College Basketball
Gators Chomping For SEC Title
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
For the last, oh I don’t know, however many years John Calipari has been at Kentucky, the Wildcats have been far and away the best team in the SEC.
They almost always have the most talent, and as much as Calipari annoys me with most everything he says and does when searching for a microphone to put in front of that smug face of his, he is one hell of coach.
This year however, it’s a little different. To me, the best team in the conference, and certainly the team playing the best right now, are the Florida Gators.
When Florida hired Mike White to lead their basketball after Billy Donovan bolted for the NBA’s version of Hatfields vs. McCoys in Oklahoma City, most fans probably had no idea who White was. I can’t really blame them.
To be honest, when I heard the name Mike White I actually thought of this guy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_White_(filmmaker).
When you’ve had the type of success that Donovan had in Gainesville, hiring someone that nobody has heard of isn’t always the most popular choice.
Regardless of his anonymity, White is making Jeremy Foley look like a genius. In only his second year, the Gators are not only neck and neck with Kentucky for the SEC regular season crown, but are doing so with a bunch players nobody has really heard of.
When I watched Florida play Duke earlier this season I knew of Kasey Hill, but the remaining roster might have been made up of the Lost Boys from Neverland, for all I could tell.
While I’m disappointed there still isn’t a Rufio on the team, the only name I might remember besides Hill is KeVaughn Allen.
The lack of individual attention makes sense though when you look at their statistics. Besides Hill being in the Top 5 in assists and steals, they don’t have a single player in the Top 10 in points, rebounds, or field goal percentage. They are truly the antithesis of a team like Kentucky.
You don’t have to watch them play for very long to understand they are well coached. They play tough defense, move the ball well on offense, and most importantly, they don’t seem to beat themselves.
Besides their two point loss to Vanderbilt earlier this year, which is a bit of a head scratcher, their other losses have been to teams they weren’t favored against. And even those games could’ve gone the Gators way.
The University of Florida has always been, and will probably always continue to be, a football school. They have a rich history of Hall of Fame players and coaches who have come through their program. They reside in a state that takes great pride in being a hotbed for young football talent.
Plus, they play in a conference that directly associates your manhood with what college team you root for. (Admit it, have you ever met a Vanderbilt fan that you didn’t think you could beat the crap out of?)
What Billy Donovan was able to do there was nothing short of phenomenal. The expectations aren’t for Mike White to excel in the way Donovan did, but if I’m a Gators fan I’m excited about the bright future that lies ahead.
If this year’s team is any indication of what to expect out of Gainesville over the next few year there’s one thing I know for certain; there will be mistaking which Mike White is responsible for the Gators success.
Cameron Indoor Craziness
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
On the outside it looks like something you would find in an episode of The Young Pope. The building looks like 16th century architecture, designed by someone whose last name has a vowel to consonant ratio of 2/1.
On certain days you’ll find its’ patrons standing in line, 3-4 hours before the doors open. And during the winter months, you’ll see those same people camp out on an adjacent square, as if they’re standing in St. Peter’s Square, waiting to see the white smoke billowing out into the sky.
On the inside, you’ll find a cult like atmosphere- people covered in paint, worshipping idols, mocking anyone whose opinions differ from their own. Like any religious gathering there are sermons to be taught, although don’t expect to hear anything about “loving thy neighbor.” This is more of an “eye for an eye” type crowd. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There is a reason why the national media swarms to Durham, NC, like Donald Trump to a 2 A.M. Twitter rant, for the UNC/Duke game. History of the rivalry? Yes. The number of great collegiate players and coaches to have participated in the game? Sure. Where both these teams rank in the pantheon of great college basketball teams? Absolutely.
But, why do fans pay close to Super Bowl prices just to get tickets to a regular season game? It’s the atmosphere Cameron Indoor Stadium provides.
With all due respect to places like Lambeau Field, Phog Allen Fieldhouse, and The Pit, experiencing a game in Cameron Indoor Stadium is a must for any sports fan, even if you don’t like Duke.
If Cameron were a 12 year old boy it’d have an inferiority complex over the number of times an analyst has talked about how small it is in comparison to other basketball ball venues.
With a seating capacity of just over 9,300 those analysts aren’t wrong. I imagine if Gene Hackman ever visited he would measure the height of the basket and distance to the free throw line, just to make sure he wasn’t on a playground with 9 foot rims.
The intimate venue is great, but it’s how the seating is laid out that make the entire thing a perfect marriage. Most schools have rowdy students. Most schools do not allow those students to take up an entire side of the gymnasium, and give them arguably the best seats in the entire place.
What allows the Cameron Crazies to have the kind of notoriety they do is the fact they are allowed to sit (or their case, stand) so close to the action on the court. If they were forced to sit in the upper sections, the atmosphere would be completely different.
To watch those things meld together on tv doesn’t always do it justice. Two seasons ago my daughter and I went to a game over Christmas break, against Wofford.
By the time we left our ears were ringing and I felt like I had just sat through a Metallica concert. That was for a game with no students and inferior competition. I can only imagine what that place would be like against Carolina.
There are tons of great places to watch sports, but for my money there is no place better atmosphere than Cameron Indoor Stadium. If you don’t believe me I highly recommend you check it out. You may just leave as one of the converted.
North Carolina Running Away With ACC
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
At the beginning of the season there were basically two expectations I had for the North Carolina Tar Heels.
The first one was that I figured due to a lot of the experience they had coming back they would be able to start the season off on a hot streak and be one of the better teams in the country.
The second thing was that as the season progressed, and really once the conference schedule started, they would begin to regress back to the mean a little bit. For the most part the first expectation took place. I’m still waiting on the second.
(Before I go any further, I do realize what I’m about to say will sound odd considering that Carolina just got Nancy Kerrigan’d by the Hurricanes down in Coral Gables. However, I do think their loss to Miami was more along the lines of them just having a bad game as opposed to it being an indication of what to expect for the remainder of their season.)
I’ll admit that predicting a fast start to the season wasn’t exactly an example of me going out on a limb. Even though Carolina lost Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson off last year’s team, they still returned 6 juniors and seniors that played major minutes last season.
Those guys are used to playing together so while teams that rely heavily on incoming freshman are building chemistry during those first few months, the Tar Heels were ahead of the game.
The fact they have been this successful, this far into the season, has honestly surprised me. There’s a reason why they have so many upperclassmen playing valuable minutes- none of those guys are/were talented enough to have been high draft picks had they left early.
That’s not to say they’re college’s version of Jackie Moon and the Flint Michigan Tropics from Semi-Pro, but there are probably 8-10 teams that are more talented than the ‘Heels.
As much as it pains me to say, Carolina has been the best team in the ACC, up to this point. I have idea if Joel Berry II has switched to a vegan diet and is having kombucha put into his body intravenously, or if he’s sold his soul to devil, but whatever he’s done to evolve into the player he has become has worked. Anyone who tells you they predicted his game to excel to this level is lying.
You can insert whatever diet joke you want about Kennedy Meeks (maybe he’s on the vegan diet?), but to equate his success this season solely on his weight loss would be doing him a disservice. To drop enough pounds that you could form an entirely new human is one thing, but to take advantage of that new-found freedom to move on the court is something Meeks deserves a lot of credit for doing.
Combine the seasons those two men are having with the emergence of Isaiah Hicks, Kenny Williams, and Theo Pinson, as well as the maturation of Justin Jackson, and you can see why they are poised for a deep tournament run.
Plus, I know Roy gets a lot of crap from his fan base and those on the outside- deservedly so in some cases- but those guys I just mentioned aren’t developing on their own.
On paper, their remaining schedule looks tough. You could even argue in most games they will be the lesser talented of the two teams. But, as Carolina has proven all year, the better team is always the most talented.
Georgia Teams’ Road To March Madness
By: Drayton Hogarth
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
We are well into the college basketball conference schedule and that is when teams play their way into or out of March Madness.
At this point in time, there are a few schools who are virtually guaranteed a spot, but the interesting teams are the ones who are on the proverbial bubble.
The conferences of most interest in our area, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference have multiple teams involved in the tournament. Plus, the Sun Belt Conference will have at least one team with a chance to be the “Cinderella” of March.
There are a handful of teams in those conferences that are true blue bloods of the sport of college basketball, and several have played up to that reputation this season. Those would be North Carolina, Duke, and Kentucky. Plus, we have schools in the state of Georgia vying for a spot among the field of 68.
The Tar Heels of North Carolina came up ever so close to a national championship last season, as they suffered a heartbreaker at the buzzer against the Villanova Wildcats.
North Carolina is positioning itself for yet another run to the Final Four. The Tar Heels may well have the deepest roster in the country, and legendary coach Roy Williams will rely on his team’s experience from last season to try and finish the deal this year.
A team that no one is really sure what kind of team they are right now, is the Duke Blue Devils. While there is no coach better, possibly ever, than Coach Mike Krzyzewski, his squad this season has appeared distracted, may be the best word to use.
This is a team that was predicted to win the ACC in the preseason, but has not been able to live up to such lofty expectations. Whether it is injuries, not only to players, but even to Coach Krzyzewski as he will be sidelined with back surgery; or the antics of hot tempered guard Grayson Allen, this season has been different for the Blue Devils.
Duke will be in the tournament, and have the talent as well as the pedigree to get things turned around. However, if they do not, it will be a quick out for them come March.
With Kentucky, the stalwart of the SEC, Coach John Calipari will yet again rely on a bevy of freshmen All-Americans to lead his Wildcats to a title. Kentucky likely has the highest ceiling of any team in the country, but when it comes to crunch time, can the freshmen handle that pressure? That has been the Cats downfall in previous years, great regular seasons, but fall short in the tournament.
In state, Georgia Southern may be the best shot for a tournament team from the Peach state. The Eagles of Coach Mark Byington have a great shot to win the Sun Belt. The difficulty comes in the conference tournament, it is an absolute must win situation. If the Eagles falter, then there will be no Cinderella opportunity.
Georgia and Georgia Tech may play in post season, but without SEC and ACC conference tournament wins it may prove a difficult task.
The Bulldogs have positioned themselves with the best chance for an at large bid with a solid resume, but they must keep winning. The Bulldogs do not really have a strong win, but the strength of their schedule is that they have “quality losses”, and that won’t get it done for March.
The Yellow Jackets, under first year coach Josh Pastner, need some big wins down the stretch to fortify their record. The Jackets most likely will receive an NIT bid to extend their season. However, that should be considered a solid season for what the Jackets had coming into the season.
As we just now are hitting the stretch run, college basketball will hold its share of upsets and buzzer beaters. The fun part is, we get to sit back and watch it all unfold!
Mark Fox Not The Answer at UGA?
By: Drayton Hogarth
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
With college basketball well underway, teams all over the country are preparing to enter the conference portion of their schedule.
Many teams are still trying to find their identity after winding down the out of conference slate. One of those teams that is in need of a new identity is the Georgia Bulldogs under long time coach Mark Fox. The Bulldogs are as good as they are going to be under Coach Fox, and that isn’t good enough.
Entering his eighth season in Athens, Mark Fox was hired by former Georgia Athletic Director Damon Evans, after a successful run at Nevada. It was thought at the time to be an interesting hire, mostly due to geographical concerns.
In other words, would recruits know who Coach Fox is here in the southeast, and the home state of Georgia in particular. Fox has amassed a record of 134-107 so far. It isn’t so much just the lack of wins, Georgia has never been a great basketball power, but it is more than that.
It is how the team is losing that is so maddening. The Georgia sports information department, which does a fantastic job, likes to espouse the fact that Georgia has won twenty games three straight seasons under Coach Fox. While that used to be a staple of big time programs, in today’s schedules of teams playing 35 or more games, it does not hold the same merit that the 20 game plateau once did.
How Georgia is losing games is what can be so frustrating, the team has an amazing tendency to go into offensive droughts for multiple minutes at a time; seemingly at the most inopportune times.
The droughts are equal opportunity offenders. When Georgia is competing against a top ten team, such as earlier this year against Kansas, the team goes into a drought for virtually the entire first half, where Yante Maten, was the only player who was a constant threat to score for the Dawgs.
Or, the droughts will make an appearance against a team like Oakland, in Michigan, where Georgia was winning the game by double figures, only to turn around and go into the tank in the second half, being outscored by 14 in that time frame. It is not just a one year issue, it is one of the constants of the Georgia team under Mark Fox.
In addition to a lack of on the court performance, seeing the elite players from the state of Georgia almost all going elsewhere to play their collegiate ball is even more disappointing to Bulldog fans.
The talent has finally gotten to a competitive level at Georgia in the last couple of seasons, as Fox was intent upon not delving into the world of AAU recruiting early on in his Athens tenure. While Fox has changed his recruiting strategy, more needs to be done in the recruiting front.
The state of Georgia is one of the deepest basketball talent pools in the country. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at almost every program in the top ten and you will find a player from the state of Georgia. North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, all have significant contributors on the team from the Peach state; not only this season, but for the last several seasons now.
A coaching change likely won’t be made very soon, and despite evidence that a change is needed, that could be a good thing. My reasoning is, it won’t be too much longer before there will be a new person in the Athletic Director’s chair.
Current athletic director Greg McGarity should be retiring soon, and the decision of who to hire as the new basketball coach should belong to the incoming athletic director, whoever that may be. Let’s hope it is one of his or her first orders of business.
Grayson Allen Overblown?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In all your years of following sports, however long that may be, can you recall a time where a coach announced during the postgame press conference that he or she was voluntarily suspending a player based upon their actions during the game?
I’ve been watching for 30+ years and I can’t remember a single time that has happened. And neither can anyone else I’ve talked to.
Yet here we are, in our age of social media and need for instant gratification, bashing Mike Krzyzewski for not immediately disciplining Grayson Allen mere minutes after their game against Elon concluded.
Where has this national outrage been towards Steve Kerr and his lack of discipline towards Draymond Green’s complete disregard for a man’s groin? I don’t remember there being articles on Skip Prosser’s decision to wait and suspend Chris Paul for one game the day after he used Julius Hodge’s nether region as a punching bag, although it was not Paul’s first altercation.
Instead, we criticize Coach K for not handing out discipline on a timeline we deem worthy, when we find later on that his choice to listen without prejudice was the right decision.
Look, even though I’m a Duke fan I am not a Duke apologist. Not only do I believe Allen deserved to be suspended for this most recent transgression, but he should’ve sat a game last year, after the second tripping incident.
So, if you want to condemn Coach K and how he has handled Allen’s past discrepancies up to this point, you won’t get much of an argument from me. Let’s be honest though, if you’re not satisfied with how he’s handling things now, you’re not going to be satisfied no matter how he handles it.
As for all the vitriol that has been directed towards Allen, let’s just put things into perspective a little bit. If you don’t like him because you think he’s a dirty player, that’s fine. If you can’t root for him because he plays for Duke and you despise everyone and everything associated with that shade of blue, that’s cool. However, some of the things I’ve read, from the media in particular, has been astonishing.
Since all this happened I’ve seen respected members of the media say everything from Allen should be kicked off the team, all the way to Grayson should be arrested because if you trip someone in public they can charge you with assault.
If that’s the case then the entire NFL would be behind bars since last I checked I can’t legally tackle a lady in supermarket because she grabbed the last box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
I understand the yearning to see some sort of punishment handed down, but make sure it fits the crime. Allen wasn’t caught driving with a blood alcohol content of .247, and there isn’t video of him knocking out a girl unconscious in bar- all things that have happened around the same time, yet haven’t received nearly the same amount of publicity.
The most disturbing part of the whole thing was Allen’s reaction to the event on the bench afterwards. It is obvious that there are some issues he needs to work out and I trust Krzyzewski to not only be a father figure in helping him out, but to keep him off the court until those troubles are addressed- no matter how many games Allen misses.
Whatever that number of games actually becomes Allen has to realize that’s it….he isn’t going to get one more try.
Rambling Wreck Re-Build
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
This is my favorite time of year as a sports fan because so many things are going on.
Football, basketball and hockey are all being played now. In college there are some programs that are synonymous with certain sports.
If I said Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Duke or UConn you think basketball school. Programs like Alabama, USC, Nebraska, Miami, Penn State or FSU are known as football schools.
There are only a handful of schools that are known as being perennial contenders in men’s basketball and football. By that I mean ranked on a regular basis in both sports and known to make bowl games and the NCAA tournament in the same year. Some examples of this would be Florida, North Carolina, UCLA, Ohio State and Michigan. At one point Syracuse was in this category until they fell off the map in football in the early 2000s.
Georgia Tech was also one of the rare programs with this distinction but they have had some down years in basketball recently. They haven’t played in the NCAA tournament since 2010. Head coach Josh Pastner is in his first year in Atlanta and he’s trying to bring the program back to its glory days. Pastner was 167-73 with four NCAA tournament bids in seven seasons as the head coach of Memphis.
Tech has had some big name coaches in the past including John Heisman who coached football, baseball and basketball for the Yellow Jackets. Bobby Cremins is the most successful coach in the programs history. He led them to a Final Four in 1990 and he’s Tech’s all-time winningest coach. The floor at Alexander Memorial Coliseum is named “Cremins Court” in his honor.
Paul Hewitt led the Jackets to their second Final Four and first national championship in 2004. The question is can they ever return to this level? They’re currently 6-3 and the next game is Tuesday at home against archrival Georgia. They lead the series 105-87.
“You know, I’ve never coached a game that wasn’t important,” Pastner said. “So, never in my eight years as coaching as a head coach have I felt one game is more important than the other. The way I look at it, you want to win every game you coach. To me, every game is important, and who we are as a team, we are in a situation based on margin of error, which is zero. We are a possession-by-possession team, and we can’t overlook anybody. We have to be near perfect in our effort and execution if we are to have a chance to win the game, no matter who we play.”
They’ve been very inconsistent thus far losing games to Ohio, Penn State and Tennessee. The best win so far was on the road at VCU. This is a very important stretch to hopefully get wins against inferior non-conference opponents. The following games are home against Wofford 12/22 and North Carolina A&T 12/28. They begin conference play against No. 8 North Carolina, No. 5 Duke and No. 10 Louisville.
Tech has a good chance of starting ACC play 0-3. They were only 27-61 in ACC play the past five years under former coach Brian Gregory. That’s why getting several wins before conference play is so important. If they can get nine wins before it starts they will help set themselves up for March. I believe with 20 or more wins they can participate in March Madness. That will make recruiting easier. We will see what coach Pastner has in store but I think he’s the right guy to get Tech back to their winning ways.
Tar Heels March Back To Final Four?
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Last basketball season was pretty good for North Carolina. The Tar Heels went 33-7 and finished first place in the ACC. They also won the conference tournament. They lost the national championship game to Villanova 77-74. Losing was very disappointing but it was their first appearance in the national title game since 2009.
Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige are two key players that the Tar Heels will miss this season. They averaged 82.3 points per game last year which was tied with Indiana for 11th in the nation. Having a high scoring offense has always been a hallmark of Roy Williams’ coaching style.
Junior guard Joel Berry II averaged 12.8 ppg which made him the second leading scorer on the team behind Brice Johnson. Forward Justin Jackson also contributed 12.2 ppg and 3.9 rebounds per game.
Senior forward Kennedy Meeks will be expected to step up and play a bigger role this season. Standing 6’10 Meeks should make an impact blocking or altering shots and rebounding. He averaged 9.2 ppg and 5.9 rpg in 2015-16. Another senior forward Isiah Hicks is in the same position. The 6’9 Hicks should improve on his 4.6 rpg and 8.9 ppg.
UNC is a blue blood program but for whatever reason they don’t typically get the elite recruits like Kentucky, Duke, Arizona or Kansas. That makes them one of the few major programs led by upperclassman which is a huge advantage. They did sign a few talented players that should contribute right away.
Center Tony Bradley is 6’10 and a five star recruit. He was ranked 17th overall in the class of 2016. He was Mr. Basketball in the state of Florida and a McDonald’s All-American. He averaged 23 ppg, and 12.6 rpg, while shooting an impressive 65% from the field as a senior.
He’s only 235 pounds so he still needs to get stronger and put on weight but he’s expected to see the most playing time of any of the freshmen. Bradley has received a lot of comparisons to Tim Duncan. That’s a huge comparison but everyone in Chapel Hill will be happy if he can be half as good as Duncan.
They also signed two four star guards, Brandon Robinson and Seventh Woods. Robinson is a 6’5 shooting guard from Georgia and he’s a very good shooter. He shot 42% from the three-point line as a high school senior.
North Carolina needs that same production out of him to help stretch the floor. UNC only made 32.7% of shots beyond the arc last season which ranked 263rd out of 346 teams. Robinson is also a very good defender.
Woods is only 6’1 but he’s very athletic and explosive. As a 14 year old freshman he had a dunk that has over 14 million views on YouTube and was the No.1 play on the SportsCenter Top 10. He likes to play above the rim but he will have to transition into being a point guard.
The season starts Friday at Tulane which will be an easy win. Carolina normally plays a tough nonconference schedule and this year is no different. They are going to the Maui Invitational with other big time programs like UConn, Georgetown, Wisconsin and Oregon.
They play No. 11 Indiana in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge November 30th. They also play No. 2 Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic December 17th.
The Tar Heels start the season ranked 6th in the nation. They have a realistic goal of making the Final Four again.
Duke Preview
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
We are right smack in the middle of football season. We’re about to head into the final month of the college season when teams will be scratching and clawing their way to see who will lose to Alabama in the playoffs.
The NFL season is almost halfway finished and the only thing I’ve learned is that if I write about a team or player one week, their fortune seems to change to very next. (Question whether or not Matt Ryan was worth the number 3 pick; he puts up MVP numbers including over 500 yards against my Panthers. Mention how awful the Dolphins have been for the past decade or so; Miami hasn’t lost since).
So, it would make complete sense for me to spend this time writing about, college basketball? And to make matters worse, not only am I planning on talking about college basketball, but the subject is Duke basketball.
His Finest Hour
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
If June 24, 2010 is the greatest day in Kentucky basketball history, according to John Calipari at least, when 5 of his players were taken in the first round of the NBA Draft then June 23, 2016 must have felt more like getting off work Friday afternoon only to realize you have to work the weekend.
It was the perfect ending to what has been an interesting few months for the Wildcats coach.
