Spot-on Prediction, Blowout

Duuuuuuuuke!  Josh Ducoulombier played out of his mind, 25 points and 19 rebounds are the statistics of a Man.  Yes, the Nittany Lions of New Kensington did not have much height but there must be a "Duke Day" very soon. 

The game started off a little slow with countless fouls and numerous clock stoppages, but the Barons got it rolling shortly thereafter.  Andrew Kay, John Moore and Dan O'Brien all added energy and a spark coming off the bench.  Andrew Kay should have his number changed to 47, I mean the official petition starts now, right here.  John Moore showed flashes of explosiveness that I have not seen the past two years and I think Dan's headband is pure energy.

How about those tickets that were given prior to entry, congratulations Finnegan, you are really stepping it up.  If you did not see the tickets, they were strapped with Flanagan looking like he was about to kick someone's ass, and as usual Number 5 kicked ass and took names adding 15 points.

Easily the most exiting part of the  night was a Matt Liedel Sighting.  Another petition coming soon for the return of "5fer5."  Another exiting development is moving from 10th place in the standings to" a getting close to respectable" 7th place.  AMCC Standings.

Penn State New Kensington has not yet posted an article of their embarrassing defeat, but here is the article from FUS.

Tony "Showtime" Houghton Kicked Our Ass

Our Barons dropped the season-opener 91-74 to Penn State Beaver.  The score does not indicate a close game, but from here and here a different story is told.  Apparently, the Barons jumped out to an 8-0 lead and eventually a 15 point lead.  But by half-time the Nittany Lions trailed only by one point.  Then in second half Tony "Showtime" Houghton put on a clinic and made some key plays to put the Barons to rest.  

Last season the Barons defeated Penn State Beaver 77-75  when FUS won four of their last six game, so it is a shame that we lost.  But I really wasn't expecting our young team to win their first road game this season.

Wednesday marks the home-opener for the Barons, they will open against the Penn State New Kensington Nittany Lions at 8:00 p.m.  The Barons have had mixed results when playing the NK Lions.  FUS has lost 74-61 (2.11.08 away), lost 79-64 (1.31.07 away) and won 63-45 (11.10.06 home) in the past two seasons.  If the trends continue then FUS should blow out the Nittany Lions tomorrow.  But I am not even going to worry about the history, I believe that our FUS Barons will ride the opening night success to a 1-1 record come Wednesday at 11:00. 

Last Place Already?

Now that Franciscan University of Steubenville is right in the middle of all the action in the AMCC, the standings, player of the week and history of the AMCC can be checked out.  Who does these polls and why do they hate us so much?  There is no way Mount Aloysius should be in ahead of our Barons.  Here are the standings 

AMCC Preseason Poll (last season AMCC), (last season overall)

1. Penn State Behrend  (15-3) (24-5)

2. La Roche (10-8) (13-13)

3. Medaille (9-9) (15-13)

4. Penn State Altoona (10-8) (14-13)

5. Frostburg State (8-10) (9-16)

6. Pitt-Bradford (6-12) (10-15)

7. Pitt-Greensburg (10-8) (11-15)

8. Hilbert (8-10) (12-13)

9. Mount Aloysius (1-17) (5-20)

10. Franciscan (6-19)

and here is the site.

Midnight Madness 2008

I really think the basketball team needs a new slogan for this year.  Do they really think they can just throw the same "The Barons are Back" number at us for two years in a row?  I guess if one thinks about it the Barons do keep coming back year after year, but they used it last year and the first half of the season was kind of a wash.  The FUS Sports Marketing Department should sit down for five minutes and just think of a new mantra, or maybe make a new opening video with exiting content and actual highlights.  But on to thoughts of the "game."

For the first two minutes the Barons looked really good, but then I remembered who we were playing.  Before the game started I heard we were playing an actual team, but then I saw the competition warming up.  After about the first five to seven minutes the score was still pretty close and the images of the really good team evaporated.  Granted, the Barons ended up blowing out the makeshift team, I expected more.  But we get the opportunity to see what the Barons are made of on Wednesday November, 19 at 8:00.  Although they have their first test at Penn St. Beaver on Monday November, 17.  

A very warm welcome to our new starting point guard, Sam Titus.  Titus showed off his passing skills and if I remember correctly did not jack up any wild shots. 

I shed tears of joy when I saw Duke on the court, then tears of sorrow when he lost the jump ball.

Duke is listed at 6'5 and Kay at 6'1, very interesting.

Always great to see "The Headband."

Next Game--11/17/08 @Penn St. Beaver  

They lost an exhibition game to Community College of Beaver County 69-74, so maybe the Barons can sneak out a win.

11.17.08

Tryouts are over and the roster is set, although it probably was not that hard.  Wednesday marked the first day of tryouts and sources revealed that about fifteen eager ballers came to tryout.  But Big D's run and gun atmosphere must have been too much for some of those ballers to handle, resulting in only twelve tryoutees to show.  So the team is set, and now we wait.  

Roster coming soon.

The Bloggers are back!  Well it's that time of year to put away the golf clubs and head to the intramural fields for flag football playoffs, settle in for October baseball, college and pro football and of course, Baronball tryouts.  Before we get to the inside info on tryouts, there's a new segment we are going to introduce.  Ladies and Gentlemen:

PROPS AND NOTS

Props and Nots are going to be our weekly shout outs and call outs of all things sports at Franciscan. So without further ado...

-Good Props to Greg Hurst for stepping up his articles so far this semester in the Troub.  We here at the blog are pleasantly surprised and happy at the humor and subjects (praise God not to much Boston sports) he's gone after so far.  Keep up the good work Greg. Maybe we would welcome you as a guest blogger sometime. 

-Grand High Exalted Props to ManBearPig for allowing us to read an article by Dylan next week that's not about his Spartans.  Unless of course he writes a two page "Spartans Season Recap" where he spends 1 1/2 pages writing about his 13 sacks.  Or maybe he'll just leave that to his Spartans Facebook group... O yeah, and put away the fake headset when "coaching" your girl's team.  I think I have a new idea for a Jeff Foxworthy CD: "You might take intramural sports to serious if..."

-Mad Props to the Rays for putting the BoSoxs on the ropes... Sorry Greg, but it's time to put an end to this dynasty talk. 

-Mad Nots for the new Intramural Volleyball "Conduct Rules".   I guess peers cannot handle any adversity for a job that they signed up for.  

-Garlic Nots for the Refs again this year in flag football.  They've put a bad taste in our mouth by all their "hurdling calls", "impeding the runners", and pretty much 2-3 horrid calls a game.  Just let them play my friends.  Shame on the Fieldhouse Staff for not teaching them better. 

-And finally Ballin' Props for Duke joining up with the basketball team.  It's about time man! 

Which leads us into our fast facts about tryouts we've heard so far.  Quickly here we go:

- Yes you read that right, Josh "the Duke" Ducolmbier was there for tryouts.  Our team just got a lot better. Get ready for Duke day, coming your way next semester, just as we promised.

-Only 15 guys have gone out for the team this, far fewer than in previous years.  Word is we are going to greatly miss our graduated seniors.

-Saddest news of all... "Baby" Ben Liedel, and his brother Matt are not going to be playing this year.  Ben accepted a scholarship at Ave (we also heard he's not going to play for them either), and Matt may be back in time for next semester.  But probably not. 

-Mike Fuez is looking like the leader in the clubhouse the Barons need.  We belive he is the frontrunner for starting point-guard, with Dan "Headband" O'Brien and newcomer Sam Titus fighting behind him. 

That's it for now, more when we can get back in and take another look.  So far it's seemed like mix results as far as talents, we might be taking a step back this year.  But you never know until they get on the court.  So keep your head up Barons, keep repeating to yourself:

Duke...

....Duke...

...Duke!

Duke!!

Duke!!!!

Duke!!!!!!

DUKE!!!!!!!!

THE BARONS ARE BACK!!!!

They're Back

Today marked the first day of tryouts for the Men's Basketball Team for your Franciscan University Barons.  Open tryouts were scheduled from 9-11 p.m. eastern time tonight, and continue until Friday.  Tomorrow Crazy Pills and Chris Mullin will try to visit these open tryouts and try and get a pulse of these '08-'09 Barons. 

B-Ball's Comin...

The Bloggers are back! After a wonderful summer break spent working hard on our golf games, the call of school is bringing us back to where we belong, good old FUS. Which means we are only a few months away from the start of everyone's favorite season: Basketfall. We start November 17th against Penn State Beaver (who we beat 77-75 last season). We are only 56 days away from nirvana!!!!

We'll be back in the next 52 days to give you some previews on the season, players, and how much we improved our golf games (I myself lowered my handicap to a 7...not to brag). But enjoy the start of school Baronballers, and our hearts and prayers are with the cross country team.
THE BLOGGERS ARE BACK!

1500

Do you remember way back in the day, November 26, 2007 to be exact, when the Barons surprised everyone and won their first game? If you don't then read this. Well back on that fateful day is when a group of three ragtag artists came together to start everyone's favorite bookmark-->this blog. So we finally got 1500 hits, a number we have been waiting for a long time. Now granted this number has been greatly inflated due to the fact that we check this blog multiple times of everyday to see the hit count and to see if we got any comments. We would now like to offer our thanks to all ten readers and Greg Hurst-->our muse.

Thank you all for reading,
the basketball موحمد

Top 5 Reasons Greg Hurst Hates Us

1. We're Supposedly "Donny Haters"
2. We have creative nicknames
3. We can write
4. Our articles are not boring.
5a. Our blog has a greater circulation that his paper.
5b. We criticize the team
5c. We get all the women
5d. We have better style
5e. We liked it when the Patriots lost
5f. We wear pink polos and tight jeans. Admit it, thats bad ass.
5g. We like Michael Bolton
5h. We like "The Notebook"
5i. We like "chick flicks"
5j. We actually know something about basketball

To counter act our evil left wing pro Jewish reporting, the Troubador has started it's very own Fox News, "Fair and Balanced", "No Spin Zone" reporting, lead by non other the fair and balanced Greg Hurst. I feel like CNN. Our new competition in the Baron Basketball world doesn't really like us. We think. Then again maybe he has never read our blog, but it seems like he is writing to us.

First of all I just have to say: We aren't Donny Haters. Let me say that again. WE DON'T HATE DONNY. Just his hair style. Kidding...Truthfully I don't get where these people get off saying this. Yeah we've been harsh when it needed to be (blowing JCC game 1 anyone?) but when we think he does well we give him props. Take a look:

St Vincents Game:

PROPS TO COACH DONNY
The man coached with crazy emotion in a game that we all knew we couldn't win AND explored the depth of his 42 men bench. Hopefully this wasn't just an experiment in a game that was a throwaway, but rather a realization of the potential of this team. God only knows.

Our Second Half Re-cap (Best High School Team in the Land):

4. Wins! Enough said. Props to Coach Donny for getting these guys to play at the next level. Next year is looking more and more promising, and it seems to be because of coaching.

How is this Donny Hating? Why do they think that? From the very beginning we have said he is a great guy, with good charisma, good recruiting, and a solid faith foundation. All things we respect and admire. HOW IS THAT HATING? We only said he had to work on his coaching. Which he has. So we said so. Plus to steal a line from one of our anonymous commenters: we write with the seriousness of Naked Gun 33 1/3. Enough said.

Next thing: since when do we have an agenda? What is our agenda? He thinks we have one? You have got to be kidding me! Sorry for caring about the team Greg. What happened to not being the kid that jumps on the bandwagon when the team starts winning? We were at every loss cheering on this team. So just because we started sharing our opinions we have an agenda? Come on man. The only thing we want is for this team to do well. Sorry for pushing that "agenda".

And as far as jumping on the band wagon... why did it take the Troubador the whole season to actually care about the team? Our school newspaper only starts to give article space (other than the random recap) to them in the second half of the season. Where have you been Greg Hurst? Must of taken a while to come up with five reasons to love this team. And they weren't even good reasons to love this team.

And "hope of glory"? Puh-leese. Connor's good, but not the best player on the team, and not our hope. Even though his basketball skills have turned me gay (and evidently Greg too), he's not worthy of that name. Or the airtime he's been getting in that article every week. I feel a little "scratching your buddy's back" going on in this situation.

I could go on and on but I'm tired of this. Yeah the team is winning. But we still have a loosing record, with 20 losses. I think there is some room for improvement here. Our "agenda" is still relevant. But then again Pats fans are hardly rational. Or the Troubador.

Basically these articles just seemed forced. Are they really trying that hard to keep up with us in the funny, creative, blog-style writings? But thank God they didn't give that column space to Dylan "The Spartans" Ehle. His intramural writings (and football team's play) are painful enough.