A good opening day for Team Slavik, 13 for 16 games. Duke kills me as usual, this time by losing. Because, I had VCU as an upset and talked myself out of it by thinking too much. I thought, no way is Duke going down in the first round. Like I tell some of my players, "don't think, you're hurting the team".
Heard Bobby Knight go off on a number of subjects before being sent home.
1) Officials working NCAA games too much. "First of all, I don't think there's an official in the world capable of working six days a week". He proposes a three day a week max and geographic limits, more instructional time.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm one of the brethren, but he's right. I don't think I could physically handle six days a week at my level. And officials discuss this amongst themselves and agree with the message, but on this topic, I'm betting we'll consider the messenger and thus we will proceed to disregard the message. That would be a mistake. Knight's right.
2) Knight commented on the NCAA-NBA one year rule requirement. The so-called, one-and-done rule. He believes players should be required to take 12 credit hours per semester before going to the pros. Not a bad suggestion, to have student-athletes at least give the appearance of being students.
Again, of course, due to the messenger, the message gets somehow mangled and lost. Perfect example, I'm listening to one of the local sports talk shows and up and coming ESPN basketball analyst Stephan Bardo roasted Knight for his comments about this subject. He opined that Knight didn't recruit the caliber of player (like Greg Oden and Kevin Durant) so he somehow shouldn't be concerned about the subject. Never mind that his program has to compete against others that do (that whole level playing field subject). If he had stopped there, he would have sounded ignorant enough for me, but most of his audience probably would not have been the wiser, but he further states that Knight has no standing commenting on coaches being responsible for kids going to class. And people wonder why I rail against the media so much!
This may have been one of the more ignorant statements about a subject, by a speaker who is being paid to be knowledgeable about said subject, as I have heard in quite some time. And of course, neither of the interviewers seemed willing to stop the impending train wreck.
Does Mr. Bardo not know that Knight (regardless of anything else you may hold against him) has one of the best reputations for having kids go to class and graduate in college basketball?
His comrades in arms should have at least tried to pull him out of it, maybe with the hand they weren't using for the group-jerk they must have been having. He-he-he we're bashing media-hater Bobby Knight again.
Congratulations Stephen Bardo, you'll probably go far in your industry, since you were willing to pick up a stick and publicly batter Bobby Knight. Next time, try to add some level of intelligence or understanding of the issues to your arguments. Thanks.
I felt the same way when I heard Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman interview Pete Rose, when Pete contradicted the Dowd Report and his prior comments by saying he bet on the Reds to win every night. Keith at least stepped in and offered that Pete was adding fuel to the fire so to speak, but it seems so obvious that Rose is saying whatever he feels will garner sympathy and gain acceptance back into baseball regardless of what the "evidence" shows.
Still I get the feeling when listening to garbage like this, that these guys revel in publicly teasing a dog if it would help their ratings or Q factor.
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR BRACKETS.
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