Wreck Ramblin

Will Tech Frosh go pro?

DraftExpress spent the past few days at the Final Four in Atlanta and had the opportunity to pick the brains of dozens of players, coaches, scouts, agents and more to dig up the latest information available.

-Nearly everyone DraftExpress spoke to in Atlanta is hearing that Thaddeus Young will be leaving Georgia Tech for the NBA draft. Scouts, college coaches, and everyone else that has spoken with Young’s uncle (a judge, who will be running the process for his nephew Thaddeus) came away with the impression that the freshman combo forward has already made up his mind to leave Georgia Tech.

-On the other hand, Georgia Tech’s other highly regarded freshman, point guard Javaris Crittenton, is still 50/50 on his decision apparently.

[Draft Express]

GT is host of Final Four, but you'd never notice

Small print on the cover of the $10 Final Four program: "Georgia Institute of Technology, host."

"The host institution is kind of our local eyes and ears," said Greg Shaheen, the NCAA's senior vice president for basketball and business strategies.

The host operates at the direction of the NCAA and in conjunction with the local organizing committee and the venue.

About 40 Tech staffers will be serving in supporting roles for the championship game, as they did for Saturday's semifinals.

Tech will receive from the NCAA an "honorarium" of $200,000, which Paul Griffin said won't — and isn't intended to — repay all of its time.

[TT, AJC]

ACC basketball

David Glenn @ WRAL ranks the 2007-08 ACC basketball teams, in a 3-part series.

He sees GT as #2 if the Freshmen return (see continuation)

UNC plays UT in the NCAA Women's Final Four at 9PM Sunday.

Naming rights for AMC

The Georgia Tech Athletic Association announced today a tentative agreement with the French pharmaceutical firm Laboratoire Innotech International for naming rights to the Alexander Memorial Coliseum.

The naming deal will not affect the names Alexander Memorial Coliseum or Cremins Court but will instead involve facility or site naming rights. Citing the downtown Atlanta interstate front location, the reputation of Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech basketball program, as well as the history and prominence of the structure, Innotech could not pass on the opportunity to display the name Innotech Sein-Somptueux Center in conjunction with its soon to be released new breast enhancement pharmaceutical product Sein-Somptueux .

The Sting (GT sports paper)

Crittenton and Durant work out together

Yellow Jackets freshman point guard Javaris Crittenton and Texas All-American Kevin Durant spent part of Friday on the court together.

"I went over to Georgia Tech to shoot around with Javaris," Durant said. "We know each other real well from the AAU circuit."

The two are facing a difficult decision about whether to forgo their college eligibility to enter the NBA draft.

[RLC, AJC]

Final Four is job fair for coaches

The Final Four is more than just three basketball games. For the 3,000 or so coaches head and assistant looking to move up and the athletic director in need of a coach or even a coach in need of a staff, the Final Four and the annual NABC convention is a giant job fair.

[St. Petersburg Times]

It worked for Paul Hewitt. See continuation

NCAA tournament format not perfect, just special

The NCAA tournament is often held up as the model for deciding a champion, especially compared to college football's Bowl Championship Series system.

Yet, even on the eve of a Final Four featuring four of the top eight seeds in the tournament - and the regular-season champs of four of the six major conferences - Donovan sees the NCAA tourney's three-week, six-game, win-or-go-home format as far from ideal.

"I think if you would start this tournament all over again, there would maybe be four different teams here right now," Donovan said. "The NCAA tournament is the greatest college, and maybe greatest sports event, period, in the county because of the uncertainty of what's going to happen. But I don't know if it crowns the best team."

It's flaws, after all, make it special.

[AVB, Morris]

GT's final four teams recognized at breakfast

A  breakfast was held at Phillips Arena Friday AM, at which Texas freshman Kevin Durant received the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Year Award

 

Georgia Tech's 1990 team, better known as Lethal Weapon 3, was represented by Coach Bobby Cremins, Dennis Scott, Kenny Anderson, Brian Domalik, Greg White, James Gaddy, James Munlyn, and Rod Balanis.

The Yellow Jackets lost to UNLV in the national semifinals in Denver.

Georgia Tech's 2004 team, which lost in the national championship game to UConn, was represented by Coach Paul Hewitt, Mo Moore, David Nelson, and Marvin Lewis.

"It is just great to be here and to see all of these guys again," said Cremins, now head coach at the College of Charleston. "It's great that people remember us after all these years."

ACC dominant in basketball this decade

... despite being down the past two years.

In this decade, the ACC leads all leagues in NCAA tournament game victories (72), winning percentage (.667) and championships (Duke in 2001, Maryland in 2002 and North Carolina in 2005).

And, it's not just a few good teams at the top. Nearly half of the schools in the ACC have made the NCAA field in those years (39 of 80, or 48.75 percent).

For the first time in recent memory, the ACC surpassed the SEC in total revenue distribution to its membership in the tax year ending June 30, 2006.

The only other league with a chance to exceed the ACC's $130 million in payouts is the Big Ten, for which a tax return is not yet available.

"It's never going to be really down," Miami coach Frank Haith said of the ACC. "

[RD, News-Record]

Videos of Mario West's dunks

The Ramblin Racket and GT Sports Blog have embedded videos of some of Mario West's dunks as he won the slam-dunk contest at Georgia State.

YouTube of Between-the-legs dunk.

GTSB also has more on Gani Lawal.