B-RadHoops - April 2008

April 20, 2008

We have some outstanding students on our basketball team.  Seven players were recently recognized for earning or maintaining GPA’s of at least 3.0.  Phillip Martin, Jamar Jenkins, Cole Wilder, Alex Gynes, Joey Lynch-Flohr, Tyler Kleckner, Duane Ricks and Eric Hall are some of our most accomplished students.
 
The Special Olympics Spring Games Track and Field competitions were held at Cupp Stadium last weekend and there were a lot of Radford athletes pitching in as volunteers.  Athletic Director Robert Lineburg was MC for the opening ceremony.  I had the honor of speaking to the athletes prior to competition.   And our entire team helped all day presenting awards.  It means a lot to Special Olympics athletes to have college coaches and teams helping out.  It also means a lot to our players to be part of this great event.  We signed Lazar Trifunovic to a scholarship last week.  “Laz” is a 6-8 sophomore forward who will transfer to Radford from Binghamton where he earned Third Team All-America East honors. He was Binghamton's leading scorer and rebounder at 14.1 points and 7.1 rebounds per game this season. He broke the 20-point plateau five times and had eight double-doubles. In his first year at Binghamton he made the America East Conference, All-Rookie Team.  He is from Belgrade, Serbia and per NCAA regulations will have to sit out one year and will be eligible to play for us in the 2009-2010 with two years of eligibility remaining.  

While at the Final Four in San Antonio I was invited to be an officer in the Jewish Coaches Association.  The President of the association is Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl.  One purpose of the association is to help identify basketball prospects to represent the United States in the 18^th Maccabiah Games in Israel in the summer of 2009.  The Maccabiah games are the world’s 3^rd largest international sports event with over 9,000 Jewish athletes representing 60 countries.   

Senior Tyler Kleckner organized a team which included a number of our players for the Relay for Life walk held at the Radford Rec Center last week.  His team walked for 12 straight hours and raised a nice chunk of money to help fight cancer.  Tyler is a great young man about to graduate.  I will miss having him on our team.

  Props are due to our Big South Championship tennis team.  They beat Winthrop, 4-2 on Saturday afternoon and earned an automatic bid to the 2008 NCAA Tournament.  It's the first back-to-back championships for a Radford team since men's soccer won consecutive titles in 1999 and 2000.  

I enjoy watching NBA playoff basketball for a lot of reasons.  One is the opportunity to watch the best players in the world do their thing.  Another is that all the tight games provide an opportunity to steal “special situations plays” designed for three pointers.  Saturday Tim Duncan of the Spurs made his first three-pointer of the year to force a 2^nd overtime on his way to a 40 point, 15 rebound performance as San Antonio beat Phoenix 117-115 in what ESPN described as an “Instant Classic” game.  I think we will start working on Joey Lynch-Flohr’s three-point shooting! 

Go Highlanders.  
Brad

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April 13, 2008

Once I clear it with RU compliance Chief, Dr. Robbie Davis, we are going to be able to announce a recent commitment we received over the weekend. Stay tuned!

NCAA rules allow us to work out our players through the rest of this week. The rule states we need to stop individual workouts the week prior to the beginning of academic finals. But that does not mean the coaching staff takes any time off. The next two weekends give our staff a chance to evaluate a lot of 2009 and 2010 prospects in AAU events. Our staff will cover events in Pittsburgh, Akron & Washington, DC.

Congrats to Kansas for winning the National Championship last Monday. I feel bad for John Calipari and the Memphis Tigers. Despite having a spectacular season that should be remembered for making it to the Championship Game and establishing a NCAA record 38 wins, losing to Kansas will forever stain the memory of their accomplishments. And while winning Naismith National Coach of the Year honors might ease some of the disappointment of not taking home the title, I know John Calipari will not be able to erase the memory of Mario Chalmers making a game tying 3 pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation.

Now that the college season is over it is time to turn to the NBA for hoops! The first round games in the Western Conference this year are going to intense. This is the last week of the regular season and we still don't know the matchups. But one thing we do know is that a Western Conference team with at least 48 wins (which means they would be at least 14 games over .500) is not going to make the playoffs. If the season ended today we would have a San Antonio Spurs vs. Phoenix Suns opening round match.

Highlander kudos to two spring teams having outstanding seasons. Coach Mickey Dean's softball team's three-game sweep of Charleston Southern Saturday improved their record to 30-11 overall and 4-2 in the Big South. Their senior pitcher, Ashley Taylor from Danville, Virginia, was Big South Pitcher of the Year last season. She picked up her 18th win of the year over the weekend. Mike Anderson's Radford men's tennis squad clinched the Big South regular season crown and the top seed for the conference tournament with a 5-2 win over Winthrop Saturday.

It's a good time to be a Highlander!

Brad

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April 6, 2008

San Antonio is a great host city for the Final Four and the National Association of Basketball Coaches convention. Downtown features The Riverwalk. It's a serpent like waterway that bisects the busiest section of the city and is bordered by restaurants with indoor and outdoor café seating and shops. On Friday and Saturday these restaurants were jam packed with fans for the Final Four teams who spontaneously chant fight songs in competition with each other. Virtually all the hotels are within walking distance of each other, The Riverwalk, the Alamodome, and the Convention Center making for a convenient and colorful setting. Many coaches feel it is the best Final Four location of all. The host hotel for head coaches was the Hyatt Regency which overlooks The Riverwalk and is also located just one block from the historic Alamo.

I am suffering from guacamole withdrawal symptoms and a bit grumpy from my 3:50am wakeup to catch a 5:40am flight out of San Antonio, but not too fatigued to give you some tidbits from a few days at the Final Four.

If you watched Memphis guard Derrick Rose last night, you saw a legit future NBA starting guard and potential All Star. He has strength, speed, quickness and a strong feel for the game. He can penetrate, can make plays in the open court, and he can guard. He was the best player on the floor in their convincing semi-final win over UCLA.

Kansas played a mind boggling first 15 minutes of their game against UNC to build a 40-12 lead. It was a defensive clinic and nobody could have imagined UNC would look as out of sync as they did in that stretch. The Tar Heels made an impressive comeback to get within four midway through the 2nd half but it took too much out of them and UNC couldn't sustain the run to overcome the Jayhawks.

Monday's championship game will feature the weekend's most impressive teams and two of the most athletic teams you will ever see on a college court. The game should be a high octane affair.

I was strolling on the Riverwalk Saturday afternoon and bumped into Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio. He had just finished a Fox Radio gig where the co-host was my brother Seth. I popped over to the radio booth located on a veranda of a crowded pub and in two minutes time I was part of a national broadcast with Seth, and FoxSports.com college basketball expert Jeff Goodman. Radford got some good nation-wide pub for a good 20 minute segment thanks to Seth.

Earlier Saturday morning I joined about 20 other coaches as a volunteer clinician for a NCAA sponsored youth basketball clinic for about 300 middle school kids.

Running into coaching legends with whom I have developed friendships over the last 30 years is always a highlight of the Final Four. My friendship with former Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote, whose 1979 Magic Johnson led Spartans won the NCAA title against Indiana State and Larry Bird, goes back to 1972 - when as a freshman at Washington State I scored double figures against his Montana Grizzlies. Would you believe Jud follows the Highlanders scores from his home in Spokane, Washington!

Finally, did you know that the two most accomplished basketball players on the court Monday night will be wearing suits on the sideline? The Jayhawks staff includes Danny Manning and the Memphis staff has another former NBA star Rod Strickland.

That 5:40am departure out of San Antonio arrived late into Atlanta where our entire staff and my son Cory missed our 10:00am connection to Roanoke. We weren’t able to get on the 1:30pm either so we had to be creative and fly on a 2:30pm to Lynchburg. And that’s when two fantastic women came to our rescue. Radford VP Cathy Greenberg and Coach Ali Ton’s wife Elizabeth, an assistant director of advancement at RU were kind enough to drive to Lynchburg and pick us up. Thanks Cathy and Elizabeth.

Go Highlanders

Brad