"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.

COPD Awareness

I stumbled upon an article recently in Biotech Week that talked about how athletes and celebrities are helping to raise money Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder through social media sites. Everyone could follow these celebrities as they traveled to fourteen cities to screen thousands of people for COPD, which is the unknown top cause of death. More than 27,000 people completed the validated five question screening process to see if they are at risk for the disease. This event was started to help promote people to go get screened and never be shy to ask questions to your doctor if something does not feel right. NASCAR driver Danica Patrick had a strong showing with more than 9,000 screeners. This article was titled "Celebrities 'Tweet' to Drive COPD Awareness and Action."

"One World One Dream"

I recently found an interesting article about how the 2008 Olympics in Beijing used social media to help promote the games. They gave over one hundred athlete’s computers and asked them to set up accounts on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. They wanted to help promote the lesser known sports, like field hockey and the pentathlon. The players posted statements about what the training was all about and the Olympic experience as a whole. According to David Churbuck they wanted to do something that showed their tech prowess, not something that uses the web as a billboard. This article was posted in Adweek and was written by Brian Morissey and titled "Brands Get Social for Olympics."

There is a Time and a Place

I was looking through USA Today this afternoon and found an interesting article about athletes and how they spend their time on Facebook. The article talked about how Facebook has changed how everyone uses the Internet because of what can be posted and who can see those posts. Throughout the article it talks about instances that student’s athletes have got into trouble using social networks like Facebook and twitter. Along with talking about these instances it also talked about how Facebook got its start and how it affects society today. This article is titled "Alarm Sounds Over Athletes' Facebook Time" and is written by Eric Brady.

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Athletes Beware

I came across an interesting article today that said schools are requiring their students to sign a "Student-Athlete Conduct Policy Regarding Involvement in Internet-Based Social Networking Communities." The policy states that any online behavior failing to reflect the high standards set by the school could result in harsh punishments, including not renewing existing scholarships. Along with the policy the University of Michigan is requiring students to attend an informational presentation that teaches them how to properly use social networks. This article is from the Michigan Daily and is written by Nate Sandals

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Promoting the Draft

I found an exciting article that mentions how the NFL is using social media to help promote the spring draft the NFL holds every April. Usually the NFL just depends on fan creating a buzz about this event to promote but the reason they are taking this route is to promote fan engagement. This allows fans to know exactly what their favorite teams are doing, and where the favorite players and going. The NFL is also helping fans to be more engage through social media by not only the draft but the whole sixteen week season. The title of this article is “Q&A: NFL Online’s Laura Goldberg” and is published is Adweek.

Twitter Gets Drafted

I found this interesting article that explains a new site that was created to help sports fans follow their favorite athlete or team much easier. David Katz first created a website called SportsFanLive.com in 2008 which was an alternative site to use instead of ESPN.com and SI.com. More Recently David Katz has created a site which branches off of Twitter.com and holds all of your favorite athletes and organizations tweets all in one place. This new site is called SportsTweets.com, and Katz stated that this is the modern day chat room. The company’s goal as a social media company is tapping into the fans experience especially because social networks around bigger sports is lacking. The title of this article is “Twitter Gets Drafted: Sports Site Aggregates Feeds From Avid Fan Base” by Mike Shields and is published in MediaWeek.

League Liabilities

I found an interesting article about how social media and mainly Twitter can turn into legal liabilities to sports organization. Almost all sports organization and clubs approve of social media sites and even encourages their athletes to use them. The NFL commissioner himself actually has his own Twitter account and uses it frequently. Organizations encourage the use of social media because it is a great way to get closer to the fans and it effectively promotes player initiative. The article also states that if players do not use the sites wisely it can easily turn ugly for both the athlete and organization. for example athletes can not use derogatory terms in any tweets the he or she posts. The article is titled "When Tweeting Athletes Turn into League Liabilities” and is by Rich Thomaselli and published in Advertising Age in 2009.