Archive for the ‘SEC Basketball’ Category

Well, after failing to get my Oklahoma State preview up in time for the game, and given the quick end to the BasketVols‘ run in the NCAA Tournament, I really haven’t had a lot to offer these past few days.  Of course, when you set the bar very low—which has always been the policy of Gate 21—it takes extra effort to fail in grand style.  I guess I am running behind in my running behind…

In the meantime, here’s a little something that is worth giving a look.  I’m a bit behind in getting this up, but this is pretty funny if you ask me (which I realize you didn’t).

Here is a pretty hilarious look at the various coaches of the SEC in a way that I don’t think I have ever seen before.  As always, this comes courtesy of VolzRChamps and BlazerChronicles.com, with a Tennessee All-Sports Update.

The Blazer Chronicles: A “Quotetastic” Look at the SEC

That Bobby Johnson quote is simply priceless…

– So it goes …

Video Courtesy of: VolzRChamps / You Tube • Blazer Chronicles

Yes, friends and neighbors the NCAA Tournament is upon us.  Thus, we all get ready for the mayhem that accompanies that grand old tradition.  For what seems like forever, that has included watching endless hours of basketball courtesy of CBS Sports.  Now, generally, I am a huge fan of CBS Sports, and I favor their web presence when it comes to sports content on the internet. **

All that said, last year’s NCAA tournament almost drove me mad.  Actually it wasn’t the tournament, but the way that CBS covered the tournament on television.  That led me to fire off at the mouth a bit.  Since it is that time again, I figured it would only be appropriate to take a stroll down memory lane and look back on what I had to say about CBS’s coverage.  I do this for two reasons.

First, this seems relevant as we all get ready to become couch potatoes for a month.  This may be minimized a little bit due to the fact that CBS will be broadcasting all games online free of charge once again, but the fact remains a big flat screen is infinitely better than even the best computer monitor.

Second, I have been so busy that I haven’t yet gotten a chance to finish up my thoughts on the Oklahoma State Cowboys…

Thus, without further adieu, we go back in time to my post entitled simply:

CBS = Complete Bull Sh*t

The following is an excerpt from an archived post on Gate 21 which originally appeared on 31 March 2008.  To continue reading the original post in its entirety, simply click the title above, or the “Continue Reading” link at the foot of this post

I intentionally waited a few days before airing this complaint, mainly because I didn’t want my vitriol to be mistaken as nothing more than “sour grapes” over the BasketVols loss to the Louisville Cardinals.

Trust me, this has nothing to do with Tennessee, Louisville, or any other specific team…

For the past … well, it seems like quite a long time, now … CBS has been the exclusive home of the NCAA Tournament. I vaguely remember ESPN covering first and second-round games during the 1990s, but CBS is all we have had for a while. Either way, CBS has held a stranglehold on the Final Four since Billy Packer conned James Naismith himself into signing over the rights some time during the 1920s — back when Billy Packer was in his 50s.

First of all, I do want to applaud CBS Sportsline — CBS Sports’ internet division — for their ambitious decision to broadcast every tournament game for free on the web. Similarly, the CBS “Game Center” on the internet for each game — displaying myriad stats and information in real time — is amazing. It is as artful as it is impressive. Any fan can get up-to-the-second information on every facet of the game — including points, fouls, assists, shooting trends, whether a player is taking bribes to throw the game, which boosters the cute little cheerleader next to the basket is sleeping with, and so much more — via one of the best interfaces I’ve ever seen for statistical information of that kind.

Despite the minor fact that the bandwidth draw for the “March Madness on Demand” service has been so obscenely high that it has — at times — nearly crashed massive trunk lines on the web, I salute these efforts of CBS’s internet division. For reasons which will become clear in a second, in the future I may choose this as the only way I’ll watch the tournament — even if it is in a 5″ x 5″ low resolution streaming window.

Continue Reading >>

**Disclosure: While lawvol is a voting member of the CBS Sports Football Blog Poll and the CBS Sports BasketBlog Poll, neither this site, its editor, nor publisher receives any payment or other compensation of any type or kind in return for participation. Furthermore, neither Gate 21 nor lawvol received any benefit of any kind for this article, which was neither requested nor solicited by CBS Sports. This article represents the actual opinion of the author (for what that is worth) and was in no way influenced by any other person(s).

2009 SEC Tournament Championship Game

Final Statistics: Mississippi State 64 • Tennessee 61

Postgame: Quotes • Box Score

Try as they might during the 2009 SEC Tournament Championship game, the Tennessee Volunteers simply could not overcome the Mississippi State Bulldogs … or the officials.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming the BasketVols loss on the officiating, because it was awful in both directions, but the calls in the second half were as poor as I have seen in a major tournament championship in a long time, notwithstanding the fact that Ted “Rah-spect mah Au-thori-tah!!” Valentine was nowhere to be found.

Here are a few highlights, courtesy of ESPN:

Miss. State Upends the Vols| ESPN.com

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I only have a few minute, but I wanted to take a moment to cheer on the Vols today as they get ready to face the Mississippi State Bulldogs today in the SEC Tournament Championship Game.  I do not know why or how, but suddenly the Vols look like the team we all thought they would be at the start of the season.

Better late than never…

It's time to finish strong, men!

The game will air today on CBS as well as online at CBS Sports at 1:00 pm. As always, the game will also be broadcast by the Vol Network through its broadcast affiliate stations, as well as via the live internet stream available through UT Sports.com, and via XM Satellite Radio on Channel 199.

Barring incident and time permitting, I will be joining in the Live Game Thread over at Rocky Top Talk, where everyone is always welcome to join in and either celebrate or commiserate throughout the game.

Go Vols, Beat the Bulldogs!

– So it goes

Yes, I know that the logo above might not match what this post is about, but it’s the same gist as the posts from the fall I did each week: a preview of the upcoming weekend. It just happens to be this weekend’s SEC Tournament down in Tampa.

First, two things: one, this thing should NEVER be played in Tampa again. It’s like the ACC playing it’s tournament in Boston (for Boston College) or the Big East playing their’s in Milwaukee (for Marquette). These things are supposed to be played in central locations – Atlanta, Nashville, even Birmingham or Memphis (the SEC Tourney in Memphis would be better than the C-USA Tourney).

Second, don’t even think for a second I’m going to predict who will win this tournament, because neither I nor anybody else has a single clue. Partly because there’s no dominant team and the SEC this year was more or less a bunch of good mediocre teams beating each other up. I might as well put the 12 logos – er, take out Georgia and Arkansas – close my eyes and throw a dart and pick whoever said dart lands on.

Instead, I’ll go through why each team can win it all and why each team can’t win it all. Here’s your bracket and if you want to use the SEC playoffs as a warm-up for your office pool, here’s where you wanna go.

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Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports College BasketBlog Poll hosted by — as you might imagine — CBS Sports.

End of the Regular Season Poll

Through 8 March 2009

Well, given my habit lately of running behind, I never got around to posting my ballot last week.  Thus, this week’s ballot is without changes (since the poll for last week looked different than the last one posted).  Be that as it may, with the regular season over for the world of college basketball, here’s where I place the powers of the hardwood at the conclusion of the 2009 season.  Most of these should be fairly obvious.  Either way, here’s my ballot:

My Ballot for the Week

Having taken the time to consider my feeble attempt at ranking the powers in college basketball, feel free to try and convince me that I am wrong — which is part of the way the BlogPoll is supposed to work.  I promise that I will consider all comments.

As for the rest of the BlogPoll, well, you can check out how other bloggers voted, how your team fared across the blogosphere, and view the weekly results each week over at CBS Sports (at least I think that’s how it’s supposed to work…)

Time to break out the brackets…

– So it goes…

For those of you that thought the tyrannical lawvol had kicked me out of the Gate, well, I’m sorry but I’m still here. I haven’t posted in a really long time, more or less because I haven’t had much to say. It’s not that there has been nothing to write about – because there certainly has – but my already limited creativity was pretty low. The juices of my mind weren’t flowing. At all. I also am taking a sports writing class in which two of our last three assignments have been of the column genre – or what I more or less view as a much more formal post I would do here. Lame I know…

And honesty, much of what I would have been posting about – Tennessee’ basketball team – would have been a repeat of what I’ve said in the past. This team has the talent, they’re just not playing together. They’re just not playing with much heart. The defense is bad. They can’t shoot. So on an so forth.

Yet what I saw Sunday afternoon on my TV as the Vols beat Florida was a team playing inspired and playing team basketball at both ends of the court. It helps when you hit 10 three-pointers, yes, but it also helps when you’re relatively open, as Tennessee has been in both meetings with the Gators this season. And even though there were the usual moments of defensive lapses, failures to rebound Florida’s missed shots, and a little dicey from the free throw line at the end – you knew Tennessee wasn’t going to lose.

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