Let's get back to talking about the games and not Pittiful's rantings.

Stat wise, we look pretty good going into the game tonight. I think our size will be a factor. It looks like we could let Dillion dominate inside tonight. As far as the guards go, I really don't think Ingle can keep up with Timmy. If we are running with Tim, CP and Travis, we should be ok. Let Brad, Dillion, and Eryk take control inside and it should be a good win.

I just hope we don't hit a wall after the last 2 games, and I hope the guys aren't getting a little too confident. That happened a couple of years ago.

Complacency and over-confidence are always dangerous. I worry about that as well.

I think this is an extremely important game tonight. Seemingly overnight, we are right up there in the standings. A win would tie us with several others and put us in a place to take the lead. There our several critical game in the ASUN this weekend. Hopefully FAU can get knocked off by GW.

Our size will be the key tonight--if we can exploit it. I predict a huge came from Dillion. He's definitely due. Our frontcourt should dominate this game. And, we have to match their intensity. They have won thus far by hustling. We need to maintain our breakneck pace, keep pressing, and get our big guys going early.

I agree about everyone trying to ignore Pitt.
I hope this board can be used to talk about ETSU basketball.
Right now we have 3 forums.
Momma has one where she blasts Stanton and Mullins all day, talks about the loss of football and how wonderful every school in the SoCon is. I don't think there have been any posts over there about ETSU basketball actually winning, no when they were losing there were some jabs.
The other SoCon board is nothing but people poking fun of the A-Sun with some football gripe tossed in, not much serious talk about Basketball.
Unfortunately for us Pitt has found this board and decided to try and make it his own since Momma won't let him on hers and he keeps getting banned from the SoCon board.
Let him post his drivel and move on keep talking about basketball and maybe he will go away.


Rod

Amen to that.

I agree this is a big game. Kennesaw is a good team. They are winning games despite having a small lineup. If we keep playing like we have been we have a great shot at the win. I expect more of the same tonight: Tim with a lot of points, and Nuckles with a great game. If we win this game, we will have swept a 3 game road trip. Never thought that could happen 7 games into the season!

They have to contain the Ingle brothers. Golden Ingle is a freaking beast to stop, just ask the G-Webb people. I think if ETSU will control the tempo early, they can win. I think KSU has a depth issue as well, so we could probably do to them what UT-C did to us last year with fresh legs all game long.
Now, for those not making the four hour UT-C like trip tonight to Kennesaw, get your butts out to the dome for the women's game tonight. Ladies are 5-0 in conference play, and have only lost three all year long. Tough team, BJ Banjo is 11th in the nation in scoring, the freshman are picking it up a little bit, the role players are fitting in nicely, this team looks like they might make some noise.

We're reduced to talking about women's basketball now?

Gee, I remember a day when ETSU fans prided themselves on their own identity, rather than wanting to be UT.

Pitt,

Can we not have pride in all the sports at ETSU? So, what I read in your post is that you only support men's basketball. Is no other sport is worthy of your support. Just curious.

Iowa- No, that's not it. And I apologize for the length of this post.

Right now I'm not supporting any sports at ETSU since being a Bucs fan presently is like being a crash dummy.

See Iowa, and since you've actually ventured out of the Tri-Cities I think you will get this, but I often speak tounge-in-cheek. Absolutely nothing wrong with it- hell FOE did it the other day when he spoke of "American heathens" who are football fans.

Now, a guy like JD LaRue will never get this, but I am not about to buy the propaganda lines out there that only east Tennesseeans could believe. And he'll get real offended at what I'm going to say- but that's because he is offended when he is challenged intellectually.

Give you an example. I was down there last month to see family at Christmas. I was listening to a talk show and the discussion centered around if George W. Bush should personally call the fallen soldiers families when they die in Iraq.

Now, I'm a Bushie. I think the cause is just.

But only in east Tennessee could a guy call up and say "I don't think our President is the kind of man who could only talk to the families for six minutes so I don't think he should call."

I mean COME ON! THere isn't any place in the country- not Texas- not any other place- where someone would come up with that ridiculous defense of Bush.

I'd like to think it is optimism, but the fact of the matter is its just naive.

Yet the same cockeyed comments are made about ETSU athletics on these message boards. Stuff like when we talk about how good KSU is, or talk about the NCAA Tournament for perhaps one of the 50 worst basketball teams out there in the NCAA, or that men's soccer for football was a good deal, or that Tim Smith is a clutch player, or when, somehow, some of these idiots bash Eddie D.

And of course, I get these false personal attacks all the time. My favorite now is thedoctor- who hated me for the way I would tweak his longwinded nose- now is reciting my points almost exactly- but he will never give me credit for it.

That's okay. People know. They don't want to admit it because I laugh too much when I win the hand, but they know.

For the record- there is a large part of me that would rather see the women's basketball team win instead of the men's team. Karen Kemp is a class lady and is the only hire there from the previous regimes. The women's hoops team is living proof of how clueless the current administration is- Stanton- Mullins- the whole lot of them.

I'm happy for them.

But come on. Bragging on women's hoops is like that knucklehead for some other team over here who brags about the cheerleading titles his team has won.

It's like the UT fans who would call up talk shows trying to wipe away the yearly demise of the football team at the hands of Florida by bragging on women's hoops- or- if you prefer- the Navy fan who once countered a Notre Dame fan's teasing of the Irish's yearly football domination of the Midshipmen with "Oh yeah? WHO WON IN SWIMMING?"

Comes a time you have to figure out what's important and what isn't. The pep band, golf team, all of that is irrelevant.

What is relevant is starting a movement to remove those at the top.

Because as long as you let the current administration continue to have their free pass, we'll be bragging on Bell Towers and mall displays while smaller neighborhood schools actually get on the map and earn a national reputation.

Pitt,

I agree. The current administration is the problem. It boggles my mind that they can say we don't have any money and can't raise it for football, but as soon as they drop that program they begin a capital fund-raising campaign for athletics. WHAT?!?!?! Why could they have not announced this campaign a few years prior to killing the football program and tried to save it? Someone had an agenda and it did not involve football. Coach Hamilton was winning with an underfunded football team. I think that scared the uppity-ups into believing that if they did not act soon that football would have not gone as easily as it did. If the team would have kept winning there would have been no way they could have gotten rid of it. It is a sad time in the ETSU athletic department because they cannot control their own desitny, that comes from Dossett Hall.

And another thing, I just went to etsu.edu for the first time in a long time. Where did they come up with the slogan on the front page: "It's all here at ETSU". Someone has some gaul to put that up. It's just like the sports line: "Winning the right way". The only problem with that is not many teams are winning; right way, wrong way, any way.

See, that's why I was saying we needed to boycott. I already am. That's not saying much- but it's what I believe has to be done.

The liklihood is, of course, if you did it they'd still say 4000 was there unless you got someone like Bill Meade or something to lead an effort so they couldn't possibly get away with lying about the attendance the way they do. And Meade isn't going to do it because he's on the Buccaneer network.

It's my belief, and I have no evidence but this is my theory, that there was this effort at the top to have a more liberal culture at ETSU- sort of like "we have to liberate the NASCAR hicks." But I have no proof of that- so I'm not going to go there. It would be like JD LaRue accusing me of all the wacky stuff he does with no proof.

But it goes into a culture of getting rid of football.

What I do think you can put a finger on is that this is what happens when you put a tennis coach in charge. Non-revenue sports always are resentful of the money football costs.

I said Mullins was the sort of guy a college hires when you want to get rid of football when he was hired. I was laughed at.

Who's laughing now?