Chalk Talk; Shooting Cats; Packer

Thank god for Davidson, or the 2nd weekend of hoops could have been quite boring with 4 number one seeds winning out for the first time EVER. While all #1's could have been bad for this past weekend, in that no big upsets to enjoy, it certainly sets up what could be the most exciting final four in a long time. On the surface you'd have to say UNC and Memphis should be favored because they just playing great, BUT, Kevin Love can really change a game, and it isn't that Kansas played bad yesterday, it was that they were playing an exceptional team. I'm really looking forward to the semi's.

Prop's to Tyler Hansbrough. In a game where he was outsized and early looked like he might get out-played, he stepped up big-time. It was probably the most impressive outing I've seen in his 3 years. Unlike most State and Duke fans I know, I really like this Carolina team. Go Heels.

Speaking of Davidson, I'm not sure there is much else to say that hasn't been said. That was a very good team, with an amazing player. They came within 1 shot of making the final four. That shot didn't go, but this has been quite a good run and I hope it pays dividends at Davidson for a long time. My hope is this puts them on the map nationally allowing them to schedule much like Gonzaga does, and also really let's them aim higher recruiting wise.

For all of my friends who hate Billy Packer (and it seems they all do for some reason), interesting article about Packer getting ready to call his 100th Final Four game.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5660456.html

Really neat read about Packer and his many ventures. He also is dead on about something I think a lot will agree with:

He is less amiable, however, when it comes to the decline of American basketball. He pegs the turning point at 1992 and the juxtaposition of the Olympic Dream Team with the arrival at Michigan of the ill-fated Fab Five.

The Dream Team, Packer said, "was made up of guys who went through the natural maturation process and learned how to play the game. They had incredibly competitive drive as a team. The same year, Duke won the national championship with a junior and senior team that was very focused.

"The Fab Five began the new era. They came in with all this hype and never won anything. How can you be the Fab Five and never win a Big 10 championship? Plus, they were on the take. It was not 'what I can do for the game.' It's 'what can the game do for me.'"

The 'and-one' factor

Packer said modern players are devoted to what he describes as "and-one basketball — a game that is non-competitive except for one thing: You are showing your entertainment value with the ball in your hands."

"Our modern athlete does not know how to compete as part of a team. He knows how to exhibit singular basketball skills with great athleticism, but he doesn't know how to play."

That's why Packer rolls his eyes at the notion that recent teams — for example, Duke's teams of the late 1990s -- could rank among the best ever.

"Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry Lucas and Bill Walton all played as seniors," he said. "Do you think they would have lost any sleep the night before they played Elton Brand, a 6-5 sophomore, at the center position? Please. Jerry West and Oscar Robertson played in the NCAA final as seniors. Do you think they would have worried about O.J. Mayo?"

January 26-27 ACC Hoops

MY Picks
FSU, BC, Clemson, UVa, Duke

Where’s Billy?
By our count, Billy Packer has only worked one ACC basketball telecast this season. Love him or hate him, Packer is a big part of the fifty years of televised conference games that makes the ACC special. The former Wake Forest point guard has been a color commentator for ACC basketball telecasts since the 1972 when he teamed with the late Jim Thacker to form the legendary Thacker – Packer broadcast team for C. D. Chesley. Growing up in Winston-Salem, I can vividly recall the old ACC intro, a music piece fittingly called “Championship”, followed by “Hi, I’m Jim Thacker along with Billy Packer” and then the “Sail with the Pilot” intro music for Pilot Life Insurance. Back in those days, you knew it was a really big game when former Wake Forest coach Horace “Bones” McKinney joined Thacker and Packer on the ACC broadcasts. Somehow, the combination of Steve Martin and Jason Capel just don’t compare.

Lucky 7’s
Time for Maryland coach Gary Williams to head to Vegas. By now, it’s old news that the Terp’s stunning upset of number one ranked Carolina was the seventh time a Gary Williams coached team has beaten the nation’s number one team. Did you know that since Williams’ arrival in College Park, the Terps have appeared in seven Sweet-Sixteens? Not only that, seven of Williams' former Maryland players have been picked in the first round of the NBA draft. That’s 7-7-7. Now this is just downright strange. A Maryland win against Duke combined with a Houston loss to Marshall will tie Gary Williams with Houston coach Tom Penders for seventh in wins among active Division I coaches with 597.

Who drew up this schedule?
My college degree is in Parks and Recreation Management (NCSU ’89), so I know a thing or two about drawing up schedules. Maybe it’s the obsessive compulsive in me, or my college training, but I like to see a bit of symmetry in athletic schedules. You know, true round-robins, alternating home and away games, a couple of days between games, etc. Whoever is in charge of drawing up the ACC Hoops schedule should seriously consider taking a sports scheduling class. For starters, four of Clemson’s five ACC games have been at Clemson. It’s nice to be at home, but now the Tigers will play five of the next seven on the road. During that span, Clemson will make two trips to the Triangle, and two trips to Florida. Ok, so you don’t mind the long road trips, how about quick turnarounds? Wake managed to get four home games in each half of the season, but they paid for it with two quick turnarounds. The Deac’s hosted FSU on Sunday afternoon and then traveled to Clemson for a Tuesday night game. Later in the season they will host Maryland on a Thursday-night and travel to Atlanta for a Saturday afternoon game. The one time that Duke has a quick turnaround, they have a Thursday home-game against NC State, followed by a Saturday home-game against Miami. I know TV drives a lot of the scheduling these days, but there need to be some rules in place to prevent these quick turnarounds unless both teams are playing on short rest. Even then, the home-team is always going to have a big advantage.

Trivia.
What seven number one teams Gary Williams has beaten as a head coach?

Which seven Williams-coached Maryland teams made it to the Sweet-Sixteen?

Who are the nine first round draft picks that Gary Williams has coached?
Seven played for Williams at Matyland.

Who was the play-by-play team for C. D. Chesley’s first live weekly ACC Telecast in 1957?

Billy Packer's old Southern Roots betray him again

I like him, I've grown up with him, and most of the time I think he knows more about basketball than the others I hear, so I'm probably always going to defend him probably. You may or may not remember many years back when he called Allen Iverson a "tough little monkey". The politically correct crowd tried to make him out as a racist, which he isn't. What people around the country don't understand is that a lot of little kids in the south, white or black, at one time or another were called tough little monkeys.

Well, here we go again.

Packer says he wasn't being homophobic

CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer said he wasn't being insensitive or homophobic when he made a comment while being interviewed Friday from Atlanta on "The Charlie Rose Show," which airs on PBS.

At the end of the interview, Rose, who was in New York, asked Packer whether he needed a runner for the Final Four. "Because I could jump on a plane and could be there," Rose said.

To that Packer, a Charlotte resident, responded, "You always fag out on that one for me, you know. You always say, oh, yes, I'm going to be the runner, then you never show up."

Audio and video clips of that interview have been appearing on Internet sites.

"I said he fagged out on me, and it had nothing to do with sexual connotation," Packer, 67, said Wednesday in a phone interview. "I got to know Charlie a number of years ago and have great admiration for his program and intellect."

Dictionary.com defines "fag out" as meaning "to tire or weary by labor; exhaust." Which is what Packer said he meant.

"I can assure you I will use that phrase again and I won't think twice about it," he said.

Get REAL people, its in the damn dictionary. Anyone offended by it is downright ignorant.

This reminds me a lot of some firestorms generated when people have used the word "niggardly". This is a perfectly legitimate word meaning stingy or miserly, which just happens to have an unfortunate similarity to the second worse word in the English Language. I won't mention the worse word in the English Language, but use it around your favorite girl and you are toast. Anyway, there have been a whole host of stupid controversies over the use of niggardly you can check out HERE.

The sad thing is, Packer's comments haven't really offended anyone, it is just opportunistics dumb-asses trying to self promote by feigning offense at the expense of someone else.

If you are so inclined and want to checkout my nominees for Jackass of the Month
Jay Mariotti Calls for Suspension of Billy Packer
Basketball announcer uses antigay slur in interview
If CBS is Looking For a Reason to Fire Billy Packer, Here They Go
Sportscaster Packer Slurs Gays