Zags to Get Heytvelt Back?

The Gonzaga Bulldogs suffered a huge loss last year when their heavily recruited center, Josh Heytvelt, was arrested for possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms during the college basketball season. The star athlete was suspended indefinitely by the athletics department at the University and given 250 hours of community service to complete for his punishment by the state. Heytvelt coached youth basketball teams and helped out with Habitat for Humanity. He has now done 300 hours of service. The athletic director and coach Mark Few predict that he will be able to join the program this year, provided that Heytvelt can stay out of trouble before the beginning of the season.

The Bulldogs will again be at the top of the pecking order in the West Coast Conference. Last season they won the WCC and went to the Tournament only to lose to Indiana. They expect to do better this year, and a big part of the effort should be Heytvelt, who has not been seen in the college basketball world as yet. The Zags could surprise a lot of people this year.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 14, 2007 - Post a comment

Politics meets Hoops at Brown

There is an interesting article at ESPN today about the help that Craig Robinson is lending to the Barack Obama campaign. Robinson, the coach of Brown University, is the brother of Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle. Though campaign contributions would probably be welcomed, the Obamas have been getting help from Robinson in the form of occasional speaking appearances and pep talks. Robinson is a basketball coach at heart, so his advice is more along the lines of a coach- staying positive and competitive, the importance of preparation, etc. Politics aren’t his specialty, it’s people.

So when Robinson speaks on behalf of the Obama campaign, it usually isn’t for the purpose of supporting policy initiatives, commenting on foreign policy or joining in the snips and jabs with Senator Hillary Clinton, it is usually to talk about the kind of guy that Barack is, and how he could tell- basketball. Robinson used to play pickup basketball with Obama when they were both a lot younger. He found out a lot about the democratic nominee’s character and personality on the court. Being perceived as genuine and personable is one of the biggest things in politics these days, and is one area where Obama and frontrunner Clinton seem to have the most disparity.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 13, 2007 - Post a comment

Summit League: No More Valpo

The Mid-Continent Conference has changed names to the Summit League, and they have also dropped Valparaiso from their list of member schools. The name change, while making it sound a little cooler, will probably have little effect on how the rest of the NCAA basketball world looks at the conference. The name change was designed, at least partially, to separate themselves from other similar sounding names, such as the MAAC, the MEAC and the Mid-American Conference. Losing Valpo, on the other hand, will mean that the team that many fans have come to associate with the conference is gone. A new image of the conference must be formed. A new identity discovered. Who will be the leader of this conference, starting out the year with a fresh face, new name and their past behind them?

Well, according to ESPN’s Shoot Around section, Oral Roberts, the leader for the past two years, will struggle after having lost their main players to graduation. Who makes it to the dance will be anybody’s guess. My pick for conference champion is North Dakota State. If you look at the section that highlights the top returning scorers and rebounders, ND State dominates. Of course, more and more freshmen are taking a bigger role in the NCAA, so you never know. Plus, the Bison can’t play in the NCAA Tourney as per the rules regarding conference changes.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 12, 2007 - Post a comment

USC Travels to Mexico, Battles Caballeros, Tarantulas

The USC Trojans men’s basketball team traveled to the Pacific Coast of Mexico to a city called Mazatlan to play two exhibition games over the Labor Day weekend. You can get a good video of some of the highlights of the trip if you go to ESPN and look at Andy Katz’s article on the subject. The Trojans never ended up playing two games. The Mexican college team they were set to play never ended up showing.

Many teams take foreign trips to play exhibition games during the summer, as the rules of the NCAA allow for teams to play outside of the United States, using rookies, so long as the trips do not interfere with class time and a few other things. The trip seems to have been more of a team-building exercise than anything else, as many of the tribulations of traveling to Mexico were more noteworthy than their one game against a Mexican professional team, the Caballeros. They got freaked out by large insects, worried about robbery and the language barrier, and probably have a common experience to fall back on later in the year when things get tough. All in all, a successful trip.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 11, 2007 - Post a comment

SEC Basketball Predictions

Even though it might be football season, you can still bet that there are some SEC fans focused on the upcoming year of hoops. Especially if your SEC team isn’t doing so well in the current football standings, you might be interested in the possibility of having something to brag about when hoops season starts up. So what does the SEC look like this year? Well, the one drastic change will be the fact that Florida is no longer the big man on campus. This is something that will have all the other SEC schools anxious to start things up. But don’t get too far ahead of yourself, the Gators will still be good- just not as good as Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi State or Alabama.

ESPN.com’s preview of the conference will give you a good idea of why so many people think that Florida will not be as good as, say, Mississippi State, a school not nearly as accomplished in the basketball world. As you can see in the section regarding the top returning players, the Bulldogs have two of the best players in the conference, and a player in the top five of the conference in almost every major statistic: scoring, rebounding, assists, etc. Perhaps the most telling stat in Miss State’s future success is that they have two of the conference’s best blockers, making their interior defense a formidable one, indeed.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 10, 2007 - Post a comment

Roy Williams: An Assistant who Paid Off

Roy Williams will be inducted into the basketball hall of fame this weekend for his coaching at Kansas and North Carolina- and he’s still going strong. His resume is as impressive as anybody’s, and he certainly deserves all of his accolades. One of the most impressive things about Roy Williams, according to ESPN’s Andy Katz, is that he was an assistant coach who was promoted to head coach at one of the elite athletic universities. This is a rare move, but it certainly paid off in the end.

You can check out all of his accomplishments right here. He is the fastest head coach to 500 wins, been to numerous final fours and is universally regarded as one of the best five coaches in the game. In 2005 he won his first championship with UNC, and he might just win another one this year. Williams will again be the coach of one of the best programs in the country this season, as he leads the North Carolina Tar Heels. Make sure to check him out on the sidelines in Chapel Hill.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 7, 2007 - Post a comment

Less Florida Hubris

I know that the college basketball season is still a long ways away, but college football just started up, and the NFL is kicking off tonight, so it got me to thinking about new beginnings. Soon enough the college basketball season will start with Florida as the defending national champion. But that’s all they will be. Defending. Defending against an SEC Conference that has been getting better while the Florida Gators have suddenly lost every player that took them to the title- and almost their coach. One thing that I am really looking forward to as a college sports fan is not having to put up with Florida fans.

A while ago, after the Gators had won both the football and basketball national championships, Clay Nation came up with some comebacks for Florida taunts. You can read through them, because some of them are okay, but I found that there weren’t too many that really got down to the meat of the issue: the ugliness and dumbness of the players on the team. Brewer? Noah? Come on. If you want to attack George W. Bush, don’t go into a dissection of his education policy. The easiest way is to make fun of his unintelligible speech, his alcoholism, or even the honor of his wife and daughters. The same can go for Florida and their fans.
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Permalink - Posted in General on September 6, 2007 - Post a comment

Who is Dickie V’s Number One?

Fans of college basketball are no stranger to the man known as Dickie V, Dick Vitale to the layperson. Dick has a column at SEPN.com that describes what teams he thinks are the going to be the best in the upcoming season of play. You can find all sorts of lists around the country just like his. You just cant get them with as much enthusiasm. Try to compare Dickie V’s list of teams to a similar one found at CBS Sportsline compiled by Gary Parish. You will notice, like I did, that there are several marked differences.

First of all, Vitale’s list comes with 40 teams ranked. Parish’s has 25 plus one- as though the addition of just one more team makes you better than the polls. Dickie V nearly doubles the standard. Next, we will see that Vitale has gone on a limb where others have not, ranking North Carolina as the number one seed, whereas Memphis has been the obvious pick since the draft deadline. Also, you will notice that Vitale’s remarks about his teams might not be based so much on statistics or fact, but they are sure a hell of a lot more convincing. And despite the fact that everybody knows Vitale is a Duke fan, he has the Blue Devils ranked at almost the exact same spot as Parish.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 5, 2007 - Post a comment

Will Freshmen Dominate Again?

Las season was clearly a year where freshmen dominated the college basketball world. Though Florida won the national championship without the use of a lot of freshmen, and gained a second straight title based largely on the fact that players wanted to stay, some individual performances by frosh were hard to ignore. Apposite the elder Gators in the championship game was the best frosh of them all, the eventual number one draft pick a few months after his finals defeat, Greg Oden. The number two pick in the draft was Kevin Durant, who just finished his first year at Texas.

It is likely that those two players would have gone straight to the NBA if they did not have to play at least one year of college, as per the new rule. So this year looks to be another one that is dominated by the individual efforts of fantastic rookies. Yet I have a feeling that once again it will be experience that wins out in the end, and teams like UNC and Memphis will be the best in the country, not relying on high school standouts trying to improve their draft number at the expense of the team.

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Permalink - Posted in General on September 4, 2007 - Post a comment


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