Wednesday 31 March 2021

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The Big E, The Dream, and The Glide: Houston’s all-time college basketball greats

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 02:04 PM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

The Final Four is set for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. It features two teams from Texas — Baylor and Houston — and two from the west coast — Gonzaga and UCLA.

The east coast, home of the last six champions and 16 this century, has no team in the Final Four. Neither does the Big Ten, which most people considered the strongest conference in the country this year.

The Houston Cougars have had two great Final Four teams: the Elvin Hayes team of the late 1960s and “Phi Slama Jama” in the early 1980s. Both were coached by the legendary Guy Lewis, himself a standout player for the Cougars in the late 1940s.

The Hayes team played what might have been the biggest college basketball game ever — a 1968 clash against mighty UCLA before around 52,000 people at the Astrodome. This was the first nationally televised regular season college game ever. It helped put college basketball on the map. ( Texas Western’s victory of Kentucky in 1966 had more historical importance, but did not receive as much attention at the time).

Houston defeated UCLA at the Astrodome, but the Bruins got revenge with a decisive win over the Cougars in the Final Four later that season.

A decade and a half later, the Phi Slama Jama edition of Houston came within a whisker of winning the national championship, only to be denied when N.C. State’s Lorenzo Charles put in Derek Whittenburg’s air ball to break the Cougars’ hearts.

These two teams dominate the top tiers of my all-time great Houston players, as presented below:

First Team:

Don Chaney (1965-68)

Chaney didn’t put up gaudy numbers at Houston, but he was a great defender and the floor general for the team that defeated UCLA in the Astrodome. Red Auerbach saw the merit in Chaney, drafting him in the first round in 1968. Chaney rewarded Auerbach by becoming the starting point guard on some excellent Celtics teams, including the NBA champions of 1974.

Clyde Drexler (1980-83)

Clyde “the Glide” is arguably one of the top ten shooting guards in NBA history. Before that, he was the star of “Phi Slama Jama.” Drexler averaged around 15 points and 10 rebounds for that team. He made 57 percent of his shots in 1981-82 and 54 percent the following season.

Drexler is also Houston’s all time leader in steals.

Otis Birdsong (1973-77)

Birdsong actually had a better college career than Drexler (and a good pro career, as well). He ranks second on the school’s all-time scoring list and second in all-time scoring average (24.4 points per game).

As a senior, Birdsong averaged 30 points per game and shot 57 percent from the floor. I’ve seen few sweeter jump shots than Birdsong’s.

Elvin Hayes (1965-68)

“The Big E” is certainly one of the top ten NBA forwards of all time. Arguably, he’s one of the top five.

In addition, I consider him one of the top ten college players of all time. His numbers are astounding.

Hayes is the all-time Houston Cougars leader in points, point per game (31 over his full career), rebounds, rebounds per game per game (17.2), scoring average in a season (36.8), and rebounds per game in a season (18.9). He holds the Houston single-game scoring record (62) and seven of the ten highest point totals in a game for Houston are by Hayes.

In the Astrodome showdown with UCLA and Lew Alcindor, Hayes had 39 points and 15 rebounds. Alcindor had just 15 points. In the rematch, Hayes scored 25 points, but needed 31 shots to do it. Hayes grabbed 24 rebounds in that game, second most by anyone in a Final Four game, behind only Bill Russell.

Hayes wasn’t always easy to like as a pro. However, he holds a special place in my heart for having been the best player on Washington, D.C.’s only NBA championship team.

Hakeem Olajuwon (1980-84)

“Hakeem the Dream” is certainly one of the top ten NBA centers of all time. Arguably, he’s one of the top five.

Olajuwon wasn’t the same player in college as in the pros. The former soccer goalie was still learning the game. Those great, fluid post moves (second only to Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s, in my estimation) weren’t part of his college game.

Even so, Olajuwon was a dominating force for the Cougars. He’s their all-time leader in blocked shots and blocked shots per game (4.5). He ranks second in rebounds in a single season, behind only Hayes’ best year.

In the last of his three seasons, Olajuwon averaged 16.8 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 5.6 blocks per game.

Following that season, the Houston Rockets made Olajuwon the first pick in the NBA draft, ahead of Michael Jordan. As a pro, he led the Rockets to two NBA championships plus an appearance in the Finals in just his second season.

Second Team:

Rob Williams (1979-82)

Williams averaged 21 points per game in his three seasons at Houston. He shot 51 percent from the field.

He’s fifth all time in points for the Cougars and eighth in assists.

Williams went on to play two seasons in the NBA.

Dwight Davis (1969-72)

“Double D” is the seventh leading scorer in Cougars history. He averaged 20.7 points in his college career making slightly more than half his field goal attempts. He’s fifth on the all-time rebounds list with 11.4 per game.

Davis was a high flyer who would have fit perfectly on the Phi Slama Jama team. He played in the NBA for five seasons, averaging 8.6 points over that career.

Michael Young (1980-84)

Another Phi Slama Jama alum, Young flew as high as anyone. He’s third on the Cougars all-time scoring list and averaged 15.2 points per game during his four years as a starter. His career shooting percentage is 49 percent.

Young played three years in the NBA. His son Jacob averaged 14 points per game for Rutgers this season.

Louis Dunbar (1972-75)

Dunbar averaged 22.3 points and 7.7 rebounds during his career at Houston. He’s sixth on the all-time scoring list for the Cougars. Dunbar went on to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Don Boldebuck (1954-56)

His scoring average (22.8) during the two seasons he played for Houston is third behind only Hayes and Birdsong. His rebounds per game average (16.9) is second only to Hayes.

Third Team:

Reid Gettys (1981-85)

The point guard for Phi Slama Jama, Gettys is Houston’s all time leader in assists and assists per game. (6.2). He had 17 assists in a game against Rice.

Gettys later became an attorney and an assistant coach for the Cougars, under his former teammate Clyde Drexler.

Quentin Grimes (2018-present)

Grimes is the star of this year’s Final Four team. He averaged 18 points per game and made 41 percent of this three-point shots.

He also averaged 5.8 rebounds per game and plays tenacious defense.

Rob Gray (2015-18)

Gray is eighth on the Cougars’ all-time scoring list. He averaged 18.9 points per game during his three year career. In his best season — his junior year — Gray averaged 20.6 points per game.

Craig Upchurch (1987-92)

Upchurch is fourth on Houston’s all-time scoring list and tenth in career rebounds. He shot .556 from the field in his four year career as a starter. In his best season — his sophomore year — he averaged 18.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, while shooting .583 from the floor.

Greg “Cadillac” Anderson (1983-87)

He’s the third leading rebounder all time for the Cougars. During his last two seasons with the team, he averaged around 18.5 points and 11.5 rebounds, while making close to 60 percent of his field goals.

Anderson had a productive ten year NBA career. In 1988, he averaged 13.7 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. In 1992, he averaged a double-double — 11.5 points and 11.5 rebounds per game.

Honorable mention:
Guy Lewis (1945-47)
Ted Luckenbill (1958-61)
Greg Phillips (1958-61)
Ken Spain (1966-69)
Dwight Jones (1970-73)*
Ken Ciolli (1975-79)
Larry Micheaux (1979-83)
Alvin Franklin (1982-1986)
Ricky Winslow (1983-87)
Carl Herrera (1989-90)
Bo Outlaw (1991-93)
Tim Moore (1993-96)
Damon Jones (1994-97)
Andre Owens (2002-05)
Robert McKiver (2006-08)
Aubrey Coleman (2008-10)
Damyean Dotson (2015-17)

* I inadvertently left Dwight Jones, an outstanding center, off my initial list. I don’t how it happened, because I considered the late Mr. Jones for the third team.

I saw Dwight Jones and Dwight Davis play against Stanford when I was in law school. Both were very impressive.

Podcast: The Power Line Show, Ep 247—VIP Highlights

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 01:12 PM PDT

(Steven Hayward)

Last night we had one of our special live Zoom events for Power Line VIP subscribers, but a gremlin seems to have prevented many VIPs from getting timely notice of the link to the event. So we decided to post up the audio of the event for VIPs who didn't get a link or who were unable to join us for whatever reason–and for any curious listeners who want to hear what they're missing!

Scott was under the weather, so "Lucretia," Power Line's International Woman of Mystery (and somehow "America's Sweetheart" to several whisky-drinking regulars who maybe should lay off the good stuff) took Scott's place on short notice, as we survey several topics from the Chauvin trial to the chaos and crisis at the souther border, the rigor mortis of (P)resident Biden, and several other things on our mind, as well as taking listener questions.

Listen here, or there, or wherever you get your podcast fix.

The gang in action:

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Catch Me Tonight On the Laura Ingraham Show

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 12:55 PM PDT

(John Hinderaker)

Each night this week on the Ingraham Angle, Alan Dershowitz and I have briefly recapped the day’s events in the Derek Chauvin trial. We will be on at around 9:20 Central tonight, and I believe we will be talking about the drug overdose issue. If you get a chance to tune in, it should be interesting.

I am not sure whether Laura will want me on the show every night for the duration of the trial, but I assume there will be quite a few more appearances in days to come. It is fun to be on with Laura, but it has been tough to post much while watching the trial during the day and getting work done around the edges.

How good a judge is Biden’s nominee to the D.C. Circuit?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 09:48 AM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Joe Biden has nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She currently sits on the U.S. District Court in D.C.

This nomination was 100 percent expected. In fact, there has been speculation that Biden promised to nominate Judge Jackson to pacify radicals unhappy with the selection of Merrick Garland for Attorney General (as if the selections of radical race mongers Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke for top DOJ jobs weren’t enough). Garland’s move to the Justice Department opened up a seat on the D.C. Circuit.

There is also speculation that Judge Jackson is being groomed for the Supreme Court. Such speculation is reasonable when a youngish judge is placed on the D.C. Circuit (Jackson is 50). After all, three current Justices — Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Brett Kavanaugh — took that path to the Supreme Court. So did Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

What about Judge Jackson’s credentials? On paper, they are stellar. She has an undergraduate degree (magna cum laude) from Harvard and a law degree from there as well (cum laude). She was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and clerked for Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court.

Jackson has worked, among things, as an assistant federal public defender, appellate litigator at a major law firm, and vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. She also has almost a decade of experience as a federal district court judge.

Judge Jackson is a left-liberal, but doesn’t appear to fall outside the mainstream of left-liberal thinking on legal issues. All of this — her credential and her ideology — point in the direction of Senate confirmation.

However, Ed Whelan, who follows these things much more closely than I do, raises a salient point. He contends that Judge Jackson is a mediocre jurist at the district court level.

He writes:

Jackson is not highly regarded as a judge. Inquiries I have made recently of folks knowledgeable about her work confirm that she continues to have a middling reputation. This criticism, I'll emphasize, is on grounds of quality, not ideology. Indeed, she is not regarded as ranking high among the ten or so district judges that President Obama appointed to the federal district bench in D.C. . . .

This assessment of Jackson finds support in her record on appeal:

Jackson has a striking record of reversals by the D.C. Circuit—including by liberal judges—in her high-profile rulings:

*In 2019, Jackson issued a 122-page opinion in support of her preliminary injunction (in Make the Road New York v. McAleenan) barring the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing its decision expanding the reach of its expedited-removal process to the statutory limit. Jackson ruled (among other things) that plaintiffs had sufficiently established that her court had jurisdiction over the challenge to the decision; that Congress "did not intend to commit implementation of the expedited removal process it authorized entirely to agency discretion"; that plaintiffs had procedural claims under the Administrative Procedure Act; and that the DHS decision was arbitrary and capricious.

The D.C. Circuit reversed Judge Jackson. All three judges on the panel agreed that she got things very wrong. They differed only on which error required vacating her injunction.

In her majority opinion, Judge Patricia Millett, joined by Judge Harry Edwards—both are liberals appointed by Democratic presidents—held that Congress did indeed commit to DHS's "sole and unreviewable discretion"—that's the statutory language—the judgment whether to expand expedited removal to the statutory limit. The DHS decision was therefore not subject to review under the APA, and Jackson's preliminary injunction was improper. . . .

*In 2018, in what the Washington Post hailed as a victory for federal-employee unions, Jackson wrote a 119-page opinion enjoining executive-branch officials from implementing provisions of three of President Trump's executive orders that (in the Post's summary) "aimed at making it easier to fire employees and weaken their representation."

But in a unanimous ruling by an ideologically diverse panel (in American Federation of Government Employees v. Trump), the D.C. Circuit held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to decide the case, as a federal statute vests adjudication of federal labor disputes in the Federal Labor Relations Authority, subject to direct review only in the D.C. Circuit. Judge Thomas Griffith wrote the panel opinion, which was joined most notably by Obama appointee Sri Srinivasan as well as by Bush 41 appointee Raymond Randolph.

*In a 118-page ruling in 2019, Brown ruled that the House Judiciary Committee could sue in federal court to enforce its subpoena to compel former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify. After a divided D.C. Circuit panel ruled that the constitutional separation of powers forbade federal courts from enforcing the subpoena, the en banc D.C. Circuit rejected the panel's conclusion. But the panel—again divided, with the same two appointees of Republican presidents in the majority—then ruled that the House lacked statutory (or equitable) authority to enforce its subpoena.

(Emphasis added)

There is a good chance, then, that Judge Jackson is an affirmative action nominee for the D.C. Circuit. In other words, she was selected because of her race, which trumped her mediocre record.

If so, this won’t derail her nomination. Democrats will tout her “diversity.”

Republicans aren’t likely to call Jackson on the ground that she is mediocre. Indeed, as Whelan suggests, conservatives should perhaps be glad that Biden didn't select someone more formidable for such an important judgeship and for possible grooming as a Supreme Court Justice.

Still, it’s unsettling to think that the quality of the appellate bench — especially that of the all-important D.C. Circuit — might be diluted in the name of diversity.

The Week in Cancellation: Squidward Edition

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 09:42 AM PDT

(Steven Hayward)

This just tears it. The cancel madness has now set its gaze on Spongebob Squarepants. CNN reports that two “inappropriate episodes” are being pulled from rotation, one because of a plot line involving a virus that leads to a quarantine, and a second episode that involves a panty raid, which is now thought not “kid appropriate.”

C’mon, man! This is getting beyond ridiculous. Except that it is a sneak attack by the cultural left, because everyone knows that Spongebob is a conservative show. Spongebob and Patrick Starfish are clearly Trump voters; this goes without saying for Sandy Cheeks, the squirrel from Texas. The Krusty Krab is fast food culture at its finest, and the proprietor, Mr. Krabs, a model entrepreneur. And best of all, Squidward is a neoconservative. Squidward would not approve of yanking these two episodes. (Just ask your kids about all this.)

My all time favorite episode is the sendup of suburban sprawl, where Squidward moved to a new development known as “Tentacle Acres.” Here’s a small segment:

Meanwhile, at Yale University. . . do I even need to finish this sentence? Yes, yes I do, because this latest episode is stupid even by Yale’s low standards. William Kahrl and Henry I. Miller over at Issues & Insights have the story:

Last fall, the university sponsored a convocation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the admission of the first women undergraduates as well as 150 years of women attending the university's graduate and professional schools. Many distinguished alumnae attended and members of the first three undergraduate classes contributed their reminiscences in video compilations as well as essays about their experience. So far, so good.

Two of the 141 women who wrote essays asked to keep their submissions anonymous for personal reasons. But when the books were published, the Yale Alumni Association had deleted the names of all the women – without asking the authors' permission or even warning them of what had been done to their work.

After centuries of women being suppressed, diminished, pushed into the background, or having their work appropriated by others, this unexpected anonymization produced the reaction you might expect. The complaints raised in a first letter of protest were dismissed by the administration, and when the campus newspaper took up the story in February, the people responsible responded placidly, assuring readers that only a few people were upset – saying, in effect, let's move on, there's nothing to protest here.

This turned out to be not even a little bit true and led inevitably to an even longer letter signed by scores of people rallying to the side of the women who had been wronged. At first, the alumni association proposed producing two versions of the book, one with no names for public distribution and one with the authors identified that would be kept under wraps at the university library.

Since this only compounded their initial error, the powers that be convened a meeting of angry people including the responsible administrators, the culpable editors, and numerous representatives of their victims, for one of those "collegial" discussions that sometimes leave blood on the woodwork.

On March 18, in a "Dear Friends" letter couched in the joyless happy talk of the bureaucratically impaired, Yale announced, "Success – It's a win-win for all!"

What did they decide? They're going to burn the books! Destroy the evidence! According to their decree, all 500 copies of the book that dare not speak its names will be destroyed. (We are not making this up.) The digital file of this abomination will go onto the pyre as well.

Exit question from Issues & Insights:

How many Oriental carpets have they got in the office of Yale President Peter Salovey to sweep this nonsense under?
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