College Football Bowl Podcast Part 1

I join up with longtime friend Matt McQueeny on his mix-minus podcast to discuss the upcoming College Bowl Season.

http://www.matthewmcqueeny.com/2014/12/2014-15-college-football-bowl-preview.html

I went 183-135 this year in Division 1 football against the spread. I have a decent pulse on the beat of D1 college football and look forward to the second part of the mix minus podcast.

FLOORS for 2014-15

     Coaches, conferences, uniforms, rule changes, and FLOORS! Below are photos of new floors debuting this year in college hoops.

North Carolina State

...not bad

Northern Illinois 

...nice touch with the eyes.

Xavier 

...when I think of Xavier basketball, the skyline of Cincinatti will never come to my mind but whatever. Trending obviously.

Washington 

 

...totally buy in because of the Space Needle. Good job.

Utah 

...keeping it simple looks good.

Wyoming 

...facilities renovations abound in Laramie and love that reminder of altitude. Wish I had a better shot.

Baylor 

...despise Baylor so I was hoping the ugly floor would have remained but the arms race never ends! 

Dayton 

...if there was anything other than Long Beach State's floor and Western Kentucky's floor that dominated floors was the OLD Dayton floor. Debuting this floor is not just upsetting but outright ugly. At least their new uniforms aren't as bad as this overthought, tradition killing floor. Good luck.

UC Irvine 

...another confusing one. I get that incorporating an anteater maybe challenging but I think UTEP upon initial sight. Seems lazy and non-creative.

Eastern Kentucky 

...good job.

Texas Tech 

...I guess today's hypersensitive, blameshifitng, culture wouldn't allow a "Guns Up" ode to Tech on the hardwood but reminds me of the Longhorns and A&M too much with the state logo right there smack-dab on the circle. Set your program apart!

Murray State 

...back to the Ohio Valley and Murray States new floor dons the improved logo. Sucker for the old one but not a bad look. 

IUPUI 

...I get it but this is a classic example of when trying too hard goes wrong. Unless this turns it around for the Jags, ugly, unacceptable, and who knew Indianapolis even had a skyline. For the casual college basketball fan, IUPUI, is Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. Out of the ever changing Summit League.

     My take on what otherwise has nothing to do with the play on said floors. Everyone is trying to keep up with the latest this and that so I brought debuting floors. Always on the look and will be on watch for new ones. 

     Western Kentucky is still my favorite floor. So basic and yet so confusing because it doesn't include "Big Red", the best mascot in college basketball. Take that Syracuse.

     Going forward to 2015-2016 Long Beach State actually improves their floor with a more organized palm tree look. 

     But one will never forget arguably the best design ever emblazoned on a basketball floor 

Changes

     College hoops is almost upon us only a few weeks away. Anticipation is exciting and anxiously fueling me for one more year of fantastic basketball. After a great run last year that ended to a talented Arizona squad, Weber State has been picked to finish first in the preseason Big Sky Conference poll. Sixth out of the past seven seasons for those keeping score and you know as well as I that preseason polls amount to jack. A good sign nonetheless for the fans of the Weber State Wildcats. Last weekend, in Utah, I stopped inside the Dee Events Center to watch the Wildcats practice. Coach Rahe is focused and in control. The program has reflected this image, annually contending for Big Sky titles. A trip down memory lane as I was thinking of my time with the program, spending two seasons as Weber State student manager.

 

     

     Many conference changes. Here they are:

The Atlantic 10: Along with new logo 

the A10 welcomes Davidson from the SoCon bolstering an already strong basketball league.

The Atlantic Coast Conference adds Louisville. Yikes.

The American gets Tulane, Tulsa, and East Carolina by way of CUSA. 

The Big Sky adds the Vandals of Idaho.

The Big Ten will get Maryland and Rutgers, which has to be the new punching bag. 23 years and counting for the Scarlet Knights absence in the NCAA tournament. 

The Colonial welcomes former SoCon member, the Phoenix of Elon.

Conference USA has just one team coming in after three teams bailing. The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Same best floor logo and mascot.

The Southern Conference or SoCon adds more teams than any other league welcoming VMI, East Tennessee State, and Mercer.

The Sun Belt Conference adds Appalachian State and Georgia Southern primarily to strengthen their football.

     Listed below are this years new head coaches. Thanks to bsstate.com. Not listed is recently fired Hawaii head coach Gib Arnold. As of this blog entry a new hire as not been confirmed.

Obviously Manhattan head coach Steve Masiello had quite the time this off season, leaving the Jaspers to coach South Florida, only to be let go by the Bulls after they found out Masiello hadn't yet completed his undergraduate degree from the University of Kentucky. Manhattan welcomed him back as head coach on the condition he completed his degree over the summer, which he did. So interesting that I found this photo from Steve's twitter account dated October 14th 2014.

Have never been the biggest fan of Coach as blogged about 2 seasons ago but I must say that I hope for the best!

Final Four, MLB, Nets Podcast

http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/2760069

Another great podcast with Matt McQueeny. We discuss Final Four, MLB, Nets, among other sports podcast. A great listen.

32 Left

        Big Sky representative Weber State went up 7-0 on top seeded Arizona, at one point leading by 8 points. However Arizona went on a 30-10 run to end the 1st half and if you have half a brain there was no way Arizona was going to lose. Honestly was shocked that Weber State wound up losing by 9 points, thanks to a late offensive flurry. Arizona coach Sean Miller gave Weber State its due come post game and was quite candid with his disappointment in his teams performance. At least Weber showed me fight and didn't give up. Arizona will be playing Gonzaga on Sunday. Gonzaga survived the foulfest with Oklahoma State beating the pokes, 85-77. The refs, wound up calling a tournament tying 61 fouls in what was an unwatchable "game." Yet I watched and heard perhaps a career mistake from play by play man Andrew Catalon. When Gonzaga big man Przemek Karnowski was fouled, Catalon goes on to say that perhaps Ok.State's strategy was "hack a polack" noting his poor free throw percentage. Surprised to hear it, partner in the booth Mike Gminski said "Easy now" to which Catalon apologized and then went on to describe Karnowski's Polish basketball ties. This will get anyone in trouble but to me it wasn't as offensive as the officiating. Perhaps one of the worst officiated games I've witnessed but then I look no further than to the Nebraska Baylor game played a few hours prior. Even worse. Nebraska committed 31 fouls to Baylor's 16. The crossing guards went to the line 48 times, Nebraska 16.  I'm sure this was one of the reasons Nebraska head coach Tim Myles was heated and got t'd up twice. But this is no way to focus on a great day of action. Not here on Modblog.
       The most exciting game today was between VCU and the Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin. In an eerily similar brain cramp to Oklahoma last night albeit a cramp of a different variety, VCU fouled a 3 point shot that SFA made, resulting in a 4 point play. This allowed SFA take VCU to overtime, eventually winning the game. All you Mercer-Duke game fans can say that Mercer was a lower seed, "it was Duke!", the game was played in Raleigh, but this game between VCU and SFA simply was more exciting. I wasn't that surprised with Mercer beating Duke. If you read Modblog, you should notice that I have been keeping tabs on the Atlantic Sun conference and as shocking as the Mercer win was, the SFA win was that times ten. Moving along, what's with this praise for Coach K acting classy in the loss? Last I checked Coach K is Hall of Famer. Would you expect anything less? Enough of the fake shock realizing Coach K is a decent guy. UNC played in an exciting game against Providence, negating Bryce Cotton's impressive 36 point performance beating the Friars 79-77. Coastal Carolina kept it close for awhile, led at the half even but eventually lost to 1 seed Virginia.
       New Mexico lost again in the opener. Nothing against Stanford but for as much Mountain West basketball I follow, the Lobos played crumby. Sad really. I thought that last year's early exit to Harvard would still be lingering and New Mexico would find a way to overcome another loss in an opener. The Cardinal had other ideas and Johnny Dawkins gets his first tournament win as head coach. Speaking of the Mountain West, last week in the Mountain West Tournament there was a rather strange "administrative technical foul" given to Nevada when they played Boise State. In the scorer's book, Nevada had mis numbered one of its players resulting in the technical. You'd think that  programs would a.) know better  b.) take notice. Apparently not. This happened Thursday with Cincinatti. But in the category of "can you get any more serious?!?!," Kansas State probably topped it last night. I know this rule but for all of you who don't, while a team is in pre game shoot-around, NCAA rules prohibit players from dunking anytime after the 20:00 mark. If caught dunking after 20:00 the other team will shoot free throws prior to tip. Kansas State was caught dunking after the 20:00 mark(by a walk-on no less) and Kentucky shot 2 free throws before the tip. Kentucky wound up winning a game that seemed forever to end. This is why I like going to games early, like with 40:00 minutes left before tip-off. Case and point was this year witnessing a show put on by Florida Gulf Coast in Spartanburg S.C. The Gators weren't as impressive in their warmups in Columbia.
       Iowa State, despite running on all cylinders beating NC Central, have lost matchup nightmare Georges Niang for the rest of the year. Devastating hit to their run. Not that they can't do it but not exactly what Hilton magic was wishing for. Broken foot, ouch.  What doesn't hurt, is my Final Four remains intact. Creighton and Memphis survived tonight. I have Florida and Louisville as well. In closing it's interesting to note all flaws of the NCAA. For instance SDSU coach Steve Fisher going off in Thursday nights post game press conference or this tweet from Sports Illustrated writer Joan Niesen:

     

                                                     March Madness Indeed!

Harvard, Fraschilla, and Wroblicky

       Second round action debuted yesterday and didn't disappoint. It marked the first time 4 overtime games were played in the same day. Insane action, questionable decisions, and Harvard. Harvard, of course hinders me again. I am zero for three with the Crimson. In 2012 had them beating Vanderbilt, last year no way were they beating the Lobos sans Brandyn Curry, and of course yesterday they beat Cincinatti. Not so much surprise but more of a what the heck from the Bearcats. What I did find out was that Brandyn Curry from Harvard, despite hailing from North Carolina is not related to Dell. Also found out that Matt Fraschilla, freshman for the Crimson was indeed the son of Big 12's favorite spokesman, Fran. But the family ties extend to Oklahoma Sooners basketball. James Fraschilla is a sophomore on the Oklahoma team. Not to my surprise, Oklahoma lost to North Dakota State. The Bison feature good match ups on the front line with good ball handling big men. If San Diego State plays the way they did last night, North Dakota State should win. I'm probably the biggest proponent of Mountain West hoops but they continue to underwhelm in the big dance. Why should I be surprised if the Lobos lose today?
       Dayton got the last laugh beating the Buckeyes by one point in an exciting game. Texas escaped the Sun Devils in a wild finish. Speaking of Texas. no fan of SMU but the Mustangs, St. John's, or any other team on the bubble probably would have given better effort than Colorado yesterday. Pittsburgh is damn good but the Buffs effort yesterday was abysmal, joke worthy of their 9 seed.  Saint Louis somehow escaped with the win over NC State. Majerus lives. Albany kept it damn close with Florida. Louisville played a very intense Manhattan squad but somehow managed to advance. My favorite moment this side of the Sim Bhullar was courtesy of American University senior center Tony Wroblicky. I was unaware of his one handed free throws. This leads me to Florida Gators commit Zach Hodskins. If you think Wroblicky was good one handed, Zach will be a walk on.

                              Well, it's about time a 16 seed beats a 1. Let's Go Weber State!

March Madness Podcast

Mix Minus Podcast host Matthew McQueeny and I discuss this year's NCAA tournament. http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/2733272