GO LONG BEACH

[vbfan]

Allan Knipe should be commended for his coaching and recruiting ability. He managed to make the NCAA Finals without loading up on foreigners and took good ole' kids from the USA and trained them well enough to knock off UCLA and the best team from the East in 3. If BYU wins it all and I hope they don't, in my mind the championship will be tainted because many of the players were trained in other countries and then put into a system. Credit Tom Peterson for designing a system for his team to be successful, but credit Knipe for building a team and training them to be great.

[lalalaluuuke]

vbfan said:

Allan Knipe should be commended for his coaching and recruiting ability. He managed to make the NCAA Finals without loading up on foreigners and took good ole' kids from the USA and trained them well enough to knock off UCLA and the best team from the East in 3. If BYU wins it all and I hope they don't, in my mind the championship will be tainted because many of the players were trained in other countries and then put into a system. Credit Tom Peterson for designing a system for his team to be successful, but credit Knipe for building a team and training them to be great.

Remember, Tom P. is only in his 2nd year at BYU. He is basically playing with inherited recruits, Batista being the exception. And Victor wasn't recruited, he sought them out. It'll be another year or 3 til we see what kind of players Tom can get when they're actually playing.

Tainted? Come on. That means that every team that has won w/ a foreigner or played with a foreigner should have an asterisk by the games they played in. Not just Costas, Gustavo, JR, but throughout all the years. Shoot, Pepperdine has Fred Winters, he's Canadian. UCLA has Acosta, he's Puerto Rican. There's going to be a lot of tainted games.

[midwestfan]

Red, in the words and style of John McEnroe, "You can' be serious!"

[benwhipdrofn]

Puerto Rico is considered American property isn't it. I know there are special rules about the Superior league there (or something like that) but they don't really consider them foreign players.

I never thought about the Tom Peterson thing that way, it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years, but he did win NCAA with Penn St. didn't he.

I liked Long Beach last night, first time I've seen them play. They look like a good group of kids who fit their schools name, "The Beach" (and I mean that as a compliment). Their settter was great, but I think a few of the sets were questionable (after the IPFW Lewis match in the quarter finals, you wonder if they will get tighter calling on the sets) still he held his team together well. They play like they are having fun. It will be good to watch a match were this much is on the line.