Friday night's Dayton-Fallon boys basketball game had the best atmosphere that I've seen at a basketball game this winter.
It was Winter Homecoming at Dayton, and that brings out even the non-basketball fans among the student body. Put that together with a horde of fans from Fallon and the Dayton band, and you have one noisy place. It was so crowded that people were sitting along the sidelines.
At one point I thought I was watching the movie "Hoosiers" as the respective rooting sections kept trying to out-do each other. After the game, several Dayton players said it was tough to hear on the court.
Granted this was a pivotal game with playoff implications, but even if it hadn't of been, I wonder why more games can't have the atmosphere this one had, and when I say that, I include 4A games. No offense, but unless you're of drinking age, there isn't a lot to do in Reno or any other Nevada town.
• It was hard to watch the Hug-Carson boys basketball game last week; painful in fact.
The experts say one guy doesn't make a difference, but in the case of Andrew Johnson, who started for Carson as a sophomore only to transfer to Hug this fall, one guy did make a difference.
If Carson had Johnson at the point this year, making the playoffs wouldn't even be an issue. The Senators would be a solid third-place team in the Sierra League. I don't think even with Johnson that Carson would finish ahead of Douglas or Manogue, but they certainly would be more competitive against those goodteams. It's tough to be competitive when you lack a true point guard.
Back in the old days when I went to high school if a guy transferred and then came back to face his old school he would have been booed out of the building. Either the Carson rooting section didn't care or was intimidated by the faculty presence in the stands. Either way, Johnson got off easy.
• A recent release from the Western Athletic Conference said that BYU would be a WAC member for softball only.
Unbelievable. I think the WAC should have turned its nose up at BYU, which has gotten way to big for its britches.
The nonsense started when BYU opted out of the Mountain West Conference to go independent in football, and then BYU put its other programs in the West Coast Conference. No offense, but the WCC is very limited on what it offers in the way of sports. The WAC would have been a better fit for BYU's other programs.
I used to have a lot of respect for Tom Holmoe as a football player, and yes I covered the 49ers when he played safety for them, but not so much as an athletic director.
BYU doesn't have the nationwide appeal of a Notre Dame. Never have and never will. Outside of Utah, who cares about BYU? The Cougars cost themselves BCS money with that decision. They may get a minor, yearly bowl tie-in, but the Cougars would have to go undefeated to make any big money.
I sincerely think that had BYU stayed, the MWC would have expanded by one more team to get to 12 and a two-division format.
• One thing you will notice when high school softball teams take the field is that pitchers will now be throwing from 43 feet instead of 40 feet.
I don't anticipate a big change because girls that play ASA started pitching from 43 feet last year.
I like the rule because it will give the hitter a little more time to see the ball, and because of that, pitchers will have to rely even more on movement and location than in previous years. I hated seeing Brianne McGowan dominate like she did in her four years at Wooster. Hitters, even the good ones, had little or no chance against McGowan from 40 feet.
Softball should become more of an offensive game, a more exciting game. I'm truly excited to see how much more offense there will be when softball starts up.
Speaking of softball, the 4A has elected to stay in its two divisions. From what I've been told, Carson will play a single weekday game against a team from the High Desert and Saturday will be Sierra League doubleheaders.
• Kudos to Galena coach Tom Maurer for notching his 300th career victory last week. Maurer has a young team this year (nine underclassmen), and I expect the Grizzlies to start flexing their muscles in the next couple of years.
