There are two things that aren't tolerated in Kansas -falling wheat prices and early NCAA tournament exits. I am not sure where spot wheat prices are right now, but I do know that the Kansas Jayhawks were ousted from the tourney last night and that means blood is boiling all over the "Sunflower State." I am not ready to characterize last night's 64-63 loss to the Bucknell Bison as the worst in Kansas history, but it is probably in the top-3. After all, this senior-dominated team was ranked number one in the country during the pre-season and many pundits around the country thought this just might be the year that Kansas gets the job done. The had the unstoppable big man inside and they had to two mature guards who had been through many wars before. According to conventional wisdom, this is supposed to be the recipe for NCAA success. Unfortunately for legions of Jayhawk fans, the recipe didn't call for the Hawks to run up against the most athletic team the lowly Patriot league has produced since the days of Paul Revere and John Adams.
Bucknell is not your typical Patriot League team. They are neither stodgy, slow or white for that matter. They have some decent athletes and it showed last night. The didn't really have an answer for Kansas bigman Wayne Simien, but they sure did a number of the rest of the Jayhawks. And they won because they protected the ball, held their own on the glass and made a couple shots when they really needed scores. As mentioned above, Simien was terrific in his final college game, even though he missed a fairly makeable shot at the buzzer that would won the game. Bucknell had no shot stopping him and I am surprised that coach Bill Self didn't feed him on every offensive possession. It was particularly gauling since the other big guns on Kansas were misfiring all night. The big triumverate of Arron Miles, Keith Langford and J.R. Giddens collectively finished 2 of 19. Langford was playing on a gimp ankle so he gets a little slack, but I am not going to be so generous with Miles. As I wrote a few days back, I have never been a fan of Miles and I thought he was going to be the weak link that would eventually sink this team. I thought it was going to happen next weekend, but I was at least directionally correct.
So where does this loss rank in the all-time annals of tough Jayhawk losses. Well, I must start by saying it doesn't come close to triple-overtime defeat Kansas suffered in the 1957 NCAA finals against North Carolina. When you have Wilt and are playing against an all-white team whose tallest player is 6'6, you gotta like your chances. Well, Wilt didn't get it done that evening and I put that loss at the top of the list. In second place comes the loss in the 1997 Regional Semi-Finals to Arizona. That 1997 team, with Paul Pierce, Raef Lafrentz and Jacque Vaughan, was probably the best team I have ever seen Kansas put on the court. They came into that game with almost a perfect record, but they exited with the second worst loss in school history. It is close, but I think last night's loss probably scoots into the three hole. Expectations for this team were super high in Lawrence and this one has got to hurt bigtime and probably just a bit worse than two heartbreakers to Syracuse - the first in the 1996 Regional Finals and the second coming two years ago in the NCAA finals.
As for Bucknell, its safe to say this was the greatest victory in school history. In fact, its the only victory the school has ever scored in the NCAA tourney. Is it any coincidence that the victory came in the Bisons first tourney since alum Les Moonves took over the reigns of CBS? I guess if Moonves is going to fork over all those millions for the tourney's broadcast rights, he gets to pick some of the winners. Kansas learned that the hard way. I would be remiss if I didn't send out my congratulations to Latham and Watkins partner Paul Hunt who is the only guy I know who can say he called Bucknell home for four years. Paul's two schools are Bucknell and Virginia and who would have thought we'd see a day where Bucknell has more tourney wins over the past decade than the Wahoos.
The other big shocker of the first round happened up there in Worcester where the Catamounts from Vermont drove into town and took out Jim Boeheim and his Syracuse Orangemen. This one gave me great pleasure since I am no fan of the Orange and I always enjoy a nice cold Orange crush. In this game, the star was not Vermont center Taylor Coopenrath, but Germain Mop Njila who went 9/10 against Syracuse's vaunted zone. Coppenrath played alright, but it was Njila who supplied the necessary firepower for the Cats. I thought Vermont came into this game very well prepared although they did have trouble executing early against that aforementioned zone. They seemed as if they knew what they had to do but were tentative nonetheless. That tentativeness seemed to fade as the team got more confidence and it didn't hurt that they got a few key threes when they really needed them. Meanwhile, Syracuse was all over the place last night. Star forward Hakim Warrick was nearly unstoppable inside, but he did turn the ball over ten times. Because of those turnovers, I give Warrick a B for last night's performance. I cannot be as kind to Gerry MacNamara who gets a D minus. The guy was 4 of 18 last night and his poor shot selection finally came back to haunt the Orange. MacNamara is a all or nothing kind of player. At times he can be lethal as he was in the NCAA final two years ago, but at other times, he can be a cancer for his team. Boeheim at one point last night should have shut Mac down, but it didn't happen. The kid kept bombing away, and unfortunately for Syracuse, little of his ordinance hit its intended target.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Friday, March 18, 2005
March 18 - McGwire is Massacred
Have you ever seen that Saturday Night Live skit where Will Farrell plays Alex Trebeck and he hosts a Jeopardy panel made up brainless types like Sean Connery and Burt Reynolds? This is the skit where the idiotic contestants come up with some of the most asinine answers imaginable. For instance, Trebeck will ask in Final Jep for the contestants to write down any number at all and Reynolds writes down the letter G while Connery scribbles something that looks like a parabola. It is classic stuff. Well yesterday, I felt as if I was watching the same skit repeated as I tuned in to the Steroid hearing on Capital Hill. This is a bold statement, but I cannot remember the last time I can recall grown men sound so stupid and that includes late night bar chatter with old drunks who are falling out of their chairs. And while all were a bit tortured, the clear leader of this challenged crew was Mr. Mark McGwire.
I am not sure where to begin with Mac. His testimony yesterday would have made Rod Serling proud because it came straight from the Twilight Zone. It started off badly for Mac as he was caught looking foolish in the first inning. Eight innings and four Ks later, Mac left the hearing with a tarnished reputation as both a player and public speaker. He opened the day by proving that he hasn’t quite mastered the skill of reading and at a few points, it seemed as if he was about to break down and start bawling. To make matters worse, he was sweating more then Albert Brooks did when he got his big break in the movie Broadcast News. When Mac started talking about his foundation to help abused children, I thought he was going down. His voice was cracking and the ducts were flooding. If someone had tossed a wounded kitten on the table in front of Mac, he would have broken down for sure. Unfortunately for Mark, this was the highlight of his day since it went all downhill after congressional panelists started asking questions.
Mark’s basic message yesterday was he would exercise his right to not admit or deny anything. It would have been better if he had stopped right there because on some occasions, he simply fell of a cliff. He provided some answers that weren’t even in the same ballpark as the question he was asked. Here is an example - “Mark, do you think its cheating to use steroids?” His answer was “I am not here to talk about the past. I am here to talk about the future. I am here for the positive.” Say what? What kind of answer is that? Somebody was asking him for an opinion and he responds by coughing up something that the cat left in the litter box. I bet if someone had asked him whether he thought Randy Johnson was a good pitcher or the DH should be eliminated, Mark would have come up with the same stock answer. This wasn’t just out of context; it was out of this universe. And worst of all, it continued for about two grueling hours.
St. Patrick’s Day ended up being a day of disgrace for Mr. McGwire and this is what I predicted when Congress issued him a subpoena last week. I didn’t get the outright confession I wanted, but I got the next best thing. After all, even without a confession, McGwire’s reputation is in a free fall. I just saw on ESPN that 88 percent of its readers now believe McGwire used steroids. I am a bit curious what those other 12 percent are thinking, but 88 still qualifies as a landslide. McGwire is toast. His reputation has been destroyed and his legacy as one of the game’s great has vanished. And Mark should just forget about doing any more commercials, PSA’s or speaking engagements, because the verbal skills he displayed yesterday are almost sub-human. The big question that looms for Mark is whether he still has a place in the Hall of Fame. I was actually one of the dissenters who never thought McGwire was that great to begin with (high strikeouts - poor situational guy), but now others are coming aboard. I just saw that Buster Olney of ESPN still plans on voting for McGwire when he is eligible for induction, but I suspect that Buster will not have a ton of company, and certainly not enough to put Mac over the top. Mark belongs in a Hall, but one that immortalizes Shame and not Fame.
My other thoughts on the day are as follows. Sammy Sosa was a complete waste of time and he probably should have been excused when it became apparent that he misplaced his ability to speak English on the plane trip to Washington. It is funny how Sammy seemingly had a good grasp of the language a few years back when he was adored by a whole city but somehow this mastery has faded over the past few years. I don’t care what that clown said yesterday – I still believe he was a juicer. According to ESPN, I am not alone on that point. On the other hand, I am not so convinced about Rafael Palmeiro’s guilt anymore. I thought he presented a fairly convincing case yesterday although it may have just been theatrics. He certainly wasn’t there to mess around. Right off the bat, he looked committee members in the eye and said he is completely innocent. He either is being truthful or he figured there is no available evidence against him and he can get away with this lie. For me, his truthfulness is a toss-up. And because I am no longer sure of Raf’s guilt, I am calling him yesterday’s big winner. Moving on, Schilling was typical Schilling. He was obviously the most articulate panelist but that isn’t saying a whole lot given the fact that he was up against a two retarded Cubans, a Dominican mute, and a lobotomized Irishman. Schilling, as customary, was long winded and arrogant, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who watched the post-season last October. But the interesting thing about Schilling yesterday was his inconsistency. At times he sounded like a hardcore steroid hawk, but at other times he seemed fairly dovish. As such, he gets yesterday’s John Kerry award. And that leaves us with Canseco. Jose’s testimony was also a bit disjointed and he clearly has no idea what he knows or thinks. His memory fails him on most occasions and his credibility suffers as a result. I still generally believe what he has said, but he is not exactly a star witness. He would certainly crack when cross examined. I will have more to say on yesterday’s smorgasbord at a later date, but that will have to do for now.
There is some sick stuff going on in with the Oregon State football team. I mean sick! There are reports out that Beaver Defensive Lineman Ben Siegert was pulled over for driving 60 in a 25mph zone and then failed a breathe test. This is where the story gets twisted. In the back of his truck, Siegert had a live ram that he had just stolen from the Oregon State Sheep Center. (Before you ask, I believe Oregon State is the home of Oregon’s only veterinary school – hence the need for a Sheep center.) Along with Siegert, OSU football player Brent Bridges and an OSU co-ed were in the truck. When Siegert was asked by the Corvallis Gazette-Times about the incident, Siegert recalled being pulled over but denied any involvement with the ram. ’I don’t know anything about that. I’m from a city. I don’t know anything about Sheep,” Siegert told the Gazette. It turns out that the stolen ram is the subject of a study on Homosexuality in sheep. Siegert was ticketed with a DUI but the Ram did not press charges and so that potential charge was dropped. I gotta know what Siegert and his two buddies were planning to do with that poor gay ram. What kind of program is Mike Riley running up there in Corvalis? In recent months, a bunch of his players have had run-ins with the law and now one of his run stoppers has been caught kidnapping a 200 pound ram for purposes god only knows. As I wrote the other day, the University of Colorado has had problems with its players sexually assaulting females, but at least those females were human. OSU is in uncharted waters with this guy. Can you imagine the crap Siegert is going to take next year when he gets out on the field? I can just hear it now. “Hey Ram Fucker, I am coming for you!” If I am Coach Riley, I suspend Siegert and don’t let him back on the team until he apologizes to the ram and agrees to become a spokesman against the inhumane treatment of animals – and I am talking about all animals and not just the city animals with which he is familiar. I think its safe to say that Siegert will not be playing on Sundays for the football team that calls St.Louis its home.
I am not sure where to begin with Mac. His testimony yesterday would have made Rod Serling proud because it came straight from the Twilight Zone. It started off badly for Mac as he was caught looking foolish in the first inning. Eight innings and four Ks later, Mac left the hearing with a tarnished reputation as both a player and public speaker. He opened the day by proving that he hasn’t quite mastered the skill of reading and at a few points, it seemed as if he was about to break down and start bawling. To make matters worse, he was sweating more then Albert Brooks did when he got his big break in the movie Broadcast News. When Mac started talking about his foundation to help abused children, I thought he was going down. His voice was cracking and the ducts were flooding. If someone had tossed a wounded kitten on the table in front of Mac, he would have broken down for sure. Unfortunately for Mark, this was the highlight of his day since it went all downhill after congressional panelists started asking questions.
Mark’s basic message yesterday was he would exercise his right to not admit or deny anything. It would have been better if he had stopped right there because on some occasions, he simply fell of a cliff. He provided some answers that weren’t even in the same ballpark as the question he was asked. Here is an example - “Mark, do you think its cheating to use steroids?” His answer was “I am not here to talk about the past. I am here to talk about the future. I am here for the positive.” Say what? What kind of answer is that? Somebody was asking him for an opinion and he responds by coughing up something that the cat left in the litter box. I bet if someone had asked him whether he thought Randy Johnson was a good pitcher or the DH should be eliminated, Mark would have come up with the same stock answer. This wasn’t just out of context; it was out of this universe. And worst of all, it continued for about two grueling hours.
St. Patrick’s Day ended up being a day of disgrace for Mr. McGwire and this is what I predicted when Congress issued him a subpoena last week. I didn’t get the outright confession I wanted, but I got the next best thing. After all, even without a confession, McGwire’s reputation is in a free fall. I just saw on ESPN that 88 percent of its readers now believe McGwire used steroids. I am a bit curious what those other 12 percent are thinking, but 88 still qualifies as a landslide. McGwire is toast. His reputation has been destroyed and his legacy as one of the game’s great has vanished. And Mark should just forget about doing any more commercials, PSA’s or speaking engagements, because the verbal skills he displayed yesterday are almost sub-human. The big question that looms for Mark is whether he still has a place in the Hall of Fame. I was actually one of the dissenters who never thought McGwire was that great to begin with (high strikeouts - poor situational guy), but now others are coming aboard. I just saw that Buster Olney of ESPN still plans on voting for McGwire when he is eligible for induction, but I suspect that Buster will not have a ton of company, and certainly not enough to put Mac over the top. Mark belongs in a Hall, but one that immortalizes Shame and not Fame.
My other thoughts on the day are as follows. Sammy Sosa was a complete waste of time and he probably should have been excused when it became apparent that he misplaced his ability to speak English on the plane trip to Washington. It is funny how Sammy seemingly had a good grasp of the language a few years back when he was adored by a whole city but somehow this mastery has faded over the past few years. I don’t care what that clown said yesterday – I still believe he was a juicer. According to ESPN, I am not alone on that point. On the other hand, I am not so convinced about Rafael Palmeiro’s guilt anymore. I thought he presented a fairly convincing case yesterday although it may have just been theatrics. He certainly wasn’t there to mess around. Right off the bat, he looked committee members in the eye and said he is completely innocent. He either is being truthful or he figured there is no available evidence against him and he can get away with this lie. For me, his truthfulness is a toss-up. And because I am no longer sure of Raf’s guilt, I am calling him yesterday’s big winner. Moving on, Schilling was typical Schilling. He was obviously the most articulate panelist but that isn’t saying a whole lot given the fact that he was up against a two retarded Cubans, a Dominican mute, and a lobotomized Irishman. Schilling, as customary, was long winded and arrogant, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who watched the post-season last October. But the interesting thing about Schilling yesterday was his inconsistency. At times he sounded like a hardcore steroid hawk, but at other times he seemed fairly dovish. As such, he gets yesterday’s John Kerry award. And that leaves us with Canseco. Jose’s testimony was also a bit disjointed and he clearly has no idea what he knows or thinks. His memory fails him on most occasions and his credibility suffers as a result. I still generally believe what he has said, but he is not exactly a star witness. He would certainly crack when cross examined. I will have more to say on yesterday’s smorgasbord at a later date, but that will have to do for now.
There is some sick stuff going on in with the Oregon State football team. I mean sick! There are reports out that Beaver Defensive Lineman Ben Siegert was pulled over for driving 60 in a 25mph zone and then failed a breathe test. This is where the story gets twisted. In the back of his truck, Siegert had a live ram that he had just stolen from the Oregon State Sheep Center. (Before you ask, I believe Oregon State is the home of Oregon’s only veterinary school – hence the need for a Sheep center.) Along with Siegert, OSU football player Brent Bridges and an OSU co-ed were in the truck. When Siegert was asked by the Corvallis Gazette-Times about the incident, Siegert recalled being pulled over but denied any involvement with the ram. ’I don’t know anything about that. I’m from a city. I don’t know anything about Sheep,” Siegert told the Gazette. It turns out that the stolen ram is the subject of a study on Homosexuality in sheep. Siegert was ticketed with a DUI but the Ram did not press charges and so that potential charge was dropped. I gotta know what Siegert and his two buddies were planning to do with that poor gay ram. What kind of program is Mike Riley running up there in Corvalis? In recent months, a bunch of his players have had run-ins with the law and now one of his run stoppers has been caught kidnapping a 200 pound ram for purposes god only knows. As I wrote the other day, the University of Colorado has had problems with its players sexually assaulting females, but at least those females were human. OSU is in uncharted waters with this guy. Can you imagine the crap Siegert is going to take next year when he gets out on the field? I can just hear it now. “Hey Ram Fucker, I am coming for you!” If I am Coach Riley, I suspend Siegert and don’t let him back on the team until he apologizes to the ram and agrees to become a spokesman against the inhumane treatment of animals – and I am talking about all animals and not just the city animals with which he is familiar. I think its safe to say that Siegert will not be playing on Sundays for the football team that calls St.Louis its home.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
March 17 - My All-Leprechaun Team
In honor of it being St. Patrick’s Day, here is my all-time NBA “all-leprechaun” team. Bob Cousy and Chris Mullin are my guards, Kevin McHale and Tracy McGrady are my forwards, and Bob McAdoo is my center. I come off the bench with Jermaine O’Neil, Xavier Mc Daniel, Antonio McDyess, Calvin Murphy, and Nate McMillian. And with my first pick in this year’s draft, I take Syracuse point guard Gerry MacNamara. The one question I have is whether the Malones are eligible for this squad. If so, Moses and Karl are starters and McHale goes back to doing what he does best: Dominating off the bench.
There are reports out of Dallas that forty something Roy Tarpley is possibly ready to re-enter the NBA after a decade-long absence. Tarpley has been out of the league since 1995 when he flunked out of the league’s substance abuse program, and since that time, the former Mav has been playing overseas and trying to wean himself off the junk. With regard to the latter, Tarps has spent the past year working at John Lucas’ drug rehab facility in Houston. Lucas chimed in on this subject the other night by saying, “He’s doing what he needs to do. He might have the ambition to play basketball again. Skill wise, he absolutely [could play in the NBA.] He could be a nice guy off the bench.” What you talking bout Lucus? I’ll be the first to say that Tarpley was once a damn good player but unfortunately it was when I was a sophomore in college. This guy hasn’t played more then 60 games in the NBA since Reagan left office and he now expects to help someone out off the bench? I think the odds are very long that Tarpley will succeed in this endeavor, but if he becomes a meaningful contributor to an NBA team, that would have to rank up there as one of the greater comebacks in history, right up there with Nixon’s comeback in 1968, John Travolta’s re-emergence in Pulp Fiction and Amber Lynn’s return to porn earlier this decade. Regardless of whether he succeeds, Tarpley is definitely a member of my All “Coke and Booze Ruined My NBA Career” Team. Other players on that team include Sugar Ray Richardson, Phil “Dribbling Under Influence” Ford, Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and of course, Len Bias. I am still trying to figure out whether to put Magic on this list on the grounds that if he hadn’t gotten silly drunk and taken that flight attendant back to his room, he could have perhaps avoided becoming HIV positive.
It’s hard to believe that the Indiana Pacers, having lost Ron Artest for the year and two other key players for lengthy fighting-related suspensions, are still in the hunt for a playoff spot but this is the case with 19 games to go. If things weren’t bad enough in Indiana to begin with, they got worse this week when it began looking like star forward Jermaine O’Neil would miss the balance of the season with a shoulder injury. After winning last night, the Pacers are 32-31, and 10-12 without O’Neil. So can this team hold on to a playoff spot without Jermaine and Artest? I say the answer is yes. The Pacers are in 7th right now, and the real question is whether they can they stay ahead of two of the following three teams: Orlando, Philly and New Jersey. If you assume that 40-42 makes the playoffs, which is a pretty safe assumption given the current status of the Eastern Conference, then the Nets are in real trouble. They would have to finish 12-4 to get there and that isn’t happening. I am not so sure the Sixers can get to forty either. They got a murderous nine game stretch coming up where they would be lucky to win four games. Three is more likely. If they go 3-6, they would begin their stretch drive at 34-39 and you can’t like their chances of getting to forty at that point. So much for Chris Webber putting them over the top – since his arrival, the Sixers are only 5-5. That leaves just the Magic. Well, they are I the midst of a six game losing streak and they just fired their coach last night. In other words, the Magic are entering the home stretch atop a colt that appears to have spent his reserves on the back stretch. Meanwhile, the Pacers have a fairly benign schedule coming in, highlighted by three games with the Nets. So if 40 is the magic number, and it could end up being less, I think the Pacers have a pretty good shot at overcoming Jermaine’s absence and making it to the playoffs.
Damon Stoudamire is breathing a bit easier today after an appeals court upheld a lower court and ruled yesterday that police violated Damon’s constitutional rights three years ago when they searched his pad without a warrant. The search ended up finding about a pound of dope in Damon’s attic and as a result, Stoud was charged with felony possession. However, because the cops had no warrant, the evidence cannot be introduced and Damon is off the hook. Word has it Stoudamire was ecstatic after hearing the news and immediately invited Darius Miles and Ruben Patterson over to watch a little South Park and try out Damon’s new Bill Walton Bong. If Stoudamire were smart, he would try asking this sympathetic court to free him from the clutches of the abysmal Blazers. If things weren’t already bad enough in Portland, the Blazers found out this week that their best player, Zach Randolph, will miss the rest of the season. If you want to see a textbook case of a team mailing it in, you should do your best to catch some Blazer games over the next six weeks. It is a sad comment on the state of your franchise when the only good news you get is when one of your players beats a drug rap on a technicality.
Congratulations go out today to Coco, the six year old Norfolk Terrier that won the British Open of dog shows last weekend in Birmingham England. You may have missed it on SportsCenter, but Coco, a dominant bitch on the U.S tour over the past three years, outclassed more than 21,000 other canines to win “Best in Show” at the highly prestigious Crufts dog show. This is quite an achievement for a dog that sat out 2004 on maternity leave after whelping a litter of three. I am far from the world’s expert on dog shows, but I feel there are really three “major” dog shows each year: Crufts, the Westminster in New York and the American Kennel Club/Eukanuba. Westminster is the gold standard and that is why I equate it to the Masters. It gets a great field and the winner becomes an instant celebrity, like the Newf did in 2004 and the German Pointer did last month. The AKC show is a bit less prestigious, so I equate it to the PGA Championship. It’s a major, but dogs aren’t exactly woofing it up on the winners stand. Meanwhile, Crufts is a huge tourney, especially for European dogs, and therefore this show has the same kind of standing as the British Open. As far as I can tell, there is simply no comparable to the U.S. Open in the world of dog shows. Anyways, Coco prevailed in England last weekend over a tough field that included a terrific beagle named Harry. Coco has twice been a bridesmaid at Westminster (2003 and 2005) so I give her credit for sticking with it and bringing a major back home to America. You may think this sounds crazy, but if Coco were a golfer, I would equate her to Tom Lehman. Like Coco, Tom had a hard time winning a major in the U.S. during the mid-90s. He finished second in the 94 Masters and played in the final group at the U.S. Open in both 1995 and 1996, only to come up small each time. Finally, in 1996, the Lemon Drop Kid was able to win the British Open by two shots over the Big Easy. If this were a SAT analogy, the answer would be Coco is to Harry as Tom Lehman is to Ernie Els. However, this is where the similarities end since Coco and Tom have different sponsors (Iams and Dockers) and Coco wears a name tag around her neck while Tom wears a pooka shell necklace.
Pete Rose says he never bet against his own team but I am not so sure Seattle Supersonic coach Nate McMillian can make the same claim. I say this after watching an almost surreal ending to last night’s game between the Sonics and Pistons in Detroit. Here is the setting: The Sonics were six point dogs and trailed by six with six seconds to go. The Sonics had the ball so if you had a Seattle win ticket, you couldn’t lose at that point. And if you were holding a Piston win ticket, you were not looking too good since it was unlikely Detroit would do much to prevent Seattle from covering with a meaningless last second shot. So what happened? McMillian ends up drawing a technical just before the ball is inbounded, Piston guard Chauncey Billups makes a free throw, and Detroit gets the ball. They proceed to run the clock out and go home with a seven point win. In the blink of an eye, bettors taking Seattle went from a push to a loss all because Nate couldn’t keep his mouth shut. If I had to guess, I would say the fix was in and Nate cashed in a winning ticket later that night. Despite holding the winning ticket, Nate couldn’t have gone to sleep happy after watching his team collapse in the final minutes. Seattle led by three and had the ball with 2:30 to go, yet somehow found a way to lose by seven. That is not exactly the stuff of legends. One possible excuse for the Sonics is they played last night without Danny Fortson. The Sonic enforcer evidently was sore from the previous night when he fouled out after playing a whopping six minutes. Who in the world gets called for six fouls in six minutes? That has to be some kind of team record. Its too bad Fortson went to Cincinnati because he sure sounds like a player who would have thrived under John Cheney’s tutelage.
Staying with Seattle for a moment, it seems as if a Civil War is breaking out in the Sonics locker room. Following last night’s game, the Seattle Times is reporting that the club flew back to Seattle as a “splintered team that has separated into cliques and is spitting venomous remarks about each other.” Rashard Lewis, a high school graduate who is probably the most eloquent Sonic, is quoted as saying that “guys have different attitudes on this team. I don’t know what the problem is but we have to solve it.” Lewis didn’t name names, but the Times reported that Ray Allen and Vladamir Radmanovic are the agitators at the heart of this rift. I have a real hard time believing Ray and Vladamir have formed some kind of clique as the Times suggests. Can you imagine Ray and Rads cruising for Russian chicks in Brooklyn after a Knicks game? If these two are in fact tight, I think we are looking at a great road-trip movie. Just think of all the wacky hijinks these cats could get into on the highway from Moscow to Murmansk. Regardless of whether these two former cold war adversaries have bonded, the fact that Allen is not getting along with Lewis and other Sonics does not bode well for the team’s ability to sign Ray to a long-term deal. Allen will be the hottest commodity on this year’s free agent market and there will be suitors. Some have suspected that Seattle was the front runner to retain Allen’s services, but is there any way he is going to re-sign if he hates his teammates? Furthermore, Vladimir is a free agent this summer and you have to question whether Ray is going to return if his buddy is gone.
The initial reports coming out of Milwaukee on Ben Sheets are not entirely encouraging if you are a Brewer fan or have Big Ben on your fantasy team. Sheets is coming off a very good year where he posted an ERA of 2.70, but he had back surgery this winter and it does not appear at first glance that he is back to his old self. The other night, he got lit up in two and two thirds innings against the Rangers and afterwards, he characterized his performance as being “terrible.” Asked whether he was worried about Tuesday’s showing, Sheets said “not overly worried, but worried. [I] better get it together.” Sheets says he feels fine and so it’s possible the big right-hander is just a bit rusty, but this is no laughing matter for the Milwaukee front office. Sheets is the key to this team’s upcoming season and there is virtually no way they can compete in the NL Central unless he is at full strength. Moreover, the Brewers had been hoping to lock Sheets up to a long-term deal this spring but that may prove difficult now that there are question marks about Ben’s health. He isn’t a free agent until after 2006, but the feeling is that although Sheets wants to stay in Milwaukee, he could be tempted to test the waters if he is not locked-up this year. I am actually surprised the idiots writing for the New York tabloids haven’t picked up on this story yet. My bet is if Sheets doesn’t sign a contract by opening day, we will see a story in April where the Post predicts Sheets will be in the Yankee rotation by the 2006 trading deadline.
Speaking of bad newspapers, Steeler fans should have some concerns today about getting their news from the Pittsburgh Gazette. In this morning’s edition, the Gazette reported that the Steelers had exchanged contract proposals with former Patriot Tackle Adrian Klemm. The piece, which was very brief, implies that negotiations were still in flux. This is a bit odd given the fact that Klemm signed a two-year deal with the Green Bay Packers yesterday. Perhaps the Gazette’s beat writer should begin checking NFL.com or the transaction wire before he hands in his stories. As an alternative, the Gazette needs to push back its deadline so their stories aren’t trumped by news breaking after lunch. It just so happens that the Gazette was not the only paper to butcher this story. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in today’s editions that Klemm is “one of the more physically gifted offensive lineman left on the free agent market” and has “the size and quickness” to handle Green Bay’s vacant left guard position. As a former Patriot fan, I can only say the Journal Sentinel is guilty of grossly exaggerating Klemm’s abilities. He was perhaps the worst pick made during the Belichek era and the Pats were counting the days until his contract expired. And aside from his questionable skills, Klemm has also shown no ability to stay healthy, having missed 54 games over his five year career. The Packers lost two guards this year to free agency and did nothing yesterday to remediate the situation.
The Rams Orlando Pace sure cashed in yesterday. After three years of playing under one-year contracts, the left tackle was able to finally secure a long-term deal that will pay him $15 million up front and $52 million over seven years, That is sick money for a six-time pro bowler who some consider to be very good but a step below the league’s elite. It also does not seem to be a wisest of use of money as far as the Rams are concerned. Listen, I understand that it is important to protect your quarterback’s blind side and therefore having a competent left tackle is critical. And I also understand that good left tackles don’t come cheap. But the Rams have basically given this guy a contract fit for a quarterback. And one thing to consider is the following. The Rams gave up 50 sacks last year. That was 27th in the league. Sure, the St. Louis line did get killed by injuries last year, but I got to think that some of those sacks came on Pace’s watch. Given their problems last year, I am not sure the Rams could afford to let Pace go, but after seeing these contract terms, I am not sure the Rams can now afford to do much else.
It is being reported that the Kansas City Chiefs are lobbying for a rule change that would reconcile the NFL’s pass interference rules with those in college. Specifically, the Chiefs want to see the penalty reduced for pass interference from the spot of the flag to fifteen yards. In other words, the Chiefs are seeking to cap the penalty and thus avoid situations where a flag can cost a team 30 or 40 yards of field position. The boys over at Pro Football Talk think the Chiefs are seeking the change purely out of self-interest since Randy Moss now plays in their division and the Chiefs are worried what Randy will do to their sub-standard secondary. If this theory is correct, the Chiefs motivation is comparable to a drug company that knows it has an unsafe drug on the market and is lobbying for legislation that would cap its exposure to potential damages. I would not support such a proposal in the public policy arena, but in this instance, I think Kansas City’s proposal should be adopted since I have long felt that the NFL’s penalty is too stiff. The current rule also encourages receivers to bitch about every bit of contact they receive down field and perhaps if you reduce the reward of drawing a flag, a small amount of this bellyaching will cease. If I had to guess, I suspect the guy who will fight the Chiefs on this topic is none other then my good friend Bill Polian. The Colts GM fought long and hard to strengthen the pass interference rules after the 2003 seasons and I am sure he doesn’t want to see the league go back to the dark ages when cornerbacks actually had a fighting chance. And as long as we are taking a look at penalties, I think colleges should re-consider their rule that penalizes offensive holding from the spot of the foul. Because these penalties are often flagged five yards upfield, they frequently result in drive killing fifteen yard assessments. That is just too much.
There are reports out of Dallas that forty something Roy Tarpley is possibly ready to re-enter the NBA after a decade-long absence. Tarpley has been out of the league since 1995 when he flunked out of the league’s substance abuse program, and since that time, the former Mav has been playing overseas and trying to wean himself off the junk. With regard to the latter, Tarps has spent the past year working at John Lucas’ drug rehab facility in Houston. Lucas chimed in on this subject the other night by saying, “He’s doing what he needs to do. He might have the ambition to play basketball again. Skill wise, he absolutely [could play in the NBA.] He could be a nice guy off the bench.” What you talking bout Lucus? I’ll be the first to say that Tarpley was once a damn good player but unfortunately it was when I was a sophomore in college. This guy hasn’t played more then 60 games in the NBA since Reagan left office and he now expects to help someone out off the bench? I think the odds are very long that Tarpley will succeed in this endeavor, but if he becomes a meaningful contributor to an NBA team, that would have to rank up there as one of the greater comebacks in history, right up there with Nixon’s comeback in 1968, John Travolta’s re-emergence in Pulp Fiction and Amber Lynn’s return to porn earlier this decade. Regardless of whether he succeeds, Tarpley is definitely a member of my All “Coke and Booze Ruined My NBA Career” Team. Other players on that team include Sugar Ray Richardson, Phil “Dribbling Under Influence” Ford, Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and of course, Len Bias. I am still trying to figure out whether to put Magic on this list on the grounds that if he hadn’t gotten silly drunk and taken that flight attendant back to his room, he could have perhaps avoided becoming HIV positive.
It’s hard to believe that the Indiana Pacers, having lost Ron Artest for the year and two other key players for lengthy fighting-related suspensions, are still in the hunt for a playoff spot but this is the case with 19 games to go. If things weren’t bad enough in Indiana to begin with, they got worse this week when it began looking like star forward Jermaine O’Neil would miss the balance of the season with a shoulder injury. After winning last night, the Pacers are 32-31, and 10-12 without O’Neil. So can this team hold on to a playoff spot without Jermaine and Artest? I say the answer is yes. The Pacers are in 7th right now, and the real question is whether they can they stay ahead of two of the following three teams: Orlando, Philly and New Jersey. If you assume that 40-42 makes the playoffs, which is a pretty safe assumption given the current status of the Eastern Conference, then the Nets are in real trouble. They would have to finish 12-4 to get there and that isn’t happening. I am not so sure the Sixers can get to forty either. They got a murderous nine game stretch coming up where they would be lucky to win four games. Three is more likely. If they go 3-6, they would begin their stretch drive at 34-39 and you can’t like their chances of getting to forty at that point. So much for Chris Webber putting them over the top – since his arrival, the Sixers are only 5-5. That leaves just the Magic. Well, they are I the midst of a six game losing streak and they just fired their coach last night. In other words, the Magic are entering the home stretch atop a colt that appears to have spent his reserves on the back stretch. Meanwhile, the Pacers have a fairly benign schedule coming in, highlighted by three games with the Nets. So if 40 is the magic number, and it could end up being less, I think the Pacers have a pretty good shot at overcoming Jermaine’s absence and making it to the playoffs.
Damon Stoudamire is breathing a bit easier today after an appeals court upheld a lower court and ruled yesterday that police violated Damon’s constitutional rights three years ago when they searched his pad without a warrant. The search ended up finding about a pound of dope in Damon’s attic and as a result, Stoud was charged with felony possession. However, because the cops had no warrant, the evidence cannot be introduced and Damon is off the hook. Word has it Stoudamire was ecstatic after hearing the news and immediately invited Darius Miles and Ruben Patterson over to watch a little South Park and try out Damon’s new Bill Walton Bong. If Stoudamire were smart, he would try asking this sympathetic court to free him from the clutches of the abysmal Blazers. If things weren’t already bad enough in Portland, the Blazers found out this week that their best player, Zach Randolph, will miss the rest of the season. If you want to see a textbook case of a team mailing it in, you should do your best to catch some Blazer games over the next six weeks. It is a sad comment on the state of your franchise when the only good news you get is when one of your players beats a drug rap on a technicality.
Congratulations go out today to Coco, the six year old Norfolk Terrier that won the British Open of dog shows last weekend in Birmingham England. You may have missed it on SportsCenter, but Coco, a dominant bitch on the U.S tour over the past three years, outclassed more than 21,000 other canines to win “Best in Show” at the highly prestigious Crufts dog show. This is quite an achievement for a dog that sat out 2004 on maternity leave after whelping a litter of three. I am far from the world’s expert on dog shows, but I feel there are really three “major” dog shows each year: Crufts, the Westminster in New York and the American Kennel Club/Eukanuba. Westminster is the gold standard and that is why I equate it to the Masters. It gets a great field and the winner becomes an instant celebrity, like the Newf did in 2004 and the German Pointer did last month. The AKC show is a bit less prestigious, so I equate it to the PGA Championship. It’s a major, but dogs aren’t exactly woofing it up on the winners stand. Meanwhile, Crufts is a huge tourney, especially for European dogs, and therefore this show has the same kind of standing as the British Open. As far as I can tell, there is simply no comparable to the U.S. Open in the world of dog shows. Anyways, Coco prevailed in England last weekend over a tough field that included a terrific beagle named Harry. Coco has twice been a bridesmaid at Westminster (2003 and 2005) so I give her credit for sticking with it and bringing a major back home to America. You may think this sounds crazy, but if Coco were a golfer, I would equate her to Tom Lehman. Like Coco, Tom had a hard time winning a major in the U.S. during the mid-90s. He finished second in the 94 Masters and played in the final group at the U.S. Open in both 1995 and 1996, only to come up small each time. Finally, in 1996, the Lemon Drop Kid was able to win the British Open by two shots over the Big Easy. If this were a SAT analogy, the answer would be Coco is to Harry as Tom Lehman is to Ernie Els. However, this is where the similarities end since Coco and Tom have different sponsors (Iams and Dockers) and Coco wears a name tag around her neck while Tom wears a pooka shell necklace.
Pete Rose says he never bet against his own team but I am not so sure Seattle Supersonic coach Nate McMillian can make the same claim. I say this after watching an almost surreal ending to last night’s game between the Sonics and Pistons in Detroit. Here is the setting: The Sonics were six point dogs and trailed by six with six seconds to go. The Sonics had the ball so if you had a Seattle win ticket, you couldn’t lose at that point. And if you were holding a Piston win ticket, you were not looking too good since it was unlikely Detroit would do much to prevent Seattle from covering with a meaningless last second shot. So what happened? McMillian ends up drawing a technical just before the ball is inbounded, Piston guard Chauncey Billups makes a free throw, and Detroit gets the ball. They proceed to run the clock out and go home with a seven point win. In the blink of an eye, bettors taking Seattle went from a push to a loss all because Nate couldn’t keep his mouth shut. If I had to guess, I would say the fix was in and Nate cashed in a winning ticket later that night. Despite holding the winning ticket, Nate couldn’t have gone to sleep happy after watching his team collapse in the final minutes. Seattle led by three and had the ball with 2:30 to go, yet somehow found a way to lose by seven. That is not exactly the stuff of legends. One possible excuse for the Sonics is they played last night without Danny Fortson. The Sonic enforcer evidently was sore from the previous night when he fouled out after playing a whopping six minutes. Who in the world gets called for six fouls in six minutes? That has to be some kind of team record. Its too bad Fortson went to Cincinnati because he sure sounds like a player who would have thrived under John Cheney’s tutelage.
Staying with Seattle for a moment, it seems as if a Civil War is breaking out in the Sonics locker room. Following last night’s game, the Seattle Times is reporting that the club flew back to Seattle as a “splintered team that has separated into cliques and is spitting venomous remarks about each other.” Rashard Lewis, a high school graduate who is probably the most eloquent Sonic, is quoted as saying that “guys have different attitudes on this team. I don’t know what the problem is but we have to solve it.” Lewis didn’t name names, but the Times reported that Ray Allen and Vladamir Radmanovic are the agitators at the heart of this rift. I have a real hard time believing Ray and Vladamir have formed some kind of clique as the Times suggests. Can you imagine Ray and Rads cruising for Russian chicks in Brooklyn after a Knicks game? If these two are in fact tight, I think we are looking at a great road-trip movie. Just think of all the wacky hijinks these cats could get into on the highway from Moscow to Murmansk. Regardless of whether these two former cold war adversaries have bonded, the fact that Allen is not getting along with Lewis and other Sonics does not bode well for the team’s ability to sign Ray to a long-term deal. Allen will be the hottest commodity on this year’s free agent market and there will be suitors. Some have suspected that Seattle was the front runner to retain Allen’s services, but is there any way he is going to re-sign if he hates his teammates? Furthermore, Vladimir is a free agent this summer and you have to question whether Ray is going to return if his buddy is gone.
The initial reports coming out of Milwaukee on Ben Sheets are not entirely encouraging if you are a Brewer fan or have Big Ben on your fantasy team. Sheets is coming off a very good year where he posted an ERA of 2.70, but he had back surgery this winter and it does not appear at first glance that he is back to his old self. The other night, he got lit up in two and two thirds innings against the Rangers and afterwards, he characterized his performance as being “terrible.” Asked whether he was worried about Tuesday’s showing, Sheets said “not overly worried, but worried. [I] better get it together.” Sheets says he feels fine and so it’s possible the big right-hander is just a bit rusty, but this is no laughing matter for the Milwaukee front office. Sheets is the key to this team’s upcoming season and there is virtually no way they can compete in the NL Central unless he is at full strength. Moreover, the Brewers had been hoping to lock Sheets up to a long-term deal this spring but that may prove difficult now that there are question marks about Ben’s health. He isn’t a free agent until after 2006, but the feeling is that although Sheets wants to stay in Milwaukee, he could be tempted to test the waters if he is not locked-up this year. I am actually surprised the idiots writing for the New York tabloids haven’t picked up on this story yet. My bet is if Sheets doesn’t sign a contract by opening day, we will see a story in April where the Post predicts Sheets will be in the Yankee rotation by the 2006 trading deadline.
Speaking of bad newspapers, Steeler fans should have some concerns today about getting their news from the Pittsburgh Gazette. In this morning’s edition, the Gazette reported that the Steelers had exchanged contract proposals with former Patriot Tackle Adrian Klemm. The piece, which was very brief, implies that negotiations were still in flux. This is a bit odd given the fact that Klemm signed a two-year deal with the Green Bay Packers yesterday. Perhaps the Gazette’s beat writer should begin checking NFL.com or the transaction wire before he hands in his stories. As an alternative, the Gazette needs to push back its deadline so their stories aren’t trumped by news breaking after lunch. It just so happens that the Gazette was not the only paper to butcher this story. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in today’s editions that Klemm is “one of the more physically gifted offensive lineman left on the free agent market” and has “the size and quickness” to handle Green Bay’s vacant left guard position. As a former Patriot fan, I can only say the Journal Sentinel is guilty of grossly exaggerating Klemm’s abilities. He was perhaps the worst pick made during the Belichek era and the Pats were counting the days until his contract expired. And aside from his questionable skills, Klemm has also shown no ability to stay healthy, having missed 54 games over his five year career. The Packers lost two guards this year to free agency and did nothing yesterday to remediate the situation.
The Rams Orlando Pace sure cashed in yesterday. After three years of playing under one-year contracts, the left tackle was able to finally secure a long-term deal that will pay him $15 million up front and $52 million over seven years, That is sick money for a six-time pro bowler who some consider to be very good but a step below the league’s elite. It also does not seem to be a wisest of use of money as far as the Rams are concerned. Listen, I understand that it is important to protect your quarterback’s blind side and therefore having a competent left tackle is critical. And I also understand that good left tackles don’t come cheap. But the Rams have basically given this guy a contract fit for a quarterback. And one thing to consider is the following. The Rams gave up 50 sacks last year. That was 27th in the league. Sure, the St. Louis line did get killed by injuries last year, but I got to think that some of those sacks came on Pace’s watch. Given their problems last year, I am not sure the Rams could afford to let Pace go, but after seeing these contract terms, I am not sure the Rams can now afford to do much else.
It is being reported that the Kansas City Chiefs are lobbying for a rule change that would reconcile the NFL’s pass interference rules with those in college. Specifically, the Chiefs want to see the penalty reduced for pass interference from the spot of the flag to fifteen yards. In other words, the Chiefs are seeking to cap the penalty and thus avoid situations where a flag can cost a team 30 or 40 yards of field position. The boys over at Pro Football Talk think the Chiefs are seeking the change purely out of self-interest since Randy Moss now plays in their division and the Chiefs are worried what Randy will do to their sub-standard secondary. If this theory is correct, the Chiefs motivation is comparable to a drug company that knows it has an unsafe drug on the market and is lobbying for legislation that would cap its exposure to potential damages. I would not support such a proposal in the public policy arena, but in this instance, I think Kansas City’s proposal should be adopted since I have long felt that the NFL’s penalty is too stiff. The current rule also encourages receivers to bitch about every bit of contact they receive down field and perhaps if you reduce the reward of drawing a flag, a small amount of this bellyaching will cease. If I had to guess, I suspect the guy who will fight the Chiefs on this topic is none other then my good friend Bill Polian. The Colts GM fought long and hard to strengthen the pass interference rules after the 2003 seasons and I am sure he doesn’t want to see the league go back to the dark ages when cornerbacks actually had a fighting chance. And as long as we are taking a look at penalties, I think colleges should re-consider their rule that penalizes offensive holding from the spot of the foul. Because these penalties are often flagged five yards upfield, they frequently result in drive killing fifteen yard assessments. That is just too much.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
March 16 - Cowboy Up - OSU to Win NCAAs
Well, after much deliberation, I am taking the Oklahoma State Cowboys to win this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship. I am far from confident with my pick, but I am going with the Cowboys because I feel Eddie Sutton has a real nice squad and it is finally his time to cut down the nets. Oklahoma State just seems to me like the most well rounded team in the tourney. As is customary for a Sutton team, the Cowboys play solid man-to-man defense and they have the ability to shut down good perimeter players. On offense, the Cowboys have some firepower in Joey Graham and John Lucas; and if Dan Bobik or JamesOn Curry can make some outside shots, Oklahoma State has more then enough ammo. But that is not to say the road to the championship will be easy. A third round game with Arizona or LSU could be tricky especially if LSU is the opponent. The Tigers have a ton of muscle inside and if Oklahoma State has a weakness, it is a tendency to have problems guarding size. Wayne Simien ate then alive late in the season and they simply do not have that much size other then Graham and Ivan McFarlin. Once past the regional semis, Illinois looms in what basically amounts to be home game for the Illini. Oklahoma State will have a hard time beating Illinois in Chicago, but I think they have the kind of athletes that can shut down the Illini’s vaunted perimeter trio. In my mind, the winner of this game will be National Champion. From there, I think the Cowboys take out either Louisville or Washington in the semis and North Carolina in the Finals. Carolina has more talent than Oklahoma State, but the Cowboys play better defense and are more likely to make plays in the big spot. That is why I think you will see a lot of Eddie Sutton's mug when CBS concludes its 2005 tourney coverage with a little "One Shinning Moment."
Aside from Oklahoma State and North Carolina, I am picking Oklahoma and Louisville to make it to St. Louis. This gives me a number 1, 2, 3 and 4 seed and two teams from a state better known for its football than its basketball. In the regional finals, I am picking Ok State over Illinois, North Carolina over Kansas, Louisville over Wake and Oklahoma over Duke. I like UNC over Kansas simply because Carolina has a deeper team and an answer for Wayne Simien in Sean May. I also am a huge seller of Kansas point guard Arron Miles and I think he will end up costing Kansas a final four spot, much like he did a year ago against Georgia Tech. This is saying a lot since he will be up against a guy on Carolina – Ray Felton – who is just as likely to collapse in a big spot. This game, by the way, will be almost un-watchable since the announcing team will surely bombard its viewers with references to Roy Williams coaching against the kids he recruited at Kansas. Out West, I don’t love Louisville, but I think the draw is favorable and complementary of their style. I see them getting a crack at Washington and Wake in the Regionals and both of these teams like to play it fast and loose. This suits Louisville just fine and I think they will be able to conjure up just enough offense from their big three to move on. These games should be played in the 80s and 90s. As for Oklahoma, I think they play a physical kind of basketball that will drive Duke crazy. Other then Sheldon Williams, Duke is a finesse team and my guess is sharpshooter J.J. Reddick will find it much more difficult to get his shot off against the Sooners than those soft defenses he plays against in the ACC. Oklahoma is a bit hard to watch, but I think they will be able to throw Duke around on the inside and scare up just enough offense to move.
If I had to pick some upsets or early exits, I would start with LSU over Arizona. The Tigers have loads of muscle inside and Arizona simply has no answer. Channing Frye is a better than average inside player, but he is all alone and I see him wearing down against LSU’s two headed behemoth down low. Lute’s team is dangerous with Salim Stoudamire shooting the way he has all season, but the cats are shallow, inconsistent and destined to lose this game. I also see Syracuse having some trouble getting out of the opening weekend. Boeheim’s club should find an answer to stop Vermont’s Taylor Coppenrath in the opening round, but I don’t think the Orangemen are all that good, especially if Gerry McNammara is anything short of lights out. He saved the Orange from an early exit last year, but he has been inconsistent all season and I don’t see history repeating itself. As such, Tom Izzo will find a way for his Spartans to win that second round game and move on to Austin where they will get a rematch with Duke. I am also a seller of Kentucky. I think they get out of the weekend, but I don’t see them moving any further then the regional semis. They were soundly whipped by Florida last weekend and that follows a loss to Gators the prior week. The Wildcats have been far from impressive in recent weeks and I sometimes wonder how they manage to score 60 points. They can play defense, but there is no one on the roster that can step up and make key shots with the game on the line. Tubby and his Cats have developed a reputation of underachieving in recent tourneys and I think this year will be no different And staying within the Southeast, I don’t think Florida is nearly as good as people as some pundits suggest. The team, which hasn’t done a thing in the tourney since 2000, is playing better defense than in years past, but that isn’t saying a whole lot given the comparables. Their resume is basically buttressed by a couple of wins over Kentucky but how impressive are those given Kentucky’s flaws? Further, I just cannot stand Matt Walsh. It’s hard to pick against seeded teams in the first round, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see Florida go down against a very physical team from Ohio.
As far as my Bruins go, I am going with my heart and giving them a win over Texas Tech before they exit at the hands of the Zags. Thursday night against the Red Raiders, I am looking for a little payback that Bobby Knights has had coming since his Indiana squad whipped the Bruins in a 1992 regional final. That game was over early, but Knight had his dogs pawing at the carcass late in the game and its time for him to pay a long-overdue bill. I honestly feel the Bruins stand a good chance to win this game. Texas Tech is passable, but they are nothing special. Ron Ross is a real nice player but Tech doesn’t play great defense or rebound too well and I think that will give Dijon Thompson the opportunity to have a big game for UCLA. History is certainly on UCLA’s side in this one as Bobby Knight has not made it to the regionals since 1994. He has a ton of early round blemishes on his resume and on Thursday night, he will add another.
Do you think Barry Bonds is going to sleep well over the next several weeks? The bet here is that Bonds is going to be walking on egg shells this spring as he waits to see whether his former trainer – Greg Anderson - becomes a government witness. Anderson has been accused to distributing steroids and it now looks like he plans to cut a deal with the government rather then face a jury. “Syringe Boy” was supposed to appear at a hearing yesterday in which he was to argue in favor of a dismissal, but Anderson’s lawyer asked that the hearing be delayed while a plea could be negotiated. This begs the question of whether the government is on the verge of flipping this guy. Hell, if faced with ten years in federal prison, I suspect Anderson would do anything to halve his time and that includes giving up his friend Barry. We already know Bonds told the grand jury that he received steroids from Anderson, but Bonds has maintained that he thought the drugs were nothing more than flaxseed oil and a balm to fight arthritis. That is his testimony under oath, but what if Anderson flips and suggests that Bonds testimony was far from truthful? Instead of just being a hayseed addicted to flaxseed, Anderson could testify that Bonds was a knowing and willing accomplice. It strikes me that the prosecutors in this case will jump at the opportunity to rope Bonds into this case. And if number twenty-five lied to the grand jury, Anderson could hold the key. And if you don’t think Anderson’s testimony is enough to sink Bonds, than you obviously were not following Bernie Ebbers trial. Barry is now staring at a problem that goes far beyond any he confronts on the field. He faces a juiced-up Justice Department that may soon have him by his steroid-impaired testicles. And unfortunately for Barry, no flaxseed oil in the world will help him hit the splitter that is coming his way.
I thought it was impossible to outdo Elgin Baylor and the Los Angeles Clippers when it comes to poor drafting, but after reading a recent piece by ESPN’s Len Pasquerelli, I think the Cleveland Browns are perhaps in the same ballpark. The ineptitude of the Browns was highlighted earlier this week when the team released defensive tackle Courtney Brown - the player the Browns selected with the first pick in the 2000 NFL draft. Number one picks in the NFL draft are supposed to be six-time pro bowlers and not released after five unexceptional years. Brown’s release comes right on the heals of the Browns decision to trade 2001 first round pick Gerald Warren to the Broncos for a fourth round pick in this years draft. Mind you, Warren was the third player selected in the entire draft and has now been shipped off for a pick that will be made long after ESPN ends their Saturday draft-day coverage. If this isn’t bad enough, the Browns first picks in 1999 and 2002 snagged Tim Couch and William Green. Couch, who was also the first player selected in the entire draft, was released by the Browns a couple years back and is now one step away from calling Edmonton his home. Meanwhile, Green has never averaged four yards a carry in his three seasons and has been caught sniffing the sideline chalk on a few occasions. It is almost impossible to conceive a track record this bad, but it gets worse when you factor in the Browns second rounders. It’s a virtual whose who of journeymen wide receivers. How would you like these picks on your resume: Kevin Johnson, Dennis Northcutt, Quincy Morgan and Andre Davis? This is tantamount to picking Gallagher, Carrot, Paully Shore and Colin Quinn if you were assembling a comedy team.
To illustrate just how bad the Browns record in the second round, has been, I submit 2002 as exhibit A. In that draft, the Browns selected the underwhelming Morgan. Quince made no impression whatsoever and was shipped off to Dallas this year for an old oil rig and two season tickets to the Dallas Stars. That same year, the Patriots were able to snag both of their starting wideouts - Deion Branch and David Givens - after the Browns had selected Morgan. With this track record, is it any wonder that 2004 first rounder Kellen Winslow broke his leg in the second game of last season? In fact, I am surprised he is still alive. Now the Browns have finally brought in some guys who may be able to turn this nightmare around. Phil Savage, who had great success in Baltimore, has been brought in to oversee personnel and Romeo Cornell has been brought in from New England to coach. These guys have great pedigrees and if they cannot get it right, then I will give some credence to the theory that this city was cursed the day Art Modell took the original Browns to Baltimore.
While we are talking about idiotic draft composers, I must take a second to highlight the magnificent record of my friend Elgin Baylor – the “Architect of Ass.” Over the past nineteen years, Elgin has put together as ghastly a resume as any on this planet. Here are some of the first round beauties with their selection years in parentheses: Reggie Williams (87), Joe Wolf (87), Danny Ferry (89), Bo Kimble (90), LeRon Ellis (91), Randy Woods (92), Elmore Smith (92), Terry Dehere (93), Lamond Murray (94), Lorenzan Wright (96), Maurice Taylor (97), Michael Olowakandi (98), Darius Miles (00), Chirs Kaman (03). There have been some decent picks sprinkled in there – Lamar Odom, Danny Manning, and Antonio McDyess - but not too many. With this track record, is it any surprise that the Clippers have had just one winning record since Baylor got there in 1986? He seems like a nicest guy in the world, but he cannot pick personnel to save his life. Can you imagine this guy going on the basketball version of “Lets Make a Deal?” with Monty Hall. I can just imagine it now – Baylor has just won the rights to Yao but Monty gives him the option of trading those rights for the opportunity to win a giant timberwolf behind door number three. Baylor, expecting to land Kevin Garnett, takes the deal but it ends up backfiring and all Baylor wins is a 125 pound Alaskan malamute. Such is the history of Elgin Baylor and the Los Angeles Scissors.
If this isn’t irony, I don’t know what is. It is being reported in some circles that New England Patriot linebacker Teddy Bruschi is suffering from a hole in his heart and will have surgery shortly to correct the problem. Bruschi, as you may remember, had a mild stroke last month and some reports suggest that this heart condition may have contributed to his aneurism. Bruschi’s play on the field has always been about heart and wouldn’t it be ironic to see his career end because he bore a hole right through that muscle? I have no idea if Bruschi is ever going to return to the field but it certainly doesn’t look too promising right now. If this is indeed it, I will remember number 54 as a great guy who left it all on the field and evidently that now includes a small piece of his heart. Get well soon Teddy.
Speaking of wounded Patriots, is cornerback Ty Law going to find a home next year? Law reportedly wants big money, but NFL teams, including the Kansas City Chiefs, are leery of giving him an eight figure signing bonus until they are sure that his badly injured foot has healed. Law is the victim of poor timing. More then four months after injuring his foot, he is still walking around in an inflatable boot and that is not exactly the kind of thing that teams want to see when they are courting a free agent. That is kind of like a man showing up to a porn audition with a bandage around his dong. Kansas City is reportedly interested in Law but they seem willing to keep their powder dry until Law can demonstrate that he is healthy. That is at least a few weeks off and perhaps much longer. The Steelers are also in the mix, but Law’s price tag may be out of their price range. In fact, so long as injury concerns persist, his price may be out of everyone’s range. So what does the future hold for the Lawman? Who knows for sure but he may be forced to sign a one year deal with someone and use 2005 as an opportunity to re-establish his value. Law has basically become another Nomar. He gave up big money from the Pats because he thought they were disrespectful and following an injury, he finds that there is barely a market for his services. If my Nomar theory holds, I guess Law is going to marry soccer player Heather Mitts and wind up in Chicago playing for the Bears. All kidding aside, who is to say Ty doesn’t end up back in New England under a one year deal? He is probably too proud to do that and I am not sure Belichek would take him back, but stranger things have happened.
I penned a piece in this space on February 11 predicting the ouster of Virginia Basketball coach Pete Gillen. It took about five weeks, but my predictions were borne out on Monday when the folks down at Monticello said they had seen enough mediocrity during Gillen’s reign to last a lifetime. Gillen closed out the year with a terrific 1-6 flourish, but he did accomplish something that he had previously not done in six previous years and that is win a game in the ACC tourney. Rather then see Gillen torment UVA fans a single day longer, UVA did the smart thing and bought him out for two million dollars. So where does UVA go from here? Not very far, if you ask me. Gillen is returning this car with barely any fumes in the tank. The Wahoos are losing perhaps their two best players - Elton Brown and Devin Smith – to graduation and all that leaves are some young guards who cannot shoot straight. So who is going to replace Gillen and resurrect this bombed out program? I can’t give you that answer but I can comment on a totally asinine rumor I heard yesterday out of the mouth of WFAN’s Mike Francesca. The fat man had the audacity to go on the air and say “somebody told me that Tommy Amaker is a possibility.” I got to know who that source was and my guess is that it was a Michigan alum who is praying that Amaker leaves Ann Arbor. Other then an NIT title, Amaker has done nothing in his four years at Michigan and is a good candidate to be fired next year. Francesca begrudgingly conceded this point but fired back that Amaker is a Virginian and so it makes a lot of sense for him to go home. Go home? Amaker is from Falls Church and that is a hundred miles from Charlottesville. Moreover, if Amaker has such a longing for home, why did he choose to attend Duke over Virginia? The moral to this story is Francesca had absolutely no insight on this subject whatsoever and got caught out on the limb pitching a ridiculous rumor that he probably made up in the first place. As his partner Chris Russo is apt to say: “Bad Job!”
Aside from Oklahoma State and North Carolina, I am picking Oklahoma and Louisville to make it to St. Louis. This gives me a number 1, 2, 3 and 4 seed and two teams from a state better known for its football than its basketball. In the regional finals, I am picking Ok State over Illinois, North Carolina over Kansas, Louisville over Wake and Oklahoma over Duke. I like UNC over Kansas simply because Carolina has a deeper team and an answer for Wayne Simien in Sean May. I also am a huge seller of Kansas point guard Arron Miles and I think he will end up costing Kansas a final four spot, much like he did a year ago against Georgia Tech. This is saying a lot since he will be up against a guy on Carolina – Ray Felton – who is just as likely to collapse in a big spot. This game, by the way, will be almost un-watchable since the announcing team will surely bombard its viewers with references to Roy Williams coaching against the kids he recruited at Kansas. Out West, I don’t love Louisville, but I think the draw is favorable and complementary of their style. I see them getting a crack at Washington and Wake in the Regionals and both of these teams like to play it fast and loose. This suits Louisville just fine and I think they will be able to conjure up just enough offense from their big three to move on. These games should be played in the 80s and 90s. As for Oklahoma, I think they play a physical kind of basketball that will drive Duke crazy. Other then Sheldon Williams, Duke is a finesse team and my guess is sharpshooter J.J. Reddick will find it much more difficult to get his shot off against the Sooners than those soft defenses he plays against in the ACC. Oklahoma is a bit hard to watch, but I think they will be able to throw Duke around on the inside and scare up just enough offense to move.
If I had to pick some upsets or early exits, I would start with LSU over Arizona. The Tigers have loads of muscle inside and Arizona simply has no answer. Channing Frye is a better than average inside player, but he is all alone and I see him wearing down against LSU’s two headed behemoth down low. Lute’s team is dangerous with Salim Stoudamire shooting the way he has all season, but the cats are shallow, inconsistent and destined to lose this game. I also see Syracuse having some trouble getting out of the opening weekend. Boeheim’s club should find an answer to stop Vermont’s Taylor Coppenrath in the opening round, but I don’t think the Orangemen are all that good, especially if Gerry McNammara is anything short of lights out. He saved the Orange from an early exit last year, but he has been inconsistent all season and I don’t see history repeating itself. As such, Tom Izzo will find a way for his Spartans to win that second round game and move on to Austin where they will get a rematch with Duke. I am also a seller of Kentucky. I think they get out of the weekend, but I don’t see them moving any further then the regional semis. They were soundly whipped by Florida last weekend and that follows a loss to Gators the prior week. The Wildcats have been far from impressive in recent weeks and I sometimes wonder how they manage to score 60 points. They can play defense, but there is no one on the roster that can step up and make key shots with the game on the line. Tubby and his Cats have developed a reputation of underachieving in recent tourneys and I think this year will be no different And staying within the Southeast, I don’t think Florida is nearly as good as people as some pundits suggest. The team, which hasn’t done a thing in the tourney since 2000, is playing better defense than in years past, but that isn’t saying a whole lot given the comparables. Their resume is basically buttressed by a couple of wins over Kentucky but how impressive are those given Kentucky’s flaws? Further, I just cannot stand Matt Walsh. It’s hard to pick against seeded teams in the first round, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see Florida go down against a very physical team from Ohio.
As far as my Bruins go, I am going with my heart and giving them a win over Texas Tech before they exit at the hands of the Zags. Thursday night against the Red Raiders, I am looking for a little payback that Bobby Knights has had coming since his Indiana squad whipped the Bruins in a 1992 regional final. That game was over early, but Knight had his dogs pawing at the carcass late in the game and its time for him to pay a long-overdue bill. I honestly feel the Bruins stand a good chance to win this game. Texas Tech is passable, but they are nothing special. Ron Ross is a real nice player but Tech doesn’t play great defense or rebound too well and I think that will give Dijon Thompson the opportunity to have a big game for UCLA. History is certainly on UCLA’s side in this one as Bobby Knight has not made it to the regionals since 1994. He has a ton of early round blemishes on his resume and on Thursday night, he will add another.
Do you think Barry Bonds is going to sleep well over the next several weeks? The bet here is that Bonds is going to be walking on egg shells this spring as he waits to see whether his former trainer – Greg Anderson - becomes a government witness. Anderson has been accused to distributing steroids and it now looks like he plans to cut a deal with the government rather then face a jury. “Syringe Boy” was supposed to appear at a hearing yesterday in which he was to argue in favor of a dismissal, but Anderson’s lawyer asked that the hearing be delayed while a plea could be negotiated. This begs the question of whether the government is on the verge of flipping this guy. Hell, if faced with ten years in federal prison, I suspect Anderson would do anything to halve his time and that includes giving up his friend Barry. We already know Bonds told the grand jury that he received steroids from Anderson, but Bonds has maintained that he thought the drugs were nothing more than flaxseed oil and a balm to fight arthritis. That is his testimony under oath, but what if Anderson flips and suggests that Bonds testimony was far from truthful? Instead of just being a hayseed addicted to flaxseed, Anderson could testify that Bonds was a knowing and willing accomplice. It strikes me that the prosecutors in this case will jump at the opportunity to rope Bonds into this case. And if number twenty-five lied to the grand jury, Anderson could hold the key. And if you don’t think Anderson’s testimony is enough to sink Bonds, than you obviously were not following Bernie Ebbers trial. Barry is now staring at a problem that goes far beyond any he confronts on the field. He faces a juiced-up Justice Department that may soon have him by his steroid-impaired testicles. And unfortunately for Barry, no flaxseed oil in the world will help him hit the splitter that is coming his way.
I thought it was impossible to outdo Elgin Baylor and the Los Angeles Clippers when it comes to poor drafting, but after reading a recent piece by ESPN’s Len Pasquerelli, I think the Cleveland Browns are perhaps in the same ballpark. The ineptitude of the Browns was highlighted earlier this week when the team released defensive tackle Courtney Brown - the player the Browns selected with the first pick in the 2000 NFL draft. Number one picks in the NFL draft are supposed to be six-time pro bowlers and not released after five unexceptional years. Brown’s release comes right on the heals of the Browns decision to trade 2001 first round pick Gerald Warren to the Broncos for a fourth round pick in this years draft. Mind you, Warren was the third player selected in the entire draft and has now been shipped off for a pick that will be made long after ESPN ends their Saturday draft-day coverage. If this isn’t bad enough, the Browns first picks in 1999 and 2002 snagged Tim Couch and William Green. Couch, who was also the first player selected in the entire draft, was released by the Browns a couple years back and is now one step away from calling Edmonton his home. Meanwhile, Green has never averaged four yards a carry in his three seasons and has been caught sniffing the sideline chalk on a few occasions. It is almost impossible to conceive a track record this bad, but it gets worse when you factor in the Browns second rounders. It’s a virtual whose who of journeymen wide receivers. How would you like these picks on your resume: Kevin Johnson, Dennis Northcutt, Quincy Morgan and Andre Davis? This is tantamount to picking Gallagher, Carrot, Paully Shore and Colin Quinn if you were assembling a comedy team.
To illustrate just how bad the Browns record in the second round, has been, I submit 2002 as exhibit A. In that draft, the Browns selected the underwhelming Morgan. Quince made no impression whatsoever and was shipped off to Dallas this year for an old oil rig and two season tickets to the Dallas Stars. That same year, the Patriots were able to snag both of their starting wideouts - Deion Branch and David Givens - after the Browns had selected Morgan. With this track record, is it any wonder that 2004 first rounder Kellen Winslow broke his leg in the second game of last season? In fact, I am surprised he is still alive. Now the Browns have finally brought in some guys who may be able to turn this nightmare around. Phil Savage, who had great success in Baltimore, has been brought in to oversee personnel and Romeo Cornell has been brought in from New England to coach. These guys have great pedigrees and if they cannot get it right, then I will give some credence to the theory that this city was cursed the day Art Modell took the original Browns to Baltimore.
While we are talking about idiotic draft composers, I must take a second to highlight the magnificent record of my friend Elgin Baylor – the “Architect of Ass.” Over the past nineteen years, Elgin has put together as ghastly a resume as any on this planet. Here are some of the first round beauties with their selection years in parentheses: Reggie Williams (87), Joe Wolf (87), Danny Ferry (89), Bo Kimble (90), LeRon Ellis (91), Randy Woods (92), Elmore Smith (92), Terry Dehere (93), Lamond Murray (94), Lorenzan Wright (96), Maurice Taylor (97), Michael Olowakandi (98), Darius Miles (00), Chirs Kaman (03). There have been some decent picks sprinkled in there – Lamar Odom, Danny Manning, and Antonio McDyess - but not too many. With this track record, is it any surprise that the Clippers have had just one winning record since Baylor got there in 1986? He seems like a nicest guy in the world, but he cannot pick personnel to save his life. Can you imagine this guy going on the basketball version of “Lets Make a Deal?” with Monty Hall. I can just imagine it now – Baylor has just won the rights to Yao but Monty gives him the option of trading those rights for the opportunity to win a giant timberwolf behind door number three. Baylor, expecting to land Kevin Garnett, takes the deal but it ends up backfiring and all Baylor wins is a 125 pound Alaskan malamute. Such is the history of Elgin Baylor and the Los Angeles Scissors.
If this isn’t irony, I don’t know what is. It is being reported in some circles that New England Patriot linebacker Teddy Bruschi is suffering from a hole in his heart and will have surgery shortly to correct the problem. Bruschi, as you may remember, had a mild stroke last month and some reports suggest that this heart condition may have contributed to his aneurism. Bruschi’s play on the field has always been about heart and wouldn’t it be ironic to see his career end because he bore a hole right through that muscle? I have no idea if Bruschi is ever going to return to the field but it certainly doesn’t look too promising right now. If this is indeed it, I will remember number 54 as a great guy who left it all on the field and evidently that now includes a small piece of his heart. Get well soon Teddy.
Speaking of wounded Patriots, is cornerback Ty Law going to find a home next year? Law reportedly wants big money, but NFL teams, including the Kansas City Chiefs, are leery of giving him an eight figure signing bonus until they are sure that his badly injured foot has healed. Law is the victim of poor timing. More then four months after injuring his foot, he is still walking around in an inflatable boot and that is not exactly the kind of thing that teams want to see when they are courting a free agent. That is kind of like a man showing up to a porn audition with a bandage around his dong. Kansas City is reportedly interested in Law but they seem willing to keep their powder dry until Law can demonstrate that he is healthy. That is at least a few weeks off and perhaps much longer. The Steelers are also in the mix, but Law’s price tag may be out of their price range. In fact, so long as injury concerns persist, his price may be out of everyone’s range. So what does the future hold for the Lawman? Who knows for sure but he may be forced to sign a one year deal with someone and use 2005 as an opportunity to re-establish his value. Law has basically become another Nomar. He gave up big money from the Pats because he thought they were disrespectful and following an injury, he finds that there is barely a market for his services. If my Nomar theory holds, I guess Law is going to marry soccer player Heather Mitts and wind up in Chicago playing for the Bears. All kidding aside, who is to say Ty doesn’t end up back in New England under a one year deal? He is probably too proud to do that and I am not sure Belichek would take him back, but stranger things have happened.
I penned a piece in this space on February 11 predicting the ouster of Virginia Basketball coach Pete Gillen. It took about five weeks, but my predictions were borne out on Monday when the folks down at Monticello said they had seen enough mediocrity during Gillen’s reign to last a lifetime. Gillen closed out the year with a terrific 1-6 flourish, but he did accomplish something that he had previously not done in six previous years and that is win a game in the ACC tourney. Rather then see Gillen torment UVA fans a single day longer, UVA did the smart thing and bought him out for two million dollars. So where does UVA go from here? Not very far, if you ask me. Gillen is returning this car with barely any fumes in the tank. The Wahoos are losing perhaps their two best players - Elton Brown and Devin Smith – to graduation and all that leaves are some young guards who cannot shoot straight. So who is going to replace Gillen and resurrect this bombed out program? I can’t give you that answer but I can comment on a totally asinine rumor I heard yesterday out of the mouth of WFAN’s Mike Francesca. The fat man had the audacity to go on the air and say “somebody told me that Tommy Amaker is a possibility.” I got to know who that source was and my guess is that it was a Michigan alum who is praying that Amaker leaves Ann Arbor. Other then an NIT title, Amaker has done nothing in his four years at Michigan and is a good candidate to be fired next year. Francesca begrudgingly conceded this point but fired back that Amaker is a Virginian and so it makes a lot of sense for him to go home. Go home? Amaker is from Falls Church and that is a hundred miles from Charlottesville. Moreover, if Amaker has such a longing for home, why did he choose to attend Duke over Virginia? The moral to this story is Francesca had absolutely no insight on this subject whatsoever and got caught out on the limb pitching a ridiculous rumor that he probably made up in the first place. As his partner Chris Russo is apt to say: “Bad Job!”
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
March 15 - Black Sunday
One of the first things I noticed the other day when the NCAA announced their basketball tournament pairings was the fact that both North Carolina and Duke would both be playing their opening round games just down Tobacco Road (I-40) in Charlotte. This would appear to be a pretty strange occurrence since highly ranked teams from the same conference are routinely split up – at least they were until the tourney organizers re-formatted the tourney a few years back. But this wasn’t always the case and these two teams were once involved in an incident that is often referred to in ACC lore as Black Sunday. The day in question happened back in 1979 and it was most likely the worst day in the storied history of Tobacco Road Basketball.
The setting was a doubleheader in the second round of the 1979 tourney in Raleigh. In the first game, number two seeded Duke squared off with a St. John’s team that was the last to be invited to that year’s tourney. They were number 40 in a field of 40. And they were up against a big-time Duke team that had played for the national championship the year before and had come back virtually intact. But on that Sunday, the Devils squandered a halftime lead and ended up on the losing end of an 80-78 upset. The silence could be heard all the way to Ashville in the West to Wilmington in the East. This debacle was a shocker but it paled in comparison to what followed. In the nightcap, the number-one seeded Heels went up against the Penn Quakers from the Ivy League – a team led by some guy named Phil Sellers. The Heels, meanwhile, were led by a high scoring pair of forwards named Mike O’Koren and Al Wood. O’Koren was an All-American who would go on to be a longtime NBA’er while Wood happened to be good enough to make the 1980 US Olympic Basketball team. But on that day in 1979, none of that mattered. North Carolina jumped out to a first half lead, but Penn rallied to take the lead with about ten minutes to go and UNC never got the lead back. After some tense late game free throws, the clock sounded, bands all over the state began playing taps, and Governor Jim Hunt declared that the Chapel Hill-Durham corridor was a disaster area.
Not only had these North Carolina powerhouses lost, but they did it in their own backyard to the heaviest of underdogs. In a basketball crazed state like North Carolina, the details of that dark day are still discussed by old-timers and columnists. The obvious question now is whether we will see a rerun this weekend? I sincerely doubt it. I just don’t see Duke and UNC both losing, although I cannot say I would be shocked if Iowa State found a way to beat Roy Williams. However, history does have a strange tendency to repeat itself and in this case, the circumstances are a bit similar. The only prediction I will make is I can guarantee CBS will flag this issue during this weekend’s broadcast. I suspect Billy Packer will snag this plum assignment and because he is an ACC historian, there is almost no chance that he can help himself from bringing up this tidbit. You can count on that.
What does the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Committee have against Mormons and the Great state of Utah? For the fifth time since 1993, The Committee has seen fit to put Utah in the same region as their nemesis from Lexington Kentucky. Someone like former Utah Coach Rick Majerus must have done something in the early 90s to anger the Committee because ever since, the Utes have been joined at the hip with Kentucky when the tourney brackets are released each year. Just look at the evidence. In 1993, the teams played in the second round with Utah losing by 21. In 1996, Utah, led by Keith Van Horn, got a rematch in the regional semis and lost by 31. The following year was round three when the two teams met in a regional final and Utah was able to hold Kentucky to a relatively modest 13 point victory. Twelve months later, the selection committee took it easy on Utah and separated the two schools. Utah, led by Andre Miler, took advantage of this opportunity and played itself all the way to the national championship game. And who was waiting there ready to face them? None other then the KU Wildcats who summarily dispatched the Utes for the third year in a row. After that game, the two schools were given a respite from one another until 2003 when they squared off in a second round game that Kentucky won by 21. So in the course of 11 years, Kentucky went 5-0 against the Utes and outscored them by 95 points.
That is pretty bleak stuff for the Utes. But if this history isn’t bad enough, look at where the two teams are bracketed this year. Yep, on the same side of the bracket down there in Austin. And that brings up the possibility that if Utah can somehow get by UTEP and Oklahoma, they will go up against Kentucky for the sixth time since 1993. What did Utah do to deserve this? Is it because the state caps the alcohol content of bourbon at 40 proof? Is it because Utah voters passed a referendum in 1993 that outlawed the expansion of fried chicken outlets throughout the state? Or perhaps the curse was born in 1995 when Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said he preferred Sandra Bullock to Kentucky’s own Ashley Judd. The thought of losing for a sixth time has got to really depress Utah fans. But take heart Utes – if you lose this year, I believe that you can rest assured that you won’t have to play Kentucky for another decade. That is because the 8th Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and based on a fair interpretation of the word cruel, I believe five Supremes would agree that the constitution protects Utah fans from a seventh loss.
The Chicago Cubs have some major leagues problems sprouting and we haven’t even made it halfway through Spring Training. First, Kerry Wood developed some soreness in his right arm and it is now being reported that twenty-four year old Mark Prior is experiencing pain in his right elbow. The Cubs are trying to downplay the significance of each injury but there has to be some alarm in the Chicago front office. Prior missed two months last year with an elbow injury and this is clearly not a good sign even though “The Natural” says it feels like an entirely different injury. This guy is just too young to be coming down with all these injuries. And it’s a bit odd since he has a picture perfect delivery that experts think should minimize his risk of injury. Woods case is another story entirely. The Cubs fireballer seems to get hurt every year and this annual rite of spring has got to be fraying the nerves of Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry. It is still early and these injuries may recede, but this is clearly a red flag for the Cubs. Their season is wholly dependant of having both these right arms available and the loss of either for an extended period would be crippling. The Cardinals just went from 3-1 to 5-2 to win the division.
Another city that is holding its collective breathe over some budding pitching problems is New York. Fans in the Big Apple awoke this morning to two distressing news items involving major league pitchers. The first involves Met Steve Trachsel and his problems with an ailing back. Trachsel, an innings eater who was penciled in to be the Mets fifth starter, flew out to LA last night last night to get his back checked out by a specialist. Trachsel is hoping to avoid surgery, but at the very least, he is now scheduled to start the season on the disabled list. Missing a few weeks wouldn’t be too problematic, but if Trachsel needs surgery, there is no telling whether he will be available to pitch at all this year. That would be a pretty significant blow to a Mets team that thinks it can contend in the NL East if things come together. Losing Trachsel for an extended period of time was not part of the plan. Meanwhile, the news coming out of Yankee land is potentially more serious, although it may end up being nothing at all. It seems Yankee difference maker Mariano Rivera has developed bursitis in his elbow after not throwing much in the off-season. This may just be a spring training flare up, but what if it is the beginning of something more serious? Rivera is 35 and has had shoulder issues in the past, but this is his first experience with an elbow problem. If this is the first sign of a chronic condition, the Yankees just got socked with news that is far more lethal then the Luxury tax. Although Rivera came up small for the Yankees last October, he is still their most important player. If he starts laboring because on an elbow injury, Joe Torre is up a creek without a closer and the AL East just got a lot more interesting. This is because Torre has nowhere to turn - Tom Gordon proved in last year’s ALCS that he wants no part of the spotlight and Felix Rodriguez proved in 2002 that he is not a capable closer. The Yankees can still win without Rivera, but his absence would probably cost them six games this year. If you don’t believe me, just look at how many games the Giants and Indians blew last year.
I may be alone with this opinion, but I think Steve Lavin is a pretty good color commentator. Without a doubt, the greased up sexual predator is better on the microphone then he ever was on the sideline. I am sure he wants to get back into coaching someday, but if I were his agent, I would counsel him to stick with this new gig. He sometimes is guilty of uttering a cliché or dropping names solely for the sake of dropping names, but, in general, he does a good job dissecting a game and communicating his findings. Lavin’s only problem is he got stuck at ESPN and ended up drawing Muss as a partner. That is some handicap for a rookie and it definitely has served to limit his airtime, but I guess it could have been worse. After all, ESPN could have stuck him with the immortal Mike Patrick. If I am CBS, I would try bringing this promising kid over by trading Bill Raftery to ESPN for Lavin. And while were at it, I propose dumping Clark Kellogg on the Boys in Bristol as long as I don’t have to take Jay Bilas in return. I am sure Lavin would gladly waive his no-trade to get out of Bristol and move to CBS in New York. Coming from UCLA, he can’t like the female situation up there in Central Connecticut.
Here is a suggestion for the NFL – if you want to market football south of the border, don’t lead off with Arizona and San Francisco in Mexico City on October 2nd. The Arizona Republic is now reporting that this game will be the league’s first regular season foray outside the United States. But this leads me to question why the league thinks the Mexicans want to see this game any more then the Phoenicians? I sure wouldn’t be interested. I know we are talking about Mexico, but I am not sure tens of thousands muchachos are going to plunk down their hard earned pesos to watch these two dogs. I would rather go see a good old fashioned Mexican cock fight then see the Cards. Despite my pessimism, I think the Cards probably stand to have a bigger gate playing this game in Mexico then Tempe. That had to play a role in deciding which team was going to bite the bullet and lose a home game. I guess the other factor involved here is that nobody goes to Arizona games anyways so no one in Tempe is going to raise a big stink that the Cardinals will only have seven home games next year.
Comedian Bill Maher is fond of telling a joke that goes like this: “Something is terribly wrong when the only person who has been fired over terrorism is me.” Well, Colorado President Betsy Hoffman can now tell a similar joke that reads as follows: “Something is terribly wrong when the only person who has fired over a college football scandal is me.” Hoffman was fired as Colorado’s president last week after a rocky couple of years, but the big blemish on her resume comes courtesy of the Colorado football program, run by 2002 man-of-the-year Gary Barnett. While Hoffman ran the university, Barnett was operating an inmate-run asylum. In recent years, a few female trainers say they were sexually assaulted by players, a couple of women are suing the school for being groped at a recruiting party and a female kicker has charged that she was sexually harassed by her teammates. Do you notice a pattern here? Barnett responded to the kicker’s accusations by claiming she was a “distraction” who also “wasn’t a very good kicker.” I wonder if Barnett would have responded the same way if her replacement had missed a game winner against Colorado State and then been ass raped in the Colorado locker room.
On top of all this, a grand jury concluded recently that Colorado’s football program operated a slush fund that is used for somewhat improper recruiting activities like hiring strippers. Barnett has remained steadfast in his own defense by claiming that the program is generally clean and he cannot be held personally responsible for watching 80 kids at all times. There is a bit of truth to this, but lets be honest. Girls are being sexually assaulted all the way from Boulder to Denver and most are identifying their assailants by scanning the CU media guide. The program, under Barnett’s watch, has become something a bit short of laudatory and yet Barnett has taken no responsibility whatsoever. And it’s not as if Barnett’s spotty record on human rights has been offset by great coaching. His records at CU since taking over are 7-5, 3-8, 10-3, 9-5, 5-7 and 8-5. Last year, his team got punked by Oklahoma 42-3 and lost a 31-7 thriller at home to Texas. Barnett has led some Colorado fans to pine for the days when the only salacious news at CU involved QB Sal Aunesse sleeping with the coach Bill McCartney’s daughter. I find it absolutely incomprehensible that Barnett has kept his job throughout all this while Hoffman went down and others linked to the athletic program have quietly resigned. Barnett has two years remaining on his contract and you got to wonder if Colorado, at this point, is just waiting for this nightmare to end.
The FCC has made a ton of boneheaded moves over the past ten years, including a series of flubs on issues concerning the pricing of telecom services and indecency, but at least they got one right yesterday. In a 5-0 decision, the Commission ruled yesterday that ABC had not violated federal decency standards when it aired a mildly racy introduction to a Monday Night Football game last year. The farcical intro at issue had Nicolette “Sure Thing” Sheriden trying to seduce Terrell Owens in the locker room before a game. There was nothing lurid about the skit and all the public saw was Nicolette dropping her towel to show off a pretty poorly toned set of back of muscles. This skit was hardly news, but the next day, Mike Francesa (a St. John’s grad and catholic school lifer) started railing against it on his afternoon talk show in New York and all of a sudden it snowballed into some sort of scandal. And just when the clamor was dying down, some uptight jerks filed a volley of indecency complaints with the FCC. Well, those complaints were discharged yesterday and that is a win for the good guys. I know a lot of ten year old boys were irreparably scarred by the image on Nicolette’s back, but this contrived mess has to rank as the stupidest issue of 2004 in both sports and public policy. To think that somebody actually took the time to file a complaint boggles my mind. Pretty soon, the moralists are going to be asking that cheerleaders cover up, beer ads be toned down and players be forced to attend church on Sunday right before they maim each other. The funny thing about this is I suspect the ass clowns who filed complaints had more on their minds then Nicki’s back fat when they were typing up their pleadings. I honestly believe the fact that this skit involved a white woman and black man motivated some jerk-off to hit the indecency light. What a joke. It is time for HBO to win the rights to MNF so we can see some good skits and real ass. If you give me Ray Lewis, Jenna Jamison, ninety seconds of airtime and a good lighting guy, I will give America something to talk about on Tuesday mornings next year. I promise!
Congratulations to Chrissie Hynde and the surviving members of the Pretenders who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last night along with some band named U2. The Pretenders were one of my favorite bands in Junior High School and the first concert I ever attended was a Valentines Day show played in 1982 at Pauley Pavilion. Hynde was the quintessential rock chick of the early 1980’s and ended up fronting a band that had some edge when everything else in music was wallowing in crap. The Pretenders had three great early albums, but they reached the pinnacle in 1986 when Ron Howard selected to open Gung Ho with the band’s “Don’t Get Me Wrong.” Now that is making it. And while Hynde and the rest of the band are a bit long in the tooth, I had the privilege of seeing them a couple years ago in a small venue and they still sounded pretty damn good. And if you don't believe me, just ask John McEnroe because he was there as well. My top five Pretenders songs in reverse order are: 5) Tattooed Love Boys, 4) I’ll Stand By You, 3) Talk of the Town, 2) Stop Your Sobbing, and 1) Mystery Achievement.
I have no qualms about putting the Pretenders into the Hall of Fame, but I do have some questions about some other inductees, including one who got in last night. To me, the Pretenders are a sure thing. If the Pretenders were a baseball player, they would be Wade Boggs. They started out on fire with all those batting titles and continued to get hits even after they began slowing down. But I do have a problem with the Hall’s decision this year to induct Percy Sledge. This crooner had one big song: “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Throwing Sledge into the Hall is like inducting Brady Anderson for his 50 home run year or Kirk Gibson for his 1988 World Series Home Run. I also have problems with recent inductees Jackson Browne and ZZ Top. Are you kidding me? Jackson Browne? Wasn’t his biggest hit the triple he slapped off Daryl Hannah's forehead? I'll give Browne a point for getting a tune on the Fast Times soundtrack, but letting him in the Hall is a bit like baseball inducting the good, but unexceptional Chuck Finley. Neither were ever superstars and each had a high-profile run in with their chiquitas. The big difference here is Browne assaulted his girlfriend while Finley took a stiletto heel off his temple. Further, I don’t know what ZZ Top is doing in Cleveland. They had some nice videos and cool beards, but they weren’t Hall material. If all it took was a nice beard to make the Hall, Former Brave Glenn Hubbard would be in Cooperstown.
The setting was a doubleheader in the second round of the 1979 tourney in Raleigh. In the first game, number two seeded Duke squared off with a St. John’s team that was the last to be invited to that year’s tourney. They were number 40 in a field of 40. And they were up against a big-time Duke team that had played for the national championship the year before and had come back virtually intact. But on that Sunday, the Devils squandered a halftime lead and ended up on the losing end of an 80-78 upset. The silence could be heard all the way to Ashville in the West to Wilmington in the East. This debacle was a shocker but it paled in comparison to what followed. In the nightcap, the number-one seeded Heels went up against the Penn Quakers from the Ivy League – a team led by some guy named Phil Sellers. The Heels, meanwhile, were led by a high scoring pair of forwards named Mike O’Koren and Al Wood. O’Koren was an All-American who would go on to be a longtime NBA’er while Wood happened to be good enough to make the 1980 US Olympic Basketball team. But on that day in 1979, none of that mattered. North Carolina jumped out to a first half lead, but Penn rallied to take the lead with about ten minutes to go and UNC never got the lead back. After some tense late game free throws, the clock sounded, bands all over the state began playing taps, and Governor Jim Hunt declared that the Chapel Hill-Durham corridor was a disaster area.
Not only had these North Carolina powerhouses lost, but they did it in their own backyard to the heaviest of underdogs. In a basketball crazed state like North Carolina, the details of that dark day are still discussed by old-timers and columnists. The obvious question now is whether we will see a rerun this weekend? I sincerely doubt it. I just don’t see Duke and UNC both losing, although I cannot say I would be shocked if Iowa State found a way to beat Roy Williams. However, history does have a strange tendency to repeat itself and in this case, the circumstances are a bit similar. The only prediction I will make is I can guarantee CBS will flag this issue during this weekend’s broadcast. I suspect Billy Packer will snag this plum assignment and because he is an ACC historian, there is almost no chance that he can help himself from bringing up this tidbit. You can count on that.
What does the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Committee have against Mormons and the Great state of Utah? For the fifth time since 1993, The Committee has seen fit to put Utah in the same region as their nemesis from Lexington Kentucky. Someone like former Utah Coach Rick Majerus must have done something in the early 90s to anger the Committee because ever since, the Utes have been joined at the hip with Kentucky when the tourney brackets are released each year. Just look at the evidence. In 1993, the teams played in the second round with Utah losing by 21. In 1996, Utah, led by Keith Van Horn, got a rematch in the regional semis and lost by 31. The following year was round three when the two teams met in a regional final and Utah was able to hold Kentucky to a relatively modest 13 point victory. Twelve months later, the selection committee took it easy on Utah and separated the two schools. Utah, led by Andre Miler, took advantage of this opportunity and played itself all the way to the national championship game. And who was waiting there ready to face them? None other then the KU Wildcats who summarily dispatched the Utes for the third year in a row. After that game, the two schools were given a respite from one another until 2003 when they squared off in a second round game that Kentucky won by 21. So in the course of 11 years, Kentucky went 5-0 against the Utes and outscored them by 95 points.
That is pretty bleak stuff for the Utes. But if this history isn’t bad enough, look at where the two teams are bracketed this year. Yep, on the same side of the bracket down there in Austin. And that brings up the possibility that if Utah can somehow get by UTEP and Oklahoma, they will go up against Kentucky for the sixth time since 1993. What did Utah do to deserve this? Is it because the state caps the alcohol content of bourbon at 40 proof? Is it because Utah voters passed a referendum in 1993 that outlawed the expansion of fried chicken outlets throughout the state? Or perhaps the curse was born in 1995 when Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said he preferred Sandra Bullock to Kentucky’s own Ashley Judd. The thought of losing for a sixth time has got to really depress Utah fans. But take heart Utes – if you lose this year, I believe that you can rest assured that you won’t have to play Kentucky for another decade. That is because the 8th Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and based on a fair interpretation of the word cruel, I believe five Supremes would agree that the constitution protects Utah fans from a seventh loss.
The Chicago Cubs have some major leagues problems sprouting and we haven’t even made it halfway through Spring Training. First, Kerry Wood developed some soreness in his right arm and it is now being reported that twenty-four year old Mark Prior is experiencing pain in his right elbow. The Cubs are trying to downplay the significance of each injury but there has to be some alarm in the Chicago front office. Prior missed two months last year with an elbow injury and this is clearly not a good sign even though “The Natural” says it feels like an entirely different injury. This guy is just too young to be coming down with all these injuries. And it’s a bit odd since he has a picture perfect delivery that experts think should minimize his risk of injury. Woods case is another story entirely. The Cubs fireballer seems to get hurt every year and this annual rite of spring has got to be fraying the nerves of Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry. It is still early and these injuries may recede, but this is clearly a red flag for the Cubs. Their season is wholly dependant of having both these right arms available and the loss of either for an extended period would be crippling. The Cardinals just went from 3-1 to 5-2 to win the division.
Another city that is holding its collective breathe over some budding pitching problems is New York. Fans in the Big Apple awoke this morning to two distressing news items involving major league pitchers. The first involves Met Steve Trachsel and his problems with an ailing back. Trachsel, an innings eater who was penciled in to be the Mets fifth starter, flew out to LA last night last night to get his back checked out by a specialist. Trachsel is hoping to avoid surgery, but at the very least, he is now scheduled to start the season on the disabled list. Missing a few weeks wouldn’t be too problematic, but if Trachsel needs surgery, there is no telling whether he will be available to pitch at all this year. That would be a pretty significant blow to a Mets team that thinks it can contend in the NL East if things come together. Losing Trachsel for an extended period of time was not part of the plan. Meanwhile, the news coming out of Yankee land is potentially more serious, although it may end up being nothing at all. It seems Yankee difference maker Mariano Rivera has developed bursitis in his elbow after not throwing much in the off-season. This may just be a spring training flare up, but what if it is the beginning of something more serious? Rivera is 35 and has had shoulder issues in the past, but this is his first experience with an elbow problem. If this is the first sign of a chronic condition, the Yankees just got socked with news that is far more lethal then the Luxury tax. Although Rivera came up small for the Yankees last October, he is still their most important player. If he starts laboring because on an elbow injury, Joe Torre is up a creek without a closer and the AL East just got a lot more interesting. This is because Torre has nowhere to turn - Tom Gordon proved in last year’s ALCS that he wants no part of the spotlight and Felix Rodriguez proved in 2002 that he is not a capable closer. The Yankees can still win without Rivera, but his absence would probably cost them six games this year. If you don’t believe me, just look at how many games the Giants and Indians blew last year.
I may be alone with this opinion, but I think Steve Lavin is a pretty good color commentator. Without a doubt, the greased up sexual predator is better on the microphone then he ever was on the sideline. I am sure he wants to get back into coaching someday, but if I were his agent, I would counsel him to stick with this new gig. He sometimes is guilty of uttering a cliché or dropping names solely for the sake of dropping names, but, in general, he does a good job dissecting a game and communicating his findings. Lavin’s only problem is he got stuck at ESPN and ended up drawing Muss as a partner. That is some handicap for a rookie and it definitely has served to limit his airtime, but I guess it could have been worse. After all, ESPN could have stuck him with the immortal Mike Patrick. If I am CBS, I would try bringing this promising kid over by trading Bill Raftery to ESPN for Lavin. And while were at it, I propose dumping Clark Kellogg on the Boys in Bristol as long as I don’t have to take Jay Bilas in return. I am sure Lavin would gladly waive his no-trade to get out of Bristol and move to CBS in New York. Coming from UCLA, he can’t like the female situation up there in Central Connecticut.
Here is a suggestion for the NFL – if you want to market football south of the border, don’t lead off with Arizona and San Francisco in Mexico City on October 2nd. The Arizona Republic is now reporting that this game will be the league’s first regular season foray outside the United States. But this leads me to question why the league thinks the Mexicans want to see this game any more then the Phoenicians? I sure wouldn’t be interested. I know we are talking about Mexico, but I am not sure tens of thousands muchachos are going to plunk down their hard earned pesos to watch these two dogs. I would rather go see a good old fashioned Mexican cock fight then see the Cards. Despite my pessimism, I think the Cards probably stand to have a bigger gate playing this game in Mexico then Tempe. That had to play a role in deciding which team was going to bite the bullet and lose a home game. I guess the other factor involved here is that nobody goes to Arizona games anyways so no one in Tempe is going to raise a big stink that the Cardinals will only have seven home games next year.
Comedian Bill Maher is fond of telling a joke that goes like this: “Something is terribly wrong when the only person who has been fired over terrorism is me.” Well, Colorado President Betsy Hoffman can now tell a similar joke that reads as follows: “Something is terribly wrong when the only person who has fired over a college football scandal is me.” Hoffman was fired as Colorado’s president last week after a rocky couple of years, but the big blemish on her resume comes courtesy of the Colorado football program, run by 2002 man-of-the-year Gary Barnett. While Hoffman ran the university, Barnett was operating an inmate-run asylum. In recent years, a few female trainers say they were sexually assaulted by players, a couple of women are suing the school for being groped at a recruiting party and a female kicker has charged that she was sexually harassed by her teammates. Do you notice a pattern here? Barnett responded to the kicker’s accusations by claiming she was a “distraction” who also “wasn’t a very good kicker.” I wonder if Barnett would have responded the same way if her replacement had missed a game winner against Colorado State and then been ass raped in the Colorado locker room.
On top of all this, a grand jury concluded recently that Colorado’s football program operated a slush fund that is used for somewhat improper recruiting activities like hiring strippers. Barnett has remained steadfast in his own defense by claiming that the program is generally clean and he cannot be held personally responsible for watching 80 kids at all times. There is a bit of truth to this, but lets be honest. Girls are being sexually assaulted all the way from Boulder to Denver and most are identifying their assailants by scanning the CU media guide. The program, under Barnett’s watch, has become something a bit short of laudatory and yet Barnett has taken no responsibility whatsoever. And it’s not as if Barnett’s spotty record on human rights has been offset by great coaching. His records at CU since taking over are 7-5, 3-8, 10-3, 9-5, 5-7 and 8-5. Last year, his team got punked by Oklahoma 42-3 and lost a 31-7 thriller at home to Texas. Barnett has led some Colorado fans to pine for the days when the only salacious news at CU involved QB Sal Aunesse sleeping with the coach Bill McCartney’s daughter. I find it absolutely incomprehensible that Barnett has kept his job throughout all this while Hoffman went down and others linked to the athletic program have quietly resigned. Barnett has two years remaining on his contract and you got to wonder if Colorado, at this point, is just waiting for this nightmare to end.
The FCC has made a ton of boneheaded moves over the past ten years, including a series of flubs on issues concerning the pricing of telecom services and indecency, but at least they got one right yesterday. In a 5-0 decision, the Commission ruled yesterday that ABC had not violated federal decency standards when it aired a mildly racy introduction to a Monday Night Football game last year. The farcical intro at issue had Nicolette “Sure Thing” Sheriden trying to seduce Terrell Owens in the locker room before a game. There was nothing lurid about the skit and all the public saw was Nicolette dropping her towel to show off a pretty poorly toned set of back of muscles. This skit was hardly news, but the next day, Mike Francesa (a St. John’s grad and catholic school lifer) started railing against it on his afternoon talk show in New York and all of a sudden it snowballed into some sort of scandal. And just when the clamor was dying down, some uptight jerks filed a volley of indecency complaints with the FCC. Well, those complaints were discharged yesterday and that is a win for the good guys. I know a lot of ten year old boys were irreparably scarred by the image on Nicolette’s back, but this contrived mess has to rank as the stupidest issue of 2004 in both sports and public policy. To think that somebody actually took the time to file a complaint boggles my mind. Pretty soon, the moralists are going to be asking that cheerleaders cover up, beer ads be toned down and players be forced to attend church on Sunday right before they maim each other. The funny thing about this is I suspect the ass clowns who filed complaints had more on their minds then Nicki’s back fat when they were typing up their pleadings. I honestly believe the fact that this skit involved a white woman and black man motivated some jerk-off to hit the indecency light. What a joke. It is time for HBO to win the rights to MNF so we can see some good skits and real ass. If you give me Ray Lewis, Jenna Jamison, ninety seconds of airtime and a good lighting guy, I will give America something to talk about on Tuesday mornings next year. I promise!
Congratulations to Chrissie Hynde and the surviving members of the Pretenders who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last night along with some band named U2. The Pretenders were one of my favorite bands in Junior High School and the first concert I ever attended was a Valentines Day show played in 1982 at Pauley Pavilion. Hynde was the quintessential rock chick of the early 1980’s and ended up fronting a band that had some edge when everything else in music was wallowing in crap. The Pretenders had three great early albums, but they reached the pinnacle in 1986 when Ron Howard selected to open Gung Ho with the band’s “Don’t Get Me Wrong.” Now that is making it. And while Hynde and the rest of the band are a bit long in the tooth, I had the privilege of seeing them a couple years ago in a small venue and they still sounded pretty damn good. And if you don't believe me, just ask John McEnroe because he was there as well. My top five Pretenders songs in reverse order are: 5) Tattooed Love Boys, 4) I’ll Stand By You, 3) Talk of the Town, 2) Stop Your Sobbing, and 1) Mystery Achievement.
I have no qualms about putting the Pretenders into the Hall of Fame, but I do have some questions about some other inductees, including one who got in last night. To me, the Pretenders are a sure thing. If the Pretenders were a baseball player, they would be Wade Boggs. They started out on fire with all those batting titles and continued to get hits even after they began slowing down. But I do have a problem with the Hall’s decision this year to induct Percy Sledge. This crooner had one big song: “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Throwing Sledge into the Hall is like inducting Brady Anderson for his 50 home run year or Kirk Gibson for his 1988 World Series Home Run. I also have problems with recent inductees Jackson Browne and ZZ Top. Are you kidding me? Jackson Browne? Wasn’t his biggest hit the triple he slapped off Daryl Hannah's forehead? I'll give Browne a point for getting a tune on the Fast Times soundtrack, but letting him in the Hall is a bit like baseball inducting the good, but unexceptional Chuck Finley. Neither were ever superstars and each had a high-profile run in with their chiquitas. The big difference here is Browne assaulted his girlfriend while Finley took a stiletto heel off his temple. Further, I don’t know what ZZ Top is doing in Cleveland. They had some nice videos and cool beards, but they weren’t Hall material. If all it took was a nice beard to make the Hall, Former Brave Glenn Hubbard would be in Cooperstown.
Monday, March 14, 2005
March 14 - "Lets Boogie!"
So the dust has settled from yesterday and what does the Sportsaholic make of it all? After much consideration, I give the Tourney selection committee a solid B. There are some weird seedings and I have some questions about the unevenness of the brackets, but there is nothing worth screaming about. In general, the selectors put the right teams in, kept the wrong teams out, and seeded teams close to where they belong. There is really a ton to cover, but I am going to leave some of it for tomorrow and Wednesday when I will offer up my official picks. Today I want to focus just on what the Selectors accomplished yesterday and how the tourney brackets are balanced.
Let us start with who got in and who got left out. On this front, I give the selection committee a B plus. It took a bit of testosterone to leave out Notre Dame, although the Irish did make things a bit easier by losing to Rutgers last Thursday. It is somewhat ironic that this morning we heard more complaints about Notre Dame's ommission from the national media than South Bend cheerleaders such as Digger and Mike Golic. Vitale and Jay Bilas can complain all they want that the best 35 teams didn’t get all the at-large bids, but the Irish just didn’t get it done. Lesson learned – you either make the weight or you don’t get on the mat. End of story. And the same goes for Maryland. Bilas is making a big deal of Maryland’s omission, but let us not forget the Terps had their chances. A win over either Virginia Tech or Clemson probably gets them in. Sorry Terps, you missed weight and have to sit out your first tourney since 1993.
Why should anyone not directly affiliated with these schools give a damn whether or not they got invited? It’s not as if either was going to be a serious championship contender. If you disagree, ask yourself whether any 10th or 11th seeded teams have ever won the whole shooting match. NC State was a six, Villanova was an eight and Kansas was a six. It seems teams seeded below eight very rarely make it to the Final Four let alone the Championship. In fact, aside from LSU in 1986, I cannot think of a single double digit seed in the past 25 years who made it to the last weekend. With that said, I don’t want to hear talk that Notre Dame’s omission compromises the integrity of the tourney. It really doesn’t matter who gets those last couple of bids and in this case, I am pleased the selectors gave Notre Dame’s invite to Northern Iowa. I would much rather see a team like Northern Iowa be rewarded for their year then watching Notre Dame get to cash in on their reputation and a single win over Boston College.
It seems that the last four teams in the tourney were Northern Iowa, UAB, UTEP and UCLA. I guess I may have been a bit too confident that my Bruins were safe last Friday even after getting waxed by Oregon State in the Pac-10 tourney. I suspect Northern Iowa got the final bid, but would they still be going if Memphis had a hit a couple more free throws on Saturday (story below) or Ohio State hadn’t declared itself ineligible due to institutional misconduct? The Ohio State issue is really odd since the Buckeyes earned a bid sans their self-imposed probation and that would mean that the very average Big-10 would have slid six teams into this tourney. That begs the question of what the Committee would have done with Iowa had Ohio State been eligible. Iowa got a ten seed so the committee obviously felt its resume was better then some at-large eleven seeds, but were they really going to load up the tourney with six teams form the Big-10? That is an interesting question. It is also clear this morning that UCLA’s win over Notre Dame a couple weeks back was an elimination game under any and all definitions. UCLA got in with that win and I suspect that loss did plenty to seal Notre Dame’s fate.
Let us move on the number one seeds. I may be the only one in the country who doesn’t have a problem with Washington getting a top spot. I thought Oklahoma State could have been the fourth number one, but it is a close call and it looks as if the Cowboys weren’t even in the running. Wake Forest is paired with Washington so it looks as like they were the fifth team in the minds of the tourney architects. I don't agree with this at all. My objections with Wake are much more qualitative than quantitative. They have a great resume on paper, but I watched the Deacons plenty this year and I wasn’t witnessing anything special. This is a team that refuses to play defense and they sure didn’t look any better down the stretch than they did in early January. Moreover, this is not exactly a program steeped in March success. In case you couldn't tell, I am a short seller of Skip and the Deacons.
With that said, I am fine with Washington getting a number one seed in the Albuquerque region. But this is where the problem begins. Washington got a small break by getting that seed, but they got a much bigger break when the tourney architects started rounding out the regions. In my estimation, the Syracuse region is the toughest, followed in order by the Austin Region, the Chicago Region and the Albuquerque region. Washington really caught a break staying out West with Wake while Oklahoma State got sent to Chicago.
The Syracuse region is a flat out gauntlet, especially if Kansas guard Keith Langford is able to play at full strength. You got Carolina, UCONN, Kansas, Florida and Nova all playing in that region. That is pretty sick and it got Kansas coach Bill Self to lament this morning that the region’s five seed had Kansas down by 32 earlier in the season before calling off the dogs. He is right – Nova is a real tough five seed and people shouldn’t take Florida lightly either. I know they have had a real spotty post-season record since going to the finals in 2000, but this team is on a roll with two recent wins over Kentucky. For the first time in a few years, it looks as if Billy Donovan's team still has its legs come March. And if you like irony, how about a possible matchup in Syracuse between North Carolina and Kansas? Will Roy Williams have to recuse himself for such a game?
I think it’s a pretty hard call to distinguish the merits of the Chicago and Austin Regions. Chicago is stacked at the top with Illinois, Oklahoma State and Arizona, but there isn’t much depth. Illinois should have no trouble dominating the top half of that bracket, but things will be interesting in the bottom half. I do like LSU as a sleeper in that region. They have almost 600 pounds of muscle inside and that will give Arizona fits. Channing Frye is going to have his hands full with Brandon Bass and Ivan Radenovic has almost no prayer of stopping Tiger Manchild Glen Davis. That is a game I am really looking forward to watching.
The strength of the Austin region lies in its depth. I think the region features the tourney’s top “three seed” in Oklahoma and Duke can never be counted out. An opening round game in this region that intrigues me is Vermont taking on Syracuse in Worcester. UVM got a bit screwed ending up with a 13th seed, but it gives Vermont’s Taylor Coppenrath a great opportunity to make a name for himslef against Syracuse’s overrated Hakim Warrick. Teh big question here is whether Coppenrath can operate against the Syracuse zone. I like the fact that Vermont will have some fans in Worcester so it won’t be as comfy and one-sided as Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim likes it. I know he’s playing close to home, but I don’t see Boeheim surviving the weekend and making it to Austin.
And finally, we move out to the Albuquerque region, which is the weakest of the four. The one thing that strikes me about this region is Louisville getting slid down to a four seed. I had them penciled in as a three and perhaps a two. A Louisville-Washington match-up in the regional semis would be a very exciting up-and-down game. But before Louisville gets there, they will have to take out an improving Georgia Tech team next weekend. I have given the Jackets a ton of grief this season, much of it well earned, but Paul Hewitt’s club is starting to play better of late. He has some guys who can guard on the perimeter and that could prove problematic for Rick Pitino’s three big sharpshooters. The other possible match-up that intrigues me is Wake playing West Virginia next weekend in Cleveland. West Virginia is coming off a solid effort in the Big East tourney and I think they are the kind of team that will give the defensively challenged Deacons fits. Wake has a checkered tourney history and this game will be in Cleveland, which is not that far a drive from Morgantown. Expect some Mounties to emerge from the mines and be in the crowd that day.
Well, that does it for today of the selection recap. There will be plenty more to discuss over the next few days, including more on possible match-ups down the road and my thoughts on who will advance to the Final Four. Also, I plan on a lengthy piece that will discuss the diabolical tourney architects and how they always design the brackets with certain match-ups in mind. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how Utah can once again find itself bracketed with Kentucky.
Was there an uglier game over the weekend then that mugging that took place in the Big-10 Conference final between Wisconsin and Illinois? That should have been rated NC-17 and if porn actress Dru Barrymore had been available to play off the bench, it probably gets stamped with an X. From hear on out, I think CBS should drop coverage of the Big-10 tourney and Cinemax should move in to show next year’s final late at night after the kids have gone to bed. The final score was 54-43, but those numbers do not properly capture the heinousness of the crime. Case in point - Illinois was only able to connect on 36 percent of its shots while the Badgers were barely able to make one in four. Dee Brown, one of the Illinois’s sharpshooters, was 0/8 while Wisconsin’s best player, Brad Wilkinson, was a relatively robust 1/7. The only chedderheads who put up worse shooting numbers than these are the hicks who play the rigged dime toss at the Wisconsin state fair. I have always thought it was hard to watch Wisconsin play football in the fall, but Barry Alvarez and his crew are downright scintillating when compared to Bo Ryan’s hoopsters. I’ll give Ryan some credit. He has a method and it tends to work. His guys play tough defense and tend to overachieve. But they also suck the air of the gym when playing offense and it is just no fun to watch. With that said, I think the Badgers always play without any room for error and that is why I think they may lose to a pretty good team from Northern Iowa. As for Illinois, they played well at times this weekend and they are now college basketball’s feel good team story after coach Bruce Webber’s mom died on Friday night. But they are not an overwhelming squad that conjures up images of legendary teams from the past. Gus Johnson of CBS observed this weekend that he thought the 1989 Illinois team which featured the likes of Kenny Battle, Nick Anderson, and Kendell Gill would beat this year’s Illini by 15 points. The number may not be 15 as Gus suggests, but I agree the national semi-finalists from 1989 were a better team. I say they take 13 of 20 off the 2005 squad.
Staying with Illinois, the Illini now have the possibility of playing their games at the following sites: Indianapolis, Chicago and St. Louis. All three sites are within driving distance of Champaigne and that begs this question: When is the last time a NCAA Champion has been crowned without having to board an airplane? Dick “The Godfather of Crap” Vitale crowed this morning that the answer was 1974 when the North Carolina State Wolfpack won the title by playing games in Raleigh and Greensboro. I beg to differ with the vacuous Vitale. My Answer would be 1978 when the Kentucky Wildcats got to play their games in Nashville, Dayton and St. Louis. Clearly the Cats drove to the first two locations but what about the third? I think it is possible they made the 320 mile drive to St. Louis that year, although that may not be a slam dunk. Nonetheless, their fans certainly had that option and therefore I am recognizing 1978 as the answer to the question.
Perhaps the most entertaining game over the weekend happened out in Los Angeles where the Washington Huskies and the Arizona Wildcats hooked up in a Fox Sports West Instant Classic Saturday night. I case you missed it, this game was a good old fashioned shootout that featured perhaps the country’s best player at this moment. I am talking about Arizona’s Salim Stoudamire and on Saturday night, he was burning the fleas off the Huskies with a magnifying glass. He finished 12/20 with seven three pointers and scored the final 17 points of the first half for Arizona. At times, you just knew anything he threw up at the basket was going to fall. Salim’s cousin Damon had 54 for the Blazers last month in a game against New Orleans, but you cannot tell me that Salim’s performance Saturday night was any less impressive, especially since he probably did it against a better defense. This game was going back and forth throughout the second half, but unfortunately for Arizona, Stoudamire got little help from his teammates and Washington was able to pull away down the stretch. Tre Simmons gave the Huskies his customary good game, but super-sub Jamal Williams was key as well. This Husky team is real deep and can run with anyone, as they have shown in two recent wins over Arizona. I think it would be real interesting to see these guys match-up with the up-tempo Louisville Cardinals in the Regional semis.
I hate to do this but I have to give Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski and his players some credit. They don’t have the most talent in the world but they just keep on winning. After losing Luol Deng and incoming frosh Shaun Livingston to the NBA, Duke was supposed to have a very ordinary team this year. But a funny thing happened along the road to mediocrity. Center Sheldon Williams found his manhood over this past summer and J.J. Reddick raised his game to a new level. This team, from a talent perspective, had no business winning the ACC tournament, but come Sunday afternoon, look who was holding up the hardware. Reddick, in particular, had some weekend. He had 35 against NC State on Saturday and followed that up with 26 in the tourney final against Georgia Tech. Like Stoudamire, J.J. had stretches this weekend where the scoreboard operator could ring ‘em up with his eyes closed. It got so ridiculous that at one point yesterday, I thought we were just about to hear ESPN’s Mike Patrick mention Reddick in the same sentence as Jerry West. I am glad he didn’t or I would have been a Circuit City late yesterday buying a new television to replace the Sharpe I threw against the wall. As for Duke’s chances going forward, I think they have a pretty favorable draw. As a result of this weekend, Duke got a number one seed and will get to now play before a home court crowd in Charlotte. I don’t see either Stanford or Mississippi State standing in their way. From there, it is on to Austin, where I think this underwhelming team stands a very good chance of playing in a regional final. That is where I suspect Duke’s season will end but after this past weekend, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Coach K win a trip to his 11th Final Four. That is 11 in the past 20 years for you guys playing along at home.
Speaking of Duke, the call of the weekend comes to us courtesy of former Blue Devil Mike Gminski, who was working the Conference USA tourney for CBS. The call in question came at the end of the conference final between Louisville and Memphis. In case you missed the game, Louisville led by two when a three point foul was called with no time remaining. Memphis freshman sensation Darius Washington then stepped to the line with no other players on the court and made the first free throw to cut Louisville’s lead to one. He needed one to earn a tie and two to secure an NCAA tourney bid for the Tigers. With two misses, Memphis would be left off the NCAA’s invite list. Talk about a pressure spot. Washington proceeded to clank both and then collapsed on the floor. While lying motionless at the line, Gminski pleaded: “Someone has to go out there and get that kid.” From the tone of his voice, I thought G-Man was going to throw off his headset and carry the comatose Washington off the court if necessary. It was a truly stunning finish but Gminski kept his head and made a very astute comment that captured the moment. Washington was simply overcome with guilt and Gminski was right to say that the guys on the Memphis bench couldn’t just leave him out there to rot in front of the whole country. You got to feel bad for this kid. He had a terrific game but he will always be remembered in Memphis lore as the kid whose choke prevented the Tigers from competing in the 2005 NCAA tourney.
The boys over at the House Government Reform Committee have taken a hit in the press this week over the issue of why they decided to hold a party and not invite the hottest and popular chick. Of course I am talking about Thursday’s hearing on Steroids and the committee’s decision to leave Barry Bonds off the invite list. While this is just speculation, I am not sure that the Committee had any choice in the matter. The San Francisco Slugger is a witness in a criminal investigation and his past and future testimony in that case could be damaged by his congressional testimony. More importantly, it is possible that Kevin Ryan, the US. Attorney for the Northern District of California thinks he may have something on Bonds and intends to prosecute him at a later stage for either perjury or violations of federal narcotics law. If this is the case, Ryan will certainly not want Bonds testifying in Washington and potentially influencing future jurors. This situation is fairly analogous to that of Oliver North who had his conviction overturned when an appeals court ruled that his congressional testimony in Iran-Contra caused him to face a prejudicial jury. As such, I think it is entirely possible that Ryan, in conjunction with Justice Department officials in Washington, simply declared that Bonds was off-limits. If this is the case, how come Jason Giambi is on the invite list? Well, it is entirely plausible that Ryan doesn’t think he has anything on Giambi while Bonds is in the crosshairs. This is not good news for Mr. Sunshine. He may think he has dodged a bullet by missing out on the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre, but his time could be coming. Wouldn’t that be something if Bonds misses out on Hank Arron’s all-time home run mark in 2006 because he is tied up at his own criminal trial or vacationing at a federal prison?
Staying with steroids for a minute or two – I am wondering where all this Venom towards Congress is coming from? To hear the nation’s sports columnists, talk show hosts and analysts tell it, Congressional oversight is a sham and these upcoming hearings are nothing more then an opportunity to “grand stand.” Of course it is but is that any different from what goes on up on Capital Hill every day Congress is in session? Some congressional hearings actually serve some purpose but a great many “investigatory” hearings are nothing more than opportunities for members to pontificate. It is nothing less then theatre. But you know what? Some out in the hinterlands dig such antics and that is why Brian Lamb founded CSPAN two decades ago. Lamb nailed that one and is now worth a half billion dollars. I worked on Capitol Hill and covered it as a journalist for five years. Believe me when I say I know what grandstanding is all about and I am confident we will see a heavy dose of it come Thursday. But is this so bad? Congressmen get elected to grandstand. It is what they do and if you doubt my claim, just tune into CSPAN for the “one minutes” that are offered every morning. With that said, I cannot believe what I have heard from the player’s apologists in the media over the past week. It has been nothing short of a broadside against Congressional history, authority and intent. Based on all the criticism I am hearing, I can only conclude that the majority of the nation’s sports media harbor a deep level of distrust and disrespect for the legislative branch. When did all these good government types get jobs at these media outlets?
And if that is not enough, thousands of column inches are being dedicated to the issue of why Congress decided to have this hearing so quickly. Why not have it now, I ask? So what if it comes during the midst of Spring Training? I don’t give a damn when it is held and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t mind if this were a field hearing held on the pitcher’s mound of Yankee Stadium. But that is not how many in the “club” see it. They see this as a rush to judgment based on the timely release of Jose Canseco’s book. So what if it is? As I have said, this hearing is not about fact gathering. Congressmen Davis and Waxman can claim that all they want, but this hearing is really about embarrassing a bunch of drug addicts. This hearing is about destroying some reputations that were unfairly earned. This hearing is about setting the record straight. At least that is what I think this hearing about and I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many in the sports publishing and broadcasting industries feel compelled to back the players on this issue.
You ain’t seen nothing if you thought the Notre Dame or Penn State football programs have experienced precipitous falls from grace. No, if you are looking for a true collapse in the world of sports, look no further then the Swiss Women’s Alpine Ski Team. The Swiss, along with the Austrians, were dominant ski powers in the 80s and 90s. The Austrians may have been a bit deeper, but the Swiss certainly didn’t lack for stars as women like Michela Figini, Maria Walliser and Vreni Schnieder all took home multiple World Cup Overall titles. Unfortunately for the Swiss, the talent pipeline has dried up in recent years and this season was an absolute debacle for the Swiss Women’s team. The Swiss women didn’t win a single world cup race this year and not a single female won a medal of any color at last month’s world championships. That hasn’t happened since 1966. That is so far back that is predates Robert Redford winning an Olympic gold as David Chappelett in Downhill Racer. The Swiss getting shut out over an entire season is tantamount to the Miami Hurricanes going 2-9 in football and getting blanked by Wake Forest or the Yankees winning only 69 games and losing the season series to the Devil Rays. It just doesn’t happen and as a result of this year’s dismal showing, the head coach of the Swiss program got the axe this weekend. And who is filling the vacuum created by the demise of the Swiss? Well, an argument can be made that the Americans have filled much of the void. The U.S. fielded perhaps its deepest team ever this year (at least since the early 80s) and it looks like four girls will finish in the top-17 of the World Cup standings. There is no Tamara McKinney leading this team, but Lindsey Kildow and Julia Mancuso both finished in the top-10 this year and will be threats at next year’s Olympics. The Swiss prospects are not as bright unless they pull a George Steinbrenner and sign some free agent skiers like 2005 World Cup Overall Champion Anja Paerson from Sweden.
It is a curious thing about the 1984 North Carolina basketball team. Some players like Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins went on to stellar NBA careers, while others like Kenny Smith and Brad Daughtery each parleyed short, but successful, NBA careers into nice broadcasting gigs. But the one profession where players from that team are failing is coaching and that may surprise some since the team was coached by none other then Dean Smith. The first alum to fail from that team was Matt Doherty who stumbled into the top spot at Carolina when Bill Guthridge left after the 2000 season. Doherty proceeded to have a good year but then he crashed the program into a telephone pole along I-40, resulting in his ouster at the end of the 2003 season. It’s now being reported a second alum from the 84 squad has bit the dust. Late yesterday, Tennessee decided to fire Buzz Peterson as its men’s basketball coach. The Vols were only 14-17 this year and I guess Peterson’s job has been on the rocks since his squad barely squeaked by the Lady Vols back at Midnight Madness. The firing of these coaches probably shouldn’t come as a surprise since these men played on one of the most over-coached teams in NCAA history. That 1984 Carolina team was stacked to the rafters. Carolina fans are still wondering how Dean Smith managed to take that team down to Atlanta and lose to an Indiana team that had a Freshman named Alford and very little else. It is one of the great mysteries in college basketball history. Since bad news comes in threes, Jeff Lebo, a 1989 graduate of UNC cannot be feeling too secure right now. He coaches the Auburn Tigers and they are coming off a season in which they lost three quarters of their games in conference. As far as Smith goes, these three blemishes don’t necessarily reflect poorly on his skills as a teacher. After all, he can count Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, and Roy Williams as disciples and that ain’t a bad trio. Smith could also take solace in the fact that Mike Krzyzewski and Bobby Knight are doing no better with protégés from that general period. The aforementioned Alford was is danger of being canned if his Iowa Hawkeyes didn’t beat Michigan State on Friday night and Dukies Quin Snyder and Tommy Amaker are hardly in safe spots at Missouri and Michigan respectively. It makes me wonder what is going to happen when Coach K leaves and 1986 Duke graduate Johnny Dawkins is handed the to key to Cameron.
Let us start with who got in and who got left out. On this front, I give the selection committee a B plus. It took a bit of testosterone to leave out Notre Dame, although the Irish did make things a bit easier by losing to Rutgers last Thursday. It is somewhat ironic that this morning we heard more complaints about Notre Dame's ommission from the national media than South Bend cheerleaders such as Digger and Mike Golic. Vitale and Jay Bilas can complain all they want that the best 35 teams didn’t get all the at-large bids, but the Irish just didn’t get it done. Lesson learned – you either make the weight or you don’t get on the mat. End of story. And the same goes for Maryland. Bilas is making a big deal of Maryland’s omission, but let us not forget the Terps had their chances. A win over either Virginia Tech or Clemson probably gets them in. Sorry Terps, you missed weight and have to sit out your first tourney since 1993.
Why should anyone not directly affiliated with these schools give a damn whether or not they got invited? It’s not as if either was going to be a serious championship contender. If you disagree, ask yourself whether any 10th or 11th seeded teams have ever won the whole shooting match. NC State was a six, Villanova was an eight and Kansas was a six. It seems teams seeded below eight very rarely make it to the Final Four let alone the Championship. In fact, aside from LSU in 1986, I cannot think of a single double digit seed in the past 25 years who made it to the last weekend. With that said, I don’t want to hear talk that Notre Dame’s omission compromises the integrity of the tourney. It really doesn’t matter who gets those last couple of bids and in this case, I am pleased the selectors gave Notre Dame’s invite to Northern Iowa. I would much rather see a team like Northern Iowa be rewarded for their year then watching Notre Dame get to cash in on their reputation and a single win over Boston College.
It seems that the last four teams in the tourney were Northern Iowa, UAB, UTEP and UCLA. I guess I may have been a bit too confident that my Bruins were safe last Friday even after getting waxed by Oregon State in the Pac-10 tourney. I suspect Northern Iowa got the final bid, but would they still be going if Memphis had a hit a couple more free throws on Saturday (story below) or Ohio State hadn’t declared itself ineligible due to institutional misconduct? The Ohio State issue is really odd since the Buckeyes earned a bid sans their self-imposed probation and that would mean that the very average Big-10 would have slid six teams into this tourney. That begs the question of what the Committee would have done with Iowa had Ohio State been eligible. Iowa got a ten seed so the committee obviously felt its resume was better then some at-large eleven seeds, but were they really going to load up the tourney with six teams form the Big-10? That is an interesting question. It is also clear this morning that UCLA’s win over Notre Dame a couple weeks back was an elimination game under any and all definitions. UCLA got in with that win and I suspect that loss did plenty to seal Notre Dame’s fate.
Let us move on the number one seeds. I may be the only one in the country who doesn’t have a problem with Washington getting a top spot. I thought Oklahoma State could have been the fourth number one, but it is a close call and it looks as if the Cowboys weren’t even in the running. Wake Forest is paired with Washington so it looks as like they were the fifth team in the minds of the tourney architects. I don't agree with this at all. My objections with Wake are much more qualitative than quantitative. They have a great resume on paper, but I watched the Deacons plenty this year and I wasn’t witnessing anything special. This is a team that refuses to play defense and they sure didn’t look any better down the stretch than they did in early January. Moreover, this is not exactly a program steeped in March success. In case you couldn't tell, I am a short seller of Skip and the Deacons.
With that said, I am fine with Washington getting a number one seed in the Albuquerque region. But this is where the problem begins. Washington got a small break by getting that seed, but they got a much bigger break when the tourney architects started rounding out the regions. In my estimation, the Syracuse region is the toughest, followed in order by the Austin Region, the Chicago Region and the Albuquerque region. Washington really caught a break staying out West with Wake while Oklahoma State got sent to Chicago.
The Syracuse region is a flat out gauntlet, especially if Kansas guard Keith Langford is able to play at full strength. You got Carolina, UCONN, Kansas, Florida and Nova all playing in that region. That is pretty sick and it got Kansas coach Bill Self to lament this morning that the region’s five seed had Kansas down by 32 earlier in the season before calling off the dogs. He is right – Nova is a real tough five seed and people shouldn’t take Florida lightly either. I know they have had a real spotty post-season record since going to the finals in 2000, but this team is on a roll with two recent wins over Kentucky. For the first time in a few years, it looks as if Billy Donovan's team still has its legs come March. And if you like irony, how about a possible matchup in Syracuse between North Carolina and Kansas? Will Roy Williams have to recuse himself for such a game?
I think it’s a pretty hard call to distinguish the merits of the Chicago and Austin Regions. Chicago is stacked at the top with Illinois, Oklahoma State and Arizona, but there isn’t much depth. Illinois should have no trouble dominating the top half of that bracket, but things will be interesting in the bottom half. I do like LSU as a sleeper in that region. They have almost 600 pounds of muscle inside and that will give Arizona fits. Channing Frye is going to have his hands full with Brandon Bass and Ivan Radenovic has almost no prayer of stopping Tiger Manchild Glen Davis. That is a game I am really looking forward to watching.
The strength of the Austin region lies in its depth. I think the region features the tourney’s top “three seed” in Oklahoma and Duke can never be counted out. An opening round game in this region that intrigues me is Vermont taking on Syracuse in Worcester. UVM got a bit screwed ending up with a 13th seed, but it gives Vermont’s Taylor Coppenrath a great opportunity to make a name for himslef against Syracuse’s overrated Hakim Warrick. Teh big question here is whether Coppenrath can operate against the Syracuse zone. I like the fact that Vermont will have some fans in Worcester so it won’t be as comfy and one-sided as Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim likes it. I know he’s playing close to home, but I don’t see Boeheim surviving the weekend and making it to Austin.
And finally, we move out to the Albuquerque region, which is the weakest of the four. The one thing that strikes me about this region is Louisville getting slid down to a four seed. I had them penciled in as a three and perhaps a two. A Louisville-Washington match-up in the regional semis would be a very exciting up-and-down game. But before Louisville gets there, they will have to take out an improving Georgia Tech team next weekend. I have given the Jackets a ton of grief this season, much of it well earned, but Paul Hewitt’s club is starting to play better of late. He has some guys who can guard on the perimeter and that could prove problematic for Rick Pitino’s three big sharpshooters. The other possible match-up that intrigues me is Wake playing West Virginia next weekend in Cleveland. West Virginia is coming off a solid effort in the Big East tourney and I think they are the kind of team that will give the defensively challenged Deacons fits. Wake has a checkered tourney history and this game will be in Cleveland, which is not that far a drive from Morgantown. Expect some Mounties to emerge from the mines and be in the crowd that day.
Well, that does it for today of the selection recap. There will be plenty more to discuss over the next few days, including more on possible match-ups down the road and my thoughts on who will advance to the Final Four. Also, I plan on a lengthy piece that will discuss the diabolical tourney architects and how they always design the brackets with certain match-ups in mind. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how Utah can once again find itself bracketed with Kentucky.
Was there an uglier game over the weekend then that mugging that took place in the Big-10 Conference final between Wisconsin and Illinois? That should have been rated NC-17 and if porn actress Dru Barrymore had been available to play off the bench, it probably gets stamped with an X. From hear on out, I think CBS should drop coverage of the Big-10 tourney and Cinemax should move in to show next year’s final late at night after the kids have gone to bed. The final score was 54-43, but those numbers do not properly capture the heinousness of the crime. Case in point - Illinois was only able to connect on 36 percent of its shots while the Badgers were barely able to make one in four. Dee Brown, one of the Illinois’s sharpshooters, was 0/8 while Wisconsin’s best player, Brad Wilkinson, was a relatively robust 1/7. The only chedderheads who put up worse shooting numbers than these are the hicks who play the rigged dime toss at the Wisconsin state fair. I have always thought it was hard to watch Wisconsin play football in the fall, but Barry Alvarez and his crew are downright scintillating when compared to Bo Ryan’s hoopsters. I’ll give Ryan some credit. He has a method and it tends to work. His guys play tough defense and tend to overachieve. But they also suck the air of the gym when playing offense and it is just no fun to watch. With that said, I think the Badgers always play without any room for error and that is why I think they may lose to a pretty good team from Northern Iowa. As for Illinois, they played well at times this weekend and they are now college basketball’s feel good team story after coach Bruce Webber’s mom died on Friday night. But they are not an overwhelming squad that conjures up images of legendary teams from the past. Gus Johnson of CBS observed this weekend that he thought the 1989 Illinois team which featured the likes of Kenny Battle, Nick Anderson, and Kendell Gill would beat this year’s Illini by 15 points. The number may not be 15 as Gus suggests, but I agree the national semi-finalists from 1989 were a better team. I say they take 13 of 20 off the 2005 squad.
Staying with Illinois, the Illini now have the possibility of playing their games at the following sites: Indianapolis, Chicago and St. Louis. All three sites are within driving distance of Champaigne and that begs this question: When is the last time a NCAA Champion has been crowned without having to board an airplane? Dick “The Godfather of Crap” Vitale crowed this morning that the answer was 1974 when the North Carolina State Wolfpack won the title by playing games in Raleigh and Greensboro. I beg to differ with the vacuous Vitale. My Answer would be 1978 when the Kentucky Wildcats got to play their games in Nashville, Dayton and St. Louis. Clearly the Cats drove to the first two locations but what about the third? I think it is possible they made the 320 mile drive to St. Louis that year, although that may not be a slam dunk. Nonetheless, their fans certainly had that option and therefore I am recognizing 1978 as the answer to the question.
Perhaps the most entertaining game over the weekend happened out in Los Angeles where the Washington Huskies and the Arizona Wildcats hooked up in a Fox Sports West Instant Classic Saturday night. I case you missed it, this game was a good old fashioned shootout that featured perhaps the country’s best player at this moment. I am talking about Arizona’s Salim Stoudamire and on Saturday night, he was burning the fleas off the Huskies with a magnifying glass. He finished 12/20 with seven three pointers and scored the final 17 points of the first half for Arizona. At times, you just knew anything he threw up at the basket was going to fall. Salim’s cousin Damon had 54 for the Blazers last month in a game against New Orleans, but you cannot tell me that Salim’s performance Saturday night was any less impressive, especially since he probably did it against a better defense. This game was going back and forth throughout the second half, but unfortunately for Arizona, Stoudamire got little help from his teammates and Washington was able to pull away down the stretch. Tre Simmons gave the Huskies his customary good game, but super-sub Jamal Williams was key as well. This Husky team is real deep and can run with anyone, as they have shown in two recent wins over Arizona. I think it would be real interesting to see these guys match-up with the up-tempo Louisville Cardinals in the Regional semis.
I hate to do this but I have to give Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski and his players some credit. They don’t have the most talent in the world but they just keep on winning. After losing Luol Deng and incoming frosh Shaun Livingston to the NBA, Duke was supposed to have a very ordinary team this year. But a funny thing happened along the road to mediocrity. Center Sheldon Williams found his manhood over this past summer and J.J. Reddick raised his game to a new level. This team, from a talent perspective, had no business winning the ACC tournament, but come Sunday afternoon, look who was holding up the hardware. Reddick, in particular, had some weekend. He had 35 against NC State on Saturday and followed that up with 26 in the tourney final against Georgia Tech. Like Stoudamire, J.J. had stretches this weekend where the scoreboard operator could ring ‘em up with his eyes closed. It got so ridiculous that at one point yesterday, I thought we were just about to hear ESPN’s Mike Patrick mention Reddick in the same sentence as Jerry West. I am glad he didn’t or I would have been a Circuit City late yesterday buying a new television to replace the Sharpe I threw against the wall. As for Duke’s chances going forward, I think they have a pretty favorable draw. As a result of this weekend, Duke got a number one seed and will get to now play before a home court crowd in Charlotte. I don’t see either Stanford or Mississippi State standing in their way. From there, it is on to Austin, where I think this underwhelming team stands a very good chance of playing in a regional final. That is where I suspect Duke’s season will end but after this past weekend, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Coach K win a trip to his 11th Final Four. That is 11 in the past 20 years for you guys playing along at home.
Speaking of Duke, the call of the weekend comes to us courtesy of former Blue Devil Mike Gminski, who was working the Conference USA tourney for CBS. The call in question came at the end of the conference final between Louisville and Memphis. In case you missed the game, Louisville led by two when a three point foul was called with no time remaining. Memphis freshman sensation Darius Washington then stepped to the line with no other players on the court and made the first free throw to cut Louisville’s lead to one. He needed one to earn a tie and two to secure an NCAA tourney bid for the Tigers. With two misses, Memphis would be left off the NCAA’s invite list. Talk about a pressure spot. Washington proceeded to clank both and then collapsed on the floor. While lying motionless at the line, Gminski pleaded: “Someone has to go out there and get that kid.” From the tone of his voice, I thought G-Man was going to throw off his headset and carry the comatose Washington off the court if necessary. It was a truly stunning finish but Gminski kept his head and made a very astute comment that captured the moment. Washington was simply overcome with guilt and Gminski was right to say that the guys on the Memphis bench couldn’t just leave him out there to rot in front of the whole country. You got to feel bad for this kid. He had a terrific game but he will always be remembered in Memphis lore as the kid whose choke prevented the Tigers from competing in the 2005 NCAA tourney.
The boys over at the House Government Reform Committee have taken a hit in the press this week over the issue of why they decided to hold a party and not invite the hottest and popular chick. Of course I am talking about Thursday’s hearing on Steroids and the committee’s decision to leave Barry Bonds off the invite list. While this is just speculation, I am not sure that the Committee had any choice in the matter. The San Francisco Slugger is a witness in a criminal investigation and his past and future testimony in that case could be damaged by his congressional testimony. More importantly, it is possible that Kevin Ryan, the US. Attorney for the Northern District of California thinks he may have something on Bonds and intends to prosecute him at a later stage for either perjury or violations of federal narcotics law. If this is the case, Ryan will certainly not want Bonds testifying in Washington and potentially influencing future jurors. This situation is fairly analogous to that of Oliver North who had his conviction overturned when an appeals court ruled that his congressional testimony in Iran-Contra caused him to face a prejudicial jury. As such, I think it is entirely possible that Ryan, in conjunction with Justice Department officials in Washington, simply declared that Bonds was off-limits. If this is the case, how come Jason Giambi is on the invite list? Well, it is entirely plausible that Ryan doesn’t think he has anything on Giambi while Bonds is in the crosshairs. This is not good news for Mr. Sunshine. He may think he has dodged a bullet by missing out on the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre, but his time could be coming. Wouldn’t that be something if Bonds misses out on Hank Arron’s all-time home run mark in 2006 because he is tied up at his own criminal trial or vacationing at a federal prison?
Staying with steroids for a minute or two – I am wondering where all this Venom towards Congress is coming from? To hear the nation’s sports columnists, talk show hosts and analysts tell it, Congressional oversight is a sham and these upcoming hearings are nothing more then an opportunity to “grand stand.” Of course it is but is that any different from what goes on up on Capital Hill every day Congress is in session? Some congressional hearings actually serve some purpose but a great many “investigatory” hearings are nothing more than opportunities for members to pontificate. It is nothing less then theatre. But you know what? Some out in the hinterlands dig such antics and that is why Brian Lamb founded CSPAN two decades ago. Lamb nailed that one and is now worth a half billion dollars. I worked on Capitol Hill and covered it as a journalist for five years. Believe me when I say I know what grandstanding is all about and I am confident we will see a heavy dose of it come Thursday. But is this so bad? Congressmen get elected to grandstand. It is what they do and if you doubt my claim, just tune into CSPAN for the “one minutes” that are offered every morning. With that said, I cannot believe what I have heard from the player’s apologists in the media over the past week. It has been nothing short of a broadside against Congressional history, authority and intent. Based on all the criticism I am hearing, I can only conclude that the majority of the nation’s sports media harbor a deep level of distrust and disrespect for the legislative branch. When did all these good government types get jobs at these media outlets?
And if that is not enough, thousands of column inches are being dedicated to the issue of why Congress decided to have this hearing so quickly. Why not have it now, I ask? So what if it comes during the midst of Spring Training? I don’t give a damn when it is held and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t mind if this were a field hearing held on the pitcher’s mound of Yankee Stadium. But that is not how many in the “club” see it. They see this as a rush to judgment based on the timely release of Jose Canseco’s book. So what if it is? As I have said, this hearing is not about fact gathering. Congressmen Davis and Waxman can claim that all they want, but this hearing is really about embarrassing a bunch of drug addicts. This hearing is about destroying some reputations that were unfairly earned. This hearing is about setting the record straight. At least that is what I think this hearing about and I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many in the sports publishing and broadcasting industries feel compelled to back the players on this issue.
You ain’t seen nothing if you thought the Notre Dame or Penn State football programs have experienced precipitous falls from grace. No, if you are looking for a true collapse in the world of sports, look no further then the Swiss Women’s Alpine Ski Team. The Swiss, along with the Austrians, were dominant ski powers in the 80s and 90s. The Austrians may have been a bit deeper, but the Swiss certainly didn’t lack for stars as women like Michela Figini, Maria Walliser and Vreni Schnieder all took home multiple World Cup Overall titles. Unfortunately for the Swiss, the talent pipeline has dried up in recent years and this season was an absolute debacle for the Swiss Women’s team. The Swiss women didn’t win a single world cup race this year and not a single female won a medal of any color at last month’s world championships. That hasn’t happened since 1966. That is so far back that is predates Robert Redford winning an Olympic gold as David Chappelett in Downhill Racer. The Swiss getting shut out over an entire season is tantamount to the Miami Hurricanes going 2-9 in football and getting blanked by Wake Forest or the Yankees winning only 69 games and losing the season series to the Devil Rays. It just doesn’t happen and as a result of this year’s dismal showing, the head coach of the Swiss program got the axe this weekend. And who is filling the vacuum created by the demise of the Swiss? Well, an argument can be made that the Americans have filled much of the void. The U.S. fielded perhaps its deepest team ever this year (at least since the early 80s) and it looks like four girls will finish in the top-17 of the World Cup standings. There is no Tamara McKinney leading this team, but Lindsey Kildow and Julia Mancuso both finished in the top-10 this year and will be threats at next year’s Olympics. The Swiss prospects are not as bright unless they pull a George Steinbrenner and sign some free agent skiers like 2005 World Cup Overall Champion Anja Paerson from Sweden.
It is a curious thing about the 1984 North Carolina basketball team. Some players like Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins went on to stellar NBA careers, while others like Kenny Smith and Brad Daughtery each parleyed short, but successful, NBA careers into nice broadcasting gigs. But the one profession where players from that team are failing is coaching and that may surprise some since the team was coached by none other then Dean Smith. The first alum to fail from that team was Matt Doherty who stumbled into the top spot at Carolina when Bill Guthridge left after the 2000 season. Doherty proceeded to have a good year but then he crashed the program into a telephone pole along I-40, resulting in his ouster at the end of the 2003 season. It’s now being reported a second alum from the 84 squad has bit the dust. Late yesterday, Tennessee decided to fire Buzz Peterson as its men’s basketball coach. The Vols were only 14-17 this year and I guess Peterson’s job has been on the rocks since his squad barely squeaked by the Lady Vols back at Midnight Madness. The firing of these coaches probably shouldn’t come as a surprise since these men played on one of the most over-coached teams in NCAA history. That 1984 Carolina team was stacked to the rafters. Carolina fans are still wondering how Dean Smith managed to take that team down to Atlanta and lose to an Indiana team that had a Freshman named Alford and very little else. It is one of the great mysteries in college basketball history. Since bad news comes in threes, Jeff Lebo, a 1989 graduate of UNC cannot be feeling too secure right now. He coaches the Auburn Tigers and they are coming off a season in which they lost three quarters of their games in conference. As far as Smith goes, these three blemishes don’t necessarily reflect poorly on his skills as a teacher. After all, he can count Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, and Roy Williams as disciples and that ain’t a bad trio. Smith could also take solace in the fact that Mike Krzyzewski and Bobby Knight are doing no better with protégés from that general period. The aforementioned Alford was is danger of being canned if his Iowa Hawkeyes didn’t beat Michigan State on Friday night and Dukies Quin Snyder and Tommy Amaker are hardly in safe spots at Missouri and Michigan respectively. It makes me wonder what is going to happen when Coach K leaves and 1986 Duke graduate Johnny Dawkins is handed the to key to Cameron.
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