Weekend in New Orleans
I just got back from two days in New Orleans, and this was my third trip to the Big Easy since Katrina. The first two trips were Hornets-related. This was NCAA women’s basketball.
I was in New Orleans in March 2006, then again in November 2006. I didn’t see much difference in the city between those two experiences, but both were vastly different from the city in which I spent nine days around the 2004 Sugar Bowl.
The city in those two 2006 trips seemed a shell of its former self. Downtown was sluggish, the French Quarter stagnant. My favorite place to eat, Mike Anderson’s Seafood, was boarded up. Another New Orleans landmark, the Acme Oyster Bar, closed at 8 p.m. — 8 P.M.! — because of a lack of workers.
Here was how weird the place felt. In March 2006, the night before the game, me, Darnell Mayberry and photographer Nate Billings went to dinner on Bourbon Street, which was mostly empty, and passed a couple of guys walking past us on a mostly-deserted street. I didn’t know who one of the guys was; the other was Kobe Bryant. That’s how lifeless it seemed. Kobe could walk around Bourbon Street and not be noticed.
Seventeen months later, New Orleans has come back. Downtown traffic was a beast on Friday afternoon. Driving down Saint Charles Avenue, through the Garden District on Friday night, was tedious because of all the cars and people. And the Quarter was alive, both on Saturday morning, with a huge line at Cafe Du Monde across from Jackson Square, and Saturday night, on Bourbon Street.
Now, not everything is back to normal. Mike Anderson’s hasn’t reopened and I assume won’t. At dinner Friday night, we waited almost 45 minutes for a table at Pascal’s Manale, but when we were seated, the dining room was littered with empty tables. That’s the sign of a lack of workers, and bringing back the work force has been the biggest issue for New Orleans.
But New Orleans most definitely is rebounding nicely. I went to Mother’s on Saturday morning. It’s a New Orleans institution, in business almost 100 years, and the line was mighty. I went at 9:30 a.m., hoping to get a shrimp po’ boy; alas, they serve only breakfast before 10:30. So I settled for the breakfast special. Two eggs — I had them fried, and they were glorious; fried eggs might be the most underrated food of all time — biscuits with jelly, smoked sausage and grits. I don’t really care for grits. It’s not that I dislike grits, I just don’t see much to them. But I devoured these as a tribute to my dad, who loved grits. I stirred in a load of butter and ate away. As I finished breakfast, I noticed the line at Mother’s had evaporated. When I left, I figured out why. The line had moved outside, with dozens of people waiting on the sidewalk along Poydras Avenue. They were going for the lunch. Hope someone had a shrimp po’ boy for me.
Pascal’s Manale, as I wrote the other day, has a television in the lobby while you wait. I remembered that from the Sugar Bowl week; that’s where I watched Dallas and Carolina play in the NFL playoffs. I figured we’d watch a little NCAA Tournament while we waited. But I had a shock when I walked in. The Hornets-Celtics were on the TV. During the Sugar Bowl days, I barely realized New Orleans even had an NBA team. The Hornets’ profile seemed very tiny. I noticed a big difference this time. Banners along the street, the TV at Pascal’s Manale, more billboards. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Hornets have one of the best records in the NBA Western Conference, but even so, the Hornets seemed to have made inroads with the city of New Orleans. Good for them.
Saturday night, we ate at the expansive Red Fish Grill on Bourbon Street, and it was packed. We waited for a table, and there were no empties while we waited. I had grilled fish that was superb and a piece of banana cream pie that might have been the best dessert I’ve ever tasted. Unbelievably good.
Our time was short. If the OSU women had won, I’m sure that Monday we would have driven over to the Ninth Ward and checked out some of the recovery. Really wasn’t time this weekend. Our only down time was a couple of hours on Saturday morning, in which John Helsley and I walked a part of the French Quarter that I had never traveled.
I don’t know what New Orleans’ future holds. It’s still a long recovery to get back to where it was. But the city has come a long way from the months after Katrina.
Where are the fans?
The crowd at the New Orleans Regional in the NCAA women’s tournament were dismal: 4,181 fans for the Oklahoma State-LSU game Saturday. That’s right. Barely 4,000 fans for a virtual LSU home game.
Think about that. There will be more fans in the Ford Center tonight for Tennessee-Notre Dame and Texas A&M-Duke than there were in New Orleans Arena for the beloved Bayou Bengals. It’s a darned good thing LSU made the regional, else there wouldn’t have been 1,000 fans at the game Saturday.
OSU showed well. Probably 300 fans; some Louisiana media guessed more OSU fans than North Carolina fans, and the Tar Heels are top-seeded and a traditional national power.
Bottom line: the women’s tournament has major problems. It already has scrapped the eight-site system for the first and second rounds. Next year, the NCAA women’s tournament goes back to 16 campus sites for the opening rounds. But when the regionals don’t draw well, who knows what is the problem.
Oklahoma City would acquit itself well with solid attendance despite no home team. If the Ford Center draws 8,000, 9,000 fans, it would become a runaway success story in the women’s game. OSU coach Kurt Budke estimated that OSU would have drawn over 10,000 fans if the Cowgirls had been placed in Oklahoma City, and I think he’s low. Of course, if OU had beaten Notre Dame and made it to OKC, the Ford Center would have been close to full for a semifinal against Tennessee.
Truth is, the NCAA regionals need to be placed in smaller cities. San Antonio two years ago drew very poorly. Dayton last year was better. This is a tournament that is taking a step back, reverting to the homecourt sites that plagued this tournament for years.
It’s one big mess, and no one seems to have a solution.
What’s wrong with the men?
Here was my schedule Friday night in New Orleans for the NCAA women’s regional. We wrote in our hotel rooms until about 7:20 p.m. That means I got to catch the first half of Wisconsin-Davidson and Texas-Stanford, which down here they kept swapping back and forth on the CBS affiliate.
Decent games at halftime. Texas was up nine, but it was interesting. Wisconsin-Davidson was tied.
But we were starved, so we went out for dinner. There’s a place down south of the Garden District, Pasqual’s Manale, that we wanted to try. We ate there during the Sugar Bowl a few years back, and it’s very good. Italian, seafood type of place.
Anyway, I thought it would be good timing, because I figured we’d have to wait, and we could watch basketball. I remembered they had a large lobby with a television — waiting for a table, that’s where I watched Dallas lose at Carolina in the 2003 NFL playoffs.
Turns out, we didn’t miss much. Davidson dominated the second half, winning 73-56, and Texas spurted away from Stanford 82-62. But we got to see the ends, and we knew the better games would follow.
While we ate, I went back out and checked the scores. Kansas was up 26-10 on Villanova and Memphis led Michigan State 16-11. Uh-oh. Only one good game. Then when we left, it was halftime. Memphis led Michigan State 50-20. Final scores: Kansas won 72-57, and Memphis won 92-74.
Eight Sweet 16 games, only two worth watching. Western Kentucky rallied to make a game of it against UCLA before losing 88-78, and Xavier’s overtime win over West Virginia was a classic. But the rest were duds.
Coincidence or disturbing trend? Hopefully the former. It’s not a problem of parity, I don’t think. After all, little Davidson just routed big Wisconsin. And last week, the first- and second-round games, provided some of the best theater in years.
But the game has problems. Too much coaching. Too much control. Too many timeouts, and too many whistles. I don’t know how that translates to blowouts, necessarily, but keep an eye on this sport.
Not so long ago, women’s basketball was the game of blowouts. The big seeds were automatic advancers with little resistance. The men should beware the same.
Sonics & Sherri dominate emails
The demise of Sherri Coale’s Sooners and the nickname of the Sonics when they relocated to Oklahoma City were the big items on my email the past week. Let’s start with the NBA.
Jo trotted out a familiar name: “How about OKC 89ers? A great name from the past. Serves the state and city well. A tribute to our roots. We were proud of that name.”
I wouldn’t mind 89ers, but it’s got no chance. Clay Bennett is the one who scrapped 89ers from the baseball franchise.
Lee wrote me about some web thread that was debating an OKC nickname, with suggestions like Thunder and Barons.
I hereby renounce any nickname that is singular. Barons doesn’t do much for me, either.
Matt had an interesting idea: “Considering the team is coming from Seattle and we have Tinker AFB nearby…would naming the team the
Oklahoma City Pilots be bad?”
For those who don’t know, Seattle’s original major-league baseball team was the Pilots, who became the Milwaukee Brewers. The answer to the question is no, it wouldn’t be bad. It would be boring and unmarketable, but it wouldn’t be bad.
Robert wrote, “Let me be the first (I know of) to recommend Oklahoma City Oaks, as in tall oak trees.”
I think the old Oakland ABA team was known as the Oakland Oaks. Oh, heck. I’ll just look it up. Turns out the Oakland Oaks were both an ABA basketball team in the ‘60s and the name of Oakland’s baseball team in the grand old Pacific Coast League. Which reminds me of a story. Friend of mine did a story on a senior-citizen bluegrass band who called themselves the Golden Okies. A copy editor changed it to Golden Oakies. The Oklahoma City Oaks would be called the Oklahoma City Okies. Guaranteed.
Alex offered a nickname suggestion: “Since it appears the name and colors will be left in Seattle, I’ve got a suggestion to throw into the ring for a team name. Oklahoma City Flyers. It pulls from the fact we have several Air Force bases in the state, most notably Tinker in the OKC metro. Also, Flyers has a basketball ring to it since there is a lot of leaping involved in the sport. What do you think?”
I think Philadelphia’s hockey team already has dibs.
Tim has an idea for the name of an NBA team in OKC. Hornets: “Is OKC ready to be an NBA city? Better get The Oklahoman in gear! Instead of telling us how Seattle is crying every other day, how about some coverage of the hottest team that called OKC home for two seasons! How about promoting the awesome idea to swap the Hornets for the Sonics! Let Shinn have the Sonics, let them stay in Seattle, while the Hornets move (because of the NBA’s worst attendance in New Orleans). Problem solved. Easy. OKC gets a great Hornet’s team and Seattle gets to keep the sorry Sonics. A win-win. Now that OU has lost in the NCAA men’s tournament, it’s time for the Oklahoman to focus on getting the Hornets to OKC. Big $$$ would follow. How about writing something that will help make it happen!”
I don’t think writing is the answer. I think George Shinn losing his mind is your best bet. Time to move on, fans. The Hornets aren’t coming back.
Now, let’s move on to OU women’s basketball.
Robert, a big OU women’s fan, wrote, “My wife got mad because I complained of the coaching. I wish I had the team and the talent to work with. I know for sure I would not put Jenny on the best scorer on the team. Neither would I crowd the defense down around the Paris girls. They need to play center and forward wide apart and everyone else stay from under the basket until the ball is shot. Thompson could have done a better job guarding the star and free Jennie to run the floor.”
Well, I assume Jenny and Jennie are really Jenna Plumley, and her problem most definitely is not defense. You can analyze it a thousand ways, and it comes down to this. Almost every team OU plays has better guards than the Sooners.
DNA also wrote about Coale’s team: “Before closing the coffin on the Sooner gals, I would like to point out that the problem the final 40 seconds against the Irish was the lack of ball security. Notre Dame had a very hot hand, but the final nail was OU turned the ball over.”
This just in. OU’s guard play stinks.
Leonard was critical of Sherri Coale: “ESPN commentators, over the course of the OU women’s last two games, kept emphasizing (1) no clear team identity; (2) no floor leadership; (3) always bunched up in the key and looking confused; and (4) no jump shots. Do you disagree with any of that? One thing I just do not understand, and maybe I am not seeing it clearly, is why this team is not coached to open up jump shots. I know Plumley is short, but there are times she is open inside the 3-point line. Some of the others pass it out, or whatever, when they have clear shots. Courtney used to hit some jump shots in high school, even some with distance. She is a great player and has that short turnaround and short hook, but I bet she could diversify just a little. On the leadership, maybe the do miss the tenacity of a Leah Rush or Caton Hill. Others show flashes. Sometimes I am puzzled beyond bewilderment with the substitution and lineup changes, but that is another day. Probably they ought to be happy, given how they played at the end of the season, that they made it as far as they did.”
Here’s what I think. Taking open jumpers is not OU’s problem. Making open jumpers is the problem. And leadership always improves when someone starts making open jumpers.
Is this Heaven?
Remember the line from “Field of Dreams?”
Is this Heaven? No, said Kevin Costner. It’s Iowa.
Well, after five days is Des Moines, I’m not ready to go that far. But I’ve always liked my trips to Iowa, and even though I barely ventured outside downtown Des Moines, I enjoyed my stay in Iowa. Interesting city. Interesting state.
Back in the fall, I blogged about my 10 favorite state capitols. Not capital cities. Capitol buildings. I haven’t seen them all, of course, but I’ve been a bunch. I ranked Des Moines No. 1, and I stand by it. Here’s what I wrote then, and nothing has changed: “Golden dome, with a belvedere and a golden lantern on top. Plus a bonus — four smaller golden lanterns are attached to copper-covered domes at every corner of the building. Those domes are decorated with vertical lines of intermittent gold.” Totally, totally cool. For good measure, the Polk County Courthouse sits on the other end of downtown and has a stately look as well.
The buildings of downtown Des Moines are connected by skywalks, as a buffer to the harsh winters. The weather in Iowa actually was pleasant: 40s and low 50s. Only one day was cold, mid-30s. On Monday, Mike Baldwin and I had lunch with OSU athletic director Mike Holder, associate AD Amy Weeks and Big 12 assistant commissioner Bob Burda. We walked the skywalks probably a half mile to Court Street, a small entertainment district, then another block or two to a restaurant. When we walked back, we stayed on the streets because the weather was so nice. But the more than three miles of skywalk is a very solid alternative.
The coldest I’ve ever been has been in Iowa. I’ve covered some OSU-Iowa State basketball games in which you thought you were in Arctic City, but this was good weather.
Downtown Des Moines has some cool architecture and a pretty solid skyline. Maybe not quite as many skyscrapers as Oklahoma City, but the tall buildings they have are impressive and tall. I stayed on the 22nd floor of the Marriott Hotel and looked up — way up — at the 44-story Principal Financial Group tower. The Marriott itself is 30 stories, and across the street is the 36-story Ruan building.
Des Moines has a metro population of about 520,000, which is smaller than you would think. That’s more than half as small as Oklahoma City and not nearly as big as Tulsa. It’s got a small-town, big-city feel that is really quite charming. Omaha feels that way to me.
The sports in Des Moines are minor league, of course. It’s got the Iowa Cubs, of course, the Pacific Coast League team that has been a rival of Oklahoma City’s AAA team for 40 years. The I-Cubs play in a relatively new stadium just off downtown. The Wells Fargo Arena, opened just a couple of years ago, is nice, as I blogged the other day, and is host to the Iowa Stars, an American Hockey League team that is moving to the Dallas suburbs; the Iowa Barnstormers, an arena football2 franchise just starting; and the Iowa Energy, an NBA D-league team.
Des Moines’ entertainment district, there on Court Street, is nothing as elaborate as Bricktown, but hey, it can get there.
The Mexican place Bob Burda picked out to eat, Dos Rios Cantina, was not Tex-Mex but was very good. Mike Holder declared it better than the 801 Steak & Chop House he had been raving about. I had shrimp enchiladas, because you can’t always get seafood enchiladas in Oklahoma, and they were solid. We also ate at the Iowa Beef House, which is one of the places I had visited in the past and enjoyed. It’s not downtown, it’s east about a mile, but has a good, lusty Midwest feel. The only other real meal we had was at Biaggi’s, an Italian chain based in the upper Midwest. Good, but not an old-style, family-owned, stuck-away-in-a-neighborhood kind of place. That’s what I was looking for, but on Easter night, our options were limited.
Driving to and from Des Moines — we drove from OKC — you notice something else in Iowa. Billboard regulations. Billboards can’t be closer than, oh, I’d guess, 200 feet from the freeway. So very few billboards. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, and I didn’t really notice that it let me see more of the countryside, but I thought it was interesting.
One more thing. I’m now sold on a new way to get to Kansas City. I’ve always just stayed on I-35, part of which is the Kansas Turnpike. But at Emporia, where you exit the turnpike and stay on I-35, we instead exited I-35 and stayed on the turnpike. That puts you on I-335, to the eastern edge of Topeka and onto I-70, where you zip into Kansas City from the west instead of the south. I thought it was closer and quicker. And if you’re going north, as we were, it’s clearly the way to go. One downside: the turnpike tolls are much more, $9 and change, as opposed to $5.25 if you get off in Emporia.
Biggest loser: women’s tournament
Well, now seems as good a time as any to point out that most of us were right after all. The NCAA women’s committee should have placed Oklahoma State in the Oklahoma City Regional.
The Cowgirls won, albeit close, in Des Moines, while the Sooners lost, albeit close, in West Lafayette, and now the Ford Center will not roar next week with women’s basketball.
Which makes the committee the biggest loser. Not the All Sports Association. Not the Sooners themselves. Women’s basketball in general and the committee in particular. It had a double chance to insure huge crowds at the Ford Center and declined, for no good reason.
Anyone with a clue knew Oklahoma State was likely to win two games in Des Moines and Oklahoma was likely to not. Turns out both verdicts played out, but in very tight manner, which is a credit to the Sooners breaking out of a slump and Florida State turning into a very good 11-seed.
But OSU clearly was the team most likely to get to the regional semifinals, yet the committee declined to play along, and now Oklahoma City must stand on its own, without home-team help, as a women’s basketball mecca.
It won’t happen, of course. The sport is not national enough yet, and the committee itself admits such, the way it hands over homecourt regionals and is doing even more of that next season. Tennessee-Notre Dame and Texas A&M-Duke are decent enough matchups, but if the Ford Center can fill the lower bowl, draw 8,000, 9,000, then Oklahoma City should be a runaway success.
The All Sports Association is a loser in all this, since it took the financial gamble to bring the regional to town. It assumed, like we all did, that OU would reach at least the Sweet 16. Wrong. The slumping Sooners actually played much better in West Lafayette and easily could have won. No way OU would have stayed with Tennessee, but it would have been to see the atmosphere of Candace Parker vs. Courtney Paris and Sherri Coale vs. Pat Summitt.
It also would have been fun to see Little Miss Magic and the Oklahoma State Cowgirls in the Ford Center. The blooming of a sports frenzy always is fun to be around. Who knows where this OSU women’s basketball thing is going, but we know where it’s been and how far it’s come, and we know something special is happening. A Ford Center appearance, with a chance at victory since these Cowgirls, unlike the Sooners, didn’t wilt late in the year, would have ignited even more buzz.
But the committee said no. The committee made some lame statement about having to take care of second-seeded A&M. Where was the concern for second-seeded Rutgers, which had to play Iowa State in Des Moines? If you’re looking out for second seeds, that would have been a good place to start.
Oh well. Maybe the committee learned its lesson. It didn’t trust its eyes, and its business sense failed. The biggest loser was the tournament and the sport itself.
Don’t blame the Sooners
I agree with the assessments that OU’s 30-point loss to Louisville was embarrassing. But I don’t know what Jeff Capel and the Sooners were supposed to do to avoid it.
OU was no match for Louisville. It was a horrible matchup. Maybe the only worse matchup would be Tennessee. The ‘Ville and the Vols play full-court pressure defense, sort of old style basketball from the ’80s you don’t see much anymore. And it’s a style that the Sooners are incapable of handling.
OU has a serviceable point guard in Austin Johnson, but only at a particular pace. Turn up the heat, and Johnson is vulnerable at a faster tempo. OU’s other guards are not great ballhandlers; David Godbold, Tony Crocker, Cade Davis. All have their strengths, but ballhandling is not among them.
OU had 16 turnovers, but it seemed like 36. And OU had just 15 field goals. That’s more turnovers than baskets. Louisville’s press cost the Sooners more than possessions. It cost them productivity. The Sooners were hurried into poor shots. Blake Griffin got only six shots and didn’t go to the foul line. Louisville is tall and athletic and caused great havoc.
Capel really had no answers. I have none for him. This is what Billy Tubbs’ old teams used to do to opponents. Totally disarm them. Fact is, that’s what Tubbs’ team did to Louisville back in 1988, 20 years ago to the day in the same city, Birmingham.
Watching Villanova reach the Sweet 16 with point guard Scottie Reynolds, you know what OU missed out on when Reynolds got out of his letter of intent. An attacking point guard can make a team pay for pressing.
The Sooners had guard play that can’t fight back against the press. You’ve got to get easy baskets against pressure defense, else you’ll never see the pressure relent. The Sooners got few easy baskets.
Wells Fargo Arena
Some people would be surprised to know that Des Moines has a new downtown coliseum. Wells Fargo Arena, opened in 2005, seats some 16,000 fans and sits adjacent to Des Moines’ old Municipal Auditorium, along with a small convention center that connects the two buildings.
Wells Fargo Arena, in the bowl where the fans sit, is very similar to Oklahoma City’s Ford Center. Not quite as large in terms of capacity, but just as nice. Now, the guts, the stuff you don’t see unless you’re involved in an event and have occasion to stroll the bowels of the building, you see that the Ford Center has much more space.
But still. It’s interesting that Des Moines, home to an AF2 arena team, an American Hockey League franchise (that is moving) and an NBA D-League team, built a new arena. Now Des Moines is hosting an NCAA women’s regional and wants more NCAA events.
Omaha hosted the NCAA men’s tournament this week at its new downtown arena. Tulsa is opening its new arena later this year. It’s obvious that even second-tier cities — cities that harbor no great major-league hopes — are committed to staying in the arena race.
Kansas City just opened the Sprint Center to rave reviews, San Antonio has the recently-constructed AT&T Center, Dallas has American Airlines Center and, well, you get the idea.
Oklahoma City opened the Ford Center in 2002 and now plans an upgrade and renovation starting very soon. Which is wise. Forget the Sonics or the NBA. Oklahoma City needs to keep its Ford Center near the top of the list of regional arenas, because the competition — among cities minor-league cities and major-league cities, with OKC square in the middle — is very fierce.
Big 12 looking good
Excellent, excellent performance by the Sooners against Saint Joseph’s on Friday in the NCAA Tournament. A few shaky moments after taking the 19-point lead, but very few NCAA victors go without some shaky moments.
And the Big 12 owes the Sooners a big thank you. Here’s what OU did for the conference: kept the Big 12 at the top of the NCAA performance chart.
OU was the final Big 12 team playing in the first round, and here are the league standings after the first round:
Big East: 7-1
Big 12: 5-1
ACC & Big Ten: 3-1
Pac-10: 3-3
SEC: 3-3
I believe NCAA Tournament results provide the status of a league. All the talk about regular-season strength and conference prowess is just that. Talk. The NCAA Tournament is where strength is revealed. And truth is, second-round games usually separate contenders and pretenders among the leagues. But at least the Big 12 is in the running to stake its claim.
Let’s examine a couple of things. First, the Big 12’s first-round performance was remarkable. The Big 12 was seeded to go 3-3, yet when 5-1. No other league overcame such seeding.
The Big East was seeded to be 7-1 and went 7-1.
The Pac-10 was seeded to be 5-1 and went 3-3.
The ACC was seeded to be 4-0 and went 3-1.
The Big Ten was seeded to be 4-0 and went 3-1.
The SEC was seeded to be 3-3 and went 3-3.
So now, you see, how impressive was the Big 12 performance. How will the Big 12 fare in the second round? It won’t be easy.
Kansas-UNLV and Texas-Miami figure to be Big 12 victories. But the Big 12 will be underdogs in the other games: OU-Louisville, Texas A&M-UCLA and Kansas State-Wisconsin. The Aggies aren’t likely to stay with UCLA, but if the Sooners or Wildcats could pull an upset, that’s more ammunition for the Big 12.
The Big East could win this conference track meet. The Big East has an interesting second round. In addition to OU-Louisville, the Big East has Villanova-Siena, Georgetown-Davidson, Marquette-Stanford, West Virginia-Duke, Notre Dame-Washington State, Pitt-Michigan State. The Big East is seeded to go 4-3 in the second round. If the Big East does that, it will be tough to beat.
The new emails are here! The new emails are here!
Some yahoo who didn’t sign his name — the definition of a yahoo — wrote, “I saw the poll for Sean Sutton. Where is the poll for Capel?”
Oh brother. Capel’s job is not in jeopardy. The OU fan base is not split on Capel. Joe Castiglione is not pondering Capel’s fate. The Poor Aggie syndrome is not very becoming.
RK is trying to figure out the Holder/Sean saga: “Keep reading The Oklahoman over the internet. Really interested in the comments. Or rather, the lack of comments. A lot of silence has settled over the Oklahoma State basketball program. Seems to be the quiet before the storm. Have to believe that Holder has ‘back-channel discussions’ going with at least one individual (maybe more) to replace Sean Sutton. Otherwise, he would have come out earlier to silence the division within the Cowboy Nation over Sutton. Eddie seems to be a head coach broker. Has had contacts with Arkansas State and Missouri State. My conclusion, he is also back-channeling for Dickey and Sean. Sean could be at Missouri State next year in the Missouri Valley and facing the Salukis on a regular basis. Only question I have is what individual Holder is making plans for as new head coach.”
Well, that’s a solid theory, I guess. The Arkansas State job dried up for James Dickey, but Mizzou State remains open for somebody named Sutton. Sean, Scott, Eddie. Somebody.
Joe wrote about Sean: “I am glad you came out and said to give him one more year. I know we have disagreed on this some in past e-mails, but I appreciate your fairness. The big question is will Holder give him one more year? I think he deserves it, but I hate to admit politics is in everything. I just saw the box score of the SIU game and it looked like OSU took very little enthusiasm for the NIT. I don’t know how much Sean was to blame for that, but he is the coach and has to take some. Truman used to say the buck stops here.”
Like I said, you can’t judge anything on the NIT. Nobody wants to be there. I can’t condemn the Cowboys for not being excited.
Leo asked an interesting question: “I was looking at the NCAA brackets and wondering how many church schools made the tournament. That is, how many Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Mormon, Presbyterian, and others are playing? Does a good player have a better chance to go to the Big Dance from one of them than a state school?”
Excellent question. I counted them; 17 Christian-affiliated schools, out of 65. That’s a decent ratio. Mt. St. Mary’s, Notre Dame, Saint Joseph’s, American, Villanova, Siena, Gonzaga, Davidson (has cut many of its church ties), Georgetown, Oral Roberts, Marquette, St. Mary’s, BYU, San Diego, Baylor, Xavier, Belmont.
Kelvin (not Sampson, I assume) wrote about the Sonics and my belief that Clay Bennett holds all the cards: “You might think that you hold all the cards and maybe you do, but this card game is far from over. I believe Seattle will come up with a plan and they already have new owners ready to step in. It will be very hard to move the Sonics if all these things come together. It would be a very bad PR move for the league to turn down us if we have a plan in place. It was always about an arena deal. Stern is using you to get Seattle to come up with a deal. Granted, Bennett won’t have to sell, but maybe the league will block his move and then he will be in trouble. The best is that we keep the Sonics and you guys get an expansion team. Maybe I am wrong but the good guys always win and not carpet bagger that try to steal another city’s team.”
This just in. The Sonics aren’t for sale. Seattle does NOT have a plan, it has some talk. Major-league sports are big business. And who are the good guys? There. I think that about covers it.
Onestepp — not much of a name, either; this isn’t sports radio, sign your name! — wrote, “I think the city should have asked for more for the naming rights. We did have a hand in hopefully bringing the NBA here. I understand they have a lot invested, but a little more than the current amount we get from the Ford dealers would have been nice. We could use that extra to maintain the practice facility.”
Actually, I think the city came out all right with the Sonics. And how about this for an idea: Why can’t the Sonics maintain the facility? Give it to them rent-free, but they have to maintain it.
Jim, a frequent critic, was not happy with OSU’s Andrea Riley down the stretch of the Texas A&M game: “Sometime I think you are playing softball with the Oklahoma teams and coaches. Riley should have been looking to pass the ball both times (once when she made a miracle shot and once when it got stuck in the basket iron). The problem she has had all year is she thinks or the coach thinks she is the only one that can shoot. ( This may be true and if it is they are in trouble anyway). Everyone, including me, loves to see Riley make those miracle shots, but sometime you have to look for open people. If the coach called that shot at the end he was dead wrong!”
Well, I didn’t see anyone open. And I didn’t see anyone I wanted to shoot other than Riley and Danielle Green, and to rip on Riley after the A&M game is pretty silly. Sort of like the people ripping on Courtney Paris because she can’t hit a 15-foot jumper. Hey, maybe someone else needs to hit a 15-foot jumper.
