Month: November 2010

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Deflections: Weekend Preview, Rudy’s Leap, Tony Allen M.I.A.

Weekend Preview: The first half of the Grizzlies’ current West Coast road trip didn’t go particularly well and we probably should have seen the problem in the scheduling. I’d bet that if the games had been reversed — had the Grizzlies played the Warriors on the first night and the Lakers on the back end — the team would have gone 1-1. As is, the Griz, after losing to a Lakers team that looks even better than last year’s champs, faced the uptempo Warriors on the second night of a back-to-back, the Warriors having been off the night before, and with injury, foul trouble, poor bench play, and the fast pace all feeding the fatigue, couldn’t quite pull off a late comeback attempt.

Rudy Gay: Making the Leap?

  • Rudy Gay: Making the Leap?

Now, the Grizzlies have another back-to-back set, two more chances to avoid a repeat of last season’s winless early West Coast road trip. Through five games, the Grizzlies have really struggled to defend against three-point shooting, ranking last in three-pointers given up and 28th in opponent three-point percentage. This could be bad news tonight against the Suns, who were the league’s best three-point shooting team a season ago and are off to a strong start in that area — 5th in percentage and fourth in makes. I’d be particularly worried about frontcourt shooters Channing Frye, Jared Dudley, and Hedo Turkoglu. Ideally, the Grizzlies would combat the Suns outside game with their own inside game, but that’s been lacking this season. In other words, this should be a good night for the return of Zach Randolph.

Tomorrow, the Grizzlies face the Sacramento Kings, who are off to a promising 3-2 start but against a very weak schedule (the wins came against Minnesota, Cleveland, and Toronto, all by single digit). The story with the Kings is a couple of John Calipari protégés in Tyreke Evans and Demarcus Cousins and the Grizzlies will need to match their physicality. It should be fun to see Cousins match-up with either Randolph or Marc Gasol. Evans should pose more of a problem, particularly when the Kings go with a bigger backcourt. Paging Tony Allen?

Categories
Opinion

TGIF Links

Some things I found interesting. For your edification:

Sorry I haven’t posted. A blog comprised entirely of excuses for not blogging.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

How not to be a good editor.

Man in scary-good old man mask passes through airport security, boards international flight to Vancouver.

Physicist Richard Feynman on magnets and why “Why” questions can be so difficult to answer (video).

Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend. “I just wish they would stay plain old every day time all year round — the way God made it.”

GOD HATES DST

  • GOD HATES DST
Categories
Intermission Impossible Theater

The Big Secret Surprise: The U of M’s Bob Hetherington has some exciting news

Robert Hetherington

  • Robert Hetherington

Here’s the thing about U of M Theater and Dance Chair Bob Hetherington: He thinks big. So when he says he’s got a big announcement to make I tend to believe him. On Tuesday, Nov. 9 he’s hosting a meeting in the U of M’s “Big Red” to announce the title of a show.

“The University is celebrating its 100 birthday in 2012 and we have been asked to plan something big,” Hetherington says. “Took me several months to negotiate this but I think we have a project that fits the bill.” Theatre and Music students are invited to hear all about it.

Color me intrigued.

Categories
News

School Enrollment Blues

A few weeks ago, I tried to get some high school enrollment and capacity data from Memphis City Schools.

I didn’t get it by deadline, and there were people out there who said I’ve never get it.

Well, I finally got it. And it showed what you might expect.

Many of the schools in the southwest quadrant of the city — Westwood, Mitchell, Carver, BTW — are about 2/3rds full.

Northside, which is between Manassas and Douglass, the district’s more recently built core-city high schools, fares worst with a 44 percent utilization rate.

To see how they all compare, I put together this handy-dandy chart.

The size of the box is the size of the school. White Station, for example, has a capacity of 1,733. But with 2,203 students, its utilization rate is 127 percent, which is denoted by color.

The bluer a school is, the more under-capacity it is (percentage wise).

The redder a school is, the more over-capacity it is.

The purples are somewhere in the middle. For a baseline, Sheffield has an almost 97 percent utilization rate while Kirby has a 108 percent utilization rate.

Categories
Art Exhibit M

Man and Machine

Interesting that Jonathan Auger shares his last name with a common machine, since his art is based almost entirely on machines. Auger creates mechanical sculptures, which in turn, create their own art.

Jonathan Auger

  • Jonathan Auger

“They are more or less like Spirographs,” says Auger. “When you were a kid, you’d put a pencil in and start cranking on a gear and it twirls the pencil around. That’s kind of the easiest way to describe these pieces.”

Unlike the plastic gadget we all had as kids, however, Auger’s pieces stand alone as unique and visually interesting mechanical objects.

Jonathan Auger

  • Jonathan Auger

“When I was in graduate school I made some kinetic pieces that revolved around the human figure, reinterpreting the classical figure in a more mechanical way. But one thing led to another, and I put that on the back burner.”

Now he’s revisiting what he calls, “the collaboration between artist and machine.”

“It’s funny because I’m kind of a control freak. I need to have my hands in every bit of everything I do. So it’s interesting for somebody of my demeanor to almost allow a collaboration, but because I construct the machines it’s like I’m always in control,” Augur says.

Jonathan Auger

  • Jonathan Auger

“I create the machine, the machine creates the drawing, and both the drawing and the machine will be on display. And the machine will be producing drawings in the gallery,” says Augur. “It kind of questions, what is the art? Is it what I made, the sculpture? What the sculpture is creating, is that also a piece of art? It blurs the line of whether a machine could create a piece of art.”

Augur’s exhibit, Feathered Edge, will be on display at Material until the last Saturday of November. The opening is tonight from 6 to 8 p.m.

Material Art Space, 2553 Broad Avenue

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

PREVIEW: Tigers vs. Tennessee

Saturday, 7 p.m., Liberty Bowl

• One team will leave the Liberty Bowl Saturday night with a losing streak behind them. The Tigers have lost five straight since beating Middle Tennessee on September 18th, while the Volunteers are on a four-game skid since edging UAB on September 25th.

• The Tigers have lost six straight to UT since the epic upset over the 6th-ranked Vols (and quarterback Peyton Manning) on November 9, 1996. The Tigers fell by a single point (17-16) in 1999, by two in 2000, and four in 2005. Tennessee won last year in Knoxville, 56-28. Overall, Tennessee owns a 21-1 edge in the series, with nine of the wins coming at the Liberty Bowl.

tennessee_vols_2.gif

• Tennessee has the rare distinction of playing under its third head coach in three years. Phil Fulmer stepped down after the 2008 season, his 16th at the helm. Lane Kiffin coached the 2009 Vols to a 7-6 record before leaving for USC. Now Derek Dooley is in charge, with a record of 2-6 in his first season in Knoxville.

• Junior Matt Simms has taken the most snaps at quarterback for Tennessee, having thrown for 1,406 yards with eight touchdowns and five interceptions. The son of former New York Giant Phil Simms, Matt transferred to UT from El Camino Community College (where he played in 2009 after spending his freshman season at Louisville). Freshman Tyler Bray has gained playing time as the season has progressed. Bray threw for 159 yards and a pair of touchdowns last week at South Carolina. On Monday, Dooley named Bray the starter against Memphis, meaning both starting quarterbacks Saturday are true freshmen.

• Tennessee is led on the ground by junior Tauren Poole (628 yards, six touchdowns). The Vols’ top receiver has been senior Denarius Moore (24 receptions, 485 yards, five touchdowns). With 11 more catches, Moore will have 100 for his career.

• Saturday’s game will be the sixth time Memphis has faced a Tennessee team with a losing record (1976, ’77, ’86, ’88, and 2005).

• For the first time in the program’s history, Memphis has given up more than 40 points in six games. The Tigers have given up more than 500 yards in each of their last three games.

• This will be a battle between teams near the bottom of the NCAA rankings in most team categories. In total offense, Tennessee ranks 89th (331.3 yards per game) while Memphis is 114th (280.6). In total defense, Tennessee is 87th (407.1) while the Tigers are 119th (473).

• With 15 tackles last week against Houston, Tiger linebacker Jamon Hughes now has 101 for the season. Since the statistic was first tracked in 1964, the Tiger record for tackles in a season is 161 by Dave Pawlik in 1971. If Hughes remains healthy and continues to average 12 tackles per game, his total would trail only that of Pawlik and Keith Butler’s 152 in 1977.

• Greg Ray leads the Tigers in rushing yards with 497, having achieved a career high last week with 176 against the Cougars. Marcus Rucker tops the receiving column, with 23 catches for 412 yards.

• The Tigers and Vols have met twice before on November 6th. In 1976, Tennessee won, 21-14, at the Liberty Bowl. In 1982, the Vols won, 29-3, in Knoxville.

Categories
News

Conley’s Contract

Chris Herrington gives his two cents on Grizzlies player Mike Conley’s $40 million contract at Beyond the Arc.

Categories
News

Take Two

Greg Akers reviews Due Date, the road-trip comedy starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis.

Categories
News

West Memphis 3 Get New Hearing

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley — aka the West Memphis 3 convicted of the 1993 murders of three 8-year-olds — should be granted new hearings.

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

C-USA picks: Week 10

LAST WEEK: 2-4
SEASON: 51-20

2009-cusa-predictions.gif

FRIDAY
HOUSTON over Central Florida

SATURDAY
Tennessee over MEMPHIS
Southern Miss over TULANE
EAST CAROLINA over Navy
UAB over Marshall
Southern Methodist over UTEP
TULSA over Rice