You got this.
Game was very close, good pick.

But...
The last shot Ok St. takes instead of going
over the backboard, they foul trying to rebound and
end up losing by 10. That would have been hell and
wrong. Still would have been a very close game.

I know you.. Clay from LA is a semi-regular caller. Skinny Kid is a DTer. The others are listeners I don't know yet!

He has no recruiting experience in KY or AZ so as good of a coach as he is I'm not sure how good of a fit as he'd be at either of those schools. Next year should be Siena's peak year with Ubiles, Franklin, and Moore as seniors and Rossiter and Jackson as juniors. So he'd be smart to stick around one more year to maximize his value if he just wants a big payday. Or he can just stick around until Wright leaves Villanova or Notre Dame fires Brey and go for one of his dream jobs being a Philly guy who was an assistant at Notre Dame (and his wife played at Notre Dame). He's making $400k this year which is pretty nice for a midmajor gig. Siena averaged 7,500 in attendance this year so could probably justify a raise to $500k. So he won't be as desperate to get out and give up the job security as some might be.

Those schools dont recruit their states, they are national recruiters. He could make $3 million a year at those schools. He'd go if offered. AZ is supposedly obsessed with Tubby Smith.

Dude, coach Siena or coach UK or another big school. I feel your pain, SIU had three coaches in three years because of the comediness but this guy is gonna be on everyones radar.

Just reading some stuff from the U of A basketball website...

I was suprised to see that the U of A has done very well this year in neutral court games... 5-1 including the two tourney games. They were 2-9 in true road games and 14-2 at home. Thank goodness the tourney games are always at neutral venue's and not away games!!

Also, "UPHILL BATTLE: Arizona faces No. 1 seed Louisville in Friday's Midwest Regional semifinal. Since seeding was introduced in 1985, Arizona has a 6-5 record against a No. 1 seed. Interestingly, the Wildcats have more wins against the top seed than it does against any other seed in the tournament. Those six wins are more than it has against seeds 2-4 combined (5). The last time UA faced a No. 1 seed was March 19, 2006, in an 82-78 loss to Villanova in the Minneapolis Region's second round."


I realize that stat means nothing come gametime against Louisville, but its good to know that the Cats will not be intimidated by Louisville on Friday.

Watching Nic Wise, Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill is as good as it gets. Nic Wise is just explosive, a great college point gaurd and awesome shooter. Jordan Hill is just a BEAST... he will be a helluva NBA player IMO... and Chase is just an all around very good basketball player.

I'm not expecting U of A to beat the #1 team in the country... but it certainally wouldnt surprise me and I'd LOVE to see it happen, even if it screws up my bracket!

Go Cats!!

I dont like to predict games, because I'm very supersticious (sp?)

But I do think NOVA is going to destroy and expose Duke (and I'll love every second of it)... and I think Missouri will beat Memphis.

Memphis really needs to lose like now after costing me 2k last year

Uh, you do realize that their pre-tournament neutral court wins came against Santa Clara (RPI: 198) and Mississippi Valley State (RPI: 333), right? Those were the only neutral court games they played before the postseason. The game against Gonzaga doesn't count since it was in Phoenix.

its all good.. they got it done vs utah and clev st when it mattered!

I'm just givin my alma mater some love... I feel I can finally watch them now that they play some defense... thats what killed me during the Lute era.. (well at least 2001-2005 when I was there) I cant stand watching a lazy defensive team. I loved their hustle the past two games... and its so much fun watching the Big 3 guys... and Horne played real well last game.

I will be completely honest and admit I did not watch them much this regular season, but they were really never on in FL and I dont really watch bball until the madness starts (just check the scores and records online).

hell yes. I have missouri going to the champ game so I need them to advance! (I know.. I'm crazy)

I remember very clearly where I was for that game.

You would have been proud of me. :p

I don't buy that anymore, Kentucky basketball has become Notre Dame football. Both think they are still elite programs but when it comes down to it Lexington, KY and South Bend, IN are not desirable places for African-Americans unless they have elite coaches. McCaffrey is not an elite coach at this point and there is no way he could recruit top talent to Kentucky. Now if Jay Wright were dumb enough to take the thankless job in Kentucky and leave his job security at Villanova then it would open the door for McCaffrey to jump ship to Villanova. No way in a million years though that McCaffrey to Kentucky makes sense for either side.

I dont understand your argument. So McCafferty wont be able to recruit at KY but could at Villanova? I have no idea why you would think that Lexington, KY would not be desirable for an Afro-American? South Bend is not a real factor in ND's recruiting, academic standards are.

KY is a very attractive program for recruits and coaches. They are building a new arena, the facilities are beyond first class, they play in a power conference, they are a basketball school with lots of tradition, and they are like gods here. For a coach the challenge is unique. First of all you will get intense media scruitny and a sick fan base. If you dont do well then you will be gone. But if you win you are the king of the state. There is nowhere that a coach is more revered than here. Nowhere. Not to mention that you have no NBA,NFL or MLB teams to share the spotlight with. And the most important factor for many is that you will make WAY more money than you will anywhere else. Win the nat'l title and people will just send you money. It is scary like a cult.

Personally I am not a fan but until you live here you cant understand just how big KY basketball is.

McCafferty is a really good coach. He would be the best coach they have had since Pitino. Winning is all that matters and I have a hard time believing he wouldn't win.

All that being said I'm sure they will go for the big name.

McCaffrey is a Philly guy that has drawn many of his recruits at Siena from the Philly area. He would do just fine at Villanova. I'm not so sure he'd be able to make that jump to recruiting at Kentucky. Coaching he'd do just fine, but luring players away from Pitino and Calipari who have years of practice recruiting at the top levels (aka walking the tightrope of cheating and not cheating) would seem too much to ask and there aren't enough players in the state of Kentucky to build from like you have in Philly.

And you're right, Kentucky will go for a big name.

The vast majority of KY's players arent from KY. Pitino doesnt bother recruiting KY because he knows the best players will go to UK or out of state. The truth is KY would be better off hiring an East coast guy because they haven't done very well there lately. Basketball recruiting at the top level is national way more than football because you only need 15 players and 5 or 6 of them are just practice fodder anyway.

Yeah, that's my point. I don't think McCaffrey is established enough nationwide to do well recruiting at Kentucky since he would have to go out of state. At Villanova he'd be in much better shape since not only is he familiar with recruiting in the area but there is enough talent in Philly alone to fall back on not to mention the rest of the state, NYC, DC, and Baltimore. McCaffrey makes sense for a lot of programs but not for Kentucky. They need a bigger name if they ever want to live up to their lofty expectations.

They are? Where? What's wrong with Rupp, that's an incredible facility!

Are you sure you're not thinking of the "Ville which is replacing Freedom Hall (i think)

:zz: :zz: :zz: :zz:

There are plans to build a new stadium.

But it's all for naught since african-americans f.ucking hate Lexington.

Two of their three commits out of high school for next year would have had to walk on Kentucky in the past. And they are playing in the fricken NIT this year. The sooner Kentucky fans come to terms with the fact that they need to find a coach and give him a chance to succeed under normal expectations the sooner they'll have a good program again. It has taken Notre Dame football forever to realize that.

I think this is correct. Even with elite coaches, it's still difficult. African-American players don't have those rural schools on their radars like they used to. Lexington may be a major city to a lot of people but it's not considerd major to most. A lot of them have that same attitude that OJ Mayo had which was to go to a major center to maximize their potential. Also with Kentucky not even making the tournament and the rest of the conference really being down, that's going to make things even harder.

Well since we're giving out ridiculous opinions this evening I'll share mine.

I believe Kentucky is suffering from a decade of Tubby Smith's mediocrity and not from the fact that they're a replica of Notre Dame or that black people can't fit in.

Tubby was a solid recruiter and a horrible game coach. He won a national championship despite himself with Pitino's players and rode that b.itch for years and Kentucky fans had to endure his retarded son starting over better players.

He's only been gone 2 years. Billy Clyde might not be the answer but they had to roll the dice. 2 more years of Tubby sucking the life out of talented players would've sent big blue fans over the edge.

Now they'll probably fire Gillispie because that's UK. They're f.ucking insane. Rumor is they're going to offer Eddie Munster the job. I don't think he'll take it. And if he does the hypocrisy will be full of LOL. Sure he has a championship but he's also been in the NIT two years in a row.

I'd like to see them fail because their fans are the biggest bunch of crybabies on the planet. They're still butthurt over Laettner.

You guys are right. Not sure of the progress, but found an article in Lex Biz from Oct '07 with preliminary plans, basically it's a "race for arms" because of the new waterfront Louisville Arena. They claim they don't want to lose the Ky Sweet 16 HS basketball tournament to the new place 60 miles west... that's great and all but to say a once-a-year tournament would cover the $300mm minimum cost of a new arena is beyond silly- the Fayette Mall last weekend was quite busy but the majority of the people were country kids with gear representing their respective high schools wandering around between games- not exactly a "tax boon".

I'm not going to get into whether African-Americans hate Lexington or if it hates them, however.

If UK had lost to Creighton you better believe he would have gotten canned the next day, because that's how delusional they are. Making it to the NIT Semis might buy him another year, as strange as that sounds. BTW Who is Eddie Munster?

I'm not really looking forward to dealing with their fans. Everything else in Lex is pretty damn good.

LOL Coach..

Didnt he turn down the Magic job?

Giving my co-workers crap about losing to PSU last night.. I just cannot root for FL bball.

The new Rupp is going up downtown. supposedly 26k capacity

They have 1 senior this year.

Yeah Chapel Hill and Gainesville and Norman and Storrs are major cities.

:tro:

I believe that he is gone unless he wins the NIT but may be out regardless. And the UK sickness is a bit hard to take but you learn to ignore it.

:tro:

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but I'm not a delusional UK fan :zz:

So is Gillispie done?

Not official. But apparently he already addressed the team last night after the loss.

Lets see rebuild first year.
Make the NIT the 2nd year. Best player may go pro. Yep he deserves to be gone. :rolleyes:

UK sounds fun. Penn State has been to 3 NCAA tourneys in the last 25 years with no regular season conference titles (won the A10 conference tourney once), and in that time have had 3 head coaches!!! I'm thinking basketball must not be a priority there!! A 4th place Big 10 finish and NIT final 4 pretty much guarantees DeChellis a lifetime contract.

Tonight, going with UConn, Memphis, Pitt, and Villanova. I really want Duke to win but I think Villanova is going to be too physical with them and take them out. For tomorrow, going with Louisville, Kansas, UNC and Oklahoma.

I'm with you on everything but Oklahoma. Syracuse has plenty of big guys with fouls to give to make Griffin earn his points from the line where he shoots 59%. I think the Cuse wins. I wish both Kansas and Michigan State could lose, what an unsexy game.

+5.9 "units" for the tournament (accounting NDSU as a push, because the real line at tip was +10, even though I actually won the game thanks to the morons in my office.)

Loving 'Nova tonight. 4 "UNITS"

Who is their best player?

Meeks? No way he's a lottery pick. Late first rounder if that.

Patterson? Might be 15-25 but is way too slow for the NBA. That fat white kid from Notre Dame raped him.

I say Patterson and talks I've read from that board of nutcases say he's going to go. I know myself, he's not ready.