Archive for April 24th, 2012

WATERCOOLER CHAT: PETRINO OUT-SMITH IN, SPURS ENIGMA, PARKER TO UCLA

FOOTBALL

In college football, the affair scandal with Bobby Petrino, which resulted in his firing, has left the Arkansas football program in a bit of a dilemma as to who was going to take over this very good football team.  Arkansas won a major bowl game against Kansas State last season, and they will be expected to compete for a National Championship again under quarterback Tyler Wilson and returning star running back Knile Davis.  But, they need a new head coach.  They searched for a few weeks, and yesterday they finally settled on their man:  John L. Smith.  Smith was the assistant coach alongside Petrino, and the fans in the area were calling for his name.  However, Smith was headed to be the head coach at Weber State, never thinking that he’d ever have a chance to coach a program as amazing as Arkansas.  Now, he’s got the gig (for at least a year), and will do his best to bring the program to the promised land.

BASKETBALL

In the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs have been having a great season.  They look to be on a mission, and given their team’s older average age, they have a slight advantage with this shortened season.  Head coach Gregg Popovich made some very strategic decisions this year, opting to bench his stars when they didn’t need to play, in an attempt to be as fresh as possible during the playoffs.  Yesterday, the Spurs had a chance to gain their 8th straight win and clinch the #1 seed in the Western Conference.  Tim Duncan had a great game with 18 points and 8 rebounds, and the Spurs easily nabbed the win and clinched the top spot.  However, last season, the #8 seed Memphis Grizzlies knocked the Spurs out of the playoffs, and that could happen again this year.  The Spurs are likely the NBA’s biggest enigma.  San Antonio 124, Portland 89.

Finally, in college basketball, the UCLA Bruins, arguably one of the Top 3 programs of all-time, has been struggling ever since their 2008 season.  A season where they boasted an incredible amount of fantastic NBA talent including Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, Darren Collison, and Jrue Holiday.  But the last 4 years have been very uninspired.  A lack of talent on the recruiting end, and rumors that head coach Ben Howland had lost control of his team.  Now, UCLA is having a fantastic recruiting off-season, and it was just made better that they nabbed one of the top center prospects in the country in Tony Parker.  This is a big deal because the top recruits tend to want to play at the programs that are currently the hottest.   At this time, that’s Kentucky, Kansas, Syracuse, North Carolina, and basically any team that everyone’s paying attention to.  So it’s almost a risk going to play for a team like UCLA that may not be in the national spotlight until tournament time.  But this is a great thing for a program looking to get back to the Top 10 and make a run at the National Title.

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