Swan88

What’s our connection?

Evan Taylor is really, really good at getting to the rim and getting the ball in amid trees.

Thor has some skills.

Duby lookin’ good.

Yeah. The NCAA has shown a lack of spine on handling headliner basketball team violations. The FBI, on the other hand, is a different animal: it has sharp teeth and is willing to bite anyone. Getting ahead of that animal is the best course for every basketball school. And Louisville finally did something right with it’s basketball program that had become unteathered from all moorings. Such actions will pay dividends in the future on a variety of levels.

Here’s the embedded tweet:

And, even though they’re touting their school, don’t be saying anything bad about our beloved Jaykers’ team from last year (I know nothing about this year’s team—although I’m sure they’ll try to remedy that defect). After all: —the guy charged with sexual assault got the charges dismissed, I believe, —and the guy dismissed from another school’s team on discipline grounds hasn’t had a recurrence of the same issues, that we know of, —and the guy with academic difficulties getting eligible didn’t have any academic issues during two years in college, that we are aware of, —and the agent guy arrested by the Feds for illegal recruiting efforts was entirely above board and proper in his close dealings with our friends’ school. So . . . don’t be mentioning things like that in response to our Jaysker friends.

A Jaysker, on a Nebrasketball board, taking two guys from his team "any day of the week" over someone he's seen play but once (and I think Palmer played only about half of each game so far) is . . . well . . . very enlightening. And, of course, the two box scores provide enlightenment that's unique to our Jaysker friends over us Nebrasketball dolts. And . . . oh yeah--the one player from his team has already been declared by someone on this board (maybe even in this thread) as something like the best defender in the entire nation. So, undoubtedly, every objective person in the entire world would have to agree with our beloved Jayskers.

How can Zoran Talley be a grad transfer, since he’s only been in college three years and is listed by Iowa State as a redshirt Junior? He played last year for Old Dominion as a redshirt sophomore and spent parts of his time there suspended for team rules violations. Here’s a blurb about him from April of this year: “The Old Dominion basketball team lost one of its top returning players Saturday, when coach Jeff Jones announced that forward Zoran Talley was dismissed from the program for violating team rules. ... Talley had been suspended twice before, for three games in 2015-16 and five games last season, both for violations of team rules.”

I came here this morning expecting Copeland information — but get Jayskers talking about their team instead? What’s with that? Don’t we have a thread somewhere for those discussions?

Ordinarily, a player who won't see much playing time as a Freshman should not redshirt: with only 13 scholarships, he either needs to make good progress or move on to a conference that's commensurate with his skill and ability. Jeriah Horne is an example: a redshirt would have hampered his opportunity to move on. By the same token, it seems pure silliness to redshirt someone destined to be an NBA first rounder: his college team gets only one performance year from him! The redshirt season gives the appearance that the coaches did't know what they had and failed to figure it out for an entire freshman season.

Here's a problem with redshirting, if the player does not develop enough to see the court in later years: it becomes difficult to transfer without losing a year of eligibility. The only current alternative is to graduate and then transfer.

Interestingly, James Palmer played only the last 35 seconds of the last five minutes of the game. According to the Play-by-Play info, James Palmer subbed out at the 05:05 mark, with the score 59-69, and he didn’t sub back in until the 00:34 mark, with the score 68-73.

Here's an interesting detail in last night's stats info: According to the "Play-by-Play" stats page, Malcolm Laws played two and a half minutes last night. But his name doesn't appear on the Box Score, where the total minutes still = 200. How can that be?

Palmer played only 23 minutes today: those look like an exhibition-only type of minutes. And only 5 of Palmer’s 17 points came in the second half.

Mississippi State’s official site has a box score up. Here is a detail: if you remove the 3 point 0-fers (Isaac and Isaiah), the rest of the team went 8 for 18 from three. That’s almost 50%. Also ... here’s a theory: part of being a good exhibition guest is to not blow out the host. Both Palmer (with 5) and Watson (nothing until a final free throw) shut down their scoring in the second half and let others take up the load.

Yeah. Expressing emotion is often confused with having fire in the belly. Tom Osborne expressed little emotion but had lots of fire. Bo Pelini expressed lots of emotion. But Tom Osborne > Bo Pelini. Brian Jorge Diaz is more like Tom than Bo: he played hard and well.

I always thought Jorge Brian Diaz performed well for Nebrasketball when healthy, and I’ve never understood the disrespect he’s endured from these greatest fans in college sports. But back to Mr. Shedrick, it looks like he has some skills to go with his height.

Here's a clip from Robin Washut:

This will be a tough test. They were a very young team last year: had only one senior on the roster. And they return four starters this year. They had some ups and downs, but they beat LSU, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Missouri and Tennessee. Their respectable conference losses include 81-88 to Kentucky, 92-98 to Auburn, 73-77 and 57-63 to South Carolina, 72-79 to Georgia, 52-57 to Florida, and 82-87 to Ole Miss. They also have a Freshman this year rated by Rivals as #35 and by ESPN as #36 overall.

Ha! Every one of those four schools is often accused of cheating. And Arizona is on the list with a coach already booked on cheating-type charges?

Actually, Washington is an odd place for Mr. Roberts to land. And, by the way, Syracuse message board folks are acknowledging he isn't going there either. But get this: Washington's record for all of last season is a whopping 9 wins and 22 losses, for a winning percentage of .290. In-conference Washington racked up 2 wins against 16 losses for a .111 percentage. They ended up second-to-last in the Pac 12 (between Washington St. above them and Oregon St. below them). And they managed that record with one Rivals 5-star and at least two Rivals 4-stars on their roster. And it looks like the 5-star is now in the NBA. So . . . only those on the inside would know what's going on here.

I don't believe Moos will be in a hurry to replace Tim Miles. Here's why: 1. There will be coaching casualties in the foreseeable future, so demands for a clean-and-quality coach will be high. 2. The current basketball coach at Washington St. has a poor record during his three seasons at Washington St. Consider this record: 2014-15: 13-18 .419 overall; 7-11 .389 in conference 2015-16: 9-22 .290 overall; 1-17 .056 in conference 2016-17: 13-18 .419 overall; 6-12 .333 in conference. So . . . here's guessing Moos will be rooting for Tim Miles to succeed, rather than looking for an excuse to give him the boot.