Eastbayri.com

EAST BAY — City resident and now former LaSalle Academy boys’ basketball Bill Black wanted to quell the concerns of family and friends who have reached out to him since his sudden departure from the Rams’ bench was announced last week.

Eastbayri.com reported the story about Black’s decision to step away, noting people familiar with the coach termed his state as being “ovewhelmed” by professional and personal matters. While Black didn’t dispute the characterization, he wanted to clarify what the word meant.

“It’s more about priorities,” Black said in a phone conversation Friday afternoon, Dec. 9. “I need to take care of things at home. We have one little guy and another one on the way in the spring. I just didn’t feel I could give the LaSalle job the attention that it deserves.”

Black enjoyed a very successful first year in Providence, winning 12 games and qualifying for both the Division I and Open State tournaments. It appeared as though the Rams were on the way to becoming a factor in the top tier of hoops in the state once again with him at the helm, which along with the timing of his decision caused many to speculate on why it occurred.

Black said he was deeply torn in making his choice, but that it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.

“I love the game. I’m sure I’m going to stay involved in basketbaall in some way, but with the requirements to run a varsity program, not just at LaSalle but anywhere, I had to step away,” he explained.

“I’m pretty intense when it comes down to it,” Black continued. “I don’t just roll out the basketball. Every minute of practice is accounted for. Then there’s the scouting and the game-planning. It’s not just about the games. That’s a mentality I learned at both Wheaton and RIC (colleges where he was an assistant), and it’s something I tried to bring to high school.

“Unfortunately I didn’t feel like I would be able to commit the time needed to do the job the way I would want at this point in my life.”

Black, a teacher, said he’s more concerned with his family and job now, putting hoops on the back burner, but never extinguishing the flame.

“I’m just focused on school and home, being a great father and a great teacher,” he added. “I still love the game. It’s part of me. I definitely want to stay involved with basketball in the future. I just don’t know in what way right now.”

'Super' conference thoughts

Many fans in these parts have wondered why the Big East Conference is in such panic mode over football, but the rationale is becoming more and more clear.

The idea of so-called “super conferences” comprised of the largest, more powerful and richest colleges in the country is closer to becoming a reality than ever before.

Former Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel espoused the topic several years back in a New York Times article and his notion is likely to come to fruition one might guess before the end of the decade or around the time the current basketball TV contract with CBS/Turner ends shortly into the 2020s.

The larger conferences are already seeking to give larger stipends to their student athletes, a move the NCAA appears to have signed off on. The smaller Division I schools have cried foul, but as the Bowl Championship Series has shown they have little influence.

And the idea of the top schools breaking away from the NCAA has been given credence by two of the most noted coaches in the country.

As reported early last month by Matt Norlander of cbssports.com, “Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski offered up an interesting quote about conference realignment and the somewhat unstable marriages of college and the NCAA.”

Norlander quoted Coach K as saying: “The old NCAA is no longer. To go back can’t happen. The NCAA needs to change. I’d hate to see the top conferences not be a part of it, and that could happen.”

On the nationally syndicated Dan Patrick radio show Friday, Dec. 9, Kentucky coach John Calipari chimed in on the subject, saying schools like his should pay their athletes more than the current per diem pittance. They also could and should breakaway from the NCAA to form their own organization with new rules and separate championships.

Paraphrasing Calipari, he said a Catholic conference with smaller schools, where Providence College and other like-institutions fit, could still be involved by being invited to compete in the super conferences’ championship tournament for basketball. Football could offer up similar invites.

Whatever form it takes, it seems increasingly likely the landscape of college athletics will soon take a shape quite unfamiliar to what exists now.

PC thoughts

Providence College plays Bryant University Saturday, Dec. 10, at noon, seeking its ninth non-conference win. The Friars are overwhelming favorites to beat the upstart Bulldogs and will be expected to defeat New Hampshire and Rhode Island in its other two non-league games before the Big East season starts with a trip to St. John’s on New Year’s Eve.

PC should be 11-2 entering conference play and with the bottom of the Big East looking to be lacking in quality, it’s not far fetched to think the Friars can win the five or six games needed to make them eligible for postseason play.

That last statement isn’t meant to be read as believing Providence is anywhere close to being considered a top quality program or that this year’s team is very good. It does, however, show the impact Ed Cooley has already had and how well he’s coached-up this group of players.