kcleach's Blog

It’s a good day when SU sophomore Lynnae Lampkins is the main photo on the local paper; basketball season is speeding up court in the same manner as the fast Orange point guard.

ESPN has put the pedal-to-the-metal with college basketball coverage, broadcasting 24 consecutive hours of action. Its second year of round-the-clock basketball started in Los Angeles last night with Cal-State Fullerton showing the rest of the country how far UCLA has fallen. Read the ESPN release on its 38 hours of total coverage across the various platforms.

Before the ESPN roundball rotunda started, Lampkins and her teammates posted another victory in the Dome on Monday night, zooming past visiting Presbyterian College, 97-56. It was the most points scored by the Orange women in the Carrier Dome.

Lampkins, harnessed by FDU’s extended zone looks last Friday, got her engine running against PC. The silky soph scored 12 points in 15 minutes, hitting all three of her attempts from beyond the arc while collecting a pair of steals with two assists. Full box score. (pdf)

Halftime Snack is guilty of altering Tuesday’s schedule to fit in more basketball. After coffee and Cheerios with Drexel at Niagara this morning (Bruiser, your man was in-bounds on the rebound, despite LaPhonso Ellis’s blind analysis), we got bored with Clemson at Liberty. The action should pick up with Northeastern at Siena at noon (read Tyler Dunne’s pre-season story about the Saints in The Daily Orange). 

The Bird Library beckons Halftime Snack this afternoon—would like to see Greg Monroe from Georgetown show Temple how to run the Princeton offense—leaving plenty of time tonight to get early look at potential Elite Eight teams like Connecticut, Gonzaga, Louisville, Michigan State and Kansas.

Full speed ahead!

(Lampkins photo courtesy of SUathletics.com)

Syracuse football is a wounded deer, limping into the Southern zone this mid-November. Players are hurt, players have left and so has the attention. When Halftime Snack feels the blues, we turn to music.  What songs are out there:

I CAN’T DRIVE 55: Sammy Hagar’s fast paced number hasn’t been referenced in New York papers this much since Michael Jordan made a triumphant return to Madison Square Garden. Coming out of his first retirement in 1995, Mike dropped a double-nickel on the Knicks. The Daily Orange and the Post-Standard had that number in nearly every article about the Pittsburgh game. Check out Haggar’s driving.

FIXING A HOLE: The Beatles hit from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album is the ring tone on head coach Doug Marrone’s cell phone. OK, that statement has no factual merit, but it’s a easy sing that lifts your mood. Marrone's injury-riddled group bears little resemblance to the squad he spent the summer molding. The latest big move was inserting third-string running back Averin Collier at tight end (fancy pants name: “U” tight end).

JUMP AROUND:  The football team’s drama has been wiped off by the high-wire act taking place on the Carrier Dome hardcourt this week. Perhaps inspired by this 1990s House of Pain joint, the Syracuse men’s basketball team looked like the Harlem Globetrotters in wins over Albany and Robert Morris. Halftime Snack especially loves the two-foot, one-hand Statue of Liberty dunk that Wes Johnson has been serving on defenders. Watch my man Everlast get his career started in a Larry Bird jersey.

RUSSIAN ROULETTE; Rihanna is back, gracing the cover of Glamour, after a well-publicized beating. And so are the two Syracuse quarterbacks, who thus far have run a battered Orange offense. “Take a breath, take it deep, calm yourself,” the beauty sings on her hit single. Greg Paulus and Ryan Nassib have combined to complete 35 of 59 passes (59.3%) in two road games in 2009, amassing just 88 passing yards per game with one touchdown and five interceptions. Play this at halftime on Saturday for comfort.

SLICES:

            Louisville 6, Syracuse 0  - Welcome to the bottom of the Big East. I just hope Delone Carter is not the next senior getting a visit from the Reeper. The race is on between Marrone bringing in his own talented players and the end of the world (according to the Mayan calendar, it is 2012). Who will win? We'll take Coach Marrone.

            Game of the Week – Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks chomp a piece out of the visiting Gators. Pete Thamel of The New York Times recently wrote about there being "no elite team that scintillates the masses."

            Heisman Watch – Freshman wow! Pittsburgh running back Dion Lewis makes faster cuts than any college back since LaDainian Tomlinson was raising up dust storms in west Texas. Are Tony Dorsett’s Pitt records safe? (UPDATE: Halftime Snack had incorrectly stated Noel Devine was the Pittsburgh running back - we regret this error.)

            They Said It – ““If you’re watching the news and this comes on, turn the channel.” —Lousiville basketball coach Rick Pitino, talking about his adultery scandal, and not the football game on campus this weekend.

            "I think I'd have moved it.“ —Mike Pereira, head of NFL’s referees, conceding that Donovan McNabb got robbed of valuable yardage on a sneak against the Cowboys.

Sometimes, less is not more. With fewer players, a limited playbook and no roof over their heads, Syracuse football had little to fight with against the Panthers Saturday afternoon.

SLICES:

CURSE OF GREG: The legacy of Greg Robinson still haunts the program into November. The new Greg in town, Mr. Paulus, found himself bent over the sink, splashing water on his face to wake up from the nightmarish first half Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh: the deft ball fake freezes even his own receivers, the tipped pass turns into an interception TD return (by another Greg, Pitt's Williams), the intentional grounding penalty, and then holding the ball for a long sack. Splash that water, three more games left.

GAME OF THE WEEK: Ohio State at Penn State – Halftime Snack was so consumed with the World Series, we forgot to put out a national focus prediction. Even though the baseball crown traveled north to a new, yet familiar, home, the party remains in Pennsylvania. Terrell Pryor, a legendary two-sport schoolboy from the Keystone State, brings the Ohio State Buckeyes home with him to face another strong Joe Paterno team. Darryl Clark is a Donovan McNabb clone, headed toward a Big Ten Player of the Year award, while the real Super 5 tries to go to 3-0 in the NFC East against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night. The Buckeyes need a big play to win at State College. Look for it to come from the OSU defense.

WHO PLAYS IN THE DOME? Pitt special teams battled the sun Saturday afternoon, making adventures out of three kick returns. First Cameron Saddler catches a kick off and immediately steps out of bounds, then Aaron Smith drops a fair catch on a punt, followed by Sadler trying to use his facemask to field a punt of his own. Even Lucy came out with a tee to hold the kick for Charlie Brown: Pitt needed a man to hold the opening kickoff.

BREEDERS’ CUP: New York Racing Association is in a bad spot in trying to acquire a chance to host the richest day in horse racing. The weather in the northeast part of the U.S. usually ranges between cold and colder, yet this weekend temperatures approached 60 degrees with a high sun. Global warming is helping someone.

CONGRATULATIONS, COACH: To accumulate 800 victories, you must motivate. Coach Boeheim probably wanders through, up and around DeWitt on his nightly drive home. The Jesuit of Le Moyne stares down the hill and Dolphins cascade over his hood as Coach B prepares for the home opener versus Albany Monday night. He made a sacrifice (played man-to-man defense) and has felt loss (three top scorers from ’08-’09), but Coach Boeheim will again have the last laugh, winning at least once in the NCAA Tournament at season’s close.

THEY SAID IT: "The year is not what we want it to be. We're 3-6 now, we can still finish this year at 6-6." SU head coach Doug Marrone, recalling what he said to the team after the game. On cue, the SU logo background at the post-game press conference fell down behind him.

"I've never looked up there. Only to see the down and distance, the time and the score." Quarterback Greg Paulus when asked if he ever looks up to see himself at the JumboTron.

Re: Immediate vacancy. wide receiver, Orange football team

Dear head coach Doug Marrone,

My name is Kyle Leach and I am a master’s candidate at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. I recently heard there was an opening at wide receiver on the Syracuse University football team, and given the program’s new precedent of recruiting former college basketball players for the football team, I thought it would be prudent to alert you of my football skills.

Some of my athletic qualifications you would be interested in:  I am 6-foot-5, 240 lbs.  I played college basketball at a private four-year research university. The team made the NCAA tournament twice and an appearance in the national semifinal during my senior season. I made over 60 starts and led the team in turnovers (above the 90-mark in 26 games freshman year) and charges drawn. All answers to your words of inspiration this week: “What more would you ask for if someone give you everything they had?”

More of my formidable education points to the graduate student-transfer-hoopster you wish you had more of: my college basketball coach started his coaching career at a military school (Navy), beat that plebe coach over at Army and won the 1991 national championship. And I was a captain who got benched his senior year. I can stand strong the tough moments that are athletics: loss, injury, departed teammates. 

Your quote about my classmate Greg Paulus included words I sought from my coach: “I just know that I love the players on our football team and I just want everybody to know how much I love my players.”

I know a lot about the love around football: I was involved in the Rochester football program for all four years, moving up the depth chart.  A starter on the chain gang, I moved up to program distribution and locked down head student worker the final two years. The fabled football fraternity on campus, Theta Delta Chi, extended an invitation to pledge their ranks during sophomore year, and AC/DC’s “Back in Black” never sounded the same. I’m familiar with throwing the football, should you want to do something in the “Stallion” with my skills; I once out-threw the university backup quarterback in an old-fashioned game of “Over that House.” 

Syracuse is now “New York’s Team,” it can take in another local product. I scored 1,000 points in a New York State public school, twice earning All-State honors and selection for the USA Today top-50 high school players in New York. I have a New York State Regents diploma.  Did they have one at your school in the Bronx?

I am familiar with other New York cities, including Syracuse. I’ve played in the Carrier Dome twice already. My big friend, Craig Forth, won a national championship here. I even played a high school All-Star game at the Great New York State Fair, but this was before SU Athletics came over to sell tickets. My workouts during the fall have consisted of H-O-R-S-E games every week over on Roosevelt Street, sometimes down at Barry Park. Due to my schoolwork and heavy course load, I was forced to cancel an appearance at Patrick Alvarez’s charity basketball game benefiting hunger on Sunday.

What you say about education—it reminds me of my class attendance policy in graduate school: “They have a responsibility; I want to make sure they go to class.”

I would make a strong addition to your family, on and off the field.  Give me this chance, Coach.

As always, best of luck with the rest of your 2009 schedule.

Sincerely,

Kyle

PS – My academic clock may have expired (check the NCAA regulations) but I’m confident Syracuse can be the first to have this situation too. Grant me this chance and I will not run away from you (like Mike WIlliams, #1).

Photo by Mitchell Franz, TheNewshouse.com