We may have just witnessed the worst called game of the ESPN era and the culprit was none other then the Sportsaholic’s old pal Mike Patrick. As is tradition, Patrick is working the ACC tourney this weekend with his good old partner Dick "the Godfather of Crap" Vitale. This legendary duo has been polluting the ACC tournament since the days of Grant Hill and Rick Fox and Dennis Scott, but today’s call, was truly extraordinary. That is saying something given Patrick’s storied resume. Today's masterpiece came in a game pitting UNC against Clemson. Patrick’s first stunner occurred with about 4 minutes to go in the first half and UNC leading by one. At that point, he screamed this would be “the upset of upsets” if Clemson could sneak this one out. There were 24 minutes remaining in a one point game, yet Patrice was already throwing out the U word. This was just the beginning. When Clemson pulled out to a big lead midway through the second half, the hyperbole started running amok. This is when we got nailed on many occasions by Patrick's signature saying - "Are you kidding me?" If you put this saying on a loop and forced me to sit though it for 15 minutes, there is a good chance my head would actually begin melting. But alas, it got worse. With Clemson up 10 with eight minutes to go, we got the following: “if this holds, it may be the greatest upset I have ever seen.” There were no qualifiers to go along with this sentence. He didn’t limit it to something like the greatest upset in the history of the MCI Center or the ACC tourney or a game between these given schools. No, Patrick implied that this was going to be the biggest upset he had ever seen – period! That is a pretty strong claim even coming from the Master of Overstatement. In sum, Patrick was trying to imply that viewers were watching something historic today when in fact they were merely watching an entertaining game that potentially could have been a big surprise. There was nothing historic about this game. This was not Princeton-Georgetown in 1989. This was not Vegas and Ball State in 1990. Clemson is a capable team and this Carolina team is hardly the 1982 or 1987 Tar Heels. Granted, if Clemson had won , it would have registered as a big upset, but it would have fallen far short of the legendary shocker that Patrick was trying to manufacture. This was classic Patrick!
Is Steve Alford coaching for his job tonight in Iowa’s Big-10 game against Michigan State? Some, including this scribe, think that may be the case since a win just may get the Hawks into the tourney while a loss surely sends them to the NIT. With 20 wins already in hand, you may be wondering why Iowa is still sweating their future, especially since some of those wins came against the likes of Louisville, Texas, Northern Iowa and Iowa State. Had the Tourney invites gone out in January, the Hawkeyes surely would have been asked to RSVP. But Iowa didn’t exactly storm to the finish line. Things really turned at the end of January when Alford suspended his leading scorer Pierre Pierce for having a little run in with the Iowa City Police Department. Since that time, Iowa is only 5-5, and their wins have mostly come over the dregs of the Big-10. As a result, Iowa finished under .500 in a mediocre conference and that is why tonight’s game against Michigan State is so important. So what does Alford’s future look like? Well, I think this game is pretty damn crucial. This is Steve’s sixth year at Iowa he is looking for only his second tourney invite. That just does not cut it at Iowa. While Iowa is no Illinois or Indiana, it does have some tradition and the alumni are not going to settle for this serving of mediocrity. Making matters worse, Alford has constructed a team that is just no fun to watch. Alford claims he isn’t worried about his future, but with a loss tonight, he could be headed out of town.
Speaking of troubled Big-10 coaches, Indiana coach Mike Davis faces a big test today when his Hooisers take on Minnesota. Many view this as an elimination game with the winner moving on the Tourney and the loser going to the NIT. In fact, some think that the 15-12 Hoosiers need two wins in their conference tourney to secure at at-large bid to the tourney. Mike Davis has vigorously challenged such views this week, arguing the tourney selection committee will be doing a great injustice if they pass on Indiana after the Hoosiers dispatch Minnesota. “To say we have to win two games is ridiculous. If we don’t get in, you’re taking three teams from our league because we finished fourth.” Well, tied for fourth, but who is counting? While Davis has been on the hot seat at Indiana for a couple years now, I guess I am one of the few people who think he will get a final shot in 2006. He is just too un-likeable to go this soon. We need villains in college basketball and Davis fits the bill. With Gene Keady leaving Purdue, the Big-10 needs a scowl and no one has a better scowl then Davis. Plus, Davis does have some good young players coming back and I think the powers that be in Bloomington will give Mike a chance to prove what he can do with a better hand.
To hear the biased Eastern media tell it, UCLA played itself out of the NCAA tourney last night. In what was basically a home game, the Bruins got smoked in the first half against Oregon State and not even a furious second half run could save UCLA. It was a stupid loss that exposed the Bruins for what they are – a young and inconsistent team that often breaks down. But lets not go crazy here folks. It was a loss but it was just a single game and it came after the tourney selectors had already fed ex’d an invite to Westwood. That is not the way some see it back here. I actually heard someone group UCLA in with Vanderbilt and Notre Dame this morning. Vandy? Are you frigging kidding me? Vandy is 84 in the RPI while UCLA is 35. The Bruins were 11-7 in the Pac-10 while the Commodores were only 8-8 in the equally poor Southeastern Conference. As for Notre Dame, UCLA went into South Bend two weeks ago and crushed the Irish. That is all that needs to be said on that front. Lets be serious folks. Notre Dame was eliminated the other night and Vandy had to make its way to at least its conference tourney to get a bid. Meanwhile, UCLA’s bid is sitting on Coach Ben Howland’s desk as we speak.
Raise your glasses everyone because it is Miller Time! My early favorite for Sportsman of the year is Bode Miller who virtually locked up the World Cup of Alpine Skiing earlier today. Bode finished second in a downhill yesterday and followed that up by winning today’s Super G in Switzerland. Miller had to ski well in these races and he responded with two super-clutch performances. Bode now leads the World Cup by 184 points with only two races to go. While it is still conceivable that Miller could be passed this weekend, it seems unlikely. Benjamin Raich, who is stuck in second, would need to win both of these races and Miller would have to finish out of the top-15 for the Austrian to prevail. Such an outcome seems highly unlikely. If his lead holds, Miller will become the first American to win the cup since Phil Mahre and Tamara McKinney did it in 1983. This accomplishment is truly historic and I believe it is every bit as impressive as Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France. With that said, its time for AP and other media outlets to honor somebody at year's end other then Sheryl Crow’s future husband. It was a joke that Armstrong got the nod over Michael Phelps in last year's AP Sportsman of the Year balloting, but I don’t think he will be so fortunate this time around, even with a 7th Tour victory this summer.
Does anyone in the NFL want Plaxico Buress? It seems like the answer is no at this point, at least at the kind of money that Plax and his agent Michael Harrison are demanding. The word is the Giants were a heartbeat away from signing the former Steeler on Wednesday, but the G Men put out a terse statement on Thursday explaining that they were no longer interested. ESPN’s Len Pasquerreli had reported that the Giants offered Burress something in the area of $21 million dollars over six years, with $8 million up front. This is far short of what Mushin Muhammed got this year from the Bears as well as the numbers Plax was seeking. It would appear that the two sides could simply not come together on price, but with Burress and his scintillating personality, you never know what happened. Plax also reportedly refused to take a physical and I am sure that didn’t go over too well with Giant GM Ernie Acorsi. So what does Plax do now? Well, there are reports that Minnesota will give him a one year deal that Burress could use to re-establish his market value, but Plax and Harrison are reportedly cool to such an idea. They want their money and they want it now. That doesn’t leave many other options. Teams have not exactly been banging down the door and the Giants seemed like the perfect fit. The big problem here is Burress has a very inflated opinion of his own value. He thinks he should be paid off his 2002 numbers, but others see him as an injury prone head-case who should be paid off his 2003 and 2004 numbers. I think it was a bit foolhardy for Plax to think he will get a contract like Muhammad given the fact that Mushin is coming off an all-pro year where he caught 93 balls and scored 16 times. To put this in perspective, Burress has only caught 16 touchdowns since the beginning of the 2002 season. Burress has always had talent, but his productivity has never kept pace. As such, it may not be such a bad idea to pull a Nomar and take a one year deal with the Vikings. If he kills it, he could be sitting pretty next March and if he has a typical Plax year, he will not be much worse off than he is today.
So Brett made it official yesterday – he will be returning for his 33rd season with the Green Bay Packers. I wrote a lengthy piece on this subject last week so I won’t bore you with all details this time around. Suffice to say, I am not too surprised by Favre’s decision. It strikes me this is guy is going to have a real hard time letting go. Lets be honest – the Packers future is far from bright. In just the past two weeks alone, they lost two guards and two safeties do to cap concerns and free agency. The loss of the safeties may not be such a big deal since those guys didn’t stop anyone last year, but the other defections are believed to be significant. And this all comes on the heels of a season where the Packers were very average. Sure, they ended up winning a mediocre division, but it is pretty clear to an impartial observer that this team no longer scares anyone. What I found most interesting about yesterday’s announcement is how it was greeted by the analysts. As I expected, the suits at ESPN were simply joyous. John Clayton and Sean Salisbury were both giddy as they gave their two cents and both spoke as if Favre’s recent playoff debacles never occurred. Salisbury in particular, was gloating, claiming the future Hall-of Famer has lost barely an ounce of ability in recent years. This should come as no surprise since Salisbury is a card carrying member of the Quarterback Club and per club rules; members are not allowed to speak poorly of each other. Mike Golic on the other hand, is a member of the Idiot Club and he is not bound by such asinine rules. In a bit of a surprise, Golic – the player’s most staunch apologist - actually conceded this morning that Favre has regressed in recent years. All Golic did was make a layup, but I’ll take anything I can get from this bricklayer.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Thursday, March 10, 2005
March 10 - Baseball's Big Blunder
Will someone please talk some sense into the head honchos over at Major League Baseball? Just hours after learning that a congressional committee was planning on subpoenaing a handful of players to testify on steroid abuse in baseball, the league’s brain trust gathered and decided to circle the wagons. Rather then comply with the committee, league officials let it be known late yesterday that MLB was ready to stand fast with the affected players and fight the committee’s efforts to compel testimony. If necessary, MLB now says it will seek a court-ordered injunction to shield its players from having to testify. Judging from its actions, it seems the league is just a bit concerned by the prospect of having its dirty little secret aired all over C-SPAN.
The folks at Major League Baseball just don’t get it. They are like the German Army at Stalingrad in late 1942. Instead of pressing on with a hopeless fight against a superior force, they should be contemplating surrender, or, at the very least, an orderly retreat. But rather then capitulating, MLB is fighting back with an ill-conceived and misguided strategy. As far as I can tell, MLB would prefer to settle the entire steroid issue by forging a path forward without admitting any past wrongdoing. According to the league, the steroid issue is now being addressed and that begs the question why anyone needs to know the exact details of the sport’s tawdry past. If the league’s strategy had a motto it would be: “Let’s just move on.”
Sorry folks, it won’t be that easy. The public is not content to just move on. We live in a country whose entire legal system is based on principles of accountability and in this instance; the league’s strategy holds absolutely no one accountable. The Sportsaholic and the public at large want names and details and anecdotes and most importantly – confessions. This great game was disgraced and someone has to be held accountable for that crime. That is why I want to see those players up in front of a congressional committee. I want to see them squirm. I want to see them face the option of sullying their own reputation or committing perjury. I want these and all other offenders penalized and since baseball doesn’t have any suitable enforcement regime, a public flogging in front of a congressional panel will have to suffice. And if the players select perjury over the truth, I want the Justice Department to make them pay in ways that are not contemplated in Baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Officials at MLB just don’t understand such sentiment. They want to move on with the reputations of their great stars intact. Such an outcome will spare the league of having to deal with thorny issues such as what should be done to adjust league records and whether felonious drug abusers should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Sorry guys, this is not in the cards and picking a fight with Congress is not helping the matter. Baseball has to offer these guys up. Scapegoats are needed and MLB has to comply. Seeking a court ordered injunction is not the first step towards compliance. And the last thing baseball wants to do is awake a sleeping giant. People at MLB seem to forget that Congress could up the ante in ways that baseball could not tolerate. If you don’t think so just think what baseball would look like without its anti-trust exemption. You think the owners want to be subject to the same laws and regulations that regulate commerce in this country? You think an owner is going to be thrilled when a consumer group marches into federal court and seeks relief from a team’s monopolistic price gouging? That last question was rhetorical and needs no answer.
It is time for the league to step back and take stock of their strategy. It is just not in its interest to pick a fight with Congress and especially if the effort is being spearheaded by a novice like Stanley Brand. Moreover, they have to realize that the league and its reputation have to take another hit. It is not enough to say that a problem existed and it has now been repaired. That just won’t cut it. And if baseball can’t fix this problem by itself, then it is probably a good thing that an institution with requisite power has stepped into the fray.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish sure helped their cause last night with an inspiring performance against the Garden State’s finest. Mike Brey has a lot to be proud of after his kids lost a seven point decision to Rutgers. Some Irish apologists this morning are pointing to Chris Quinn’s first half injury as an excuse for the loss, but that is no excuse whatsoever. The Irish lost because Chirs Thomas and Colin Falls were collectively 7 for 27. That isn’t going to get it done against anyone, including the woeful Knights. Notre Dame was in a weird spot last night. A win was going to do little to improve the team’s resume, but a loss would be crippling. ESPN’s Andy Katz was on the radio this morning claiming that they aren’t out of the tourney yet, but that is a bit hard to believe. Yes, the Irish do have a few nice wins over Connecticut, Boston College and Villanova, but they have also closed out the season with four losses in five games, the last coming against a team that may lose its Division accreditation next year. The Irish currently stand at 17-11 with an RPI in the seventies. And Katz thinks this resume may be good enough? I think Andy has been spending a few too many nights in Bristol cuddling with Digger. If you bet that the Big East would get less then seven tourney bids, you probably have a winning ticket this morning.
Well, maybe that ticket isn’t a winner after all. As I am writing, West Virginia is putting the finishing touches on a Big East quarterfinal victory over Boston College. With this win in hand, WVU is 20-9 with a handful of quality wins. That should be plenty for a program that was moribund just two years ago. As for BC, their stock is falling fast. They will enter the tourney with four losses in their last eight games and two of those wins came over Rutgers. A few weeks ago, people were talking about BC getting a one seed and having their opening round games played at Worcester. Now it looks as if they will be a three or four seed and could be traveling out of New England for next weekend’s games. As for that ticket mentioned above – I see UCONN, Syracuse, PITT, Nova, BC and West Virginia with bids sewn up. Notre Dame is out and that leaves Georgetown. The Hoyas win last night against Seton Hall was uninspiring and irrelevant as far as I am concerned. For Georgetown its simple – beat UCONN tonight or make plans to play in the NIT.
Can we finally put the Maryland Terrapins to rest? I know ESPN hates to make this concession, but the Terps are officially dead after losing to Clemson this afternoon. The loss drops Maryland to 16-12 with three losses to Clemson and two losses to NC State. It was really a disgraceful finish for Maryland. They looked like a tourney lock two weeks ago, but a loss at home to Clemson and a loss at Virginia Tech were absolute killers. Today’s loss was just icing on the cake since I believed they needed to win at least two games in the ACC tourney to repair the damage from the season finale loss to Virginia Tech. So where does that put the ACC? There are probably four locks – UNC, Wake, Duke and GT, but that may be it. NC State may have a shot with a win over Wake tomorrow, but that is no chippy for the Wolfpack. So for all the praise heaped upon the ACC this year, they may end up with the same never of invitees as the Pac-10 and Big-10.
UNC’s Rashad McCants was cleared to practice today after missing a couple of weeks with an “intestinal disorder.” What the hell is going on with this kid? I have been following sports a long time and I cannot recall a player missing so much time due to the squirts. Appendicitis is one thing but diarrhea is another entirely. For god’s sake, guys play football with lacerated spleens but McCants is sidelined for a couple of weeks with a nervous stomach. I think the most famous case of diarrhea in college basketball occurred in 1990 when Duke guard Bobby Hurley was hit with the “mess” just before the National Championship game against Vegas. Unlike McCants, Hurley gave it go for 32 unexceptional minutes. Hurley’s heroics scored no points with teammate Christian Laettner who ended up ripping Hurley for letting “Montezuma” get the best of him. As I said the other day, UNC needs this guy badly and if he has some leakage, its time for him to go with the adult diaper or an extra strength colostomy bag.
Former Cardinals wunderkind Rick Ankiel is calling it quits, at least as far as pitching is concerned. Ankiel, as you may recall, was just a teenager when he was called up to the Cardinals in 1999 and he ended up winning 11 games the following year. Ankiel could throw gas and given his early call-up, some predicted he would be another Dwight Gooden, albeit from the left side. But on the way to greatness, Ankiel blew a fuse and his career has never been the same since. In 2000 Ankiel was pitching against the Braves in game one of the NLDS when he uncorked five wild pitches in a single inning. That hadn’t been done since 1890. Ankiel was never the same after that debacle and in recent years, he has been dogged by injuries. Yesterday, he threw in the towel and announced that he was giving up pitching and would try to become a major league outfielder. Rick did hit .250 in 68 at bats during 2000, so there is something there. He will obviously need some seasoning in the minors, but at 25, he still has a chance to make something out of his career. If he succeeds, Ankiel will be one of the very few who have transitioned from pitcher to everyday player. But Ankiel should take heart from the fact that one of the guys who succeeded ended up hitting 714 home runs.
This comes to us straight out of the “no shit” file. ESPN’s Len Pasquerelli reported yesterday that Indianapolis Colt General Manager Bill Polian has told Edgerrin James that the Colts will probably be unable to sign James to a long-term contract. James is currently bound to play for the Colts next year under an $8 million dollar qualifying offer, but he is looking for a long-term deal with tons of green paid up front. Such an offer is too rich for the Colts, according to Polian who now admits the team’s well is running dry and therefore James will be made available as trade bait. What a surprise! Polian has been spending money hand over fist over the past year so this is hardly news to the Sportsaholic. The Colts now have a ton of money tied up in Peyton Manning, their receiving corps and offensive line, making it fairly obvious that no resources were left for James. This has got to be a bit humbling for Polian since he has arrogantly predicted in the past that he would be able to keep his core together. Bill, ain’t that salary cap a bitch? As I mentioned in this space a couple weeks back, the Colts window is closing quickly. Manning’s salary cap hit explodes in 06 and it is possible that the team will need to be blown up like the Tennessee Titans in the not so distant future. The only thing real interesting in yesterday’s report was Polian’s revelation that the market has become awfully depressed for running backs. As such, he may be willing to accept something less then a first round pick for the Edge. Are you listening Miami? If James is really on the block, why not send him to South Florida for Jason Taylor? Miami poured some cold water on such idea yesterday when they told the Miami Herald that they intend to keep Taylor.
Can you believe that wide receiver David Boston is only 26 years old? It seems like centuries ago that this cat was grabbing everything in sight at Sun Devil Stadium. Well, it turns out that it was only four seasons ago that Boston caught 100 balls for 1600 yards. I had him on my fantasy team that year and I think that was the last time I made the playoffs in the super-competitive Jay Goldman league. Since that huge season, Boston has fallen off the face of the earth. The 240 pound behemoth got hurt in 2002 and then left for the beaches of San Diego. He had a mediocre 2003 in San Diego and then split for Miami where he got hurt and ended up missing all of last season. But there is now talk that Boston is now headed to San Francisco where he will be reunited with his old Arizona receiver coach. It is hard to say that the Niners are securing a jewel since Boston is a complete jerk and he is coming off a major injury. But the talented Boston is only 26 and it wouldn’t surprise me if he comes back and becomes a 60 catch receiver. That is if he can ever pass a physical.
This comes to us from the mouth of Auburn’s humble Tommy Tuberville. According to Tubes, a season ago, Auburn had “the best overall backfield in college football in the last 50 years.” Tubes is of course making reference to running backs Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown, along with quarterback Jason Campbell. Tubes went on to say “there haven’t been many backfields like that. You got two guys that will be drafted in the top six or seven who will play football for a long time and who complemented each other. You can say Herschel Walker or Bo Jackson or so many backs at USC. You can’t say that and add the quarterback.” Somebody get out the urine cup cause its time to test Tubes for crack. Tubes definitely had a real nice set of players a year ago and I got to admit I think Brown has a big future. But boy does this coach have an inflated view of his guys. Lest anyone forget, this great triumvirate played on an offense that was 19th in scoring a year ago and 25th in total yards. Granted, the Tigers play in a conference where points and yards are not exactly handed out, but this is not exactly the 1983 Huskers. And as for his quote about this group being the best in 50 years, I think John Robinson may disagree. Tubes, take a look at the USC Trojans in 1979. They were led at tailback by a guy named Charles White who wound up winning the Heisman Trophy. His blocking back that year was none other then Marcus Allen who ended taking home the Heisman two years later and a Super Bowl MVP two years after that. I don’t know Tubes – I don’t recall either of your guys going home with such hardware. And while Jason Campbell is a nice player, is he any better then SC’s very efficient Paul McDonald? While McDonald only played 7 unspectacular seasons in the NFL, there in no guarantee Cambell will be playing in the NFL come 2012. I am sure I could come up with some more ammo to use against Tubes if given the time, but his asinine comments only get 15 minutes from me on this busy day.
The folks at Major League Baseball just don’t get it. They are like the German Army at Stalingrad in late 1942. Instead of pressing on with a hopeless fight against a superior force, they should be contemplating surrender, or, at the very least, an orderly retreat. But rather then capitulating, MLB is fighting back with an ill-conceived and misguided strategy. As far as I can tell, MLB would prefer to settle the entire steroid issue by forging a path forward without admitting any past wrongdoing. According to the league, the steroid issue is now being addressed and that begs the question why anyone needs to know the exact details of the sport’s tawdry past. If the league’s strategy had a motto it would be: “Let’s just move on.”
Sorry folks, it won’t be that easy. The public is not content to just move on. We live in a country whose entire legal system is based on principles of accountability and in this instance; the league’s strategy holds absolutely no one accountable. The Sportsaholic and the public at large want names and details and anecdotes and most importantly – confessions. This great game was disgraced and someone has to be held accountable for that crime. That is why I want to see those players up in front of a congressional committee. I want to see them squirm. I want to see them face the option of sullying their own reputation or committing perjury. I want these and all other offenders penalized and since baseball doesn’t have any suitable enforcement regime, a public flogging in front of a congressional panel will have to suffice. And if the players select perjury over the truth, I want the Justice Department to make them pay in ways that are not contemplated in Baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Officials at MLB just don’t understand such sentiment. They want to move on with the reputations of their great stars intact. Such an outcome will spare the league of having to deal with thorny issues such as what should be done to adjust league records and whether felonious drug abusers should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Sorry guys, this is not in the cards and picking a fight with Congress is not helping the matter. Baseball has to offer these guys up. Scapegoats are needed and MLB has to comply. Seeking a court ordered injunction is not the first step towards compliance. And the last thing baseball wants to do is awake a sleeping giant. People at MLB seem to forget that Congress could up the ante in ways that baseball could not tolerate. If you don’t think so just think what baseball would look like without its anti-trust exemption. You think the owners want to be subject to the same laws and regulations that regulate commerce in this country? You think an owner is going to be thrilled when a consumer group marches into federal court and seeks relief from a team’s monopolistic price gouging? That last question was rhetorical and needs no answer.
It is time for the league to step back and take stock of their strategy. It is just not in its interest to pick a fight with Congress and especially if the effort is being spearheaded by a novice like Stanley Brand. Moreover, they have to realize that the league and its reputation have to take another hit. It is not enough to say that a problem existed and it has now been repaired. That just won’t cut it. And if baseball can’t fix this problem by itself, then it is probably a good thing that an institution with requisite power has stepped into the fray.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish sure helped their cause last night with an inspiring performance against the Garden State’s finest. Mike Brey has a lot to be proud of after his kids lost a seven point decision to Rutgers. Some Irish apologists this morning are pointing to Chris Quinn’s first half injury as an excuse for the loss, but that is no excuse whatsoever. The Irish lost because Chirs Thomas and Colin Falls were collectively 7 for 27. That isn’t going to get it done against anyone, including the woeful Knights. Notre Dame was in a weird spot last night. A win was going to do little to improve the team’s resume, but a loss would be crippling. ESPN’s Andy Katz was on the radio this morning claiming that they aren’t out of the tourney yet, but that is a bit hard to believe. Yes, the Irish do have a few nice wins over Connecticut, Boston College and Villanova, but they have also closed out the season with four losses in five games, the last coming against a team that may lose its Division accreditation next year. The Irish currently stand at 17-11 with an RPI in the seventies. And Katz thinks this resume may be good enough? I think Andy has been spending a few too many nights in Bristol cuddling with Digger. If you bet that the Big East would get less then seven tourney bids, you probably have a winning ticket this morning.
Well, maybe that ticket isn’t a winner after all. As I am writing, West Virginia is putting the finishing touches on a Big East quarterfinal victory over Boston College. With this win in hand, WVU is 20-9 with a handful of quality wins. That should be plenty for a program that was moribund just two years ago. As for BC, their stock is falling fast. They will enter the tourney with four losses in their last eight games and two of those wins came over Rutgers. A few weeks ago, people were talking about BC getting a one seed and having their opening round games played at Worcester. Now it looks as if they will be a three or four seed and could be traveling out of New England for next weekend’s games. As for that ticket mentioned above – I see UCONN, Syracuse, PITT, Nova, BC and West Virginia with bids sewn up. Notre Dame is out and that leaves Georgetown. The Hoyas win last night against Seton Hall was uninspiring and irrelevant as far as I am concerned. For Georgetown its simple – beat UCONN tonight or make plans to play in the NIT.
Can we finally put the Maryland Terrapins to rest? I know ESPN hates to make this concession, but the Terps are officially dead after losing to Clemson this afternoon. The loss drops Maryland to 16-12 with three losses to Clemson and two losses to NC State. It was really a disgraceful finish for Maryland. They looked like a tourney lock two weeks ago, but a loss at home to Clemson and a loss at Virginia Tech were absolute killers. Today’s loss was just icing on the cake since I believed they needed to win at least two games in the ACC tourney to repair the damage from the season finale loss to Virginia Tech. So where does that put the ACC? There are probably four locks – UNC, Wake, Duke and GT, but that may be it. NC State may have a shot with a win over Wake tomorrow, but that is no chippy for the Wolfpack. So for all the praise heaped upon the ACC this year, they may end up with the same never of invitees as the Pac-10 and Big-10.
UNC’s Rashad McCants was cleared to practice today after missing a couple of weeks with an “intestinal disorder.” What the hell is going on with this kid? I have been following sports a long time and I cannot recall a player missing so much time due to the squirts. Appendicitis is one thing but diarrhea is another entirely. For god’s sake, guys play football with lacerated spleens but McCants is sidelined for a couple of weeks with a nervous stomach. I think the most famous case of diarrhea in college basketball occurred in 1990 when Duke guard Bobby Hurley was hit with the “mess” just before the National Championship game against Vegas. Unlike McCants, Hurley gave it go for 32 unexceptional minutes. Hurley’s heroics scored no points with teammate Christian Laettner who ended up ripping Hurley for letting “Montezuma” get the best of him. As I said the other day, UNC needs this guy badly and if he has some leakage, its time for him to go with the adult diaper or an extra strength colostomy bag.
Former Cardinals wunderkind Rick Ankiel is calling it quits, at least as far as pitching is concerned. Ankiel, as you may recall, was just a teenager when he was called up to the Cardinals in 1999 and he ended up winning 11 games the following year. Ankiel could throw gas and given his early call-up, some predicted he would be another Dwight Gooden, albeit from the left side. But on the way to greatness, Ankiel blew a fuse and his career has never been the same since. In 2000 Ankiel was pitching against the Braves in game one of the NLDS when he uncorked five wild pitches in a single inning. That hadn’t been done since 1890. Ankiel was never the same after that debacle and in recent years, he has been dogged by injuries. Yesterday, he threw in the towel and announced that he was giving up pitching and would try to become a major league outfielder. Rick did hit .250 in 68 at bats during 2000, so there is something there. He will obviously need some seasoning in the minors, but at 25, he still has a chance to make something out of his career. If he succeeds, Ankiel will be one of the very few who have transitioned from pitcher to everyday player. But Ankiel should take heart from the fact that one of the guys who succeeded ended up hitting 714 home runs.
This comes to us straight out of the “no shit” file. ESPN’s Len Pasquerelli reported yesterday that Indianapolis Colt General Manager Bill Polian has told Edgerrin James that the Colts will probably be unable to sign James to a long-term contract. James is currently bound to play for the Colts next year under an $8 million dollar qualifying offer, but he is looking for a long-term deal with tons of green paid up front. Such an offer is too rich for the Colts, according to Polian who now admits the team’s well is running dry and therefore James will be made available as trade bait. What a surprise! Polian has been spending money hand over fist over the past year so this is hardly news to the Sportsaholic. The Colts now have a ton of money tied up in Peyton Manning, their receiving corps and offensive line, making it fairly obvious that no resources were left for James. This has got to be a bit humbling for Polian since he has arrogantly predicted in the past that he would be able to keep his core together. Bill, ain’t that salary cap a bitch? As I mentioned in this space a couple weeks back, the Colts window is closing quickly. Manning’s salary cap hit explodes in 06 and it is possible that the team will need to be blown up like the Tennessee Titans in the not so distant future. The only thing real interesting in yesterday’s report was Polian’s revelation that the market has become awfully depressed for running backs. As such, he may be willing to accept something less then a first round pick for the Edge. Are you listening Miami? If James is really on the block, why not send him to South Florida for Jason Taylor? Miami poured some cold water on such idea yesterday when they told the Miami Herald that they intend to keep Taylor.
Can you believe that wide receiver David Boston is only 26 years old? It seems like centuries ago that this cat was grabbing everything in sight at Sun Devil Stadium. Well, it turns out that it was only four seasons ago that Boston caught 100 balls for 1600 yards. I had him on my fantasy team that year and I think that was the last time I made the playoffs in the super-competitive Jay Goldman league. Since that huge season, Boston has fallen off the face of the earth. The 240 pound behemoth got hurt in 2002 and then left for the beaches of San Diego. He had a mediocre 2003 in San Diego and then split for Miami where he got hurt and ended up missing all of last season. But there is now talk that Boston is now headed to San Francisco where he will be reunited with his old Arizona receiver coach. It is hard to say that the Niners are securing a jewel since Boston is a complete jerk and he is coming off a major injury. But the talented Boston is only 26 and it wouldn’t surprise me if he comes back and becomes a 60 catch receiver. That is if he can ever pass a physical.
This comes to us from the mouth of Auburn’s humble Tommy Tuberville. According to Tubes, a season ago, Auburn had “the best overall backfield in college football in the last 50 years.” Tubes is of course making reference to running backs Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown, along with quarterback Jason Campbell. Tubes went on to say “there haven’t been many backfields like that. You got two guys that will be drafted in the top six or seven who will play football for a long time and who complemented each other. You can say Herschel Walker or Bo Jackson or so many backs at USC. You can’t say that and add the quarterback.” Somebody get out the urine cup cause its time to test Tubes for crack. Tubes definitely had a real nice set of players a year ago and I got to admit I think Brown has a big future. But boy does this coach have an inflated view of his guys. Lest anyone forget, this great triumvirate played on an offense that was 19th in scoring a year ago and 25th in total yards. Granted, the Tigers play in a conference where points and yards are not exactly handed out, but this is not exactly the 1983 Huskers. And as for his quote about this group being the best in 50 years, I think John Robinson may disagree. Tubes, take a look at the USC Trojans in 1979. They were led at tailback by a guy named Charles White who wound up winning the Heisman Trophy. His blocking back that year was none other then Marcus Allen who ended taking home the Heisman two years later and a Super Bowl MVP two years after that. I don’t know Tubes – I don’t recall either of your guys going home with such hardware. And while Jason Campbell is a nice player, is he any better then SC’s very efficient Paul McDonald? While McDonald only played 7 unspectacular seasons in the NFL, there in no guarantee Cambell will be playing in the NFL come 2012. I am sure I could come up with some more ammo to use against Tubes if given the time, but his asinine comments only get 15 minutes from me on this busy day.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
March 9 - Steroids on St. Patrick's Day?
House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) gets my hero of the week the award. A week ago, Davis announced that he was inviting seven baseball players to Washington to testify about steroid abuse in baseball. Based on published press reports, it didn’t seem like Davis’ St. Patrick’s Day party was going to be too well attended. Mark McGwire, for one, told the Committee he was staying put in St. Louis and would be spending next Thursday watching hoops and enjoying a few tall green ones. It seems like Mac and the rest of the invitees were not too excited by the prospect of testifying under oath and potentially sullying their already damaged reputations. So what does Davis do to save his soiree? He goes nuclear and instructs his staff to start issuing subpoenas to the reluctant party-goers. With that said, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco better clear their schedules next Thursday because they now have a mandatory 10:00 A.M appointment in Washington D.C. I am sure this is one St. Patrick’s Day McGwire will always remember.
As I pointed out in this space last week, the affected players are now in a terrible predicament. They have been subpoenaed to testify under oath and that means the players run the risk of criminal sanctions if they are not truthful. And here is the kicker. I would guess that the players are planning to show up and invoke their Fifth Amendment protections, but what happens if the committee - in cahoots with the Justice Department - offers the invitees immunity for any past drug violations? At that point, the Fifth Amendment cannot be invoked and the players have an affirmative obligation to answer the committee’s questions. This is checkmate as far as I am concerned and that is why I cannot wait to tune into C-SPAN next Thursday morning. Go ahead Mark, let us hear about all your drug free exploits. Tell us how you went from a 35 home run guy in the early 90s to a 70 home run guy later in the decade. Sammy, please tell us about the ways you took that slender frame and turned it into something that belongs in a WWE cage match. But before you guys dazzle us with your weight room exploits, you should be warned that perjury is a fairly serious crime and you have no idea what lengths Davis and his friends at Justice will go to determine whether you are telling the truth. I got to admit that I love what Davis is doing. This hearing has nothing to do with gathering any facts. Instead, it strikes me that Davis sole intent is to embarrass the players and I doubt he will take kindly to any of the invitees trying to turn the tables and embarrass the Committee. So go on Mark and Jason and Sammy and Rafael. Tell the world the facts as you see them. But remember, the immunity you have in your pocket does not protect you from perjury. You lie to these guys and they might just do something worse then write a negative story in tomorrow’s paper. God do I wish I had gone to law school, run for Congress and been assigned to this Committee. I don’t have a whole lot of interest in Government Reform, but I sure would love five minutes of Q&A with Mr. McGwire.
Pinch me because I must be dreaming. Based on some very preliminary exit polling from the west coast of Florida, it seems possible that the Big Unit may have lost a couple feet off his fastball over the Winter. This isn’t as good as Johnson blowing out his cartilage-starved knee, but I’ll take anything I can get. Last night, in his first Spring Training start with the Yanks, Johnson topped out at 94 on the radar gun and press reports suggest most of his fastballs were in the low-90s. I realize that this is just a Spring Training game and it is possible that Johnson was taking it easy, but I have my fingers crossed. This guy is going to be 42 this summer and it has to come to an end at some time. So why not now? There is no doubt Johnson is a freak and as such, normal rules and precedent don’t apply. But who is to say that Johnson won’t suffer the same fate as Warren Spahn, the man many consider to be the greatest lefty of all-time. Spahn was a forty-something horse in 1963, going 23-7. But he fell off a cliff the next year and was out of baseball two years after his 23 win season. Things can go in a hurry and I am just wondering if we are about to see history repeat itself. It is obviously too early to tell, but I am going to keep an eye on those radar splits this spring. Johnson is all about power and if he has indeed lost something, he is going to have a hard time earning the $48 million the Yanks owe him through 2007. And how do you think the cranky unit is going to respond to questions that he his gas has lost some octane? Such questions drove Pedro Martinez crazy last year and the bet here is Johnson will be even less diplomatic.
It’s only March 8th, but Viking coach Mike Tice has surged to lead in the race to be 2005’s biggest jackass. It’s being reported by Sports Illustrated and the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Tice is somehow involved in a fairly profitable Super Bowl ticket scalping ring. According to the reports, Tice collected scores of Super Bowl tickets from Viking players and then proceeded to scalp the tickets for hefty profits. Scalping a limited number of Super Bowl Tickets is reported to be pretty common in the NFL, but Tice’e efforts seem to be a little more far reaching then normal. As such, the NFL has sent a couple of gentlemen to Minneapolis to investigate. Listen I know that Tice was the lowest paid coach in the NFL last year at something around a million per, but is he really hurting so badly that he needs to scrape up another 100 grand. The cost of living must be staggering in the Twin cities. First, Spree says he can’t feed his family on $14 million per and then a million dollar head coach feels pinched so he starts moonlighting as scalper. The odd thing about this case is that Tice’s cover was blown by an informant. Jesus, I wonder who that could be. Perhaps deep throat in this case is a humble wide receiver who was not too pleased that Coach Tice and the Viking front office sent him off to football purgatory.
Former Boston Red Sox General Manager GM Lou Gorman told the Boston Globe yesterday that back in 1993, he was a heartbeat away from trading Roger Clemens to the Houston Astros for Craig Biggio, Steve Finley and Pete Harnisch. This was right before Clemens went into a four-year funk and Biggio emerged as one of the leagues top run scorers. With that said, this was certainly not a slam dunk trade. However, had it been made, Gorman would have recovered some of the credibility he lost in 1990 when he traded Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson. If Bigs and Finley could have been retained, which is a big if in today’s free agent era, the Sox would have looked a whole lot more potent in the late 90s when Pedro arrived. After all, Biggio and Finley represent a major improvement over Offerman and Darren Lewis. I am not saying the Sox would have taken out the Yankees in the 1999 ALCS with these guys, but it sure would have been more competitive.
What is it about disgraced New York front office types that they are able to destroy their ballclubs and still catch on as television analysts? This all started a couple years back when Met destroyer Steve Phillips as able to somehow catch on at ESPN. Phillips, in case you forgot, was the architect of some trades that netted superstars Robby Alomar, Mo Vaughan and Jeremy Burnitz. It was pretty clear that Phillips didn’t know a ton about talent evaluation as a GM, but that didn’t stop ESPN from bringing him in do to do a little “fact or fiction” on Sportscenter. Following in Phillips steps was the highly esteemed Mike Jarvis who did wonders for the St. John’s basketball program. Jarvis left St. John’s on the precipe of extinction when he was fired last year, but ESPN came to the rescue with an offer that allows Coach Mike to share his wisdom with the entire basketball universe. The only show Jarvis should anchor is one in which he and Isiah Thomas explain to the audience how one goes about ruining a basketball program without taking an ounce of responsibility. Finally, we get to Scott Layden. The last time we saw Layden, he was busy accumulating bad contracts for the Knicks. Layden’s moves crippled the franchise and laid the foundation for a truly mediocre decade. So how is Layden rewarded? Well, I see him last night hosting a show for the NBA Channel. Granted, this isn’t exactly ABC, but it is a job related to basketball and that seems a bit curious to me. Hey, I guess the NBA Channel saw that Dave Bliss, Jim Harrick and Elgin Baylor had jobs so they went out and picked the next best option. All of this shouldn’t be too surprising given the fact that in other fields, the disgraced generally have little problem catching on as commentators. After all, prosecutorial whiz kid Marcia Clark is a legal affairs commentator and you can’t watch a Sunday news show without catching Henry Kissinger share his incoherent views on the state of the world. I guess next up will be Bernie Ebbers talking telecom on CNBC.
Is it time to break-up the Knicks? Since Isiah Thomas shocked the world with some brilliant moves at the trade deadline, the Knicks have won 5 of 6 games, including a ten point win at home last night versus the Wizards. However, before we go crazy and start talking playoffs, lets take a closer look at what the Knicks have really accomplished. On trade night, they beat an undermanned Philly team that had lost their outgoing mail to Sacto but had not yet signed for Chris Webber. Marbury and company then beat a Pacer team that has given up and the slumping Lakers. The Knicks then went down to Orlando and got killed before returning home to beat Golden State and the Wizards – sans Antawn Jamison. So in a nutshell, the Knicks won five games at home, four of which came against teams that I think will miss the playoffs. The fifth win came over a team that was missing its best player. (Kwame Brown had a great game subbing for Jamison – 0/8 in 30 minutes.) There is no doubt that the Knicks have begun playing with more intensity but this is not going to be a rehash of the 1977 Bulls. Lest you forget, and I am sure everyone has, that Gilmore-led team was 23-32 at the break, but finished 21-6 and ended up making the playoffs. The Knicks have just gotten through a soft patch in the schedule, but things now turn brutal. Over the next sixteen days, they have Miami twice, Seattle twice and San Antonio. I would be surprised if they win one of those games, although Seattle at home is a maybe.
As I pointed out in this space last week, the affected players are now in a terrible predicament. They have been subpoenaed to testify under oath and that means the players run the risk of criminal sanctions if they are not truthful. And here is the kicker. I would guess that the players are planning to show up and invoke their Fifth Amendment protections, but what happens if the committee - in cahoots with the Justice Department - offers the invitees immunity for any past drug violations? At that point, the Fifth Amendment cannot be invoked and the players have an affirmative obligation to answer the committee’s questions. This is checkmate as far as I am concerned and that is why I cannot wait to tune into C-SPAN next Thursday morning. Go ahead Mark, let us hear about all your drug free exploits. Tell us how you went from a 35 home run guy in the early 90s to a 70 home run guy later in the decade. Sammy, please tell us about the ways you took that slender frame and turned it into something that belongs in a WWE cage match. But before you guys dazzle us with your weight room exploits, you should be warned that perjury is a fairly serious crime and you have no idea what lengths Davis and his friends at Justice will go to determine whether you are telling the truth. I got to admit that I love what Davis is doing. This hearing has nothing to do with gathering any facts. Instead, it strikes me that Davis sole intent is to embarrass the players and I doubt he will take kindly to any of the invitees trying to turn the tables and embarrass the Committee. So go on Mark and Jason and Sammy and Rafael. Tell the world the facts as you see them. But remember, the immunity you have in your pocket does not protect you from perjury. You lie to these guys and they might just do something worse then write a negative story in tomorrow’s paper. God do I wish I had gone to law school, run for Congress and been assigned to this Committee. I don’t have a whole lot of interest in Government Reform, but I sure would love five minutes of Q&A with Mr. McGwire.
Pinch me because I must be dreaming. Based on some very preliminary exit polling from the west coast of Florida, it seems possible that the Big Unit may have lost a couple feet off his fastball over the Winter. This isn’t as good as Johnson blowing out his cartilage-starved knee, but I’ll take anything I can get. Last night, in his first Spring Training start with the Yanks, Johnson topped out at 94 on the radar gun and press reports suggest most of his fastballs were in the low-90s. I realize that this is just a Spring Training game and it is possible that Johnson was taking it easy, but I have my fingers crossed. This guy is going to be 42 this summer and it has to come to an end at some time. So why not now? There is no doubt Johnson is a freak and as such, normal rules and precedent don’t apply. But who is to say that Johnson won’t suffer the same fate as Warren Spahn, the man many consider to be the greatest lefty of all-time. Spahn was a forty-something horse in 1963, going 23-7. But he fell off a cliff the next year and was out of baseball two years after his 23 win season. Things can go in a hurry and I am just wondering if we are about to see history repeat itself. It is obviously too early to tell, but I am going to keep an eye on those radar splits this spring. Johnson is all about power and if he has indeed lost something, he is going to have a hard time earning the $48 million the Yanks owe him through 2007. And how do you think the cranky unit is going to respond to questions that he his gas has lost some octane? Such questions drove Pedro Martinez crazy last year and the bet here is Johnson will be even less diplomatic.
It’s only March 8th, but Viking coach Mike Tice has surged to lead in the race to be 2005’s biggest jackass. It’s being reported by Sports Illustrated and the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Tice is somehow involved in a fairly profitable Super Bowl ticket scalping ring. According to the reports, Tice collected scores of Super Bowl tickets from Viking players and then proceeded to scalp the tickets for hefty profits. Scalping a limited number of Super Bowl Tickets is reported to be pretty common in the NFL, but Tice’e efforts seem to be a little more far reaching then normal. As such, the NFL has sent a couple of gentlemen to Minneapolis to investigate. Listen I know that Tice was the lowest paid coach in the NFL last year at something around a million per, but is he really hurting so badly that he needs to scrape up another 100 grand. The cost of living must be staggering in the Twin cities. First, Spree says he can’t feed his family on $14 million per and then a million dollar head coach feels pinched so he starts moonlighting as scalper. The odd thing about this case is that Tice’s cover was blown by an informant. Jesus, I wonder who that could be. Perhaps deep throat in this case is a humble wide receiver who was not too pleased that Coach Tice and the Viking front office sent him off to football purgatory.
Former Boston Red Sox General Manager GM Lou Gorman told the Boston Globe yesterday that back in 1993, he was a heartbeat away from trading Roger Clemens to the Houston Astros for Craig Biggio, Steve Finley and Pete Harnisch. This was right before Clemens went into a four-year funk and Biggio emerged as one of the leagues top run scorers. With that said, this was certainly not a slam dunk trade. However, had it been made, Gorman would have recovered some of the credibility he lost in 1990 when he traded Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson. If Bigs and Finley could have been retained, which is a big if in today’s free agent era, the Sox would have looked a whole lot more potent in the late 90s when Pedro arrived. After all, Biggio and Finley represent a major improvement over Offerman and Darren Lewis. I am not saying the Sox would have taken out the Yankees in the 1999 ALCS with these guys, but it sure would have been more competitive.
What is it about disgraced New York front office types that they are able to destroy their ballclubs and still catch on as television analysts? This all started a couple years back when Met destroyer Steve Phillips as able to somehow catch on at ESPN. Phillips, in case you forgot, was the architect of some trades that netted superstars Robby Alomar, Mo Vaughan and Jeremy Burnitz. It was pretty clear that Phillips didn’t know a ton about talent evaluation as a GM, but that didn’t stop ESPN from bringing him in do to do a little “fact or fiction” on Sportscenter. Following in Phillips steps was the highly esteemed Mike Jarvis who did wonders for the St. John’s basketball program. Jarvis left St. John’s on the precipe of extinction when he was fired last year, but ESPN came to the rescue with an offer that allows Coach Mike to share his wisdom with the entire basketball universe. The only show Jarvis should anchor is one in which he and Isiah Thomas explain to the audience how one goes about ruining a basketball program without taking an ounce of responsibility. Finally, we get to Scott Layden. The last time we saw Layden, he was busy accumulating bad contracts for the Knicks. Layden’s moves crippled the franchise and laid the foundation for a truly mediocre decade. So how is Layden rewarded? Well, I see him last night hosting a show for the NBA Channel. Granted, this isn’t exactly ABC, but it is a job related to basketball and that seems a bit curious to me. Hey, I guess the NBA Channel saw that Dave Bliss, Jim Harrick and Elgin Baylor had jobs so they went out and picked the next best option. All of this shouldn’t be too surprising given the fact that in other fields, the disgraced generally have little problem catching on as commentators. After all, prosecutorial whiz kid Marcia Clark is a legal affairs commentator and you can’t watch a Sunday news show without catching Henry Kissinger share his incoherent views on the state of the world. I guess next up will be Bernie Ebbers talking telecom on CNBC.
Is it time to break-up the Knicks? Since Isiah Thomas shocked the world with some brilliant moves at the trade deadline, the Knicks have won 5 of 6 games, including a ten point win at home last night versus the Wizards. However, before we go crazy and start talking playoffs, lets take a closer look at what the Knicks have really accomplished. On trade night, they beat an undermanned Philly team that had lost their outgoing mail to Sacto but had not yet signed for Chris Webber. Marbury and company then beat a Pacer team that has given up and the slumping Lakers. The Knicks then went down to Orlando and got killed before returning home to beat Golden State and the Wizards – sans Antawn Jamison. So in a nutshell, the Knicks won five games at home, four of which came against teams that I think will miss the playoffs. The fifth win came over a team that was missing its best player. (Kwame Brown had a great game subbing for Jamison – 0/8 in 30 minutes.) There is no doubt that the Knicks have begun playing with more intensity but this is not going to be a rehash of the 1977 Bulls. Lest you forget, and I am sure everyone has, that Gilmore-led team was 23-32 at the break, but finished 21-6 and ended up making the playoffs. The Knicks have just gotten through a soft patch in the schedule, but things now turn brutal. Over the next sixteen days, they have Miami twice, Seattle twice and San Antonio. I would be surprised if they win one of those games, although Seattle at home is a maybe.
March 9 - Georgetown Lowlights
With Georgetown teetering on the brink of elimination, I began wondering the other day how this collapse would rank on the all-time list of bad moments in Hoya history. After some reflection, I decided it probably makes the top-10 list, but it pales in comparison to some truly historic lows. With that said, I present the ten worst moments in Georgetown Basketball History.
10) The day in 1984 when Golden Glover Perry McDonald realized he was not the next Tommy Hearns and decided to sign with Georgetown. No player in the 1980’s, other then perhaps Michael Graham, did more to further the program’s thuggish image than this Middleweight from New Orleans.
9) The collapse of 2005 culminates in an inexplicable 68-65 loss to lowly Providnce in the MCI Center. Having started the season 8-3 in league play, the Hoya’s end up dropping five in a row and end up playing themselves right out of the NCAA tournament – something they haven’t played in since 2001.
8) Victor Page signs a letter of intent in April of 1995 to play basketball at Georgetown. Victor arguably had the worst shot selection in the history of the conference and his arrival at Georgetown marked the beginning of the dark ages. Page was one of those guys who never saw a shot he didn’t like and as a result he would frequently have 6 for 22 nights. God only knows what Thompson saw in this kid.
7) CBS interrupts a couple of regional games during the second round of the 1986 NCAA Tournament to broadcast the damage that Michigan State guard Scott Skiles was doing to the Hoyas. Georgetown guard Michael Jackson still can’t bring himself to watch the film of his raping that day.
6) The 1987 Regional Final in Louisville where the number one seeded Hoyas had their lunch handed to them by Billy Donovan and a very average bunch of Providnce Friars. The final was 88-73, but it wasn’t that close. This was the final game of Reggie Williams college career and it wasn’t pretty.
5) The hiring of Craig Esherick in 1999. Esherick was a poor choice to be the guy who was going to arrest Georgetown’s slide into the abyss. He proved to be an ineffective recruiter and a challenged game coach.
4) The 1996 loss to Massachusetts in the Regional Final down in Atlanta. While this was not an upset, Georgetown went into that game with super high expectations. The team had Alan Iverson, Jerome Williams and Othella Harrington, but they ended getting slammed by Marcus Camby. This was the last relevant game that Georgetown has played.
3) Reggie Williams speaks after 1984 NCAA Championship game. Williams, a freshman at the time, went on CBS and shocked the nation with some of the worst verbal skills ever broadcast over the airwaves. At that moment, most viewers thought Georgetown had turned itself into a vocational school. This was a stigmatizing moment. It later turned out that the only reason Williams was eligible as a freshman was because he got a “English as a second language” special dispensation.
2) Fred Brown inexplicably throws the ball to UNC’s James Worthy in the closing moments of the 1982 National Championship. There is no saying Georgetown would have hit a winning shot without the turnover, but that was a heartbreaker for Hoya fans.
1) Two minutes into the 1985 NCAA final, Villanova coach Rollie Massimino takes out Dwight Wilbur and replaces him with Harold Jensen. Jensen ends up scoring 14 points on 5-5 shooting and Nova ends up pulling off one of the two or three biggest upsets in NCAA Championship game history.
10) The day in 1984 when Golden Glover Perry McDonald realized he was not the next Tommy Hearns and decided to sign with Georgetown. No player in the 1980’s, other then perhaps Michael Graham, did more to further the program’s thuggish image than this Middleweight from New Orleans.
9) The collapse of 2005 culminates in an inexplicable 68-65 loss to lowly Providnce in the MCI Center. Having started the season 8-3 in league play, the Hoya’s end up dropping five in a row and end up playing themselves right out of the NCAA tournament – something they haven’t played in since 2001.
8) Victor Page signs a letter of intent in April of 1995 to play basketball at Georgetown. Victor arguably had the worst shot selection in the history of the conference and his arrival at Georgetown marked the beginning of the dark ages. Page was one of those guys who never saw a shot he didn’t like and as a result he would frequently have 6 for 22 nights. God only knows what Thompson saw in this kid.
7) CBS interrupts a couple of regional games during the second round of the 1986 NCAA Tournament to broadcast the damage that Michigan State guard Scott Skiles was doing to the Hoyas. Georgetown guard Michael Jackson still can’t bring himself to watch the film of his raping that day.
6) The 1987 Regional Final in Louisville where the number one seeded Hoyas had their lunch handed to them by Billy Donovan and a very average bunch of Providnce Friars. The final was 88-73, but it wasn’t that close. This was the final game of Reggie Williams college career and it wasn’t pretty.
5) The hiring of Craig Esherick in 1999. Esherick was a poor choice to be the guy who was going to arrest Georgetown’s slide into the abyss. He proved to be an ineffective recruiter and a challenged game coach.
4) The 1996 loss to Massachusetts in the Regional Final down in Atlanta. While this was not an upset, Georgetown went into that game with super high expectations. The team had Alan Iverson, Jerome Williams and Othella Harrington, but they ended getting slammed by Marcus Camby. This was the last relevant game that Georgetown has played.
3) Reggie Williams speaks after 1984 NCAA Championship game. Williams, a freshman at the time, went on CBS and shocked the nation with some of the worst verbal skills ever broadcast over the airwaves. At that moment, most viewers thought Georgetown had turned itself into a vocational school. This was a stigmatizing moment. It later turned out that the only reason Williams was eligible as a freshman was because he got a “English as a second language” special dispensation.
2) Fred Brown inexplicably throws the ball to UNC’s James Worthy in the closing moments of the 1982 National Championship. There is no saying Georgetown would have hit a winning shot without the turnover, but that was a heartbreaker for Hoya fans.
1) Two minutes into the 1985 NCAA final, Villanova coach Rollie Massimino takes out Dwight Wilbur and replaces him with Harold Jensen. Jensen ends up scoring 14 points on 5-5 shooting and Nova ends up pulling off one of the two or three biggest upsets in NCAA Championship game history.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
March 8 - Lets Clean up the Tourney Talk
John Feinstein - esteemed author and college basketball nut - hosted a radio program last night and he used the show as a platform to rail against the overuse of the term “on the bubble.” Feinstein challenged his guests and audience to come up some other terms that could be used to replace this worn-out term. The Sportsaholic agrees that bubble is overused and should be repalced, but he wonders why we should focus all our attention on just this one particular tourney cliche? The Sportsaholic thinks we need to go much further. As long as we are housecleaning, it’s time to eliminate Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight from our tourney vocabularies. Let’s go back to the old days when games in these rounds were referred to as Regionals and Regional Finals. As far as the Sportsaholic is concerned, Illinois lost to Duke in last year’s Regionals and Georgia Tech beat Oklahoma State in a terrific Regional Final. This is the way it was before CBS and their vaunted marketing machine began shoving clichés like Sweet Sixteen down the public’s throat. If we don’t stop this now, CBS will at some point start referring to the final game as the Terrific Two. “So Clark, who do you think will be making it to the Terrific Two this year?” And while we're at it, lets stop using the term “run” to describe a team’s advance in the tourney. Run implies that a good deal of distance is covered, but in this case it is misused. Commentators will often fall back on the word “run” to help explain how a low seeded team made it to the REGIONALS. An example might be – “who can forget Vanderbilt’s great run to the Sweet Sixteen a year ago?” What kind of run was involved? For gods sake - they won two games. Is that a run? It sounds more like a jog or a jaunt to me. From here on out, lets reserve the term “run” for those teams that actually make it out of the Regionals and all the way to the national semis. Four games is a run. Two is just a nice weekend. Lastly, we should do away with all references to Cinderella. As I recall, Cinderella had a happy ending and the same cannot be said for the litany of teams that have been referred to as “Cinderella Stories” over the past 20 years. Most crash and burn in the Regionals and unless my memory is off, Cindy did not face such a fate. If Xavier had truly been a Cinderella story last year, they would not have suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Duke in the regional final. That wasn’t a Cinderella Story. I’d say it was more like an “Open Water” story where the heroine gets eaten by sharks at the end of the story.
Word has it there could be an interesting name on next year’s ballot in the race for Pennsylvania governor. Time magazine is reporting that former Steeler Wide Receiver Lynn Swann is considering seeking the Republican nomination to face incumbent Ed Rendell. Swann, who has been stuck as a sidelines reporter since I was 16, has formed an exploratory committee and has been making some grass roots appearances. And while Swann has no political experience per se, he does chair the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, which is the same job that Arnold parleyed into a governorship. If Swann were to win, and he will be an underdog, he will be the second major Republican office holder whose membership in a Hall of Fame is absolutely mind-boggling. The first to achieve such distinction was Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), a pitcher who won a meager 224 games for Detroit and Philadelphia, none of which came in the post-season. If I could pick one pitcher in the entire Baseball Hall of Fame to FACE in a big game, Bunning would be the guy. If Congress should investigate anything, it is how this guy managed to sneak into Cooperstown. Now lets move on to Swann. This is a guy who is in the Hall for one reason and one reason only: he had two big Super Bowls. Under this logic, Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch is headed for Canton around 2015. Aside from his Super Bowls, Swann caught more then 50 balls exactly once in his career. ONCE! You want to put that number in perspective – Mr. Phylicia Rashad caught 50 balls six times during the span of Swann’s career. Granted, the league was different back then and the Steelers were not exactly run by Air Coryell, but Swann wasn’t even the best receiver on his own team. This is a guy with 315 career receptions. Art Monk has triple that number and the only way he gets into the Hall is if gets to be Jerry Rice’s date.
If it were up to me, Swann would get the nomination and Rendell would step aside. In his place I would tap Philadelphia Eagle great Mike Quick and we would hold a statewide referendum on the careers of these two players. The winner gets the keys to the Keystone Capitol. Both had great hands, but Quick was faster and more productive, albeit in an injury shortened career. Voter registration is probably a bit titled toward Philly and I think this helps Quick secure a narrow 52-48 victory. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that if Swann runs for governor, he won’t be the first Hall of Fame wide receiver to seek a governorship this century. Seahawk great Steve Largent – a lock, stock and barrel Hall of Famer – ran for the top job in Oklahoma in 2002, but he couldn’t keep his feet in bounds and ended up losing a tight one. He now spends his days wondering why he let Jerry Rice wear his retired number when the San Francisco Treat showed up in Seattle last year.
Bud Selig said the other day that steroid use in Major league Baseball fell from somewhere around 6 percent in 2003 to something closer to 1.5 percent in 2004. In other words, somewhere around 45 players tested positive in 2003 while only about 12 players tested positive in 2004. That really isn’t that staggering a number. In fact, based on this ammo from Selig, I would bet there are more homosexuals, coke addicts, sexual abusers and gimps in baseball then there are steroid abusers. (Based on that new Nike commercial, there is at least one gimp and his name is Mariano) With steroid use down to trace levels in 2004, I suspect that a new round of testing launched last week is unlikely to uncover much use in 2005. Nonetheless, the Sportsaholic is hoping that at least some tests come back positive. The players have known about this testing for months and the Sportsaholic will take great glee in ridiculing those who were dumb enough or weak enough to fail. The odds are against me, but if I had to pick three guys who will show up on the list, I will go with three guys coming off injuries: Nomar, Maglio and Phil Nevin.
It has been a bad week for free agent cornerback Fred Smoot. The Washington Redskin ball hawk was considered to be one of the top free agents at his position when the market opened for business last week, but there has thus far been little interest in Smooty. Other corners on the market spent last week signing big deals, but Smoot has thus far been unable to find a buyer. He is in Minnesota today, but he may be a bit pricey for the tightwad Vikings. The Vikes are also in the market for Plaxico Burress and it would be surprising if they ordered two drinks off the NFL’s top shelf. To make matters worse for Smoot, the Redskins have always had a standing offer extended to Fred if he wanted to return to Washington. This offer reportedly called for Smoot to receive a $10 million dollar signing bonus, but the boys at Pro Football Talk are now reporting that the Skins have pulled the offer. It seems the Skins took a huge salary cap hit when the moved Lavernaues Coles and they no longer can afford Smoot’s services. Smooty has got to be wondering what is going on here.
Are the Dolphins trying to get rid of stud defensive end Jason Taylor? This Patriots fan sure hopes so. Again, I’ll give credit to the guys at Pro Football Talk for reporting that there may be something afoot down in Miami. In just the last week, the Fish have brought in free agent Defensive Linemen Vonnie Holliday and Kevin Carter and that seems to open up a question of where Taylor fits in if the Fish go to a 3-4 under new coach Nick Saban. There is a chance that Taylor could play some linebacker in a 3-4, but Taylor’s agent told PFT that Taylor is “The Man,” and isn’t interested in moving positions. I sure would like Taylor to move teams. He absolutely eats up Patriot Left Tackle Matt Light and it would be nice if Light didn’t have to face Taylor twice a year. Taylor may be a bit small, but he is too quick for most tackles and as a result, he makes a ton of plays. There is no doubt that another team would be getting a terrific player if Miami is looking to go in a different direction.
Could the defending NBA Western Conference Champions miss the playoffs in 2005? It is looking more and more likely every day. This is because the Denver Nuggets have won seven in a row and are now tied with the Lakers for the eighth and final spot in he Western Conference. Granted, the Nuggets have made this run against some of the leagues worst teams, but that doesn’t mean the games don’t count. After sleepwalking through the first half of the season, the Nuggets finally woke up and began playing some defense. Reports out of Denver have even mentioned some sightings of Carmelo Anthony on the defensive side of the court. I guess Anthony finally tired of people saying that he plays D like former Denver Matador Alex English. The Spurs – sans Tim Duncan - are next up for the Nuggets and after that, its seven at home at the Pepsi Center. Over that same period, the mediocre Lakers have a six game road trip along the Eastern Seaboard. The Lakers schedule doesn’t much easier when they get home from that trip and so the Nuggets definitely have an edge going down the stretch. I doubt the Nuggets are good enough to slam the door shut on the Lakers over the next two weeks, but it looks like they are the slight favorite at this point.
I was thumbing through a USA Today last week when I was struck by a piece of news that I found simply incredible. It seems that a new member of the Milwaukee Bucks was having trouble finding a number to wear since his preferred number 32 had already been retired. I knew Jabbar, Oscar and Sidney Moncreif didn’t wear thirty-two so my mind began to wander. What other Buck deserved to have their number retired? The answer is no one, but that didn’t stop the Bucks from retiring the number of Brian Winters, a 16 point scorer for the Bucks from 1976-1983. Winters was a two-time all-star, but he never played in an NBA finals and he failed to average 20 a game in a single year (he did chalk up 19 a few times). To make matters worse, Winters has the distinction of being part of a trade that ended up costing Milwaukee a guy named Kareem. Does such a resume justify retiring a number? The story doesn’t end with Winters. Upon further research, I found out that the Bucks have also retired the number of Junior Bridgeman. The Bridge was a real nice sixth man, but he is not exactly in the same league as Milwaukee’s great triumvirate. Based on these findings, I have to throw the Bucks right up at the top of the list of those franchises that have a very twisted sense of their own history. Hey, they have the right to do anything they want with these numbers, but how about a little discretion? Where does it end? With Winters and Bridgeman as precedents, is there any doubt that Michael Redd’s #22 will someday be off limits. And I have to wonder why Bridgeman was selected over guys like Marques Johnson, Ricky Pierce, Paul Pressey. Why were at it, shouldn’t Randy Breuer’s number be up in the rafters of US Cellular Arena?
I have a simmering problem with those pundits who say that Notre Dame, Georgetown and West Virginia need at least one win in the Big East Tournament to earn their way into the NCAAs. Such a statement completely ignores the fact that each of these teams play pitiful teams in the opening round of the Big East tourney. That begs the question – why should a victory over one of these teams have any impact whatsoever on a team’s tourney resume? Digger, do you think the NCAA tourney selection committee is going to look at Notre Dame any differently if it beats a team like Rutgers? For gods sake, we are talking about Rutgers. Notre Dame might as well be playing the Blue Hens from Delaware for all I care. The same goes for Georgetown. If they beat Seton Hall on Wednesday, will it erase the fact that they had ended the season on a five gaming losing streak that included a loss to lowly Providence? Sorry guys. The three aforementioned teams are all in a bit of trouble. If I had to guess, two of the three would not get bids as things stand. In order for any of the three to improve their lot, they will need to do a lot more then win an opening round game. Wednesday cannot really help these teams, but it sure can hurt.
Staying in the same general neighborhood, does any well populated state in this country have more pathetic college basketball teams then the state of New Jersey? Almost nine million people live in the garden state yet there is not a single college within the its borders that can play a lick of basketball. As mentioned above, Rutgers – the state’s largest school – was simply dreadful this year. This is not such a surprise since Rutgers has been irrelevant for years, but Seton Hall was arguably no better in 2005. I am not sure you could have put together an NCAA team if you took the best players from these programs and combined them into a single squad. If you ask me, Sutgers would be a bubble team at best. These programs are teetering on the edge of the Bog East’s abyss and the Sportsaholic believes that both should give serious consideration to joining a less competitive conference like the Atlantic 10. To make matters worse, Princeton, which usually fields a real competitive team, had a terrible year. That leaves us with Farleigh Dickinson and Monmouth as the state’s best hope for securing an NCAA bid this year. Well, not so quickly. Monmouth appeared like they were headed toward the NCAAs after winning the Northeast Conference regular season title, but they were upset the other night by Wagner. Now, the state’s fortunes lie entirely on the shoulders of FDU. The Dicks will be favored when they play Wagner tomorrow night, and the Sportsaholic feels they will get the job done for the great state of New Jersey. If they don’t, all eyes in New Jersey will turn to Rutgers woman’s team which quietly had a real nice year and could make some noise in the women’s tourney
Word has it there could be an interesting name on next year’s ballot in the race for Pennsylvania governor. Time magazine is reporting that former Steeler Wide Receiver Lynn Swann is considering seeking the Republican nomination to face incumbent Ed Rendell. Swann, who has been stuck as a sidelines reporter since I was 16, has formed an exploratory committee and has been making some grass roots appearances. And while Swann has no political experience per se, he does chair the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, which is the same job that Arnold parleyed into a governorship. If Swann were to win, and he will be an underdog, he will be the second major Republican office holder whose membership in a Hall of Fame is absolutely mind-boggling. The first to achieve such distinction was Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), a pitcher who won a meager 224 games for Detroit and Philadelphia, none of which came in the post-season. If I could pick one pitcher in the entire Baseball Hall of Fame to FACE in a big game, Bunning would be the guy. If Congress should investigate anything, it is how this guy managed to sneak into Cooperstown. Now lets move on to Swann. This is a guy who is in the Hall for one reason and one reason only: he had two big Super Bowls. Under this logic, Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch is headed for Canton around 2015. Aside from his Super Bowls, Swann caught more then 50 balls exactly once in his career. ONCE! You want to put that number in perspective – Mr. Phylicia Rashad caught 50 balls six times during the span of Swann’s career. Granted, the league was different back then and the Steelers were not exactly run by Air Coryell, but Swann wasn’t even the best receiver on his own team. This is a guy with 315 career receptions. Art Monk has triple that number and the only way he gets into the Hall is if gets to be Jerry Rice’s date.
If it were up to me, Swann would get the nomination and Rendell would step aside. In his place I would tap Philadelphia Eagle great Mike Quick and we would hold a statewide referendum on the careers of these two players. The winner gets the keys to the Keystone Capitol. Both had great hands, but Quick was faster and more productive, albeit in an injury shortened career. Voter registration is probably a bit titled toward Philly and I think this helps Quick secure a narrow 52-48 victory. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that if Swann runs for governor, he won’t be the first Hall of Fame wide receiver to seek a governorship this century. Seahawk great Steve Largent – a lock, stock and barrel Hall of Famer – ran for the top job in Oklahoma in 2002, but he couldn’t keep his feet in bounds and ended up losing a tight one. He now spends his days wondering why he let Jerry Rice wear his retired number when the San Francisco Treat showed up in Seattle last year.
Bud Selig said the other day that steroid use in Major league Baseball fell from somewhere around 6 percent in 2003 to something closer to 1.5 percent in 2004. In other words, somewhere around 45 players tested positive in 2003 while only about 12 players tested positive in 2004. That really isn’t that staggering a number. In fact, based on this ammo from Selig, I would bet there are more homosexuals, coke addicts, sexual abusers and gimps in baseball then there are steroid abusers. (Based on that new Nike commercial, there is at least one gimp and his name is Mariano) With steroid use down to trace levels in 2004, I suspect that a new round of testing launched last week is unlikely to uncover much use in 2005. Nonetheless, the Sportsaholic is hoping that at least some tests come back positive. The players have known about this testing for months and the Sportsaholic will take great glee in ridiculing those who were dumb enough or weak enough to fail. The odds are against me, but if I had to pick three guys who will show up on the list, I will go with three guys coming off injuries: Nomar, Maglio and Phil Nevin.
It has been a bad week for free agent cornerback Fred Smoot. The Washington Redskin ball hawk was considered to be one of the top free agents at his position when the market opened for business last week, but there has thus far been little interest in Smooty. Other corners on the market spent last week signing big deals, but Smoot has thus far been unable to find a buyer. He is in Minnesota today, but he may be a bit pricey for the tightwad Vikings. The Vikes are also in the market for Plaxico Burress and it would be surprising if they ordered two drinks off the NFL’s top shelf. To make matters worse for Smoot, the Redskins have always had a standing offer extended to Fred if he wanted to return to Washington. This offer reportedly called for Smoot to receive a $10 million dollar signing bonus, but the boys at Pro Football Talk are now reporting that the Skins have pulled the offer. It seems the Skins took a huge salary cap hit when the moved Lavernaues Coles and they no longer can afford Smoot’s services. Smooty has got to be wondering what is going on here.
Are the Dolphins trying to get rid of stud defensive end Jason Taylor? This Patriots fan sure hopes so. Again, I’ll give credit to the guys at Pro Football Talk for reporting that there may be something afoot down in Miami. In just the last week, the Fish have brought in free agent Defensive Linemen Vonnie Holliday and Kevin Carter and that seems to open up a question of where Taylor fits in if the Fish go to a 3-4 under new coach Nick Saban. There is a chance that Taylor could play some linebacker in a 3-4, but Taylor’s agent told PFT that Taylor is “The Man,” and isn’t interested in moving positions. I sure would like Taylor to move teams. He absolutely eats up Patriot Left Tackle Matt Light and it would be nice if Light didn’t have to face Taylor twice a year. Taylor may be a bit small, but he is too quick for most tackles and as a result, he makes a ton of plays. There is no doubt that another team would be getting a terrific player if Miami is looking to go in a different direction.
Could the defending NBA Western Conference Champions miss the playoffs in 2005? It is looking more and more likely every day. This is because the Denver Nuggets have won seven in a row and are now tied with the Lakers for the eighth and final spot in he Western Conference. Granted, the Nuggets have made this run against some of the leagues worst teams, but that doesn’t mean the games don’t count. After sleepwalking through the first half of the season, the Nuggets finally woke up and began playing some defense. Reports out of Denver have even mentioned some sightings of Carmelo Anthony on the defensive side of the court. I guess Anthony finally tired of people saying that he plays D like former Denver Matador Alex English. The Spurs – sans Tim Duncan - are next up for the Nuggets and after that, its seven at home at the Pepsi Center. Over that same period, the mediocre Lakers have a six game road trip along the Eastern Seaboard. The Lakers schedule doesn’t much easier when they get home from that trip and so the Nuggets definitely have an edge going down the stretch. I doubt the Nuggets are good enough to slam the door shut on the Lakers over the next two weeks, but it looks like they are the slight favorite at this point.
I was thumbing through a USA Today last week when I was struck by a piece of news that I found simply incredible. It seems that a new member of the Milwaukee Bucks was having trouble finding a number to wear since his preferred number 32 had already been retired. I knew Jabbar, Oscar and Sidney Moncreif didn’t wear thirty-two so my mind began to wander. What other Buck deserved to have their number retired? The answer is no one, but that didn’t stop the Bucks from retiring the number of Brian Winters, a 16 point scorer for the Bucks from 1976-1983. Winters was a two-time all-star, but he never played in an NBA finals and he failed to average 20 a game in a single year (he did chalk up 19 a few times). To make matters worse, Winters has the distinction of being part of a trade that ended up costing Milwaukee a guy named Kareem. Does such a resume justify retiring a number? The story doesn’t end with Winters. Upon further research, I found out that the Bucks have also retired the number of Junior Bridgeman. The Bridge was a real nice sixth man, but he is not exactly in the same league as Milwaukee’s great triumvirate. Based on these findings, I have to throw the Bucks right up at the top of the list of those franchises that have a very twisted sense of their own history. Hey, they have the right to do anything they want with these numbers, but how about a little discretion? Where does it end? With Winters and Bridgeman as precedents, is there any doubt that Michael Redd’s #22 will someday be off limits. And I have to wonder why Bridgeman was selected over guys like Marques Johnson, Ricky Pierce, Paul Pressey. Why were at it, shouldn’t Randy Breuer’s number be up in the rafters of US Cellular Arena?
I have a simmering problem with those pundits who say that Notre Dame, Georgetown and West Virginia need at least one win in the Big East Tournament to earn their way into the NCAAs. Such a statement completely ignores the fact that each of these teams play pitiful teams in the opening round of the Big East tourney. That begs the question – why should a victory over one of these teams have any impact whatsoever on a team’s tourney resume? Digger, do you think the NCAA tourney selection committee is going to look at Notre Dame any differently if it beats a team like Rutgers? For gods sake, we are talking about Rutgers. Notre Dame might as well be playing the Blue Hens from Delaware for all I care. The same goes for Georgetown. If they beat Seton Hall on Wednesday, will it erase the fact that they had ended the season on a five gaming losing streak that included a loss to lowly Providence? Sorry guys. The three aforementioned teams are all in a bit of trouble. If I had to guess, two of the three would not get bids as things stand. In order for any of the three to improve their lot, they will need to do a lot more then win an opening round game. Wednesday cannot really help these teams, but it sure can hurt.
Staying in the same general neighborhood, does any well populated state in this country have more pathetic college basketball teams then the state of New Jersey? Almost nine million people live in the garden state yet there is not a single college within the its borders that can play a lick of basketball. As mentioned above, Rutgers – the state’s largest school – was simply dreadful this year. This is not such a surprise since Rutgers has been irrelevant for years, but Seton Hall was arguably no better in 2005. I am not sure you could have put together an NCAA team if you took the best players from these programs and combined them into a single squad. If you ask me, Sutgers would be a bubble team at best. These programs are teetering on the edge of the Bog East’s abyss and the Sportsaholic believes that both should give serious consideration to joining a less competitive conference like the Atlantic 10. To make matters worse, Princeton, which usually fields a real competitive team, had a terrible year. That leaves us with Farleigh Dickinson and Monmouth as the state’s best hope for securing an NCAA bid this year. Well, not so quickly. Monmouth appeared like they were headed toward the NCAAs after winning the Northeast Conference regular season title, but they were upset the other night by Wagner. Now, the state’s fortunes lie entirely on the shoulders of FDU. The Dicks will be favored when they play Wagner tomorrow night, and the Sportsaholic feels they will get the job done for the great state of New Jersey. If they don’t, all eyes in New Jersey will turn to Rutgers woman’s team which quietly had a real nice year and could make some noise in the women’s tourney
Monday, March 07, 2005
March 7 - Illinois Express Derailed
If you are a college basketball junkie, it doesn’t get a whole lot better then sitting back on your couch and watching CBS from 12-6 yesterday afternoon. During those 360 minutes, we saw a train derailed in Columbus, a long-overdue gator feeding in Gainsville, and an ESPN Instant Classic in Chapel Hill. And if that wasn’t enough to satisfy your appetite, there was also a shocker in the “Show Me” state and a bizarre nightcap in Raleigh that should have been stopped on account of a low blow. When all the smoke had cleared from this weekend, one theme emerged: parity has laid siege to college basketball and there are just no Nicolette Sheridans in the upcoming NCAA tourney. For those of you who are lost on that reference, the most desperate of all housewives was the Sure Thing in a 1985 cinematic masterpiece.
There is a ton to get to but I think we should start in Columbus where Ohio State pulled off one of the bigger upsets of the season by beating Illinois 65-64. The Illini were bidding to become the first team in 29 years to complete a season undefeated, but it all fell apart at the hands of a very determined Buckeye team. The Ohio State win means that Kent Benson, Scott May and the rest of the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers can breathe a sigh of relief since their team will remain the last to complete a season undefeated. Congratulations are in order for Ohio State coach Thad Matta who was faced with the decision of whether to go for a tie or the win on the final Buckeye possession. Having seen his team already claw back form a 12 point second half deficit, Matta decided he would win it or lose it with a stiff named Matt Sylvester. The gamble paid off as Sylvester, an unaccomplished seventh man who finished with a career high 25, swished a three with five seconds to go. For Illinois, the loss has little practical importance since they will still be a number one seed in the upcoming NCAA tourney. However, it does rob this club of an opportunity to join a very select fraternity whose doors have been closed since the Ford Administration. UNLV was extended an invite in 1991 to join the undefeated club, but the bid was pulled at the last minute when the Running Rebels couldn’t find a way to stop Bobby Hurley in the national semis. It will be a shame if Illinois ends up falling just short of membership simply because it couldn’t stop some guy named Matt Sylvester.
The aforementioned Scott May had two reasons to celebrate yesterday. First, as explained up top, he saw Illinois drop from the ranks of the unbeaten. Then, two hours later, he got to watch his son - Sean May - and the rest of North Carolina Tar Heels sneak by the Duke Blue Devils in a Tobacco Road thriller. May was simply tremendous yesterday, pouring in 26 while collecting 24 rebounds, 12 of which were on the offensive end of the court. Strangely, May’s performance was almost not enough to topple the Heels arch nemesis. Carolina, playing without Rashad McCants, actually trailed by nine with three minutes to go and at that point it looked like Duke was going to extend their reign of domination over UNC. But Duke had a couple of key turnovers down the stretch and Carolina capitalized by scoring the final 11 points of the game. This series has had its share of incredible finishes, but yesterday has to rank in the top 3. While May was terrific for UNC, the same cannot be said for Tar Heel point guard Ray Felton who had his second poor game against Duke this year. Felton was only charged with five turnovers, but I suspect the true number was closer to eight. For some reason, he just has trouble playing in big spots and this should concern Tar Heel fans. Duke, meanwhile, got almost nothing out of All-American J.J Redick. He had 17 in the games first 15 minutes, but those were his only points of the night. Duke has got to take some solace from the fact that they played Carolina to a one point game on the road while their best player was held scoreless for 25 minutes. For North Carolina, the big question going forward is when McCants will return to the lineup. He hasn’t played since February 19th because of an intestinal problem and his absence yesterday came after his dad told a local paper that Rashad was ready to go. It would be a shame if North Carolina’s bid for a championship was derailed because its second best player had the squirts. For god’s sake, throw a diaper on this kid and get him out on the court.
The strangest play of the weekend occurred yesterday in Raleigh where Wake Forest All-America Chris Paul did his best impression of Andrew Golota. With about ten minutes to go in the first half, Paul launched a pre-emptive attack on Julius Hodge by slugging the North Carolina State guard in the gonads. I haven’t seen an attack like that since 1990 when a friend of mine pulled a Pearly Harbor and hit a guy named Al Berry in the balls just as tempers were beginning to flare. Paul’s blow sent Hodge to the deck and then the locker room. After it was determined that Hodge still had the goods to be a father, he returned to help the Wolfpack hang tough with the highly-ranked Demon Deacons. The Pack actually led late, but Wake got a key three to tie the game with about 12 seconds to go. The Pack then screwed up by missing a game winner with too much time left on the clock. Paul ended up seizing on this opportunity by nailing a runner at the buzzer. It turns out that Paul ended up doing more damage to NC States tourney chances then he did to Hodge’s testicles. The Wolfpack now face the NCAA jury without much of an alibi. They finished the year 7-9 in the ACC and they lack any credible non-conference wins. That looks like a guilty verdict to the Sportsaholic and the sentence could be Herb Sendek’s termination.
The only other game I will mention from yesterday occurred down in Gainsville where the Florida Gators were able to serve visiting Kentucky with a “payback” sandwich. The Gators haven’t beaten UK since March of 2001 and as such, this game was poised to be decertified as a “rivalry.” But just as it looked like Florida would go down for the ninth time in a row, the Gators mounted a late run to upset the number three team in the country. It was the first time Gator seniors Matt Walsh, David Lee and Anthony Roberson have beaten Kentucky and the latter two celebrated the win by stripping at Half-court. It was not a pretty site.
It was a strange weekend in the Big-12, where both of this season’s heavyweights took standing eight counts in their regular season finales. First, Oklahoma State lost at home on Saturday night against Texas and then Kansas followed that up with a loss on the road to Missouri. These teams were each looking like number one seeds in the NCAA tourney a couple weeks ago, but both have limped to finish line. Oklahoma State’s problem has been its trouble defending the post. The Cowboys last an inside presence and this weakness has been exposed of late. Texas forward Brad Buckman had his way with the Cowboys on Saturday night much like Kansas Center Wayne Simien did a week ago. Unless Eddie Sutton can figure out a solution, his team is vulnerable against any team that has a credible inside threat. Kansas, meanwhile, has now lost four of six and things got worse at the start of Sunday’s loss when the Jayhawks lost guard Keith Langford to an ankle sprain. Langford was on crutches after the game and if the senior is lost, the Jayhawks are in big trouble. While these two teams have been faltering, Oklahoma has emerged as the best team in the conference. They ended up finishing 12-4 in the Big-12 after winning their final six games. They don’t have a lot of recognizable names, but Taj Grey and Kevin Bookout are real steady and this team can play tough defense. I like the Sooners as a long-shot final four pick.
That pretty much covers the weekend in college basketball but there are a few loose ends to tie. Stanford, which was blasted in this space on Friday, came up huge on Saturday and played their way into the tourney by upsetting Washington at Maples. While Stanford played itself into the tourney, Maryland played itself out. The Terps lost a crusher at Virginia Tech and if I were on the selection committee, I would vote thumbs down on Maryland’s candidacy. The Terps had their chances to lock away a berth, but they just haven’t gotten the job done. In the Big East, West Virginia may have complicated its future by losing to Seton Hall on Saturday, although I still think they are in better shape then Georgetown. Notre Dame is in a similar spot as West Virginia after losing to Pitt on Saturday. The Irish seem to have a leg up because of their reputation, but their future is no longer certain. A loss to Rutgers in the Big East tourney would probably tip the scales against Notre Dame.
While College Basketball owned the weekend, I am not going to overlook the fact that we had a heavyweight championship fight down in South Florida. I am talking about Phil and Tiger going mano y mano at the Doralian Cookie Monster. Golf fans have been longing for this matchup for years, and they weren’t disappointed yesterday. Joined in the final grouping, Tiger rallied early from a two stroke deficit to tie it by the time the pair walked off the tenth. From there on out it was a nail biter. Phil missed a great shot to take the lead at 16 and then Tiger made him pay by sinking a 20 footer on the next hole. Phil gave himself a chance to tie it up on 18, but his chip barely stayed out and Tiger walked off with the winner’s dough and a brand new Mustang. It was clear after the finish that these guys both wanted the win real bad. Tiger was all craps and giggles at the finish line while Mick took off without giving NBC a second of his time. I suspect that this will not be the last time these two square off, but hopefully the next chapter will be in a more meaningful tourney. Both of these guys have been involved in great Major battles, but unfortunately, they have not come against each other. Mickelson’s US Open battles came against Payne and Goose, while Tiger’s major confrontations came against Sergio and some guy named Bob May. Lets hope Ernie and the Goose get into the mix when the tour’s best come together next month at Augusta.
One golf story that flew under the radar screen this weekend involved the Ford Motor Company. Ford recently took over sponsorship of the PGA tour stop in South Florida, and in hopes of boosting player interest in the tourney; Ford paid a bunch of top guys to attend a corporate outing last Tuesday. the idea being that once these players were in Souoth Florida, they would hang around to play in the tourney. This pretty much runs afoul of the Tour’s ban on paying appearance fees, but it worked. Last year, only one player in the world’s top 12 played Doral, while 11 showed up this year. If Ford put as much money and energy into its engineering program as it does its golf tourneys, perhaps it wouldn’t be losing so much market share to Nissan. But if Ford really wants to host a meaningful tourney, it should find a new course to host this tourney. The Blue Monster is a monster no more and its time for a new setting. It was target practice out there this week and my suggestion is to move the tourney up the coast to Seminole or that course in Fort Lauderdale where Caddyshack was filmed. I bet Danunzio is available to loop if anyone needs a local.
Skiing’s World Cup is going down to the final week as American Bode Miller was unable to put things away this weekend in Norway. Miller led the world cup by 31 points going into this weekend, but he could only come up with a fourth and fifth in a downhill and a Super G. A win in either would have gone a long way toward cementing a World Cup victory for Miller, but some minor mistake in both races prevented Miller from mounting the podium. He now leads by only 52 points going into the final four races of the year. 100 points are awarded for a win so Miler’s lead is certainly surmountable. He needs to perform well in a final Downhill and Super G since his closest competitor, Benjamin Raich, will surely close out the season with solid performances in the technical gate races. Things will not bode well for Bode if the cup comes down to he and Raich racing slalom in the final race of the year.
The United States has been making excuses for years that the only reason it doesn’t win the Davis Cup is because its top players refuse to play. There may be some truth to this claim, but it doesn’t explain what happened this weekend in Southern California. That is because for the first time in years, the U.S. had its dream team going. Both Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick were suiting up and most predicted that this dream team would have little trouble dispatching a feisty team from Croatia. Well, it didn’t happen. Agassi got buried on Friday, the U.S. doubles team went down Saturday, and Croatia picked up the win after Roddick lost a tough five setter on Sunday. It has not been a great year for the U.S. in international competitions. Our basketball team went down in Athens, our golfers got smoked in the Ryder Cup and now our tennis players go down to a country of four million. That is tantamount to the 81st airborne going into South Carolina and getting whipped by the magnolia state’s National Guard. It is flat out embarrassing. The only things America has won as a team in the past year was Women’s Soccer and Softball in Athens and Men’s Armored Warfare in Najaf. Based on this track record, the U.S. has no shot at reclaiming that stupid sailing trophy unless the Defense Department gets involved and lends some stealthy technology to the San Diego Yacht Club. And for those of you who dismiss all this stuff because it involves second-tier sports, the Sportsaholic thinks the Domincan Republic could take the U.S. is a true seven game WORLD SERIES.
John McGrath had a terrific piece in the Friday edition of the Tacoma News Tribune, which along with Oregon State’s Daily Beaver is the Northwest’s best small market paper. McGrath’s piece takes a backhanded dig at all these talk show hosts who pretend to know anything about these NFL free agents who have been changing teams over the past week. The Sportsaholic is in complete agreement with McGrath. I cringe every time I hear an analyst claim that somebody like the Dallas Cowboys made a great signing by picking up Anthony Henry or the Giants picked up a future star in Anthony Pierce. Very few people know who these guys are and even fewer are in a position to critique their abilities. You think any radio talk show hosts in Dallas or New York or even Cleveland spent much time watching game film of the Browns this past year and therefore can comment on Henry’s ball skills? Its one thing to report that a given team picked up someone who is highly regarded by league insiders, but to pawn this opinion off as your own is tantamount to stealing. This is part of the reason why the Sportsaholic finds the hot stove football season to be a bit of a tease. Sure, there is a ton of player movement, but it often involves players that people have either never heard of or know little about. I don’t have much trouble with analysts talking about teams they have watched all season long, but let us not pretend that these guys have spent the past two months locked in the film room pouring over tape of prospective free agents. While this rant is directed at many, those like ESPN’s Mike and Mike, WFAN’s Mike Francesca, Fox Sports Jay Glazer and the New York Daily News Gary Myers are amongst the worst offenders.
Staying in the same general subject area, the Sportsaholic wonders why so much media attention is focused on where third and fourth tier quarterbacks will end up playing next year. Is there anything more irrelevant than this topic? Other then those 64 Cardinals fans, who cares that Kurt Warner agreed to sign a one year deal with the Arizona? Can anyone in Cleveland get too excited that Trent Dilfer is now a Brown? And it’s bad enough that we are talking about these stiffs, but at least they are prospective starters. I have to admit that I break out into a rash when I hear talk turn to who is going to backup Joey Harrington in Detroit or Rex Grossman in Chicago. Does anyone really care or think it will make an ounce of difference to the affected team? It’s just not worth an ounce of discussion.
There is a ton to get to but I think we should start in Columbus where Ohio State pulled off one of the bigger upsets of the season by beating Illinois 65-64. The Illini were bidding to become the first team in 29 years to complete a season undefeated, but it all fell apart at the hands of a very determined Buckeye team. The Ohio State win means that Kent Benson, Scott May and the rest of the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers can breathe a sigh of relief since their team will remain the last to complete a season undefeated. Congratulations are in order for Ohio State coach Thad Matta who was faced with the decision of whether to go for a tie or the win on the final Buckeye possession. Having seen his team already claw back form a 12 point second half deficit, Matta decided he would win it or lose it with a stiff named Matt Sylvester. The gamble paid off as Sylvester, an unaccomplished seventh man who finished with a career high 25, swished a three with five seconds to go. For Illinois, the loss has little practical importance since they will still be a number one seed in the upcoming NCAA tourney. However, it does rob this club of an opportunity to join a very select fraternity whose doors have been closed since the Ford Administration. UNLV was extended an invite in 1991 to join the undefeated club, but the bid was pulled at the last minute when the Running Rebels couldn’t find a way to stop Bobby Hurley in the national semis. It will be a shame if Illinois ends up falling just short of membership simply because it couldn’t stop some guy named Matt Sylvester.
The aforementioned Scott May had two reasons to celebrate yesterday. First, as explained up top, he saw Illinois drop from the ranks of the unbeaten. Then, two hours later, he got to watch his son - Sean May - and the rest of North Carolina Tar Heels sneak by the Duke Blue Devils in a Tobacco Road thriller. May was simply tremendous yesterday, pouring in 26 while collecting 24 rebounds, 12 of which were on the offensive end of the court. Strangely, May’s performance was almost not enough to topple the Heels arch nemesis. Carolina, playing without Rashad McCants, actually trailed by nine with three minutes to go and at that point it looked like Duke was going to extend their reign of domination over UNC. But Duke had a couple of key turnovers down the stretch and Carolina capitalized by scoring the final 11 points of the game. This series has had its share of incredible finishes, but yesterday has to rank in the top 3. While May was terrific for UNC, the same cannot be said for Tar Heel point guard Ray Felton who had his second poor game against Duke this year. Felton was only charged with five turnovers, but I suspect the true number was closer to eight. For some reason, he just has trouble playing in big spots and this should concern Tar Heel fans. Duke, meanwhile, got almost nothing out of All-American J.J Redick. He had 17 in the games first 15 minutes, but those were his only points of the night. Duke has got to take some solace from the fact that they played Carolina to a one point game on the road while their best player was held scoreless for 25 minutes. For North Carolina, the big question going forward is when McCants will return to the lineup. He hasn’t played since February 19th because of an intestinal problem and his absence yesterday came after his dad told a local paper that Rashad was ready to go. It would be a shame if North Carolina’s bid for a championship was derailed because its second best player had the squirts. For god’s sake, throw a diaper on this kid and get him out on the court.
The strangest play of the weekend occurred yesterday in Raleigh where Wake Forest All-America Chris Paul did his best impression of Andrew Golota. With about ten minutes to go in the first half, Paul launched a pre-emptive attack on Julius Hodge by slugging the North Carolina State guard in the gonads. I haven’t seen an attack like that since 1990 when a friend of mine pulled a Pearly Harbor and hit a guy named Al Berry in the balls just as tempers were beginning to flare. Paul’s blow sent Hodge to the deck and then the locker room. After it was determined that Hodge still had the goods to be a father, he returned to help the Wolfpack hang tough with the highly-ranked Demon Deacons. The Pack actually led late, but Wake got a key three to tie the game with about 12 seconds to go. The Pack then screwed up by missing a game winner with too much time left on the clock. Paul ended up seizing on this opportunity by nailing a runner at the buzzer. It turns out that Paul ended up doing more damage to NC States tourney chances then he did to Hodge’s testicles. The Wolfpack now face the NCAA jury without much of an alibi. They finished the year 7-9 in the ACC and they lack any credible non-conference wins. That looks like a guilty verdict to the Sportsaholic and the sentence could be Herb Sendek’s termination.
The only other game I will mention from yesterday occurred down in Gainsville where the Florida Gators were able to serve visiting Kentucky with a “payback” sandwich. The Gators haven’t beaten UK since March of 2001 and as such, this game was poised to be decertified as a “rivalry.” But just as it looked like Florida would go down for the ninth time in a row, the Gators mounted a late run to upset the number three team in the country. It was the first time Gator seniors Matt Walsh, David Lee and Anthony Roberson have beaten Kentucky and the latter two celebrated the win by stripping at Half-court. It was not a pretty site.
It was a strange weekend in the Big-12, where both of this season’s heavyweights took standing eight counts in their regular season finales. First, Oklahoma State lost at home on Saturday night against Texas and then Kansas followed that up with a loss on the road to Missouri. These teams were each looking like number one seeds in the NCAA tourney a couple weeks ago, but both have limped to finish line. Oklahoma State’s problem has been its trouble defending the post. The Cowboys last an inside presence and this weakness has been exposed of late. Texas forward Brad Buckman had his way with the Cowboys on Saturday night much like Kansas Center Wayne Simien did a week ago. Unless Eddie Sutton can figure out a solution, his team is vulnerable against any team that has a credible inside threat. Kansas, meanwhile, has now lost four of six and things got worse at the start of Sunday’s loss when the Jayhawks lost guard Keith Langford to an ankle sprain. Langford was on crutches after the game and if the senior is lost, the Jayhawks are in big trouble. While these two teams have been faltering, Oklahoma has emerged as the best team in the conference. They ended up finishing 12-4 in the Big-12 after winning their final six games. They don’t have a lot of recognizable names, but Taj Grey and Kevin Bookout are real steady and this team can play tough defense. I like the Sooners as a long-shot final four pick.
That pretty much covers the weekend in college basketball but there are a few loose ends to tie. Stanford, which was blasted in this space on Friday, came up huge on Saturday and played their way into the tourney by upsetting Washington at Maples. While Stanford played itself into the tourney, Maryland played itself out. The Terps lost a crusher at Virginia Tech and if I were on the selection committee, I would vote thumbs down on Maryland’s candidacy. The Terps had their chances to lock away a berth, but they just haven’t gotten the job done. In the Big East, West Virginia may have complicated its future by losing to Seton Hall on Saturday, although I still think they are in better shape then Georgetown. Notre Dame is in a similar spot as West Virginia after losing to Pitt on Saturday. The Irish seem to have a leg up because of their reputation, but their future is no longer certain. A loss to Rutgers in the Big East tourney would probably tip the scales against Notre Dame.
While College Basketball owned the weekend, I am not going to overlook the fact that we had a heavyweight championship fight down in South Florida. I am talking about Phil and Tiger going mano y mano at the Doralian Cookie Monster. Golf fans have been longing for this matchup for years, and they weren’t disappointed yesterday. Joined in the final grouping, Tiger rallied early from a two stroke deficit to tie it by the time the pair walked off the tenth. From there on out it was a nail biter. Phil missed a great shot to take the lead at 16 and then Tiger made him pay by sinking a 20 footer on the next hole. Phil gave himself a chance to tie it up on 18, but his chip barely stayed out and Tiger walked off with the winner’s dough and a brand new Mustang. It was clear after the finish that these guys both wanted the win real bad. Tiger was all craps and giggles at the finish line while Mick took off without giving NBC a second of his time. I suspect that this will not be the last time these two square off, but hopefully the next chapter will be in a more meaningful tourney. Both of these guys have been involved in great Major battles, but unfortunately, they have not come against each other. Mickelson’s US Open battles came against Payne and Goose, while Tiger’s major confrontations came against Sergio and some guy named Bob May. Lets hope Ernie and the Goose get into the mix when the tour’s best come together next month at Augusta.
One golf story that flew under the radar screen this weekend involved the Ford Motor Company. Ford recently took over sponsorship of the PGA tour stop in South Florida, and in hopes of boosting player interest in the tourney; Ford paid a bunch of top guys to attend a corporate outing last Tuesday. the idea being that once these players were in Souoth Florida, they would hang around to play in the tourney. This pretty much runs afoul of the Tour’s ban on paying appearance fees, but it worked. Last year, only one player in the world’s top 12 played Doral, while 11 showed up this year. If Ford put as much money and energy into its engineering program as it does its golf tourneys, perhaps it wouldn’t be losing so much market share to Nissan. But if Ford really wants to host a meaningful tourney, it should find a new course to host this tourney. The Blue Monster is a monster no more and its time for a new setting. It was target practice out there this week and my suggestion is to move the tourney up the coast to Seminole or that course in Fort Lauderdale where Caddyshack was filmed. I bet Danunzio is available to loop if anyone needs a local.
Skiing’s World Cup is going down to the final week as American Bode Miller was unable to put things away this weekend in Norway. Miller led the world cup by 31 points going into this weekend, but he could only come up with a fourth and fifth in a downhill and a Super G. A win in either would have gone a long way toward cementing a World Cup victory for Miller, but some minor mistake in both races prevented Miller from mounting the podium. He now leads by only 52 points going into the final four races of the year. 100 points are awarded for a win so Miler’s lead is certainly surmountable. He needs to perform well in a final Downhill and Super G since his closest competitor, Benjamin Raich, will surely close out the season with solid performances in the technical gate races. Things will not bode well for Bode if the cup comes down to he and Raich racing slalom in the final race of the year.
The United States has been making excuses for years that the only reason it doesn’t win the Davis Cup is because its top players refuse to play. There may be some truth to this claim, but it doesn’t explain what happened this weekend in Southern California. That is because for the first time in years, the U.S. had its dream team going. Both Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick were suiting up and most predicted that this dream team would have little trouble dispatching a feisty team from Croatia. Well, it didn’t happen. Agassi got buried on Friday, the U.S. doubles team went down Saturday, and Croatia picked up the win after Roddick lost a tough five setter on Sunday. It has not been a great year for the U.S. in international competitions. Our basketball team went down in Athens, our golfers got smoked in the Ryder Cup and now our tennis players go down to a country of four million. That is tantamount to the 81st airborne going into South Carolina and getting whipped by the magnolia state’s National Guard. It is flat out embarrassing. The only things America has won as a team in the past year was Women’s Soccer and Softball in Athens and Men’s Armored Warfare in Najaf. Based on this track record, the U.S. has no shot at reclaiming that stupid sailing trophy unless the Defense Department gets involved and lends some stealthy technology to the San Diego Yacht Club. And for those of you who dismiss all this stuff because it involves second-tier sports, the Sportsaholic thinks the Domincan Republic could take the U.S. is a true seven game WORLD SERIES.
John McGrath had a terrific piece in the Friday edition of the Tacoma News Tribune, which along with Oregon State’s Daily Beaver is the Northwest’s best small market paper. McGrath’s piece takes a backhanded dig at all these talk show hosts who pretend to know anything about these NFL free agents who have been changing teams over the past week. The Sportsaholic is in complete agreement with McGrath. I cringe every time I hear an analyst claim that somebody like the Dallas Cowboys made a great signing by picking up Anthony Henry or the Giants picked up a future star in Anthony Pierce. Very few people know who these guys are and even fewer are in a position to critique their abilities. You think any radio talk show hosts in Dallas or New York or even Cleveland spent much time watching game film of the Browns this past year and therefore can comment on Henry’s ball skills? Its one thing to report that a given team picked up someone who is highly regarded by league insiders, but to pawn this opinion off as your own is tantamount to stealing. This is part of the reason why the Sportsaholic finds the hot stove football season to be a bit of a tease. Sure, there is a ton of player movement, but it often involves players that people have either never heard of or know little about. I don’t have much trouble with analysts talking about teams they have watched all season long, but let us not pretend that these guys have spent the past two months locked in the film room pouring over tape of prospective free agents. While this rant is directed at many, those like ESPN’s Mike and Mike, WFAN’s Mike Francesca, Fox Sports Jay Glazer and the New York Daily News Gary Myers are amongst the worst offenders.
Staying in the same general subject area, the Sportsaholic wonders why so much media attention is focused on where third and fourth tier quarterbacks will end up playing next year. Is there anything more irrelevant than this topic? Other then those 64 Cardinals fans, who cares that Kurt Warner agreed to sign a one year deal with the Arizona? Can anyone in Cleveland get too excited that Trent Dilfer is now a Brown? And it’s bad enough that we are talking about these stiffs, but at least they are prospective starters. I have to admit that I break out into a rash when I hear talk turn to who is going to backup Joey Harrington in Detroit or Rex Grossman in Chicago. Does anyone really care or think it will make an ounce of difference to the affected team? It’s just not worth an ounce of discussion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)