Show of Patriotism

While I personally respect the guy's patriotism & compassion for his countrymen, I must admit this is a bit strange. But hey, we all show our emotions in different ways. I like how his daughter's boyfriends think it's cool.

I once pulled something like this when I was younger. When I was 12 & playing in a Staten Island little league tournament, we won the first game & I vowed not to shower until we lost. Unfortunatel (or fortunately depending upon whose side you take), our run to the promised land (& mine at being Pig Pen) ended a day later.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/13/bin.laden.beard.ap/index.html

Return of Brendan

You've got to be kidding me. It's quite funny that he labels himself as part of the basketball / football teams. While we are all aware of his very sub-par hoops skills, all reports I've heard about his grid-iron time are equally as funny.

But, hey, it's worth a laugh & it's for GU.

By the way, is anybody else aware of the backdrop to part of why Coach Benson was fired? It's an interesting story.

http://guhoyas.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/090606aab.html

Hoopnet Preview

http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/preview/2006/bigeast/georgetown.htm

Money quote: "The Hoyas have some extremely talented players, but their suspect outside shooting may well cost them a few games, even with Hibbert and Green up front. If they do discover that outside threat, this is a potential Final Four team."

OOC schedule

Well, the OCC schedule is done. Not very impressive. Much like last year's, but with a top 10 team, we could have challenged ourselves a bit. Home: Old Dominion, Oregon, James Madison, Oral Roberts, Winston-Salem State (?!), Towson, and Navy. Road: Vandy, Duke, U.Mich. In particular, this really blows for those of us with season tickets. The three best games are away.

Coach K

For such a great coach, he has a serious blind-spot when it comes to defense. Doesn't it sound like the Greek coach just popped in a tape of the Georgetown game?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1521274,00.html

New Big East deal

This is great news. At least, 41 of the 144 regular season Big East games for the next six seasons will be on ESPN or ESPN2. The rest will be picked up by CBS, ESPNClassic, ESPNU, ESPN360, or ESPNregional. All Big East tourney games will be on ESPN or ESPN2. That means, on average, each Big East team will have 5 of its 18 regular season games broadcast nationally. But, in reality, the better teams in the conference will probably have 8 or 9 -- and that's not including games picked up on ESPNClassic, which most cabel providers now feature.

http://www.bigeast.org/genrel/082906aab.html

http://www.nypost.com/sports/big_east_spn_sports_lenn_robbins.htm

Update: This is the best article I've seen on the deal; money quote: "After this week, it doesn't appear the Big East is going anywhere ... except the bank." Based on the estimates, it sounds like this deal will at least double the TV income for our basketball program.
http://www.dailymail.com/news/Sports/2006090111/?pt=0

Katz's Late-Summer Top 50

ESPN's Andy Katz has been running a series of articles this week that run through what he believes will be the top 50 teams of the upcoming college basketball season. Each of Katz's articles discusses ten teams. So, far he's done four of them. The first discussed 50 through 41, the second 40 through 31, the third 30 through 21, and the fourth 20 through 11.

Still no Hoyas. You have to assume we're a top 50 team this year. So it looks like Katz is going to put us in his top 10. I can't wait to see exactly where he ranks us.

Yee-Haw Jester's Excited!

Wick update

I just learned that the Wick is rejoining our LA office in October. He left for a year to clerk on the 9th Circuit. Go Wick!

D.C. High School Talent

Here's a nice piece from CNNSI.com about the pool of talented high school basketball players in the D.C. area. [CLICK HERE]

As should be expected, Alma Mater figures into the discussions about recruiting from this "hot bed" of talent.

Books & Diamond

hope all of you are staying cool. i was wondering if you had any good sites to buy law school books. i've been searching on lawbookfinder.com & lawbooksforless.com, but was wondering if you had any other good ones to take a peep at.

diamond, when are your nuptials?

Move over Comcast we got MASN

Now they just need to start broadcasting in hi def.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080101159.html

Big East preview

Gettin' pumped for the season!

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2535108

Pittsnogled

IPB may have to change his Big East allegiances. It was recently announced that undrafted West Virginia standout, Kevin Pittsnogle, has signed a two-year deal with the Celtics.

For more on this story click here.

Scouting report

The IPB and I attended one of last night's Kenner League games. We saw The Tombs (Green, Wallace, Ticket, Rivers, Summers) versus Clyde's (Hibbert, Sapp). Here's my brief scouting report. I'll let IPB fill in more details. In general, the game was a lot of fun -- high intensity but not much teamwork. Pops and Red were in attendance.

Green -- He's a beast. Looked great. Showed his skyhook and took it to the hole strong. I don't remember him taking an outside shot though. (IPB and I were in the front row. You can really get a sense for how hard it would be to stop Green when he's driving. Best case scenario is that you take the charge and break a couple of ribs!)

Hibbert -- Seems to have gained a step from last year. Quicker and more agile. Dunked everything around the hoop. He appears to have taken another step forward.

Wallace -- Also appears to have taken a step forward. Added muscle and was driving to the hoop and finishing. Outside shot looks silky smooth.

Sapp -- Seems to have added some muscle. Looked good. His shot seems to have improved a bit.

Ticket -- Freakishly athletic. NBA body. Was basically a non-factor. Roy schooled him. Dropped a couple of passes he should have caught.

Summers -- Like Ticket, very developed. Showed an nice outside shot. Fairly quiet as he deferred to Green.

Rivers -- Extremely quiet. Didn't make many mistakes but just deferred to Wallace most of the night. Had one fantastic drive but missed the dunk.

The freshmen definitely looked like freshman but you can see all sorts of potential. It was clear why they were ranked so highly but playing against two lottery picks exposed them as inexperienced.

Big East opponents announced

Tough schedule!!!!

http://guhoyas.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/071406aab.html

Interview w/ JIII

This will make the IPB happy -- more PT for Tyler.

http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/preview/interviews/2006johnthompson.htm

Summer update on Hibbs

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=2512328

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/seth_davis/07/07/hoop.thoughts/index.html

The IPB and I are going to catch some Kenner games this summer so hopefully we can give first-hand updates.

Professor Tucker's new job

She was one of my favorites as an undergrad.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/DNI_Appoints_Ombudsman_To_Guard_Analysis_999.html

AI in Celtic green?

http://celtics.bostonherald.com/celtics/view.bg?articleid=145960

Great gift idea!

http://www.cafepress.com/wizzstore.3800162