CRAWFACTS, is info, need to know and anything else you would like to call it.
Summer Games---I think it is great that NCAA teams get to travel and play internationally during the summer, but the past two days have been a disaster for a couple teams. First, in case you have not seen it, the brawl that Georgetown got into while playing the Bayi Rockets in China was one of the worst on-court basketball fights that I have ever seen and I have seen a few, both in person and on TV. It is a miracle that no one got hurt in this brawl. Kind of interesting that prior to the game, Georgetown met with visting VP Joe Biden and newly appointed ambassador to China, Gary Locke, now I am certain they did not talk about diplomacy.
Also yesterday a serious injury took place to one of the best players in the Pac-12, when USC point guard Jio Fontan, tore his ACL in a game the Trojans were playing in Brazil. Fontan will miss the entire 2011-12 season. Without question he would have been the best player on the Trojan roster and quite possibly the best point guard in the Pac-12. For sure he was the most improved guard in the conference last year and this is a major loss for USC, which would have struggled this year, even with Fontan.
Pre-Season---I for one enjoy the pre-season in basketball maybe even more than the conference games. I love some of the match-ups, especially when west coast teams cross-over into another west coast league.
Two games of interest for myself will both be played on Sundays. On November 20th, Washington State will travel to play the University of Portland. While the game will not get much national attention, it will tell all of us how these two teams which both have to rebuild, will rebuild and should be an outstanding competitive game.
The second game I will have some interest in, is when Santa Clara visits Washington State on December 11th. Kerry Keating, Santa Clara head coach is a rapidly rising star in the coaching ranks and playing against a Pac-12 opponent that they can beat on the road, is a game to watch.
Of course there will be many more games to watch in pre-season, but quite frankly this is the slowest year I have ever seen, for schedules being posted on schools' websites. There are many reasons that are given for the slowness, but it seems like there is one thing forgotten, fans of basketball and these teams would love to know key match-ups and of course critical dates. I think sometimes that all college sports forget that they are in the customer service business, people like to plan ahead of time, not have a basketball schedule which starts in November, come out in the middle of September. It will never make any sense to myself and it is a shameful way to treat fans.
Danny Miles--In my continuing campaign to get Oregon Tech basketball coach into the basketball hall of fame, I am wondering after watching last week's hall of fame ceremonies, if we will see Miles in the hall of fame next year. In my mind he is one of the top ten people in the world that is not in the hall of fame, that deserves to be there. And for all the new people reading my columns and it is growing all the time, I have never met Coach Miles, would not know him if he walked past me and have nothing to gain by my support, except for the fact that his merits both as a coach and as a human being, document totally why he should be in the basketball hall of fame.
please follow myself on twitter @wchoops and emails always welcome at crawscorner@gmail.com
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