Words eye view

Basketball from a fan perspective

“Whoa, hold hold! I don’t play no defense”

Remember the movie Space Jam, the reference is the scene when Bill Murray arrived to save the day?  Check the link below if you’ve forgotten the 1996 movie.  The line could easily apply to the Brooklyn Nets at this point, they love scoring the basketball it’s the other things that become issues.  In this instance those “things” we reference are attempting to play defense on a consistent basis. 

Wednesday morning on ESPN’s SportsCenter one of the studio host was describing the previous night’s action against the Pistons provided us these words.  He offered us a screen shot indicating the Nets play well against +500 teams it’s the below .500 teams they have difficulty.  Certainly, sounds like an excuse to me, can we state improvement required.  The video clearly detailed an intense discussion by three Nets players during a time out. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIV_9--awCI

Color me unimpressed (to date) 

In the big picture many of us (including me) have only had the opportunity to witness Emoni Bates in action this season.  Most of us had little ability to see him in his freshman and sophomore seasons at Lincoln High School in Ypsilanti Michigan.  We’ve seen him play at Ypsi Prep the school he transferred to for his junior year.  I must confess I’ve only seen glimpses of what many believe are his ability on the basketball court. 

In two of the three games on television, it appears he is placing himself under tremendous pressure.  Perhaps in the back of his mind he realizes the games are being seen across the nation and maybe around the world.  In an earlier story it was mentioned Bates might graduate in the Class of 2021, this might be a good thing.  He could mold his game around the existing roster and those incoming freshmen.  Before you run off and claim I said he couldn’t play far from it.  Bates appears to struggle in the nationally televised games, at Michigan State he can mold his game to those around him. 

My sense of humor   

Sometimes I’m sure my attempt at humor is not funny as I might think (ask my wife) but I don’t believe it’s thoughtless.  An example from several years back I’m watching ESPN SportsCenter and the studio host is providing the viewers with the nightly scores.  He reads the Wichita State score and looks directly into the camera, “I didn’t know Wichita had a state.” 

Guess what, not funny, this idiot (and I am being nice) failed to consider “state” is included in the name of several colleges and universities across the nation.  As an example, we have Tarkio State located in Tarkio Missouri, in other parts of the country we have Ball State in Muncie Indiana, Cheney State located in Cheney Pennsylvania and Albany State in Albany Georgia.  I love humor, silly not so much I hope somebody schooled this guy.    

Class of 2021

Recruiting is key to any college basketball teams success on the court.   Several schools like Duke, Kentucky or Kansas do truly little in depth recruiting.  Allow an explanation, those schools and others can recruit based on their history.  Others such as Mizzou must beat the bushes for talent.  Some don’t believe it’s important to recruit Top 50 talent, I believe it’s a must. 

I’m sure if we checked we’d discover Villanova and Jay Wright are always Top 50 which they turn into achievement.  In the Class of 2021 Mizzou is ranked number 40 by 247sports.com, Rivals.com places them at 36.  My friend is correct no program is guaranteed a winning record due to a Top 50 recruiting class, on the other hand it certainly cannot hurt.  We are in the middle of the 2020-21 basketball season, but I can hardly wait to see the incoming crop of freshman recruited by Cuonzo Martin.