Friday links
posted by LW, Friday, February 27, 2009
Wake Forest held serve at home last night by fighting off pesky N.C. State.
Here's a look at the upper tier of the ACC standings, with remaining opponents in parentheses:
UNC 10-3 (Georgia Tech, @Virginia Tech, Duke)
Duke 9-4 (@Virginia Tech, FSU, @UNC)
Clemson 8-5 (@FSU, Virginia, @WF)
Wake Forest 8-5 (@Virginia, @Maryland, Clemson)
Florida State 8-5 (Clemson, @Duke, Virginia Tech)
BC 8-6 (@NCST, GT)
VT 7-6 (Duke, UNC, @FSU)
A lot of compelling games up there. This is gonna be fun to watch.
The Charlotte Observer writes about James Johnson's strong performance last night, though I'll take slight issue with the headline "Star is born." Johnson was already a star in my book.
Did you know Ish Smith shot 29.1 percent from the free throw line last season? Wow!
I'd pay to see a free-throw shooting contest between him and Sam Perry...
This guy says the Wolfpack is making progress despite last night's loss. I would agree.
So you're Virginia and you hold Jack McClinton to 11 points last night in C-Ville. That's an amazing feat. But McClinton still serves up a dagger of a 3-pointer with 47 seconds left.
I'm a big fan of Seth Davis, but his national coach of the year candidates threw me for a loop -- mainly because of Dino Gaudio's inclusion at No. 4.
Seriously? This team is one of the top two or three most talented in college basketball, and it's lost five ACC games. Included are losses at Georgia Tech and N.C. State, plus a 27-point embarrassment at Miami.
At this point, I'm not sure Gaudio would rank No. 4 for COY in his own conference, let alone the entire country.
Interesting column here from The ACC Sports Journal's Rob Daniels, who says Purnell-to-Alabama ain't gonna happen.
Candidacy is a two-way street, and while Alabama as a brand has more cachet than Clemson, it doesn’t necessarily offer a better situation for the basketball coach. In 2007-08, Alabama reported about $3.6 million in men’s basketball spending – ninth in the SEC and 65th nationally according to the U.S. Department of Education and www.basketballstate.com.
Clemson stood at $5.5 million; that’s good for fourth in the ACC and 23rd in Division I, and it’s 55 percent higher than the folks in Tuscaloosa spent. In this economic climate, it’s hard to imagine how the Tide can propose a 55-percent hike in anything except football recruiting budgets, which can always be propped up in the name of beating Auburn, Tennessee, Florida and half a dozen other SEC straw men.
The same restraints figure to be in place at almost any other school you can name. When the NFL commissioner is nixing 170 jobs and taking a 20-percent pay cut himself, you know sports has joined the real world. This isn’t 1998, when Texas wooed Rick Barnes with a bigger contract, imminent facilities improvements and hegemony over a state with six times South Carolina’s population.
Looks like the NCAA is sniffing around Bryce Brown. The bizarre plot continues to thicken with this kid.
Mark Bradley of the AJC takes a stab at ranking the SEC's most irritating coaches. Guess who's No. 1?
That got me thinking ... who's the most irritating football coach in the ACC? Let's see ... is there one? To me, seems like a bunch of benign personalities. Nothing against their coaching ability, but not too many villain-like figures on the ACC block.
Al Groh does get under a lot of folks' skin, though. And Chuck Amato probably would've unanimously taken No. 1 if his red high tops were still gracing the sidelines at N.C. State.
Moving on to Clemson baseball, Jack Leggett didn't want to say much about the scheduling plans with South Carolina. In the same story, Paul Strelow reports third baseman John Hinson is likely out for the year because of a bulging disc in his back.
LW
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Morning, everyone.
Wake Forest held serve at home last night by fighting off pesky N.C. State.
Here's a look at the upper tier of the ACC standings, with remaining opponents in parentheses:
UNC 10-3 (Georgia Tech, @Virginia Tech, Duke)
Duke 9-4 (@Virginia Tech, FSU, @UNC)
Clemson 8-5 (@FSU, Virginia, @WF)
Wake Forest 8-5 (@Virginia, @Maryland, Clemson)
Florida State 8-5 (Clemson, @Duke, Virginia Tech)
BC 8-6 (@NCST, GT)
VT 7-6 (Duke, UNC, @FSU)
A lot of compelling games up there. This is gonna be fun to watch.
The Charlotte Observer writes about James Johnson's strong performance last night, though I'll take slight issue with the headline "Star is born." Johnson was already a star in my book.
Did you know Ish Smith shot 29.1 percent from the free throw line last season? Wow!
I'd pay to see a free-throw shooting contest between him and Sam Perry...
This guy says the Wolfpack is making progress despite last night's loss. I would agree.
So you're Virginia and you hold Jack McClinton to 11 points last night in C-Ville. That's an amazing feat. But McClinton still serves up a dagger of a 3-pointer with 47 seconds left.
I'm a big fan of Seth Davis, but his national coach of the year candidates threw me for a loop -- mainly because of Dino Gaudio's inclusion at No. 4.
Seriously? This team is one of the top two or three most talented in college basketball, and it's lost five ACC games. Included are losses at Georgia Tech and N.C. State, plus a 27-point embarrassment at Miami.
At this point, I'm not sure Gaudio would rank No. 4 for COY in his own conference, let alone the entire country.
Interesting column here from The ACC Sports Journal's Rob Daniels, who says Purnell-to-Alabama ain't gonna happen.
Candidacy is a two-way street, and while Alabama as a brand has more cachet than Clemson, it doesn’t necessarily offer a better situation for the basketball coach. In 2007-08, Alabama reported about $3.6 million in men’s basketball spending – ninth in the SEC and 65th nationally according to the U.S. Department of Education and www.basketballstate.com.
Clemson stood at $5.5 million; that’s good for fourth in the ACC and 23rd in Division I, and it’s 55 percent higher than the folks in Tuscaloosa spent. In this economic climate, it’s hard to imagine how the Tide can propose a 55-percent hike in anything except football recruiting budgets, which can always be propped up in the name of beating Auburn, Tennessee, Florida and half a dozen other SEC straw men.
The same restraints figure to be in place at almost any other school you can name. When the NFL commissioner is nixing 170 jobs and taking a 20-percent pay cut himself, you know sports has joined the real world. This isn’t 1998, when Texas wooed Rick Barnes with a bigger contract, imminent facilities improvements and hegemony over a state with six times South Carolina’s population.
Looks like the NCAA is sniffing around Bryce Brown. The bizarre plot continues to thicken with this kid.
Mark Bradley of the AJC takes a stab at ranking the SEC's most irritating coaches. Guess who's No. 1?
That got me thinking ... who's the most irritating football coach in the ACC? Let's see ... is there one? To me, seems like a bunch of benign personalities. Nothing against their coaching ability, but not too many villain-like figures on the ACC block.
Al Groh does get under a lot of folks' skin, though. And Chuck Amato probably would've unanimously taken No. 1 if his red high tops were still gracing the sidelines at N.C. State.
Moving on to Clemson baseball, Jack Leggett didn't want to say much about the scheduling plans with South Carolina. In the same story, Paul Strelow reports third baseman John Hinson is likely out for the year because of a bulging disc in his back.
LW
For questions or comments on this blog entry, please visit The West Zone message board.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
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