Just when Syracuse and Pitt thought they finally had enough of their old conference-mates, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the American Aresco Athletic Conference have agreed to a six-year deal to play each other in the Military Bowl starting in 2014. Read more…
UCLA, the home of over 100 national championships in multiple sports, just won their first College World Series for their first national championship in baseball. I imagine that served as the inspiration for a great question on the college football sub Reddit which asked which program will be the next to win their next college football national championship.
To come up with my top five choices to answer this question I used the information from College Football Data Warehouse, which lists the recognized national champion on a yearly basis dating back to 1869. Most people today go by the first Associated Press champion, which was Minnesota in 1936. Because I am going by the CFDW list I do not include a program like Stanford, who is recognized as the 1926 national champion.One thing to keep in mind here as well is the idea that this upcoming season will be the final year under the current BCS format. Starting in 2014 the College Football Playoff will kick off with a four-team playoff format, which will offer more opportunity for a couple of teams to make a realistic and viable championship run.
So, which schools do I think are most likely to win their first national championship first? The first program on my list may be the easiest answer.
Matt Jones is a 6-foot-4, 180 pound high school senior that will be playing for the Duke Blue Devils this coming year. He is a shooting guard with an emphasis on the word shooting. He should be contributing immediately at Duke. Jones is ranked number thirty-six on the ESPN top 100 recruiting list and played in the McDonalds All American game.
We are less than 60 days away from the kickoff of the 2013 College Football season. For the ACC, this means a college football season that is new and improved with Syracuse and Pittsburgh. What better way to celebrate than with some Fantasy Football. Nah, let’s make it Fant-A.C.C. Football! Confidential-Style!
Louisville Cardinals athletic logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
July 1st brings in a new era for the ACC as Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame officially join the conference. It also is the dawning of a new conference, the American Athletic Conference. I hope Commissioner Aresco pardons Louisville fans for not greeting this day with applause and cheers. What we will relish is one final year with two old rivals in Cincinnati and Memphis.
Last week I took a look into the Louisville Cardinals future, their 2014 football recruiting class. Over the course of last week it has changed as the Cards received seven commitments in five days, it was truly a busy week. The week started with the news that Detrick Dukes switched his commitment to his home state Georgia Bulldogs but this bad news was short lived as the new commitments began to trickle in. Read more…
The new birthday of Syracuse Athletics has arrived! After a decade of uncertainty today is the day all Orange fans have been waiting for. It started out over a decade ago when the Orange were passed over for Virginia Tech. Today all is finally stable for Syracuse from a conference perspective for the first time since the first Swofford raid of the Big East. I always thought Syracuse was a perfect fit for the ACC and all Orange fans are thrilled to see this day arrive. Coming off a great overall athletic year, the Orange is ready for even better overall competition in all sports. Time to start scheduling road trips to new venues with old college friends and the kids. Today is truly a new beginning for Syracuse sports fans and current and future athletes.
As we noted previously, followers and non-followers of this blog can now get weekly updates of the blog entries. Here is this week’s recap:
Yesterday, the Philadelphia 76ers took an interesting direction towards the future of the franchise as they traded all star point guard Jrue Holiday to the New Orleans Pelicans for Kentucky center Nerlens Noel, who the Pelicans drafted with the sixth overall pick and a 2014 first round pick.
With Jrue Holiday gone, the Philadelphia 76ers with the 11th pick in the 2013 NBA Draft selected guard Michael Carter-Williams from Syracuse University. When many Sixers fans heard about this selection they couldn’t believe it because they were in disbelief still that Jrue Holiday was traded. Sixers new GM Sam Hinkie is rebuilding this team and starting from scratch as he was also trying to move Evan Turner and or Thaddeus Young.
The ball is now in the young point guard’s hands from Syracuse. If you don’t know about Michael Carter-Williams, let me tell you a little bit about the sophomore. He is 6-foot-6 and 185 pounds which is pretty big for a point guard but at that size can cause matchup problems for opposing point guards. According to NBADraft.net’s player profile of Carter-Williams, his lowest rating is a six and that’s on his jump shot, which has been criticized throughout the NBA Draft process.
His highest ratings are four nines and they are for his athleticism, size, potential, and passing. All of these qualities can make Michael Carter-Williams a great point guard in the NBA. Carter-Williams needs to work on his jump shot because as many Sixers fans have seen, former number two overall pick Evan Turner still does not have a consistent jump shot.
This past season for Syracuse, Carter-Williams averaged 11.9 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 7.3 assists per game. Those are good numbers because let’s not forget he played in the Big East conference and he goes against top notch competition and almost led his team to the national championship. During his sophomore season, even though he had a poor shooting performance he had great scoring games.
In the first game of the season versus no.20 San Diego State University, he would score 17 points and shoot 7 of 15 from the field in 32 minutes played. Another great game he had was in the Sweet 16 versus no.1 seed Indiana in which Syracuse would go onto win 61-50. In that game, Michael Carter-Williams scored 24 points and shot 9 of 19 from the field in 38 minutes played.
But in the biggest game of Carter-Williams’ college career, he would be nowhere to be found. The young point guard versus Michigan in the Final Four only had two points and shot 1 of 6 from the field in 35 minutes played. In that game, Carter-Williams went against Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. both of those players were drafted in the first round as well.
Just by looking at Carter-Williams college career he is a solid young point guard that will be able to grow into the position but not gradually because the Sixers are in the rebuilding process. He will be thrown into the fire but he won’t be alone as his long time friend Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel is going to join the Sixers in the next few weeks as the Jrue Holiday trade still has to go through.
With the combination of Carter-Williams and Noel, the Sixers have a nice young big man and point guard combo that can grow together for many years to come. It will make the transition easy for Carter-Williams because he and Noel played on the same AAU team together and they can grow to become a dominant 1-2 punch in the NBA.
The journey will not be easy for the Sixers or for Michael Carter-Williams. The only three players guaranteed to be on this team is him, Nerlens Noel, and Arsalan Kazemi. Other than that nobody knows what Sam Hinkie is going to do because the Sixers are still without a head coach. The only thing that is certain is that Michael Carter-Williams is the franchise point guard of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Be sure to check out other great articles at isportsweb.
Duke vs. North Carolina. Syracuse vs. Georgetown. Alabama vs. Auburn. Ohio State vs. Michigan. Kentucky vs Louisville the NCAA Rules. There are plenty of rivalries in college sports. So, when some idiot decided to vandalize Clemson’s famous Howard’s Rock, the obvious thought was a misdirected, boorish South Carolina fan with far too much alcohol within the bloodstream. But an arrest was just made and guess what… well … you’ll never guess who the alleged vandal is a fan of…
Former N.C. State forward C.J. Leslie measured 6’8.5″ (in shoes), 198 lbs with a 7’1.5″ wingspan at the 2012 Amare Stoudemire Skills Academy. Now he’ll be calling Stoudemire a teammate. The New York Knicks reached a deal with the undrafted free agent. Now it will be up to New York to tap into the potential of an explosive athlete who was projected to be a first round draft pick coming into what would be his final season playing for the Wolfpack.
The Confidential 