Post-Holiday Links
Posted by kj on Sunday, July 6th, 2008
Travis Walton and Durrell Summers are tearing it up in the Moneyball Pro-Am League, according to a Rivals.com report from last week. They’re the only two current Spartans to have participated in games to date. I don’t have enough context to say exactly how positive an indicator a 42-point performance in a summer league game is (Summers posted 42 in a game last weekend).
Drew Neitzel will be joined by a couple other Big Ten players on the Timberwolves’ summer league team: former Gophers Dan Coleman and Vincent Grier. Kevin Love is the big name on the Wolves’ summer league roster.
The Detroit News’s Eric Lacy recently conducted a lengthy interview with Tom Crean. Crean on his relationship with Izzo:
Q: How has Michigan State’s Tom Izzo helped you through this challenging time at Indiana?
A: “Outside of my wife, he’s my best friend. He would be the first to tell you, there’s nothing that he’s been through that resembles this. But he’s supportive and has great ideas. I don’t make many adult decisions without talking to him. Our friendship transcended basketball and competition a long time ago. He always picks the phone up. In this time, where others have really made an open attack on Indiana basketball, I know I never have to worry about that with Tom because of our friendship.”
It certainly will be interesting to see how two guys as close as Izzo and Crean handle playing each other at least two times per season. Hard to say whether things will be more awkward as Crean fields a half-baked roster this upcoming season or down the road when MSU and IU could be playing each other with championships on the line.
Gopher Nation posted a nice early preview of the 2008-09 Minnesota basketball team. He projects three of their five starters to be new guys: freshmen Devoe Joseph and Ralph Sampson and juco transfer Devron Bostick. And he projects a 3rd place finish for the Gophers in the Big Ten–behind Purdue and Ohio State. I give him credit for chutzpah–and for actually attending summer league games to scout the incoming Gophers.
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Devinon 07 Jul 2008 at 1:54 pm 1Hard to say whether things will be more awkward as Crean fields a half-baked roster this upcoming season or down the road when MSU and IU could be playing each other with championships on the line.
Yeah, it’s an interesting question, but I wouldn’t call IU’s 2008-2009 roster half-baked. These guys haven’t even seen an oven yet. I would guess only the inconsistency of the Big Ten’s lower-echelon and the motivational techniques of Crean will ensure that the Hoosiers don’t go defeated.
As for the question, from what I’ve seen from Knight’s relationships (altho’ Izzo is a nicer guy than Knight- who isn’t, really?) is that these coaching relationships are fine as long as one side isn’t in the same league as the other. As soon as some home-biased whistles in Assembly Hall cost Izzo a championship (or vice-versa with Crean), the relationship will be considerably more strained.
TMadison25on 07 Jul 2008 at 3:28 pm 2Does anyone know what to make of this 42-point game from Summers? Not very familiar with the summer league. I liked what I saw from him last year, considering his limited minutes and am excited to see him this season.
witless chumon 07 Jul 2008 at 4:48 pm 3I’ve seen a few reference to the summer league on the mlive boards. Apparently the defense is not exactly tough, according to people who’ve watched a few games. Walton is supposed to have dropped 27 in a game.
With Izzo and Crean, it’ll also be interesting when they have to go head-to-head for recruits. I wonder if this has happened much between them when Crean was at Marquette? It seems like it’d be easier to coach against your friend than to take players away from him, or have him take a guy you really wanted.
Moothekowon 08 Jul 2008 at 11:13 am 4It sounded like Izzo didn’t directly recruit against Crean very much while he was at Marquette. I say that because apparently the recruit Jamil Wilson made some comment about how Izzo had cooled off on him - but he understood it was only because his friend Crean was recruiting him heavily and he respected Izzo for acting that way towards his friends.