Coach Bobby Knight Doesn't Like NBA Age Rule
Texas Tech head basketball coach and winningest coach in NCAA history Bob Knight voiced his opinion yesterday about the new NBA rule that prevents high school seniors from entering the NBA Draft, thus forcing them to play at least one year elsewhere, mainly in college.
I like Bob Knight. I think that he is one of the best coaches to ever coach the game. He runs clean programs and preaches discipline and teamwork. Some people may say that he is to hard or old school on his players. I say there should be more coaches like him. I would love to see more coaches that are tough on their superstars (Knight kicked Texas Techs best player Jarrius Jackson off the team this fall until his academics were in order) and force discipline and hard work in what is becoming a show-boaters game. The one thing I don’t get about Coach Knight is the comments he made yesterday. He said that the new NBA rule is, “the worst thing that's happened to college basketball since I've been coaching.” He followed that up by saying, “I think, has a tremendous effect on the integrity of college sports.”
I just don’t get why he would say such a thing. With the young, talented freshman in Division 1 basketball this season it has created a whole new buzz about the sport. This year there is talk for a freshman to win National Player of the Year. Imagine, LeBron, or Kobe or Kevin Garnett playing in college, imagine the buzz that would have been with those guys. Now we finally get to see it happen. True, maybe these players aren’t LeBron or Kobe or Garnett, but now when those types of players DO come along college basketball fans around the country will get the pleasure of seeing them play. Now, to be fair to Coach Knight, I should point out that he made those comments focusing on the academics that come in hand with these freshman, stating, “Now you can have a kid come to school for a year and play basketball and he doesn't even have to go to class. He certainly doesn't have to go to class the second semester. I'm not exactly positive about the first semester. But he would not have to attend a single class the second semester to play through the whole second semester of basketball."
I can see that argument, but I think it is more than that. I think it is the fact that due to his strict rules and hard practices that many top-notch players, the ones that are mostly affected by this rule, don’t want to play for him. I think he is mad that he can’t get a Kevin Durant on his team. Oh yeah, did I mention that these comments came on the eve of the second Texas-Texas Tech game of the season? Texas won that first game 76-64, and freshman star Kevin Durant scored 37 points, including five 3-pointers and grabbed 23 rebounds. Do you think that, just maybe, Coach Knight just doesn’t like losing to the teams that CAN get these superstars, and that is why he is a little upset?
Like I said, I like Coach Knight, but I think he might be a little off with this one.
UPDATE:
After hearing Coach Knights comments it looks like Kevin Durant decided to take it easy on the Red Raiders tonight, maybe in hope to get some love back from Knight. Durant did not lead the team in rebounds or points, scoring 17 points and grabbing eight rebounds. By the way, the Longhorns STILL pounded Coach Knight and the Red Raiders, 80-51.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
This Weekend in Sports
This Weekend in Sports
I guess this weekend is kind of like the calm before the storm when it comes to sports. Next weekend you will start to have some exciting college basketball match-ups with conference rivals battling it out as the regular season schedule nears an end; you will have a FULL baseball team practicing (do pitchers and catchers REALLY gain that much by reporting one week earlier?) and the NFL Combine will have just concluded, leading to “Who will the Steelers take in the 4th round this year?” talk. But this week was really just boring!! It was so boring that I actually watched the marathon of “Beauty and the Geek” that was on MTV today. Go ahead and make fun of me, but I know everyone out there has their television shows they watch and enjoy but won’t admit it. Hey, I’m admitting it! Honestly though, that is how exciting this weekend was in sports. Anyway, here is my recap.
SATURDAY:
*A bunch of college hoops, but very few, if any, really interesting match-ups. Sure, North Carolina at Boston College was for the ACC lead, but everyone knows that Boston College doesn’t even belong in the same gym as UNC so that wasn’t really worth watching.
*The NBA skills contests were on TNT. Did you know that they actually broadcast the skills contest on ESPN radio???? How boring is that? It was the worst radio that I have ever heard, and that includes my shows on the Point Park station. For the most part those contests are interesting, but I would change them up a bit. For example, the 3-point contest, oops, my fault, the AT&T Long Distance Shootout needs to be more of a game-like shooting contest. I don’t care if a guy can get 24 of 30 points standing still while picking a ball up off a rack. How often do you pick a ball up off a rack during the game? Ok, so we add a passer, and now the guy has to catch and shoot like a game. I also think you need to put up a 7-8 foot high Plexiglas wall about two feet in front of the shooter. This would pose as a defender because again, how many wide open looks do you get during a game? That is enough on the shooting. Next is the dunk contest. All I want to see in the dunk contest is power and verticals. I don’t care if you can jump over a box and dunk a ball; I’ve never seen a box just sitting in the middle of the court during a game. A new rule, if you are going to use props they must be things that are on the court during a game, so that limits us to human beings. If you want to impress me, ask Shaq to stand under the hoop and try to block your dunk. If you make it, you win! Also, I was upset when I heard that Dwight Howard wanted to raise the hoop to 12-feet for a dunk. That would have been impressive, but they wouldn't let him! Yeah, I know, the hoop isn’t 12-feet during the game, but that at least shows some skill for someone to jump that high and dunk a basketball.
SUNDAY
*This Sunday, which is celebrated all over the Deep South and as far North as West Virginia for one thing, we like to call it the Redneck New Year. The running of the Daytona 500 took place today; here is my brief recap:
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
CRASH
*The Penguins did play and win again today, which was nice, they are 14-0-2 in their last 16 games. With a win tomorrow in New York they would match the team record of 17 straight games without a loss, dating back to the 92-93 season.
*The NBA All-Star game took place tonight, although it seemed that more players selected for the game missed due to injuries than actually took part. My brief recap of the NBA All-Star game:
DUNK
DUNK
Unnecessary fancy pass, which leads to a DUNK
Alley-Oop DUNK
DUNK
Hopefully, you were busy this week skiing, shopping, and heck, doing anything BUT watching sports. If you were that fortunate, good job on your scheduling. Just make sure it is the last weekend until Mid-April that you have anything planned because for the next 7 weekends or so, you won’t want to leave your couch.
I guess this weekend is kind of like the calm before the storm when it comes to sports. Next weekend you will start to have some exciting college basketball match-ups with conference rivals battling it out as the regular season schedule nears an end; you will have a FULL baseball team practicing (do pitchers and catchers REALLY gain that much by reporting one week earlier?) and the NFL Combine will have just concluded, leading to “Who will the Steelers take in the 4th round this year?” talk. But this week was really just boring!! It was so boring that I actually watched the marathon of “Beauty and the Geek” that was on MTV today. Go ahead and make fun of me, but I know everyone out there has their television shows they watch and enjoy but won’t admit it. Hey, I’m admitting it! Honestly though, that is how exciting this weekend was in sports. Anyway, here is my recap.
SATURDAY:
*A bunch of college hoops, but very few, if any, really interesting match-ups. Sure, North Carolina at Boston College was for the ACC lead, but everyone knows that Boston College doesn’t even belong in the same gym as UNC so that wasn’t really worth watching.
*The NBA skills contests were on TNT. Did you know that they actually broadcast the skills contest on ESPN radio???? How boring is that? It was the worst radio that I have ever heard, and that includes my shows on the Point Park station. For the most part those contests are interesting, but I would change them up a bit. For example, the 3-point contest, oops, my fault, the AT&T Long Distance Shootout needs to be more of a game-like shooting contest. I don’t care if a guy can get 24 of 30 points standing still while picking a ball up off a rack. How often do you pick a ball up off a rack during the game? Ok, so we add a passer, and now the guy has to catch and shoot like a game. I also think you need to put up a 7-8 foot high Plexiglas wall about two feet in front of the shooter. This would pose as a defender because again, how many wide open looks do you get during a game? That is enough on the shooting. Next is the dunk contest. All I want to see in the dunk contest is power and verticals. I don’t care if you can jump over a box and dunk a ball; I’ve never seen a box just sitting in the middle of the court during a game. A new rule, if you are going to use props they must be things that are on the court during a game, so that limits us to human beings. If you want to impress me, ask Shaq to stand under the hoop and try to block your dunk. If you make it, you win! Also, I was upset when I heard that Dwight Howard wanted to raise the hoop to 12-feet for a dunk. That would have been impressive, but they wouldn't let him! Yeah, I know, the hoop isn’t 12-feet during the game, but that at least shows some skill for someone to jump that high and dunk a basketball.
SUNDAY
*This Sunday, which is celebrated all over the Deep South and as far North as West Virginia for one thing, we like to call it the Redneck New Year. The running of the Daytona 500 took place today; here is my brief recap:
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
LEFT TURN
CRASH
*The Penguins did play and win again today, which was nice, they are 14-0-2 in their last 16 games. With a win tomorrow in New York they would match the team record of 17 straight games without a loss, dating back to the 92-93 season.
*The NBA All-Star game took place tonight, although it seemed that more players selected for the game missed due to injuries than actually took part. My brief recap of the NBA All-Star game:
DUNK
DUNK
Unnecessary fancy pass, which leads to a DUNK
Alley-Oop DUNK
DUNK
Hopefully, you were busy this week skiing, shopping, and heck, doing anything BUT watching sports. If you were that fortunate, good job on your scheduling. Just make sure it is the last weekend until Mid-April that you have anything planned because for the next 7 weekends or so, you won’t want to leave your couch.
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