SportsCenter No More

I used to be a faithful watcher of ESPN’s SportsCenter. In the early 90s a friend asked me why I enjoyed it so much, and after thinking about it for a while, the answer was simple:

The rest of the world news was depressing, about violence, things gone bad, things gone wrong. But sports news, and specifically ESPN, was always good stuff. It was about who won this, who won that; what adversities people had overcome. Generally good stuff. Occasionally you'd have bad news (Magic's HIV; Steve Olin & Tim Crews death; cheating in sports, etc); but the bad news was rare, and when it occurred, it helped ground you into reality (a little). And if there was truly significant world news that needed to be covered, ESPN would cover it.

So watching SportsCenter each night was a pleasure.

Mid 90s I stopped watching it religiously, and now I almost never watch. Partly because my children were born, and the reality of what was truly important came along. But also the sports news started to take a nasty turn. Now it was no longer about who was winning, but it was about the corruption in sports, the endless cheating, the drug use, the Pete Rose betting scandal, etc. It seems to me it’s now all about tearing people down, rather than building them up.

Today, no matter how small the incident, it gets blown up into huge proportions and gets endless play over the internet, radio and television. Perhaps the media is just a reflection of our society; people only want to tear down others, and so the media panders to them. I know I’ve talked to a lot of fans who seem to behave that way. I’ve known many past co-workers whose joy in life seemed to be tearing down all aspects of management around them.

You know, if you look hard enough, there’s bad in everything. But there’s a lot of happiness and joy out there, good things going on. Paul Harris was over hyped beyond belief this year; it was almost impossible for him to meet the expectations of fans. But if you sit back and watch him play, you’ll see a young man playing with a lot of intensity and hard work, a real joy to watch play. He’s having a heck of a freshman season, making a difference out there.

Dick Vitale used to be great for college basketball. He over hyped everything, but he was a ball of positive energy. Every player was great! Everyone on his all-Windex team, everyone a diaper dandy, everyone an all-American. Now days, it appears that Vitale is like so many others on television; he takes advantage of his airtime, gets on his soapbox and preaches, instead of doing what truly was gifted at doing… making others feel good.

And now, I realize, I’ve been on my soapbox too long… so I’ll step down. Good day.

RY

Free Throw Update

We could spend time debating who should be in the starting rotation for the Orange, or the obvious flaws in this years squad, or the clear potential for growth they have. But history is upon us, and feel a duty to keep all Orange fans updated.

At this point, it seems clear that Terrrence Roberts is going to get the Syracuse career record for worst free throw shooting, ever. After his 0-1 performance against Baylor last Saturday, Roberts is now 19-48 for this season, a 39.6% clip, dropping his career performance to 133-287, 46.3%. He's clearly putting up the strong effort to keep his numbers well below Stephen Thompson's career mark. So now the question for Roberts is how low of a bar can he set? I have enough confidence in Roberts to believe he can set a mark that no future Orangemen would ever reach (nor would we ever want to see).

Darryl Watkins had a chance to challenge Roberts, but Mookie ruined his opportunity last weekend with a stellar 7-10 performance from the line, raising his season to 14-24, 58%. More importantly for Watkins at this point is that magical 50% career free throw mark. Currently he sits at 80-161, 49.7%. One more made free throw, and he's at an even 50%. I have no doubt Watkins will surpass that mark; if not for a 3-18 performance as a freshman, he would already be above 50% for this career.

Former Orangemen

If you're curious what former Orangemen are still playing professional basketball and where, I would recommend visiting Cuse Country. They've been doing an excellent job of providing updates on how former Syracuse players are doing not only in the NBA (Carmelo Anthony, Hakim Warrick, Jason Hart and Etan Thomas), but also how they are doing in the US minor leagues (CBA, ABA and NBDL) and how they are doing overseas (Italy, Belgium, Finland, Japan, and Bahrain).

They have their blog conveniently set so you can check the archive of the former players if you want to catch up on past updates.

Sometimes They Do Make The Easy Ones

As previously mentioned, Syracuse has a history of poor free throw shooting. But to be fair to the boys on the Hill, there have been some squads that have been down right decent from the charity stripe. It just never seems that way.

When evaluating a team’s effort, I decided it was more appropriate to look at how many of the primary players (i.e. in most cases starters) were good free throw shooters that season, using a 70% standard as a break mark. 70% isn’t great, but it's okay… and if you have four starters shooting 70% or more, I think you’re in pretty good shape; that is limiting the free throw shooting liability to just one guy on the court, and you can probably hide him. 70% is not Gerry McNamara numbers… but then again, no other player in Syracuse history has had GMac free throw numbers (some are close, but he’s the tops).

So going backwards from this year, here are the good shooting squads from the Hill. And surprisingly, one wasn’t too long ago.

The 2000-2001 team had four starters shooting better than 70% from the charity stripe, with Damone Brown leading the way at 79.1%. Included in that group was Allen Griffin 71%, DeShaun Williams 76%, and Preston Shumpert 76%. That’s a pretty decent group when you have three starters shooting better than 75% from the line. They had the black hole of Jeremy McNeil / Billy Celluck in the middle, neither of whom could buy a free basket; but neither were significant scorers in the first place, and the two combined only went to the free throw line 56 times that year.

1993-1994 had four starters over 70%, with Adrian Autry leading the charge at 78.4%. John Wallace 76%, Luke Jackson 76%, and Lawrence Moten 70% rounded out the foursome. Again, a hole at center with Otis Hill (58.5%) and J.B. Reafsnyder (60%). The center duo did take 105 free throws between them, so it did hurt the Orangemen a little. And truth be told, Moten’s actual number was a smidge under 70% if we included the decimal (69.8%).

1991-1992 wasn’t too bad. Lawrence Moten led the way at 75% and made the most. Adrian Autry shot 70%, as did Conrad McRae (surprise!); Dave Johnson was a hair better at 71%. The weak link on that starting five? SU’s venerable assistant coach Mike Hopkins at a lowly 63%. Ironically, he was one of the perimeter shooters!

1985-1986 had some shooters. Wendell Alexis, in his first season as a starter led the way at 81%. Raf Addison was just behind at 79%. The Pearl, a clutch free throw shooter, was 73%, and Howard Triche was at 70%. Rony Seikaly held up his end in the reputation for centers, as he shot a lowly 56%.

1984-1985 also could shoot. The Pearl was probably the best that season, at 78%. Michael Brown had the highest percent at 87%, but with only 23 free throw attempts on the season, he hardly counts. Raf Addison came in at 73% and Andre Hawkins was a pleasant surprise at 76%. Rony Seikaly was again the hole in the middle at 56%. Wendell Alexis came off the bench with significant playing time and free throw attempts at 77%.

1983-1984 had Raf Addison leading the way at 84%. Sean Kerins 79%, Andre Hawkins 74%, and Gene Waldron 74% rounded out the four. The Pearl was the weak link at 66% that season. Wendell Alexis was a deadly free throw shooter as the top reserve at 82%.

I think it’s noteworthy that those three consecutive seasons previously mentioned were pretty good from the line. They were teams that were playing in the hey day of the Big East, and didn’t have quite as much talent as the monster Georgetown, St. John’s and Villanova squads. Yet, the Orange had some of their best fundamental players (Addison and Alexis), decent free throw shooting to keep them in games, and of course, one of the greatest clutch players in Orange history, the Pearl.

1980-1981 SU had Marty Headd at 88% leading the way, until he broke his wrist (Tony Bruin was a big drop off at 69% when he entered the starting lineup as a result of the injury). Danny Schayes took the bulk of the free throw attempts at 82%; Erich Santifer was 73% and Leo Rautins 79%. Eddie Moss was the low man at 69%, which isn’t too bad for the worst of the starting five.

And finally, 1971-1972 needs a special note. Of the top eight players in terms of playing time, only two had free throw shooting that was even half way decent. However, those two shot the lights out, and they had 55% of the total attempts for the team that season. Greg Kohls shot a blistering 86% on a huge 222-257, while Mike Lee was 142-171 for 83%. So while you couldn’t say the team was very good, when over 55% of your free throw attempts are by an 83% or better shooter, that’s pretty good. Kohls was a master perimeter shooter, and was very adept at drawing fouls (as the free throw attempts suggest).

I have limited stats prior to the late 60’s on free throw shooting, so evaluating team efforts earlier than that is difficult. There were some outstanding individual free throw shooters in the 60s (Dave Bing, John Suder, Richie Cornwall, and Rick Dean).

As a side note, prior to 1924, the NCAA rule regarding free throws was that any player on the court could take a free throw when a foul was committed. So teams had designated free throw shooters (there were rarely substitutions in games). Obviously, in this setup, a team with one excellent free throw shooter, would be an outstanding free throw shooting ‘team’ (albeit a team of one). Joe Schwarzer and Wilbur Crisp were noted to be outstanding during their era, so one could suppose those teams were excellent free throw shooting squads.

So while many Orangemen have broken our hearts by missing the easy ones, there were clearly some squads who brought us some joy from there… it just seems so hard to remember them!

Roberts Followup

Perhaps inspired by the opportunity to set the school career mark, Terrence Roberts went 0-5 from the charity stripe on Saturday against Colgate, making him 19-47 on the season. He's now at 40.4%. Roberts may be getting greedy here, going for both the career AND season free throw shooting records (the latter he already holds).

Roberts Shoots for the Record

Poor free throw shooting is identified with the Orangemen as much as snow is identified with Syracuse. It seems every season free throw woes are a curse, in one form or another. Most fans can recall freshman Derrick Coleman missing the front end of a one-and-one with 30 seconds remaining in the 1987 title game; if DC makes one or both, the outcome of the game could very well have changed. Hakim Warrick missed on towards the end of the 2003 title game, though his block erased that error.

This season is no exception, as Terrence Roberts is continuing his effort to prove he is the worst of the worst in Orange basketball history. Roberts started this season with a career percentage of 47.7% (114 for 239), and is moving along at a 45.2% clip this season (currently at 19 of 42 after 9 games). If he keeps up his pace, he will finish his career with the worst free throw shooting percentage for any player with 200 or more attempts. That’s a dubious way to get into the SU record books!

Roberts already has the distinction for the worst free throw shooting percentage in a season with 100+ attempts, which he set last year in his junior campaign. He shot a blistering 56 of 133, for 42.1% accuracy, breaking the season mark previously held by the legendary Stephen Thompson (83-167, 49.7% in 1988-89).

And whose career mark is Roberts challenging (using the 200 attempt standard)? That too would be Mr. Thompson’s, who clearly was the most prolific bad free throw shooter the Orangemen ever had, making 328 of 622 career attempts for a 52.7% accuracy.

Roberts will probably end up with around 160 or so attempts again this season (he’s averaging 4.7 per game), so he has about 120 attempts left. So in order to get his career mark above Thompson’s, Roberts will need to do shoot something like 57 of 78 (73%) down the stretch; not bad for an average player but Herculean by Robert’s standards. I think Roberts may have this one in the bank. Except, there is a challenger out there... more later.

Who are the worst free throw shooters in Syracuse history? There are several candidates.

Roberts would statistically be the worst. There are other candidates.

Stevie Thompson, as mentioned, was not only very bad, but also very prolific. Coach Jim Boeheim used to comment on how much Thompson practiced every day at free throw shooting, and he often was very accurate in practice, but just could not translate it into the game. Thompson as a junior, shot 49.7% from the free throw line, and an amazing 64% from the floor. He was virtually defensively unstoppable when he got the ball near the hoop, which is why he was fouled so often.

Rony Seikaly was another prolific horrible free throw shooter. He hit at 57.6%, which by the standards of many players I’ll comment on here, is actually nosebleed territory. Unfortunately he did it on 412 of 715 free throw attempts. That’s a lot of misses (nine more the Thompson!), for a school career record.

Herman ‘The Helicopter’ Harried would be the worst ever if we lowered the standard to 100 attempts. He shot 45 of 119 for this career, at a 37.8% clip. Harried had no form at all, and just clanged the ball off the hoops.

Other horrible free throw shooters in Syracuse history included Louie McCroskey (51 of 108, 47.2%), Jeremy McNeil (57 for 116, 49.1%), and Josh Pace (88 for 174, 50.6%).

Robert’s teammate Darryl Watkins is also on this list, and he's the contender mentioned earlier. Entering this season Watkins was 66 of 137 for his career, a 48.2% average. He would have been on pace to break Thompson’s record if not for Roberts. Watkins still has a shot at it; he’s 7 of 14 so far this season (50%), raising his career average to 48.3%. A hot streak by Roberts or a cold streak by Watkins could give him the edge (if you want to call it that).

However, numbers don’t always tell the whole story. While it’s true that statistically Roberts, Watkins, and Thompson are the worst ever seen on the Hill, another man truly set the standard: Derek Brower. Brower made 42.1% of his free throws in his career, on 67 of 159. Most players improve over the course of their career through a combination of practice and more playing time. Not Brower. He shot 61% his freshman year, entered his senior season with a career average of 43.9%, and proceeded to shoot 20 of 52 (38.5%) to lower it. Brower frequently shot air balls to the dismay of Syracuse fans; there were times the fans cheered when he merely hit the rim. Brower was a large hustling player whose job on the court was to play defense and rebound; shooting was not his forte.

But the reason that Brower makes the top of this list (or should I say bottom?) is the impact his free throw shooting had on the college basketball game. In the 1987 2nd round NCAA tournament game against Western Kentucky, Syracuse had a lead in the second half. The Hilltoppers decided their best effort to get back in the game was to deliberately foul Brower (when he did not have the ball) and make him shoot free throws. This led to the comical effect of Brower running around the court (without the ball) trying to avoid being fouled by the chasing Western Kentucky players. The strategy was effective as Brower would go 0-6 from the free throw line, though not enough as Syracuse still won by a large margin. However, the following summer, the NCAA would change its rules stating that if a player was deliberately fouled by the other team, he would get two free throws and his team would get the ball back afterwards.

So Derek, a tip of the hat to you.

One Fan's Enjoyment of Non-Conference Play

So, as part of the annual rites of the passage of autumn, the bashing of the Syracuse non-conference schedule has occurred by the national media. Most of those comments are knee jerk reactions by analysts who have far too many teams to follow and too little time to really know the nuances of what each team is actually doing.

And there are elements of hypocrisy in it. Most big schools have the same form of non-conference games.

UConn won’t play a single road game prior to their Big East kick off on 12/30 versus West Virginia. That’s 11 home games, none away from home.

UCLA, current #1 team in the country, has twelve games prior to the start of the Pac-10. 9 are at home; 3 are away from home at the Maui Classic. Course, those are neutral games, not road games.

North Carolina will have fourteen non-conference games; two on the road, with a trip to Tennessee and a trip to Saint Louis.

And then there is Duke, the program beloved by so many announcers. These announcers would never criticize Duke. That’s not the Blue Devils problem, and I don’t begrudge Duke for it. It is a class program. However, let’s be fair. Duke has played 8 games so far this season, all at home. Three more home games until they play Gonzaga on 12/21. Then two more home games before the ACC schedule starts.

And it’s not just this season. In 2005-06, Duke went out on a limb and played three road games in their first thirteen out-of-conference schedule, against Indiana, Texas, and UNC-Greensboro.

In 2004-05, Duke played 11 non-conference games to start the season, all at home except for road game to Valparaiso.

Again, I’m not knocking Duke on this. They’re just doing what everyone else does. But its times for the national announcers to stop singling out Syracuse for its schedule. They are one of many.

I think that the big schools should play the smaller schools in their area every season. These games are extremely important to the small schools, and help the big schools in the process.

The college basketball analysts scream about teams not playing enough big games; but that’s entirely self serving. They want more big games to cover. They’re more fun, and frankly require less homework. How tough is it for Dick Vitale to prepare for a Duke / Georgetown pre-season game? The average fan knows quite a few players on both teams. Preparing for a Duke / Sacred Heart game, however, is much tougher. And of course, announcing a close game is easy… the action speaks for itself. A lopsided game requires the announcer to actually bring something to the table, and stay interested into the game.

There is hypocrisy in who you play. If you schedule a mid-major team (a Bucknell or a Butler), you risk a lot with little in return. When you win the game, announcers will say it was just another win against a creampuff non-conference team. But… you have a chance of losing to those mid-major schools, because as we are now all aware, they are dangerous to play. And losing to those schools will hurt you (any loss should hurt).

I think the big schools not only should play the small local schools, but have an obligation to do so.

By local, I don’t mean just those in your city. But play those small Division I schools in your state. In Syracuse’s case that includes schools such as Colgate, Cornell, Niagara, St.Bonaventure, Canisius, and Siena, among others. It’s a win/win in these games. Usually it’s an easier game for Syracuse, a chance to prep the team and get some revenue for another home town game. The small schools win because they get an opportunity to play a big time school (good for fans and recruiting), and they get a big boost in revenue with their piece of the revenue. And it helps build tradition; and I think tradition is greatly under appreciated by many in college athletics today.

Syracuse has played Colgate 159 times, and the Orangemen lead the series 114-45. They’ve played the Red Raiders more than any other team, and they should keep that going. Canisius 67 times, Cornell 114 times, Niagara 81 times. Surprisingly, they’ve played St. Bonaventure only 24 times prior to this year. Siena only 6 times.

I think it might be nice to see SU play LeMoyne regularly. Amazingly, they’ve only faced 5 times. It would be lopsided, but I think its good sportsmanship to have them play. Where I now live, Pitt plays Division III Carnegie Mellon. It’s a slaughter (though CMU put a scare into Pitt a couple years back with a close halftime score), but it’s a shame if they did not play. The two schools' campuses touch each other, and isn’t a part of collegiate sports the intercollegiate camaraderie? While its mostly about money, its should not be ALL about money.

I do find it offensive when teams scour the nation looking for a creampuff. North Carolina played Sacred Heart (CT) this year. Why? In the past Syracuse has had Coppin State or Bethune-Cookman come up. Again, why? Those games I would agree should not be scheduled. The obligation is only regional.

But I also find it offensive to reward a team for just scheduling tough games. It’s always been my position, you’ve got to prove yourself on the court (or on the field, depending on the sport). Go ahead and schedule the tough games. But you’ve got to win them for it to matter; scheduling them and then going out and losing does not show anything.

Michigan State, in 2003-2004 played a brutal non-conference schedule to start the season with road games at #14 Kansas, UCLA, and #24 Syracuse, and home games against #6 Duke, # 4 Kentucky, and Oklahoma among the eleven first games. They started the season 5-6, ended up 18-12. The NCAA rewarded the Spartans for playing the tough non-conference schedule. Reward teams that play a tough schedule and win the games. It’s a great tie breaker when you are evaluating two close teams. But, in my book, you’ve got to win the games; just scheduling them shouldn’t be enough.

Hey, I enjoy the November and December games. Maybe in part, because when I was growing up those were the games that we could get easily get tickets to. They weren’t in high demand, and crowds weren’t huge. But they were enjoyable. And occasionally you got to see a 40 point effort from Gene Waldron, or 31 points from Howard Triche, or rare collegiate triple double by Derrick Coleman.

But to me, its all part of the college game. The national media is just blind to it.