Some daily random notes as we wait on the UK-Cornell late-night tip tonight in Syracuse:
It didn’t take long for UK fans to go after a writer who criticized the Cats. (It never does.) This time it was Dan Shaugnessy of the Boston Globe, whose column made the headline of this blog’s Big Blue Links on Wednesday. In writing about the response, Dan refers to Kentucky Sports Radio and CoachCal.com’s Matt Jones as a “local radio guy.” And Dan swaps generalizations with Matt calling Boston “the most racist sports town in America.”
The one thing we know for sure is that for a supposedly backwards state, with “dumb kids,” as DeMarcus Cousins put it to the media on Wednesday, Kentuckians, and Kentucky fans have certianly mastered the internet. As I write this, the Shaughnessy rebuttal has received 181 comments.
The way Urban Meyer chastised Jeremy Fowler of the Orlando Sentinel over Fowler having the audacity to run a quote by a Florida football player about ex-quarterback Tim Tebow reminded me of my old days on the football beat with Hal Mumme. Thankfully, there were no videos of those exchanges. And Hal didn’t win as many games as Urban.
Still, this doesn’t look like the low-stress Urban. More like the ol’ Urbanator. It’s also the classic blame-the-messenger approach. All Fowler did was quote wide receiver Deonte Thompson saying that as a wide out you never knew if Tebow was going to run or throw when he left the pocket. He said that UF’s John Brantley is a “real quarterback.” He didn’t say Brantley is a better quarterback. But coaches hear what they want to hear.
Mike Bianchi blogs that Meyer is dead-wrong. And I agree.
Update: Florida has now cuts its players and coaches off from the media.
My picks for tonight: Kentucky over Cornell by 15; West Virginia over Washington by six; Syracuse over Butler by 10 and Kansas State over Xavier by 4. All chalk, I know. But what can I say?
In case you were wondering, it’s supposed to snow here tonight in Syracuse. The high Friday is expected to be 32.
In blog post yesterday, included wild rumor that DePaul was using big bucks to try and entice Ben Howland from UCLA. Then got this e-mail from Marc Dellins, sports information director at UCLA. “From Ben Howland: ‘I am the coach at UCLA. I will never leave UCLA and will stay at UCLA as long as they will have me.’”
Speaking of e-mail, got this one from an obvious Cornell supporter: “David vs. Goliath, Brains vs. Brawn, Five Near Geniuses who will graduate to become doctors, lawyers, and scientists…vs….Five SAT challenged All American burger boys….should be a heckuva game…GO BIG RED!!”
Breakout USA Today stat: Before the tournament, Cornell was 3-63 against ranked teams. The Big Red has beaten two ranked teams thus far in this tournament, and could make it three tonight.
Good Pete Thamel story in the New York Times on the three-story house occupied by 14 Cornell basketball players. It’s not exactly Wildcat Lodge. Certainly not the Wildcat Coal Lodge.
Speaking of the Times, good Ray Glier piece Tuesday on the bevy of late-game fouls. Can anything be done to stop the practice? Probably not. But I wouldn’t mind the 24-second shot clock in the final two minutes. In fact, I wouldn’t mind the 35-second shot clock being reduced to 30 seconds. There are still way too many 53-49 games out there to suit my tastes.
Word is ex-UK assistant athletic director Scott Stricklin is definitely in the hunt to replace Greg Byrne at Mississippi State. Himself a former UK associate AD, Byrne is leaving Starkville to be the AD at Arizona.
Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle thinks Billy Gillispie might be the man at Houston, now that Tom Penders has stepped down. Word is Houston is checking to see if Billy G. has change his ways.
More coaching news: Zagsblog says Kevin Willard will interview at Iona.
Think Auburn did well in hiring UTEP’s Tony Barbee, a former Calipari assistant. Barbee will get players, even at Auburn, which doesn’t support basketball. This continues my theory that SEC hoops will continue to improve. Barbee is an upgrade from Jeff Lebo. Anthony Grant was an upgrade at Alabama from Mark Gottfried, though I’d like to see Gottfried get another chance somewhere. Still think Trent Johnson was an upgrade from John Brady, though LSU was awful this year. And Mark Fox is a rising star at Georgia, Darrin Horn will get better at South Carolina, and we already know what Pearl, Stallings, Donovan and Calipari can do.
Whatever happened to that CBS Sports report that Tubby Smith to Auburn was all but a done deal?
Reports are popping up that Paul Hewitt appears to be taking the St. John’s job. If so, who does Georgia Tech go after? It won’t be Tubby, writes Mark Bradley of the AJC.
Update: New York Daily News reporting that Hewitt has turned down St. John’s.
Encouraging stat: The Reds’ Drew Stubbs has hit four homers this spring. If Stubbs can show that kind of pop in his bat when the real pitches start flying, that would be a major boost.
Good to see my old buddy John Walters is now writing for AOL.com. He has a good piece on Cedar Falls, Iowa, home of the University of Northern Iowa. My wife has relatives in Cedar Falls, a couple or more of which graduated from UNI.
John, any word on the number of Kentucky fans in Syracuse?
To be honest, I have not seen as many Kentucky fans here as you would think. But then again the media hotel is right by the Syracuse campus, and a distance away from the other hotels. May not be getting a representative sampling here.
John, you hear alot of sportswriters across the country touting the Cornell upset of UK but after talking with several, which I’m sure you have, do you think if they had to bet there paycheck one way or the other they would bet on on Cornell?
Picking Cornell over Kentucky has sort of gone viral since Sunday’s results. But no, I’m not sure how many would bet their paychecks. Vegas goes where the money goes. And right now the money is on Kentucky by 8.5.
John:
You should have just heard the exchange between Matt Jones and Dan on Boston radio. It degenerated into what you’d expect. Matt made some valid points on the graduation rates and got them to admit they wouldn’t have written the story had it been Duke vs. Cornell, but it was not good radio. Sounded more like something on the political scream-fests.
I was appalled though at what was going on after the exchange when UK fans started calling in. They were playing the theme from “Deliverance” and actually read a note on the air from one of the producers that said “hang up on the hillbilly p****”.
No wonder this country is in the shape it’s in.
Mark Liptak
Hi,
Sadly, once the media finds a theme, they all run with it. And this one is our dumb jocks from Kentucky….
Really makes me mad for our boys. Their good boys. Really good kids. And fabulous athletes. Funny, sweet, hard-working kids.
And the Cornell kids are really smart, from rich families and white. (Have seen few sports stories mention the horrible rash of suicides at Cornell this winter. So the rich white kids aren’t all that happy. Or maybe the pressure is getting to them. But Cornell kids obviously have some problems.)
Anyway, I love our boys. I adore them. I am so grateful to them for an absoulutely fabulous, gloriously fun season. I hope they feel not just our expectations but all the love we have for them.
–TeresainSC
Let’s be fair with the sterotypes both ways. I don’t know anything about the kids at Cornell except Wittman (kid of former IU player) and Courey (former UK player). They may be rich. They are certainly mostly white. But they may be smart and on academic scholarships or borrowing their butts off to go to school. I went to a great small liberal arts school for undergrad b/c I had academic scholarships. Lots of kids there came from money. Many, though, were more like me, with limited resources going to school thanks to scholarships and loans. Because I worked hard to succeed, my kids will be more like the privileged kids and less like I was, but I guess that is why I worked my butt off.
Having said that, I don’t get offended at a good stereotype. So here goes:
If we are going to play the themes game, then it certainly would be fair to recharacterize this game as:
Rich privileged kids v. Poor challenged kids
Silver spoons v. Other side of the tracks
White privilege v. Black achievers
Wall Street v. Main Street
Now, when you phrase it like that, who should be the crowd favorite?
It really is just a matter of perspective.
John –
I liked this post because you gave us some of your thoughts about the various news items you dropped. I love that your blog is a great source for links and videos, but I also like reading your analysis and think posts like this should be more frequent.
Jack,
I’ve just been through the application/scholarship thing with my oldest and my daughter’s headed to college next year. So we’re right in the middle of it again.
Believe me, scholarships and financial aid are not what they used to be. And college tuition has increased exponentially since I was in school.
It’s really ugly out there.
Kids are graduating from state schools with $20K in debt. Private schools… I don’t know if it’s possible to get enough in loans to go to Cornell, or even get half what you’d need, if they gave you the other half. (Which I’ll say in case anyone’s got a kid who will be heading to college soon.)
I got curious and checked. Cornell’s tuition room and board, in-state – $37,000, out of state — $49,000 a year.
I feel comfortable saying the Cornell kids are rich.
–TeresainSC