If u don’t like Dickie V u can kiss my big behind
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I’ll never forgive Dickie V for running the Pistons in the ground and assisting in some of the worst draft decisions in franchise history.
He coached for one season
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I love the guy. Great ambassador for the sport. And, for some reason, for Rick Pitino, but still. As long as I’m not listening to him call a basketball game.
He made one terrible, terrible trade and another awful first round pick. On the plus side, he got John Long and Terry Tyler in the second round.
I never blamed Vitale for getting fleeced by Boston. He had no business whatsoever being an NBA GM. Even being the coach was a stretch. Asking him to do both was lunacy. The Pistons were just so cheap and incompetent. Who could think that taking a coach from U of Detroit with no pro experience and giving him total control over the roster was going to go well?
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It was before my time but there are still a lot of older Rutgers fans who talk about how the school blew it by not promoting Vitale to the head coaching job in 1973. Given the many other failures by the athletic department back then – like initially turning down a Big East invitation – I’m inclined to believe it. If I have my history right Vitale was the main recruiting force that landed the class of Phil Sellers and Mike Dabney that became the core of the 1976 team that went undefeated.
There’s a good chance that Rutgers fades into the wilderness even under Vitale but as a Jersey guy he would have brought such a passion to the job in a way that Tom Young, who was a decent enough coach, didn’t. He was deeply connected to the NJ/NY scene. That would’ve probably helped Rutgers and also saved Pistons fans some trouble. Although who’s to say he doesn’t jump to coach the New Jersey Nets or something if that opportunity arose.
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Oh man … I didn’t know that Rutgers was considered for Big East, which always seemed like a parochial league (but then, Syracuse). Easy to imagine a different tale if that had been the path.
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Even up to the time I attended in the mid-late 2000s there was a semi-serious push from a group of faculty to drop to Division 3. It was always a push-pull thing between academics and athletics for some reason with each side resenting the other. My assumption is that at places like Michigan and Virginia there has always been a lot more rowing the boat in the same direction.
A lot of people associated with the school wanted to take the Holy Cross route and keep playing Lafayette, Lehigh, Princeton, etc despite being a big state university.
What was the Boston trade?
Boston signed ML Carr and the Pistons were entitled to compensation. They offered Cedric Maxwell and a bench player. Vitale wanted a past his prime Bob McAdoo instead. He sent the draft picks that Boston used to get McHale and Parish to get McAdoo instead of Maxwell.
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Lol. That’s hilarious.
Such a shame what was done to the Big East. I did not know it was only founded in 1979, but you know you’ve done good when 10 years later you have one of the best rivalries in the sport. I had an uncle who was a prof at Gtown at the time and just had story after story about those games and about Thompson behind the scenes; wish I’d written them down before he passed. Those stories were a part of what god me excited about college basketball when young. It’s so sad what’s happened to that rivalry. I don’t know if preserving the conference as it was would have stopped that, but the diehards on both sides who preserve the hate deserve some appreciation.
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I don’t. And I won’t.
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A throwback from the transfer thread:
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Go 'Toppers!
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$tan$bury strikes
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Looks like 3mw has released their breakdowns via a massive, purchasable season preview:
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Yeah, and they didn’t do all of the teams which is too bad (IMO) but I still purchased. I’m usually a Blue Ribbon guy, and loved how their previews supplemented BR, but this should be solid even if it is more of a competing product.
I’m assuming less detail on some teams/conferences than the old website previews? I really liked the mid/low-major conference tiers and breakdowns, but I’ll be getting a copy either way when I get home to my laptop.
They talked to all of the coaches (more of a Blue Ribbon thing typically) so that’ll be part of it. I think it won’t have video and stuff like that.
From what I understand, the Weave guys are doing more MM/LM stuff so should be helpful.