Post by dex on Mar 27, 2015 16:28:33 GMT -5
mashup.weei.com/sports/2015/03/27/thinking-out-loud-providence-not-tough-enough-for-ncaa-tournament-success
excerpt
Got the Blue Devils in your bracket? I have never been a fan of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, and it has nothing to do with the success of his basketball team. It has everything to do with his chameleon-like ability to change his colors based on the surroundings. He’s no different from any other hyper-competitive coach, and sure, he’s better than most. He certainly has the track record, the tradition, 1,000-plus wins, his own coaching tree of success and numerous success stories from the players he has coached and the people he has touched. Can’t argue any of that. But the way mainstream media treats him like a deity is unseemly, especially when the truth is that Coach K set out to kill the old Big East and succeeded.
— Friend and fellow reporter/college hoop connoisseur Mark Blaudschun opined recently on a subject I’ve touched on in the past — that Krzyzewski hated what was happening to the ACC, how basketball was becoming almost an afterthought on Tobacco Road with football’s wild goose chase for TV money. And he especially despised the Big East for its success in gaining national notoriety, beginning with the 3-out-of-4 teams it placed in the Final Four in 1985. Blaudschun pointed out that Coach K, joined later by his athletic director Kevin White, concocted a plan to strengthen the ACC while weakening — and ultimately destroying — the Big East, by blaming all of the conference realignments on football.
— Miami and Virginia Tech relocating regionally to the ACC made sense. Boston College? The Eagles are athletically irrelevant in the Northeast outside of their fan base, and even more so in the South at present with their current “partners.” But that didn’t matter to Coach K and the ACC — the league now can claim owning the Boston TV market to advertisers and supporters. BC’s presence helped bring in Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame (for everything other than football), and it wasn’t to strengthen the football conference. It doesn’t take a genius to see that, based on their basketball pedigrees. Working the back rooms of the ACC, Krzyzewski and White eventually gained a consensus that in order to put the ACC at the top for hoops the Big East had to die. Or at least be weakened considerably.
— Football money was blamed here, but ACC expansion was basketball-driven. This is part of the reason why Maryland pulled out for the Big Ten — the Terps hated Duke and UNC running the show — and why Clemson and Florida State began flirting with the SEC. To balance the league, and quiet any dissension on the football side in South Carolina and Tallahassee, Louisville and UConn were the final choices for expansion. Louisville won out for its stronger football profile, and because BC held the right to veto another Northeast school from joining the conference as a condition of its membership in 2004. So there you have it, warts and all. Blaudschun simply outlined what many have suspected, including me — Coach K really is a clever devil after all, isn’t he?
excerpt
Got the Blue Devils in your bracket? I have never been a fan of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, and it has nothing to do with the success of his basketball team. It has everything to do with his chameleon-like ability to change his colors based on the surroundings. He’s no different from any other hyper-competitive coach, and sure, he’s better than most. He certainly has the track record, the tradition, 1,000-plus wins, his own coaching tree of success and numerous success stories from the players he has coached and the people he has touched. Can’t argue any of that. But the way mainstream media treats him like a deity is unseemly, especially when the truth is that Coach K set out to kill the old Big East and succeeded.
— Friend and fellow reporter/college hoop connoisseur Mark Blaudschun opined recently on a subject I’ve touched on in the past — that Krzyzewski hated what was happening to the ACC, how basketball was becoming almost an afterthought on Tobacco Road with football’s wild goose chase for TV money. And he especially despised the Big East for its success in gaining national notoriety, beginning with the 3-out-of-4 teams it placed in the Final Four in 1985. Blaudschun pointed out that Coach K, joined later by his athletic director Kevin White, concocted a plan to strengthen the ACC while weakening — and ultimately destroying — the Big East, by blaming all of the conference realignments on football.
— Miami and Virginia Tech relocating regionally to the ACC made sense. Boston College? The Eagles are athletically irrelevant in the Northeast outside of their fan base, and even more so in the South at present with their current “partners.” But that didn’t matter to Coach K and the ACC — the league now can claim owning the Boston TV market to advertisers and supporters. BC’s presence helped bring in Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame (for everything other than football), and it wasn’t to strengthen the football conference. It doesn’t take a genius to see that, based on their basketball pedigrees. Working the back rooms of the ACC, Krzyzewski and White eventually gained a consensus that in order to put the ACC at the top for hoops the Big East had to die. Or at least be weakened considerably.
— Football money was blamed here, but ACC expansion was basketball-driven. This is part of the reason why Maryland pulled out for the Big Ten — the Terps hated Duke and UNC running the show — and why Clemson and Florida State began flirting with the SEC. To balance the league, and quiet any dissension on the football side in South Carolina and Tallahassee, Louisville and UConn were the final choices for expansion. Louisville won out for its stronger football profile, and because BC held the right to veto another Northeast school from joining the conference as a condition of its membership in 2004. So there you have it, warts and all. Blaudschun simply outlined what many have suspected, including me — Coach K really is a clever devil after all, isn’t he?
