Basketball Around the Corner, Swimming Pub and More (submitted by Jason Plotkin, Assistant Sports Information Director, 9/25/08)
Basketball is coming into everyone's mind, is it not?
Andy Katz was in town this past week and gave our Privateer men's basketball team some coverage. Seeing the Lakefront on ESPN.com today for myself and others brought the reality of our return to the building that much closer. It's not too much longer until the women tip off against McNeese State (Nov. 14) and the men face off against North Carolina State (Nov. 15). Make sure you check out the article Katz wrote in addition to the audio segment featuring Katz and head coach Joe Pasternack.
Two weeks ago, UNO Director of Marketing Mike Rivault and I were taken into the men's locker room. Mike was shooting pictures for use in the basketball media guide and promotional materials for the university regarding the facility. The video room has a movie theatre feel to it. All the chairs have the Privateer logo embroidered (if that's the right word) into them. Graduate assistant Adam Cohen put the Colorado-UNO game from last year on the screen, so Mike could take a few photos with the lights dark and the screen on. No question it's a nice new addition and first-class.
The Sun Belt Conference's Media Days are right around the corner. I'll accompany our UNO basketball head coaches as we head to Hot Springs, Ark., site of the 2009 conference tournament. The event, which takes place Oct. 13 and 14 will feature the announcement of the SBC preseason basketball teams, the conference television schedule and provide a chance for the media to meet with the coaches. Once we return, it won't be much longer til practice!
Wrapping up our basketball talk...not sure if any of you saw the release, but the conference has reached an agreement with Leffler Agency to help promote the conference tournament. UNO's athletic department has already been working hand-in-hand with the agency. In addition to the UNO 'Up and Running' campaign, they have assisted in putting together our schedule cards, media guide covers and schedule posters. Leffler has also done work with other institutions and some professional sports franchises as well.
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To build off the strong start by head coach Jozsef Forman, the volleyball team made a huge splash when they announced the hiring of Teiming 'James' Li. Li is a former Chinese men's national team player and was an assistant to Jenny Lang Ping, as the United States women's national team claimed the silver medal in Beijing last month. I've talked to a few of the girls on the team and they are excited about Li being apart of the program.
Another volleyball tidbit. I am sure our fans are familiar with RPI for basketball and even baseball. Volleyball does the same thing, which like the other sports, is critical for qualifying as an at-large for the NCAA tournament. UNO's previous high for RPI for volleyball was 110 set in 1998. Presently, UNO is ranked 78. With the way the Sun Belt Conference is playing, if the Privateers can continue their momentum, that RPI could even move higher. Coach Forman has done a great job and I hope that our fans continue to come in mass like they did last week for the win over Nicholls State.
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UNO swimming and diving assistant coach Rich Rogers and I are presently working on getting the UNO swimming and diving dual against Incarnate Word streamed online. Rich has a lot more technological expertise than I and wants to do what he can to bolster the team's web presence. While we would like to stream as many duals as possible this year, especially as our team comes from all points of the globe, we have even more added incentive as Swimming World has tabbed our dual against the Cardinals on Oct. 10 as the "Division I Meet of the Week". This means, that Swimming World wants to stream out dual for free through their platform which draws thousands of visitors daily. Worth noting, Rich is working on a few video packages for our UNO Vision so our fans can see some highlights of Privateer swimming.
Additionally, Swimming World will be interviewing head coach Randy Horner on "The Morning Swim Show" next Tuesday. The interview, which will pre-recorded is part of a segment done each Tuesday in which they interview a college coach or swimmer. The "show" airs on their web site and from what the coaches tell me, the site is one of the top swimming web sites out there. Anyhow, they will be interviewing Horner about the men's team debut earlier this month against Stanford, which marked the return of the program to the pool for the first time since 1992. Swimming World Magazine has a monthly circulation of 50,000 issues with their web site, as I said above, gaining thousands of views a day. This will once more be another chance to take our UNO athletic program to another level.
For those wanting to check out the Privateers in the pool, they will participate in a Blue-Silver Intersquad meet on Oct. 5 at 2 p.m before jumping into action on Oct. 10, as mentioned before, against Incarnate Word at 12 p.m. Both events take place at Tulane's Reilly Center as the UNO Aquatic Center wraps up construction in the forthcoming months. If you are looking for some entertainment, yours truly will be serving as the public address announcer. I've had a bit of practice on name pronunciations, so hopefully I am ready to go!
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Head tennis coach Burzis Kanga got some unfortunate news as he was in the middle of his commute to Lafayette, La. with his men's team for a tournament last week. Kanga found out that his previously scheduled women's tournament for the next week, also at Louisiana-Lafayette was called off. The Ragin Cajuns had their head women's coach take the same job at Wyoming. Throw in the recent hurricanes and ULL just could not put the tournament together.
Lucky for the Privateer coach, Louisiana-Monroe had a team drop out of their tournament, taking place Oct. 3-4, allowing the Privateer women a chance to get into the field. This will be a great opportunity for the Privateers to get some matches in as final preparation for the ITA Southwest Regional on Oct. 24. Half of the teams in Monroe, La. are also on the spring schedule.
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Hope everyone is enjoying the blog and the entries a few members of our athletic department have put together. I'm working on getting a few others to contribute and be a part of the blog!
If you have any questions, comments or anything you'd like for me to post about, feel free to e-mail me at jplotkin@uno.edu
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