Post by MCIGuy on Dec 3, 2004 11:22:29 GMT -5
John Feinstein has a new target for his venom: Providence coach Tim Welsh.
On a Wednesday appearance on the Tony Kornheiser show, Feinstein was yapping about his precious BB&T Classic and mentioned how Welsh was a bad guy by pulling the Friars out of the event. For those of you who don’t know Providence was supposed to take part in this year’s BB&T. Welsh had agreed to it in principal according to Feinstein and even gave him his word that his team would participate. But early in 2004 when Feinstein and the BB&T were trying to send the Friars paperwork for confirmation, Welsh supposedly started ducking them and wouldn’t return phone calls. Months later he would tell them that his Friars would not play in the tourney after all. So now Welsh is mud to Feinstein and he trashed him quite a bit on TK’s show. Kornheiser and his boys started joking that Feinstein needed a new villain now that John Thompson no longer has that title and Feinstein stated again that eh and John are chums now, etc (God I want to puke).
The team that is filling in for Providence is George Mason which means the BB&T will have three local DC teams participating : (Maryland, George Washington and GM). One might ask why offer George Mason and not Georgetown. Feinstein addressed the Gtown issue and mentioned how he and the people at Gtown (including Esherick) had had talks about getting the Hoyas involved. But one stumbling block may have been the very same thing that I’m assuming kept Gtown from being offered to take Providence’s spot this year: Gary Williams. According to Feinstein Williams is still a little upset that after he played the Hoyas in ’93 and beat them he never got a chance to play them again on the Maryland campus. You see the Terps and the Hoyas played what the game at US Air Arena and since that was the place where the Hoyas regularly played their games it was considered the Hoyas’ homecourt. Of course what none of the Maryland apologists want to point out is that the Terp fans outnumbered the Hoyas fan I the arena that day by at least 2 to 1. And this was when Maryland was down in the dumps (it would change that night—the night of Joe Smith’s debut) and it was Gtown who had the better national rep. But since the area had always been a Maryland/ACC area it was not shocking that there would be more Terp fans in Landover, Maryland for the game then Hoya supporters. And considering the fact that the Hoyas never got a chance to hold practices at US Air how could anyone think Gtown had a homecourt advantage.
Look it was typical of JT to not play Maryland again after the loss. He didn’t want to play them in the first place. But to be fair when both Gary and JT were interviewed by the Post before the game JT was non-committal in terms of playing the Terps again regardless of the outcome of the ’93 matchup. Maybe he made a private promise to Gary that we didn’t know about. If not then I don’t understand how Williams could interpret that he was supposed to have a follow-up game.
Feinstein and Kornheiser are both in the tank for Williams and they think he has a right to be upset. Maybe they have a point. What matters now is that Williams will not play the Hoyas again in a regular season game unless its at Comcast. He wants to see the Hoyas on his home turf first before even considering the possibility of playing Gtown on a neutral site or at MCI. If Gtown was part of the BB&T Classic and they end up facing Maryland, Gary would see that as Gtown playing two straight home contests against his squad and because of that I am SPECULATING that is why the Hoyas have not participated in the BB&T yet and will not until this issue is resolved.
An easy solution is to hold the BB&T at Comcast but then again the other teams participating might object to that. Now I have heard rumors that Esherick had agreed to play Maryland anywhere and there was a game being set up for the two teams by two big time financial backers (Barker Davis did a report on that when the teams met in the NCAA tourney) but it was supposedly Williams who have shot down all offers. So what gives?
Anyway Feinstein on the show conceded that he would love to make the BB&T event a strictly local tourney with only local teams. Kornheiser mentioned that Gtown-Maryland would be the biggest draw and the one that most would want to see regardless of how good George Washington was. Feinstein agreed but pointed out that Maryland and GW would always get top priority because they have been with him from the very beginning (no objection there). Still he would love to include the Hoyas and the fourth spot he would like to rotate between schools such as George Mason, American University, etc.
By the way Feinstein was the only person on Sports 980 on Wednesday to talk about Gtown beating Davidson. He said that was a very impressive win.
On a Wednesday appearance on the Tony Kornheiser show, Feinstein was yapping about his precious BB&T Classic and mentioned how Welsh was a bad guy by pulling the Friars out of the event. For those of you who don’t know Providence was supposed to take part in this year’s BB&T. Welsh had agreed to it in principal according to Feinstein and even gave him his word that his team would participate. But early in 2004 when Feinstein and the BB&T were trying to send the Friars paperwork for confirmation, Welsh supposedly started ducking them and wouldn’t return phone calls. Months later he would tell them that his Friars would not play in the tourney after all. So now Welsh is mud to Feinstein and he trashed him quite a bit on TK’s show. Kornheiser and his boys started joking that Feinstein needed a new villain now that John Thompson no longer has that title and Feinstein stated again that eh and John are chums now, etc (God I want to puke).
The team that is filling in for Providence is George Mason which means the BB&T will have three local DC teams participating : (Maryland, George Washington and GM). One might ask why offer George Mason and not Georgetown. Feinstein addressed the Gtown issue and mentioned how he and the people at Gtown (including Esherick) had had talks about getting the Hoyas involved. But one stumbling block may have been the very same thing that I’m assuming kept Gtown from being offered to take Providence’s spot this year: Gary Williams. According to Feinstein Williams is still a little upset that after he played the Hoyas in ’93 and beat them he never got a chance to play them again on the Maryland campus. You see the Terps and the Hoyas played what the game at US Air Arena and since that was the place where the Hoyas regularly played their games it was considered the Hoyas’ homecourt. Of course what none of the Maryland apologists want to point out is that the Terp fans outnumbered the Hoyas fan I the arena that day by at least 2 to 1. And this was when Maryland was down in the dumps (it would change that night—the night of Joe Smith’s debut) and it was Gtown who had the better national rep. But since the area had always been a Maryland/ACC area it was not shocking that there would be more Terp fans in Landover, Maryland for the game then Hoya supporters. And considering the fact that the Hoyas never got a chance to hold practices at US Air how could anyone think Gtown had a homecourt advantage.
Look it was typical of JT to not play Maryland again after the loss. He didn’t want to play them in the first place. But to be fair when both Gary and JT were interviewed by the Post before the game JT was non-committal in terms of playing the Terps again regardless of the outcome of the ’93 matchup. Maybe he made a private promise to Gary that we didn’t know about. If not then I don’t understand how Williams could interpret that he was supposed to have a follow-up game.
Feinstein and Kornheiser are both in the tank for Williams and they think he has a right to be upset. Maybe they have a point. What matters now is that Williams will not play the Hoyas again in a regular season game unless its at Comcast. He wants to see the Hoyas on his home turf first before even considering the possibility of playing Gtown on a neutral site or at MCI. If Gtown was part of the BB&T Classic and they end up facing Maryland, Gary would see that as Gtown playing two straight home contests against his squad and because of that I am SPECULATING that is why the Hoyas have not participated in the BB&T yet and will not until this issue is resolved.
An easy solution is to hold the BB&T at Comcast but then again the other teams participating might object to that. Now I have heard rumors that Esherick had agreed to play Maryland anywhere and there was a game being set up for the two teams by two big time financial backers (Barker Davis did a report on that when the teams met in the NCAA tourney) but it was supposedly Williams who have shot down all offers. So what gives?
Anyway Feinstein on the show conceded that he would love to make the BB&T event a strictly local tourney with only local teams. Kornheiser mentioned that Gtown-Maryland would be the biggest draw and the one that most would want to see regardless of how good George Washington was. Feinstein agreed but pointed out that Maryland and GW would always get top priority because they have been with him from the very beginning (no objection there). Still he would love to include the Hoyas and the fourth spot he would like to rotate between schools such as George Mason, American University, etc.
By the way Feinstein was the only person on Sports 980 on Wednesday to talk about Gtown beating Davidson. He said that was a very impressive win.
