Kevin Blackistone FanHouse

Myles Leaves Indelible Brand on NCAA

Kevin Blackistone — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:21:00 EST

As a college coach friend and I were being seated for an early dinner in a mostly empty hotel restaurant overlooking the Detroit River on the eve of the last Final Four, we spied Myles Brand and his wife, Peg. They were sitting alone at a table tucked deeper into the quietude of this large dining room with sweeping windows from which we could all watch the sun set.

And we knew Brand was counting the sunsets then. It had been just a couple of months since he publicly disclosed that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a cancer that he said had taken away a quarter of the rest of his life.

So we pushed away from our table and walked over to Brand's. Brand rose, recognizing my friend warmly first, and then he greeted me. He introduced his wife. We all exchanged pleasantries. Brand, speaking even more softly than I recalled, and his wife managed to smile. Then we excused ourselves and wished the Brands a nice weekend in the Motor City.

Brand was 66 then. He was 67 when he died Wednesday.

If anyone epitomized the West African proverb about speaking softly and carrying a big stick, it was Brand -- the philosophy professor who became famous as a college president because he told Bob Knight to take a hike, and then cajoled the NCAA as its president to be accountable for the first half of its favorite phrase, student-athlete.

There is nothing in Brand's early biography to suggest he would become such a famous figure in college sports. He was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where, I just learned Wednesday, he played basketball and lacrosse as a freshman. He got his Ph.D in philosophy at Rochester and started his pedagogical career at Pittsburgh. He chaired a department at Illinois-Chicago and became a dean at Arizona. He was an educator and an administrator. He became a vice president and provost at Ohio State before presiding over Oregon and finally Indiana.

It was in Bloomington, Ind., where the rest of us became aware of Brand. It was a year and a day before 9/11. He fired the irascible Hoosiers Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight.

Many of us looking at Bloomington from the outside championed Brand for what none of Knight's other bosses dared to do. In Bloomington, Brand was torched in effigy, his home was targeted by an angry mob and he and his wife were spirited away for their own safety by police.

But that isn't the act for which Brand should be remembered when it comes to college sports. After all, that was an act taken against one coach at one school that affected its athletic department and its fans. It wasn't transcendent; it was historical footnote.

Instead, what Brand should be remembered for when it comes to college sports is what he did after leaving Indiana and took the job of running the NCAA. For what he did at the NCAA left an indelible mark on every university under its umbrella. Brand forced college athletic bosses to take some responsibility for the college education of their charges, too.The old philosophy professor reminded money-hungry presidents, athletic directors and coaches that they worked at institutions of higher learning and weren't just makers of future pro athletes. How novel was that?

The old philosophy professor reminded money-hungry presidents, athletic directors and coaches that they worked at institutions of higher learning and weren't just makers of future pro athletes. How novel was that?

Brand was embarrassed about statistics that showed most college athletic departments didn't care nearly as much about the development of young minds as they did the strengthening of young bodies. A survey by the college athletics watchdog group known as the Knight Commission found one year that almost one-third of the teams playing in the men's NCAA Tournament -- 20 out of the 65 teams -- failed to graduate as much as 30 percent of their players within six years.

Brand decided to press NCAA members to make academic performance of athletes as important as athletic achievement. He lobbied for rules not just to force athletes to work toward a degree by threatening them with the loss of their scholarships. More important, he put the onus back on the men and women who romanced parents and guardians all of the country to take their children and turn them into productive and successful adults. For the first time in history, Brand made the NCAA see to it that schools with teams stocked with athletes who failed to graduate, or make progress toward doing so, would be penalized. They could lose scholarships. They could lose the right to participate in postseason play. They could lose access to their outrageous revenue stream.

There is nothing perfect about the Brand plan since he started pushing it about four years ago and finally got it implemented by 2006. A lot of experts on athletics and higher education have picked it apart and criticized it for one thing or another.

But the one thing no one questions is the demand his program put on learning, especially for a class of college students who seemed to be making more and more of a mockery of college education. Brand pointed college athletics back in a direction from which it never should have strayed and he was able to do so bloodlessly. As the Coalition for Intercollegiate Athletics, a national faculty group concerned with out-of-control sports lamented early Thursday morning in a press release: "President Brand's commitment to academic ideals and to guiding college sports towards a mission to support the pursuit of knowledge was an expression of values we celebrate."

The last I saw of Myles Brand was when he and his wife rose from their table and walked by the one at which my friend and I were dining. The Brands stopped and Myles said he hoped to see us later. Then, with his wife holding his hand, he turned and walked slowly down a long curving aisle next to the windows and out of the door.

I don't recall if the sun had set by then; it just seemed like it.

Myles Leaves Indelible Brand on NCAA originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:21:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Louisville Boss Looks the Other Way After Pitino's Cardinal Sin

Kevin Blackistone — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:13:00 EST

Filed under: NCAA Basketball

Who knows who was the first college chancellor or president to abdicate his or her responsibility as chief executive officer of their college campus? Who knows when that superior first exhibited so much spinelessness?

All we know for certain is who the newest university boss is, in what is a lengthening line, to wobble on weak knees. He is Dr. James Ramsey.

Ramsey (far right) is the president of the University of Louisville. He is the man seated in an office that touts a message to fellow Kentuckians about accountability. It announces: "More than ever, [the] University of Louisville is showing accountability in all that it does. But what exactly do we mean by accountability?"

Apparently, this: If you earn millions of dollars for our university, you can do whatever you want and the university will just look the other way.

How else can anyone view the lack of reaction of the university's CEO to the tawdry tale that was unveiled Tuesday and Wednesday on his campus like some peepshow behind a dingy curtain in a dark and dank back room of a seedy alley parlor? His millionaire basketball coach, and married father of five, Rick Pitino admitted not just to having an alcohol-infused affair, but to providing money for his paramour to obtain an abortion, according to a police report, or at least paying for her health insurance, as stated by Pitino's lawyer, when she said she was going to have an abortion. This from a coach who is such a devout follower of the Catholic church, which continues to condemn abortion as an evil, that he once proudly displayed a photo of his meeting with Pope John Paul II and keeps his personal priest, Father Edward Bradley of Henderson, Ky., on the bench with him.

Then Ramsey broke out a bow and tied it all up.

"We hope this closes this chapter; we're all ready to move on," he said. "Our university is recovering from a flood that shut down a large portion of our campus, preparing for the start of classes on August 24th, and getting ready to welcome the most academically talented freshman class in our history. We need to get back to our job of educating the next generation of Kentucky's leaders."

A good start would have been circling the basketball coach's behavior as unacceptable by requesting that he tender his resignation. But winning the conference, making the NCAA Tournament and keeping the checks coming off the backs of young men who aren't getting paid for their labor is more important. (Pardon the digression, but I'm obligated at the mention of so-called student athletes in revenue-generating sports like men's basketball to point out that they are getting a free education in return for practicing and playing their sport 20 hours a week for the entertainment of the rest of us.)

The Pitino event is yet another reminder of a number of falsehoods about sports in general and college athletics in particular. Like the recent Steve McNair tragedy or the Isiah Thomas meltdown in New York, the Pitino story shows that we are only kidding ourselves if we say that we know the men and women we champion as sports heroes. We haven't a clue about what goes on when they leave the field of play, the post-game podium and walk out of the locker room door and into their private lives.

And when we let the phrase "college athletics" roll off our tongues we are doing so merely out of rote rather than from truth, because college and athletics have less and less to do with each other. They are just about separate entities and, the way things are going, they probably should be.

A recent study by The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Boston Globe showed just how disparate the college campus and its intercollegiate sports have become. At least 39 private universities and plenty of state colleges invest much more in basketball coaches like Pitino and football coaches than the folks who run the campus and, of course, do the teaching and research, which ostensibly is what colleges and universities exist to do. Further, more and more athletic departments are basically becoming independent of their campuses, becoming self-sustaining money-making entities that buy leeway with the schools by cutting them checks during these lean times. Louisville's athletic department, largely because of Pitino's on-court success, did just that recently. The school was thankful. Now Ramsey apparently has provided his part of that quid pro quo relationship.

As Sheldon Steinbach, who served 37 years as attorney for the American Council on Education, told the Indianapolis Star last year: "Ultimately, the buck stops with the president, but ... the president relies on the athletic director. The athletic director is dependent on coaches to promote ethical, lawful processes."

It doesn't matter anymore that coaches like Pitino ply their trade on a college campus and, one would expect, are therefore part of the overall mission to mold the minds of young men and women. It doesn't matter that they sign contracts, the most-lucrative on campus, that include morals clauses that could result in dismissal for doing something considered depraved. It doesn't matter that they become the faces of the schools if not the cities and states in which they work. It doesn't matter that in 2007 Pitino held a pl ayer, Derrick Caracter, to the terms of his contract and suspended him indefinitely from the team for violating it. Caracter's offense? Breaking curfew. No word if he was out as late as Pitino when Pitino committed his "indiscretion," as he termed it.

That's how disingenuous Pitino and Louisville are in this matter. All that matters is that they recruit the best players and win the most games and get to the most-lucrative tournaments and bowl games and bring home the most championships.

"He's been diligent in his work as our men's basketball coach, despite a number of false rumors, reported inaccuracies and the difficulties this personal matter that happened six years ago has placed on him and his family," Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said on Wednesday of Pitino. "I'm a million percent behind him."

As a result, so is Jurich and Pitino's boss, school president Ramsey, who sounded as if he may as well be working for them rather than the other way around.

This is the charade that is college athletics. The people whose titles suggest they should be in charge are all but emasculated. The university ideal has been desecrated.

Louisville Boss Looks the Other Way After Pitino's Cardinal Sin originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:13:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Props to 'Dropout' Jeremy Tyler

Kevin Blackistone — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:58:00 EST

Filed under: Back Porch, NCAA Basketball

On Wednesday, a group called America's Promise Alliance issued its latest report on the education of our country's youth. America's Promise was started by Gen. Colin Powell back in 1997 with a band of corporations, nonprofits, foundations, policymakers, advocacy and faith-based groups to ensure that we provide our kids a foundation from which they can be successful.

The newest report from America's Promise found that nearly half (47 percent) of all young people in the nation's 50 largest cities are not graduating from high school on time and that many of those aren't graduating at all, hence, becoming dropouts.

It is a problem because, the report reminded, the median income for high school dropouts is $14,000, which is significantly lower than the median income for high school graduates ($24,000) and for college graduates ($48,000). More troubling, the report pointed out, high school dropouts were the only workers who saw their income levels decline over the last 30 years.

But if you didn't comb through your newspaper, or maybe watch C-SPAN, you probably didn't notice this report on our national epidemic. Chances are, however, that you did hear of our newest dropout, a high school junior named Jeremy Tyler, who really isn't part of this problem at all. His story was everywhere, starting in The New York Times, which teased it on its front page.

This is how out of whack our concerns are in this country: Over a million kids drop out of school each year and start walking the economic road to nowhere and we don't so much as pay attention, but we can't find enough towels to soak up our collective lather over Tyler, a 17-year-old, 6-foot-11 basketball prodigy equipped with physical gifts to earn gobs of money, who revealed Wednesday -- the same day the report from America's Promise came out -- that he intended to walk away from high school as a junior to hone his skills for pay overseas.

If only the kids who drop out of high school unequipped to prosper, and maybe not even survive, got as much attention as Tyler, maybe we would be solving this national dropout problem. But they don't get the publicity or our worry. Tyler doesn't need it either. Tyler won't be among the dropouts who account for 13 percent of our adult population while earning less than six percent of all dollars in the country.

To be sure, the basketball talent broker Sonny Vaccaro told the Times that Tyler stood to make a six-figure salary playing basketball in Europe next season. Vaccaro helped a high school senior last year, Brandon Jennings, cut a deal to play in Europe this season for a reported $1.2 million in salary and endorsements rather than play for room, board, books and tuition at some sweatshop here known as a college basketball team, for a coach stuffing a couple million bucks in his pocket for his troubles. That's how ridiculous major college athletics has become. It makes you wonder how a college coach like USC football boss Pete Carroll could gather the audacity to criticize his last quarterback, Mark Sanchez, for not hanging around campus for a fifth year and play for a multimillionaire coach rather than play for his own millions in the NFL. That is the height of disingenuousness.

The only thing that challenges such absurdity would be Tyler playing college basketball for one year -- pretending to be a college student and soaking up a scholarship from some lesser talent who could really use it -- before turning pro.

It would be nice, of course, if Tyler and Jennings could just ply their trade in the NBA without having to stop at college first, or now go overseas, but the NBA's commissioner, owners and current players -- who are fearful of their jobs -- colluded to keep kids from jumping from their high school proms to NBA paydays.

As a result, we look at Tyler and wonder if he is doing the right thing rather than look at the builders of this pro basketball structure and wonder if they've done the wrong thing, which they have.

Professional basketball is an oxymoron. You don't have to be licensed to play it. We're not talking about neurosurgery and contract law. We're talking about shooting, rebounding and dribbling.

If Tyler is good enough at basketball to get someone to pay him a fat salary to do so, he should be able to do so right here in the U.S. of A. If he came up with a cure for cancer while in high school would we refuse to recognize it simply because he hasn't sported a mortarboard?

Tyler is doing the right thing. A pro athletic career has a shelf life. The faster he -- or anyone like him -- can start tapping it, the better off he will be. Doing so for relative slave wages in a major college program shouldn't be the only option. It isn't for prodigious tennis players. It isn't for prodigious soccer players. It shouldn't be for Jeremy Tyler or Brandon Jennings or any teenage talents like them to follow.

"In order to continue to move forward and make the U.S. competitive in today's global economy," Gen. Powell's wife, Alma, who chairs America's Promise, declared Wednesday, "we must work together like never before to provide the supports that young people need in order to graduate high school ready for college, work and life."

Tyler is an exception who has the opportunity to move ahead of that game, and he can always finish his high school studies and even go to college. In fact, more and more pro athletes are doing just that. They wind up being anything but dropouts.

Props to 'Dropout' Jeremy Tyler originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:58:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Tough Carolina Digs Its Heels In

Kevin Blackistone — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:29:00 EST

Filed under: NCAA Basketball

DETROIT -- If you really think about it, to call the North Carolina basketball team Tar Heels has always been more of an oxymoron. Michael Jordan. Walter Davis. Bob McAdoo. Vince Carter. James Worthy. On and on. You think of them and you think smooth. You think finesse. You think of a pretty way of playing.

It isn't that Jordan and Carter and lots of other North Carolina basketball players weren't tough, but you don't think of them as the 19th century North Carolinians who burned trees into black muck, or tar, that they then spread on the bottom of boats. You don't think of them as part of that North Carolina Civil War lore -- the wrong and losing side, by the way -- where a Confederate troop leader pleaded with his boys to fight with the toughness of those North Carolinians he'd heard about, those Tar Heels.

At least not until now.

North Carolina 83, Villanova 69: Recap | Box Score

There are a lot of reasons the current edition of the Tar Heels' basketball team advanced Saturday night, with a relatively easy 83-69 win over Villanova, to Monday night's national title game in Ford Field against Michigan State. They have an outrageously efficient point guard in the nifty Ty Lawson. They have last season's player of the year, Tyler Hansbrough, manning the middle. They have shooters galore including Danny Green and Wayne Ellington. They have depth at every position and plenty of height.

And they are tough, resilient when need be.

Their toughness is embodied mostly in Hansbrough, a player whose prodigious production is anything but pretty to watch. He is about as fluid as a rock slide but just as destructive to whatever is in his way.

NCAA Tournament Action

GREENSBORO, NC - MARCH 21: Wayne Ellington #22 of the North Carolina Tar Heels drives against Garrett Temple #14 of the Louisiana State University Tigers during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum on March 21, 2009 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Wayne Ellington;Garrett Temple

Getty Images

PORTLAND, OR - MARCH 21: A Washington Huskies cheerleader performs during a break in the action against the Purdue Boilermakers during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Rose Garden on March 21, 2009 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MO - MARCH 21: Manny Harris #3 of the Michigan Wolverines jumps to the basket for a lay up against Taylor Griffin #32 of the Oklahoma Sooners in the first half during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Sprint Center on March 21, 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Manny Harris

Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MO - MARCH 21: Zack Novan #0 and Zack Gibson #32 of the Michigan Wolverines vie for the loose ball with Blake Griffin #23 of the Oklahoma Sooners in the first half during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Sprint Center on March 21, 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Zack Gibson;Zack Novak;Blake Griffin

Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MO - MARCH 21: Willie Warren #13 of the Oklahoma Sooners makes contact as he goes to the basket with Zack Gibson #32 of the Michigan Wolverines in the first hafl during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Sprint Center on March 21, 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Willie Warren

Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MO - MARCH 21: Taylor Griffin #32 of the Oklahoma Sooners goes up for the short jump shot against DeShawn Sims #34 of the Michigan Wolverines in the first half during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Sprint Center on March 21, 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Taylor Griffin;DeShawn Sims

Getty Images

PORTLAND, OR - MARCH 21: JaJuan Johnson #25 of the Purdue Boilermakers goes up for a shot over Jon Brockman #40 of the Washington Huskies in the second half during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Rose Garden on March 21, 2009 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** JaJuan Johnson;Jon Brockman

Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MO - MARCH 21: Taylor Griffin #23 of the Oklahoma Sooners and Zack Novak #0 of the Michigan Wolverines vie for position to the loose ball in the first half during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Sprint Center on March 21, 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Zack Novak;Taylor Griffin

Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, MO - MARCH 21: Head Coach Jeff Capel of the Michigan Wolverines yells from the sideline during their game against the Oklahoma Sooners in the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Sprint Center on March 21, 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Jeff Capel

Getty Images

PORTLAND, OR - MARCH 21: Lewis Jackson #23 of the Purdue Boilermakers goes up for a layup as Quincy Pondexter #20 of the Washington Huskies looks on during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Rose Garden on March 21, 2009 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Lewis Jackson;Quincy Pondexter

Getty Images

But the Tar Heels' toughness is born out in a most-overlooked aspect of their game: defense.

With all their fine shooters and their high-octane offense, it is understandable that most of us don't notice North Carolina's desire and success at shutting down their opponents, but they've done just that as well as anybody the past few weeks. Guarding shooters. Rebounding. Getting loose balls.

"When I watched Villanova's tapes of the Pitt game, the UCLA game, the Duke game, they had tremendous sense of urgency and chased down everything," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said after beating Villanova. "There was one play in the UCLA game where they were up 23 with like six minutes to go, and [Dwayne] Anderson came from behind and dove and slapped the ball loose. I showed that to my team [Friday] night. That's the way we've got to play.

"We talked about it [Friday] night ... about we can't allow somebody to outcompete us on this stage."

They haven't. No team has come close.

Look at what Williams' Tar Heels did Saturday night to Villanova. Look at what they did to Oklahoma last weekend.

Once would be an aberration. Twice is a trend.

Villanova was known for the marksmen it employed from beyond the three-point line, like guards Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher. All told, Villanova made five of 27 attempts from beyond the arc. A weekend ago, Oklahoma came into its game against North Carolina after having shot the lights out against Syracuse. Against the Tar Heels, they shot as if the lights actually were out.

Villanova on Saturday was held below its averages in almost all offensive categories. The same was true of Oklahoma a weekend ago.

Offense isn't the reason these Tar Heels are the first Tar Heels tournament team ever to beat opponents by an average of at least 12 points. Defense is the reason.

Case and point: After the Wildcats quickly clawed out of a double-digit hole they'd been in most of the game early in the second half, the Tar Heels responded most pointedly with their defense. They forced a turnover from Wildcats guard Reggie Redding, successfully contested a layup by Reynolds and allowed the next few shots the Wildcats got off to come from no closer than the three-point line. They all went astray.

The next thing the Wildcats knew, they were staring up at a mountainous lead the Tar Heels had built again. They never mounted another challenge.

"What it really came down to is we got stops and got the lead back up to where we wanted it to be," Ellington said of halting the momentary bleeding.

There was some real blood from the Tar Heels on Saturday, too. Hansbrough -- who most famously bled two seasons ago after a flagrant elbow from Duke's Gerald Henderson broke his nose -- left the game briefly to have a cut hand treated. It was amazing he didn't suffer more such injuries from the times he was knocked or tossed down. Still, he finished with 18 points, 11 rebounds and a game-high four steals. Eight of his points came from trips to the free-throw line, something he's done more than anyone in the country this year. That's tough.

The Tar Heels couldn't be drawing on this resolve at a more opportune time. It isn't just that they are doing so in the tournament. It is that they are doing so as they prepare to go into the ultimate game against a team that may be the toughest of all, Tom Izzo's Spartans, which Izzo happily calls a blue-collar team than represents their blue-collar state where this Final Four is being held.

We already knew the Tar Heels were talented enough to win this whole thing. They've proved now they are tournament-tough enough, too.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He lives in Silver Spring, Md.

Tough Carolina Digs Its Heels In originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:29:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

In Detroit, Question Is Who to Cry For?

Kevin Blackistone — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:40:00 EST

Filed under: NCAA Basketball

DETROIT -- In an earlier journalistic life, Friday would've been a really big day for me. The reason: the government, each first Friday of the month, issued its most-important piece of economic news -- the unemployment report -- and I covered economics. The report it issued this Friday was an instant Page 1 story, which is what they called the first thing you saw on this thing I worked at forever called a newspaper. Friday's report revealed the recession we're in pushed the unemployment rate to its highest mark in a quarter century, 8.5 percent.

Ground zero of the misery, the report indicated, was Michigan -- 12 percent unemployment -- where I arrived Thursday for the Final Four. I'm staying in a hotel next door to GM headquarters, a poster company for our worst economic collapse since maybe the Great Depression.

It is enough to make me want to violate one of the rules of my current journalistic life as a sportswriter and root from press row Saturday night for the Final Four participant from Michigan, Michigan State. What a nice balm, no matter how temporary, a national title for one of Michigan's state schools would be for economically suffering Michiganders. Unless you're from any part of North Carolina except Durham, or from the Philadelphia area, or Connecticut, I began to think, you'd be hard pressed not to root for the home-state team in this weekend's Final Four.

But not only would doing so be against the rule of no cheering in the press box, it also would be insensitive. North Carolina is represented here, too, and it is like Michigan, one of seven states with a double-digit unemployment rate, just over 10 percent. How about cheering for the Tar Heels to provide some salve for its hurting home-state fans?

Upon closer review, there is so much misery around that it is impossible to pick one team to cheer for -- or cry for -- more in this Final Four. Villanova hails from the Philadelphia area where unemployment is just under 10 percent. Connecticut just suffered its largest job loss since the recession officially was called four months ago.

What played out Friday in Detroit at Ford Field when the home-state team came out for practice, and what played out afterward in Troy, Mich., where Michigan State held a pep rally, probably would've been replicated in North Carolina, Philly and Connecticut , too, if this Final Four was in those locales. Everybody could stand a little feel-good in these times.

Someone said the Michigan State crowd that turned out for the Spartans' practice at Ford Field numbered at least 30,000, the largest crowd one reporter familiar with Michigan State said he'd ever seen. Undoubtedly, some of them were there because, sadly, they hadn't anything else to do in the middle of a workday at the end of a work week.

NCAA Tournament Action

Getty Images

Spartans sophomore guard Durrell Summers from Detroit was asked whether anybody close to him had been hurt by the recession.

"Oh, yeah," Summers said simply. "My mom, my dad, my uncles. I could go on. I know a lot of people who've been touched by it.

"They got laid off and had to get smaller jobs for the time being, looking for other jobs and still trying to support families and things like that," Summers explained. "My dad used to work at General Motors. He's working at a post office. My mom used to work at Receiving Hospital as a lab assistant, and she's also at the post office."

"They're trying to see when the next thing is coming in," he continued. "Even through the bad times, they're constantly excited and cheering me on, telling me not to worry about it and keep doing what I'm doing. I've been kind of helping them through it as well, but this is big for them. They were just speechless and in tears, [with my team] making it this far.''

After their 50-minute practice and interview session, Summers and his teammates headed from Ford Field to Somerset Collection, a mall in Troy, where of upwards of 7,000 Michigan State fans in green crowded every inch of an atrium on three levels for a pep rally to spur on their Spartans. The Detroit News reported that Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon called Somerset Collection "Spartan Land" for the day and praised the Spartans as examples in rebounding that the state of Michigan could emulate as it tries to get back on track economically.

Of course, there is nothing a college basketball team can do to stem the hemorrhaging of jobs and money in this hardest-hit state or anywhere else in the country. But if sports can ever be a diversion, this is the time and this is the place.

All you had to do was hear coach Tom Izzo address the pep rally crowd in his typical late-season raspy voice, which this time cracked with undeniable emotion.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we would be able to put on a show like this for all of you," Izzo told the crowd. "You made this the proudest day of my life, no matter what happens tomorrow."

Moments later a television reporter pulled Izzo aside and asked him about the afternoon.

"This is a dream come true for me," the Michigan-tough coach said before he wiped away his tears.

This can be a momentary awakening from a nightmare for so many here and elsewhere, too.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He lives in Silver Spring, Md.

In Detroit, Question Is Who to Cry For? originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:40:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Coaching Salaries Spin Out of Control

Kevin Blackistone — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:09:00 EST

Filed under: NCAA Basketball

At the University of Maryland, where I started teaching a course last semester, the university president just before last Christmas announced that the campus would have to implement a furlough plan -- unpaid leave -- this year because of budget cutbacks from the state due to the economic downturn. Maryland wasn't alone.

Arizona State implemented furloughs. Utah State did the same for all of its 2,995 employees the second week of last month. That followed layoffs at Clemson. Small schools like John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, aren't immune as it, too, forced unpaid vacations on employees.

All across the country, universities are feeling the pinch of the recession and taking drastic and painful cuts to deal with it just like so many other employers in the country. The president of the University of Kentucky announced early this year that the school would have to trim at least $10 million in spending and freeze any hiring.

Apparently, the Kentucky president's message excluded his athletic department, which Tuesday was set to hire a new basketball coach, John Calipari, at an average annual salary upwards of $5 million, or about twice as much per year as the guy they just hired two years ago, Billy Clyde Gillispie, and recently dismissed.

It was just a few weeks ago during baseball's Winter Meetings when the Steinbrenners and their Yankees were being criticized for doling out hundreds of millions of dollars in free agent contracts to a handful of players. ESPN.com's Buster Olney wrote that a high-ranking MLB executive said: "Are the Yankees aware the country is going through a recession? Are they crazy? They're going to ruin the sport."

It is time to ask that of college athletics, especially the basketball coaching department.

After all, there appears to be no sanity, let alone sensitivity, around the basketball gym. It makes it almost grossly inappropriate that college basketball next weekend is landing its grand show to Detroit, arguably ground zero for the national recession.

The Final Four is, undoubtedly, a nice diversion for the tens of thousands in the Detroit area so hardboiled by this country's economic collapse. Maybe some of the millionaire coaches, who will be using the weekend as their annual convention, will chip in a few bucks to buy the folks who can't afford to get into Ford Stadium some tickets.

The University of Virginia was forced to cut back its budget campus-wide this year and next year but its athletic department just spent roughly $2.5 million to buy out the remaining contracts of two basketball coaches -- the one it decided to dump, Dave Leitao, and the one it targeted as a successor, Tony Bennett, who was at Washington State. Then it signed Bennett for around $1.7 million per year.

It is true that basketball on the college campus is one of two sports called revenue-generating. The other, of course, is football. It doesn't matter that in many cases the phrase revenue-generating is more a misnomer, or wishful thinking, than anything else. Schools and their boosters and fans continue to dump millions upon millions not so much into those programs as much as into coaches' bank accounts in the great chase for the national championship, or some facsimile thereof like the Bowl Championship Series title in football.

This is taking the win-at-all-cost mindset in college athletics to an even lower level.

Kentucky's deal with Calipari will make him the highest paid college coach in the country and he's never even won the national title.

Of course, it isn't winning or not that winning the national crown that even matters in this argument. It is the spending spree for coaches at universities, particularly public universities, while they are cutting back on what is supposed to matter most, the education of young men and women.

For this to be going on in this atmosphere is nothing short of obscene. It was bad enough last year, before everything went to hell , when we learned that Kansas State pushed an assistant -- I said assistant -- basketball coach's salary over $400,000, ostensibly for having recruited the would-be player of the year, Michael Beasley, who promptly left the school for the NBA after just his freshman season. The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, a national group of faculty, decried that news as it does the continued escalation of athletic salary spending in this dourer atmosphere.

"Now that universities rich and poor are dealing with declining budgets, layoffs, furloughs, and major cutbacks, it is immoral that college presidents are allowing athletic departments to spend at the same pre-fiscal crisis level, let alone issuing huge contracts to big-name coaches, erecting extravagant new arenas and stadia, and building lavish training and practice facilities," professor Nathan Tublitz at Oregon, and a COIA chair, told me Wednesday. "What responsible family would go out and buy a new BMW when their roof is leaking? No one is asking for the demise of college athletics, only that our universities and colleges focus on their one and only mission: to educate our students and generate cutting edge research that will produce the leaders of tomorrow and keep this country healthy and productive. Spending so much money on intercollegiate athletics when our universities and colleges are treading water fiscally and academically is irresponsible and indefensible."

Latest College Basketball Images

Penn State's Jamelle Cornley (2) drives past Notre Dame's Zach Hillesland (33) during the first half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Penn State's Talor Battle (12) reacts after hitting a shot during the first half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game against Notre Dame on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Penn State's Talor Battle (12) celebrates with teammate Stanley Pringle (11) after Pringle hit a shot during the first half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game against Notre Dame on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Notre Dame's Tyrone Nash (1) shoots over Penn State's Jamelle Cornley (2) during the first half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

San Diego State's Lorenzo Wade (31) shoots over Baylor's Curtis Jerrells (0) during the second half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. Baylor won 76-62. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Baylor's head coach Scott Drew yells to his team during the second half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game against San Diego State on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. Baylor won the game 76-62. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

San Diego State's head coach Steve Fisher reacts to a call during the second half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game against Baylor on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. San Diego State lost the game 76-62. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

San Diego State's Mehdi Cheriet, left looks on with teammates Ryan Amoroso, center, and Tim Shelton, right, during the second half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game against Baylor on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. San Diego State lost the game 76-62. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Michigan State's Kalin Lucas is interviewed Tuesday, March 31, 2009, in East Lansing, Mich. Michigan State faces Connecticut in an NCAA men's college basketball tournament Final Four semifinal on Saturday. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

Baylor's Curtis Jerrells (0) drives past San Diego State's Billy White (32) during the first half of the NIT semifinal college basketball game on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Even Larry Eustachy, who was caught on camera partying the night away with coeds while the basketball coach years ago at Iowa State, realizes how inebriated his business has become. Now rehabilitated at Southern Mississippi, Eustachy a couple weeks ago refused a $25,000 bonus.

"I feel like the Donner Party going over the pass," Eustachy told The Associated Press. "I just felt particularly during this recession that we are in and the situation our school is in, it just didn't go right with me to accept anything above and beyond my normal contract. I'm not trying to make a statement."

It's too bad he wasn't trying to be heard. His brethren would look a lot better heeding his words.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.

Coaching Salaries Spin Out of Control originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:09:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Tar Heels Are Aged for Victory

Kevin Blackistone — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:09:00 EST

Filed under: FanHouse Exclusive, NCAA Basketball

MEMPHIS -- After Roy Williams answered his last question Sunday night at the press conference following his Tar Heels' easy 72-60 win over Oklahoma to advance to next weekend's Final Four, a North Carolina sports information official barked out some trivia for the departing media: the Tar Heels won for the first time all season with forward Tyler Hansbrough, the defending player of the year, and shooting guard Wayne Ellington failing to score in double figures.

That is how good the latest edition of the Tar Heels is - they can soundly beat a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament with two hands tied behind their back.

I don't know that these Tar Heels are better than the squad Williams coached to the 2005 national title in his second season atop Chapel Hill. That team had four first-round draft picks - the No. 2 overall in Marvin Williams, plus lottery picks Raymond Felton, Sean May and Rashad McCants. NBADraft.net predicts this season's Tar Heels have three first-rounders in Hansbrough, Ellington and their most-important player, point guard Ty Lawson, the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year.

I don't know that these Tar Heels are playing better now than the team they'll meet Saturday in the national semifinals, Villanova.

I don't know that these Tar Heels, despite weathering an injury to Lawson and losing to injury Marcus Ginyard, have overcome more than Connecticut, which lost guard Jerome Dyson for the year, lost their coach for a spell at the tournament opener and are now playing under a cloud of NCAA scrutiny.

All I know for certain is none of that really matters. With two games left on the season, these Tar Heels - as was predicted by so many at season's start - have proven the last two weekends that they are the team to beat for the crown. The selection committee got that wrong.

After all, of the teams headed to Detroit, the Tar Heels are alone in getting there mostly without a hitch. Sunday against Oklahoma was par for their course. They jumped to an early lead and never relinquished it. The 12-point margin of victory was closer than the competition really was. Oklahoma never had a chance.

NCAA Tournament Action

Getty Images

The only team the Tar Heels saw the past two weekends that managed to make part of a game interesting was LSU for a moment in the early second half. The Tigers wound up going down by 14.

The biggest worry the Tar Heels really had in this tournament was Lawson's injured toe that kept him out of the tournament opener against sacrificial lamb Radford. Said Lawson on Sunday, after leading the Tar Heels with 19 points, five assists and three steals: "Once I get the adrenaline and just the intensity of it [the game], I really don't feel the toe or start favoring it."

Lawson makes the Tar Heels look like an almost perfectly constructed team. They have inside might in Hansbrough. They have outside shooters galore in Ellington, Danny Green and Lawson. Green also is a slasher and Lawson is fast and quick and can get around most any guard to get to the rim for an easy bucket or pass.

If there is anything they don't have much of it is depth. A freshman shot blocker, Ed Davis, and senior guard Bobby Frasor were the only reserves to log double-digit minutes against Oklahoma. But what does that matter at this time of year?

Williams said his team played a nearly perfect game in overwhelming Gonzaga in the regional semifinal on Friday, 98-77. Sunday Williams said his team repeated that performance for at least the first half, when they jumped to a 12-point lead behind 13 points off nine turnovers. They didn't allow Sooners' superstar Blake Griffin to score a field goal until after 12 minutes expired and the Tar Heels had established a double-digit lead. (Update: There was no comparison between Griffin and Hansbrough. Griffin finished with 23 points and 16 rebounds.)

The Tar Heels won't see a more dangerous or determined player in Detroit than Griffin. They'll see better shooters and tougher defense with Villanova. If they escape that match up, which they should, they may see a more imposing defender in the paint with Connecticut in 7-3 Hasheem Thabeet. Or they could be forced to roll up their shirt sleeves against Tom Izzo's Spartans.

But these Tar Heels will have one more thing to lean on that none of those other teams have - the all important intangible of experience.

The Tar Heels last got this far just 12 months ago. They'll be the only team with players who've played in the Final Four. Winning it all is a big reason seniors Hansbrough and Green and juniors Lawson and Ellington came back for this campaign.

"This game, we were used to it," Lawson said of the Final Four, "and just experience overall in the NCAA tournament."

In the last Final Four, the Tar Heels looked like they suffered stage fright as the eventual champions from Kansas bolted to an 28-point lead before every fan had settled into their seats.

"It's a different team," Green said of himself and his mates. "It's a new year, a new day, a new game. We know what our goals are. We know what our focuses are and what we have to do to win games. Last year, of course, we use...as a learning experience."

Next weekend is the final exam and these Tar Heels will ace it.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He lives in Silver Spring, Md.

Tar Heels Are Aged for Victory originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:09:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Carolina Roots Give Capel Perspective

Kevin Blackistone — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: FanHouse Exclusive, NCAA Basketball

MEMPHIS -- Of all the things a little boy growing up in North Carolina coveted in his bedroom, none was more precious than one of the Tar Heels posters on his wall, the one with Michael Jordan shooting a jump shot against North Carolina State.

"It was picture perfect form, his legs were spread out, and it had, 'The Tradition Continues,' " the now grown-up little boy cooed Saturday afternoon. "I just thought that was incredible."

Who's the little boy who was all grown up on Saturday? He's the coach who will try to knock off North Carolina on Sunday, Jeff Capel.

It is funny how things come full circle, especially Jeff Capel's basketball life. Born and reared in North Carolina. Fanatical as a child about the Tar Heels. Mesmerized by Mike Krzyzewski to the point of playing at Duke. Now about to meet his once beloved, then despised, Tar Heels for the right to get to his first Final Four as a coach. And he's just 34.

We could excuse him if the speed of this spin makes him dizzy. But he is not in such need. He appeared calm on the eve of the impending storm, the biggest game in his young coaching career.

"I grew up a Carolina fan," Capel admitted sitting at a dais in the bowels of FedEx Forum sporting a crimson-trimmed, cream-colored Sooners polo shirt. "I always told my mom and dad when I was younger, that when I grow up, I'm going to Carolina.

"Carolina was the first ACC [Atlantic Coast Conference] school to start recruiting me, and it was the summer going into my 10th grade year. When I was in 10th grade, I was actually in Chapel Hill. I went to quite a few games. When I was younger, my father was a high school coach. I used to always go with my dad to Coach [Dean] Smith's clinic.

"My father would take me up to Carmichael [Auditorium] and watch a lot of games. I was there when Kenny Smith broke his wrist against LSU.

"I thought that was where I was going to go," Capel continued to testify, "until I met Coach K."

The longtime Tar Heels fan didn't admit to getting brainwashed in Durham, N.C., where Coach K weaves his magic, or at least used to. Capel's alma mater, which got dropped by Villanova on Thursday, was last in the Final Four half a decade ago. Capel ultimately was wooed by with whom he would play, he said.

"I wanted to play with Grant Hill," he said. "But then also, as a freshman, I thought it [Duke] was more of an opportunity for me to play early. Duke would be losing Thomas Hill and Bobby Hurley, while North Carolina would be returning [Derrick] Phelps and Donald Williams. I thought it was more of an opportunity for me to go in as a freshman and earn playing time. So that ... was maybe the deciding factor towards the end."

This is a man who has been making mature rather than emotional decisions his entire life. That was how he wound up leaving his comfort zone of the southern East Coast for Norman, Okla.

Capel didn't say he regretted the decision to sport a different blue in college. But the Tar Heels did beat him with the Blue Devils all but one meeting in his four seasons, and it didn't come until the first of two meetings in his senior season. Capel's most memorable moment against the team he grew up rooting for: In a 1995 game at Duke, he hit a running 40-footer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime, where Duke lost.

The Tar Heels during Capel's years at Duke were stocked, at one time or another, by Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison and/or Jeff McInnis. Or sort of like what Capel will lead the Sooners against Sunday afternoon.

He'll have Blake Griffin, the prohibitive player of the year, and a lot of hope in the rest of his starters who, save freshman guard Willie Warren, are little more than role players.

Capel said his college coach left him a message Friday night congratulating him on coaching into the Elite Eight. Capel said he caught up with Coach K later but they didn't talk strategy about playing North Carolina, which is just as well since North Carolina beat Duke both times this season.

NCAA Tournament Action

Getty Images

Not that Capel needs any advice as the son of a coach who played for Coach K and now is in his seventh season as a head coach and has never suffered a losing campaign.

"The thing we have to do is, as best we can, control tempo," Capel said. "We can't play at their pace. No one in college basketball can play at the pace that North Carolina plays."

Capel knows not only from having grown up a North Carolinaophile. His younger brother did what he wanted to and played for the Tar Heels. Jason started on the Tar Heels' 2000 Final Four team and will be seated over his older brother's shoulder on Sunday just as he was Friday night.

"My brother's going to have on a ... red OU shirt, and he'll be cheering for us," Capel assured, "which he should. I know a lot of Carolina people may not like that, but he was my brother before he was a Tar Heel."

If Jeff Capel could drop North Carolina for the rest of his life, the least his little brother can do is suspend his allegiance for an afternoon.

Carolina Roots Give Capel Perspective originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Hansbrough-Griffin a Heavyweight Brawl

Kevin Blackistone — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:20:00 EST

Filed under: FanHouse Exclusive, NCAA Basketball

MEMPHIS - The last time I came to Memphis for a heavyweight title bout it turned out to be the dud most everyone figured it would be. It was 2002 and Lennox Lewis battered and befuddled Mike Tyson for eight rounds in The Pyramid before Tyson toppled over and could not get up.

This time, Sunday afternoon in FedEx Forum, I expect to see a more competitive match: 6-foot-10, 255-pound Blake Griffin v. 6-foot-9, 250-pound Tyler Hansbrough.

If there was one thing the men's NCAA tournament selection committee did right to spice up this March Madness, it was putting this season's undisputed player of the year, Oklahoma's Griffin, on a collision course with last season's disputed player of the year, North Carolina's Hansbrough, to get to the Final Four. Friday night made that possibility a reality, after Griffin and his Sooners crushed the Syracuse Orange and Hansbrough and his Tar Heels raced by Gonzaga.

(I interrupt this column for those in Tar Heels blue fuming at the word "disputed" to describe Hansbrough's accomplishment last season, when he swept the many player of the year awards. I must remind them that Kansas State's Michael Beasley averaged more points, rebounds, assists and blocked shots than Hansbrough and had more double-doubles. Hansbrough averaged more steals and shot a little better and played on a much better team. As Jay Bilas, one of Hansbrough's biggest fans, said last year: "Michael Beasley is the best player in the country and an unstoppable man among men. But, Tyler Hansbrough is my choice as national player of the year." That was a common illogical explanation.)

Sunday afternoon will not, of course, settle anything that seems unsettled from a season ago. Beasley is hooping for dollars after being forced to labor for NCAA basketball for one season. He'll have to wait for Hansbrough to join him next season in the NBA to settle any score the rest of us would prefer him to have with Hansbrough, or prefer Hansbrough to have with him.

Griffin is just the next best thing, maybe better.

Griffin has more double-doubles than Beasley put up. He averages more rebounds and makes almost 65 percent of his shots because he plays around and above the rim so much.

Unfortunately, Griffin sounded Friday night as if he is the product of a household that taught humility. He refused to engage in the me-against-him tenor of what we'd like to think of as a titanic tussle with Psycho T, as Hansbrough is known.

"It's another team," Griffin said of his next game after dropping 30 and 14 on Syracuse. "I'm not going to get into a personal battle with Tyler Hansbrough. I have no beef with him.

"They're a good team. This game ... it's not going to be me against him. It's going to be Oklahoma versus North Carolina, and that's how we plan to attack them."

Hansbrough, sadly, took the same tact.

"For me ... I just have to play my part within this team, not, like I said, not try to force anything, let the game come to me," Hansbrough said following his 24 and 10 outing against Gonzaga "I'm not looking at it [Sunday] as a matchup between me and Griffin or something like that. I'm looking at it as North Carolina is playing Oklahoma."

So, it is up to the rest of us to blow their impending matchup out of proportion and call it the biggest meeting of big men in the NCAA tournament since the 1984 Final Four. That was when Georgetown's Patrick Ewing took on and slayed Kentucky's two-headed dragon of Sam Bowie and Melvin Turpin before knocking out Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon. There was no trash-talking then, either, except for the ferocity with which Ewing played.

Griffin and Hansbrough aren't as polished yet as I recall Bowie and Turpin being in college, and certainly not as good as Ewing and Olajuwon. Those big men were smooth; neither Griffin nor Hansbrough conjures that adjective, though Hansbrough's jumper is more likely to splash while Griffin's, should he attempt one, is most likely to crash.

It can't be overlooked that neither is sized like a center, either, but like a power forward. Bowie, Turpin, Ewing and Olajuwon were seven-footers, or played like them.

But I'll take Griffin and Hansbrough as the best big men we've seen square off in a critical college game in some time and enjoy it.

Griffin isn't at the disadvantage Beasley was at last year in comparison to Hansbrough. His Sooners are a lot better than Beasley's Wildcats were and better commanded by Jeff Capel. If Oklahoma plays Sunday as it did Friday, with Tony Crocker leading its three-guard offensive attack to 9-for-21 shooting from beyond the 3-point stripe, Oklahoma will be as good a team as North Carolina usually puts on the floor. The Sooners don't generally get that kind of production from their three guards, though, particularly Crocker, who had a career game scoring 28.

Hansbrough's Tar Heels, however, are better than they were a season ago. They are more experienced and deeper and point guard Ty Lawson, if healthy, is even more explosive, all of which has helped depress Hansbrough's numbers a little. Other guys around him are doing more.

It isn't fair, of course, to heap so much expectation on two young men or to draw from whatever they do a grand conclusion. This really won't be Memphis's Tyson-Lewis II. Basketball is a team sport.

NCAA Tournament Action

Getty Images

But these guys are the centers of their teams, literally and figuratively, and both will soon be carrying much of the same hardware - Wooden, Naismith, etc. They play the game a little bit differently; Griffin's game is defined by power and Hansbrough's game is defined by energy. If Griffin's game inspires oohs and ahhs, Hansbrough's brings forth attaboys.

Chances are, this will be one of those games where the player with best numbers, Griffin, loses the game and the one who walks away a winner, Hansbrough, winds up with the accolades again.

But if Griffin leads the Sooners to victory, en route to being the next No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, there is likely to be a run on Tarn-X, with Hansbrough lovers seeking to get all that tarnish off his hardware from last year.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.

Hansbrough-Griffin a Heavyweight Brawl originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:20:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Blake Griffin Hits Head on Backboard During Dunk. No, Seriously

Kevin Blackistone — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:05:00 EST

Filed under: NCAA Basketball

MEMPHIS - For those who doubted Blake Griffin was really head and shoulders above the rest of college basketball this year, among the last of his 30 points for the Sooners' Friday night victory over Syracuse came on a baseline dunk - after he hit his head on the side of the backboard. (I know. It used to happen to you every now and then too.)

"That was the first time that happened," Griffin said afterward. "It kind of took me by surprise."

(Video proof after the jump.)

I saw "Big Country" Reeves break a backboard in a Final Four warm up for Oklahoma State.

I saw Mateen Cleeves and Eduardo Najera head butt each other at full speed in a tournament game. (Najera was knocked woozy for the longest time.) I saw the Arkansas mascot blow out his knee in a pre-game routine before a Final Four game.

Griffin's head knock was a first. He should try to replicate it next February in the NBA All-Star Weekend Slam Dunk contest.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.

Blake Griffin Hits Head on Backboard During Dunk. No, Seriously originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:05:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

'BCS-ization' Threatens March's Marvel

Kevin Blackistone — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:05:00 EST

Filed under: NCAA Basketball

It is a good thing that the folks who now run the NCAA tournament didn't run the Indiana high school basketball tournament back in the day. If they had, Hoosiers would be just another goofy Midwestern nickname and Gene Hackman's resume would be less one memorable role.

That's because the NCAA tournament selection process is increasingly biased nowadays. It favors the haves and discriminates against the have-littles. It is turning the college basketball championship into just another weekend of games on ESPN or CBS. It is slowly but surely exorcising the marvel of madness from March.

It is, you could say, BCS-izing what has been the most widely anticipated playoff in all of sports, college or pro.

After all, what made the NCAA Tournament a must-see event wasn't so much the seemingly ubiquitous buzzer-beating game-winning shot like the one that gave N.C. State its title against Houston. It was more the possibility of seeing some little college with an oxymoronic name like Cleveland State knock off a legendary powerhouse like Indiana with Bob Knight at the bow.

We were reminded of that Sunday when Cleveland State was returned to the 64-team (I don't count the ridiculous play-in game) tournament for the first time since its appearance in 1986 against Knight's Hoosiers, when it was the last team to get into the tournament with an at-large invitation rather than one of the automatic conference champion's tickets. That year, Cleveland State did, indeed, trip up Knight's Hoosiers. It made it all the way to the Sweet 16, where it lost to another surprising survivor, Navy, led by a sprouting Midshipman named David Robinson.

Bracket Busters

Florida State Seminoles: How tall are the Seminoles? Let's just say they could change every light bulb in your house without borrowing a ladder. They're long and athletic and have Toney Douglas, a dynamic guard who is exactly the type of player you want to avoid in the NCAA tournament.

Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images

American Eagles: Coach Jeff Jones says he hasn't watched the whole tape from last year's opening-round loss to Tennessee, but the Vols might not have either. American put a scare into Tennessee last year and return with seven seniors, including Garrison Carr, the school's all-time leading 3-point shooter.

Evan Vucci, AP

Siena Saints: How do we know Siena can turn your brakcets into scrap paper in a single game? The Saints did it last year, dispatching Vanderbilt as a No. 13 seed. Led by Kenny Hansbrouck, they return their three top scorers from a year ago and played a schedule that took them to Kansas and Pittsburgh.

Tim Roske, AP

Virginia Commonwealth Rams: Mike Krzyzewski couldn't stop this team in the opening round two years ago, and the Rams have only gotten better. Back is point guard Eric Maynor, who almost single-handedly beat Duke and this time he's part of one of the best inside-outside combos in college basketball with double-double forward Larry Sanders. They don't have the depth of a power conference school, but they've probably got better coaching with Anthony Grant, Billy Donovan's former right-hand man.

Scott k. Brown, AP

Boston College Eagles: The Eagles seem to be a team in need of motivation. They knocked off North Carolina in Chapel Hill only to lose to Harvard. They beat Duke only to lose to N.C. State and then came within a single point of knocking Duke off again in the ACC tournament. Needless to say, no one takes teams lightly in the NCAA tournament, so good luck stopping a fired up Tyrese Rice.

John Bazemore, AP

West Virginia: You might like the Mountaineers, but the computers love them. A year after their surprising run to the Sweet 16, West Virginia is one of only three teams with efficiency ratings in the top 16 on both offense and defense, a great sign that they'll outperform their seed. The other two? Duke and Gonzaga.

Julie Jacobson, AP

Gonzaga: Gonzaga turned a Cinderella 1999 run into a regular spot in the NCAA tournament and has now almost made the leap in the public's mind to overrated major. But this year, the 'Zags are for real. They've lost just once since January and are the only team in the nation in the top 10 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency.

Jae C. Hong, AP

North Dakota State Bison: They punched their ticket to the dance in their first opportunity (Take notes, Northwestern) and have a great formula for mid-major success, an excellent senior core and a great touch from 3-point range. The Bison shot better than 40 percent from long range, 10th best in the nation.

Eric Landwehr, AP

BYU Cougars: The Cougars are rated 18th in the nation by Ken Pomeroy, which suggests they could vastly out-perform their seed. They haven't lost a game by more than six points since Jan. 17 and do the single most important thing in basketball well, shoot. They're effective field goal percentage is seventh in the nation.

Ethan Miller, Getty Images

Michigan Wolverines: The Wolverines have already proven they can beat the nation's best, ousting UCLA on a neutral court in November and dumping Duke at home in December, and they're exactly the kind of team that can cause trouble in any one-game scenario -- nearly half of all Michigan shots are 3-pointers. Don't pick them to win six, but watch out in the first round.

Jonathan Daniel, Getty Images

There hasn't been a more unlikely pairing so deep in the tournament since Cleveland State versus Navy and there isn't likely to be one anytime soon with the way the selection committee is handing out berths now. For what it did on Sunday was almost fraudulent if the committee is selling us that this is college basketball's top division championship tournament that is about to tip off.

In truth, it looks like what is about to commence is college basketball's top football conference basketball tournament. Others need not register.

To be sure, a whopping four schools from conferences other than those that run college football's championship cartel called the BCS were invited to participate in this year's basketball tournament as was Cleveland State almost a quarter century ago, with one of 34 at-large invitations. The lucky four became Xavier, Dayton, Butler and BYU.

Saint Mary's of the WCC couldn't get in despite a 26-6 record, a third of it put together despite losing to injury its All-America guard Patty Mills. It did lose three times to its league champion Gonzaga, a perennial small fish in the NCAA Tournament's big pond. But Maryland lost three times to ACC tournament champion Duke, didn't have a winning regular-season conference record, and got in.

San Diego State sported a 23-9 record, and a top 40 mark in the supposedly all-important RPI measurement, and didn't get in. It even played but lost its league tournament title.

"This tournament is about the best teams," explained SEC commissioner and current selection committee chair Mike Slive during a Monday teleconference. "It's not designed to social engineer college basketball.

"Our job is to pick the best 34 teams, not to protect or hurt any particular grouping of teams."

But most of the teams come from the same conferences more and more now, just like they always have in the arranged marriage college football stuffs down our throats as a legitimate championship called the Bowl Championship Series.

This is a trend and it is not a good one. In 2004, a dozen so-called mid-major schools won at-large bids to the basketball tournament. In 2005, there were nine. Last year, half a dozen were lucky. At this rate, the small conferences may as well secede and start their own playoff, which I suspect the big conferences wouldn't step up to stop.

There has been lots of justifying in recent years why smaller schools can't catch the same breaks as the bigger schools. They don't play as tough of schedules is one of the most-echoed lines, and it is true. But why reward big schools with less-than stellar records against tough schedules they inherit, and penalize smaller schools with stellar records against weaker opponents they inherit?

Latest College Basketball Images

Temple's Dionte Christmas, right, T.J. DiLeon, left, and Micheal Eric, center, run drills during practice in Philadelphia on Monday, March 16, 2009. Temple faces Arizona State in the first round of the NCAA college men's basketball tournament Friday. (AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek)

American University coach Jeff Jones, right, watches practice Monday, March 16, 2009, in Washington. American faces Villanova in the first round of the NCAA men's college basketball tournament. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

American forward Jordan Nichols, left, talks with guard Derrick Mercer, right, during practice at American University to get ready for their first round NCAA basketball game Monday, March 16, 2009 in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Northwestern's Craig Moore participates in a shoot around Monday, March 16, 2009, in Evanston, Ill. Northwestern will play Tulsa in the first round of the NIT basketball tournament, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

From left, Northwestern's Matt Steger, Craig Moore, and Ivan Peljusic chat before practice Monday, March 16, 2009, in Evanston, Ill. Northwestern will play Tulsa in the first round of the NIT basketball tournament, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Northwestern's Kevin Kobel talks with the media before practice Monday, March 16, 2009, in Evanston, Ill. Northwestern will play Tulsa in the first round of the NIT basketball tournament, on Wednesday, March 18, 2009. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Northwestern's Kevin Kobel talks with teammates before practice Monday, March 16, 2009, in Evanston, Ill. Northwestern will play Tulsa in the first round of the NIT college basketball tournament, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Northwestern head basketball coach Bill Carmody watches Davide Curletti shoot during practice Monday, March 16, 2009, in Evanston, Ill. Carmody's Wildcats will play Tulsa in the first round of the NIT basketball tournament, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Northwestern head basketball coach Bill Carmody watches his team practice Monday, March 16, 2009, in Evanston, Ill. Northwestern will play Tulsa in the first round of the NIT college basketball tournament on Wednesday. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Ontario Lett (R) of Jordan's Zain looks at Lebanon's Al-Riyadi coach Fuad Abou Chakra during their West Asian Clubs Championship basketball game in Amman March 16, 2009. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed (JORDAN SPORT BASKETBALL)

Reuters

Also, big schools can pick and choose what schools outside of their conferences they play, while smaller schools are at the mercy of bigger schools to find bigger, stouter opponents. It is a situation not unlike the unequal terms of trade between the West and the developing world that keeps the developing world forever in a cycle of development.

"There really isn't much data that the committee doesn't think about or look at when we evaluate a team," Slive said. "Again, it's by team. We're not identifying or branding any school because they come from a particular conference. That is another element of fairness that we add to this mix."

It certainly doesn't seem fair. Aristocracy is being allowed to trample meritocracy. It is time some affirmative measure be taken to restore the fighting chance for the little guys that made March so marvelous.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.

'BCS-ization' Threatens March's Marvel originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:05:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Blake Griffin Doesn't Deserve Obscurity

Kevin Blackistone — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:50:00 EST

Filed under: NCAA Basketball

If there has been a more-underappreciated man in college basketball than Blake Griffin this season at Oklahoma, I am unaware of him. Consider this: Griffin, a 6-10, 255-pound post just closed out his regular-season sophomore campaign with a Big 12-record of 13 games with at least 20 points and 15 rebounds, including a conference first 40/20 game (40 points, 23 rebounds against Texas Tech).

To put that in better perspective, Griffin bested what Michael Beasley did just a season ago at Kansas State, when the freshman Beasley should've been the runaway national player of the year before becoming the second pick in the NBA Draft. Beasley lost last season's top honors to North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough, then a junior.

The early returns for this season's player-of-the-year awards suggest that there won't be any such slight this year, despite Hansbrough's presence as the senior leader for the Tar Heels. Griffin just picked up a couple of citations as the best collegiate baller from Athlon and Foxsports.com.

Griffin's coach Jeff Capel hypothesized to me on Tuesday from his Norman, Okla., office phone why the applause for Griffin hasn't been as loud thus far as it has been for others, like Hansbrough last season. He pointed to geography.

"I'm from the East Coast, grew up in North Carolina and lived there my whole life until I became a coach and got to Virginia," Capel said. "I just don't think that people pay attention to basketball in this part of the country, I really don't think that national people really pay attention.

"People are saying our league is down and maybe that's why he's [Griffin] not getting the kind of recognition [as other players of the year]," said Capel, who starred at Duke. "But it's pretty obvious that the kid is the best player in the country."

More evidence: Griffin is first in the nation in rebounding (14.2 per game), third in field goal percentage (63.4 percent) and 13th in scoring (22.1 points each outing). Hansbrough last season in sweeping individual honors averaged 10.2 rebounds, 54-percent shooting and 22.6 points per game. Beasley grabbed 12.4 rebounds, shot 53.2 percent and scored 26.2 points each contest.

"He's doing most of this against double teams," Capel said of Griffin.

And when Griffin couldn't play two games late last month after suffering a concussion, Oklahoma couldn't win for just the second and third times on the year.

First game back, Griffin dove over the scorer's table for a loose ball, crashing into the stands. That prompted an observation of Griffin not unlike that bestowed upon Hansbrough his entire career: stick-to-itiveness.

"I think that play where he dove over the scorers' table opened up eyes around the country," Capel said. "The kid is the hardest worker I've ever been around, he really is, and I'm not just saying that because he's my kid. He went to San Francisco in the summer and worked out and trained and completely changed his body. He looks thinner and leaner. Instead, he's 15 pounds heavier [in muscle].

"He has a routine now where he's in the gym around 10 o'clock every morning and gets in shots and an extra lift," Capel said. "He's driven."

The Sooners are 27-4 behind him and toyed with the nation's top rank till Griffin's concussion.

Griffin has been overlooked before, relative to his peers. It is easily forgotten now that he was part of one of the finest basketball-playing high school classes in recent memory. Besides Beasley, it included Derrick Rose, O.J. Mayo, Kevin Love, J.J. Hickson, Kyle Singler, Donte Greene, Eric Gordon, and Jerryd Bayless, to name a few. Eleven from that class were drafted in last summer's NBA draft, nine in the first round. Rose, Beasley and Mayo went 1-2-3 and Love was fifth.

"He was never really thought of at the same level of some of the really elite players in his class," Capel said. "I think that drove him. Because I think he thought that if he was living in North Carolina or New York or Virginia or Chicago or someplace like that, he'd be on the same level. I think he felt slighted a little bit."

Griffin's revenge is Oklahoma's blessing.

Capel played in college with Grant Hill and against Tim Duncan, Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison. He witnessed Beasley last year and Kevin Durant the season before. In Capel's mind, Griffin compares well with them all, and better at this age - he turns 20 next week - than most of them at the same. His only weakness is free-throw shooting.

Capel said he's only watched last season's player of the year on television.

"They [Hansbrough and Griffin] both play really, really hard," he said. "Both are physical. Both are great rebounders. Both are, from what I've heard in talking to Coach [Roy] Williams, incredibly driven kids.

"Blake is bigger, and definitely more explosive, and I'd say a little more skilled offensively, although Hansbrough has developed into a really good mid-range to college three-point line shooter. I'm not one of those guys who knocks Hansbrough, because I think the kid's gonna be a really good pro because he figures out a way to outwork people and be on the floor and be productive. I'm just biased. I like my kid better."

Blake Griffin certainly shouldn't be celebrated any less.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.

Blake Griffin Doesn't Deserve Obscurity originally appeared on Kevin Blackistone FanHouse on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:50:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments