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The Pilot Rocky Top Summer League is just a couple days away. I’ve never been, but I’m totally planning on going just about every night I can, which will probably be every night since I definitely would choose that over doing schoolwork (and I do). Nothing like some defense-lacking basketball in a non air-conditioned high school gym.
Really, I’m just excited for the first look at the new Vols – Scotty Hopson, Bobby Maze, Cameron Tatum, Daniel West, Renaldo Woolridge, and Philip Jurick. And getting to see former Vols – Ron Slay, Dane Bradshaw, Jordan Howell, Stanley Asumnu, Damon Johnson, Rashard Lee, and John Higgins – should be very enjoyable as well. Throw in some other good players – namely ETSU’s Courtney Pigram and Clemson’s sharpshooting Terrance Oglesby – and it should be a great display of offensive ability. Plus, I’m just a big basketball guy.
Anyways, here are the teams (per VolQuest and GVX) in case you haven’t seem them elsewhere:
Knoxville News-Sentinel: Damon Johnson, Ron Slay, Renaldo Woolridge, Philip Jurick, Jalen Steele, Cameron Sharpe, Raul Placeras, Jeffrey Saffore, Chancey Thompson, Keith Baer, Dontey Hampton, Michael Haynes
HT Group: Tyler Smith (top overall pick, no surprise there), Courtney Pigram, Daniel West, Michael Jenkins (from Winthrop? not sure), Cole Rose, Kyle Huckins, J.T. Blair, Chris Conner, Ryan Walden, Jason Seymore, Kyle Binele
Rays ESG: Scotty Hopson, Bobby Maze, Brian Williams, Logan Johnson, Steven Pearl, Alex Oliver, Alex Bower, Ben Williamson, James Gallman, Riley Hunley, Cole Clabaugh
First Tennessee Bank: Cameron Tatum, James Jackson, John Higgins, Jordan Howell, Zach Hyatte, Ben Bosse, Eric Watson, Marko Kostic, Justin Walker, Dustin Brown, Jordan Damron, Chris Carney
Richardson Construction: John Mueller, Terrance Oglesby, Stanley Asumnu, Josh Tabb, Elil Kuri-Zade, Michael Black, Rob Zalucki, Skylar McBee, Adam Plavich, Drew Bailey, Andy Hill
Toyota of Knoxville: Wayne Chism, Dane Bradshaw, Rashard Lee, Andy Tipton, Tony White Jr, Kirill Yakolev, Isaiah Brown, Jared Stephens, Jimmy Boone, Dan Walter, Tanner Wild, Carlton Hill
I haven’t heard of most of these guys, but there are some top area high school players, and some guys from smaller colleges (like Carson-Newman) as well. I’m sure I’ll find out more when I go the games (yes, I’m banking on a program of some sort). If the Michael Jenkins on the HT Group team is the player from Winthrop (who led the Eagles in scoring last year), then they are easily the favorite. The KNS team is also looking good.
But the team that catches my eyes is the Rays team, mostly because of Hopson and Maze. Those are the two guys I think that will determine just how good Tennessee is going to be this year. Both should start, and their play on the outside could make a dangerous combination with Tyler and Wayne inside. In addition to the current Vols, I’m looking forward to seeing Slay play again, he was one of my favorite Vols back when we weren’t very good. And of course Dane is Dane.
Also of note, JP Prince won’t be playing because he’s still recovering from shoulder surgery and Ryan Childress isn’t either due to a knee injury. In fact, I saw him on campus earlier this week and he was on crutches.
As it is, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the spectacle that is the Rocky Top League.
I DID say this wasn’t going to be a strictly sports blog, but that’s what it’s been in it’s nearly two week existence. So I’m going to throw in a school update for the sake of keeping to what I said I was going to be doing with this blog. Feel free to skip right over this.
It hasn’t even been 10 days of class and I’ve already had a number of quizzes, a major test, a bunch of poetry to read, and I gotta paper due Friday (yes, I’m doing this instead of writing it at the moment). In all actuality, both the classes I’m taking (intro to poetry and journalism law) have been more interesting that I thought they’d be. Sitting in class for three and a half hours a day is not fun, but it’s not unbearable, at least so far. It’s summer school, so things are moving fast as I expected.
My poetry teacher is really cool, and I actually have found a tolerance (for lack of a better word) for poetry. As for the other class, studying past Supreme Court cases and looking at how that branch of government works has been very interesting actually. But that of course doesn’t mean I’m switching to majoring in law though.
School and working out keep me pretty busy during the week. I have more time on weekends obviously, and the Finals are sufficing sports-wise for the moment. The College World Series should get me to the end of summer school (I hope), then the ultimate torture of July-August begins as football season approaches (of course, even these-type posts include sports).
I’m also getting to go home this weekend, which will be greatly enjoyed despite the brevity of it.
It was ugly, but the Lakers beat Boston in Game 3 last night by a 87-81 score.
What Game 1 was, Game 3 certainly was NOT. Missed shots, missed free throws, turnovers, sloppiness, all justifiable words for the Game 3 of the Finals last night. But in the end, Boston decided to give Ray Allen the seriously impossible task of stopping Kobe Bryant one-on-one on two late possessions and that’s just not smart. Of course Kobe would win that matchup, and he did last night, as the Lakers made more plays down the stretch to win.
As bad as Paul Pierce and KG were (combined 8-35 from the field), the Lakers probably should have won comfortably last night. For some reason, though, it took Kobe taking over (a la the Kobe of previous years) and 20 points from Sasha Vujacic for the Lakers to avoid the 0-3 hole, including a dagger three from the corner with under two minutes left to make it a 81-76 Lakers’ lead. Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol continue to do little, Derek Fisher was off last night, and outside of Sasha the bench did nothing.
I mentioned in the post after Game 2 about my negative feelings towards Vujacic. It’s more of an annoyance, as he’s one of the types where his team’s fans love him but other fans can’t stand him (Tyler Hansbrough or J.J. Redick, for example). That said, he’s plays with a good deal of heart and he plays hard. And it’s VERY easy to see he is quite the emotional type – just watch his reactions after fouls.
Boston wasn’t much better. Allen played very well, but Pierce was just off (maybe his knee was hurt after all, and the cross-country travel sure didn’t help him or any of the Celtics) and Garnett looked like he was playing really tight. As expected, the bench of Brown, Cassell, Posey, and Eddie House weren’t horrible, but they didn’t play at the level they did in Boston, which came as no surprise. The wild card in all this was Rajon Rondo and his ankle injury in the third quarter, which limited him the rest of the game.
In the 4th, I really thought Doc Rivers should have stuck with House instead of Rondo. House was on the floor when the Celtics made their run to take the lead in the 3rd quarter. House of course presents more of an outside threat than Rondo, and as good as Rondo was in Boston, he should be expected to struggle on the road as a young, inexperienced point guard.
As for the rest of the series, the Lakers may be in more trouble than most thought going into Game 3. Kobe was dominant, but the supporting cast – other than Sasha, of course – was non-existent. And you gotta expect Garnett and Pierce to be back to the normal selves, or at least much better offensively than they were last night.
Kobe also may have to be as aggressive as he was last night (the Lakers had a pretty large advantage in free throws, but the team struggled from the stripe) for the Lakers to have a chance, but that may negatively effect how his teammates play. In addition, the Lakers defense has to be as good as it was last night, and that essentially was the biggest difference between the games in Boston and Game 3. At the least, they have to keep that kind of defensive effort and intensity to have a chance to win in Games 4 and 5.
Because if Boston gets a game in LA, it’s all but over.
