pitt women's basketball

pitt women's basketball is on their way to the sweet 16! this is the farthest the panthers have ever advanced in the NCAA tournament. they beat baylor, who won the national championship three years ago, on sunday. its nice to see a local team gain national recognition. i'm glad they have brought in a good head coach who has recruited talent. all of their players graduate on time and bring a positive attitude to the newly revived program.

SPARQ

Three summers ago, my AAU team attended the Nike Nationals basketball camp. while there, we underwent some of the first testing for the newly advertised Nike SPARQ training that has been on commercials recently. We did drills that involved speed, like the fourty yard dash, we threw medicine balls to measure strength, and did the shuttle run to calculate agility. Along with about three other tests, researchers calculated and gave out reports for every individual player, and the team overall. They did this for over thirty teams in a matter of three days. Your individual SPARQ number is an estimate on your athleticism, which i found cool to compare to other world known atheltes who had also been tested.

facebook

i heard today that some members of the track team got suspended for an upcoming meet for some pictures they had on facebook. apparently they had to do with drinking or something of the sort and were found by a coach or administration. being an athlete here, i find this a two way street. i think that in some respects coaches and administration do have the right to make sure their players are healthy and safe. at the same time, student athletes should have their own privacy and enough respect to judge what is right and wrong to put on the internet for people to look at or read. its a double edged sword, just a matter of whose view you are taking it from.

march madness

i'm so excited for the run pitt made in the big east tournament. i hope it carries over into the NCAA tournament! they won their first game against oral roberts in convincing fashion. bob knight says that pitt plays as hard as any team in the field of 64, and with levance fields healthy, i hope they can go far. my favorite team is probably the north carolina tar heels. i like tyler hansborough and how hard he plays to make his team play bettter.