- It has been a tough season so far for Wake Forest as the Demon Deacons have fallen from a solid NCAA Tournament team to one that is widely considered to be one of the worst in any major conference, and things do not seem to be getting any better in Winston-Salem. The latest blow for the team is the dismissal of Melvin Tabb, a freshman forward whose time with the team was more notable for his frequent suspensions than his on-court productivity. We don’t want to place all the blame for this season on new coach Jeff Bzdelik but we have to think that the administration is going to have him on a very short leash going forward if he even survives this off-season.
- Over the past few months there has been a lot of media attention (news, not just sports) on states cutting their budgets on what many people consider essential services. The state of Arizona has garnered a lot of unwanted attention with their decision to stop paying for organ transplants for Medicaid patients. We can only imagine that the news that Arizona spent $1.5 million dollars on renovating its men’s basketball locker room, including six different types of mood lighting, will ignite a media firestorm even if it was paid for through donations and not taxpayer money. [Ed. Note: RTC could have provided a significantly cheaper contract based around lava lamps. Please contact us for competitive quotes.]
- Since you read our site, you are probably aware of Kenneth Faried of Morehead State and how special he is on the court, but we are guessing that you didn’t know that much about his background off the court. If the Eagles make it to the NCAA Tournament, you’re probably going to be hearing a lot more about that, but we doubt that you will find a much better piece than the one Dana O’Neil put together about Faried and his background.
- You may have heard that there was a rather big game played at Cameron Indoor Stadium last night between Duke and UNC. You may have also heard about how their fans can get really worked up and sometimes cross the line (not unexpected). Sometimes even the coaches cross that line (somewhat unexpected). Well, it turns out that even administrators aren’t immune from making idiotic statements. Case in point: UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp, who issued this since-deleted Tweet: “Our students are talking about the future and asking smart questions instead of wasting time sitting in a tent #USFutureEconomy.” In the grand scheme of things, we don’t consider the tweet itself that offensive since we see many more offensive ones every day, but the fact that someone in such a powerful/political position would actually issue a statement like that to the world is dumbfounding. Is there any chance UNC could ban its administration from social media sites?
- Speaking of Duke, they have been pretty active on the recruiting trail over the past few days picking up one highly rated class of 2012 recruit in Alex Murphy, a 6’8″ forward out of Rhode Island, and putting on quite a show in a comeback victory in front of Rasheed Sulaimon, one of the top shooting guards in the class of 2012, who was in attendance for the game last night and reportedly grew up a Blue Devils fan. With Duke’s recent success on the recruiting trail, Coach K could be approaching 1,000 victories more quickly than many of us expected.
View Comments (3)
What a shock from RTC. Rule #3: UNC (Insert any name/position here) makes a (choose one: Preposterous, ignorant, annoying, superfluous, tedious, not praiseworthy enough of Duke) comment and thus can, should, and will be criticized without discretion in our Morning Five segment. Make every effort to follow up with innocuous comment about Duke and fail to mention the nature of the obscene sign at last night's game or that Cameron Crazies have resorted to laser pointers or the fact that UNC is legit.
I think it's time to support the "Searching for Billy Edelin" Blog.
Ryan--
If/when a person of authority at Duke does something that dumb we will be sure to call them out on it if it is brought to our attention. I'm not sure which sign you are referring to, but using laser pointers is idiotic and passe.
I think you are being a little too sensitive here. We even said that we didn't consider the Tweet that offensive, but felt like it was poor form for someone of such renown (at least for his position if not his actual name) to make such a statement at a time when the nation might actually be paying attention to what the UNC chancellor (or the chancellor at any school) has to say.
Appreciate the sentiment. If you watched the game, you may remember there being a stoppage in play for a few minutes as security had to identify & remove a Cameron Crazy in the stands who had a sign that encouraged the holding of a male appendage of his. One of the refs spotted it (the sign...that is).
I actually thought the tweet was appropriate given the nature of the rivalry and proximity to gametime. It was also a fairly clever but tasteful way of poking fun at a rival. If he does it in January or December, or even when the game is a few weeks away, I think that's a bit odd. Otherwise, most I talk with say it was well-received.