The Holy Land of Hoops

I was thinking recently of some similarities between this year's team and the Final Four '87 team. That team was much better on the perimeter and was deeper, but otherwise there were some similarities. I wonder what those of you who are old enough to remember think about the comparison between the two. BTW, that was one of my favorite college teams ever.

1 - Billy Donovan - Bryce Cotton
2 - Delray Brooks - Josh Fortune
3 - Pop Lewis - Tyler Harris
4 - Dave Kipfer - Ladonte Henton
5 - Steve Wright - Kadeem Batts
6 - Marty Conlon - Carson Desrosiers

Similarities break down after that. If only this team had a Carlton Screen to bring in off the bench. Or a Darryl Wright. The strongest comparisons for me at at the point and the 5 and 6. Not so much at the other 3 spots. And the personalities of the teams are different. That team could rain down 3's on people while Wright and Kipfer were strictly inside players.

Love the Carlton "Paco" Screen reference. I hang out with him in NY a few times a year. Great guy.

Bill Marsh wrote:I was thinking recently of some similarities between this year's team and the Final Four '87 team. That team was much better on the perimeter and was deeper, but otherwise there were some similarities. I wonder what those of you who are old enough to remember think about the comparison between the two. BTW, that was one of my favorite college teams ever.

1 - Billy Donovan - Bryce Cotton
2 - Delray Brooks - Josh Fortune
3 - Pop Lewis - Tyler Harris
4 - Dave Kipfer - Ladonte Henron
5 - Steve Wright - Kadeem Batts
6 - Marty Conlon - Carson Desrosiers

Similarities break down after that. If only this team had a Carlton Screen to being in off the bench. Or a Darryl Wright. The strongest comparisons for me at at the point and the 5 and 6. Not so much at the other 3 spots. And the personalities of the teams are different. That team could rain down 3's on people while Wright and Kipfer were strictly inside players.

Nice...!
I would have to say that Jacek Duda can be Lee Goldsbrough or Brice Kofane.
Though unlike Goldy/Kofane, Duda used to start, then get subbed out (for Steven Wright) at the first timeout.
But yeah, Cotton definitely is playing the role of Billy Donovan...!

billyjack wrote:

Bill Marsh wrote:I was thinking recently of some similarities between this year's team and the Final Four '87 team. That team was much better on the perimeter and was deeper, but otherwise there were some similarities. I wonder what those of you who are old enough to remember think about the comparison between the two. BTW, that was one of my favorite college teams ever.

1 - Billy Donovan - Bryce Cotton
2 - Delray Brooks - Josh Fortune
3 - Pop Lewis - Tyler Harris
4 - Dave Kipfer - Ladonte Henron
5 - Steve Wright - Kadeem Batts
6 - Marty Conlon - Carson Desrosiers

Similarities break down after that. If only this team had a Carlton Screen to being in off the bench. Or a Darryl Wright. The strongest comparisons for me at at the point and the 5 and 6. Not so much at the other 3 spots. And the personalities of the teams are different. That team could rain down 3's on people while Wright and Kipfer were strictly inside players.

Nice...!
I would have to say that Jacek Duda can be Lee Goldsbrough or Brice Kofane.
Though unlike Goldy/Kofane, Duda used to start, then get subbed out (for Steven Wright) at the first timeout.
But yeah, Cotton definitely is playing the role of Billy Donovan...!

To me, Desrosiers is the 2nd coming of Marty Conlon, the man who got Gordy Chiesa fired.

Marty C was such a better player than DeRosiers. I love Cotton but he's no BD. I saw Delray drop like 30 on Nova back in the late 80's. Fortune is not Nearly as good. Other than that...spot on.

Agree that Fortune is not in Delray's class right now.

That entire team wanted Gordie out (heard it from several of them directly)

GumbyDamnit! wrote:Marty C was such a better player than DeRosiers. I love Cotton but he's no BD. I saw Delray drop like 30 on Nova back in the late 80's. Fortune is not Nearly as good. Other than that...spot on.

Come on, Gumby, I never said that those players were as good as the ones in the comparison.We're talking about comparisons with a Final four team after all. The point is that Cotton is doing for they team what Billy D did for that one. In fact, Cotton is doing more because Donovan had Screen to come in to relieve him of ball handling duties and Cotton has no one. I agree that Fortune and Brooks are not a good comparison. Conlon gave that team 4 points, 3 rebs per game. Desrosiers? 4 points, 3 rebs. They both do the same thing for their teams except Desrosiers also blocks 2-3 shots per game. Marty almost never blocked a shot. I think that Batts and Wright compare well in that both have been warriors down low.

ChelseaFriar wrote:Agree that Fortune is not in Delray's class right now.

That entire team wanted Gordie out (heard it from several of them directly)

I'm sure you're right about that, but Marty was the only one to quit the team over it.

Bill Marsh wrote:

ChelseaFriar wrote:Agree that Fortune is not in Delray's class right now.

That entire team wanted Gordie out (heard it from several of them directly)

I'm sure you're right about that, but Marty was the only one to quit the team over it.

Yeah, Conlon leaving really was a wake up call. Chiesa would berate the players on the bench, and practices were swearfests. There were two camps, with one saying Conlon was a baby and the other saying Chiesa was out of control. Conlon returned thankfully for Rick Barnes. I agree with you that his freshman year was a lot like Desrosiers this year... still feeling his way around, a little unsure, but with good length and with 3-point shot ability (though Desrosiers has gotten away from that). Conlon had a much wider game than fellow freshman Abdul Shamsid-Deen...

With Conlon in '87, he played valuable minutes all year, but especially in the Austin Peay game in the tourney; and he was the guy that was shoved from behind in the no-call play in the BC loss at the Boston Garden, after we got ranked, where Pitino said "the refs must've thought a gust of wind must have come down from the rafters".

And another game in 89 or 90, maybe our first ever game at DuPont, Villanova came back from 17 down with 7 minutes left to tie, Conlon hit a 3 to win it at buzzer, but home cooking refs said clock ran out and VU won in OT. One of those tough losses in crunch time that Rick Barnes had trouble closing.

Thanks for bringing up the 87 team Bill... I can babble on about them all day...

Bill Marsh wrote:

GumbyDamnit! wrote:Marty C was such a better player than DeRosiers. I love Cotton but he's no BD. I saw Delray drop like 30 on Nova back in the late 80's. Fortune is not Nearly as good. Other than that...spot on.

The point is that Cotton is doing for they team what Billy D did for that one. In fact, Cotton is doing more because Donovan had Screen to come in to relieve him of ball handling duties and Cotton has no one.

Not to mention that Billy D was supposed to be the PG. Cotton is supposed to be the 2G.