Effor.com

Tennessee starts the year kicking some butt.  They slaughtered that perennial national title contender football powerhouse Our Lady of Mercy – Umm, I mean Western Kentucky.  At home.

What’s the deal with supposedly “power” conferences padding stats by playing whatever area high school team needs some cash?

Props to Alabama, Georgia, and LSU for actually playing college football teams in their openers.   The rest of the SEC proved absolutely nothing.

What does it tell you about your team when they beat Miami of Ohio, Western Carolina, Missouri State, or that other contender – Charleston Southern University?

Nothing.  And that’s the amount of respect I give teams who schedule pushovers.  If you want to be a big time team, you need to play big time opponents.   The SEC stayed on the porch opening weekend.

gk

Share on Facebook

Excellent story in the NY Times about Pat Summitt and the legacy of coaches that she’s leaving in her wake.  You can follow the link to the story and read the whole thing, but here are a few snips:

A better measure of Summitt’s success — in her eyes, anyway — is this: 45 Lady Volunteers, about a third of the players who have passed through her program, have become coaches — from youth leagues to the pros. In her coaching tree, the first ring was formed this season with the arrival of Glory Johnson, whose high school coach was Shelley Sexton-Collier, whose college coach was Summitt.

To play for Summitt is to feel her glare everywhere. She has certain nonnegotiable rules, like requiring her players to sit in the first three rows at class. When they are broken, she has a way of finding out. Even after her players leave, Summitt keeps an eye on them. When Caldwell’s Bruins lost at home to Oregon, 73-56, Summitt called afterward to offer encouragement.

She hears from former players regularly. Some are looking for a box-out drill to use in practice. Others seek career advice or want to know how to motivate an underachieving player. Trish Roberts, who played in the Montreal Olympics alongside Summitt before playing for her at Tennessee, said, “I could pick up the phone and talk to Pat anytime, and she’ll take the time out.”

I hear a lot in this town about UT football, a little less about UT men’s basketball, and even less about UT women’s basketball.  I think that’s backwards.  Knoxville needs to celebrate Pat Summitt far more than they talk about an average football program.  When she eventually retires, UT will go back to having an average Lady Vol’s team, and maybe people will realize what they had.

But that’ll be too late.

gk

Share on Facebook

I watched the Vols beat up on Central High – oops, I mean UAB – today 35 – 3.  I also saw the highlights of the UCLA vs BYU game, where UCLA  lost 59 to 0.  That’s not a typo, the total points UCLA scored against BYU was zero.  Zip.  Nadda, Goose-egg.

Considering the fact that BYU is currently ranked 18th (just as the Vols were when they played UCLA) and that UCLA had 4 turnovers today (they also had 4 when they played the Vols) BYU is waaaay better than UT at this time.  And I don’t think BYU is very good

I don’t think that says much for UT Football.  To get beat by a team that loses it’s next game by 59 points is bad.  Really bad.  I thought the SEC was supposed to be the premier football conference?  Looks to me like the PAC 10 and WAC are kicking some SEC butt.

And unless UT finds an offense floating down the river sometime in the next week, the game next week against Florida is gonna be ugly.  Really ugly.  Two bagger ugly.

It’ll be the kind of game that you switch off shortly after halftime when the score is something like 35 – 6.  I hope that’s not the case, but I am not impressed with UT so far this year.  Florida won’t be impressed either.

gk

Share on Facebook

The Tennessee Lady Vols are the 2008 NCAA champions!  They successfully defended their title by beating Stanford last night, giving them 8 championships – and counting.

I moved to Knoxville in March of 2007, just before the Lady Vols won their 7th national championship last year.  I don’t know if the people around here are jaded, but I don’t understand the lack of respect the Lady Vols receive in this town. 

I listened to a local sports talk radio station this morning, and a female caller said “Women’s basketball is like watching the “B” team play – no one cares if they win or lose, because they’re not as good as a men’s team.”  (This may not be an exact quote, but it’s very close and it accurately captures what the caller was trying to say.)

To put what the Lady Vols have done into perspective, here are a few pertinent facts.

Pat Summitt is the all time leader in NCAA wins, with 983 career wins.  Jody Conradt (retired) and Bob Knight are second with 900 wins.  Dean Smith is 4th with 879.

The Lady Vols have not only been in every NCAA Women’s tournament, they have made it to at least the ”Sweet Sixteen”  every year.  In case you’re counting (I am!) that’s 27 consecutive years.  No other team – and certainly no other coach – comes close.  (North Carolina in mens basketball made it to the tournament 27 years in a row, but they lost in the first round a few times.)

The Lady Vols (and Pat Summitt) have 30 straight 20+ win seasons.

The Lady Vols have 104 NCAA tournament wins – and only 19 losses.  Any other team would be happy to have that record versus weak opponents.  Pat Summitt has done that against the best teams in the country – those who made it to the tournament.

Pat Summitt now has 8 national championships.  Only John Wooden (UCLA) has more with 10.

The Lady Vols have 8 national championships.  Only UCLA has more with 11.

Pat Summitt has a 100% graduation rate. 

Anyone want to compare that record with the UT football program?  ‘Nuf said.

gk

Share on Facebook