Wheres Martin Luther when you need him?

Wheres Martin Luther when you need him to help reform the Athletic church?

Some place along the line the NCAA has reached the conclusion that they own college sports instead of administering college sports. Nothing shows it better than what happened to Memphis recently and what didn’t happen to Duke or what hasn’t happened to USC.

Occasionally they get something right like they did when the allowed Matt Pilgrim to play immediately for Oklahoma St. More often they get it wrong like they did with a bunch of players from Hawaii. Due to a error in not registering software schools in the state use to add kids to the clearing houses list by several high schools one or more classes weren’t submitted in a timely manner to the clearing house for a number of boys and girls. When the schools realized this they attempted to register the software and straighten the classes out with the NCAA but by that time the NCAA wouldn’t accept the classes.

So lets see the high schools made a mistake and tried to rectify it to the best of their ability. The clearing house refused to accept that and do what the colleges did by realizing it wasn’t the kids fault and accept the classes. It left a bunch of boys and girls with the choice of either going the JC route, paying for a year of college or sitting out a year of sports.

If the NCAA wasn’t so secretive aka the lawsuit against Fla. St and the NCAA there would be no problem finding other cases where kids suffer because of the NCAA’s general inflexibility.

How do you solve a problem like this. Its simple to sports fans you force the NCAA to reform. The biggest problem isn’t going to be getting the NCAA to reform its going to be getting college presidents to get together and do what was done a few years ago The CFA forced the NCAA’s hand on television rights when they had every major and mid-major school except for the PAC 19 and Big 10 schools ready to form a new organization to replace the NCAA. Now the schools are making money hand over foot so whats the percentage in upsetting the money cart.

The NCAA is very good at trying to convincing the average fan that collegiate athletics is nothing more than an extracurricular service being provided to enhance the lives of nerdish students who barely remember to go to practice. As a result, the NCAA earns more during its post-season than the NFL and the NBA earn in their respective playoffs, including the Super Bowl.

So the next time you hear the NCAA say the student athlete comes first don’t believe it. What comes first is money, then the NCAA’s reputation, then certain schools and coaches and finally you find the student athlete at the bottom of the pile.

Gamecocks Flog Cats 77-59

The South Carolina Gamecocks showed us all last night why they should be in first place in the SEC East – and not us…They outplayed us…They outhustled us…and worse, they humiliated us. SC, not accustomed to being in this spot this time of the year, made the most of it last night, beating UK for the second time this year, and showing us what a matchup problem UK has with SC’s guards. Native son, Darrin Horn, must be basking in the glory after defeating UK twice in one season…SC, riding the wave of 16 blocked shots on the inside by its big men, and 9 alone on 2Pat, flogged UK for the second time in a row this season, and this one’s going to “hurt us for a long, long, time”….

For as good as UK looked on Saturday in the confines of Rupp; that’s how bad they looked on the road before a packed house of screaming Gamecock Fans…Indeed, UK showed it has the youth and immaturity to lose at any time should they not play with the passion commensurate with the situation. Playing for 1^st in the SEC East, UK looked like a bunch of high-schoolers getting their dose of humble pie before a packed house of screaming “I told you so’s….. We came out and looked rigid and tight and never really had a chance. Patrick Patterson was the only player that I could discern that played very hard while he was out there.

Sc rode the heady play of guard Devan Downey and came out and hit 4 of their first 6 three’s and the game was over for all intents and purposes. In my pre-game pep-talk I suggested that Porter might need lots of help with Downey. He did, and he didn’t…He did need help; he didn’t get it, in anyone that BCG put on Downey. He is just too quick and too good. The substitution pattern on this night went beyond logic into bizarre world…I don’t have the numbers on minutes played, but it looked as if Galloway could have been uses if available, for all those useless 30 minutes or so that Liggins stood out there. And, to play Porter and Sloan at the same time on SC’s guards was the biggest mismatch since Hawaii took on……just kidding Bill!,,, you guys know what I mean…There isn’t a way that those two can handle SC’s two at any time. Nuff Said!

Since BCG is always eager to take the blame for a loss, I will eagerly give him some of it; given he played the same defense against SC he played in Lexington and lost worse here than there…I wonder how BCG wanted us to double down on Downey and Frederick as they drove the lane when we couldn’t do it in Lexington and prevent them from the kick out pass to the man with the open 3.

BCG did have this to say about the game:

“They have a point guard; we don’t”

On Perry Stevenson: “He is just not playing hard enough”, Gillispie said. “That’s two times in the last, what, week or eight days that I’ve said something about a guy not playing hard enough and that’s the first two times in my career I’ve ever said that. That’s shameful, in my opinion, to everyone involved.”

SC and Darrin Horn, had the easy, logical, perfect game plan, and we had the task to crack it. We did not. We let them run the ,”drive and kick”, on their first 6-3 balls and they hit 4 of them. It would be better to let the guards go on those drives than the wing defender to collapse on him and let Downey kick to the open shooter…..But that is what happened last night and that is how they took us out in Lexington….

AND, don’t get me started on the substitution patterns…Can we hire Bruce Pearl’s guy who does his for him..BCG’s patterns were illogical based on even his last game and I don’t think that anyone did anything in practice since Saturday to radically change the way one would expect it would be. I suspect that after BCG watches last night’s game for the 20^th time, maybe he would concede that.

UK needed a “team effort” to play in this game, and they hardly looked like one all night. As bad as we made UT look on Saturday, SC made us look last night. That is basketball, but this glaring weakness is one that teams will exploit until BCG and Co. Stops it. Maybe we don’t have the personnel to stop it. Maybe we do not have the point guard the SEC requires to overcome it. We shall see.

Signing day thoughts

Signing day is a couple of days behind us and I have some thoughts on our recruiting this year. Brooks and co did very well in filling our needs. Sure a couple of 5 star players would have helped our final recruiting rankings but the JUCO players we got will help us a lot. Chris Matthews is the #2 WR in JUCO football and we need help there badly. With both Ryan Mossakowski and Morgan Newton signing we filled another need QB.

Getting recruits from Texas as well as Georgia helps us now if coach can get his foot in the door with the Polynesians in Hawaii and on the west coast we could be looking at top 25 classes every year.

HS
Brian Adams, ATH Cumming, Ga.
Jordan Aumiller, TE Danville
Justin Bean, WR Tupelo, Miss.
Mister Cobble, DT Louisville
Jonathan George, RB Lincoln, Ala.
Qua Huzzie, LB LaGrange, Ga.
Tristian Johnson, DE LaGrange, Ga.
A. Kendrick, TE/WR Katy, Texas
LaRod King, WR Radcliff
Patrick Ligon, DE, Memphis, Tenn.
Demetri Merritt, LB LaGrange, Ga.
Kevin Mitchell, OL Douglasville, Ga.
Terrell Mitchell, TE Powder Springs, Ga.
Ryan Mosby, LB Rockwall, Texas
Ryan Mossakowski, QB Frisco, Texas
Martavius Neloms, DB Memphis, Tenn.
Morgan Newton, QB Carmel, Ind.
Donte Rumph, DE St. Matthews, S.C.
Donald Russell, RB Plm Bch Gardens, Fla.
Samuel Simpson, OL Lexington
Dakotah Tyler, RB Indianapolis
Jarvis Walker, LB Metairie, La.
Myron Walker, DT Metairie, La.
Larry Warford, OL Richmond
Ridge Wilson, LB Louisville

JC
Mark Crawford, DT Indianapolis
DeQuin Evans, DE Long Beach, Calif.
Chris Matthews, WR Los Angeles

Week 1 SEC Rankings

1. Florida: Its actually hard to tell how good Florida is. In the opener against Hawaii the Warriors gave Florida at least 28 points off of turnovers. Still they are at the top of the heap so far.

2. Georgia: Looked impressive against a outmatched Georgia Southern team.

3. LSU: Defense counts and LSU has a very good defense.

4. Alabama: A great game now lets see the Tide substain it.

5. Auburn: Number 5 is right untill they get their offense rolling.

6. Ole Miss: The offense is very capable of beating anyone in the league but defensively they still have some work to do.

7. South Carolina: Good defense lousey offense. Vandy might pull off an upset Thursday.

8. Kentucky: As good a defense as anyone in the league right now.

9. Vanderbilt: Thursday will set the stage for Vandy to climb up a bit.

10. Tennessee: Fulmer needs to stress conditioning as the Tennessee defense looked tired and slow at the end of the game. Could this be Fulmers last season at Tennessee.

11. Miss. State: Offense wasn’t there and neither was the defense

12. Arkansas: Bottom of the pig pile for the Razorbacks. They were almost embarassed by a I-AA team.