Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
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STARTING FIGHTS — Sports are a battlefield.
OK, so maybe not a literal battlefield, (we should probably find another metaphor, to be honest).
But they’ve been compared to fights often enough that we thought we’d dig up proof of one local college basketball coach who has brought a mild form of “warfare” to his own locker room.
As always, click the video above for the best Great Clips of the Week — including the unveiling of uniforms for the Salt Lake Stallions, Utah’s newest pro football team that will begin play in February 2019 at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Mark Pope's water wars are back
Two years ago, we reported on a unique post-game tradition started by Utah Valley coach Mark Pope.
After the Wolverines’ last-second 74-72 win over Chicago State in the UCCU Center, the former Kentucky forward and BYU assistant broke out the post-game water balloons and pelted his players to celebrate the feat.
Fast forward to Saturday night when the Wolverines won their 18th-straight home game with a 98-75 win over Denver in the WAC-Summit League challenge.
So what better way to celebrate 18-straight than by going back to your water fighting roots?
Utah Valley (6-3) will head out on a trip through the Grand Canyon state, beginning Dec. 6 at Arizona, and ending two nights later at Northern Arizona.
How many threes?
It’s still extremely early in the season. But with BYU and Utah having already taken a loss to a triple-digit KenPom team, the best story in college basketball in the Beehive State may be in Cedar City.
The Thunderbirds are 4-1, with their only loss coming by five points at UNLV, 76-71, back on Nov. 23. Sure, they’ve won against teams like West Coast Baptist and Seattle University. But they also made 15 3-pointers in a 111-64 win over San Diego Christian.
Yes, fifteen. You read that right.
#️⃣1️⃣ vs SDCC
— SUU Men's Basketball (@SUUBasketball) November 30, 2018
16 PTS, 4 REB, 3 AST & 1 STL pic.twitter.com/3PI60AA6Hl
Here’s a sample. Click the video above for the full assortment of downtown triples, or go see the Thunderbirds’ next home game Saturday, Dec. 15, against Pepperdine at American First Event Center in Cedar City.
Oh, Larry
It’s been a rough week for commissioner Larry Scott and the Pac-12.
First, the league’s champion Washington was left out of the College Football Playoff after the Huskies’ mind-numbing 10-3 win over Utah in the Pac-12 title game. That, of course, wasn’t all that surprising.
But perhaps what was surprising was all the “other stuff” that surrounded the game.
Take, for example, the four-part series by Portland Oregonian writer John Canzano, which went in-depth into the Pac-12 and the conference’s network, which continues to bleed money in large part because of its inability to be seen by any household with DirecTV (among other reasons).
It’s a lengthy read, but well worth it for anyone who wants a look inside the conference, the league’s embattled “command center” of video replay, and the media strategy of what many national media have characterized as the No. 5 conference among the Power-5.
Give Scott credit for one thing: He didn’t hide from it. Whether you believe his response or not, in his annual pre-conference championship press conference with reporters, he addressed some of the issues presented in Canzano’s series head-on.
"I had a chance to read John's pieces," Scott said. "I respect the role of the media and opinion journalists, and people are entitled to their take. There's a lot of that out there these days. But I think there are a lot of mischaracterizations in it, and I know we are challenging to follow, because we are unique as a conference.
"We are a conference … but we are actually a media company, as well. The way that gets reported is all together, and it’s very hard to parse."
To make matters worse, video recently surfaced of the weekend of Scott addressing Pac-12 staff members, making a "big announcement" prior to last year’s conference basketball tournament in Las Vegas.
But the announcement only mattered to him — Scott had negotiated himself a contract extension through the 2022 season.
You can watch the address here.
What’s that? You can't?
Oh, sorry; the Pac-12 filed a copyright claim with YouTube to get the video taken down.
Lucky for us, Vimeo still has it.
Larry Scott from Kyle Kusich on Vimeo.
Enjoy.
