Louie's Last Season

MJDinkins said:
Sherman Douglas was actually a top 50 prospect. He wasn't offered by Georgetown due to an issue between John Thompson and Sprigarn's coach at that time.
Click to expand...
Not sure myself but this article states Syracuse was his only D-1 offer:

Sherman Douglas

Syracuse University basketball profile for Sherman Douglas, point guard for the Orangemen. Nicknamed 'the General' for his outstanding leadership on the court
www.orangehoops.org
 
fordham96 said:
Not sure myself but this article states Syracuse was his only D-1 offer:

Sherman Douglas

Syracuse University basketball profile for Sherman Douglas, point guard for the Orangemen. Nicknamed 'the General' for his outstanding leadership on the court
www.orangehoops.org
Click to expand...
Oh, okay. Maybe, I'm wrong on this one, but I thought he was rated fairly high as a high school senior.
 
kranmars said:
That was a final four team. No hyperbole.

Harvey and Williams were seniors who could both dominate games in big moments. They had moxie, but knew how to play a team game.
We remember Harvey’s heroics that year, but we almost forget how good Williams was. He became an NBA first round prospect after his junior season.

The battle of the big men in the BE was Coleman and Williams.
Then they still had Malik was option three. Singleton was the sixth man.

I was covering the game for the Torch. I remember the post game when Williams came with crutches and you could see in his face it was season ending. Williams was always smiling and talking to reporters. He was very somber, as was the mood of the entire team.
Click to expand...

Yeah a frontline of Sealy, Werdann, Williams and Singleton could've done a lot of damage
 
MainMan said:
Yeah a frontline of Sealy, Werdann, Williams and Singleton could've done a lot of damage
Click to expand...
More on that year.

I remember the first practice, and the players were all parroting the cliches that make coaches smile.

But not Williams. He had the biggest audience and when he was asked how far the team could go, he said without hesitation “the final four”. He was quick to point out the biggest reason was Harvey. After he said that, I remember Rutledge walking by and shaking his head as if he already knew Williams was going to go off script.

While the following year brought a magical elite eight run, in retrospect if they were healthy, that team was Carnesecca’s best chance of getting to one last final four.
I enjoyed talking to Singleton a lot. He just oozed high basketball IQ.

Ironically, he was an athletic beast in HS, until surgeries on both knees took that away. He completely changed his game and became one of the most fundamentally sound, team oriented player I have ever seen.

Yes, I may have an unhealthy obsession with that particular team, but they were a great group of guys. And selfishly (not only was I a student and fan) I would have gone to the final four on the Torch’s dime.
 
Sadly we could start a what if thread, filled with unfortunate events and near misses.

We could start with Lew Alcindor going to UCLA, and continue from there.
 
kranmars said:
More on that year.

I remember the first practice, and the players were all parroting the cliches that make coaches smile.

But not Williams. He had the biggest audience and when he was asked how far the team could go, he said without hesitation “the final four”. He was quick to point out the biggest reason was Harvey. After he said that, I remember Rutledge walking by and shaking his head as if he already knew Williams was going to go off script.

While the following year brought a magical elite eight run, in retrospect if they were healthy, that team was Carnesecca’s best chance of getting to one last final four.
I enjoyed talking to Singleton a lot. He just oozed high basketball IQ.

Ironically, he was an athletic beast in HS, until surgeries on both knees took that away. He completely changed his game and became one of the most fundamentally sound, team oriented player I have ever seen.

Yes, I may have an unhealthy obsession with that particular team, but they were a great group of guys. And selfishly (not only was I a student and fan) I would have gone to the final four on the Torch’s dime.
Click to expand...
I had a tremendous respect for the hard work of Billy Singleton. He seems to get his due amongst the base now, but was really unsung for many years. Lots of those 90-91 wins were directly because of his work down low vs. the bigger guys. He was part of what I would call a pipeline of sorts of very effective, very likeable dirty work unsung guys throughout the 90s - Middleton, Minlend, Glover. One or two others I've missed.
 
Dal975 said:
I had a tremendous respect for the hard work of Billy Singleton. He seems to get his due amongst the base now, but was really unsung for many years. Lots of those 90-91 wins were directly because of his work down low vs. the bigger guys. He was part of what I would call a pipeline of sorts of very effective, very likeable dirty work unsung guys throughout the 90s - Middleton, Minlend, Glover. One or two others I've missed.
Click to expand...
Ty Grant was another favorite, although he was after Carnesecca.
 
MainMan said:
Ty has the weird distinction of being coached by THREE coaching staffs. He was signed by and played for Mahoney as a frosh, the two years with Fran and his last year with Jarvis.
Click to expand...
The elite eight team with Artest and Barkley is another of the “what could have been”.

Grant injured his arm or hand, late in the season and was never 100 percent. It was rotten luck as he was the guy who was responsible for banging with Ken Johnson.

Side note: Ohio State had to vacate their final four. When can finally claim it retroactively?
 
kranmars said:
The elite eight team with Artest and Barkley is another of the “what could have been”.

Grant injured his arm or hand, late in the season and was never 100 percent. It was rotten luck as he was the guy who was responsible for banging with Ken Johnson.

Side note: Ohio State had to vacate their final four. When can finally claim it retroactively?
Click to expand...
Funny story - I was in law school in Atlanta at the time and I convinced two of my New York classmates to make the 3 hour drive to Knoxville for the game. I forget if we scalped outside or somehow got tix in advance. Memory of internet in those days is a little hazy. I showed up in my Felipe #13 jersey and I think it was Scott Clark from ABC 7 and his cameraman who saw me in my jersey outside the arena and fan-on-the-street interviewed me for two seconds. I'm from New York and go St. John's! - that type of thing. When the camera turned off Scott (or whoever it was) told me I was the only SJU fan they were able to locate and asked me why the fan base sucked. And this was in 1999!!!
 
fordham96 said:
Not sure myself but this article states Syracuse was his only D-1 offer:

Sherman Douglas

Syracuse University basketball profile for Sherman Douglas, point guard for the Orangemen. Nicknamed 'the General' for his outstanding leadership on the court
www.orangehoops.org
Click to expand...
I recall that being said throughout his collegiate years.
 
MJDinkins said:
Here's an article per the Washington Post from Douglas' senior season at Spingarn.

Loading…

www.washingtonpost.com
Click to expand...
Again I was not trying to be argumentative it was a long time ago I just remember as SJU85 said throughout his college career always being told he was not heavily recruited.

Here is an article from April of 85 in the Washington Post where he signs late with Syracuse and it said his final two schools were Old Dominion and Syracuse. Now maybe he had some connection to ODU but seems like if he was such a highly ranked player you would think he would have had bigger schools on his final list, no?

Loading…

www.washingtonpost.com
 
fordham96 said:
Again I was not trying to be argumentative it was a long time ago I just remember as SJU85 said throughout his college career always being told he was not heavily recruited.

Here is an article from April of 85 in the Washington Post where he signs late with Syracuse and it said his final two schools were Old Dominion and Syracuse. Now maybe he had some connection to ODU but seems like if he was such a highly ranked player you would think he would have had bigger schools on his final list, no?

Loading…

www.washingtonpost.com
Click to expand...
I know you wasn't in any way being argumentative. I just thought or recalled Douglas was rated fairly high as a senior. Or, maybe he blew up late in his high school career. Or, received soft offers. I'm not sure.

I do know Thompson and Sprigarn's coach had some sort of ongoing beef at the time, which directly or indirectly lead to Thompson not going after Douglas.
 
MJDinkins said:
I know you wasn't in any way being argumentative. I just thought or recalled Douglas was rated fairly high as a senior. Or, maybe he blew up late in his high school career. Or, received soft offers. I'm not sure.

I do know Thompson and Sprigarn's coach had some sort of ongoing beef at the time, which directly or indirectly lead to Thompson not going after Douglas.
Click to expand...
They did because Michael Graham went to Spingarn as well and of course he was later dismissed from Gtown after they won the NC in 1984 so there was some bad blood. But Thompson insists that is not why he did not offer Douglas and Douglas always maintained after he went to Syracuse that Georgetown was his dream school. Thompson said he had too many guards and Sherman was not defense first.

There is also a story about how after Boo did not qualify and Syracuse was looking for a late replacement for him Boeheim sent assistant Wayne Morgan to go find him a PG late. Morgan saw Douglas in a game at Spingarn phoned Boeheim and told him, "I think he is better than Boo..." Boeheim jokingly recalled his response, "Oh yeah then why isn't anyone else recruiting him..." LOL Or something to that effect.

In 2013 the last year of the old BE Syracuse.com brought back a bunch of articles from previous games including this one from 1988 between Boo and Sherman. And again the lead line is "lightly regarded..."

Sherman Douglas leads Syracuse past No. 20 St. John's (This Date in Syracuse/Big East History)

Douglas out-plays Boo Harvey, the prospect Syracuse had originally recruited.
www.syracuse.com www.syracuse.com

Syracuse recruited Sherman Douglas, a lightly-regarded prospect out of Washington D.C., because another highly-rated New York City recruit named Greg "Boo'' Harvey failed to qualify academically.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top