WBRS Sports Blog

WBRS Sports will be broadcasting every Brandeis Judges' basketball game the rest of the way--including all 4 of both teams' remaining UAA road games! Ravi Kotecha and Jeffrey Pickette will be broadcasting the games tonight at Case Western Reserve, and this coming Sunday at Carnegie Mellon, while Adam Rosen and Matthew Kessler will be doing the games at Rochester and Emory on Feb. 19 & Feb. 21. The trips to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta are all unprecedented in the history of WBRS Sports. As always, listen live right here at wbrs.org or at 100.1FM for those in the Waltham area.

Men's basketball coach Brian Meehan called in to Jury Duty on 11/16 to preview the upcoming season for his team.

Coach Meehan touches on everything from concerns over going into the season with a 10-man roster to which players he thinks will step-up and have a big season to what he thought of Bill Belichick's controversial 4th and 2 call late in the 4th quarter of the Pats-Colts game last Sunday night.

Jury Duty is on every Monday from 5pm to 6pm. Be sure to tune in!

Fri. Nov. 20 @ 6pm HOME vs. Wentworth (Women) 
PxP: Adam Rosen 
Color: Dan Podair, Matt Fowler
 
Sat. Nov. 21 @ 12noon OR 2pm (TBD) HOME vs. Bates/Mt. Holyoke (Women) 
PxP: Matt Baron 
Color: Adam Rosen, Matt Fowler
 
Sat. Nov. 21 @ 5pm HOME vs. Emerson (Men) 
PxP: Jeff Pickette 
Color: Matt Baron, Adam Rosen
 
Sun. Nov. 29 @ 1pm HOME vs. Tufts (Women) 
PxP: Matt Baron 
Color: Jeff Pickette, Matt Kessler
 
Sun. Nov 29 @ 3pm HOME vs. Vassar (Men) 
PxP: Ian Cutler 
Color: Matt Fowler, Matt Baron
 
Thurs. Dec. 3 @ 6pm AWAY @ Framingham State (Men) 
PxP: Mike Weil 
Color: Ian Cutler, Matt Kessler
 
Saturday Dec. 5 @ 5pm AWAY @ Tufts (vs. Salem State) 
PxP: Ravi Kotecha 
Color: Jeff Pickette, Adam Rosen

Here's what you missed on this week's Jury Duty (Monday's 5pm-6pm):

* Brian Lowe '00 of Patriots Today and Patriots This Week called in to the show to help breakdown last Sunday's 27-17 Patriots win over the Dolphins and preview the big Patriots-Colts showdown this Sunday night in Indy.

Lowe, who graduated from Brandeis in 2000, also chimed in on some Brandeis-related topics and offered some valuable career advice for those looking to crack the sports journalism field.




* Superfan Allen Karon called in to the show and shared some of his thoughts on the upcoming season for the Brandeis men's and women's basketball teams.

Shameless plug alert: I interviewed Karon for a feature story that ran in the Canton Citizen last February. Check it out by clicking here!

Jury Duty previews NBA season

NBA-writer Peter May called in to Jury Duty (WBRS, Mondays 5pm-6pm) this week to help preview the NBA season.

May covered the NBA and the Celtics for nearly 25 years for the Boston Globe and the Hartford Courant. His 2008 book, Top of the World, told the inside story of the Boston Celtics' 2007-2008 championship run.

Check out the interview right here!




Brandeis student reflects on marathon experience

Dan Litwok '10 called in to Jury Duty this week to talk about running the Cape Cod Marathon in Falmouth, MA this past Sunday (10/25). Litwok and seven others with Brandeis ties took part in the 26.2 mile race.

Check out the interview right here!

Both Brandeis teams in Top 25

By Jeffrey Pickette

Kevin Olson and Steve DeLuca are not walking through that door. And Cassidy Dadaos and Lauren Orlando are not walking through that door. Yet, this didn't stop the folks at d3hoops.com from including both the men's and women's teams in their Top 25 preseason poll, released earlier this evening.

Both teams have lost significant leadership and talent from last year's NCAA tournament squads, but evidently the 25 coaches, Sports Information Directors and media members from across the nation who vote in this poll felt that the men and women would both be able to overcome these losses, with players like Andre Roberson '10, Kenny Small '10, Jessica Chapin '10 and Morgan Kendrew '12, among others, stepping up for their respective teams.

The men are ranked 22nd. Washington University in St. Louis, the two-time defending D-III national champions, received all 25 first-place votes in the men's poll.

The women are ranked 9th. The top four women's teams (Wash U, Amherst, Hope and George Fox) all split the 25 first-place votes.

As always, take these preseason rankings with a grain of salt.

"I don't take rankings too seriously. Rankings don't win you games," men's head coach Brian Meehan told me before the start of the 2007-2008 season.

"It's a nice thing, but ultimately, as I always say, it doesn't really matter [where you are ranked] 'til the end of the year," Meehan added before the start of last season.

The men open up their season November 17 at home against Lasell College. Meanwhile, the women kick things off November 15 at WPI.

For the complete preseason rankings for both the men and the women, click here.

By Adam Rosen

The Brandeis baseball team forever enshrined Nelson Figueroa into school history, retiring his #2 jersey in a private ceremony last Saturday. The event took place after a Brandeis Baseball Alumni Game, which was put together last-minute by Coach Pete Varney as a way to gather as much of the Brandeis baseball family as possible for the Figueroa ceremony when it became definite that Nelson would not be playing postseason baseball in October.


After the ceremony, Figueroa, a former WBRS DJ, took a trip down memory lane by coming up to the WBRS studio in Shapiro Campus Center for an exclusive live interview. He discussed topics such as the significance of having his jersey number retired, memories from Brandeis, his thoughts on this past year with the Mets, and his outlook on the 2010 season. A recording of the interview can be found below, as well as his chat with reporters after the ceremony and a Station ID he recorded for WBRS.

Figueroa WBRS IN-STUDIO Interview (w/ Adam Rosen & Ian Cutler) (26:09)

Nelson Figueroa Station ID

Figueroa talking with reporters post-ceremony (9:45)

...Brandeis bias aside, Nelson Figueroa could be the classiest, most likable person in the world- it's almost hard to believe he is a professional athlete. Whether you're a Mets fan, Yankees fan, or a disinterested third party, it is impossible not to root for the guy. Thanks again to Nelson for being extremely gracious with his time for WBRS this past weekend, and we wish him nothing but the best of luck in his quest to make a Major League roster next season...



For more information on Figueroa's number retirement ceremony, read this article from The Justice.

First photo by Julian Agin-Liebes/the Justice

The 8 WBRS sports show hosts were polled before the start of the MLB playoffs to pick their World Series matchup and champion. Be sure to check back here throughout the postseason to see how they fare!

World Series winners:
2- Red Sox
2- Yankees
1- Angels, Cardinals, Phillies, Rockies

Michael Perloff: YANKEES over Rockies
Jeffrey Pickette: RED SOX over Cardinals
Adam Rosen: ANGELS over Cardinals
Ian Cutler: YANKEES over Cardinals
Matt Baron: PHILLIES over Yankees
Daniel Male: ROCKIES over Yankees
Mike Weil: CARDINALS over Angels
Ravi Kotecha: RED SOX over Cardinals

For playoff baseball analysis as the games unfold be sure to check out any of our 7 sports shows!