I wanted to reach into my TV and ring Packer's foolish neck so badly for almost jinxing that KU victory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't wait to hear what his even more foolish son "Packman" has to say tomorrow afternoon...
I wanted to reach into my TV and ring Packer's foolish neck so badly for almost jinxing that KU victory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't wait to hear what his even more foolish son "Packman" has to say tomorrow afternoon...
He's on 620 the Bull every afternoon and I usually listen until I get so sick at my stomach that I have to change the station. One reason that I listen is that I like some of his co-hosts (Gminski, Cornbread). On Friday (or maybe Thursday) Cornbread was getting a whole lot of hassle because he was basically saying that Hansbrough had no skill set and would not be a success in the NBA and was implying that UNC might ( ) have trouble with Kansas. Packer Jr was all over him, clearly in the Tar Heel camp.
Here's my specific question: Did Mark Packer also not get recruited by Duke? Is there a reason he sounds like he just drank vinegar everytime a Duke success is mentioned? Or is it just "in his genes" because of his daddy?
Any commentary on Packer the Younger would be much appreciated.
By the way, he doesn't seem very impressed with his dad either!!!!
DukeDevilDeb
I'm not forgetting about the second part at all. I think most people interpret "it's over" as the equivalent to "cannot come back and have a chance to win". Under your interpretation if someone leads the game from start to finish and the lead never gets above 4 points then the game was over from the beginning. Do you really think the UNC game was the equivalent?
I used to listen to Packman everyday when I lived in Charlotte, 5-6 years ago. He has always been a Heel fan, disliked (hated) anything Duke, grudgingly had his father on as a guest mostly during March Madness, and went to Clemson, I believe. Other than the Duke hatred, which was just about every day during bb season, he had some pretty good shows and some really great interviews and guests. He had the drive time afternoon show back then and was clearly the star attraction.
As a side note, he had an "announcer", I guess you'd call him, named Jon Meta Parrel (not sure of the spelling) who left the show to return to Boston Nation, as he put it, because his father was ill. Well, my wife and I went to Boston in early March, 2004 and decided to tour Fenway Park. We were the only natives going for the tour, but when the guy who took our money asked where we were from and we said Durham (had moved by then) he asked if that were close to Charlotte because his son used to work there...so I looked at him and said something to the effect of glad he was doing so well and what what his son doing. He was amazed that someone from out of town had actually heard of his son, who was doing sports radio in Boston back then.
If its still available the Charlotte station's website is www.wfnz.com.
I dislike Packer because he is so negative. To him a play never happens because one kid does something good, it is almost always because the other kid did something bad. If a defender's feet are frozen as his man dribbles by, it might just be because the offensive guy made a great move. I find Packer tiresome and wish I could find a radio simulcast so I could tune him out.
I can't believe in all this talk about Packer and the UNC 28 point deficit vs the Duke 22 point deficit in 2001 that no one has mentioned this (or maybe I just read through the thread too fast). Last night when they were putting up the stat that the Duke comeback vs Maryland was the biggest comeback in FF history, Packer started talking about the Duke 2001 team with Shane Battier's leadership. He said that team played as a team and played their way back into that game in 2001, whereas UNC last night was trying to get it all back at once with big individual plays. I thought that was an interesting observation or at least one I enjoyed hearing.
on the topic of when a game can be declared "over", noted baseball statistician Bill James developed an algorithm to determine when a lead is safe. I think the formula is a bit generous to the team that is behind, but it's a fun little tool.
http://www.slate.com/id/2185975/
Some examples:
Kansas/UNC in 08FF. Kansas up 28 with 27+ minutes to go. That lead is 36% safe.
Duke/Maryland in 01FF. Maryland was up 22 with 27 minutes to go. That lead was 21% safe.
Duke/Maryland in 2001 (the "gone in 54 seconds" game). Maryland was up 10 with 1:01 to go. That lead was 69% safe.
p.s. in the linked article, James said he could find only one game where a team with a "safe lead" ended up losing the game. Yes, it was Duke in that 1974 UNC game.
Like I said, we're clearly going to disagree... And I understand that I'm now the one arguing semantics, but this is an interesting and civil discussion we're engaging in, so...
I interpret 'game over' more literally as 'can't come back and win'...
And I think your analogy is a poor one, a straw man... I'd never say 'it's over' about a maximum 4-point lead throughout a game because that's clearly not the case... But that's not anything remotely resembling what happened to UNC... It was a 28-point lead!
If you are only down 4 throughout the game, you don't have to expend the monumental amount of effort and energy that Carolina clearly needed to burn in order to simply find your way back into the arena... I believe that when it got to single digits and Kansas finally refocused, re-upping their energy level, Carolina was simply toast at that point... They'd spent so much energy and effort simply getting back to 'close' as you point out that they had absolutely nothing left in the tank to get over the hump... In other words, I think against a team as good as Kansas, Carolina simply could not expect to dig themselves a 28-point hole and have a snowball's chance in heck of winning the game--wasn't gonna happen...
Add David Stern to those disenchanted with Packer:
At a news conference to announce the N.B.A. starting a business relationship with the N.C.A.A. to help improve youth basketball, Stern was asked why the N.B.A. and N.C.A.A. had such a contentious relationship. Stern said it stemmed from the former N.C.A.A. executive director Walter Byers, who served in that role from 1951 to 1987.
“There was an ongoing feud initiated by Mr. Byers that all things professional should be disassociated from college basketball,” Stern said. “As a result, the harmony between our games was disrupted. The last remaining vestige of Mr. Byers’s approach is Billy Packer. He won’t mention a professional player or the N.B.A. in his occasional tirades. The rest of the announcers and the like, the harmony between our games is actually named. They’ll say whether someone is a lottery pick or a pro prospect or not or if someone had a relative that played in the pros."
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/200...-stern-critic/
Oh, I absolutely agree that we're just arguing semantics and while neither of us is going to change the others mind, I enjoy a civil argument as much as the next guy. And so, without any further ado ...
I guess I wonder what you really mean by "can't come back". Do you mean that it's impossible to come back and win? Or do you mean that the team probably won't come back and win? In the first case, are you saying that was impossible for UNC to come back, even when they were down 4 and ball in hand? In that case do you really think that no team has ever come back from such a deficit? And if you mean the second then you have to allow for the likelyhood that UNC could've won the game.
BTW, I just saw Roy Williams at the Kansas-Memphis game wearing a Kansas sticker!
I listened to him carefully this time to see how much negativity he would bring. I was impressed this time that he kept it to a minimum. He even tempered some criticism of on of the Memphis guards by saying it could have something to do with how well Kansas was defending him. The fact that there were very few bonehead plays and good coaching decisions on both sides may have had something to do with it.
FWIW, I just watched the end of The Comeback Game...I thought Packer was quite positive about Duke, mentioning Battier's won-lost record with admiration and the fact that Duhon was Duke's first ROY with incredulity. The only call he criticized was the Lonny Baxter-Boozer one which fouled Baxter out - and which was dubious.
I don't understand the "Duhon was Duke's first ROY" thought. The the first three ROY's in the ACC were Spanarkle ('76), Giminski (co with State's Whitney) ('77) and Banks ('78)! Duhon was '01. Those comprise Duke's ROY winners.
http://www.dukeupdate.com/Records/ac...f_the_year.htm
Agreed. I don't care if you're a color commentator, you're not supposed to make comments like that. While I appreciated Packer's candor, it was the wrong thing to say and even though UNC didn't win, the fact that they eventually got to within 4 shows why Packer should've kept quiet. It was funny how Nantz gave him the chance to retract it and he still didn't.
I know a lot of people hate Packer but he gained points in my book when he immediately stood up for Gerald after the Hansbrough broken nose. He's the only media figure that was quick to point out the absence of intent on Gerald's part and whaddya know--he was the one calling the game.
You're right, Sagegrouse, I left that out.