Unverified Voracity Is Writing A Comparative Lit Thesis
Hey, this is stupid. I am, of course, deliciously anticipating any article titled "What Notre Dame football doesn't understand." The possibilities are endless:
- How to hire coaches
- How to schedule Washington State in a way that makes the slightest sense
- Run blocking
- Why giving your head coach a ten year, no-buyout extension after half a season is sort of unwise
- and so on.
Instead, ESPN contracts a professor of comparative literature to tell us that the reason Notre Dame sucks is because there are a lot more people in the Sun Belt than there were in the past. This ignores the one thing Weis has done well: recruit. It, in fact, is about the only way you could write a column slamming Notre Dame and be wrong. Syracuse, New York, is not noted for its balmy climate and sunny future prospects.
If there are structural changes that have seriously hurt Notre Dame football they have more to do with the increasing secularity of the country, increased coverage of sports erasing ND's attention advantage, and the flaming stupidity of the men in charge of the athletic department.
Suggestion: no more comparative lit professors in ESPN the Magazine.
T-minus ten days. Exactly what to expect from freshman* transfer Laval Lucas-Perry remains unknown, but the hype is building. BTN announcer/Wolverine alum/man with lack of historical perspective Tim McCormick said Perry would be Michigan's best point guard "since Rumeal Robinson," which, like, even if you consider Jalen Rose a wing or a shooting guard there is that Daniel Horton guy to consider. If LLP is better than Daniel Horton…
- I will eat my hat.
- It will will be the best-tasting hat ever.
- Mmmmm delicious awesome point guard hat.
All this for a guy who was the #138 prospect (to Rivals) in the class of 2007 and a three-star. In his five games for Arizona LLP averaged 4 points, 1.6 rebounds, and 0.8 assists in ten minutes a game. Projected out to 32 MPG you get nothing because of SMALL SAMPLE SIZE GOD.
Okay, we'll do it anyway: 12.8 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 2.6 APG. Or "the third best player on the team," which is what everyone's been calling him since he transferred. Diarist Bleeding Blue provides some open scrimmage notes:
I attended the open practice/scrimmage after the northwestern game this fall (I think I get a double black belt or something...anywho) and this kid is legit. The practice and scrimmage were intense. Obviously, things can change 'when the lights come on' but nothing suggests he won't be able to perform at the same level or better in games.
Notes on the scrimmage - He absolutely drained a three from the top of the key. nice stroke and very confident. He also jumped into a passing lane, stealing the ball, taking about three dribbles and jamming it home on the other end before anyone really had time to react. My friend turned to me eyebrows raised and said 'shot out of a cannon'. Notably - he 'ran with the ones' as they say the whole time as well, which was a little surprising to me, but obviously speaks to what Beilein thinks he will contribute.
This is an excellent point, as well:
Third - Defensive Impact - this has been the most talked about aspect of his game is his voracity on the defensive side of the ball. He will immediately give the team the ability to play significantly more effective man-to-man defense if he is in at the two guard and Grady is at the one. If he is at the point, he also gives the baseline man in the 1-3-1 significantly better height/more of a presence running out to challenge the corner three pointer.
Perry is a half-foot taller than Grady and should be able to harry those corner threes that killed Michigan in the first Duke game (and would have killed Michigan in the second one if Duke didn't have a ridiculously cold shooting night) more effectively.
Friend of blog Craig Ross also took in a couple open gyms, and spake thusly:
LLP and KG battled in a couple of the games. It was pretty close. I think KG is faster (not quicker) and my guess is he has a more consistent outside shot---though KG always seems a little slow to look for his own shot. LLP is bigger, stronger and more adept at taking the ball to the basket. LLP did hit a couple of threes, but his shot dynamics look a little frail. I would give a slight edge to LLP at this session, though both showed ability. I think UM should be, at least, average or better than average in the BT at point.
"Slightly better than Kelvin Grady" seems like much higher praise than it did in the preseason. And he's not going to be taking Grady's minutes. He's going to be taking minutes from Merritt and Lee—currently seeing 25 minutes per game between them—and maybe a little from Harris since the idea of sitting Manny down won't be quite as terrifying with LLP available. In terms of VORP he will be a massive upgrade.
Actually, if you listen to all the reports being batted around Perry's skillset seems closest to Harris: a slasher who can get to the basket, slightly dodgy outside shot. He's more of a combo guard than a true point.
If you're interested, Perry features in a five minute highlight video from Arizona open scrimmages. He hits everything and does everything, because it's a highlight video, but you can glean some useful information anyway: there are a lot of tough finishes in traffic, some slick, Harris-like ballhandling, and a definite tendency towards steals.
*(Freshman transfer? Well, it went down like this: LLP spent a semester at Arizona, then transferred because of the whole Lute Olsen fiasco. His transfer-enforced redshirt then spanned the last half of last season and the first half(-ish) of this season. Normally this would make him a sophomore by eligibility—national letter of intent rules are what they are—but LLP's appeal to the NCAA was upheld and this is basically the second half of his freshman year he's about to start.)
Smoking. I mentioned Rick Leach's strident support of Rich Rodriguez earlier. The stridency has gotten more strident of late. Highlights from Leach's latest WTKA appearance:
"I've got to say, because everybody around this town, around this country and in this profession had so much respect for Bo Schembechler. If you think for a minute that he didn't use language behind the scenes or on the sidelines -- we all saw some of the tirades.
"What a joke. It's just another log on the fire that they try to throw at Rich Rodriguez. I've been to practice. They talk about family values? Well, guess what? He allows his wife, the coaches' wives and their children to come to practice, and they coach the way they coach.
"Was I a little shocked and surprised when I first saw it? Absolutely. But if it's that big an issue -- they have their wives and children witness that, so it can't be too big an issue.
"They coach how they coach. Every coach has his own style and his own way of doing things. My whole point is, if you don't want to hear that kind of language and be coached aggressively for a staff that just wants to try to get the best out of your ability, then go to Trinity Baptist College and see how their football program is."
There is considerably more in the link above. Leach is on the warpath.
No. Not to piss off a reader or anything, but this is a fine example of my least favorite anti-playoff argument:
Sure, the BCS causes controversy, but it’s that controversy that fans the flames of fans passion:
It’s the endless debate of which team deserves it more.
It’s that the stakes are so high, and the system is so subjective.
…It’s the debate between co-champions. Michigan-Nebraska in 97-98? Yeah, it would have been great for them to play each other and decide it all, but if they did, we wouldn’t still be talking about and passionate about it now. Auburn in 04-05? They can still complain about being screwed. If there was a playoff, who would still be talking about that year?
I was all ready to dismiss this in logical fashion and then I got to the comments, wherein Dex beat me to the punch:
What I Heard:
"I'd rather argue with other football nerds about hypothetical games than actually get to see these awesome teams play each other."
If we had a playoff, we could have actually seen Auburn-USC play. I don't really care about determining the "ultimate" champion or anything - I just want to see good football teams play. In our current system, we get 4 super meaningful non-conference games against shit opponents, a conference season featuring half shitty teams, and, if you are a lucky, a competitive match-up in the bowl game.
I want football games. Between good football teams. Not bar-stool debate.
Absolutely, and the BCS diluting itself by adding another game has killed the football games between good football teams even further. When the BCS three double-digit spreads and one Cincinnati-Virginia Tech, something is wrong.
Who likes arguing better than football games? I thought it was just sportswriters who don't actually like the game itself enough to be entertained by it, and sports radio guys with dead air to fill. I can't imagine anyone who actually likes college football enjoying the "controversy" of the BCS. (I can understand someone who regards it as an acceptable cost.)
And I don't buy the "devaluing of the regular season bit" either. Seth Davis goes way, way too far in his defense of college basketball's regular season, but by saying something preposterous he does something useful:
when Ohio State got blown out by USC on Sept. 13, that essentially eliminated the Buckeyes from the championship race. Whatever glimmer of hope remained was squelched by Penn State with four games still left to play. If the Ohio State-Michigan game is the biggest rivalry in college football, what exactly were those two teams playing for this year? Nothing.
Imagine if Ohio State needed to win that game to get into an eight-team playoff. Now that would mean something.
I certainly hope everyone who reads that blog stifled a laugh there. Seth Davis clearly does not grok college football. Michigan played Ohio State to beat Ohio State. That is all. Sometimes there are bonuses like the Rose Bowl or a national title or something on the line, but Michigan plays Ohio State to beat Ohio State.
What makes regular season college football so important is its scarcity. There are just twelve games and usually about half of those are against hopelessly overmatched opponents. Every game is meaningful because it is a rare thing.
Elsewhere, Davis does make a good point:
We just finished one of the greatest college football weeks in years -- that SEC championship game was certainly appointment viewing in my house. Yet out of the 16 games played last week, only three had an impact on the national title chase. (And I'm being generous by including USC-UCLA. When a team wins and still has no shot at the big trophy, it's hard to call the game significant.) That left 14 games that meant absolutely nothing.
Two weeks ago, with a fuller national schedule, there were 41 games played in Division I-A football. At most, five of them mattered: Texas-Texas A&M, Alabama-Auburn, Florida-Florida State, USC-Notre Dame and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State. That's 36 worthless games, if you're scoring at home. This is a compelling regular season?
Again, "worthless" goes way too far, but the larger point is a good one: when more teams have access to the playoff at the end of the year—the BCS is a playoff—there are more compelling games. This is another reason for a playoff to omit autobids: if Cincinnati had already locked up a spot by winning the Big East their game would have indeed been kind of meaningless. No one should be safe.
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