Bleacher Report - Articles by Wesley Marshall

What If…? One-and-Done's Effect on College Basketball

Wesley Marshall — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:39:44 -0500

In a city where college football is king, at the heart of a state where the entire sport of football is (to put it lightly) worshipped, the Longhorn basketball squad is in a position where they could easily be forgotten or dismissed.

However, coming off of a 74-65 victory over KSU last night, they are no afterthought.

As a matter of fact the ‘Horns, who sit alone atop the Big XII Conference, are now in prime position to grab a number-one seed come Selection Sunday.

The fifth-ranked team in the land just finished the month of February a perfect 8-0. They’ve already beaten two of the four teams ranked above them this season—one of them on the road.

D.J. Augustin, Connor Atchley, and Damion James have all played huge roles in the rise of the burnt-orange clad hoopsters, who at times look scary good.

Wanna hear the scariest part of all? All three of them could be coming off of the bench this year.

That’s right. The starting lineup could have Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Daniel Gibson instead, had none of them left early for the NBA. That looks almost as good as my fantasy roster this season.

What if they’d all stayed until this year? How good could this team be? And how many other teams have the same issue?

It’s certainly a testament to the growing trend in college hoops of going one-and-done, or a bit less commonly, two-and-through. And while it gives us college fans a peek at school greatness, it’s also a source of suspense and frustration each offseason as we agonize over who our school will be keeping, and consequently, who they will need to recruit as a result of early losses.

Now it’s spreading more and more to football. Vince Young paved the way for other young Longhorn talent like Limas Sweed and Jermichael Finley to declare early. But at least VY gave us a championship before he left.

The three year buffer in football isn’t the best system in the world for the next-season strategizing fan, but it’s a step up from basketball.

I suppose it’s all a matter of gaps in talent development. For basketball that means the players who could stand to become all-time college legends are growing ever more anxious to hit the road. So despite having Final Four caliber teams and the occasional (or annual) rising superstar, don’t expect football country to convert anytime soon.

NCAA FB Rules Committee: Changes Encourage Safer, Quicker Play

Wesley Marshall — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:29:15 -0500

The NCAA Football Rules Committee met in Indianapolis last week and has proposed significant rule changes for the 2008-2009 season.

Their primary focus in these meetings, according to committee chair Michael Clark, was to “enhance the safety of our student-athletes.”

The changes are pending review by another committee in March before taking effect.

While safety has always been an issue of great focus for NCAA athletics, these latest proposals may have been encouraged by coach’s concerns. Such concerns had already prompted league officials to distribute surveys to substantiate claims that moving back kickoffs caused an increase in injuries during special teams play this season.

So what does the committee have in mind for next year? For starters, “horse collar” tackles will be prohibited with a penalty of 15 yards upon violation. The NCAA has finally decided to follow the lead of the NFL, which banned such tackles after its 2004 season, when several major injuries were blamed on horse collar tackles.

The committee also developed stricter definitions for officiating crews to enforce chop blocks and tacklers leading with a helmet. Rogers Redding, another member of the committee, said that in doing so “the committee is giving our game officials more tools to penalize potentially dangerous contact.”

In contrast, the committee deemed that incidental grabbing of the face mask is not hazardous, and it has eliminated the five-yard version of the penalty.

Also among the proposals are new rules in clock management that will facilitate quicker games. The NCAA would adopt an NFL-style play clock that begins when the ball is declared dead and runs for 40 seconds (or 25 seconds after penalties or timeouts). On plays in which the ball is run out of bounds the game clock would resume upon signal by the referee, rather than the start of the next play.

Other recommendations by the committee include the following:

Yardage penalties would be enforced upon sideline warnings.
Fumbles that are immediately recovered would be eligible for review.
Coaches would be issued a single challenge per game, and awarded a second upon winning the first.
Receiving teams on kickoffs would have the option of taking the ball on the 40, rather than the 35-yard line, after a kick travels out of bounds.

Although these proposals may be less controversial than those of the past few years, they stand to drastically impact the momentum and flow of college football and how teams strategize each Saturday.

XLII Injury Update: Stephen Gostkowski Suffers Setback

Wesley Marshall — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:58:28 -0500

New England Patriots’ place kicker Stephen Gostkowski was seen applying a small bandage to his left hand while exiting a post office just north of Boston on Wednesday afternoon.

According to an anonymous source, Gostkowski was preparing to mail a pair of shredded Super Bowl XLII tickets along with a vindictive letter to his ex-girlfriend, Tricia, when he suffered what is being described as a “moderate paper cut” across the 2nd and 3rd knuckles of his left hand.

The source also noted that the cut was “pretty deep,” saying, “he (Gostkowski) probably went through, like, three or four tissues before it stopped bleeding.”

At a Thursday morning press conference, Gostkowski denied the significance of the injury, stating, “I’m a kicker. It’s not like this is debilitating. Besides, I’ve always been a quick healer.” It is likely that this last comment refers to a 2004 injury which Gostkowski suffered while at the University of Memphis; this injury involved a stapler.

Despite the kicker’s firm resolve, preliminary reports from Patriots’ medical staff indicate that unless there is a drastic change in his condition, Gostkowski will likely be listed as a “game-time decision” in the initial injury report to be submitted next week.