This has been probably my longest stretch at Bucknuts without an article. I have a couple of things in the works but am pretty focused on a magazine article I am writing for Bucknuts the Magazine focusing on the NFL transition for Ted Ginn, Anthony Gonzales, Antonio Pittman, and Troy Smith.
I actually conducted an interview with 2006 Heisman winner Troy Smith who was gracious enough to give me 20 minutes of his time. Lots of good stuff that I am working into my article (Smith indicates he is the starter in Madden 2009 next year) . I am hoping to speak with the other 3 former Buckeyes as well.
Moving on here are some random thoughts.
-I cannot wait for this weeken’s showdown of #1 Memphis and #2 Tennessee. I heavily advocated that these two teams were undervalued in my pre season rankings article where I predicted Memphis might be headed to a cake walk season in addition to giving abnormally high ranking for Tennessee. I actually picked Tennessee to win it all in our staff predictions article.
“Ben Koo: Call me crazy but I think the Volunteers have the best mix of talent, experience, coaching, and tenacity to bring home the championship.”
Saturday’s game will be a high scoring, hotly contested, fast paced in state showdown pitting the country’s most talented team against the country’s best team suited for tournament play. Should be awesome.
– Kelvin Sampson will be fired. He can’t dance his way out of this. Too much evidence against him + a track record of documented cheating. ESPN.COM had a poll on Sampson’s fate and despite their being 4 different options, all 50 states has 0ver 50% of voters opting to fire Sampson. Incredibly Indiana was one of the states most in favor of letting him go. Indiana is too classy of a institution to tolerate his BS. (Interesting side note, my final school decision came down to osu or IU. Phew! that was a close one)
– Speaking of Indiana basketball, I have to say that watching Eric Gordon has been awesome. Time will tell if the NBA High School rule is a good thing, but I really think its been successful thus far. Seeing guys like Oden, Durant, Conley Jr, Mayo, Gordon, Beasly, Love, and Rose get one year under the belts at the collegiate level before going pro is good thing for all parties involved. NBA teams get a better feel for who they are drafting. NBA fans are more familiar with the leagues newest additions thanks to a year at the collegiate level. College programs are able to catch lightening in a bottle and are capable of making unexpected runs in the tourney.
