As finals come to an end and the semester is coming to a close–I thought I’d drop my last entry of 2007 and use it to touch on a bunch of different topics on my mind…
The Coleman Curse: Forget SI or Madden– initially I thought it was a nice little gig when Pat Coleman asked me to write this “insider blog.” Now, I would say it is in every athlete’s BEST interest to say “Thanks– but no thanks” to Pat if he asks you to write for his website. Jordan Delp from Augustana wrote about his team’s trip overseas this summer—and now is out with an Achilles injury. I started writing—and within a week fractured my leg. Then, MIT’s Jimmy Bartolotta starts writing and hurts his ankle in a game before he can even get a post loaded to D3Hoops! All coincidences? I think not. I hope that trio of Oglethorpe women is being extra careful… I would also like to send a best-wishes/get well soon message to Jamie McFarlin of our women’s team. She’s having surgery to repair her ACL on Friday and is now my training-room buddy for the rest of the season.
WU Hoops Update: We’ve had three good wins against Illinois Wesleyan, Fontbonne and Coe College since my last post putting us at 8-2 going into the holidays. We’re definitely happy with the wins, but I think we’re still searching a little as a team for how we’re going to be successful against top competition. Illinois Wesleyan is going to be really, really, scary good sometime in the future. I think Coach Rose did a great job and brought in a ton of young talent and when that group of freshmen mature—look out CCIW. It was great to see Troy play so well against Coe (career-high 35 points and 12 rebounds) and he’s going to need to keep that up. Once we get back from break we open up with a talented Webster team and then Chicago comes to town for the opening of UAA play. Speaking of which…
The UAA is tough: Obviously no one needs to hear me say that Brandeis and Rochester are talented. But I don’t see either of those teams getting through conference play with only none, one or two losses. If any team can hold serve at home and be over .500 on the road I think that’ll get the conference championship. In the UAA, especially this year, I feel like the national attention on the teams at the top are leading people to underestimate how tough it will be to beat Carnegie Mellon (4-2 with 14 point loss at Rochester), Case Western (7-2), and Chicago (5-4 but has been without Nate Hainje) this year. I know some people complain that the UAA got four tournament bids last year but come on—the conference’s W-L in non-conference games is 50-15 this year—that’s pretty dang good!
Grinnell & Assists: There’s been so much hoopla about the breaking of the assist record and Grinnell’s “system” that I figured I’d weigh in from a player’s perspective. I’m not going to sit here and ridicule the style or anything like that because that has been done enough— in my opinion they win basketball games and that’s that… period. But the thing that bugs me about the assist record is just that it was done in a 40-point blow-out win. I’d like to think that in order to feel good about setting a record of this magnitude it must include two key elements. One, the record setting performance is an outstanding individual effort (which this CLEARLY was! I mean, 34 assists is ridiculous. I had 16 vs. Chicago last year and that’s more than DOUBLE that…). But last, that every bit of the performance was needed for the team’s victory. I’m not sure this was exactly the case as I think he played 38 minutes in the blow-out.
Headin to NYC: Tomorrow night I’m going to Madison Square Garden to catch the Duke vs. Pitt game. Since we were young and through high school I’ve played on teams with Jon Scheyer (sophomore on Duke). We’ve been really close for a long time and still talk after almost every game of his and mine. I love going through workouts with him during the summer and I’m really excited to get a chance to finally watch him and his team in-person tomorrow night. Both teams are undefeated and ranked in the top ten so it should be a good one. I really like the way Duke plays this year and they’re deep and talented enough to be a favorite to win it all come March. Look for me behind the Duke bench waving my crutches after Jon drains some 3’s!!
Happy Holidays: Merry Christmas and safe travels to everyone. Wanted to say thanks to my roommate Jared Kleinstein for taking care of me the past few weeks and wish him luck as he’s going away to Israel for the second semester—I’m going to miss [pounding him in FIFA ’08 and NFL Blitz] him.
Take care,
Sean