CLOSED!

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USF-NC State Haiku

Horner Wardled Bulls
Can’t Make it Past the First Round
Onto Spring Football

EPIC FAIL

I have to write this quickly because I had an epic fail of my own – I managed to record a blue screen instead of the game, so I can’t go back and review anything.

It’s ironic that I spent half of Saturday trying to warn St. John’s and/or Rutgers fans about the stupidity of Seth’s old teams, because the last 15 seconds of tonight’s 58-57 loss to N.C. State will go right into the hall of shame along with some of the dumbest things they ever did. And they did some extremely dumb things… I think the worst was the time Seth tried to pull his Harry High School “let’s run off to the locker room to pretend like we have momentum when we make a basket right at halftime” routine when there were still 45 seconds left in the half. It was the shot clock buzzer, not the regular buzzer. He obviously was hit with a T. But I digress.

First of all, the ball is allowed to go into the backcourt on an inbounds pass, even from the baseline. When the shot clock is low, you do not all have to go chasing after the ball and leave your man underneath the basket. As long as you don’t do that they will probably end up with a bad shot. Instead, everyone runs out of the paint, so when Horner(?) tracked down the ball, he had his choice of three wide-open players under the basket to throw to. THAT WAS DUMB. (In the spirit of epic fail, the Sun Dome clock operator forgot to start the clock until the ball was pretty much in the basket and the officials had to go figure out how much time was left.)

So after all that,  DoJo is coming up the floor with five seconds left. He has gone coast to coast and scored on numerous occasions. He just did it three weeks ago against Providence to win that game. So now, we’re going to have him give up the ball when no one else on the team has proven they can score consistently in this game. And not only that, but he’s going to give the ball up by passing it just across halfcourt, without even getting close to the rim, before the defense collapses on him. THAT WAS DUMB. Howard had nowhere to go, he barely got it to Gus, who had his shot blocked at the buzzer. Game over, thanks for playing.

Sure, USF had a good season overall, but that ending is going to leave a really sour taste in my mouth.

Spring Football Links Collection

We’ve been rather preoccupied with basketball lately, and since we only have hints of what Skip Holtz, Mark Snyder, and Todd Fitch have in mind for this year’s team, it’s really hard for us to properly preview spring practice. On top of that, B.J. Daniels will sit out the contact drills while he recovers from surgery to fix a partially torn rotator cuff on his left shoulder. At least he can still throw the ball, which is better than nothing, but Evan Landi will have to shuttle over from receiver to play some QB, and Ryan Eppes, a walk-on, will get some reps as well. It will be tough to get a read on the true offense until fall practices. And with several holes to fill on defense, including five potential NFL draft picks, their spring is going to be just as much about figuring out the depth chart as it will be what kind of scheme they’re going to run.

I will say that the thought of Jon Lejiste cracking the starting lineup gets me incredibly excited. I probably watched him blow up Tavares Pressley in that FSU game about 50 times in a row on my DVR. If you put it on an endless loop I think I could have watched it for an hour straight. Yeah, those were good times.

Oh, right, spring practice, sorry. Our motto going into spring practice is basically this Skip Holtz quote:

“Ever since I got here people have been asking me, ‘How are you guys going to be?,'” Holtz said. “I always tell them, ‘I’ll let you know after Tuesday. I haven’t seen B.J. Daniels throw a pass or anybody catch one.’ So we’ll see.”

In the spirit of not knowing anything about the 2010 Bulls, here are some links that might help you out as much as us:

• Tampa Tribune – Scott Carter hits all the main talking points and adds an important new one – the need for Holtz to keep USF’s off-the-field problems from becoming on-the-field problems. Martin Fennelly also spent some time with Holtz on the golf course and turned in a column surprisingly free of one-sentence paragraphs and pithy insight.
• St. Petersburg Times – I’m a little disappointed that Greg Auman didn’t crank out his usual 25,000 words on a given topic, but he did put together a nice story about Todd Fitch’s game-planning abilities, plus a preview capsule that includes some bits about Mark Snyder’s 4-3 under defense.
• Rivals – As part of his preview, David Fox points out two defensive linemen to watch – Claude Davis, who has a chance to impress, and David Bedford, who may need to fight for his spot in the rotation.
• ESPN.com – Brian Bennett’s spring superlatives feature on USF highlights the strength of the offensive line and the perilous lack of quarterback depth. Then again, we all thought we were screwed when Matt Grothe went down last year and things turned out OK. He also found some things to watch around the Big East, if you want to keep up with the rest of the conference.

Bulls Recon NIT Edition: Steven from Backing the Pack talks NC State

Steven from the NC State blog Backing the Pack was nice enough to participate in a special NIT edition of Bulls Recon. Both Voodoo 5 and I sent over some questions, and the answers are below. Check it out after the jump.

And It Starts

I was going to write about USF’s matchup with NC State tomorrow night, but Scott Carter of the Tampa Tribune has reported that Jim Leavitt has filed suit against USF, and is seeking the 7 million dollars owed to Leavitt under the terms of his contract.

You knew that this was only a matter of time after mediation attempts failed last month and learning last week that accuser Joel Miller was not going to sue Leavitt.

I’m sure that this will end well.

DoJo-Go-Pro-O-Meter Update #1

Remember, the DoJo-Go-Pro-O-Meter is not interested in hearsay, rumors, or gossip… only fact.

Stan Heath had an interesting quote in an entry on Scott Carter’s blog that warranted a change in the meter.

Heath clarified his stance on Jones’ future on Thursday via text message, saying:

“I don’t have any expectations on Jones returning to school,’’ Heath said. “Until all the information about the draft and his most accurate status within the draft is available – I will not have an expectation nor will I advise him on what I feel is best.’’

That made me wonder if Heath had had any players leave early for the NBA at Arkansas. (He wasn’t at Kent State long enough for that to happen.) The only one that did so was Ronnie Brewer, who gave up his senior year to enter the NBA Draft. Jones and Brewer had similar production in their junior year, although Brewer’s measurables were a little better. The Jazz took Brewer 14th overall in 2006, making him the last lottery pick. Brewer declared for the NBA Draft in late April that year, but didn’t hire an agent right away. Heath’s quote at the time was interesting.

“It probably is a very smart thing for him to do. He definitely wants to play in the NBA, he knows that’s a big part of his future,” Heath said. “The rule was specifically made for guys like him — guys who really are considered in that realm of first-round draft pick, somewhere … who knows? With that, Ronnie is going to make sure that he doesn’t do anything to jeopardize his eligibility.”

So it stands to reason that if Dominique Jones were to make a move up draft boards – say, if he goes off in the NIT and the Bulls end up winning the thing – Heath would recognize DoJo’s opportunity and not stand in his way. Based on this, the DoJo-Go-Pro-O-Meter is being adjusted up to 40%.

Showtime Haynes Commits to USF

That name is fantastic, it sounds like it’s out of a Matt Christopher book. Anyway, according to the Bradenton Herald, Shedrick “Showtime” Haynes has verbally committed to USF.

Haynes has totally transformed himself as a basketball player; He always had the hops and athleticism, but now he has added some deadly long-range shooting to his arsenal. …

The six-foot combo guard known for his extraordinary leaping ability, averaged 18.5 points a game and filled up the stat sheet for the Falcons, who finished the season 20-10. Haynes knocked down 87 treys while shooting 42 percent from beyond the arc.

He’s either 6’0″ or 5’11”, depending on who you ask, and he might be another badly-needed outside shooting option for the Bulls. It probably depends on whether or not he can hang defensively at that size. That’s the only thing keeping Shaun Noriega off the court, and Haynes might join him on the bench if he has the same problem.

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For the rest of this week, look for another Other Sports Roundup, heavily dominated by a round of What the Hell Is Wrong With Our Baseball Team. Assuming USF plays teams in the NIT that have blog representatives, we’ll keep up the Q&A’s. And as long as one of us can watch the games somewhere, we’ll keep doing postgame haikus and recaps.

The First Annual BIG EAST Blogger Awards

With the season finishing up, I was able to get in touch with a bunch of highly respected bloggers around the Big East to create the 1st Annual Big East Blogger Awards. The following blogs were nice enough to send in their ballots for this historic event.

Orange 44 (Syracuse)
Pitt Script (Pitt)
UC Huskies (UConn)
Rakes of Mallow (Notre Dame)
The UC Bearcats Blog (Cincinnati)
Cracked Sidewalks (Marquette)
Eye of a Panther (Pitt)
Casual Hoya (Georgetown)
Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician (Syracuse)
On the Banks of the Raritan (Rutgers)
Voodoo 5 (USF)
The East Coast Bias (St. Johns)

I really appreciate everyone coming together so quickly in getting their ballots over to me. Now without further ado, your 2009-2010 Big East Blogger All-Conference Team.

Introducing the DoJo-Go-Pro-O-Meter

USF fans are already working themselves up into a lather about whether or not Dominique Jones will go into the NBA Draft. And in the absence of solid information, many are believing whatever they want to believe, even going to Steve Duemig-like “you don’t know what I know” lengths with what is probably second or third-hand information.

The DoJo-Go-Pro-O-Meter represents our best guess at the odds of DoJo going pro, based on news reports and other hard evidence. No gossip, no hearsay, no friend of a friend. The meter goes from 0% to 100%, and will only reach one of those two points when a final decision is made.

Greg Auman had the first article about DoJo’s decision:

“I think about it all the time. That’s your dream when you’re a little kid,” Jones said. “I’m taking everything day-by-day. The NBA is not going anywhere. I feel like I’ll just take my time and make my decision on what I’m going to do, finish the year out here and just weigh my options.”

Based on this story, and the collection of NBA mock drafts that mostly have Jones taken in the second round (where contracts are not guaranteed) or not at all, we are setting the DoJo-Go-Pro-O-Meter at 30% to start. As more news comes out, we will make adjustments as necessary.