GoBigGreenBasketball
Masters Student
Posts: 806
Age: 52
Reg: 05-19-16
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10-11-18 05:45 PM - Post#262421
Harvard Crimson - David Tannenwald (Harvard Magazine): StheS Team Preview Series
| "...no excuses - only results!†|
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rbg
Postdoc
Posts: 3050
Reg: 10-20-14
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10-15-18 08:44 AM - Post#262571
In response to GoBigGreenBasketball
Harvard getting some love over at Sports Illustrated.
64 Reasons to Get Excited About College Basketball
https://www.si.com/college-basketball/20 18/10/10/6...
45. Harvard’s Push to Get Back to the Tournament
For four straight years, Tommy Amaker made the Crimson the mid-major conference champ no one wanted to see on the tournament’s opening weekend, but just as quickly as Harvard arrived as a March staple, it finds itself entering 2018-19 on a three-year drought, with tough losses to Yale and Penn in the Ivy League’s four-team tournament in the past two seasons. The jewels of the top-25 recruiting class of 2016 (which ranked higher than three of the previous year’s Final Four teams) are now juniors determined to reestablish the Crimson as the class of the league and an opening-weekend sleeper.
The Next Loyola-Chicago? Eleven Mid-Majors Who Could Have a Cinderella Season
https://www.si.com/college-basketball/20 18/10/15/c...
HARVARD
Harvard returns almost its entire roster, including its five top scorers and top three rebounders. Key returnees are Seth Towns, the Ivy League Player of the Year, and Bryce Aiken, who was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year as a freshman. Towns suffered a knee injury in the Ivy League championship game that certainly hurt Harvard's chances at an NCAA bid. Aiken only played in 14 games last season. Both are healthy and ready to create the type of inside-out combo that could prove devastating in March. The Ivy League is tough—Penn, Princeton and Brown are all contenders—but no one matches the depth of the Crimson.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32803
Reg: 11-21-04
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10-15-18 09:39 AM - Post#262590
In response to rbg
"he Ivy League is tough—Penn, Princeton and Brown are all contenders—but no one matches the depth of the Crimson. "
..No Yale love there
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rbg
Postdoc
Posts: 3050
Reg: 10-20-14
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11-02-18 08:38 AM - Post#264027
In response to palestra38
A good breakdown by several writers at The Crimson. It seems that everyone will be good to go, with Aiken maybe taking more time to return to form.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/11/2/win te...
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whitakk
Masters Student
Posts: 523
Age: 32
Reg: 11-11-14
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11-02-18 11:30 PM - Post#264124
In response to rbg
From today: “1) According to Coach Amaker, @seth_towns17 and @BryceAiken are "out indefinitely" as they continue to recover from injuries.â€
https://mobile.twitter.com/dtannenwald/status/10 58...
Also a crime to leave Friday’s Northeastern off that list of nonconference games. If you buy the projections it might be a top-10 mid-major game all year.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3584
Reg: 02-15-15
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11-02-18 11:39 PM - Post#264125
In response to whitakk
From today: “1) According to Coach Amaker, @seth_towns17 and @BryceAiken are "out indefinitely" as they continue to recover from injuries.â€.
There’s a surprise.
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Silver Maple
Postdoc
Posts: 3770
Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
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11-03-18 10:50 AM - Post#264133
In response to PennFan10
Yes-- I'm shocked. That coverup was really working. Never saw this coming.
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-03-18 11:53 AM - Post#264138
In response to Silver Maple
I’m still confused - what’s the coverup supposed to be here?
The way I read “out indefinitely†is “I don’t care at all about the non-conference, so there’s no rush to bring them back.†I think if Ivy play started in November, the answer would be different.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3584
Reg: 02-15-15
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11-03-18 09:29 PM - Post#264154
In response to mrjames
I’m still confused - what’s the coverup supposed to be here?
The way I read “out indefinitely†is “I don’t care at all about the non-conference, so there’s no rush to bring them back.†I think if Ivy play started in November, the answer would be different.
Looks to me like you answered your own question. The fact that no one knows whether those two would play tomorrow or not til January is exactly the secrecy that makes no sense. If your two best players are healthy, you play them. Period. But somehow Tommy has some magic strategy that is going to wait for Harvard’s conference season to rev up the top 50 engine. I call BS.
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Silver Maple
Postdoc
Posts: 3770
Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
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11-03-18 11:15 PM - Post#264162
In response to PennFan10
It's like not turning on the runway lights because "that's just what they're expecting us to do."
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rbg
Postdoc
Posts: 3050
Reg: 10-20-14
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11-03-18 11:34 PM - Post#264165
In response to Silver Maple
https://collegebasketball .nbcsports.com/2018/11/03...
- Now that Amaker has indicated that Aiken and Towns will remain out, it’s going to be one of the key subplots to watch in this early college basketball season. The duo combined to average slightly over 30 points per game last season as the Crimson have huge expectations heading into this season.
Harvard is already used to playing (and playing well) without Aiken. But the loss of Towns could be huge — especially since we don’t know the severity of his injury. With the Crimson returning nearly its entire core from a team that just missed making the NCAA tournament, Harvard needs both of those guys back and healthy if they want to meet the high preseason expectations. -
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-04-18 09:10 AM - Post#264175
In response to PennFan10
I guess all I can say is that it’s not that simple. Some injuries have defined timetables. Some injuries “healthy†is a matter of degree and re-injury risk. In the latter situation, some games are worth playing, others aren’t.
I’m not so sure what’s so hard to understand here. Yale faced the same situation last year. Bruner’s was easy because it fell into that first bucket - done for the year. Mason’s was harder because it fell into the second bucket. Every day made him stronger and less likely to re-injure the foot, so there could be no “defined†timetable. So, he ended up being day-to-day (like Aiken was last year) for over a month before he tried to come back and they realized it wasn’t going to work.
What I’m confused by is the overtone of nefariousness in what Harvard is doing here. I usually can at least understand the arguments being made on fan boards, but I’ll be honest, this one surprises me.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3584
Reg: 02-15-15
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Harvard Season Preview - StheS Podcast
11-04-18 10:01 AM - Post#264178
In response to mrjames
I don’t think we disagree on the nature of injuries and how they work. I am pretty comfortable with my knowledge of how injuries work.
What we are talking about is the systematic lack of information that is coming from anyone in the Harvard camp. Mr James, do you know what actually happened to Towns’ knee? What is the injury? Did he have surgery? What about Aikens? Why won’t you give out information? Maybe you don’t know, which is even worse in that the culture of secrecy excludes those closest to the program.
You mentioned Yale and Makai Mason or Jordan Bruner. Go ahead and google “Makai Mason footâ€. In about 5 seconds you can learn that Mason had a stress fracture and Bruner tore his meniscus. Then try to google “Seth Towns knee†and outside of the most recent coverage of TA’s press conference you get nada, zippo, nothing.
Here is the quotes from the article written based on TA’s presser, notice the last line of para 1:
Head coach Tommy Amaker spoke to reporters on Friday and indicated that reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Seth Towns and starting point guard Bryce Aiken will both remain out indefinitely with knee injuries. While Aiken has been battling knee injuries since being limited to only 14 games last season, the injury to Towns remains a bit more of a mystery.
In the Ivy League Conference Tournament title game last season, Towns sustained a knee injury with 8:20 left in the second half as Penn went on to ultimately win the game and claim the league’s NCAA tournament autobid. Towns also missed Harvard’s next contest when they lost in the opening round of the NIT to Marquette.
A September report from Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports indicated that Aiken and Towns were expected to be fully cleared for basketball activities once practice officially started. But on Oct. 20, Stadium’s Jeff Goodman reported that neither Aiken nor Towns played in Harvard’s closed preseason scrimmage against Boston College.
Oh wait, HIPAA, that explains everything........
Edited by PennFan10 on 11-04-18 10:05 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Harvard Season Preview - StheS Podcast
11-04-18 12:41 PM - Post#264189
In response to PennFan10
Okay - that makes more sense. Injured body part + timetable isn’t what you’re after, you want specific sub-part of that body part and specific treatment undertaken. Put me in the camp that doesn’t believe there’s an entitlement to that latter specificity. If you want to call that a systematic lack of information, that’s up to you. If you want to criticize this board for not actively discussing what is known... well that’s a *little* unfair, since, ya know, this particular board doesn’t really discuss much at all!
As for me - I don’t have better info than what’s been reported. My purpose for maintaining the relationships I do around the league is exclusively focused on understanding how the teams will perform (eg getting secret scrimmage results to tweak models - when I used to do them - based on a better sense of the rotation) and hopefully promoting a league on the rise (eg chasing down Ivy Tourney or ESPN deal info). If someone tells me a player is out indefinitely with a knee injury, that’s all I need for my purposes. The specifics just aren’t interesting to me - I guess that’s why I was confused before.
I get what you’re asking for now, though.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3584
Reg: 02-15-15
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11-04-18 03:18 PM - Post#264193
In response to mrjames
As a Penn fan I don’t particularly care about Towns and Aiken until February and we’ll have a pretty good idea by then. But if I was a typical Harvard fan I’d be urinated I didn’t know more.
At least that’s how most fans operate with regard to their team.
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Silver Maple
Postdoc
Posts: 3770
Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
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11-04-18 08:22 PM - Post#264202
In response to PennFan10
I think the other thing the Penn fans are reacting to is what we perceive as a 'circling the wagons' mentality. We know what that often means, and the trend that tends to follow.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32803
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-04-18 09:42 PM - Post#264210
In response to Silver Maple
I was away for the weekend, but this proves everything I was saying and got total S.it from Harvardadgrad.
How about it Dad?
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3584
Reg: 02-15-15
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11-04-18 11:56 PM - Post#264218
In response to PennFan10
As a Penn fan I don’t particularly care about Towns and Aiken until February and we’ll have a pretty good idea by then. But if I was a typical Harvard fan I’d be urinated I didn’t know more.
At least that’s how most fans operate with regard to their team.
very strange. the word posted as urinated is not what I wrote. But the system won’t let me post the word I wrote and changes it to urinated. I wrote a word that is spelled p-i-s-s-e-d
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rbg
Postdoc
Posts: 3050
Reg: 10-20-14
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11-05-18 09:43 AM - Post#264237
In response to PennFan10
The Crimson has a preview of the women's team.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/11/2/win te...
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-05-18 10:30 AM - Post#264238
In response to PennFan10
I'm always down for a discussion of fan psychographics.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32803
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-05-18 11:01 AM - Post#264243
In response to mrjames
I'm more interested in your mindset. After coming after me for suggesting that these guys were seriously injured and that there was an intentional effort to prevent that information from being disclosed, why do you believe that Harvard, alone among the Ivies, refuses to release injury information?
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-05-18 11:30 AM - Post#264247
In response to palestra38
My mindset:
My purpose for maintaining the relationships I do around the league is exclusively focused on understanding how the teams will perform (eg getting secret scrimmage results to tweak models - when I used to do them - based on a better sense of the rotation) and hopefully promoting a league on the rise (eg chasing down Ivy Tourney or ESPN deal info). If someone tells me a player is out indefinitely with a knee injury, that’s all I need for my purposes.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32803
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-05-18 11:39 AM - Post#264248
In response to mrjames
That doesn't really tell us anything. I would do the same in your shoes. However, clearly Harvard is hiding injuries that no other Ivy school does. Towns was right in front of me when he went down and I thought immediately it was an ACL. For him to still be out makes it clear that it was that or something with an equivalent recovery period. Why hide that? It makes no sense to me, and clearly, those who either prognosticate or bet on the games are being deceived.
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-05-18 12:00 PM - Post#264254
In response to palestra38
Harvard released injury info on Kyle, Kenyatta and Siyani, so your frame here extends back a couple seasons at best. I also know enough to know that your assumption is way off. I don't know enough to satisfy the rest of what you want to know, though.
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HARVARDDADGRAD
Postdoc
Posts: 2691
Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
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11-05-18 12:09 PM - Post#264256
In response to palestra38
Sorry you see it that way. I believe that what is transpiring is consistent with my expressed thoughts. Both players are recovering from injuries serious enough to impact them for months. Recovery time is speculative, but all information, including Amaker's recent statements, reflect that they are expected to return this season. Of course, this assumes no setbacks.
Note that in previous years, Amaker didn't rush players back for the OOC portion of the schedule.
Is what you want the medical description of their injuries? If Harvard or the player(s) choose not to disclose that personal medical information, it could be for various reasons.
As me (a Harvard fan), I'm comfortable knowing that Seth and Bryce are expected to return this season. For some reason I've gotten the impression that their respective returns will be prior to the conference schedule. I also recall reading that if that schedule started in November that they both might be playing. That's good enough for me. I don't need to know the specifics of their injuries or their medical treatment.
If it turns out that they miss this season, I would be disappointed, not angry. The reality is whatever it turns out to be.
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Silver Maple
Postdoc
Posts: 3770
Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
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11-05-18 12:20 PM - Post#264258
In response to HARVARDDADGRAD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDT_IBk7hAA
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32803
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-05-18 12:25 PM - Post#264259
In response to Silver Maple
Who's driving the DeathMobile?
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Quakers03
Professor
Posts: 12530
Reg: 12-07-04
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Harvard Season Preview - StheS Podcast
11-06-18 01:08 AM - Post#264362
In response to HARVARDDADGRAD
I guess when a fanbase is only 10-years-old this sort of information doesn't matter so much.
As for the reasons to not disclose, I'm having a hard time coming up with something real. A perceived competitive advantage? It can't be for post-NCAA days because those records would have to be disclosed. I just don't understand the blatant secrecy.
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HARVARDDADGRAD
Postdoc
Posts: 2691
Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
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11-06-18 12:21 PM - Post#264381
In response to Quakers03
Attended my first Harvard basketball game in 1979 and first football game around 1968. Shot hoops indoors by B Schoolon that first visit.
I think that means I’m patient and willing to see how things develop. I try not to worry about things outside of my control.
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H78
PhD Student
Posts: 1458
Loc: Los Angeles, CA
Reg: 01-06-11
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Harvard Season Preview - StheS Podcast
11-07-18 03:26 AM - Post#264596
In response to HARVARDDADGRAD
It's just Penn guys being Penn guys. And we love them for their edgy Philly-style point of view.
If you think they're hard on us, they're just as hard on their own, if not harder. And that's not a complaint, because Silver Maple palestra38 Quakers03 and PennFan10 are all good guys... just more seasoned and spicy that we are. Must be one of the secret ingredients in the cheese in those hoagies...
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3584
Reg: 02-15-15
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11-07-18 11:08 AM - Post#264619
In response to mrjames
Incredibly Jon Rothstein was able to tweet the exact nature of Penn top player Ryan Betleys injury before the night set on the game in which he was injured yet the exact same guy inexplicably reported in September, months later, that Harvard’s two best players were cleared for full activity.
I am sure it’s because he is a below average reporter and wasn’t interested in the Duke v Kentucky game instead of the (lack of) information being given to him by the basketball program.
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HARVARDDADGRAD
Postdoc
Posts: 2691
Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
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Re: Harvard Season Preview - StheS Podcast
11-07-18 03:33 PM - Post#264655
In response to H78
Hi H78! Good to hear from you. Hope all has been well. Are you going to any of the California games? Hope so.
Should be a good year once the guys are back.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32803
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Harvard Season Preview - StheS Podcast
11-07-18 03:52 PM - Post#264661
In response to HARVARDDADGRAD
"Should be a good year IF the guys are back."
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HARVARDDADGRAD
Postdoc
Posts: 2691
Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
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11-07-18 04:43 PM - Post#264678
In response to palestra38
No, Harvard’s depth means it will be a good year regardless. However, it will be a great year. As explained, I’m patient and in no need of coddling assurances.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32803
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-07-18 05:03 PM - Post#264683
In response to HARVARDDADGRAD
Good luck. Harvard SHOULD win. But I'll be up there for the Penn-Harvard game good or bad.
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HARVARDDADGRAD
Postdoc
Posts: 2691
Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
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11-07-18 05:36 PM - Post#264697
In response to palestra38
Anyone else impressed by Kirkwood and Djuricic? Looking forward to facing better competition this week as they will see minutes.
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TheLine
Professor
Posts: 5597
Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
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11-07-18 05:54 PM - Post#264703
In response to HARVARDDADGRAD
Who did you play?
Djuricic passed my eye test last year. So did Kirkwood's play at HS though not 100% sure how it plays out at the collegiate level this year. With no Aiken or Towns I suppose you find out sooner rather than later.
Harvard is the one team in the league right now with the depth to absorb injuries. They may have competition soon on that front but not yet.
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