Another option

The Rhode Island Rams have (finally) bailed on the option offense under new coach Dan Rizzi.

In the past, the Maroon and White had an answer for the trick-and-flick offense (save for monsoon-like conditions), and were able to roll past its southern rivals. This year, the Rams will go to the air in Kingston Town – however, I’m still not worried about a ‘ting.

Derek Cassidy is captaining the ship for URI and has more than 2,000 yards through the air and 15 touchdown passes. However, Cassidy doesn’t have laser-point accuracy and has tossed 12 interceptions in nine games.

Take note: All of last season, Cassidy had five touchdown passes and 1,025 yards.

Even though the scheme has changed, the results are about the same. The Rams are scoring just over 20 points per game, very similar to the option-earned 20.7 from last year. The yards per game are down almost 20 – this year URI is averaging a total of 326.3 ypg, last year they had 347.9.

Without captain Sean Smalls, the Minutemen are going to have to stand strong against URI’s plethora of average at receiver. The Rams have six players with more than 10 catches, and only Shawn Leonard has more than two touchdowns.

URI’s resume is weak – at best. The Rams barely beat Monmouth, a good NEC team, and beat up on in-state rival Brown. Other than that, the Rams have lost to everyone … including an absolute beatdown by Villanova on 10/18.

UMass, on the other hand, has to win the rest of its games to be considered for the FCS playoffs and is coming off a dominating victory over Bryant. To boot, senior Liam Coen is playing his last college game in his home state – you better believe he’s going to be ready.

My prediction:

• UMass – 28
• URI – 10

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Draft Express had a nice writeup on Stephane Lasme.

Just a month or so off being cut by the Miami Heat, Lasme has adapted himself superbly to European basketball thus far, allowing him to produce impressive numbers in nearly every statistical category, in both the Euroleague and Adriatic Leagues. Lasme has given Partizan a huge boost with his activity on the glass and defensively in the paint, as well as in running the floor in transition and being a terrific target to catch and finish passes around the rim. He’s drawing tons of fouls, making a huge impact as an offensive rebounder, and possibly most surprisingly, is showing a very advanced understanding of his team’s half-court offense with the way he’s moving the ball around the court intelligently.

This could be a very important season in Lasme’s development as a player, and he’ll surely learn quite a bit more playing twice a week against a high level of competition than he would have warming an NBA bench. If he continues to perform the way he has early on, he’ll have quite a few options for himself this summer.

A-10 champs!

The UMass football team romped, but the biggest news of the weekend comes from the field hockey team.

The Minutewomen, who are now No. 17 in the nation, won the Atlantic 10 regular season title with a 2-1 victory over Temple. It’s UMass’ first outright title since 2001.

Justine Sowry continues to build a winner in Amherst – it’s amazing that this is only her second season at the helm.

Here’s the writeup from UMassAthletics.

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Stephane Lasme, who was waived by the Heat, is now playing overseas for Partizan Belgrade. He also helped his team beat KK Zagreb in overtime.

Zagreb fell behind in the extra period when Stephane Lasme made one of two at the stripe for a 92-91 lead.

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Zach Greene, a defender for the Haverhill soccer team, has his eye on UMass and wants to continue playing soccer in college.

I’m planning on going to college and am looking at Roger Williams and UMass Amherst. I’m thinking about studying construction management and architecture. I’d definitely like to continue playing soccer, too.

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Looks like Todd Bankhead, the quarterback for the 1998 National Champion football team, was at the Richmond game. His wife posted some photos on her blog.

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Brandon London had his first NFL catch for the Dolphins on Sunday.

Lasme cut

Stephane Lasme was waived by the Miami Heat.

This is unfortunate and took me a bit by surprise. I thought Lasme had a guaranteed contract with Miami, and would at least be on the roster for the rest of this upcoming season.

I’m interested to see where the big man goes next.

Lasme has the ability to be a useful defender in the NBA, but his lack of offense has probably made him an expendable commodity. I hope another team will give him a chance, but with the recent inclusion of 2008 draftees, Lasme might see his next action overseas.

Best of luck to you Steph.

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The Portland Seadogs had a brief on Mike Kostka, a former UMass hockey player.

“Kostka served as a team captain for his college team, and was amongst the team leaders in plus/minus rating and scoring. He has good ability on the power play, having led all NCAA defensemen in that category in his career.”

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ESPN had an open chat with Bill Curry, the coach for Georgia State – a future member of the CAA.

He discussed the quality of the conference but failed to mention UMass.

It is excellent. Five schools were in the final 16 last year, Delaware is always good, and JMU recently won it all. Maine and New Hampshire are tough and Hofstra is making progress. Virtually all the schools have been playing well recently, Richmond being another example I forgot to mention.

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The Daily Collegian had several articles on the UMass/Holy Cross football game.

Coaching house swap

All across the country, college kids are moving into their new digs.

Moving trucks clog small university-town road, and mom and dad and doing their best to ensure that Joe and Sally College are comfortable before the first days of the upcoming semester.

The same moving cycle is happening with the Kellogg family – perhaps sans parents. The Kelloggs are packing up and moving into Travis Ford’s old house, according to the Springfield Republican.

Kellogg and his wife, Nicole P. Flory-Kellogg, recently purchased Ford’s house at 27 Owen Drive for $755,000, according to the Registry of Deeds.

The house is right by the North Amherst Cometary (spooky) and is directly off East Pleasant St.

Hopefully some of Ford’s karma is still on the property.

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Looks like Stephane Lasme has secured himself a roster spot on the Miami Heat.

Once Wright signs, it will leave the Heat with 13 players under guaranteed contract for next season: Centers Mark Blount and Joel Anthony, forwards Wright, Jones, Diawara, Marion, Udonis Haslem, Stephane Lasme and Michael Beasley, and guards Dwyane Wade, Daequan Cook, Marcus Banks and Mario Chalmers.

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The UMass baseball team lost a recruit to Northeastern.

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More good UMass Football stuff coming out of THE UMass Football Blog.

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Jeff Howe, a former editor with the UMass Daily Collegian, had an excellent (and pretty funny) column about the Olympics.

Trouble in Torrington

Apparently Brian Baudinet can’t hit in the heat.

The UMass outfielder – who was easily the best offensive weapon for the Maroon and White – is in a bit of a slump with the Torrington Twisters in the New England Collegiate Baseball League.

The Republican-American had an article on his struggles:

Baudinet takes it all in stride. He finished a grinding 45-game college schedule, had about 10 days to regroup and then embarked on the 43-game Twisters schedule. He couldn’t have possibly kept up his UMass pace, not with the switch from aluminum to wood bats.

Baudinet isn’t hitting well, but he’s getting exposure to another level of baseball.

“It’s great to see better pitching consistently,” he said. “All the pitchers throw harder than in college. Using wood bats, you have to hit it right on the good spot. That will only help when you get back to metal bats.

Hopefully his summer struggles help him by next spring. The article mentions that the team itself is struggling to hit – so maybe this is just contagious.

In other news, today I learned where Torrington is.

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Stephane Lasme had 14 points off the bench in Miami’s rout of Oklahoma City.

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The new lights at McGuirk are up, and UMassAthletics has a photo gallery.

For some reason I thought they were going to be bigger. I’m not complaining – just sayin’.

Bye, bye … bye week

Prepare to say adios to the bye week.

Since the FCS playoffs are growing to 20 teams, the NCAA is planning to eliminate the bye week and force teams to play 11-straight games before the playoffs.

The Daily News Record interviewed some of the top dogs from the CAA, and none of them are very pleased about it – to say the least.

“I’m not happy about it,” Massachusetts coach Don Brown said Tuesday. “It’s nice to see the expansion of the playoff system, but I’m not sure it’s enough to make me happy about losing my bye week.”

Brown and Hofstra coach Dave Cohen both noted that – with just 63 scholarships at the I-AA level – losing a bye week to get healthy could make it hard to redshirt freshmen, something just about all I-AA coaches try to do.

Losing a bye week is going to be incredibly hard on teams and their young athletes. Of course, there can’t be excuses from week to week due to the “everyone has to do it” argument. However, keeping a full team healthy throughout the course of the season is going to get increasingly difficult.

As it stands, many FCS schools have to rely on transfers and the ability to redshirt freshmen and sophomores. These players are going to have an immidate impact, give up their redshirts and play when starters and second stringers go down with injuries and have no time to recover.

With an 11-game grind, I guarantee we’re going to start seeing walkons playing more than just special teams.

Let’s just see how this pans out, but I have a feeling that this decision may very well alter teams’ seasons if one of their specialty players goes down and has no time to get back on his feet.

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Stephane Lasme is going to have the chance to play a little summer ball with Michael Beasley.

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Kaitlyn Johnson, a former women’s lacrosse player from UMass, apparently transferred to the University of Vermont. I don’t remember covering this, but it was on UVM’s athletic site:

Johnson is also a transfer from UMass. An attacker, she hails from Meriden, N.H. and played her high school lacrosse at Lebanon High School. She holds the Lebanon school record for goals (168) and assists (69) and was a four-time all-sate selection. Johnson saw limited action with the Minutewomen in two seasons in Amherst and will have two years of eligibility remaining including the 2009 season.

The value of Forbes

Fran Frachilla, a basketball writer with ESPN, has Gary Forbes listed as a “value player” in the upcoming NBA Draft.

Via the free Insider Blog at ESPN:

At 6-7, Forbes played small forward at UMass in a very up-tempo system where he was a relentless slasher to the basket all season long. However, in order to make the transition to an NBA shooting guard, he will have to continue to improve a somewhat inconsistent jump shot and be able to defend the position. There’s no doubt he will work on those aspects of his game as he is an intelligent guy and has a great motor.

Check out who’s listed below Forbes – Mr. George Hill from IUPUI. Hill absolutely destroyed the Minutemen this year and is considered one of the best small-school players – if not THE best – in the country.

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Speaking of Draft preparations, Stehpane Lasme was mentioned in a Sun Sentinel article about the Heat:

The Heat ended last season with three 2007-08 D-League players on its roster, with forward Stephane Lasme still with the team.

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QUICK BASEBALL UPDATE:

Matt Torra, who is pitching today, is having an excellent season of AA ball for the Mobile BayBears.

Check out his stats from this season thus far.

 

Lasme Co-Defensive POY

Stephane Lasme has been named Co-Defensive Player of the Year in the NBDL.

From the NBDL’s Web site:

Prior to his Call-Up to Miami, Lasme played in 37 games (12 starts) for the D-Fenders and averaged 10.6 points, shooting 52 percent from the field, to go with 7.5 rebounds and 2.6 blocks in 28.9 minutes. Lasme recorded double-figure rebounding efforts nine times, including five double-doubles (points/rebounds). Lasme tallied five or more blocks on six occasions, including a season-high eight blocks on Dec. 10, 2007 at Utah.

“Stephane did a great job for Los Angeles this season in the D-League, and very much deserves this award,” said D-Fenders head coach Dan Panaggio. “He was our strongest defender all season, and it’s clear that his hard work and keen understanding of defensive strategy paid off because he earned a spot in the NBA.”

Lasme is currently on the Miami Heat’s roster.

UPDATE:

He’s sticking around for the rest of the season:

Lasme, who previously had a pair of 10-day contracts with the Heat, has averaged 4.3 points in 12 games with Miami so far. He was the co-defensive player of the year in the NBA Development League this season.

The signing means Lasme can play with Miami in its final four games, starting with Friday night’s home matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Stephane Lasme picked by Golden State Warriors

With the 46th pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, the Golden State Warriors made my night.

They picked Stephane Lasme.

For the first time since 1999 (Lari Ketner, 49th pick, Chicago Bulls), someone from the Massachusetts men’s basketball team was picked by a NBA franchise. Since my interest in this team was born in 2001 — this pick feels good, really good.

Last night I was pacing from room to room in my apartment, making sure I crossed my fingers before every single pick in the second round. I called my roommate from college, and we threw uneducated, envious insults at the players picked before Lasme.

Then, in typical UMass fashion, Lasme was picked while ESPN was on a break. We watched the Warriors’ pick slide by on the bottom of the screen, and we cheered.

Finally, the Minutemen had a tiny slice of legitimacy again.

For fans of major basketball programs, seeing their players drafted is just icing on the cake. They’re used to it. It’s typically just some filler between basketball and football season.

For UMass, this is important.

Anyone that has followed the Minutemen during the past eight years saw a program teetering over the crevasse of irrelevance. UMass had three basketball coaches, several athletic directors and many half-empty home games.

UMass fans saw Anthony Anderson, Kitwana Rhymer, Micah Brand, Shannon Crooks, Rashaun Freeman and others that couldn’t quite put the team on their metaphorical backs. Everyone was waiting for the “next one” — a Marcus Camby, a Julius Erving, even a Lou Roe would have been nice.

When we saw Lasme for the first time, no one could have guessed that he would take on this role. We were all too enamored with Freeman’s left hand and soft touch in the post. Sure, the fact that Lasme could jump out of the gym turned our heads, but he just looked like another recruit lost in a system with no direction.

Halfway through Lasme’s sophomore season, I started to notice a change in his game. I told my roommate — the same one that helped me make fun of Stanko Barac (the 39th pick) — that Lasme was going to be the best player at UMass before he graduated.

399 blocks, two Atlantic 10 Defensive Player of the Year honors and one Player of the Year accolade later, I feel pretty good about my guess (I’m only right 14 percent of the time, I’m giving myself this one).

While he didn’t lead UMass back to the NCAA Tournament, he gave fans something to cheer about. He changed the game with his shot-blocking ability, he altered momentum with his thunderous two-handed dunks, and he put UMass back on the basketball map with his record-tying four triple-doubles — the harder kind: points, rebounds and blocked shots.

As the Ohio States and Floridas of the world move on and start analyzing their five-star recruiting classes for football and basketball, UMass fans are enjoying every second of this.

They will always remember Lasme as the game-changing performer that took the Minutemen out of the pit of Northeast basketball obscurity. They will know where Gabon, Africa is and the fact that the locals speak French. They will also know that the Golden State Warriors have no one on their team with the number 13, which gives more incentive for them to buy Lasme’s jersey.

Then again, maybe all UMass fans don’t know these things. Maybe it’s just me and the crazy group of Maroon and White fans that I associate with.

And I’m fine with that.

Lasme to the Knicks?

The “Knix Fix,” a Newsday blog about the New York Knicks, has listed Stephane Lasme as a potential “wild card” pick for the floundering Eastern Division team:

“Stephane Lasme, SF/PF, UMass: Whilwind kind of player, like Renaldo Balkman, but more of a frontcourt player. Long and thin, Lasme has terrific defensive instincts for the ball. He led the nation with 5.1 blocks per game. He and Balkman coming off the bench together would be a chaotic duo, at least for short bursts.”

Check out the rest of the article.

As an embarrassed Knicks fan, I would love to see Lasme on the team and have told several of my friends that I would be first in line to buy his jersey. However, after seeing Isiah Thomas’ routine during his tenure, I wouldn’t be surprised if he picked some guy he found at the local 7-11 instead – then again, I think I’d rather have a Slurpee than a Knicks ticket.

Interestingly enough, Lasme is listed as a wild card above Glen “Big Baby” Davis, the power forward from Louisiana State. I wonder if they are giving Lasme more love — or if they think Davis will get picked up before pick No. 23.

I’m guessing the latter.