Unverified Voracity: More NCAA Edition

Sorry about the slowdown. Attempting to prepare for the WSOP and get the BlogPoll organized and significantly less crappy to deal with are dual time sinks of impressive stature.

NCAA reviews continue apace: House Rock Built gives it a general thumbs up but says an old problem has not gone away:

The Game Seems to be Very Long-Bomb Oriented: Maybe it's just because I was playing as Notre Dame, but there doesn't seem to be a correction on the oversimplicity in hucking the ball deep

SMQB (@ EDSBS) says same old, same old:

Final verdict: this one unfortunately has few changes from NCAA 2006 and looks like it has the potential to grow boring more quickly than previous versions. Hell, I may not even hit 500 games before NCAA Football 2008 comes out.

Dubious Quality has a comprehensive 360 review that highlights a particular pet peeve of mine:

And on the face of it, NCAA 2007 is missing a ton of features I want in a game. Features like:
--accelerated clock
--sim to end (and a jump-in feature as well)
--in-game saves
--multiple camera angles (there is ONE freaking camera angle in the 360 version)
--ability to watch a CPU vs. CPU game (somebody find the stoned employee who took out this feature, and thanks for screwing us on slider development)

Seriously. How hard is it to give you an option to scrub out the rest of a game that's 49-7 at halftime? My dynasties inevitably die because I just can't stand going through the motions for half the time I'm actually playing the game whether I'm vastly up or down. I think that's the final straw for me: no '07.

You, being a Michigan fan, have probably already read the article wherein Clemson recruit Jamie Cumbie describes Notre Dame's post-commit negative recruiting:

"They were sending me postcards like a month after I committed," said the 6-7, 255-pound Cumbie, who was a first-team Parade All-American. "The only school that tried to keep recruiting me was Notre Dame. It really didn't bother me."

Cumbie said the Fighting Irish coaching staff, led by enormously fat head coach Charlie Weis, also engaged in some negative recruiting on his visit to South Bend, Ind.

"They had a piece of paper, and it broke down advantages and disadvantages. It said Notre Dame was televised every weekend, every Saturday. Then they said Clemson has a horrible education."

Well, House Rock Built has acquired a copy of said letter; you can see enormously fat Charlie Weis' dastardly scribbles with your own eyes.

Okay, Mike, we acknowledge you as hard. So, yeah... Alex Legion's commitment spurred TSN's Mike DeCourcy to pen this love letter to Amaker:

It has become another terrific July for Michigan coach Tommy Amaker. If only every month could be July. If only the Wolverines were not forced to deal with the months of November, December, January and February.

Of course, we already know they're not asked to do anything important in March.

Michigan received a re-commitment this week from guard prospect Alex Legion...Legion had chosen the Wolverines last November, reconsidered in the spring, but now says he's certain he wants to play for Michigan.

For a moment there, I thought he'd come to his senses.

And while this, like claiming a Clemson education isn't exactly the Ivy leagues, is objectively true it seems sort of unnecessary, doesn't it? Either DeCourcy was put up to this by TSN honchos who demand he generate sports-radio style "reaction" or his online dating profile lists his hobbies as "torturing kittens," "eating kittens," and "making fun of men largely indistinguishable from kittens apropos of basically nothing."

(Via the Diag)

Speaking of apropos of nothing: watch the Tour De France tonight. 8PM OLN.

'07 hoops recruit Scott Martin announces tomorrow; according to Chris Balas "all signs point to" Purdue, thus making the potential existence of a mysterious fourth scholarship moot. Also, sophomore Jevohn Shepherd made the Canadian national basketball team, which probably says more about Canada than Shepherd.