In a move that we are certain will generate a ton of praise around the college basketball world (and the blogosphere), CBS has decided to not renew everyone’s least favorite curmudgeon Billy Packer (h/t to The Big Lead for pointing this out). After 27 years at CBS and having called the national championship game every year since 1977, CBS has “decided to move into another direction” (a phrase I’m sure many of our readers have heard before).
Like most college basketball fans, I’m excited to see Packer and his bitterness leave the airwaves (although I’m sure that rtmsf is sad to see a Wake Forest alum lose his job). While Packer has certainly become an institution (of hatred) in college basketball, it seems like in recent years, Packer has been more controversial than normal although that may just be a recency effect.
Among Packer’s “memorable” moments:
-1996: During a Georgetown-Villanova game, he calls Allen Iverson a “tough monkey”. He apologizes and John Thompson (the original, not JT3) says it’s a non-issue because he says Packer is not a racist.
-2000: When two Duke female (yeah, I know an oxymoron) students ask to see his press pass, Packer reportedly responds “Since when do we let women control who gets into a men’s basketball game? Why don’t you go find a women’s game to let people into?” Once again Packer apologizes.
-2004: Criticizes the NCAA selection committee for giving 1-loss Saint Joseph’s a #1 seed in the East Regional. This leads to a small disagreement between Packer and the CBS guest–St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli. The Hawks go onto reach the Elite 8 (beating Packer’s alma mater Wake Forest in the Sweet 16) before losing to Oklahoma State in a tight game.
-2006: Packer rips into the selection committee for taking mid-majors over BCSconference schools. The mid-majors responded by having Bradley and Wichita State make it to the Sweet 16 and George Mason make it to the Final 4.
-2008: With 27:30 left in the national semifinal, Packer tells viewers that the game is over. Surprisingly it isn’t. I’m sure the CBS bigwigs weren’t too thrilled that Packer essentially told viewers they could stop watching with 27:30 left in the game.
I’m sure there are others dating back to the beginning of his time on TV, but frankly I’m too young to remember the more distant controversies.
In an attempt to remain “fair & balanced”, we should note that Packer is most likely the 2nd person casual college basketball fans think of when they think of announcers–a distant 2nd to Dick Vitale. We’ll leave you with this YouTube clip from last year with Packer and Jim Nantz discussing his potential legacy (disclosure: I haven’t listened to this because I’m at work and I forgot my headphones–it’s a Monday):
Whew. After an exhausting day trying to track the news feeds seemingly every minute to figure out who was staying and who was leaving college, we can finally take a deep breath and start to sort out what this means for all the parties involved. Of the 69 early entries of US collegians submitted to the NBA league offices last month, 35 will remain in the 2008 NBA Draft pool. Here are the 35 early entries:
Joe Alexander, West Virginia
Ryan Anderson, California
Darrell Arthur, Kansas
D.J. Augustin, Texas
Jerryd Bayless, Arizona
Michael Beasley, Kansas State
Mario Chalmers, Kansas
Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis
C.J. Giles, Oregon State
Donte Greene, Syracuse
Kalen Grimes, Missouri
Eric Gordon, Indiana
DeAndre Jordan, Texas A&M
Kosta Koufos, Ohio State
Jamont Gordon, Mississippi State
Shawn James, Duquesne
Davon Jefferson, Southern California
Brook Lopez, Stanford
Robin Lopez, Stanford
Kevin Love, UCLA
O.J. Mayo, Southern California
Richard Hendrix, Alabama
J.J. Hickson, North Carolina State
George Hill, IUPUI
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, UCLA
JaVale McGee, Nevada
Kojo Mensah, Duquesne
Trent Plaisted, Brigham Young
Anthony Randolph, LSU
Walter Sharpe, Alabama-Birmingham
Derrick Rose, Memphis
Brandon Rush, Kansas
Marreese Speights, Florida
Bill Walker, Kansas State
Russell Westbrook, UCLA
We’d Be Excited Too, Roy
Today’s Winners
Roy Williams. Ole Roy could slip into a coke-induced coma for half of next season and still watch his team win 30+ games and make the Final Four. Why? Because the nation’s top backcourt (Ty Lawson & Wayne Ellington) and sixth man (Danny Green) all decided to return to Chapel Hill today to join forces with the reigning NPOY and a top five recruiting class. Yeah, apparently Roy is living right.
Lute Olson. It’s been a rough year for Olson, what with all his divorce proceedings and the loss of Jerryd Bayless to the NBA. The surprising return of the sensational Chase Budinger for his junior season provides Olson a key bulding block to get his program back on track.
Mark Few. Few only had to sweat out his beefy point guard Jeremy Pargo’s decision, but this player remains the key to Gonzaga’s success next season. With Pargo back to run the system, interior players such as Austin Daye and Josh Heytvelt can expect the ball in the right place at the right time.
Mark Gottfried. Alabama was facing a seemingly unthinkable situation where they would lose their best player from last season, forward Richard Hendrix, while simultanously losing their best player from two seasons ago, point guard Ronald Steele, even though Steele sat out the entire last season due to injury. We’ve shown previously how important a healthy Steele is to the Alabama attack, and with the additional return of Alonzo Gee to help offset the Hendrix loss, Gottfried must feel as if he dodged a serious bullet.
John Calipari. Why is he here? Didn’t he lose super-frosh Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts to the NBA? Well, yes, but he also retained the services of Antonio Anderson and Robert Dozier, which when combined with incoming stud wing Tyreke Evans, there will be more than enough talent for Calipari to roll through CUSA pretty much unscathed again. Calipari isn’t as big a winner as some of the above coaches, but today was a good day for him.
Tough Day For Howland, But He Knows He’ll Have More Chances
Today’s Losers
Ben Howland. There was some talk that Kevin Love may return to Westwood, but that quickly died down. When Russell Westbrook decided to leave as well, few were surprised. Josh Shipp made the wise choice to return, but today’s decision by Luc Richard Mbah a Moute to leave early has to leave UCLA fans scratching their heads - he’s unlikely to be drafted in either round, according to some people.
Rick Stansbury. It’s bad enough that all-SEC guard Jamont Gordon left Stansbury’s Mississippi St. program, but it’s even worse when there’s a strong sentiment that Gordon may not get a sniff of the second round. This feels a lot like Kennedy WInston from Alabama a few years ago.
Bill Walker. Yes, he gets his own mention here. The popcorn munching, towel-pissing, former K-State guard had it in his head all along that he was going League. So even though he sat out the NBA Predraft Camp and then proceeded to seriously hurt his knee during a workout last weekend - giving scouts even more pause about his shaky sticks - Walker decided that he was ready for the NBA and shouldn’t be too surprised if he finds himself in the D-League next season.
Bill Self. How bad can it be if you just won the national title? Not very. Still, there was a chance Mario Chalmers would return next season to lead Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich and the other Jayhawks back to another F4 opportunity. Only Collins of the quartet of he, Chalmers, Darrell Arthur and Brandon Rush is returning, but somehow we think Bill Self is still smiling.
With the announcement that the Carolina threesome of Tywon Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green are all returning to Chapel Hill next season, we can already hear the incoherent rantings of one Richard Vitale bouncing around in our heads.
Vitale Already Wearing His Favorite Color for 08-09
Let me tell you something… I wasn’t supposed to say this, but let me tell you a little secret, Mike… Roy Williams told me this morning that he thinks this North Carolina team could be his best team yet! He thinks that their inside-outside play with Lawson and Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington on the wing, super sixth man Danny Green off the bench and the arrival of diaper dandies Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller, this team could be SPECIAL. Ohhh… what a wealth of talent Roy Williams has at his disposal!
In all my years of doing games for ESPN, I have never seen as much talent on one team as I see out here right now! This North Carolina team could be one of the best teams EVER, Mike. EVER. And we know what kind of talent has walked around this campus before us - the Jordans, the Vince Carters, the James Worthys… ohhhhhhhhhhhh…
Let me tell you something Dan… This North Carolina team has a chance… now, I’m only saying a chance, but Roy Williams’ team has a shot to go undefeated and become the first team since The General did it at Indiana back in 1976 to cut the nets down without a blemish on their record. This team is that good!
Ohhhhh… all the Tylers! Hansbrough, Lawson and Zeller - the three Ts on their way to another ACC championship and the Final Four, baby!!!
Look at this place; LOOK at this place! The Carolina fans are going wacky cheering for their Tar Heels, the #1 team in America, baby!They love their Tar Heels!!!
Prepare yourselves. ESPN will put UNC on the tube for approximately 98% of their games next year, and Dickie V. will call approximately 98% of those. (ed. note - he will likely miss the annual clash between UNC and Pembroke St.) We must ready ourselves for the hyperbole and the incessant gushing, because there is nobody on the 2008-09 horizon who can pretend to match up with the Heels on paper.
We’ll See a Lot of Even More of This Guy Next Year
Looking at the final AP Top 25 poll (pre-NCAA Tourney), who else could rise up to challenge the Heels next year? The two finalists, Memphis (CDR and Rose) and Kansas (Arthur, Chalmers, Rush), have completely imploded with defections. Ben Howland’s UCLA squad has a sick incoming class, but the losses of Russell Westbrook, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and especially Kevin Love will be difficult to replace (even with Darren Collison returning). Tennessee, Louisville, UConn, Davidson, Purdue and Gonzaga should all be pretty good, but none of them should even be mentioned in the same breath with Carolina in returning talent and experience. UNC should be the #1 team in everyone’s preseason poll, and probably the unanimous choice in the AP poll. We’re not 100% sure of this, but we don’t think a team has ever been a unanimous preseason #1 in the history of the AP poll (in 2003-04, UConn got all but three #1 votes, and the 1993-94 UNC squad got all but four). That should change next season unless Hansbrough and company break their necks in one of those frat house pool dives they enjoy.
We know that NBAers get all kinds of ridiculous tail thrown at them on an hourly basis, but there’s something just a little more wholesomevirtuous delicious (yeah, that’s what we meant) when it’s Mary Sue from calculuschemistry sociology class straddling you like a stallion rather than Misty (and her three kids) from Total Platinum.
Anybody know the provenance of these pics? How old they are or what this function was for?
Like most basketball fans I spent last night watching Game 2 of the NBA Finals and assumed the game was over well before it actually was. Unlike most people I also sent taunting text messages to the Lakersfans I know with 1:21 left in the 3rd quarter when Boston went up by 20. I was feeling pretty confident in my rather moronic display of hubris when Boston was still up by 24 with 7:40 remaining in the game.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten Billy Packer’s faux pas from just over 2 months ago when he awarded Kansas a place in the NCAA championship game when they went up by 26 with 27:30left in their game against UNC–the Tar Heels subsequently cut into the margin enough to make the game competitive and make Packer look like an idiot once again. To be fair, 20 points with 16:21 left and 24 points with 7:40 left is certainly a much, much bigger margin than what Kansas was working with, but nonetheless I should have turned to the Bill James Lead Calculator before I sent those text messages (not to mention the voice mails).
A quick calculation would have revealed the following “facts”:
- At the time of my text messages (20 point lead with 16:21 left), the lead was 28% safe.
- At the time the Lakers started their comeback (24 point lead with 7:40 left), the lead was 91% safe although it would have been “over” (100% safe) according to James if the Celtics had the ball at that time.
Fortunately, the Celtics survived the Lakers 3-point barrage and Vladimir Radmanovic’s 5-step breakaway dunk to win or I would still be getting text messages and voice mails right now.
Moral of the story: Before you decide to call “ballgame” (and taunt everyone you know), ask yourself “What would Bill James do?”
Update: Apparently rtmsf decided to make a post about this late last night (an advantage of being on the West Coast) and being the idiot that I am (see the aforementioned reference to taunting text messages) I decided to throw up a post without looking at the blog even though I had mentioned that he might consider writing a post about it last night. Anyways, I just went to The Big Lead and saw that our blog was linked to and realized that this was a duplicate post. Hopefully, you can at least enjoy my stupidity. Hey, it was better than the “19-0. Next. . .” text that I sent when I saw Eli Manning jogging out onto the field with 2 minutes left. . .
It was just around 2 years ago that a fresh-faced youngster from Duke University decided to pop back a few Zimas (along with his collar) and take a late night drive around Durham before the NBA Draft. Now comes news out of Chapel Hill that Ty Lawson (basically the antithesis of Redick–UNC, black, athletic, no shot versus Duke, white, unathletic, and great shot) decided to do essentially the same thing. Let’s take a look at the results.
Two years ago, J.J. Redick stumbled into the Durham County Jail:
Polo shirt + bleary-eyed look + messed up hair + semi-popped collar = Perfection
After seeing what the ACC’s all-time scorer did 2 years before, let’s see what Lawson was able to pull off:
First off, Lawson looks pretty normal here. He looks pretty composed and is staring straight ahead at the camera. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought this was his team photo from the look on his face. If Ty wants to move into J.J. territory and possibly land on The Smoking Gun he needs a lot of work. I’m not a fan of the white t-shirt for these photos, but at least spill something on it. Show a little effort, Ty!
This week (Tues-Fri) is the all-important Orlando Pre-Draft Camp, the place where marginal second-round picks can become late first-rounders overnight, and all the other garbage players who weren’t going to get drafted anyway can prove their unworthiness in front of a collection of NBA types in attendance. Still, there’s always at least a handful of players who benefit from this event - last year Jared Dudley and Daequan Cook probably wouldn’t have gone in the first round but for strong showings, and Ramon Sessions, Stephane Lasme and Demetris Nichols may not have been drafted at all. Not to mention we always get to learn who can’t do a bench press to save his life (yes, that means you, KD).
Since we’re not there, we’ll have to rely on updates from the various NBA draftniks who are doing yeoman’s work sitting through these glorified pickup games this week. But first, let’s get educated on who is there, who isn’t there and what they’ll be doing.
Will Trent Plaisted or Sasha Kaun Parlay Orlando into the First Round? (photo credit: Orlando Sentinel)
The 15 players selected by NBA scouts for the “elite” list will only go through physicals and measurements, as they are expected to be high first-round picks. Expect to see our analysis of these players’ physical numbers later this week. These players are:
Joe Alexander, WVU
Darrell Arthur, Kansas
Jerryd Bayless, Arizona
Michael Beasley, Kansas St.
Eric Gordon, Indiana
Donte Greene, Syracuse
DeAndre Jordan, Texas A&M
Brook Lopez, Stanford
Kevin Love, UCLA
OJ Mayo, USC
Javale McGee, Nevada
Anthony Randolph, LSU
Derrick Rose, Memphis
Russell Westbrook, UCLA
Several players took offense at not being placed on the ‘elite’ list and will bypass the camp altogether. These players are:
Chase Budinger, Arizona
Mario Chalmers, Kansas
Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis
Jamont Gordon, Mississippi St.
Roy Hibbert, Georgetown
JJ Hickson, NC State
Kosta Koufos, Ohio St.
Robin Lopez, Stanford
Marreese Speights, Florida
Bill Walker, Kansas St.
Kyle Weaver, Washington St.
DJ White, Indiana
Finally, there are 64 additional players who will actually participate in the camp, led by the following notables (if you’re interested in the Orlando rosters, check here):
Brian Butch, Wisconsin
Pat Calathes, St. Joseph’s
Joe Crawford, Kentucky
Joey Dorsey, Memphis
Josh Duncan, Texas A&M
Wayne Ellington, UNC
Shan Foster, Vanderbilt
JR Giddens, New Mexico
Kentrell Gransberry, S. Florida
Malik Hairston, Oregon
George Hill, IUPUI
Davon Jefferson, USC
Sasha Kaun, Kansas
Ty Lawson, UNC
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, UCLA
Drew Neitzel, Michigan St.
DeMarcus Nelson, Duke
David Padgett, Louisville
Jeremy Pargo, Gonzaga
Trent Plaisted, BYU
Sean Singletary, Virginia
Ronald Steele, Alabama
Deron Washington, Virginia Tech
Sean Singletary & Ramel Bradley Mix It Up (photo credit: Orlando Sentinel)
Finally, to the action. Here are some tidbits from Tuesday night, which consisted entirely of drills (Wed-Fri will have game action).
Jeff Goodman reports that Alabama guard Ronald Steele is still favoring his bum reconstructed knee, and looks to have no chance at getting drafted this year. He also says that New Mexico forward and former Jayhawk JR Giddens looks fantastic and is ready to show off his eye-popping athleticism this week.
Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress (via Yahoo) reports that players generally looked nervous on Tuesday night - Wayne Ellington and Shan Foster had trouble finding their strokes, and there were a boatload of mishandled passes. Brian Roberts of Dayton appears to have had the best overall night, exhibiting quick hands and an ability to initiate an offense as a poing guard (his position at the next level).
Carolina fans can’t like hearing this - Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green all scoff at the idea of ‘testing the waters.’ According to Andy Katz, each player is at the camp to get drafted, not just to see how they stack up with their peers. Great quote from Green: “I’m not in Tyler [Hansbrough's] situation,” Green said. “He’s breaking records, and he has money. I’m not broke-poor, but my family doesn’t have as much as Tyler. He’s more fortunate, and I’m trying to do what’s best for my family.”
One thing to remember throughout all of this scouting - it’s often more art than science, according to Chris Ekstrand, publisher of the NBA Draft Guide. Ten years from now, “there’s going to be some kid who went with pick No. 37 who turns out to be a big-time player, and somebody who gets picked between 10 and 15 who doesn’t play two years.”
Reports from Day 2 are already coming in… we’ll post more tidbits soon.
Update: See our summary of Day 2 here and Days 3 & 4 of the Orlando Pre-Draft Camp here.
As previously mentioned on RTC (and every other decent site that covers basketball), the NBA held its draft lottery last night. Among the luminaries in attendance were the Basketball Jesus himself Larry Bird, Dwayne Wade of “Fall down 7 times, shoot 14 free throws” fame, Jay-Z, Kevin Durant, Mitch Richmond, Fred “The Mayor” Hoiberg, and some lady who has Sacramento Kings season tickets.
As most of you know by now, the Chicago Bulls defied their 1.7% odds to steal the #1 pick. Rounding out the top 3 were the Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves. The losers of the draft were the Seattle Oklahoma City Supersonics who fell from the #2 spot to #4, which I think they deserved after last year (still bitter despite a NBA record 42-win turnaround and a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals).
The top 2 are essentially set in stone although the Bulls lack of an interior scoring presence (not you Joakim) and lack of an elite point guard (sorry, Kirk) means they could go either direction. The Heat will get the “leftovers”. I’m guessing that Pat Riley (still the GM, right?) is hoping that the coachless Bulls take Michael Beasley because it seems like Beasley and Shawn Marion would clash in terms of their inside-outside styles and type of play so he would prefer Derrick Rose, who could be absolutely ridiculous paired with Wade and Marion.
We’ll be putting up draft previews over the next couple of days, but until then we’ll just offer a few thoughts:
(1) If I was the Bulls GM (if Reinsdorf or any one in the organization is reading this, please contact me), I would go with Rose. Even though they lack a great inside scoring threat, I think it’s a lot easier to find a serviceable PF than PG. I also think the impact of a great PG is bigger as Chris Paul and the other great recent vintage PGs have shown everyone the past few years. The Bulls have a lot of talented NBA-quality young guards (Chris Duhon, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Larry Hughes, and Thabo Sefolosha) along with a couple talented unproven youngsters (JamesOn Curry and Shannon Brown). While some analysts may argue that this is a reason to get a big man, I would argue they should take Rose (better than any of the current guards) and make a big package of these young guys to try to get another inside presence to compliment Andre Nocioni, Joakim Noah, Drew Gooden, and Tyrus Thomas along with the team’s only “star” Luol Deng. I’ll have more on this in an upcoming post. . .
(2) I wonder if Mike D’Antoni is starting to think he should have asked the Knicks for more money. He could have had almost the perfect team for his offense if he went to Chicago even before they had the chance to select Rose. I also wonder how D’Antoni is going to handle being on a team that uses its draft pick to select a player instead of selling it for money.
(3) Hoiberg looked like he was going to throw the cancer patient’s teddy bear when the Timberwolves ended up with the #3 pick (falling outside of the Beasley-Rose jackpot). That would have made an even better YouTube moment than it already was (around the 2:20 mark of the clip below).
A couple quick, early links on the NBA Draft:
(1) As always, Chad Ford has a mock draft up with a brief analysis. I swear he must have enough spare time during the year to come up with mock drafts for every possible team draft order combination.
(2) Meanwhile, Jack McCallum chimes in with his own thoughts. Mostly just rambling about what D’Antoni must be thinking along with a brief breakdown of what the top teams in the draft might do.
(3) If you want to hate John Hollinger and his ridiculous unproven stats, check out his Pro Potential analysis (ESPN Insider access required). For those of you without access here are a couple of gems:
- Michael Beasley at #1 followed by. . .Blake Griffin at #2 and Danny Green at #4.
- 11 of the top 25 are freshman, which isn’t surprising, but that does not include several notable freshman who didn’t make the list: Derrick Rose, OJ Mayo, DeAndre Jordan, Donte Green, and Eric Gordon.
- The list of freshman that Hollinger considers to have more pro potential than those five heralded freshman: DeJuan Blair (Pittsburgh), Dar Tucker (DePaul), Robbie Hummel (Purdue), Andrew Ogilvy (Vanderbilt), and Matt Howard (Butler). The fact that I decided to list the schools these guys play at should tell you how far off the radar most of these guys are as NBA prospects. Hollinger offers an impassioned defense of his system, but I don’t buy it.
Continuing our UNC-themed week here at RTC, we came across this photo of presumptive Heel point guard doing his best Russell Hammond of Stillwater routine at a local house of fraternage. Also check Psycho-T’s stance immediately behind and to the left of Frasor (getting wrapped up by some TarPoon).
Far be it from us to wax medical on the proper rehabilitation of an injury, but Frasor tore his ACL in late December and appears ready to take over the reins of point guard from Ty Lawson, who himself is testing the waters (shameless plagiarism, we know).
Update: Tyler Hansbrough got into the I’M ON DRUGS action as well…
Yesterday we brought you a video showing Barack Obama playing ball with some yahoos at a gym in Illinois. This is better.
North Carolina’s primary is on May 6th, and what better way to pander to engage and interest Wal-Mart Nation the good people of the Tarheel state right before an election than to strap on some Air Jordans and play pickup ball with their beloved Heels.
Update: moving pictures!! (h/t The Big Lead)
So is Obama’s gray shirt the hoops equivalent of the red jersey in football scrimmages? How’d they know which team he was on?? Whatever you do, don’t hurt the guy in the gray shirt!
Either Obama is asking Roy how he got down 40-12 to Kansas… or, they’re sharing fun tie stories.
Yes, son [Ty Lawson], you will make more money than me next year. Wanna contribute?
Even a skinny 46-yr old dude in too-tight sweats can find holes in the vaunted Carolina defense… and yes, ACC refs, that was an offensive foul on Obama. Hansbrough to the line for two.
That’s more like it - I can play with these 12-year olds!
Um, what am I supposed to do with this?
Uh oh - now we know Psycho-T’s problem with the NBA. Smooth Sam is a legit 6′9 - so that makes Hansbrough, what, 6′7 + hair (even allowing for the slight tilt in the photo)?
Final thoughts. What must uber-Heel and former Democratic nominee John Edwards think of all this suckling at the teat of the Ram in Chapel Hill?
3 Comments | 
allen iverson, billy packer, bradley, cbs, clark kellogg, dick vitale, duke, george mason, georgetown, john thompson, kansas, mid-major, mid-majors, ncaa tournament, oklahoma state, phil martelli, saint joseph's, unc, villanova, wake forest, wichita state | Tagged: unc, georgetown, bradley, ncaa tournament, duke, kansas, billy packer, dick vitale, oklahoma state, wake forest, cbs, allen iverson, mid-majors, clark kellogg, george mason, villanova, john thompson, saint joseph's, phil martelli, mid-major, wichita state | 
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