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Steve Victory JOURNAL – Cleaning up 2007-08
Coach Victory stays around for the Kentucky-Portland State game on Sunday. It turns out to be all Wildcats. In fact, the NCT is all Wildcats the rest of the way as Tubby Smith’s crew earns yet another national championship for the already glory-rich school.
“It would have been tough, but I think we could have given Kentucky a good game,” Victory muses to his assistants. “Our players weren’t the blue-chippers that Kentucky has, but they really didn’t fear anyone all season.”
[Author’s note: for the heck of it, I re-simmed the Portland State-Charleston game from a previous game save. Charleston won on the second re-sim but then lost to Kentucky by about 18-20 points. I was just curious to see how the Cougars would do against the eventual NCT champs]
Cleaning up the 2007-08 campaign:
• Fordham knocks off Wisconsin in the ACT finals.
• Georgia Southern gives Oklahoma a great run in the NCT opening round before falling 76-74. Greg Gumble goes crazy during the CBS “Live Look-in”.
• Wofford gets walloped by Illinois in its opener. Oh well, at least three SoCon teams got in... that in itself is a bit of a miracle...
Victory is a bit miffed when he sees the conference awards list. No one from Charleston (or Georgia Southern) is on there. Jabari Tucker’s injuries probably kept him off the list. Despite his ailments, he finished averaging 14.2 points per game – a team high. The all-conference SG from Furman only averaged about 9.5 ppg but did have more assists.
“You would think the TDCB sportswriters would give an edge in all-conference balloting to a player or players from the regular-season championship team,” Victory says in the latest Post & Courier. “Who cares if a guy averages 15 points a game if his team finishes 5-11 in the conference? How valuable is that?”
Ironically, it’s the underclassmen who lead the Cougars in many stat categories this season. After Tucker’s 14 points a game, junior Rodney Boykin (who was thrust into a starting job because of injuries) comes in with a 13.5 ppg average. Augustinas Dmitrovic is the top senior with a 10 ppg average and leads in assists with 7.2 per game.
David Qualls had a monster year on the boards, grabbing nine rebounds a game to go with his 9.7 ppg. Robin averages 7.1 rebounds per contest. Qualls, Robin, Boykin and Matt West get at least one block per game.
No one from Charleston gets picked in the NBA draft, though a couple guys with size like Robin and Qualls may try to get on in Europe.
Victory is pleased to see his top two recruits from his Central Florida days, Tim Weaver and Greg Martin, both get picked in the first round. Weaver goes 10th, and Martin 22nd. Both are leaving school after their junior seasons (wow- I guess Victory is a pretty talent evaluator). That will leave Central Florida in a lurch no doubt. The Knights finished in the middle of the Atlantic Sun pack this season – no post-season for them…
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