Recent Comments
Re: “We do the math: The 14 greatest ACC Tournaments ever”
In an amazing coincidence, the heyday of the ACC Tournament overlaps precisely with the adolescent years of most of this blog's contributors.
Re: “Remember when people really cared about the ACC Tournament? Here's a proposal to restore the luster.”
In my previous comment, I neglected to account for the television revenue of the tournament, which is surely bundled up in the current $3.6 billion deal with ESPN that extends through 2027. It's the ACC's job to deliver the product (even if it means some teams play four games in four days).
From a competitive standpoint, however, I think the tournament's purpose is pretty marginal.
Re: “Remember when people really cared about the ACC Tournament? Here's a proposal to restore the luster.”
Your last question gets to the heart of the matter, Michael. What, then, is the purpose of the tournament? Seems like as long as North Carolina produces basketball teams that will be reliably competing on Saturday and Sunday, the tournament will continue to make enough money to justify its existence--as long as it's held in Greensboro.
Re: “Remember when people really cared about the ACC Tournament? Here's a proposal to restore the luster.”
Michael, the logistics in your proposal are probably unworkable. The four-team tourneys on Tuesdays and Wednesdays would be impossible to organize on 48 hours notice (e.g. Wake Forest finishes second on the last day of the season and suddenly says, "Oh shit, we're hosting three teams on Tuesday").
Attendance might possibly be worse for these games, because only the most insanely hardcore alums would make these last-minute, mid-week trips.
Likewise, the four-team finale on the weekend might struggle to attract traveling support if people have to wait until the last minute to book their trips.
Re: “Remember when people really cared about the ACC Tournament? Here's a proposal to restore the luster.”
I agree that this proposal is a simple and painless way to raise the stakes for the conference tourneys.
However, count me among those who think there could be a benefit to shrinking the NCAA Tournament. This year, there are five decent ACC teams: Miami, Duke, UNC and NC State and Virginia. They're probably all assured of NCAA berths, so there's little drama this weekend for them (although your proposal would certainly help). But what if a 32- or 48-team field meant that only two or three would get in? There would be all to play for in the conference tournament then.
While it may be tempting to think it was a benighted, deprived era when it was difficult to get into the NCAA Tournament, we have, in fact, very fond memories of basketball in those years--the 1970s through the mid-1980s. (Of course, we were also children then.)
Re: “Is college basketball getting worse? and other thoughts on a changing game”
On point 2: I watched a couple of YouTube videos on the dribble-drive motion offense to which you refer. One of them was a six- or seven-minute compilation of Kentucky running this scheme. What struck me was how often the play simply results in bad, off-balance shots being tossed up from the paint.
Re: “Three new art spaces testify to downtown Durham's increasing vitality”
Fair point, although it depends on one's expectations. Those drawn by the words "Anne Frank" in the title might be expecting the narrative made familiar by umpteen iterations on stage and screen. They will be in for a surprise (a good and exciting one!).
From Byron Woods' INDY Week review:
"In this devised performance, sections from those texts are placed in an unlikely matrix of other sources. In one section, science writer Mary Roach (Tamara Kissane) holds forth on flatus; elsewhere, Ron Vawter (Tony Perucci), another Wooster Group co-founder, recalls an experience from his military service that was theatrical, religious, profane—and undeniably funny. These cards are shuffled in a deck including the strange affirmations of L. Ron Hubbard and 1920s calisthenics and football guru Walter Camp, along with remembrances by cast and crew members of their own adolescence. In between these scenes are deliberately awkward transitions including movement sequences, vintage cartoon footage and the unique vocal stylings of live shape-note singing, and songs by Peter Sellers and Screaming Jay Hawkins."