Bob Knight Retires

Just as I am having an emotional high from the Super Bowl, I hear on XL 950 Radio that Bobby Knight has stepped down as the coach of Texas Tech. His son, Pat will step in and take over. I have seen about three Texas Tech games this year. All of them on CW4 locally. I do appreciate them putting on some games. They have been showing a lot of Big East games the past weekends. I am thankful for that because I don't have cable/satellite TV, which inevitably means no Big Ten network or ESPN. So I do have withdrawals occasionally, but I do know that I need to treasure the games that I do get to see. Anyhow, I am really surprised about the decision because it's a mid-season decision in the middle of the conference schedule. While I was watching the TT games earlier this year all I saw was Coach Knight sitting down an awful lot and Pat being in his ear the entire game. So based on that right there, I am not surprised, I just didn't expect it at this time in the season.
For all the negative things that Coach Knight gets publicized for (I just did a Google image search for Bob Knight and the 4th pic was the chair toss, and the fifth was the choke), there is no one that can deny the impact that Knight had on the game of basketball. His motion offense is second to none. His players always understood the game. His man defense was always stifling. Another thing that always stood out to me was the fact that the ones who graduated from IU and went on to play in the NBA never had amazing stand out careers. I know Allen Henderson has been around forever and Calbert Cheaney bounced around for a while, but really Isiah Thomas is really the only one who was head and shoulders a real good NBA player. To me this stood out that his players knew how to "play" basketball the way that it was supposed to play. I am not knocking the NBA but the NBA is a different brand of basketball and typically lends itself to athleticism and finding matchup problems. Players who played for Knight understood how to be successful at life. He might have gone about it a different way than I would like, but his players knew what it took to be successful. His players had respect for him, their opponents, and the game itself. Today the winningest coach in history has stepped down and the coaching world has lost one of the game's biggest influences.

Giants Pull the Upset!, Patriots Choke?

Right before the game started I made my prediction that New York would pull the upset and beat the Patriots 24-21. I made my prediction based on a few things -
1. The Giants play great on the road.
2. They lost to the Pats the first time by 3.
3. They had guys who were capable of putting pressure on Brady.
4. Eli was playing great ball.
5. Brandon Jacobs is bigger than 3 of the 4 New England Linebackers.
6. The Pats are older and playing 18 games might take a toll.
6. Karma might have been on their side.

Okay, the last one was just a plain stretch but to go undefeated all year, including the Super Bowl, well, it's only been done once before. So, basically, it had a 1/41 chance of pulling that off. I just think that the Giants had the perfect personnel to be able to beat New England. All year it has been Brady standing in the pocket for an amazing amount of time just waiting for Welker and Moss to get open, beating the coverage downfield or underneath. But when he gets pressured, and oh boy did the front four of the Giants put pressure on Brady tonight, he seems out of Sync. There was no, "Moss, Open Deep" or "Play Artist - Pats Running Game." The front four played amazingly, and when that rookie had that last sack for the Patriots when Brady was on his back calling for a timeout, I knew that it was over. Maybe it was Brady's ankle, but I doubt it. He didn't look as if he was having trouble pushing off of it, although he had a lot of balls that were underthrown. All week I kept seeing Belichick saying to his players "Just do your job." I could not have agreed with him more. If the Pats would just have done their job, then everything would have probably wound up a win for the Pats. I don't think the Pats didn't do their jobs, I just credit the Giants for not letting them. The front 4 for New York just flat out dominated their offensive counterparts. New England couldn't even incorporate any of the screens that Brady usually gets to Faulk. He did use Welker and Gaffney on a few WR screens but you usually see the RB screens from New England. During the game, I just kept wondering if Vrabel, Seau, Bruschi, and Thomas where in the game. Thomas had that sack/fumble on Manning, but I don't remember even seeing Vrabel, Seau, or Bruschi even making a tackle. Maybe I have a bad memory, but nothing really steps out in my mind, you know, there is always that play that one of them makes in every game that turns out to be huge. I just checked the stats Bruschi - 8 tackles, Vrabel & Seau - 2 each, and Thomas had 5. More than I expected, they must have in the first half, because I don't remember much of them.

I thought when the Pats had that drive when they were rolling that the game was shifting sails and the Pats were going to pull it out. Brady got in a groove and just marched right down the field and set up the Moss TD. What happened to Webster on that play? I mean seriously, I think I could have fell down like that and tripped over my own feet just as well. With that being said, he did an excellent job on Moss the other 75 plays of the game. (Except that same series when Moss was on the left side and Brady missed him, but no one will remember that blunder either).

Offensive Impact Player of the Game -
David Tyree - 3 Catches - 1 TD (his first of the season) - 1 helmet catch (after Manning made an amazing escape on 3 and 5 for 32 yards)

Defensive Impact Player of the Game -
New York D Lineman - 4 Sacks (Kawika Mitchell had the 5th on a blitz) and countles knock downs and hurries
Antonio Pierce - 11 Tackles - he always seemed to make a big stop. And for some reason was always in the area where Moss was being tackled. I was perplexed as some of this because Moss was so open on those little routes he was running.

So I am wondering if that the Giants have pulled the biggest upset ever, or is the biggest choke ever? Leave a comment about this I would love to have some conversation. Since I am usually a very positive guy I would consider this to lean in favor of the Giants as pulling the upset. I just think the Patriots didn't play their best ball and New York played the best that they could and a little bit more. They were definitely the aggressors. And I guess Karma does come back to haunt you. Maybe the Patriots won't challenge the integrity of the game by running up the scores the way they did this year. I would hope that they will respect the game and the unwritten laws of sportsmanship a little more from now on.

Girls' Sectionals Announced

Here is the link to the Girls' Sectional matchups IHSAA

I was right about the close games this weekend as two of them went into overtime. I also thought Monrovia would give Edgewood a bigger test.

Let me know what you think about the girls sectional matchups or anything else by posting a comment.

High School Games this Weekend

I suggest trugging out in the cold to see some good games this weekend! Especially that the Colts have been eliminated from the playoffs.

Friday's contests include -
Monrovia at Indian Creek
Greencastle vs North Putnam
Cloverdale vs South Putnam
Cascade vs Speedway
Avon at Zionsville
Brownsburg at Nobleville
Plainfield vs Decatur Central
Mooresville at Whiteland
Tri-West at Fountain Central
Danville at Owen Valley

Saturday's games -
Monrovia at Edgewood
Greencastle at Tri-West
Cloverdale at Owen Valley
Cascade at Danville
South Putnam vs Riverton Parke
Avon vs Indpls. Washington
Plainfield vs Richmond
Tri-West at Greencastle

The best game I believe will be between Plainfield and Richmond on Saturday. I also think the Avon vs Washington, Tri-West vs Greencastle, and Cascade vs Speedway games will also be close contests. I'm also interested to see the Monrovia vs Edgewood score.

Have a good day and stay warm.

FW Mad Ants and Accepting Reality

I happened to watch NBA Access today with Ahmad Rashad and they had a segment on the Fort Wayne Mad Ants in the NBDL. They had an interview with their head coach, Kent Davison and he said that he wanted his players to do what they do best. If you're a penetrator, penetrate. If you're a shooter, then hit your shots more than you will miss them. If you are a defenseive stopper, then I better not see the guy you're guarding get an easy, uncontested shot off. I see players all the time who are playing outside of their ability level. I do understand that if you don't have a point guard that can handle the ball, then someone will have to fill that role, but if you aren't a shooter, then why are shooting? When looking at what Coach Sfera has posted on the Powerbox Basketball Blog about the Butler Way I was intrigued that it included "Accepting Reality" as a part of the Way. But really digging deeper, I interpret that to mean that you can only do what you are capable of at that moment in time. You can't pretend to be someone else if you don't have the skills. But, and it's a big but, you can take the steps to eventually acquire the skills to do something that you couldn't do before. These skills that I am talking about are skills that you need to develop on your own, in your driveway, by yourself or possibly with a buddy. You can't acquire these skills simply by playing games. You don't become a good shooter in games without working on your shooting with no one in the stands. And you definitely can't become a good ballhandler by just playing games, it takes initiative, drive, and a commitment to get better every day. If you think about it, if you don't get better on your own, and just play games, and everyone else does the exact same thing, then no one is getting any better than you were the year before, you have the exact same repertoire of moves that you had last year. I have seen kids in the 8th grade be very good and not get any better by the time they graduate because they thought they were good enough and didn't have to work hard. And when you don't progress you stay at that 8th Grade good enough level even when they are a senior in high school and you can already guess how much playing time that he got his senior year.

There are three players from Indiana colleges playing for the Mad Ants this year -

Earl Calloway - Indiana

Ron Howard - Valparaiso

Rod Wilmont - Indiana

Have a good weekend and thanks for reading.