FTFY Y'all are straight up lucky Fred Brown made that pass, or you wouldn't have beaten them the first time. And then y'all lost to a Nique-less Georgia after Sam Perkins made some comment or another about the SEC.
It really was. Villanova shot 22 for 27 from both the field and the free throw line. A total of 10 missed shots. And cokehead Gary McLain played point for all 40 minutes against the most fearsome defense, like ever, and had 2 turnovers. 2!
And only Brown's pass kept it that way. I like North Carolina okay, but the ACC's sense of entitlement overall is a bit much. It's like Paul Finebaum once said... "If your big-school athletic program has to wait until March to be relevant, it ain't all that relevant anyhow..."
it all comes full circle. We caught a break against you guys in 84 in the Omni. And you guys caught a break in missing what we would have been in 82. We would have lost Tolbert regardless, but we had 6 of our core 7 back. One of our two best decided to make the rare early run to the NBA. The other (Landon Turner) finally put all of his gifts together but wound up paralyzed that summer in a car accident. Add Kitchel, Wittman and Jimmy Thomas and I think they repeat. Random bit of Thompson trivia. He was having a hard time getting teams on the schedule outside of the NE corridor early on. First southern team to give him a two year home/away wasn’t UVA or a NC school. It was CM Newton at Alabama. First Midwesr team to do the same wasn’t the major Catholic powers (Marquette, ND, DePaul) or a Louisville (MWish and they had a strong reputation among as a school for black players). It was Knight at Indiana. Learned that from my old man talking tonight. I had no idea he and Thompson were friends through Auerbach. I think those two were more similar than folks realize. Knight was a notch better as a coach. Both were ridiculously intense and demanding in players on and off the court. Both could be extremely insightful. And if you had to pick two coaches who completely owned the arena, I’d say Knight and Thompson easily distances themselves from everyone else. Those are the only two coaches I’ve ever seen people watch as the game is being played. Two differences: Knight tended to show a much more humorous side of himself. Knight was also a completely horrible person whereas Thompson was a much better human being. Probably the best compliment I can give JT. In the last 100 days (to the day): Sutton 806 wins, 3 Final Fours Olson 776 wins, 5 Final Fours, 1 Title Henson 775 wins, 2 Final Fours Thompson 596 wins, 3 Final Fours, 1 Title That someone with Henson’s resume is the 4th most consequential coach on this list is unsettling. Thats a lot of 70s-90s basketball right there and given how shitty 2020 has been, I don’t think we’re done.
I had to refresh myself on Lou Henson, and in looking him up, found out he was born in Okay, Oklahoma and went to Okay High School. I can't decide whether that is the most awesomest of names, or just really, really lame.
I was west coast, so only got the news reporting, as it was back then, and never really saw Bias play. But stepping on campus, he was a near deity.
Neither. It's somewhere in the middle... I mean, that just stands to reason I wonder what their mascot is. The Dokies? Was the school parking lot called The Corral? Did Thomas Harris ever speak at a commencement ceremony there?
I'm sure he was. I had the hard copy issue of SI that covered it for years afterward, because it covered the knockout rounds of the 1986 World Cup. Might still have it around here somewhere. The article about Bias' death was pretty long, longer than the one about the Cup. And he was the cover- Diego's cover would come the following week. I wish he and Ralph Sampson had been able to play against one another more often. Sampson finished three years earlier, IIRC.
Best known for 1) his comb over known as the Lou Do 2) the Flyin Illini team that lost in the semis and 3) flying too close to the sun and getting caught up in the Deon Thomas recruiting scandal via Jimmy Collins. He had the misfortune of coaching when it was a very tough slog in that part of the country. A lot of respectable programs within 6-7 hours of Champaign-Urbana then. I think 8 of the 10 B10 teams finished AP top 10 at one point or another in the 80s. Throw in Kentucky, Louisville and Kansas. That was the peak of ND, DePaul, Missou and Memphis too. 10 of the first 14 champs after the UCLA reign ended were in that group. Just a lot of teams that were never out of the running for getting Chicago hoops talent. They were pretty much always in the B10 title hunt for a decade though.
Right, because Georgetown scored every time they had the ball. If you big school athletic program isn't relevant after January.... Um, if we're going to start counting championships we would have won if players hadn't left early, have I got a story for you. The other thing is, I believe Knight's style was such that it was well-nigh impossible for his teams to achieve 2 years in a row. So I'm dubious. Now, if you want to talk about injuries costing IU nattys, your 1993 team with a healthy Alan Henderson was the only team that year I truly feared. As a UNC fan, you can't escape the importance of injuries. We should have won in 1977, 1984, and possibly 1986 and 2012. OTOH, Othell Wilson's injury in 1982 was a huge break. I mentioned 1993. For UNC fans, you can't help but notice the basic randomness of the NCAA tournament.
Makes sense, since Thompson played for the Celtics for a few years as Bill Russell's back up. That would be an education in itself, providing insights on 1) how to play the damn game and 2) one's own limitations. Which is probably why he hung it up and turned to coaching rather than slog through a few seasons as a starting center on an expansion team. Good call.
I had a summer job working in the dorms at U of Md that year. The morning he died we were working in one of the basketball players on campus apartments (their mattresses was 6' 8" instead of the normal 6 feet) so when our supervisor told us Bias was dead we all thought he was pulling a joke on us.
Sorry John Thompson died. That Allen Iverson quote (post #1188) is amazing. However, another thread ruined by college sports talk.
Are there no other consequential people out there but politicians? Why is it taboo to laud John Thompson's life but okay to laud Chadwick Boseman's?
I think you missed my point. It was not about John Thompson passing. I commented on it. It was about the thread jack discussing college basketball in detail. Also, lauding any Consequential person who passed is the very purpose of this thread, not just politicians. By the way, I actually had no idea who Chadwick Boseman was until his death was on the news. I had never heard of him. I had heard of Black Panther, but I do not watch super hero movies. From what I read, he seemed like a decent guy. It is a shame he passed away so young.
Fair enough. Honestly, "jacking threads" isn't really appropriate as a term. I think there's more than a bit of "Y'know, that reminds me of..." in all of us. It's not a job, this site- it's a source of recreation. Even superdave joined in this time, and he's usually like the nun who makes sure nobody has any fun. . Imagine yourself sitting in a converted garage (I'd say, "mancave", but there are female posters here as well) with three or four flatscreens on the walls, and a stereo available with headphones for anyone who wants to play music. This is what regular conversations look like. I didn't know anything about him until BP, which isn't really odd for me. I don't do films the way I once did, primarily because they stopped making Westerns and slashers. The Young Guns series was fantastic, but there hasn't been anything since.
Exactly what a fellow third-grader said after he told on the rest of us for cursing during recess at Catholic school. There weren't even any girls around- they didn't play with us. We chose him last for soccer every day after that, and we didn't pass to him much. Somebody shoulda beat his ass.
I thought all the sports talk was a pretty moving eulogy for the man. It showed just how much influence he had, and how much some people here cared for him. He is, and will be, remembered. I'd be honored if my death sent people down a rabbit hole talking about the thing I dedicated my life to.