Between The Lines

Trivia Question (Rick Moody Edition): What year did current Syracuse women's basketball assistant Rick Moody guide his Alabama Crimson Tide squad to the Final Four?

This week: Rick Moody. Standard procedure has New Yorkers moving south for retirement. Rick did things a bit backwards. The 16-year Alabama head coach and nearly lifelong Alabaman is now in his fourth year of “retirement” on Coach Q's staff. Rick and his wife Sandra arrived in Syracuse oozing Southern charm in 2007 and it's been a perfect match between couple and city ever since.

“Q asked me to come up and see if I liked it and we prayed on the way up here that we wouldn't like it because we were quite happy,” Rick drawled as those only from the South properly can. “But when we got here we fell in love with Syracuse.”

Moody's already planned retirement from Alabama after the 2005 season was hastened when a controversial toe on the three-point line ended an upset bid of top seed LSU in the SEC tournament. Regardless, that retirement was in theory final, until Coach Q took over here at Syracuse.

“I started recruiting him from the first day I got the job because I knew what he would mean to the program.” It took a year, but Coach Q's only male recruit traded in his Crimson wardrobe for an Orange uncomfortably close to rival Auburn's.

“I had no intentions of getting back in it, because I really was burnt out,” Rick said. “I was not burned out on basketball. I was burned out on all the extra peripheral stuff that Q has to deal with. The one thing I've found out since I've come up here was the thing about college coaching that I loved the most is what I get to do. That is player development, game plans, practice plans, working with the kids. I never got tired at any point of that.”

Seniors Erica Morrow and Tasha Harris both arrived on the Syracuse campus in the summer of 2007 along with Rick. A Southern gentleman and two girls from New York City, sitcoms were written on less of a premise, but the combination was a smashing success.

“Coach Moody's the man! He's so sincere and he's so passionate about what he does,” Tasha said. “He's a great person on and off the court. He's going to tell you how it is. I just love Coach Moody.” And Erica, “He's so uplifting, always in high spirits so it's just positive energy all around.”

As for the team actually understanding what he was saying, that took a little while. “It's been fun to watch because you can see when he's coaching and he's explaining things, it's a little different than what they're used to hearing,” Q explained of the relocated drawl's effect on a roster of city girls. But Q had a year on Rick's Alabama staff as training, while Erica was immersed in full y'all as a freshman. “We're pretty used to it now because it's been four years, but definitely it was a surprise the first year. Some of his metaphors, some of the things he says are weird. He calls our pants britches and he says howdy. It was weird at first, but now it's second nature.”

Folksy wisdom aside, this “retirement” has been about much more than basketball for Rick. His actually retired wife Sandra, done teaching high school history, is on the northern journey too. “My wife made a comment to me one day, I'm so happy to have the guy I married back,” said Rick. “When you're a head coach there's no question that you become so incredibly consumed with what you're doing that even when you're at home as hard as you might try, or you're riding down the road with just you and your wife, that it's hard to carry on a conversation that doesn't center on basketball.”

Don't for a second think Rick's slacking on the game he loves, but this northern adventure has brought Coach and the women everyone, regardless of who birthed them, calls Mama closer together than ever.

“We have become reacquainted; we've been able to places we never thought we would go. During this time we've fallen back in love with one another, not that we never were, but you realize how much you mean to one another.” A fact obvious to all, Tasha and the rest of the players included. “Coach Moody loves Mama. You know when Mama's gone cause in Coach Moody's world you can just tell something's missing. They're just great people, great spirits, and great personalities.”

Whenever Rick finally does retire a 7 iron and fishing rod will fill much of his days, but if he had to pick one, “probably I would choose fishing if I had to pick between the two. Only because when I'm playing golf and I'm not hitting the ball well, it's my fault. But when I'm fishing I can always blame the fish for not biting. When you go fishing and you don't catch any you pull the boat over to the creek bank, grab you a sandwich and get you a diet Mountain Dew and you just enjoy it anyway.”

One word of advice, if you ever run into the Moody's, it's never War Eagle, always Roll Tide.

Higgo's Hero: The good folks over at Inside Lacrosse. For the second straight year they've found fit to give me a vote in the media Top 20 national poll(that's the Nike Media Poll to you, I will do all my voting swathed in swooshes). Deadline for my preseason poll prognostications is Thursday January 27^th with the votes being tabulated and presented on Monday the 31^st.

With the talent returning and history to back it up I know I'll start the year with Syracuse ranked 1^st and Virginia right behind. I imagine most of the other voters will have the Orange and Cavaliers as the top two in some order. After that, the scene quickly becomes murky. The defending champs, Duke, lost a great deal of talent including Tewaaraton winner Ned Crotty. The runners up, Notre Dame, lost their stud goalie Scott Rodgers. Johns Hopkins is coming off consecutive subpar seasons, and the playoffs as a whole last year went anything but according to form(I'm still very excited for the SU-UVA 2010 national title game…it'll face-off any day now I'm sure).

So the first crack at the poll this year will likely look quite different from the middle of March much less the end of May. Don't worry if my rankings sway wildly from week to week in the early going, I try to base the poll much more on results on the field than preseason thoughts. Regardless, if you have a team you are passionate about(that's not Syracuse…I'm quite aware of the Orange) let me know on Twitter @BrianHigginsSU, and I'll weigh the results accordingly. I'll likely present my weekly Top 20 in some form in this column once the season gets cooking, and I'll always tweet it out on Sundays or Mondays once it's completed for the week.

Trivia Answer: 1994. Rick's Tide lost to Louisiana Tech 69-66 in the national semifinals in one of Alabama's five straight trips to at least the Sweet 16. The Lady Techsters then fell to a North Carolina squad led by precocious freshman Marion Jones(yes…that Marion Jones) 60-59 in a classic national title game decided by a 3 pointer at the buzzer. Randomly Louisiana Tech's legendary head coach Leon Barmore is also pulling a Moody as it were. He retired from Tech in 2002 with one national title to his name and in 2008 resurfaced on the bench of former protégé Kim Mulkey at now #1 Baylor.

Upcoming Schedule: Women's hoops again hits the road this weekend, this time destination Milwaukee. Marquette's last 3 games have sandwiched beating then 6^th ranked West Virginia at home between Big East road wins over Georgetown and USF. Senior point guard Angel Robinson presents the Orange with a tough test Saturday at 2:00/1:00 Central from the Al McGuire Center.

Then make a midweek of it in the Dome next week when the men take on Seton Hall Tuesday and the women face Pittsburgh Wednesday with both games tipping at 7:00. As always ESPN 97.7 and Orange All Access are your places for women's basketball action if you can't join us in the Dome or shan't be in Milwaukee.

Questions: Tweet your 140 characters my way @BrianHigginsSU. Answers could come straight back on twitter, in an upcoming broadcast or in next week's column, so keep your eyes and ears open.

Syracuse University Athletics

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