Byron Mouton drafted by PBL Team from Maryland

The Maryland GreenHawks of the Premier Basketball League (PBL) drafted Byron Mouton (2000-02) in the first round of the PBL Draft this week. Here's part of the team's press release, with requisite cliché-ridden comments from the general manager:

The Maryland GreenHawks selected Byron Mouton, a 6’6” 225lbs guard/forward from the University of Maryland with the third overall pick in Thursday’s 2009 PBL Draft.

“Byron brings a tremendous amount of experience and leadership to our team,” [GM Adam] Dantus said. “We think that he is a tremendous well rounded player with a high basketball IQ and will fit in very well with our team.”

I just now learned from Wikipedia that the PBL is an offshoot of teams who left the ABA in 2007. The GreenHawks were formerly called the Nighthawks up until last week, and several other former Terps played for them over the years (including Travis Garrison and Johnny Rhodes). For those of you wanting to see Byron in action, the GreenHawks play their games at Wootton High School in Rockville, but they don't have this season's schedule up on their website yet.

John Gilchrist Videos

Here are two videos from YouTube with John Gilchrist (2002-05) running shooting and dribbling drills and talking about training before he left to play in Australia this summer (they're ads for his trainer's company).

The John Gilchrist Journey, Part 1:

The John Gilchrist Journey, Part 2:

And here is an interview with Gilchrist (1st 2:30 of the video) and his coach from the Adelaide 36ers (2nd half of the video) from back in August:

Hawks Cut Juan Dixon

Juan Dixon (1998-2002) was cut by the Atlanta Hawks yesterday. Brought in to training camp as a free agent to compete for a spot, Dixon ended up averaging 9 points per game in 3 preseason games. Shell Games predicts that Juan could get signed to another team once the season starts and injuries create the need for a veteran player to step in somewhere.

Over Juan's NBA career, he has averaged 8.4 points, 1.9 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game. He has played seven seasons for four different teams (Washington, Portland, Toronto, Detroit, and Washington again). His most productive year was 2005-06, when he started 42 games for Portland and averaged over 12 points per game.

Gilchrist Taking Over Games in Australia

Over in Australia, John Gilchrist (2002-05) is taking the reins to lead his team, the Adelaide 36ers, as demonstrated in this story (sent to me by a reader) from Adelaide Now. Gilchrist, normally a playmaking point guard, took things into his own hands to score 5 points in the final two possessions to seal a close and exciting game.

Gilchrist's only successful triple of the night gave Adelaide the lead 88-87 with 26 seconds left before Williams drove to the hoop for the final two of his 32 points.

Now down 88-89, the Sixers had 19 seconds to fashion a winner, the ball in playmaker Gilchrist's hands. [...]

Update 10/21/09:
Here is a video of the last 50 seconds of the game. Gilchrist is #20 in red. He hits the go-ahead 3 pointer about 40 seconds into the video, and then the game winner at the 1:10 mark.

Thanks for your Mobbies Vote!

The Baltimore Sun's Mobbies Award voting is over, and Maryland Basketball: Where Are They Now? finished respectably in 5th place in the Best Terps Blogs category, achieving my own personal goal of not finishing in last place.

Congratulations to all the other blogs in the competition, especially our friends at Shell Games (who won the Terps category and represented all of Terp-dom by finishing 7th in the overall Best Blog balloting) and Testudo Times (who won the Best Sports Blogs category).

Steve Blake Fights for his Starting Spot

As training camp opens for the Portland Trailblazers, Steve Blake (1999-2003) is the incumbent starter at point guard, but he faces a huge challenge from off-season free agent acquisition Andre Miller. In a story in the Columbian (via Gary Williams's Twitter feed) Blake's teammates are calling him the 'true' and 'ideal' point guard:

There has never been any flash to Blake's game, and there likely never will be. The 6-foot-3, 172-pound Blake is an old-school point guard in an ever-changing, modern league. To some, Blake is a throwback — a player who will never be more than a simple set-up man. But according to many of his teammates and several Portland coaches, Blake is irreplaceable. [...]

Monday, [Brandon] Roy drew a small line in the Blake-Miller debate, saying he feels extremely comfortable playing with Blake. Tuesday, Roy stated Blake's selfless style makes him feel limitless on the court.

"I hadn't played with that in a while," Roy said. "I was playing with point guards — the new-school point guard, who is aggressive and is kind of looking for his (points). But, you know, I played with Blake and I was like, 'Oh, OK. This is great.' "

Dime magazine says the coach has named Blake as the starter to open camp, even though Miller is the talk of the town:

Last season, Steve Blake did a legit job at the point but now management upgraded the position this offseason by signing Andre Miller to a three-year, $21 million deal.

The obvious choice to start would be Miller. [...] But Blake has done a great job running the Blazers’ offense for the past two seasons.[...] Plus, he has the ear of the team and more importantly, the confidence of coach Nate McMillan. The coach even said Blake is the starter coming into training camp.

Finally, the Rip City Project blog says Blake is the forgotten man in all the Andre Miller hype:

However, we can’t just go ahead and crown Andre Miller already. Thinking that Steve Blake is going down without a fight is just silly. His nickname is Lieutenant Dan and I’m pretty sure he could choke 80% of the NBA out. I mean he was the starter on a team that won 54 games last season. Say what you want but that’s something that Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Steve Nash can’t say. Is everyone forgetting that this is a guy whose been in the NBA six years and played for four different teams (including this one) before finally finding a home in Portland. AND he’s in a contract year??? This is a big year for him.

(The Baltimore Sun's Mobbies blog awards voting is still going on through October 9. Remember that you can vote once per day! Our blog is hovering around #4-6 in the Terps category. I don't expect to win, but I'd like to avoid the embarrassment of finishing last. So why not stop on by and vote for us today?)