Name of the Week: Syracuse Edition.

Earlier I said I'd be doing two polls every week. One of them is, as noted, just a simple "who will win on Saturday" poll.

The other is something that I had a sense you guys were liking in my team preview posts(although maybe I was wrong): my ongoing quest to find the best name on the football team of each college we play. So that we have somebody to look for in a sea of players we don't know. Because last week, Lorenzo Seaberry recorded a tackle, and rather than be angry that Stephen Simmons had just been stopped from getting a few more yards, I thought to myself "well, I guess it sucks that Steph got tackled, but if somebody had to do it, I'm glad it was Lorenzo Seaberry III, owner of the second-best name on the Eastern Michigan defense."

So I'll list the nominees, and pick my choice for name of the week, but it's up to you guys to decide who will win the week, and who will end up on the year-ending ballot where the 12 (or 13!) best names we faced off against this season fight for the honor of having the official Purple Drank best name of the year. (I've planned this out, you see. There'll be a trophy presentation or something.)

And yes, I know there's already a Name of the Year blog, which is hilarious, but I feel this serves its own distinct and wonderful purpose for my blog, and therefore don't consider this to be a rip-off, rather, a repurposing of a great idea other people already had. (although tell me in the comments if you disagree.)

So, here it goes: name of the week, Syracuse Orange edition. The poll will be up starting now and will come down friday morning, so, rock the vote. Remember, I'm looking for the best name, not necessarily the funniest, so interpret that as you will.

There are four candidates this week:

CB Shamarko Thomas, #43: Not a particularly great name - he's got a flashy first name, coupled with an unspectacular last name, which rarely works, unless the name is way over the top in a D'Brickashaw Ferguson manner. I'm not a fan, but the name needed mentioning. Thomas, a true freshman, probably won't see the field on saturday, and, in an NU connection, was a teammate of Wildcat freshmen Josh Plasencia and Brian Smith at the IFAF Junior World Cup.

WR Van Chew, #82: Short and to the point, neither of Chew's names are actual names. Van is a type of car, and occasionally comes up as an awesome first name (see: Morrison, Wilder), and Chew is something you do to food before digesting it. His full name is Vanzago, which sounds like a type of cheese. 

On the field, Chew is a sophomore wide receiver who played as a true freshman last year, including a 35-yard touchdown against Pittsburgh.

WR Da'Mon Merkerson, #6: Da'Mon's parents took a relatively boring name in Damon and makes it about four times as great. I'm unsure about how Da'Mon is pronounced - it could still be pronounced like Damon - but I'll go ahead and assume it sounds like "Da Mon", or, how you would call someone "the man" if you were doing a really really inaccurate Jamaican accent.

Merkerson came to Syracuse as a wide receiver, but switched to cornerback for the beginning of last season, recording three tackles against NU, and then switching back to wide receiver by the end of the year, recording one touchdown reception.

And my endorsement in the name of the week election...

Long Snapper Maximilian Leo, #57: First off, that's just fun to say. But that aside, let's examine this name: Most of the time, the double first name is a bad indicator of a human's worth. (I'm looking at you, Greg Anthony!) But generally, these double first names are nothing like Maximilian Leo. Maximilian is one of the best names ever. According to the wikipedia, people named Maximilian generally have one of four professions: Emperor, preferably Holy Roman Emperor, martyr, Robespierre, or fictional character. Leo is thinking outside the box by being a long snapper. Most people with this name probably prefer to be called "Max", but these people are stupid. I didn't take Latin for very long, but I can tell you that Maximilian transfers from Latin to "greatest" and Leo translates from Latin to mean "lion". So this dude's name means greatest lion. GREATEST LION, YO. If I was named that, I'd maul people all the time, and I bet the reason Maximilian is a long snapper is because if he had a more contact oriented role, he'd just start uncontrollably mauling every mofo who got in his way, including teammates, referees, fans, and stray gazelles and wildebeests and stuff.

So those are the candidates. Vote early, choose wisely. I've made my preferences known, but I wouldn't be disappointed with any of the candidates winning, although I do feel it's a relatively weak slate, especially in comparison to the absolute doozy of Minnesota's names (which I just checked, and are absolutely off the hook.) So do it to it, and back your candidate in the comments section.

I'm Thinking RB's.

So NU had its annual fall scrimmage Saturday, which means there's only twelve more days left until football season. I, as someone who lives in New York, didn't make the trek to Kenosha, Wisconsin, so my main sources of information were an article on NUsports.com (with the headline "NU holds successful scrimmage" which makes me wonder if they would've called it an "unsuccessful scrimmage" if everybody had been really bad), various rivals.com posts (is it a bad sign that this blog has forced me to start routinely checking that site?) and a highlight video also on NUsports.com. 

The consensus I'm getting is thus: Mike Kafka really, really, really, really needs to stop throwing into the flat without at least pump-faking the guy who is right there out of the way, John Placensia actually is the world's greatest, and our running back situation is now officially up for grabs. 

I've tried my hand at predicting our RB situation before on this blog. And every time I try, it gets more and more confusing. 

When last year ended, I assumed this year would feature Stephen Simmons as a feature back. When I covered spring football, I asked coach Fitz and various other coaches, and they each gave me variants on "well, it's spring ball, and nothing's certain... but Stephen's the most experienced." I started to see Simmons as the more prominent back in a field which would have a lot of specialization with guys coming in on different downs. After the spring game, I became convinced that we would be looking at a RB by committee approach with Simmons, Jeravin Matthews, and Alex Daniel.

Now, I don't know what to think. In the spring game, Simmons and Matthews rushed a combined six times for two yards. Meanwhile, Arby Fields is the toast of the online Northwestern community, and looks like he'll play this season, whereas in my running backs post linked to above, I pictured him redshirting and didn't discuss him until I'd already discussed every other NU running back. 

Fields is sentimental being painted as Tyrell Sutton's predecessor due to his similar build and his being assigned the same number. Now, who knows if he'll be that great - he certainly doesn't have the high school pedigree Sutton had - but NU definitely appears to be counting on Arby in some role this fall.

To complicate matters, people are also saying good things about Scott Concannon, and Jacob Schmidt led all rushers in the scrimmage with 45 yards and a touchdown. So every running back on the roster is getting some sort of praise. 

I officially would not be surprised if any combination of Simmons, Fields, Matthews, and Daniel play this fall. They all have different skill sets, and none of them is clearly a better solution than the others. If I had to guess, I'd say they'd get carries in the order I listed directly above - I think it would be silly to make Arby lose his redshirt so he can be our third-string running back, although I guess Matthews did it last year - but, to be honest, I have no idea, and neither does anybody who isn't a member of the Northwestern coaching staff. We'll have to wait and see how they get used against Towson, which, in my head quickly turning into less of a game and more of an opportunity to find out about who's actually going to play.

Summer Nationalism Wrap-Up

So the international basketball/football season is officially over at Northwestern with John Shurna's New Zealand trip ending with gold, so, let's analyze what all this flag-bearing means for NU, player by player. 

John Shurna: Covered this decently yesterday, but hey. It's good to see that he's capable of being a contributing member on a gold-medal team where everybody involved is of a fairly high skill level. It's a little difficult to interpret how his numbers relate to his development as a player - first off, small sample sizes and mixed competition. Second off, he was playing power forward - hence the high rebounding and blocks numbers, whereas at NU, he'll be a three. Third off, the US team was all about the three ball - Shurna shot 18 threes and 17 twos, and that's less of a reflection of Shurna transforming into a jacker than it is a reflection of USA's strategy - four players shot more threes than twos, an additional three shot over 45% of their shots from downtown, Seth Curry shot 48 threes and 15 twos.  So what I'll say is this: Shurna played a jumpshooting big man throughout the tournament, and did a pretty good job. "Jumpshooting big man" is a very close approximation of what Shurna will be doing at NU, although he will technically be the third tallest player on the court most of the time. Therefore, we should just be damn pleased that he did a pretty good job overseas representing his country, and he probably got some pretty decent coaching while there, and he'll probably be a better player for it, plus it looks good for him and for NU. So there. I essentially said nothing in this paragraph.

Kyle Rowley: Let's start easy: Kyle Rowley will get better with time, and a few weeks of practice on a team on which he was the youngest player was a really good way to start. Of course, the down side of this is that as the least senior member of the team - in fact, at 19, he's four years younger than anybody else on the team - and that seniority might have gotten him shafted in terms of playing time. And, if I must say so, these reports from latinbasket are actually somewhat complementary, which is sorta to be expected from guys whose job is it to write exclusively about Trinidad and Tobago basketball, but still good to see. 

Now, here's the problem. At NU, Kyle starts at center, ahead of Luka Mirkovic, a pretty talented center with really good rebounding skills and touch extending beyond the three-point line. In the T&T, Kyle was on the bench behind Julius Ashby, who plays for Tokyo Apache, a confusingly named Japanese basketball team, and Miguel Williams, a 31 year old player for the Petro Jazz of the Trinidadian league. 

That doesn't work.

Unless we want to start considering our team worse than the national team of Trinidad and Tobago, which I personally don't, something's gotta change. 

The fact that the Trinidadian national team doesn't trust him to play in games which have a competitive level below that of Division I, much less Big Ten basketball, is not a good sign for his game now. Now, I have faith that his game will improve with time, but the wrong way to handle his development is by thrusting him into the starting lineup in one of the biggest seasons in Northwestern basketball history.

John Plasencia and Brian Smith: These guys won't play this year, but a few weeks of good coaching and a taste of winning didn't hurt anybody. Also, it looks like Plasencia's got some serious receiving skill - then again, it's really difficult to take anything out of a tournament in which the USA was so thoroughly better than their opponents. And that Plasencia is the GTEOATU19, but that's a given. 

So, that's that. Because I'm really really good at finding perfect endings to blog posts, here's a dude playing the national anthem of the USA on steel drum, followed by a kid playing the Trinidad and Tobago national anthem on steel drum wearing a Santa hat. 

John Plasencia named World's Best Tight End

OK, not actually true. Technically, Plasencia is just the World's Greatest Tight End in the World under the age of 19 after being named to the IFAF Junior World Cup all-tournament team, but, hey, we'll take it. 

A short but incomplete list of things John Plasencia is: A mountain, a tall tree, a swift wind sweeping the country

Plasencia, henceforth known as the GTEOATU19 (Greatest Tight End Of All Time Under the age of 19), had a 26-yard touchdown grab in the USA's 41-3 gold medal game romp over Canada, cementing his place in history. He finished the tournament with the one touchdown and five receptions for 68 yards, and played in all three of USA's victories in which they outscored their opponents by a total score of 174-3. 

Disconcertingly, his touchdown had echoes of his two-point conversion in the 78-0 victory against France in that it was a bit of a running up of the score, as it was the final touchdown, and the team was already ahead 34-3. But who can blame him? When you're the world's greatest, you need to let the opponent know it. If some punk New Zealandish cornerback thinks they can stick with Plasencia, he has every right to catch a touchdown, high-step into the endzone, and tell them to go shove a kiwi down their throat. The bird or the fruit, doesn't matter. (And yes, for those of you wondering: the New Zealand junior football team did the haka. Way, way less intimidating than when the rugby team does it, but more intimidating than the basketball, baseball, and hockey versions various NZ sports teams use.) 

Plasencia won't arrive on campus until september, and won't even be playing tight end, he'll be a superback, but he's already a legend on the Purple Drank. I advise Pat Fitzgerald redshirt him freshman year - if Plasencia just spent two weeks steamrolling major nations like France, Mexico, and Canada, imagine what he'll do to puny little states like Michigan and Indiana? I shudder, and congratulate the future Wildcat on his performance.

Nationalism Week rolls on!

A short post for a day on which I'm one of about 30 people in the United States working, we'll catch up on our nation-representing athletes.

First off, something I hadn't mentioned yet: some of our FIVE TIME champion Women's Lacrosse players were involved in the Lacrosse World Cup: Alums Kristen Kjellman, Sarah Albrecht, and Lindsey Munday played for the US, who won, and senior Hannah Nielsen contributed to a second-place Australian team. So, let's get six.

Now, to the guys I've written about. 

The first thing I wrote about, the IFAF Junior World Championship, the international American Football tournament in which future Cats John Plasencia and Brian Smith are participating, is going as you'd expect. USA beat France 78-0, and Mexico 55-0. Plasencia has three receptions for 32 yards, not too shabby, and there's no stats for Smith because he's a lineman, but, apparently, he's starting. In somewhat disturbing news, Plasencia caught a two-point conversion to make the score 24-0 against France, even though they were up 23. Against France. In an American football tournament. Really? 23-0 wouldn't have been good enough, USA Coach, you had to go for two? Really? You had to go for two? I'm pretty sure there's no direct translation for "two-point conversion" into french, and you had to go and make sure that you guys didn't only win by 77? Really? At least leave Plasencia out of it. Anyway, Northwestern football: expect victory. 

John Shurna got his grown man on with an 11-point, 10-board double-double against Iran in a 106-55 victory, including 5 offensive boards, prompting FIBA to write this about him:

"After a tense opening that saw the USA lead by just two, 14-12, with less than three minutes remaining in the first period, 203cm power forward John Shurna made the running for the USA, scoring seven points as his team went on a 16-1 run to finish the quarter in control, 30-13."

Yeah! That just sounded cool. Unfortunately, through no fault of his own, Shurna has gotten no better at making photographers take good pictures of him.

The only photographic evidence of John Shurna recording a double-double for Team USA.

Last, but not least, Trinidad and Tobago has to be the feel-good story of the summer in the Caribbean basketball world. Despite my gloom-and-doom predictions last week, the team is 3-0 so far in the CBC championship, but Kyle Rowley has had little to do with their success. In their victory over Jamaica, he played two minutes and had no stats besides a turnover. He got 8 minutes, presumably garbage time, in a 90-63 romp over Barbados, and actually performed really well: 7 points and 5 rebounds. (Per 40 minutes: 35 points and 25 rebounds.) And against the Bahamas, he didn't get off the bench. Obviously, this isn't good for NU, but we should be happy for the T&T. And we should forget how bad I am at predicting Carribean basketball games. 

USA! USA!

Woooooo!

So, there's a reason for the flags. This summer, starting tomorrow, three of our boys in purple will be representing the red, white, and blue: football pre-froshes John Plasencia and Brian Smith will be on the USA team at the very first Junior World Championship, and John Shurna will be a member of the USA contingent heading to the U-19 Championships in New Zealand. I'm excited about this, because I'm a sucker for nationalistic sporting events. (YEAH CLINT DEMPSEY!)

Today, I'll post about football. In the name of saving up things I can write about as long as possible, Ill discuss Shurna when his tournament starts. But Plasencia, Smith, and 43 other kids who have never smelled a dorm hallway before will kick off their tournament Saturday in Canton, Ohio, against France. 

First off, let's welcome Plasencia and Smith. Plasencia is a superback (quoth Fitz: a super person who does super things), and Smith is an offensive lineman. Both, as previously noted, are incoming freshman, both will most likely redshirt, and both probably won't start a game at Northwestern for at least three years. But for some reason or another, they've been selected as part of the US Junior National team. 

But what does that mean? Are these the best players in the United States? What's the history of this tournament?

The answers: I have no idea, nope, and there is none. 

Since this is the first rendition of the tournament, there's no historical context for me to tell you what sort of a harbinger playing in a competition like this is for how good the players are, how they got selected, why they got selected, or any other amount of questions. What I can tell you, because I read the press release, is that 45 players attending 33 colleges next year were selected to play in Canton, and that, according to NUsports.com, Plasencia and Smith aren't the cream of the crop - rather, Plasencia is the 86th best tight end in his class according to Superprep and Smith is the 70th best tackle. 

But enough with the parade raining. It's damn impressive that these kids were selected, and it can't hurt that they get a few weeks of extra training, practice, and game experience, which they'll probably get, considering there's only 45 guys on the team. Not to mention that I doubt whatever mysterious entity involved with putting this team together probably wasn't searching for scrubs: they must have seen something about these two dudes out of the thousands of D-1 tight ends and o-linemen that they liked. (Although, considering the preponderance of Big Ten guys, geography and the logistics of holding a tournament in Ohio might have had something to do with it, especially considering that Smith is actually from Ohio.) I wouldn't be surprised if they were intentionally not picking top-flight players so that opposing teams had a chance, figuring closer games, and maybe a USA team losing a game or two would allow for the sport to grow on an international level.

A way to make sense of all of this might be a brief primer on the history of international American football competitions, which, surprisingly, exist.(figure out which adjective modifies what there.) The wikipedia tells me that the IFAF (International Federation of American Football) has been held three times, with Japan winning twice and the US winning in 2007, the first time they sent a team.

You'd be surprised to find that they didn't completely dominate. After winning their group stage games against South Korea and Germany 77-0 and 33-7, respectively, the team had a serious battle against Japan, winning a 23-20 double overtime game. 

I doubt there will be close games like that in this competition. As far as I can tell, the USA team there was a Frankenstein-ish hodgepodge of inactive ex-collegiate football players with an intense series of regulations on who could be picked: no players who had ever been professional, multiple players had to be selected from D-I, D-II, and D-III, and none were allowed to have been active players at the collegiate level for 12 months prior to the tournament. They played against international teams that, despite lacking the football pedigree and infrastructure that the United States has, had probably been playing together and practicing for longer: after all, it was their one time to shine, while for the USA players, it was just one last fling and attempt at capturing glory after finishing their mildly successful careers and getting an education out of it. 

Here, in the first Junior World Championships, the USA squad makes more sense and is probably going to be more cohesive as a result. There's no draconian restrictions on who could be picked: it's just 45 guys who the USA Football people liked, and they're not rusty, since they just finished with high school and are moving on towards college, not completely finished with their careers. And their competition is probably the same level of skill as in the last tournament: that is to say, bad. 

Let's be real: they're playing France in the first round. France. I'd like to mock the french as weak and cowardly, primarily because of four years of B-minus speckled high school french, but despite never having been mugged in nearly 20 years of living in New York, I managed to get mugged, and, rather violently so, in five days of being in France, so, they officially earned the right to not be called snivelling cowards. Instead, I will talk about how unlikely it is that they are good at football. 

I will paraphrase from the biography of their starting quarterback, Maxime Sprauel, I repeat, whose name is Maxime Sprauel, which is a french name, even though the sport is called American football. (And no: LaDanian is not a french name, if you were wondering.) Maxime plays for the Thornon les Bains Black Panthers (good choice of team name, folks, probably considerably less controversial in France), and recently led the French junior team to a third place finish at the European Junior American Football championships. Other teams in the tournament include Japan,(I guess they were good in those other weird international tournaments I just wrote about), Canada (makes sense, CFL and all), Mexico (okay, getting weird now, although I guess they border us), Germany (NFL Europe, maybe?), New Zealand (really? I mean, this is getting silly), and Sweden (hahahahahahaha). So, yeah, the competition isn't great. Maybe a well-established team like Canada or Japan will give Plasencia, Smith n crew a run for their money, but odds are the two will come to Evanston with some hardware in pocket.

The games, obviously, are not on television, although they will stream from the USA football website. (In other news: I will not be watching.) If anybody does watch, first off, please, leave your house, go get some fresh air, do something else with your life. Second, tell us how the Wildcats involved do. Even though probably, they'll be doing nothing more important than blocking, and it will be really difficult to judge how good they actually are, considering they'll be going up against frenchies. 

If I can find anything out about how the tourney goes, I'll give you a report when the tourney is over. Until then, wish them luck, but for now, just know that the bottom line is that it's great for the program that two of our guys have this cool experience. Next week, I'll discuss Shurna's US experience before his tournament kicks off on July 2nd. 

Oh, and if you're still reading (highly unlikely,) peep the poll on the right side! Make it look like I got readers!