Yes, indeed – another national columnist is drinking the Sidney Lowe Kool-Aid. You definitely need to read the whole thing, but here’s a taste:
Amid all the veterans — Grant, the lone senior, plus returning starters Costner, Courtney Fells and Ben McCauley — a big kid is wearing No. 1 and looking like the most imposing presence on the floor. That would be J.J. Hickson, the 6-foot-9 McDonald’s All-American who should make State’s frontcourt among the best in the nation this season. “He’s a beast, he’s well-polished, he’s got moves,” Grant says of Hickson. “He’s as good as they come out of high school.”
And another tidbit, which should really have Wolfpack fans salivating:
Costner says there were times in ’06-07 when the team was simply exhausted, and fast-breaking was never really an option for fear of running out of steam too early in games: “We had no choice [not to push the tempo] — we were only playing six or seven people. But all of us could run, and would much rather do it now that we’re nine or 10 deep.”
Grant echoes that desire. As footage of the scrimmage portion of the Pack’s practice unfolds silently on his TV screen, he’s asked which sequences most resemble how the Pack will to play come November, when it’s faced with the daunting task of living up to his lofty, advance billing. He speeds up to a spot where McCauley finishes a fast-break with a dunk, lingering on the rim afterwards, and says, “That. You’re going to see a lot of that.”
One very humorous anecdote from the article – Gavin apparently went by “Shane” in his early NYC days, and he shares his hoops history:
[W]hen he tried his hand at hoops on his local court in the Bronx, he says he earned the nickname “Sh-tty Shane,” because “I couldn’t dribble, and I used to never get picked.”
Good Lord, if I only had a nickel for everytime I yelled “just don’t try to dribble” at the TV last year. I’d definitely still “pick” him – but I will breathe easier knowing that it will be Degand, Johnson, Gonzalez, Costner, and Horner dribbling in the open court instead of Gavin this year!
Hat tip to tacobellmanager from the comments. FWIW, my wife always used to say that Herb Sendek was more suited to be night manager at Taco Bell. There’s a pretty cool synergy there!
