In Sunday night ACC games, N.C.
State downed David Henderson's Delaware 73-57, and Boston College defeated
Shawnee State 70-51.
Who?
State got an outstanding game from Cedric Simmons and also
racked up the foul shots to down the Blue Hens.
In ACC action Monday night, the normal collection of November
stiffs parades by, with Alcorn State at FSU, Elon at Georgia Tech, and Asheville
at Wake Forest. A slightly better game should come with Marshall visiting
Virginia Tech, and the gem of the night will be Maryland vs. Gonzaga in the Maui
Tournament.
That's a great early season matchup, and a great chance to see
where Maryland stands (Gonzaga too).
We're putting our money on the Terps. Gonzaga is a good
team, but Maryland has some talent and will be playing with a chip on their
shoulder.
Most of the other games aren't worth mentioning, but the
Marshall visit to Blacksburg is worth talking about.
ACC fans learned a lot about the intensity of Virginia Tech
fans last season. They are very passionate. Marshall fans may be
even further around the bend.
Coming over the mountain to play an ACC team is going to fire
them up. We don't know anything about Marshall's team this year, but it
could be a fun game.
The News-Record of Greensboro redesigned their pages a while
back and it's a big improvement. One of the things we didn't like is that
they don't put all the new stories in one place and sometimes we miss stuff, like
this Ed Hardin review of the UNC-Gardner-Webb game and where UNC stands
currently.
As Matt Doherty settles in at Florida Atlantic, he faces
interviews at every stop about how his career imploded and his attempt to
rebuild it. The latest interrogator is from the Chicago Tribune.
Doherty is taking the opportunity, however, to spin his
version of the events.
He acknowledges mistakes with his players and the Trib
mentions changed policies on tickets and parking passes. But after months
of finessing the issue, he gets to the heart of his side of the argument when he
says this: "I'll take my share of the responsibility. There could have been
more support from upper management, quite frankly. They're the ones who came
after me."
Upper management presumably refers to A.D. Dick Baddour and
his staff. Does it also refer to Dean Smith, who has had a significant say
in how the basketball program was being managed since his retirement?
Although he acknowledges issues with his players, including
addressing one player's personal issues in front of the entire team, he doesn't
in any way seem to suggest that his harsh management style, which unquestionably
alienated his team, had anything to do with it.
It was upper management; they came after him.
At best, this is dishonest; at worst, delusional.
If he keeps this up, he's going to sound like Captain Queeg on the stand.
Incidentally, we wanted to take a look at the early ACC stats, but the ACC,
true to form, still has last year's stats up.
This is a long-running pattern for the conference. Back when they used to
post the stats on a bulletin board system, they were posted erratically. Some
things never change.