Why Scott Wood should be your new favorite college hoops player

I’m a Scott Wood fan, I celebrate the dude’s entire catalog. The NC State junior forward plays hard, nails his 3’s and hits damn near every free throw he attempts. Oh, and he says brutally honest stuff like this in the wake of his team having its collective throat slit by North Carolina:

I’m still stunned that beat reporters actually ask players whose team has just been blown out questions like, “How frustrating was that?” Huh? Asking that is tantamount to asking a guy who’s just been shot, “Does it hurt much?”

I’ve witnessed this goofiness in person, either in postgame pressers or in more intimate settings. Back in college I had a buddy who was in journalism school and worked for the school paper, the Auburn Plainsman.

A few days after Auburn was soundly trounced in Gainesville by Florida, he called me up to tell me he was heading over to the athletic complex to interview offensive lineman Ed King. He invited me to tag along and I gladly went.

I won’t blame my buddy too much because he was still a neophyte in his profession at that point, but once we got there, a torrent of ridiculous questions sprung from his mouth. Not surprisingly, King wasn’t very engaging when asked things like, “Did you think you’d lose by that much?”

It got so ugly that I just piped up out of nowhere even though it wasn’t my place. I asked King about how surprising it was that Florida blitzed with so much frequency in that game. He shook his head and laughed like a guy who’d endured some terrible siege and was only just now coming to grips with it.

In the few minutes after that I learned more about a college offensive lineman’s responsibilities and Auburn’s game week preparations than I ever had before. But those weren’t the most important lessons I took away from that exchange. No, the most important lesson was that when you ask good questions you get good answers.

I’m not going to sit here and belittle beat writers too much because I know it’s not always the easiest job. Sitting on press row and wrestling with tight deadlines day after day isn’t something that all of us are cut out for. In that scenario, maybe dumb questions are all some of these dead behind the eyes bastards can dredge up.

Watching Scott Wood’s BLESSED reaction to a stupid question only served to remind me of all the blank stares and terse answers I’ve seen coaches and players give to goofy questions. For the record, beat writers, losing doesn’t ever feel good.

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Virginia Squires

Has any franchise in the history of pro sports ever put together a roster of guys with such fascinating hairstyle/facial hair combinations as the ABA’s Virginia Squires did back in the 70’s?:

When Jackson and Wise posed for those pictures that would become part of the 1975 Topps set, the Squires were already in the process of circling the drain. It was a fitting end for a franchise that, despite some great successes, never could get it right.

The Squires were actually founded in 1967 as the Oakland Oaks with singer Pat Boone being part of the ownership group. To be honest, I can think of no pop icon less suited to be a pro sports owner than Pat friggin’ Boone. But with that goober running the show the team pulled a genuine coup before the 1968-69 season by signing Rick Barry, who had sat out the previous season after a contract dispute with the NBA’s Warriors.

Despite a knee injury that put Barry on the shelf after 35 games, the Oaks finished 60-18 in the Western Division and went on to beat the Indiana Pacers in the ABA finals. The problem was that in the midst of those turbulent days, not a whole lot of folks in the Bay Area seemed to care about ABA basketball, even if the local franchise was winning big.

Boone and his partners were forced to sell the team to lawyer Earl Foreman, who then moved it across the continent. Despite now being the Washington Caps, the ABA made the goofy choice of keeping the team in the Western Division. That forced Caps management to schedule some odd “home” games during the 1969-70 season in locales like Wichita, KS and Mexico City.

The following season, Baltimore Bullets owner Abe Polian muscled Foreman and the Caps out because he wanted to move his own outfit to Washington. That’s the point when the team morphed into the Virginia Squires. The Squires were based in Norfolk but were actually a regional franchise, playing home games in Hampton and Richmond as well.

In terms of being an effective owner, Foreman wasn’t exactly in the league of Jerry Jones. Under his ownership the franchise was perpetually operating in the red. Before the move to Virginia, Foreman was forced to trade Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and cash. Over the next couple of years, he’d end up selling Dr. J and Iceman Gervin as well.

Think about that for a second: the Virginia Squires basically sold THREE Hall of Famers to get cash to pay the bills. What that team could’ve achieved had it kept three scorers of that proficiency together on the same roster. Alas, by the time Jackson and Wise were showing off their afros to Topps in 1975, there wasn’t a Hall of Famer to be found on the Squires.

With paychecks bouncing and fan discontent growing over the talent drain, the ABA was actually forced to buy the team from Foreman in 1974. The Squires were on the verge of collapse in early 1976 and even a $250,000 loan from a Virginia bank couldn’t keep them afloat. The franchise was folded up by the ABA in May of that year because it couldn’t generate a $75,000 league assessment.

At that point it got downright tragic, not because the franchise was disbanded, but because Foreman was only a couple of years away from really cashing in. Had he been able to find a way to keep the team afloat under his watch he could’ve shared in a massive windfall:

After the 1975-76 season — the ninth year of a costly talent war with the ABA — the NBA relented and agreed to accept four of the remaining six ABA teams into the league. The Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New Jersey Nets and San Antonio Spurs made it. The Spirits and Kentucky Colonels did not.

Colonels owner John Y. Brown received a $3 million payoff from the remaining ABA teams. Spirits owner Ozzie Silna wasn’t willing to go away that easily.

As part of a concept he had come up with months earlier, he negotiated to receive four-sevenths of a share of the NBA’s annual TV revenue for as long as the NBA was around. At the time, it was worth about $300,000 a year. Today, that deal nets the Silnas and their attorney about $15.6 million a year. Overall, they’ve collected about $168 million since the merger, an amount that has grown mightily through investments. (Associated Press)

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Albert Belle

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Antoine Walker

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Michael Irvin

Arrested Florida hoops players not knowing they’re being taped = SO BLESSED

St. Augustine, FL just went up about 50 notches on my BLESSED Meter, and not because it’s the oldest city in the nation. Nor does it have anything to do with the city’s attractions, such as the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument or its 40+ miles of pristine beaches.

No, St. Augustine is blessed because the city fathers saw fit to equip their police cars with audio recording devices. These devices would come into play this past Saturday night, and I’ll let St. Augustine police officer Michael Ochkie’s report provide the details:

The tall white guys who were running turned out to be Florida basketball players Erik Murphy and Cody Larson, who had decided to cap off a night of underage drinking by breaking into cars. Team manager Joshua Adel was also around, apparently serving as a lookout for the master criminals.

Here’s a heads up to college basketball team managers everywhere: players don’t invite you out for stuff in order to enjoy the pleasure of your company, they want you around to look out for the cops. Seriously, in their eyes, that’s the only thing you’re good for outside of handing them towels and Gatorade.

In the wild scramble that ensued, Murphy and Adel end up in the back of a St. Augustine police cruiser while Larson is still doing a Dr. Richard Kimble on the streets of St. Augustine. Remember that audio recording capability I was referring to? Here you go (you guessed it, this is NSFW stuff):

The first shining gem is found just after the 1:00 mark in the recording, when Adel uncorks the following while talking to Larson on speakerphone: “I know, man, that’s what you gotta say, boo, but there’s a bunch of people saying that they saw you at a car and now they’re saying that I’m the f*cking lookout.”

BOO?!?!? These are dudes talking! Oh, so damn blessed. Did Joakim Noah refer to Al Horford as his “Boo” when they were both playing for Florida?  Could that be a Gator thing?

While Adel and Murphy are sweating it out in the police car, Larson is understandably reluctant to come back. Adel tries to reason with him, dropping other gems like, “This ain’t a game, bro.”

Things get epic when Adel and Murphy play the “Everything’s gonna be okay” card with Larson just after the 4:00 minute mark:

Murphy: “They don’t have anything on us. We’re gonna get off.”

Abel (whispering to Murphy): “We’re not getting off.”

Murphy (whispering back to Abel): “Just tell him we are so he can come.”

Murphy (out loud): “Yo, we don’t have anything on us. We’re getting off bro.”

Hey, Erik and Josh, I know it was stressful being in the back of that police car, but you know what? SNITCHES IS ALWAYS BITCHES.  A real teammate would’ve said, “Cody, bro, just jog the 80 miles back to G-ville, just run like the f*cking wind, we’ll take the hit.”

While Cody is in the process of being rounded up, here’s the clip where the guys cop to everything:

Oh, thank you, St. Augustine, thank you so very much. Few things get as BLESSED as this. Also, I hope none of these guys referred to anyone as “Boo” in the holding cell. If so, something like this might’ve gone down:

VCU can thank NIT champ Wichita State for its spot in the Final Four

When I was kid, I was fascinated with Wichita State hoops. Think about the dudes they had back in the 80’s: Antoine Carr, Cliff Levingston, Xavier McDaniel. That was a stacked lineup, but unfortunately for Shocker fans, it was an ill gotten one as well. Wichita State went 25-3 in 1982-83 but NCAA probation kept the team out of the postseason.

So you can understand why long suffering Shocker fans would savor the NIT title their team won on Thursday by virtue of a 66-57 win over Alabama. Here’s photographic proof of how into it they were:

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that crazy dude was giving Texas an upside down hook ‘em. So I say good for that insane bastard and good for the rest of Shocker nation as well. They’ve waited long enough for a postseason trophy of some kind.

You know who else should be showing a whole lot of appreciation for the Shockers? That would be VCU fans, for if not for Wichita State being so cooperative, they might not currently be basking in the glow of their own team’s postseason success.

I take you back to February 18, when the two schools met in Wichita in a BracketBusters game. VCU had lost three of its previous five games and came into the contest squarely on the bubble at 20-8. With a 22-5 record at the time, Wichita State was arguably just as strong a candidate for an at-large berth in the NCAAs.

VCU squeaked out a 68-67 victory that day, but went on to lose its last two regular season contests. From there, both teams would go on to lose in their conference tourneys, with VCU bowing out in the CAA finals against Old Dominion and WSU losing in the MVC semis to eventual champ Indiana State.

Now let’s say VCU hadn’t of beaten WSU in that BracketBusters tilt. That means the Rams would’ve limped down the stretch by losing their last FIVE regular season games. Seeing as how they ended up being one of the last four teams selected to the NCAA Tournament field, you have to believe that win over the Shockers made a huge difference.

So raise a glass to the NIT champs, Ram fans. They were kind enough to lose to your team when it needed it most.

Is this the most underappreciated play in sports history?

With North Carolina and Marquette set to meet in the Sweet Sixteen, older fans of both teams can’t help but recall the most important game played between the schools. That was in 1977, when Marquette overcame North Carolina in the NCAA title game in Atlanta by a 67-59 count to close out the Al McGuire Era.

But there are those who’ll tell you that maybe Marquette shouldn’t have even been playing in that game at all. I’ll fire up the time machine and let Dick Enberg and Billy Packer explain why:

Let me provide a little background as to how that particular Final Four game between Marquette and Charlotte (then known as UNC Charlotte) got to that point. With 1:44 left in the contest, Marquette was down 47-44 before consecutive baskets by Butch Lee and a free throw by Gary Rosenberg gave the Warriors a 49-47 lead with 13 seconds to play.

Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell (still one of the greatest nicknames in hoops history) responded with a 10-footer for the 49ers to tie it up with a scant :03 left on the clock. That’s when Lee threw the length of the court pass that Whitehead converted for the score.

Whitehead’s game winner remains significant not just because it was a buzzer beater in a playoff setting. As Enberg and Packer alluded to, the sequence is also memorable because it was tinged with controversy. As you can see in the clip, it sure as heck looked like Whitehead touched the ball while it was still in the cylinder.

Could you imagine if that play occurred in this year’s Final Four? ESPN would replay it no less than 30 times an hour, Twitter would literally blow up and the kid making the shot would become an instant cult hero.

Yet, strangely the Whitehead play is largely forgotten. Every year around this time you see clips of Christian Laettner’s miraculous buzzer beater that propelled Duke past Kentucky in the 1992 East Regional final. But despite being an extremely similar ending, I bet that’s the first time you’ve seen the way Marquette sank UNC Charlotte’s fortunes.

In terms of meeting a very specific set of criteria, that being an important playoff contest decided by a controversial final play, I think Whitehead’s buzzer beater should at least be in the conversation with this gem:

If you ask any Raider player who was on the field for the Immaculate Reception, you’ll get not one but three reasons why Harris’s reception should have been disallowed:

• They insist the pass touched the Steelers’ Frenchy Fuqua, which according to the rules of the time would have nullified Harris from catching the carom.
• Many former Raiders insist that Harris didn’t actually catch the ball before it hit the turf.
• Linebacker Phil Villipiano insists he was clipped after Harris caught the ball.

The controversy surrounding the Immaculate Reception lives on despite the fact that multiple NBC cameras were in Three Rivers Stadium that day.  Incredibly, none of the images captured by those cameras could provide a definitive angle on whether or not Fuqua touched the ball or if it hit the turf before Harris gathered it in.

Which brings me back to Marquette’s buzzer beater.  Despite a camera obviously pointing right at the play, it’s hard to definitely tell if Whitehead touches the ball while it’s in the cylinder.  And to add another layer of mystery to it, did Maxwell possibly touch the ball?

Regarding the clip itself, I have still more questions.  Why did Billy Packer have such a bad case of crazy eyes that night? And where did he buy that sportcoat?:

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