This from Newsday:
Two games into a five-year, $29-million contract is a bit early to call someone a bust. But Jerome James is doing his best — or worst — to earn such a label. The Knicks’ backup center hasn’t endeared himself to coach Larry Brown. He was overweight in training camp and has been a foul machine during the Knicks’ 0-2 start, getting whistled seven times in 11 minutes. Yesterday James had to be held back from fighting with teammate Nate Robinson.
Can you believe anyone would have fallen for his 1 good week vs. the Kings last year to justify spending that kind of money on him? What a big, fat ZERO. I heard Ray Allen in an interview say they liked having Jerome around in the locker-room because he talked non-stop, and that 99% of whatever he said were complete lies! They’d all laugh at him. Comedic relief is nice to have around for 82 games, but that’s about all he was! What a joke.
Cougs – On the bright side for the Cougs over the weekend, they did get another verbal, although it really isn’t new. Bryan Tarkington signed with the team last February but failed to qualify. Instead of going JC and declaring himself open to anyone, he held out and studied for his tests, and he’ll be ready to enroll this January and compete for PT this spring. He’s big (6-4, 285), young (17), and quick (4.9 40) and many on the premium boards think he’s going to be a big-time get for next year.
Interesting on KJR this AM. I listened in for a few minutes as I love to hear the post-loss UW drivel that flows on Monday mornings, and I also wanted to hear them talk about the high-flying 6-2 Hawks, but I was surprised to hear them talking at length about the Cougs. Hugh Millen, the resident QB/UW expert, talked to some guys he knows that were at the Coug game on Saturday, and he had a few things to say.
1) They told him that Alex Brink is in fact the real deal and has an incredibly bright future. They didn’t discuss arm strength, but they said he made the right decisions about the vast majority of the time and were shocked to see how much he checked off, how much confidence he has in himself and the offense. He said by this time next year you might hear Brink’s name in regards to all-conference(!). They also said there were 3 HUGE drops on absolutely PERFECT throws by Brink, two that would have been TD’s. Two by Hill, and one gigantic one by Jordan that could have won the game. Just PERFECT throws. He said his “guys” expected Brink to be weak, but they came away extremely impressed. Also, Hill had a big fumble after a decent gain which led to another ASU score.
2) As a whole, the WSU team has as much raw talent as they’ve had in some time, but they are just too young in key spots to win right now (compared UW being a talent-wide issue as well as youth, they said that WSU was just too young but the talent is absolutely there). Anyway, Millen said they easily should be 6-3 at least, not 3-6 right now, and that’s just what young teams do.
3) They also are very afraid of how bad we’ll beat them in Seattle this year. They fear Jerome, of course, saying if the Cougs were 6-3 Jerome would be in everyone’s Heisman Watch, but they are also deathly afraid of Jason Hill and what he can do to their depleated secondary. Millen said that UW does not have anyone in the program that can cover him 1-on-1, and look for UW to double him on every snap, trying to make Brink and Harrison beat them by not giving up the HR ball. They also, for some reason, are worried about our D-line. They thought we were very active vs. ASU and were surprised by how hard they played in the second half (another thing Millen brought up, thought WSU has good-character guys based on their comeback vs. Cal and vs. ASU, when a lot of young teams would have laid down they battled back). They were very impressed with Mkristo and even liked what Ahmu showed in spurts. Millen sees bright times ahead (and again compared UW to WSU and said the Cougs will most likely be better than them for the next several years based on the young talent already playing vs. UW’s future recruiting classes that have to pan out).
I know WE know a lot of all this, but it’s interesting to hear from a UW perspective.
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