B-RadHoops - April 2009April 26, 2009
On Wednesday the first of its kind Championship Banquet was attended by 225 in the Dedmon Center. It commemorated the recent Big South championships by men’s tennis, women’s soccer and men’s basketball. The program including presentations by President Penelope W. Kyle and athletic director Robert Lineburg, along with video tributes to the RU teams who captured conference championships during the 2008-09 season. The event was emceed by Chuck Hayes. After introducing our team and staff I recognized Johann Norstedt. He’s a great friend of our program who has made a very generous gift earmarked for our team to one day make a summer trip overseas to play some international competition and have a once in a lifetime cultural experience in a foreign country.
On Wednesday we also received our final National Letter of Intent and completed our recruiting class for next year. Tolga Cerrah, from Ankara, Turkey is our 7th signee of the year. Tolga, a 6-9 forward is just 17 years old. He’s a good rebounder, is comfortable facing the basket, and is a stellar student from one of the most competitive academic schools (ODTU) in Turkey.
Saturday I was in Springfield, Massachusetts to be one of the guest speakers at the Nike Champions Basketball Clinic at Springfield College. Springfield College is the birthplace of basketball where Dr. James Naismith is credited with inventing the game. Springfield is also where the Basketball Hall of Fame is located. The clinic was attended by over 300 coaches. Other speakers included: John Calipari-Kentucky Matt Painter-Purdue Rick Majerus-St. Louis Phil Martelli-St. Joes Dino Gaudio-Wake Forest Bob Huggins-West Virginia Fran McCaffery-Siena
The Special Olympics Spring Festival was held Sunday at Cupp Stadium and our team along with athletes from just about every Radford team helped out as volunteers. Cole Wilder is the Student Athlete Advisory Committee President and did a great job of helping organize the volunteer athletes.
I had the chance to address the athletes prior to the competition and my dog Holly Golightly had the chance to play “fetch” with members of our women’s softball team.
Sunday night Pete and Linda Keciorius (they own PK’s in Blacksburg) had me, RU VP Cathy Greenberg, and BT’s owners Tom and Diane Whitehead over for dinner. Pete cooked up a feast starting with an unusual antipasto of artichokes, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, blue cheese and skirt steak followed by red snapper, scallops, shrimp, red beans and rice, and broccoli. We were having so much fun he forgot to serve desert. I also got to see some black and white basketball video of his HS days in upstate NY. Pete challenged everyone with basketball trivia – do you know the location where Wilt Chamberlain recorded his historic 100 point scoring game as a pro with the Philadelphia 76ers? Hint….it’s in Pennsylvania.
Go Highlanders
Brad
April 19, 2009
I traveled to Rock Hill, SC Saturday morning to watch the RU Men’s Tennis team beat Winthrop to win their third straight Big South Championship. The team is currently ranked #50 in the nation with a 20-3 record. Earlier in the week Coach Mike Anderson took home his 4th Big South Coach of the Year honor and Senior Martin Sayer was named Big South Player of the Year for the fourth time in his career. These guys are extraordinary and they are great representatives of Radford University. In college tennis there are three doubles matches and the team that wins at least two of those matches secures 1 point for the team. Following doubles there are six singles matches with each match winner earning a point. The first team to secure 4 points total is the overall match winner. There is immense pressure on every member of the team to perform with six of the seven points determined by singles match play. Yet there is a unique team spirit among our Big South Champions and I want to recognize all of them and their position on the team.
#1 Doubles – Martin Sayer & Zack Watson #2 Doubles – Ivan Salec & Mehdi Benhammou #3 Doubles – Igor Ogrizek & Stefan Bojic
#1 Singles – Martin Sayer #2 Singles – Ivan Salec #3 Singles – Stefan Bojic #4 Singles – Mehdi Benhammou #5 Singles – Igor Ogrizek #6 Singles – Zack Watson
Attached is a photo of the team
Prior to the awards ceremony to present the championship trophy I watched Martin Sayer approach a Winthrop fan who was wearing a T-shirt in Winthrop colors which read BEAT RADFORD. Martin was attempting to trade a Radford Tennis T-shirt for the BEAT RADFORD shirt to no avail. The guy wearing the shirt didn’t have much luck wearing it at either Men’s Basketball or Men’s Tennis this year!
On Tuesday Senator Mark Warner visited campus
and while here took to the Dedmon Center court to play a little
pick-up ball with our team. Our guys were “politically
correct” in scaling down the pace of the game and their defensive
commitment in guarding the Senator.Notes:
This week we received two signed National Letters of Intent (NLI’s) to add to our incoming freshman class. Here’s the skinny on the two new players:
Gorkem Sonmez – 6-4 guard/small forward from St. Mary’s Ryken HS in Maryland Gorkem is a strong & deceptive athlete with a good feel for the game who is fundamentally sound. He is one of the best players in his age group from his native county Turkey and has a knack for getting to the basket. Jamal Curry – 6-8, forward from the Porter-Guad School in Charleston, South Carolina Jamal is a developing and fundamentally sound forward who is enthusiastic, active and versatile He has the potential to be a very good defensive player and a good all around offensive player.
We are expecting one more NLI this week. Stay tuned!
My daughter Ali has signed her version of a NLI. Returning from the tennis match I noticed our dog Holly had on a new collar with Washington & Lee University logos on it. And on a bedroom pillow there was a Washington & Lee hat and a W & L New Dad sticker. She won’t have to travel far next season to see our road game at VMI.
The First Annual Radford University Championship Season Banquet featuring the Big South Championship Teams of Men’s Basketball, Women’s Soccer and Men’s Tennis is this Wednesday April 22, 2009 at 6 P.M in Dedmon Center. Tickets can still be purchased. $30 per individual, $50 per couple and $10 per child 12 and under. Tables may be purchased for $200 (8 people per table). You can reserve seats online at www.123signup.com/register?id=znkvs. Or you can call 540-831-5167 or email djohnston3@radford.edu. Please come and support these championship teams – the most RU single season Big South Conference Championship teams ever. If you can’t come, consider sponsoring a table in your name. All proceeds go to the athletic department.
Go Highlanders
Brad
April 12, 2009
Last Monday, April 6, UNC convincingly beat Michigan State to win the 2009 NCAA Championship. Does that mean we came in 2nd? With 3 minutes to go in the first half of our game in Greensboro in front of about 15,000 Carolina fans the Tar Heels has us down 14. In front of approximately 50,000 Michigan State fans, Carolina had the Spartans down 23 at approximately the same time in the first half of the championship game. Carolina was the best team in the country this year and a most deserving National Champion.
Wednesday I attended a Passover Seder with Radford students who belong to Hillel, a Jewish student group. Thank you Zoe Lasky for the invite. Zoe’s Dad Ira, a basketball fan, flew from Chicago to join her in Greensboro for our NCAA game.
On Thursday I attended a Seder at Dr. Myron and Lindy Levy’s in Roanoke. Lindy is a big RU Hoop fan and was aware that I had received the Red Auerbach Coach of the Year award while at the Final Four in Detroit. Not to be outdone, she presented me with the Golden Matzoh Coach of the Year Award.
There are a lot of AAU basketball events this time of the year. We used to be able to attend these events and evaluate a lot of players for the following year’s recruiting. However, new this year NCAA rules now prohibit college coaches from attending these events this time of the year. We follow the results and performance of players from a distance. And we subscribe to a number of scouting services that provide reports on these events. But it’s not the same as evaluating these players ourselves.
I am currently working on next year’s schedule. It will be extremely challenging. The Big South Conference & ESPN have requested we participate in ESPN’s Bracket Buster pairings. That means we will play a game late in the season against an opponent to be named at that time. If we are having a good season it means a matchup against another strong team and a possible ESPN TV appearance, which would be more great exposure for Radford.
The First Annual Radford University Championship Season Banquet featuring the current Big South Championship Teams of Men’s Basketball, Women’s Soccer and Men’s Tennis will be held on Wednesday April 22, 2009 at 6 P.M in Dedmon Center. Tickets are $30 per individual, $50 per couple and $10 per child 12 and under. Tables may be purchased for $200 (8 people per table). You can reserve seats online at www.123signup.com/register?id=znkvs. Or you can call 540-831-5167 or email djohnston3@radford.edu. Please come and support these championship teams. If you can’t come, consider sponsoring a table in your name. All proceeds go to the athletic department.
Go Highlanders
Brad
April 5, 2009
The Final Four is as much about seeing the who’s who in the basketball world as it is about attending the NCAA semi-finals and championship games.
The logistics of this year’s Final 4 proved challenging as Detroit has limited downtown hotel rooms and many coaches were housed in Windsor, Ontario Canada where homeland security customs routines, bus service and a taxi strike guaranteed grumpy coaches who had to travel back and forth to scheduled National Association of Basketball Coaches meetings & clinics. I was fortunate enough to change my hotel at the last minute to accommodations adjacent to Cobo Hall – the Convention Center for the NCAA meetings.
A split venue made it difficult to see as many people as I normally would. That being said, I still got to see a lot of friends including:
Former Maryland head coach Lefty Driesell UCLA coach Ben Howland Pitt coach Jamie Dixon DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright Georgetown coach John Thompson Richmond coach Chris Mooney San Diego State coach Steve Fisher Akron coach Keith Dambrot Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl
I attended two award ceremonies. On Friday the Hillyard Champions Luncheon was hosted by ESPN’s Fran Frischella and the keynote speaker was former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson. At this luncheon a Big South Conference Championship plaque was presented for our team and staff. On Saturday morning over 100 people attended the American Jewish Coaches Association breakfast meeting presided over by Tennessee coach and Association president Bruce Pearl. At this breakfast I received the Red Auerbach Coach of the Year Award. The other finalists were Pearl of Tennessee and my brother Seth of VT. Arizona State star guard Derrick Glasser was a finalist for the Dolph Schayes Player of the Year Award which went to Duke’s Jon Scheyer. The Jewish Coaches Association is a group that has grown dramatically in the last few years and its primary purpose is to provide a mentoring and professional development service for Jewish basketball coaches, assistants, players and other personnel in the game at all levels. A secondary purpose of the organization is to promote involvement in the Maccabiah Games, the 2nd largest amateur international sporting event in the world after the Olympics. Bruce Pearl will be this summer’s men’s basketball team coach.
A NCAA Final 4 record 72,000+ fans bought tickets for this year’s games. Saturday the weather warmed and it was nice enough to walk to Ford Field. Throngs of UConn, Michigan State, Carolina and Villanova fans proudly displaying their colors packed restaurants, pubs and open air spaces for blocks and blocks. I was overcome by the smell of grilled meat, stale beer and the sounds of every schools fight songs.
Even though I was in the Head Coaches seating area, I frequently had to watch the action via the video screens above the court to get a better view of the action. RU Basketball Operations guru and former Villanova Wildcat player Ross Condon had one of the best seats in the house courtesy of the Villanova Basketball Alumni group.
Michigan State proved a bit more disciplined and tougher than UConn. The Huskies didn’t help themselves by their poor free throw shooting. Carolina’s balanced and over the top offensive prowess was too much for Villanova’s hustle and grit. Michigan State will have the luxury of playing in front of a home crowd on Monday night. They showed clips of Carolina playing us during the pre-game introductions and I am rooting for the Tar Heels so we can say it took the National Champs to knock out of the tournament!
In some ways it feels as if I ate my way across Detroit over the weekend. Thursday evening was Thai food at Oslo where the owner and her daughter provided language peppery enough to match the food. Their recommendation led me on Friday to Tapas at Small Plates where the plates were anything but. Saturday morning was bagels, lox and whitefish at the Jewish Coaches Association breakfast. Pre-game meal on Saturday was at a dive in Greektown featuring an unbelievably delicious grilled octopus salad. I passed on the flaming cheese but split a lamb gyros. Typical Ford Field fare was pretzels and chocolate topped off with a little late night spicy chicken wings at the hotel bar following the games.
My diet and workout schedule begins in earnest this week.
One other note….The First Annual Championship Season banquet honoring current Big South Championship Basketball, Women’s Soccer and Men’s Tennis teams will be held on April 22nd. Tickets are $200 for a table of 8, $30 per person, $50 a couple and children’s prices are available. Contact djohnston3@radford.edu to make reservations.
Go Highlanders
Brad
P.S. If you are planning a few 500+ mile drives (9 hours each) travel with some good CD’s for music or a good book on CD.
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