Kritik und Lob » State, the preseason Big West favorit

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Lets rewind five years, shall we? Conference realignment destabilized the college football foundation we had come to know. Talk about 16-team superconferences started dominating the discussion, and soon, survival-of-the-fittest scenarios began unfolding.The ACC? Many thought the future looked bleak, especially after Florida State and the Big 12 became publicly tangled in a public relations mess that dominated spring meetings in 2012. A few months later, Maryland decided to join the Big Ten and left the ACC reeling.What is a commissioner to do? If you are John Swofford, you swat away any doomsday talk and make your league stronger. Since 2012, he has gotten Notre Dame to join in all sports but football, but secured an annual five-game football scheduling agreement and included the Irish in future bowl partnerships; he swapped Maryland for Louisville, a huge upgrade across the board; he got league schools to raise the exit fee to $50 million; and he got them all to sign a grant-of-rights agreement.But wait. Theres more.On the opening day of ACC Kickoff on Thursday, Swofford and ESPN announced a long-awaited deal with ESPN for an ACC linear and digital network, along with a grant-of-rights extension through 2036 -- essentially stabilizing and securing the conference for the foreseeable future. John Swofford made all the right moves, Duke athletic director Kevin White said. In my behind-the-barn expression, the dart board is no longer jumping. We know where the dart board is. Were pretty frozen.The ACC has made a remarkable shift over a very short time. Swofford has secured his leagues future for the next 20 years, all while completely outmaneuvering the Big 12 -- a conference whose future appears murkiest. The Big 12 spent all summer discussing future expansion and wondering about the prospects for its own television network.Now the conference is talking about expansion again, Oklahoma president David Boren said as a direct result of the ACCs network news. But any thought about trying to poach an ACC team is not based in reality.If Florida State or any other team considers leaving over the next 20 years, it would have to pay the ACC a $50 million exit fee plus leave behind its television rights until the grant of rights expires. Thats a whole lot of cash to leave on the table to join a league that looks the most unstable and least secure among the Power 5 conferences.The future ACC Network, years in the making, finally puts the ACC on par with the SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12, which all have their own networks. Having more television exposure is nice, but this is about the money a television network brings in -- money the ACC hopes will allow for even more substantial upgrades to its football product.We could debate which makes the ACC stronger -- a network or the grant-of-rights extension. They are both big, but the grant of rights should be considered the biggest news to emerge out of this week. With the Big 12 still hemming and hawing about whether to add more teams, extending the grant of rights basically locks ACC schools into place -- and that is the type of stability the league didnt have five years ago.Given all these developments, the natural expectation should be for the ACC to now make the necessary steps to be more than just a top-heavy football league. After the conference went 13 years between championship game appearances, two ACC schools have played for a title in two of the past three years. Florida State and Clemson continue to carry the flag, but programs like Miami, Louisville, North Carolina and Virginia Tech -- just to name four -- have a responsibility to the league to prove they are top-25 teams capable of contending for championships.These are exciting times for the ACC. Playing as a stable, unified conference with a network on the way should be only just the beginning. They also provide quite a legacy for the man who has engineered it all.I feel great about where it is because were where we should be, Swofford said. It feels good to be there. The last 10 to 15 years in college athletics theres been a lot of instability, theres been a lot of rumors, a lot of people who were saying things without any basis about who might be where and why this would happen, and there were all kinds of reasons why a lot of those things would not have happened.But I think what this does is totally take the ACC out of any kind of conversation of that nature, and thats a huge plus for the league and for the individual institutions and a huge plus for our ability to truly reach our potential as a league. I think thats already started. Wholesale Vapormax China . Louis Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey last Sunday. The fine is the fourth this season for Goldson. He was fined $30,000 for a hit on the New York Jets Jeff Cumberland in Week 1. 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LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. Cheap Air Max 90 Wholesale . But Bourque, who has missed three games with a lower-body injury, wont be in the lineup when the Habs travel to Buffalo to take on the Sabres on Wednesday. The dogged ability of Frank Mason to drive to the rim coupled with the streaky outside shooting touch possessed by Devonte Graham are what gets noticed most about the smaller guards in the Kansas backcourt.Yet each guard contributes in other ways, as evidenced by the 11 assists Graham distributed in the No. 4 Jayhawks last victory, a 95-57 rout of North Carolina-Asheville.I thought (Graham) was really good, Kansas coach Bill Self said. Frank scored the points (21), but I thought Devonte was certainly the facilitator.Graham did so while surrounded by new starters.Self altered his lineup to include freshman center Udoka Azubuike and sophomore guard Lagerald Vick. Each contributed mightily, combining for 32 points. Azubuike slammed seven dunks while going 8-for-9 from the field and Vick went 6-for-7 and grabbed nine rebounds.Expect the new lineup, which also features one of the nations top freshmen, 6-foot-8 guard Josh Jackson, to remain intact as Kansas (5-1) continues a five-game homestand Tuesday against Long Beach State (1-7) at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kan.If Dok and Lagerald play like that, said Self, thats the best production weve gotten all year long from those two spots, so it could be permanent.That, of course, was meant as a motivational message, laced in truth, to the players they supplanted in the starting lineup, senior center Landen Lucas and sophomore forward Carlton Bragg.Count on Mason and Graham to be regulars, however, along with Jackson.Mason has topped the Jayhawks in scoring in five of six games and ranks second in the Big 12 Conference with a 21.5-point average while chipping in 5.0 assists and 4.3 rebounds. Graham averages 13 points and leads the Jayhawks in assists (34) and steals (10). Jackson averages 14.3 points, 5.0 assists and 4.3 rebounds.With those threee players as mainstays, Self has the depth to use different combinations best suited for the opponents Kansas faces.ddddddddddddConsidering Azubuike checks in as a 7-footer listed at 280 pounds, the Jayhawks have a frontline force who can impact the lane as long as he stays out of foul trouble.Well start based on scouting report a lot of times, and we havent ever done that, Self projected. But if a team plays small, well probably go small. If a team plays two bigs, we may go two bigs. But certainly it was nice to see Udoka have some success because, you know, he is a physical presence that we dont have and he can get so much better.Long Beach State, the preseason Big West favorite, will be making its eighth stop as part of a nine-game road swing. The brutal stretch has resulted in seven straight defeats -- at Wichita State, North Carolina, Louisville, UCLA, Washington, Binghamton and Florida Gulf Coast. The 49ers only win was at home in their opener against Cal State-Los Angeles.In its most recent game, Long Beach scored the first five points in overtime but lost to Florida Gulf Coast 68-67 on a layup with 2.4 seconds remaining.Although Dan Monson approved the grueling early-season run as a method to strengthen the 49ers resolve, and resume, the 10th-year coach expressed some regret.Im really concerned about them mentally because of all the years Ive done this, this has been the hardest stretch and this team was not ready for it, Monson told the Orange County Register.The schedule has also prompted Monson to look at various combinations. Ten players average 11-plus minutes.Junior forward Gabe Levin leads Long Beach State in scoring (13.0) and rebounding (7.6). ' ' '