"Book" It!

I am a huge Creighton fan and Have been for a very long time. A couple of years ago they recruited a young kid out of Texas named Booker Woodfox who is one of my top five players to ever play at the University of Creighton. His first year at Creighton he got off to a very slow start mostly because the type of play Coach Dana Altman plays is not an easy one to adjust to. About halfway through the season though he got into his groove and started to hit his shots. In his last fifteen games (not sure on the exact number) he scored in double digits and we as the Creighton fan base were very excited to see him play the next season. As we all expected he exploded during his senior season and easily becoming one of the premier three point shooters in the country. He hit crucial shots for us in multiple games including a game winner vs Old Dominion in the Bracket Buster game, but none was as special as the shot he drained in the Missouri Valley Quarter Finals vs Wichita State. After Wichita's start Terre Murry hit a huge three to put them up one, Creighton had one last chance to win the game. Actually as it came to be they had two because freshman point guard Antone Young missed a leaning jumping but Wichita could not handle the rebound. After all of that there were 1.9 seconds left on the clock, and it was now or never for the Jays. Josh Dotzler passed the ball into Booker Woodfox who lost the Handel, but regained control and then somehow took two dribbles to his left and pulled up just inside the three point line and and it was Nothing but Nylon.

Brick City

Mostly in this blog I have talked about the great three point shooters and great three point teams. In this post I have decided to go another direction and talk about the worst three point team to ever play in college basketball. In recent history University of Cincinnati in the 20009-2010 basketball season proved to be the worst from behind the arc. As a team they shot a shocking low of 28.4% from downtown and in a game against St.Johns they went 0-12 from behind the arc. There best three point percentage during the span of 15 years has been 38.7 percent. Keep in mind that statistical records of the three just recently became a stat people kept track of so there still might have been a worse team out there that we do not know about. Either way though the performance of the Bearcats behind the arc is just sad and they certainly have a lot of work to do.

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Pittsnogled!

"You've been Pittsnogled!" Whenever an announcer made that statement it meant that West Virginia's Kevin Pittsnogle, all 6 feet, 11 inches of him, had rained another 3-pointer down on some helpless opponent. When you first see Kevin Pittsnogle you would think he would make for the perfect center in college basketball, but instead you would find a guy who loves the outside shot and is very talented at it. "I'd be totally different without the shot,'' said Pittsnogle, whose 3-point makes have gone up every season -- from 49 to 53 to 60. Pitino said players like Pittsnogle, the big man who exclusively wants to be a 3-point shooter, still are the exception, not the norm. Beilein said Pittsnogle isn't giving himself enough credit as a legitimate big man. This season, Pittsnogle will have to play more inside; he'll have to do that anyway if he wants to play in the NBA. "I didn't work inside until I got to college,'' Pittsnogle said. "Being big and tall makes the defense come out to me. It helps guards penetrate and dish back out to create openings. Big guys are stepping out more and more to make the 3-point shot. That's what makes European players so versatile.''

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Back Breaker

Before the excitement of the NCAA Tournament, there is a very entertaining week called Championship Week. Some people may say that this is the most nerve racking and thrilling week in the College Basketball. Championship week is the week where most of the conference tournaments are held, and when the tickets to the big dance get punched. The winner of each conference tournament gets an automatic bid to March Madness. Teams are fighting viciously against each other in order to get their chance to play the biggest tournament out there. Michigan was a team that had to win the Big Ten tournament in order to get into the Big Dance. In the quarterfinals they were match up against number 1 seed Ohio state and the favorites to win. It was a thrilling game and it looked like Michigan was going to pull out the amazing upset until the miraculous happened. Ohio State star Evan Turner drilled a very deep three to win the game by one, and ruin Michigan's dream of reaching the NCAA Tournament.

Expanding the Field

With the 2010 NCAA Tournament wrapping a couple of weeks, there is already talk about the 2011 Tournament. This talk is about expanding the current field of 65 teams to a whopping 96 team field. In my personal opinion this would be a huge mistake for college basketball and would just ruin the perfect tournament. The popular saying of "Don't Fix what is not broken" comes to mind when I think of the expansion but expanding the to 96 teams would bring in a ton of money for the NCAA. I know money is a necessity to every business and organization, but it is not everything. If they do expand a lot of teams would make this prestigious tournament when they do not deserve to be in it. For example teams like North Carolina and UCONN would have made the field even though they had terrible years. This tournament is suppose to have the top notch teams in the country and not mediocre teams and I believe that's what makes this tournament special. If they do expand that special feeling that comes with it will be destroyed. This is the one case that fewer is better.

Farokhmanesh For Three!

In the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament a mid major team from the Missouri Valley pulled off two incredible wins with one being the biggest upset in the tourney. Their first round game pinned them up against the Runnin Rebels of UNLV, and by the time the game ended a new star was produced. Ali Farokhmanesh, a Six foot nothing guard with Iranian descent, drilled a three pointer from twenty five out with 4.9 seconds remaining to put Northern Iowa into the second round. Johnny Moran got the game winning assist, and even though he passed up an open shot for himself he realized he made the right decision to pass it to the teams best shooter. The story for Ali does not end here however.

Two days later Northern Iowa was in a David Vs. Goliath scenario when they faced the number one overall seed Kansas Jayhawks. Every single sports analyst were saying Northern Iowa did not stand a chance, but boy were they wrong. UNI lead throughout and went into halftime with a 36-28 lead. Kansas would pull into striking distance but mighty Farokhmanesh would not let the Panthers of Northern Iowa lose. Leading by one against the colossus of the bracket, Ali Farokhmanesh stood at the 3-point line, no one around. The prudent play? Pull it out, burn some clock. Not a chance.
Taking his shot at history, Farokhmanesh let fly from the wing. Swish! The biggest upset in a tournament full of them was done. Northern Iowa had taken down mighty Kansas.

Meaningful Speech

I found an interesting article titled "Learning From the Pros" in Sports Illustrated that mentions what star athletes are talking about on popular social media sites. The author of this article Chris Ballard spent four days reading professional sport stars blogs, facebook pages, and twitter feeds. He thought all he would read was self promotion attempts and mundanity, but he was proven wrong. Olympic Swimmer Ian Crocker had a twitter post that told everyone to start spending money, for the U.S. can get out of this deep recession we are in. Another example is Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas giving his fans a picture of the rigors of NBA training.