Monday 24 August 2009

Monday News

Thanks to Barry Hayes from Hoopstars Canada who along with Jim Thomas do a bang up job with recruiting news across the country for passing along the following two items. First, unfortunately for CIS basketball fans, Burlington's Brady Heslip, originally destined to follow in his great father Tom's footsteps at the University of Guelph, has made a verbal commitment to NCAA Division 1 Boston College Eagles of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). We also confirmed this with Guelph Head Coach Chris O'Rourke who was obviously disappointed for his program but wished Heslip the best of success in chasing his dream. Heslip has turned heads with some strong performances south of the border over the summer and is likely to attend Prep school for the 2009-10 season before joining the Eagles as a freshman to begin the 2010-11 season... Also, Hawaii transfer Adam Jespersen, originally thought to be attending Carleton, will return home to London to attend the University of Western Ontario and will sit out this coming season as a transfer.

Clearly I lobbed another lollypop over the plate with the latest profile change however Ray Bala was the first to answer correctly that the new face is that of Marvin "Bad News" Barnes. Some were all around it with guesses such as Bobby McAdoo and others confused the "Human Eraser" nickname (Marvin Webster) however "Bad News" sticks with me because Braves play-by-play guy Van Miller used to ask "How 'bout it ?" every time Barnes put up one of his jumpers (Miller wore the phrase out about 10 minutes into Marvin's first game). While on the topic of Buffalo Braves, recently the name Dick Daubmeier came to mind for whatever reason. Daubmeier was never heard on Braves broadcasts but Miller continually refered to him when crediting the comprehensive stats he regurgitated frequently to listeners on 930 WBEN radio (sometimes simulcast on Channel 4 WBEN TV). Makes you wonder if there really was a Dick Daubmeier or was Van just playing games with us. It really was too bad that attendance at Maple Leaf Gardens for the few Braves games played in Toronto wasn't that great because had it been, Southern Ontario fans could have watched the team that is now the L.A. Clippers for the last 30 or so years.

By the way, I encourage all readers to visit Ray Bala's CanBall section on RaptorsHQ site He has a couple of exclusive interviews including one with Leo Rautins and also Canada's underrated starting post Jesse Young, who has played a couple of seasons with the highly-touted Spanish sensation Ricky Rubio. Hopefully Ray will be more active on his site during the qualifying tournament as well.

A recent three minute video clip from the Score on Canada's National team highlighting the recent incident in Italy and the impact on the group.

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