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College Basketball- Top 50 Players in 2015- #50

Tom Knuppel Other
College Basketball- Top 50 Players in 2015- #50

The idea of ranking players becomes very subjective and always open for debate. But to do this, you have to start somewhere. Here we go…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#50- Rico Gathers 6’8″ 280 lbs.

Rico Gathers, F, Baylor – Ricardo Darnell Gathers

 Born Jan. 7, 1994, in New Orleans, La.

Son of Richard Sr. and Janice Gathers

Father is cousin of late Loyola Marymount All-American basketball player Hank Gathers

Finance major.

 

Gathers is a big bruising forward that has played in all 75 games of his college career but played behind Cory Jefferson and Isaiah Austin so he only started 3 games. Included in his stats are seven double-doubles and ranked fourth in the nation with one offensive rebound per minute. Two-time Gatorade Louisiana High School Player of the Year.

Season gp gs min min avg pts pts avg fgm fga fg% 3-pt fg 3-pt fga 3-pt fg%
2012-13 37 2 617 16.7 210 5.7 83 158 .525 0 0 .000
2013-14 38 1 678 17.8 245 6.4 80 169 .473 0 0 .000
2014-15 13 13 357 27.5 125 11.6 44 103 .427 0 0 .000

 

 

SEC College Football Preview

Tom Knuppel Other
SEC College Football Preview

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, just a note for clarification before I start. This blog will be primarily about football for quite awhile. I will rejoin politics as it gets closer to some kind of meaningful election.

Today, I will examine the SEC. For awhile they had dominance over the college sport of football but the past few years they have come up short. It is the premier conference in the United States and has the most teams that are very, very good. In 2015, the preseason finds them having seven teams listed in the Top 25 polls.

In the East, we have a dogfight between two top teams and I am going with Georgia. They will miss Todd Gurley for about 2 seconds until Nick Chubb breaks loose and runs all over the conference. Tennessee is everyones’ darling team with Butch Jones as head coach and has many believing in them. Florida comes third this year and will need to be tough down the stretch.

My EAST picks:

Georgia 10-3

Tennessee 9-4

Florida 9-4

Missouri 7-5

South Carolina 7-5

Kentucky 6-6

Vanderbilt 3-9

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The West is tough. I don’t like picking against Alabama but I really like the Auburn team. The difference maker to me will be Freshman POY Jovon Robinson and his running back play along with the breakout player Jeremy Johnson. I believe the comeback players will be Carl Lawson.

My WEST picks:

Auburn 11-1

Alabama 11-2

Arkansas 9-3

Ole Miss 9-3

LSU 8-4

Texas A&m 7-5

Mississippi State 6-6

 

AWARD WINNERS

Offensive Player of the Year- Nick Chubb

runner-up= Dak Prescott

Defensive POY- Derek Bennett

Coach- Butch Jones

Top Freshman- Jovon Robinson

Breakout- Jeremy Johnson

Comeback POY- Carl Lawson

 

 

I will get more in-depth with player analysis as we get closer to the start of the college season.

 

Next- Big Ten

 

 

Liberals and Socialists

Tom Knuppel Other
Liberals and Socialists

 

 

Philosophers of liberalism and socialism actually have very different visions for the world. They don’t disagree at all on the idea that spreading the wealth around is good for everybody. In fact, this idea finds one of its greatest expressions in the work of the philosopher of welfare liberalism, John Rawls. He proposed two principles of justice, one of which—the “Difference Principle”—claims that inequalities are permissible if and only if they benefit the worst-off person. Since many inequalities arising from the free market violate this principle, some wealth must be redistributed.

The difference between liberals and socialists, rather, is founded on their different answers to this question: Can the principles by which I vote differ from the principles by which I live?

Liberals say yes, they can. Rawls, for example, said that you must be guided by  principles of distributive justice, such as the Difference Principle, only when you think about the basic structure of society. Roughly, those times are when you self-consciously think of yourself as a citizen: when you vote, when you debate political ideals, when you think about those ideals in your time alone. Otherwise, you don’t need to heed principles of distributive justice.

So a liberal allows you to accept a salary that is four, ten, 100 times greater than that of the least well-off person in your society, so long as, when you step into the voting booth, you don a new hat and act so that all inequalities are arranged to benefit the least well-off.

 

 

Clearly America is not a socialist nation. That possibility is a long way away; and, the liberal might argue, there it will always remain. Inescapable human frailties make it impossible. Concern for others will not motivate enough people to work all the arduous though necessary jobs. Nor might the socialist ideal be desirable: the price of communal ties is individual liberty, and it might be better for each of us that we not have a close, and therefore demanding, relationship with each person who is to provide us with some good.

But the socialist can point to other nations, such as Sweden or Denmark, in which, supposedly, a true egalitarian ethos has taken hold, nations which have not only generous social welfare provisions, but also citizens who are shocked by accepting privileges for themselves which others do not have. And to address the desirability of such polities, we can point experience of the people who live in them. They tend to be happier.

 

College Basketball is Big Business- Look at the Last 24 Hours

Tom Knuppel Other
College Basketball is Big Business- Look at the Last 24 Hours

 

So July is a busy month for Summer Basketball and to prove it, here are the offers that have been made in just a 24 hour period from 8PM Saturday to 8PM Sunday that we can find.

AMAZING.

 

2016 Harrah (OK) F Kellen Manek has received an offer from Texas State.

2017 Hinton (IA) G Jay Small has received an offer from South Dakota.

2017 Daniel (SC) G A.J. Oliver has received an offer from Old Dominion.

2016 Knightdale (NC) G Dondre Griffin has received an offer from Winthrop.

2017 Virginia Academy (VA) F Ejike Obinna has received an offer from Temple.

2017 Oak Hill (VA) G Matt Coleman has received an offer from Seton Hall.

2017 Hampton (VA) G Mastadi Pitt has received an offer from Cincinnati.

Miami (OH) and Texas Tech offered 2017 Cristo Rey (MN) F Jericho Sims.

2016 Wilbraham & Monson (MA) F Wenyen Gabriel received an offer from Villanova.

2017 Ripon (WI) F Bennett Vander Plas has received an offer from Milwaukee.

2017 Blair Academy (NJ) F Kodye Pugh has received an offer from Seton Hall.

2018 Park View (VA) G Keldon Johnson has received an offer from Virginia.

2017 St. Louis Christian (MO) G Nickeil Alexander-Walker received an offer from Baylor

2017 Robinson (NC) G Lavar Batts has received an offer from Tennessee.

2018 Desert Ridge (AZ) G Timmy Allen has received an offer from GCU.

2016 Glenbard West (IL) G Justin Pierce has received an offer from Elon.

2016 Los Alamitos (CA) G Eyassu Worku has received an offer from UC Santa Barbara.

2017 Blair Academy (NJ) F Kodye Pugh has received an offer from Auburn.

2016 Desoto (TX) G Leon Sneed has received an offer from Stephen F. Austin.

2018 Concord (NC) G Rechon Black has received an offer from Western Carolina.

2016 Lakeview (LA) F Adrio Bailey has received an offer from Stephen F. Austin.

2016 Frank Phillips College (TX) F Alize Johnson has received an offer from Towson.

2017 Watertown-Mayer (MN) F Trae Berhow has received an offer from South Dakota.

2017 Lone Peak (UT) G Christian PoPoola, Jr. has received an offer from Nevada.

2016 Harrah (OK) F Kellen Manek has received an offer from Oral Roberts.

2016 Lakeview (LA) F Adrio Bailey has received an offer from Arkansas.

2018 Life Christian (VA) G Rasir Bolton has received an offer from Old Dominion.

2016 Stevens Point (WI) G Trevor Anderson has received an offer from Elon.

2016 Fayette Ware (TN) G Mikkel Norment has received an offer from UT Martin.

Colorado State has offered 2016 Sunrise Mountain (AZ) F Elijah Thomas.

2017 Belleville East (IL) F Javon Pickett has received an offer from Drake.

2016 Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa (OK) F Jarrid Rhodes has received an offer from Buffalo.

2016 Neuqua Valley (IL) F Jacob Cushing has received an offer from Cal Poly.

2016 Kenwood Academy (IL) G Zion Morgan has received an offer from Western Michigan.

2016 Santa Monica (CA) C Jayce Johnson has received an offer from Tennessee.

2019 Rancho Christian (CA) F Isaiah Mobley received an offer from USC.

2018 St. Frances (MD) G Terrell Davis has received an offer from Howard.

2016 Word of God (NC) G Jaylen Fornes has received an offer from Buffalo.

2015 Shadow Mountain (AZ) G Craig Randall II has committed to Memphis.

2017 Kentucky Country Day (KY) G JR Mathis has received an offer from IUPUI.

 

Do We Really Want Illinois to be a Plutocracy?

Tom Knuppel Other
Do We Really Want Illinois to be a Plutocracy?

 

 

The New York Times reported  that Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s chief political backer, Ken Griffin, made $1.3 billion last year as manager of the hedge fund Citadel Capital. Griffin made as much personally as 26,000 average Americans making the median wage. He made as much as 16,000 civil engineers.

Griffin made $625,000 per hour. By the way, for a portion of this income, he might have benefited from the federal tax law that allows hedge fund managers to pay a maximum of 20 percent tax rate, though his press spokesman claims that he he paid the full rate on all of his 2014 income.

Not only did Griffin donate $2.5 million to Rauner’s campaign for governor. He also contributed millions to right-wing Super-PACs — including one controlled by the notorious Charles and David Koch.

And he contributed $10 million — half of a $20 million campaign war chest — that Rauner plans to use to run opponents against members of the legislature who dare to oppose his policies that are aimed at destroying unions and cutting worker wages and pensions.

But one thing Bruce Rauner forgets in this is Illinois and not Wisconsin which he wants to emulate.

 

Unfortunately for Rauner and Griffin, ordinary Illinois voters are not so stupid. A recent poll published by Public Policy Polling found that:

  • Only 33 percent of voters in the state agree with Governor Rauner’s agenda on “right to work”, compared to 55 percent who think everyone represented by a union should have to pay something toward negotiating and administering its contracts.
  • By 81 percent to 15 percent, voters oppose Rauner’s attempts to gut the state’s Workers’ Compensation system.
  • 68 percent of voters in the state think that the wage standard should continue to be set locally with a prevailing wage, while only 23 percent think the state should be able to pay below the local prevailing wage.
  • Voters just generally disagree with Governor Rauner’s philosophy toward unions.
  • Only 42 percent think unions have too much power, compared to 56 percent who think they’re necessary to fight for the middle class.

 

It’s not so easy for people who make as much every minute and a half as a minimum wage worker takes home all year long to convince voters that it’s a good idea to cut the pay of working people. It’s not so easy for people like Rauner and Griffin to literally propose taking food from the mouths of hungry children by cutting the Illinois nutrition program in order to allow the state to cut taxes for the wealthy.

Appearances are not so good. And to top it off, Griffin has a massive personal interest in eliminating the rights of workers — particularly public employees. Griffin’s firm owns Service Master, a company that makes part of its money by privatizing public services.

But Rauner’s monomaniacal obsession with eliminating the rights of ordinary people to engage in collective bargaining over their wages and working conditions comes from something deeper than simple desire to put even more money into the pockets of people like himself and his friend Griffin.

They believe that the rich should have the right to call the shots in society — it’s as simple as that.

Griffin and Rauner believe that America should be a plutocracy.

What is a plutocracy?

A plutocracy is a government that is ruled by the wealthy or controlled by wealthy individuals. The term usually is used pejoratively, because it implies a lack of democratic freedom and social mobility. Many historical governments were plutocracies, controlled by an elite class of wealthy people, and some modern governments have been accused of being plutocracies, including the government of the United States.

The term “plutocracy” comes from the Greek words ploutos, or “wealth,” and kratia, or “ruler.” Many nations have experienced a state of plutocracy at some point, because wealth often comes with immense power, especially during the formative stages of a new country. Some countries that have valuable natural resources, such as oil and precious metals, have also experienced this type of government because the entities that control these resources generally want to maintain conditions that are favorable to them.

An outright plutocracy governed by a handful of wealthy individuals is relatively rare in the modern era. The governments of many nations, however, are heavily influenced by wealth. Wealth can buy political power through lobbying, campaign contributions, bribing and other forms of legal or illegal financial pressure. Many nations have tried to limit the influence of the wealthy through laws controlling things such as campaign finances and lobbying, but these laws can be difficult to define and enforce.

 

 

 

Fortunately ordinary people in America disagree. Most Americans believe that we are the point of the economy — not just some “input of production.” The goal of the economy is not to make a few people fabulously wealthy, it is to produce widely-shared prosperity for everyone who is willing to work hard.

Now they have the audacity to demand that ordinary people who work in public employment and make modest middle class incomes shouldn’t be allowed to combine their political contributions to influence the outcome of elections. But they are happy to allow the super-rich like themselves to control politics with more and more $10 million contributions.

 

 

In 2016 we will have a chance to stop the plutocrats like Rauner and Griffin from snatching away that future and returning us to the plutocracy of the Gilded Age. Time for Progressives to saddle up. Failure is simply not an option.

 

Can You Come over and Play?

Tom Knuppel Other
Can You Come over and Play?

 

Kids love to play. We know that it is good for relaxation and will fuel the imagination along with other things taht are good for them.

Well, adults are no different. Playing is great for problem solving, creativity, imagination and mental health. Playing with your kids or grandkids helps them become less stressed, makes them smarter and better adjusted.

But adults should not stop playing even when there are no kids around. We focus on work, family commitments and other things to much and have very little pure fun. We have stopped playing. Our free time is not to be more TV or computer time and engaging in fun. We need to rejuvenate play like we did as a child. 
I am not advocating that we forget the work and/or other commitments in our life. I am saying we need to find some creative things to do that is not fun and is not a structured goal in any way. Play could be simply goofing off with friends, sharing jokes with a coworker, throwing a Frisbee on the beach, dressing up at Halloween with your kids, building a snowman in the yard, playing fetch with a dog, a game of charades at a party, or going for a bike ride with your spouse with no destination in mind. By giving yourself permission to play with the joyful abandon of childhood, you can reap the benefits.

Some of the reasons we play:

  • to learn
  • to create
  • to feel challenged
  • to lose ourselves in a pleasurable activity
  • to calm and focus ourselves
  • competitively to win
  • cooperatively
  • for the fun and joy of it

 

WHY?

  • Play helps develop and improve social skills. Social skills are learned in the give and take of play. During childhood play, kids learn about verbal communication, body language, boundaries, cooperation, and teamwork. As adults, you continue to refine these skills through play and playful communication.
  • Play teaches cooperation with others. Play is a powerful catalyst for positive socialization. Through play, children learn how to “play nicely” with others—to work together, follow mutually agreed upon rules, and socialize in groups. As adults, you can continue to use play to break down barriers and improve your relationships with others.
  • Play can heal emotional wounds. As adults, when you play together, you are engaging in exactly the same patterns of behavior that positively shapes the brains of children. These same playful behaviors that predict emotional health in children can also lead to positive changes in adults. If an emotionally-insecure individual plays with a secure partner, for example, it can help replace negative beliefs and behaviors with positive assumptions and actions.

 

“To-Do” Lists- The Right and Wrong Ways to Make a List

Tom Knuppel Other
“To-Do” Lists- The Right and Wrong Ways to Make a List

 

 

For me, having a plan has always helped, and every good plan comes with a list. A to-do list of things you hope to accomplish, or a list of work that needs to get done.

 

There is a right way and a wrong way to make a to-do list according to Forbes. They will tell you that a big mistake is making the list of poor quality. Afterall, if you get everything done, even if menial, you have accomplished something. Many times the harder chores are at the bottom of the list and we add things to the top just to avoid that longer and longer. Forbes’s suggestion is to find a way to eliminate many of the little tasks by combining them. When that happens, a person will feel more accomplished and will ultimately become more successful over time when it comes to completing tasks.

 

Another problem is the list is torturous. That means the list is long and mostly never ends and we become stressed in life and believe we are not accomplishing anything. Focus on the task at hand and quit all the worrying about the end result of accomplishment. By doing this, the probability is higher that the tasks will get done, and you will be more productive when completing the tasks.

 

I searched around for secrets to creating a successful list and didn’t find anything very concrete. Forbes suggest to keep the list small with maybe no more than three things on it. Do a “mind dump” and write down everything you need to do to clear your head but don’t create the list just yet. Now divide them into separate lists that may be done by days of the week to keep from overwhelming yourself. One thing to remember is to also create a schedule of when things are due in order to make your to-do include items in order of the highest priority level to the lowest.

 

Another idea is to make the list just prior to when you plan to work on it. Maybe just the night before. Then when you get up and are ready the items are fresh in your mind and you have a plan to get things done. Then you can spend your time getting the tasks done instead of wasting time and energy of thinking about what tasks need to be completed.

The first thing you should do in the morning is to tackle the first item on your list. The morning is the time of the day when you are the most fresh, so having a harder task at the top of your list is a benefit not only to you, but also to the item that you need to accomplish.

Ok, that about covers it. Now I am going to make a to-do blog list of upcoming blogs.

 

I might wait until tomorrow. Ah, procrastination might be good topic.

Do Political Candidates Just Flat-Out Lie?

Tom Knuppel Other
Do Political Candidates Just Flat-Out Lie?

 

 

Truth. Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.

When an election is here, the truth becomes elusive.

There are some places you can look at that checks the facts but more on that later. When a political campaign is in full swing, candidates begin stretching their thoughts which in turn stretches the facts and distorts things. Numbers seem to grow or shrink depending on if it makes the person look good.

Don’t you just love political mailers? We, the voters, get way too many things in the mail about their views or even a chance to write negative things about their opponents. It is a fact that you can believe what you want in the political year as psychologists have research that shows people tend to have a strong connection to accepting anything near what they believe without question. In other words, if it is close to their views, they accept it as fact and the line is not blurred. It confirms their position.

 

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour

 

Where can you find unbiased political information? Here are some sites that check the facts. They vet the information.

 

  • FactCheck.org – This is from the University of Pennsylvania and they use former journalists to research and offer analysis on the things being said and written by candidates. Recent articles included a look at Republican claims that the new healthcare law is a job-killer, as well as an analysis of President Obama’s accuracy in the State of the Union address. The site addresses individual claims, searching for original source material and relying on statistics from reputable entities, such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  • PolitiFacts.org – they have a truth-o-meter and rate claims made and track whether campaign promises are fulfilled. This site has 35 editors and reporters devoting time to the cause. It was founded by the Tampa Bay Times.
  • The Fact Checker – this offers analysis of political claims and is the brainchild of The Washington Post and Glenn Kessler.
  • VoteSmart.org – This site offers checking in six area which include financing, voting records and position on issues among other things. They don’t look into promises or statements.

 

Some things you can do to understand the process is to ask questions. When you go to a website look at it and read who is actually producing it. This will help you decide if they lean in one direction or the other. Sometimes claims of nonpartisan-ism is not valid. Another thing is to follow the money involved and evaluate who is funding this endeavor. Then analyze the site. Is it leaning too far one way or another and what sort of balance to they bring to the political process.

 

Doing your own due diligence will help you make a more informed decision when you step into a polling place.

 

Has Sports Become Too Big?

Tom Knuppel Other
Has Sports Become Too Big?

 

“Over the past two weeks, two of the most historically successful [college basketball] programs have been in the news for all the wrong reasons.” – Bill Littlefield

 

Let’s consider the impact sports has on the average American family. This time of year kids and their families are spending 4-6 nights per week on the ball diamonds or soccer fields and to some extent summer basketball and camps galore. There is a cost to all of this but I am not really talking about the financial cost but the wear-and-tear it has on the kids and the families. It is tremendous how many parents “get into” the game and look for chances to make their child better and better. The financial cost is no object. After all, is he/she makes it big into professional sports they are set, as in the moms and dads involved, for the rest of their life.

But the whole moral compass to keep athletics on the straight and narrow is going down the tubes. It is a dog-eat-dog world that will stop at nothing to succeed in sports. Look around, look at the news makers in sports in the past year or so.

I am not saying anyone is guilty here, I am saying it made news.

In the high school and junior high ranks we find coaches attempting to put together summer teams, like AAU basketball, in hopes they can influence college coaches and garner money for the kids that they may share with their old AAU coach and he can buy more influence. Many times they are not doing it for the “love of the kids” but for the love of notoriety for themselves and influence pedaling.

In college, UNC and Texas, we have allegations that they have participated in academic cheating. Why would they do that, aren’t they a place of higher learning? Yes they are but that is not what people are interested in. It is having the local college succeed in athletics. It makes the university a lot of money and the athletes get noticed from the levels higher and money flows. Make the athletes eligible at any cost. They must play. As for the coaches, their salaries are in the millions of dollars to coach for one year. They are signing 5-10 year multi-million dollar contracts because they are successful. It behooves them to win.

The pros have issues too. We have the football scandals that involves finding a way to help your team win. It is all about the money now and in the future. The deflate-gate is spot on for that. Right now, the Cardinals are being investigated for computer hacking into the database of another team. Maybe to gain a competitive advantage? We shall see how that turns out.

Players are using performance enhancing drugs to help them have great seasons. The list is far from exhaustive.

Look at the World Cup resignations this past month. That was about pay-offs for countries to host the Cup and bring in large sums of millions.

 

What can we do? It has gotten so large it will be hard to ever return to ground zero. It only is going to grow and have more and more and larger and larger issues with athletics. This is a sad time.

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

This is Why President’s Make News Announcements During the Holidays

Tom Knuppel Other
This is Why President’s Make News Announcements During the Holidays

 

Have you looked at the news today for any reaction to the resignation of the Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagle? There is not much there and that was by design.

No press releases, no statements on Facebook or twitter from anyone in Iowa’s current Congressional delegation or newly-elected delegation.

Does that strike anyone else as odd? I would have thought the defense secretary resigning after less than two years on the job, probably under pressure from the president, possibly over disagreement with the administration’s approach to Iraq and Syria, would be big news. Just look around Hagle’s home state of Iowa and there is virtually nothing in the news. Representative Dave Loebsack sits on the House Armed Services Committee. Senator-elect Joni Ernst has claimed to have a strong interest in our country’s Middle East policy, since her “boots were on that ground” now controlled by ISIS. Senator Chuck Grassley served with Hagel for years and will have a vote on confirming his successor at the Pentagon. Newly-elected Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01) and David Young (IA-03) both criticized the Obama administration’s policy in Iraq during this year’s campaign.

This is why presidents bury big news during holiday weeks, when elected representatives and their staffers are out of the office.