Not a proud moment

We caught this strange and ugly scene on Bill Simmons vehicle, Grantland. Georgetown University and a local Chinese team, against whom they are playing an exhibition game, got in an ugly bench clearing brawl. It lasted less than a minute, but the visuals are disturbing. The crowd boos and throws plastic water bottles when the Georgetown team exits the court. Grantland links to the Washington Post's article here, which reads like a wire report: making no attempt at explanation or understanding. Just the facts ma'am.

Was there anything else going on beyond a roughly contested basketball game here? Anything regionally or locally that was relevant? Was their a strain of anti-Americanism here?

America ought be very careful about pissing off the Chinese holders of almost all of our sovereign debt.

Game Two

This coach is in the title game for a second year in a row...

There was a strange dichotomy in the two NCAA Final Four games played last night. In game one, there were two gritty, mid-major teams that few expected to be there. In game two, there were a couple of storied programs with long but sordid histories. It made for a strange rooting dynamic, in game one we felt sad that one of these gallant underdogs had to lose. In game two, we felt perturbed one of those cheaters was going to win.

Who do you root for one when on one bench is a coach who has had to vacate both of his previous two Final Four appearances and on the other side is a coach who the NCAA has cited for multiple violations, including lack of institutional control? Blech.

The narrative was undermined and we predict the television ratings reflect it.

The Case for Expansion

VCU and Alabama, enough said. It is time for 128.

VCU could cost Vegas

We tweeted about it last night, asking what were the opening odds on VCU to win the tournament? A little bit of research has revealed that VCU was part of what the casinos label "The Field" bet, a group of nineteen teams where any one of them winning paid 200 to 1.

Jay Kornegay, executive director of the race and sports book at the Las Vegas Hilton said, "I've been doing this for 22 years, I can't remember a field team making it to the Final Four." But apparently there was not much action at that point, supposedly the bets that are really poised to hurt Vegas if VCU wins the tournament were made just before the Sweet Sixteen. At that point, VCU had beaten Georgetown and Purdue. Vegas offered new odds on each Sweet Sixteen participant to win their tournament and set VCU winning the title at 80 to 1. Word is they took some big money action. Now they are worried.

Kentucky is the 8 to 5 favorite of books looking at the four teams left. VCU, if one were to hop at their bandwagon at this late date, only pays 13 to 2. My, my what a long way they have come.

Harvard Hoops

Harvard Coach Tommy Ammaker learned from the best...

The Clarion Content was on this story many moons ago. Duke alum, Tommy Ammaker, and his Harvard Crimson, have a shot at the school's first Ivy League Men's Basketball title in 100 years of competition. They are the only one of Harvard thirty-four varsity sports not to have won a single league title. They are the antithesis of Jack Nicklaus, having finished second only twice in school history. Once was under Coach Ammaker, with a star, who has since matriculated to the NBA, Jeremy Lin.

This year Coach Ammaker's squad is the youngest in the Ivy League. With wins in their remaining games against league pillars Penn and Princeton, this team can do something never accomplished in the history of Harvard basketball. The New York Times quotes the coach, "I’m not sure you can walk anywhere on this campus and find something that hasn’t been done before," Amaker told the Times this week. "But we are on the verge of doing it."

Read the whole story here.

Look out

The Duke Blue Devils backed into the #1 ranking in the land this weekend when the four teams ahead of them lost. However, last night Duke took a much more definite step forward when the Most Outstanding Player at last year's Final Four finally exploded. Much like the beginning of last season, Duke's Kyle Singler has battled to find his place in the offense. Singler has rotated over the course of his career between center, power forward and wing player, depending on the needs of the team.

This year, like last year, as the team has grown around him, Singler has been willing to sublimate his own game to let others develop theirs. About this time last year Brian Zubek's emergence as a defensive and rebounding presence helped clearly define Singler's role and led to Duke's run.

Last night, against a banged up Temple squad, Singler exploded for twenty-eight points without the benefit of a single three-point shot. Temple Coach Fran Dunphy said, "He was just not to be denied."

Singler humbly noted, "The bigs were actually passing the ball to me, so I got good post entries and ... just kept getting the ball and putting it back up."

Has the Duke offense turned a corner?

ACC expansion, fantastic?

The Clarion Content has long been a vocal opponent of ACC expansion. We do not believe in diluting one's core brand, in this case outstanding basketball, for the vain hope of improvement in something that has never been a core competency, football. The ACC has been a classic case for our point of view. The new schools (Va Tech excepted) have not made the ACC any better at football. In fact, the ACC has dragged Florida State and Miami, once perennial college football powers, down to its level of mediocrity.

Now the second stage is kicking in, loss of focus has gradually damaged ACC basketball. The last two years of ACC basketball, save at the very top of the conference, have been some of the weakest ACC basketball in its history. More than once, a .500 record in league play has not been good enough to qualify an ACC team for the Big Dance. In the league's heyday, as the nation's premier basketball conference, that never would have happened. This year, the ACC is even worse.

For the first time since the poll's inception, the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll this week has not only just one ranked ACC team, #1 Duke, but beyond that, not a single other ACC team so much as received votes. None. That had never happened before; Duke stands alone. How the mighty have fallen!

Smoking gun

The internet digs some stuff up, and there is no surer check on power than freedom of information. In this case, something we had not seen before surfaced on the internet (via Twitter) and made us feel compelled to admit we may have gotten it wrong.

The Clarion Content has long defended Latrell Spreewell when it came to the choking of Coach P.J. Carlesimo. There were three primary reasons for this, one legitimate, the other two emotional. First the reasonable one; one of our editors spent significant time in Newark while and shortly after P.J. was coaching at Seton Hall. His reputation as a dick was widespread in the community, especially in the local service industry. He was said to be impolite and a poor tipper. Word was he screamed and cursed at his players; and if he was a jerk to the servers, well it was believable.

The second reason is that same editor attended Indiana University during the Bobby Knight era. Our editor has always believed and continues to believe that the Neil Reed, "Coach Knight Choked Me" incident was a bunch of bullshit. All the video evidence suggests Knight hardly touched the kid, who both later transferred and picked the most self-serving moment to make his much delayed complaint.

Third, that same editor was and is a Knicks fan, who delighted in Spreewell's play on the court.

Reason number three is ridiculous. Reason number two is irrelevant.

What surfaced on the internet to change our mind about the incident in general was a photograph of Carlesimo's neck after the incident. Knight barely touched crybaby Neil Reed, but this photo of Carlesimo's neck tells a much different story, about a much different level of violence, a level of violence that is unsupportable in response to verbal abuse.

If the photo is not a fake, there is no justification for the level of violence Spreewell obviously used. We always thought it was nowhere near this malevolent.

John Wall & LeBron have something in common

What do these two guys have in common? ........Zero titles.

Our advice? Don't believe the hype!

Here are the two best from Bill Simmons's huge batch of LeBron related emails:

"My friend Max's reaction to the LeBron special and signing: "This country was founded upon the practice of defying egotistical kings."

"You know how happy Carrie looked at the prom? And when the pig's blood was dumped on her you couldn't help but empathize? And when she went on her rampage you were actually kinda rooting for her? That's how I feel about the city of Cleveland right now."

As for the draft, John Wall can't defend, isn't that big, does not have a great outside shot, can't play the pick and roll game yet, and has been troubled throughout his short career, but he is the next big thing? We think not. The mentalist, DeMarcus Cousins, has an equally good chance to star as the uber-quick, but nothing else, John Wall.

Then again, there is nothing like getting your NBA tutelage from real pros like Gilbert Arenas, so maybe it will go well for Wall.

Kentucky shows its true colors

Coach Cal heads out on the recruiting trail

They are what we thought they were, as a famous football coach once intoned about an opponent. And the same is true of Kentucky basketball, they are what we thought they were. They are mercenaries to the core, Calipari and his crew of very likely already highly paid players. The University of Kentucky, a program with a long history of cheating and morally repugnant behavior once again showed its true colors yesterday.

Five Kentucky undergrads declared for the NBA draft, including four freshman. Articles covering the story never once mention the word degree. As if there was no expectation (correct) that any of these players were ever enrolled at the university with the intention of earning a degree. These were highly paid university employees unpaid serfs who brought the athletic department (but likely not the library) tons of money. Worse, not only is the institution degraded, which is hard to do in a place as unseemly as Kentucky, but the kids themselves were not well-served.

John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins will likely be high NBA draft picks. Patrick Patterson will probably be a tail end of the first round kid. But freshman guard Eric Bledsoe and freshman center Daniel Orton, pu-leeze? Bledsoe averaged 11.3 points a game, when defenses keyed so much on his back court mate that they barely guarded him. Orton hit for a token 3.4 points and 3.3 rebounds in the SEC!?! Coach Cal advised these kids to turn pro? Why? Does he have better one and dones coming and so that he is ready to send them on to the NBDL? Surely, it is not because they have done all the developing they can do. But at Kentucky the attitude is, who cares? Academics is a farce, the kids get used, the boosters get great seats and have a good time. All is well.

They are who we thought they were. Sleep tight Coach Cal, you're a real good guy.

Going to the playoffs, get a Tar Heel!

The NBA contenders and playoff bound teams have been stockpiling University of North Carolina Tar Heels.


Among the fistful of Tar Heels acquired by playoff contenders, Antawn Jamison stands tall.

It started with the Boston Celtics off-season signing of Rasheed Wallace and the Orlando Magic's marquee addition of Vince Carter. It peaked with the deadline deal made by the Eastern Conference leading Cleveland Cavaliers for Antawn Jamison. In between, Jerry Stackhouse joined the Milwaukee Bucks, who are surging through the East, 15 and 2 in their last seventeen. Late blooming center Brendan Haywood was traded the Dallas Mavericks, who have climbed the Western Conference standings from middle of the pack, to neck and neck with the Denver Nuggets for the two seed. One other Tarheel who was not moved this year, but figures to make a big impact for a contender, is Atlanta's Marvin Williams. Williams has been steadily filling out physically and rounding out his game. The Hawks mix of veterans and youth make them a dangerous match-up for anybody.

But which Tarheel does the Clarion Content expect to have the biggest impact came playoff time? Can we count Vince Carter's impending mega-flop? No? Guess we will go with Antwan Jamison then, who appears to fit nicely along side LeBron in Cleveland.

How's your bracket?

If your bracket looks like that of the Clarion Content's sports editor than you are probably already finished in your office pool. Well, a local Durham reader and Duke fan alerted us to a story about a boy who is doing just the opposite. A seventeen year-old student at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview, Illinois hit both of the first two rounds of his NCAA Tournament bracket 100% correct. His name is Alex Herrmann. Young Mr. Herrmann is autistic. His bracket is on CBS Sportsline. Experts estimate the odds of picking the first two rounds of the NCAA bracket perfectly at over 13 million to one. ESPN's website is currently hosting 4.78 million 2010 NCAA tournament bracket entries none of which got 100% correct.

Nice work, kid.

Duke worries

The redoubtable Jon Scheyer

The Clarion Content is an unabashed supporter of Duke basketball and Coach Mike Krzyzewski. We root for Duke. At the beginning of the season the Clarion Content thought, like many other Duke supporters and members of the sports media, that Duke was a good team, but by no means one of the very best Duke teams in Coach K's illustrious history.

The Blue Devils proceeded to have a remarkable season, going 28-5 and sharing the ACC regular season title. The Blue Devils look like a lock for at least a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament, and possibly even a #1 if they can win the ACC tournament final today. Does this mean that they are better than we and the so-called experts thought at the beginning of the season?

For the Clarion Content, the answer is no. This has been one of Coach K's very best coaching jobs. He has gotten the maximum out of this squad. Nolan Smith has developed wonderfully. Kyle Singler has adjusted to his new role. Brian Zoubek has grown by leaps and bounds. But in our view, the heart and soul of the team has been guard Jon Scheyer. Scheyer has been a stalwart all season, he carried the team through the early stretches of the schedule while Singler was adapting to his new position. Scheyer leads the Duke team in both minutes and scoring.

We wonder, however, as the NCAA tournament is about to begin, is Jon Scheyer wearing down? Our answer is an unqualified yes, and that response is at the core of our thinking that says this team is what we thought it was. We would be very surprised to see Duke get past the Elite 8. We would not be shocked by a loss in the Sweet Sixteen.

Scheyer, who has been playing 36 minutes plus per game since the beginning of the season, has continued to get those minutes and more over the final ten games of the year. Unfortunately, his scoring has dropped a bit, and worse his shooting percentage has fallen dramatically. This is frequently a sign of fatigue, wear and tear, tired legs, especially in a terrific, high percentage shooter like Scheyer.

Going into today's ACC final against Georgia Tech, Scheyer had averaged about a point per game below his season average over the last ten. But that was misleadingly augmented by an outstanding performance in the first UNC game. Scheyer has actually failed to reach his season average of points per game in five out of the last eight contests. Worse, only twice in the last ten games has Scheyer matched his season long average for field goal percentage. Scheyer's field goal percentage over the last ten games is a troubling 34.6%. In four of his last eight games, Scheyer hasn't hit even 30% of his field goals.

It is an ominous sign for Duke that their best player, their glue guy, is worn out. It is one of the main reasons why the Clarion Content thinks Duke will be long by the time they are playing the Final Four.

NCAA Tournament expanison

Although the Clarion Content is tepidly in favor of expanding the NCAA basketball tournament, the best quote we have heard about whether or not to expand was actually from a voice opposed to expansion.

"Isn't this whole thing a window into society? We've diminished so many other things. We've diminished test scores. We've diminished admission policies. We diminish so much for reasons that are not accentuating excellence and performance."---Davidson Head Coach, Bob McKillop

Wonderful insight, coach. Yes, this thing is a window into society. It is another reason the Clarion Content has been toying with a theory we like to call, "Is America the new Soviets?" An equally fascinating trend, that is occurring at the same time as the one Coach McKillop pointed out, this faux-inflation that is really devaluing, is the belittling of second place: win or be considered a failure. Neither of these trends is healthy for American society. Sports is but the place where they are most evident. It is symbolic of a cultural erosion that is weakening American society.

Hate to see it

Antoine Walker, stylin'

We hate to see it, but we can't say that we are entirely shocked to read that a former 1st round draft pick from Kentucky, Antoine Walker, is in a bit of trouble. Walker, thirty-two, played for among other teams the Boston Celtics, the Miami Heat and most recently the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2008. He is currently facing court on three felony counts in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The charges in question stem from Walker writing bad checks for gambling debts. He allegedly wrote bad checks totaling $822,500 to three casinos, Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood and Red Rock Resort. Walker's NBA salary peaked at $12,375,000 pre-taxes in the 2002-03 season. As it stands now, Walker is also facing an additional $82,000 fine from the District Attorney's office stemming from the bad checks charges.

Ugh.

Cheater's appeal denied

The NCAA denied the final appeal of former Indiana University and Oklahoma University basketball coach, Kelvin Scam-scum, err, Sampson. The sleazy ex-college coach was hit with five years of personal penalties for repeating at Indiana recruiting violations he had been previously punished for at Oklahoma. Sampson also lied to investigators about his misdeeds according the NCAA. Sampson is banned from coaching in the college ranks until at least 2013. Unfortunately, Sampson has slithered off to the NBA working on the coaching staff of the lowly Milwaukee Bucks.

Read more here.

A steal

The New York Knicks got a steal at the bottom of the first round of the NBA draft. Toney Douglas from Florida State, the Clarion Content loves him! We watched him four times a year against Duke and the University of North Carolina teams. He is a tough as nails defender, ACC Defensive Player of the Year his senior season. He is an effort player. He is a consistent scorer, and was the leading man, the primary guy other teams focused on when playing Florida State and he still got his twenty a night.

He knows his own game. He says the NBA'er he modeled his game after is former Detroit Pistons six time All-Star guard, Joe Dumars (currently the Pistons head honcho of player personnel). Douglas sees his game as like Dumars because Dumars was also a terrific defender. Like Douglas, he was a guard who could play the one or the two. He could shoot, he could find other ways to score and always got his points. He could submit to the team concept and make those around him play better. He was a quiet presence on a team with a lot of alpha dogs. Toney Douglas is aiming high.

We are quite happy the Knicks got him. We hope he isn't about to be shipped off to Minnesota in some ridiculous Ricky Rubio package.

Once a ho...

Always a ho.


Where's my pimp, errr, agent?

And therein lies the reason institutions get what they deserve when they hire the likes of Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Larry Brown or Rich Rodriguez. The case in point this week is Rick Pitino. Pitino, who despite a run of success at Louisville University that includes a 200-72 record and lots of success in the NCAA tournament, is floating trial balloons about returning to the NBA (where he failed with the Knicks and the Celtics.)

Yahoo Sports has reported that there is interest on behalf of the Sacramento Kings who recently dismissed coach Reggie Theus. They are owned by the deep-pocketed, Vegas connected, Maloof brothers. Pitino is reportedly a big fan of Vegas and is dying to get away from the fishbowl of Louisville where his extra-marital affairs have become the centerpiece of local gossip.

Changed the equation

For the last month the Clarion Content's sports editor had been telling Duke fans in Durham, NC that Gerald Henderson the younger was going pro at the end of this season. The draft experts had all been listing him as a top ten prospect. Duke fans had been insisting that it was different for him, despite how well he was playing he wasn't leaving. His dad was a pro baller, he wasn't broke, he was staying. The Clarion Content was insistent, he was too good, he was going.

The equation changed tonight in the Sweet Sixteen. The Clarion Content thought Gerald Henderson would showcase as a NBA draft lottery prospect in the NCAA tournament. 33% from the field against Binghamton, 33% from the field against Texas, then on national television this evening, he had an awful, ugly outing, 1 for 14 from the field against Villanova. Is Gerald Henderson going pro this year, the Clarion Content is no longer so sure.

If he comes back to Duke, he is going to hugely motivated, that could help his game and his draft status.

NCAA Predictions

The Clarion Content's senior sports editor likes to pick two NCAA brackets, one immediately after the pairings are released, the other late Wednesday night just before the tourney starts the next day. This year the one team he has to the Final Four in both is the University of Washington Huskies. They are led by a trifecta of high quality players, including Jon Brockman at power forward, and two good guards, including the unfortunately named, Isaiah Thomas. The Clarion Content's sports editor likes the Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar who has had UW in the Sweet Sixteen twice in recent memory. The PAC-10 was underrated this year. They can't win it all can they?

The Huskies are in the West region. The Clarion Content sports editor's is torn in two other regions the South and the East. In the South much depends on the health of the big toe of the University of North Carolina's point guard, Ty Lawson. Even if he is healthy, UNC is in the toughest region with strong competitors in Syracuse and Oklahoma, both of whom are led by future NBA lottery picks. The 'Cuse has super strong and speedy guard, Johnny Flynn. Oklahoma has the likely number one overall pick in dominating big man Blake Griffin, think Kenyon Martin with better moves. In both brackets, he picked UNC to at least the Elite Eight.

A similar problem arises in the East were the Clarion Content sports editor loves the Duke trio of Gerald Henderson, Kyle Singler and John Scheyer. Like UNC, our editor has them ticketed for the Elite Eight in both brackets. In the top half of Duke's bracket is one of the best teams in the country the Pitt Panthers. Pitt has a terrific big guy in DeJuan Blair who led the rugged Big East in rebounding at 12.2 per game. They also have a tough and tested point guard in Levance Fields. However, this would be their first deep run into the tournament. Even though the Clarion Content likes Pitt Coach Jamie Dixon tons, our editor cautions betting against Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. In one bracket he has Pitt to the Final Four, and in the other he has Duke.

The final region is the Midwest and our editor is befuddled. He is not in love with Louisville or Michigan State, though with their talent and veteran coaches either one of these two squads could represent the region. Wake Forest likewise has tons of talent, but has been very inconsistent this year. The Deacs also have a newbie coach. The Kansas Jayhawks, the three seed in this region, have no starters back from last year's national champions. Their head coach Bill Self had led Kansas to two first round losses before an Elite Eight run and the title. Could a team lower than a four seed come out of this bracket? If so, our editor says put your money on Boston College.

To sum up, the National Championship will be won by Pitt, UNC, Washington or perhaps Oklahoma. The long shot first round upset possibilities include American University from the Patriot League, Cleveland State who beat Syracuse in the Carrier Dome this year with a last second half court shot and Arizona a talented PAC-10 at-large squad.