D's Notebook

Tag: World Cup (Page 1 of 2)

Weekend Sports Notes

December 19, 2022 /

What a weekend of sports at all levels!

Hoo, Hoo, Who?

I was unable to watch the Indiana-Kansas game live, which was a major bummer, because it was another first-rate ass kicking. One so comprehensive that I’m left wondering if IU really isn’t that good and, thus, us KU fans shouldn’t overreact to the win.

Regardless, as a Jayhawk living in Hoosier-land, that was a fun ass game.

I was following the score from L’s games, but because I’m a superstitious idiot, I decided I would only check the score every 15 minutes of real time so I could focus on her games. Which, of course, meant I was constantly checking my watch to see if I could look. Again, I am an idiot.

Several of the parents on her team are Purdue fans and told me they were big KU fans for the day. They messed with me by dramatically pulling out their phones, checking the score, then looking at me and shaking their heads like it wasn’t going well for the Jayhawks. I would respond by telling them, “It was 21–6 five minutes ago, it can’t be that bad.”

I did get a little concerned when I saw IU got it down to 10 early in the second half. But my next glance showed KU up by 18, and as we walked out of the gym I saw the 22-point win was final.

I watched the recording as soon as we got home and was pretty happy with how things went. It’s one game, but it seems like Bill Self has already found a way to work within the limitations of this year’s roster to make them a bitch to play. Usually that doesn’t happen until early February. Having two absolute defensive studs on the perimeter sure makes everything a lot easier. But the development of KJ Adams has been outstanding and incredibly important. Three weeks ago we were thinking, “How can we get one of the freshmen bigs to take his minutes?” Now the freshmen can barely get on the court, and it’s because KJ has become a legit threat on both ends.

I don’t know if his recent play is sustainable, and he will not matchup well against some teams. But there’s no reason he should not be getting the bulk of the minutes at the five spot right now.

I do have to throw an Old Man Rant in. Apparently only about half of the KU student tickets were claimed for the marquee non-conference game of the year? I know finals are over and many students have gone home. And student attendance around the country just isn’t what it used to be.

But, “Back in my day”™ we hung around an extra day or two when Indiana came to Lawrence in 1993, or came back when North Carolina State or some other good team would play in Allen in January before classes resumed.[1] I have a few IU friends who went to the game and while I’m eager to hear about their experiences (weird how very few of my them or my local IU friends have reached out since about 10 minutes after the game began), I’m frankly going to be a little embarrassed that there were empty seats for the biggest game of the non-con season.

Or maybe I’ll tell them that kids didn’t show up because IU has been bad/mediocre for so long they don’t realize this was supposed to be a big game!

cLots

OMG! When I sat down to watch the KU game, the Colts had just taken an improbable 33–0 lead over the Vikings. What a world!

When I was done with the Jayhawks and switched from the DVR to live TV, the Colts game was headed to overtime.

What a disaster, yet a perfect way to put a symbolic end to this dumpster fire of a season, and really era, of Colts football.

Burn it all down and start all over again.

Youth Hoops

It was bracket weekend for L’s team. They won their semifinal by six. They were ahead 9–0 early and blew that. Led by eight multiple times in the second half but kept giving it up. It was not a pretty 28 minutes of basketball.

She’s been sick off-and-on for weeks and was still trying to recover. She struggled with her stamina and legs the entire game. In the break before the championship game she kind of went and laid down, hoping to rebound.

She seemed to feel better and played a bit better in the second game. It looked like we were going to get run off the court early, but we kept it close and somehow took a six-point lead late in the game. Then gave up a 8–1 run to lose by one.

Kind of a bummer but they were the better team and our girls were all kind of checked out. They haven’t practiced much and it seems like the coach is having a hard time connecting with the players. Hopefully that improves when we start the winter session in January.

World Cup Final

OMG!!!!! That was one of the greatest games of any kind I’ve ever watched. The swings of momentum and emotion were stunning and draining. Lionel Messi finally gets the (totally unfair) World Cup monkey off his back. At the same time Kylian Mbappé shows that he is the heir to the Greatest Player in the World throne with a freaking hat trick in the championship game, including one of the greatest shots you’ll ever see. A couple of absolutely ridiculous near-goals at the end of regulation and extra time nearly gave each team the win. And then the thoroughly gut-wrenching process that are championship deciding penalty kicks.

That was an awesome way to spend three hours Sunday morning. I was pulling for both Messi and France, so I both won and lost. I can’t imagine if I truly cared who won how exhausting that match would have been. I thought the national championship game last April was stressful…

  1. Kids, North Carolina State was once a premier game on your non-conference schedules.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

December 12, 2022 /

Border Dud

Last year, when Kansas and Missouri played basketball for the first time in nearly ten years, I wrote this:

That’s the good news for MU: things change quickly in college hoops these days. They could add some solid transfers and the young guys who were overmatched on Saturday may be much more comfortable and confident next December. KU could be on probation and have lost a ton of talent. 2021’s embarrassment could lead to an ass kicking BY Mizzou in 2022.

Shows how much I know.

Although Missouri coming in at 9–0 seemed to promise a more competitive game, it was not to be.

It took KU about four minutes longer than last year, but it was again over and ugly pretty early. The final score was nine points closer than last year, so I guess that’s a sign of progress for Mizzou?

It was KU’s best performance of the year, but it’s tough to say it was a turning point in their season. Because Mizzou flat-out stunk Saturday. Well, the team did. The crowd was excellent and I’m sure the game day vibe in Columbia was outstanding.

The Tigers were undefeated, albeit against a pretty terrible schedule. They led the nation in scoring and in steals. Yet I kept thinking, “OK, new coach, a bunch of transfers, weak schedule. They might be better, but no way they have a chance to win, right?”

And then all the computer numbers suggested a narrow KU win. Consensus was in the 2–4 point range.

I wasn’t nervous, but all the KU fans online who were nervous were making me nervous.

Which was silly.

It was an ideal matchup for KU. DaJuan Harris does not turn the ball over under normal circumstances. Playing in his hometown, he was ultra cautious, taking 2–3 seconds longer to attack their pressure to bait them into giving him angles to probe. Mizzou’s lack of height was the perfect front line for KJ Adams to feast on, and he turned in the best game of his career. Mizzou’s half-court pressure kept leaving KU wings wide-open for jump shots. And when the Tigers decided to guard the perimeter, that left Adams and Kevin McCullar free to fly to the rim for uncontested dunks.

I’ll admit I laughed out loud when Mizzou ran a KU out-of-bounds lob play – the one that Ochai Agbaji murdered a TCU dude on last year – but threw the pass about a foot too high and it turned into a dunk the other way for McCullar.

I thought it was very interesting how Bill Self coached the game. It felt more like a late February game, where he was committed to his top seven players. Ernest Udeh played a minute or two in the first half. MJ Rice played one. Cam Martin played his first ever minutes as a Jayhawk midway through the second half, got blocked, didn’t close-out on a shooter, and was immediately subbed out. Other than that, it was the starters, Bobby Pettiford, and Joe Yesufu. Self was not about to give guys he doesn’t trust minutes in Columbia.[1]

It was fun, pounding Mizzou for a second-straight year. KU played well. But did that game prepare them for Indiana next week? Or Texas, Texas Tech, and Baylor down the road? Maybe from a crowd noise standpoint, but certainly not from a level of play perspective.

For Mizzou I don’t know how much you can judge the team based on Saturday. As I said, new coach, a lot of transfers, and the first time playing a high-level opponent. It was a lot to ask. I’m sure Tiger fans are disappointed, but it’s so early in the Dennis Gates era that you can’t take much from it. It sucks (for them) that it was against KU, but based on what I saw, this was bound to happen as the Tigers move into the conference season.[2] I think the area of concern is how the team seemed to give up at a couple points. They looked thoroughly disinterested for several stretches. If not for KU sloppiness, the Jayhawks probably hang well over 100 on them. I thought it was curious Gates pretty much refused to back out of their pressure, but maybe he was taking the long view and thinking, “Well, it’s not working today, but this is how we want to play, so we need to keep doing it.” In the end, it doesn’t matter if you lose by 15 or 30. Especially when the line was only KU –3.5.[3]

Other pedantic notes:

  • I get that the game was officially part of the “SEC on ESPN” package. But why did we need a grainy, low-resolution, static camera aimed at a small section of the Mizzou student section? Why not just shoot it, occasionally, with one of those fancy, HD cameras that the rest of the game is shot in? How did seeing part of the students on the equivalent of a Nest camera enhance anyone’s enjoyment of the game? Once again, ESPN trying too hard to give the viewing audience something they did not ask for.
  • ESPN said that KU had won 8 of 9 and three consecutive games in the series. Apparently they were counting the Hurricane relief scrimmage in the fall of 2017? Because Mizzou beat the Jayhawks three games ago. I mean they even showed highlights of that game. Or perhaps ESPN had already chalked up Saturday as a win for KU?
  • The lead announcer also made a couple notable, factual mistakes. Since it was a rivalry game I’m contractually obligated to say those were because he’s a Mizzou alum, not because of any slips of the tongue.
  • Hearing the Rock Chalk Chant in Columbia, MO was pretty dope.
  • I do not understand why Adidas made the stripes on the sides of KU’s uniforms white, when red would look so much better. Especially since they would be a call back to the uniforms worn by the 2008 national champs.

Time to bring on the Hoosiers.

World Cup / Grant Wahl

Tremendous World Cup quarterfinals Friday and Saturday. The Holland-Argentina game was absolute bananas, with controversy, some first-class pettiness/bad blood, an all-time tying goal, and then a ridiculous penalty shootout. I wish we could have those teams play again.

Morocco being the first African side to reach the semifinals is great. They defeated Portugal on a beautiful goal.

France knocking off England was a great game as well. Shame they had to meet in the quarters. More like Harry Kane’t, amirite? That was terrible, I know.

The most shocking news of the weekend was the death of American soccer writer Grant Wahl. Only 48. At first his death seemed highly suspicious as he has consistently been critical of the Qatari government. While details that he had been unhealthy for a week or so have come out, I’m not sure we should just assume it was natural. I mean, I hope it was, which seems like a terrible thing to say. But that is preferable to the darker alternatives.

I’ve been following Wahl since the late ‘90s I guess, whenever he started writing about soccer for Sports Illustrated. Later he became their top college basketball writer. At some point I learned he was from Kansas City. When SI began putting more content online, he did a periodic mailbag on SI’s site. Once, after he did a very good feature on Nick Collison, I sent him an email not with a question but just saying that I enjoyed his work in general, that piece in particular, and was glad to see someone from my generation from KC making it big. He responded with a nice note of thanks within like 45 minutes. Forever fan after that. A year or so later I sent in a regular question that he included in the mailbag. In 2008, he wrote the cover story about KU’s national title game victory over Memphis. I don’t think he actually coined the phrase Mario’s Miracle, but he got some credit for it.

As he transitioned into soccer full-time, I continued to follow him closely, mostly on Twitter. He was an invaluable source of information, and a constant booster for the sport. Based on the outpouring of grief from other writers, he was a really, really, really good person, too.

Just a terrible loss for his wife and family, obviously. A huge loss for American soccer fans and anyone who enjoys outstanding sports writing.

Grant went to Princeton, but his mom was a Jayhawk. Something that bled into his Tweets on occasion.

  1. I think Mizzou’s lack of size contributed to that. Udeh, Zuby Ejiofor, and the other young bigs aren’t experienced enough to chase small guys on the perimeter so they were not getting minutes Saturday unless absolutely necessary. Ironically getting KJ off the court might have been MU’s best hope.  ↩
  2. Their up-coming schedule is no joke. UCF in Miami (-ish), Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas. Things will get real really fast.  ↩
  3. I love to tell stories about how I didn’t really understand how prevalent gambling was on college campuses until I went to games in Columbia. One of my favorites was being in the room of a friend of a friend on a KU-MU football game day and the phone ringing off the hook as the resident took bets. At one point he said, “I think I need to stop taking bets so I can actually root for the Tigers.” Kind of ironic that sports gambling is legal in Kansas but not Missouri now.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 5, 2022 /

A fairly quiet weekend for our family. A couple folks are still trying to get their sleep schedules back to normal. Me? I’ve been sleeping awesome all week. I probably just jinxed myself to a week of insomnia…

College Football Bowls and Playoffs

I must be getting old. The stupid little “controversy” that took over my Twitter feed Friday about Missouri allegedly not wanting to play Kansas in a bowl game annoyed me to no end. I didn’t care what the truth was, who actually said what, who was right and who was wrong, I just wanted it to stop. I was away from Twitter for maybe an hour and came back to nearly 200 new Tweets, and most were about this dumb topic.

I say I’m getting old because not too long ago this kind of thing would have gotten me super fired up. But to 51-year-old me, it seemed like a total waste of time and I was disappointed that so many KU folks I follow were going all-in on it. Maybe I would feel different if I lived in the midst of the rivalry but I just wanted my Twitter timeline to calm down.

I have no idea if the Liberty Bowl is a good destination or a bad one, or if Arkansas is a good matchup or a bad one. I just know KU is playing in a bowl and that’s all that matters. Bitches.

Glad TCU didn’t get screwed for losing an overtime game, although I have to admit I’m shocked they weren’t in fact screwed. Then again, maybe they deserved to get screwed for running two really dumb plays when K-State could not stop Max Duggan if they tried. Someone should hire me as a coach.

Really looking forward to the Michigan-Ohio State national championship game and all the hype that will come with it.

Kid Hoops

L was back on the court with her Cathedral team Saturday for two games. They won both games while we were traveling. Apparently she is the problem, because they got waxed twice again this weekend.

She looked like a kid who hadn’t played in two weeks in the first game, not doing much of anything until late. She looked better in game two but they still got smoked.

The second game was against a team, the Wildcats, that beat her travel team by 40 last fall when they hit something like 123 3’s. Her travel coach’s middle school team played those girls right before us Saturday. They also lost, but had a lead late and only lost by five. They only gave up one or two 3’s the entire game.

Our game? The Wildcats hit six 3’s in the first half, then three more in the second half. Maybe L is the problem for that, too.

The tournament is this coming week. Hopefully we get matched with some teams we can not lose by 20 to.

World Cup

The US World Cup run came to an end Saturday in a resounding 3–1 loss to Holland. Well, resounding on the scoreboard. The US actually looked very solid much of the game. They just have no stone-cold goal scorers up top.

The big accomplishment this year was just qualifying for the World Cup after missing the last one. This is a really talented, super young roster. With the next World Cup being (partially) hosted in the US and the experience gained in Qatar, there really should be expectations on the squad four years from now. With the tournament expanding (again) for the next cycle, I have no idea what the knock out stages will be like. But I think a realistic expectation will be for the Americans to make it out of group play and win at least one knock out game next time.

I can’t wait for next Saturday’s quarterfinal between France and England. That just might be the game of the tournament, and the winner will still need two more wins to raise the Cup. It feels like France is a little better but England’s defense is so damn good they may be able to slow the French side down.

Oh, and the French uniforms have been INCREDIBLE this year. The deep navy blue with gold lettering and numbers? <Very French Chef’s Kiss>

Colts

Or Clots, I should say. Thank goodness I went to bed at the end of the third quarter last night. Giving up 33 points in a single quarter in the NFL is hard to do, and yet the Colts, err Clots, managed to do it. All those people who were crowing after the win in week one of the Jeff Saturday experiment are awfully quiet after three-straight losses.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an NFL player age as fast as Matt Ryan. I swear playing for this Colts team has taken like five years off his life. It’s been fascinating to listen to Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth describe his play the last two weeks. Both seem utterly flummoxed by how bad he looks. There has to be a physical issue with him, because when he has a chance to settle in and throw, his passes are never crisp and often fall short and way off-line. I guess an injury is bound to happen when you have zero mobility and are running for your life three of every four drop-backs.

Looking ahead it seems like the Colts are falling apart at a very strange time in the NFL’s perpetual evolution. Smaller, more mobile college quarterbacks are beginning to gain a foothold, as NFL offenses adjust to maximize their skills. The Joe Burrows and Trevor Lawrences aside, I’m not sure we are sure what an NFL QB looks like anymore. I keep hearing Bryce Young listed as one of the top two QBs in next spring’s draft. He’s short, small, and seems like everything the NFL shied away from just a few years ago. To me he looks like a guy who won’t stand up to getting hit a lot by NFL defenders.

What makes it tough for the Colts is they will not be in that Bryce Young/CJ Stroud part of the draft. They have to find a new, young quarterback this offseason. Right now they are projected to draft ninth. Who do you take at that point? Do you take a chance on a guy who looks like a traditional NFL QB, with a big body with a big arm? Or one of these smaller, more modern guys and you put him behind one of the worst offensive lines in the game and wish him luck staying healthy?

The Colts were extraordinarily lucky to get Peyton Manning and then Andrew Luck in consecutive “Must Draft a QB” moments. This time comes with a much higher level of difficulty in many ways.

Oh, and one local columnist is calling this morning for the Colts to go after Jim Harbaugh this offseason. I’m not sure that’s the right guy for this moment in the franchise’s arc. Unless he has some kind of special mojo that can bring a decent quarterback with him.

Sports Takes

July 8, 2019 /

Some sports takes from the long, holiday weekend.

USWNT

Oh hell yes, the ladies got it done! In a tournament that proved that the women’s game is as strong as it has ever been, and getting stronger each year, the US had the toughest possible path to the title and still managed to win with a fair amount of comfort. Sure, they were a bit fortunate against England, but they were the better team in that game. Yes, it took them far too long to score in the final against the Dutch, but, again, they absolutely dominated play and were unlucky not to score at least four more goals.

It wasn’t always beautiful soccer. People who know more about the game and the US roster than I do have been taking shots at coach Jill Ellis for weeks about her lineup and strategic choices. When the team went undefeated and were never in danger of losing a knock-out game, I’m not sure it really matters.

Bottom line is the US won.

In the process Megan Rapinoe ascended as athlete of the moment. I saw a great line in a wrap-up I read this morning: I wish I could do anything with the confidence that Rapinoe places the ball on the penalty spot. Was there ever any doubt that her penalty attempts would not find the back of the net? She took on a lot this tournament, and many would have cracked under the pressure of the moment. But she embraced it, made the moment hers, and performed at well as anyone could have asked. Along the way she made sharp, eloquent comments about her views and the platform she had. Her name is now with Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Carli Lloyd, and Morgan’s as the best every to play for the US. She’s also placed her name with some of the giants who took strong social and political stands without fear of reprisal. All respect to ‘Pinoe.

L watched the entire final with me, although much of the game she was playing a game on her iPad and had headphones on. She was disappointed her hero Alex Morgan didn’t have a better tournament. I kept pointing out that it was hard to do much when each team’s strategy seemed to be to knocking Alex down as much as possible. Although no official word ever came, I thought that she was playing hurt during all the elimination games. She just never looked to be herself. Then again, all the attention opponents put on her opened things up for her teammates.

Rose Lavelle was my breakout star of the tournament. I watched a lot of the tune up games over the spring and she never really stuck out to me. She was just this tall, skinny, pale, very Irish looking woman who deserved less attention that the US’ vaunted stable of forwards. In the tournament she proved what a badass she is, and her goal in the final was a piece of individual brilliance. She and Mallory Pugh – another immense talent that could barely find minutes in France – are the young stars poised to step in as Rapinoe, Lloyd, and Tobin Heath begin to cycle out.

It was a good World Cup overall. Some fantastic games. Plenty of contrived controversy. A rapidly improving pool of teams. And the best team winning a deserved fourth World Cup.

NBA

OH MAH GAWD, KAWHI BROKE THE NBA!!!!

That was my first thought Saturday morning when I got up and saw Kawhi Leonard had signed with the LA Clippers and somehow managed to get Paul George traded to join him as well. Actually, my first thought was which George the headline I read was referring to, because it was way out of my level of comprehension that the Clippers might somehow work that trade out. Tate George? Jeff George? Boy George? Surely not Paul George.

But, man, what a cap to a pretty crazy week of free agency. While everyone seems to think the Lakers and Clippers are the two teams most likely to win the title, I think the league is actually full of really good teams. Throw in a handful of “too young to win but stupid entertaining to watch” teams and there is a really good argument for getting the NBA League Pass.

I mean, the Western conference could be an absolute bloodbath. The Nuggets and Jazz both made very smart moves that made them stronger. Houston seems bent on doing something big to try to stay in the mix as long as James Harden is in his prime. Portland isn’t really a title contender, but can hang with any of the elites on any night. The Warriors will still have Steph and Draymond along with D’Angelo Russell and some other nice parts that will keep them from being pushovers, and Klay Thompson could be back for the playoffs. New Orleans will be super young and likely pretty bad most nights, but also have a crazy talented roster that should be a lot of fun to watch.

The Eastern conference won’t be as stacked, and should come down to the Bucks and Sixers, with whichever team stays healthy being the favorite. Brooklyn made the biggest waves, although they will have to wait until Kevin Durant is healthy to reap the rewards. The Nets seem like the most interesting team to watch since Kyrie and KD together gives them the league lead in bitterness. Atlanta is a little like New Orleans: absolutely packed with young talent that will play amazing ball some nights and look terrible others.

The Pacers made some low-key great moves, although Victor Oladipo being out for at least the first third of the season probably means that they won’t be a factor this year. I really like just about every move they made. Malcolm Brogdon is a great compliment to Oladipo. Jeremy Lamb is a great addition for depth. Drafting a highly skilled big man from overseas was a head scratcher at first, but it gives them the freedom to move either Myles Turner or Domantas Sabonis to add another part or draft picks.

Maybe the Finals are destined to be Lakers vs Bucks for the next few years. I see the league as being super deep all of a sudden, though, with no one filling the role the Warriors filled the past five years as clearly the best team. And LeBron isn’t the LeBron of four years ago, so you can’t just pencil his team in. I think it is going to be a faaaaaantastic season.

“It’s Not Fair”

A quick word about NBA player movement in general. There was some general butthurtedness1 here in Indy about how the players have taken control and rigged the league so franchises like Indiana don’t have a chance.

Although I understand the argument, I think it’s crap.

See, Indianapolis, Sacramento, Oklahoma City, etc have never been, and will never be destinations for the highest level free agents. It has nothing to do with the players having too much control. And it doesn’t mean those, and other cities, are bad cities. It just means athletes, who are young, physically gifted, and rich want to live where the night life never stops, where there are hundreds of thousands of beautiful women, and where other entertainers tend to congregate.

San Antonio built a dynasty in a second-tier NBA city. Denver is a great city, but it’s not a destination for elite talent. Hasn’t stopped them from building a monster roster. Salt Lake City might be the least NBA city in the league. They had one of the best off-seasons in the league and are poised to battle the LA squads.

Yes, the margin of error is razor-thin. Yes, you have to get extraordinarily lucky in the draft. You have to make astute trades. You might need a generational talent as the coach. And there are heaps of other good fortune that must bless your franchise.

Don’t blame the players, though, when you look at the odds. Those odds were about the same back when Reggie Miller was playing for the Pacers and the players had far less power than they do today.

  1. Spell check tells me this isn’t a word. I disagree. ↩

Sports Takes

June 23, 2015 /

Some sporting notes.

US Open

I rarely watch golf anymore. Mostly because I haven’t swung a club in over eight years.1 And when Tiger flamed out I suddenly had no real rooting interest. The wave of new, young players all seemed like only slightly different versions of the same guy. Which, to be fair, is always kind of the case in golf.

But I did watch healthy doses of Sunday’s final round of the U.S. Open. I always like it when professional golfers are bitching about the conditions at the Open, for starters. And the late start meant I could watch into the evening.

I was able to watch the last half-hour or so uninterrupted. Which was a solid 30 minutes of televised sports drama. Jordan Spieth has the tournament won, leading by three strokes with two to play. Then, suddenly, he’s tied with Dustin Johnson as he walks to the 18th tee. Then he calmly birdies and heads to the clubhouse to watch Johnson hit a massive drive and perfect approach to give himself an excellent shot to win, and a nearly 100% chance of forcing a playoff. So of course he three-putts to hand the Open to Spieth.
Wacky, wild stuff.

Like I said, I don’t know much about these guys. I know Spieth won the Masters but gets very little credit from other golfers because his game lacks any “Wow” factor. I know Johnson is engaged to Paulina Gretzky, has tons of talent, but may have some self control issues. But if those two, and Rory McIlroy, who I know plenty about, are always in contention in majors, I just might start watching golf a little more.

NBA Finals/LeBron

First off, a pretty entertaining Finals series this year. I love the way both teams made the most of their talent and relied on ball-movement, motion away from the ball, and outside shooting to win. And I really like how NBA referees call the game compared to college refs. There wasn’t a whistle every single possession and replay reviews were much brisker than in college.
I was pulling for the Warriors, because how can you not like Steph Curry and the rest of the Splash Brothers,2 but would have been fine with Cleveland winning, too.
Which brings us to the biggest issues following the series: the criticism of LeBron.
Man, people be crazy.
How can you criticize a guy who lost his two best teammates during the playoffs and still willed his team to a 2-1 lead in the Finals? A guy who was a triple-double machine in every game, often before the third quarter had ended. How is he supposed to do more than he did? Yeah, he wilted in the fourth quarter of game six. But it’s shocking he didn’t fall apart sooner given all he was asked to do. Replace him with a second-tier NBA star, and the Cavs were a lottery team after Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving went down.

But because LeBron isn’t the ruthless competitor that Jordan and Kobe were, because he seems to actually treat his teammates with respect and give them the chance to succeed, because he still has moments of humility. Because of all of that, and our Hot Takes media environment, he gets blasted for being 2-4 in his Finals career.

Please.
Oh, and it was very amusing to listen to the ABC broadcasting team tiptoe around the difference in the Warriors this year. Sure, Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green developed into key contributors. Steph was the MVP. And Klay Thompson rivaled Russell Westbrook for the league’s best sidekick.

But the real difference was the coach. Firing Mark Jackson, who returned to ABC, and replacing him with Steve Kerr was the biggest factor in Golden State’s improvement. I loved the way Kerr ran his team, made adjustments both within and between games. And I loved how he gave credit to his coaching staff for coming up with ideas for how to change their attack. As a broadcaster, you could always tell he had a great understanding of the game. It’s been cool to see that he can turn that knowledge into great coaching.

It’s a shame that Jackson’s presence on the ABC team kept them from acknowledging Kerr’s effect on the Warriors.

Women’s World Cup

L. and I stayed up to watch the sloppy 2-1 U.S. win over Colombia last night. That was hardly an inspiring effort. Although L. thought the whole thing was pretty cool. She put on her Stars and Stripes hat from her school program and found a red pompom she waved around. She also told me she was going to play in the tournament one day. Although that was only after she said she wanted to play in the MLS. I told her that was only for boys, which was stupid. Since professional women’s soccer can’t seem to survive in the U.S., why shouldn’t she dream of playing in the MLS?

  1. I gave my clubs to a nephew a couple years back. So even if I had the urge to go swing the sticks at a driving range, I have no sticks to swing. ↩
  2. And Brandon Rush gets a ring! ↩

Hot Sports Takes, Part 1

July 14, 2014 /

A few topics of importance that must be addressed. Turns out I wrote more about the World Cup that I expected, so I’ll split it into two posts.

The World Cup

As tends to happen, the final was a bit frustrating for those of us who enjoy soccer. Another game that went deep into extra time before a brilliant goal saved it from being decided on penalty kicks. It was frustrating because, as the natural conservatism of most coaches/teams took over in the knockout rounds, the beauty of the group-stage of this Cup got sucked away. At least to those who only look at the final score.

This game, though, was a fine one all around. Neither team sat back and waited for mistakes. Both teams pushed forward when they had the chance. Argentina missed two terrific chances to score in regular time. Germany missed one. Both defenses were aggressive and stout rather than playing the “park the bus” defense that has appeared in these games in the past.

But the fact is no one could convert until very late, and for the soccer haters it’s more evidence that “soccer is boring.”

Oh well. To each their own. If you didn’t enjoy this game, I’m not going to try to convince you of why you should have.

Some bullet points scribbled down during the game:
* I love the singing of the national anthems before World Cup games. Especially when the stands are full of fans of each team. The shots of spectators singing along gloriously are fantastic. Argentina may have the greatest national anthem ever, based on what I saw Sunday. Apparently there are no words, but that didn’t stop the fans from jumping up and down and “singing” along with the music. That was a gorgeous site. Also, props to the Argentinian section that had a huge banner of the Pope. That made me laugh out loud.
* I loved ESPN’s Ian Darke saying German coach Joachim Loew looked like a “Bond movie villain.”
* Speaking of Darke, he and analyst Steve McManaman were terrific. They both understand the game well, have all those lovely British phrases that make soccer sound better than when Americans broadcast it, have tremendous rapport, and are often quite funny. McManaman isn’t afraid to call out players, coaches, or referees either. More former players who sit in the broadcast booth need his candor.
* I loved how they both uttered a long “OOOOOHHH!” when Lionel Messi had a wonderful move early in the game. It wasn’t a sound of hype. It was a sound of genuine awe. To the casual fan Messi had the ball in the box and lost it before he could shoot. They saw, though, him making a couple phenomenal moves that few other players in the world could make.
* Props to FIFA for getting these games started quickly. They bring the teams out and play the national anthems before the top of the hour. The players run around for two minutes and the game starts. None of this 8:37 kickoff bullshit you get in the Super Bowl.
* Perhaps it was just how the crowd microphones were placed/processed, but both sets of fans sounded very loud. A far cry from the often sterile crowds that you get at US events like the Super Bowl and Final Four that are played at neutral sites. I’m sure a significant portion of the crowd was given over to corporate sponsors and celebrities in Rio. But it sure sounded like the majority of seats were filled with Germans and Argentinians.
* I laughed out loud at how German Michael Ballack and the Argentinian (I forget his name) who worked in the ESPN studios both used “We” to describe their home teams. We give all the Dukies that ESPN employs in their college basketball coverage a lot of grief. But they never say “We,” when discussing how the Blue Devils can play better in the second half.
* There were 75,000 and change at Sunday’s game. If you watched, you know that the old stadium on the same site held 200,000 people for the 1950 final game. Can you imagine that many people watching a game in one spot? That’s two Rose Bowls. Two Michigan Stadiums. Nearly three Texas Stadiums. That’s nuts.
* Mario Göetze’s1 game winning goal was an astounding piece of work. Collecting a beautiful cross on the run, getting a perfect first touch, and then immediately shooting to past the goalie. That’s how you win a damn World Cup! He’s drinking for free forever.
* Enough with the pictures of crying children when their teams are about to lose. The camera folks (not sure who was in control of them, ESPN or someone else) seemed more concerned with finding distraught Argentinians than showing the action after Göetz’s goal.

Good on Germany for winning their fourth title. Had they lost, their epic, astounding, unreal destruction of Brazil in the semifinals would be a footnote to history. Winning the final confirms that they were the best team over the last month. They beat the three of the four other best teams along the way. Given how Holland played against Argentina in their semifinal, I don’t know that the Dutch would have had the answers for their arch-rivals.

I was neutral for this, not really having any strong rooting interest either way. I was kind of hoping Lionel Messi would play well and take his place among the game’s historical elite. But I enjoyed how the Germans played as a team. That said, pity how people are piling on Messi already. So he’s not in Maradonna and Pele’s class. He’s still one of the three best players in the world now. And based on what he’s done for the past decade, one of the all time greats. It’s possible to say he’s not quite at the top without ripping the dude apart.

I remember thinking, when the Germans won their last cup in 1990, that with reunification coming, Germany would turn into an unstoppable soccer force for decades to come. They won the 1996 European title, but had consistently failed in the semifinals in tournament-after-tournament since. They were regularly very good, but never great. It’s taken longer than I thought, but with a vibrant, diverse young crop of players, might Germany be on the verge of becoming the world soccer power? I guess we’ll find out in two years when the next European championships roll around, and then two years later when the World Cup goes to Russia.

Finally, looking back on my pre-tournament predictions, I was right about 50% at each stage. I picked 9 of the Round of 16 teams correctly. Then picked half of the next stages correctly; four of eight quarterfinalists, two of the semifinalists, and one final participant. Alas, I had Argentina beating Brazil 3-1.

  1. I’ve seen it spelled Göetze and Götze across different sites. Is it really that hard? ↩

Sports Be Bummin’ Me Out, Yo

June 23, 2014 /

That title is how I think L., the most hip-hop of my girls, might describe the past week’s worth of sports for me. There have been a few bummers. Let’s break it down, in reverse order.

I’ve watched five minutes of the World Cup.1 Those five minutes were the last five minutes of the US – Portugal game. We were at my in-laws’ house, I was following the game on my phone, and saw the US had gone up 2-1 late. I scrambled to their TV, found ESPN, and prepared to watch the the US clinched a spot in the round of 16.

Whoops. Hello, Jinx!

I hate Christiano Ronaldo. Hate him. But his pass to Silvestre Varela, who headed it in to snatch the late tie, was a thing of absolute beauty. On the run, with defensive pressure, he fires a ball forward and across the field, curling it around the US back line and right into Varela’s path. It was an utterly amazing.

It was a tie that felt like a loss for the US. They had a European power beaten, were through from the Group of Death, and had found ways to win two games late. And then it was gone. They can still get through, but it will take help. It will be a travesty if Ghana hammers Portugal and get through after the US finally beat them a week ago.

One other quick Cup thought: the Holland – Mexico Round of 16 game could be epic. Both sides are playing very well, with Holland being the most dominant team of the round robin stage. Feels like the team that comes out of this one plays Argentina in the semi-finals.

OK, back to the bummers. The Royals. I was set to write something about their hot streak and how they were, improbably back in the AL Central race after their 10-game winning streak. Then they promptly lost four-straight and fell back into second.

And as I type this, they’re beating Zack Greinke.

I guess they’re proving the Internet adage that you can’t predict baseball.

We’ll table the Royals talk for a few more days, to see how this week goes, but it was a huge bummer of a weekend after their great stretch before that.

Finally, Joel Embiid’s latest injury.

What a bummer. He’s still going to be a rich man after the draft. But not nearly as rich as everyone thought he would be. And he now has the stigma of falling into the Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, Greg Oden list of big men with bad wheels who saw their careers cut short.

I really hope he heals and can have a long, successful career. And there’s a part of me that still thinks that anyone who passes on him is insane. I think the math remains the same with him. He has the highest ceiling of anyone in the draft. Even in the age of the marginalized low post player, Jojo could be the most dominant player in the NBA, should his best-case scenario come to pass. Both Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker could be very, very good players. But neither will ever be the best guy in the league.

I know general managers are all about assessing risk and making the smart choice, sometimes passing on the highest potential payoff because of the dangers that come with it. A guy who scores 18 points a game for five years might not be sexy, but he’s better than a guy who shows flashes of dominance but can never stay healthy. Or at least he is to a GM worried about making the pick that costs him his job.

I hope Jojo heals and plays for years not because I want to see what he can do with more experience, more strength, more basketball knowledge. Not just because KU needs another dominant pro with Paul Pierce’s career winding down. I want him on the court in the NBA so I can have more of those moments that I had this past winter, when he would do something ridiculous on the court and I would just start laughing in amazement.

More on the draft, of course, later this week. It’s tradition, after all!

  1. Remember, we are currenly experimenting with the cable-free lifestyle. I’d be watching every game if we still had ESPN. ↩

World Cup 2014

June 11, 2014 /

I’m not the soccer fan I once was. That’s not because I like soccer any less, but rather because I just have a harder time squeezing it into my schedule. Which is kind of a shame because this is the glory age for American soccer fans.

When I first began following European soccer after the 1994 World Cup, viewing options were extremely limited. ESPN would show a few Champions League games each year, sometimes just the final. Each week I checked my local listings and set the VCR to record the Italian Serie A highlights show that the Prime Sports Network usually broadcast at 3:00 AM.1 Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero, Fabrizio Ravanelli, and Gianluca Vialli! Good times.

A few weeks back, NBC turned every one of its TV outlets over to the English Premier League, showing each match of the final day of the season live in the States. ESPN devotes significant time to the Champions League, shows the UEFA European Championships, and carries many US and Mexican national team matches. In addition to NBC and Fox’s coverage of the Premier League, shooting a few extra bucks to your cable provider opens up a whole tier of channels that carry pretty much every European domestic league.

If you want to see soccer, you can. We’ve come a long way.

All that is a long-winded2 introduction to my World Cup predictions. I’m excited about the World Cup, but reservedly so. I don’t think the US is getting out of its group. My Italians are in the midst of a changing of the guard, and not likely to advance deep into the tournament. And then there’s the fact we’re in the midst of our cable-less stretch, so I can’t watch the ESPN games from the comfort of my couch after the girls go to bed. And we’re generally out-of-town on the weekends, meaning I’ll miss the weekend games on ABC.

Oh well. Sometimes it’s more fun to read about the World Cup after the fact. I’ve been reading a lot of retrospective articles about past Cups this week. I suppose that will be my way of experiencing this year’s event, too.

Anyway, on to my half-assed picks!

Quarterfinals

  • Brazil over Italy. Sigh. No magic for Andrea Pirlo and Gli Azzurri this time.
  • France over Germany. My first upset. The tournament sets up nicely for Les Bleus and I think the Germans are vulnerable.
  • Uruguay over Spain. My other big upset. Cup holders Spain go out valiantly, but fall to the hungrier South Americans who hope to match their big brother neighbors with a deep tournament run.
  • Argentina over Portugal. Christiano Ronaldo has, for now, surpassed Lionel Messi as the world’s best player.3 But Ronaldo does not make Portugal better than Messi’s Argentine team.

Semifinals

  • Brazil over France. I think Brazil plays under a tremendous amount of pressure in this tournament. I don’t think it gets to them here, though. Or at least France isn’t strong enough to take advantage of a nervous effort by the hosts.
  • Argentina over Uruguay. The game of the tournament. Free flowing. Fast paced. Beautiful soccer. Luis Suárez scores two early, but Messi matches him. And Sergio Aguero gets a late winner to set up the Dream Final.

Final

No surprise that FIFA, the most corrupt sports body in the world, gave Brazil and Argentina fairly easy groups on opposite sides of the draw. So kudos to them, I guess.

Here’s where the pressure hits the hosts. They clamp down on Messi and take him out of the game, but the rest of the Argentines pick up their game, and then some.

After, Brazilians complain about how their team has shifted to playing a more European-style, forgoing the classic jogo bonito that Brazil made famous. Which is ironic. In all the retrospectives of past cups, the 1982 Brazil team is often listed as the best to ever play in the Cup Finals. That team, however, lost to Italy in the semifinals, ushering in an era where Brazil dialed back the fun in interest of not letting teams back in the game. It’s time to put the bonito back in Brazil!

Argentina 3, Brazil 1

  1. There’s a whole generation of sports fans that don’t understand the concept of the highlight show, whether it is the Serie A review show, “This Week In Baseball,” or something similar. We get our highlights in real time now. No more reading about a game and then finally seeing grainy highlights a week later. ↩
  2. From moi??? ↩
  3. Uruguay’s Luis Suárez might have something to say about that. ↩

Viva España

July 12, 2010 /

I told you Spain was going to win! Never doubt my sports prognostications!

Of course, Spain was one of the favorites going in, so it’s not like I picked some 50-1 darkhorse. They did make it interesting by dropping their opener, in shocking fashion to the Swiss, and then needing a win in their third game to avoid going home early. They never captured the flair they played with two summers ago. In many ways, they fell short of expectations. But they lifted that tiny trophy yesterday, which is all that matters.

Meanwhile, the misery continues in the Netherlands. Already the “best country to never win the World Cup,” they added to their history of never being quite good enough.1 They had a fantastic tournament, until the final. I listened to the game while shoveling mulch for many hours, but it sounded like they decided to beat the Spaniards up rather than play their normal, flowing soccer. I watched some of the replay Sunday night, and I got the sense their coach feared losing a 3-2 game, so turned it into a physical battle and hoped the late goal went their way. Shame. It could have been a classic between two teams that play beautiful, attacking soccer. Instead, it was another tense, ugly 1-0 Cup final.

Kudos to Germany as well. Arguably the team of the tournament, they couldn’t crack Spain in the semis but were the most entertaining team of the tournament. It’s ridiculous how much young talent they have, too. Hopefully those young guys won’t turn into traditional, dour German players in the next four years. I’ll go ahead and make them the early co-favorites with Brazil for the next World Cup.

Finally, a few words on behalf of Uruguay’s Diego Forlán, who captured the Golden Ball award as best player in the tournament. That is one good looking man. I’ll stop there before this gets uncomfortable.

  1. This underachiever label is a bit unfortunate. The Netherlands has a smaller population than the New York City metropolitan area. I’d say three World Cup runners up finishes is pretty good for a nation that size. ↩

WC10 – The Cream Rises

June 28, 2010 /

A disappointing weekend for Team USA. Another early defensive breakdown put the team behind early. They rallied after halftime and controlled the second half, but could only manage a Landon Donovan penalty to tie. Then, in overtime, another quick breakdown and Ghana was able to weather the storm and prevail 2–1 in 120+ minutes.

There were quick charges that coach Bob Bradley should not return, as the early defensive errors are easiest to explain by blaming the coach. It’s good to see the American sports press has learned something from the world soccer press, who greet every loss with immediate questions about the coach’s future.

I tend to like Bradley, and think he deserves a chance to take this team, which is loaded with young talent, through at least the next two years before World Cup qualifying begins again. But if someone better is out there, perhaps it is time to give him a chance and have two years to implement his system and get to know the pool of players he’ll begin qualifying for Brazil ‘14 with.

That bit of unpleasantness aside, this was a fun US team to watch. They were very strong in the middle of the field, which balanced their weakness in the back and failure to produce in the front. But even at their weak points, this was finally a US team that was both talented and experienced enough to compete with anyone in the world. The tide is turning in US soccer, and I think going forward, we should always expect to get out of the group stage and be a threat to go deep into the knockout phase. We’re finally seeing the classic great American athlete make an impact on the national team. There aren’t many teams as fast and physical as the US. We just need some more technical skill and we’ll be a team that is a threat to win each time they take the field.

Props to Ghana, a fun team to watch, for giving Africa someone to cheer for in this World Cup.

Sunday’s games were fantastic. The Germany-England game had everything. The Germans dominated early, and you could sense hearts breaking all over England when the Germans went up 2–0. But the English quickly got a goal back, and moments later Frank Lampard appeared to score on a gorgeous volley from outside the box. Only the referee and sideline official missed it and were faked out by the German goalie who played the rebound of the crossbar as if it had never crossed the goal line. No matter, England controlled the next 10 minutes of the game, pressing forward and putting the German defense on its toes. It seemed like a matter of time before they equalized.

Then came halftime, the Germans regrouped, and got back to their ass-kicking ways in the second half, going on to win 4–1. It was a terrific game of attacking soccer by both teams, a welcome event in a tournament that has seen too many teams satisfied with laying back and hoping for a 1–0 win. Germany announced that they are a contender this year, despite their youth. And England showed, once again, that despite having a wonderful collection of talent, they still struggle to turn that talent into a national side that can win at the World Cup or European championships.

I bet I was not the only viewer who both found some irony in the German roster and was a bit taken aback by it. Germany features two players that were born in Poland. A player of African descent. A son of Turkish immigrants. A dark-skinned Brazilian. And another player named Mario Gomez. The Germans! The country that started the most destructive war in world history with racial superiority as one of its motivating causes. Kind of weird. There is perhaps no greater sign of how small a world we live in as a German national soccer team that comes no where near being 100% Aryan. Good on the Germans! I hope Hitler is rolling over in his grave.

The second game featured Argentina, a pre-tournament favorite, and Mexico, my dark horse to go deep. I watched most of the first half from the gym, so I missed some of the details, but again we were treated to terrific, attacking soccer by both teams. And, again, the officiating played a major role in the game. While the missed England goal was defensible – it came on a long shot with both officials away from the goal – some of the errors in the ARG-MEX game were awful, most notably Argentina’s first goal. Carlos Tevez was clearly offside, behind every Mexican defender and the goalie, yet his goal stood.

Whatever chance the Mexicans had to hang with Argentina went up in flames when they spent five minutes chasing and screaming at the officials. They might have the talent to play with Argentina, but it takes a perfect mental game to knock off a favorite. Argentina added a second soon after the first, and cruised to a 3–1 win. The Germany-Argentina quarterfinal game should be something else.

Sunday’s games could bode well for what we’ll see the next two days. Perhaps we’ll finally see the Netherlands break a game open. The other three games – Brazil-Chile, Paraguay-Japan, and Spain-Portugal – all have the potential to be wide-open affairs. Hopefully those teams and their coaches will be willing to open things up and go for the win, rather than play typical safe Word Cup soccer.

❖

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