Tuesday, June 26, 2018

This Week in Wrenball: Viva Le Tribe

It's early summer, and we find ourselves equidistant from the promise that comes with the beginning of the next Tribe hoops season and the familiar resignation of early March. In other words, it's not the customary time to talk Wrenball.

But when two of our throughlines intersect, we can't help but notice.

According to its Wikipedia entry, Le Mans Sarthe Basket, commonly known as MSB or Le Mans, is a professional basketball club that is from the city of Le Mans, France. The team plays in the French League and internationally in the Basketball Champions League.

After finishing third in the regular season in France's top division with a 21-13 record, MSB reached the finals against regular season champion Monaco. The top seed featured former Georgia star Gerald Robinson and Ohio State sparkplug Aaron Craft. Le Mans was led by FOGTB and FOLebron James Romeo Travis, Tennessee product Chris Lofton, and featured W&M's own Terry Tarpey as a reserve guard.

And in a hard-fought five game series, the underdogs from Le Mans prevailed, winning 76-74 in the deciding fifth and final game to capture the championship.

Travis scored a team-leading 14 points in the clincher. Tarpey was injured, and missed the tournament, but he's got a ring.

In Tarpey's first year in the French top division, he put up numbers that looked a lot like his collegiate box scores. He did a little bit of everything in the 26 games he entered (of a total of 47), averaging 6.8 points on 42.6% shooting (39.3% from three - a noteworthy improvement from his time in Williamsburg), led Le Mans in steals with 1.3 per game, was second on the squad with 4.8 boards, and added 2.0 assists and 0.4 blocks. And despite the fact he wasn't a starter, he was fourth on MSB with 23.6 minutes/game.

Not bad for the second guy from W&M to bond with Romeo Travis.


18 comments:

TR said...

Gotta be fun to play pro ball in France. Worse ways to spend your early/mid 20’s.

Whitney said...

Rob bailed on me for the Old 97's at the 9:30 Club in DC Friday. Any other interested parties?

rob said...

my wife and kid had a gheorghe sighting in our local grocery story this morning. really hoping that means he's moving to the neighborhood. i assume we'll be great pals, even mutt and jeffier than me and whit.

zman said...

You two could be Muff and Jett.

Whitney said...

Muggsy and Manute.

rob said...

bhoom

rob said...

also, i’m taller than muggsy

zman said...

Mughsy.

TR said...

An Argentina win and a Croatia win/tie gets Argentina into the second round. Situation is not as dire as the press is making it out to be. Not a given by any means, but very much possible.

TR said...

I typed that before seeing Messi's goal. That trap he made with his left thigh on that through pass is absurdly difficult. He did it in full stride, and then had a second touch that was absolutely perfect before delivering a perfect finish.

I want to see Messi keep playing.

TR said...

Maradona is not afraid to celebrate an Argentinian goal by flipping double-birds to Nigeria fans. I hate that they keep showing him. He’s a douche.

TR said...

Well that was a fun-as-hell two hours.

Dave said...

i loved the shot of maradona napping and then that glimpse of maradona flipping the double bird. what a game and what a messi goal. thigh trap to touch to weak foot far post finish, all basic soccer skills done perfectly, which is what he's all about. we're driving to cape cod saturday morning and i don't know if we can leave early enough to catch the game and i'm not sure what to do. any delay at the bridge and i'm going to miss what could be his last performance in a world cup.

Marls said...

“thigh trap to touch to weak foot far post finish, all basic soccer skills done perfectly, which is what he's all about.“

That is peak Dave.

Mark said...

I am an extremely rare weekday drinker but my most regular sandwich shop/bar is closing on Thursday. I’ve been eating here since I was playing little league.

We’re grabbing our last meal here tonight. And we’re drinkig. It seems lots of people are thinking the same as us.

Whitney said...

Amen to that, Mark

TR said...

Every night is a weekend night when you don't have a job!

Downside of starting a new job on 7/9 is that this will end.

TR said...

College World Series looks like a whole lotta fun. The Arkansas fans are...interesting.