No major surprises in Saturday's games: State beat Appalachian, 92-68,
Tech beat Tennessee State 82-72, Miami whomped Wofford, 71-40, and Virginia Tech
beat St. John's, 73-64.
We
were rolling through this column in the Richmond paper wondering what
exactly the point was going to be, when we hit it. Dave Leitao said this:
"Right now, he's not playing very well, which probably means he's not a
very good player."
Now is that a nice thing to say?
Here's
a story on Gary Williams as he faces B.C. for the first time.
Interesting read. Remember the photo which circulated a while back of Gary
at a party? He had it analyzed and says it is a fake. Okay, fair
enough, but if it were a fake, would you have to analyze it to say so?
Just strikes us as odd. But he says it is, so it probably is.
Meanwhile, B.C. is treating their initial ACC tour as if nothing
has changed except the opponents. Interesting approach.
Rick Barnes caused a certain amount of conflict with this statement:
"Believe it or not, Big 12 basketball out there is bigger than ACC
basketball. P.J. and I know what basketball is like in the state of North
Carolina. We grew up in it and have great respect for it.
"But to be quite honest, I don't think anyone here gives a (expletive)".
What did he mean? Did he mean that Big 12 basketball is bigger than ACC
basketball in Texas? That's believable. And certainly the Big 12 is
a great conference. But if he's comparing the passion for basketball in
Texas to the passion in the ACC, we're not buying that. People in Waco and
Galveston don't spend the summer talking about the Nike camp. They spend
their time talking about football. Basketball has made inroads, but Texas,
and most of the Big 12 is about football. It always has been, and it's
almost impossible to imagine basketball breaking the hold football has on the
imagination there.