Morning Five: 06.03.11 Edition
Posted by rtmsf on June 3rd, 2011
- Let’s play “who is Coach K bashing here,” shall we? In comments made to the Raleigh News & Observer this week, Coach K stated that he doesn’t want to see the ACC go to an 18-game conference schedule as the Big East, Big Ten and Pac-10 have done in recent years. If the primary objective is to increase the league’s overall strength of schedule for NCAA Tournament purposes, Krzyzewski wants the other schools in the league to “schedule stronger,” and he felt comfortable enough with the current group of ACC coaches to take a shot at some of the previous ones. He said that he felt some coaches were guilty of being “too territorial about individual programs” when it came to thinking about the league as a whole, which got us thinking about who he had in mind when he made that statement. So who among the following list was Coach K referring to? Paul Hewitt (Georgia Tech), Oliver Purnell (Clemson), Frank Haith (Miami), Dino Gaudio (Wake Forest), Gary Williams (Maryland), Al Skinner (BC), Sidney Lowe (NC State), Dave Leitao (Virginia). Our best guesses: Hewitt and Lowe.
- We mentioned yesterday the story coming out of Syracuse about freshman center Fab Melo getting into some trouble for damaging a woman’s vehicle during a dispute of some sort. More details came out Thursday, and if any of the allegations in the police report are true, Melo is really going to have to check himself before he wrecks himself. Jealousy is a dangerous imp that has destroyed many men before him, so our hope here is that he gets his rage under control and releases it in more useful ways, like on the basketball court in the form of rebounding and blocking shots.
- Tennessee fans are no doubt hopeful that new head coach Cuonzo Martin has as much initiative and creativity in his head as his wife, Roberta Martin, does. A few years back, Mrs. Martin developed a website called marriedtothegame.net, a niche social networking site that caters to spouses of coaches through all college sports. There are currently over 700 people signed up for the site, where spouses trade information on the endless moves that their families must endure throughout coaching careers, how to handle child-rearing in such environments, and many other issues specific to their often-volatile profession. As social networking moves into the next generation of sub-specialization, this sort of thing will become standard across all walks of life. Kudos to Martin for being ahead of the curve and providing a supportive platform for the forgotten side of sports — the families.
- There’s a lot of sniping coming out of the friendly confines of the Beehive State recently. Last week, Utah Valley State, angling to become a basketball-only member of the WAC, accused Utah State of backroom politicking to keep the school from getting enough support to join the conference. This was met with a refrain of “B.S.” from the USU folks, and they weren’t talking about science degrees. Then on Thursday it was released that former Utah forward Josh Sharp is transferring to BYU after spending the last two years on an LDS mission in Texas. New Utes head coach Larry Krystkowiak is none too pleased with this development, stating that “there is an unwritten rule that players cannot be recruited by other schools while they are serving missions. To do so is not only inappropriate, but it creates an atmosphere of ill will.” Unwritten rule or not, there is a written NCAA rule that says players coming off of missions do not have to sit out a year as a transfer; he will therefore be eligible as a Cougar in BYU’s first year as a member of the WCC in 2011-12. Can’t wait till next year’s games between these schools.
- UNC’s Harrison Barnes is already pretty good at a lot of things, but he’s not known as a playmaker for others yet. His assist-to-turnover ratio last season was a paltry 0.73 and even though his natural gifts are as a scorer, he will need to develop his ability to find open people as defenses focus on him. The answer? Well, naturally, point guard camp. According to Mike DeCourcy, Barnes is one of 17 collegians invited to the CP3 Elite Guard Camp in Winston-Salem, NC, beginning on June 10. The objective of the camp is to develop playmaking skills, and several other notable names including Jordan Taylor (Wisconsin), Peyton Siva (Louisville), Kendall Marshall (UNC), Will Barton (Memphis), and Kenny Boynton (Florida) will also be there. We can’t imagine that this sort of thing could hurt Barnes, but the cynical side of us wonder just how much Nike might have to do with this particular exception. Hmm…
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on Friday, June 3rd, 2011 at 5:00 am by rtmsf and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: acc, byu, chris paul, coach k, criminal matters, cuonzo martin, duke, fab melo, harrison barnes, josh sharp, ncaa tournament, paul hewitt, roberta martin, sidney lowe, syracuse, tennessee, transfers, unc, utah, utah st, utah valley st, wac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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I would suggest that Coach K start scheduling games at other schools before he points too many fingers. Between 2008 and 2011, Duke played 3 away OOC games that weren’t part of the Big Ten Challenge (twice at St Johns and once at Michigan). Same period Wake played 7 (Richmond x 2, East Carolina, BYU, Gonzaga, UNC-W, and Xavier). I didn’t count games played against UNC-G for either team (a joke of a program that both Wake and Duke would not play at home if its home court wasn’t the perennial site of the ACC-T).
I do like a tough schedule, but home and homes are preferable to neutral court games and tournaments. For the most part Dino Gaudio took the approach of both scheduling those home and homes and entering us into tournaments. In the end, the home and homes are much more fun, especially relative to the Preseason NIT (which tanked our SOS last year when we didn’t make it to MSG for the final 4). I hope Bzdelik takes a similar route, but previous comments of his and his scheduling at Colorado indicates he will schedule bad high majors because he thinks it makes the schedule look better. So excited about playing Seton Hall instead of Xavier next year.
I agree with your thought he was probably talking about Lowe and Hewitt.
Since BYU was left at the alter last summer during the conference realignment shuffle (while Utah went to the Pac-10), I imagine there are very few sleepless nights at BYU about “unwritten rules”. The basketball game next season should be interesting indeed.
BYU wasn’t left at the altar…. It wasn’t even invited into the chapel.
BYU got greedy. If they had stayed put, the additions of BSU, Hawaii, Nevada, and Fresno would have made the MWC worthy of a BCS bid which would have improved the revenue situation for everyone in the conference in a very significant way. Instead BYU thinks they are better off financially as an independent. This is doomed to fail, but BYU’s admin can’t see through the green.
BYU sacrificed basketball at the altar of football. In the end both will suffer.
Couldn’t agree more. Somehow they thought they were going to get the Notre Dame BCS sweetheart deal.
But, I don’t think the MWC would have added Hawai’i, Nevada and Fresno had BYU not bailed. Still, keeping BYU and adding BSU means the BCS bid was quite possible, meaning TCU would have been better off staying as well. In the end, the MWC is by far weaker having lost BYU, TCU and Utah, even if they did as good of a job as possible patching up that hole with Fresno, Nevada, Hawai’i.