Noahdb

History

Member for

4 years 43 weeks

Blog

View recent blog entries

Karma

Current value

2

Recent Comments

Date	Title	Body
4 weeks 6 days ago	Williams	Is it possible that he gets moved to defense (provided he commits)? What you are describing sounds almost like a free safety or even a guy who could grow into an outside linebacker.
5 weeks 1 day ago	Red Sox	Their game starts at 11 a.m. on Patriots Day. They won 3-2.
5 weeks 6 days ago	Dollar Signs	Charles Barkley was on Dan Patrick's show this morning. He said that agents were doing a fine job of ruining basketball. They just want people to get to the second contract as quickly as possible. That's the only thing they care about. He brought up the case of the UK kids who went pro last year. Had they come back this year, they would have been one of the all-time great college teams. Instead, UK was in the NIT and the NBA was saddled with a bunch of kids who had made zero impact on the league so far.  The teams that are bad in the NBA can't get better because the draft is littered with kids who are years away from contributing. By the time they're ready...they sign with someone else.  Everyone agrees that adopting something like baseball's rules would be best (let the best players go out of high school...let everyone else have to stay a couple of years in college). But agents run the union and the union won't sign off on such an agreement (doing so without their consent would be illegal).
6 weeks 11 hours ago	Great season	That game should have been a joy to watch last night. Instead, it was like watching an impacted molar get cut out of someone's mouth. The officiating was bad for both teams. But it was really...REALLY...bad.  That said, it was a great year. The implications on recruiting will be enormous. This will be a season that Michigan can build on for years to come.
6 weeks 1 day ago	Boo	Damn.... Ah well.
6 weeks 6 days ago	It's more than a temper	Coaches LOVE their players. You spend so much time around your guys that they are your family. Yes, people lose their tempers from time to time...but if you find yourself doing it OVER AND OVER AND OVER again, this isn't a temper problem. This is a YOU problem. Bobby Knight's guys loved him. They stuck up for him and talked about how the tantrums were about one percent of who he was.  That video doesn't show a guy who has a temper problem...that shows a guy who is a crazy person.  Coaches will yell and cuss sometimes because they want to get more out of you. You're going at 90 percent and they want you to be at 100 percent. Think of Al Pacino's speech in "Any Given Sunday" about it coming down to an inch here and an inch there. The difference in who gets that inch is the difference in who wants it the most.  That's not what Rice is doing in that video. That's a guy who has no ability to cope with his environment.
7 weeks 3 hours ago	Bobby Knight	Actually, it was a cop in Puerto Rico that got the trashcan treatment.
7 weeks 10 hours ago	Rigged??	Of course it's rigged. Unless you missed every game Michael Jordan ever played in, how could you doubt it?
7 weeks 1 day ago	Concert series	Blind Pilot is part of the concert series. They are a terrific band out of Portland (I think) that is well-worth checking out. Have fun!!
8 weeks 11 hours ago	Nice video	Not crazy about the filter they put over it. I'm 40. I don't need to be made to feel like I have cataracts.
9 weeks 1 day ago	Odds and Ends	Pre-shot clock basketball must have been irritating. I mentioned this in the previous thread, but the final straw was actually the 1982 ACC finals with #1 UNC vs. #2 UVa. Worthy vs. Sampson. Dean Smith took the air out of the ball and the final score was 47-45 in a nationally televised game on NBC. I was at that game and bored (almost literally...I was 9) to tears. And yes, the ACC was incredible in the 80s. You had 15 scholarships to give. That meant you had a full B-team...and a C-team!! In 1982, UNC had a 6-10 kid named Matt Brownlee who couldn't get off the bench. He transferred to Texas and averaged 17 points a game.  UVa had Ralph Sampson, Rick Carlisle (played six years in the NBA and is now the coach of the Mavericks), and Othell Wilson (who played a couple of years in the NBA). UNC had Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, and Brad Daugherty (all top-10 picks in the NBA).  NC State had Thurl Bailey (top-15 pick), Sidney Lowe (bounced around the NBA for a bit) and Derrick Whittenburg. They also had two former Parade All-Americans in Dinky Proctor (he got hurt against UNC in the tournament) and Ernie Meyers. Lorenzo Charles also played in the NBA briefly.  Maryland had Adrian Branch (6-8 point guard), Ben Coleman, Keith Gatlin, and Len Bias. Wake Forest had Danny Young (played about 10 years in the league), Delaney Rudd (played about the same length of time), and Kenny Green (first round draft pick). They also had a guy named Alvis Rogers who would've played had it not been for a very serious knee injury that cost him a year.  Duke was terrible, but had Johnny Dawkins, Jay Bilas, Mark Alarie, and Tommy Amaker all has freshmen and sophomores. Georgia Tech had Mark Price and John Salley. And two years later, the talent had increased! Carolina would add Kenny Smith, Dave Popson, and Joe Wolf. NC State would add Nate McMillan and Spud Webb. UVa would replace Sampson with Olden Polynice. Clemson would have Horace Grant and Dale Davis. Wake Forest had Mugsy Bogues. Tech would add Duane Ferrell. Duke would add Danny Ferry. Then you look up at the Big East...that was the year they had three teams in the Final Four. It was an incredibly fun time to watch college basketball.
9 weeks 6 days ago	NCAA tournament	Did they really have to win the ACC Tournament?  They were a 6-seed in the NCAAs.  Would they have really not made it in if they'd lost the ACCT?   Yes. They were 17-10 and 7-7 in the ACC. The NCAA tournament was only 48 teams in 1983. They had played a tough non-conference schedule with Lousiville, Memphis State, Missouri, Notre Dame, and Michigan State...but the only one they had beaten was Sparty. Their only quality win was really a win against UNC.
10 weeks 4 hours ago	Fisher	I stand corrected on the Steve Fisher stuff. Thanks.   How about 8th-seeded Villanova winning it all in 1985?   Well, NC State was a 50-to-1 shot in 1983. Kansas was the same in 1988. But it was more than that. NC State had to win the ACC tournament first. And they were losing in the final minutes of every single game. In the UNC game, they had to endure Sam Perkins with a 30-footer that was off by a 1/4 of an inch. They had to get Jordan to foul out. They had to get UNC to miss three straight front-ends of one-and-ones. In the championship game, there was a similar rally against Ralph Sampson. Against Pepperdine, Sidney Lowe (PG) fouled out and they had to get Dane Suttle (an 84 percent free throw shooter) to miss two consecutive front-ends. Against UNLV, Sidney Green mistimed his leap for a rebound and allowed Thurl Bailey to get the rebound and put it back in.  Against UVa in the Elite Eight, they had to get Othell Wilson to miss a free throw and then for Lorenzo Charles (a 66 percent shooter) to hit both free throws. Then they had to endure a final barrage of shots that all missed. Ralph Sampson tipped in a final shot...but about a second after time ran out. They should've had to go up against UNC again in the Final Four, but UGa beat them. And then in the finals, Guy Lewis leaves Clyde Drexler in with three fouls -- IN THE FIRST HALF -- and he picks up his fourth! IN THE FIRST HALF!!  Then Houston gets a big lead and they take the air out of the ball. Then they miss something like five of seven free throws down the stretch and State hits nearly everything they threw up.  So it was a lot more than just winning the tournament after being a long-shot. HOW they won the tournament was as much of a story as anything.
10 weeks 5 hours ago	Shot clock	This game and others like it during the era lead to both the shot clock and the double bonus and college basketball is better because of it. The game that REALLY ushered in the shot-clock was the 1982 ACC tournament finals. It was #1 vs. #2, Ralph Sampson vs. James Worthy and hosted nationally on NBC. I was at that game (in Greensboro Coliseum)....and it was awful. It was the most boring game I'd ever seen and I kept asking my mom when it would be over.  Dean Smith took the air out of the ball and it was like watching paint dry.  The ACC was in negotiations for their own pay-per-view network (which would eventually be called "Season Ticket"). Remember that the Big East was basically created specifically for television (the USA Network put it together). Ted Turner was also getting involved around this time. In 1983, he sponsored a made-for-TV matchup between Georgetown and UVa (Ewing vs. Sampson).  In order to address these issues, some conferences decided to experiment with rules changes. The ACC brought in a 17'9 three-point line and a 35-second shot clock for league games. Non-conference opponents had the choice of playing with ACC rules or not (most elected not to). I think there were a couple of conferences that used an international three-point line. It worked....ratings went up. The coaches didn't like the rules changes (Lefty Driesel hated them) so they voted them down the following year (the NCAA would put the three-point line back for the 1986-87 season).  "Season Ticket" flopped. There were very few people willing to pay for something that they were getting for free previously. They weren't showing ADDITIONAL games...they were taking games away from the broadcast schedule and making people pay for them.  Also...as far as the 1983 game is concerned, NC State didn't slow the game down...Houston did. NC State came out gunning and opened up an eight-point lead. Houston slowed the game down in the second-half once Akeem got winded (they addressed this in the documentary). That allowed State to come back.
10 weeks 5 hours ago	"Dirty program"	I'm not sure we can take yours as an unbias view.   Agreed. And you could call Steve Fisher an "Absentee Landlord"...but you'd be hard pressed to find too many around here to say he didn't run a dirty program. You could call Steve Fisher a lot of things. It doesn't make it accurate. The college sports landscape is a binary world. There are multiple types of "bad programs." To the best of my knowledge, Steve Fisher and Jim Valvano were not involved with any NCAA violations. To the best of my knowledge, they did not condone, did not enable or support any violations. To the best of my knowledge, they did not allow others to do this either. The only involvement Fisher had in the scandal was that when he found out that Martin was trying to give money to Robert Traylor and Louis Bullock, he forced them to return it but didn't tell the compliance office. I'm not trying to condone what happened to either program. I just think there is a difference between what someone like Jerry Tarkanian did and what someone like Valvano (or Steve Fisher) did. If you saw the HBO piece on UCLA and John Wooden, there was a similar scenario with one booster providing illegal benefits.  Golenbock's (not back) wasn't 100% accurate (I mean, it'd be hard to prove mob ties and threats) but it wasn't a complete fiction either. I've mentioned in other threads that I used to be a reporter. I did a ton of investigative work on the NC State program and on Golenback's book. I got to know Chris Washburn well and have tried to talk him into doing a book together. (Washburn is doing fine, btw. He's clean and sober and runs a BBQ joint in Hickory, NC. He's got a great story to tell someday.) Have you read the book? It wasn't complete fiction the way the movie "Blue Chips" is complete fiction. But there are literally HUNDREDS of mistakes in the book. MISTAKES, not incorrect facts...but mistakes.  Golenback had three sources for much of the book. One was a former team manager named John Simonds. The other two were former players. Each of the three sources only cooperated when they were paid for their stories. Each of the sources had a personal beef with Valvano.  The allegations are that there was a slush fund with "millions of dollars in cash" in it for buying recruits. He actually said "millions." The dirtiest coach in the SEC would find that allegation mind-boggling. For one thing, unless you're Todd Bozeman, coaches don't pay players. Boosters pay players. Secondly, has anyone seen $1 million in cash? It's a CRAP load of money. "Millions" means at least twice that....where the hell would you put it? And why wouldn't you just put it in a bank?? None of the other allegations that he made about academic fraud or point-shaving were supported in any way, shape, or form. The program was investigated by the SBI. People were subpoened. The SBI cleared everyone. One of the allegations was that Cozell McQueen was illiterate. McQueen was a center on the 1983 team (he's the one who gets the rebound on the last Houston miss). McQueen actually confronted Golenback later and asked him why he'd say such a thing. Golenback didn't even have the courage to look him in the eyes. He just slunk out of the room.  One of the games that was supposed to have been fixed was a game against Tampa in 1987. Except....NC State wasn't very good that year and Tampa was a DII team. Jim Valvano had the flu and didn't make the trip. There was no record anywhere of there even being a betting line for this game. Who was supposed to be fixing the game? Also...you don't LOSE games when you shave points, you just don't cover.  But...anyway...we're getting off track. The director of this 30-for-30, btw, is the guy who did the Marcus Dupree piece.
10 weeks 6 hours ago	Valvano	"Be in a position to win." When the NC State broadcast team came out of the timeout with 44 seconds left, Wally Ausley's line was, "All Jim Valvano has ever asked of his team is that they be in a position to win at the end of a game." I don't know how many of you ever heard his call of the final few seconds, but it was really terrific. After the winning points, he said, "Lorenzo Charles slams it in! A missed a shot from 35 feet, Lorenzo Charles grabbed it, stuffed it back in...the Cinderalla Team has done it! The glass slipper fits! The Wolfpack has won the national championship!" That's good writing.  Valvano mentioned the "position to win" in his postgame with Brent Musberger. "When you put yourself in a position to win, good things happen to you."
10 weeks 8 hours ago	Valvano	I'm guessing the feelgood vibe probably doesn't allow for a frank discussion of how Jimmy V ran a dirty program... Then you would be wrong. They absolutely talked about the problems.  Whittenburg talked about how in 1983, Valvano was a presence in the daily lives of the players. When he came in 1987 to be an assistant coach, things were radically different. Valvano was in demand as an entertainer and was not around much.   It's important to remember that the book that started the trouble was a complete joke. Peter Golenback was NOT an investigative journalist. He wrote fan-books for 12 year olds. He wrote the annual yearbooks that little kids buy. Valvano, by his own admission, recruited people to NC State that didn't have any business in school. The worst of those was Chris Washburn...but I know Washburn well. He's not a bad guy. He's not smart (at all), but he's not a bad guy. The two guys that were the biggest problems were Kelsey Weems and Charles Shackleford.    By 1988, NC State was a constant presence in the NCAA tournament. They had rosters filled with NBA talent and in the previous 15 years, they had won two national titles and four ACC titles. There were a lot of guys hanging around the program that didn't belong there.    To say Valvano "ran a dirty program" is misleading. He was an absentee landlord. And he deserved (and received) criticism for that. But at the end of the day, after an exhaustive investigation that involved not only the NCAA but the SBI (because of allegations of point-shaving), they found that athletes sold tickets and shoes...which is against the rules.    They found no evidence of *any* academic fraud. They found no evidence of point-shaving. They found no evidence of a slush-fund used for recruits. All of the allegations that Golenback made in his book were not only unsubstantiated, they were proven to just be flat-out wrong. Golenback got dates wrong. He got scores wrong. He got names wrong. He said 25,000 people showed up for a game in a building that holds HALF of that. It was a ridiculous book fueled by a guy who wanted to make a name for himself using two sources that had a personal grudge against Jim Valvano.    The book was dropped by two publishers before basically being self-published by an outfit called "Pocket Books."   The lead investigator for the NCAA was interviewed at length during this documentary. You'd probably be interested in what he has to say....pay particular attention to the letter he wrote to Valvano after the investigation was complete.
10 weeks 8 hours ago	Houston	The Houston team they beat was absurdly good. Two of the top 50 NBA players ever (Drexler and Akeem), a third (Michael Young) who was a first-round pick of the Celtics, and two more (Larry Michaeux and Alvin Franklin) who got a cup of coffee in the NBA. Dave Rose, the current BYU coach, was the defensive stopper on that team. And the guy that was probably the most athletic was Benny Anders. No one knows what happened to him. He was booted out of school after bringing a gun to practice and....just disappeared.  They destroyed Louisville in one of the most entertaining (and terrifying) games ever played. That Louisville team had Rodney McCray (#3 pick overall to Houston), Scooter McCray (played with Seattle), Lancaster Gordon, Milt Wagner, Billy Thompson... Ridiculous talent. Look up that game on YouTube. The dunks in that game....
10 weeks 6 days ago	Wormley	His tape was incredibly impressive. I know he had a tendency to sleepwalk through portions of games, but when his motor was on, he looked incredibly athletic for a big guy. I think if his knee holds up that he'll be a serious contributor.
12 weeks 4 days ago	Weekend plans...working	Weekend plans...working tomorrow and Sunday at my second job, a local art-house theater.  Haven't backpacked since I was at Outward Bound a billion years ago. Never met any mgobloggers. I second the tomato soup dunking for the grilled cheese.
12 weeks 5 days ago	Virginia	Virginia is crazy-talented this year.
14 weeks 4 days ago	Duke	The Cameron C**ts are the most over-hyped buncha nothing in college basketball. The only thing more dated, tired, and used-up is Dick Vitale.
14 weeks 5 days ago	Fork Union	Schools like Fork Union and Hargrave guard the privacy and the access of their students pretty heavily. You have to go through the school and the coaches to contact their players. You cannot call them at any time and the mail goes through the school. Most of the players there have been "placed." And the schools do everything they can to make sure that players honor their commitments. If a kid wants to reopen his situation, it's a big deal and most players tend to try and circumvent the school (it's easier).  I'm sure that Jackson has a relationship with the coaches and administration there that will vouch for him. Even if a player didn't commit to a school, I'm sure they have solid relationships with the guys that recruited them. You spend a year (or more) getting to know the kids and their families. You're going to lose most of the kids you recruit, you can't keep grudges. If the guy was upfront and just chose another school, you can't be an ***hole. .... Unless you're Bo Pelini.
15 weeks 4 days ago	Pioneer	Both Iggy Pop and Bob Seger were at Pioneer at the same time too. Seger was a couple of years ahead of Ig. Still...not many high schools have TWO rock and roll legends among their alums.
17 weeks 2 hours ago	Responses to your responses	"then it would seem to follow that the additions of Penn State and Nebraska to the Big Ten were detrimental to the conference." Except that you are choosing one example to combat a larger, national trend. Do you think ACC fans give a damn about Syracuse and Boston College playing Miami in anything? How happy are you that a visit to Wisconsin is now a once-a-decade trip?  Do you think there are any Aggie fans right now who don't think joining the SEC was a bad choice? That's one year. And I remember when the SWC collapsed and yes, they were plenty upset. I don't think college football is worse. Compared to what? I was comparing it to the NFL.  What has really changed about the live game experience at Michigan Stadium that makes it so awful?  Nothing. Who said I was limiting my response to one stadium?
17 weeks 4 hours ago	From baseball-reference	In 2007, the Tigers had an attendance of just over three million. In 2008, it was 3.2 million. This past year, just over three million. So, the line about having done it "five or six times" is misleading. I glanced at the schedule this year and the low mark for attendance was about 36,000. On July 20, they list the attendance at more than 44,000.
17 weeks 5 hours ago	I can only speak for myself....	But yes, it peaked several years ago. Conference realignment: College sports are about proximity and tradition. At the end of the day, college sports are selling an inferior product. They make up for it with proximity and tradition. Conference realignment obviously gets rid of that. It doesn't just affect the conference I care about. It eliminates my interest in a national slate of games. Money: I have less of it...they seem to have much more. I am one of the lucky ones. I kept my job during the recession. I have a college degree and a professional job that offers great benefits and a solid salary. And yet, when I get home from work tonight, I'll feed the two dogs, run them outside to pee, change clothes and go to my SECOND job that I had to take to pay the bills. Meanwhile, college coaches and their staffs are making millions for a game that seems worse Corruption: The hypocrisy of "amateur sports" is already pretty bad. But when you couple it with all of the scandals and the NCAAs complete INaction, it's tough to swallow. Look at Penn State and UNC. Those were supposed to be the GOOD guys. If the good guys are doing that, what the hell are the bad guys doing? The live experience is pretty awful. I grew up tailgating and going to college football games on Saturdays. These days, I'd rather watch a single game and just sorta casually keep up with the rest of the schedule on my phone. Going to a game is a hassle. It's ridiculously expensive and when you get to most stadiums, you're bombarded with non-stop advertisements blaring at you. Might as well watch the game at home where I control the "mute" button. Again...I can't speak for anyone but myself. But 10 years ago, I was the biggest college football fan in the world. Come August, you could find me watching tapes of old games and just JONESING for the season to start. These days? Meh....
18 weeks 6 hours ago	Privette	but I sort of think it was incredibly stupid. The guy could've easily gotten trampled and injured (or killed?) in the melee   For what it's worth, Privette agrees with you. He's 20 or so and he's spent his whole life in the wheelchair. He's a huge sports fan (He keeps stats for the baseball team) and I think he just wants to join in the fun once in awhile. He's in a wheelchair because he was born with deformed legs.  I think he just wanted to play with the rest of the kids for once. I can't imagine how isolating it must feel to constantly have to sit on the sidelines. Watching thousands of your peers engage in an orgy of pure bliss....do you want to join in? Of course!
18 weeks 8 hours ago	A couple of other notes	Privette's wheelchair was damaged in the crash. The father of an NC State student saw the footage and got in touch with him and they managed to fix the wheelchair.
18 weeks 9 hours ago	Trustworthy?	I'm curious who the people were that trusted him in the first place. Cycling is the dirtiest sport in all of Dirtville, USA. The only thing MORE riddled with steroids and HGH are the strong-man competitions.

more