Mr. SWAC
F*** THE LAKERS!!!!!!
This is a really good article though. I wish all schools in the SWAC got at least this type of recognition.
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? More From The Huntsville Times
Alabama A&M Sports
A&M's ready to savor March Madness for the first time
03/06/02
H ope you didn't miss him.
Hope you didn't miss this.
What a show when they turned off the gravity machine Tuesday night.
Alabama A&M went soaring. Must have been 20 dunks. A third of those off outrageous alley-oop passes. Thirty-two 3-point attempts. The Bulldogs pressured Prairie View into a quivering mass of Jell-O. A turnover almost every minute. Rang up 114 points, but only because 144 points would have been unseemly.
''The way it used to be in here.'' That's what coach Vann Pettaway tells you.
Hey. Cool. Just think:
The new days are the good ol' days, simply wearing more expensive sneakers.
Alabama A&M is 80 minutes away from becoming one of the country's top basketball stories - a NCAA participant in its first year of eligibility.
Eighty minutes. Forty-eight hundred seconds. Two more wins to reach the biggest stage of all for a team where, used to, come the end of February, they went off the end of the earth.
Said Pettaway, ''We played in February when there was no March.''
Now there is March.
Now there is madness.
Much of that is centered on Desmond Cambridge, one of the most dynamic athletes in A&M history, or even Huntsville sports history. Be sorry if you missed him.
One day, you may be putting him on your list of ''wish-I-had's,'' the way you wish you'd gone to Huntsville Speedway the night that rough-hewn Earnhardt kid took to the track, the way you wish you'd seen Mark McGwire or Jason Giambi play for the Stars.
Desmond Cambridge is the real deal. He leads the nation in steals. He averages 20.4 points per game. He has scored 127 points in his last four games, including 50 last week at Texas Southern.
Steals? The biggest crime is that voters didn't select him as the MVP of the SWAC. Instead, it went to a kid from an eighth-place team.
''Des honestly deserved it,'' said teammate Steve Ward. ''He earned it. We don't get respect (from the rest of the SWAC).''
Cambridge's future as an NBA player is sketchy at best. But he's good enough to have lured Gene Bartow, now scouting for the Memphis Grizzlies, to town Tuesday for a look-see. And, hey, there's the NBA's minor league. Maybe Tuesday wasn't Cambridge's last home game in Huntsville even still.
However, he's thinking about his pro career right now as much as you're thinking about your Christmas shopping list. ''I'm thinking about championships,'' he said.
He's got game. He can get on hot streaks where he goes microwave. He is a team leader who even leads the coaches.
It was Cambridge who helped Pettaway lower his blood pressure right before the game Tuesday when he assured his coach, ''You don't have anything to worry about.''
He's also got charisma. From his outlook - "Ain't no shot a bad shot'' - to his look - knee-high socks, white headband, baggy shorts that seem hand-me-downs from Shaquille O'Neal.
Shame that Pettaway, such a stylish gent himself, won't cave A&M is only 80 minutes from NCAA Tournament berth McCarter Continued from page C3 into Cambridge's fashion wishes. The A&M soccer girls get to wear maroon knee socks. So why not Des?
As for the headbands, there is no shortage. Desmond Jr., an adorable tyke, hopped in dad's lap after the game wearing a headband. There is another hanging in Cambridge's locker. He wore it twice, both losses, so he ditched it as part of his ensemble.
He didn't ditch the message scrawled on it:
I-65.
The route from Huntsville to Birmingham, and the SWAC Tournament.
Sixty-five also is the number of teams who'll receive NCAA Tournament bids, when you take into account the ''play-in'' game.
It doesn't take much of a stretch to make I-65 into 1 of 65.
Contact Mark McCarter at [email protected]
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GO BULLDOGS!!!!! AND THE SWAC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
? More From The Huntsville Times
Alabama A&M Sports
A&M's ready to savor March Madness for the first time
03/06/02
H ope you didn't miss him.
Hope you didn't miss this.
What a show when they turned off the gravity machine Tuesday night.
Alabama A&M went soaring. Must have been 20 dunks. A third of those off outrageous alley-oop passes. Thirty-two 3-point attempts. The Bulldogs pressured Prairie View into a quivering mass of Jell-O. A turnover almost every minute. Rang up 114 points, but only because 144 points would have been unseemly.
''The way it used to be in here.'' That's what coach Vann Pettaway tells you.
Hey. Cool. Just think:
The new days are the good ol' days, simply wearing more expensive sneakers.
Alabama A&M is 80 minutes away from becoming one of the country's top basketball stories - a NCAA participant in its first year of eligibility.
Eighty minutes. Forty-eight hundred seconds. Two more wins to reach the biggest stage of all for a team where, used to, come the end of February, they went off the end of the earth.
Said Pettaway, ''We played in February when there was no March.''
Now there is March.
Now there is madness.
Much of that is centered on Desmond Cambridge, one of the most dynamic athletes in A&M history, or even Huntsville sports history. Be sorry if you missed him.
One day, you may be putting him on your list of ''wish-I-had's,'' the way you wish you'd gone to Huntsville Speedway the night that rough-hewn Earnhardt kid took to the track, the way you wish you'd seen Mark McGwire or Jason Giambi play for the Stars.
Desmond Cambridge is the real deal. He leads the nation in steals. He averages 20.4 points per game. He has scored 127 points in his last four games, including 50 last week at Texas Southern.
Steals? The biggest crime is that voters didn't select him as the MVP of the SWAC. Instead, it went to a kid from an eighth-place team.
''Des honestly deserved it,'' said teammate Steve Ward. ''He earned it. We don't get respect (from the rest of the SWAC).''
Cambridge's future as an NBA player is sketchy at best. But he's good enough to have lured Gene Bartow, now scouting for the Memphis Grizzlies, to town Tuesday for a look-see. And, hey, there's the NBA's minor league. Maybe Tuesday wasn't Cambridge's last home game in Huntsville even still.
However, he's thinking about his pro career right now as much as you're thinking about your Christmas shopping list. ''I'm thinking about championships,'' he said.
He's got game. He can get on hot streaks where he goes microwave. He is a team leader who even leads the coaches.
It was Cambridge who helped Pettaway lower his blood pressure right before the game Tuesday when he assured his coach, ''You don't have anything to worry about.''
He's also got charisma. From his outlook - "Ain't no shot a bad shot'' - to his look - knee-high socks, white headband, baggy shorts that seem hand-me-downs from Shaquille O'Neal.
Shame that Pettaway, such a stylish gent himself, won't cave A&M is only 80 minutes from NCAA Tournament berth McCarter Continued from page C3 into Cambridge's fashion wishes. The A&M soccer girls get to wear maroon knee socks. So why not Des?
As for the headbands, there is no shortage. Desmond Jr., an adorable tyke, hopped in dad's lap after the game wearing a headband. There is another hanging in Cambridge's locker. He wore it twice, both losses, so he ditched it as part of his ensemble.
He didn't ditch the message scrawled on it:
I-65.
The route from Huntsville to Birmingham, and the SWAC Tournament.
Sixty-five also is the number of teams who'll receive NCAA Tournament bids, when you take into account the ''play-in'' game.
It doesn't take much of a stretch to make I-65 into 1 of 65.
Contact Mark McCarter at [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GO BULLDOGS!!!!! AND THE SWAC.
