Month: February 2005 (Page 2 of 3)

To the basketball team of my alma mater.

Gentlemen,
In the future, if you plan on losing a weeknight game that begins at 9:00 PM my time, please do so in regulation rather than taking two overtimes to do so. I’m not as young as I used to be, and now I’ve got a kid. Who is teething. It’s not in the interest of my health to be awake until 1:30 rethinking every play. Your assistance is much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Your Pal,

D

Selection Sunday is four weeks from yesterday, so we’re down to crunch time. Many smaller leagues have only two weeks of play left, so the mid-majors should be solidifying their at-large credentials. The heavyweights are playing for top seeds. Will Kansas and Oklahoma State be playing not only for the Big 12 crown, but also a #1 seed? Or, with no giant in the West, is there a second #1 seed available for someone from the Big 12, ACC, or Big East this season?

An interesting discussion I was privy to this week concerned that national image of Duke players. Sure, we all hate them, but in general Dukies have squeaky clean images nationally. JJ Reddick had a little trouble with an illegal substance a year ago. The national media rarely talks about that now, and if they do, they talk about how he’s overcome a speed bump in his life. If someone from almost any other school does that, not only is it a constant source of discussion, but they get labeled as “troubled” even if they’ve never done anything else wrong in their career. Something tells me various media outlets have been told if they ever talk about the inevitable problems Duke players will have (they are college kids first, and pampered athletes second; things do happen), a certain coach will be unavailable to them for interviews. Sadly, I suppose that means I’ll never have a sit down with anyone from the Duke program now.

12) Pacific. OK, realistically they have no shot to win the national championship. But they came back from eight down with less than 40 seconds to play to win at difficult Utah State Saturday. They also didn’t get pounded like Louisville and Washington. Finally, I don’t think Michigan State, UConn, Alabama, or Pittsburgh will be playing that much longer than Pacific in March. Remember, they were tied with KU with about 9:00 to play last March, and if the game wasn’t in Kansas City, who knows if they hang around longer or not. A very dangerous team to keep in mind for your brackets this year.
11) Duke. Win over UNC as much a function as Carolina’s inability to run a decent play at the end of the game as anything Duke did. Made loss at Maryland closer than I thought it would be, and even getting sympathy in the media for a change because of a couple calls.
10) Utah. I still haven’t seen them play, but they keep on winning.
9) Syracuse. Beaten down pretty well by UConn, then beat the crap out at ‘Nova.
8) Arizona. From #8 down (or is it up?), a bunch of teams that have yet to prove either consistent, or that can avoid ugly losses. UA had the best week of those teams.
7) Boston College. As usual, I was wrong in saying they wouldn’t lose to Notre Dame. Syracuse this week to keep things difficult.
6) Oklahoma State. Solid wins over slumping OU and dangerous A&M. The schedule is kind as they only play two games in the next 13 days before going to Lawrence.
5) Kentucky. I still think they win out in the SEC regular season.
4) Wake Forest. At Duke next Sunday, which is a huge game for determining how good each team is.
3) Kansas. Rather large game tonight, going to Lubbock. With three difficult road games and one huge home game remaining on the schedule, despite being two games up with six to play, the ‘Hawks must tread carefully.
2) North Carolina. Loss at Duke balanced by a win at UConn, albeit an injury affected Husky team. Also, don’t think I’m not trying to put the hex on the Tar Heels.
1) Illinois. Interestingly enough, the pressure on the Illini has changed now that they’ve put the most difficult opponents behind them. If they had lost to Wisconsin, Michigan State, or some other legit team, people would say, “Well, that was a tough game.” If they end up losing to Indiana, Ohio State, etc. people will say, “I guess they really weren’t that good.” Funny how sports punditry works.

…next year.
Snob Hill 22 (30)
Silo Tech 0 (0)

KU will have one or perhaps two more wins over K-State this year to continue their long, insane winning streaks (22 straight in Manhattan, 30 straight overall) and next season the ‘Cats will finally knock off their bully cousins from Lawrence on their home court. I see Jason Whitlock has already written the same thing. Other than his unfounded praise of Tyler Hughes (great body?), he correctly points out that K-State should have enough returning talent next year to get a win over what will be an exceptionally talented, but exceptionally young KU team. Chris Piper made a great point last night that KU has always had experienced upper classmen who, even if not the most talented players on the roster, could guide the team through intense rivalry games. Who’s going to lead the team next year? Not Moulaye Niang. Not Jeff Hawkins. I think the guys love and respect Christian Moody, but he isn’t exactly Simien, Collison, or even Ryan Robertson. With this year’s vaunted freshman class fading into Sasha Kaun and a bunch of bench warmers, next year’s KU team is going to be full of sophomores, freshmen, and a transfer who have never played big minutes in road games and don’t understand the intensity of conference play.

Last night was the best legitimate shot K-State has had at beating KU, before the tip, in over a decade. In the past, it was always “K-State has to play perfect and then hope KU is off” for the Purples to get a win. Before last night’s game, I think the story line was more “K-State could win even without playing perfect, or without KU playing awful.” For the first time in who knows how long, they have a true inside threat. If Jeremiah Massey had someone other than the usual collection of stiffs next to him in the paint, he’d be even more dangerous. What made K-State so dangerous, though, was its abundance of shooters. To demonstrate how far KSU had truly fallen, one needed to only look at its perimeter players in recent years. What makes second and third tier teams dangerous in modern college basketball is their ability to take kids who might be short on athleticism and size, but can shoot from anywhere, and turn them into D1 players. K-State has never been able to get more than one or two guys who can consistently hit shots in big games. That, as much as talent disparity and bad luck, can explain how the KU streaks have extended over the past ten years. This year, and again next season, K-State can actually put three players at a time on the court who are threats to hit three pointers. As Dickie V loves to say, the three point shot is the great equalizer in basketball today. Now that K-State can finally spread the court and get open shots, they have real hopes of beating KU. They just need to wait one more calendar year, and it will happen.

Line of the night went to Piper. After Dave Armstrong explained how K-State fans used to sneak chickens into Ahearn to throw at KU players, Piper responded, “Isn’t that the first class everyone takes at K-State?” My KSU readers can let me know if that’s the case or not.

The game ended just in time to see the final minute of the UNC-Duke game. What a beautiful ending for us ACC haters. First, the referees let an obvious foul on UNC go unpenalized. Two possessions later, they ignore a clear over-and-back and double-dribble by hero boy JJ Reddick. Reddick is then forced to hoist a 30 footer as the shot clock runs down. Nothing but baseline! UNC has 18 seconds to go for the win. Not only do they not get a shot off, they fail to even get the ball into the paint. From the bits and pieces I saw throughout the night, it was a sloppy, poorly played game with momentary flashes of brilliance. But because it’s UNC-Duke and Vitale was in the house, I’m sure we’ll be seeing it on ESPN Classic again starting this weekend. I wonder when the truly classic KU-Georgia Tech will get some love. Probably never. Duke and UNC could combine for 50 turnovers and shoot a collective 20% from the field, and the talking heads in Bristol will try to sell it as a classic.

I’m shocked, shocked, that UNC apparently played tight in a big game. I’m also shocked they couldn’t run a decent play when they had a chance to win it. I think that means other than Steve Woodberry’s lucky shot against Oklahoma State in 1994, Roy is 0-17 years when his teams have a chance to either tie or win at the buzzer (Not including games that are tied and go on to overtime.). It’s refreshing to see another group of talented players get undermined by their coach’s insistence on not calling timeouts when they are completely out of synch.

A pretty crazy weekend in the Big 12. Five of six road teams won. The single road team that lost was Missouri, who lead by one at halftime while their best player served a one-half suspension (or at least that’s what I was told). Kleiza comes in for the second half, Mizzou loses by 28. Strange.

What to make of two other games? Tech wins at OU. Does this mean Tech is much better than we thought, or OU not nearly as good? Probably a little of both. Iowa State not only wins at Texas, but they do so by crushing the Horns in OT. A fade by Texas was expected with all their roster issues, but ISU now has two quality, upset wins in a week. Perhaps they’re finally rounding into the squad that some thought could compete for fourth place before the season began. The Clones still have Tech and KU on the schedule, so they can have a say about who wins the conference.

One final conference note, and it’s one of my regular slams of Bobby Knight. After beating OU, Knight gave Kelvin Sampson the briefest of handshakes, and without saying a word to Sampson or any other OU coaches or players, stomps to the locker room. Here’s a guy who has railed against perceived injustices to the players of the game over his career, yet he can’t spend 90 seconds congratulating and complimenting the OU players on their effort. Once again Knight proved he’s only coaching for the purely personal reasons of beating Dean Smith’s wins record and getting back at IU rather than for what college basketball is supposed to be about: the effort of the players. Dick.
12) Duke. Hey, it’s UNC-Duke Week, errrrrr, Rivalry Week on ESPN! In the network’s defense, although R Week is clearly going to be the week these two teams play every year, they do have a decent schedule of legit rivalries this year.
11) Utah. I know nothing about them, but seems like everyone else lost last week.
10) Washington. If a tree falls and no one is around, does it make any noise? Can we please get a UW game on national TV?
9) Syracuse. Shouldn’t they beat Notre Dame by more than three at home?
8) Oklahoma State. Crushing the bottom dwellers of the conference. Bedlam #2 is tonight. February 27 looms even larger than before after last week’s action.
7) Louisville. Won two close games over strong opponents, beating Cincy and UAB last week.
6) Wake Forest. Solid wins over Duke and VaTech.
5) Kentucky. Ho-hum. Not likely to get challenged again until the Round of 32.
4) Boston College. At Notre Dame Tuesday is a sexy pick for loss #1 for the Eagles. I think they hold on at least two more games and either lose to Syracuse or at Villanova next week.
3) Kansas. Nice comeback against MU and doing what good teams do on the road Saturday. A certain baffling streak is on the line Wednesday.
2) North Carolina. First battle with Duke is Wednesday. UNC is more talented, but we’ll see if Coach K can continue his mastery of Mr. Williams.
1) Illinois. Impressive win over Michigan State. After starting hot against IU Sunday, got sloppy but still got a double digit win. Should be clear sailing from here, with only a visit from Wisconsin looking risky before the Big 10 tournament.

I was indeed sweating it, cursing, and attempting to throw things last night during the Kansas-Missouri game. Rivalry games are nerve racking enough. When your team is supposed to win by a lot (18 point favs, I believe) and they start kicking the ball all over the gym to fall behind by 11, well, tensions tend to rise a little. We just happened to be baby-sitting for some friends last night. I didn’t fear the extra kid presence at first, since these same kids were over for the Kentucky game and that turned out ok. However, I had to take a couple long walks around the basement in the first half. When Jason Conley stole the ball and dunked for an 11 point Mizzou lead early in the second half, I looked at S. and tersely said, “Can you go upstairs, please?” I was able to get my curse on, and naturally, the Jayhawks clamped down and won by 12.

Very solid move going to the zone in the second half for KU. Not sure why Self didn’t do it sooner, since MU hasn’t played well against zones and Kleiza and Conley were killing the ‘Hawks on penetration to the lane. Fran Frischilla is ok, he’s clearly no Jon Sundvold, but while he was extolling the virtues of playing a zone, he didn’t seem to realize that KU had come out and played man on several possessions. Pay attention! I did like the fact that Frischilla was the first announcer this season I’ve heard explain that free throws are now shot after TV timeouts. I had figured that out on my own by now, but had yet to hear that was a definite rule change. He also had an interesting comment about how “European players play with a lot of passion.” Does that mean players born in Europe like Kleiza and Kaun, or anyone with European background? Careful! 🙂 Max Falkenstein said the two Slavic players on the court shared a warm greeting after the game. Heartwarming.

I said it before, I’ll say it again. Marshall Brown is going to be an absolute stud for Missouri.

If you don’t think there’s parity in college basketball, how about the fact that Oklahoma State’s 25 game home winning streak is the longest in the nation? It seemed like there always used to be a couple big schools like KU and Kentucky with 30-40 game streaks, then some mid-major like Utah State with a 50 game streak. Anyone can beat anyone these days.

Onto other things. I’ve been watching a lot of TV while battling my cold. A couple things caught my attention. First off, there’s a John Elway line of furniture. Seriously. I understand him promoting athletic items when he was playing, or the cholesterol lowering drug (Or whatever it is) he’s doing now. But furniture? Are there really people outside Denver who will base their furnishing purchases on the fact that Elway’s name is on the label (With a nice little markup, I bet)? When we were buying stuff for our house, I never thought, “Man, I wish Paul Pierce had a line of interior items. That would make this process soooo much easier!”

Second, has anyone else watched any of the women’s billiards that are on ESPN2? There was always that attractive Asian woman, Jeanette Lee I think is her name. Come on guys, you know who I’m talking about. But everyone else seemed to really look like they had spent 20 years in pool halls drinking beer and eating cheeseburgers while honing their craft. Ms. Lee always dressed nice, but now they’ve got her wearing heels, tight pants, and low cut blouses. When she’s leaning over a shot, they use what must be a Fox camera and get in close so you see plenty of cleavage. It’s a little disturbing to watch her compete with women I assume are named Bertha. I did see her play another fairly attractive woman last week in a skills competition. Her opponent was also dressed more for happy hour than for heated billiards competition. I’m not sure how the announcers can say things like, “She’s got to hit two balls with one stroke,” under normal circumstances. When the competitors are hot, I have to think the announcers are drunk. There’s no other way to say things like that with a straight face. Something tells me ESPN is going to see an increase in ratings soon.

Coming sometime soon: an extended review of Fox Sports Network’s coverage of darts tournaments. If you haven’t seen these, watch sometime. It’s insane.

I can’t believe I haven’t commented on Ice Cube’s movie, Are We There Yet? Am I really supposed to believe the man largely responsible for one of the most inflammatory albums in the history of hip-hop is now in wacky, family oriented movies? At least when Ice T sold out, he went the cop route and said, “Cops are just another type of gangster.” I can buy that, kind of.

Last week was the 20 year anniversary of the recording of USA for Africa’s “We Are the World”, possibly the worst song ever. To hype the anniversary DVD, they’re now sending money to tsunami relief. That’s decent, I guess. Did we really need a commemorative DVD, though? I caught the video last week on VH1. It was as awful as I remembered. The only cool thing about that song was the day almost every station in the US played the song at the same time.