The Swamp

Well Shit Larry Johnson is like 55 now, guys.

Babe Ruth wouldn’t stand a chance against Chasen Shreve.

A_B wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 10:59 am Well Shit Larry Johnson is like 55 now, guys.

As a total aside, between the terrible continuation call and Johnson’s repeated praise of Allah in the postgame interview, LJ’s game-winning 4 point play against the Pacers in the 1999 ECF would have caused a nuclear bomb of hot takes in today’s media environment.

brian wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 10:44 am ... more to do with modern conditioning, nutrition, weight training, etc.

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Coack K has been spreading the court and chucking threes from the 1-4 spot for 25 years now. Im not sure the style is as groundbreaking in college as it has been in the NBA. Id agree generally that players are bigger, faster, stronger but I still dont accept that Michigan beats Vegas in a series.

Pruitt wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:26 am If Villanova wins, I take a March madness pool - first time in the money in one of these pools since Keith Van Horn to the final game in '98!

Not to be 'That Guy', but Van Horn wasn't on the '98 Utah team. He left school in '97.

Starting line-up for the '98 Utes was (from memory):

-Michael Doleac
-Hanno Mottolla
-Andre Miller
-Alex Jensen
-Drew Hanson

Oh, and for now and forever, fuck Cameron Mills.

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:45 pm

Oh, and for now and forever, fuck Cameron Mills.

I didn't agree with you then, but I do now. Not worth the story, but he's a weird dude around here.

brian wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:23 pm

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 8:46 pm So how you feeling, Brian? The Logans got some serious D.

Nonlinear’s the guy you should be feeling sorry for. I really don’t give a fuck about Michigan.

Yeah, like, what does a homer have to do to get properly hazed around here?

Honestly, here's what I told coworkers last night, who all know my rooting interest... I ran a small office pool, so it's been nice to have that to talk about with folks here. Anyways:

"If Simpson can slow down Brunson early, get in his head and disrupt their rhythm.... AND! If MI comes out and hits threes, we've got a real shot. If we can't do either of those, it's going to be a very long night."

So, yeah, after about 10 minutes and no one was hitting from behind the arc, I just kind of resigned myself to the loss. I went in feeling good, but by halftime, it just didn't at all feel like it was going to be in the cards.

First time MI had to play a seed higher than them since the BTT and trying to gut out a win relying on D just wasn't going to cut it.

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:46 pm Jeez. That was an ass-whooping. Great season, Nonlinear. I would’ve rooted for Michigan personally if Nova got knocked off earlier, 1989 be damned.

Yeah, pretty much over by HT, but definitely over by the first TV timeout of the second half.

Needed guys like Robinson to hit 3's... No one hit them last night.

wlu_lax6 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:35 am

Johnny Carwash wrote: ↑Sat Mar 31, 2018 9:16 pm I don't know if anyone's commented on it yet, but it's freaky how the benches sit below the floor.

Doesn't Vanderbilt have the same setup at their gym? Yeah feels extra dangerous.

Minnesota is like that too. I really hate it.

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:45 pm

Pruitt wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:26 am If Villanova wins, I take a March madness pool - first time in the money in one of these pools since Keith Van Horn to the final game in '98!

Not to be 'That Guy', but Van Horn wasn't on the '98 Utah team. He left school in '97.

Starting line-up for the '98 Utes was (from memory):

-Michael Doleac
-Hanno Mottolla
-Andre Miller
-Alex Jensen
-Drew Hanson

Oh, and for now and forever, fuck Cameron Mills.

The brain is 54 years old. It has some rust on it.

Championships won by Jay Wright with Ashley Howard: 2
Championships won by Jay Wright without Ashley Howard: 0

Is his name still Ashley?

mister d wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:25 pm

Please let this happen so I can subsist on the tears of dumbass Syracuse fans for a week.

I don’t know how overseeing the destruction of the Middle East makes you a college sports expert, but I do know that this is a terrible idea from Condolooeza Rice’s NCAA Committee:

The commission called for the NBA and its players association to change rules requiring players to be at least 19 years old and a year removed from graduating high school to be draft eligible. The rule was implemented in 2006, despite the success of straight-from-high-school stars such as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett. The commission did, however, say if the NBA and NBPA refuse to change their rules in time for the next basketball season, it would reconvene and consider other options for the NCAA, such as making freshmen ineligible or locking a scholarship for three or four years if the recipient leaves a program after a single year.

Either eliminating freshman eligibility or locking scholarships for 3-4 years are terrible ideas that would quickly deplete the talent level of the NCAA. No player with NBA aspirations will sit out an entire year and the notion that 1-2 year players are somehow “ruining the sport” is utter nonsense. The NBA has an excellent product now even though the vast majority of the league’s best players played 2 or less years of NCAA ball. So the notion that it’s in those guys’ interest to play 3+ years of unpaid NCAA ball has no evidentiary basis. All that rule would do is push the best 30 or more players to the G-League or Europe.

Isnt that the point? Guys should go to college in order to go to college. Guys should go play professional sports to prepare for the NBA. I like the freshman ineligibility idea from a human development standpoint. Practice but dont play or travel and be in a better position to graduate. College athletics needs to change fundamentally from a pro development model to a college enrichment model. The play will suffer no doubt but you cant separate the cash from the fraud, criminality, gambling, deceit, etc. Once the cash is gone, theyll be no incentive for the other.

If the real goal is to make college athletes more like college students, treat them like you would a kid there on an accounting scholarship. Wink.

HaulCitgo wrote: ↑Wed Apr 25, 2018 8:07 am Isnt that the point? Guys should go to college in order to go to college. Guys should go play professional sports to prepare for the NBA. I like the freshman ineligibility idea from a human development standpoint. Practice but dont play or travel and be in a better position to graduate. College athletics needs to change fundamentally from a pro development model to a college enrichment model. The play will suffer no doubt but you cant separate the cash from the fraud, criminality, gambling, deceit, etc. Once the cash is gone, theyll be no incentive for the other.

If the proposal were to eliminate the NCAA as a training ground for the pros altogether, then I’m all ears. But that’s clearly not what this Commission has in mind. It doesn’t want to eliminate the huge TV contracts or administrator salaries in college sports. (And those are predicated on elite talent playing NCAA basketball and football.) And the one alternative, obvious, way to cut back on the fraud and deceit is just allow players to sign endorsements profit off their likeness! That would also make it a lot more likely that stars will stay longer in college as the monetary pull of turning pro ASAP wouldn’t be as extreme.

I also find it curious how basketball players leaving early is treated as a crisis, when no one cares about American golfers like Jordan Spieth or Tiger Woods doing the same or American tennis stars skipping college altogether. (For that matter, would anyone care about a Stanford computer science major leaving without a diploma to cash in from a Silicon Valley startup?)

Freshmen ineligibility makes absolutely no sense. What is the reason for that, and is there any evidence it's necessary? Freshmen have been playing D1 basketball (and football) for over four decades now and I can't think of any examples that show kids weren't ready for games (but yet could take the time for practice, freshmen squad games, etc.).

The NCAA simply needs to stop worrying about the pro leagues at all. If a kid wants to go to college for one year, fine. If he wants to leave to play pro, fine. If he thinks he wants to be a pro, but it turns out they don't want him, fine. In all those cases, he should still be able to play college basketball for as long as he hasn't used up his four years of eligibility. Hell, I'd be willing to discuss allowing five years of eligibility.

Agree with everything Shirley said. Also, why is one and done treated as such a big deal when it’s only a handful of programs that regularly get those guys? It matters for Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, etc., but not so much the UVAs or even Villanovas. It’s just become this boogieman when the issues with money in college sports are so much more complex. And I’ve yet to see a good reason against allowing NCAA athletes to legally profit off their likeness (obviously it’s already occurring under the table) other than just a general opposition to college athletes having money.

Seems like politics in a microscope, no? A very small number of "affected" parties lobbying to modify the rules to their ever increasing benefit. Like if you ask all 351 D1 ADs if one-and-done affects them, how many say yes? 5%?

mister d wrote: ↑Wed Apr 25, 2018 8:42 am Seems like politics in a microscope, no? A very small number of "affected" parties lobbying to modify the rules to their ever increasing benefit. Like if you ask all 351 D1 ADs if one-and-done affects them, how many say yes? 5%?

For the record, Coach Cal hates the one-and-done rule.

""If they want to go out of high school, go," Calipari said. "If they want to go to college and then leave, let them leave when they want to leave. Why would we force a kid to stay? 'Well — it's good for the game?' It's about these kids and their families. Because let me tell you, if we [abolish one-and-done], the kids that do come to college will stay for two to three years."

I don't know if I believe that or if its marketing, but either way he's much better than most. Except for right now. Fuck him, right now.

NCAA committee's top takeaway being the change of a rule that is not the NCAA's is a nice touch

This is a pretty comprehensive takedown of the NCAA and its report. Lots of good points in here about how the NCAA is scapegoating one-and-dones, AAU and sneaker companies while ignoring more fundamental flaws with its “amateurism” model.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket ... recruiting

I think the starting point for this conversation is how on earth are there roughly 1,000 professional basketball jobs available in the United States at any one time. I mean how does that make any sense? The NCAA is part of the reason why, but I don't think it can solve that problem.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of course, but Skip Bayless should be shot into the sun.

What an asshole.

brian wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 9:11 am This is only the tip of the iceberg of course, but Skip Bayless should be shot into the sun.

What an asshole.

So, far be it for me to defend that cockgobbler, but holy crap what an absolutely benign tweet from an alum.

Giff wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 10:51 am

brian wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 9:11 am This is only the tip of the iceberg of course, but Skip Bayless should be shot into the sun.

What an asshole.

So, far be it for me to defend that cockgobbler, but holy crap what an absolutely benign tweet from an alum.

I disagree. It's just a bad look for anyone to tweet at an 18-year-old kid and criticize their decision of where to go to school. For a guy who has a show on national TV, it's about 100 times more of a douche move.

He literally starts the tweet that he understood and respected the decision. He didn't follow that up by calling the kid an idiot or anything. Other than the history of the author, there's nothing here to criticize.

Giff wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 11:03 am He literally starts the tweet that he understood and respected the decision. He didn't follow that up by calling the kid an idiot or anything. Other than the history of the author, there's nothing here to criticize.

I still have to disagree. It's just a bad look IMO, that's all.

Giff wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 11:03 am He literally starts the tweet that he understood and respected the decision. He didn't follow that up by calling the kid an idiot or anything. Other than the history of the author, there's nothing here to criticize.

Eh. I think Bayless is taking a page out of Trump's tweet deck: and that's to toss up fresh meat at Vanderbilt alum, fans etc to disparage the 18 year old and his decision. Some people take stuff like this way too seriously and will wind up threatening the kid and/or his family's well being.

His weasel worded first sentence is nothing but that.

Of all the fan bases who would do hat, I think Vandys are as close to the bottom as possible.

A_B wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 12:59 pm Of all the fan bases who would do hat, I think Vandys are as close to the bottom as possible.

That might be, but it doesn't absolve Skip Bayless for his tweet.

Giff wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 11:03 am Other than the history of the author, there's nothing here to criticize.

This is where I'm at too. There are probably thousands of alum tweets that look exactly like this every day

Adults shouldn't tweet at HS students. The end.

mister d wrote: ↑Tue May 01, 2018 1:03 pm Adults shouldn't tweet at HS students. The end.

Period. Correct.

Well I do that all the time.

I told one of the Parkland kids they were awesome. Oops?