====> Please no Lorenzo Brown comments in this entry. Once we get over our devastation we will post its own entry.
====> Stud outside linebacker, Kendall Moore, of Southeast Raleigh choose Notre Dame over NC State this weekend. (Link to the story) This one hurts, as Moore would have been a fantastic complement to the current stable of young and talented linebackers in west Raleigh. NC State is going to have a fine recruiting year with or without Moore…but, a couple of these types of commitments quickly moves you into “Top 10 territory” from Top 25 territory. I wish him the best, but I wonder if he really has a grasp on the culture shock that awaits African American kids from the south when the enter the time warp of cold, dreary, white and Catholic South Bend, Indiana.
Standing at 6-foot-3 and 230-pounds, Moore recorded nearly 120 tackles and six sacks last season, and he also caught seven touchdown passes as a tight end for the Bulldogs. The rising senior records a 4.58 forty yard dash time, and benches 320 pounds.
Rivals.com ranks Moore as a four star prospect and the 14th best player at his position. The recruiting Web site also named him their top 250, ranking him the No. 167 overall player in his class.
====> NC State’s Ben McCauley had a fantastic debut in the NBA’s Summer League. Heck, his numbers are ‘Tyler-Hansbrough-like’. If only the local paper’s would run quarter-page pictures of McCauley in his practice uniform and remind us how hard he is going to work to make the team! Thanks to the Las Vegas newspaper for covering the story.
Adam Morrison was supposed to be the star attraction of the Los Angeles Lakers’ entry in the NBA Summer League. But he wasn’t the only guy wearing purple who caught the fans’ eyes Friday.
Ben McCauley, a 6-foot-8-inch rookie free-agent forward from North Carolina State, turned heads by scoring 24 points and grabbing 15 rebounds in the Lakers’ 85-84 victory over the Toronto Raptors at Cox Pavilion.
Ben who?
“I was playing (center) in college, and all I did was go block to block,” said McCauley, who played four seasons for the Wolfpack. “Nobody knew I had the skills to do these other things.”
Chucky Brown did. The Lakers’ summer league coach and former N.C. State player had seen McCauley play in the summer in Raleigh, N.C., and thought he could thrive in the Lakers’ triangle offense.
“He’s a smart player who can pass and shoot,” Brown said of McCauley, who averaged 12.4 points and 7.8 rebounds as a senior. “He’s perfect for the triangle.”
McCauley said he hopes to continue to impress people in Las Vegas — if not the Lakers, then another team.
“It’s a great opportunity,” he said. “I’m trying to take advantage of it as much as I can. I just hope I can keep it going.”
====> Poor Heather Dinich is going to be crushed when she sees her beloved Duke Blue Devils listed as one of the worst ten programs in all of college football in the last decade. I love stuff like that and look forward to the rest of Dodd’s list. To be fair, Dinich’s love affair appears to be much more about David Cutcliffe than it does Duke football.
====> ESPN has announced their 2009 lineup for college football commentators. Interesting comments here.
====> Speaking of this coming football season, the odds for winning the BCS Championship can be found here. Here is an interesting observation – both NC State and UNC-CH log in at a +10,000 (as does Wolfpack opponents Pittsburgh & Clemson). Considering the kind of ‘powerhouse’ that Carolina is supposedly building it must be perplexing to the mainstream media (and the high school coaches who dare send their kids to Chapel Hill at risk of having their scholarships revoked) how this could be?
====> 850TheBuzz has an interview on their website with Da Jules from Harlem on the his to Europe or the NBDL. Hodge was a really good college player in Herb Sendek’s system. But, I can still never get over the blasphemy of Pack Pride’s magazine cover of standing Hodge in front of David Thompson’s jersey hanging from the rafters.
====> Congratulations to NC State’s Cullen Jones who broke the American record for the 50 meter free style. (Link here)
Cullen Jones lowered the American record in a 50-meter freestyle swim-off at the U.S. nationals Saturday night, touching in 21.41 seconds. That bettered the previous record of 21.47 set by Garrett Weber-Gale at last year’s Olympic trials.
The former N.C. State swimmer edged Weber-Gale in the one-on-one race for the second spot in the event at the world championships in Rome later this month. Weber-Gale was clocked in 21.70.
