Salute to a Great American

EarthdogFred is living the American dream. Not only does he serve as the principal administrator and chief lead moderater of phog.net's message board bulletin bbs online discussion forums, he is also a renowned evaluator and analyst online and on the air and the "godfather" of Internet recruiting coverage for scout.com.

Be sure to keep up with EarthdogFred's coverage of college basketball if and only if you don't want to look like a shithead when talking to your friends.

EarthdogFred's latest game analysis:

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After weeks of speculation that we would go undefeated and comparisons of the team to the '97 team, the '02 team, the '82 UNC team, '84 Georgetown, '90 UNLV and the '27 Yankees, the lads got boatraced by a bunch of freshmen "coached" by a discredited, hack former high school AAU coach. Still, in even the bleakest hour there is a silver lining. And, as always, the GBU is committed to finding it.

THE GOOD.

1. Russell Robinson fouled out with 2 minutes and 36 seconds to go. Unfortunately, a clerical error revealed he only had four fouls, so he reentered the game whereupon he promptly fouled out again with 1 minute to go. Even more unfortunately this all occurred in the second half rather than the first where losing Robinson might have done some good.

2. I have checked the schedule and we, in fact, do not have to play those guys in Africa. So the worst we can do is 0-2, 0-3 if we can make it to the conference tournament finals.

3. Thank God we have poised and experienced upper classmen who won't lose their composure, panic, and start throwing up circus shots at the first sign of any adversity. This bodes well for the tournament.

THE BAD.

1. The GBU has received the following advisory from the American Medical Association and passes it along here. Attention Medical Professionals: Recent medical research has revealed a serious side effect of ACL surgery -- an uncontrollable urge to jump out of the gym at the sign of the slightest head fake. To date, there is no known cure.

2. Darrell Arthur is not going to be the second coming of Drew Gooden, unfortunately. He is the second coming of Nick Collison. In addition to sharing the trait of outstanding offensive footwork, Arthur, like Collison, also is utterly incapable of playing without picking up silly fouls. Of course, some of the blame for this lies with Self's ridiculous post rotation circus last season that prevented Arthur from acquiring important experience on playing with fouls and avoiding them.

3. I assume that watching the team run nothing but ineffective high screen/roll and dribble weave will put an end to the notion that some sort of sophisticated and effective half court offense was installed over the semester break.

THE UGLY.

1. KSU looks to be very well coached team. The have improved dramatically over the course of the season. The players know their roles and stick to them. Their system is designed to get the ball to scorers in position to score. They play solid defense and value the ball. Our lads, not so much. Of course, one game may be misleading. Coaching against utterly undisciplined, roll out the ball and let 'em play AAU squads is the perfect experience for playing us. So perhaps we are giving Martin too much credit.

2. O.K., look, it was pretty obvious as a freshman that we weren't going to get the promised "slightly smaller white Shaq." But, it seemed reasonable to expect that as a senior "Skillets" Kaun might be a Pollard-like contributor. Sadly, no. He is on pace to break the records set by Ostertag and Chenowith for most disappointing big man in ku history. He was so bad last night that some flocksters even suggested that Aldrich should get his minutes. That seemed reasonable until you looked at Aldrich's line -- 4 minutes, 0 points, 0 rebounds, 2 turnovers. Thank God for "one and done's." You want to talk ugly? Just imagine 4 years of the Beasley/Aldrich match up. Four minutes was more than I could handle.

3. That fine performance should silence the ridiculous Branch Darnellians, or at least stop the "he's consistent" nonsense. Thirty minutes. Only two shots. Seven points. Four rebounds, none offensive. Two turnovers. No assists. And let's not even talk about his matador defense on Bill Walker. In decades of watching college basketball I don't know that I've ever seen a defender get so abused, for which Darnell receives the coveted Ned Beatty Award for the game.

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Thanks to some dude Rusty for archiving.