College Hoops Healthy.....I Beg to Differ

[MD#12Fan]

Feb 16, no NFL, NBA is at the All-Star Game, Baseball is just reporting...….and College Basketball has its collective head up its butt and no one says a word. We should be wearing out our remotes and DVRs today on our couches and instead there are 3 good games. Women- nobody really- Baylor-Oklahoma isn't even on TV. Men's- MD at Michigan, Iowa St at Kansas St, and of course Kentucky at Tennessee.
I'm an old fart and I grew up in ACC and Big East country during college basketball's greatest era. Today, not even close.
What's wrong? I want it back!! At least to some degree. IMO college basketball is the most entertaining sport there is and we get this.
*players don't stay in school (Men's)- When I was a kid, I would watch Notre Dame and Austin Carr play anybody. What a player! Team- average- although they beat the UCLANs one time.
*stupid conferences- Gonzaga and the UConn women have zero conference rivalries. The Zags just beat St. Mary's by 40.
*You can't have a whole sport that only cares about the NCAA tournament. What about the games? I wonder if the kids only focus on that too. When I played, we won 20 games every year and we worried about the conference standings and of course the rivalries. Then the tournament.
Sorry Koolaid gulpers, the patient is hemorrhaging. Emergency treatment is needed.
The world is bored stiff...…. Zzzzzzzz (still looking forward to Kentucky- Tennessee.)

 

[BroadwayVa]

Feb 16, no NFL, NBA is at the All-Star Game, Baseball is just reporting...….and College Basketball has its collective head up its butt and no one says a word. We should be wearing out our remotes and DVRs today on our couches and instead there are 3 good games. Women- nobody really- Baylor-Oklahoma isn't even on TV. Men's- MD at Michigan, Iowa St at Kansas St, and of course Kentucky at Tennessee.
I'm an old fart and I grew up in ACC and Big East country during college basketball's greatest era. Today, not even close.
What's wrong? I want it back!! At least to some degree. IMO college basketball is the most entertaining sport there is and we get this.
*players don't stay in school (Men's)- When I was a kid, I would watch Notre Dame and Austin Carr play anybody. What a player! Team- average- although they beat the UCLANs one time.
*stupid conferences- Gonzaga and the UConn women have zero conference rivalries. The Zags just beat St. Mary's by 40.
*You can't have a whole sport that only cares about the NCAA tournament. What about the games? I wonder if the kids only focus on that too. When I played, we won 20 games every year and we worried about the conference standings and of course the rivalries. Then the tournament.
Sorry Koolaid gulpers, the patient is hemorrhaging. Emergency treatment is needed.

I agree that Living for ONLY the NCAA tourney and the NC misses 90 percent of the fun of watching basketball---. Men's basketball has devolved into a combination of football, hockey, basketball.
20 wins for most of the old time Uconn teams was a great season--that had full bleacher seats.
Personally, I like winning it all, but my fun most of the year is the poetry in motion and watching the development of those new guys, each year. Winning is nice but overrated.

 

[geewago]

The Baylor - OU womens game is on Fox Sports Southwest +

 

[Dokey]

Parity. During UConn's dominance since 1995, there was silly talk as to how this was bad for the women's game. Today we are moving closer to parity and UConn helped create that parity by lifting the interest in women's basketball (confession: I am not a basketball fan, I am a fan of WOMENS basketball, my favorite game to watch). We still don't have complete parity. One, sometimes two, teams dominate their conferences. UConn is alone, Baylor has some push from Texas, South Carolina and Miss State currently dominate SEC but Tennessee can move up, Notre Dame and Louisville dominate theirs. PAC12 might have slighter better balance with Oregon, Oregon State, Utah and Stanford but Oregon is likely to be the new UConn. For a few years the polls will show the same 20 teams in top 25 but every year will bring more change as more high school girls choose to play, as more high schools can hire coaches with college experience. No real parity yet but it is coming rapidly for a sport that only requires five players on the court. And UConn deserves credit for this.

 

[MD#12Fan]

I wish there was parity or at least more of it. Count on maybe 2 hands the number of really good games in WCBB this year. Each conference should have that many. So UCLA gets rocked by Stanford last night at home. That's parity? That should be sacrilegious. I don't care what kind of tradition Stanford has. That game has to be a war. Could state a million examples like that.
Looking forward to that SC- UConn game last week was great! That feeling should happen 10-15 times a year.
The old days: I graduated from UMD in 1984. Albert King and Buck Williams were there. MD 3rd or 4th best team in the conference. You are talking about almost every ACC conference game to be at least interesting, especially on the road. Every team had a couple of star players.
2018-19 All due respect, Parity Smarity
I repeat- You got an hour on your hands- watch the 30 for 30, "Requiem for the Big East". Oh my gosh, thems were the days

 

[MD#12Fan]

Oh well. Michigan's up on MD after 5 minutes, 14-4.
2 top 25 teams. Michigan on a bit of a skid. MD playing well.
Ugh

 

[Plebe]

I don't know about all the rest of that stuff but I do know that tonight's TN-KY game will be FIRE.

 

[Dokey]

I wish there was parity or at least more of it. Count on maybe 2 hands the number of really good games in WCBB this year. Each conference should have that many. So UCLA gets rocked by Stanford last night at home. That's parity? That should be sacrilegious. I don't care what kind of tradition Stanford has. That game has to be a war. Could state a million examples like that.
Looking forward to that SC- UConn game last week was great! That feeling should happen 10-15 times a year.
The old days: I graduated from UMD in 1984. Albert King and Buck Williams were there. MD 3rd or 4th best team in the conference. You are talking about almost every ACC conference game to be at least interesting, especially on the road. Every team had a couple of star players.
2018-19 All due respect, Parity Smarity
I repeat- You got an hour on your hands- watch the 30 for 30, "Requiem for the Big East". Oh my gosh, thems were the days

Stanford is really overrated this year, not because Oregon humiliated them at home but because Colorado, having lost their WNBA worthy point guard to injury, nearly did them in. The Pac12 offers more competitive games than other conferences but Oregon is a beast.

 

[nwhoopfan]

PAC12 might have slighter better balance with Oregon, Oregon State, Utah and Stanford but Oregon is likely to be the new UConn.

Utah doesn't belong in this conversation. Arizona St. and UCLA both have been far more successful for an extended period of time. Also Oregon's recent success is all with the same core group. It might make sense to see how they do after that core group departs before declaring them the new UConn.

 

[MSGRET]

I wish there was parity or at least more of it. Count on maybe 2 hands the number of really good games in WCBB this year. Each conference should have that many. So UCLA gets rocked by Stanford last night at home. That's parity? That should be sacrilegious. I don't care what kind of tradition Stanford has. That game has to be a war. Could state a million examples like that.
Looking forward to that SC- UConn game last week was great! That feeling should happen 10-15 times a year.
The old days: I graduated from UMD in 1984. Albert King and Buck Williams were there. MD 3rd or 4th best team in the conference. You are talking about almost every ACC conference game to be at least interesting, especially on the road. Every team had a couple of star players.
2018-19 All due respect, Parity Smarity
I repeat- You got an hour on your hands- watch the 30 for 30, "Requiem for the Big East". Oh my gosh, thems were the days

Of course I give credit to their Coach, I believe he was called "Lefty", he and Jerry Tarkanian, or "Tark" were coaches that the NCAA DIDN'T like and always harassed these two more than any other BB coaches during that time.

 

[azfan]

Parity. During UConn's dominance since 1995, there was silly talk as to how this was bad for the women's game. Today we are moving closer to parity and UConn helped create that parity by lifting the interest in women's basketball (confession: I am not a basketball fan, I am a fan of WOMENS basketball, my favorite game to watch). We still don't have complete parity. One, sometimes two, teams dominate their conferences. UConn is alone, Baylor has some push from Texas, South Carolina and Miss State currently dominate SEC but Tennessee can move up, Notre Dame and Louisville dominate theirs. PAC12 might have slighter better balance with Oregon, Oregon State, Utah and Stanford but Oregon is likely to be the new UConn. For a few years the polls will show the same 20 teams in top 25 but every year will bring more change as more high school girls choose to play, as more high schools can hire coaches with college experience. No real parity yet but it is coming rapidly for a sport that only requires five players on the court. And UConn deserves credit for this.

Regarding the Pac-12 there is a clear distance between Oregon and the next tier of teams which would be Stanford, Oregon State, Arizona State and UCLA. I would not put Utah in that group. As I said in a previous thread earlier in the year that team which is currently in the midst of a six-game losing sreak. Utah started gangbusters against a very week schedule. They found Pac-12 play to be very challenging. That said the central thesis of this poster is that there is increasing amount of parity. For years Stanford dominated the Pac-12. Now we've had an opportunity to see both Oregon schools and perhaps UCLA and ASU break into that elite level. I do think Oregon may be the best team in women's basketball this year.

 

[MD#12Fan]

Of course I give credit to their Coach, I believe he was called "Lefty", he and Jerry Tarkanian, or "Tark" were coaches that the NCAA DIDN'T like and always harassed these two more than any other BB coaches during that time.

Boo! Busting on Lefty. As he would like to say, he made Maryland the “UCLA of the East”. He was just a helluva recruiter. Wasn’t crooked, just a real used car salesman. Remember he had Moses Malone before he turned pro. He won everywhere he went- Davidson, Georgia State, James Madison, Maryland. He would beat your butt in a game of tiddlywinks.
UMD is a couple of miles from DC and parts of College Park are rough too. He recruited city kids. City kids do dumb stuff. Lefty couldn’t keep up with some of that type of stuff.
Maryland basketball was big time back then. That team that lost to David Thompson and NC State (73?) was a GREAT college team. McMillen, Howard, Lucas, Elmore. Only the conference tournament champ got in back then.

 

[MSGRET]

Boo! Busting on Lefty. As he would like to say, he made Maryland the “UCLA of the East”. He was just a helluva recruiter. Wasn’t crooked, just a real used car salesman. Remember he had Moses Malone before he turned pro. He won everywhere he went- Davidson, Georgia State, James Madison, Maryland. He would beat your butt in a game of tiddlywinks.
UMD is a couple of miles from DC and parts of College Park are rough too. He recruited city kids. City kids do dumb stuff. Lefty couldn’t keep up with some of that type of stuff.
Maryland basketball was big time back then. That team that lost to David Thompson and NC State (73?) was a GREAT college team. McMillen, Howard, Lucas, Elmore. Only the conference tournament champ got in back then.

If you read my post I do not bust Lefty, I'm busting the NCAA. The only coaches that they went after were ones that made waves. Tark one time said in a statement, "The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky they're going to give Cleveland State another year of probation." It pissed the NCAA off so much that they went after him because he was showing the injustice of their investigations. Lefty also harped on the NCAA because of things that UNCheat did while he was a coach.

 

[MD#12Fan]

I like your perspective. A season can be like a story with events, scenes, and a narrative. I still think baseball has that flow to it. If the NFL is a weekly mini-series, baseball is a daily soap. Basketball can be a combination of the two with at least two exciting matchups a week, with rivalries, and drama building as the season goes on.

 

[eebmg]

The Baylor - OU womens game is on Fox Sports Southwest +

also on MSG for NYC denizens

 

[LETTERL]

Boo! Busting on Lefty. As he would like to say, he made Maryland the “UCLA of the East”. He was just a helluva recruiter. Wasn’t crooked, just a real used car salesman. Remember he had Moses Malone before he turned pro. He won everywhere he went- Davidson, Georgia State, James Madison, Maryland. He would beat your butt in a game of tiddlywinks.

Lefty was one of my favorite coaches in what I called the Golden Era of the ACC. Lefty, K, Dean Smith, Jimmy V, Cremins, Carl Tacy, Terry Holland. The conference was smaller and more intimate back then.

I have a little story about my one and only meeting with Lefty. After the Len Bias scandal led to Driesell's ouster at Maryland, he found a second career in broadcasting ACC games. I think it was 1988, he was at NC State to broadcast a basketball game. I was walking on campus with a few buddies and we look up, and Lefty is coming out of the Student Center, eating an ice cream cone.

We walk up to him and he couldn't have been more welcoming. We all were walking toward the same area of campus and we must have spent 10 minutes, sharing a walk with Lefty Driesell, talking ACC hoops. It is one of my many fond memories from my time at NC State.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Lefty was one of my favorite coaches in what I called the Golden Era of the ACC. Lefty, K, Dean Smith, Jimmy V, Cremins, Carl Tacy, Terry Holland. The conference was smaller and more intimate back then.

I get nostalgic for the good old days. I miss that version of the ACC. I miss the SWC, the Big 8 etc. etc. I hate what conference realignment/expansion has done to the college athletics landscape. There's no going back, but it was better back then. Damn football and the BCS ruined everything.

 

[triaddukefan]

I get nostalgic for the good old days. I miss that version of the ACC. I miss the SWC, the Big 8 etc. etc. I hate what conference realignment/expansion has done to the college athletics landscape. There's no going back, but it was better back then. Damn football and the BCS ruined everything.

Yep... the good ol days. Back then the ACC was a true round-robin which I loved. I love college football.... but expansion hasnt always been a good thing... especially when it comes to old rivalries being broken up. Heck... even in the ACC Football.. Duke hasnt played State since 2013... and wont meet again until 2020 in Raleigh. State's next trip to Durham isnt even scheduled... so its probably in the year 2025 or 2026. Mine you the schools are 30 miles apart.

 

[LETTERL]

Yep... the good ol days. Back then the ACC was a true round-robin which I loved. I love college football.... but expansion hasnt always been a good thing... especially when it comes to old rivalries being broken up. Heck... even in the ACC Football.. Duke hasnt played State since 2013... and wont meet again until 2020 in Raleigh. State's next trip to Durham isnt even scheduled... so its probably in the year 2025 or 2026. Mine you the schools are 30 miles apart.

I agree. Why the two schools can't schedule each other as a non-conference game in the years they don't meet in ACC action seems beyond the ability of the teams to make happen...but I know all State fans would love to start playing Duke again on an annual basis.

 

[triaddukefan]

I agree. Why the two schools can't schedule each other as a non-conference game in the years they don't meet in ACC action seems beyond the ability of the teams to make happen...but I know all State fans would love to start playing Duke again on an annual basis.

2 game winning streak in football for Duke in that series. We aint gonna discuss the previous 20 or so meetings

The baby blue bastids and Wake forest scheduled a non-conference game for this fall.

 

[MD#12Fan]

Lefty was one of my favorite coaches in what I called the Golden Era of the ACC. Lefty, K, Dean Smith, Jimmy V, Cremins, Carl Tacy, Terry Holland. The conference was smaller and more intimate back then.

I have a little story about my one and only meeting with Lefty. After the Len Bias scandal led to Driesell's ouster at Maryland, he found a second career in broadcasting ACC games. I think it was 1988, he was at NC State to broadcast a basketball game. I was walking on campus with a few buddies and we look up, and Lefty is coming out of the Student Center, eating an ice cream cone.

We walk up to him and he couldn't have been more welcoming. We all were walking toward the same area of campus and we must have spent 10 minutes, sharing a walk with Lefty Driesell, talking ACC hoops. It is one of my many fond memories from my time at NC State.

Great story! I met him in about 85. I was an assistant coach at a private school in Alexandria, VA and we had a 6'9" lefty center that everyone was after including Lefty. At a game he talked to us and he remembered my name when we parted. What a salesman! I was the definition of a nobody and he remembered my name. Coaches are an awesome breed.
Cole Field House was quite a place back then. Very unique gymnasium. We used to go study there between classes. You could jog around the top where all the coaches offices were and run the stairs. I snuck on the court a few times with my ball. UMD was always a factor, if not the main attraction.