Dickie V's Battle

Tipoff

For longer than I have been alive, there has been one man that has been the biggest cheerleader for college basketball, Dick VItale. The former University of Detroit and Pistons coach was the color commentator for ESPN’s first college basketball broadcast in 1979. The man has been associated with shouting catch phrases such as “diaper dandy” and “Awesome with a capital A!” while going horse from making references to Derek Jeter and how he has trouble seeing the action through his one good eye. On Monday, the venerable broadcaster announced a tough bit of health news; for the second time in 2021, he was diagnosed with cancer. It is with cruel irony that a man that has spent so much time and effort fighting cancer on behalf of others must now face it within himself.

Vitale has become a bit of a charade of himself over the years, appearing in movies and commercials as himself. What makes him a cultural institution is his infectious love of the sport. The man dives into the student section, presses palms with any and everyone that recognizes him, and is a tireless promoter of the sports franchises he has adopted near his home in the Tampa Bay region. He also has dedicated a significant amount of time and effort in raising tens of millions of dollars over the years to support the V Foundation for Cancer Research, a charity formed to honor the late NC State head coach, Jimmy Valvano. ESPN hosts a V Foundation week each college basketball season with Dickie V serving as the hype man from the sidelines during broadcasts.

Basketball, at its most elite levels, is a small world. When the former Kentucky player Terrence Clarke died in a car accident over the summer, the impact was felt at all levels. The coaching staff and players of the Boston Celtics, near to where Clarke grew up, were visibly shaken when they heard the news. This season of college basketball has an incredible amount of hope and hype around it, the first with fans in the stands since the 2020 season ended so abruptly. Cancer may take the voice of Dickie V during this season while he battles lymphoma. But it cannot take his heart, his mind, or his spirit from everyone that has felt it during the broadcasts. If you have the means to support the V Foundation, consider making a donation in Dickie V’s honor:

https://www.v.org/.

The Mixtape 

The Field of 68 team puts out lots of great content each week. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

• The Field of 68 continues its rundown of the preseason top 50 team. Each preview includes an interview with the head coach and insiders that follow the team. The countdown continued with #32 Xavier, #31 Belmont, #30 West Virginia, #29 Virginia Tech, #28 Oklahoma State, #27 Virginia, #26 Indiana, and #25 UConn. In addition to all these team-specific previews, the crew has been hard at work on conference previews. Rob Dauster sat down with ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla and former Iowa State head coach Steve Prohm to take a deep dive into the Big 12 (or 8 or however many members they have these days).

• Have you noticed how the Field of 68 gets all the best guests? It’s true. For example, Hall of Famer Jay Wright, recently enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, joined the Goodman & Hummel podcast to talk about his career, from being on the hot seat to donning the orange jacket this past summer. The Villanova head coach shares a few thoughts about the upcoming season for the Wildcats, too, for good measure.

• UNC is entering the modern era. What does that mean, even? Tar Heel standout Shammond Williams connects with former teammate and current UNC assistant coach Brad Frederick to discuss Year 1 for head coach Hubert Davis. For more on Williams’s thoughts on all things Carolina, check out Four Point Play below.

The Field of 12

The college football season is in high gear and the Field of 12 is on the scene. Here is a brief sample of the new network from the makers of Field of 68.

• Ted & Yogi’s Pac-12 Adventure | Nick Rolovich is OUT at Washington State. What does it mean? Where do they go next?

• The Trevor & Bryce Show | Caleb Williams is a SENSATION, Texas is a DISASTER and your Big 12 update

• SEC Primetime with Starks and Stoerner | Georgia's YOUR NEW NO. 1! But just HOW good are the Bulldogs?

Four Point Play

Each newsletter throughout the summer, we’ll check in with one of our podcast hosts and see what they’re up to besides producing compelling content for us at The Field of 68.

This week, we checked in with Shammond Williams, the former North Carolina Tar Heel standout, NBA player, coach, and host of the The Carolina Conversation podcast (Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you access podcasts).

1. Let’s start with your background. For three seasons, you played for the Hall of Famer, Dean Smith. Then as a senior, you went through a coaching transition to his long-time assistant, Bill Guthridge. As the current UNC players are making a similar transition from Roy Williams to Hubert Davis, what do you think they are going through and what advice do you have for them for the upcoming season?

• I just had RJ Davis on my podcast and asked him the same question. Those guys have to find out within themselves what they want for themselves. For us, coming off of a Final Four appearance, we were gearing ourselves for winning a National Championship. That was our focus. Though Coach Smith resigned, that was our goal. We had been around the block a few times and had some experience. For us, it was maintaining the legacy, doing something great, and adding another National Championship to Coach Smith’s resume and the first for Coach Guthridge.

1. For this upcoming season, it seems clear that Coach Davis is prioritizing more versatility from his frontcourt players. With players like Dawson Garcia, Brady Manek, and Justin McKoy, the message is clear that shooting it from distance is something we’ll see from Carolina’s big men. Since you were the career leader in 3-point shooting at UNC when you graduated, that should be music to your ears. UNC hasn’t had a big man that can stretch the floor since Luke Maye was a senior. How do you see that emphasis on spacing the floor affecting the overall offensive approach, if at all?

• Every coach has the right to have the system that they want. Coach Davis has a way that he wants to play. As you see in his recruiting, he is getting guys that are going to want to shoot the way he wants. I don’t have a problem with bigs shooting the basketball. Whatever style of play you use, it has to fit the institution and be able to exploit defenses in different ways with the floor spacing. It will be interesting to see not just how Coach Davis’s team plays but how other institutions are going about this. Hubert has an extensive background in playing, and it will be interesting to see how he utilizes his big men and impact on Carolina basketball utilizing more perimeter-skilled bigs.

1. In full disclosure, I graduated from Duke University. Don’t hold that against me! Let’s talk Tobacco Road, though. There was a news report recently that 4 tickets behind the bench at Cameron Indoor Stadium were sold for $1 million. That’s a hot ticket and as Coach K’s last regular season game, should be an immensely hyped game. What was it like to be a UNC player going down 15-501 to play in enemy territory?

• I knew that, once I chose to go to the University of North Carolina and participated in my first Carolina-Duke rivalry game, I appreciated the magnitude. Being from South Carolina, I didn’t appreciate the magnitude of it until I was in it. I saw the hoopla that went along with it, not just for those two institutions, but for college basketball and sports. It is the biggest rivalry in all of sports. You’re going to see a great game no matter where the two teams are ranked. The interesting thing for me is, though we have an extensive rivalry, a lot of people don’t know that a lot of the players on those two teams are friends. When I was in college, I worked with Johnny Dawkins on my game from a former professional, while he was a coach at Duke. I was able to learn from him and add things to my game. I’ll always appreciate that Coach Krzyzewski allowed me to work with Johnny Dawkins. He could have said that Johnny couldn't work with me or only over here in this one place. We both knew we would play against each other. Coach K and Coach Dawkins were interested in helping someone become a better player and better person.

And one!

1. Looking back at your time at Carolina, you had amazing teammates, including but not limited to Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace, Vince Carter, and Antawn Jamison. Some of these guys were known for ridiculous things on the court while others were known for being outspoken in terms of their words as well as what they did with the ball. This is a basketball newsletter after all, so let’s focus on the court. What is the most jaw-dropping moment you witnessed from one of your teammates?

• I guess it would probably be a dunk that Vince Carter did while we were playing a game of “21.” Vince, Antawn, a few others and I were playing. Someone missed a shot and the ball went off to the left baseline. Vince got the ball and he began to attack the basket. As he went up, he was challenged and made a spectacular dunk. That was a surprising thing to see his athletic ability. He was different in that regard with his ability to rise above the basket. The Jerry Stackhouse dunk at Duke my freshman year, that was a spectacular dunk, too. A lot of things people saw Jerry do, I saw as well. People don’t realize how Jerry transformed himself. He played the power forward position at Carolina, he played the “4.” His first year in the NBA, he was a “2-guard.” He transitioned from playing the interior as a senior in high school and college to then playing on the perimeter in a matter of months. I can’t believe he did some of those things in games, but he did that all the time. People don’t give him enough credit for his growth. That says a lot about him. He’s one of the best scorers the University of North Carolina has ever seen.

Stay tuned for upcoming episodes of the Carolina Conversations podcast with Shammond Williams. In upcoming episodes, Shammond will be joined by RJ Davis, Assistant Coach Brad Frederick, and Director of Player Development Jackie Manuel. Shammond is also a coach for the Old Dominion University women’s basketball team and encourages fans to watch the team this year.

Around the Rim

This section highlights some of the best writing on college basketball to hit the web. Consider these your extra credit assignments for fall semester.

• Heat Check CBB | Shaw’s Sleepers: San Diego State’s Matt Bradley is a breakout transfer candidate

• Busting Brackets | NCAA Basketball: Top 30 frontcourt players for 2021-22 season

• Three Man Weave | Ivy 2021-22 Preview