SL Xpress

I want every former coach from Texas to crash and burn. Even ones I personally like. Like Barnes. I've found his career at Tennessee fulfilling in a way a string of national championships would have brought me extreme misery. I started trying to list all the former coaches I've delighted at their lack of success post Texas, but I realized it was going to be too long. Suffice to say their failures have brought me a lot of schadenfreude. Even Mick Haley, who won a couple of national championships at USC, was fired unceremoniously just a few years afterwards and hasn't coached since. I don't want them to die, though. Richard Quick's demise wasn't one I celebrated. Sure wasn't a big fan of his huge successes, either, though.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this is not how the internet works.

He makes a Sweet Sixteen he’s not going anywhere. I’m not saying he will. History says he won’t. But the regular season simply doesn’t matter when evaluating college coaches, right or wrong. It’s simply not valued by anyone. Of course, I’m not putting any money up on Barnes making a Sweet Sixteen, either. I’m simply saying that’s what will determines his job status. Im not trying to sweep Barnes into the sunset, but building a program takes a lot of energy. Barnes is getting up there. If he chose to I think he’d be an incredible booth guy. He’s blunt. He’s funny. He’s a quick wit. He’s willing to ask questions. He’s extremely charismatic. I’m not wishing for him to take that path. Do whatever he finds fulfilling. But that’s a role he’d ace, IMO.

Gillispie was so abusive Beard couldn’t countenance it after a season and left for a minor league pro gig rather than stick around at Texas Tech as one of his assistants Gillispie also had all the drinking incidents and sleeping with coeds around Lexington. But at the end of the day he didn’t win enough. There were also drinking issues with Eddie Sutton while he was there However, I feel strongly you underestimate the hunger Kentucky fans have for winning. They hired a guy with two vacated Final Fours on his resume. They don’t give a shit. Chris Beard will be the best coach on the market. It’s possible Calipari isn’t fired after this year, in which case Beard could get a job somewhere else. That’s one heck of a buyout, even for Kentucky basketball. I’m simply saying when the job does come open a dismissed domestic violence charge is going to be a minor speed bump for the Kentucky faithful. He’ll be there next coach. Wait and see.

Anyone who questions Chris Beard will replace Calipari at Kentucky as their next coach - whenever that occurs - is out of their mind. Probably after the end of this season. 100%.

I glossed over it because of my anti Terry as head coach obsession (very glad he’s getting the raise, though). You’re right. What a strange non sequiter.

Sounds like the plot for Wages of Fear: "A massive fire erupts at one of the SOC oil fields. The only way to extinguish the flames and cap the well is an explosion caused by nitroglycerine. With short notice and lack of proper equipment, it must be transported within jerrycans placed in two large trucks from the SOC headquarters, 500 km (300 miles) away. Due to the poor condition of the roads and the highly volatile nature of nitroglycerine, the job is considered too dangerous for the unionized SOC employees."

I don't have a link, but just got a notice that Rodney Terry received a pay raise for this season more than doubling his salary to $1.2m. I don't understand that, as I thought he was already getting paid substantially more than $600k prior to this, but that's what the AP article says. Hookem2147 beat me to the punch.

Barnes' typical team building strategy was to tear a team down in terms of individuals and team play, especially over the break, and then build them back up again. In his last 4 years at Texas the teams didn't build back real well. Some of the same things have happened at Tennessee, too. But that 2009-2010 team was the worst example of it.

Well, me obviously. Spell it however you want. I'm not correcting anyone on here.

Yeah, not just any kind of experience. He was the head coach of the national team for China for a few years. He had Yao Ming's blessing. Also the Ukrainian National Team. Some NBA experience. He's got a varied resume for sure. Of course, we haven't brought anyone in with international experience yet, but that's a really tough journey that can take a while to develop, so I haven't exactly been upset about it or anything. I've always loved having him on the bench.

Myanmar. I can't remember the last time I used Burma unless it's a historical reference. The folks in control want it called a certain way, that's what I call it. That's the whole point with Istanbul. Like the song says, it's nobody's business but the Turks as far as I'm concerned.

There's a lot of prejudice towards the Turks. It's somewhat racist to call them the Mexicans of Europe, but they are such a substantial part of the poorest areas in many European countries. Particularly France and Germany. I remember in the 80s having so many conversations with Europeans who loved to point out to me how racist the US is, and I'm like, you realize you live in a completely homogenous country? You don't have a real idea what it's like to have vastly different cultures within your borders and the various power dynamics and natural tensions that come to exist because of it. And the ones you do are oftentimes huge flash points. Well, now different parts of Europe are getting a taste of it, and they're alleged tolerance for other cultures as a collective hasn't always been the ideal they made themselves out to be. I'm not casting blame. We are very tribal instinctually. A lot of it is part of being human and requires a huge amount of conscious work to even have a chance at overcoming. Then you have Greece. It's crazy both countries are in NATO. Erdogan just a couple of months ago was saber rattling with Greece over various disputes. That's always a regional powder keg. The Greeks aren't exactly going to be welcoming in Turkiye to the EU with open arms. EU is like the hot girl who keeps telling you she's for sure going to go out with you if you just do this one thing. At some point if you don't want to be a sucker you recognize it's never going to happen. Frankly, I think that's exactly what happened with Erdogan, and a lot of his behavior over the last 5 years has been him pulling the rip cord on eventual EU membership. He's found a different path he wants to embark on, and shockingly enough, it's not always friendly to the West.

That's apparently as many as Spain. Go Portugal!

It's how they want it spelled. We don't spell it Constantinople any more either, for similar reasons.

It legitimized it. Without the EU's prompting, the military may have well taken over at that point rather than let Erdogan take permanent control of the government. That was Ataturk's admonition and his call to the military. Keep Turkey secular. The secular portion of the population yearned for a tighter relationship with Europe. Candidacy in the EU - which was never going to happen by the way - would have represented a quantum leap for where they'd come from. Too many people both inside and outside of the country thought this was the way forward, when it was absolutely the way backwards. Anyway, water under the bridge. We're stuck with the fucker at this point, and all the bullshit he continues to pull.

This just in...Turkey is an unreliable partner. But like Pakistan, but even more so, you can't just write them off no matter how unreliable various elements in the government are. Just so pissed the EU pushed Erdogan to purge the military because they had too many coups in their history. That wasn't a bug, EU. That was a feature.

And drones. The camera footage from the ubiquitous drones has been a game changer in following the war, along with the social media.

Don't forget they separated donations for seating in Moody from donations elsewhere - specifically, DKR-Memorial. It's an additional revenue stream now. I know that wasn't pleasant for long time season ticket holders that suddenly had to shell out an additional expense, but it's helped the basketball program in all kinds of ways. Hiring a new coach is for sure one of them. Not just affording one, but making it even more important to hire the right one to keep the revenue flowing.

I continue to believe we're going to see more of an armored/combined arms major Russian offensive in the next month or two. I don't know how successful it's going to be. Hopefully not very. But I feel confident what we're seeing now from the Russian side is more of a prelude than anything else.

"In further news, the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine recently stated, 'I brought the remains from a couple of Iranian drone manufacturing facilities to say, we're on it.'"

The Baltic States and Poland know what's up. Thank goodness they're a part of the European system where they can constantly put pressure on the more recalcitrant states. Including the US at times. There's the old joke about the difference between being involved and being committed as it pertains to breakfast. The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Well, the Baltic States and Poland are way more committed in this fight geographically and historically than their European neighbors, and they're acting accordingly. It warms my heart.

Honestly, some part of me would love it if the US went tit for tat on this. Throw a hot air balloon over China and see how they react to it. They’d lose their ever fucking minds. The US government for the most part just seems to be a collective “whatevs.”

The contract extension tour begins. What we need is for a top coach to be an alumnus, and therefore not interested in an extension until he finds out what’s going on with the Texas job. Know where we could find one of those? (no, I’m not bitter) if it’s not Terry and we get anyone even remotely as qualified as Beard, it’s pretty much a certainty it’s going to be a lot more expensive than Beard was. I’m stunned at how massive a lot of these buyouts are. I didn’t realize that had become something of an industry standard. I remember the days when Dodds publicly stated he didn’t even bother with buyouts.

71 year old mortar operator. Volunteered when he was 65 years of age to fight in the Donbas region. Call sign "Granddad" because of course it is. A colorful and highly entertaining interview. Credits his health to climbing mountains when he was younger. Dad was a Soviet Army Officer. Grew up in Soviet barracks. Loves using the PKM (the Pokemon) but doesn't get as many opportunities any more as a mortar man. Translation by Dmitri (two parts):