| Mike Pirtle: Lady Raiders, Insell set amazing standard for university |
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By: MIKE PIRTLE, Post Publisher and President
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Posted: Sunday, March 15, 2009 8:59 am
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Rick Insell is just amazing.
The Middle Tennessee women's basketball coach won his third Sun Belt Conference Tournament title in four years last week and the championship game win also marked his 100th win as the Lady Raiders head coach.
That's 25 wins a year.
Amazing.
When Insell took the Middle job, amongst serious questions about his candidacy because he had been a high school coach, a tremendously successful one, he vowed from the start that the Lady Raiders would be competing to get to the Final Four every year.
Middle hasn't made it but it has been in the hunt every year and produced some notable wins over major powers every season.
Insell's players play with immense intensity, determination and usually great skill.
For the fourth straight year under Insell, Middle will play in the post season and for the third time they will play in the NCAA tournament.
That's no small feat.
After dominating the Sun Belt this season, despite not being picked for the title in the pre-season coaches' predictions, the Lady Raiders find out Monday night where they start their NCAA quest this year.
How will they do? Who knows?
UConn is simply dominating women's basketball this year and most folks are rightfully penciling them in as the Final Four victor.
But, there's a reason we play games. Just ask last year's New England Patriots.
What we do know is that Insell's team will give a good account of itself and likely raise some eyebrows, how high we'll just have to wait and see along the way.
•••
Watching quite a bit of college basketball lately, I've noticed that the ties of college coaches, well the coaches that are men, seem to be getting longer and longer.
Maybe it was just a coincidence of hurried tie-tying of fashion selection, but several coaches were sporting extremely long ties, making me wonder if they are following the lead of their players' shorts.
I'm not sure shorts is even the right word anymore and hasn't been for a while.
On TV the length of players' shorts isn't so notable to me but when watching games live I keep wondering if the longer uniform bottoms are aggravating to players to some extent because they generally cover a working body part, the knee, and just a little past.
But, hey, I grew up watching basketball when men and boys wore those really short shorts as in the early Magic Johnson-Larry Bird days.
The hem of the shorts has slowly and steadily dropped since then, virtually to the point of being what were called "pedal pushers" way back when.
Of course, that was in a time when a fashion trend was for men and teens to wear shirts and socks that matched. Yep, guys wore a blue dress shirt with matching blue socks, or a yellow shirt with yellow socks.
Pants then were also pretty short, yeah, about the length of basketball shorts now, so the whole effect in retrospect was pretty Easter Eggish.
I don't see that trend likely to come around again. And, I guess basketball shorts are unlikely to be short.
•••
Another observation: How many assistant coaches do colleges have now?
I started counting and the first six or seven chairs on a team's bench are invariably taken up by guys in suits, probably with a really long tie.
Does each player have his personal coach on the sideline?
Just wondering. |
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