Tag Archives: Nike

THREE FOR BART: Shoes, Sheed, Upshaw

Three For Bart, , ,

Three For BART is a daily (or really close to that) drop of three thought provoking articles for your commute or day. Submissions for inclusion taken at: pachoops25@gmail.com

  1. Don’t hold your breath waiting for other shoe to drop – Earlier this week we saw the semi-overt-and-completely-legal-but-Woj-scolded recruiting practices of Coach K exposed. Well, not really exposed. He’s just doing him. This is a great perspective on shoe business, how it works, and how we want to but shouldn’t frown upon it. Business.
  2. Your annual reminder that Rasheed Wallace is a national treasure – I guaransheed you’ll enjoy this.
  3. 6-11 center Robert Upshaw looks on track to play UW basketball this season – Which is to say that it was in question. Now usually I’d want to expand upon this, probably give it it’s own post. But I’m smack in the middle of a big week with concerts and corporate events so it’s just not going to happen. Please recognize that UW has been size depleted the past few seasons so this improved track for Upshaw is big (pun) for the Huskies. He and the returning Jernard Jarreau will be crucial to improving the Huskies’ defense.

Dominic Artis and Ben Carter Suspended

Oregon, , , ,

Oregon took a selfie on Tuesday afternoon and it unfortunately did not involve a cheerleader. Sorry to disappoint but evidently you can sell yourself for autographs but not your free tees.

No the disappoint lay in the action of two projected starters for the Ducks who sold team apparel. Domninc Artis and Ben Carter did their best Terrell Pryor and Dana Altman did his worst Jim Tressel (didn’t lie, self-reported) and the University of Oregon had to be the centerpiece of NCAA compliance – again – during a week in which they’re doubly starring on ESPN. Between Thursday’s football game and Friday’s South Korea game, the Ducks are all over the worldwide leader.

And this news ain’t helping. Certainly not on the heels of sanctions for the football team and certainly not on the heels of the Joseph Young news. The latter was reason for gross optimism surrounding UO hoops. Tuesday’s news, however, serves to dampen some of that excitement. But not too much.

I love college basketball and one of the reasons I love it is because it allows teams to grow and develop. Get a little hot, a little cold, time your runs and that’s a season. But ask this very Duck program what one loss meant to their 2012 football season.

Artis and Carter won’t play and my biggest concern for the Ducks isn’t that they’ll drop the Georgetown game or even a lesser non-conference game (the apparel sellers project to miss about 9 games). Those are all nice contests to win and Oregon would be expected to win with these two. No my concern isn’t on the wins or losses column so much as it is on the minutes played column for Carter. Here’s a guy many folks are very high on and are expecting big things from – his coach likely not withstanding – who played only a handful of minutes last season. He recorded just 10.4 minutes per contest with an introductory 13% usage rate. Ben Carter didn’t contribute a ton last year.

But we’ve been expecting him to significantly contribute to a revamped Duck front court (HI, MIKE MOSER) and the only way he’s going to improve is by recording more court time. To increase his usage and minutes played because that’s how you get better at things. 10,000 hours isn’t a joke and it isn’t achieved during self imposed suspensions.

Oregon is going to weather this storm but perhaps at the cost of Ben Carter’s development. They’ll replace Artis with reigning Pac-12 Tournament MVP, Johnathan Loyd. How many teams can say that? But the effects of this suspension could have ripple effects as the games grow in magnitude after the calendar turns over into Pac-12 season.

In his stead, the Duck front court will turn to guys like Waverly Austin and transfer Richard Amardi. True, they’re no more experienced than Carter, but he was the one projected to start and the one who many felt would solidify an already outstanding lineup.

I guess we’ll just have to wait.

Pac-12 Basketball Media Day: What I Did

Pac-12, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I appreciate the opportunity to attend Pac-12 Basketball Media Day (#pac12hoops) provided to me by Rush the Court. It was a great experience and a fun day. To be honest, absolutely nothing was said the day long but – and you get the feeling everyone senses it – there’s a hovering excitement that this whole thing’s about to start. Like JENGA, no one is  going to come close to that linchpin block, sliding out a bunch of middle pieces and passing to the next. The boat shall not be rocked before the journey.

Except, I suppose, for Spencer Dinwiddie who dropped the saltiest line of the day when he said, “But we don’t view Arizona as the top, the cream, and everybody else in the rest.  We view ourselves as the cream and everybody else can fight for the rest of the spots.” SHOTS FIRED! Eh, not really. I actually appreciated it from the standpoint of leadership and culture and I’m going to elaborate on that later (next week amongst a lot of my previews).

HERE ARE MY TEAM-BY-TEAM CAPSULES FROM MEDIA DAY WITH RUSH THE COURT

And speaking of next week and all of my previews (and in the coming weeks leading up to 11/8),  I’m going to drop my team-by-teams, top backcourts and frontcourts, my predicted finishes, a new podcast with @spencerbsmith, and I don’t even know what else.

But for now, quick thoughts on each team after spending a little time with them yesterday:

Washington State: Ken Bone went in on just how deep the conference is and how the conference perhaps deserved the lashing it took for being so awful in year’s past but that those days are over. Well now his team is projected to finish last, so…

Oregon State:

Hey Dana….

ItWasme
Utah: Larry Krsytkowiak said that playing hard is a talent and while I really appreciate what he’s doing at Utah, saying that playing hard is a talent means you’re still not good. They’ll be better. But still not good.

USC: I didn’t realize there’s a little bit of twang to Andy Enfield. He played everything correctly in deflecting his UCLA comment but he’s sparked interest in USC basketball and, if nothing else, JT Terrell tells us that there’s “lot’s of people getting dunked on in practice.” Well practice does make perfect, JT, so carry on.

Washington: Lorenzo Romar was asked about impact newcomers to the conference and he talked about Aaron Gordon and Mike Moser. #AWKWARD. Aside from that he seemed very encouraged by Perris Blackwell – the transfer out of USF – who LoRo says is going to give them a low post presence they “haven’t had in years.”

Stanford: I asked Johnny Dawkins “You mentioned returning a lot of players and talent to this team, yet last year you finished 9‑9.  What might you see different this year, if anything?” I’ll mention that he’s returning 84% of his 2012-13 minutes played. He basically told me that they’re thinking about things differently. Dwight Powell told me the same thing, later. They went through SEAL training (like the Navy) and used the word synergy (so startup Stanford). My point here is…we’ll see, I might be selling.

That is me.

That is me.

ASU: Jahii Carson was much more thoughtful and articulate than I expected. Struck me as much more together than I expected and had some very high compliments to drop on his new running mate, Jermaine Marshall. I was also blown away by Herb Sendek’s hyperbole and quickness to jump into the national conversation. Dropped a lot of “best ofs” in the country/nation/game lines. Company man award for sure.

Colorado: Like I said, Dinwiddie dropped the bomb on Media Day by calling his own team the cream rising to the top. Why the hell not? It’s a shifting culture in Boulder and as my high school baseball coach taught us, once you start hoping, you’ve already lost. Sounds like Spencer’s a believer.

Cal: Someone asked Mike Montgomery how he would apprehend a thief if he were faced with a similar situation as Larry Krystkowiak when he tackled a bike snatcher. Montgomery said nothing about a two handed shove to the chest. And he talked a lot about how he likes having veterans (Solomon, Cobbs, Kravish) and tried to taper the expectations of Jabari Bird.

Oregon: Dana talked about a lot and even said he and his team should be practicing right then and not at Media Day. But he was there and someone asked a seventy-five word question about whether or not Oregon has a competitive advantage with Uncle Phil. Dana slowly, like only a mid-westerner can, said, “Well, we updated our arena.  I think we had the second oldest arena in the country.  We built an arena that’s very nice.” Really fair point there, Dana. He continued, “I think every university has benefactors that benefit their programs, athletically, academically.  Ours just happens to be someone that runs Nike.” That’s right! Everyone has boosters, how is this any different? He came full circle, “You know, we had an update because Mac Court was just really old.” Dana Altman, you are a smooth cat.

Arizona: One of these days Sean Miller is going to jump out of that humility suit of his and just throw down some heat…wait, he already did that:

UCLA: I think I got a good idea of what the Steve Alford era at UCLA is going to be like. He’s going to be a touch understated, predictable and solid. He looked the part in the sleekest suit of the day and he didn’t rock the boat. He dropped a Wooden reference and the word excellence. Like going down a checklist of how to be UCLA’s coach and not screw it up. He did just fine up there and he’s going to be a fine UCLA head coach. Is that enough?

Waxing Seniority: Joe Burton

Oregon State, , , ,

With the regular season now wrapped and the Pac-12’s seniors having played their final home games, we’re taking a tour across the conference and bidding this group of seniors farewell.

Connor Pelton is a writer and editor at Rush the Court. He’s a long time fan of the Beavers and the Pac-12.

Senior center Joe Burton has played his final home games in an Oregon State uniform. He will play in the Pac-12 Tournament this week, and barring an automatic bid to the NCAA’s, or the off chance the Beavers are invited to the CBI, one of the most creative and interesting players in Pac-12 history will hang it up.

Burton has never led the Beavers in points scored or rebounds grabbed. He wasn’t even talked about nationally until mid-way through his final season in Corvallis. He never played on a team seeded higher than sixth in the Pac-12 Tournament. His teams never made a postseason tournament greater than the CBI.

But boy was he fun to watch. He was Craig Robinson’s first signee, but was used in his first season as a man to spell a point guard or center that was in foul trouble. Everything changed his sophomore season, however. Starting the majority of the year, Burton brought a different style of play to the Beaver offense and changed the way they ran it.

Burton’s contributions can be broken down two-fold; with the ball at the top of the three-point line and with the ball in the paint. On the perimeter, Burton plays the role of a point-center. He gathers roughly half of his team-leading assists this way, throwing wicked one-handed, passes (view one of these dimes here at the 0:20 mark). And after a made basket by an opponent, it’s not a guard taking the ball out and inbounding it. It’s big Joe, and if you think he’s just going to shovel the ball off to Ahmad Starks or Challe Barton, you’re wrong. Burton loves the two-handed, 72-foot outlet pass, smiling while the ball flies over the nine heads on the floor and into Roberto Nelson’s hands right beneath the other basket. Once, he even tried an alley-oop by lying on his back at the half-court line while the shot clock was expiring, attempting to get the ball to Eric Moreland at the rim. It didn’t work, but the thought is what counts. He just plays with a different thought-process than everyone, some call it an old-school mentality, and it works.

That leads us to the second area of his game, the one that is most spectacular and will be missed by all that followed his career in Corvallis. As a defender converging to stop this 295 pound, light-on-his-feet center, you need to be aware that the ball could go in any direction, at any time. When he’s passing the ball, Burton is capable of putting it through not only his legs, but yours’ as well. Maybe he’ll attempt a one-handed, over the shoulder, no look to a streaking Eric Moreland. You never know where the ball is going, but you have to be on high alert.

And that’s when he surprises you the most. When it looks as if there’s no possible way he can dish the ball off or put the ball in the basket, Burton will go to one of three moves that you either haven’t seen before or haven’t seen done so successfully since the career of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The first is the self-named Native Tornado, which features a bit of a traditional step-through move, only going horizontally and underneath the basket. Typically resulting in a good reverse or off-the-glass bank shot, this is Burton’s best move. Sure, it may belong in a game of H-O-R-S-E (actually, all of these do), but it’s the surprise factor that makes it work.

The second most common Burton move is the fading away from the basket, sweeping hook shot. Once again, this is not an easy shot by any stretch of the imagination. But Burton makes it work, leaving defenders shaking their heads as the big fella runs down the floor smiling from ear-to-ear.

Finally, we get to the rarest of shots in Burton’s repertoire, the one-handed, over-the-head shot. Seen maybe once every four games, it catches you so off guard that you don’t even know what’s happened until the ball goes through the netting and the other team is off down the floor. I should probably just stop explaining and let the video speak for itself. Downright dirty.

You can’t have a piece honoring Burton without mentioning the strides he has made to bring athletics to the Native American community. He played a huge role in getting Nike’s N7 Initiative off the ground, and helped design Oregon State’s turquoise uniforms that were worn once or twice a season while he was in Corvallis. He is the first Native American scholarship player in the Pac-12 since the league expanded in 1978, and he is treated like a celebrity whenever he goes back to his reservation in Soboba, California.

We’ll miss you Joe.

Week 7 Pac-12 Basketball Preview

Pac-12, , , , , ,

This post reads like a diamond looks at ryanrecker.com. You’ll recall Ryan is the one who did the dynamite podcast with Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel. Oh you don’t recall? Listen.

Seven to play and we’ve dropped one team – the UCLA Bruins – from title contention. If you’ll recall, two weeks ago we were faced with a feasible six-way tie atop the conference. This week’s fun fact – and I’ve stolen the odds makership from @sethkolloen and KenPom – lies with the 2.6% chance of a five-way first place tie. For your review:

So like I said, 2.6% chance, also known as slim and none. But hey, I still place a bet on my favorite roulette number once in awhile, too.

The schedule.

TV Complaint: A pair of blackouts (Cal @ USC, WSU @ UO) but let’s celebrate the fact that FSN is broadcasting a game online. Look, I won’t lie, I don’t hunt very hard for webcasts. The extent of my television research is on the Pac-12 website (probably a good resource, no?) and my Comcast remote. But this is the first I’ve seen, via the Pac-12 site, a game being aired on FOXsportsArizona.com so bravo to those guys followed by a swift “it’s about time.” The lines between television and web are swiftly being blurred (Hulu?) and it’s only a matter of time until sports catch up. But the fact remains, I’m still watching the best highlights via illegal youtube uploads. There’s a starving sports market out there and FSN is working at the pace of a Kevin O’Neill offense. Hustle up.

Game of the Weekend: With five teams in the thick of things, we could give the nod here to a couple of games. The Buffs in Tucson will be on ESPN and rematches a one-point game (join me on Kwarter to live chat this one) while Cal visiting UCLA intrigues me as the transplanted Bruins are undefeated at home. But Washington at Oregon is the GotW. Devoe Joseph is quietly putting together a POYish season and his Ducks are needing to hold serve at home after losing one to the beatable Beavers. Of course Washington’s road woes are no secret but maybe this is the year they shake that rep? And the Huskies are hot. Winners of five straight with all the confidence of a conference leader, why wouldn’t the Huskies make like dogs and mark their territory on that tree covered court? It’s a classic GotW: Ducks and Dawgs. Or something like that.

Game to Avoid: WSU at OSU. If this were a bowl game we’d call it The North Face Backpedalling and Wait for Next Year Bowl. Ken Bone’s Cougars aren’t getting any better without Faisal Aden. Sure he was grossly inefficient and they even played better in the games he didn’t appear in, but he gave this group a fighting chance (the Bay sweep!). Plus there’s the confounding Reggie Moore. Two years ago he was a legitimate candidate for FOY honors with Derrick Williams, it’s now been 747 days since he had a 20 point game. Of course that stat comes courtesy of this guy (in all seriousness, they do great work over at CougCenter). As for Oregon State, Craig’s team can beat anyone in the conference and have proven as much (UCLA, Cal, Oregon, OT loss in Tucson). But they’ve faded fast into irrelevancy. The wait-and-see portion hinges on the money-making prospects of Jared Cunningham. Dude’s good and according to Bozo, he should stay. Alas, these are two teams with little going the rest of 2012. Tune back in for the Pac-12 tournament when one of these two spoils someone’s season as well as my three-bid prediction. Speaking of the Pac-12 tourney, the Rumbling Buffalo literally played it out drawing names from a hat.

Something to Prove: Oregon’s season is on the line. They could easily be sitting next to Washington with a shiny 9-2 record but they dropped the ball at home against rival Oregon State and missed the ball in favor of Nate Tomlinson’s arm on the road at Colorado. Now they find themselves with the most difficult second half schedule (combined opponents’ record of 42-35, including UW, CU, Cal, Stan). Of course that treacherous route could be the rocky road to CBS airtime during the third month of the calendar year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The Ducks are hosting the Washington schools and beating UW would be huge for their end-of-season prospects. Losing to the Huskies wouldn’t be a terrible hit but at this point Dana’s Ducks can’t afford to stub their beak at home. Of course losing to WSU (the spoilers) would take all the life out of the swoosh.

Something to Lose: The presumed favorite, Cal Bears, will be in LA this weekend. Certainly not the most daunting of road trips as you’re only going to play in front of a combined 5,000 spectators. But UCLA has been tough at “home.” They’re 4-0 in conference with a 17-point average margin of victory. They may be out of shape, dysfunctional, and falling apart but that’s an impressive stat especially in light of the fact that they’ve played those four home games in two different venues (Anaheim and Sports Arena). And did you see Josh Smith’s week 6? Biggun went for 24/9 and 19/5 while playing 20+ minutes in back-to-back Pac-12 games for the first time this season. The Bears, short Richard Solomon are reliant on this matchup to not get Joshed:

David Kravish, meet Josh

Good luck. But this is about what the Cal Bears have to lose: steam. A presumed (soft) lock for the NCAA tournament, beating teams – home or away – with an RPI that reads like a healthy systolic blood pressure is required. Sure, beating the Bruins won’t be easy, but it’s imperative. Should Monty’s crew falter, they’ll find themselves in the center of the weekly WTF happened Pac-12 debate and onto Lunardi’s bubble. This weekend isn’t defining for the Bears, but it could be a deflating one.

Weekend Youtuber: I think I’ve cited the fact that there are seven games remaining three or four times in this post. In summary: it’s crunch time, the home stretch, the two-minute drill. Inevitably, someone’s gonna need these: