College Hoops 2018

[acududeman]

5 hours ago, GratefulDevil said:

 

PoetryGirl, I don't Zion's 3 point shot is that bad.

Having gone to Duke, I'm admittedly biased. This may be our strongest team ever.

 

Welcome......now I'm not the only Duke fan on the boards.....prepare for the hate

[GratefulDevil]

I grew up in and live in Connecticut. I'm almost immune to Duke hatred.

Acududeman, do you read the DBR? (Duke Basketball Report) it's really good.

[Tea]

6 hours ago, acududeman said:

 

Welcome......now I'm not the only Duke fan on the boards.....prepare for the hate

I don't hate the sinner - just the sin

[acududeman]

3 hours ago, GratefulDevil said:

I grew up in and live in Connecticut. I'm almost immune to Duke hatred.

Acududeman, do you read the DBR? (Duke Basketball Report) it's really good.

 

I do....I check it daily....this really is an exciting year.....sky's the limit for this team.

[Rude]

27 points, 16 rebounds, six blocks and four assists

Zions stats on Sunday. 

 

1 player can make a team and a guy with hustle like this can make duke achieve a championship. Anthony Davis did it for Kentucky in 2012. The rest of the team needs to be solid but all of the top teams will be solid. He elevates them to potential that other teams can’t match. 

[acududeman]

5 hours ago, acududeman said:

 

I do....I check it daily....this really is an exciting year.....sky's the limit for this team.

 

As always, all of this is largely contingent on whether or not the starters (especially Zion) can stay healthy.

 

Duke managed to enjoy a whopping 11 total games with Kyrie Irving before he went out with the foot injury from hell.

 

 

[Rude]

In those games that you can’t shoot to save your life, having a guy who pulls 5 offensive boards a day is huge. Kentucky also had Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who had a motor unlike any player I’ve seen. He was the coach on the floor gathering the troops because calipari sucks at having to coach without a team leader and the time he had a leader in Tyler Ulis and Devin booker, he benched them for the Harrison twins. Alltime bonehead move 

[gr8fulpair]

9 minutes ago, Rude said:

In those games that you can’t shoot to save your life, having a guy who pulls 5 offensive boards a day is huge. Kentucky also had Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who had a motor unlike any player I’ve seen. He was the coach on the floor gathering the troops because calipari sucks at having to coach without a team leader and the time he had a leader in Tyler Ulis and Devin booker, he benched them for the Harrison twins. Alltime bonehead move 

MKG left that motor in KY cause hes been mediocre in Charlotte. Very inconsistent. Borrego may get more out of him, he is with other players. 

[Rude]

He could never shoot but he hustles his ass off. His last game he played in for Charlotte he had 12 pts and 12 boards. He was already at his peak at KY unfortunately for Charlotte. 

 

Hes mlre or a defensive specialist imo. He gets the toughest assignment of defense. 

[Tom Banjo]

Zion might not even be best player on that team. Duke scary good 

[Rude]

Barrett is maybe the best pro prospect with his slashing and shooting ability in the new NBA and a more sure fire long term star, but if I’m going to war in the national champion game, I choose Zion 1st. I still have horrible memories of that John wall and cousins Kentucky team where they shot like 3/20 from 3 and couldn’t get a rebound to save their life. They needed someone unguardable to take it the basket. Zion is like a hybrid of wall and cousins.  I’ve just never seen a guy that size so quick and can elevate so easily. If you get in his way u just draw the foul and you can’t knock him off balance. He’s gonna have a lot of and 1’s this year. And when you foul him during the shot and he doesn’t hit, it’s not by much. I’m not a fan of watching the early season scrub games but will prob watch some of the duke/eastern Michigan game tonight. I need to keep that quiet living in KY as you all may not know but Laettner is literally the most hated person by KY residents and I do mean literally. If you had a poll Hitler or laettner, who do you despise more, it would be within the polls margin of error. That would be partly because maybe half of Kentuckians wouldnt even know who Hitler was because of the eastern ky educational system, but that half for sure know who Christian laettner is. The documentary “I hate Christian Laettner” helped ease the hatred as it showed him as an actual human, but not for all. You ask all my liberal friends who are die hard UK fans if they would rather have trump or Laettner in the White House and the status quo would be preserved. In case people don’t understand what Kentucky basketball means in this state, that will help clarify it. 

[acududeman]

1 hour ago, Rude said:

Barrett is maybe the best pro prospect with his slashing and shooting ability in the new NBA and a more sure fire long term star, but if I’m going to war in the national champion game, I choose Zion 1st. I still have horrible memories of that John wall and cousins Kentucky team where they shot like 3/20 from 3 and couldn’t get a rebound to save their life. They needed someone unguardable to take it the basket. Zion is like a hybrid of wall and cousins.  I’ve just never seen a guy that size so quick and can elevate so easily. If you get in his way u just draw the foul and you can’t knock him off balance. He’s gonna have a lot of and 1’s this year. And when you foul him during the shot and he doesn’t hit, it’s not by much. I’m not a fan of watching the early season scrub games but will prob watch some of the duke/eastern Michigan game tonight. I need to keep that quiet living in KY as you all may not know but Laettner is literally the most hated person by KY residents and I do mean literally. If you had a poll Hitler or laettner, who do you despise more, it would be within the polls margin of error. That would be partly because maybe half of Kentuckians wouldnt even know who Hitler was because of the eastern ky educational system, but that half for sure know who Christian laettner is. The documentary “I hate Christian Laettner” helped ease the hatred as it showed him as an actual human, but not for all. You ask all my liberal friends who are die hard UK fans if they would rather have trump or Laettner in the White House and the status quo would be preserved. In case people don’t understand what Kentucky basketball means in this state, that will help clarify it. 

 

Rude, I'm definitely glad that Laettner wore a Duke uniform,  because he took us to 4 consecutive Final Fours.

 

That being said, I agree that Laettner was a total prick back then. If he wore a different uniform I'd be in the hater camp with the KY crowd.

 

That documentary was really entertaining.

 

[Rude]

I don’t think anyone not in KY really realizes how hated he was and is here and “the shot” didn’t help either. That sealed his legacy as the most hated man in Kentucky. Kentucky at that point had the best coach in basketball and took a bunch of nothings and I mean guys who would be walk ons at some schools to the verge of a championship and laettner crushed that dream with 2.1 secs on the clock(oh and ask anyone from ky regardless if they can add 2 1-digit numbers and they can tell u the exact time on the clock when that inbounds pass was thrown). During that 2015 Kentucky undefeated season we had discussions of how good that team would have been if Pitino was coaching that amount of talent. They were 38-0 at the time but we could all see they were not on the level they could have been if they had the all time best coach at shuffling players in and out of the game like pitino was. If pitino had that depth, it would have made Arkansas’ 40 minutes of hell feel like an hour. Calipari instead had the deepest level of talent in ncaa history and they just stood around shooting 25 foot 3’s as the shot clock expired. That Wisconsin game still weighs heavy on ky fans and myself especially when calipari said after that Ulis and Booker were the better pair but he sat them for the last 6 minutes because he owed it to the Harrison twins to play them because they came back to school for their sophomore year. Then he said his goal wasn’t to win the championship but to get 7 players drafted. The Harrison’s only came back because they wouldn’t have been drafted and then the next year he forced them out thankfully even though he knew Aaron wasn’t getting drafted. I’m jumping around a little bit in my timelines but the heartbreak still feels a little fresh in both of these games.

 

Don’t even get me started on the dwayne wade 2003 triple double vs a ky team who had reeled off 26 straight wins including 10 top 25 wins where he had the game of his career with 29/11/11 (plus 4 blocks and didn’t miss a 3)and Vern Lundquist called it the greatest performance he’s ever seen by a college player. That one is my 2nd saddest sports memory. Every time we’d make a move there came Wade. His best college game ever in the biggest spotlight of his college career. It was a Michael Jordan type moment where there was nothing you could do. 

 

But then again that game with Kentucky down 18 to duke in 98 when I lived in Lexington would have been my top depressing moment until the comeback. I’m guessing for duke fans, that’s one of your all time heartbreakers. It’s weird because losing in the finals in 97 didn’t sting as bad as some other defeats.  Guess we’d just won one in 96 and we made the final game in 97 and were by far the superior team but Simon and Bibby were the best guard duo in the country that year for Arizona and they played great and hit 34 free throws to 9 for ky in a game where a ky defender got too close to a guy and they called a foul on future intent and still took OT. Maybe the bookend championships took that sting away but I can feel it now thinking back to that game. 

 

 

[Dead duck]

I was in Vegas for March madness a la 2009ish and saw a dude wearing a UK “I still hate Christian Laettner” shirt. 

[Rude]

So TJ Barrett never saw a shot he didn’t like and looks like his inability to not shoot when the ball is in his hands is going to lead to a duke loss this year. Kids great but Geeze he shoots a shot a minute literally. Zion just casually shoots above 80% again with 21 and 9 in 21 minutes. I think dudes a legit super human. He may intentionally miss just to not blow his cover. If the stands collapse and he lifts them up to save hundreds of lives like I’m sure he’d be able to do with just his non shooting right hand he will be exposed as not being human and be kicked off the team and ncaa basketball will equalize and there will be hope for all. I call for genetic testing! Where’s Elijah Price when you need him. I may have crossed too many genres with that reference. #saveuksseason #testzion

[Rude]

I knew football teams had to be interested in Zion. Turns out LSU offered him a football scholarship with him never playing football before. 

 

Mateos, now the offensive line coach at Texas State, was the tight ends coach at LSU in the fall of 2016 under then-interim head coach Ed Orgeron. It was right around the time Williamson was becoming more well-known, with his dunking exploits garnering millions of views on YouTube.

Once Mateos saw the highlights, he got Williamson's phone number and reached out to offer him a scholarship to LSU.

 

"I thought, hell, why not, he's probably the best damn tight end to ever live," Mateos told ESPN.

 

"If he's 285, you're talking a rare specimen, Julius Peppers-type of freak," Mateos said. "I used to think [Jadeveon] Clowney was the biggest freak I'd ever seen. Zion probably brings the same or better athleticism based off what I've seen."

 

Unfortunately Spartanburg Day School doesn’t have a football team.  

[acududeman]

2 hours ago, Rude said:

I knew football teams had to be interested in Zion. Turns out LSU offered him a football scholarship with him never playing football before. 

 

Mateos, now the offensive line coach at Texas State, was the tight ends coach at LSU in the fall of 2016 under then-interim head coach Ed Orgeron. It was right around the time Williamson was becoming more well-known, with his dunking exploits garnering millions of views on YouTube.

Once Mateos saw the highlights, he got Williamson's phone number and reached out to offer him a scholarship to LSU.

 

"I thought, hell, why not, he's probably the best damn tight end to ever live," Mateos told ESPN.

 

"If he's 285, you're talking a rare specimen, Julius Peppers-type of freak," Mateos said. "I used to think [Jadeveon] Clowney was the biggest freak I'd ever seen. Zion probably brings the same or better athleticism based off what I've seen."

 

Unfortunately Spartanburg Day School doesn’t have a football team.  

 

By making his Millions playing hoops instead of pigskin, he will likely avoid completely trashing his body.....and possibly CTE.

[Rude]

hoops is definitely the right financial decision but from a fan perspective imagine him on your pro team at tight end with that speed, athleticism and hands and last but definitely not least, blocking. He’d be one of the biggest and fastest tight ends at the same time. That’s nutty. I think I’d want him to play TE 15 snaps a game and defensive end the rest. Hell just line him up at WR and throw him the 10yd jump ball TDs. How would you keep him from getting position on you as a 6’1” 210lb corner and that’s a big corner. U put a linebacker on him and it’s over. 

[acududeman]

Congrats to the Zags for edging out Duke in yesterday's brawl in Maui. Experience usually trumps young fresh young talent, and yesterday was no exception.

I think this was a "good" loss for this young Duke team going forward. Mark Few is the most underrated coach in college hoops imo. If Duke doesn't win the trophy this year, it is my wish that the Zags do.....Few deserves a ring.

Also, it was great to watch Bill Walton in his Maui Wowie element.....that guy is awesome

[Rude]

Definitely a good loss for duke. 3 games 3 days plus the long flight and hanging at the beach. Zion looked like he was taking a vacation from basketball as well the 1st 2 . You could definitely see the energy drain and he’s a player who relies on will and hustle using his athleticism and if he’s tired he’s not the same. I didn’t see the Gonzaga game but vs auburn he was visibly tired and standing around the whole 1st half but then again auburn playing zone made it tough for him to 1 on 1. I see most teams playing zone vs this team. Kentucky saw what playing an aggressive man defense led to. Make duke beat you from the perimeter to have a shot. But again this tourney isn’t an accurate predictor of future success. The ceiling is so low in the civic center it doesn’t have a feel of an arena at all. Very claustrophobic.   Zion couldn’t even do warm ups because he kept hitting his head on the ceiling

[Dead duck]

I won’t get to see any of the game tonight but I’m excited to see how Romeo does tonight vs the Duke allstar freshmen. 

 

Hoping they can can at least keep it close but AT Duke, coming offa loss. 😬😬

[acududeman]

15 hours ago, Dead duck said:

I won’t get to see any of the game tonight but I’m excited to see how Romeo does tonight vs the Duke allstar freshmen. 

 

Hoping they can can at least keep it close but AT Duke, coming offa loss. 😬😬

 

Romeo is very talented, but he was overpowered last night against Duke.

I think tonight's UNC/Michigan game will be more competitive.

The Louisville/MSU game was terrific last night!

[GratefulDevil]

Ol' Roy: We stink!

 

http://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=25405366&lang=en

 

Roy, you got that right!

 

 

[Rude]

Kentucky miraculously is playing great ball now. I didn’t see that coming. The Saturday game with a “struggling” Kansas team will tell me more. 

[acududeman]

I managed to score a 2nd row ticket to the Duke/UVA game tomorrow......super pumped!