Just for fun, which of these two could you do WITHOUT?

Both! But if I had to pick one I think I'd be kicking Dickie V out the door. I can take someone not knowing the rules, but someone not knowing the rules and who is annoying is just too much. ;)

But, you just described both of them!

Well...true, but Dickie takes the cake in my opinion.

Get rid of Dickie V. He would still have his Duke check to fall back on. They are paying him aren't they? :D

Shucks...I thought this was about a cage match to the death between the two of them.

I'll keep Packer...I just detest Vitale.

I'd toss Packer, I could have sworn I've heard Dickie V talk semi-intelligent about rules before. If it happened once, it can happen again. YEAA BABY

Can you name any analyst that knows the rules? If that was the criteria then there would be no TV commentators.

Peace

Jimmy Dykes

Jimmy Dykes is more analytical but he still says things that are off the wall from time to time. He just does not spend all his time ripping people. He still uses the terms "over the back" and "moving screen." I will admit that he does talk about verticality and gives the officials credit for calling the game.

Peace

We have state final officials in a state that borders yours, that I've heard use those terms when reporting fouls to the table. Does that mean they don't know the rules either?

Jay Bilas

If you are using the term "over the back" in my opinion you do not know that particular rule very well.

Just because someone works the State Finals does not make them a quality official. I know a few D1 officials that have never worked a HS varsity game. Are they any less of an official because of their lack of HS experience? ;)

Peace

Well, maybe. I cringe when I hear officials say these things. I really do wonder if they know the rules.

Or, you might know the rule very well, and while giving the push signal at the table, say, over the back, instead of push, or push in the back.

I personally do not say anything at the table. I let my signals do the talking.

One term is not going to prove or disprove that you know the rules. I just think if you are using terms that are not "rulebook language" you set yourself up for more criticism and you are giving ammo to anyone to take you down a notch.

Peace

Why would any official say "over the back" when giving a push signal? Why would an official want to use "fan speak?" Dumb.

Z

I say start a fire to burn Packer at the stake using Vitale as kindling.

As for actually knowing the rules and explaining them, Jay Bilas wins hands down.

Is there a reason for this? Even in a loud gym, a scorekeeper will read your lips while looking at your signals. I don't agree with an official not saying anything. I think voice is an important component of our communication.

Tom, at the HS and college level, we're told NOT to vocalize at the table. Just give the signal. If you want to vocalize "BLOCK" or "handcheck" when you blow the whistle, that's fine. But all that's required at the table is a signal.

By "we" are you talking about people in Mass? I have NEVER heard that, including the camp we both attended last summer. The only thing that comes to mind is "huh?" because this one is totally new to me. I would have thought someone at Mickey's camp would have said something to me about it if that is the preference. In all my other camps on the east and west coast, it has always been the preference to verbalize at the table.

Upon further review, I say no this isn't correct. Surely, someone I've worked with and in front of would have said, "Tom, don't verbalize at the table." In all the thousands of dicussions I've had with other officials, nobody has ever said an assigner, clinician or supervisor told them to NOT verbalize at the table. It simply would have come up sometime over the years. I'm not saying I don't listen to what a high school assigner would tell me to do but...:D As far as college assignors and evaluators, this is clearly a regional/local preference which does not carry over to larger conferences and camps. That, I'm sure of.

[Edited by tomegun on Mar 8th, 2006 at 02:30 PM]

Tom, I agree with you, my first reaction to his post was "We?"

Maybe Chuck is confused because so many people just tell him to shut up?

I was taught exactly the opposite. I was not vocalizing the type of foul at the table and was told to do so (at a camp run and evaluated by D1 officials).

I do not use the voice to signal the foul call. I was told a long time ago that you really did not need to use your voice to call out the kind of foul. One of the reasons is if you say “push” or “hold” the coach might say something about it or argue openly. Not saying the signals do not allow the coach to say anything about what came out of your mouth. I have since not found a good reason to verbalize the foul. My signals can do all the talking for me. I only use my voice to call out the number on foul signaling at the table.

Peace

Hey guys! Can we get back to the Packer vs. Vitale thing? :)

Actually this is what happens during the off season. We start one of these irrelevant conversations and then go off on several directions that have nothing to do with the original topic. Welcome to your first off-season here. :D

Here is more evidence we are all crazy at this time of the year.

More evidence we are crazy :D

Peace

[Edited by JRutledge on Mar 8th, 2006 at 03:58 PM]

Why does the scorekeeper care if it was a push, hold, block, etc? All they really need is the color and number...unless it is a T so they can mark the correct box. Most of the time, the people I am reporting to look down once they hear color and number.

OK, I continue on with what type of foul it is, but I thought you meant you went over to the table and didn't say anything. The only difference between what you do and what I do is I will say "push" at the end and you will just give the signal. I will still continue to verbalize what I have because that is just the way I do it. Now that I understand what you're saying I can see what you mean.

Good points, but there are some good scorekeepers who will wait for you to finish and some scorekeepers that need the clarity of lips moving. I just prefer verbal as well as using the signals.

tomegun;
no body has told you about the not verbalizing rule because they were told not verbalize these things - it could hurt someones feelings.


Now if we could just get Dickie V not to verbalize life could be so much better!

I like the idea about the burning at the stake.

How about limited thermo-nuclear strikes -
It takes care of the problem - those that are whining about it and you don't have to worry about it for about 35 or 40 years!

I don't mind Dickie V and/or Packer announcing nonsense. They are dynamic (to some) and that sells. We are in a society where you don't necessarily have to know what you are talking about, you just have to get a large group to like your presentation. How many of us know everything about everything? Don't answer that! The fact that we don't know doesn't always keep us (everyone) from talking about things.

Now, what I don't like is Dickie V's blatant love for Duke. That is flat out wrong. I know it is my opinion that he feels this way, but I can't see how someone could say otherwise. The part about it I love is, although they get either the most or second most talent in (you know who the other school is), they don't win as much as they should.

NFHS Officials Manual p. 70
341.
b. Slowly STATE the color of the shirt and the playing number of the player fouled.
c. The VISUAL signal indicating the nature of the foul is then given.

There's no need to verbalize the type of foul. The scorer couldn't care less what type of foul it is.

If you ever heard Vitale speak, you would change your mind about him. He's a tremendous motivational speaker. I've never heard anyone else with so much energy and enthusiasm for life. He talked for better than an hour but it seemed like 15 minutes. If you ever have the opportunity to hear him, I would urge you to go.

As for Packer...

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f5...e23/packer.jpg

I totally understand your point. However, I would like to ask one question: is everything you do on the court done according to the printed rule/manual? I say that to say this:

1. Once I understood where Chuck and Rut were coming from I agreed; I have no problem with it.
2. We are talking about "push", "hand-check", "hold", etc. and you quoted a page in the manual.

While we use the rule book and manual as a guide, we do not - should not - follow it to the letter. Just my opinion and this is meant with respect and not intended to start anything.

I wrote the post after reading your response in the middle of the second page, before knowing that you were confused.

It makes no difference to me whether you verbalize or not.

I was simply pointing out that the NFHS recommends no verbalization.

The purpose of that recommendation is to keep from giving coaches something to argue about. For example, B1 trips A1. Do you have a signal and verbalization for tripping? Sure you do. "Blue, 42, block." "How did he block him!?!"

I've never verbalized. I've had no problems with it.

You verbalize. You have no problems. Great.

I'm a scorekeeper
 

For me, the only thing a may want to hear is "Player Control" as opposed to a Push (although the rule changed this year regarding players with/without the ball). This way I can tell you if we are shooting or not, and if so how many.

You don't even need to tell me what number, the hands are good enough, along with the movement of the lips (Just so I can read them in addition to your hands). Hearing it does nothing for me.

Just this scorer's opinion. I'm the guy who also never does the play by play of what's needed to be recorded in the book, and when people do that, it really irks me (how many times I've said to myself - I KNOW WHO JUST SCORED THAT BASKET WHY DOES THE OTHER SCORER FEEL THE NEED TO GIVE ME AN UPDATE) Obviously conversing is good when there is/could be some confusion on tap ins or in a crowd of people.

NFHS doesn't know the coaches I know. How many times after giving a signal for a foul, without a word, have we been asked: "What?? What did he do??"

Never. They know.

Can't do without Dickie V!!

MTD, Sr.

Thanks, Tony. I wasn't able to get back last night to give the manual reference. That's why I said we are told not to verbalize.

Irv Brown (ESPN Analyst) worked the FF, IIRC. I do know that he was one of the big time D1 guys in the 60's and 70's.

I would have to look at the actuarial tables before making my decision on Packer or Vitale. If one was gone, how long would we likely have to put up with the other one?

Packer is boring. Neither one knows rules but once in a while Dickie V is entertaining.

Diaper Dandies Dump Dook at Kremlin Indoor Stadium!

Packer hates the Tarheels and never has anything good to say about them. Vitale loves the "Dookies" so much, you would think he was Coach K's uncle. But, at least he thinks Roy Williams should be the Coach of the Year. So, I say, get rid of Packer and put Vitale on "Dook's" bench.

I think one of the reasons he has enthusiasm for life is that he doesn't have to watch telecasts of games where he is the analyst.

I do want analysts who know the rules but I don't want them to stick ONLY to rulebook language - I want them to be more descriptive of the action than just "push."

What I really want is for announcers to stop saying "literally" when they really mean the exact opposite - "figuratively." No, he did not literally leap out of the gym but that would have been more entertaining despite the delay required for paramedics and roof repairs.

Whoops! When I saw the title of the thread I was going to buy tickets to the boxing match.

Oh, how quickly we forget. Do you not remember the ad nauseum references, by Dick Vitale, to one "Michelangelo," aka Dean E. Smith, from 1982-1997? Please.

Vitale's a front-runner. His perceived obsession has little, directly, to do with Duke, and almost everything to do with the fact that Duke's is a program that has been consistently great for a long time while remaining relatively clean. If your favorite school can reasonably lay claim to these attributes, he'll be your biggest booster, too.

Score more points.

Neither do you. If you don't like him, turn the ****ing TV off.

I tried this but I found that it's much more difficult to watch college basketball games with the TV off.

Seems like my comment about Vitale rubbed you the wrong way - which is kind of puzzling in a thread where people have proposed burning him at the stake.

I don't doubt he is a great motivational speaker and he does seem to be enjoying the hell out of life. My wife is like this . . . boundless energy, optimism and makes people around her smile. I love my wife more than life itself but if she were signed to do NCAA games, I would start the petition myself to get her off.

They're making derogatory comments about him. You saw the need to include my reply when you made your derogatory comment. I didn't see the need for it. And since I haven't cared much for your posts since you got here, it seemed like an opportune time to shoot back. :)

Your response is less puzzling now. More disturbing, but less puzzling. :)

In fairness I quoted 3 lines from your original post instead of a little snip because I wanted my snarky comment to contrast the man with his work. He does seem like a nice guy I just find his work like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Like you, I'm sure, I'm not here to be loved or hated and, as a coach, I sure haven't found the Welcome mat. But I like being here, I love the game and like getting a different perspective than I get from just talking with other coaches. I hope eventually all the personal stuff goes away and it can be regular agreements, disagreements and snarky comments that happen thread to thread and don't get stored up over time.

Ah, you're disturbed. I thought as much. :)

You haven't found the Welcome mat because of the tone of your initial posts. I think we have a pretty good bunch here but you'll find two things to be true about us: 1, we're passionate about what we do, and 2, respect has to be earned. There are coaches who post here that are respected but they didn't dig themselves a hole in their very first thread.

Go Heels!

[Edited by BktBallRef on Mar 10th, 2006 at 11:53 PM]

I thought it was going to be an episode of MTV's "Celebrity Death Match". Every once in a while, that was a pretty funny show.

And Vitale admits this freely. If you mention the fact that he's a "Duke lover", he says, "What's not to love? Great players, great coach, they win games, and they run a clean program."

I heard somebody call him Dukie V last week. :)

This is something I always get blasted for; the great coach comment makes me cringe. Great recruiter, yes. Great coach, it depends on how many other coaches would be considered great coaches. To me, it doesn't take a great coach to win with great talent. Plus, great coaches win (it all) with great talent. I just have not seen anything from Duke that could make him any more great than Calhoun, Tubby Smith or Nolan Richardson. I mean, they both won it all when they had the talent.

So, it doesn't take a great coach to win with great talent. Okay. Here's a little fact-finding mission for you: Check out how often the most talented team wins the NCAA tournament. Almost never happens. Why? Because it's just damn hard, and statistically incredibly unlikely, to win six games in a row, five of which are going to be against decent-to-outstanding teams. No matter how good your coach is, the odds are stacked heavily against you.

Is Calhoun as good as Dean because each won two national championships? Does Dean's extended era of excellence not outweigh Calhoun's spotty greatness at UConn? There's a reason you get blasted when you make this argument. It's because your argument is garbage.

So, to recap, it doesn't matter that you haven't been consistently great. It doesn't matter that you can only make it to the promised land when you have all the horses. The only thing that matters is that when you've had them, you've won. Got it.

Mike Krzyzewski: 31 seasons, 10 Final Fours. 3 titles
Jim Calhoun: 34 seasons, 2 Final Fours. 2 titles

Beyond absurd.

If there was a Whiners Hall of Fame, Coach K and Jimmie Boeheim would be charter members.

Whine, whine, whine......

Whine.

If you want to talk purely about basketball coaching ability, I'm sorry but I have never looked too long at the top programs for my ideas. Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith and Jim Calhoun all run (or have run) top programs but I'm not going to spend a lot of time watching their tapes for x's and o's.

Most coaches don't have the luxury of dominant athletes so I want role models who can lurk around year after year with 1 gym rat, one walk-one, 2 football players and one folding chair. Guys like Pete Caril, Bud Pressley, David Arsenault and Dick Bennett.

Wow. Dean Smith didn't impress you with tactics and strategy. Just...wow.

Seriously. That may be more ridiculous than putting Calhoun on the same plane as Dean and K.

A lot of Calhoun's time was spent at Northeastern, which actually won some upset games in the tournament. Put Coach K at Northeastern for a few years and see what happens.

Ah, Calhoun's been at UConn since 1986. He's been to all of two Final Fours.

By the time K had been at Duke that long, he'd been to nine.

K spent five years at Army, and was apparently impressive enough to Tom Butters to give him an opportunity at Duke.

Sure, Calhoun was very successful at Northeastern, but are you telling me that he was turning down jobs at major programs in order to stay at Northeastern? Please.

If you don't think K could have gone somewhere and built a program, you're out of your mind. Hell, once the seniors he inherited at Duke graduated after his first year, Duke was in absolutely horrible shape. Considering the league he was in, he did his own major construction job. The results of that project: since 1985, exactly one senior class has left Duke without having been to a Final Four, and that group lost by two in a regional final.

Packer should never be allowed to get near a Big Ten game---all we heard today was how tired Michigan State had to be, when in fact Iowa just simply defended the crap out of them. 1 for 13 after their halftime blow! Packer should have prepared better---twice he felt he had to let fans know of how fast Trannon,the football star, was---how Haluska couldn't stay with him. Haluska won 11 track titles in high school---the 100,200, 400, and long jump his senior year. He is probably the best pure athlete in the conference---so much for Packer's insight.

Packer has insight?

Anyone read Dickie V's book? It really was a good one.

Not to mention Tark the Shark. NCAA D1 record of 778-202. He just...errr...stretched the rules a bit. Anybody can win with JJ Redick. But Lloyd Daniels? The man's a genius! His only problem is he looks like Uncle Festus.

The NCAA does NOT like Uncle Festus.

http://www.nndb.com/people/448/000032352/tarkanian.jpg

btw...Al "Grampa" Lewis recently passed...may his communist @ss rest in peace, God love him.

http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionC...57/Lewis41.jpg

Dean definitely had his day as an innovator but much of what he did still required superior athletes. I think the 4-corners is a great example. Try running some clock using anything resembling the 4-corners when your athletes are not equal to superior. I have used and sometimes adapted his Point Zone ideas with a fair amount of success.

I have seen a lot of mediocre teams adapt NC strategies and they are . . . well, mediocre teams. No knock against Dean as his teams never had mediocre athletes.

I attended one of his coaching clinics when I was a pup and it was about the biggest waste of school money I could imagine. Alternatively, around the same time, I spent about 30 minutes casually talking with a disciple of Dick Bennett and it has provided me with a career's-worth of perspective.

I'll let others debate K v. Calhoun v. Boeheim, etc. because my public school teams will really never resemble their teams in terms of relative athletic dominance and I won't borrow much from them in terms of x's and o's. I will admit that Dean is in another class but he has never been much of a mentor for me either. I'm not satisfied with mediocrity even when my athletes are mediocre so I'm generally not content to copy coaches who have strategized for top athletes.

It's hard to separate recruiting and all of the other elements of college coaching but I still use teams like Wisconsin-Green Bay and Princeton as a measuring stick - could K, Calhoun, Boeheim or Dean (with the possible exception of a small window when he may have had a trick or two up his sleeve) have coached them to the big dance? I have never seen evidence convincing me that they could have. But then they've never really had to do that either.

LOL!
 

Do you mean Uncle FESTER...

http://www.addamsfamily.com/addams04/thumbs/smg097b.jpg

...or Uncle FESTUS? :D

http://www.tvland.com/shows/gunsmoke...ws/actpic4.jpg

Fester, Festus, whatever.


(I got the Al Lewis part right, didn't I??)

Re: LOL!
 

Damn, Mr. Annoying Spelling Guy's capable intern beat me to it! Good job, TH!

:D

Re: Re: LOL!
 

Screw you too, Tonto.

:p:

Re: Re: Re: LOL!
 

I wouldn't mess with this horse, if I were you.

http://www.endeavorcomics.com/largent/newmain2.GIF

LOL!!! NO!!!

Grampa (Al Lewis) was on "The Munsters!"

Uncle Fester was on "The Addams Family!"

You ****ed up all the way around!! :D

No no, I know where Al Lewis made his money.

That communist b@stard, God love him.

btw... Festus recently bought the farm too ya know.

Re: Re: Re: Re: LOL!
 

Oh yeah, didn't they star in that Brokeback Mountain movie?

:eek:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: LOL!
 

Yabut, as you can see in this picture, in the old days they only showed the action from the waist up...

(It's Sat. night and I'm at home discussing Brokeback Mtn. with another guy on the internet...sigh...I really need to get a life.)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: LOL!
 

LOL!

At least you're doing it in public!

Hopefully your lawyer can use that in your defense.

(still laughing, very good!)

Where did I ever say that Coach K couldn't build a program? No place. But you are so draped in Dukedom that you cannot recognize the accomplshments of a guy who took a program that nobody ever heard of before he got there to where they are today. Gminski's team was around long before Connecticut was on the map--UConn was in the old Yankee Conference around that point in time. And even after Connecticut decided to move their program to the next level, they were pretty much doormats in the Big East. You are just like any other Dukie--Anyone who challenges anything you say will set you off on a tirade. I know he was at Army--he was at the basketball camp I attended that Bobby Knight ran the summer between his run at Army and his move to Indiana.

And you will prove my point by going off on another tirade, which makes you the leader in this thread.

Jbduke, I forgot I even opened this can of worms. :D

I have argued this over and over with guys I know and their argument is way better than yours. How do you feel sorry for someone who cries all the time and has back surgery when his team is obviously going nowhere? Low blow, I apologize, but you get my point. I will open up a little more and tell you my side of the argument. Keep in mind, I'm from Indiana. Name 10 players of Bobby Knight's. The real fan will have no problem with that but I can tell you it will not start with Jordan, Worthy, Perkins, Dougherty, Wallace, Stackhouse, Fox, Carter, Smith...If you know what I mean. All that and two championships. The last time I checked, they played for the trophy at the end; ask Dean if he would trade 5 20-win seasons for one more championship and see what he says.

The colleges with the most talent of all time are UNC, Duke, UCLA and Kentucky. Compare that to championships won and tell me what you have. Roy Williams is running a close third in this argument to me because of the team he finally had to win it all. And you say talent doesn't win championships? Duke's three teams had major talent. UNC's three championships had major talent. Indiana's three championships had a couple of major players, a few coaches and some nice guys. In some ways Knight has put Texas Tech on the basketball map. Coach K's back would get hurt somewhere along the line if he tried that. Another low blow, I'm sorry. Why aren't Jim Harrick, Nolan Richardson, Tubby Smith and Calhoun in the same league with Smith and coach K? They won it all when they had talent. They didn't win it all when they didn't have talent. Year in and year out Duke and UNC stacks the talent up and make it to the final four. What about winning it all? UNC will probably be a #2 seed during a "down" year; they have the best freshman in the country and they are getting 3 more freshmen next year (at least two of them will start).

T,

I actually spent thirty minutes yesterday composing a response, looked up, realized that I was maybe 10% of the way there, and decided it wasn't worth it, so I ripped off a couple minutes worth and quit.

My argument was not and never has been that talent doesn't win championships. Part of my argument is that it is terribly myopic to nearly totally discount a coach because he's had outstanding talent.

An interesting question that ties together your post and that of "bebanovic" or whatever, is that you both create false dichotomies between coaches of teams with mediocre talent who play a certain way (the Pete Carrils and Dick Bennetts of the world), and those who play a system utilizing more talented players.

All coaches coach what they know, or based on the knowledge they are developing. If Dick Bennett came to Duke and coached his system with K's players, what do you think would happen? I'll tell you what would happen: they'd win a lot fewer games than they currently do. Why? Because his system would create far fewer possessions per game, which mitigates against the superior talent that he'd have. Coaches like Bennett and Carril are wonderful coaches, but the fact that they do more with less doesn't make them superior, it makes them realists. You're absolutely crazy if you think that Carrill would have become the Carrill we know if he'd spent ten years on Dean Smith's bench and gotten an opportunity at a big-time program like Kansas. My sense is that he would have been extremely successful, but he wouldn't have used the system that he has if he'd had better players.

You pulled a bait-and-switch on me in bringing Knight into the discussion after starting with Calhoun, but it's an instructive example. My knock on Calhoun is that he hasn't been consistently excellent.

My knock on Knight is that he didn't prove to be adaptive at all. He won three titles in 12 seasons, then made only one Final Four in his last what, 13 seasons?

You took a junior-high-school-ignorant, petty swipe at K with the back-injury line. If you'll take a look at the record, Duke was in the top 10 in the country when he went down. Further, without him on the bench and starting three freshmen in a conference where UVA, UMd, UNC, and WF all finished 12-4 in the conference, they lost to all of those teams at home by one or two points, and two of those in overtime. You don't think K's presence on a bench is worth even three points a game? Ignorant ACC fans and other Duke-haters have been taking this potshot for years, but the claim doesn't become any more reasonable with time. You're an a** for even using that line.

You also ignore the total rebuilding job that K did, of his own program, after he came back from his back surgery. After not making the tournament in 1995, Duke struggled through injuries and talent deficiencies in 1996 to get an 8 seed, then managed to win the ACC regular season title in 1997 in a year in which Tim Duncan was a senior with a very good supporting cast. Since 1998, Duke has been a #1 seed 8 times and a 3 seed once. You trivialize what it took from K to get the program back on top, I don't. Okay.

What about 1991, though? Do you remember who Duke beat in the semi-finals? Yes, it was a talented Duke team, but they beat the most talented team in the history of college basketball; no sentient being would reasonably claim that Duke had superior talent that day.

The most important shortcoming in your argument is that you either totally misunderstand, or completely ignore (I suspect it's the latter), the randomness of sport. Does the fact that Dean Smith (who you would presumably concede is at least a "good" coach), only won two national championships with the talent that he had over the years not tell you something about how lucky you have to be, in addition to be really, really good? It had nothing to do with Smith's coaching that Kenny Smith broke his arm in 1984 and was only able to come off the bench for the Tournament. That Carolina team was absolutely dominant before Smith went down with the Heels 17-0 and #1 in the country.

He had even more injuries in 1977, when he still managed to reach the final, only to have injured Phil Ford shoot only 3-10 from the field, Walter Davis play in a splint with a broken finger, and Tommy LaGarde miss the last half of the season with a knee injury.

What about John Thompson? Villanova had to shoot 79% for the GAME against him, and he still only lost by two points. How does the result of that one game have any bearing on him as a coach? Does the fact that Freddie Brown threw the ball to Worthy in 1982 reflect on him as a coach? I don't see how it can.

When you make national titles your only litmus test of coaching greatness, your analysis becomes so narrow as to approach meaninglessness.

----------


You're right, the ultimate goal is winning on Monday night, but that's not the only goal for coaches. They're all trying to win every time they play; that's part of what makes them great. You posed a question about whether I thought Dean Smith would trade five twenty-win seasons for another title. I think most UNC fans would, but I'm not sure that's true for him (but it might be). Until 2002, UNC had some ridiculous streak of thirty-something consecutive twenty-win seasons (I'm sure Tony can give us the exact figure). They also had a streak of about that many consecutive years finishing in the top 3 of the ACC. That kind of sustained excellence is part of what's made UNC a top program, which is part of what allows them to recruit great players.

In the last six seasons, Duke and UConn both have one national championship. Does that make their programs equal? Does it matter that Duke has three regular-season championships and five ACC tournament championships; and that UConn has only two and two, respectively? That Duke has two Final Four appearances and UConn one? How about this question: which history would you rather be able to claim for your school?

I eaglerly await a response based on highly-selective editing.

Have you got a shrine built in your house yet, fanboy? :D

When I start this discussion, which has happened before :D, I do so as a fan. Indiana is where I'm from and Indiana basketball will always have a place in my heart. Sure I might have holes in my argument, but so do you. Knight DID change his ways; compared to anyone else, he let Calbert Cheaney have free reign. Andre Emmitt also had a permanent green light at Texas Tech which is something most Indiana players didn't have.

I admitted the back argument was a low blow, you didn't have to call me an A$$ for it. I was just playing.

I would also like to point out, UNC has had more talent than anyone and Dean only has two championships. Kenny Smith getting hurt did not stop the whole show. Who beat UNC that year? Hmmm, I think they wore red and white!

John Thompson - great coach, one of the best coaches of big men ever. Let Iverson go more than anyone else because he recognized talent.

I still haven't got the smell out of my nose from the Duke/UNLV game. Hey, is that the year Laettner stomped that kid in the chest and got away with it?

Please don't take me too serious when it comes to this discussion. I think this whole thread is one of those off-season subjects that is more fun than a discussion about serious officiating.

But they had Richard "The Fixer" Perry!!!!

There aren't many sporting contests that I truly believe were shams, but that UNLV loss is about as concrete as the Arizona State point shaving scandal. Take a close look at the ending of that game with Larry Johnson refusing to shoot a wide open three. If you recall during his NBA career he was a rather competent three point shooter and that was from a greater distance.

Yes, sadly it really has happened in NCAA basketball. :(

Nevada, I tried to avoid that. Having lived in a gambling state, we both know that the improbable can and does happen every day. The UNLV team was, in my opinion, the most balanced college team ever and I don't think the team they beat by 33 the year before could beat them.

I bet he would tell you no. Championships are great but they don't define who a coach or player is.

Who is Texas Tech playing in the First Round? :D

You could have let me slide gracefully out of this conversation but, alas, it won't happen. :)

Dick Bennett does not have a "system," in the conventional sense. Because he has never been at one of the bigger name schools he has never gone in search of players to fit what he does. I think you essentially conceded that much in your previous post. To say that Bennett would bring a system to a big-name school that would fail "(b)ecause his system would create far fewer possessions per game" shows that you have not followed Bennett for any length of time. Bennett has been an innovator everywhere he has gone and, although I have never seen him with a fastbreaking style, to brush him aside as a coach who creates fewer possesions is not a very solid or accurate argument. He used to advocate forcing baseline on defense because statistics helped show he could force teams into low percentage shots. A lot of high schools adapted this successfully but he had to abandon this strategy when he started playing higher end Division I opponents and he didn't miss a beat in moving on to his next innovations.

You would be on more solid ground sticking to that argument for Carril, but I would challenge that too. While high school coaches were dying to run his offense (stupidly, I thought because you ain't running that with 2 1/2 hours of gym time per day) I thought his simple matchup zone was genius. I don't care what talent you put in there, that's a biyatch to score against.

You conveniently dropped the other two coaches I mentioned as mentors; Bud Pressley and David Arsenault. Pressley is considered by many to be the father of modern pressure man-to-man team defense. Coach K can't go a day without referring to something Pressley taught even though his is not a household name. Arsenault's team's scoring is down a little this year at 117.3 per game but not bad considering he is in a group of coaches you dismissed by saying they create fewer possesions.

You said that I helped "create false dichotomies between coaches of teams with mediocre talent who play a certain way." My response is that lumping the coaches I mentioned into a category of coaches who play a certain way to compare them to Coach K and Dean Smith would indeed create a false dichotomy. I think one of us did create a false dichotomy but, yes, I do know what that means and, no, it wasn't me who did it. There is more than one way to win with mediocre players. I have chosen my mentors because they have shown genius in thinking about the game or have a deep understanding about a particular aspect. Remind me again what I'm supposed to learn from Coach K?

By the way, this is real classy: '"bebanovic" or whatever.' It's not that hard to check the spelling or just misspell it but to announce that you don't care is just terrific. I'm trying to continue to show respect for you, see if you can reciprocate.

[Edited by bebanovich on Mar 12th, 2006 at 10:58 PM]

bebanovich,

I apologize for not going back into the thread to find the spelling of your name. I didn't want to go back and risk losing my text. I could have opened a new window and checked, but I didn't consider that, and for that I apologize.

Your points are all fair. You're certainly right that I have not followed Bennett's career closely. I must concede to your expertise in all matters regarding his career. As for Arsenault, I'm guessing he's the coach at Grinnell? Certainly an innovator.

I would not question your decisions on whom to model your own coaching on, because I have no idea what kind of players you have to work with. I certainly hope that I did not indicate that I believe that anybody anywhere could win trying to use the tactics used by those with the best talent.

My point was that it seemed to me--possibly an erroneous perception--that you were faulting the "top" coaches for using systems that can't be effectively utilized with marginal talent. It's clear to me now that such was not your intent, and again, my hat's off to you for your insightful post.

tomegun,

Laettner never "stomped" anyone, and he didn't "get away with" anything. Check the tape. He "stepped on" Aminu Timberlake's chest in the UK game in 1992. How hard? So hard that Timberlake popped right up, with a smile on his face, and started clapping. Clapping for what? FOR THE TECHNICAL FOUL THAT HAD JUST BEEN ASSESSED. Geez.

You sited Cheaney and Emmett as evidence of Knight's great adjustments. If he'd adjusted a little more, like, say, away from choking his players in practice, maybe that would have been enough for me to give him credit for being able to truly adapt.

Also, just curious, but how do you think Indiana would have fared in 1981 with Isiah "the worst GM in the history of professional sports" Thomas coming off the bench for fifteen minutes a game with a cast on his wrist?

[Edited by jbduke on Mar 13th, 2006 at 12:13 AM]

Olive branch received and I won't be whacking anyone with it. :D

I do think that coaches in the top programs could be more dominant. There seems to be a prevailing wisdom that if you have the athletes you let them go and I don't buy it. I would love to see a special coach convince his top athletes to really work on carving up opponents in the early-season games while they are drubbing people by 30. What might be sacrificed early would pay huge dividends in terms of national championships down the road. If someone does decide to do this, it won't be Boeheim.

Jb, you really do see the world only through Dook-covered glasses, don't you?

I saw the game. I saw the replays. They all showed Laettner <b>deliberately</b> stepping on a player's chest. He shoulda been tossed- period. He surerashell did get off lucky on that one. And.....did Mr. Sportsmanship coaching him ever do anything about it- at that time or post game? Nope. The W was all that mattered to good ol' Coach K.

You pulled a bait-and-switch on me in bringing Knight into the discussion after starting with Calhoun, but it's an instructive example. My knock on Calhoun is that he hasn't been consistently excellent.

My knock on Knight is that he didn't prove to be adaptive at all. He won three titles in 12 seasons, then made only one Final Four in his last what, 13 seasons?

-----------------------------------------------------------

I am mildly surprised that you are disparaging the guy who gave Coach K his start in coaching.

Your knock on Calhoun is based in ignorance [as in lack of knowledge, not as in namecalling]. He was a consistent winner at Northeastern and I saw his club many times at UVM. He went to a fledgling UConn program that was in a doormat position in the Big East after it left the Yankee Conference. Yes it took a few years to build up the program, but let me ask you this: Is it easier to recruit a kid by saying 'We are ready to take the next step here. We are not on TV that often, but once we build up, we will be.' OR 'We are in one of the most storied basketball conferences in the country. You can count on national TV games when we play UNC & NC State and our conference from top to bottom is second to none.' ? And who do you suppose had a tougher job recruiting between Calhoun's start at UConn and the NIT championship? I think you know the answers to these questions but they are not important considerations as your tai chi would be disrupted.

Can someone explain the reason coach K took his starters, or bench personnel, off the court and into the locker room before the end of the Florida State game? If it was a safety concern, the players on the floor didn't matter?

I must say, I'm totally shocked that Duke isn't in the easiest bracket. They normally are.

Gap,

My argument wasn't that Calhoun didn't do a great job at Northeastern, nor was it that he had a trivial task in turning UConn into a power. As for your recruiting angle, though, the similarities between K's and Calhoun's situations are remarkable. You don't think that Calhoun was pitching to recruits the fact that they would have TV opportunities when they would play the likes of Georgetown, Syracuse and St. John's? When Calhoun got there in 1986, the Big East had won two of three national championships, and was within a whisker of three out five. I think recent success has a lot more to do with selling your school and its conference than history does, when it comes to getting the top players. Even if that's not exactly right, I'm willing to concede only a slight recruiting edge to K in his early years at Duke, especially given the pool of enrollable talent that he was drawing from, one much smaller than that of Calhoun. (Please don't misconstrue this last line. I'm not arguing that the admissions committee at Duke doesn't make exceptions for some of its athletes. I'm just saying that the pool is smaller)

An earlier poster made some comment like, "send K to Northeastern and see what happens." My reply is that, though it's not a one-to-one mapping, that K's success at Duke, in only his second head job, should serve to demonstrate that he could have built and sustained a program almost anywhere, even Northeastern.

As for Knight, that he was K's mentor does not make him a saint. My father gave me a large part of my "start," but that doesn't mean I think he's perfect. That being the case, I still don't understand why you're surprised that I would critique Knight.

JR,

To answer a previous question, yeah, just finished my shrine to Coach K. $34,800 addition onto my house. I budgeted $40,000, which will pay for two years worth of K's designer incense. Very cool. I'd like to fly you down to worship with me sometime.


As for the Laettner incident, the tape of that game is part of the K liturgy, so I, too, have seen it, undoubtedly many more times than you. You'd have tossed him. Fine. But that does not address tomegun's point. He claimed two things with which I disagree:

1) Laettner "stomped" on Timberlake.
You yourself said "stepped on." It was a "tap." Call it a light tap, a medium tap, a hard tap, it makes no difference. That act probably imparted three pounds of force on Timberlake's. That's less force than a solid shove, and I'd love to know that you'd rule a shove a flagrant act. Hell, Tinnant's retaliation to Paulus yesterday was more vicious than Laettner's act, and I don't recall you calling for him to be ejected. The uniqueness of Laettner's act was what caused the uproar, not the viciousness of it. It was an arrogant, terribly unsporting act, but so are all sorts of things that don't draw nearly the attention that Laettner did.

2) tom claimed that Laettner "got away with it." A technical foul was called. How much more punishment do you want for an unsporting technical? How many other times in your life have you called for the ejection of a player for a non-fighting, unsporting act?

(It just occurred to me that if Timberlake had gotten up swinging, both likely would have been ejected. Timberlake's reaction tells me all I need to know about the violence inherent in Laettner's offense).

As for viewing everything through Duke-blue lenses, I don't see how you're in any position to critique here. You can't stand K, or Duke, so you're hardly more objective than I am on this.

By the way, is your shrine to old farts finished yet?

Ineresting and fun debate as long as we keep it above board. Please help me to do so.

Thanks for the reminder. Noted.

Naw, believe it or not, it's not really the coach or the university. I can't stand the insufferable Dook fans that I run into. :D

One of their players could shoot somebody and you'd find some way to rationalize it away.

If it'll make you feel any better, there's other fans from other universities that piss me off just as much. It's the "my team can do no wrong" that gets to me. I critique <b>all</b> fans that are like that the same way. I'm kind of an equal-opportunity fanboy-hater. :D

I think it was the Chris Washburn incident that pushed me over the edge.

Ah, hyperbole. Truly a lost art.

Yeah, but you've got to admit, "It's not stomped, it's stepped-on," does not make a great alumni license plate frame. :)

nice one:)