Friday, November 6, 2009

The media: still clueless

I've been busy this week (I'll leave you all to imagine why), so I only just noticed this article by CBS Sports' Gary Parrish now.  In his ACC 2009-2010 preview, he states that "overcoming the loss of Tyrese Rice is an impossible task."  I've read some of this guy's work in the past, and I gotta tell ya, sometimes I wonder if this guy watches the teams he writes about.  Being very original, he ranks BC 9th in the conference (which just happened to be their preseason conference rank) and speaks about the pressure Rice's departure will place on Rakim Sanders as though all 245 pounds of him can't handle it. 

I am only going to say this once, so if you read this someday, Gary, chew on it a little before you make another asinine, lazy, uninformed statement about BC basketball: Tyrese Rice had a good year in 2008-2009, but he was not the whole team.  The way that he and some members of the media are writing about the Eagles, they make it sound like Rice was the sole reason they made the Tournament last year.  Perhaps he was unaware that Tyrese Rice's points-per-game average was DOWN about 4 points from his junior to senior seasons (from 21 to 17.1), and that Rice had a handful of games in 2008-2009 where he was essentially a no-show, including the first-round game where he only scored nine (Take a look at the stats.)  Further, we saw some of the younger guys like Sanders and Joe Trapani begin to emerge and mature.  Rice was more devastating in his junior year (when, interestingly enough, the Eagles had a lousy season). 

In those aforementioned statistics, you will notice that he never scored more than 28 points in a game, shot about 35% from beyond the arc (which, to be fair, seemed consistent with his previous season), and his last 20-point game of the year was the Duke win.  Were his overall statistics good?  Yes.  Do those numbers scream out "irreplaceable"?  No.  (I'm not even going to get into some of the dumb turnovers or other facets of his game.)  "Irreplaceable" is when your main player averages almost 30 a game and no one else cracks 10, not when your lead player has a less stellar than expected senior season and the new guard begins to get better. 

In another article, Reggie Jackson (not Mr. October) said "we feel disrespected."  He should feel disrespected.  People like Parrish think that Tyrese Rice left and took all the team's talent with him, as if he had a monopoly on it, and that nobody remaining is capable of winning consistently.  I'm sure guys like Sanders, Jackson, and Trapani (amongst others) would beg to differ.  I'm not saying that BC will be a great team, but if these guys want to take a pass on the Eagles, that's fine.  Just don't be surprised if they win 20+ games and make the tournament again. (More along these lines coming in a later post, and by the way, this post has pushed back the hockey article I promised you until a later time)

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