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March 5, 2012

Temple, Big East and ACC

Filed under: ACC,Basketball,Big East,Conference — Chas @ 2:35 pm

In addition to the search for a car — now approaching a conclusion — I spent the weekend wondering what my doctor wanted. Got sick a couple weeks ago, and in addition to the medicine, I had to get some bloodwork done. Procrastinated on the blood work for a week. And then missed a couple calls from my doctor near the end of the week. By the time I called the office was closed and I got to stew over why they were calling me for the weekend. Cancer, rare disorder. Something horrible.

Turns out I have a Vitamin D deficiency. Have to take a prescription vitamin for a while. Seems generally stupid until I googled it, and holy shit, rickets! Getting old sucks. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Moving on to other things. Which comes first, the Big East invites Temple, Temple’s board authorizes Temple to accept an invite, or Temple reaches a settlement with the MAC to move to the Big East this year? Given how ass-backward the Big East portion of expansiopocolypse has been, my money is on settling with the MAC first.

If there was any doubt that taking Temple now is done for saving the Big East money vs. what it would cost to get Boise out of the MWC a year early. This should clinch it:

The Owls will have to pay exit fees. Sources have said it would cost them $3.5 million to leave the MAC immediately, and $2 million to get out of the A-10. Less if they move later. But this stuff can be negotiated.

Boise would have cost at least $10 million more — and Temple could possibly settle at lower. I’m sure Temple has a tight budget, but that is chump change simply based on the TV deal of the Big East (even just for football) vs. the MAC.

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Not Surprised, But Disappointed

Filed under: Basketball — Chas @ 10:52 am

That has been my overall reaction to the final regular season game. That loss to UConn. Losing the game wasn’t a terrible surprise. It was on the road where Pitt has been 1-6 in the Big East coming into the game. UConn’s senior day. Jim Calhoun made an emotional and big return to the bench to help give UConn an emotional lift on top of it.

Heck, even much of the way the game went was familiar to both teams. Pitt got off to a rocky start. Struggling to score and to take care of the ball. My god, even UConn used a press on Pitt because they just haven’t handled it well. Pitt made a strong run in the second half, but couldn’t sustain it in the final minutes. UConn built a nice lead and managed to fritter it away. Just managing to get it together, and Napier coming up with 7 points and a steal in the final 2-and-1/2 minutes.

UConn’s one-and-done Andre Drummond was a big, intimidating defensive presence — but outside of that he didn’t do much rebounding or scoring. While Roscoe Smith had the late defensive play by drawing the charge on Moore, and helped save UConn in the second half; this was typical UConn with Shabazz Napier and Jeremy Lamb creating most of the offense. And if they actually do get the offense from them, they win.

Pitt got nothing from the guards outside of Woodall. Gibbs had a late, meaningless three that taunted Pitt fans more than anything else.  Pitt was never going to beat UConn without getting three-point shots to go.

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