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Thursday, March 09, 2006
Thursday morning readaround
Down in Colonial Athletic Association territory, Harrisonburg, Va. (James Madison), Dustin Dopirak writes that CAA teams like Hofstra, who are hoping for an at-large bid, are rooting for teams like Bucknell:
"We don't want any upsets," (Hofstra coach Tom) Pecora said. "We want Air Force, George Washington, Memphis and Nevada to win their tournaments. We don't want other teams sliding in to take an at-large bid."

Throw in Bucknell and you've got every bubble squad's favorite teams this week. Of the five, only Air Force is not an absolute NCAA Tournament lock, and of their five conferences -- the Mountain West, Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Western Athletic and Patriot, respectively -- only Conference USA has a second team (Alabama-Birmingham) with any at-large hope."
That is not a new sentiment. Matter of fact, we posted it only so we could ask the question: Is Dustin Dopirak related to Ryan Dopirak, a Hoop Time cover boy back in our old print version days. Ryan Dopirak won varsity letters at Bucknell in 1993 and 1994 as an end of the bench kind of guy. He eventually transferred when Pat Flannery replaced Charlie Woollum as BU's coach, a move we always though was shortsighted on his part, because his style of play was far better suited to Flannery's style than Woollum's.

  • Jake Curtis of the San Francisco Chronicle says Cal feels the same way.

  • Eric Thomas has been a busy guy. The Shamokin News-Item's Bucknell beat writer has a good piece on the Bison's Abe Badmus today and a warning for overconfident Bucknell fans. As usual, E posts them both on his blog to make it easier for us to link to them since the News-Item's site updates late in the day.

  • The Daily News Transcript in Mass. takes a look at two of its former high school players of the year. One is Northeastern's Bobby Kelly, the other, Holy Cross sophomore center Tim Clifford.

  • Not all the Patriot League hoops news is about Bucknell and Holy Cross. In today's Easton Express-Times, Corky Blake reports the Lafayette faculty has endorsed scholarships. While not needed, the endorsement is viewed as a key step to Lafayette's joining the rest of the league in offering non-need-based aid to basketball players. A decision is expected at next month's meeting of the school's trustees

  • There's an column in The University Daily Kansan called "Free for All" that is filled with non sequiturs, most of which are lame, at best. But one of them just begs to be posted:
    "This girl was wearing a Bucknell sweatshirt outside of Anschutz today. It still hurts."
    • Published at 7:21 AM by Hoop Time.
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