Thursday, March 19, 2009

Thursday thoughts

First off: Stringer Bell is on The Office! How exciting is that? I just hope he's a character that hangs around for awhile and isn't gone in three episodes. It would be awesome if Avon Barksdale and/or Marlo Stanfield dropped by and capped Bob Vance because he didn't pay protection money.

But anyway ...

-Watched most of the Madison Memorial-Germantown game, and am really excited about Vander Blue. Last year you could see potential, but it he was very much unpolished. Tonight: 35 points on 12-of-20 shooting from the floor, including two 3-pointers, and 9-of-9 from the line. Yes, many of those field goals came in transition, where he showed great athleticism, but he also made a few long jumpers and looked very good on them.

Jeronne Maymon, on the other hand, looked sluggish and lackadaisacal, although he did have seven assists. Without having seen that team play before tonight, my guess is opposing teams gear up to stop Maymon and make the other guys beat them, and a team like Germantown with size can slow him down a bit. He'll probably have a big game Friday night.

-Didn't see the Racine Horlick-Eau Claire North game, but Evan Anderson didn't do much. Looks like he was in some foul trouble. I'm not too worried about him, though -- he had a rough year with injuries, and I'd look for him to have a big year next year.

Jamil Wilson had 24 for Horlick. One recruiting message board I read had a guy purporting to be a friend of Wilson's who said Jamil wanted to be a Badger. But the implication was that we weren't willing to wait until March 8 to find out his college choice, a date that held significance to his deceased mother. Too bad, I've heard lots of good things about him, and he's headed to Oregon; at least it's not East Lansing. Sure hope Ryan Evans pans out.

-Bay Port-Beloit just doesn't excite me, seems there's always a game like that on Thursday.

-Minnesota looked unbelievable early, then cooled down, then showed just about how good they really are. I can't believe we lost twice to that team this year, it's sickening. Goodbye Lawrence Westbrook, good luck in Europe. (NOTE: Per the first comment before, I'm wrong about this, we have to see Larry charging into Big Ten defenders and throwing the ball at the rim for another year. Damn.)

-Conversely, really nice win for Michigan. I'm surprised we beat them twice this year, includin that really convincing one in Ann Arbor.

-Purdue also won to make the Big Ten 2-1, we'll see how Illinois does. It would be nice for the Big Ten to have a winning record in the tournament, maybe shut some critics up.

-It seems like every time I switch channels from the high school game to the college game on CBS it's going to commercial.

-Not enough Rural Insurance commercials during the WIAA broadcasts.

This is such a great time of the year. It's somewhat less great when your 10-month-old repeatedly crawls over to the satellite receiver and turns it off, leaving snow on the screen. He usually turns around and smiles, which makes it cute and semi-acceptable, but come on Charlie, not in March!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Westbrook is a junior.

Coach Scott Tappa said...

Damn, you're right. Thought when I checked their roster last week that he was among their departing seniors.

lonebadger said...

This is the best 4 days of the year, and as luck would have it, I have all 4 of them off! Maybe I'll come down tonight and look for your bald head in the stands.(Don't wear a hat!)

Unknown said...

no post on PJ Hill this week? I figured we'd get some commentary on former Badgers and run ins with The Law.

Coach Scott Tappa said...

Good point, Tom. I guess I figured there was one week left in the basketball season and after that I won't want to talk about it for awhile, so we'll move on to spring football, our kids' NFL prospects, and what the hell was PJ thinking?

Unknown said...

glad we have a few more days to discuss basketball! JBo came up huge tonight.

Food for thought on the Parrish James Hill Jr. topic - My buddy came up with a list of Badger delinquents. What are your thoughts?

Brent Moss
PJ Hill
Sam Okey
Rashard Griffith
Jack Ikegwuonu
Leonard Taylor
Joe Panos
Booker Stanley
Anthony Davis
Lance Smith
Nick Davis
Danny Heatley
Kevin Gullickson
Osita Wachuku
Boo Wade

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping