Wow. There is a lot of anger from Marshall fan over Donnie Jones’ move to UCF.

The following video requires a good sense of humor, because it features someone playing Adolf Hitler. This is actually a very popular meme. When they see something they don’t like, they run this clip from the 2004 Austrian film, Downfall, and subtitle it as if Hitler is reacting to it. Downfall is about the last days of Nazi Germany as Hitler’s regime literally crumbled around him.

For that reason, I am putting a page break here so people who do not want to see Adolf Hitler don’t have to. If you go down here, and you’re offended, don’t blame me. You were warned.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Orlando Predators have re-launched their web site today. It’s a lot smoother than before, and it actually works!

On the front page, you can get conference, division and Florida Cup standings. Florida Cup is the competition specifically between Orlando, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville.

In addition to links to its Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages, it also has an on-site Twitter feed showing its latest tweets.

Go check it out!

At yesterday’s public press conference, new UCF men’s basketball head coach Donnie Jones made his goals very clear: he wants to advance the UCF men’s basketball program, and make it a winner. He said there’s a lot of room “to hang up a lot of different banners”.

Jones said that his admiration for UCF began long before he was offered a job, when he and Marshall walked into a near-sellout UCF Arena earlier this year for their conference game.

He has already set recruiting goals for the next four years, and the players threw their support behind him following a locker room meeting just before the presser. According to A.J. Rompza, none of the players are talking about leaving the program. They are prepared to run with coach Jones and to win here.

To make this signing possible, UCF spent $400,000 to buy out the last year of Kirk Speraw’s contract, and $500,000 to buy out Jones’ contract at Marshall. Jones signed a new five-year contract with UCF which will see him make $500-600 thousand in base salary plus performance bonuses.

Orlando Sentinel sportswriter Mike Bianchi points out that Jones mentioned a possible school move to the Big East without it being brought up by reporters first.

The title says it all. Predators single-game tickets go on sale today through Ticketmaster.

I also highly recommend you buy tickets for our away games against the Jacksonville Sharks (April 16) and Tampa Bay Storm (July 31).

The 2010 AFL season launches this weekend, but the Predators get a bye. That’s what happens when you have a league with an odd number of teams.

New UCF basketball head coach Donnie Jones was in attendance as the Knights smoked Bethune-Cookman, 11-8.

After some early pitching hiccups and the usual errors, UCF took the lead for good in the sixth, and sealed the deal with a three-run eighth inning.

The Knights hit four home runs, with one each by 3B Derek Luciano, 1B Jonathan Griffin, C Chris Taladay and 2B Austin Johnston. Taladay went 3-for-5 with 4 RBI, and six other Knights players each got two hits. (Chris Duffy came in late as a defensive replacement and had no plate appearances, so his hitting streak is intact.)

UCF goes up to Daytona Beach tonight to complete their home-and-home with Bethune-Cookman, then has their conference home opener Friday night against UAB. The three-game home series will include a double-header on Saturday.

The Orlando Titans have announced both playoff ticket sales and 2011 season ticket sales.

The Titans have two plans for current season ticketholders who want to buy playoff tickets and buy into the 2011 season at Amway Center. This assumes you are a current season ticketholder, or buy for the rest of the 2010 season by April 19, 2010.

With the Orange plan, you buy your current equivalent section at Amway Center for 2011 at the same price you paid for 2010 ($99-250). With that, you get the first home round of the playoffs for free, and get right of first refusal for any other home playoff games at your current season ticket seat.

With the Blue plan, you buy a package of three home playoff games at your current season ticket seat for a discount rate. Any home games not played will be credited toward your 2011 season tickets.

Anybody who wishes to reserve 2011 season tickets now without buying 2010 season tickets or one of the plans above may put down a $50 deposit per seat. Anyone who reserves for 2011 by April 19 will get priority, behind Orange and Blue planholders, for 2010 playoff tickets. Deposit-holders get a first-come, first-served priority for 2011 season tickets behind Orange and Blue planholders as well.

After a promising opening game, UCF lost their C-USA opening series in Houston this past weekend.

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Game 1 on Friday night looked good, as UCF beat the Cougars, 7-4, to extend their winning streak to six games.

The offense exploded late, scoring 3 runs in the eighth and 2 runs in the ninth. Ryan Breen hit the only home run of the game, a two-run shot, pinch-hitting for DH Chris Taladay in the ninth. SS Darnell Sweeney had the only multi-hit performance for the Knights, with two hits.

***

The team’s fortuned turned on Saturday as they lost to the Cougars, 7-3.

Johnny Sedlock and Chase Bradford each gave up three earned runs. RF Shane Brown and 1B Austin Johnson each went 3-for-4.

***

The series was punctuated with a 20-3 loss on Sunday. On the bright side, LF Chris Duffy extended his hitting streak to 16 games.

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UCF, who is currently 15-10 overall, returns home tomorrow night at 6:30pm to begin a home-and-home with Bethune-Cookman. As part of tomorrow night’s festivities, new UCF men’s basketball head coach Donnie Jones will be at the Baseball Complex starting at 5:30pm for a meet-and-greet with fans, and will throw out the first pitch for the game.

Donnie Jones has been named the head coach of the men’s basketball program at UCF.

Who?

Yeah, I thought that when I first saw the report, too. He is finishing three years at Marshall, where he went 24-10 overall this year (23-9 regular season, then the CollegeInsider.com tournament) and has a 55-41 record thus far as a head coach.

But what impressed me once I read into it is that, before taking the head coaching gig at Marshall in 2007, Jones was an assistant at Florida. In fact, Jones had been an assistant under Billy Donovan since 1994, when Donovan took over as head coach at Marshall. Billy took Donnie with him to Florida in 1996, and after their two national titles, Jones went back to Marshall to take that program over.

Looking at it that way, Donnie may be the man we need. His national championship experience, nevermind him being an indirect member of the Rick Pitino coaching tree via Billy Donovan, gives him instant credibility with our current players, and can be a recruiting tool for future players.

Donnie will be introduced tomorrow at 2pm at a press conference on the floor of UCF Arena. It will be free and open to the public.

The typical paradigm of an Orlando Titans lacrosse game is where Matt Vinc stops everything he faces, and the Titans make more efficient use of the nets.With the Toronto Rock in town last night, this proved to be true again.

4 goals in the fourth quarter proved the difference in an otherwise close game as the Titans beat the Rock, 10-8.

Casey Powell had 2 goals and 5 assists. Mike McLellan also had 2 goals. Pat Maddalena had 1 goal and 4 assists.

Matt Vince made 47 saves again. He leads the league by far in saves (667), shots allowed average (9.09) and save percentage (0.821).

Orlando’s next game is at Boston next Saturday, April 3.

According to Iliana Limon of the Orlando Sentinel, founding Orlando Magic basketball player and current Minnesota Timberwolves assistant coach Reggie Theus is interested in the head coaching position at UCF.

He has not talked to UCF about the position yet, but he is among a handful of coaches that have been mentioned for the position, including former major program head coaches Billy Gillispie (Kentucky) and Tim Floyd (USC).

Theus played with the Magic in their inaugural season, drafted from the Atlanta Hawks in the expansion draft. He averaged 18.9 points per game (on-par with his career numbers) and 5.4 assists per game in 1989-90. He’s 22nd all-time on the career assists list, and his 788 assists in the 1985-86 season are the most by any 6’6″-or-taller player not named Magic Johnson. (reference: Database Basketball)

After retiring in 1991, Theus went into coaching, and at one point was on Rick Pitino’s staff at Louisville. He got his first head-coaching gig at New Mexico State in 2005. In two season he re-launched the program, getting them to their first NCAA appearance in eight years in 2007. He was then hired by the Sacramento Kings, where he was unable to right the ship in 1 1/2 seasons of work. From there, he was hired as an assistant coach under Kurt Rambis at the Timberwolves.

When talking about the UCF position, Theus said that Rambis was aware he wanted to be a head coach again.