Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

I think you have VT in the right spot. The program is in a great place in terms of fan support and it's steadily gained on football as that sport has declined in Blacksburg. Football is still king, but there's not as much of a gulf there as there was in the late 90s/early 00s. The basketball program was in total shambles at that time (pre-ACC) anyway, and football was consistently great.

 

Pitt and Notre Dame were the tough calls on that particular borderline.

 

I’d rather have Pitt’s long-term prospects than those of Syracuse. Jim Boeheim has stayed too long at the fair and there are an awful lot of empty seats to fill in that big ole dome. Hard to motivate folks to trudge through the snow on those Monday nights when half the league is guaranteed to be filler and Duke is no longer the star attraction that can make folks forget how much they miss the prime Big East years.

 

Speaking of Boewhine, he should have been told it’s over shortly after he ran someone over with a car.

 

What a dick.

 

Jason Capel has been a prick for decades. Very thin skin.
Pitt is doing well. Perhaps well enough to get Jeff another raise and extension, which would be stupid but would be par for the course in college athletics these days.

 

Do they have any plans to improve Cassell Coliseum? Whatever they do, they shouldn't increase the capacity. Nobody should increase capacity these days.

 

They've made some improvements in recent years, as much as they can. No plans to add, nor do I think there is any place to add. There has been some talk about a new arena but options on campus are limited so I think it'll be Cassell for life. The biggest improvements they've made are to the practice facility, so the player experience has gotten better.

 

Jason Capel is definitely prickly, but I also get why he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder when it comes to Carolina fans. The phrase "8 and 20" is still shorthand, some 20 plus years later, for a crappy season and he was a senior captain on that team.

I've got nothing but love for him and place the blame for that awful year elsewhere, but I know not all Tar Heel fans are rational or have been graceful about it. It has to get old being consistently remembered only for the worst season in program history.

I do want to know what was said to him though, and if it was really worth this kind of reaction.

 

It was apparently a tweet from the official Carolina basketball social media team.

 

Which was in no way intended to mock Capel. As Steve Kirschner said, the subject of the photo was Creighton Lebo and the person who made the post had no idea that the younger Lebo wears the same jersey number that Jason Capel wore a quarter century ago.

 

... and given that Creighton is Jeff's son and Jeff played for Dean, there's no way the troll was intentional.

Apparently, newsrooms aren't the only places sorely lacking in institutional knowledge. OTOH, Steve Kirschner is one of the best at what he does and is overflowing in institutional knowledge.