Basketball – Page 2 – the Addison Recorder

NCAA Hoops: The Cinderella Story

February 19, 2015 by Kevin Triskett Leave a Comment

Unfortunately, in the time since my most recent post, college basketball lost two giants. Former University of North coach Dean Smith passed away on February and former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian passed away on February 11. I encourage you to read others’ magnificent words on Dean Smith, civil rights hero, and Tark, an all-time great coach and character.

On March 24, 2013, Andy Enfield’s Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles captured the hearts and imaginations of tournament-watching America with thunderous dunks, bizarre celebrations, and a set of relatively easy tournament victories over Georgetown and San Diego State University. They became the first 15-seed to play in the tournament’s second weekend, and their success landed Andy Enfield a lavish contract from USC only weeks later. The list of memorable NCAA Tournament Cinderella stories doesn’t begin or end with Florida Gulf Coast. Last season, Mercer upended Duke. George Mason stormed to the Final Four as an 11-seed in 2006. Butler, VCU, Wichita State, and Gonzaga have all established themselves as formidable programs after years of winning tournament games from lower seeds. You can bank every year on a low-seed mid or low conference team making tournament headlines and busting brackets. As thoughtful analysts, it’s our job to ask, “Are these occurrences completely random?”

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NCAA Hoops: How Good Is Kentucky?

February 5, 2015 by Kevin Triskett Leave a Comment

Photo Credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images

In one of the season’s more memorable games, Duke traveled to Virginia and took down the undefeated Cavaliers. The upset left Kentucky as the lone unbeaten team in Division I college basketball. The Wildcats have easily been the most widely-covered team and the national title favorite all season. At 22-0, 18 games stand between Big Blue Nation and the first perfect season since 1976, and it’s time to consider just how good Kentucky is — and if they’re truly that much better than the rest of the NCAA. [Read more…]

NCAA Hoops: Coach K Bids for 1000th Win

January 22, 2015 by Kevin Triskett Leave a Comment

Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski Celebrates USA Basketball’s 2012 Gold Medal

The number 1,000 doesn’t hold a sacred spot in college basketball fans’ hearts the way 755, 300, or 56 might for baseball fans – mostly because 1,000 is nearly incomprehensible. That he’s gotten to 999 victories speaks to Duke Head Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s longevity as much as it does his unparalleled talent. After amassing 73 wins and 0 NCAA Tournament appearances from 1975-80 at Army, Coach K took over a less-than-powerful Duke program. Before long, the Blue Devils looked strong, then dominant, then dynastic. In 35 seasons since, Duke has 4 National Titles, 8 Title game appearances, 11 Final Fours, and an astounding 30 Tournament appearances.

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NCAA Hoops: Non-con Recon

January 8, 2015 by Kevin Triskett 4 Comments

The New Year brings with it a bevy of resolutions, crippling cold, I guess, and most importantly, to your resident college basketball guru, the advent of conference play. Most major and mid-major conferences play only intra-league games from now until March. Plenty of time still exists for teams to play themselves into or out of the tournament, but at this milestone, let us break down the biggest winners and losers of the non-conference season.

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Wildcats Lead the Pack in 2014-2015

November 14, 2014 by Kevin Triskett Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Kevin Triskett, college basketball enthusiast and longtime friend of Meryl’s. Today he gives readers a preview into the NCAA season, which starts tonight at 6:30 p.m. Central.

: Aaron Harrison’s miracle shot propels Kentucky past Wisconsin in last year’s Final Four. (image via)

Most college basketball season previews read like a paint-by-numbers. A short list of one-and-done freshman, accessing Kentucky’s chances of winning the National Championship (or going undefeated if you’re completely disconnected from reality), and an unsurprising list of teams in contention for the Final Four. Those ingredients, though, just wouldn’t do the 2014-2015 season justice. UConn’s surprise run last March, proved again that anything can and will happen in a three week long, single elimination tournament. We enter this college basketball season with less certainty than usual and no clearly dominant team. That adds tremendous intrigue to the early weeks of the season, where stories will take shape, stars will emerge, and front-running teams will test each other in the best regular season in sports. Here’s a quick guide to the teams and storylines you need to follow on the march to Madness. [Read more…]

Return of the King: LeBron in Cleveland

July 12, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

This is pretty much exactly right. (Image via).

LeBron James announced yesterday that he will be leaving the Miami Heat to rejoin the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cleveland, of course, is his hometown (Editor’s Note: Shut up, Akron; you’re a suburb of Cleveland! – Alex) and he played the first seven years of his all-time great career with the Cavaliers. Since many of us are from Ohio, or lived there at some point in our lives, we have some thoughts.

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The Way of the Future: Jason Collins and Sexual Orientation in America

April 29, 2013 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

I had a violently angry article primed and ready to go for this afternoon here at the Recorder, one that discusses the eroding values of our culture that have been showcased over the last few weeks by the tragedies in Boston, one that snarls and might be the angriest thing I’ve ever written.

Then I went to work and turned on ESPN and heard about Jason Collins’ announcement that he is “a 34 year old center,[…] black, [and] gay.” In light of the significance of this announcement, yelling about Twitter, ignorance, and racial stereotyping in modern America seemed…well…petty.

I would like to lead off that we here at the Addison Recorder are proud of Jason Collins, that we respect and support him, and that we are especially glad to see that his decision to come out has been WIDELY EMBRACED by a litany of public figures, both within the sporting world and outside of with.

(I will also readily admit that I am not a big enough aficionado of the NBA to be able to identify who Jason Collins was. My first response when I heard that an athlete came out this morning was “Wow, that’s awesome!…..who does he play for?” Immediately followed by “What position? Center? Halfback? Are the Wizards even a team anymore?” Needless to say, I’m not proud of myself.)

The best thing about Collins’ coming out is that it was immediately usurped in the news by Tim Tebow being cut by the New York Jets.

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Recorded Conversations: New Favorites from 2012

January 8, 2013 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Welcome to “Recorded Conversations,” an occasional feature where all the Addison Recorder editors contribute their thoughts about a question, idea, or prompt. Everyone will chime in, and then we see where the conversation wanders.

To ring in the New Year on the Recorder, we look to our recent past and ask “What new thing (or things) that you discovered in 2012 has become one of your favorites?”

I’ll be honest right off the bat: 2012 sucked. Well, sucked might be too strong of a word, but it was less than I would have hoped for.

With that being said, I did get to experience a great many new things, and enjoyed most (if not all) of them. One thing I’ve noticed while reading Alex’s and Andrew’s responses is that while we’ve all experienced a great deal of the new over the last year, a great deal of it is centered in our love of all-things nostalgia. And there is nothing wrong with this; there is so much amazing output of artists in any given year, it is utterly impossible to take it all in, let alone the works that were put out in years prior. One of our missions here at the Addison Recorder is to highlight works that we feel might not get their proper praise, while illuminating more popular works in a way that they might not have been properly exposed in modern media culture.

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All the King’s Men: Modern Loathing in the NBA

June 27, 2012 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

The NBA finals, recently concluded, pitted the Miami Heat against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Rife with storylines, these included the quest for Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden to aid the Thunder’s rise from worst in the NBA to the ultimate heights. It was also about Lebron James’ continued quest for his first title in his pursuit of becoming one of the best basketball players of all time. As we now know, the latter proved to be the dominant storyline, granting this incarnation of the Heat their first title and fully forging James’ status as the best basketball player currently playing the game.

Really, it boils down to two people. The other eight roles on the Finals were played by an assortment of flaming hedgehogs. #nerd

What strikes me now, reflecting upon the match-up, is how this particular finals pitted two villains against each other. In this case, it is Lebron James vs. the Zombie Sonics, a bitter feud of egos, tormented fan bases, and entire states of disgruntled ex-fans, and what it means to passionately care about overpaid gazillionare athletic freaks throwing a rubber ball through a 10-foot metal hoop.

Allow me to break this down.

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