Former Arkansas player Courtney Fortson has done well playing basketball in China, but he admitted Tuesday morning to Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) things are a little different there.
He also went down memory lane on some of the bigger games the Razorbacks won while he was in Fayetteville plus knowing Hogs coach Eric Musselman.
Last week everybody we talked to or heard in interviews on the national scene fully expects some sort of college football this season, but nobody knows what it will look like.
Sports Illustrated, citing numerous sources said over the weekend the NCAA Division I Council, a 40-member decision-making body made up of key college athletics figures, could vote Wednesday to remove the ban on on-campus activities.
Add in the encouraging news about a possible vaccine (that will be fast-tracked in what could be an unbelievable record time) caused the stock market to shoot up Monday and announcements on college athletics coming this week.
The NCAA has their meeting Wednesday, then the SEC has already said they will have an announcement of some sort Friday.
There was always going to be football in the fall. It’s too big to fail and a lot of colleges can’t afford NOT to have it.
Schools are going to have to re-design just about everything in their athletic facilities. Thank goodness it’s somebody else’s job to reconfigure a weight room.
Locker rooms will be not be used as normal … at least in the summer. There’s no sharing of water bottles, towels or anything like that. It’s all going to be spaced out … at least in theory.
All food and drinks will be pre-packaged.
There is even a thing called a RAZOR, according to a story in Sports Illustrated, that is like a fogger on steroids for athletic environments.
In other words everything indoors will be fogged with one of those RAZOR things, which does create an interesting marketing angle for the Hogs.
It’s one of the things that was originally created to help stem flu outbreaks and this current virus works in much the same way in terms of how you get it.
Despite the panic doom-and-gloom predictions of some, there is a strong possibility of football starting on time and playing a full schedule.
Don’t expect it to be equal for all 130 teams, though. Too many different rules in different states and it’s sounding like the ones in states that allow it will go full steam ahead while others, well, won’t.
“It’s not going to be equitable,” Craig Thompson, commissioner of the Mountain West, told Sports Illustrated last week. “There are no equal solutions.”
The key thing, though, is there probably will be football.
Arkansas women’s basketball coach Mike Neighbors is a new dad and Bowen Stone Neighbors will be a member of the Class of 2039 as he told Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas on Monday afternoon.
It was one thing for Eli Gold to get the job as the play-by-play announcer for Alabama in 1988 but another was getting a diehard fan base to accept a New York native calling the games.
“Now I’m accepted,” Gold told Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) Monday afternoon on ESPN Arkansas. “It was a difficult start.”
He started doing men’s basketball in 1988-89 because then-coach Wimp Sanderson had noticed his work in Birmingham. Gold added football in 1989 after John Forney retired after three decades,
Forney and Gold are the only two football announcers for the Crimson Tide since Paul “Bear” Bryant got the job there in 1958.
And that is where most of the complaints came from with a Brooklyn guy who came to Birmingham to do ice hockey taking over a job as high profile in Alabama as any elected official.
“It took awhile,”. It probably took 10-12 years and for some people longer than that. I was a pro sports guy with no ties to the university. It was a difficult time.
“There were people that thought it was terrible I was selected to do the football and basketball games. It was not pleasant. Thankfully, the university stuck with me and here we are 32 years later.”
With Arkansas joining the Southeastern Conference in 1992, Gold started coming to the state every other year since then but it was his only trip to War Memorial Stadium that sticks out in his mind.
“Then-Gov. Bill Clinton attended,” Gold said of the game in 1992 during his first initial presidential campaign. “It showed me how impactful college football is when he took time out of a presidential campaign to get the eyeballs college football brought to him. No pun intended, but it was an eye opener for me.”
He hasn’t had to call many Crimson Tide losses since the Razorbacks came into the league, either. Alabama holds a 21-7 record over that time frame and the last win by the Hogs was in 2006.
“Bama has done pretty well against the Razorbacks over the years,” Gold said.
ESPN college basketball analyst Seth Greenberg talked with Arkansas coach Eric Musselman among others last week and it’s a welcome break “just talking ball” with college basketball coaches during this shutdown.
Greenberg on Monday was with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft (The Morning Rush) on ESPN Arkansas.
Tye & Tommy on what games would be like with no fans, ESPN’s Seth Greenberg joins, and more!
As ESPN’s The Last Dance finishes on the mothership Sunday night, maybe all of this ridiculous attempts to come up with the greatest arguments will, too.
There’s no way to determine that.
Tell me which set of rules you’re using to determine the answer and I’ll give you the answer. That answer is based on what the rules were at the time because no matter what kind of self-proclaimed genius anybody is they don’t really know.
While The Last Dance has basically been a min-series on Michael Jordan, we don’t even know how he would have handled some of the decades before him.
Sure, he still would have been a great player but it wouldn’t be for driving into the lane and dunking with his tongue hanging out.
“Not after he landed in the 20th row and no foul was called,” Wilt Chamberlain told me one time in 1986.
Yes, that’s the way the game was played back then.
Ray Felix of the New York Knicks got a little carried away with Bill Russell and was promptly knocked unconscious. Russell was fined $25.
Even the Bad Boy Pistons would have had to step up their game in that day and age. If you got into the lane you paid a price and you better be big enough to pay it.
Russell, by the way, made Jordan look like a cheerleader in terms of leadership and drive to win. He basically ran the Boston Celtics (and Red Auerbach let him).
When the Celtics traded for Don Nelson from the Los Angeles Lakers, he was concerned about the criticism of his lack of rebounding and defense. Russell sat him down at the first practice and told him just do what he does — score points.
“I’ll take care of the rebounds,” Russell told him.
Russell won 11 championships and coached two of the teams that won as a player-coach. His goal was much, much different than Jordan.
In those days they played All-Star games harder than a championship game now. They also couldn’t run from midcourt without taking a dribble to dunk the ball while a couple of opponents stand and observe.
Sorry, that holds zero interest for me.
And it’s also why you can’t determine anything except by era. Here’s the best I saw based on their eras (and some were great in multiple eras)
This is best on what I saw with my eyes. Your opinion may be different.
But there is no way I can pick one as the greatest of all time.
Nobody else can, either, with any guaranteed certainty. It is, quite simply, one of those questions that has multiple answers.
NBA 1960-69
Center: Wilt Chamberlain, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers
Power Forward: Bill Russell, Boston Celtics
Small Forward: Elgin Baylor, Los Angeles Lakers
Shooting Guard: Oscar Robertson, Cincinnati Royals, Milwaukee Bucks
Point Guard: Bob Cousy, Boston Celtics
NBA 1970-79
Center: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers
Power Forward: Elvin Hayes, Houston Rockets, Washington Bullets
Small Forward: Julius Erving, Philadelphia 76ers
Shooting Guard: John Havlicek, Boston Celtics
Point Guard: Walt Frazier, New York Knicks
NBA 1980-90
Center: Hakeem Olajuwon, Housto Rockets
Power Forward: Charles Barkley, Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns, Houston Rockets
Small Forward: Larry Bird, Boston Celtics
Shooting Guard: George Gervin, San Antonio Spurs
Point Guard: Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers
Arkansas’ Sidney Moncrief gets a mention in here as he was arguably the best defensive player in the league during a lot of those seasons.
NBA 1990-99
Center: Shaquille O’Neal, Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat
Power Forward: Karl Malone, Utah Jazz
Small Forward: Scottie Pippen, Chicago Bulls
Shooting Guard: Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls
Point Guard: John Stockton, Utah Jazz
NBA 2000-09
Center: Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurs
Power Forward: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat
Small Forward: Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks
Shooting Guard: Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
Point Guard: Steve Nash, Dallas Mavericks
NBA 2010-19
Center: Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors
Forward: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers
Forward: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City
Guard: James Harden, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets
Guard: Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
Former Michigan punter George Caratan is transferring to play for Arkansas and is the second specialist coming in, joining kicker A.J. Reed from Duke in what is going to be a large group.
Caratan spent two seasons with the Wolverines and never punted in a game. He is expected to be immediately eligible.
Caratan is the sixth player to transfer to Arkansas this offseason, joining quarterback Feleipe Franks (Florida), linebacker Levi Draper (Oklahoma), defensive tackle Xavier Kelly (Clemson), defensive back Jerry Jacobs (Arkansas State) and Reed.
All of the transfers are expected to be immediately eligible and play for the Hogs this fall.
The punter’s room now includes former transfer Sam Loy, who transferred from Vanderbilt after moving there from Colorado. Loy handled most of the work last year with a 39.45-yard average (56-2,210 yards).
Also in the group are redshirt-sophomore Reid Bauer and redshirt-sophomore Matthew Phillips.
The latest former Arkansas player to land with a team from the NCAA’s transfer portal is Smackover native Jordan Jones and, like several others, he signed with a team in the American Athletic Conference.
Let’s work ???????? @GoBearcatsFB pic.twitter.com/YSVmRW44nL
— Jordan Jone5???? (@jordan10jones) May 16, 2020
Jones was signed in 2016 by former coach Bret Bielema and redshirted his first year before starting six of 12 games in 2017 and was third on the team with 401 yards.
He never found the field often in the Chad Morris system, sitting out all of 2019 with what we were told was a high ankle sprain that required surgery.
Jones will be immediately eligible with the Bearcats. He joins running back Chase Hayden (East Carolina) and wide receiver T.Q. Jackson (SMU) as Arkansas players heading to the AAC.
By heading to Cincinnati, Jones is reuniting with former Arkansas offensive coordinator Dan Enos, who was hired as the Bearcats’ running backs coach in March.
Jones chose the Hogs over offers from Alabama and Ole Miss.
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