Thinking out loud…while wondering what the top local sports story was in 2016?
• For 38 years, the Big East Conference has been a cultural phenomenon within our sports world. Before Dave Gavitt got those small, relatively insignificant Catholic schools together with a few of the bigger boys in 1979, it was “to each his own” and teams were left to fend for themselves.
• But together through the years, this conference – in the past and again in the present – has helped mold the madness that we see in March at the end of every season. This year won’t be any different – in fact, it might be better. Of the 50 starting players on the 10 Big East teams, 34 of them return from last season. Yes, the play might be better.
• If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like in the south, where college football is crowned “king” every fall Saturday, the Big East’s passion, pressure and performance is on par with that kind of pageantry. Not as many in numbers, perhaps, but emotionally? It’s off the charts, just like in Alabama, or Texas, or Florida.
• I grew up in that football culture, and spent many a fall Saturday in crowds of 80,000-plus screaming maniacs. I was one of them. But those maniacs then – have nothing over today’s partisans in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Omaha or Providence.
• I would even go so far as to say eastern hoop fans are generally a smart lot, perhaps smarter than their southern football brethren as a whole, whose passion can often overwhelm their sensibilities.
• The Big East season is back with us, again, and it is just as power-packed and emotionally-charged as it has always been. So let’s just hope we’re a part of the party, huh?
• The Friars’ start was about as miserable as it can get. Overwhelmed and outperformed by a very good Xavier team – which is also in a state of transition – the younger Friars have a lot of work to do to before climbing back up the ladder within the nation’s top conference.
• Three takeaways from the 82-56 defeat at 17th ranked Xavier – one, Rodney Bullock can’t go 1-for-11 shooting the ball for this team to win; two, this team needs to learn how to rebound, or at least block out the other guys better; three, defend someone like their lives depend on it.
• Because their basketball lives this year will depend on it. Just sayin’.
• But one of the best things about the Big East schedule, as much of a grind as it has become, also includes a chance at redemption when you play a round-robin format. The Musketeers, whose largest margin of victory in a league game is now against PC, come to the Dunk Wednesday, February 15th. Circle the date. Defending the home floor is paramount to having a successful season.
• Here’s the thing about a possible medical redshirt for Drew Edwards, who has coincidentally missed the last two PC games with DNP’s – both stunning defeats. This team needs his energy and effort at the defensive end. But he’s still not quite there with his surgically-repaired knee, after spinning on a cycle next to him while on the road this past week.
• He’s working very hard, but this may come to a decision for Edwards and his parents on a possible redshirt as Ed Cooley told the Journal’s Bill Koch this week. He can play 30 percent (or less) of the team’s games and still qualify for the medical redshirt, and he’s played in eight (of the 14) thus far. With 32 games on the schedule, there is very little wiggle room for this option.
• Elsewhere in the Big East as league play opened, did #1 Villanova dodge a bullet, or what? Josh Hart scored 25 points to lead the Wildcats, and he surges to an early lead in the Player of the Year derby. But kudos to DePaul – Billy Garrett missed a clean look at a three that would have tied the game at the buzzer. They will surprise someone, sooner rather than later.
• Marquette started off hot against Georgetown, and held on for a 10-point win. Creighton – my pick as THE surprise team – beat Seton Hall. St. John’s shocked 13th ranked Butler (PC’s Sunday opponent in Indianapolis). The common thread? Home teams all won. What did I say about home games?
• Butler had a flight scare after playing at St. John’s Thursday night, as their chartered flight lost cabin pressure and was forced to make an emergency landing in Pittsburgh. The team was so shaken by the experience, they opted to bus home from there, rather than wait for another plane.
• Excited to be a part of Westwood One’s production of This Week in the Big East again this season, with the Providence Journal’s Kevin McNamara. It’s Year Three for the radio show starting this week, and while we’ll get some air time on Sirius/XM, on 103.7 WEEI-FM in Providence, in other Big East locales and in select cities around the country, the show will also be podcast on bigeast.com and distributed on iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher every week right through the Big East Tournament.
• Got Big East-related questions? Hit up Twitter and use the hashtag #TWITBE.
• URI opens Atlantic-10 play Friday night in Saint Louis. It’s as good a chance as any to start strong and build some badly-needed momentum for league play, with or without Hassan Martin in the middle.
• Brown’s Steven Spieth has been named the Ivy League’s Player of the Week for a 3rd week already this season, and there is likely more to come for the senior. 3rd in the league in scoring and 4th in assists, Spieth and the Bears are having anything but a last-place-in-the-Ivies season – where they were picked – with eight wins in their last nine games after beating Quinnipiac Thursday night.
• It’s not going as well right now for Bryant, which opened Northeast Conference play Thursday against St. Francis Brooklyn and lost an 80-77 game in overtime. Nisre Zouzoua is proving to be a big-time scoring threat with 29 points against the Terriers, and North Providence’s Marcel Pettway had a 16/10 double/double, but the Bulldogs are in a 3-10 hole this season.
• Bill Walton, if you’ve spent any time listening to his commentary, can be a bit bombastic, amiright? Even biased, since he was all-world at UCLA about 40 years ago. Walton, however, had a right to be mad at Oregon fans storming the court after their last-second win over his 2nd-ranked Bruins this week. First off – since when should the fans of a 21st-ranked team, like Oregon is/was, storm the court over anything? Act like you’ve been there before, goobers.
• Secondly, his ire is better directed at his beloved Pac-12, which has had a policy in place over court-storming. There also could have (should have?) been a technical foul called against the Ducks, as UCLA tried to put the ball in play as fans stormed the floor. None was called, which would have benefitted his Bruins. Quack, quack.
• So UConn decides to go back to the future by re-hiring Randy Edsall as football coach? Here’s a suggestion for the Huskies – why not take it a step further, and really go back to the future, by eliminating football and re-joining the Big East? ‘Cuz it’ll take just that, for UConn to get a sniff from the current league membership.
• After being told one thing by football members, and then having those same football members turncoat and take the money from the ACC, no one is terribly anxious to allow FBS football back into the picture. At any level. How’s that saying go? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me?
• Bowl Mania: Did you catch the story on the Arkansas player suspended from the Belk Bowl game against Virginia Tech because – now get this – he was caught shoplifting at a Belk department store? And he did this after receiving a $450 gift card from Belk, the bowl sponsor. Whoa.
• Boston College won a bowl game, beating Maryland. I’ll repeat it for you, slowly. Boston. College. Won. A. Bowl. Game. If you care.
• Regardless of what you might think of Rex Ryan, the NFL just got a little less “funner” with his firing in Buffalo. Always good for a quip or quote, a reliable foot-in-mouth (oops, did I really say that?) if there ever was one, Ryan made up for his lack of head coaching ability with his over-sized personality. TV should be drooling over the prospect of hiring that personality for the boob tube. He should fit right in.
• Richard Sherman, while he may be smart, acts as dumb as a box of rocks. His decision to not meet with the media this week in Seattle – part of his job as an NFL player – and his subsequent reason for the absence (“It’s a privilege to have me up there.”) is one of the most ill-conceived, conceited and reckless responses even by today’s pro athlete standards.
• Dude. Shut up and do your job. And if you get criticized, so what? It’s YOUR privilege to play in the NFL. You can laugh all the way to the bank, I’m sure. We’re going to “miss you when you’re gone?” Doubtful. There will always be another jerk we can rip. That’s what you don’t get.
• Déjà vu for the Patriots at Miami? Needing to win to clinch home field in the AFC playoffs last year, New England failed to squish those fish. Same scenario this year, this week. Wonder if anyone has learned a lesson here?
• If anything, it’s Miami that could be thinking about making this a preseason-type game, if only because they’re in the playoffs already and don’t get a bye week next week. But that might mean tipping the playoff balance toward a New England home field advantage. Rest ‘em, or play ‘em? It’s an annual question of integrity, amiright Roger Goodell?
• The Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy likes to whine about the Patriots and their “tomato can” parade every chance he gets. He is right, for the most part, when he says this team hasn’t faced a “Top 6” offense this season. They haven’t.
• He’s pointing that out to irritate you. That’s what he does, or have you not figured that out by now?
• But not once has he mentioned the NFL is in charge of scheduling, which pretty much renders his entire whine moot. You play who the league tells you to play, and the current format began in 2010. It’s as if he believes New England actually has the ability to schedule whomever they please, as if they were an Alabama or Ohio State in the college game. C’mon, man.
• Plus the fact – and this is a fact – that the Patriots were a 1st place division finisher last season, meaning they would also play 1st place division teams in this schedule, not last-place tomato cans. And they did – Cincinnati, Houston and Denver. Can’t do anything about those teams stinking up the joint this year.
• And one more thing – the divisional rotation schedule had the AFC East meeting the NFC West this season. Arizona was a preseason favorite, but a huge in-season disappointment; San Francisco and Los Angeles stunk. Only Seattle ultimately proved to be a worthy opponent. By my count, that’s six of his “tomato cans” right there.
• Next year, it will be the NFC South and AFC West. Atlanta and Carolina at home, Tampa Bay and New Orleans away. Kansas City and San Diego (or LA?) in Foxboro, Denver (again?!?) and Oakland on the road. AFC South champ Houston (again) at home, AFC North champ Pittsburgh at Heinz Field. Seems pretty stout to me, but the tomato can argument will be ripe again, no doubt.
• Don’t let facts get in the way of a tired, trite argument. Stupid is as stupid does.
• Not for nuthin’, but the Broncos did make three straight trips to Foxboro from 2012-14. It just seems like the Patriots are always playing at Mile High. And the Oakland game may not be in California, but in Mexico City instead, if the rumors of such a move are confirmed by the NFL.
• As a college professor, I’m usually aware of what my students’ needs are as a semester progresses. Some, however, always manage to fall behind and needs change by the end of the term. One entered my office not long ago, looked both ways down the hall before coming in, and then proceeded to tell me she really needed to pass my class and “would do anything” to get a good grade. “Anything?” was my response. She whispered, “yes, anything.” So I whispered back, “Great. Would you study?”
• We weren’t without our share of big sports stories to contribute to the mix for 2016, and while there were several to choose from, I’ll go with three as most-impactful. 1) The Friars’ win over USC in the NCAA Tournament last March was the first such win for the program in 19 years, since PC’s win over Tennessee-Chattanooga in 1997.
• 2) Tom Brady’s 4-game Deflategate suspension was not just a local story, it was a national and even international phenomenon, ad nauseum.
• 3) Last, but certainly not least, we could have gone with Brown’s appearance in the NCAA Lacrosse Final Four, PC’s stunning 5-4 comeback win over #1 Maryland in the NCAA soccer tournament (a viral hit on YouTube), or the NCAA 1st and 2nd rounds of March Madness returning to the Dunkin Donuts Center. But I’ll select New London, Connecticut’s Kris Dunn being selected 5th overall in the NBA Draft – the highest selection for a local player in more than 30 years, since PC’s Otis Thorpe was picked 9th in 1984. There are others, of course. Fire away with your best end-of-the-year shots.
• My buddy Paul from Port Aransas, Texas posted on Facebook this week: “Here’s why I can’t take college basketball in December, or January either, for that matter. Games don’t mean anything. You’re always working with a net…the whole effing season is an elimination tournament. Losing should hurt. Losing should, in many cases, be terminal.” Paul: I take it then, that’s why you got out of coaching football? Losing was terminal to your career? Joking aside, brother, come visit up here for a spell and let the passion of real, eastern hardwood-mania saturate your senses. I know you’re primarily a fan of the pigskin, but ask yourself a question. Why do we compete? In order to better ourselves and to win, right? So if you lose, do you stop competing? Of course not. The lesson gained for our benefit is learned in the pick-yourself-up part of trying again, and again. Sometimes we’re successful, and other times we’re not. But it’s the schedule that tells us when the season is over, not a single defeat. Unless it’s for a championship – and in that case, that’s a loss well-fought. Sometimes, a game is so special, so energetic, so much “fun,” you crave the rematch. As much as I love football, that’s something football can’t give you.
• Interested in having your questions on local Rhode Island sports (and yes, that includes the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics) answered in a somewhat timely fashion? Send ‘em to me! It’s your chance to “think out loud,” so send your questions, comments and local stories to john.rooke@weei.com.
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