Derwood

The thing I was most excited about was the activity level on both ends of the floor. So many times in the past several seasons I felt like there was too much standing around going on. The Bulls made the Spurs look old and tired.

agreed. He's one of those "perfect for college, doubtful for the pros" kind of players. He has a motor, he can shoot from mid court, but he's small (6 foot in shoes) and would have trouble defensively at the next level. He's a guy you love on your team in college though, especially in a program like PSU where his shot-making ability equals several more wins. ESPNU has the 2009 Freshmen rankings, with Tim Frazier being the #16 PG in the country and Jermaine Marshall being the #26 SF. Looks like DeChellis is improving the quality of players. They also have a (2010) home-town commit from SG Tran Buie, who is the #24 SG (per ESPNU). He picked PSU over Pitt, Maryland, GT and ND

a quick look at PSU's roster shows that they have 5 freshmen (3 G's and 2 F's). No one on the roster is being called a Center (though there are two Forwards who are 6-10). On the flip side, there isn't a single senior on the squad, meaning this group will get 2 full seasons together before Battle/Jones/Jackson graduate.

I'll be working tonight, and there is too much real TV on tomorrow night to bother. Maybe I'll start watching when someone can clinch

I'm bearish on Penn State as well. I think they're a bottom-3 Big Ten team. I really like DeChellis and Battle, but I'm dubious Penn State's program is to the point it can lose players the caliber of Cornley and Pringle and not face a precipitous decline. I mostly agree, though some of the underclassmen started stepping up in the NIT tourney. Getting those 4 or 5 extra games was SOOO valuable to this program. That said, I have no idea what kind of players are coming in as freshmen this year. The league is probably better this year as well, which hurts a rebuilding PSU team. At least the OOC games are a little better this year (though not much, and RPI killed PSU's bubble status at tourney time last year). 8 home games, only 2 road (plus 1-3 neutral court [Charleston Classic Tourney]). They'll lose @Temple, but can't afford to lose any easy home games like Robert Morris, Sacred Heart, etc.

I remember those devastatingly harsh penalties placed on Notre Dame immediately after the Kim Dunbar scandal. And by devastating I mean 2 whole scholies pulled and by immediately after I mean 2-4.5 years after the fact. 2 more schollies than USC has lost for much more severe offenses, BTW. And by "2-4.5 years after the fact" you must mean "less than one year", because that's the actual truth. The allegations were from 1993-1998. The investigation was opened in January 1998 and the punishments were handed down in December of 1999. That's nearly two years and you're looking at 5 years of alleged malfeasance. Let's not act like the NCAA was swift in its actions. Anyway, the Bush/Mayo thing will bear fruit for you at some point and you can pretend its some great act of justice when all anyone really cares about is that a program you don't like gets punished--after all the only time people like the NCAA is when its sticking it to hated teams. It's not even just that. Michigan got a 'letter of inquiry' this week regarding those practice-time allegations, which of course is a good thing, but again, it's the NCAA moving quickly on something relatively minor while we've heard absolutely no news on Bush/Mayo in forever. And I hate Michigan MUCH more than I could ever dislike USC. It's just completely backwards and counter to everything the NCAA claims to stand for. All the NCAA stands for is $$$$$$

It's not an all the time thing. Most of the time my back button works fine. Unfortunately I don't know of an elegant way to recreate the issue consistently. I use firefox and I have this issue. It happens every time I click the "view new posts" little orange flag thing next to a topic, then during the course of reading that topic, I click on the "Next page" button. Once I get to that next page, I can't go back to the forum unless I go back to the "Board index" link. click the drop down arrow on your back button and go back 2 pages. the problem is that the orange flag takes you to the first unread topic, you then go to the next page to finish the posts, but if you try going back to the first unread topic, there aren't any. The orange flag isn't taking you to a page, but to a post.

maybe next year, OMC

Yeah, it was Dunedin. The park is right in the middle of a residential neighborhood with nothing but traffic-light lined, two-way streets getting to it. The parking lot isn't much more than handicapped spots and maybe 40-50 more spots, and even those aren't enough (we went with someone in a wheelchair and had to drop him off and then park 4 blocks away).

To a lesser extent Magic? Don't see how you can say that. They are easily among the group you listed first. I'm not sold on Vince Carter staying healthy all year

the one set of predictions I saw today had the Nets in the basement of the East

Where was this? Blue Jays park....can't remember which town....Dunedin?

plus they got Richard Jefferson for a song

There was an article in today's paper about how top heavy the league is and that parity is totally out the window in the NBA. The Cavs, Celtics, Lakers, Spurs, and to a lesser extent, Magic and Mavericks are just spending like crazy and, on paper, look like the teams to beat.

my limited experience with Spring Training in Florida was that the ballpark was a major pain in the ass to get to, almost no parking, etc. Not sure if it's that way at every site

It's anything good that happens to a team that plays Alabama

Iowa is #1 in the computers, so you have a good case

An SEC fan who has zero ability to give another team credit? The hell you say

LOLOLOLOLOL

I was so tempted to drive down for this game and now I'm glad I didn't. Sorry you had to be the one to waste your money

Rams vs. Lions, lol

Maybe Pujlos doesn't know how to inject himself? he knows.....

What do you think the single biggest change will be with Ricketts (compared to Tribune, Inc.)?

isn't he a current head coach? Yea in Houston. but in the final year of his contract, I believe? dunno, I've heard a few people talk about him