Courtesy of The Dagger, one of the coolest in-game scenarios I’ve ever seen. Two players alley-oop a ball together. Just watch.
Archive for category NCAA Hoops
Two-Player Dunk, For Real
May 19
Courtesy of several tweets, links, and hat tips, The ODC has (finally) found video of Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James.
This is the video that was allegedly confiscated by Nike after it was caught on tape at the LeBron James Skills Academy. Crawford, a 6’4″ guard at Xavier, drops a two-hander on the King. Here is Crawford discussing the dunk at a point when it would apparently never be seen.
BUT…here is the video, in good quality, of the mystical mythical dunk itself. Witness.
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Oh, and I’m also on Twitter, though I’m inclined to follow that sentence with ‘sadly.’ You can follow me here.
Yeah, and you thought Trev would let the Tar Heels’ National Championship victory roll by with just one article? Your ass must be crazy. As usual, it’s a good read.
Last night was the reason my heart belongs on Tobacco Road.
Last night was the type of mastery that demanded I paint my bedroom walls Tar Heel Blue as a child.
Last night was why I have read “A Coach’s Life” and “The Carolina Way” over and over as though they contained within them the secret to life’s journey.
Last night was why I brought my Joe Forte jersey to work at a management consulting firm yesterday.
Last night was why I still carry my copy of “500 Reasons I Hate Duke” with me on road trips.
More after the jump!
Dear Scottie Reynolds
Mar 30
I haven’t written anything for The On Deck Circle in a long time. After this weekend’s Pitt-Villanova game I had to once again fire up MS Word and let the Internet, and more specifically Scottie Reynolds, know how I feel.
Before you read my letter to Scottie, know that I am a Pitt basketball fan. I went to high school in Pittsburgh and started following them when they were a Big East also-ran playing in the pressure cooker known as Fitzgerald Fieldhouse. The turning point for the program was the 2001 Big East tournament, when Brandin Knight, Ricardo Greer, and Issac Hawkins led the Panthers on a surprising run to the championship game (where they were pumped by Troy Bell’s Boston College Eagles).
I remember that run because we were vacationing in Mexico at the time, and whenever Pitt was on my Dad and I would desperately scour Playa del Carmen for a bar showing ESPN’s coverage of the tourney. Whenever you’re turning down sunny beaches for very unspectacular sports bars to watch a team in the bottom third of the Big East, you might just be a Pitt fan.
That run in the Big East tournament set the stage for the program’s success in this decade. This year was supposed to be the culmination of that success. Pitt had two excellent senior leaders at key positions and one of the nation’s best big men. They were built for tournament success and battle tested in the Big East all year. They achieved their first ever number one ranking during the season.
This was the year for Pitt, and then Scottie Reynolds and Villanova happened. Let’s just say that I wish American could have finished them off.
More after the jump!
As all basketball fans realize, the past decade of NCAA basketball has given us an overabundance of incredible finishes, groundbreaking plays, and historically great teams. We as fans have been spoiled by the exceedingly talented players that have descended on the college hoops landscape, and we have but one man to thank: Kevin Garnett.It was Garnett who, back in 1995, chose to bypass the college experiment altogether in favor of bumrushing the Association.
The move forced David Stern’s hand and changed the college game forever. Stern worried that Garnett would serve as a blueprint every prep star would try and emulate. These high-schoolers would not be physically or emotionally mature enough to handle life in the NBA, which would hurt his company’s market offering and their bottom-line.
Instead of an awe-inspiring young talent entering the NBA primed and ready for greatness, Stern saw that he would have been forced to promote a league whose talent level was watered-down and whose youngsters did not understand fundamental aspects of the game. He simply would not stand for this reduced level of play and the impact it might have.
What followed of course was am infamous and lengthy legal showdown, as the league sought to impose an age requirement on the Draft that restricted players under 20 from consideration. The Players Union and a group of prep stars fought the motion’s validity tirelessly on the grounds of antitrust and competition laws, but ultimately they were ignored.
The two season requirement in college ushered in a new period for the Association, now full of known-commodity veterans and more fundamentally sound play. It also created the Golden Era of College Basketball.
The ODC March Madness Pool
Mar 18
Update: Because everyone is having trouble with Yahoo, I’ve moved the pool to CBS Sports as well. Head to:
http://theodc12.mayhem.cbssports.com/brackets
join the group The On Deck Circle (aka theodc12) and the password is blake
Enjoy!
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Today is Selection Sunday. That means Thursday starts the best time of year…March Madness. Try to block out the nicer weather, the impending baseball season, and the wild NBA playoff races, and make some picks for…you guessed it, bragging rights.
Click here to join the pool. It’s on Yahoo, the group ID is 79402 and you don’t need anything to sign up.
And a big thank you to Joe, who runs SportsBlogNet (our host), who has offered up $20 without entry fee to the winner of the ODC Pool, so long as you’re a member of Sportsblognet.com by the time the tourney starts, you can win a 20-piece. Boom Tho.
What is the best part of March Madness?
Some would say the potential for upsets. Some would say filling out brackets. Some would say the game of basketball itself.
But really, the reason we’re all so drawn to March Madness is the drama. You probably know this. What’s unclear sometimes is how exactly we experience said drama. Our bias towards teams or players, our surroundings, or our personal comparison points can alter the level of enjoyment we take from a game. Personally, I feel the two most important non-game factors are your viewing situation (with friends, big TV, good snacks, etc), and the announcing crew.
Alex, Stu, Josh…you see where this is going already. Thanks to Awful Announcing, I’ve gotten a sneak peek at the announcing teams for the first weekend of March Madness. I’ve opted to forego a tourney-wide preview. Sad, I know. Instead, I’ll give you an in-depth preview of the portion of the bracket with the highest potential for drama, based on announcing alone, the Minneapolis Region, henceforth known as The Gus Johnson Region.
More after the jump!
As if, with March Madness beginning tonight (technically, I guess…), the VoD could be anything but the obligatory annual hype machine that is a Gus Johnson mash-up!
T-Smith at work over at Hoops Addict again. I’ll avoid comment. The internet hates Trev. It’s best I just stay away.
In all seriousness, it’s a good read, as always. Check it out!
