Daily Skinny (Oct. 5)-Overworked refs, Jordair Jett, Scott Martin, Kansas

[coolhandgopher]

Seth Davis brings to light the brutal schedule that many college refs work and the challenge of reducing that workload. After reading this, I thought that college basketball will experience a tragedy (i.e. a ref keeling over with a heart attack in a game) before any changes are made:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/seth_davis/10/02/refs/index.html?eref=T1

Notre Dame suffered a pretty big hit to their season with Scott Martin's tear to his ACL on Friday; as the second article tells us, the backup plans to Martin are pretty inexperienced. What I found particularly interesting about Jeff Goodman's blog was in the smaller print about Notre Dame Prep, where Jordair Jett has arrived this season. He has some pretty big names contacting him, one wonders if Tubby Smith will follow:
http://community.foxsports.com/good...t_martin_georgia_southern_gets_terrific_steal

http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20091002/SPORTS13/910029939/1001/Sports

Although it seems way too early to write off Kansas' chances for the national championship (as Andy Katz alludes to), this offseason the Jayhawks have experienced does make one wonder if the collective head of the team is focused on what it should be:
http://cjonline.com/sports/football/2009-10-03/ku_suspends_morningstar

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=4528884

It appears the Kelvin Sampson fiasco will never occur again with the implementation of this rule change. One wonders if a desperate AD will be making unlimited phone calls to Sampson at the end of this season?:
http://www.sportingnews.com/college...panel-says-recruiting-phone-call-rule-must-go

 

[Russ Archambault]

Can someone tell me the story behind Jett? Seems like he was rated pretty highly, enough to play in a high major conference...his Rivals profile shows a Baylor offer. He never got any press though, and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that he'd be going the prep school route. Is it just a matter of grades? Is he a risk? Are the Gophers interested in him?

 

[underground629]

I was blown away watching him play a few times, but he's a little undersized I guess. Still, I'm also kind of wondering the same thing.

 

[SelectionSunday]

Great to see Steve Welmer mentioned in the story. I hope he returns full strength after his foot(?) injury ended his season early last season.

 

[Jim V2]

Semantics, probably, but I wouldn't call refs overworked. To me, that implies that they're being taken advantage of, when in fact they each determine how much they want to work. Each of them is in essence a small business owner with the right to work as many hours as he wants. Of course if they're exhausted because they've essentailly overcommitted, and that causes poor work, then their customers should patronize a different business.


I used to watch Jett in high school. He's really talented and was great entertainment. But he played in a league with (mostly) smaller players. WHether he could still do all those things in a much biiger, much more physical league like the Big Ten, I don't know. the article quoted a coach as saying that Jett needs to work on the mental part of his game. I guess that doesn't surprise me, since he dominated so easily in high school that he didn't face as many mental challenges as he might have had he played in a tougher league.