bowl game and lose to Ohio State. Those are some sort of glory years to cling to?? If they had stuck to hiring a typical "Michigan Man" who recruited the Midwest, they'd probably be staring at a series of 8-9 win seasons and bowl losses for the next decade. Instead, they went with a guy who is recruiting heavily in the south and is bringing a brand new style of offense to the Big 10. It's a gamble, but it's not like Michigan was in some incredible position when Lloyd Carr retired.
2009 is looking more and more like a critical year for Notre Dame football. Not only do we have Charlie Weis with his back against the wall, but I have a feeling that Michigan and Michigan State are going to both be forces to deal with in future years. Every year after 2009, we will probably be dealing with a rejuvenated Michigan, and we have Dantonio building things in East Lansing. We cannot afford to lose to Michigan next year. A loss to them next year while they are still in transition would probably signal that we are still stuck in the mud as a football program.
Should be interesting to see if this guy wins the job right out of the gate at Michigan. If he is starting as a freshman, there are definitely going to be some growing pains. But if he is the real deal, I think Michigan will probably be a significantly better team next year by the end of the year. From an ND perspective, I'm glad we are getting them early next year. I think they are going to struggle again out of the gate and then probably start hitting their stride in the second half of the year. By 2010, I think Michigan will be competing for Big 10 championships again.
I think people are writing off the Rich Rodgriguez era a little too early. He has had a ton of bumps in the road so far, but you can see where that program is going. He has a couple duel threat QB options now, and he is recruiting a bunch of speedsters from Florida and the rest of the south. It's strange to think of Michigan as an Oregon type program that relies on speed, but look at what these offenses are doing around the country. Florida, Oregon, Oklahoma State, etc. If you can run that offense with the right parts, it is deadly. The key is to get the ball to your playmakers in space, and to have a quarterback who can run and throw. Michigan is starting to accumulate those players. They are still in transition, but I don't think the transition phase will last much longer.
Maybe I'll be wrong about Michigan and Rodriguez falls on his face another year before getting fired. Maybe he's their Tyrone Willingham. But I certainly wouldn't bet on it.
I'm actually surprised at all the Rodriguez bashers from the Michigan fanbase. What exactly has Michigan given up by going in a new direction with Rich Rod?? Look at their last seven years under Lloyd Carr:
2001 Michigan 8-4 6-2 2nd L Citrus Bowl
2002 Michigan 10-3 6-2 3rd W Outback Bowl
2003 Michigan 10-3 7-1 1st L Rose Bowl †
2004 Michigan 9-3 7-1 T-1st L Rose Bowl †
2005 Michigan 7-5 5-3 T-3rd L Alamo Bowl
2006 Michigan 11-2 7-1 T-2nd L Rose Bowl †
2007 Michigan 9-4 6-2 T-2nd W Capital One Bowl
In other words, he was a safe bet to go around 9-3 every year and lose a bowl game and lose to Ohio State. Those are some sort of glory years to cling to?? If they had stuck to hiring a typical "Michigan Man" who recruited the Midwest, they'd probably be staring at a series of 8-9 win seasons and bowl losses for the next decade. Instead, they went with a guy who is recruiting heavily in the south and is bringing a brand new style of offense to the Big 10. It's a gamble, but it's not like Michigan was in some incredible position when Lloyd Carr retired.
2009 is looking more and more like a critical year for Notre Dame football. Not only do we have Charlie Weis with his back against the wall, but I have a feeling that Michigan and Michigan State are going to both be forces to deal with in future years. Every year after 2009, we will probably be dealing with a rejuvenated Michigan, and we have Dantonio building things in East Lansing. We cannot afford to lose to Michigan next year. A loss to them next year while they are still in transition would probably signal that we are still stuck in the mud as a football program.
February 07, 2009
One Shining Moment 1987
You have to love the frozen frame of Pete Gillen imploring his Musketeers to stay in control. The first two minutes of credits roll as #32 Steve Eyl and #44 Joe Hillman cut down the nets (two guys you've never heard of, unless your name is R. Soni and you watch this clip reverentially, like brushing your teeth, every day and sometimes twice or thrice). Immediately, we're back in the 80's with upper thigh-hugging shorts, curly perms on the cheerleaders and vintage collegiate garb in the stands. What gets me is the cutaway shots of Derrick Coleman, Rony Seikaly and the 'Cuse team sitting dejected on the bench watching the Hoosiers celebrate. They couldn't go to the locker room? They have to be Debbie Downers for the debut of OSM? Was Boeheim teaching them a lesson? Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
At the 1:49 mark, the familiar song begins with the requisite montage of mascots, bands, cheerleaders and general pomp before "The ball is tipped," and on cue, an opening tip. The formula hasn't changed one iota over the years - collect the most memorable faces and moments from the tournament and put them in a compelling order. Mix elation with heartbreak, dramatically building up to the Final Four and ending with the crowning of a new champion.
So much to like in this relic from the past. Scanning the brackets, I was pleasantly surprised to find Notre Dame a five seed. Little did I know that Digger Phelps led the Irish to the Sweet Sixteen, losing a close game to the Tar Heels, who, in turn succumbed to the Orangemen. Gotta love the guy at 2:13 taking a raspberry for the team while earning some Dutch Boy hustle points. Somewhere, a young, impressionable Brian Cardinal was watching and took note of the knee brace that allowed this caucasian to play with reckless abandon. Next, a young admiral in the Navy dunks on the Wolverines followed by The Shark chomping his towel like it's a cheeseburger. At 2:23, the Hoosiers pull off a textbook 3-man fast break, ball never touching the floor. The hits keep coming as JR Reid reaches the apex of his basketball career, taking it to the tin against the Irish. Kevin Gamble sinks a buzzer beater as Iowa beats Oklahoma (Iowa was a monster that year at 30-5, eventually sending 5 players to the League). The usual suspects of coaches make grand appearances: Bobby Cremins, Jim Boeheim, quasi-avoiding a Gatorade shower, Bobby Knight being The General at the scorekeeper's table, and Rick Pitino hugging Billy Donovan, the player, en route to Providence's Final Four run.
Everything culminates with "The Shot", as it's known in Hoosier circles, Keith Smart's hanging jumper from the left baseline sealing the deal. Unfortunately missing from OSM is Billy Packer shouting "Nobody stopped the clock! Nobody stopped the clock!" and Steve Eyl scaling new heights in his vertical leap of celebration, even testing his Petr Korda scissor-kick a couple times. The NCAA Tournament wouldn't be the same with One Shining Moment in the mix. The ultimate tourney capper has kept the hits coming non-stop for 22 years. Stay tuned for more OSM recaps.
February 06, 2009
Big East Power Poll - First Half Edition
Since we're essentially one-half of the way through another exciting season of Big East hoops, I figured it was time for a power poll. I'm not going straight off conference standings. Just off my gut and what I've seen so far. Football is all over, and it's time for America to start focusing on college basketball again.
So here goes:
16) DePaul - 8-15 (0-10)
Rough times at DePaul these days. They have a legitimate shot to go 0-18 in the league this year. Has anyone ever done that?? The only winable games I see on that schedule are St. Johns and Seton Hall at home. They are far from a lock to win either one, especially if the team has packed it in on Jerry Wainwright.
Sounds like DePaul's AD is saying that Wainwright is going to be back next year (the dreaded vote of confidence!), but is that really the smart thing to do?? He's not recruiting all that poorly, but it seems like that program is falling apart. I'm not privy to any info about DePaul, but it seems like things are really bottoming out at DePaul.
Here's Wainwright's quote on Andy Katz's blog about his team:
If there is a team or program that Wainwright wants to model, it's Pitt. He said the Panthers have the right approach: hold onto players for four years, and if lucky, get a local talent that shines. Pitt did that when DeJuan Blair stayed home in Pittsburgh. "We just need that one Chicago guy,'' Wainwright said. "We're doing everything right in order to win.''
I get what he's trying to say here, but he's making it sound like Pitt made their program by landing DeJuan Blair. Cmon, Pitt was a very very strong program for years before DeJuan Blair came on board. Blair wasn't just showing loyalty to Pitt or his hometown. He was going to Pitt because they are a winning program. DePaul isn't "one guy" away from being Pitt or even someone like Providence for that matter.
Here's another quote from Wainwright:
"I take umbrage to anybody who would say we're a disgrace as a program," Wainwright said in response before the Rutgers loss. "Are we where we need to be as a basketball team? Absolutely not. We need to get better. But [the players] have a great attitude and have come together."
But Jerry, you're freaking 0-9 in your league!! You sound like Ty Willingham and Gregg Robinson. Stop "taking umbrage" and start winning games.
Seems like a mess. It's never made any sense to me how DePaul can't put out a competitive program. You would think they could load up on Chicago kids alone and have a solid team.
15) Rutgers - 10-13 (1-9)
Rutgers barely sneaks out the 15th spot on our power poll after that thrilling win over DePaul last week to get their first Big East win of the year.
Rutgers has lost home games to the following schools this year:
St. Bonaventure
Lehigh
Binghamton
Binghamton!! The alma mater of Mr. Tony Kornheiser. And Rutgers lost to the fighting Bearcats of Binghamton (I had to look that up) by 10. Their fans booed them off the court. Good times!
Needless to say, the Fred Hill era is not off to a very good start. One name of note: Greg Echinique. I seem to recall him from ND's recruiting days of yore. Looks like he is averaging around 10 points a game these days for the Scarlet Knights.
One final Rutgers note: Their football program is not going away any time soon. They just pulled in a good recruiting class this year, and it seems like they are opening up some pipelines down in Florida. If Miami continues to flounder, I think Schiano could make some further inroads down there in recruting. And I still believe that Miami would be smart to throw the kitchen sink at Schiano someday to get him down there if/when Randy Shannon doesn't pan out.
14) South Florida - 7-14 (2-7)
Death, taxes, and the South Florida Bulls bringing up the rear in the Big East! You can all but guarantee that they are finishing in the bottom 3 every single year. I bet the Sun Dome has been "rocking" all winter to the tune of 3,500 fans a game.
But don't fret South Florida fans! The Big East is inviting all 16 teams to the Big East Tournament this year! USF is the only league member never to qualify for the conference tournament. So they finally get to make their trip to Madison Square Garden this year. Good for them.
Plus. there's always football. Another top 20ish recruiting class for USF. If they can keep stockpiling the talent down there, they are going to be a force in the Big East.
One other note on USF. Former Ohio State point guard Anthony Crater transferred there earlier in the year after bailing on Thad Matta because he wasn't "furthering his goal of leaving for the NBA after three years" (ok, that's not a direct quote, but it was basically implied). He was recently busted for marijuana possession down in Tampa. I expect his mug shot to be plastered on the front page of every paper in Britain and for a bunch of smug newspaper columnists to take shots at him. Oh wait, I forgot that he's black and wears cornrows and doesn't have the "wholesome, boy next door" look. Anyway, not a good start to the Anthony Crater era in Tampa. He was a big loss for the Buckeyes from a roster standpoint, but it will probably turn out to be a blessing in disguise since he seems like a bad dude. Matta is going to have to find another point guard in the next couple classes to make up for it though.
13) St. Johns - 12-10 (3-7)
I was a little torn here between St. Johns and Seton Hall, but the Hall are a little bit better than the Johnnies this year. St. Johns is going nowhere. I feel like Norm Roberts has been there for about 10 years, and yet they can't seem to get anything going.
But hey, they get to "host" the Big East Tournament this year, so they got that going for them. Speaking of the Big East Tournament, how is this new format going to work?? It seems incredibly complicated now that we have all 16 teams. Here is my understanding of how it is going to work:
Day One:
Teams 9-16 are paired up in 4 games
Day Two:
The winners of the 9-16 games play the 5-8 teams to determine the quarterfinals
Day Three:
Quarterfinals - The 1-4 teams are playing their first games
Day Four:
Semifinals
Day Five:
Finals
This bad boy is starting on Tuesday! It is suddenly a 5 day extravaganza. I absolutely love it as a fan, but could you imagine being the #9 team in this tournament?? The #9 team in the Big East is probably going to be a pretty good team, but they will have to beat the #16 team, the #8 team, the #1 team, the #4/5 team, and then the #2 team to win the Big East Tournament. That is NUTS. Five games. The bottom line is that it is going to be a huge advantage to have a #1-4 seed in this thing, and the difference between #8 and #9 is substantial.
12) Seton Hall - 12-9 (3-6)
Seton Hall is off to a slow start in the league, but if there is anyone in this "bottom five" group that could make push to the middle down the stretch, it is Seton Hall. They are really not that bad of a team. I was moderately impressed by them when they played against ND. They aren't an NCAA team or anything, but certainly better than your typical conference bottomfeeder. Hazell and Harvey are pretty good guards, and they actually had a couple big men who could do some things. Their schedule is much lighter down the stretch, so I could see them making a late push to get to 6-7 wins or something like that.
Seton Hall is a perfect example of why I firmly believe that the Big East as it stands today is not going to last for too long. It is just too big and difficult to handle 16 teams. When you have a pretty good team like Seton Hall struggling to even get to 6 wins in the league, aren't they eventually going to put their hands up and say "we can't handle the losing every year. we're out"?? It must be killing attendance at places like DePaul and Seton Hall when you are trotting out teams that are 1-8 in the league or whatever. At some point, these schools are going to want to do something different I would imagine. Maybe not. Maybe the money in the Big East is worth it.
Here's what I would do if I was the Atlantic 10 Conference. I would make a strong push to try to peel off a couple of these floundering Big East programs like Seton Hall and St. Johns and maybe even Providence (although they have righted the ship a bit). Wouldn't a school like Seton Hall probably be a borderline at-large team coming out of the A-10?? I feel like they would have a new shot of life in that league. If they were sitting at 7-2 in the A-10 right now with a big game coming up against Xavier or something like that, wouldn't fans start coming out to games?? I think there's an argument for being the "big fish in a small pond." Xavier has benefited from being the king of the A-10 instead of some also-ran in a league like the Big East. There is a lot of pride in the winning tradition at Xavier, and the players inherit that legacy when they join the school. They want to live up to the reputation of Xavier basketball. A school like Seton Hall could develop something like that in the A-10. They could really benefit from a change in scenery.
The A-10 is a pretty good league, but they have too many bottomfeeders. If they booted some of the stiffs out of that league like St. Bonnies and Fordham and maybe even LaSalle to the MAAC or the America East or one of those leagues and brought in St. Johns and Seton Hall, wouldn't that be a pretty good league?? You'd have Xavier, Dayton, St. Joes, St. Louis, UMass, Seton Hall, St. Johns, Rhode Island, Temple, etc. Not bad.
11) Notre Dame - 12-9 (3-7)
I have Notre Dame #11 in this poll, and I’m not even completely convinced that we deserve to be that “high.” Is there any compelling evidence out there that we are even better than the Seton Halls/St. Johns teams of the world?? We’re 1-1 against those two and have the same conference record. I would not be surprised if we sink further into the standings as the season goes along.
This season has been horrible in every way. We are the worst defensive team in the league, and our offense has become easy to shut down. The blueprint to beat this team has been out there for months, and we still haven’t adjusted to it at all. When the only way you can beat people is to outshoot them and teams are taking away your best shooter, you are not going to be a very good team. Brey has done a poor job this year of adjusting to the game plan that has been used against us all year, and he did an even poorer job of developing a plan for this team in the offseason. We needed a blueprint to stay fresh, and Brey has let this team go stale with the same personnel and the same formula that we have used for years.
I am still a Mike Brey supporter, and I’m not advocating that we fire him or even that we start thinking about firing him. Brey is a good coach. He did a real nice job with this team in 06-07 and 07-08, and I think he will have other good seasons with this program as long as he is here. The baseline for Mike Brey has generally been “winning record in the Big East” and “dynamic scoring team,” and he has been to the NCAAs five times in eight years. We can certainly do a lot worse than Mike Brey, and the risk we would take by looking for someone else is that we end up with a worse coach who runs the program into the ground. Brey has built a foundation for success at ND.
But if this program wants to get to the next level and be a consistent NCAA team and the type of program that is capable of making a run in the BET and the NCAAs, he is going to have to make some adjustments to his program.
1) DRT – Defense. Rebounding. Toughess. Brey is a good offensive coach. Maybe even a great one. There is no denying that. When the ND offense is clicking, it can be a thing of beauty.
But if you want to be a great basketball team, you have to be able to lock teams down on the defensive end. You are not always going to be on fire from three. If you can keep the other team from scoring, you always have a chance to win a game even when you are not shooting well. That’s what teams like Michigan State and Pitt do every year.
Year in and year out, we are one of the softest defensive teams in the country. While I think recruiting is a factor, Brey has also been guilty of not focusing enough on defense in practice. I read a great post on NDNation the other day about Tom Izzo’s practices and how he often spends days working on defensive stance and positioning and how to block out on the glass. They do intense drills that focus solely on beating your man up and blocking him out on the boards. They do this for several days in a row. It’s not some coincidence that MSU is always one of the best defense and rebounding teams in the country every year. Does anyone think that Brey emphasizes these same things with his players?? I would doubt it.
I am tired of the argument that ND would suffer offensively if we focused more on defense. What a load of nonsense. The two things are not mutually exclusive. You can play great defense AND play great offense. Louisville plays great defense. UConn plays great defense. Michigan State plays great defense. All of those teams are capable of scoring and beating you offensively as well, and all of those teams will probably make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament.
If I was Brey, I would be tattooing DRT on every player’s arm in the offseason. When they get up in the morning and hop in the shower, they see that “DRT” and start thinking about their defensive stance. We should be make it a goal to be a top 30 defense next year, to win the rebounding battle 75% of the time, and to be the toughest team we can be. You can’t be any of those things if you don’t focus on it. Brey needs to change that.
And for the rest of this season, I think Brey should mandate that you play defense or you sit the bench. If you can’t guard your man, you don’t play. There should be no more free rides where someone can coast for 35 minutes because he is trying to “save his legs.” Go hard for 20 minutes and play defense, and we’ll get a fresh body in there when you get tired. Brey should be giving big minutes to Scott and Nash and Peoples for the rest of the year.
2) Recruiting – While defense is a mentality that can be corrected RIGHT NOW, the other issue with this program has been sporadic recruiting. I’m not going to say that Brey is a poor recruiter because he does seem to have a good eye for “undervalued” players like Tory Jackson and Russell Carter and Harangody and others. Brey recruits guys who fit his system, and he has found a lot of gems.
But at some point, he has to find a way to get some more athleticism on this roster. When was the last time we had a big time athlete on this roster?? Russell Carter?? Humphrey?? There are too many 6’7” white guys who have come through this program in recent years (I sometimes forget that Joe Harden was also once on this roster and would probably be clogging up more roster space if he was still around). If was Swarbrick, I would put Brey on a "one white" per recruiting class quota system.
I know the standard argument about recruiting has been that Brey can’t recruit “athletic” guys without better facilities or commitment from the athletic department, but I have a hard time believing that he couldn’t get one athlete in here per year. If Charlie Weis can bring in a guy like Te’o in from Hawaii, Mike Brey can get one city kid from Chicago or New York to play basketball at Notre Dame. And if it really is the administration that is holding him back from recruiting more athletes, then Brey should threaten to resign. Swarbrick needs to do what he can this offseason to give Brey what he needs (looser admission standards, better locker room, practice facilities, etc). If Brey still can't get better players, then maybe we need to move on.
I don't even care if we get the 5 star guys since most of them leave after 1-2 years and can be program killers (see Thad Matta's recruiting classes). I want Brey to pull in a few Wes Matthews or Jerel McNeal types. Maybe they have a couple arm tattoos and aren't scholar athletes, but those guys aren't bad kids. McNeal spoke after the ND game, and he seemed like a decent guy. I think both those guys were 3/4 star types, but they are athletic!!
Xavier gets a lot of these types of guys as well. Athletic AFRICAN-AMERICAN players who maybe aren't rocket scientists but are good kids overall who want to graduate. We can't be trotting out Hilleslands and Ayers and all these MAC players to go with Gody. Hillesland was the 3rd best player on his HIGH SCHOOL TEAM in Toledo. His high school teammates, Brian Roberts and BJ Raymond, are both stars in the A-10. Why can't we get those guys instead of getting Hillesland??
Anyway, this season has been a disaster for ND basketball, and I think we are going to be back on the brink as a program headed into next year. We are going to have a bunch of new faces next year, so maybe we sneak up on people again. But at some point, I would like ND to react well to being the “hunted” team. We haven’t done that yet under Brey.
10) Cincinnati - 15-8 (5-5)
I was tempted to put UC just above Georgetown since they beat them already this year, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about this Bearcats team just yet. I'll admit that I was ready to pull the plug on the Bearcats and maybe even the Mick Cronin era as recently as three weeks ago after a blowout loss to Marquette and a home loss to Providence. It appeared to be deja vu all over again for UC after they got off to an 0-3 start in the Big East.
But they are actually showing some signs of life lately. They beat Georgetown, they had a nice win at St. Johns, they beat ND, and they have been pretty competitive lately. At 15-8 with some decent OOC wins over UNLV and Mississippi State and a 5-5 record in the Big East, they are a legitimate NCAA bubble team right now. And I think they have a reasonable chance to win 9 games in the Big East this year. Considering where this program was at when Mick took over (they had 1 scholarship player in his first year), I think he's done a good job in year three to get them towards the middle of the pack and likely in the postseason in some capacity.
UC has some young guns to build around with Deonta Vaughn and freshman big man, Yancey Gates and some other talented newcomers. They have a point guard named Cashmere Wright who tore an ACL in the preseason but could be a good player next year. They are still a flawed team that gets extremely sloppy at times, but they can also look good when things are clicking.
Is 9-9 in the Big East going to get UC into the dance?? I’d say that they probably wouldn’t make it, and that’s partially because they have been off the radar for most of the year. Their RPI is a middling 57, and they don’t really have any major statement wins. I think UC is going to have to win that home game later this month against Louisville and then also get to 9-9 and maybe even win a BET game to feel good about its chances to go to the NCAAs.
Mick is basically playing with house money in this season, but I do think that there will be some pressure on him to get this team to the NCAA Tournament next year. They have every player on the team back, and the Big East will probably not be as strong next year. There's really no reason why they shouldn't be able to do it. UC has a strong basketball tradition, and it's probably time for Mick Cronin to make his move. I'm not sure if he can ever be the guy to get UC back to an elite level like they were at under Huggins in the 90s, but I think he is capable of making them a respectable program again.
I mentioned earlier that teams can sometimes benefit from being the "alpha dog" in a conference. Cincinnati is the perfect example of that. As great as the Big East has been for the UC football program in giving them some legitimacy, it has been equally disastrous for the basketball program. They went from the kings of the C-USA and the pride of the league and the city to also-rans in the Big East. And it has KILLED attendance. An absolute bloodbath. They went from selling out the Shoemaker Center for almost every game to drawing around 6,500 fans a night these days. YIKES. They were like rock stars in the 90s, and now they can't even sell out any of the home games even though the competition is much tougher these days. They even resorted to hosting the ND game Wednesday night at the downtown US Bank Arena instead of on campus to try to lure in some downtown business people. It is getting desperate in Clifton these days for the marketing department.
The shadow of Bob Huggins continues to loom large over this program, and a lot of people still haven't gotten over it. I understand the loyalty to Bob Huggins (heck, I'm one of his most loyal supporters), but get over it already. He's been gone for 4 years now. The 90s at UC under Huggins was probably the best thing to happen to Cincinnati sports (pro or college) in a 20 year span, and I enjoyed it as much as anyone. But all good things come to an end. By staying away from the games, UC "fans" are only hurting the program in the long run. The sooner they come to terms with the Huggins thing, the sooner this program can heal and start to come together again.
9) Georgetown - 12-8 (4-6)
I have the Hoyas at 9th in this poll, and you could easily make an argument that they should be lower than that. What has happened to Georgetown in the last month?? Five straight losses and four straight Big East losses before a win over Rutgers. They are in big trouble. I haven't watched them lately, so I'm curious what has happened to that team. I watched them against UConn earlier in the year and thought they had a legitimate chance to win the Big East this year. They've fallen apart.
I know Georgetown is really young, but they are in a bit of a roster bind from what I can tell. Summers and Monroe could be early entry guys (both are projected lottery picks right now), so they could be in even more trouble next year.
They have a number of games coming up with the Cincys and DePauls of the world, but they haven't even been reliable in beating those teams so far. The Hoyas are going to have to find a way to get to 9-9 to get in the big dance if you ask me. I don't think the Big East is going to get a 9th/10th team in the dance if they are sitting at 8-10 or something like that. To Georgetown's credit, they've beaten Memphis, UConn, and Syracuse, so they have some big wins for their overall profile. But those losses to Cincy and Seton Hall are eyesores.
Big game on Saturday between Cincy and Georgetown. If Gtown loses that one, go ahead and pencil them into the NIT (and probably go ahead and put UC on the good side of the bubble for now).
8) Providence - 14-8 (6-4)
I think this spot is a little generous for Providence, but I can't argue with their results so far. They are sitting pretty right now at 6-4 in the league and really just have to hold serve at home and against the weak sisters to get to 10 wins in the league. Then again, they are entering a little bit of a dangerous stretch, so they better make sure they take care of business if they want to bet an NCAA at-large bid.
Keno Davis probably has to be in the running for the coach of the year award in the Big East. Bloodlines! Anybody who learned at the knee of Dr. Tom Davis is an asset to the Big East Conference. He has five seniors playing big minutes on his roster this year, so we'll have to see what he does when he is effectively starting over next year before getting a feel on whether or not he is going to resurrect the Friars' basketball program. Geoff McDermott is in about his 12th year at Providence, so I'm assuming he doesn't have any more eligibility left.
I love the Big East, but one bad thing about the league that is a little bogus is the insanely unbalanced schedules. If you look at Providence's schedule and compare it to ND's or Gtown's, there is no comparison. ND has twofers with UConn, Louisville, and St. Johns. Providence has them with Cincy, Nova, and Rutgers. And Providence has fewer completely unwinnable road games (ie at Pitt, Cuse, LVille, UConn. Marquette).
Credit to Providence for doing what they've done so far, but I think their conference record would be looking a lot more like ND's if they were playing a tougher league schedule. And I don't want to sound like a whiner because I am WELL AWARE that ND has played easier Big East schedules the last couple years. It works in cycles. We are paying the price this year for our success though.
7) West Virginia - 15-7 (4-5)
Here's where it starts getting a little tricky, and I think the next few weeks are really going to tell us a lot about these next few teams. I watched West Virginia destroy Ohio State about a month ago and thought they looked like a top 15 team, but they've sort of been up and down in Big East play. They've looked like world beaters at times, but also have looked bad as well. Not sure what the second half of the season is going to say about them. WVU is a pretty young team, so there's still a possibility that this team gets a lot more consistent in the second half of the year. They could easily play themselves into a 6-7 seed and just as easily play themselves right out of the tournament.
Question for any West Virginia fans that might check on this blog. What are your expectations for the Bob Huggins era?? Are you planning on him taking you to the next level as a Big East title contender and Final Four contender?? Or are you just hoping for a continuation of the good years of the John Beilein era?? I'm just curious to know. I feel like a lot of WVU fans have expectations that Huggins is going to recruit at an elite level and take that program to new heights, but I just don't see it. I love Huggs, but his recruiting cache dried up considerably in his latter days at UC. He can still get good players and will probably get some of the good in-state kids, but I don't see him reeling in a bunch of McDonald's All-Americans. Anyway, I hope WVU fans don't view Huggins as some sort of disappointment if he doesn't go to the Final Four in Morgantown. Huggs is a good coach, but his ceiling is probably about what Beilein did there (which is a testament to Beilein).
6) Syracuse - 18-5 (6-4)
I know Syracuse is "only" sitting at 6-4 in the Big East right now, but I am a believer in this team. If there was one team out of this upper middle class of the Big East who could really make a run in the NCAAs, I think it's Syracuse.
Look at all the talent on this roster!!
Stud point guard with Jonny Flynn
Stud low post scorer with Arinze Onuaku
Stud wing man with Paul Harris
Solid role players with Devendorf, Rautins, Rick Jackson, Ongenaet
Isn't that the formula that you need to be a Final Four type team?? A dynamic point guard, 2-3 NBA players, a low post scorer, and a bunch of quality role players around them?? Plus, you have Jim Boeheim in the picture, and the guy has only been to 3 NCAA title games and won one.
The one thing that Syracuse is probably lacking is great defense, but you never know if they might suddenly start clicking defensively down the stretch. Syracuse is one of those teams that could win a couple games in the NCAA tournament and then look out. Of all the teams I've watched in the Big East this year, I think they might have the most overall talent.
Syracuse easily could show up not ready to play in the first round and get eliminated, but I can't ignore their upside. I'll predict that they either win the BET and come into the NCAAs as the "team no one wants to play" (and then probably lose in the first round) or that they lose in the first round of the BET, come in under the radar on a mission, and get red hot in the NCAAs and go to the Elite Eight or something like that.
5) Villanova - 18-4 (6-3)
I have mixed feelings on Jay Wright. He is one of those coaches who is always regarded as one of the top young coaches in the game and always seems to be rumored for the top openings around the country, but I've never been wildly impressed with him. Maybe because he's always been lumped in with Brey as one of those "middle of the pack" coaches in the Big East.
But as we go through their respective careers, Jay Wright is starting to distance himself from Mike Brey. Here are his last five years:
2004-05 Villanova 24-8 - Sweet 16
2005-06 Villanova 28-5 - Elite Eight
2006-07 Villanova 22-11 - NCAA First Round
2007-08 Villanova 22-13 - Sweet 16
That's strong. 3 Sweet 16s in the last four years. And I really like his team this year. I've only watched them twice, but I've been impressed with how they play. They might be the hottest team in the Big East right now. Reynolds is having a 1st team All Big East type year, and Dante Cunningham (in his 10th year) is finally putting it together. They are extremely quick and tough defensively.
When you have guards like Reynolds and Stokes and Fisher and a reliable big man like Cunningham, you can do some real damage in the NCAAs. I definitely think they are capable of a Sweet 16 run.
4) Marquette – 20-2 (9-0)
I guess I should have Marquette a little higher on this list since they are currently leading the Big East, but I don't feel comfortable putting them anywhere in my top three just yet. I've watched every top team in the Big East, and they are a notch below the UConns and Pitts of the world in my opinion. I don't know how Marquette drew this Big East schedule, but they have been exceptionally fortunate so far. They have yet to play Louisville, Pitt, UConn, or Syracuse, and their toughest road game thus far is either Providence or Notre Dame. Not exactly murderer's row. We wil find out more about Marquette when they run through the stretch run of at Georgetown, UConn, at Louisville, at Pitt, and Syracuse.
Don't get me wrong, I love watching this Marquette team play. Those seniors are warriors. McNeal, Matthews, and Dom James have been the heart and soul of Marquette basketball for several years, and I'm glad they are making the most of their senior years.
But if they end up a #2/#3 seed in the NCAAs, wouldn't you probably think about picking them to lose in round two?? I think I would. Their "big man" is 6-6 Lazar Hayward. In other words, they don't have a big man. And while Marquette has stretches where they can get hot from the perimeter, they aren't really a reliable 3 point shooting team. Marquette beats you with defense and by getting the ball to the rack. McNeal and Matthews get to the rim as well as anyone in America. But if they happen to run into an athletic team in round two that can keep those guys out of the lane, aren't they in big trouble?? Every team in the NCAAs is good and also desperate. It's hard to advance in the NCAAs when you don't have balance.
As for Buzz Williams, I'm assuming that he is the frontrunner for the Big East coach of the year award. And obviously if they win the Big East, he is going to win that award. Maybe Buzz is a rising star in the coaching fraternity. But I'm not quite ready to make that a definitive statement just yet. He's coaching a team of 3 seniors and a junior who have all started for 3 years. These guys are basically in autopilot at this point. The real test on Buzz Williams as a long term fit at Marquette will be how well he recruits in the offseason and how he works with a young team next year. From the looks of it, he has a nice recruiting class coming in next year, so that's definitely a good start.
3) Louisville - 17-4 (8-1)
Louisville is another team that I haven't quite made my mind up yet about. On paper, what is there not to like about Louisville?? They have Rick Pitino pacing the sideline, they have quick, athletic guards who hound the ball, they have a do-everthing swingman in Terrence Williams and a versatile power forward in Earl Clark. And they have a stud freshman big man in Samardo Samuels. There are probably 3-4 future NBA players on this roster. ON PAPER, they look like the type of team that could go to the Final Four or even win the whole thing. And their record this year at 17-4 and 8-1 in the league is strong. They've already won at Syracuse and at Villanova and have beaten Pitt.
But below the surface, I'm not quite sold on them yet. Maybe I've just seen them at their worst against UConn and Notre Dame, but it seems like they are not on the same page at all times. Individually, they have loads of talent, but they are also really streaky at times. I don't know, I watched that ND-Louisville game and felt like we were basically even with them. I haven't felt that about our games with UConn or Pitt or even Syracuse. Those games were mismatches. With Louisville, they aren't a great 3 point team, Samuels isn't always consistent, and their defense sort of comes and goes.
Pitino is still a great coach, but he's maybe not quite in his prime any more. Louisville has Final Four talent, but I don't see them getting to that level.
2) Pitt - 20-2 (7-2)
You pretty much knew what you were going to get out of Pitt this year, and they have delivered. Their goal from here on out is to play for seeding. Keep an eye out for that February 16 showdown at UConn and the return matchup on Mar 7 at home. Those two games could be deciding #1 seeds and conference titles.
If Pitt can get a #1 seed, you gotta think that the goal is to get to a Final Four. Not sure if Pitt has ever been to a Final Four before. With all those seniors and DeJuan Blair, this year would be the year to do it. Not sure if they can get there, but they are definitely going to be a major player in the NCAAs.
1) UConn - 21-1 (10-1)
Wow, that crow tastes good! I couldn't have been more wrong about UConn. Not only are they not overrated, I'm not sure that they are getting ENOUGH respect at this point. UConn is bludgeoning people. They just beat Providence by 33 and followed it up with a 17 point win at Louisville. There is no doubt that they are the best team in the Big East this year.
What is the key to UConn?? Well, I'd start with their defense. Their defense is devastating. With Thabeet down low guarding the paint and intimidating anyone who comes into the lane, their perimeter defenders know that they can play tighter defense and take more chances to get steals and deflections. It's a deadly combo, and it seems like UConn gets a ton of fast break points off their defense.
Offensively, my concern about them was that they didn't have a "crunch time scorer," but that concern was certainly overblown. Adrien is a reliable post scorer, Price and Dyson can score from the perimeter, Thabeet gives them some easy put backs, and now they have this Kemba Walker guy maturing every game. As great as Luke Harangody is (he is probably the MOP this year), I think the MVP of the Big East has been Jeff Adrien. He has been the heart and soul of this run for UConn. His stats don’t blow you away, but I think that’s just the nature of that team. It seems like he delivers whenever they need a big bucket or a dagger bucket.
My other concern with UConn was that they weren’t really all on the same page. Too many individual parts. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They are playing great team defense, and it seems like they are on a mission. This group is much more cohesive than the Rudy Gay team that lost to George Mason in the Elite Eight a couple years ago. I gotta hand it to Jim Calhoun.
Anyway, I know Carolina and other ACC fans may disagree, but I think I would pick UConn to win it all if I had to pick someone today. They have every ingredient that you need to be a championship team, and they have that extra gear defensively that I don’t think Carolina has. If UConn and Carolina played, I think UConn could cause enough problems defensively for Hansborough and UNC’s perimeter people to beat them. It would be an incredible game (the ’99 Duke-UConn epic final comes to mind immediately), but I think I’d pick UConn as of today (there is a little Big East bias there admittedly). I hope we get that matchup in the finals.
So here goes:
16) DePaul - 8-15 (0-10)
Rough times at DePaul these days. They have a legitimate shot to go 0-18 in the league this year. Has anyone ever done that?? The only winable games I see on that schedule are St. Johns and Seton Hall at home. They are far from a lock to win either one, especially if the team has packed it in on Jerry Wainwright.
Sounds like DePaul's AD is saying that Wainwright is going to be back next year (the dreaded vote of confidence!), but is that really the smart thing to do?? He's not recruiting all that poorly, but it seems like that program is falling apart. I'm not privy to any info about DePaul, but it seems like things are really bottoming out at DePaul.
Here's Wainwright's quote on Andy Katz's blog about his team:
If there is a team or program that Wainwright wants to model, it's Pitt. He said the Panthers have the right approach: hold onto players for four years, and if lucky, get a local talent that shines. Pitt did that when DeJuan Blair stayed home in Pittsburgh. "We just need that one Chicago guy,'' Wainwright said. "We're doing everything right in order to win.''
I get what he's trying to say here, but he's making it sound like Pitt made their program by landing DeJuan Blair. Cmon, Pitt was a very very strong program for years before DeJuan Blair came on board. Blair wasn't just showing loyalty to Pitt or his hometown. He was going to Pitt because they are a winning program. DePaul isn't "one guy" away from being Pitt or even someone like Providence for that matter.
Here's another quote from Wainwright:
"I take umbrage to anybody who would say we're a disgrace as a program," Wainwright said in response before the Rutgers loss. "Are we where we need to be as a basketball team? Absolutely not. We need to get better. But [the players] have a great attitude and have come together."
But Jerry, you're freaking 0-9 in your league!! You sound like Ty Willingham and Gregg Robinson. Stop "taking umbrage" and start winning games.
Seems like a mess. It's never made any sense to me how DePaul can't put out a competitive program. You would think they could load up on Chicago kids alone and have a solid team.
15) Rutgers - 10-13 (1-9)
Rutgers barely sneaks out the 15th spot on our power poll after that thrilling win over DePaul last week to get their first Big East win of the year.
Rutgers has lost home games to the following schools this year:
St. Bonaventure
Lehigh
Binghamton
Binghamton!! The alma mater of Mr. Tony Kornheiser. And Rutgers lost to the fighting Bearcats of Binghamton (I had to look that up) by 10. Their fans booed them off the court. Good times!
Needless to say, the Fred Hill era is not off to a very good start. One name of note: Greg Echinique. I seem to recall him from ND's recruiting days of yore. Looks like he is averaging around 10 points a game these days for the Scarlet Knights.
One final Rutgers note: Their football program is not going away any time soon. They just pulled in a good recruiting class this year, and it seems like they are opening up some pipelines down in Florida. If Miami continues to flounder, I think Schiano could make some further inroads down there in recruting. And I still believe that Miami would be smart to throw the kitchen sink at Schiano someday to get him down there if/when Randy Shannon doesn't pan out.
14) South Florida - 7-14 (2-7)
Death, taxes, and the South Florida Bulls bringing up the rear in the Big East! You can all but guarantee that they are finishing in the bottom 3 every single year. I bet the Sun Dome has been "rocking" all winter to the tune of 3,500 fans a game.
But don't fret South Florida fans! The Big East is inviting all 16 teams to the Big East Tournament this year! USF is the only league member never to qualify for the conference tournament. So they finally get to make their trip to Madison Square Garden this year. Good for them.
Plus. there's always football. Another top 20ish recruiting class for USF. If they can keep stockpiling the talent down there, they are going to be a force in the Big East.
One other note on USF. Former Ohio State point guard Anthony Crater transferred there earlier in the year after bailing on Thad Matta because he wasn't "furthering his goal of leaving for the NBA after three years" (ok, that's not a direct quote, but it was basically implied). He was recently busted for marijuana possession down in Tampa. I expect his mug shot to be plastered on the front page of every paper in Britain and for a bunch of smug newspaper columnists to take shots at him. Oh wait, I forgot that he's black and wears cornrows and doesn't have the "wholesome, boy next door" look. Anyway, not a good start to the Anthony Crater era in Tampa. He was a big loss for the Buckeyes from a roster standpoint, but it will probably turn out to be a blessing in disguise since he seems like a bad dude. Matta is going to have to find another point guard in the next couple classes to make up for it though.
13) St. Johns - 12-10 (3-7)
I was a little torn here between St. Johns and Seton Hall, but the Hall are a little bit better than the Johnnies this year. St. Johns is going nowhere. I feel like Norm Roberts has been there for about 10 years, and yet they can't seem to get anything going.
But hey, they get to "host" the Big East Tournament this year, so they got that going for them. Speaking of the Big East Tournament, how is this new format going to work?? It seems incredibly complicated now that we have all 16 teams. Here is my understanding of how it is going to work:
Day One:
Teams 9-16 are paired up in 4 games
Day Two:
The winners of the 9-16 games play the 5-8 teams to determine the quarterfinals
Day Three:
Quarterfinals - The 1-4 teams are playing their first games
Day Four:
Semifinals
Day Five:
Finals
This bad boy is starting on Tuesday! It is suddenly a 5 day extravaganza. I absolutely love it as a fan, but could you imagine being the #9 team in this tournament?? The #9 team in the Big East is probably going to be a pretty good team, but they will have to beat the #16 team, the #8 team, the #1 team, the #4/5 team, and then the #2 team to win the Big East Tournament. That is NUTS. Five games. The bottom line is that it is going to be a huge advantage to have a #1-4 seed in this thing, and the difference between #8 and #9 is substantial.
12) Seton Hall - 12-9 (3-6)
Seton Hall is off to a slow start in the league, but if there is anyone in this "bottom five" group that could make push to the middle down the stretch, it is Seton Hall. They are really not that bad of a team. I was moderately impressed by them when they played against ND. They aren't an NCAA team or anything, but certainly better than your typical conference bottomfeeder. Hazell and Harvey are pretty good guards, and they actually had a couple big men who could do some things. Their schedule is much lighter down the stretch, so I could see them making a late push to get to 6-7 wins or something like that.
Seton Hall is a perfect example of why I firmly believe that the Big East as it stands today is not going to last for too long. It is just too big and difficult to handle 16 teams. When you have a pretty good team like Seton Hall struggling to even get to 6 wins in the league, aren't they eventually going to put their hands up and say "we can't handle the losing every year. we're out"?? It must be killing attendance at places like DePaul and Seton Hall when you are trotting out teams that are 1-8 in the league or whatever. At some point, these schools are going to want to do something different I would imagine. Maybe not. Maybe the money in the Big East is worth it.
Here's what I would do if I was the Atlantic 10 Conference. I would make a strong push to try to peel off a couple of these floundering Big East programs like Seton Hall and St. Johns and maybe even Providence (although they have righted the ship a bit). Wouldn't a school like Seton Hall probably be a borderline at-large team coming out of the A-10?? I feel like they would have a new shot of life in that league. If they were sitting at 7-2 in the A-10 right now with a big game coming up against Xavier or something like that, wouldn't fans start coming out to games?? I think there's an argument for being the "big fish in a small pond." Xavier has benefited from being the king of the A-10 instead of some also-ran in a league like the Big East. There is a lot of pride in the winning tradition at Xavier, and the players inherit that legacy when they join the school. They want to live up to the reputation of Xavier basketball. A school like Seton Hall could develop something like that in the A-10. They could really benefit from a change in scenery.
The A-10 is a pretty good league, but they have too many bottomfeeders. If they booted some of the stiffs out of that league like St. Bonnies and Fordham and maybe even LaSalle to the MAAC or the America East or one of those leagues and brought in St. Johns and Seton Hall, wouldn't that be a pretty good league?? You'd have Xavier, Dayton, St. Joes, St. Louis, UMass, Seton Hall, St. Johns, Rhode Island, Temple, etc. Not bad.
11) Notre Dame - 12-9 (3-7)
I have Notre Dame #11 in this poll, and I’m not even completely convinced that we deserve to be that “high.” Is there any compelling evidence out there that we are even better than the Seton Halls/St. Johns teams of the world?? We’re 1-1 against those two and have the same conference record. I would not be surprised if we sink further into the standings as the season goes along.
This season has been horrible in every way. We are the worst defensive team in the league, and our offense has become easy to shut down. The blueprint to beat this team has been out there for months, and we still haven’t adjusted to it at all. When the only way you can beat people is to outshoot them and teams are taking away your best shooter, you are not going to be a very good team. Brey has done a poor job this year of adjusting to the game plan that has been used against us all year, and he did an even poorer job of developing a plan for this team in the offseason. We needed a blueprint to stay fresh, and Brey has let this team go stale with the same personnel and the same formula that we have used for years.
I am still a Mike Brey supporter, and I’m not advocating that we fire him or even that we start thinking about firing him. Brey is a good coach. He did a real nice job with this team in 06-07 and 07-08, and I think he will have other good seasons with this program as long as he is here. The baseline for Mike Brey has generally been “winning record in the Big East” and “dynamic scoring team,” and he has been to the NCAAs five times in eight years. We can certainly do a lot worse than Mike Brey, and the risk we would take by looking for someone else is that we end up with a worse coach who runs the program into the ground. Brey has built a foundation for success at ND.
But if this program wants to get to the next level and be a consistent NCAA team and the type of program that is capable of making a run in the BET and the NCAAs, he is going to have to make some adjustments to his program.
1) DRT – Defense. Rebounding. Toughess. Brey is a good offensive coach. Maybe even a great one. There is no denying that. When the ND offense is clicking, it can be a thing of beauty.
But if you want to be a great basketball team, you have to be able to lock teams down on the defensive end. You are not always going to be on fire from three. If you can keep the other team from scoring, you always have a chance to win a game even when you are not shooting well. That’s what teams like Michigan State and Pitt do every year.
Year in and year out, we are one of the softest defensive teams in the country. While I think recruiting is a factor, Brey has also been guilty of not focusing enough on defense in practice. I read a great post on NDNation the other day about Tom Izzo’s practices and how he often spends days working on defensive stance and positioning and how to block out on the glass. They do intense drills that focus solely on beating your man up and blocking him out on the boards. They do this for several days in a row. It’s not some coincidence that MSU is always one of the best defense and rebounding teams in the country every year. Does anyone think that Brey emphasizes these same things with his players?? I would doubt it.
I am tired of the argument that ND would suffer offensively if we focused more on defense. What a load of nonsense. The two things are not mutually exclusive. You can play great defense AND play great offense. Louisville plays great defense. UConn plays great defense. Michigan State plays great defense. All of those teams are capable of scoring and beating you offensively as well, and all of those teams will probably make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament.
If I was Brey, I would be tattooing DRT on every player’s arm in the offseason. When they get up in the morning and hop in the shower, they see that “DRT” and start thinking about their defensive stance. We should be make it a goal to be a top 30 defense next year, to win the rebounding battle 75% of the time, and to be the toughest team we can be. You can’t be any of those things if you don’t focus on it. Brey needs to change that.
And for the rest of this season, I think Brey should mandate that you play defense or you sit the bench. If you can’t guard your man, you don’t play. There should be no more free rides where someone can coast for 35 minutes because he is trying to “save his legs.” Go hard for 20 minutes and play defense, and we’ll get a fresh body in there when you get tired. Brey should be giving big minutes to Scott and Nash and Peoples for the rest of the year.
2) Recruiting – While defense is a mentality that can be corrected RIGHT NOW, the other issue with this program has been sporadic recruiting. I’m not going to say that Brey is a poor recruiter because he does seem to have a good eye for “undervalued” players like Tory Jackson and Russell Carter and Harangody and others. Brey recruits guys who fit his system, and he has found a lot of gems.
But at some point, he has to find a way to get some more athleticism on this roster. When was the last time we had a big time athlete on this roster?? Russell Carter?? Humphrey?? There are too many 6’7” white guys who have come through this program in recent years (I sometimes forget that Joe Harden was also once on this roster and would probably be clogging up more roster space if he was still around). If was Swarbrick, I would put Brey on a "one white" per recruiting class quota system.
I know the standard argument about recruiting has been that Brey can’t recruit “athletic” guys without better facilities or commitment from the athletic department, but I have a hard time believing that he couldn’t get one athlete in here per year. If Charlie Weis can bring in a guy like Te’o in from Hawaii, Mike Brey can get one city kid from Chicago or New York to play basketball at Notre Dame. And if it really is the administration that is holding him back from recruiting more athletes, then Brey should threaten to resign. Swarbrick needs to do what he can this offseason to give Brey what he needs (looser admission standards, better locker room, practice facilities, etc). If Brey still can't get better players, then maybe we need to move on.
I don't even care if we get the 5 star guys since most of them leave after 1-2 years and can be program killers (see Thad Matta's recruiting classes). I want Brey to pull in a few Wes Matthews or Jerel McNeal types. Maybe they have a couple arm tattoos and aren't scholar athletes, but those guys aren't bad kids. McNeal spoke after the ND game, and he seemed like a decent guy. I think both those guys were 3/4 star types, but they are athletic!!
Xavier gets a lot of these types of guys as well. Athletic AFRICAN-AMERICAN players who maybe aren't rocket scientists but are good kids overall who want to graduate. We can't be trotting out Hilleslands and Ayers and all these MAC players to go with Gody. Hillesland was the 3rd best player on his HIGH SCHOOL TEAM in Toledo. His high school teammates, Brian Roberts and BJ Raymond, are both stars in the A-10. Why can't we get those guys instead of getting Hillesland??
Anyway, this season has been a disaster for ND basketball, and I think we are going to be back on the brink as a program headed into next year. We are going to have a bunch of new faces next year, so maybe we sneak up on people again. But at some point, I would like ND to react well to being the “hunted” team. We haven’t done that yet under Brey.
10) Cincinnati - 15-8 (5-5)
I was tempted to put UC just above Georgetown since they beat them already this year, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about this Bearcats team just yet. I'll admit that I was ready to pull the plug on the Bearcats and maybe even the Mick Cronin era as recently as three weeks ago after a blowout loss to Marquette and a home loss to Providence. It appeared to be deja vu all over again for UC after they got off to an 0-3 start in the Big East.
But they are actually showing some signs of life lately. They beat Georgetown, they had a nice win at St. Johns, they beat ND, and they have been pretty competitive lately. At 15-8 with some decent OOC wins over UNLV and Mississippi State and a 5-5 record in the Big East, they are a legitimate NCAA bubble team right now. And I think they have a reasonable chance to win 9 games in the Big East this year. Considering where this program was at when Mick took over (they had 1 scholarship player in his first year), I think he's done a good job in year three to get them towards the middle of the pack and likely in the postseason in some capacity.
UC has some young guns to build around with Deonta Vaughn and freshman big man, Yancey Gates and some other talented newcomers. They have a point guard named Cashmere Wright who tore an ACL in the preseason but could be a good player next year. They are still a flawed team that gets extremely sloppy at times, but they can also look good when things are clicking.
Is 9-9 in the Big East going to get UC into the dance?? I’d say that they probably wouldn’t make it, and that’s partially because they have been off the radar for most of the year. Their RPI is a middling 57, and they don’t really have any major statement wins. I think UC is going to have to win that home game later this month against Louisville and then also get to 9-9 and maybe even win a BET game to feel good about its chances to go to the NCAAs.
Mick is basically playing with house money in this season, but I do think that there will be some pressure on him to get this team to the NCAA Tournament next year. They have every player on the team back, and the Big East will probably not be as strong next year. There's really no reason why they shouldn't be able to do it. UC has a strong basketball tradition, and it's probably time for Mick Cronin to make his move. I'm not sure if he can ever be the guy to get UC back to an elite level like they were at under Huggins in the 90s, but I think he is capable of making them a respectable program again.
I mentioned earlier that teams can sometimes benefit from being the "alpha dog" in a conference. Cincinnati is the perfect example of that. As great as the Big East has been for the UC football program in giving them some legitimacy, it has been equally disastrous for the basketball program. They went from the kings of the C-USA and the pride of the league and the city to also-rans in the Big East. And it has KILLED attendance. An absolute bloodbath. They went from selling out the Shoemaker Center for almost every game to drawing around 6,500 fans a night these days. YIKES. They were like rock stars in the 90s, and now they can't even sell out any of the home games even though the competition is much tougher these days. They even resorted to hosting the ND game Wednesday night at the downtown US Bank Arena instead of on campus to try to lure in some downtown business people. It is getting desperate in Clifton these days for the marketing department.
The shadow of Bob Huggins continues to loom large over this program, and a lot of people still haven't gotten over it. I understand the loyalty to Bob Huggins (heck, I'm one of his most loyal supporters), but get over it already. He's been gone for 4 years now. The 90s at UC under Huggins was probably the best thing to happen to Cincinnati sports (pro or college) in a 20 year span, and I enjoyed it as much as anyone. But all good things come to an end. By staying away from the games, UC "fans" are only hurting the program in the long run. The sooner they come to terms with the Huggins thing, the sooner this program can heal and start to come together again.
9) Georgetown - 12-8 (4-6)
I have the Hoyas at 9th in this poll, and you could easily make an argument that they should be lower than that. What has happened to Georgetown in the last month?? Five straight losses and four straight Big East losses before a win over Rutgers. They are in big trouble. I haven't watched them lately, so I'm curious what has happened to that team. I watched them against UConn earlier in the year and thought they had a legitimate chance to win the Big East this year. They've fallen apart.
I know Georgetown is really young, but they are in a bit of a roster bind from what I can tell. Summers and Monroe could be early entry guys (both are projected lottery picks right now), so they could be in even more trouble next year.
They have a number of games coming up with the Cincys and DePauls of the world, but they haven't even been reliable in beating those teams so far. The Hoyas are going to have to find a way to get to 9-9 to get in the big dance if you ask me. I don't think the Big East is going to get a 9th/10th team in the dance if they are sitting at 8-10 or something like that. To Georgetown's credit, they've beaten Memphis, UConn, and Syracuse, so they have some big wins for their overall profile. But those losses to Cincy and Seton Hall are eyesores.
Big game on Saturday between Cincy and Georgetown. If Gtown loses that one, go ahead and pencil them into the NIT (and probably go ahead and put UC on the good side of the bubble for now).
8) Providence - 14-8 (6-4)
I think this spot is a little generous for Providence, but I can't argue with their results so far. They are sitting pretty right now at 6-4 in the league and really just have to hold serve at home and against the weak sisters to get to 10 wins in the league. Then again, they are entering a little bit of a dangerous stretch, so they better make sure they take care of business if they want to bet an NCAA at-large bid.
Keno Davis probably has to be in the running for the coach of the year award in the Big East. Bloodlines! Anybody who learned at the knee of Dr. Tom Davis is an asset to the Big East Conference. He has five seniors playing big minutes on his roster this year, so we'll have to see what he does when he is effectively starting over next year before getting a feel on whether or not he is going to resurrect the Friars' basketball program. Geoff McDermott is in about his 12th year at Providence, so I'm assuming he doesn't have any more eligibility left.
I love the Big East, but one bad thing about the league that is a little bogus is the insanely unbalanced schedules. If you look at Providence's schedule and compare it to ND's or Gtown's, there is no comparison. ND has twofers with UConn, Louisville, and St. Johns. Providence has them with Cincy, Nova, and Rutgers. And Providence has fewer completely unwinnable road games (ie at Pitt, Cuse, LVille, UConn. Marquette).
Credit to Providence for doing what they've done so far, but I think their conference record would be looking a lot more like ND's if they were playing a tougher league schedule. And I don't want to sound like a whiner because I am WELL AWARE that ND has played easier Big East schedules the last couple years. It works in cycles. We are paying the price this year for our success though.
7) West Virginia - 15-7 (4-5)
Here's where it starts getting a little tricky, and I think the next few weeks are really going to tell us a lot about these next few teams. I watched West Virginia destroy Ohio State about a month ago and thought they looked like a top 15 team, but they've sort of been up and down in Big East play. They've looked like world beaters at times, but also have looked bad as well. Not sure what the second half of the season is going to say about them. WVU is a pretty young team, so there's still a possibility that this team gets a lot more consistent in the second half of the year. They could easily play themselves into a 6-7 seed and just as easily play themselves right out of the tournament.
Question for any West Virginia fans that might check on this blog. What are your expectations for the Bob Huggins era?? Are you planning on him taking you to the next level as a Big East title contender and Final Four contender?? Or are you just hoping for a continuation of the good years of the John Beilein era?? I'm just curious to know. I feel like a lot of WVU fans have expectations that Huggins is going to recruit at an elite level and take that program to new heights, but I just don't see it. I love Huggs, but his recruiting cache dried up considerably in his latter days at UC. He can still get good players and will probably get some of the good in-state kids, but I don't see him reeling in a bunch of McDonald's All-Americans. Anyway, I hope WVU fans don't view Huggins as some sort of disappointment if he doesn't go to the Final Four in Morgantown. Huggs is a good coach, but his ceiling is probably about what Beilein did there (which is a testament to Beilein).
6) Syracuse - 18-5 (6-4)
I know Syracuse is "only" sitting at 6-4 in the Big East right now, but I am a believer in this team. If there was one team out of this upper middle class of the Big East who could really make a run in the NCAAs, I think it's Syracuse.
Look at all the talent on this roster!!
Stud point guard with Jonny Flynn
Stud low post scorer with Arinze Onuaku
Stud wing man with Paul Harris
Solid role players with Devendorf, Rautins, Rick Jackson, Ongenaet
Isn't that the formula that you need to be a Final Four type team?? A dynamic point guard, 2-3 NBA players, a low post scorer, and a bunch of quality role players around them?? Plus, you have Jim Boeheim in the picture, and the guy has only been to 3 NCAA title games and won one.
The one thing that Syracuse is probably lacking is great defense, but you never know if they might suddenly start clicking defensively down the stretch. Syracuse is one of those teams that could win a couple games in the NCAA tournament and then look out. Of all the teams I've watched in the Big East this year, I think they might have the most overall talent.
Syracuse easily could show up not ready to play in the first round and get eliminated, but I can't ignore their upside. I'll predict that they either win the BET and come into the NCAAs as the "team no one wants to play" (and then probably lose in the first round) or that they lose in the first round of the BET, come in under the radar on a mission, and get red hot in the NCAAs and go to the Elite Eight or something like that.
5) Villanova - 18-4 (6-3)
I have mixed feelings on Jay Wright. He is one of those coaches who is always regarded as one of the top young coaches in the game and always seems to be rumored for the top openings around the country, but I've never been wildly impressed with him. Maybe because he's always been lumped in with Brey as one of those "middle of the pack" coaches in the Big East.
But as we go through their respective careers, Jay Wright is starting to distance himself from Mike Brey. Here are his last five years:
2004-05 Villanova 24-8 - Sweet 16
2005-06 Villanova 28-5 - Elite Eight
2006-07 Villanova 22-11 - NCAA First Round
2007-08 Villanova 22-13 - Sweet 16
That's strong. 3 Sweet 16s in the last four years. And I really like his team this year. I've only watched them twice, but I've been impressed with how they play. They might be the hottest team in the Big East right now. Reynolds is having a 1st team All Big East type year, and Dante Cunningham (in his 10th year) is finally putting it together. They are extremely quick and tough defensively.
When you have guards like Reynolds and Stokes and Fisher and a reliable big man like Cunningham, you can do some real damage in the NCAAs. I definitely think they are capable of a Sweet 16 run.
4) Marquette – 20-2 (9-0)
I guess I should have Marquette a little higher on this list since they are currently leading the Big East, but I don't feel comfortable putting them anywhere in my top three just yet. I've watched every top team in the Big East, and they are a notch below the UConns and Pitts of the world in my opinion. I don't know how Marquette drew this Big East schedule, but they have been exceptionally fortunate so far. They have yet to play Louisville, Pitt, UConn, or Syracuse, and their toughest road game thus far is either Providence or Notre Dame. Not exactly murderer's row. We wil find out more about Marquette when they run through the stretch run of at Georgetown, UConn, at Louisville, at Pitt, and Syracuse.
Don't get me wrong, I love watching this Marquette team play. Those seniors are warriors. McNeal, Matthews, and Dom James have been the heart and soul of Marquette basketball for several years, and I'm glad they are making the most of their senior years.
But if they end up a #2/#3 seed in the NCAAs, wouldn't you probably think about picking them to lose in round two?? I think I would. Their "big man" is 6-6 Lazar Hayward. In other words, they don't have a big man. And while Marquette has stretches where they can get hot from the perimeter, they aren't really a reliable 3 point shooting team. Marquette beats you with defense and by getting the ball to the rack. McNeal and Matthews get to the rim as well as anyone in America. But if they happen to run into an athletic team in round two that can keep those guys out of the lane, aren't they in big trouble?? Every team in the NCAAs is good and also desperate. It's hard to advance in the NCAAs when you don't have balance.
As for Buzz Williams, I'm assuming that he is the frontrunner for the Big East coach of the year award. And obviously if they win the Big East, he is going to win that award. Maybe Buzz is a rising star in the coaching fraternity. But I'm not quite ready to make that a definitive statement just yet. He's coaching a team of 3 seniors and a junior who have all started for 3 years. These guys are basically in autopilot at this point. The real test on Buzz Williams as a long term fit at Marquette will be how well he recruits in the offseason and how he works with a young team next year. From the looks of it, he has a nice recruiting class coming in next year, so that's definitely a good start.
3) Louisville - 17-4 (8-1)
Louisville is another team that I haven't quite made my mind up yet about. On paper, what is there not to like about Louisville?? They have Rick Pitino pacing the sideline, they have quick, athletic guards who hound the ball, they have a do-everthing swingman in Terrence Williams and a versatile power forward in Earl Clark. And they have a stud freshman big man in Samardo Samuels. There are probably 3-4 future NBA players on this roster. ON PAPER, they look like the type of team that could go to the Final Four or even win the whole thing. And their record this year at 17-4 and 8-1 in the league is strong. They've already won at Syracuse and at Villanova and have beaten Pitt.
But below the surface, I'm not quite sold on them yet. Maybe I've just seen them at their worst against UConn and Notre Dame, but it seems like they are not on the same page at all times. Individually, they have loads of talent, but they are also really streaky at times. I don't know, I watched that ND-Louisville game and felt like we were basically even with them. I haven't felt that about our games with UConn or Pitt or even Syracuse. Those games were mismatches. With Louisville, they aren't a great 3 point team, Samuels isn't always consistent, and their defense sort of comes and goes.
Pitino is still a great coach, but he's maybe not quite in his prime any more. Louisville has Final Four talent, but I don't see them getting to that level.
2) Pitt - 20-2 (7-2)
You pretty much knew what you were going to get out of Pitt this year, and they have delivered. Their goal from here on out is to play for seeding. Keep an eye out for that February 16 showdown at UConn and the return matchup on Mar 7 at home. Those two games could be deciding #1 seeds and conference titles.
If Pitt can get a #1 seed, you gotta think that the goal is to get to a Final Four. Not sure if Pitt has ever been to a Final Four before. With all those seniors and DeJuan Blair, this year would be the year to do it. Not sure if they can get there, but they are definitely going to be a major player in the NCAAs.
1) UConn - 21-1 (10-1)
Wow, that crow tastes good! I couldn't have been more wrong about UConn. Not only are they not overrated, I'm not sure that they are getting ENOUGH respect at this point. UConn is bludgeoning people. They just beat Providence by 33 and followed it up with a 17 point win at Louisville. There is no doubt that they are the best team in the Big East this year.
What is the key to UConn?? Well, I'd start with their defense. Their defense is devastating. With Thabeet down low guarding the paint and intimidating anyone who comes into the lane, their perimeter defenders know that they can play tighter defense and take more chances to get steals and deflections. It's a deadly combo, and it seems like UConn gets a ton of fast break points off their defense.
Offensively, my concern about them was that they didn't have a "crunch time scorer," but that concern was certainly overblown. Adrien is a reliable post scorer, Price and Dyson can score from the perimeter, Thabeet gives them some easy put backs, and now they have this Kemba Walker guy maturing every game. As great as Luke Harangody is (he is probably the MOP this year), I think the MVP of the Big East has been Jeff Adrien. He has been the heart and soul of this run for UConn. His stats don’t blow you away, but I think that’s just the nature of that team. It seems like he delivers whenever they need a big bucket or a dagger bucket.
My other concern with UConn was that they weren’t really all on the same page. Too many individual parts. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They are playing great team defense, and it seems like they are on a mission. This group is much more cohesive than the Rudy Gay team that lost to George Mason in the Elite Eight a couple years ago. I gotta hand it to Jim Calhoun.
Anyway, I know Carolina and other ACC fans may disagree, but I think I would pick UConn to win it all if I had to pick someone today. They have every ingredient that you need to be a championship team, and they have that extra gear defensively that I don’t think Carolina has. If UConn and Carolina played, I think UConn could cause enough problems defensively for Hansborough and UNC’s perimeter people to beat them. It would be an incredible game (the ’99 Duke-UConn epic final comes to mind immediately), but I think I’d pick UConn as of today (there is a little Big East bias there admittedly). I hope we get that matchup in the finals.
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