- Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said today that his star Kevin Coble’s foot bones are “out of alignment” due to an awkward landing last week and, barring an unforeseen diagnosis today, he will need surgery and have to miss the 2009-10 season. When it rains it pours, we guess, as Carmody also confirmed that senior guard Jeff Ryan was also done for the season after tearing his ACL in the Wildcats’ home opener on Friday night. Although Ryan isn’t a scorer, he provides necessary depth in the backcourt. Carmody isn’t taking the ‘blessing in disguise’ approach even though Northwestern will presumably bring back all but two players in 2010-11, stating that this year’s team will keep the same goals and move forward.
- Mike DeCourcy wonders if UNC really needed to sign Harrison Barnes given the glut of talent Roy Williams will have on his perimeter the next few years. Is there something to the idea that Roy went after him in order to keep him out of rival Duke’s clutches?
- There will be no criminal charges filed stemming from the brawls between the Kansas football and basketball teams on September 22 and 23 of this year, but it would have been nice if Bill Self had shown the public a peek inside the looking glass in punishing those responsible.
- Gary Parrish makes a reasonable argument that blue-chippers should wait until the late signing period (next April) to decide where to sign. Of course, the official RTC stance is that they shouldn’t sign a binding LOI with the schools at all. The scholarships for the top players will be there regardless, and by signing a LOI, the player gives up some of his rights (e.g., to transfer to another school w/o losing eligibility if the coach leaves) while the school gives up very little in return.
- We had to give this a mention in this space. Brandon Jennings’ double-nickel performance on Saturday night was phenomenal to see, especially when you consider that he’s the youngest player and only the seventh rookie to ever drop 50+ in a game. But the question is how is this possible? Jennings was a surefire top five pick coming out of high school, but after his mostly disappointing year playing overseas (averaging 6-7 ppg in two different leagues) instead of Arizona, he dropped to the #10 pick and there were serious questions about his decisionmaking and jump shot. So of course, he’s now averaging 26 ppg against professional defenses and dropping twenty-nine points in a single quarter of an NBA game. That makes complete sense. Can anyone explain this?
View Comments (2)
How did Bill Self not take an active role in punishing the players involved?
No one else handed out punishments to his players other than him. He didn't turn his head or downplay the actions of his players.
He kept the punishment private (which I think is his right as coach) and he had his own PC to answers media questions about the fight...he then made all the main parties involved and captains have a press conference and face the media to explain their actions.
Bob, I probably should have written I wanted to see more activity in terms of punishment. I'll re-write it. Sorry for that confusion.
You may think that keeping the punishment private is ok, but I believe that especially in such a bad-publicity and media-driven situation such as this one, he needed to make sure the public knew that the guilty parties were punished appropriately (game suspensions and so forth). By keeping it private, only the team and players know what the punishment was (running laps? curfew?) and that just doesn't seem to fit given the situation and extensive coverage that this event warranted.