Monday, April 02, 2007

Catching up

Hey guys,

Busy weekend. Obviously the Auburn baseball team snapped its long skid in SEC play, as I covered in Monday’s Opelika-Auburn News. The postgame celebration there was sort of funny…After the last out, the guys on the bench ran out on the field and everyone started celebrating for about 15 seconds—long enough for at least two chest-bumps and a whole lot of high-fives. And then, all at once, it was like a realization set in: Oh yeah…we’re 1-8 now.

Still, Sunday’s game had plenty of tension and suspense, if not a whole lot of excitement. Brett Butts did a great job, throwing 2 2/3 scoreless innings. He faced eight batters and retired every one. It doesn’t get much more perfect than that. If Butts can have more outings like that, he’ll be what Tom Slater and Butch Thompson are looking for in the bullpen: A stopper. Not necessarily a closer, mind you, though he looked comfortable getting the save Sunday in a 1-run SEC game against a pretty good lineup.

In other baseball news—more interesting, at least to me—the Cincinnati Reds are 1-0 in 2007, and currently in a three-way tie for first place in the NL Central. I predict a wire-to-wire division lead for the 2007 Reds, en route to a four-game sweep of the American League pennant winner in the World Series.

Not really. But that’d be pretty awesome. Many thanks to Reds outfielder Adam Dunn, whose two homers helped my favorite team and my fantasy team, always an enjoyable double-dip.

Sorry. Back to Auburn-related stuff now.

The Auburn basketball team picked up a verbal commitment from Simi Valley, Calif., center Boubacar Sylla. I’m hoping AU’s Classics Department will be working overtime on popularizing his ready-made nickname. Or not.

Sylla, originally from Paris, France, is listed at 7-foot-1 by Rivals.com. I always take recruits’ heights, weights and speed times with a grain of salt, but if Sylla is anything close to a legitimate 7 feet, he’ll be Auburn’s biggest player.

Of course, bigger isn’t always better. Jeff Lebo’s style of play seems to revolve around versatility: Forwards like Josh Dollard and Quan “Gravy Train” Prowell can shoot 3s, guards like Quantez Robertson can post up and everybody can run the floor. Bringing in a big, slow guy like Sylla doesn’t really seem to fit into AU’s plans. That’s why, when folks have asked me over the last few years what the team’s biggest need is, I’ve never said “a big guy,“ which seems to be the conventional wisdom.

What Auburn really needed last year, and will continue to need, is a dead-eye shooter. Rasheem Barrett and Archie Miaway were both intended to fill that role, but neither of them is exactly Reggie Miller. (Or Scotty Pohlman, if you prefer.)

Of course, I’d be stunned if Sylla came in and all of a sudden started eating into Vot Barber’s minutes in the middle. He averaged 2.3 points and 3.0 rebounds as a high-school senior…not exactly numbers indicative of an instant impact player. He wasn’t a starter: He backed up Hamady N’diaye, who’s committed to Rutgers. But N’Diaye isn’t exactly a great player either.

Bottom line: Sylla’s a project, a guy—like Matt Heramb this year—who might pan out or might not. If he does pan out, it’s obviously a big recruiting coup for Jeff Lebo, who’s a good recruiter. If he doesn’t pan out, what’s the harm? It’s not as if Auburn had hordes of big-time recruits clamoring for its lone scholarship of the late signing period.

Anyway, good luck to the kid. Anyone named Boubacar is OK in my book.