TJ

[Guest]

why are you not playing ball at MTSU?

[Edited by StephenMTSU on 10-30-02 7:59P]

[TJ]

Well, I went up there and met with Coach Wiel at the end of January and everything was set up for me to be an "invited walk-on" next year. Then, of course, he resigned/got fired and the new coaching staff didn't want to take on another walk on. This was June when they finally got back to me so I guess they already had a number of walk-ons. So now i'm playing at Lambuth Univeristy.

[Guest]

alright cool.

[mg]

stephen mtsu.......get back to class.....tj could not play at mtsu cause he was not a prop player......he actually could pass some courses....

[Guest]

try not to drop of any more kids of at church if you know what I mean. Haha~~~

 

[imasoftballer]

TJ should have never responed to this thread. It has nothing to do with "HIGHSCHOOL BASKETBALL". The other thread about Ben is a close one. It is really not about basketball either. It is about a confrontation between two people. TJ maybe you should adhere to the rules you try to place on everyone else on this board!

[kareem]

TJ,

 

Here's my perspective: you were a good high school player who was fortunate enough to play for an excellent coach and with an excellent team. It did not hurt that you all picked up Jonathan Loe for your championship season - by the way. Good luck at Lambuth, in what is presumably your sophomore year. Lambuth is where you need to be if you are going to get enough playing time to make your experience more than Cannon Whitby's at Arkansas.

 

You are 20 years old? Coach T has allowed you to make yourself a declared TN hoops expert worthy of creating a Top 20 poll and educating the rest of us on this site. This includes calling me an idiot for stating my opinion about guys who behave the way your buddy Ben did. Coach Smith is the man, and the man is sometimes wrong. In this case, he was not. Regardless of right or wrong, the man is going to win unless there are some indiscretions that rise to a level higher than just that Coach Smith is too demanding. Maybe Coach Smith hurts some feelings at Bartlett, big deal. Life is full of times when your feelings are going to be hurt. stink it up and go.

 

It has been nice hearing a kid's take on a sport that I have spent years watching across this state. In ten or fifteen years, I'm sure your perspective will have changed. At that point, you will have something to say that the rest of us really care to hear.

[TJ]

Softballa, what are you talking about? Someone asked me a ? so I answered it. You're prolly right. This thread has nothing to do w/ HS bball. Ben's does though. Anytime the best big man in memphis gets kicked off his team, people want to know about it.

[Edited by TJ on 11-2-02 1:02A]

[TJ]

Kareem, first of all, I apologize for calling you and idiot. Second, I never claim to be an bball expert and as far as the Top 20 poll goes, I was asked to HELP put that together by Gomab. I really don't care about polls. Next, the reason I did call you an idiot is the way you came across relating your opinion. If you would've related your opinion like you just did in the previous post, I would've simply said that I disagreed w/ you and left it at that. But you decided to make fun of a kid, that you don't know or know the level of his intelligence, for a few spelling errors which I felt was out of line. I've stated numerous times that Ben is the one that is the most at fault, but I do also know Coach Smith and know how things run around there. One of the main reasons he and the program has been so successful is b/c of the way he's run it. He doesn't care what anyone thinks and puts up w/ no crap. He doesn't listen to anyone but himself and his staff. No parents, buddies, ect.) But I also know that he CAN take things too far and like i've said before, if you don't know how to deal w/ the demands he puts on you, you could very well fail in his program. I battled w/ him for 3 years until I bought into what he was saying. I didn't fail in those 3 years, but I wasn't as good of a player as I became when I bought into what he was trying to teach me. If I didn't buy into those principles, I wouldn't be as prepared for the college level and thank him for that and for helpin me mature. As far as our state championship team, did you ever see us play? Yes, Jonathan made us a lot better team, no question about that. If you take him off our team, we prolly don't win it, or maybe even make it to state. BUT, also if you take me off the team, if you take Keith Duggin, Adrian Jones, Brandon Wallace, even Ben at that time, we may not win it. Every person on that team played a huge role in our sucess, some bigger pieces of the puzzle than others. I was told just a few months ago something that was said by Coach Smith about our team in 2001 that was one of the biggest compliments that he's ever given me. He said "Jonathan was our best player, Keith was our heart, and Troy was the glue of the team and leader on the floor." That meant more to me than anything i've ever been told by him. Because in my earlier years at Bartlett I was the team screw up. Always getting in trouble in class, clashing w/ Coach Smith, being accused of being selfish, being accused of not working hard enough. So I went from that to being the glue of a championship team that could've been nationally ranked if we wouldn't have had a few garbage losses. So I don't think Jonathan was 100% of our success. Jonathan's talent was the perfect compliment for the rest of our team and helped put us over the hump.

[kareem]

Apology accepted. The reason you value Coach Smith's comment so much is all that you had to do in order to receive it. You paid the price for it; therefore, you deserved his praise. As a demanding coach, he felt he was justified when you were the team screwup. If he weren't the kind of coach he is, that would not have meant anything to you.

[imasoftballer]

Forgive me if I am wrong, but are you not the guy who was coming to the Lewis Co. threads saying that the thread should not be allowed and that coacht should lock us out because we were just talking basketball and not HS Basketball??? You are talking about a freind(former player) and your former coach. What does that have to do with high school basketball right now? Nothing! You said the kid got kicked off the team. Ben makes it sound as if he quit. Either way, he is a former HS player just like you and me now.

 

All I am saying is don't blast us and not expect reprecusions. We read the post on here and we make post on here. What we do is all in fun and in the spirt of the game we love to watch and yes, still play. If you don't like our posts, don't read them. Let us do our thing and we will let you do your's.

 

Thank you.

[TJ]

C'mon now, if you want to say that talking about a kid that was prolly one of the top couple big men prospects in the state and talking about the Lewis County outdoor courts are the same thing, then you're living in a diluted world. Those courts do have nothing to do w/ this site, but Ben getting kicked off a HS basketball team DOES. Just think about it and it makes sense.