Basketball from a fans perspective
Villanova
Sitting in the Midwest I admit I was blind-sided by east coast Villanova winning the 2015 NCAA Tournament. Don’t misunderstand they were good but good enough to win it all I didn’t think so. Just to let you know I wasn’t completely in the dark I went back to last season to check and it appears I wasn‘t alone. Villanova began the season in 12th place moved up to 7th and the first post-season poll they were in 2nd place.
Pre-season Pre-season
AP Top 25 USA Today
12th place 12th place
Week 12 Week 12
7th place 7th place
Post-season Post-season
2nd place 2nd place
Big East Conference
Every season once training camp begins I long for the Big East Conference. Oh sure the conference still exists but not as it once did in its glory years. Georgetown, Syracuse, St. John’s and other independents came together to form the Big East. Although several conference members fielded football this was a basketball conference. It was formulated for basketball, its strength was basketball.
Boy was it good back in the day, Chris Mullin at St. John’s, Pearl Washington Syracuse and Patrick Ewing at Georgetown just three of the outstanding players the conference produced at the time.
There were a number of outstanding winning coaches, Big John Thompson at Georgetown, Lou Carnesecca at St. John’s and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse plus Rollie Massimino at Villanova. There was no single reason for the demise of the conference but it all came apart in 2013. The American Athletic Conference came into existence which includes several former Big East Members. Syracuse, Providence and Boston College left for a number of reasons.
He’s a power forward
Carte’Are Gordon is a 6-8 257 pound power forward. Generally in high school sometimes there is a refrain from using the term small or power to describe front court players in high school. The primary rationale youngsters continue to grow in height and weight. This requires a departure due to Gordon’s 257 pounds; in any event Gordon attends Webster Groves High School in suburban St. Louis.
He’s a 5-star prospect in the Class of 2018 and Mizzou is on his radar with an offer. The competition is intense for his services, 13 other schools indicate interest in Gordon such as Kansas, Notre Dame, Texas and UNLV. It sure would be a coup if Mizzou could wrestle him away from any of the high profile programs after him.
Bits n Pieces
ESPN Recruiting Nation published its Top 10 recruiting class for 2017. In case you didn’t see it the usual suspects are missing. There is no Kentucky, Kansas or Duke that make the cut. At the top of the list are Washington and Lorenzo Romar, they have 4 top prospects planning on arriving at the Seattle campus next August. In a surprise second place with three prospects is Auburn and Bruce Pearl. Several other schools are surprise additions to the list among them Western Kentucky, Butler and Creighton. Don’t get too excited it’s early a significant number of 2017 prospects are yet to sign or announce a school choice.
Kansas basketball and its world-wide web continue to attract talent from all over to Lawrence Kansas. The school invited a number of potential prospects to Late Night at the Phog the annual first night of basketball practice. Kansas announced the verbal commitment of one of the prospects; he wasn’t a senior or a junior. High school sophomore Markese Jacobs from Uplift Community High School in Chicago announced he was headed to Kansas, he‘s a 5-11 point guard.
The ESPN Network is clearly the leader in the number of college basketball telecast. The Fox Network is in third place followed by a number of smaller cable networks. In the upcoming 2016-17 CBS with its broadcast network and cable network is challenging ESPN in numbers. They announced a television schedule of 270 games spread across CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. Their broadcast arm continues to host the semi and finals of the NCAA Championship.
I’m glad Jeremy Lin is back in New York City, that’s where he first came to prominence in the NBA. I believe he’s ready for the Big Apple the second time around. As a Laker fan I cannot say with conviction he got a fair shake in Los Angeles. I’m not sure what occurred prior to that with the Rockets. From his statements he wanted to remain with the Hornets however it appeared it just didn’t work out there. The aggressive Nets signed Lin to a 3-year contract indicating they wanted him for the long-haul.
