I'm on the road in Morgantown, West Virginia so I missed Gilbert Arenas' dramatic return in tonight's loss to the Bucks. Gilbert played well -- 17 points on reasonably efficient shooting in 20 minutes -- but precisely as one might have feared, the Wizards' Gil-free improved defense seems to have gone missing.
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The Agony of Defeat
02 Apr 2008 10:23 pm
Comments (10)
Ugh West Virginia....that's too bad.
You've gotta be much more worried about the fact that Stevenson and Jamison limped off the court while Butler came away feeling his wrist.
I was in Morgantown a few years ago, had to rent a car from Pittsburgh and drive in, which is--I found out--a nice drive.
I wasn't there very long, but remember a monorail system that struck me the moment I got into town. Must be something to do with federal dollars and Sen. Byrd, I thought.
Anyway, if you have more time there, what are your thoughts about light rail in such a small community?
The PRT system is a poky little thing. There's a nice view from there but it moves awfully slow.
I recommend giving Asian Garden a try. It's not much to look at, but it's the tastiest little restaurant anywhere in the world.
The get the ball at half court after a timeout seems like a very stupid rule. The Wizard player made a nice play tipping the ball down court but the wizards don't get rewarded because as long as the bucks player calls a timeout the ball gets to come up court so that instead of having to take a miracle shot or full court pass, they get a relatively normal shot.
Why the hell are you in Morgantown? I spent 5 years there (grad school) more than 30 years ago, and I can't think of a single reason to go back...unless someone were paying me(a lot) to be there.
I was a student at WVU when the rail system got built; Tricia Nixon came to dedicate it (daddy was pres). Its primary purpose was, and I thnk remains, to cut down on car and bus traffic between WVU's downtown and northside campuses. That really needed to be done; the N-S streets were traffic choked and horribly polluted.
My few remaining contacts in Morgantown tell me, however, that the thing has never lived up to its potential, through a combination of frequent service interruptions (breakdowns), questions about timing and frequency of service, and security issues.
Byrd didn't have much influence in getting the system funded; he was a fairly junior senator (now, isn't that hard to believe--but funding began in 1971). It was more due to Jennings Randlph's influence.
The original plan was a mag-lev system, then a monorail. It opened with rubber-tired units. I don't know whether or how that's changed. What is fairly clear is that it didn't spawn a lot of similar systems at all quickly. (FWIW, Indianapolis has one now, connecting two parts of the Indiana University-Purdue University campus; it is fairly heavily used and appears to be reducing traffic.)
Ugh - Gil was a team worst -8 on the night. And the Wiz drop into a 3-way tie for the 5-6-7 playoff spots. You certainly want to stay out of that 7-spot, since in the other two positions, you've got a chance to win a round, but probably not if you have to play Detroit in the first round.
Also, people are on crack if they don't like West Virginia. Go to the New River Gorge - great place.
When Joni Mitchell was in Morgantown, she didn't take the people mover. She rode the bus. While everyone was yawning.
Comments closed April 16, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Lets goooooooooooo Mountaineers!
Also, since you are a connoisseur of intelligent urban planning ideas, I'm looking forward to your opinions of Morgantown's highly touted PRT system.
Posted by oljb | April 2, 2008 10:39 PM