Feb 21 - The Defense Rests

A couple of weeks ago, the Bush Administration submitted its Fiscal Year 2006 budget request to Congress and there was an important tidbit buried in the voluminous document. It seems that the Defense Department, tired of seeing their yearly appropriations go for naught, has decided to zero out funding for the Wake Forest Basketball program in the coming year. That's it - from here on out the Pentagon wants nothing to do with the Wake Forest Basketball program. And after Sunday night, who can blame Rumsfeld and crew for growing impatient with the way Skip Prosser's teams play defense. In a nutshell, there is absolutely nothing demonic about the way the Demon Deacons play defense and it showed last night in an embarrassing loss to Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Devils had their way with Wake Forest last night, burying uncontested threes all night long. When the smoke had cleared, Duke had shot almost 60 percent from the field while amassing 102 points. JJ Redick led the way with 38, while super stiff Lee Melchionni chipped in 15 on 5-6 shooting. And the Devils offense did not come exclusively via the longball. On many occasions, Duke got easy layups in transition and chippy 10 footers of basic screens. Wake Forest simply refused to put up a fight. Not a single time did Wake knock down Reddick. He was free all night as Wake's highly acclaimed backcourt trio of Paul, Gray and Downey proved once again that collectively, they have either no interest or ability to guard the basketball. Chris Paul, in particular, is an amazing offensive palyer, but he gives up at least as much as he gets and I am tired of hearing the Bristol Banshees sing his praise. The worst thing about all this is Prosser seems fine with his team's largeese. Last night, he was more interested yellingn at the officials then taking his lazy kids to task. This is not a new story at Wake. Last year, the same thing happened. Actually, its been happening ever since Skip Prosser stepped on campus before the 2002 season. This guy's phiosophy is we will let you score becuase we think we can score more. Its basically a watered down version of Paul Westhead's Loyola Marymount Treatise. Message to Skip - Westhead never won anything and either will you so long as you preach defensive benevolence. You got smoked by a reeling Duke team and after last night, I have lost faith. This team should make it to the regionals on talent alone, but it wouldn't shock me to see them lose in the second round. As for advancing past the sweet sixteen, the Sportsaholic does not see it happening without an emergency aid package from the Pentagon.

One team that is down on its knee and thanking god this morning is Georgia Tech. They got a gift yesterday that rivals any other bestowed this year. Down one with time running out at Florida State, Georgia Tech was kicking the ball around aimlessly. Finally, Jacket guard BJ Elder threw some crap at the basket that had absolultely no shot of going in. GT would have gone home a loser, but an official called a foul on the play with .4 seconds to go. Elder then went to the line and made the two winning free throws for the Jackets. This was the bail out of all bail outs and it makes me think the fix is in. With a loss, GT would have gone back to Atlanta in bad shape. A ntional finalist form a year ago, GT would have found itself 5-7 in the ACC with four to play. The Jackets now have a shot to finish the year at .500 in conferecne and that should be enough to secure a bid. GT coach Paul Hewitt should probably send that official a nice bottle of wine today given the fact that he saved the Yellow Jacket's season.

In Philadelphia yesterday, we saw one of the oddest coaching decisions of the year when Pitt coach Jamie Dixon continued to play zone while Villanova was sniping threes from outside the arc. Nova shot 52 percent from behind the line and much of the damage was done in the second half when Dixon had his team in a passive zone. The funny thing is that Dixon refused to switch it up even after Nova guard Allen Ray began to heat up. Ray can be a deadly shooter and he eventually knocked down five three pointers in the second half, many of them coming uncontested. Why Dixon didn't stick a man on Ray is a big question mark and it lends more ammunition to Pitt fans who are less then thrilled with Jamie's work to date.

While Pitt's loss on Sunday did nothing to worsen their tourney hopes, the same cannot be said of UCLA which got destroyed at Stanford. The Cardinal, playing without leading scorer Dan Grunfeld, broke open the game late in the first half and never looked back. Stanford point guard Chris Hernandez completely dominated the Bruins, hitting five threes and getting to the rim whenever he pleased. UCLA had come into the game shooting the ball well of late, but this trend didn't hold as the Bruins were held to 33 percent shooting from the field. The one thing that is interesting about the Bruins is that they seem to play particularly poorly when Brian Morrison is on the floor. He was out there during both of Stanford's first half runs, leading me to think that his plus/minus for the game and season must be awful. With the win, Stanford has now virtually locked up the number three spot in the conference having already swept UCLA. The Bruins, on the other hand, must win their final four games in order to get a tourney invite. I am not optimistic.

That pretty much takes care of Sunday and so we now turn to Saturday where a few games are worth mentioning. In the day's biggest upset, Iowa State knocked off Kansas in overtime after it blew a big lead late in regulation. The Cyclones are certainly the hottest team in the Big-12 after winning seven straight conference games and they have climbed their way back into the tourney picture. The Cyclones close with four easy games so its not inconceivable that they will carry an eleven game winning streak in the Big-12 tourney. I am pretty confident Iowa State will be a tourney team. In the Big East, Syracuse contineud its spotty play of late by losing at Boston College. Syracuse senior Hakeem Warrick went AWOL in the second half and without his scoring, the Orangemen didn't have enough to overcome Boston College's strength inside. Don't look now, but Boston College is on the verge of winning the Big East and becoming a top seed in the NCAAs. BC blew its shot at the 2004 Big East Football championship on the final day of last season, but I don't expect the same thing will happen this year in basketball.

I hate to bring this up since I spent part of Friday ripping those who enjoy watching dunking contests, but for my money, the greatest dunker of all time was . . . . . . . Mike Conley. Mike Who? For those who don't know him, Mike Conley was the second or third greatest long jumper in the world for about ten years during the 80s and early 90s. He didn't play organized basketball, but I do recall seeing him on some celebrity show where he was showing off his dunking skills. Conley was simply amazing. I have never seen a human being step onto a basketball court who had Conley's lift. Not a single one. This guy made Michael Jordan look like Billy Hoyle from WMCJ. Conley was so long that he made the Dr. J dunk from the free throw line look like kids play. At his peak, I am not sure Conley couldn't make a three point dunk. The guy could jump 28 feet in competition so why couldn't he make a dunk from 21 feet? /So the next time you hear Bill Simmons waxing on about Vince or Michael or Dominique, send him an email and tell him that the aforementioned couldn't carry Conley's jock.

The story out of Washington D.C. today is that the Redskins are planning on releasing wide receiver Laveranues Coles if a trade cannot be arranged. Is it possible that Coles could be headed back to the Jets where he enjoyed great success? The Jets are in the market for a bigtime receiver and Coles would seem to be a perfect fit, especially since he has a proven track record working with Chad Pennington (89 catches in 02). Coles ins't the only high-profile wide receiver who may become available later this week. Word out of Tennessee is that productive wideout Derrick Mason will be a salary cap casualty. Suddenly, the unrestricted pool of wideouts looks pretty impressive with Mason, Muhammed, Coles, Burress and Porter all available. With these receivers on the market, its unlikely that any NFL team will feel the need to match Minnesota's demands for Randy Moss.

Isn't all this banter concering AROD being blown a bit out of proportion? The New York tabloids just cannot get enough of this story so every day they report that another one of the Red Sox has insulted or slandered the Yankee third baseman. The trouble is, despite the claims of pundits and columnists, the sox really aren't saying a whole lot that is rancourous or inflamatory. In fact, other then Trot Nixon calling AROD a "clown," most of the reported material is a bit tame and innocuous. I think the bigger story here is that every New York newspaper has now assigned a beat reporter to cover the Red Sox. The only reason this story continues to linger is that these reporters have nothing to do but ask the Red Sox about AROD. The answers have not been too interesting so far but that hasn't stopped the tabloids from serving them up as fighting words.