Sunday Night Ramble (November 26)

Gopher Basketball

Heading over the hills and through the woods, I arrived at my Mother’s home for Thanksgiving faced with a crew of blood relatives who could care less about college basketball and who I knew better than to present with the cornucopia of hoops action as our method of entertainment (the youngest sibling has little influence in these settings). So, while my attention was diverted to marathon hikes, board games, and a frustrating game of hide and go seek (word to the wise-when your 3 yr. old nephew attaches himself to you during this game, you’re bound to lose quickly), I give thanks to my family from the gastrointestinal discomfort that would have been brought had I absorbed every minute of Gopher basketball against Marist and Southern Illinois. As it was, I saw the beginning ten minutes or so against Marist and the first half against SIU, and was glad to be pulled away from the TV screen. Just reading that last sentence I typed, I find myself shaking my head at how our basketball program has sunk to its current level. Onto the Ramble. . .

* I step into each Gopher basketball season with optimism, no matter what I know about this squad, which in this season had as many question marks as I can recall. The Winona State exhibition caused a ripple of questions, but I attributed the loss to inexperience versus experience; the Iowa State loss caused concern, especially on a night when so much went right for the Gophers, but I attributed much of it to an incredibly hot hand from the Cyclones’ Michael Taylor. After watching over the Thanksgiving break, there’s nothing that can be excused away for this Gophers team. They are a bad team lead by a nice man who’s in over his head. When looking to point fingers, where do those fingers land? Mine lands squarely on AD Joel Maturi for the mishandling of Dan Monson’s situation last spring. While a few on here have scapegoated Jeff Shelman and the Strib for that fiasco, it seems apparent something was going to occur that night, but for whatever reason (football stadium, inability to pull the trigger, too much four-way chili in Cincy for Maturi) Monson’s job status was left intact. However, the fallout from that incident has resulted in a further deflated fanbase, the inability to bring in a difference making junior college player in the spring, and a continued malaise that spreads across this once thriving program. The question now seems to be when Monson will leave/be relieved and we haven’t even hit December. Maturi’s inability to answer a question (“I’m not going to go there”), much less make a decisive move has given the Gophers basketball season another year to spiral into irrelevance. Alright, enough on this. . .I’m not stating anything that hasn’t been repeated often by many other posters on here, and I don’t want the Ramble to be a depressing affair.

* A couple positives on the Gophers-I just love the way Kevin Payton passes the basketball-solid chest passes that are the opposite of lazy; I wish he would have a more offensive mindset and hopefully that will develop in time. After watching the team’s scrimmage in Rochester and first exhibition against Bemidji State, I thought Brandon Smith would be the most likely Gopher to find himself at the end of the bench, but these past couple games he has shown some of that vaunted athleticism along with some good basketball sense and a nice jumper. As this season progresses, his development will be one of the more interesting things to watch.

* As I was slowly waking this morning, the parallel between the Gopher program now and the Twins in the mid ’90s came to mind-I just hope that when this current group of Gophers mature we’re looking at the likes of Torii Hunter, Johan Santana, Brad Radke, and Corey Koskie rather than the equals of Scott Stahoviak, Matt Walbeck, Frankie Rodriguez, and Scott Klingenbeck.

* After Tuesday’s night defeat to Iowa State, I clicked over to UCLA vs. Kentucky and a bit later, Marquette vs. Duke. For anyone else who followed that pattern, did it feel like it was March and it was one of those Thursday night regional games in the tournament, matched both in intensity and quality of play? Knowing I should get to bed, I couldn’t tear myself away from the quality on display that night. I was also extremely sobered by where the Gophers were at while watching these four programs face off.

* I was pretty high on UCLA’s prospects this year, but thought there’d be a bit of a dropoff at point guard, with Jordan Farmar leaving for the NBA and Darren Collison stepping into the fray-however, after watching them for a couple nights, I think UCLA will be better than they were last year. Collison’s style recalls Kyle Lowery, and the parallels could be quite close-as freshman they were change of pace guards off the bench, and both stepped into starting point guard roles as sophomores, assisting in elevating their teams to the next level of competition. In watching UCLA last season, they seemed to be a plodding team at times with Farmar running the show, but over in Maui they played as you expect a UCLA team to play on offense (fast and crisp) with that lockdown defense that Ben Howland brings to the gym. I look at where he’s at with that program right now, and I see UCLA set for a long time. I also find it telling that while O.J. Mayo sought to play in the bright lights of Los Angeles for the “marketing opportunities”, there was no discussion of him matriculating at UCLA. Few college coaches can arrive at a level where they can choose to avoid prodigies like Mayo who bring with them innumberable headaches, but Howland has done so in year four with the Bruins.

* Speaking of Kentucky, I have thought Randolph Morris has been one of college basketball’s most overrated players on one of college basketball’s most overrated teams the past two seasons. However, it looks like Morris is getting it now, perhaps because he went into this previous offseason focusing on coming back to Lexington. He has been producing both points and rebounds in the early going, but I don’t know how many wins that will translate for Kentucky in the rugged SEC this season and Tubby Smith will likely remain on a warm seat with the UK fans this year.

* Since I mentioned the SEC, I’ll go a little diversion to discuss the Tennessee Volunteers. . .I think it’ll be a rough year for Bruce Pearl and company. In watching them against UNC this weekend, they were getting mauled down low against the Tar Heels. Granted, lots of teams will get mauled by the combination of Tyler Hansborough and Brandon Wright this year, but in a league that features Al Horford and Joakim Noah at Florida, Jamereo Davidson and Richard Hendrix at Alabama, Randolph Morris at Kentucky, and Glen Davis at LSU, this doesn’t bode well for the Volunteers. The Volunteers ranked very low last season in field goal defense and then they lost center Major Wingate unexpectedly to violation of team rules (what exactly goes on down in Knoxville? it seems like if you ink an athletic scholarship to play for UT, you might as well get your mugshot taken care of in the same sitting). On top of that, Chris Lofton seems to be a bit off from his great production of a year ago.

* Alright, back to this past Tuesday night. . .I’m found this year’s Villanova for my rooting interest, and it is the Marquette Golden Eagles. It wasn’t very long ago where I was hypothesizing that the move to the Big East was going to backfire for Marquette, that Dwyane Wade was an aberration for the program and that Tom Crean was running away too many players from the campus. I didn’t get to watch the Golden Eagles last season, but I heard how they had some dynamic players. I was fortunate to watch them dismantle the Dukies and I don’t know if there’s a more exciting player out there than Dominic James, the strong, explosive point guard. He is the type of player who can lead a team to great heights and he’s joined by a couple very capable backcourt mates in Jerel McNeal and Wes Matthews, Jr. (whose father is still recuperating from the choke hold Xavier McDaniel but on him sometime in the ’80s). Around this star trio, Crean has sprinkled in some role players from the Minnesota prep scene, with Jamil Lott (Como Park) and Dan Fitzgerald (St. Thomas Academy) getting regular minutes and Mike Kinsella (Rochester JM) blocking the view of those who sit behind him on the bench. I’m hoping ESPN schedules the Golden Eagles a lot this season, if you see them on the TV schedule, take the time to watch, they’re extremely fun to watch.

* I’m an avowed Duke hater, so I might not have the unbiased credibility necessary to make this statement, but I think the Dukies are in trouble with Greg Paulus and Josh McRoberts as their floor leaders this season. Paulus was getting chewed up and spit out by the Marquette guards the other night. To be fair, that will happen to a lot of Marquette opponents this season, but it was happening last year to Paulus also, and he seems to be the weakest point guard the Dukies have had starting since Jeff Capel, which coincided with the last stretch the Blue Devils struggled. As for McRoberts, he seems to really struggle in finishing around the basket-his field goal numbers against Marquette, whose front line is all role players, was 4 for 16. In a strong ACC, it could be an uncharacteristic season for Duke unless one of their freshman rise up as the next superstar for Dick Vitale to foam about.

* A couple thoughts about the second and third place teams from the Maui tournament-Georgia Tech and Memphis are going to be r-a-g-g-e-d this season, with bouts of brilliance followed by a flurry of ill-advised shots off of double no look passes. Ga Tech will have some rough nights in the ACC, but you would think might emerge with some consistency in their games by the end of the season, due in part to that tough league. Memphis is an early pick for me though to fall early in the NCAA tournament. Once they get into league play, they should run roughshod over their Conference USA brethren and compile a gaudy record. They should also be able to achieve this with continued sloppy play, which will catch up with them in March when they take on a team well schooled in the fundamentals and defense (a Southern Illinois team for instance-as Bleed pointed out, what defense!). While Memphis is talented, they don’t seem to have the type of talent on display they had last year with Rodney Carney, Shawne Williams, and Darius Washington.

* In watching last night’s Kansas-Florida heavyweight bout, the best player on the floor filled with lottery picks was Kansas’ Julian Wright and it wasn’t close last night. I’d been impressed with his talent before, but he really put it on display last night. I keep repeatedly hearing how Kansas needs to have Brandon Rush assert himself, but from what I see they need to run more of their offense through Wright. He’s an explosive player, a deft passer, and he was hitting the fifteen foot shots last night too. All this was happening without forcing anything-he got most of his points in the first half and spend the second half feeding his teammates with beautiful passes and setting nice screens to clear them for open shots. In their loss to Oral Roberts, he only scored 6 points on 3-10 shooting, while Rush lead the Jayhawks with 14 points off of 14 field goal attempts. In my eyes, the Jayhawks go as Julian Wright goes.

* As for Florida, they certainly were off their best game last night, in a neutral site that was anything but neutral against them, against perhaps the most talented collection of talent in college basketball this season-yet they were still a three pointer off the front of the rim at the buzzer from winning the game. They are a mighty impressive team, and as EG9 stated they probably won’t lose many more this season. He had a rough night last night, but among all the big men in the nation, Al Horford might be my favorite one to watch while remaining overshadowed by his teammate Noah (who I also enjoy watching, even if his histrionics get a tad annoying).

* Before leaving the topic of Kansas entirely, I thought I would segue into one of the more fascinating transfers of the year, from my mind, at least. I speak of Florida International’s Alex Galindo who was recruited by Billy Gillespie to play for him at UTEP, matriculated to Kansas when Gillespie went to Texas A&M, and played his freshman season at Lawrence, and quite well, I thought, from what I saw. After that season he left Kansas and ended up in all places, Florida International (hence my fascination). Here was a highly recruited, talented player with proven skills at the major college level who was headed to play in the Sun Belt conference for a team coming off a 8-20 season. Thus far, he’s averaging about 11 ppg, 4.5 rpg. I expected numbers double this for Galindo, I will be sure to keep all you ‘Hole denizens kept abreast of the developments :).

* Perhaps lost in all the box scores over the weekend was what Pitt did to Florida State in their own tournament, beating a pretty good Seminoles team by 22 points. From reading the accounts, Pitt sped the game up and easily handled Florida State, even though Aaron Gray did not have a big night. I had my doubts about the lofty ranking for the Panthers this preseason, but more nights like this will make the team look like a legit top 10 squad. It’s incredible what Ben Howland and now Jamie Dixon have built on that campus.

* I don’t know if there’s a more frustrating player to watch on the national scene than Gonzaga’s Derek Ravio. The Zags were handling North Carolina quite easily until Ravio started throwing up ill advised shots, trying to do too much and turning the ball over, and generally doing everything you don’t want your point guard to do. I’ve never been a fan of Ravio’s game, but you would figure by his senior year he would have figured out how to at least not hurt the team. I think Mark Few would be well served to guide his point guard duties into the hands of other players, if they hope to advance this March. Which, by the way, you have to hand it to Few and the Zags once again-I thought with the loss of Adam Morrison and JP Batista we would see a leveling off for Gonzaga, but they just replace them with another shaggy haired gunner (freshman Matt Bouldin) and unknown force on the block (sophomore Josh Heytvelt) and keep rolling along.

* Speaking of Gonzaga, if Hollywood decides to do a biopic anytime soon on Coach Few, I would suggest casting Kevin Bacon in the role, making sure he’s sporting the haircut he featured in “A Few Good Men”.

* If you’re not already on the wagon, I would suggest that you fight the mediocrity in the “U”‘s athletic department by watching the woman’s volleyball team which has reeled off six consecutive victories, finished the season second in the Big Ten and #8 in the nation, and today was seeded in the Gainesville regional as the two seed in that region. I’m no volleyball savant, but they look to have a pretty tough road if they get into the round of sixteen-looks like they would match up with #9 Florida in Gainesville, and they are in the same region as Nebraska, the overall #1 seed. Unfortunately, no games will be played in the Sports Pavillon, but hopefully they will get some air time. As another poster stated (I forget who it was, but the poster who saw them take down Bucky in Madison a couple weeks ago), among women’s sports volleyball is the most fun to watch, and this Gopher squad is very good and worthy of attention.

* Someday in one hundred years or so, a future generation will obtain some video of this time in our world and gasp at what they saw on display in our modern media. It won’t be some pseudo-reality show where people are trying to pseudo-survive on some island, nor will it be the rap stylings of K-Fed that makes them shake their heads. It won’t even be the insufferable, infuriating teenagers from MTV’s Sweet Sixteen. Instead, they will gasp that the leading sports organization, ESPN tried to pass Michael Irvin off as a legitimate newscaster. They will wonder how a man who openly cheers for his old team, calls Tiki Barber a quitter while singing the praises of Terrell Owens, and can make Sean Salisbury seem intelligent in comparision remained employed for this network. At least I hope future generations will ask these questions, because it’s beyond me how Irvin is a featured player on the ESPN network.

* Looking for a unique radio station to listen to? Go to wely.com, the one and only radio station in Ely, MN. I first found this station while travelling across the northwoods territory several years ago and immediately was drawn to its eclectic style, which has most closely approximated “Chris in the Morning” from one of my favorite TV shows, Northern Exposure. It has a wide range of music offerings, as their website will demonstrate to you, but it centers around pretty rootsy music. Even better than the music is when the DJ’s will get on air and deliver personal messages to community members. I was very pleased a couple months ago when I discovered the station was available to stream.

* Okay, I think that about covers it for this Ramble. I’m going to go back to staring at the phone, waiting for Sports Illustrated to call (how did you know Moonlight?). One disclaimer I should point out-if you read something on the Ramble this week or last week and you thought, “I heard/read that someplace else”, please know that I try to source sites when I remember where the info comes from. So early in the season, it’s hard to have distinct info since there are a limited amount of games that everyone is watching right now. I know in a couple items today (about UCLA’s Collison and Marquette’s James) I had those ideas in my head when I heard the national commentators make mention of it. Anyway, just didn’t want you all thinking that I’m poaching my material :). Until next Sunday. . .

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