Max Bielfeldt, Jamar Smith (?SIU?) followup, and more basketball news...

Here's a story about Jamar Smith now in the NBDL (Developmental League)..and doing fairly well......
There are a few GLARING and inexcusable errors, such as this...
"Jamar Smith...After starting the season on the bench, the guard
out of Southern Illinois has steadily improved.."

??? Out of Southern Illinois?? Hmmmmm.....
http://clawsnation.com/2010/12/07/jamar-smith-adjusting-well-to-new-role-with-red-claws/

The story also says that Jamar was the Division-II Player of the Year -- but that was a selection by one obscure basketball mag -- while the official D-II Player of the Year was not Jamar...it was someone else.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15330



Max Bielfeldt had another nice game and was helped by David Molinari in beating Manual..
http://www.pjstar.com/preps/x1757257726/Notre-Dame-stays-in-control-in-win-over-Manual



Here's some other reports of top high school action from around the state..
http://www.dailyrepublicannews.com/sports/x1499828626/BEST-OF-THE-MIDWEST-SHOOTOUT-Chicago-Whitney-Young-54-Lee-Ala-48

This one talks about how well Brehm Prep is doing..
http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/1030187.html
http://twitter.com/BSnowScout/status/13380443135025152

Lots of Chicago area preps..
Niles Notre Dame & head coach Tom Les lose to Benet..
http://yourseason.suntimes.com/2959492,1210-boys-basketball-benet-notre-dame.article



Good news on BU's campus...
"Sectional returns to BU
The Illinois High School Association has awarded a Class 3A sectional to Renaissance Coliseum, the new, 4,200-seat arena on the Bradley campus. That sectional will be fed by regional winners from Yorkville, Rock Island, Dunlap and Manual.

No big-school boys sectional had been played in Peoria since 2007, the last year of the two-class system. It was played at Renaissance Coliseum’s predecessor, Robertson Memorial Field House."
http://www.pjstar.com/preps/x445940738/Hoop-du-Jour-Friday-Dec-10

More on this...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=17094



Article says Drake finally getting healthier...
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2010/12/10/wiseler-getting-healthier-has-his-best-showing-of-the-season/



ISU's Jon Ekey, who was starting for the Redbirds -- is now a deep sub off the bench -- as John Wilkins has taken all of Ekey's playing time.
Some seem stumped that Ekey has been moved so far down the rotation and now gets only a couple minutes per game, but you gotta know if you read this blog what's going on here...
Jank has to make good on all the promises, guarantees, and payoffs he had extended in order to suck up to the "handlers" that helped him land John Wilkins.
Wilkins is going to be a good player, but it's so obvious that he getting previously promised playing time.
http://www.pantagraph.com/app/blogs/main/?p=5752

One guy run off recently after a few run-ins with the law and with the books...was Jeremy Robinson, who transferred to Iowa Western. Robinson is proving he really does have some D-I talent by regularly putting up 17-22 points for Iowa Western.

And some of the ISU fans have found a new definition for "Janked" -- which previously meant running off certain scholarship players because he had promised their scholarships and playing time to someone else...

now this Redbird fans says...
"Janked - verb
1. to repeatedly be out-coached, especially at the end of the game.
2. To sh*t oneself in a close game"

..but I thought Jank was winning 25 games per year??
http://www.redbirdfan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=574&sid=b4709f2322d1009e9bcb4edcbf4056c1



Bloomington's D'Mitri Riggs, now a sophomore at Wabash -- is 9 games into his soph season and still hitting 60% of his 3-pointers, 28-47!!

Stan Simpson (at John A. Logan) is averaging 15.5 ppg, 8.7 rpg.



Some stuff on Illini recruiting ..
http://illinois.247sports.com/Article/Langford-favoring-Illini-8027



California & head coach Mike Montgomery (past Chairman of the NCAA Ethics Committee like Kelvin Sampson was!) getting investigated by NCAA.
Looks like they've been caught with the same cheating as Kelvin Sampson and UConn's Jim Calhoun -- excessive phone calls..and illegal recruiting...
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/California-staff-meets-with-Committee-on-Infractions-121010



The overrating of 7-footers...
No category of players gets as overrated as big guys...
If a big that can walk without falling down comes along he zooms automatically into the top 40 in the rankings, and if he actually looks like he can play basketball - even if he's a project and is years away, then he gets ranked as 5-STARS.
There are multiple cases in point...

There's Beas Hamga who has now bounced around to so many different schools and yet now 4 years into his college career -- he's at UAB and can't even crack the lineup and get more than a minute or two of playing time, and never scores a bucket or grabs a rebound. How could the ranking experts have been so wrong?

There's also John Riek -- yet another tall African who changes his name once in a while and claims he really doesn't know when his birthdate is...although there's evidence he was around 25 years old while he was playing against high schoolers.
After the recruiting gurus told us a couple years ago that this guy was the #1 ranked prospect in the entire NATION -- apparently even Riek bought into it and went to several NBA predraft camps and workouts. But after getting humiliated and laughed off the floor, he realized he didn't have NBA talent and went back to try to get into college. at first nobody wanted to risk a chance because of the obscure academic records coming from Africa, but ultimately Mississippi State took pulled some strings and got him in.
Riek is now a sophomore at Mississippi State and is currently dead last on their team among all the scholarship players in minutes played, points, rebounds, and everything else.
He has yet to score a single point this year and in two years in college basketball has 14 points & 14 rebounds. And he may be stuck on those numbers for a while.

Last year's overhype of the year was a guy named Fab Melo -- who zoomed from unheard-of to Top 10 in just about all the ranking services...and he landed at Syracuse.
He's been given a chance there and even has started all 9 games, but averages 2 ppg, 2 rpg. And that's actually the good part! Here's the bad part -- he hits only 23% of his free throws!

And there are more -- Kyle Rowley who was at Northwestern (now at St. Mary's), and Angus Brandt who was at Lake Forest Academy but is now playing only garbage time at Oregon State. And don't get started about all the hype and talk about Wichita's Ehimen Orukpe and how dominant he was going to be....but now he doesn't even get into blowouts!

Of the Top 20 centers in 2008 -- only one had a very successful college career to this point. I know there's time, but if you go back just one year, apparently the gurus were a little better, as most of those guys had great college careers and are in the pros.
But in reality -- it's just the 7-footers who get badly overrated much of the time -- I guess mainly because they see the height and don't bother to look at the ability.



Awesome game last night with the Bulls kicking butt against Kobe & the Lakers!
The we gotta listen to the ESPN talking heads tell us that Miami, Boston, & Orlando are the only three teams in the East that even have a remote chance of making it to the Finals!



Indiana playing Kentucky today -- and I think UK is overrated, so this is a big chance for IU to show they are able to play at this level or will they get humbled and start people talking about how Crean will do in 2012-1013??



Lastly--
Clearly nothing troubles someone whose opinion is shaky, like an opposing opinion!
And you can tell when someone knows their rationale is terribly weak, they don't bother to defend it, they just lob attacks at anyone who offers an opposing thought.
But in the end - no matter how many silly opinions people have, it doesn't change facts, and it doesn't offend the one who knows he is right.