Basketball Jones

I've got two words for you: Hot take. I see you don't know much about college basketball. This past season South Dakota state was 24-9, won their conference and got an automatic bid to the NIT. They had three guys who made better than 43% of their threes. One of them made 45% on 245 attempts. They had a good team.

113-51??? Did the entire South Dakota State team drink all of the alcohol in Canada the night before that game? That looks like a women's basketball game between the No. 1 team in the country and the No. 20 team in the country.

I get that football season is around the corner but camp had not even started when Brian Gregory had his press conference and let the media watch practice. Besides the media is almost never allowed to watch a basketball practice. Typically they get to watch the first 15 minutes a practice maybe twice a year. So the fact that they were invited to stay for practice and only two of them stayed the entire time it's still disappointing to me. But I think it's because most of them really don't understand basketball like they do football to understand what's going on at a practice

No Torello. No TV people could be bothered to show up. He said the two that stayed were clearly basketball guys. Said the coaching staff came over and shook their hands afterwards and one of them, he thinks it was a guy from the Rivals site, was even talking with them about plays they ran. Said he was more engaged in the practice than any media guy there. Said he was clapping at times not to applaud good play but like he was trying to create energy. He said that at the end of the practice they scrimmaged and had referees. One of the referees knew one of the guys who stayed the entire practice and even came over and shook his hand & they talked for about 30 seconds. Said the other guy took lots of notes. My source said he was not surprised that those two stayed for the whole practice. He said it was pretty clear from the start of practice that they knew what they were seeing while the other guys just seemed happy to be there so they could take pics.

Sadly there are members of the Tampa sports media who still aren't paying attention to USF basketball. Before the team left for Canada Brian Gregory had a press conference and I heard he let the media watch practice. Not the first few minutes either. The entire practice. I was told that nobody from a Tampa TV station showed up. I also heard that only two media members stayed for the entire practice. That only two media members stayed for the whole practice did not surprise me. I have long felt that most of the local media that covers the USF basketball team are really football reporters. So most of them probably did not know what they were watching when they were at a basketball practice. Probably kept waiting to see a jet sweep.

Without looking it up I doubt anyone could name the program with the largest turnaround in the 2017-18 season or who won the 2018 CBI Tournament. USF will be on the radar of opponent coaching staffs for sure, but the average fan? Nah, not until the Bulls beat someone good.

Just saw a tweet that the Rivals site is offering $75 in gear from the adidas store with a annual subscription of $75. I'm thinking of signing up for that. The gear is basically free and the best part is that I don't have to go into a store.

Team flying out of Orlando because they couldn't get a direct flight out of Tampa. Did the same thing for the Jamaica tournament last year.

Cool another team that was in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. So Wofford, FSU, BC, FAU, Drexel and the Cayman islands tournament are what we know thus far.

I guess that is funny to some

I don't get the joke.

All I care about is the players having a good time in Montreal and everyone returning to Tampa without sustaining an injury.

While scanning Twitter and YouTube I see that USF had their 8th practice today. Looks like before practice Brian Gregory and a few players were interviewed by the media about the team and the trip to Canada. Here are videos I found. Oh and Brian Gregory said that Riddeau won't play in Canada. Still healing up.

My take is that Strong is having a press conference April 2nd at 2pm. Practice is 6-8pm. Media will probably get to watch the the last 15 or 20 minutes of each practice. That is what USF has done the last few years judging by when people like Chris and Joey Knight start Tweeting about practice.

OOC schedule will be good. One of the best in recent years

Dawkins is a combo guard who is a scorer. So he can play both back court positions. Williams is a small forward and was behind Brown and Lang. I wish he had taken a redshirt so he would still have 4 years of eligibility left. Brian Gregory has a great problem to have, a talented and versatile roster of perimeter guys

I am not expecting Chaplin to be a major contributor to the team this season unless he shows in practice that he can really shoot and really defend. I think Rashun Williams will be the first small forward off the bench and Chaplin would be used after Williams in that position. Kind of like Lang came off the bench to give Brown a breather and Williams was the next guy. I think Madut has a tough time cracking the rotation.

Most games I watch on TV look like they have about 2,000 fans of the visiting team, even a rival. Maybe, and this is entirely possible, I don't watch enough college football to notice something similar to what I saw in Ray Jay last season when UCF visited. Unless a school, any school, has a sellout reporting tickets distributed is just dumb imo. People have eyes, they can look around the stadium or arena and see that number is not accurate. Some people are too quick to get outraged but hey, feelings are feelings. I am a fan of the USF football and men's basketball programs and want them to be successful. I see now that "notorious" was a poor choice of words and I apologize for that. Evidently all of these schools who announce tickets distributed are doing it because it is a bigger number than actual attendance.

I kind of like Notorious USF. It reminds me of the Notorious B.I.G.

Jamir Chaplin can jump out of the gym. If he can defend and shoot he could work his way up to 10 minutes a game. I do not expect much this season from the big kid from Oak Hill. Heard that he was super overweight when he arrived because he got hurt and sat out most of his senior year. Which is a shame. I saw him play in 2018 and I liked him. Maybe he redshirts. Zack Dawson, Oklahoma State transfer, is going to play starter minutes and may start some games. He is much more than a depth provider. Last season I read on another site that he was cooking guys in practice.

Too strong?

Jeez, sensitive much? I never said that USF is the only school reporting different numbers. I simply said did I would be impressed if that was the end Stadium attendance and pointed out that the attendance was boosted by a near stadium takeover by the fans of another program. I'm not a UCF fan. Far from it, not even sure why you are even rushing to that judgement. I am more than ready to see them lose several games, including to USF, so that I don't have to see them ranked or talked about on ESPN (unless it is about them losing). It is just embarrassing to me, at least, to be in Ray Jay, look around and see 17k people, pretend that the club seats are sold out and then see the announced attendance. All schools should be honest and just report actual game attendance while cashing checks from the people who paid for tickets but did not show up for the game.

They seem like a tight group already. Also there are literally two new pieces.

I would be impressed if that was in-the-stadium attendance but those numbers are announced attendance right? USF is notorious for quoting announced attendance and not actual in-the-stadium attendance. Plus last season's attendance was boosted by the central Florida takeover of Ray Jay.