Archive for the ‘College Basketball’ Category

I think I’ve made my disdain for the University of Memphis Tigers basketball program pretty well-known. So when I got a text message from my dad last night in the middle of the Lakers-Nuggets game alerting me of the allegations against the Tigers, I must admit I got a kick out of it.

The Tigers’ best season, where they won 38 games and should have won a national championship (thank you Mario Chalmers), now apparently will be null-and-void.

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As had been expected, Tennessee’s Tyler Smith declared for the NBA Draft yesterday. As is the case with a number of others draft entrees, Tyler hasn’t hired an agent, so he’s got until June 15 to come back.

Will #1 be back?

As the title of this post clearly states, I think Tyler Smith is going to be playing for Tennessee next year. I don’t believe I’m in the minority in thinking that, either. Now, I could be very wrong, because Tyler could go work out for one of these teams playing right now (that will have late first-round picks) and really impress them.

It’s not that Tyler isn’t a good player or not NBA material. There are guys in the NBA who I see and wonder how they in the league (take Sean Marks, Mark Madsen, Brian Cardinal and Robert Swift, for example) in the first place. It’s just that Tyler is a small forward in the NBA, and he’s playing the power forward spot for Tennessee. He showed he can knock down the outside shot when he’s left open, but this season he faced quite a bit of traffic in the lane because teams sagged off the perimeter because we couldn’t shoot threes and struggled with his shot. The Memphis game – against a long, athletic team – comes to mind.

So he can post up, he can shoot it decently, but can he straight-up drive by an NBA 3-man? Can he hit the mid-range jumper?

There is his family situation with his son to think about as well, but I think Tyler’s going to be a Vol next season. He should have better shooters surrounding him, and we saw how good he can be when you put that around him (2007-08). And even if he does stay in the draft, it’d be cool to have the number of Tennessee NBA players doubled.

Speaking of which, mad props to C.J. Watson the last seven games of this season for Golden State. Watson, one of my favorite Vols all-time and a guy who deserves more credit and appreciation than I think he gets, averaged 19 points and 6 assists in those games. He had 38 points, 7 rebounds, and nine assists (he made 16-of-16 free throws too) in a win over the Jazz, and had 20 points, 7 boards, 12 assists, and three steals in the season finale against Phoenix.

For an avid fantasy basketball guy like myself (second place in my second year of it…boom!), those numbers are more impressive to me. If this was his chance to stake his claim to Golden State’s starting PG position for next season, you can’t say he didn’t take advantage of it.

The only VOL currently in the NBA, and one of my all-time faves

But back to the main point of this, expect to see Tyler back in orange next year – with what should be an improved team.

– … to me.

Images Courtesy of: Ramin Rahimian / Reuters

I will be the first to acknowledge that both the blogosphere and the internet in general are full of vitriol directed toward various teams.  Any team that has ever enjoyed any success whatsoever has something written about it which drips of the sort of steaming hatred that accompanies sports rivalries great and small.  Most of the time these flaming rants come from fans of teams that are either rivals (or wish they were rivals) of the object of the spewing hatred.

This post is a flaming rant.  It is not, however, aimed at a traditional rival of the Tennessee Volunteers.  Furthermore, while it amounts to little more than a creative rationalization on my part, I feel that I have earned my bitching license on this one since — in addition to being a graduate of the University of Tennessee — I am also a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I despise the Tarheels Tarheads…

From 1998 until 2001, I attended “trade school” at UNC.  For the record, I got a wonderful education at the UNC School of Law, and have nothing but good things to say about the educational aspects of that institution.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, UNC School of Law is an excellent institution with a fine faculty.  Second, as is the case at most professional and graduate schools, most of the students at UNC School of Law did their undergraduate work elsewhere.

See, I said something nice about UNC…

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Then I’m walking in Memphis
Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel

• “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn

Well, it seems that Bruce Pearl will be staying in Knoxville for the foreseeable future, which is good.  The question, however, remains: What are we to make of this “Memphis Incident”?

For starters, I am greatly relieved that Bruce Almighty will still be wearing orange next season.  That is the good news, not that there is necessarily some “bad” news, but keeping Pearl on the sidelines in Knoxville is definitely very good.

That said, what exactly are we to take away from the brief and furious flirtation (so brief and furious that I never even got a chance to comment before it ended) with the notion that Coach Pearl might bolt to the Pyramid City to take the reins as head coach of the Memphis Tigers?  The real answer is probably “nothing.”  Still there are a few thoughts that jump out to me—random observations, I suppose—which seem relevant, if less than timely.

Bruce Pearl is Happy at Tennessee…

It seems to me that Bruce Pearl sent two messages yesterday.  The first is a very positive one, namely that he is happy as coach of the Tennessee Volunteers and has no desire to leave behind what he has begun.  Bruce Pearl likes it here.

Why do I say that?  Well first of all is the obvious: he is staying here.  More importantly, however, is the what he said in his public statement last night.  To me, it makes it clear that Pearl is truly happy to be at Tennessee.

I truly love my job, and I want it to be clear that I’m not interested in any other job.  There’s no place in the country I’d rather be than the University of Tennessee.  My children are happy here in the Knoxville community—one is in high school, one is in middle school and two are currently attending the university.

My staff and I are building a consistent top-25 program and I’m honored and privileged to serve the greatest fans in the country. Tennessee has all the resources necessary to win championships, from our recently upgraded facilities to our ability to schedule.

It’s great to be a Tennessee Vol!

• Bruce Pearl commenting on rumors of him leaving Tennessee | UT Sports.com

Now in the era of sports double-talk and lip service (See Bobby Petrino at any point in his career), it is rarely advisable to take public professions of loyalty at face value.  I understand that.  Still, there are different degrees of lip service and there are different types of coaches.  Pearl’s statement was anything but tepid—it was largely unequivocal and pointed.  In other words, he could have simply said “I’m staying,” and left the other assurances out of the discussion; he didn’t.

Second of all, for reasons unknown to me (considering I have never met Pearl), I trust the man.  Maybe that owes to the side of him that exudes infectious enthusiasm about everything to which he is tied; maybe it is because of his well documented history of loyalty at Iowa and Wisconsin-Green Bay; maybe it is because he is a con man and I’m snowed.  Regardless of the reasons, Pearl is unique in my mind because I do believe that he is both loyal and trustworthy as a coach.  My gut tells me that if he was not happy and was considering a move, while he might not come out and say it, he would similarly not effervesce about how much he loves it at Tennessee.

Furthermore, if he had wanted to leave, it would have been hard to argue with his decision given the suggestion that Memphis was prepared to offer up to $ 3.25 million a year (approximately $ 1.25 million more per year than his new contract is reported to provide).

Thus, I believe him when he says that he never intended to leave, and that he truly loves coaching the BasketVols.  If he truly wanted to leave, he would have.

Yeah, yeah, I know—I’ve obviously been drinking the Kool Aid…

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It’s finally a done deal. The delusion is going to be at an all-time high – and for Kentucky basketball fans, that’s saying quite a lot…

UNRELATED YET IMPORTANT UPDATE (1:20 p.m., March 31st): Georgia still needs a coach, and is trying to get Missouri’s Mike Anderson. I don’t see why Anderson, who’s also rumored in the potential replacing of Calipari at Memphis, would go to Georgia, but who knows. Calipari, Donovan, Pearl, Anderson, Stallings and Horn in the same division next year? Wow.

UPDATE 2 (12:15 p.m., March 31st): This little bit is just too interesting and kinda funny to pass up, from Geoff Calkins at the Commercial Appeal. Interesting because it’s not 110% believable and funny because the particular donut shop was/is a cool hangout place for my friends and I in high school and now over breaks and the like (after 11 p.m. you can get half a dozen donuts for $1).

UPDATE (6:25 p.m.): ESPN is now getting in on the fun, saying the reported deal is for 8 years at $35 million – still over the $4 million mark.

If you’ve been just about anywhere on the internet on a sports website today, you’ve probably seen the John Calipari-to-Kentucky news. It’s to the point now where it’s all but official

Some major sites like USA Today and SI.com are coming out in the last hour or so and saying the same thing. Good ol’ Channel 5 in Memphis says it’s a done deal, and the Tigers’ Rivals site says so as well. Interestingly, in that article, it says Kentucky is paying Calipari $40 million over six years. For those of us not good at math, that’s, oh, $6.67 million PER YEAR. I heard on the Sports Animal here in Knoxville about an hour ago Jimmy Hyams say he heard the same information in talking with Ron Higgins, who’s with the Commercial Appeal in Memphis.

For comparison sake, Pete Carroll at USC and Nick Saban at Alabama make $4 million a year, give-or-take. Florida coach Billy Donovan is the nation’s highest-paid basketball coach at roughly $3.5 million.

Hey, can you blame me for turning down $6 million a year?

Again, I have seen nothing official on this as of 5 p.m. Eastern, so if this turns out to not be true, then all this commentary is obviously irrelevant.

Now this is not Tennessee news, but it’s certainly Tennessee-related and I would even say I care more than most being from Memphis and having the disdain for both the Memphis and Kentucky programs that I do. You have a coach that’s easy for us Vols to dislike, going from the in-state rival – and a rivalry that’s grown into one of the bigger basketball rivalries for Tennessee and Memphis the past four years – to the historic conference rival in big, bad Kentucky – one that at least has become much more competitive recently (thank you Bruce Pearl).

For me, it’s more reason to hate Kentucky. Yes, hate is a strong word. But much like the case with Alabama, Florida and Georgia in anything, if Kentucky lost every basketball game for their rest of time, I would enjoy it. Seeing them in the NIT and reading the thoughts of the crazier side of their fanbase on Rupps Rafters talk about being in the NIT? Loved it. Likewise, seeing Missouri eliminate the Tigers in the Sweet 16 last Thursday was enjoyable for me.

Now throw in Mr. Calipari, who’s dislike of and disrespectful attitude toward Tennessee and Pearl was a major reason for my dislike of the Tigers, joins Kentucky. As if they shouldn’t already be, you have to put Kentucky now as Tennessee’s biggest basketball rival now, right?

I don’t see much of a change recruiting-wise. The Memphis-area will still be hard for the Vols to recruit, like it is for both football and basketball. Calipari recruited nationally at Memphis (not many players from Memphis on the roster), and he will do that at Kentucky as well. So that doesn’t change.

And finally, I’ve read that Tennessee needs Kentucky to be good, because a strong Kentucky makes the SEC look stronger and more respected. I think that’s garbage. Kentucky is a rival. How can anything that’s good for them – and this is certainly excellent for the Wildcats – be good for Tennessee? If Tennessee keeps playing a tough schedule and wins 25 games and sweeps the SEC regular season and tournament titles in a given year, they’re going to get a high seed regardless of Kentucky or the rest of the league. (Signed, Memphis and C-USA).

On one hand, this hire by UK is scary – Calipari was their ultimate dream hire, and his recruiting ability and style has much more of a probability of success than failure. On the other hand, I say bring it. Bruce Pearl vs. John Calipari twice a year (or more) now? I can go for that…

– … to me.

Images Courtesy of: AP/ Daylife

Cornell won the Ivy League for a second straight year - and got blown out in the first round both NCAA trips

The Other Side to March’s “Madness”

It’s been raining all day today (Friday) here in Knoxville, so I think it’s perfect time to do this post, one I’ve been conjuring up for the past week. A couple of disclaimers: first, it has little or nothing to do with anything Tennessee-related; secondly, overall it just isn’t going to be a happy post in any sense.

The NCAA Tournament is undoubtedly one of the greatest sporting events in the world. It’s my favorite time of the year, along with the fall of course. We all know why it’s so great – a champion being determined on the court, players rising to the occasion, teams playing their best basketball, schools you’ve never heard of putting a scare into a traditional power – so on and so forth. The office pool phenomenon is second to Super Bowl parties in sports-related hooplas. Everybody loves it and says that’s what makes college basketball so much fun to watch.

However, there’s a bad side to just about everything, and the NCAA Tournament/March Madness. And it’s one I’ve come to realize this past March more than ever before.

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» Updated: 27 March 2009 — 4:25pm

Apparently, Gillispie’s firing became official about 5 minutes after I posted this.  At least I was a little bit ahead of the curve…

» Updated: 27 March 2009 — 4:42pm

Now, as his comment below points out, HSH has discovered an even more interesting development: perhaps Billy Donovan is going to Kentucky.

Well, friends and neighbors, it’s not like it is unexpected, but it appears that Billy Gillispie is out at Kentucky.  This comes from WHAS TV in Louisville.  Seemingly in response to this report, the Kentucky athletic department issued a public statement which—paraphrased—amounts to their complete refusal to make a public statement.  It read,  “UK mens basketball coach Billy Gillispie has not been fired. There have been no meetings between Gillispie and UK officials today and there is no scheduled press conference tomorrow.“

I think a simple “no comment” would have sufficed.

Either way, this does seriously change the dynamic in the SEC East.  Hooper over at RTT has an interesting article on why this prospect scares him as a fan of SEC and Tennessee basketball.  The uncertainty at Kentucky will definitely add confusion to recruiting, but what if Kentucky actually gets a “good” coach?  With rumors flying about as to who will replace Gillispie, it stands to reason that Kentucky Mitch Barnhart will be trying to save his neck by getting a coach who is a little better fit for the Wildcats this time around than was Billy Clyde.  According to the guys at Team Speed Kills, however, that new coach will not be Billy Donovan (or will it?).

In the meantime, I suppose we will all be guessing…

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