Carleton's 2009-10 basketball outlook and Queen's nearly doubling its athletics fee (as Andrew noted at Sporting Madness are topics du jour.
RAVENS
The Ottawa Citizen's excellent Wayne Kondro has a what's-next piece on the Carleton Ravens, who as you know, lose five-year standouts Aaron Doornekamp, Rob Saunders and Stu Turnbull to graduation. (Their impact is pretty much impossible to sum up in a sentence or two.)
It woudn't do to piggyback on Wayne's reporting and writing, since I'll try to have a take and not suck in the Ottawa Sun later this week. Here's some bullet points:
- Carleton has five rotation players back: Kevin McCleery in the post, forwards Kyle Smendziuk and Cole Hobin at the 3-4 spots, Elliot Thompson as the 2-guard and Mike Kenny running the point.
- Two HoopStars Canada Top 50 players from Kingston, 6-foot-8 centre/power forward Owen Klassen and 6-5 swingman Greg Faulkner, are also mentioned as possibilies. Klassen and Faulkner are the No. 2 power forward and No. 7 small forward, respectively.
Oddly enough, like the Kingston trio, both are from the west-end schools in the Kingston high school league. Klassen attended Bayridge, Faulkner went to Holy Cross.
- At least two people who would know told me during the Final 8 that Carleton is likely to get twin guards Kyle and Scott Ring and forward Tyson Hinz (ranked No. 4 in Canada at his position), who led the St. Matthew's Tigers to a 45-1 season and the Ontario AAA title.
- Some of you probably noticed that Willy Manigat, who was a valuable seventh man on Ottawa's national semi-finalist team in 2006-07, was sitting on Carleton's bench during recent games; he has three years' eligibility remaining if he gets his schoolwork in order.
Manigat averaged 5.1 points in 13 minutes per game for the '06-07 Gee-Gees and also led them in three-point shooting (.455).
As Bucholtz noted, Queen's Athletics has raised its athletics fee to $251, making it the highest among Ontario University Athletics member institutions. Eleven other schools, according to Andrew's report, are likely going to seek an increase in the next two years
This has presumbably raised the KHD (Kinger High Dudgeon) alert level to four, since our own inimitable, irrepressible Tyler King has been a dissenting voice about the funding increase on this on his sports-related radio program. The crux of his argument seemed to be that this was less about doing better and more about maintaining the current standards, which have included scarcely few national championships since the last football Vanier Cup in 1992 and the women's soccer team winning the whole megillah back in '88.
The great part about being an alumnus is that you don't have to care; it's not your money, and hell yeah, it would be nice if Queen's got its act together. You can't take it on faith it's going to happen. At least someone in Kingston is in the range of doing whatever it takes to produce a winner, since it sure won't be the Frontenacs.
Related:
A momentous day
Ravens lose big three, but coach still likes chances (Wayne Kondro, Canwest News Service)
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3 comments:
After meeting Leslie Dal Cin, I believe Queen's athletics is in good hands.
She is a competitive, and smart business person who demands excellence.
Now that athletics is getting the extra finding, Dal cin will be able to complete all of the things she had planned.
I'll do a post on this either tonight or tomorrow rather than condense my rage into a single comment.
Ah well, at least we know the universe is back in order when Tyler's diametrically opposed to me.
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