Shooting Stars

They must love the Big South at the "Worldwide Leader" these days...

--there's a great column spotlighting the VMI Offense on ESPN's website from Wednesday
--AND ESPN2's "First Take" (the show "Cold Pizza" turned into) did a live segment with Liberty freshman Seth Curry that same day.

What do they have in common? Shooting the rock, baby.

VMI's story has two great quotes of note...one you've likely heard before if you've followed the hard-running, high-scoring program Duggar Baucom has assembled in Lexington: "Shoot the ball before you turn it over" (the essence of the Keydets' offensive philosophy, as told to columnist Kyle Whelliston by senior Travis Holmes).

The other quote from the article is one that could be easily overlooked, but is one the other programs in the Big South should pay attention to--this one from the other Holmes twin, Chavis: "There's still a lot of pressure on us to perform every night. The Kentucky game showed how good we can be. But if we don't win our conference, it's going to be a major disappointment" (emphasis mine).

That's a strong statement from a program that has never won the Conference title before, but you have to acknowledge that VMI is backing it up on the court relentlessly, jumping out to a 2-0 start in the Big South and 7-2 overall...not too shabby.

As for Curry, we've already covered his success in SHOUT, but suffice to say for now that he's claimed Freshman of the Week and Player of the Week honors once each in the season's first four weeks.

For the Conference in general, it's Bizarro-ball in the standings on the men's side--all the teams have played one or two Big South games, and you can add Winthrop, High Point, and Coastal Carolina together without finding a Conference win (0-5...and 6-18 overall for that group). Meanwhile, there's VMI and PC, each 2-0 in the Big South already--what do you know?!?

On the women's side, no Conference games yet (as I write this on the afternoon of Friday 12/12), but I'm pretty sure not too many folks thought you'd only get 4-19 by combining Liberty (1-6), Radford (1-6) and High Point (2-7) off the top of the season. Credit Coastal Carolina (6-2) and Gardner-Webb (5-2) for getting off to sharp starts this year.

So with so many storylines popping around the League, it's a perfect time to check out The EDGE...here's the video with the line-up for the week ahead...

That looks like a commercial for how badly I need to get a haircut, quite frankly...

SHOUT-outs on the soccer side of life for a quartet of invitees to the MLS Combine in Fort Lauderdale coming up in January: Daniel Revivo (Winthrop), Otto Loewy (Winthrop), Joshua Boateng (Liberty), and Kyle Russell (Coastal Carolina)--good luck, guys!!!

Have a great weekend, one and all...