RE: Re: Valpo Game, Sylvester, OBrian

[Richmond, Dean]

I have not seen Sylvester that much but I certainly am not regretting his
decision. He appears to have some good skills for his size but he plays a
bit out of control. His main problem; however, appears to be on the boards
and on defense. He is soft. He could use some substantial time in the weight
room. Not a Bearcat type player!  

Dean Richmond



-----Original Message-----
From: Reber, Steven Edwin (Steve) [mailto:address@hidden
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 12:37 PM
To: 'address@hidden'
Subject: [UC Basketball] Re: Valpo Game, Sylvester, OBrian



> > > If Ch 19 has the capability to use satellite signal to broadcast
games, why don't they use that all the time (even for home games), this way
all UC games can be on ESPN full-court????

I would suppose the answer is that Satellite time costs more than ESPN (plus
local advertisers) are willing to pay for the 
ADDITIONAL fullcourt audience. 
Channel 19 has Fixed costs in producing most games (Hiring announcers,
camera guys, ammortization on the coaxial cable from UC to their studio...)
and made a decision to spend extra to produce the Valpo game (extra hours
for the crew, milage, and the satellite) because they have the advertiers
lined up to pay for it.  If they then get the chance to recoup some of that
expense by reselling the product they were producing anyway, in every market
EXCEPT where it competes with ch19 (full court has blackout of local games)
of course they would do it. 

So I think the answer is the satellite time costs more than ch19 could
recoup from ESPN(plus advertisers). Otherwise, I am sure they WOULD just
take the extra money involved.   With all the Northwestern Iowa versus
Southeastern Louisiana games on Fullcourt, I am sure that they would take
all games UC/ch19 is willing to sell them.  

On the Sylvester front, he has been unlucky in the injury area. He lost all
of last year to injury, he got shot in the ass less than a mile from
his/Huggins house (One idiot in the local Columbus paper was talking about
how he should have known better than to be in a bad neighborhood after
midnight, not knowing it is a pretty affluent area.)  Also, Jim O'Brian's
ability to coach is severly limited this year by a similar vocal cord nick
to what happened to Sam Wyche, hopefully OB will be able to recover. 

Several times, most notably in the San Francisco game at San Francisco,
O'Brian has tried to call the official closer (coaches are not supposed to
go onto the floor unless they are named Knight) and the official would not
come over to hear what he had to say. (In San Francisco, he wrote "This is
Sad" on the clipboard after the official refused to come over to hear him,
and got a double technical (the second for an exclamation point).  So if the
spirit (and letter) of the American's with Disabilitys Act is that if you
can make minor little tweaks that allow a person with any disability
(temporary or permanent) to do their job, where without the tweak, they
cannot, then how does an official refuse to make himself accessable to the
coach.  (The assistant coaches had explained the situation to the officials
beforehand and asked to be allowed to talk to the officials FOR O'Brian, the
officials made it clear that ONLY the head coach can talk to them.

So, while I agree that Sylvester would be farther along if he had come to
Cincinnati, I cannot eliminate the circumstances of his injuries, and also
with the NCAA's list of "things that are illegal at Cincinnati, yet
encouraged elsewhere", I think there may have been MAJOR penalties and
INVESTIGATION of Huggins saying "Hi" to Matt while they were cutting grass,
or if Huggins ever corrected his shooting release one time when he was a
5'2" sixth grader.  While Missouri can fly players parents in illegally on a
charter plane, and has players released from jail to attend a party and ride
ATVs at the university presidents house, you can bet if June Huggins sent a
Christmas card to Sylvester's parents in 1996, the NCAA would have demanded
sanctions. 

Steve in Columbus