Tuesday, March 30, 2010

University of Oregon still getting it wrong

Inspired by the multiple text messages I received today about the University of Oregon supposedly offering Tubby Smith a couple million dollars a year to coach Ducks basketball.

First things first, Tubby is one of those coaches that gets linked to job after job after job. During the tournament he was reportedly close to signing a deal with Auburn. In January he was linked to University of Alabama job. When Lute Olsen retired it was Arizona. This has been the story since he came to Minnesota. When a coach's name is bigger than his current program everyone just sort of expects him to leave as soon as he has the chance. That isn't to say that Tubby won't dump Goldy for greener (like money, ha!) pastures, or that there is no merit to the Oregon rumors. I'm just saying his name comes up a lot.

As for the University of Oregon, their high profile coaching search could end up being the latest thing to bite their sports department in the ass.

First of all, the only good thing about this job for a big name coach is the money. Keep in mind that a top-tier coach will have to walk away from a most likely cozy current situation to take this job. University of Oregon sports isn't exactly in a good place right now. The basketball team has been underachieving for a while. Football players are getting arrested. The Attorney General is looking into Belotti's shady severance pay. The program lacks the kind of historical tradition that might appeal to some coaches. Not to mention a coach may have less control of the program than they enjoy currently. That Nike money can be a double-edged sword when you have a hands on mega-booster like Phil Knight.

Considering all of the above there is only one reason an elite coach would take this job: money. But how sustainable is a program lead by a person that values dollars so much more than anything else? Is that the type of coach that stays long enough to build a real program? Am I the only one that thinks bringing a potentially morally questionable coach into an already morally questionable sports department is a bad idea?

Additionally, Oregon's strategy of throwing big money to get a big name to take a bad job doesn't seem likely to pay off. We may be seeing some negative effects already. Big money and big names mean big media coverage. Every time a name is linked to the job, only to be followed by reports that said name rejected the deal, the job gets less desirable to subsequent names on the list. Would you leave a comfortable situation for a higher-paying but less comfortable situation, after everyone knows a handful of your peers have turned down a similar offer?

If Oregon doesn't get a top name soon the Ducks sports department could become even more of a joke. They could become the place that is so awful they can't get a coach even when they offer the world.

The Ducks aren't exactly masters of subtly (which reminds me, please chill out with the football uniforms), but I can't help but think they should have at least tried to keep a low-profile this time. They could have acknowledged that they don't have the type of situation an elite coach wants to walk into. They could have recognized that throwing around cash and getting rejected might come back to bite them. They could have understood that their job is most appealing to up and coming coaches (who would probably hang around long enough to build a respectable program) or respected coaches looking to get back into the game. (Steve Lavin might not take the job, but considering the circumstances he seems like a much more likely candidate than Tom Izzo.)

Oregon didn't do any of those things. They went for the glitz instead. Now they could end up paying the price. Again.



Thursday, March 25, 2010

Akeem Scott, Finland Playoffs, and RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

Akeem Scott's team is on fire riding a five game win streak into the playoffs. Spider-Keem is doing his part posting averages of 16, 4, and 3.

How does one prepare for Finnish playoff basketball? The answer can be found in the newly released third trailer from the upcoming blockbuster epic motion picture event DeceptivelyQuick: The Film: The Legend of Akeem Scott. This preview not only will get you pumped for the upcoming basketball action, but also leaks some long anticipated details about the plot from the upcoming film. I think you will find that it is pretty self-explanatory. Savor the flavor below.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

TRAILER 2 - DeceptivelyQuick: The Film: The Legend of Akeem Scott

With blockbuster movie season quickly approaching we at DeceptivelyQuickFilmsAndCatering have decided to release the latest trailer for our upcoming SyFy Original epic: DeceptivelyQuick: The Film: The Legend of Akeem Scott. Enjoy!

The timing of this trailer release coincides with more good news for Scott and his team LrNMKY. The People's Champ recently defeated his former team Honka inflicting pain to the tune of 17 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals. With the victory LrNMKY moves ahead of Honka in the standings.

And in case you missed the first trailer, check it out below:


Friday, March 5, 2010

Crotchety? Oh, Dwight Jaynes will show YOU crotchety



I value Dwight's contributions to Blazers coverage considerably. I do. Sometimes though, I get the urge to poke fun at him.

For example, Dwight recently shut the comments down on his blog. It is his site after all. That didn't stop me from getting some entertainment from his justification:
I can’t think of a blog that hasn’t done this at some point or another. I often wondered why but now I don’t.
See, I try to stay away from the old people jokes. Dwight makes it hard. He can't think of a single blog that hasn't shut the comments down? Dwight, sir, either the only blog you have ever read is your own or your memory has evaporated. If the latter is true then I will very much miss your anecdotes about the good old days. Let us continue enjoying Dwight's words:
We’re going to shut down the comments for a while. And there are several reasons. First off, there are getting to be so many of them that moderating them has become a nightmare. I just don’t have the time for it. That’s the No. 1 reason.
So we're going to shut the comments down. Yeah Dwight, so many dangerous comments, so little time. Hard to maintain the safety of the intersphere.

Dwight's need to monitor the comments on his site so closely got me curious to learn what type of venom you crazy internet creatures were attacking his posts with. It must be bad to demand Dwight's constant moderating. I skimmed through the last post that allowed commenting and didn't notice anything shocking.

Well, there were a couple comments from another Blazers blogger bringing up reasonable fact-based counterpoints to Dwight's post. But I'm sure that was just a coincidence. Moving on to reason No. 2:
But also, they’ve become a place for silly or sometimes nasty arguments to take place. I hate being the venue for such things. And after a while, I think we all may just need a break.
Dwight hates silly. So much for crawling out of that grouchy old guy persona. As for the nastiness, I haven't seen much of that. I mean, there's dumb immature stuff, but this is the internet. Anyways, Dwight has mentioned having several reasons for shutting down the comments, I'm sure he'll cover his better reasons next:
So, sorry about this, you’re going to have to do without them for a while. If you have a problem with me, drop me an email. The address is right on this page.
Wait, what? Did Dwight forget to list his other reasons? At least he apologized... for not letting you voice your opinion about his thoughts (?) I guess. If you have a problem with him though, feel free to email him. But Dwight, what if we want to say good things? What if we want to use your post as a starting point for a conversation with both you and other readers? Should we start a separate blog dedicated to commenting on your blog? So many questions.

Let me recap. Dwight removed the ability of readers to comment on his blog. He had several logical reasons for this that totally didn't have anything to do with people raising legitimate counterpoints to his posts. These several reasons were:

1) There were too many comments
2) They were too silly and/or nasty
3) ?
4) ?

Some people were just made for the internet, you know?

Keem Scott Watch: Citizenship, Woman Advice, Spider-Keem, Victory

Things are going well for Akeem Scott right now.

First, Keem was recently granted Jamaican citizenship. This is big since teams in Europe cap the amount of American players that can be on the roster. Akeem's Jamaican passport means that he can now play professionally in Europe without counting against the USA quota, making him more attractive for any team. It also opens to door to Akeem representing Jamaica as a nation. I vote for him to reunite the bobsled team.

Second, the man has been giving out his own brand of woman advice via his twitter. Warning: reading these to a significant other may result in some backlash. Especially is she's my significant other. (In other Akeem Scott twitter news, this is one of the funniest things I've ever read.)

Third, Scott had a strong 25 point performance in his team's recent victory. He even went Spider-Keem (or NASA ON THAT ASS depending on which Akeem Scott reference you prefer) on some unsuspecting Finnish guy who was just trying to mind his business:


Worth noting (to me) is that the player getting dunked on appears to have a DNP in the box score. A merciful mistake.