College Basketball

[xaxat]

Ed O'Bannon wins his case and boom goes the dynamite. 

 

Judge Rules N.C.A.A. Players Must Be Paid for Their Images

 

 

 

In a decision that could drastically reshape the world of college sports, a federal judge ruled Friday that the N.C.A.A.’s decades-old rules barring payments to college athletes were in violation of antitrust laws.

In a 99-page ruling, Judge Claudia Wilken of United States District Court delivered a resounding rebuke to the foundation of the N.C.A.A., issuing an injunction against current rules that prohibit athletes from earning money from the use of their names and images in video games and television broadcasts.

 

It will be almost certainly be appealed, but it's not looking good for the NCAA.

 

[Minneapple]

Well, Kentucky is looking really really good. They just held Kansas to 40 points tonight. For the first time, I don't think the "XXX college team could beat the XXX pro team" arguments are stupid. Because Kentucky might really be able to beat the Sixers, who are JUST THAT HORRIBLE at basketball.

 

Jahlil Okafor is going to be fun to watch this season. I can't wait until Duke plays Wisconsin and we get Okafor vs. Frank Kaminsky.

[Rick Kitchen]

Everybody talks about how bad the Sixers are, but they only have one fewer wins than the Lakers.  Heehee.

[MyAimIsTrue]

I'd never heard of NJIT, the only division one basketball school not in a conference, until yesterday when they beat Michigan at Ann Arbor.  That has to rank second in all time upsets behind Chaminade over Virginia.

[xaxat]

You also had Yale beating defending national champs UConn. Crazy week.

[AimingforYoko]

Halftime score today: Kentucky 41 - UCLA 7. Note that this is the Basketball thread, not Football.

[SophiaD]

My Washington Huskies have been a huge (and pleasant!) surprise this year, considering they were picked to finish SIXTH in the conference.  Who would have guessed that we would be 11-0 at this point?

 

Last night's game against Tulane was scary - 18 turnovers, plus the Green Wave's defense was incredibly scrappy.  It also looked as if the Huskies had forgotten how to rebound for awhile, but we still found a way to get it done.

 

I hope Robert Upshaw, our seven-footer, doesn't succumb to the lure of the NBA next year, but wouldn't blame him if he did. 

[mojoween]

It might be that he doesn't feel the pressure because all eyes are on Okafor but damn Justise Winslow is a lot of fun to watch.

[Rick Kitchen]

Damn, I was hoping Florida could knock off Kentucky.

[Minneapple]

UVa has lost Justin Anderson, its leading scorer, to a hand injury for four to six weeks. Could put a 1 seed in jeopardy for them.

[AimingforYoko]

R.I.P. Dean Smith

[MyAimIsTrue]

My ex-husband went to UNC so my natural reaction is to hate the university but I cannot dislike Dean Smith.  As I wrote on a FB post yes, he was a good basketball coach but even more than that he was a tremendous humanitarian and civil rights activist during a time when doing so was still a radical idea. RIP to a great man.

[mojoween]

I hate to say this because I never want to say anything negative about President Battier but (and imagine I'm whispering this) he's kind of a homer.

Although I have to say I appreciate his working "chicanery" into the conversation.

[mojoween]

Aww...they say bad things come in threes, and this week we lost Dean Smith, Ed Sabol and now Jerry Tarkanian.

Tark the Shark was a lot of things, but boring was not one of them. He and Dean Smith can coach some pretty good games in the afterlife.

[Ohwell]

I liked Tark; I hope he took his towel with him.  He and Dean can talk basketball trash all they want to now. 

[mojoween]

25 years ago today Hank Gathers died. I can't even type that without getting chills and tearing up. I was a junior in high school but remember hearing that news the next day like it just happened.

Those Loyola teams were something else. Bo's left-handed free throws will always make me cry.

[MyAimIsTrue]

Wow, I can't believe it's been 25 years and remember his death well as it was a big shock.  Such a sad moment and I still get chills when I see clips of Bo Kimble taking left-handed free throws.

[AimingforYoko]

It's Selection Sunday! My favorite sports time of the year begins.

Projected #1 line : Kentucky, Villanova, Duke, Wisconsin. (Duke gets the 1 over Virginia because of the better whole season resume)

[Ohwell]

I'm still tired from saying up last night.  It's a tradition for me to watch the WAC and Big Sky championships because I don't see them play during the season.  Actually, I try to watch the games in the western conferences for that reason.  Last night was the first time I saw U. of Hawaii play, and I was thinking how cool that must be to go to college there.   

[MyAimIsTrue]

Projected #1 line : Kentucky, Villanova, Duke, Wisconsin. (Duke gets the 1 over Virginia because of the better whole season resume)

 

Job well done!

 

I really want someone to justify the inclusion of UCLA in the tournament.  Texas too, while we're at it.

[Slade347]

Job well done!

 

I really want someone to justify the inclusion of UCLA in the tournament.  Texas too, while we're at it.

 

The names on the front of their jerseys? That's about all I got.

 

I'm a Georgetown fan, but there is no way they deserve a No. 4 seed. I just hope they don't lose to a double digit seed again.

 

Early Final 4 prediction? Kentucky, Arizona, Iowa State and Virginia.

Edited March 16, 2015 by Slade347

[wanderingstar]

It's been so long since I've followed college basketball. Yet for some reason I am getting into it again (I think Requiem for the Big East rekindled my love).

 

I'm about to watch this Laettner 30 for 30, and I have to tell you, seeing him with gray hair makes me feel O-L-D.

[MyAimIsTrue]

The reconfiguration of the Big East still confuses the hell out of me in terms of where the shoved out teams went.  I found it very hard to wrap my head around the fact that UConn played SMU for their conference tournament championship.

 

Yesterday I saw a commercial that featured several former college players including Christian Laettner lying on a hammock made out of net strings.  Gray or not (and I'm a few years older than he is so I know gray) he looked damn good.

[Frost]

I guess it wouldn't have fit with the theme of "I hate Christian Laettner" but I would have liked a more in-depth discussion of why one of the greatest college basketball players of all time didn't excel in pro ball.   I didn't follow his career once he left the Timberwolves but it seems like he was an average pro player, except for one season with the Hawks.

[Rick Kitchen]

What is the purpose of the CollegeInsider.com tournament?  The NIT is bad enough.

[MyAimIsTrue]

There are some little intriguing bits of trivia in this year's tournament, at least to me.  For example the last time the Final Four was in Indianapolis the Butler Bulldogs made it all the way to the championship game in their own hometown.  The last time Jacksonville hosted an Ivy League team was 2010 when Cornell made it to the Sweet 16 and this year Harvard is playing there, and they've advanced into the round of 32 the past two seasons so can they win again this year?  Davidson is a # 10 seed, just as they were in 2008 when Steph Curry lead them to the Elite Eight.

 

I want to go on record as predicting # 12 Buffalo will beat # 5 West Virginia.

[Ohwell]

I guess it wouldn't have fit with the theme of "I hate Christian Laettner" but I would have liked a more in-depth discussion of why one of the greatest college basketball players of all time didn't excel in pro ball.   I didn't follow his career once he left the Timberwolves but it seems like he was an average pro player, except for one season with the Hawks.

I saw that special, too, and while they barely touched on his career in the NBA, I thought I heard that he had difficulty getting along with some of the players.  I wonder why, since he was such a sweet guy.  Heh. 

 

I remember when the stomp on the chest happened but I forgot the stompee's reaction.  I  loved how the guy just got up smiling, like Laettner didn't rattle him at all.

[AimingforYoko]

Probably my favorite Christian Laettner pro moment was when he played for the Timberwolves and pointed out that he was the only winner in the locker room.

[Ohwell]

He actually said that?  It's a wonder nobody kicked his ass.

 

Got my first bracket wrong.  I picked Manhattan over Hampton in the play-in (knowing that it probably doesn't matter because the winner will be served up as dessert to Kentucky), but I'm delighted for Hampton.  I'll pray for them to beat Kentucky.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Ohwell

[MyAimIsTrue]

No Hampton victory will ever be the same without Steve Merfeld.

[mojoween]

I picked Ole Miss to win a second game and went to bed last night thinking I already had negative points. What happened to BYU in the second half??

[xaxat]

I think it's funny when the NIT commentators talk about the "experimental" thirty second shot clock when literally every other league in the world with a clock is already at thirty or less.

[mojoween]

Who is the good-looking guy with the glasses in the AT&T ads with Laettner, Russell (that is him, yeah?) and Shaq? Is it Clyde the Glide?

[MyAimIsTrue]

I love how the first major upset of the tournament happened in only the second game.  Way to go UAB!

[Popples]

I was cheering for Georgia Southern because I felt bad that the coach injured himself celebrating getting in the tournament. I was stunned that they upset Baylor.

[mojoween]

My two brackets are so opposite. On one I have Georgia State winning two games but the other side has Iowa State in the Elite Eight. On the other I still have Iowa State in the Sweet Sixteen and also have Baylor winning two games.

It's all a crapshoot! That's why I love it. I'll watch even if four eleven seeds were in the Final Four but the media doesn't care about obsessives like me, heh.

[MyAimIsTrue]

Seems 14 is the new 12 in tournament seeding.  I can't wait to get home from work and see highlights of Georgia State's last second three pointer to win the game.

 

Mojoween, I'm with you.  I get more enjoyment watching the lower seeds and the mid majors than I do teams like Kentucky.

[Ohwell]

My brackets are busted to hell already.  Now I can just relax.  I love it!

 

I've been talking smack all day about Hampton kicking Kentucky's ass, and I will continue to talk smack until about...ooohhhh...9:30 or so.

[mojoween]

That three by the coaches kid was amazing. The announcer is nearly apoplectic that Georgia State is not driving to the basket when BOOM, nothing but net.

I did feel badly for the Baylor kids. I don't like to see kids only a year or two older than my son looking sad. Same for SMU...that is a garbage way to lose a game, regardless if it was the right call, which I still am not sure if it was.

[MyAimIsTrue]

I saw a half-assed explanation of why goaltending was the right call against SMU and I don't think the ball had a chance in hell of making a basket, but I guess that doesn't matter?

[ganesh]

No, it does matter. Barkley and the other guy weren't hearing him correctly. That was absolutely the wrong call. I have no idea what they were looking at. You don't have to automatically call goaltending if the ball is touched on its downward arc. 

 

The official official or whomever said it had to have a chance of going in, not just hitting the rim first before you grab it. 

 

I want to like basketball, but with the over officiating and the numerous lengthy stoppages, there's no flow and it just plodding. I watched almost *two* soccer games to one full basketball game today. Almost *120* minutes of play versus 40. 

 

I am against replay in general, but it's patently absurd that there isn't a general provision for say a less than 20 seconds review of scoring plays or something. Like, no, we're not going to review the goaltending call in a close game at the 5:17 mark, but it's ok if there's only 7 seconds left. 

[mojoween]

The press conference and follow up tweets from the SMU kid who got the goaltending call are heartbreaking. Someone needs to console him and tell him he can't take the blame for all of it.

[MyAimIsTrue]

What the hell is going on with the officiating?  First we have the questionable goaltending call that decides the outcome of a game and now a player from the Arkansas bench throws a shoe onto the court and there's only a delay of game warning given instead of a technical foul?

[Minneapple]

I want to like basketball, but with the over officiating and the numerous lengthy stoppages, there's no flow and it just plodding

I get that the TV timeouts are going to be longer during the tournament. But the coaches just get too many freaking timeouts. Do they really need that many timeouts? Half the time they're only using them as part of the strategy to extend the game when they're down late anyway.

 

At least today's games were entertaining and they actually did flow pretty well. There wasn't a lot of the foul-timeout-free throw-timeout-free-throw-foul-timeout-free-throw-timeout pattern I saw during the regular season. The exception was the Purdue-Cincinnati game, and that may have just been because the style of those teams is to beat up the other team as much as they can.

 

It was fun to see the Georgia State coach's reaction when his kid hit the three. I would have also enjoyed Alford's kid's performance if I could stand Steve Alford, but I pretty much loathe him, so there's that.

 

I get more enjoyment watching the lower seeds and the mid majors than I do teams like Kentucky.

Kentucky is fun to watch because they're actually good at basketball. No sloppiness, excellent defense, beautiful execution on offense. It does get boring when they're just rolling over a hapless 16 seed, but it should be really fun to see them play Arizona or Wisconsin (God willing!) in the later rounds. That will be some good hoops.

[Ohwell]

I hope the Hampton kids enjoyed their trip.

 

They need a big strong man standing next to the Georgia State coach in the next game to keep him from flipping off the stool.

[MyAimIsTrue]

I never get tired of watching the clip of Ron Hunter falling off the chair!

[mojoween]

Apparently the pretty lady who was sitting behind Coach Hunter is his chair wrangler. He needs a chair with a back on it and maybe some restraints, especially if tomorrow's game is like yesterday.

I am all in on Georgia State, they aren't Dunk City like FGCU but still fun. I have be out during the day tomorrow though so I'll probably miss the game unless the buggy MMOD app finally decides to work.

[MyAimIsTrue]

I'm going out of town this weekend and will be nowhere near a TV the entire time.  Dammit.

[xaxat]

The press conference and follow up tweets from the SMU kid who got the goaltending call are heartbreaking. Someone needs to console him and tell him he can't take the blame for all of it.

 

I really hate that the NCAA makes losing players attend press conferences so the networks can have "drama".

 

Oh, my mistake, they're doing it all in the interest of the "student athlete".

[AndreaK1041]

Yesterday I saw a commercial that featured several former college players including Christian Laettner lying on a hammock made out of net strings.  Gray or not (and I'm a few years older than he is so I know gray) he looked damn good.

 

 

Who is the good-looking guy with the glasses in the AT&T ads with Laettner, Russell (that is him, yeah?) and Shaq? Is it Clyde the Glide?

I'm glad people are discussing this commercial, because I love it.  Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbYlT_a4Jt8

It's Laettner (who I did not find attractive when I was cheering for the Fab Five as a 12 year old girl, but sure do now...), Shaq, Dr J and Clyde.