No one and done, no matter!
What you say?
The belief might be
for quite a while a college team must recruit one and done players to compete
effectively. Well that might be somewhat
true however don’t tell Jay Wright that.
Move over Coach K., Roy Williams and John Calipari you need to include
Jay Wright in your NCAA title club. Wright’s
Villanova team won this championship 79-62 in the same manner as two years ago,
not a one and done player in sight.
Michigan came out
with a mindset that said: “We gonna win this game.” At one-point Villanova was behind 21-14 missing numerous shots before they could get their engine revved up.
With the number of double-digit wins in this NCAA Tournament, one might
tend to believe Villanova is an offensive juggernaut which they are. In addition to scoring the basketball they
play tough hard-nose defense as well. Donte
DiVincenzo came off the Villanova bench to lead them in scoring with 31
points and was selected Most Outstanding Player. The Michigan Wolverines are to
be congratulated they just fell short.
What you say?
In his last 10 games
Ben Simmons has registered 4 triple-doubles, a website made the statement he
should be 2018 NBA Rookie of the Year.
We all realize he was drafted in 2017 but missed the season due to
injury, then comes a fans strange response.
He wrote; “He (Simmons) should be red-shirt ROY after all he was drafted
in 2017.” This writer never explained
what he meant by his letter, he’s either ROY or not. In any event I thought it was one of the
strangest responses I believe I’d read in quite a while.
I disagree
I disagree
Dick Vitale is one of
my favorites, but I believe he’s off-base on this one. The veteran ESPN analyst and former coach
believes the 3-point college line should be moved to that utilized in
international play. I’m unsure if his
view is based on witnessing the current run of Villanova or something else
that’s prompted this opinion. Vitale
claims, “It’s too easy to shoot as it is now,” below is the distance to the
line at present, corner shots are slightly less shooting distance to the basket.
NCAA men, 20.9 feet
International, 22.1 feet
NBA, 23.9 feet
This issue for me,
two feet is not going to make that much difference between a make and a
miss. Just my opinion doesn’t make it
correct, what do you think?
Character
It’s been mentioned
previously sports today has a huge lack of characters. In the past we had Yogi Berra, former
Oklahoma City basketball coach Abe Lemons.
Lemons once said; “I don’t have any tricky plays, I’d rather have tricky
players.” In recent years there’s Shaquille
O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Bill Walton and of course Dick Vitale. They make funny statements often without intention.
There are so many serious
overtones to sport today perhaps we’ve kinda lost our way, we have difficulty
relaxing and enjoying ourselves. I
believe Joel Embiid is a throw-back to several of the above names and perhaps
others. His funny tweets in addition his
continuous flirtation with entertainer Rihanna.
Almost immediately after his surgery this is his tweet; “Babe are you
single or nah? @rihanna”. So, there you
have it, it’s going to be interesting reading Embiid’s tweets while healing from surgery.
Leaving early?
Leaving early?
After losing on
Saturday against Villanova speculation begins on the Kansas basketball program. We've read and heard from
the locals on who leaves and who returns next season for Kansas. This
is aimed at the radio/print guys not the athletes, for the Kansas contingent
I’m not saying these guys can’t play. Seniors
are history gone so they don’t enter into this picture besides two seniors are
listed on mock draft sites.
The names mentioned
are guards Malik Newman and Lagerald Vick along with center Udoka
Azubuike. None of the three is listed on
any mock NBA draft sites, no one leaves school early to become a
second-round draft pick. On the other hand,
I could be wrong however I seriously doubt it, we’ll see if there are changes
between now and then. We have two dates,
April 22nd the last date an underclassman can declare and June 11th
the date a name can be withdrawn.
